#when you don't want to settle on one specific first kiss trope

[krautundkimchi]

PD Nim: how many first kisses can you squeeze into this drama

Writer Nim: YES!

[skyahri]

One Bed |Naruto Men X Reader| HC

Characters: Sasuke Uchiha, Kakashi Hatake, and Shikamaru Nara.

Summary: Classic one bed trope.

Warnings: Kissing. Bed sharing. Lead up to smut but no smut.

Masterlist Ko-fi

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Sasuke Uchiha

It was shortly after the war.

The village was still recuperating from the loss, as was every other village, but there were still missions that needed to be fulfilled.

You were off to do some security work for the Daimyo, who had specifically requested the two of you to watch over his land while they rebuilt.

The only issue was that upon arrival, it wss revealed you'd be sharing a single room.

"You aren't the only ones to have suffered during the battle. Half of my property was destroyed!"

There wasn't much you could do, so you bit the bullet and followed one of the Ladies in Waiting to where you'll be staying.

One room? Whatever. One bed? Absolutely not.

You protested. It was inappropriate, even if you had known Sasuke for well over a decade at this point.

"We are low on resources at the moment, Y/L/N-san, Uchiha-san. It's why we have asked for your assistance in the first place."

You looked at Sasuke, who just gave you the same bored expression he always has.

You thanked the woman and began getting settled in your room. Sasuke offered to sleep on the floor, which you told him not to bother with.

You'd likely be here a few weeks, so it'd be best if you were both comfortable.

Sasuke was nice enough to let you shower first, which you'd gladly taken after two days' worth of travel.

He waited patiently for you to finish so he could prepare for bed as well. It was late, almost midnight, and he was tired.

It was awkward the first night. You'd slept uncomfortably back to back with this weird air around you.

You'd put on your most conservative pair of pajamas despite how warm the room was, and that only made things worse.

The second night wasn't much better.

But by the third night, you both grew tired of the tension. It was difficult to be fully rested when you'd slept terribly, so you formed some kind of unspoken, mutual respect for now.

You'd opted for your normal nighttime attire - a pair of shorts and thin t-shirt. You already felt better.

Sasuke, on the other hand, had been grateful for your prudish clothing. He had never said anything before, not that he had the time to, but he'd always been attracted to you.

Your revealing pajamas were not helping his comfort, so while you slept better that night, he did not.

Nor the next night.

Or the night after that.

By then, you'd become very aware of his antics. On top of being physically aware that he wasn't sleeping, you'd also become annoyed by his poor attitude.

He was already an ass as is, you really didn't need him sleep deprived on top of it.

So that night, as you lay in bed next to him, you roll onto your stomach and prop yourself up on your elbows to look at him.

"What's your problem?"

"I don't have a problem."

"Really? Could've fooled me."

He tsked at you. Why'd you have to be so annoying?

You pushed yourself up so you'd be sitting on your knees, your hands flat on the bed so you could still lean forward to talk to him.

His eyes darted down to your chest before looking away entirely.

No way. There was absolutely no way.

"Are you... bothered by my clothes?"

"Don't be stupid." He snapped.

You tried to suppress a knowing smirk but failed.

So you leaned forward and kissed him.

Despite his surprise, he immediately responded to your kiss, going so far as to roll you over onto your back so he'd be on top of you.

"Maybe I am a bit bothered."

Kakashi Hatake

This is Kakashi’s first Kage Summit, and he asked you to be his plus one.

You accepted with no hesitation. You were anxious to get out of the village since the war ended and going out with Kakashi was sure to make it all the more interesting.

The summit was boring. That's a good thing compared to the last summit, but it still made you want to gouge your eyes out. They discussed the status of their villages and what sort of issues they'd been running into, blah blah blah.

When it was nearing midnight and everyone was growing tired, they agreed to call it a night and resume in the morning.

Everyone went to their respective quarters, but when you got to the Leaf Village's wing, there was only a single room with a bed.

Apparently, during the rebuild, they'd slipped up and only added a single room instead of the usual two, and no one had noticed (Thanks Sasuke).

It wasn't too big of a deal. You'd known Kakashi since your Genin days and slept in the same room plenty of times.

You were a bit surprised when he actually got into bed with you though.

Despite all those sleepovers, this was the first time you'd actually slept so close together.

You stared at him. Not on purpose, just happened to be doing so while your mind was racing.

"Is this an issue? I can sleep on the floor."

You shook your head.

"You sure? You were giving me quite the look."

"I was just... wondering what you'd look like under the mask."

