#wanna one writing
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fine dining at the blushing mermaid. with the boogieboys
#bg3#baldur's gate 3#wyll#karlach#astarion#durge#oc: noon#danse macabre the best summon for having fun<333#might not have done exactly This ingame but i just wanted to combine 2 vibes bc they were regulars at the mermaid#and i had to do one illustration ft. the ghouls lol#they usually took the boys to daycare to philgrave's mansion (after beating up the lich obv.. repeatedly)#little everyday rituals <3#(also i'm writing in past tense bc i finished the game a while ago :-(:'-):-( </3<3)#(i still have at least a couple of pics of this lil series i wanna do)#(psa I MISS THEM)
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If you're stressing out about a part of the writing process for fanfic to the point where it's not fun anymore, just don't do that part
Post that fanfic with 1000 grammar and spelling errors. Make your characters OOC and give it a Mary Sue. It is a hobby you're sharing not a literature assignment you have to turn in by midnight
#sara shush#sorry to all the people who ask me if ill ever uber correct all the errors in my fics but i dont care enough for it#i like the fun parts of writing#like getting the story across and exploring the characters and ideas and relationships#idc if its not perfect its a fanfic#like dont get me wrong i wanna bookbind again one day so ill get around to it eventually#but if you stop having fun doing the writing then what are you writing for
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nico got me struggling at 5am
#my art#im not “going feral” and i dont wanna “tear him apart” im like tortured. i yearn...#i wanna frantically write poems in my desolate room lit only by one candlelight#trigun#nicholas d. wolfwood#sketch
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Assassin Heir? Crime Fighting Furry? NOPE NO THANK YOU!
"Danyal, its time to end this game and return with me."
Danny should had known Clockwork had something in mind when he sent him on this mission. He knew he should had been suspicious of the time keeper when he noticed the little 'this is going to be fun' smile on his face when he sent Danny off into the portal.
"Get back here you demon spawn 2.0!"
But how was he supposed to know that he'd wake up in this world version of himself in a pit full of corrupted (AND NASTY) ectoplasim at the tender age of five or that when he swam up to the surface he'd be meeting face to face with what was apparently a cult.
"-O just spotted him a block away! I'll try to cut itty bitty bridie off!"
An Assassins Cult his, new to him, loving yet a little insane mother was in charge of (though during the few months he stayed in the compound he heard rumors and gossip from maids and others alike that if his grandfather returned from the dead he'll take over once again, no doubt punish Talia for creating another heir after the failure of the last one, most likely was going to kill Danny and that... that was can of worms Danny didn't wanna deal with yet)
"Ten bucks says they try to stab RR when we get the feral thing home"
"...Losers bet...."
Danny had lived with his mother for a while after being brought back from the 'dead' for apparently the first time, it turned out training a five year old with an actual sword and a dumbass hidden revenge seeking teacher was a terrible idea.
"I swear if this one tries to murder me like the others I'm asking Zatanna if there is a curse on me."
He dealt with her high demands of perfection, the endless training, and the constant comparisons to his apparent older brother Damain... Who didn't know Danny, or rather Danyal existed.
Nor did his father (when Danny, using his powers he's kept hidden since 'waking' up in this Realm, he sneaked his way around the base and discovered how he came into the world. And tbh he couldn't blame his mom how she made him, she was an assassin first and foremost, being naturally pregnant would had painted a target on her for to long... but he also felt it was unfair and an asshole move on his unsuspecting father as well)
"As your elder brother I demand you to stop running!"
Now don't get him wrong, he did like his new mother (total badass assassin lady and all that) and he knew she loved him in her own... deadly way. But yeah, she really shouldn't be taking care of kids. He could tell she struggled with wanting to be a normal mother but her first instinct after so many years was to be an assassin first.
Something she was trying to engrave into Danny with as well.
"Ah, hello Beloved. I see you've learned of our Danyal."
"Talia. Back away from him and leave Gotham now."
"I can not do that. The League needs an heir and since Damian refuses to return... I have decided to create a new one and I shall not be leaving until he returns with me."
"Talia."
Hence why when Danny, or rather Danyal al Ghul had gotten decent control over his powers he decided to leave the League. Again nothing wrong with the life his mom leads, to each their own, but he... really, really didnt want to be an assassin. Or an assassin heir.
So here he was, after almost a year on the run, using his powers and training to out smart and out maneuver his mother and her many band of Assassins, in Gotham. One of the last places he ever wanted to run to cause he knew his father and brother lived here.
It was just his luck that his mother had managed to intercept his train ride that passed into Gotham for a few hours and forced him to run into the city...
Add her assassins into the mix and running into Robin, who heard from Oracle his mother had been spotted chasing a young boy across the city, that same night.
After that it became a full on "catch me if you can" chase for not only his mother but for the batclan as well.
And after two whole days of chase, it seemed like the final showdown was about to begin because everyone was on top of this rooftop, his mother and her assassins on one side, his father and the batclan on the other and Danny well... he was right in the middle of all of it.
He just had to hope no one would notice him once the fighting started...
#danny phantom#danny fenton#dp x dc#blue rambles#crossover#writing ideas#random idea#danny phantom dc#basicly Danny is sent on a mission by CW#he wakes up in the DC version of himself in the pits after being killed and Talia tossing him in#he was created by Talia since shes head of the LOA now and needs her own heir#but she once again wants Bruce's bloodline in it so she used some leftover dna she still had#so no one knows Danny was created until he left about a year later#danny has his ghost powers since he took a dip in the pits#but had to relearn some control and kept it secret#he knows his mom would see it as 'the pits granted my heir its powers.' mindset#so hes been on the run#and didnt wanna go to Gotham cause... his dad dresses as a gaint bat#and dont get him started on the rest of the batfam#he doesnt wanna be an assassin or a crime fighting furry#in case some people didnt get it. the words being spoken happen when Danny is running all across Gotham away from those after him#guess who said what lol#i want danny to be completely independent and trying to take care of himself tbh#but hes still baby to everyone else#talia is slowy becoming a little unhinged due to being the Demon Head now#maybe due to the stress of it all? or maybe due to a curse? idk
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thinking about cuddle fucking with simon on the couch.
