#which is why I try to keep interest for the fic alive with drabbles and asks and polls

[pekoposting]

This is interesting! Particularly because it's a departure from the usual conclusions that hardcore Pekoyama fans usually make from this evidence. Which is...

Peko's biological parents are the Pekoyama clan

The typical interpretation goes something like this:

The Pekoyama clan is a band of renowned swordfighters. For whatever reason, they get in massive debt to the Kuzuryuu clan. The Kuzuryuu clan force them to repay these debts by taking their young heir, and training her to be a bodyguard for their own heir when he is born. We know the rest of the story.

The evidence for this is as follows (though keep in mind, I did not consider your interpretation when I was formulating this, so the evidence seemed more self-evident originally):

Pekoyama's name in the Japanese is spelt 辺古山 ペコ. Her family name, (辺古山) is spelt normally, in kanji. However, her first name is spelt in katakana, which as far as I can tell is the only of the three Japanese scripts not used to write Japanese names. Also it's literally just the first two phonetic sounds of her surname. Which gives the impression that her surname is real, and her first name is something carelessly made up on the fly because you have to call her something.

The fact that she has a family heirloom. Why would the Kuzuryuu clan know the family of an orphaned baby? As far as I know, people in Japan don't usually attach their family name when they're orphaning a child.

...Yeah, it was primarily based on the premise that out of the two contradictory pieces of information we get about Pekoyama's parents, the one at the end of Chapter 2 (that she was abandoned by them from birth) is the correct one.

Of course... there are still issues with this interpretation. Primarily, that Island Mode dialogue where she says she has memories of her parents being alive. The heirloom is a bit iffy, too. (Perhaps it's something the Kuzuryuu clan also took along with Pekoyama?)

The only excuse I can come up for the parents thing is that it is Pekoyama deliberately lying to make her childhood sound more normal. Because the closer she gets to telling the truth, the more questions Hinata will have, and she doesn't want that. That's not the point she's trying to convey anyways, so she goes with a simple lie to smooth it over so she can talk about her memories

There are issues with your interpretation too, namely that the Kuzuryuu clan risks giving Pekoyama an alternative motive through giving her actual parents, i.e. humanising her and possibly making her consider if there's other ways she can live. As we both know, Pekoyama's Island Mode ending implies that she is only so dedicated to her tool mindset because it's the only way she knows how to live.

Whilst I probably will come around to yours more as I let it sink into my brain, I'm going to be honest, I am still quite attached to the 'Pekoyama was stolen from the Pekoyama clan' interpretation, because I've spent a lot of time thinking about it, and because those hardcore Pekoyama fans have also written about it.

One of my absolute favourite implementations of it is at the end of thewildwilds' already incredible fic [absolute zero.] where it's mentioned that upon taking baby Pekoyama, her parents cursed the Kuzuryuu clan by swearing that their child would ultimately cause the destruction of the clan. That's SO DELICIOUS

As you know, I am very much a fic writer. So much so that my opinion on ships is often determined by easy/fun they are to write. And there is a lot of potential things to explore in this interpretation that I've barely ever seen anyone cover beyond 100 word drabbles.

For example... this means that Pekoyama is the only former RoD who could still have their parents alive. So... how would she cope with that? (I have some answers to that, but they're not precise, and this is getting long enough already.) NO ONE HAS EXPLORED HOW SHE'D INTERACT WITH HER BIO PARENTS AT ALL SOB. I may have to get over my natural reluctance to make OCs for this...

(This still could be explored under your interpretation, it's just that it's harder to pinpoint who her bio parents are, and those parents are less defined.)

In conclusion: what the hell even was this (MY POST NOT YOURS). There are several points I almost certainly forgot. Pekoytama.

Random tidbits about the Pekoyama Dojo

Peko was adopted by the Pekoyama Dojo

Peko reminiscence about her parents taking her to an old amusement park.

Because Peko was abandoned as a baby by her birth parents, it can be deduced all her memories regarding her parents is with her adoptive parents.

The only time she feels like smiling outside her Free Time Event, is when she is at an amusement park.

Because Peko was given the Pekoyama's family heirloom, and the obvious fact she bares the family name, you can infer that Peko's adoptive parents was from the Pekoyama Dojo on the Kuzuryus behalf.

Peko states that her dojo is not exactly a Kendo dojo. The fact that their family heirloom bears the symbol of the Kuzuryu clan mascot, the Pekoyamas were mostly likely a vassel family who served the Kuzuryus (I think the Japanese term is Kashin but don't quote me on that)

Peko's experiences at the Dojo

Just because it would be too much to screenshot, it's strongly implied that everything she did was a form of training. Peko can't take an activity at face value and see everything as a form of training. Examples include: Splitting watermelons, dropping coconuts, watching movies, going into haunted houses.

You could make the argument, because Peko was a 'tool', this was the justification to allow Peko to do normal activities.

Overall, Peko recalls only nice things about the dojo

As always, shout out to Peko's pet finch that probably hated her

Not canon in the slightest, but a moment from the manga

Mentions of Peko's childhood that may or may not be related to the dojo

[evansbby]

Hi! Hope all is well! I just found your poyt story and was wondering if you plan on finishing it? Sorry if you've answered this before, I just finished the main stories from it and so excited to see how/if it ends! Hope you have a good day!

Of course I plan on finishing it 😭 my whole blog is based around it, I’m always talking about it 😭

[heathtrash]

When you're working on TWW fanfic, how do you get like new inspiration or even just the motivation to keep going?

(p.s. thank you for keeping the fandom alive!!)

inspiration/ideas are something i almost never have a problem with. i come up with new scenarios for these gays almost constantly and it's everything in me to not just constantly begin new wips and crossovers and aus that have never been explored! and there's so much media to draw from with tww with all eight books, the shows, the movie, the spinoffs - idk but even like vanilla 2017 or 1998 stuff is always giving me life, maybe because i'm an insatiable multishipper with no chill and an adoration of rarepairs.

i also make sure i "read around" tww. i watch things or listen to audiobooks with a related genre or vibe, especially if i'm exploring au or want to go for a specific tone. keeping your brain active and making connections like this helps so much with inspiration and plot. it's like going on a silly little mental health walk, but instead of nature or whatever, you're opening your brain up to new possibilities. even something completely unrelated can spark something! it makes the worlds you write feel a bit richer as you're writing them.

motivation is something different, because i struggle with a lot of self-confidence in my own writing (lol, cptsd. i'm in therapy). comments on my works do really help with that. but these days people seem to feel weird about leaving comments on works that aren't like a week old??? bruh people still talk about books that are decades or centuries old. and we have some lovely people still in the fandom who are willing to read some of my work, and that is amazing to me!!

but of course, there are fics i've started that i am not sure will ever see the light of day because i feel like they're not good enough, or works that i've put up that very few people were interested in (rip to pippa university years my beloved. never escaped single digits on the kudos for 10k of fic). those embarrassments and failures hold me back so much because they confirm my own negative thoughts about my writing and make me not want to put my energy into this. i have a full plan of chapter 13 of a clock with no hands, but i keep giving myself imposter syndrome over my ability to write it well enough. idk. rationally, i know that the types of story i write are sometimes not what people want to read. i think it's important to talk about (please i am NOT fishing) because i'm sure there are many people who feel the same way. some people even look up to me as a writer?? but i cannot emphasise enough that it's a miracle that anything goes online with my mental health being how it is.

anyway, enough about me! mostly i try to think primarily of the fandom and what's best for us right now. that's why i'm running the drabble exchange, which i think will be a really fun way to get little sparks of inspiration going for everyone, as well as hopefully providing a chance for new writers to dip their toe into whatever ship they like! please sign up to join in - this is the last weekend before i close sign-ups!

i'm certainly not solely responsible for keeping the fandom alive though!!! there are some incredible artists who are doing a much better job of that than me with the recent influx of art - as well as all those who are writing new fics that are providing after the slump we had with the conclusion of the 2017 series. it was really hard to recover the fandom after s3, and i know i've had a small part to play in that with the twitter group chat evolving into reviving the discord. but i couldn't have done any of that if no one else was around to join in!

(also side note - general invitation extended to anyone who wants to join the discord!)

[nirikeehan]

Word Search Tag Game!

I got tagged by @theluckywizard to find five words in my fics and share a snippet from each.

Gasp: from A Fool's Errand, about Thalia and Cullen's failed attempt at getting busy on his desk lmfao

“Right. Um. Hang on.” He rolled to the left, exposing the seam at his side where the two plates of metal fastened with a comically high number of leather straps. Thalia gasped as his weight shifted, pinning her even harder against the desk. The hard mahogany wood dug painfully into her lower back. “Can you reach that?”  “Sure,” Thalia lied, trying not to wince. She wriggled beneath him, struggling to free an additional arm. “Could you stop leaning on my shoulder, please?” 

Blood: from Two Songs; Truth, Sadness, Sacrifice, about a night on the town in Kirkwall gone wrong for Cullen and Samson (featuring THE BOOT KNIFE)

Cullen slammed into him, knocking the boy’s cap off. A second later, he had Quno by the hair, standing behind him with the dagger to his neck. Quno let out a truncated squeal that Cullen silenced by pressing the blade closer to his scrawny throat.  “You’ll consider Samson’s debt paid,” Cullen rasped, “or else—” “Fucking—” Quno held up his arm, another ball of magic swirling in his hand, but Cullen concentrated on the lyrium in his blood and summoned a dispelling force. The spell went out with a hiss, like a torch dropped in a bucket of water.  Only then did Quno understand. Cullen felt the boy’s body tense with terror. “You— you’re a fucking Templar?” 

Gently: from It's Never Sunny in Barovia, my unhinged Curse of Strahd crossover WIP that no one asked for, featuring Metrion from Curse of Strahd: Twice Bitten which everyone should listen to so I'm not flying this blorbo flag alone

Thalia tries to protest, but he cuts her off. “No, no, maybe you’re right, a little bit. Or a lot. I dunno. Fuck. I never wanted to be in this place. It’ll wear you down, break you, faster’n you can run. We been told the devil knows our every move, that it’s all a game to him. That we’ll stay alive as long as we keep things interesting. But I dunno if painting your face would make much of a difference in the long run, if he’s got an eye on ya.”  Metrion sounds mournful, apologetic, as if trying to break bad news as gently as he can. Thalia reaches out, with a pang of sympathy, and touches his elbow through his long overcoat. He freezes, dares to meet her gaze only briefly before averting it again.  “Strahd must have a weakness,” Thalia says. “Everyone does.” How can she explain to him that she once stood down a man who would be god? What’s one more vampiric tyrant, in the face of someone like Corypheus? 

Sky: from Chapter 1 of Through a Glass, Darkly:

The sky hung low like a threat. It pulsated emerald green, punctuated by swirling dark clouds and detritus. His mouth tasted of ashes. The courtyard was choked with dead grass and fallen rock. Cullen blinked at it dumbly. His eyes hurt, even in the dim light. The near-total darkness of his cell had been all he’d known for weeks beyond count. 

Sharp: from the in-progress next chapter of Through a Glass, Darkly:

Some time later, Thalia returned to her tent, a bitter aftertaste lingering in her mouth. She felt a bit off-kilter, but relieved. Blackwall sat where she’d left him, his whetstone sliding along the edge of his blade in long, slow strokes. His eyes were on the fire.  Irritation stirred in Thalia’s chest. “That must be the sharpest sword known to man by now.”  His eyes snapped to her; his hand paused. Thalia felt a strange pang to behold him like this. Terrible memories churned in her mind: Blackwall’s sudden disappearance, his impassioned speech on the gallows in Val Royeaux, the way he’d looked at her through the bars of his cell. This is why I told you we couldn’t be together, he said, with perfect loathing, while her heart rent in two.

Tagging it forward to:

@bluewren | @monocytogenes | @inquisimer | @exalted-dawn-drabbles | @demarogue | @kiastirling-fanfic | anyone who wants to play!

Words for you to find: broken, tooth, stroll, civilization, satisfied.