You lied. You couldn't tell him how you were thinking about sleeping in bed with him and it's implications.

He snorted and did something that completely caught you off guard.

He pulled down his mask.

You blushed. How could you not? All these years, and he chooses now, the most random moment, to finally reveal such a wel kept secret.

And then he does something else that yo weren't expecting.

He leans forward and kisses you. You kiss back. He pulls away after a minute.

"I've been waiting to do that since we were teenagers."

You laugh at him, then pull him in for another kiss.

Shikamaru Nara

Shikamaru, being the lazy man he is, put off booking a room to stay in for so long that there was only a single room left st the inn.

You'd scolded him, and he took it, knowing he should've done it when he'd gotten the mission report.

The room was on the smaller side and contained only a single bed and dresser.

Neither of you were interested in sleeping on the floor for the next week, so you agreed to share the bed.

Something you wouldn't have done if you'd known Shikamaru was such a... uncharacteristically chaotic sleeper.

Seriously, he moved around more at night than he did during the entire day. Maybe it's all the pent up energy.

Within an hour of him knocking out, he was already sprawled out across most of the bed, leaving you two options: sleep on the edge or lay on him.

You tried to sleep in the bit of space he hadn't taken, really, but it seemed he was basically drawn to you.

You caved, allowing whatever was going to happen to happen, too tired to fight it any longer.

When Shikamaru eventually woke up, you were on his chest, one arm thrown over him and peacefully sleeping.

He got flustered and quickly tried to get out from under you, waking you in the process.

He was able to dart away without much suspension. Or at least he thought.

The next night was the same, minus the internal battle you'd had prior.

When Shikamaru woke up to the same dilemma, he decided it was best to fall asleep after you.

That night, he'd stayed awake under the guise of a mission report update for the Hokage.

You'd simply shrugged and gone to bed.

He followed when he was sure you were asleep, making sure each of you were on your respective sides of the bed.

He was surprised when he woke up with him on top you, head on your chest as if it was the most casual thing to happen.

He'd begin to stammer about, but stopped when you'd groaned.

"Settle down, would you?"

"I was just-"

"It's not that big of a deal, Shika, just go to sleep."

He listened to you, despite not understanding what was actually going on.

In the morning, he attempted to talk to you about it, but the conversation didn't quite go as planned.

"Yeah, you're a cuddler. Not much I can do about it, so it's whatever."

From then on, it slowly became more natural for your nights to get more personal, even once you'd gotten home.

[williamvapespeare]

i will make you reveal all your dark secrets: 22, 43, 36,

I will always reveal my secrets to you <3

22. Are there certain types of writing you won’t do? (style, pov, genre, tropes, etc)

Ok first of all if I'm getting paid I'd give anything a stab LOL. but personally there are a lot of styles, tropes, etc I don't like to read or write - not because they're bad or anything, just not my preference. more specifically I guess I really don't tend to do a lot of AUs (specifically different world/genre, etc ones), but I loooove reading them - a really good writer can take characters and put them into another time and place so PERFECTLY and have all these little hints of canon in there and it hits so good. It's just not what I tend to gravitate towards myself.

43. Do you take a sadistic joy in whumping your characters, or are you more the "If you hurt them I would kill everyone and then myself" kind of person?

>:) (nah but actually, I loooove making the lads sad it is known. I'm also just a h/c fiend and one just leads so nicely into the other!! I also like putting characters in high stress situations and letting them spiral their way out of it.)

36. How do you write kissing scenes?

Like this,

The thing was, once they started kissing, they never really seemed to stop. Edwin kissed like the world had ended and he was clinging to the last solid thing alive or dead, like the floor might drop out from under their spectral feet at any moment, or a massive spider might burst through the wall and drag him away through a portal to Hell. That last one made Charles cling too, a little harder than he might have with anyone else. With anyone else, he'd never been able to face this: need, desperation.

But Edwin took desperate and made it something else entirely. He would walk up to Charles, when he perched on the edge of the desk, with his head tilted slightly and the same look on his face that he used to study particularly tricky line of translation, or puzzle logic out of two unrelated clues. It was that look, but a little bit sharper, dark eyes and the a small tick at the corner of Edwin's lips. It made Charles - well, it made him want to bloody explode - but he'd settled for pinching himself once. He didn't feel it, but it worked just the same to get his mind back from where it was leaking out the edges of his ears.