the two of you had decided to watch a movie, spend a quite weekend in, just cherishing each other's company. you didn't even realise when his hand had reached under your shorts, and yours under his shirt, tracing patterns on his torso. his hand toyed with the soft skin of your thigh.
and before you knew it you were lying on top of him, shorts pulled down to your ankle, lying on his broad chest with is erratic heartbeat thumping in your ear, it drowns out the slick sound of him fucking your dripping pussy.
his hands on your body are all you can feel, are all you want to feel. one toying with your clit and the other caressing your hip with soft circular movements as his lips pepper kisses your cheek and jaw and your neck.
you think you're going to die because the sheer tenderness of it all. simon is far from soft, but with you he turns to mush. his brain melts.
his touch on your skin is so kind, you don't think you could put it any other way. always so gentle and soothing, it made you feel so warm.
he whispers something into your hear and you whimper, feeling closer than ever, your hands reach for his hips to tug him closer to you, feeling him deeper in your core, his hips jerk into your pussy with short, languid strokes and you whine.
his lips latch onto your neck as you reach your climax and you feel it washing over like a wave drowning you underwater, a loud moan escaping your lips and your nails digging into his scarred skin.
you feel simon follow suit soon, soft groans fall from his lip with his head buried into your neck. you're in a daze as he presses chaste kisses against your temple, whispering 'i love you's, you snuggle into him, burying your head into his chest as you feel him snugly snake his arms around your waist.
© tojisloft 2024
#this is my first time writing ans posting smut#NO ONE WILL BE MEAN OK ILL CRY#anyway i cant get this man out of my head 😭#juts thiking about him all SOFT AND TEDDYBEAR-Y#YUMMY I WANNA BITE HIM#simon riley#simon ghost riley#ghost cod#ghost x reader#simon riley x reader#simon ghost x reader#simon ghost riley x reader#simon riley smut#cod smut#ghost smut#simon ghost riley smut#tf141#tojiloft's works 🎧
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tgaa + moomin
#would anyone wanna see more of this au#i will anyway but just out of curiosity#idk moomin is one of my biggest comforts im just so in love with everything about it 😢esp the comics!! (so excpect some redraws. probably)#toves art is just so charming (and so is her writing waaah)#tgaa#the great ace attorney#ace attorney#dgs#benbaro#asoryuu#shamseki#iris wilson#herlock sholmes#soseki natsume#william shamspeare#ryunosuke naruhodo#kazuma asogi#patricia beate#roly beate#albert harebrayne#barok van zieks#that was alot
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take me home, country road
[ao3]
You have nothing on your person apart from a hastily packed suitcase and the dress you came into town wearing, on the run from trouble back home. Too bad John's missing a bride that matches your description. Or: the 1800s (mistaken) mail order bride au (chapter 16 + 17) tw: violence, injuries, and misogynistic language
first chapter >> last chapter
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Sinking into fear is the body’s natural response. You let it envelope you without putting up a struggle. It wouldn’t be one that you’d win anyway. Resistance already leaks out of you like tar, pooling around your quivering legs.
It makes you feel lighter than air, almost buoyant; and conversely, heavier than lead.
You can’t feel the cold metal of the gun through the layers of fabric separating it from the skin of your back, but you can feel its weight. And you can imagine it burning into you, burning a ring into the flesh, the muzzle leaving faint depressions behind, circular indents.
“Don’t feel so clever now, huh?”
Fear chokes as well as it binds. When the man you remember as Graves (appropriately named, you think, the gravity of the situation sinking into you as well) drawls the words into your ear, any moisture in your mouth dries.
“Well?” he prompts, shoving the gun harder into your back, almost sending you toppling into the shelf still in front of you obscuring you from sight. “Got anythin’ to say?”
You open your mouth but nothing comes out.
“You a mute, girl? I know you ain’t deaf since you heard I’d been sniffin’ around lookin’ for ya. ‘Least I’m guessin’ you did, since you managed to give me the slip for the whole time I was in town.” He sniffs. “Took me a while to find out you were shacked up with the sheriff. Hiding in plain sight. Couldn’t believe I missed ya when Sheriff Price was damn near the first person I met in this two-bit town.”
You finally muster up the nerve to speak. “Y-you’re making a mistake.”
The furled upper lip is audible in his voice. “I’d try not to piss me off too much, sugar. Lyin’ just rubs me the wrong way is all.”
“No, you—you really don’t—”
He shoves the gun harder into your back, making you wince. “Now, I know you’re a slippery little bitch, so I’ll level with you, alright?” Graves murmurs, pitching his voice low to ensure that only you hear. “You make so much as a peep—so much as a fuckin’ whisper—and I’ll shoot. Wink and I’ll shoot. I am dyin’ for you to give me a reason to go with the better half of the dead or alive question.”
There’s no point in lying. It might’ve worked had it been anyone but the man holding you hostage; not a man as stubborn and mulish as him. You nod when he asks if you understand.
“Now get to steppin’.”
He doesn’t tarry long, leading you out of the shop with a hand on your shoulder and . You stare at Miles with mounting horror, wordlessly begging him to look up from the ledger open in front of him on the counter. Your prayers go unanswered though; he doesn’t so much as glance towards the door before it’s swinging shut behind you.
“Remember,” Graves says in a low voice as the two of you step out onto the porch, “not a word. I will shoot anyone that tries to interfere.”
That kills the impulse to shout for help.
The thought of letting Graves take you away without voicing so much as a single plea fills you with horror, but you can’t see any other way out. He walks you through the streets like an old friend, the pistol still wedged into your back obscured by his coat. No one seems to notice the wild look in your eyes or the strained edge of your smile.
Your behavior infuriates you. Demural and soft and wretched. You’ve only allowed one man to put you under their thumb; only one has ever earned the right.
The thought of your husband is an ache in your chest that doesn’t abate. It thumps with the terrified flutter of your heart. You half wonder if he’ll suddenly appear from around a bend and wrench you into his arms, gun already drawn and aimed at the man attempting to take you away from him.
“My husband—” you start, tripping over your words. Almost tripping over a rock as well since your spine is too stiff to let you look down at the ground while you walk. “—He can—he can pay you.”