[leviiattacks]

Could I request a Canon levi drabble? He realises he’s in love, confesses, then thinks about how he feels guilty for loving the reader

author note :: this was super quick but here u go !! i’m working on a long fic rn which is why it may not be great my brain hurts from all the writing i had to do for the fic 😞 ANYWAYS, shy levi ahead,,,, :-(

word count :: 1.2k

levi is super shy around you. he has no idea what to do, he has no idea what to say, he’s always stumbling over his words. it’s SO obvious that erwin and hange are able to decipher the meaning behind his unsual body language in a matter of seconds

might i add he’s always trying to subtly get your attention or at least look presentable

sometimes he leans against walls with one hand to look cool but one day he misses the wall completely and falls face first into a patch of mud

not a great experience because he sees you giggle at him

levi just ends up ignoring you and avoiding you a lot in an attempt to shake what he feels away but that’s another thing about levi when he’s in love. his infatuation is stubborn and unfading. unless given a valid reason to stop liking you he literally can’t force himself to stop how he feels

but sometimes there are opportunities where he does have to speak to you and despite avoiding you he finds himself surprisingly running into you more often than he thinks is humanely possible??

he’s in the kitchen making a cup of tea and suddenly you’re there to fetch some water.

he’s in the courtyard teaching some younger cadets and you happen to pass by looking for one of your blades you accidentally left behind

like he genuinely does not understand how he’s able to run into you this much because it makes no sense

apart from that he ends up taking a keen interest in your hobbies. he’ll try to understand why you enjoy specific things because the smile that paints your face is always so bright

you have this thing for strawberry jam and he’s never got why you enjoy it so much really ???

frankly he finds it to be so sweet to the point it’s sickening to digest

but that doesn’t stop him from buying some whilst in town and placing it in front of you one day

you look between levi and the jam jar a little confused

“you’ve been working hard and i accidentally bought this and i think you like strawberry jam so take it. i don’t want it.”

his explanation is UNBELIEVABLE because it’s a big fat lie but despite everyone else in the room being able to see through his facade you nod meekly and accept it with a grateful smile

after the jam incident everyone knows about how he has to feel but even if they do they don’t gossip about it when he’s around

now,,, levi is really in touch with how you feel because most of the time the way you feel impacts the way he feels. if he sees you laughing at dinner his mind is at ease but if your head is drooped downwards looking anywhere but up he makes a mental note to talk to you later

one day at dinner he sees jean whisper something in your ear and you laugh so hard you have to apologize to those around you for creating a disturbance

he burns in slight jealousy because he wants to know what’s so funny

that’s when his resolve starts slipping. he notices he’s stopped trying to ignore you and instead he’s gravitating towards you

and he hates it

vulnerability scares him so he stays away for a while until the next time you pull him in with your magnetic smile

once again, levi’s feelings are stubborn and unwavering.

he’s protective. always checking where you are in the formation. he can’t have any biases ruining expeditions so he never changes your position (despite wanting to on a number of occasions)

however, when the corps regroup he always looks around for a second ascertaining whether or not you’re in the vicinity and safe

one time he noticed you weren’t around and only relaxed when someone informed him you were with hange

he’s confusing when in love. hot and cold. left and right. dark and light. every move he makes he’ll make another that makes no sense. it’s because he’s never certain of what he feels. all he knows for certain is that he’s crashing hard and whatever is going on will end up in disaster if he doesn’t address it

it really does take him a long time to finally become mentally prepared enough to confess to you but he realises he has to push himself to do it otherwise he’ll only end up distracting himself and making a fatal mistake on the battlefield some day

he’s very nervous about it because he predicts you’ll reject him

“i’m interested in you.”

and when you don’t understand what he means by that he has to rephrase it a number of times before you do get it

“your actions concern me.” you still don’t get it

“i think we are jigsaw pieces.” again no nod of understanding from you, instead you ask him if he’s lost a puzzle piece and jokingly you suggest that sasha could have ate it

“if you were cold i would give you my jacket.” at that you say thank you but still don’t get what it is he means

he just doesn’t want to say it outright. he thinks it’ll be unbearably awkward.

but eventually he gives in and goes for it anyway

“fuck, what i’m trying to say is that i like you and i care for you...in a romantic way.”

he’s shocked when you beam, as cheerful as ever you say you like him back. he’s totally prepared for refusal so he just kinda stands there like a statue unsure with what he should do next

you take the lead moving to hold his hand with yours and when your fingers intertwine with his something in that moment makes levi feel whole. he feels full and happy.

from then on everything is smooth sailing, you and levi are happy but as the months pass and the tensions rise within paradis, levi’s guilt kicks in

he feels guilty for loving you and having the opportunity to have you love him back

there’s constantly a seed of worry in his stomach, it forever weighs him down and many of his sleepless nights are spent thinking about how he’ll have to let you go

after all, everyone he’s ever loved has had to face death’s door before him.

his fear gets the better of him and he even reaches the point of rehearsing what he plans to say to you in the case of a breakup

but this is levi we’re talking about and despite knowing you’re safer the further away you are from him he still latches onto you like a lost child

he thinks for once everything will be different. that you’re a positive sign. he chooses to have faith you make it out of this alive with him.

because although you could die you aren’t dead yet.

and that’s all that keeps his fiery hope steady.

he’s the candle and you’re his flickering flame of hope and for as long as he stands he vows he’ll keep you burning alive.

[lovee-infected]

I enjoy reading character analysis to understand them more and I've also noticed that some insert fics are like too exagerated and their personalities are far from the canon twst. I think some writers are just basing their fics to others and and makes conclusion about it and ignore important details or text on their cards?* And as a reader, I do sometimes think that "this" character are like that. Like Vil, being portrayed as narcisstic and beauty obssessed charac, I think he isnt like that and theres more to him than we think. Sorry for the long ask✌️

You're totally valid anon and I see your point, you know while I agree that each idea and interpretation on characters is worthy on its own and no one is bound to having a specific opinion or belief, getting too wild with personal fantasies and ignoring the originals can totally ruin the writing. Characters are often mischaracterized especially in reader insert fics and the most annoying part is that almost everyone is making the same mistakes about him-! Like some of the noticable mistakes would be:

(1) Femininely has nothing to do with Vil's terms of beauty

Oh lord what can I say- It's even against what Vil himself directly said through chapter five and how he cleared his point on male and female equal, and you can tell he is pretty strict about it.

Like did you just forget what he told Epel when he complained that he doesn't want to act like a girl: “a boy getting embarrassed about ‘acting like a girl,’ -- what year is your head stuck in??? did you take a time machine from 100 years ago??”

He doesn't seem to be one to appreciate the concept of labeling beauty as a female-only thing and on the other hand, he doesn't really seem to like the way women can be looked down on while being compared to men either. He seeks equality, and beauty wasn't ever defined as a feminine act in his dictionary; while there are tons of requests asking for: Vil forcing their trans s/o to wear more feminine clothes/ Vil asking their fem! s/o to wear more feminine stuff an look cuter/Vil complimenting s/o's appearance for not being feminine enough/... And literally TONS of requests like this. Please, you're forgetting one the most important parts of his personality, he considers male and female to be equal and it's so hecking important to show that he holds respect for all genders nonetheless.

(2) Vil's maturity is often ignored

Honestly, within all twst characters Vil's maturity on its own really impresses me. From the way he speaks to how serious and sincere he is all I gotta say is this man is waaay different from the way he's charactetized in most of the fics. Idk why but, he's sometimes charactetized as a guy who's ready to boil you alive if you dare touch any of his expensive make up pallettes or eyeshadows. Oh please, Vil isn't an angry child.

Also he often decides to keep his anger in, though you can tell when he's mad by just looking at his face. Clinching fists, trying not to talk and most likely, walking off or asking people to leave him alone until he calms down a bit is most likely his usual way of expressing his anger, but I've seen him being described as a loud, feral figure like Riddle is! Oh god no- Are you just ignoring how calm and collected Vil often tends to be?

(3) What's with the potato fetish?

While it's canon that Vil can sometimes call people around him potato. You may like to know that in some languages, potato is translated as "Apple of the ground", which can be an interesting reason of him using this nickname for people.

Watching Vil call students potatoes can be as entertaining as watching Malleus play with his tamagotchi, but again, it's important to realize that you don't have to only use potato when you're thinking of what Vil might say in a reader insert/situation!

Come on there are hundreds of different statements and sentences you can use other than just 'potatoes' and it'll get boring to read him saying the same nick name over and over in a fic. Good lord of course this isn't the only word he uses in communication so please try to avoid using it too much. This, is NOT the only word that he knows to use! (Seriously though I've seen being used like 6 times in a 500-word drabble)

(4) Please avoid spreading false information about him and his personality

Funny how I'm saying it here, but don't forget that you do not own him! Vil Schoenheit is a property of Disney/ Aniplex and all, which means that no one can certainly decide on his sexuality/ background/ unexplained character details unless it's officially announced.

Why am I saying this? Because some people are seriously going to far! I've seen people attacking others saying that Vil's pronouns are She/Her and not He/ Him like: EXCUSE ME...???

I don't want to get into details explaining how this drama is going but I've got to say something anyway, YOU DON'T HAVE THE RIGHT TO DECIDE ON HIS PRONOUNS! None of us do!

It's totally okay to have your personal preferences on his pronouns or anything else, but you must avoid spreading such information and forcing them on others as long as they aren't confirmed! Please keep your headcanons for yourself and don't confuse the fandom with them. Everyone's free to have their own headcanons but it's never okay to force them on others!

(5) Vil has a LOT to talk about other than just beauty!

Man... sometimes I feel like the fandom is just doing him dirty. Most of the reader inserts, fics , and even Vil memes have something to do with beauty while it's important to try and look through his personality as well instead of just sticking with the beauty aspect.

For example, through the Halloween event, I couldn't be any more surprised when Vil found the crying child who had lost their parents through the crowd and instead of just leaving them to headmaster or asking someone to take care of them he actually started to play with the child and entertrain and confront them on his own! That was probably one of his sweetest moments through the whole game and it really changed my mind about him! It was great to know that Vil as well can have a softer side when it comes to children, just imagine how good this can be used while writing a father AU for him!

His talents on the other hand need to be recognized, for example: his acting skills back in the ghost marriage proved how much of a great actor he can be and this can also give us lots of ideas to use in writings. On the other hand he's much of a celebrity on his own ( Woop- he's also got 2m followers on magicam) which gives us another great plot to write for him.

The way he is around close friends, how he compliments them and gets complimented by them in return, the way he manages Pomefiore and tries to put the students into doing their best in using their skills and lots of more interesting details that can be found through his stories are there to tell you that he's a lot more than just a beautiful Queen. A considerable part of his background as well is going to be released at he end of chapter 5 (Yes baby after the overblot Vil) and I hope that gives us all the opportunity to come up with stronger personalities and plots next time that we're describing or even, characterizing Vil!

Lmao I kind of rushed to finish this so I didn't get to talk about him as much as I wanted to, but hope that this is useful anyway.

[stillebesat]

Demon Comfort (1/3)

DECEMBER DRABBLES DAY 10 Sanders Sides: Logan, Virgil  Blurb: Lurking under a Human’s bed should be downright dull for a Demon of Logan’s rank. And yet...he can’t help but be intrigued by his human charge. Fic Type: Demon!AU, Demon!Logan  Overall Fic Warnings: Near Death Experiences, Freezing, Burning, Hazing Talk, Manipulation  Taglist in reblog. 

It wasn’t the most glorious of jobs. Logan wouldn’t be the first demon to admit it. Lurking under a human’s bed was mundane at best and outright mind numbing at worst. 

They were so distracted with their technology these days, so overloaded with sensory input from a variety of sources that most humans would barely twitch if their demon companion made themselves known. 

No. Beyond using this as an exercise in learning how to terrorize the youngest of human offspring, ones whose minds were much more easy to scare because of their simplistic fears, the only other time a demon was ever assigned to this task was...well as punishment.  

And unfortunately for Logan, who had had a good three millennia of experience under his wings...this was definitely a punishment. To be forced back into lurking under a human’s bed like an overgrown dust bunny.

He knew this sentence was meant to break him. To drive him crazy from how extremely dull it would get as soon as the child grew old enough to stop fearing the monster under their bed.

Except it wasn’t. Logan allowed a small smile to play upon his lips, tail swishing back and forth. Because apparently his superiors could make mistakes. After all, he’d been told he would be condemned to lurking underneath a child’s bed.

Instead, he’d found himself underneath a near-adult’s. One who would soon be leaving his childhood home to pursue an education elsewhere and learn to navigate the world of being an adult on his own. 

It had turned out to be a far more interesting punishment than Logan had expected. The near-adults were known to his kind to often be in a stage of tumultuous growth, easy to influence when their heads were filled to the brim with a variety of doubts and fears that hovered like a dark storm cloud above them. A tangle of ever shifting and writhing threads that Logan had learned to love, in the past half year on earth he’d been here, to tease apart and influence so he could better understand what spurred this near-adult through life.