And speaking of feeling, he couldn't feel that, but what he could feel was Edwin's hands sliding up his thighs, warm through the thin material of Charles' trousers. His fingers were long and pretty and Charles hadn't really thought much about whether fingers could be pretty, before he saw Edwin's. Those fingers were still moving, skimming up the front of Charles' polo to tug lightly on the gold chain around his neck, and Charles was already there to meet him, his hands cupping Edwin's waist, pulling him the rest of the way against his chest, until the warmth was everywhere.

Edwin's mouth was warm too, his lips soft and then insistent, his tongue flicking against Charles' lower lip. Charles grinned a little, despite himself, settled one hand in the small of Edwin's back and felt him arch very slightly against it.

They'd already sussed out a lot of what they liked - Edwin's hands in Charles' hair, tugging lightly, Charles' lips on Edwin's neck, his jaw, the sensitive place just below his ear - and some of what they didn't - Edwin being held down, or anything that put too much attention on a few scars Charles hadn't bothered to remember in years.

...Ok idk where it's going i'm gonna end there hope u enjoyed lol

[checkoutmybookshelf]

I Want to Be Where The Pirates Are...

So...I'm aware that one cannot genetically engineer books to specific readers, but if one could...the Dangerous Damsels books have my DNA baked in. Especially when the lore of the world involves both a pirate's league and a witches' league--who naturally detest each other--splitting off from the same common ancestor, a sketchily prophesied heir, and a long-lost amulet that some goody two-shoes put in a museum. It's time for witches and pirates to have a reckoning, and it's time for Charlotte Pettifer to fall in love with--in no particular order--the sky, magical chaos, and a big scary pirate. Let's talk The League of Gentlewomen Witches.

This is your obligatory SPOILER WARNING because I have exactly zero compunctions about SPOILING everything about this book. Also, this is your CONTENT WARNING for brief mentions and discussions of child abuse and panic/PTSD attacks.

Miss Charlotte Pettifer is extremely not a witch because witches don't exist, thank you very much. She is also a well-reared, respectable lady. But where Cecilia Bassingthwaite was soft amd respectable while also just happening to be an expert in the piractical arts, Charlotte is willing to toss soft away for adventure within about five seconds of being given the opportunity. And she certainly does get the opportunity amidst the chaos of the entire Wisteria Society and Wicken League attempting to steal Black Beryl's amulet. Ultimately, the inimitable Lady Armitage comes up with it, and Charlotte's plan is to hold pirate Alex O'Riley at gunpoint in his own flying house so he will take her in hot pursuit.

It takes about five minutes of Taming of the Shrew/Much Ado About Nothing shenanaganery before we get Charlotte and Alex's first kiss, but these two adorable dumbasses spend the next 90% of the book insisting that of course they hate each other, and of course this is a kidnapping/hostage situation, and of course all the really rambunctious sex they're having is just tension release so they can effectively track down the amulet.

Reader, I adore these two.

Neither one is terribly good at emotions, and they spend most of the book avoiding talking about anything plainly and explicitly. Instead. They settle for the most tender, sweet moments in the midst of mortal danger and some of the best double entendres and innuendos (all speckled with Irish pirate roguery and some genuinely wonderful literary allusions) I have ever read. There are also some delightfully self-aware trope subversion moments--for example, Charlotte insists that she needs a change of clothes to do piracy, and Alex keeps insisting she dies not until she gets to "trousers," whereupon he is suddenly very much on board with this idea. There is also the inn the pair wind up in, which--tragically--has two beds. They very quickly remedy the situation by pushing the beds together in order to ensure they they end up in their "only one bed" as expediently as possible. When I tell you that I laughed literally out loud when they fell down the crack between the two beds and ended up just sleeping (literally and figuratively) on the floor, I am being entirely serious.

The sex and shenanagins and courting disguised as tracking down Lady Armitage--and some genuine running from the Wisteria Society and Wicken League--continue until they stumble on Lady A's house by sheer coincidence and she literally has to *interrupt their play-fight flirting* to go "Do you want this goddamn amulet or not?"

Charlotte wants the amulet--as Black Beryl's prophesied heir, it's hers, naturally--but this is where the issue with not talking about your feelings starts biting her and Alex in the ass a little, because it is literally MID-BATTLE WITH Lady A when Alex looks at Charlotte and goes "We have to destroy this amulet, Lottie."

Which for us readers makes some sense, because we have gotten a little bit of Akex's traumatic backstory at this point, enough to understand that it's witch-related, but all Charlotte really knows is that it left some deep-ass emotional scars that she's still kind of floored tbat Alex let her get any glimpse of at all. But because they're not on the same page, they fumble the amulet and their own escape and end up in Lady A's dungeon.