He laughs, a nasty, mocking sound. “I’m sure he’d like to, sugar. Jus' ain’t sure he’s got the cash to pay your price.”
“At least let me ask—”
At that, he jams the gun violently into the small of your back, making you wince agaun. Petrified. Sweat sluices off your brow and drips down your face. “What part of shut the fuck up don’t you get?”
That silences you. Hard to muster up the nerve to retaliate with a gun lodged against the base of your spine. Still there’s so much that bears asking. Why did he come back? Why here—why now?
The town takes on a dull, listless quality as he steers you away from the more crowded areas. It’s almost like looking through muslin; a veil between you and the world.
Your eyes dart from person to person as they pass by in the opposite direction, but even those that bother to meet your gaze only smile politely, a couple passing gentlemen chirping, “Morning, Mrs. Price” before sweeping by in a hurry.
None question the wild, frantic glint in your eye, the look of a horse about to bolt. If they paid you more than a moment’s notice, they might, but even the lady who frowns curiously at Graves, his hand still resting gently on your arm as if he were an old, dear friend, abandons her momentary curiosity when her companion says something of interest, pulling her back into their conversation. The flicker of hope in your belly dies a soundless death.
There’s something almost phantasmagorical about the entire ordeal. Almost like it isn’t quite happening, like you can’t quite make yourself believe that this is, in fact, real. Like you’re watching from outside of yourself. Though you can see the wooden facades of the nearby buildings and smell the scent of hay and manure from the livery stable, it doesn’t resonate within you as real.
He meanders through town with you stationed in front of him. A meat shield. Collateral damage. Simply by the way he maneuvers you through the crowd, he reduces you to a body, stripping you of any semblance of personhood. You’re less than meat to him, less than human even—no more than a meal ticket.
When you muster up the courage to open your mouth the next time someone passes you by, Graves’ hand slides up to your shoulder and he digs his fingers into the bone. A warning.
“If you think I was kiddin’ before, just try me,” he sneers into your ear, thumb pressing into your shoulder blade until you wince.
Again, his voice dispels any thought of getting someone’s attention.
He doesn’t lead you towards the train station like you expect. Instead, he heads to an awning beneath the saloon on the periphery of town where a couple horses are leashed to a post, waiting for their riders to come untie them. The roof of the awning is strung with a dense cluster of overlapping cobwebs. A spider scuttles across the web and into the dark inner recesses of the canopy.
This far from the center of town, there’s hardly anyone. When you give your surroundings a quick glance, you can’t find a single other soul within earshot, only a single man pushing open the batwing doors on his way into the saloon. Then you’re alone again.
A tawny gelding chuffs when Graves approaches. When he suddenly unhands you, it doesn’t click until he’s several paces away from you, running his hand down his horse’s neck and rifling through the saddlebags, emptying the contents of his coat pockets into them. You have to glance down at your shoulder just to be sure. He sheathes his gun as well, tucking it into the holster fixed to his belt.
“Bought the horse off a drunk three towns back,” Graves explains while loading up the horse.
You don’t respond, still unsettled. It’s the first time since he led you out of the general store that his gun hasn’t been aimed at you. It wouldn’t be practical for him to dress and load the horse one handed. The sun beats down on you, burning the top of your head. This could be your moment—a moment to scream or run away.
But you don’t. You don’t scream and you don’t run because you are, above all else, a coward. Through and through. You’ve been running from your problems for months now, leaving someone else to take care of the mess you left behind.
Fear paralyzes you; it makes you think too much or not at all. Even now, with Graves giving you the perfect opportunity to turn and run, you can’t stop thinking about the potential consequences. What if he were to shoot you? What if he were to haul you back into town and expose your sins to everyone who gathered around? What if the people in town that have come to see you as one of their own were to gather around your crumpled form and stare at you with vitriol and disgust?
“How did you—” you start, then pause to breathe, the nausea building again. “I thought you’d left town.”
“You’d’ve liked that, huh?”
You don’t answer that. You know better than to antagonize a man with a gun.
He sighs when you don’t rise to the bait, almost pettish. “Wedding announcement. I saw it in the paper—by then, I’d moved on to Lexington, so it took me awhile to backtrack, but I just knew somethin’ about that bit in the paper about the sheriff’s wife hailing from the east coast didn’t sound right. Too big of a coincidence. Had to at least be sure—retrace my footsteps. Lotta money on the line, you know.”
You stare straight ahead at that. You ought to have known.
(“In the paper. The county sheriff got hitched—of course it’d be a story.”)
“To be honest, that kinda cracked me up. Murderess marrying the county sheriff.” He snorts out a laugh, shaking his head. “Sorta thing you’d read about in a dime novel.”
A new emotion wells up within you. It simmers in your belly, hot and cold at once. Righteous fury. All this time, you’ve been betraying yourself with your silence, allowing men to read your fear as guilt. Complicit in your own ruin.
“I’m not a murderer.”
The look he gives you is withering. “Sugar, I hate to break it to you, but you did kill a man.”
You open your mouth, but nothing comes out. Nothing ever does, it seems. But the more you hold it in, the uglier the thought seems, until it erupts from your chest like Vesuvius, lava and tephra shooting out.
“He deserved it,” you finally spit out, the words coming from deep in your chest.
Graves doesn’t even pause in his ministrations, back to tightening the saddle straps.
“He deserved it,” you repeat, spittle flying out of your mouth and landing in the dirt between the two of you.
“That’s not somethin’ I usually concern myself with,” he finally says, looking distinctly unimpressed when he meets your stare. Bored blue eyes.
You’re struck by the sense that your life means so little to him that the circumstances surrounding your bounty hardly merit more than a passing thought. If he could spare less, he would.
It’s the vilest thing in the world to be regarded with such bored contempt.
“He would’ve—he would’ve raped me otherwise. I didn’t have a choice.”
At that, Graves pauses. When he looks towards you, his eyes are curiously blank.
“Better that than what’ll happen now,” he says, the words so perfunctory that it takes a moment for them to sink in. When they do, you have to swallow back bile.
His glibness shatters whatever hope you’d had left.