Virgil, the charge he’d been assigned to, truly was a diamond in the rough compared to the other near-adults he’d glimpsed while stuck here. The storm cloud over his head so tangled, that Logan could easily play with the threads for hours, teasing through them, seeing how each dark thought influenced the human as he tossed and turned on the thin mattress over his head each night.

Only Virgil wasn’t currently tossing and turning over his head. 

Logan silently exhaled, his breath misting in front of him as his leathery wings twitched in irritation. He ran his fingers over his horns, trying and failing to focus on the Alice in Wonderland book that his charge had left on the floor this morning as he listened to the human shiver on the couch in the living room on the other side of the wall. 

He hadn’t often had the opportunity to study humans when their planet frosted over since his particular type of demon preferred the warmer climates of Earth that were similar to his native inner ring of Hell. Had had very little interest in ever doing so.

But Logan’s current human had chosen to move away from the heat and the shining sun when he ‘left the nest’ as his fellow demons termed it. 

Further north than Logan would have preferred. But despite hours upon hours of tugging and twisting at the quivering thoughts in Virgil’s mind... this had been one decision he hadn’t managed to turn to his favor. 

No, Virgil had wanted a new start far away from his previous life, far far away from everyone he knew, and he’d decided that heading to a colder climate was the best course of action.

Now Logan was definitely regretting not fighting with those slippery thoughts harder. But how could he, or the human, have known that a freak cold snap would leave the state frozen in near arctic conditions? 

It was cold enough outside of the four walls of the first floor apartment that humans were dying if they ventured out for longer than a few minutes.

Inside? It was nearly as bad because the apartment had been without power and therefore without its ability to heat the place for the past seventy-two hours. 

His charge, his stubbornly stubborn, but very poor charge had to be the only human left in the entire complex. The last of the other residents having left over forty-eight hours ago to safer and warmer options once it became clear that the power couldn’t be fixed until the weather warmed.

If it ever warmed. 

Logan shut the book, having not read a single word on the page for the past hour. He rested his head on the cover, wings trembling as he fought to keep his body temperature lower so that no steam would come off his body and alert his charge to his presence.

This would have been much easier if he could just come out from under the bed and take Virgil somewhere warmer. He had wings did he not? He could fly them anywhere--but no.

Logan grimaced, running his tongue over his fangs. Demons and Humans weren’t supposed to mingle unless a Human summoned them. 

And until that unlikely event happened. 

Virgil couldn’t know he was there. 

Which was a pity. Even if he hadn’t had his wings to fly them away, his physical manifestation would have done much in his favor in convincing his charge to leave this frozen wasteland.

Instead, Logan had fought for hours with the tangles in Virgil’s mind, pulling at all the proper strings to get him to leave---and yet again had irritatingly lost to his charge.

There was a reason why he hadn’t minded being stuck with Virgil for the foreseeable future and it was because his, dare he say it? Smart and brilliant human could bring up excellent, if befuddling at times, points to his silent arguments that Logan couldn’t easily manipulate in his favor. 

His charge’s finances were borderline nonexistent. Which meant he couldn’t afford to fly back home. And Virgil didn’t own a car so he couldn’t drive anywhere. The buses weren’t running either because of the cold. Nor could he afford to stay in a hotel. 

And most unfortunately, moving away from everyone he knew and Virgil’s naturally reclusive nature meant that his charge had no friends or even acquaintances to go live with within a thousand miles while his obnoxiously loud, rude, and inconsiderate roommates had vanished without so much as checking in with him to make sure he had a place to go to. 

No. Logan growled under his breath, tail tapping against the floor. For all intents and purposes. Virgil was on his own to survive this cold snap--

He jerked his head up, glancing to the wall with a frown at the sudden silence coming from the other room.

That wasn’t right.

Automatically Logan reached out for the sluggish tangle of thoughts that Virgil always had twisting about his head.

Nothing. 

Logan blinked. That definitely wasn’t right. He pushed up onto his elbows, barely remembering to duck his head to avoid piercing the mattress above with his horns.

Virgil couldn’t have left. Not in this weather. He was too cautious for that. Logan would have heard the door slam at least which meant that Virgil was still here and if he was still here he should be able to reach those tangled thoughts even while his charge slept unless Virgil had--had----

“No.” Logan rolled out from under the bed, chest throbbing uncomfortably as he sprang to his feet and burst through the bedroom door into the living room. His wings spread wide as he grabbed the motionless figure from his cocoon of blankets on the couch, wincing at the frozen chill that burned his skin as he cradled the nearly blue human in his arms. His wings snapped shut around the near-adult to insulate him from the cold, his wings taking on a red glow as allowed his inner fire to burn hotter to get heat into his charge’s frozen body. 

He should have tried harder to get him to leave! Especially when the power had gone out. He shouldn’t have let--“Virgil.” Logan shook his charge, using the back of his hand to brush the purple bangs from out of the human’s eyes. “VIRGIL.”  

The human suddenly gasped, twitching in Logan’s arms as his glazed eyes fluttered open, meeting Logan’s own slitted ones for a heart stopping second before they closed. The human twisted, pressing his frozen face into Logan’s side, violently trembling. “C-c-co-o-ld.” He mumbled.

Alive. The tightness in his chest eased as Logan shoved to his feet, holding Virgil close like a mother cradling her demon spawn as he moved back to his charge’s bedroom where he would be able to use his hellfire in the smaller space more effectively to ensure the young human would survive. “Not for long, I promise you that.” 

It wasn’t proper, he shouldn’t have come out and revealed himself like this in the first place without taking on a human disguise. He shouldn’t have cared if Virgil perished. He should have just gone back to Hell to say that his sentence had ended with the death of his charge instead of trying to save him--but propriety could go screw itself. 

Virgil was far too interesting of a human to lose to something as stupid as freezing to death. 

“Wh-who--y-y-y-you?” Virgil managed to ask through chattering teeth as Logan entered his--well he supposed it was technically their room since Logan lived there too. 

“A--” Well he wasn’t really a friend now was he? Demons and Humans couldn’t be friends. And Logan’s actions in toying with the human’s mind would hardly be deemed acceptable in most human social circles he was sure. “A Guardian.” He said, settling on that particular term with a twitch of his tail as he climbed onto the bed, adjusting his wings to ensure that the heat radiating off of him remained focused on keeping Virgil warm. 

 Technically he was looking out for Virgil’s well-being, even if he hadn’t taken such direct action in doing so before this moment.  

The human sighed, eyes fluttering again as his arms shifted, pressing frozen fingers into Logan’s side. “An--An-Angel?” Logan snorted, shaking his head as he carefully ran his clawed fingers through the human’s hair. “Hardly, You may call me…” He took a breath, it was another rule he shouldn’t break, but he’d already broken at least a dozen already. Why not add a lucky thirteenth to the list? “Logan.”

Odds were the human wasn’t mentally cognizant enough for it to do any harm. If luck was on his side, Virgil would think this whole thing a dream once he really woke up.  

“Lo.” Virgil breathed, his trembling form relaxing as the blue tinge to his skin faded. “Th-th-thanks.” 

Logan swallowed, his hearts stuttering in his chest at the unexpected nickname. Mentally he shook his head, settling them into a more comfortable position where he would be able to leave the human as soon as his body temperature returned to a satisfactory level. 

It was nothing. Nothing. The human probably just couldn’t say his whole name without stuttering. That was it. He’d be back under the bed before Virgil woke and the human would think the whole thing a dream. So this...this was nothing. Everything would return to normal on the morrow where Logan would lurk under the bed and the near-adult would remain unaware of just exactly how his room was managing to stay warmer than the rest of the apartment. 

And yet. 

“You’re welcome.” He whispered, unable to stop running his claws through Virgil’s hair as his shuddering breaths evened out into the steady rhythm of sleep; for once not thinking about picking at the tangle of thoughts faintly twisting above the human’s head. 

To Be Continued Part 2  Part 3

[newtedison]

my thoughts on the crank palace

i touched about this a bit on twitter (@newtedison_) but i figured i would Try and touch on my points more here (spoilers obv) again, its sort of lengthy

1. im gonna start with talking about the ending because i need to get it out of the way. either i havent read the books in a while and i forgot some canon (which could very well be true, i literally forgot that Bliss was a thing) or this ending makes no sense and is (somehow) setting up for a tdc sequel? so first off, newt was shot in the Head with a Bullet and somehow didnt immediately die? i know that that can happen in real life but it just seems so unlikely that not only would he not die, but he would survive long enough for someone from WCKD to transport him back to their labs and try to revive him. and who the fuck was he talking to? did thomas get newt’s journal at some point and i just dont remember? like i said, either im forgetting stuff or this ending doesnt make sense and is setting up a sequel which...i’ll get to later

2. why was this written? like, what was the point? i understand that this wasnt going to be all sunshine and rainbows but i feel like i was reading torture porn. like, literally all that happens is newt gets tortured (which is described in detail) by WCKD soldiers, has bouts of insane-fueled rage where he KILLS MULTIPLE PEOPLE, and then he dies. ??? what did this contribute to the canon? what was this trying to accomplish? truthfully, i never really wanted a newt-POV...well, anything except for maybe those little nuggets he wrote some time ago. but even if i HAD wanted a newt-POV novella, this is not what i would have wanted. he KNOWS that newt is almost universally the most loved character in this franchise. you can tell because he constantly uses him as a way to get fans in his good graces again. so why on earth would he take that character that so many people love and write a novella where its torture porn and a descent into madness before death? i am not interested in that At All. i’ve read fics (and even written a drabble) where newt is a Crank, and those were more respectful and easier to read than tcp. the parts where newt is having bouts of the Flare were literally exhausting to read; it was described in such vivid and torturous detail that it made me sick reading it. and it didnt help that newt is a character i care a lot about. i didn’t need to know what becoming a Crank felt like. the way it was described in the other books (and even the movies) told me everything i needed to know. the way thomas and everyone found newt at the crank palace in tdc and hes described as obviously not well, but not knowing what exactly happened to him...thats good enough on its own. the mystery of what exactly newt had to endure is part of what gives his journey more emotional depth. not everything needs to be written out and explained. not every gap needs to be filled in. 

3. me saying “the characterization felt off” is going to make some people roll their eyes because ‘duh, sami, the characterization will be off because he’s going insane’ to which i say...exactly. we weren’t really reading a newt-POV novella, were we? even if he isn’t past the Gone in the beginning, hes clearly not the same person we knew him as. the whole novella felt like an uncanny valley situation; i knew i was supposed to be reading about newt, but it felt like i was reading about someone else who looked like him. and that is part of what made this such a disconnect and made me lose interest at parts. not only that, but the world building and lore is inconsistent. newt makes a comment about how it used to rain in the glade, and apparently (as ive been told) that is simply not true. keisha having somehow working cell phone that magically connects her to her family also doesnt make sense. how would they have each others’ numbers? what are the odds that they BOTH found working cell phones in an apocalypse? i get that its a novella but you cant just throw something that crazy in there as a plot convenience. actually work on your plot and world building in a cohesive way, please. and another thing that doesnt make sense...

