#unpublished work

[whatkindofnameisella]

can you believe that we have fanfiction. that we have websites dedicated to fanfiction. that there is a place that you can go and read tens, hundreds, thousands and thousands of pieces of writing that strangers have made. people who are not "writers". people who come home at the end of the day and have feelings and say, i am going to put that into words. i am going to share those words. short, long, sweet, sad, horny, funny, wonderful words. we are all just human and we all love to make and remake and share that with others. can you believe that.

[zeestarfishalien]

Danny’s mistrust of adult figures in this fic I'm writing is really coming back to bite me in the ass.

Anyone much older than his sister is wee woo red alert do not trust. Selina is worming her way in slowly but it's a tenuous balance. Bruce about to come in here like a wrecking ball and ruin all of Jason, Barbara, and Selina's hard work. By gods I want this to turn comedic but rn we strugglin

I have a physical NEED for the pranks tho. Ugh

[prosodi]

⭐⭐Commissions are OPEN⭐⭐

Please find additional info and submit inquiries through this FORM.

Current slots:

B/W Sketches: 1 Color w/Simple Background: 1

I'm also taking inquiries by email for illustration and commercial work. You can find my portfolio and contact info HERE.

[peach-moths]

This guy is full of mischievous intent

[kaiserin-erzsebet]

You haven't known temptation until you've been on the Wiki page for your dissertation topic thinking about how you could edit it.

[swiggity-swexual-i-am-asexual]

Reminder for the dpxdc writers!

Yeah I know lots of us get canon and fanon confused and some never watched Danny Phantom which is why I’m going to *friendly remind everyone* that if you don’t want to use the Ghost King Danny thing, it’s—it’s fanon. Like. You do not need to go out of your way to make it Not A Thing, if you find it’s hindering your plot line or whatever. You don’t have to write around it. At this point, you might need to clarify it’s not something you’re doing, since it’s so common, but like—if I have to read one more plot where they’re twisted up in knots to avoid it, like. Pls. You can do what you want and that includes this, we already disregard canon all the time, you can buck common fanon as well I’m—

That’s not to say I’m against Ghost King Danny, but I’m starting to think it’s one of those things people are afraid to stray from because they think it’s it’s one of the more… pillar parts? Of Danny’s character and canon? When it’s, like, not. If you want to write in reasons why he’s not king and etc etc you CAN, it’s your story and maybe it even serves your plot or tone or you just want to, but you can also just not even have it be a consideration. You’re free to just not do it.

[torchlitinthedesert]

Being John Lennon for a day

In 1971, British journalist Ray Connolly went to New York for the Concert for Bangladesh. Here’s what else happened.

To be at the Bangladesh Concert was a thrill in itself, but for me the whole weekend was bizarre. Arriving in New York the previous day I’d discovered that John, whom I’d expected to see, had left after a row with Yoko when George Harrison wouldn’t agree to her being on stage, and had flown back to Paris. (Yoko, I discovered later, thought he should have fought harder for her.) I’d also arrived without my bags, which had been mislaid en route by Pan American.

Yoko had a problem, too. She wanted to follow John, but had invited her younger sister, Setsuko, a postgraduate student, over from Switzerland. In a moment she solved two problems. I should cancel my single room, move into one of the several bedrooms in the Lennons’ suite, wear John’s clothes until mine turned up, and take care of her sister over the weekend.

And, oh, yes, to enable me to do this, her new assistant May Pang (whom I’d met in London) would help organise things. Setsuko and I would have the use of the stretch limo and chauffeur, money would be provided for anything we needed, we’d have front row seats at the concert and all I had to do was sign everything ‘Lennon + 15%’.

So, there I was in John’s French, black leather jacket and his blue gingham shirt, hurrying with Setsuko across the stage at Madison Square Gardens at the end of the concert to get down to the row of nine waiting limousines, which then revved up the ramp and out on to the New York streets. Then off they went like a Presidential motorcade, police motorcycle outriders flanking the procession, while, all the way to the post-gig party on Central Park South, other police held back the crosstown traffic.

‘Glad you got a buzz out of it,’ John said casually when, back in London, I called him. ‘What did you think of being a Beatle?’

‘I liked it.’

The Ray Connolly Beatles Archive

[wingedflight]

Plus there’s one whole remaining fic I need to post before the end of the year. Maybe I’ll update my stats once that’s up.

[fistfuloflightning]

”Hashirama thinks—“ “I already know what he thinks. I want to know what you think. You were Hashirama’s shadow when you were Senju Tobirama. But you’re an Uchiha now, and that means standing at my side, and not in my shadow. This village is as much your making as it is mine or Hashirama’s.” Tobirama remained silent, red eyes fixed unseeing on her cup. Madara knew the peace haunted her in a way it didn’t the others. Her sole purpose for existence was no longer there and she was learning there was more to life than constant vigilance and a kunai in hand. And she was terrified of it.