In that moment, you finally acknowledge that appealing to his sense of decency won’t lead you anywhere because it simply doesn’t exist within him. You’ve known men like him before—those more concerned with lining their own pockets than taking care of the vulnerable people around them. The archetype is not uncommon. You should’ve expected it even, especially from a bounty hunter.
There won’t be any bribing him or talking your way out of the situation you’ve found yourself in. Whatever facinorous end awaits you back east, he’s happy to shepherd you there so long as it earns him his thirty coins.
How many times do you have to ask yourself if you’re brave enough to do something before you answer?
When Graves turns to face you again and takes a step towards you, likely to urge you up onto the saddle, you recoil, stumbling away from him. His eyes sharpen at your movement, fulvous wolf eyes narrowing on you.
“And here I thought you’d stopped pissin’ me off,” he says lightly, a hard edge underlying his words. His hand lifts to rest against the handle of the revolver tucked back in its sheath, thumb flexing over it.
“What’s the point?” you retort, nostrils flaring. “You either kill me here or I die there.”
You sound braver than you feel, fear making you shake so hard that your knees almost knock together.
Graves’ smile is all lip, no crinkling around the eyes. “Oh, I won’t kill you, sugar. I’m a better shot than that.”
Your heart pounds against your ribcage, stomach turning over at the thought of him putting a bullet through your shoulder or leg.
“I’m surprised you won’t just come quietly. You think the sheriff wouldn’t hand you over to me himself if he found out what kinda woman he married?”
That’s been your fear from the very beginning. The one thing that’s kept you awake at night, the nightmare shaking you out of a dead sleep. You’d convinced yourself that him calling the authorities or even escorting you back east himself was an inevitability. That John Price, paragon of virtue, wouldn’t bend the rules for anyone, much less you.
But the more you think about it, the less sense it seems to make. Every tender word and touch rises to the forefront of your memory. If John has shown you anything, it’s love. He’s proven his devotion a thousand times over, shown you time and again that were you to leave, he’d come running.
Suddenly, the thought that your husband would let someone take you away from him seems preposterous. It doesn’t align at all with the man you know. He’d go to hell and back for you, would rip out a man’s tongue for speaking to you the way Graves speaks to you now. Hindsight makes that clear.
You meet his eyes, intention set. “I’d rather just ask him.”
Blue eyes turn to flint, flat. Droll candor shed for ruthlessness. Silence before a storm.
He’s on you before you even have a chance to whirl around and make a run for it, arm cutting into your windpipe when he wraps it around your neck. He drags you back into the shadows of the awning, out of sight from anyone on the street; your heels score lines in the dirt. You choke, wheezing on your next breath, but his arm tightens, trapping the scream in your throat.
“Shoulda done this before,” Graves grunts, reaching into his back pocket and pulling out the pair of cuffs he had tucked away.
When he unhooks his arm from around your neck, you gasp for breath, sucking in deep lungfuls of air. Panic swirls and rises in your chest.
“Get your hands off—” you hiss, beating his arm with your fist to no avail. He yanks your arms in front of you until your wrists are pressed close together. Your blood curdles at the feeling of cold iron against your skin and the gut-wrenching sound of handcuffs being fixed around your wrists, tightened to the point of pain. You can hardly flex your hands with how tight they’re bound. “Let me go, let ME GO—”
He pulls you in close again. “Don’t think I won’t tape your fuckin’ mouth shut too,” Graves snarls in your ear. Nausea swells in your belly.
“Please— please don’t do this—” you beg, a sob breaking from your chest now.
He sighs, long suffering. “Lord knows I tried to warn you.”
Despite the threat, Graves doesn’t tape your mouth shut. Instead, he fastens a rough piece of rope around your head, fitting it between your teeth like a bit. You don’t have it in you to be thankful for small mercies this time. The hemp cord scratches the corners of your mouth when you try to move your lips around it.
“There,” he says, giving you a rough shake, satisfied. “That’s better. Can finally hear myself think.”
The tears leak out of the corners of your eyes in big, fat droplets, clouding your vision. When he wipes your cheeks with a calloused hand, the nail of his thumb catches on the delicate skin under your eye, leaving a thin cut. The pain makes you flinch, staring daggers at the man in front of you, but he doesn’t apologize for his rough handling.
Graves heaves himself up onto the saddle first, swinging a leg over with practiced ease. You yelp when he hauls you up after, setting you on the saddle in front of him. Heat crawls up your neck when your skirt billows around your waist, horrified.
“Save your tears, sugar,” he tells you, gathering the reins in one hand. “You’ll need ‘em for later.”
The horse whinnies when Graves pulls upward and guides him towards the road leading out of town, hooves clopping against the dirt. Your heart shoots up into your throat.
Galloping out of town, you chance a glance back, head spinning as the world blurs around you. A man stands under the awning you just left, his head cocked as if stupefied. He’s too far away for you to get a proper look at his face though, no way to tell if he’s someone that might recognize you and alert John. You try to scream or wave your hands—anything to get his attention, to let the stranger know that something is wrong.
You watch until the figure melds into the surrounding town.
You keep waiting for someone to appear from behind you. A tall figure to darken the horizon, blot it like the moon passing over the sun.
The last bastion of your hope collapses into rubble the farther away you ride, no man nor horse following you in pursuit. And then a hand grabs a fistful of your hair and wrenches your head back around, cutting off your view.
The plan is to leave the horse in the next town you reach and take a train back east. Graves would’ve done that back in the town you just left, he tells you, but he wanted to put as much distance between you and the sheriff.
“You never know with men who’ve gotten a taste of married life,” he says when he finally deigns to stop miles from town, sitting on a rock and having a drink while he leaves you tied to the horse by your wrists. You shift from foot to foot, a cramp winding up your legs. “They get themselves a little pussy and lose all sense of dignity or morality. Can’t be trusted to do the right thing.”
Steam practically billows out of your ears. You have the good sense to keep your mouth shut though, cognizant of the fact that you’re alone out in the middle of nowhere with a man who’d be happy to bring you back dead or alive. Though he hasn’t been quite so explicit, it’s apparent in the way he doesn’t offer to untie you or let you rest as well. The skin under the cuffs on your wrists are rubbed raw from your attempts to free yourself, and from the journey itself, with all the jostling and the persistent cramp in your right shoulder.