4. ...is newt finding out that sonya is his sister. if there was anything i would have wanted from a newt-pov novella, it would have been this. him finding out that not only is sonya his sister, but he already knows her post-WCKD. something that would have made this novella actually captivating, contributing something worthwhile to the canon that i would actually want to read, is if newt found out while in the crank palace that sonya was his sister; the Flare would remove that part of the Slice in his brain, and he would realize it was her. then, knowing that he couldnt go past the Gone before seeing her, he would try to find a way to get back to her. he could learn this after thomas and everyone originally see him, so it could match up with the canon. and then, by the time 250 comes along, hes lost all hope of that actually happening, and lashes out to thomas in a fit of rage. the journey of him trying to find his ACTUAL sister would have meant more to me than the story of keisha and dante. trust me, i love a found family trope as much as the next girl. but this series is FULL of the found family trope. it pretty much is the backbone of the franchise. so to see a blood family dynamic would have been a refreshing change of pace that i actually would have been interested in reading. also, the way that newt DOES find out about sonya is...underwhelming. he just randomly says “you remind me of my sister, sonya” to keisha in the WCKD truck. first of all, sonya is not the name you would actually know her by. you would know her by her birth name (which is lizzy? elizabeth?). second, why does he act like he didnt already meet her in the series? when the WCKD doctor tells him sonya is his sister and is alive, hes so surprised. wouldn’t he have known that already? why is there not more emphasis on the fact he already met her? that would have been a really interesting dynamic to explore, and im sad they didnt

5. the pacing and dialogue of tcp is so dragged out. i remember specifically there was a section where newt goes to talk to keisha after she starts abandoning dante, and i swear to god there was a page and a half of text before anything ACTUALLY happened or anyone ACTUALLY said anything. dashner described a launcher at one point as “the energy dependent electric firing projectile device.” that’s SIX words to describe a stun gun. a fucking stun gun! we know what it is! why did you have to use six words??? it just felt like everything was dragged and stretched to the longest it could possibly be and it added to the exhaustion i felt while reading it

6. okay i cant end it without talking about newtmas. its very obvious by now that newtmas is a VERY large part of this fanbase. its clearly the most popular ship and what keeps a lot of people interested in this series. even the marketing team for the MOVIES used newtmas as a advertising tactic (i.e.; using thomas and newt standing face to face as a thumbnail for the trailer, emphasizing newtmas based questions in interviews, even making a fucking facebook memories video for them. yes that last one is real). not only does dashner use newt as a way to lure fans in; he also uses newtmas. the parts that were sprinkled into this were so obvious that it didnt feel authentic. i cant speak for the original trilogy; i dont know the culture around ships back then, and i dont know how much it influenced his writing at the time. but the scenes in those books felt more genuine than tcp. by genuine i mean; he wrote scenes without a relationship in mind, but the chemistry had noticeable subtext that, while unintentional, was largely agreed upon by the larger audience. the parts of newtmas he added into tcp felt artificial and forced, likely as a way for people to take snippets of and use as a free marketing tool for him. one example you might have already seen; “he had already gotten used to his post-thomas, post-WCKD life.” the fact that dashner SPECIFICALLY used the phrase “post-thomas” rather than “post-his friends” or something similar shows that he is using newtmas as a hook on purpose. not only that, but to make newt’s last thoughts as he died “tommy. tommy will understand...” is...wow. first of all, i never wanted to know what newt’s dying thoughts were, but thanks, i guess? and second, when we all initially thought newt died underneath thomas with a gun to his head, i was pretty much inferred that newts last thoughts would probably be about thomas; they would sort of have to be, given the circumstances. so adding that in gives me the same feeling that “i’m coming for you, newt” at the end of the fever code gave me. not as offensive, but written very much on purpose. and the ending is implying that there will somehow be a sequel where thomas gets newt’s journal from...someone. at this point, i can only think that this sequel will retroactively make newtmas canon somehow. now that newt has been confirmed as gay, it could happen. which brings me to my last point...

7. hearing dashner confirm newt is gay was already mind-boggling before. now that i’ve read the crank palace...im angry. im very angry. i think its safe to say that newt is the character that suffers the most in this series. you can argue with me but hes definitely high on the list, if not #1. so; you take this character. you give him a horribly sad arc in the original trilogy, then decide to expand upon it and tell us, your largely QUEER fanbase, exactly how painful and torturous his last days were, in detail. and then you tell us he’s gay. something that is never mentioned in the canon, only in an offhanded reply to a tweet of someone calling you out. on a base level, i can understand why people would be happy. representation (i guess), seeing themselves in the character, having their headcanons be confirmed. great. but what i see is you telling your largely queer fanbase “hey, you see the only confirmed gay character? im going to literally write torture porn about him before killing him off and offer it to you like im providing a service to your community.” how fucked up is that? “hey, kids, if youre gay, you WILL be violently tortured and become violent and a danger to the ones you love. then you will die and your love will never be reciprocated.” what a message! and if he DOES end up retroactively making newtmas “canon” in some weird sequel...i will start foaming at the mouth. THIS is an example of how not all queer representation is good or genuine.

i’ve definitely forgotten some points but this is long enough already. let me know if you agree or if theres anything else you want to add! im interested in what you guys think

(8. I JUST REMEMBERED!!! if WCKD needed to study newt so bad bc sonya is his sister and is immune while he isnt, why did they let him run around the crank palace in the first place??? you cant test his vitals or anything you’re literally just watching him. what is the point????)

[myimmortalisimmortal]

Why Chapter 39 of My Immortal was due to an actual hacker

After considering some findings, I’m confident in this theory. And thus, I’m confident anyone who claims to be Tara Gilesbie while claiming the hacked chapter was faked is not being honest. Below I will explain why I believe so and how I came across this information in the first place.

All this was from a long chain of breadcrumbs. Let’s go back... all to the mid 2000s in the LiveJournal days when Tara Gilesbie had a dedicated fan club.

The Tara Gilesbie Fan Club

One thing that particularly stuck out was members mentioning finding Tara through IMDb. Yes, you heard right.

[ID: Two comments on the Tara Gilesbie Fan Club LiveJournal.

The first is from ‘golden_helikaon’ on 2008-01-19 writing, “I found it on the Order of the Phoenix IMDb board. There were several long threads dedicated to ripping her apart with every new chapter.”

The second comment is from ‘heartdreamerz’ on 2008-01-20 writing, “It was almost 2 years ago and I've told this story many times. I knew Tara a month before My Immortal was published. It was on IMDb's board for My Chemical Romance. When the story came out I knew about it but didn't pay attention because I wasn't into HP at the moment. Then, like icarus_malfoy wrote, there were the threads about her and that's when my interest started. There were also another troll on the His Dark Materials...” (Image cuts off.) End ID.]

According to this, Tara Gilesbie was already tyrannizing the internet before she posted My Immortal. This actually is very consistent with the fact “Tara Gliesbie is totlly Gottik” was a petition that existed in November 2005. (My Immortal was posted in March 2006.)

This IMDb profile seemed very intriguing. It hasn’t been mentioned much, and isn’t considered to be official by most people. Was it a legitimate account? If so, was there gothicness we were deprived of all along? I searched to try find out more about it, hoping screen captures or something would turn up. Luckily, one of the same members copied and pasted Tara’s bio in another comment.

[ID: A comment on the Tara Gilesbie Fan Club LiveJournal by ‘heartdreamerz’ on 2007-05-05 writing, “All her posts are deleted now. I can still visit her profile because she's on my friend list. Her bio:

‘hi im tara. im a goth (n prode!). i have died blak hair n blu eyez. i wer eyeliner a lot of da time. i hav a bf. his naym is justin. he rox! i liv in Dubia.

likz: eyliner, goffik makep, beng goffik, GOOD CHRALOTTE, death, sleting my rists, drak colorz, hot topik _

dizliks: beng alive, bo, pop music, brite colors, pink, brabie, hiraly doof da music i lik: linen prak, GOOD CHRELOTE, evinezenz, simpl plan, akon, arvil levine, blink-183, panik! at da disko, foll oot boi, mcr. HIRALY DOOF IS A PSR!

fav moviez: when a stranger kallz, da grudge, da grudge 2, korps bird, da nitemare b4 krismas, da ring 2, da ring, shrak attak, undreworld 2, da texas chonsow massakre da bogenning

ps 2 all da prepz nd pozers tryin 2 diz me u r jus jeloz!!!! so yolsentik nd hartdremer u kan go fok ur momz 4 al i ker ok U SUK!!!111′

I feel so special to be personally insulted by her on her profile.” End ID.]

People like to copy & paste things stupid things to laugh at all the time (no offense Tara), so I thought: why not Google some of the bio? Maybe whoever did that posted additional stuff.

And it worked! (I found more content from Tara’s supposed IMDb, but more on that for a different post.)

When searching the bio, a Reddit thread about Rose Christo popped up.

During Rose Christo’s brief reign, a user said Rose’s claims seemed to check out. This user actually happens to be the same commenter, Heartdreamerz, in the LiveJournal thread. (Which makes sense, considering she’s the one who originally had the bio I was searching.) 

If you don’t feel like clicking the Reddit link, basically she confirmed Rose’s claim that two Filipino users from the forums hacked the account.

Because of Heartdreamerz’ long involvement in My Immortal and the fact she never claimed to be Tara or Raven, I take a lot of trust in her word.

Heartdreamerz linked the FF.net profile of the original hacker: Coruscate Corruption.

Looking up “Coruscate Corruption” had me come across this from the LiveJournal fan club, which implies that there were two hackers.

[ID: post on the Tara Gilesbie Fan Club Livejournal by 'nicespice' on Dec. 28th, 2006, writing, “Just a little thing I drabbled down. Hope it's not too horrible. What do you think?

There is an evil on FF.net and All who encounters it feels their Respiratory system give out And become too scared to scream. Gruesome, it is. The anti-christ fanfiction, My Immortal, written by a total idiot. Does she Leave you to cry tears of blood, because I have before. EarnestInBerlin and Coruscate Corruption, the hackers, Sought to bring My Immortal redemption. Too Bad the real Tara had to come back so soon to ruin the fun. I wish she had at least continued her story, I look at her fic Everytime I go online, wishing she'd just update so I could laugh at... Tara Gilesbie." End ID.]

While searching “Coruscate Corruption”, a few posts popped up from a forum for The Bartimaeus Sequence called Bartiforums.

[ID: Two images showing 3 forum posts by Mwamba.

The first post was a reply to, "Mwamba, how did you crack both passys? Just guessing or what?"

On December 8th 2006, Mwamba replied, "Tara's was just pure luck. It didn't take long to get. The password was tara. *snorts* Post's was just guessing too, but I remembered when his passy was cracked on here, so I tried out the same password. It worked. Oh yeah, and I wrote a fanfic for Post, it's a rip off of Tara's story, but meh.”

The last two posts were made on January 14th, 2007. The second post wrote, "It was me. I had complete control for two days. And then EarnestInBerlin had to hack in too and change the password. But then she told what it was and then the real Tara had to come back and rechange her passy so nobody could get in. But that's old news. That account is most certainly not mine. I could not continue that fic for 39 chapters, I'd get bored after the first fifteen.”

The third post wrote, “*Shrug* It doesn't matter. Call me whatever. Though if I have to pick, I suppose you can call me by my FF.net name, Coruscate Corruption. What book category are you writing this fic in? Just curious.” End ID.]

Chapter 39 was posted late November 2006, so that first post was only a few weeks after it happened.

The password was “tara”... does that ring a bell at all?

[ID: A screencap from Rose Christo’s now-deleted blog. It says, “And My Immortal? You can come to your own conclusions. This was really never about the fic; it was the marketing team at SMP that decided to make My Immortal the main part of the story. Our email address was gofikchick@hotmail.com and our password was tara.” End ID.]

-- Rose Christo’s claim before deleting

 You may be asking, “Rose Christo? The woman who lied about her family, being Native American, and writing My Immortal to sell a book?” Yes, that Rose Christo. Yes, she was a fraud and a scammer, but she peppered in some little-known true details to make her claim seem more legit. For instance, she talked about a Voldemort rper in the reviews, and that ended up being true. You can actually find this Voldemort reviewer in the web archives of Raven’s stories. (Apparently, that Voldemort even came out and said “hey, that’s me!” Cannot find it unfortunately.)

Keep in mind the only way I found any of this was because Rose Christo made that claim. Without it, Heartdreamerz wouldn’t have made that post that led to Coruscate Corruption and those posts on Bartiforums. It’s possible Rose somehow came across the same information I did, but it’s more likely she was there. Rose Christo may not be the author of My Immortal, but it was likely she was a spectator as it all went down. (As I was a spectator for Rose’s ordeal when it all went down.)

 Since it was said the hackers posted on the fanfiction forums, I sought to find it by searching “Tara”, “My Immortal”, etc. on FFnet’s search. The posts are unfortunately long gone, but there is a surviving forum called “My Immortal Forum Tara Gilesbie is a genius!”

[ID: A screencap of “My Immortal Forum Tara Gilesbie is a genius!” from Fanfiction net. Someone named Ebony Dark’ness wrote, “I have personally logged on to Tara’s account when her password was revealed after she got hacked.” End ID.]

TL;DR: Multiple, separate people made consistent claims over the span of years. Because of this, I personally believe Tara’s account was legitimately hacked.

(Sources/links will be added in a reblog.)

[arysthaeniru]

aAAA the joy of seeing an update on your current favorite fanfic is just aAAA

I always felt that kiwami 1s Nishiki was just a bit too,, I dont know how to describe it; but essentially he just felt off, granted yakuza 1 is a product of its time and therefore the plot is a bit dated and whack as all hell

The way you write Nishiki just feels so much better and realistic; in the original he just seems so uncaring towards Kiryu? which just feels kinda OOC? You'd think he still cares about Kiryu despite it all, especially when you take Yakuza 0 into consideration; and i feel like you portray Nishiki much more accurately

I never thought much about Yumi, because honestly, in the original she was kinda just, there? You actually made her a very interesting person! like I'm actually invested in her in your story! (side note you ever think about her clone who got tortued and died? yeah who WAS that???? thats never brought up is it??)