[ahamkara-apologist]

hey, for the spicy prompts.... 200 ("how did we end up here?") with misraaks/taniks? :>

FINISHED THIS JUST IN TIME FOR VALENTINE'S DAY LETS GOOO. Also uh oh oops I made this soft and intimate despite the usual :P my bad! Established mateship after a long, confusing series of mishaps my beloved.

*Taniks is using she/he/it pronouns here bc I headcanon him as genderqueer. This is a vulnerability that only gets revealed among loved ones, UNLESS you are Atraks-1, in which case your transdar gets tripped immediately on account of also being transgender and a complete menace to society.

He pulls out with a soft, wet rasp, and then takes a moment just to lie there and breathe, his claws slotted over the divots of scarred hips. Echoes of pleasure chase through his limbs, like the aftershocks of an electric charge; his hemipenes hang heavy, still pulsating gently from orgasm, though no more fluid beaded from their tips. He’d been drained completely- no small feat, given the biological boon he’d received once he became kell- and he was still far too oversensitive from the back-to-back orgasms to sheathe. Better to simply drape himself over the broad expanse of his beloved’s back for a moment to catch his breath, to let his mandibles press against scarred plates and his hemipenes slide against soft, sore flesh. The night was young still, and they had long days ahead of them yet. 

Underneath him, Taniks shivered, a slight motion compounded by the sheer size of her frame. Instinct keeps her hips up, her back bowed, the arch of her plate covers erect and stiff, biology demanding she keep his spend inside until it sets. They’re still mostly intact despite it all, a nubby little vestigial tail with a few notched fins. He sits back on his heels, runs a hand from the base down to the tip, and chuckles tiredly at the way her entrance pulses in response, flared, puffy lips flushed an even deeper blue from the kiss of his barbs. She’s still gaped open from his cocks, but he could already see the plug starting to form within her, what little of his semen his barbs scraped out already starting to gel on the folds between cunt and sheath. 

It would keep his need satiated for some hours. Just enough for them to bathe, eat, take ether, and sleep, while Taniks’s body broke down the seminal plug and tried to put its components to good use, the gift of ether within soothing any soreness or aches left behind by their abrupt coupling. With the hormone regulator wedged firmly in place alongside the rest of Taniks’s vital monitors, there would be no eggs dropping, but the Gnaw did not know nor care about that. For now, all he had to do was provide the right chemicals to convince Taniks’s body otherwise, the right stimulation to satiate, and before long the two of them would go back to the simple dynamic that they had settled in over the years; Kell of Kells and Slayer Baron of No House, bound only to Riis and Sol. Unlikely allies, then unlikely mates, circling around each other like binary stars. Not anything that either of them had wanted at first, but there all the same.

“How did we end up here?” Its voice is a soft rasp in a throat not made for anything other than violence, marred not by the touch of hatchling claws, but by the tearing rend of blades. Misraaks’s mate-mark barely shows among the myriad of scar tissue among its neck and throat, but they are there, and that is all that matters. A silicone hand reaches down to knead unconsciously at its abdomen, pawing where the scars from a failed self-spay sit, and Misraaks pushes its hip gently to force itself into a more comfortable position, recognizing the starting signs of pain before they got bad enough to trickle past Taniks’s filters. “With me in your nest and you above me, fuckin’ me like your life depended on it.”

“I was repairing your inner components when your cycle started,” Misraaks said dryly, running a claw along the seam of a silicone-enforced spiracle as his hemipenes slowly retracted.  Taniks’s cycles were unpredictable, unreasonable, and often brutal in their onset and intensity. They were made even worse by Taniks’s odd condition, high pain tolerance, and lack of functional preen glands; the warning sign of a cycle’s start often were too subtle for Misraaks to pick up, or went unnoticed by Taniks himself. He did not think he had triggered anything by meddling with Taniks’s thoratic enhancements, but he also couldn’t dismiss it, either. “And then the next thing I know, you have me on my back in the nest, grinding your hips on mine while you beg me for relief.”

A moody grunt let him know that Taniks didn’t appreciate that wording. “I don’t beg.” 