The animal awareness dawns on you during that first rest. He’d taken the rope out when you were far enough outside of town that it didn’t matter if you screamed or not. That’s what stays your tongue now—the creeping notion that you are far from anyone that would be remotely sympathetic to your plight.
“How much was the bounty?” you ask, more out of morbid curiosity than anything. You balance on one foot to shake the cramp out of the other.
“Now, I hate to be rude, sugar, but what does it matter to you? It ain’t you collecting the reward.”
Your lips flatten into a taut line, already regretting prying. It’s not like knowing would change anything.
The break ends sooner than you’d hoped, Graves urging you back onto the horse before taking a seat behind you. It troubles you because you’re not far enough away from town that you couldn’t still be rescued. There’d be more of a chance of John or someone else—one of his deputies, perhaps—coming across you out here. But you don’t have much of a choice.
Out here, the land stretches on without end. Only the faint blue of a mountain ridge paralleling your route breaks the horizon. The land is flat, sparse apart from the dense shrubbery and trees twisted and bent by the wind. Cottonwood and boxelder. Chokecherry. Dogwood and hawthorn. Lush blooming saltbrush.
The clear blue sky overhead is almost mocking, the rain from earlier long since abated. There’s hardly a cloud in the sky now. It’d be scenic if you could abstract it from the circumstances. A perfect day for gardening or a brisk walk after being kept indoors because of the rain. You’re still damp from riding through the rain earlier.
A few bison congregate in a small dip in the terrain, grazing on the wild grass. You stare at them wide-eyed as you gallop along the upper ridge, startled by the sight of so many in one place.
Despite the sublime beauty of the land, you remain on edge, unable to take anything in or truly enjoy it. Panic and revulsion leave you as gnarled and knotted as the krummholz trees out in the middle of the open plains. Riding with Graves feels nothing like the few times you and John shared a horse. It’s impersonal; transactional. Entirely against your will.
The sun has only just begun to descend under the horizon when you and Graves approach a ramshackle house situated by itself in the middle of the open plains. Barely more than a barn, and long since abandoned by the looks of it. Age has done the place no favors; wooden slats sag and separate from the exterior of the house, the gaps in between the boards letting in all manner of insects and rot.
Graves dismounts his horse about a stone’s throw from the hovel. His brow furrows with dissatisfaction as he surveys the abandoned property.
“Shit,” he remarks, sucking his teeth. “A local back in town swore a family still lived here. Don’t look like anyone’s lived here since Abraham.”
Part of you wishes the former tenants still resided here, on the off possibility that one might take pity on you, but a much larger part of you is grateful for the dwelling’s vacancy. You’ve heard stories before, of families living out in the middle of nowhere. Rumors. Not all bad, of course; it’s common enough for families migrating west sometimes to stop along the way for a generation or two, building more permanent dwellings than the caravans they began their journey in. Many such families were also known for putting up travelers passing through in exchange for goods or help with chores.
But you’ve also heard other stories. Like the Riley family out near Cherryvale and their homestead just off the Great Osage Trail. They lived out there for more than two decades before the number of lone travelers vanishing off the trail within walking distance of their property pointed the finger of suspicion at them. When the authorities finally got around to procuring a warrant for their property, they found the house deserted apart from the furniture that couldn’t be loaded into the wagon and an infant boy, dehydrated and petrified.
You shake the story from your head. “…Are we spending the night here?” you ask tentatively.
He looks at you from the corner of his eye, nostrils flared. “Don’t go gettin’ any ideas in that head of yours. Jus’ because a man’s gotta rest his eyes, don’t mean I gotta give you a peaceful night’s rest. No, I’m leavin’ those hands of yours tied.”
Your hopes deflate at that.
He helps you dismount before hobbling his horse with a pair of leather straps around its front legs to keep it from darting off in the middle of the night. You wince sympathetically; you have more in common with a horse now than any man.
The inside of the cabin is just as derelict as the exterior. At the very least, he feeds you. A couple scoops of pemmican straight from the tin. The fact that he insists on feeding you instead of letting you feed yourself puts you on edge. Your spine is stiff as a board through it all, your mouth barely opening up to receive the spoonful of pemmican, the metal clanking against your teeth. You wince, the sound itself tasting of rust.
At all times, you are aware of the precarity of your situation. You can’t imagine there were any stipulations in the bounty to bring you back unscathed. Though he hasn’t tried anything untoward so far—not so much as made a licentious remark—you don’t know how long your luck will last. You flinch every time he so much as twitches in your direction, sure at any moment his mood will flip and he’ll drag you across the floor and haul himself over you.
It’s enough to make your stomach hurt, turning over itself. He doesn’t try anything though, and for that you exhale shakily, the tension running off you in rivulets.
One hour drags into the next. Night blackens the sky, seeping in through the crumbling walls of the cabin.
“Well,” Graves says, wiping his hands together to dust off any lingering crumbs. “I’m gonna hit the hay.”
“Do…do I get to sleep as well?”
He cocks a brow. “Not much I can do to stop you.”
“It’s just that…” You lift your hands as you trail off, silently pointing out the handcuffs still secured around your wrists, the implicit assertion being that you won’t be able to sleep with the metal digging into the bones of your wrists.
Graves scoffs. “You can’t think I’ll just uncuff you ‘cause we ain’t in town no more. I got a little more sense than that, sugar.”
“You could use rope instead?” you suggest.
The seconds he spends considering it are long. You hold your breath as you watch him weigh the pros and cons.
Finally, he shrugs. “Alright.”
The relief that washes over you is almost palpable.
He pulls a blanket out of one of the saddlebags to function as a makeshift pillow, setting it up on the floor in the center of the room. True to his word, Graves uncuffs you and loops a double knotted rope around your wrists instead, fastening the rope tying your hands together around his own wrist. Your stomach sinks as he pulls the knot taut.
He levels a heavy stare on you after giving the rope one last tug. “I don’t usually repeat myself, sugar, but I will this one time. Don’t go tryin’ anythin’ stupid. I’m gettin’ a good night’s rest and so help me if you wake me up—” his eyes flash, gray going steely “—you won’t like the consequences.”