Theres so much more to talk about but in short; This is the best fix it/rewrite of a game plot I have read to date and it brings me joy in my current stressful school life. and no I will not stop praising it or the author, because this work has made me very happy. ;)

I just have a gift for picking favorites that end up dying,,aand another favorite of mine is Mine

imo theres a lack of soft, reassuring Minedai, i just feel like he'd need a reminder that people love him as a person and not just for the money he can provide, even if its obvious

I'd love to see how you'd write them, but I understand if theres more interesting/appealing drabble requests!

- Carp

CARP, thank you for this <3 this is so sweet!!!!! I’m so happy you enjoy my Nishiki! I had fun playing with what Yakuza 0/the Kiwami additions gave us about Nishiki’s personality and outlook on the world, and trying to reconcile that with the plot that Yakuza 1 initially had. Ultimately, I fell on the side that you did: even if Nishiki’s ambition took him down a monstrous path, I don’t think he’s the sort of person who neglects to pay back his debts. And he’s aware of the huge debt he owes Kiryu. Not to mention, their bonds of trust and love vanishing completely because of jealousy felt unreal to me. Their relationship becoming twisted or strange? Yes, but vanishing entirely felt unsatsifying to me. 

And Yumi!! I had so much fun excavating her character from the clues we get of her in canon. I worry sometimes, that she’s unrecognizable, because you know, I’ve given her a college education, and a whole bunch of interests beyond hostessing alone, but people seem to like it and like her, which is great!! I hate fridging women characters, so keeping her and Reina alive was important to me, hahaha. (RE: fake!Mizuki, there’s this substory in Kiwami that actually addresses who she was, BUT IT’S EVEN MORE HORRIFYING. So that’s why Yumi in my fic is the one captured and tortured by Nishiki’s men, because the thought of this poor innocent woman getting dragged into the mess was just untenable to me.)  

Anyway, thank you for your support and kind words, and I hope you’ll continue to read and that my fic can continue to relieve stress. I--tried to write this about Mine, but Daigo kind of stole the spotlight a little??? I hope you still like it--if not, I will try a ficlet from Mine’s perspective too. I enjoy minedai a lot, but I haven’t had room to think out their dynamic yet, so this took me a while. 

Daigo’s no stranger to being desired. He’s attractive, he knows this—his mother’s beauty lives in his veins, and he’s always had the money to look after himself. Fancy soaps to wash his face, the invisible retainers to keep his teeth straight, fancy suits and skin-tight shirts to show off his frame. For all that Kiryu insists his charisma is something that comes from the soul, Daigo knows it wouldn’t be able to draw the sort of attention he does without being attractive.

Which is to say that Daigo’s not especially thrown off by the intensity of Mine’s gaze. It’s happened before, and it’ll happen again. The thing that surprises him is how much he relishes in being seen by Mine.

Maybe it’s because Mine’s an island in a stormy sea, one of the only yakuza his age who’s sensible and level-headed enough to make it big. Maybe it’s because Mine’s gaze is always so reserved, polite, never overly lusty or overstaying its welcome, and Daigo has so rarely been desired so quietly. Or maybe it’s because Majima and Kashiwagi so clearly disapprove of him—Daigo’s always been something of a rebel, and he hasn’t shaken that off, even now he’s in his thirties and is the arbiter of rules for the Tojo Clan.

Daigo can’t quite put a pin on why he’s so comfortable with Mine’s yearning looks, but he’s never been one to hold back when he wants to indulge in something good. Not exactly a hedonist, not by yakuza standards, but Daigo has never kept himself from enjoying life, in the name of some dubious ‘honour.’

Which is why, in an after-hours meeting with Mine, as they eat cheap takeout sushi together, Daigo takes his chance. A momentary slip, the slightest hint of wasabi left at the corners of Mine’s lips and Daigo swoops in, rubs a thumb over the corner of Mine’s lips. Mine stutters to a stop, mid-sentence through a rundown of the real-estate that the Hakuho Clan’s been purchasing up, and stares at Daigo, eyes bewildered.

“Sixth Chairman?” he asks, his voice still remarkably composed.

“Wasabi.” Daigo says, nonchalantly, as if it’s nothing, and sticks his thumb into his mouth, slowly licking it off with a lingering lave of his tongue. He feels a sharp stab of satisfaction as Mine’s eyes turn darker, and his gaze follows Daigo’s hand down.  

Daigo straightens up, languidly, and cracks his neck, casually. At this point in the day, he’s untucked his shirt, and he knows that a slight strip of his stomach will be visible when he stretches out his arms towards the ceiling. And as predictably as clockwork, Mine’s gaze darts downwards, to that pale expanse, to catch that brief second of skin. Daigo can’t help but feel warm. Something about being watched by Mine is exhilarating.

“Smoke?” offers Daigo, but as usual, Mine refuses, with a polite shake of his head.

Daigo knows from hearsay that Mine’s something a health-freak, so he’s not entirely surprised. It’s already too late for Daigo to preserve his health—he knows that his liver’s already been pretty ruined from long nights of binge-drinking as a youth, and this job’s too stressful to withhold from vices like smoking and drinking, without an optimal end-goal. So he walks over to the window, cracks it open a little, and lights up.

The breath of nicotine curls over his body, a tender caress, and Daigo feels his shoulders drop, as the relaxation hits. He pulls off his cufflinks, tosses them into his pockets and rolls up his sleeves. He takes it slow, runs his fingers over his skin a little more than strictly necessary. Surreptitiously checking the reflection in the window, Daigo watches Mine watch him, and smirks at how intense that gaze is, how Mine’s mouth has opened, and Daigo can just see the soft pink of his tongue.

“Dojima’s just fine, you know. When it’s just us two.” Daigo says, turning over his shoulder. He smiles, one of those charming smiles that had always gotten him whatever he wanted as a child, “We’re same-aged friends, after all.”

“Dojima-san.” Mine acknowledges, after a brief pause.

Daigo turns around, to properly look at Mine and lifts an eyebrow. “Dojima. Or Daigo, preferably. Dojima-san’s always my father in my head.”

Mine nods, face impassive. Daigo can’t read him like this. Maybe that’s why he likes when Mine stares at him, filled with longing. At least then, Daigo feels like he knows him. In moments like these, his implacable gazes might as well be a brick wall. “Right. Your Father was also in the Tojo Clan.”

Daigo smiles, wryly, and blows out a puff of smoke. “One of the most horrible men I’ve ever had the misfortune of meeting—and I had to call him Father. But damn if he wasn’t good at the job.” He sighs and stubs the cigarette out against the ashtray. “...sometimes feel like I’m competing with his dead spirit. Everybody’s looking at me and wondering if this is what my Father would do. Or what Kiryu-san would do.”

“You’re doing better than any of them.” Mine says, immediately, with a vicious ferocity that Daigo wasn’t expecting. He can’t quite stop his eyebrows rising in surprise, and Mine straightens upwards, looking self-conscious immediately. Daigo regrets his instinctual reaction, immediately. “That is to say, Dojima, that I think that you’ve pulled this Clan into somewhere far more respectable. From what I’ve heard of your Father, he didn’t have the temperament to do proper business on this level—too insistent on formal obeisance and unable to be flexible as the times require. And Kiryu-san might be very honourable, but we are yakuza. There are certain things you have to do as a Chairman, that he couldn’t bring himself to do. But you are practical and do what is necessary, while also not overstepping into excessive violence. You are uniquely suited for this job, Dojima.”

...he’s taken aback a little, he can’t deny it. Daigo wonders if his cheeks are colouring, wonders if his obvious shock is offputting, wonders if this is how Mine feels every time Daigo teases him lightly about his obvious attraction. A startling warmth spreads through his chest, and Daigo can’t stop the slight smile that touches his face. Has anybody ever said something so unreservedly kind and measured about Daigo before?

Maybe this is the difference between everybody else’s gazes on him, and Mine’s gaze. It’s based on something more than desire alone. Respect.

Daigo runs a hand over his slicked-back hair and ruffles it free, with a rueful smile, a smile that he couldn’t take away from his face, even if he tried. “I appreciate that. You know I couldn’t do it without you, right?”

He’d never really believed himself capable of attraction to a man like Mine. All of his previous childhood crushes had been on bright, cheerful conversational, pure-hearted people. Daigo had always figured they would balance out his sardonic cynicism. He’d never thought someone as reserved and principled as Mine would ever make his heart flutter. But then, there was something about that deep hunger and passion that Daigo craved. Perhaps it was because he was no longer the gloomy punk of his youth. Maybe his tastes have changed towards tall, dark and handsome. Maybe Mine’s just that special.

“Dojima—” Mine says, clearly trying to refute it, but Daigo cuts him off.

“I mean it. Everybody in this fucking Clan wants me to do something or be somebody else. Kashiwagi-san wants me to be my mother. Majima-san wants me to be Kiryu-san. Everybody else expects my Father. But not you. You deal with me honestly, and with candour, and never hold any expectations against me except success. I appreciate your faith in me.” Daigo takes a couple of steps forward, until his shoes almost brush up against Mine’s own. He leans down over Mine’s chair. “I could not do this without your backing and help. Truly. I don’t think I’ve ever had someone like you in my life. A true friend.”

Mine tilts his chin up to meet Daigo’s gaze, a hungry devotion in his eyes, and Daigo, for a moment, wonders if this is wrong. If he should hold back, like Kiryu would. But Daigo is Daigo, and Mine clearly wants him anyway, so he leans down and kisses him.

Mine’s mouth is velvety smooth and wet and hot and it is oh-so satisfying a feeling to put his hand against Mine’s broad neck and feel his warmth up against Daigo. He pulls back, with a satisfied sigh, and feels the burn of wasabi across his lips, a final parting kick.

[temilyrights]

Let Me Love You

30. “You don’t see me.” 

50. “People are staring”  

Word Count: If I don’t tell you then you can’t tell me this isn’t a drabble. 

Requested: Anon

A/N: Jack Sloane/Reader. I had a few different ideas for this one but this was the idea that finally won, sorry it’s taken a while! This is written from Jack’s POV which I don’t think I’ve done in a fic I’ve posted yet? Thank you for being a great distraction from my university work. I hope you enjoy it, and thank you for the request! :)

Jack was tired of this game. The back and forth between the two of you had been exciting to begin with. The teasing, the flirting, the looks, it had made her feel alive.

But then every time over the last few months when she’d tried to progress the relationship, you’d suddenly pull away. It was subtle enough that at first Jack thought maybe she’d read too much into everything and this was your way of saying you weren’t interested, but she could feel your eyes on her, could feel the way you tracked her around a room, always looking away just before she could catch you.

It was one step forward, two steps back, and she was so tired. The two of you must have been playing different games, and Jack really didn’t like the one you were playing, it left her heart in turmoil and had her second-guessing every interaction the two of you shared, but tonight, tonight had been the final straw.

“Hey, Jack wait!” Jack ducks her head lower as she pushes her way through the crowd of people, ignoring your calls. She just needed to make it to the safety of her car, and she’s suddenly grateful that she’d only had one beer.

You catch her arm just as she’s crossing the threshold of the bar, spinning her back to face you with a surprising amount of force. Your eyebrows are knitted together in confusion, and it makes Jack madder that you didn’t even understand, “Jack, hey, where are you going?”

“Home.” Your eyes flash with hurt at her curt response, and she quickly pulls her arm away from your grip.

“But-”

“I can’t,” Her voice catches, she takes a breath, and puts on a smile that she hopes is at least somewhat reassuring, “It’s been a long day, I’m tired. Go enjoy the rest of your night, and I’ll see you at the office on Monday, okay?”

She can keep the smile on her face, she’s perfected that, but your gaze is too inquisitive. You’ve gotten too good at reading her, and Jack finds herself averting her eyes which only makes your concern deepen, “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

You scoff, “No one who says they’re fine is ever actually fine, I think you’re the one who told me that.”

She was, and she’s suddenly regretting it.

“I thought we were having fun, and then I went to get drinks and you were gone by the time I made it back to the table.”