“Not the way most do, no.” Misraaks ducked his head under the curve of one arm, resting on its flank, then began to nuzzle at one of the few remaining preen glands between Taniks’s plates with the tip of his snout, trying to coax it into producing oil. A little more rubbing and a few gentle scrapes of his teeth later, and he was successful, Taniks’s rich, spicy scent flooding the roof of his mouth as the gland released its lifesaving oil, thick with the empty promise of fertility and only slightly marred by the ever-present tang of pain. He rumbled with pleasure, rubbing his cheeks alongside it to mingle his scent with his own, then moved to rub the thick, waxy secretions over Taniks’s backplates with more vigorous nuzzling, his own muzzle and temple glands activated by the pressure. Grooming was a soothing process, involving a lot of nuzzling, kneading, and heavy petting, and Taniks always melted under it like an Eliksni starved (which was, in all honesty, not too far from the truth). It gave Misraaks great pride to see his ruddy-brown plating shining with good health, rather than the dry, flaking mess it had been when they’d first met on more intimate terms. “But it is similar enough.” 

Another snort, hot air bursting out of Taniks’s spiracles like an engine venting steam. He turned a little to let Misraaks get to the spots between his prosthetic mounts, holding his arms awkwardly in the air while Misraak’s four hands rubbed soothingly over thick scar lines in heavy, sweeping presses, his mandibles nibbling lightly at rough, chipped carapace. His two right hands moved to return the favor, the gesture clumsy and unfamiliar, but hardly lacking in enthusiasm. “It was a problem, and you were right there to fix it. Doesn’t mean I begged.”

Misraaks scraped off a cuticle overhang with the serrated edge of a tooth, flicked it away with one of the the keratinous tips of his tongue, and kept grooming, purring in encouragement as hot silicone hands rubbed up and down his flank. Taniks’s hemipenes were slowly starting to swell again between his legs (his prior assessment about satisfaction was off, it seemed), but he pretended to ignore them, to draw out the tease as long as he could. “Semantics.”

“Don’t semantics me, you little shit.” A chuff, and then Taniks was rolling over fully onto his back, displacing Misraaks. He grunted irritably at the interruption, but the annoyance soon faded as Taniks dragged him closer, settling him over her stomach so that she could get a better angle on him. “You know what I meant.”

Misraaks tipped his throat up, both letting it get at the glands on his chest and baring the marks on his neck in one motion. Little nicks and cuts, scars left behind by their hatchling’s claws, bondmarks that he cherished almost as much as the one Taniks had given him herself. “I believe what happened was that you offered me sex in exchange for a debt cleared, claiming that you were infertile the whole way. You seemed very self-assured in that regard.”

Taniks groaned, a noise that sounded like creaking metal. “I didn’t know that at the time. Don’t give me that shit. ‘Sides, you know very well that you didn’t need to keep the eggs. If you didn’t, and Eramis hadn’t found out-”

“But I did, and here we are.” Misrasks nipped lightly at one of Taniks’s wrists, fully aware that he couldn’t feel it, but would appreciate the gesture nonetheless. True to form, it elicited a low, rumbling purr from the Eliksni underneath him, the hand it was attached to pausing in its ministrations to cup his snout with careful gentleness. “And you know that I wanted them, and that I cherished them with the expectation that I would never see you again. But I did, and here we are.”

“...I know.” The admission was quiet. Taniks’s eight eyes squinted to slits, and then Misraaks was arching his back with a surprised chuff at the feeling of a clawtip sliding over his slit, burying itself in his folds so that it might trace along a knot of furled scar tissue. “And look what it gave you in return.”

“Four strong, healthy children, and a mate whose heart-strength outshines the suns? A paltry price for pain.” He bowed his head so that Taniks wouldn’t be forced to meet his eyes, nibbling at where the metal doors on her chest met flesh. This close to her mechanical heart, he could feel its strong, thrumming beat like a second pulse, the vibrations shivering ever-so-sweetly up the bones of his mandibles, buzzing the bristles along their lenghts. “Five, counting Eido.”

Taniks barked out a laugh, a short, sharp ‘ha!’ that made Misraaks twitch in surprise. A big, heavy hand stroked down his spine in penance, and he relaxed, though he twitched a bit in discomfort as it came to rest near his oversensitive sheath. Taniks did not move, letting its thumb press a divot into soft, leathery flesh with clear intent. “That was on me. She was my mistake. That’s got nothin’ to do with you sitting on top of me.”

“But she was a most joyous mistake all the same, and it was you who gave her to me nonetheless.” His voice was soft and rich with emotion, but he didn’t hide it. Nor did he move away from Taniks’s fingerpad as it slowly began to rub up and down the length of his slit, coaxing the lips of his broodchannel apart so that it could dip ever-so-lightly into the entrance underneath. “I loved the part of you that you gave to make her long before I came to know and love the rest of you.”

Taniks stiffened, looking away as his mandibles parted, something like pain flashing over the scarred remains of its face. Misraaks did not give her time to think about what he had said, or how she could not return the words so easily as he offered them to her. Instead, he rocked his hips deliberately against the broad span of her hand, and nipped gently at the plates of her chest; a request and a demand, wrapped up in a language that Taniks could understand. 