No, I didn't question how a pirate's flying battle house has a dungeon. And if you're questioning it, this is not the book for you.

Charlotte is pacing like a caged tiger trying to find a way out while Alex just kind of marvels at her--this man is soooooo gone for her it's not even funny and we kind of adore it. Eventually, however, with nothing but time on their hands, Alex and Charlotte have no choice but to actually sit down and talk seriously to each other. Which leads to honestly my favorite little section of this entire book.

Alex O'Riley's backstory is HELLA dark. The TLDR is essentially that a his father had an affair with a witch, and that made Alex's mother die of a broken heart. So we start with a mom dead at age five. Then dad becomes an alcoholic who beats him bloody and one tries to drown him. Add to that abusive nuns at school and a stepmother who used to lock him in the cellar and withhold food, and it's kind of incredible that Alex is a functional human who can still manage to smuggle food into Ireland for people experiencing poverty and starvation. He coped by not feeling things and building a pirate rake reputation to avoid getting feelings-close to anyone. Unfortunately, Charlotte is over here explaining why he's right about destroying the amulet and saying that she would give up witchy superpowers for him, and he is getting hit directly in the feels and scars she doesn't understand the scope of.

So Alex has what is either a panic attack, PTSD flashback, or a bit of both. We get the highlights of his childhood trauma and the absolute heartbreak that all he can say to Charlotte as he slips into the memories is "sorry." Which isn't an apology to Charlotte for losing control, not really, or at least that's not all it is. That word is the key to this traumatic memory, and it's just cruel that he can say it in the here and now but the child he was was too hurt and frightened and at the mercy of a witchy stepmother to save himself. Literally, my heart. I was not expecting to cry at this screwball rom com, but damn if India Holton didn't get me.

But what I really loved was Charlotte's response to his panic attack. Thanks to the patriarchy and rampant goddamn ableism, this scene is done badly SO OFTEN. I literally wrote an entire academic article about how versions of this scene are done poorly multiple times in Iron Man 3. But Charlotte does it right. If she's afraid, Alex doesn't need to see that, and he doesn't. She asks him what he needs, and more importantly, she listens to him. She is supportive of his feelings in the moment. She VALIDATES him. And she doesn't let him minimize his own feelings or experiences while simultaneously offering him a metaphorical hand to take to pull himself up--she's not forcing him to make any moves here. It's a quiet, soft scene that does everything right, and I love that we can let our big scary pirate lad have these real, human moments and we aren't castigating or shaming him for having feelings. We are, in fact, validating and supporting him. The post-panic or post-PTSD attack scene is done so badly in so many books and movies, but this one is done with care, and I love that to tiny little peices.

After this, Charlotte and Alex quite handily get out if the dungeon and fight Lady Armitage for the amulet again. During the fight, Charlotte outs herself in front of a witch hunter to save Alex's life, and her ass is saved in return by the absolutely WONDERFUL Constantinopla. At which point Charlotte joins Cecelia and Constantinopla on a jury-rigged popcorn stall to help bring Lady A's house down since she still has the amulet. Meanwhile, Ned, Alex, and Tom just kind of sit back and watch, prompting Alex to ask, "Does anyone else get the feeling that in fact we're their boys?"

Alex O'Riley understands how the world works.

Ultimately, Lady Armitage ruined house, the lady herself, and the amulet go crashing into the sea and are presumed dead by everyone but the reader, who discovers at the end that the lady doth survived too much, the real amulet has been safe in a vault the whole time, and another unsuspecting man is forcibly married to Lady A.

Charlotte's story ends rather more happily. She gives up the restraints of the Wicken League and abdicates leadership about five minutes after she gets it so Alex can "kidnap" her and restore the status quo of animosity between witches and pirates. Charlotte gets to go be spontaneous, fierce, and kickass with her hot Irish pirate, and frankly I love that for both of them.

We just briefly need to hit a couple of subplots here. First, I want to address Alex's butler, Bixby. Bixby is the protagonist of the next book, so I'm sure we will get more of him then, but for the purposes of THIS book, he joins the battle butler coven with Sam Vimes's Wilikins and Artemis Fowl's Domovi Butler. I would pay I don't even know how much money to get these three in a room together for the battle butler equivalent of a stitch and bitch. The gossip and shop talk and trade secrets would be LEGENDARY.