You nod. Swallow back the phlegm clogging your throat.
True night plunges the old house into darkness, cricket songs slipping in through the cracks in the walls. The temperature also plunges with the setting sun. It gets cold at night, even in the summer months; the draft makes you shiver, the rotting exterior letting in the elements.
You keep to the wall with the least amount of rotting boards, as far as the rope tethering you to Graves will allow you to go. It would probably be in your best interest to try and get some sleep, but you’re far too restless to calm down. The atmosphere in the house is far too eerie to settle your nerves either; you can’t help but wonder about the family that must have left this place to rot and fade away into memory.
It’s all you can do to blink back the tears that spring to your eyes when you think about the memory of you that John will have to carry into the future now that you’re gone. It isn’t fair. After everything you’ve had to endure in this lifetime, you thought maybe that this might have been your reward. That John was your reward.
Your hands drop from your chin to your knees, hopelessness plaguing you again. The thin, sharp whistle of defeat. High and reedy as a death rattle.
Then your eyes drop to your wrists.
The cord is fastened in a bowline knot around your wrists, difficult to undo without considerable effort, but the material is softer than the cuffs Graves had you in before, and it gives when you pull one hand down while pushing the other up. Your skin bunches around the cord, but it doesn’t cut into you the way the metal did.
Graves is still fast asleep when you glance over at him. He doesn’t snore, but the rise and fall of his chest under the blanket is steady. Stable.
The fatigue dissipates from your body the second you put it together. That there’s a sliver of a possibility of slipping your hands out of the rope tying you to Graves. The exhilaration is almost overwhelming. You have to sit with it a beat before acting, wary of letting your guard down too fast.
Time passes slowly as you fiddle with the knot, reaching your fingers as far as they’ll go and gritting your teeth through the ensuing cramp in your wrist. You nearly groan in frustration when your hand twitches and you accidentally retighten the knot. A near crushing blow.
Please, you mouth more than whisper, frustrated tears clumped in your lashes. Teeth sinking into the flesh of your bottom lip, pinching off the wail rising up your throat.
Your heart skips a beat when the rope loosens around one of your wrists, enough for you to wiggle a pinkie underneath and slowly shimmy it up the length of your hand. A cramp makes your pinkie spasm, almost causing you to lose your grip. Sweat pools in the cup of your palm.
When your wrists are finally free, the rope clutched in trembling hands and the basal joint of your thumb scrapped raw from the fibrous rope, you can only sit there, heart beating wildly in your chest. You have to force yourself to remain calm, wary of waking Graves up after all that effort. His eyelids quiver only with his dreams though.
You glance towards the door on the other side of the cabin. It seems either farther away now that you know it’s within reach. You know better than to just run straight for it though. Weeks of being on the run before finding John have taught you to pace yourself, to push down the fluttering evocation in your chest to make a mad dash for the closest way out.
Instead, you take a deep breath out, closing your eyes until you’ve calmed down. Then you rise slowly to your feet.
Your eyes, having long since adjusted to the darkness, scan the room for any loose floorboards. Aside from one obvious corner of the house which has begun to rot away and collapse, it’s hard for you to discern at a glance which boards will groan under the weight of your feet. You have no choice but to guess.
Each step has you on edge, heart in your throat. Your focus shifts quicksilver between the floor and Graves. Waiting for any sudden movement.
Halfway to the door, you take another cautious step forward and the floorboard creaks under your foot. Your heart stops, eyes flitting instantly over to Graves’ sleeping form. He doesn’t so much as shift. It’s another beat before you’re able to move again, confidence shaken by the noise. You keep imagining him suddenly shooting up from the floor, pistol in hand, the hammer striking the primer, the hiss of gas escaping the barrel.
The door gives a faint creak when you push it open, so you open it only enough for your body to slip through, wincing when you twitch and accidentally push it open another inch, dragging out the creak. Still, he doesn't wake. You slip past the door, shutting it quietly behind you.
The moon glows cornsilk gold in the sky. A vast, uncharted land stretches out around you, untouched by human hands, or so changed over the years that any human presence has long since been buried beneath the loam. But when you stare out into the distance, you realize that you have no idea where you came from. Everything looks the same in each direction, no landmark familiar enough for you to orient yourself. You’re out in the middle of nowhere and nothing looks right.
If you had less strength, you’d fall to your knees. The despair is so immense that you hardly have the strength to hold it all at once.
The silence lulls you into a false sense of security. You linger for too long, stuck contemplating your options. Coyotes yip in distant packs, their barks carrying across the plains. You shiver at the sound. It reminds you again that you’re on your own now. No husband to come chasing after you if things get sticky.
Your first few steps away from the cabin are tentative, gliding your legs through the grass and staring up at the cornsilk moon. A combination of indulgence and bewilderment. If you knew the right way home, you wouldn’t waver, but these days, you have no faith in your instincts. They’ve only ever led you off course.
The gelding that Graves rode in on sits in the grass with its hind legs folded underneath it. With its legs still hobbled, you know removing the leather will take more time than you'd like, but you figure it'll be easier to make your way across the plains on horseback, with the added bonus of leaving Graves stranded. If God were just, he’d starve out here and leave his corpse for the coyotes to feast on.
You approach the horse cautiously, conscious not to make any sudden movements. Its ears angle towards you as you draw near. Attentive to your presence.
“Hey there, honey,” you whisper, reaching out a hand and trying to show that you aren’t a threat. Its nose twitches.
Another step forward. Easy does it. One leg in front of the other.
“I won’t hurt you. I promise.” You try to mirror your memory of John in your voice, honeysuckle soft words.
You aren’t John though. Not even close. You take another step towards it.
It brays when you get too close, skittish. The sound pierces through the night, louder than the coyotes in the distance. Louder even than the creaking door.
The hair on the back of your neck raises, lips numb. Then the prickling awareness of movement in the house, like an itch on a phantom limb.
Behind you, the door to the cabin bursts open with a bang, slamming off the wall and ricocheting back. You whip your head around to look only to find Graves’ towering form under the shadow of the doorway, his hair mused and clothes askew. And he looks enraged.