The tension was relieved with an explosive sigh, trailing off to a deep, grumbled “Fuck.” His primary hands reached up, cupping his face with a clumsy sort of gentleness, while his secondaries remained in the same place they were before, with one on his hip and one between his legs. Misraaks rose up, nosing into Taniks’s palms as he pressed back into her hands, and Taniks blew out another breath, sliding a finger into him in full. He barely noticed the stretch, feeling it only as warm heat blooming between his legs, and it was not long before she was adding another, curling them forward to stroke slowly against his walls, scissoring them open and closed in steadily-increasing intervals to prepare him for the girth of his intact hemipene. He could feel himself getting harder, his own members swelling in his sheath, but all that did was make his channel tighter, made every press against his walls all the more intense. He was dripping before long, and Taniks started to fuck him deeper, harder, mechanical wrists incapable of tiring, incapable of yielding. 

Misraaks groaned softly, torn between rocking into each touch or pulling free to resume the grooming, but the hands cupping his face didn’t release him. Taniks’s huge thumbs rubbed at his temples, stimulating his glands, and Misraaks let his nictitating membranes slide half-closed at the burst of happy warmth the sensation sent tingling through his thorax. Taniks chuffed, his claws moving to comb through his crest, and then said, in a voice near-silent, “You look stupid.”

Misraaks’s eyes closed fully. It served the dual purpose of keeping Taniks’s claws at bay as they swept under the lids, and allowing Taniks the privacy of whatever emotion she was currently grappling with. “I’m happy. I enjoy being with you.”

“Like I said. Stupid. Foolish little kell.” Taniks’s voice warbled for a moment, nearly fritzing apart between spoken word and deep, primal subvocals. He cleared it with a click of his mandibles, then moved his hands to his shoulders and slipped his fingers out of his cunt, pushing his hips back with a needy growl. “Move back. I need to fuck you proper.”

Misraaks bit off the teasing retort at the tip of his tongue, but obliged, squatting low and spreading his legs wide for easier access. The hot, slick tip of Taniks’s intact hemipene prodded against the sensitive skin of his inner thigh, a ticklish sensation that made his own vestigial tail twitch in response, and Taniks snarled with frustration before it caught on his hole. A sharp snap of his hips, and the head popped in, its collar of barbs flaring at the wet heat and pressure. 

It was a little too much too fast for Misraaks, who was ready and wanting, but not caught in the rigor of the Gnaw. He grunted, trying to adjust to the sudden ache of being filled by something much girthier than Taniks’s fingers, and Taniks stilled for a moment, watching him with wary eyes- but Misraaks purred in reassurance, leaning back to slide down her shaft of his own volition, and watched with hazy eyes as the pressure forced his own hemipenes to evert, their long, tapered lengths flexing out along his stomach. 

It was always a thrill, how deeply and completely that Taniks filled him. The burning stretch of being opened up soon faded into sweet, hot pressure, one that pressed against his walls in all the right spots. That Taniks could not fit his other member inside of him did not matter; one was enough. Every twitch, every slight movement, Misraaks felt deeply, intimately, and the sheer overwhelming feeling of being stuffed so full sent his head swimming almost as much as the dizzying pleasure of it. 

Hot hands grabbed his mandibles, pulling his head down so that his four eyes could meet the burning yellow of Taniks’s eight, which stared back at him with barely-contained ferality. “Are you-”

“Yes,” he rasped, grinding his hips forward- trying to take her deeper, deeper. The fever-hunger was taking him now, and his body knew what it wanted most of all- could remember how good, how right it had felt to be pinned down and stuffed full of eggs. That he knew there would be none this time around did not make the hunger ache any less. “Take what you need.”

That was all Taniks needed to hear. With a deep-rumbled roar of urgency, it started to move, and all Misraaks could do was throw his head back and chirr his delight as Taniks fucked him with all the raw, feral need that it had been tempering for the last few minutes, giving in to base instinct yet again. Wet flesh slapped against flesh, breathing huffed and groaned through panting mouths and flaring spiracles, the buzzing, clicking rumbles of their subvocals rolling off of each other like thunder. With each pull out, the drag of Taniks’s barbs pulled Misraaks closer to orgasm; with each jolt of her hips, the tip of her hemipene impacted his broodpouch, sending white-hot sparks flaring up his spine. He clenched around her cock as one particularly well-placed thrust impacted the entrance of his broodpouch, and, with a low laugh, she angled her thrusts to target that spot again and again, dragging long, trilling chirps out of his syrinx as he spasmed helplessly around her, milking her cock. 