It’s Jack’s turn to scoff, “You running away is having fun?” You look away, but she catches the panic in your eyes. And Jack’s in too much pain to care at this point, so instead, she pushes and finally allows herself to say the things she’s wanted to for months. “I can’t play your game anymore. You either want me or you don’t but you need to decide because all you’re doing is letting me get close enough that I think we might be finally getting somewhere and then you shut me out again!”

“I... I…” Jack watches you scramble for words as your eyes dart around the parking lot. You look back at her; the panic is still clear in your eyes, but you take a deep breath and Jack feels the hope rise in her chest that maybe- “People are staring.”

She closes her eyes and takes a steadying breath, allowing the disappointment to course through her. She really couldn’t do this anymore. She manages a sad smile when she opens her eyes, “I’m going to go home now. I’ll see you on Monday.”

Jack doesn’t wait for a response and instead turns to go. She only makes it a couple of steps before you’re calling her name again, and against her better judgement, her feet come to a halt.

“Wait, I’m sorry. I just…” You swallow roughly, and Jack slowly turns back around to face you and she’s blown away by the amount of pain she sees in your face. “I like you, okay? I like you way more than I probably should, and it’s terrifying but what’s worse than that is that you don’t see me.”

Jack frowns, “Of course I see you.”

“No. No, you don’t see the real me. You don’t see how much of a mess I am, you don’t see all the things I do or have done wrong, you just see the good, put together Y/N that people want.”

Oh. Jack sighs, her anger fading away as she looks at you sadly, taking a step closer. “I do see you. I see the person you try so desperately to hide behind your walls.” She grabs your forearm, before sliding down and tangling your fingers together. “I know there are things I don’t see, but I’m here, with you, because I want to see them. I want you.”

You’re already shaking your head, “I’m messy.”

Jack chuckles, “And I’m not?”

Your eyes remain fixed to your joined hands, “W-what if you see them and you decide it’s too much? That I’m too much.”

“I won’t do that.”

“You don’t know that. And I understand if that’s the case, but it’ll break me, Jack. I can’t-” Your voice cracks and a few tears trickle down your cheeks. Jack softly wipes them away and savours the feeling of you leaning into her touch.

“I love you.” Your gaze snaps up to Jack’s sad eyes.

“Y-You what?”

“I’m in love with you. That’s how serious I am about this. I’m not going anywhere.” More tears trickle down your cheeks, “So please, let me love you. Let yourself love me and-”

“I do love you. I love you so much.” Jack feels her own emotions welling up at your words, she smiles softly, stroking your cheek before leaning in and kissing you softly. She pulls back and watches as your eyelids flutter back open and you grin.

“Come back to the bar?” You ask, squeezing the hand still entangled with yours.

Jack looks to the building, and thinks about joining the rest of the team again, who are no doubt trying to work out why she suddenly left, “There’s a park around the corner, how about we go on a walk instead?”

“Okay.” You nod, “Let me go grab my bag, and then we’ll go.” You start to leave but barely make it two steps before you’re turning back around, “forgot something” you mutter, before leaning in and pressing a soft peck to her lips.

Jack rolls her eyes even though she knows she’s got a dopey smile on her face, “go get your stuff.” She pushes you away softly, and you grin and quickly sprint back to the bar. Jack’s eyes are on you the whole time, and the second you disappear from her eyeline she takes a deep breath and grins, allowing a happiness she hasn’t felt for a long time to settle into her bones.

[broken-minded-love]

@sad-sweet-cowboah Hope you don’t mind if I start a new post here, I don’t want to prolong the debate by doing this, but I still have some things to say and the other post is getting kind of ridiculous and is hard to reply to due to it’s length.  I’ll quote a few things from the original thread to keep it linked in reply and physically here for posterity.  [...I know it makes me seem suspicious but I have a habit of reading things without saving them, etc...] I appreciate that you wouldn’t keep track like that, who does? However, I can’t see any credit given to HOGO or her work on your blog/story before the original call out drama in 2019? Obviously you may have done that privately, but I know how fandoms work and there’s a lot of mutual backscratching in drama’s like this so it seems impossible to truly validate any of this independently, which is a shame. Perhaps it was my mistake, but when you said you’d been inspired by HOGO’s fics I assumed she’d written a full fic. I can’t find an actual chaptered fan fic following videogame Arthur in modern times from HOGO, and nothing of him in that setting by himself. It all seems to be involving the gang too, which is quite a different dynamic to what occurs in your series and Wish Upon. I can see how it would be difficult to keep track of HOGO’s posts, even if you were trying too, because I can see dozens of drabbles, but nothing as a titled fic you could keep track of.  I can also see why those little scenes and dialogs may have inspired you, but as I said I can’t see any credit for the inspiration as you claimed? Besides which, it’s all kind of a moot point, because I think the bigger issue seems to be less about the initial inspiration and more about the timing and direct comparisons that can be drawn between your series and Wish Upon.  [...I also included the-awkward-outlaw’s series as an example since you mentioned previously that it’s a “very niche” topic when it’s more popular than one would think. ...] Well, yes, it is now, but it wasn’t to begin with. Ever since the onset of this drama, I’ve only seen a tiny handful of attempts at covering Arthur in the modern world in a fic, which still makes it niche when you compare to the volume of repeated themes in Red Dead fics over all.  It was a completely non existent plotline (at least on AO3/FFNET) in October ‘18 through Jan ‘19, and the game had been out for three months already when @miss-oscurita published Wish Upon. Yet no one had stepped up to bring us a story covering the concept of video game Arthur alive in 2018/9.  The reason Wish Upon hooked me personally, was because it was completely different to the numerous “damsel in distress”, “highborn babe”, “tough outlaw chick” that were a dime a dozen. There was also several “modern reader goes back in time” stories too, but Wish Upon was the first incarnation of Arthur coming out of the game into the modern world, in an actual fic at least. No doubt the idea could have been circulating, but no one had actually taken the time to put it into an actual story to my knowledge.   Does that mean Oscurita should hold a monopoly on the idea? Of course not, but it does explain why anything that followed Wish Upon’s publication, including TOA’s recent works, will be bound to draw comparisons simply because Wish Upon was first on the scene to cover the topic, and as a result is likely the most well known version of it.  I think the real issue here isn’t who all’s covered Arthur living in modern times, it’s more the issue over the dynamic where the protag is familiar with him as a character, because the dynamic of the pairing and the story itself changes so much when it’s explored from that angle. The dynamic is also affected when the fic focuses only on the two main characters (as with the gang being in the modern world in HOGO’s concepts) especially when they are both aware he’s fictional that it’s really something that can only be done once, maybe twice at a push. And yes you’d have to be certifiable to believe ideas won’t overlap, I mean it’s going to be a really hollow story if you don’t cover things like Arthur using a microwave, or using a toothbrush and showering for the first time, or learning to drive, discovering movies and what not. However, from what I seen over the course of this matter, it seems the issue with it all lies in how and when these elements are explored in the story. I may be wrong, but I don’t think there’s ever been an issue raised with any other parts of your series beyond that of As We Meet, has there?  And the issues raised over the original instalment and the rewritten piece seemed to be because it essentially follows the exact pattern of Wish Upon’s first few chapters, as we’ve already discussed.

[... I’m 99% positive the catalyst was a h-o-g-o oneshot of Arthur discovering lingerie...]

Funny that you should mention discovering lingerie when @miss-oscurita’s most recent update included Arthur discovering modern underwear for the first time. I don’t recall in which of your stories he did that?

Just in the interest of being informed, I searched HOGO’s blog and found a chapter mentioning lingerie (which I assume is the one that inspired you?) but that in itself is a classic example of how the same idea can be done by two different people and still be complete different.

Which I’m sorry to say really only further highlights why the similarities in your opening chapters are such a cause for concern.

Regardless of the inspiration, if we list the similarities we have from the original piece, and the rewrite the issues are pretty clear. 

1) Young female gamer protag.

2) Modern day setting.

3) Both have adopted silver tabby cats.

4) Both have the backdrop of being alone on a stormy night.

5) Both involved with an event that brings Arthur out of the game.

6) Both aware of him as a fictional character before being a flesh and blood man.

4) Both immediately assume him to be an intruder.

5) Both think they are dreaming and pinch themselves.

6) Both use touch as a way to confirm he’s there in the flesh.

7) Both fics use the same name for animals.

8) Both fics almost immediately go on to explore Arthur showering, discovering cellphones, watching TV/movies, using a microwave, in almost the exact same order. 9) Both use some variation of the “my Arthur” device. 

Then in the rewrite you make changes to also include:

10) Both use his horse to confirm he’s ripped straight from the game.

11) Both use extremely similar types of names for the horses. 

12) Both work from home, for one reason or another.   Seeing it written out like that I can more understand why people have red flagged it, as it goes a bit beyond simply exploring the same concept as the likes of HOGO/TAO may be doing.  I mean it was bound to flare things up to include additional similar elements. What I don’t get is, knowing how toxic the fandom is, and that you’re under the microscope over this, why you didn’t take the rewrite as an opportunity to distance yourself from those similarities?  And if I’m brutally frank with you here, it does come across as a bit of “drama farming” when you know the consequences of similarities all too well. And what I still don’t get is how you’ve not managed to move away from these controversies?  I’m a lot of a loser, and have kept an eye on this drama since it began and I have to say when you interjected with the other drama around Wish Upon late last year, that came across to me as looking for drama, or at least being lead to it by someone else somewhere. I don’t know where you got the tip off for that, because the post wasn’t tagged and I only saw it due to following @miss-oscurita/you on my fandom account and the other writer in question was very new to the RDR fandom and likely didn’t have much of a following.  Add that to the poor wording on the announcements of your rewrites and you know, I’m sure it’s innocent on your part, but I can see why it doesn’t look good to others.  I mean I could easily believe you were trying to avoid making the stories similar and accidentally included the horse thing simply because your ideas and the ideas from Wish Upon merged, because unless you’re able to keep them firmly separate in your head it’s going to happen now you know of Wish Upon. If it was me, I’d be doing my best to not give anyone any more reason to throw shit at my house. Instead you’ve somehow managed to do the opposite. The rewrite was a missed opportunity to draw a line under all the past drama, and that’s disappointing to see as a reader and a writer too.  I do hope you manage to sort this all out, and that there’s no further public bashing over it all but now the seal is broken on it all it’ll be very hard to prevent the sharks smelling the tiniest drop of blood in the water. 

[itwillbeall-dwight]

what happens in metropolis

david tapp & dwight fairfield; canon-typical violence; saw timeline!dwight; panic attack tw; 3481 words

a/n: did you think i was gonna write things that made sense? HA thats very funny. anyways i hc dwight is from the saw timeline. why? because i like dwight and i like saw ok, shut up. i also want some dad tapp content and if i have to make it myself then i WILL.

i’ve got a couple more fics that are almost done, i promise im not dead. as always, drabble reqs are open, so if you liked this for some reason, get into my askbox ya dingus.

likes < reblogs, any comments in the tags are appreciated

ao3 mirror in the reblogs!

Preview: The leader gave a weak smile, moreso to comfort himself than anything else, it seemed, wincing as he rolled his shoulder. “OK… what now?” “We’ve gotta that off you. Did she… explain the rules?” “I… no, but I-I think I’ve got it.” Dwight started to shuffle where he was curled up, trying to get to his feet, but he was still somewhat shaky, like a newborn fawn, leaning on the wall of scrap as well as Tapp for support. He inhaled, and exhaled, breath still short. “There were… boxes, I think the key is in there.” Of course, that made the most sense, it seemed. “Right. You start heading to one of those, and I’ll-”

From across the yard, a generator powered on, and from where they sat, the clock started counting down. 

Waking up by the campfire was like waking up from a bad hangover. There was a thump in his head and the taste of iron in the back of his throat, as he shielded his eyes from the distant light of fire. As he stirred, the little company residing by the flames paid him mind, checking on his condition, asking who he was with a pity in his eyes that he didn’t quite understand. But he told them regardless - he was David Tapp, a detective from the Metropolitan PD (former, though they didn’t need to know that, not yet), and, as far as he remembered, he was investigating the Jigsaw murders.

 They didn’t know much, about the fog and forest that surrounded them, but the redheaded Meg told him what they knew, introducing him around the camp at the few people that were there - some of them were in a ‘trial’, she’d said, while also adding she’d explain that later, as well - trying to make him feel as at ease as he could be in the situation they were in. He sat down on a log as she went off to talk to the girl in the beanie again, taking his hat off and rubbing the back of his neck, looking down at the dull police badge that hung around his neck, almost mocking him at a false sense of status.

 “I, um- hey.”