“Hey!” Graves bellows from the doorway, breaking into a run towards you. “Get back here!”
There’s no time to sit with the regret, no time to bemoan the fact that you didn’t exercise enough caution, that for some reason without a gun leveled at your head, you allowed yourself to forget the very real danger this man posed to you.
All you can do is run.
The grass whistles around you. You run so hard that your lungs burn, your arms pumping furiously beside you, dress swishing between your legs. You don’t have to look behind you to know that Graves is gaining on you. His body is built for pursuit. Still, you push yourself past your breaking point, not stopping even when you taste blood in your mouth. Mindless; directionless. No idea where you’re going—just away from him. You’d jump off a cliff if you came across one.
He’s close enough for you to hear now, heavy breathing right behind you. But by then it’s too late. A heavy body rams into you, sending you careening towards the earth, the ground rushing up to meet you halfway. The dirt hardly cushions the blow.
You hit the ground hard. Head knocked loose of thought, agony ripping across your face. The double blow of a body heavier than yours forcing you into the dirt, so solid that it crushes the breath from your lungs.
Blood leaks from your lip, most likely split. When you breathe in to fill your lungs, you taste dirt and rust and earth.
“Insufferable bitch,” Graves snarls, putrid breath wafting under your nose and making your eyes water. He grabs a handful of your hair and wrenches your head up before slamming it back down. Something crunches. Distantly, you wonder if your nose is broken.
Your ears ring, the rest of his words drowned out by the blood rushing to your face.
“Please—” you beg, blood dripping from your split lip.
“Knew I shouldn’ta trusted you—conniving little cunt—c’mere now, get up—”
He rises to his feet over your body, big hand curling around your wrist. You hear your shoulder pop when he yanks your arm behind your back. A rush of cold. A sweat breaks on the nape of your neck. Shock sets in the moment after, adrenaline flooding your body.
Then a sharp, focused surge of pain. It radiates from your shoulder outward, so intense that you can’t believe it at first. Your whole world reduces down to it. Feathering out down your back; irradiating waves of it. Thoughts scattering and then coming back together around the pain. If you scream, it comes out unbidden.
“Ah, hell, I didn’t mean to do that,” he grumbles from behind you, likely staring at the unnatural jut of your shoulder. “Alright, sugar, one second—I’ll pop that back in.”
“Nononono—” you gasp, panic lancing through you, but he pays no attention to your words.
The pain of popping your shoulder back in is excruciating. Relief follows shortly after, but the time between dislocating and relocating your shoulder is so short that it hardly comes as a balm to the pain.
“You…bastard…” you gasp.
“Wouldn’ta had to do that if you hadn’t run,” he sighs, the sight of your pain subduing his rage.
It doesn’t stop him from grabbing you roughly by the arm he just dislocated when he finally gets you on your feet though, steering you back towards the house. The pain that radiates up your arm is almost blinding.
He drags you back to the cabin with a punishing grip. There’s no sympathy when you stumble. Moonlight illuminates the path back to the cabin and shows you the trenches in the wild grass made by your feet. Hardly more than a couple rods.
The defeat that courses through you upon being dragged through the ramshackle front door is ten times that of earlier. When he lets go of your arm, you collapse in a heap on the floor, aching and sweating. A bag of bones and blood. You’d rattle if someone shook you.
“I hate you,” you mumble from your spot on the floor, shaking through the pain. “Rot in hell.”
Graves doesn’t respond, but you can almost hear the way he grins.
No rest for the wicked or the good this time. Graves wakes intermittently throughout the night to check up on you, wary now that you’ve tried to run. Your regret is palpable. You should’ve waited. Bided your time. There won't be another chance now, not after you played your hand so soon.
The ache in your shoulder keeps you from finding sleep. Every time you get close to it, the pain radiates down your arm and it slips from your grasp, your hand closing around the empty space it leaves behind. Teeth grit, breathing through the pain. Loosening your jaw and panting because the pain overwhelms you when you so much as shift onto your side, the hard floor digging into your elbow.
Right on the edge of sleep, just as you're about to latch on, a boot catches you in the ribs, jostling you back into the realm of pain. You wheeze, breaking into a coughing fit.
“Get up,” a hoarse voice grunts above you, empty of sympathy. “We got places to be.”
He has the two of you back on the horse as soon as dawn breaks. Your escape attempt the night before must have spooked him, and you regret it now in the light of day because you know he won’t let you out of his sight again. The metal handcuffs digging into your wrists assures you of that.
There’s no time for breakfast or time to wash up. Graves makes it a point to be back on the road as fast as possible, repacking his bedroll and stuffing it back in the saddlebag before dragging you up with him.
The pain is a dull throb after sleeping most of the agony away. It comes back when you move too quickly though, which is hard to avoid on horseback when each gallop echoes through your sore bones and joints.
The arching sun immixes with the heavens above, rising higher as the hours pass. You ache for a hat; something to keep the heat of the sun off your head. On the horizon, the mountain ridge sits like a spine bursting out from the earth. It’s all wastelands and portents. Evil omens.
Your heart feels swollen and bruised, like something trampled under elk hooves.
“Cheer up,” Graves says, tipping your chin up when the sun reaches its peak around midday, the gesture making you so uncomfortable that you almost shudder out of your skin. Your face still throbs with pain. “You should be glad I didn’t jus’ shoot you.”
Your lips pull back, baring your teeth to nothing.
A shot rips through the air at that, his words commanding it into being. Your head instinctively ducks and even the horse under you staggers, spooked by the sound. Graves curses, tensing up behind you.
"What in the hell—"
You whip your head around to stare behind you, looking for the source of the gunfire. When you find it, your eyes widen.