Then Taniks was gripping the back of his neck, pulling him down, and Misraaks’s questioning trill petered off into a chirp of delight as huge, jagged fangs closed over his throat, holding him in place over his lap, sinking in just deep enough to avoid drawing blood. The angle was awkward, but that did not matter; with a few more jerking, uneven thrusts, Taniks was coming, and then all that he could think about was the hot flood of her spend deep inside of him, the way it made her barbs flex and pulse against his walls as its second hemipene spilled uselessly over the crook of his thigh. He rocked his hips, trying to coax himself to orgasm before Taniks grew too sensitive, but the wavering knife’s-edge line of pleasure was just barely too far off for him to reach it on his own.

Taniks released him, still shivering convulsively from the aftershocks of orgasm, then wrapped his arms around him, pulling them both onto their sides in the nest while they were still joined together. He reached down to squeeze at the base of his cocks with one fist, pumping their lengths with another, and, with a shiver, Misraaks came, only a thin dribble of fluid leaking from his tips as he rode out his orgasm in Taniks’s arms. 

For a moment, only the sound of their breathing filled the air. Then Taniks pulled herself out with a grunt, and Misraaks was hit with the sudden wake-up call of the sensation he liked the least about sex; the odd, wet feeling of cum sliding out of him as the barbs on Taniks’s cock scraped his channel clean, leaving it to gel coldly on his vent while the rest of it solidified somewhere near the entrance of his broodpouch. “Ether, then sleep?”

Taniks did not sleep, not really, but her voice was already fuzzy with what Misraaks had come to realize was a tell of exhaustion nonetheless. A hangup of biological need that even she could not program out of itself. It was an enticing offer, but the mess between his legs had him shaking his head to reject it, wriggling out of her grip with a wince and a grimace. “No. Cleanup, ether, and then sleep.”

A chuff. A familiar sort of chuff. One that promised mischief, even as sleepy and fucked-out as Taniks was. A chuff that Misraaks recognized all too well, one that all of Taniks’s brood had inherited from their giver. “Cleanup it is then.”

Misraaks lifted his head, alarmed at what that tone might mean, and promptly received a Hunter’s cloak to the face. One that was decorated with all the frills and ornaments to indicate that it was a well-loved, well-worn item, and was obnoxiously holographic despite it all. One that very clearly belonged to a particularly well-known, particularly notorious guardian, one who was currently, for all intents and purposes, waging a warpath across the stars in the name of reclaiming Torobatl. 

It was a good thing that said guardian did not have many scruples about his cloaks, hunter’s creed aside, or what he was about to do would have been a very, very bad idea. And that he technically belonged to House Light, and that Misraaks could technically reimburse him without any worries about setting off a political frenzy- not in the least because he’d seen that very cloak strewn over his own bedroom floor many times before he and Taniks had formed a proper mateship. 

With a sigh, Misraaks set to cleaning himself, ignoring Taniks as she got up to retrieve the ether tanks from the holding room, snickering all the way. It was fine. He could decompile it and refund Aeris the glimmer later, if either of them remembered to do so by the time he got back. This was fine. 

It was an odd series of circumstances that he had found himself in, but for all of the grievances and woes and heartbreak that he had untangled along the way, he would not trade it for anything else.

[bittybattybunny]

Merry Christmas!!! Dorks being dorks

Was a bit tricky to get the pose down since like Ru is so much taller than Eclipse but that be how it is

Hope y'all had a good day!

[skyward-floored]

Whumptober Day 22: Glass shard, “Watch out!”

Folks I’m ngl, this one is very intense. The first bit is the worst, but the end is kinda creepy too, and overall it’s just bad times, so uh, you know. There’s your warning. Per usual, if you think this needs more warnings, please tell me :)

Read on ao3

Warnings: see above, canonical character death (...sort of) blood, significant injury, brief mention of vomit, and creepy vibes

————————————————————

Somehow he knows it’s over.

His breath is coming short in his chest, blood dripping through his fingers as he tries to hold it in from too many injuries to count. The Master Sword was knocked from his grip ages ago, and he’s not sure what happened to his shield.

Something moves in the corner of his eyes, but there’s blood on his forehead and he moves too slow, Navi’s chime frantic in his ears.

“Watch out!” she shrieks, but Link can’t move fast enough, can barely breathe anymore, and when the huge sword cleaves his chest, he knows it is over.

He doesn’t know if it’s him or Navi who screams, or Zelda maybe, wherever she is. All he’s really aware of is the white hot agony ripping into him, the yellow eyes that stare into his, Ganon’s face upturning in a wild grin when he realizes what he’s accomplished.

A bellowing laugh of victory blots out any other noise, any cry Link might make as Ganon raises him into the air, still impaled on his weapon. His vision goes white at the edges as Ganon lets him hang there, and he knows he screams when the blade is ripped from his chest, dropping him to the ground with a sickening noise.