Second, we need to address Miss Judith Plim, the head of the Wicken League and Charlotte's aunt. This woman makes Granny Weatherwax look warm, gregarious, and flexible. She was insistent on keeping everything of Charlotte's that was exuberant and joyful tied down and smothered, and she's over here trying to prevent Charlotte and Alex from getting together. For *reasons*, Aunt Judith ends up with Detective Inspector Matthew Creeve, an avid witch hunter. This one...should probably just speak for itself, so here:

"You are a fetid witch." Miss Plim blushed. "And if I am not mistaken, sir, you are that revolting and heartless scourge of the earth, a witch hunter." He took a few steps toward her, his hips jerking in an attempt at manly swaggering. "What is your name?" "Judy," she said. "Matthew," he told her. [...] "I am fetid, bad, reprehensible," she said huskily. "How are you going to punish me, Matthew?"

And it goes pretty much where you'd expect it to from there. Not gonna lie, this felt a little random in the sense of "Camillo and Paulina get together at the end of Winter's Tale," but it was drop-dead funny, so I'm not complaining.

Third is the little subplot with Constantinopla, Tom, and Lady Armitage. In addition to stealing the amulet, Lady Armitage rather incidentally also steals Tom, and Alex has to keep reminding Charlotte that they probably ought to steal Tom back right alongside the amulet. Especially as Lady A is known for her prolific husband homicides. The deeply amusing payoff to this is that they get in the room just AFTER Lady A and Tom are married and have to kind of Princess Bride the whole thing because poor Tom is TERRIFIED of what Constantinopla will do if she finds out he said "I do" to another woman. Charlotte pretty much just goes "So don't tell her. It's fine. We'll bribe and/or threaten the Vicar. Just keep your trap shut and she never has to know." This blows Tom's mind entirely, but he rolls with it because he is deeply in love with his original fiance.

Before I wrap this up, I once again need to shout out India Holton's writing style. The sheer mastery of sneaky and hilarious literary allusions mixed with genuine sweetness and sincerity, and strong as hell characrer writing make these books stand out in my head. The prose itself is as much of a pleasure as the story and characters, and that's so rarely the case these days. These books are written for English major romance girlies (gender neutral) and the books love their readers back. So very, very much.

And that is where we will leave it for now! I've had my local bookshop order in the third Dangerous Damsels book for me, and I am very excited for it. If you haven't yet picked up The Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels, I recommend it before reading this book.

[crowpricorn]

🤡🎢💋🤩

thanks baby🧡

questions

🤡 What's a line, scene, or exchange you've written that made you laugh?

I surely think my first two fics, without warning (love shakes my heart) and wanting you now (but that's wishful thinking) are by far my funniest fics, bc I was more careless and uninhibited when I wrote those. one of my fav lines (& one of the only ones that comes to mind) is a classic (it's literally in the summary to wwlsmh):

"So—" he stares at Wylan, hoping, hoping. "Your Ma looks younger than I thought," he laughs a rigid laugh. A laugh that sounds foreign to his own ears.

Wylan stares with an intensity that makes Jesper want to tap his fingers against the wood of the table until the itch he feels vanishes with the constant movement. It wouldn't vanish, though, no matter how much he jostles and roams and frets and fusses — he is just restless, always moving towards something. The kids help the restlessness settle. Wylan's inquiring eyes don't. 

"Alys is not my mum," Wylan whispers — once again wanting to preserve Plumje from hearing too much. 

"Oh," Jesper feels like he is walking — floating — on the fucking moon. "I thought you were fifteen, top."

"I'm twenty-seven," he pauses, then he smiles to himself with a slyness that shakes Jesper for a sec. "Bottom," he adds, quiet, teasing, a glint in his eyes. 

Jesper stares, not understanding why— oh.

Oh.

🎢 Which of your fics would you call your wildest ride?

I wouldn't call any of my published fics my wildest ride, but if we are talking wips.. oh man! surely prince x bodyguard au both plot wise and planning wise (I got almost close to 100k words before dropping it mercilessly), but also witch wylan au(I love it but I need to be in a specific flow of thoughts mindset to write it, because I'm giving it a specific vibe that rarely comes to me, & from short silly one shot it's getting out of my hands plot wise!)

💋 First kiss fics. Love em or hate em?

I love themmmm!!! I especially love to align with canon in this, and make wylan the one to kiss first and jesper the mind blown flustered one. I love sweet first kisses, emotional first kisses, silly first kisses, innocent first kisses during childhood and drunk, desperate first kisses in adolescence. one of my fav tropes to write!!

🤩 Who is your favorite character to write?

has been jesper for a while, but lately it's wylan (and I'm also writing more of inej now! I love her)