A voice next to him made him look up, meeting the eyes of a man in glasses, fiddling with his tie. The leader of the group, Meg had said. Dwight was his name. Tapp forced a small smile. “Uh… hey.”

“Do you, um…” He seemed oddly nervous, avoiding eye contact and simply moving a hand to gesture to the seat next to the detective. “Do you mind i-if I-”

He silently moved aside, letting the younger man sit down, oddly tense and awkwardly keeping his eyes on the fire in front of them, or maybe to the conversation quickly growing heated between the beanie girl and the tall brutish young man just across from the campfire. Tapp followed his eyes, leaning forward with his elbows on his legs-

“I-I know who you are.”

The phrase was somewhat unnerving, coming from the man in the glasses now staring very intently at him as his head almost snapped back to look at him. The detective hesitated for a moment. “Y… yeah?”

“...That sounded… really bad- god, I-I’m sorry, I just- I- argh, dammit-”

“No, no, you’re good, kid.”

He inhaled, and exhaled, wringing his hands as if to calm himself down. “You’re… Detective David Tapp, aren’t you? You were investigating the Jigsaw murders. I-I saw your… your memorial, on TV.”

A breath caught in his throat, if only for a moment, as he tried not to think about the thought of a send off when he still was still alive, in… some capacity. “I… see.”

There was an empty silence after that revelation, with Dwight still keeping his eyes on the man as he swallowed, seeming to try and wrap his head around the idea that someone had watched him live and die. “You did an a-amazing job, if it… means anything.”

He sighed, sitting up, his voice lower, as if not to alert the others - better not to spread the secret too far… at least, not yet. “Did they catch the bastard?”

He paused. “I… yeah. They caught one of them, I-I think. Kind of. He, uh… died.”

There was a quiet growl from the man. Of course there had to be more than one. For a moment, he thought back to the doctor he was tailing - just who else was involved in those twisted games of playing god? And if not him, who was it?

They didn’t speak much more on it, after that, as the trial had concluded and a hand slapped down on his shoulder, introductions moving swiftly on and leaving the young man who knew too much about him with his mouth hanging open. 

 Despite their first meeting, Dwight was a capable leader, Tapp soon learned. He was a kind man, sacrificial to a point, nowhere near as much of a coward as he’d initially thought, as he watched him push his friends over to take a slash from a machete or a pair of mangled claws. He made plans, gave orders - no matter the weak disposition it was given in, one that felt like paper in a strong breeze - and protected those who he called his friends, no matter the teasing and harsh words thrown his way by a select few. He was a man trying to prove himself, either to those around him or…

 Tapp had learned what trials were, soon enough, guided by Claudette as they tried to evade the Trapper, a large, tall man, armed with a machete and bear traps, as if he was hunting down small game in the forest… in a way, that was almost accurate. That trial, while stressful, soon passed in success, and while the whole situation was still unbelievable, he soon found himself oddly adapting to the new world in the fog that he found himself in - get in, try not to die, repair generators, and leave. It didn’t take long for him to take the initiative and start giving input on plans of attack, earning a joking comment from the old gambler of the group that maybe he was better made for the leadership position than who was currently in employ. He tried to ignore that, for Dwight’s sake. 

 This should have been no different. Though this was his first time in the Autohaven Wreckers, loud annoyed groaning from Nea when the fog cleared was enough to make him think that this wasn’t going to be easy. After catching sight of Laurie and Dwight, the four of them split off, aiming to find generator’s around the wrecker’s yard, for efficiency’s sake. One was already powered by the time he spotted a pair of blinking lights… but between the trees, something else caught his eyes. A box, not like anything he’d seen previously, steel casing rusted, though untouched. But the box, while interesting in its own right, wasn’t what made him approach the damn thing.

 It was the monochromatic ventriloquist dummy sat on top. 

 Seeing that bastard puppet was enough to make him approach slowly, staring at the box it sat upon - it was like seeing an old friend, but one you’d want to snap the neck of. And it stared back, almost mocking him. His stomach turned. Had Gordon followed him? That had to be who this was, right? Tapp gritted his teeth, wanting to punch the damn thing off of its torture throne, but knowing that would probably alert… someone to where he was, someone he didn’t want to know. So he forced himself to tear away, fists clenched. It was like wading through water as he crouched down by a nearby generator, pulling at levers and twisting at cogs to make it sigh and whir… though that puppet never stopped looking at him. And he never stopped looking back, until-

 A loud scream made him duck behind the generator for a moment, wincing at the grinding of metal against a scrap wall, and the begging, the pleading… no one had ever reacted like that before. The curiosity was enough to make him look around the mechanical device to catch a glance of the Jigsaw killer.

He recognized her movements, and the way she carried herself almost right away, and the way he kicked himself would have made him double over. Of course Amanda was involved - the bastard broke her down, and rebuilt her in his own design. And now, she was just as much of a prisoner as he was, stuck in the fog with nothing to do but suffer at the hands of her fate. Though she took hers with pride, it seemed. She enjoyed the hunt, the chase and the kill. Was she too far gone to be saved from that which she thought had first saved her? He couldn’t entirely say. 

 The philosophical waxing had to be paused, though, as quiet, panicked whimpers made him stop, hands hovering over the generator he was about to resume repairing. He listened to the strained, weakened breathing, almost holding his own to listen. It was just in front of him, where the attack had failed. Slowly standing to his feet, the detective did what he did best - keeping his posture low as to not be spotted by the pig-headed woman, he went to investigate.

 It was Dwight, hidden behind a wall with his back pressed against it, and he was in a bad way, holding onto the space around in his collarbone, blood staining his palms as he tried to muffle his panicked That wasn’t what originally drew the detective’s attention, however, as a familiar helmet was strapped to his head, almost entirely covering his face. He felt his stomach drop.

“...Fairfield-” He kept his voice quiet, but it still startled the nervous man, who only started to panic more, it seemed. He put a hand on Dwight’s shoulder, and god, was he shaking under his grip. “Right, right, just breathe, kid.” 

Tired eyes look up at him from inside the helmet, strained and shallow breaths from hyperventilation making his chest move up and down at a worrying pace. He couldn’t say anything, he only held Tapp’s arm in place to keep him there.

“C’mon, you got this, in and out.”

Dwight soon followed instructions, taking as much care as he could to breathe, though he hiccupped and stuttered from tears every so often.

“Yeah… there you go. That’s it.” It wasn’t much, but it was a start. Tapp gave the man a gentle nod, digging into his belt for a couple of medical supplies he’d scraped together earlier in the trial. “Let’s get you up and at ‘em, yeah?”

 He calmed down enough to start panic rambling, and the way he switched from one extreme to another was almost welcome, as Tapp gently wrapped the bandaged over the deep cut from the hidden blade. Dwight spoke of before the fog, when he was alone in his shitty apartment with nothing but two birds to keep him company, barely earning enough to afford to live, but surviving by the skin of his teeth every month when the rent was due. He’d hardly slept before, but murders on your doorstep didn’t make it any better, especially since they were targeting the average man, just like him. And after an accident he conveniently skipped around, his paranoia only got worse.

“I-I saw one, once.” He stuttered, voice almost echoing through the trap on his head, as Tapp tied off the gauze.

“A murder?”

“A trap. In the open. A-and no one could do anything about it, I saw it on my way to work. The girl, she was- I… god, they just-”

“Fuckin’ Christ…”

“Yeah… yeah, that. Exactly that.” The leader gave a weak smile, moreso to comfort himself than anything else, it seemed, wincing as he rolled his shoulder. “OK… what now?”

“We’ve gotta that off you. Did she… explain the rules?”

“I… no, but I-I think I’ve got it.” Dwight started to shuffle where he was curled up, trying to get to his feet, but he was still somewhat shaky, like a newborn fawn, leaning on the wall of scrap as well as Tapp for support. He inhaled, and exhaled, breath still short. “There were… boxes, I think the key is in there.”

Of course, that made the most sense, it seemed. “Right. You start heading to one of those, and I’ll-”

 From across the yard, a generator powered on, and from where they sat, the clock started counting down. 

 That only started to send Dwight off again, eyes growing wide with fear as he looked back to the detective, who seemed equally as stunned. It seemed like she’d been busy, workshopping her craft.

As the leader started to buckle under his own weight again, Tapp grabbed onto his arm - not too hard, but just firm enough to keep him in place - and began looking around between trees for that bastard puppet that he’d seen earlier in the trial. As he tried to keep them both out of sight, he heard the stifled breathing behind him, as the leader tried to calm himself down while the two leaned around a tree, watching the Pig chase after the determined blonde in the blue shirt. He reached to grip onto Tapp’s shoulders, knuckles going white from the force, palms sweaty. Tapp put a hand on top of one, and gently tapped at it for a silent comfort. Once the killer was well distracted, he led Dwight to the first box. No luck.

 A second box, on the same side of the junkyard.  A quarter of the time gone. Nothing.

 Box three, on a hill besides the dingy old shack. Half time. Nothing.

 Now with only one box left, the leader was growing more frantic. Tapp held onto his wrist as he pulled him around the killer shack, pressing his back against the wall, his own heartbeat in his ears matching the beeping from the helmet. He looked back to the younger survivor.

“It’s just up ahead. Go.”

“She k-knows I’m- I-I’ll die, I’m going t-to-”

“I’ll cover you. Go, grab your life.” He was firm in his demand. But still, the leader didn’t move. He repeated, raising his voice a little. “Go!”

Dwight followed that order, practically stumbling over himself to leap to the box and shove his hands into it, wincing as his hands dug into needles and thorns on the inside that he couldn’t see.

And while the detective’s eye followed him, he noticed someone else following him as well, concealed in the grass, ready to pounce. He gritted his teeth, silently asking her to forgive him someday for what he was about to do (and what he had already done), before reaching down by the entrance to the old shack and grabbing a handful of pebbles. Tapp weighed these in his hand for a moment, before tossing them in her direction.

Bullseye. He heard her squeal from the hit, before growling and standing to her feet, turning in the detective’s direction, where he made no attempt to hide himself, ready to throw another rock should she choose to ignore him. “...Fancy meeting you here.”

“Could say the same to you.”

“I hadn’t realised I wasn’t the only pig that they’d let out of the slaughterhouse. I would have thrown a party for your arrival, Detective.”

The bite of her words was venomous, purposely crafted to throw him off, but he did not let it show. He still looked her in the eyes and stood his ground, until he could smell the rotting pig head she wore. “Would have appreciated it a lot more than this, Ms. Young.”

“Tell me, Detective,” Now Amanda, she was a woman of wearier disposition, broken from circumstances, but this new woman, a woman made of a pig? She thrived in the violence and the fear. That much he deducted, from the way she looked up at him, and though it was hard to see her eyes, he could almost see the fire in them. “Are you sure this is the game you want to play?”

For a moment, Tapp’s eyes fell behind her head, where Dwight had taken his hands out of the box, dripping with blood and sweat and shaking from fatigue and stress, before looking back to her. “It isn’t a game I haven’t played before. I can dance.”

 He tried to lead her some distance away from the puppet-adorned box where they leader still struggled, but the Pig was no fool, catching him by surprise in an open area with a knife to the gut, pinning him to the floor in his surprise with a wrist blade to his neck, threatening to slice it open a second time. The detective gritted his teeth, both from the pain and the strain of pushing her arm away, until he was just able to push her off of him, scrambling to his feet and blocking the entrance to the shack with the palette at the door. He took the time she was taking to break the obstacle to leave the shack, with no choice to run closer to the trap box, closer to Dwight, to a small collection of scrap metal walls, formed with another wooden palette and a window frame, which he quickly vaulted over to avoid a failed swipe.

 “Dwight!” He looked back as he ran the killer around a long wall connecting to the window, still seeing the leader digging through the box, loud beeping ever imminent. “Dwight, come on!”

The timer was so close to flatlining, and Dwight wasn’t doing too hot, panicking as he tried to find some solace in the cold metal expanse in front of him.

Tapp quickly slammed the palette down onto the killer’s head, hearing her squeal as he stood there, breath catching in his throat. “Dwight!”

He pulled his hand out of the box with a key in hand, quickly unlocking the mechanism and ripping the trap off of his head as it snapped open, surely to be his end if he’d messed up just once more. Breathing heavily, he felt along his face, blood gathering on his fingers from where the rusted teeth had dug into his cheeks, among the cuts and bruises from rummaging through the boxes to find his life. 