There’s a desperate wail he thinks comes from Navi, but all there is is light and sound and shattered glass beneath his broken body, only spilling more of his blood onto the floor.

You failed, his mind whispers, even as his eyes flicker and Navi wails again. You failed.

Something warm is spilling from his mouth, his chest, pooling rapidly beneath him. There is a new voice now, shouting something that makes bright lights appear in the edges of his vision, and he tries to turn to them, but can’t.

Zelda, his mind whispers. Trying to fix your mistakes.

He closes his eyes, grief and shame and horrific pain so intense that he can’t handle the weight of them. Something in his chest moves when he breathes, something that’s not supposed to, and it joins the rest of the agony pounding through him, breaking him into pieces like the shattered glass beneath him.

He wants to go home.

A cough bubbles out of his chest, something thick on his tongue, and wings suddenly brush his face.

“Link,” Navi sobs as she nearly falls onto his cheek, clutching at him with tiny hands, “Link no, I’m so sorry, I was s-supposed to protect you—”

Link lets out a sound somewhere between a cough and a sob, and Navi cries, her tears falling to his cheek like glowing snowflakes. He wants to reassure her, gently cup her in his palm, but he knows it’s the end.

Nothing can save him now.

Zelda’s voice sounds choked as it echoes along with six others, almost like she’s holding back tears. Ganon suddenly screams, and Link feels the tiniest wave of hope as his senses desert him, his ruined body failing.

He hopes that Zelda and the sages will take care of Ganon, that they’ll stop him, seal him, won’t let him destroy the kingdom more than Link has already allowed him to.

But he’ll never know for sure.

Link takes in one last gurgling breath, blood almost stopping him from breathing his last. Navi holds him tighter, and Link exhales, blood dribbling from the corner of his mouth as his body falls still.

His fairy’s sob is the last thing he hears as his world disappears into nothing but velvety darkness.

—And Time bolts upright with a choked off scream before he even fully realizes what’s happening.

Images swirl in his head with such dizzying clarity he can’t focus on any of them. Blood and weapons, blue and yellow, stairs and music and the booming laugh that haunted his nightmares as a child—

Time clutches his chest, gasping in a shaking breath. He feels sick, horribly sick, phantom pain slicing into his stomach, terror sinking its freezing claws into him. Sweat pours down his face as the laugh echoes in his ears again, a shrill scream, and he tries desperately to reassure himself it wasn’t real.

That’s not how his fight against Ganon had happened. It wasn’t, he was fine, but his heart was pounding and his lungs were still straining like they couldn’t get in enough air—

(A trident, ripping through his chest, choking on blood, too much, too much—)

Time gags, and someone’s hand lands on his shoulder as he vomits into the grass, holding him steady while they wait for him to stop.

He finally catches his breath, head spinning, stomach still unsettled. The emotions from the dream sharply linger, failure and hopelessness and a fear so intense that Time is nearly sick again. The hand on his shoulder squeezes, and he finally looks up, meeting Warriors’ worried blue eyes.

The captain doesn’t say anything at first. But he hands Time a cloth to wipe his face, and steadies him when he gets to his feet, legs still trembling.

Warriors leads him to the fire, and Time sits down, forcing the shaking in his body to still. But it’s impossible, not when he can still hear Navi’s shriek ringing in his ears, feel blood pouring down his chin. Ganon’s triumphant laugh booms in his ears for the third time, and Time hunches down in his seat, mind unwillingly going through every single detail of the dream.

Just like he has for the past half a week.

The detail of the dream has increased each time he’s had it, but tonight’s was the worst yet. Time clutches at his forehead as his head pounds, and lightly rubs the bridge of his nose.

Nightmares rarely effect him to such a degree, but this... this time it had felt real.

What’s happening to me?

Warriors sits next to him without a word moments later, holding a water skin. A scarf settles around his shoulders, and Time nearly gives in to the childish desire to bury his face in it, hands still shaking.

“Time, are you... well?” Warriors asks finally, his voice gentle and worried.

Time sips the water he’s been given to give himself more time to reply, and lowers the skin with a quiet swallow.

“It’s not a sickness,” he croaks finally, hating how shaky the words come out. “I know it’s not. It’s...”

(Navi crying, Ganon’s roar, the rich tones of an organ as tears fall down his cheeks—)

He shudders.

“It’s the same dream. Every night,” he whispers. “Exactly the same, only they’re getting... worse. More real.”

He doesn’t explain what happens in the dream, but Warriors doesn’t push, instead staying silent as he thinks for a moment.

“Every night?” he asks finally, voice soft and worried.