#this is a long one because it's 2 chapters that i didn't feel like posting separately#but they're separated on ao3 if you wanna go read there#ceil writing#cod x reader#price x reader#john price/reader#john price x reader#price x you#john price x you
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Zelda goes mushroom girl
#tloz#a link to the past#zelda#link#my art#I was happy with that first one but for some reason decided it still needed a companion piece so I spent way too long on that second one...#I don't think there was any time during the progress where I was happy with it but hfduhdfu at least I got to Attempt drawing moss hell yea#I also at some point sat in Pyu's art stream and said I enjoy drawing legs As I was being murdered by the infamously impossibe (imo) squat.#it's ok I had fun !! but I need to learn how to let doodles be doodles or I'll never finish stuff at this rate dfsuhfd#if everything in my tloz tag looks like it was drawn by different people uuuh 2023 was art crisis year ngl......#I'm falling back into my old ways rn though#anyway I think about these two a lot I think they're both stone faced and awkward ppl in different ways but they try rly hard to be friends#like I like to think it starts out so incredibly awkward and a bit sad bc they keep stepping over each other's toes accidentally the harder#they try but idk they find comfy middle ground idk in my brain they have a very interesting friendship I wanna get around to drawing it#in a proper way that might make sense....#if I don't write 200 tags I will die maybe it's bc I grew up on dA or smth#and yes I know how to find 1 (one) type of mushroom /I/ am not mushroom girl unfortunately smh
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pjo prompt: percy and jason have to go on a quest together, so they both decide to bring their respective partners (annabeth and leo). during the quest, they get kidnapped by monsters and percy and jason wake up in an arena. the monsters explain that they have their partners and in order to save them, they have to fight to the death, with the winner getting to leave alive with their partner, while the other is killed. however, the monsters are very shocked when percy and jason sit down and start calmly playing cards with each other. they’re not worried about their partners. instead, they’re worried for the monsters. they trapped annabeth and leo together, two of the smartest demigods. the girl who redesigned olympus and the boy who built a warship in six months. they were toast.
#pjo#percy jackson#jason grace#annabeth chase#leo valdez#percabeth#valgrace#like they could probs take over the world if they wanted (and those two would help)#never leave these two alone for too long they will find a way to defy the laws of the universe just for fun#lowkey kinda wanna write it but too many wips#might start a drabble series just to write like the one scene i want to in long fics I have ideas for#mmmmm we shall see
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Me: [sees everyone talking about how Assad Zaman was "literally" coming up with RPF about himself and Eric Bogosian in an interview]
Me: ah, fandom's doing its little "interpret an innocent comment in Some Kind Of Way" thing again, let's go find the video and do our own critical thinking about what was actually said here--
Assad: What would happen if I said-- [words that cannot be interpreted as anything but RPF fanfic]
Me:
Me: ok fandom gets a pass on this one actually
#interview with the vampire#devil's minion#assad zaman#he's just hit that level of devil's minion brainrot#i've seen it a thousand times#this cast is fully unhinged and I ADORE them#the chaos energy is off the charts#eric out here setting a bad example with his “did u know u can say anything u want in interviews actually :)))” energy#assad seems one step away from getting Marxist about it like#“if rolin doesn't let me kiss daniel in s3 we must Seize The Means Of Production”#baby boy listen... be the change you want to see in the world#if u wanna write ur own devil's minion fanfic and film it on ur iphone i support u 100% and i will get u in contact with the OTW's lawyers#who ironically were invented partially BECAUSE of people getting in trouble for writing Anne Rice fanfic#this is what we call Plot Structure#real life does not usually have such a satisfying Plot Structure but it could in this case if assad reaches level 100 in Unhingery#and tbh i truly don't know that I would put it past him at this point#iwtv
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This is genius. Off to search the kitchen for new character names.
#naming characters#writer life#star wars#names#wanna write about a goblin named Pabanero Hepper#one of those goblins colored like poisonous tree frogs#it'd be great
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Zack Snyder is the Elon Musk of DC I believe
#and I mean that in the most unflattering way possible#like. imagine having access to portray one of the most multidimensional and raw symbol of human compassion in superhero media#and misunderstanding him so expertly joker fanboys clown on you.#I’d have to jump off I fear.#say you wanna write the punisher and go.#batman#dc comics#anyway batman shouldn’t kill. the end.
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reblog for wider reach id appreciate it
#i just really wanna learn about more art forms#pls put in the tags some cool ones#art#artist#artwork#poll#polls#lino#painting#drawing#sculpting#sewing#photography#poetry#writing#poll i made
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proof that you CAN use math in every day life😌✌🏼
#knitting#knitblr#wip#mathblr#I didn’t write up a formal pattern for this one as I do believe it is highly unlikely anyone besides me and a few centuries long dead#mathematicians would wanna make this one. that being said! it can definitely happen if anyone else desires this beaut.#this would definitely be a hit in some proof based geometry courses🙂↕️I would lend it to anyone wishing to get ahead on an exam fr#my first foray into flat stranded colorwork and yes! it’s great! it’s useful! but!!! the amount of loose ends to weave in!!! jfc!!!!!!!!!!!#also mattress stitch my beloathed. it’s so useful but so tedious.
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I desperately need more mentor uncle figures and mentor brother figures in DPxDC to fill the interesting relationship dynamic gap that father figures stories can't always fill are u picking up what I'm putting down. Hell, just a regular friendship relationship with absolutely 0 familial dynamic.
#the amount of fun relationships that could happen but dont bc everyone wants their boss to be their father figure is fine but saddens me#i plan to write a bunch more non father figure prompts in the near future but MAN OH MAN do yall KNOW#so to the 15 replies of “make the change you wanna see in the world” people: Im doing that alrighty yall im doing my bestttt#just how fun a brother like tim drake mentorship or a auntlike wonder woman relationship with Jazz to be????#the possibilities are endless!!!!#or just make them friends??? idk why there’s genuinely so little friendship fics with Bruce and Danny#bones speaks#dpxdc#dp x dc#danny phantom#I forgot to add this but additionally no romantic relationship ones! none of these are bad but it could be fun to flex other#writing muscles yk? try some fun platonic relationship dynamics out
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kakashi and bull 🥺🤲
#realized that i don't actually know how to draw dogs so i wanted to practice. and who's better for that than mr dog lover kashi#(and yes i know my persona is a dog and i can't draw dogs. ironic isn't it)#i wanna make a small series of drawings of kashi and all his ninken but this is the only one i have so far. we'll see how it goes#naruto#kakashi hatake#my art#sketch#also if anyone writes 'oh haha i thought it was etho' under this -#i will find you. and i will display each of your vertebra on my wall like they do with butterflies.
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