“Tonight was the fourth in a row.”

Warriors goes silent again, the crease on his forehead deepening.

“Something must be going on,” he says finally, firelight shimmering off of the embroidery on his scarf. “Things like this... they’re very rarely a coincidence.”

“I know,” Time whispers, voice still terribly small. “This... this isn’t natural.”

“Could this be the work of the enemy?” Warriors muses, staring at the fire. “A spell? A curse?”

Time shakes his head, feeling at a loss. He knows the feel of curses, and the dreams don’t feel like that. They have more of a... heft to them, like anticipation before a battle, or the pressure before a rainstorm.

They feel more like the nightmares he had as a child, visions of Ganondorf’s attack, leading up to the day he left the forest. There’s a weight to these dreams, one that boasts of nothing good in store for their group.

But Time doesn’t voice any of this. Warriors doesn’t need yet another thing to stress about.

And besides, perhaps I’m wrong.

So instead of saying anything further, Time silently rests his head on his brother’s shoulder, scarf still warming his arms, and listens to the sound of his breathing, steady and strong.

He misses the look Warriors gives him, and at some point, falls back asleep, a hand carding through his hair.

(...)

The dreams don’t stop, their violence and clarity only getting more intense.

The others are aware something is wrong now, Time waking them all up with a bloodcurdling scream the very next night. They discuss ideas, but nobody has a clue what’s going on, what’s affecting him so deeply. Time sees several of them having conversations out of his earshot that day, furtive glances cast his direction, but he pretends he doesn’t notice.

If they want to talk about him behind his back, so be it.

They all generally give him space at night, but with the repeated nightmares, now his boys have take to sleeping much closer. And when Time wakes up heaving for breath, someone is inevitably there to calm him down.

After a week goes by with no relief, Time admits to Warriors and Twilight, quietly, what his nightmare consists of, in hopes it will aid in solving this. All it really does is make Warriors’ face twice as concerned when he wakes him from a nightmare, and Twilight’s eyes hold a nervousness when he looks at him now, like he’s afraid his dream might suddenly become reality.

Time debates not sleeping to escape the nightmare as it continues to plague him. He’s barely getting any rest anyway, he might as well skip sleep entirely.

He’s had plenty of practice, after all.

But after three nights of no rest, the others put a stop to it, several of them nearly shouting at him they’re so worried. Time nearly yells back, but he stops himself at the last moment, weariness settling upon him.

He does want to sleep. Desperately. But he can’t so much as close his eyes without the nightmare creeping up on him, blood and screams and pain pain pain—

Staying awake is almost more restful.

The others gang up on him that night though, and bury him in a pile of limbs and blankets, Wind settling himself right by his head. Time falls asleep feeling hopeful for once, but he still wakes up with a scream later that night, and Wind ends up calming him down as he tries not to sob.

He feels even worse after that (it’s not Wind’s job to comfort him, it should never be—), and pointedly moves himself away from the others at night, in hopes they’ll get the hint.

They don’t, really. In fact, they pointedly ignore it and continue to sleep by him, even when he wakes up thrashing and sick and nearly gives Hyrule a black eye one night with how frantically he’s moving.

He knows they only want to help, but he only feels like more and more of a problem.

They go through a portal and end up in Legend’s era, and Time wonders if the nightmares will stop with the changing of location. But if anything they get even worse, starting earlier in the fight, each slice in his skin burning when he wakes. He’s barely sleeping now, the shadows under his eyes nearly as obvious as the tattoos on his face.

No matter what he does, he can’t seem to break the grip of the nightmare, and he’s becoming a liability, slow in traveling, clumsy in fighting. They try everything to help him, healing, potions, magic— they even visit a doctor in a town they stop at, but he can’t tell them anything they don’t already know.

Time even writes to Malon about them, desperate to get his thoughts out to someone who understands, but he folds it up and doesn’t send the letter in the end, finding himself veering into questions even he doesn’t want answers to.

Has it finally been too much? All of what’s happened to me? he wonders as he tries his hardest not to cry in Warriors’ arms one night after the nightmare.

Am I going insane?

With the amount of sleep he’s been getting as of late, he wouldn’t even be surprised.

They make tracks for Legend’s house, hopeful that a real bed for Time to sleep in will help somehow. Legend also has a vast amount of magic objects and items, and he seems hopeful that at least a few have a chance of helping him.

And if not... well, perhaps the Zelda of this time will have some ideas.

But the night before they’re set to reach Legend’s house, weeks— has it truly been weeks? A month?— after the nightmares start, something finally changes.

Ganon stabs him and he breathes his last, Navi sobbing as Zelda and the sages desperately seal the beast away. He fades into darkness, simultaneously light and heavy, warm and cold, and knows without a shadow of a doubt that he’s dead.

But the dream flickers here.

It’s as if an impossible amount of time goes by, and yet equally mere seconds, and the darkness falls over him again.

It seems to last for an eternity, wrapped around him, coating him in its hold as it intensifies, and suddenly Time is aware this is a dream, and snaps to sharp attention, looking around at the void.

It’s pure black, deeper even than the night sky, and Time feels his heart speed up at the suffocating thickness of it.

He’s not injured anymore. In fact, he’s himself, not the version of him that fought Ganon all those years ago, and Time stares, looking frantically around at the void.

Why hasn’t he woken up? Why is he aware, for once, that this is merely a dream?

Why is it continuing?

He doesn’t have long to ponder this, as the darkness parts eventually to show a room, stone walls, stone floor. Time has only just begun to study it when a noise hits his ears and he turns, watching in horror as a body falls to the ground, bloodied and broken.

Something moves out of the shadows and grabs the body’s face, and Time squints, trying to make out both the body and the figure shrouded in darkness.

But he can’t make out any features, the room too dark, dream too uncertain and wavering. Time feels something tense inside of him as he makes out the three gouges that mar the body’s chest, and tries even harder to see the other figure as well.

All he can make out are robes swishing over feet, in a color almost as dark as the room.

The figure studying the body finally lets out a quiet chuckle, leaning back as a hand caresses a chin.

“Oh I’ve waited a long time for this,” the figure hisses in a voice that seems as if it could be familiar, and drops the head none too gently, blood still spilling to the floor.

Darkness suddenly snakes from the figure and trickles towards the body, thick and unnatural. Time has the urge to grab the body and pull it out of the way, but he’s unable to do anything but watch in horror and disgust as the darkness reaches the body, wrapping around it like only tentacles, holding it tight. It seeps into the countless wounds, and the figure lets out a laugh as the body gives a full-body shudder.

The figure straightens suddenly, standing up from where it had kneeled beside the previously very much dead body. Something moves by the figure’s face, and suddenly it falls to the ground, robes rippling as it collapses onto the floor with a very, very faint moan.

But whatever had moved by the face stays up, floating somehow, and bobbing very faintly up and down.

Time feels the slow horror he’d been experiencing suddenly increase, familiarity freezing him like a blast from an ice rod at the sight of the dark shape floating in front of him.

He knows what it is. He’s sure he does, but his mind won’t even let him entertain it.

It can’t be.

The hovering shape turns slowly to the bloody body on the ground, then floats almost leisurely towards it, watching as the tendrils of darkness continue to weave through and around it. The body gives another shudder, and the thing suddenly slips down and latches on to the body’s face.

Time can only watch in horror as the body’s back arches, like it’s trying to fight back, even just a little, but then it goes unnaturally still again.

Then it sits up almost calmly, facing away from Time as it looks at its hands and feet. The body gets to its feet then, shuddering slightly as more blood drips off of it and falls to the floor.

Time wants to look away, but he can’t, all he can do is continue to watch in absolute horror as the body straightens, dusting off its ragged tunic, brushing a hand entwined with darkness over the injuries gouged in its chest.

“I’ve always wondered what this body would be like,” a voice muses, even more terrifyingly familiar, and Time sees a flicker of yellowy-orange eyes. “And now I’ve finally got my chance. How fun.”

The yellow eyes turn and stare directly at him, framed by a heart-shaped mask.

“Isn’t that right, Hero of Time?”

And the dream shatters, Time jerking awake with a name and a scream on his lips.

[kittenpaw10]

Y’all ever just have like 50+ fics sitting in your drive that are really good but also really unfinished but your not in the fandom anymore so you know you won’t have the motivation to finish them anytime soon but you also wanna share them…

What do you do with those?

[aceredshirt13]

gang i have to share this P. G. Wodehouse quote with you all because ever since I found it I can't stop thinking about it. it's from a letter he wrote when he was 78 years old to his friend Guy Bolton (many thanks to P. G. Wodehouse: A Life in Letters)

I have been on the sick list myself, but am better now. Inflamed bladder or chill on the bladder or something, the symptoms being agony when I passed water, as the expression is. It brought back the brave old days when I used to get clap.

he really said "yeah the pain from my bladder issue reminds of the days when I used to have so much sex I repeatedly got venereal disease"

[summoningspark]

knOCK KNOCK

I LOVE COLOURS

AND EVERYTHING TO DO WITH THEM

can i interest you in a rambling essay about colour symbolism in the mostly unpublished story of my shitty wizard OC

(i have no idea if there's anything to be gained from reading this except spoiling the story, but i already did that by skipping from the first part to 2/3 of the way through when i hadn't written any of the stuff in between)