The detective was almost so caught up in himself that he didn’t hear the growl and the sound of the palette breaking behind him, the adrenaline kicking in to push him forward into a sprint, taking hold of Dwight again and pulling him along as the Pig gathered herself, and got back on their trail. “C’mon, time to go.”

 They were lucky to make it just in time, a failed swipe from the killer catching at their back as they ran into the fog where she couldn’t chase them. Tapp looked down, finally letting go of the younger man and placing a hand on his shoulder. “You OK?”

A breathless laugh escaped him, as he looked up to Tapp. “I- I- you- we- ...I’m alive. I’m alive!”

The detective smiled, about to say something before he was cut off from a tight hug, the younger survivor happily crying into his chest, getting snot all over the front of his vest. Tapp’s hands hovered for a moment, not entirely sure how to react, before he finally decided to just pat his back. 

“Thank you, thank you so much, thank you-”

“Hey, slow down, catch a breath.” He couldn’t help but laugh a little, though it was a lot more awkward than the few times he’d had to comfort lost kids who came into the station. Still, Dwight appreciated it regardless.

 “Well, you guys seem just fine and dandy.”

Dwight pulled himself away suddenly, looking up as he pushed up his glasses and rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand, as Laurie finally joined them in escaping the trial, sheepishly stepping away. “I… yeah.”

She gave the two of them a look, almost fond. “Nea said she knew where the hatch was, and while I wanted to stay to see her out here, I’m almost glad I didn’t. You’d never hear the end of it.”

“Wouldn’t put it past her.” Tapp chipped in, as the young woman nodded, flipping the flashlight she’d brought with her between two hands.

 The three of them returned to the campfire, Dwight and Laurie sharing a small conversation, taking care to almost dote on his face wounds from the trap he’d barely escaped from, while Tapp listened along. Dwight had almost recovered from the ordeal, though his voice still shook, and it made him think. They knew each other… or at least, he knew of the detective, of the traps, of the killings. How intimately was still up to debate, but the way he reacted in the trial told him that it was something that had deeply disturbed him. And while he’d never been much of a leader himself, but Dwight looked up to him, in the way a student did a teacher - protection, and guidance. Was it because of his attachment to the case? He didn’t deserve the title, or the treatment (he’d still failed, on the larger scale, of Dwight’s account of the public execution trap was to be believed), but if one person still believed in him despite his failures… then he had to get out, if only for that. 

 He needed to catch the Jigsaw killer, or whatever was left of them as a collective. For the sake of people just like Dwight.

[jealousmaude]

Stories with Strangers

Ezra (Prospect, 2018) x OC (sorta)

Prompt: Ezra makes up an heroic story about losing his arm in order to impress a pretty lady at the local watering hole

A/N: The above prompt was given to me by @ifalltheyearwereplayingholidays​ when I was bored and wanted to write something. It was meant to be a short drabble but my hand slipped and whoops it’s 3.9k words. Only my second Prospect fic and Ezra talks A LOT. I hope I did him justice. I’m always down to talk about Ezra more, feel free to drop me a line!

Warnings: None I think. A bit of vaguely described gore?

Tagged: @lalablue0​ Thanks for the gentle nudging and encouragement as always

When Ezra walked into the bar he knew he’d picked the right one. He was in a fringe city, on a fringe planet, looking for fringe work. It usually paid the best. But tonight he was just looking for a quiet drink in a dive bar where no one would look twice at him. And this was that bar. A dark and dirty bar with dark and dirty patrons. There were two men hunched over a table talking conspiratorially who looked up at him when he entered, but quickly went back to their hushed conversation when they deemed him no threat. There was a man lounging in a booth with two women he had no doubt paid to fawn over him. Another booth housed a couple of thugs surrounded by an excessive amount of empty bottles and glasses, having an animated and at times violent conversation. At the end of the bar was another working girl chatting up a depressed man who seemed far more interested in his drink than the girl, but she was determined. The shabbily dressed barman was leaning against the bench behind the bar, cleaning a beer glass with a filthy rag in the most stereotypical barman fashion ever, while ogling the young woman.

This was the right place indeed.

Ezra smiled to himself and approached the bar. The barman heaved himself upright, clunked the glass down, tossed the rag beside it and ambled over to Ezra as if it was most inconvenient of him to want service. 

“Amber. Top shelf. Neat." He knew in a place like this the alcohol wasn’t going to be of the highest quality so he figured he’d improve his chances of something drinkable if he aimed high. The barman grunted in acknowledgement and hauled himself around. He reached up to the highest shelf of bottles, revealing his unsightly underarm stains. He took a bottle of dark amber liquid, sloshed it into a smudged glass and plonked it unceremoniously in front of Ezra. 

“You’re a prince among men,” Ezra said with barely concealed sarcasm as he tossed some credits on the bar. The barman grunted again as he collected the payment and returned to wiping not very clean glasses with not very clean rags.

Drink in hand, he turned to survey the bar again. He enjoyed people watching. The longer you observed a person for the better you got at judging their behaviour. That came in handy in Ezra’s line of work. And if he couldn’t quietly watch them, then he would talk as much as he could to them. At them, it usually ended up being. He could tell a lot about people based on how they responded to his stories and that helped him down the line when he needed to know who he could trust if - or when - things went south.

Out of the corner of his eye something bright caught his attention. He turned to see a woman sitting at the end of the bar by herself. She had a shock of bright red curly hair covered by a hood, which would explain why Ezra had missed her on his way in, but that now stood out like a neon sign. She had a drink and a book open in front of her. He watched her reading for a moment and while she appeared to not want, or need, company, he couldn’t resist the opportunity to talk to someone who may have an interesting story to tell. He had lost count of the days since he had conversed meaningfully with another person.

He approached her and sat at the other angle of the bar next to her. Her eyes flicked up to him for a second, then back to her book. 

“Forgive the intrusion, but you have piqued my curiosity by reading a book at a bar when there are so many interesting beings here to observe. I must know what it is that is so engrossing.” Not his best opening line, but he’s used worse.

The woman slowly raised her head to meet Ezra’s eyes. She studied him for a moment, her eyes wandering down to his right shoulder, then back up to his face. Ezra was used to people being distracted by the missing limb. It usually got surreptitious, side-ways glances. More often than not, it was left unaddressed. Which suited him just fine. Recounting the story was not something he enjoyed doing. 

The woman continued to gaze at him, as if she was waiting for him to continue. He cleared his throat, “my name is Ezra,” he said and pressed his hand to his chest by way of introduction, hoping it would spur the woman on to talk. She didn’t, though she looked thoughtful, as if she was carefully considering her response. After a moment's further silence, Ezra decided she was a lost cause and moved to excuse himself. “I have clearly interrupted you, I’ll leave you to your book.” He went to stand when the woman spoke:

“I’ll tell you my name… if you tell me how you lost your arm.” she said plainly.

Ezra tried to hide how taken aback he was. But her candid approach was refreshing and he felt compelled to tell her… almost…

“Oooooh, this is a story of great heroics on my part,” he said gesturing to his missing arm. “Many people are alive today thanks to my heroic actions.”

A small smile played on her lips and she leaned forward with interest. “A story of heroics? I would never have guessed!” Ezra noted the sarcasm but continued nonetheless.

“Indeed. Though I try to stay humble, of course.” He might as well go all in and play up to the woman’s expectations. 

She huffed out a small laugh, humouring him. “Of course.”

“I was on Kapria-1, a dull little planet with no culture to speak of but spectacular deposits of an ore that is highly sought after in the outer systems. Terribly valuable stuff due in no small part to it being a tough bastard of a thing to extract. Time consuming, complicated and requiring specialty tools that are themselves, complicated to use. But the rewards far outweigh the tedious chore of obtaining it.” He paused for effect and to see if the woman would refute any of his story so far. She didn’t. He continued.

“The only other thing Kapria-1 is known for is the wildlife. Namely, a vicious creature called a Fanger.”

“A Fanger?” She replied, not bothering to hide her utter disbelief. 

“A Fanger,” Ezra confirmed in all seriousness. He wasn’t proud of the name he’d just made up, but he was thinking on the fly and went with the first name that came to him, regardless of how ridiculous it sounded. But he was committed to this story now so continued unabated. “Like I said, they are vicious. The locals call them hell-hounds. On all fours they stand as tall as a man’s shoulders. Eyes that burn bright red and a mouth full of the sharpest teeth you’ve ever seen. A beast not to be reckoned with. They will attack anything in their sights and tear a man limb from limb in seconds. However, they are nocturnal creatures, so provided you are sheltered safely and securely after dark they should be no cause for concern."

Despite herself, the woman seemed genuinely engrossed in the story now. As Ezra paused again she took a sip of her drink and said "I gather the next part involves you getting stranded out after dark." 

"You anticipate correctly!" 

"Go on then," she said encouragingly. 

"Well. I found myself working with a fairly green group of diggers. Had only done a few rotations on the planet previously, but they were an enthusiastic lot. Our time keeper misjudged how long we were in the tunnels for and when we emerged we were just in time to see the sun sinking below the horizon. We argued about whether it would be best to stay in the tunnels for the night, or risk the journey back to camp. Nights of Kapria are cold and we had no provisions. And despite the tunnels running deep, there was nothing to prevent a determined Fanger from sniffing us out. So it was decided we would make the journey back to safety. We had no weapons to speak of, but armed ourselves with the heaviest and sharpest tools we had at our disposal. I chose a small but hefty pickaxe. We took off with as much haste as we could muster, trying to keep quiet and not draw attention to ourselves. But the beasts have aural and olfactory capabilities that far eclipse our own, so it was only a matter of time. Just as our camp came into sight, we heard it. A distinctive snarl that stopped us in our tracks. Before we could even run we saw it looming. A giant figure stalked towards us, jaws slung with bloody slaver, eyes lit by the fires of Hades’ eternal damned Kingdom. It picked up pace and we knew we had no chance of outrunning it so I did the only thing I could do; I ran directly at it. If I could take its attention myself then maybe the rest of my crew could escape.” 

Ezra felt a twinge of guilt at this point. He’d never done anything so selfless in all his life! It hardly mattered at this point, as he neared the end of his outlandish story. The woman, for her part, appeared genuinely interested in the story now. Which was not entirely surprising, Ezra knew he had skill when telling a story, no matter how unbelievable. Still. Her hand still rested on her open book, marking her place as though she was not entirely committed to this conversation, and was ready to return to reading as soon as she tired of his outrageous claims. She raised an expectant eyebrow, “...And?”

“Well it worked. The beast lunged at me and sunk its fangs right into my arm as I tried to shield myself. It pinned me to the ground with one of it’s massive paws, claws digging into my flesh. In a vain effort to save myself I smashed the pickaxe into the side of it’s head as hard as I could. I kept hitting it, over and over, all the while I could feel it’s teeth shredding my flesh and bone. I must have made some impact because it decided I wasn’t worth the trouble of a head injury and bounded away into the night. The rest of my team dragged me the short distance back to camp, but my arm was too damaged to save. Luckily we had a few members with medic experience and, with our limited supplies, they managed to remove the damaged limb and patch me up. Not the prettiest job, but it did the trick, and I owe my life to them. I hitched a ride off the planet the next day and never looked back.” He downed what drink remained in his glass, punctuating the end of his story. He was quietly rather proud of spinning such fine fiction on the fly.

“Well. That is an impressive tale of bravery and loss.” The woman remarked.

“And I believe it has earned your name.”

A sly smile appeared on her lips. “Holly Golightly, pleased to meet you.”

Ezra tilted his head to the side and narrowed his eyes. “Now I may be just a floater from the Fringes, but I have read a book or two in my time and I know when I’m given a name taken straight from the pages of classic literature.”

She smiled more broadly. “Fake stories get you fake names, Ezra. If you’d care to tell me the real story, you might earn yourself my real name.” As if to signify her seriousness, she closed her book and folded her hands on it, awaiting his response.

Ezra considered for a moment. He didn’t particularly enjoy thinking about the events that led to losing his arm, let alone telling the tale to a stranger in a bar. But the woman intrigued him with her flame red hair and her forthright questions and he was curious to get to know more about her. Starting with her name. He signalled the barman and jiggled his empty glass at him indicating a refill was desired. He’d need more alcohol for this. They both waited in patient silence while the barman sloshed more amber liquid into his glass. When Ezra had taken a large gulp, he was ready.

“I was on Bakhroma Green,” he started. The woman sucked a breath in through her teeth. If people knew of it, they knew it was a dangerous place. Not just because of the toxic spores, but because the people who typically made the journey there these days were desperate and toxic themselves. She clearly knew of the moon’s reputation so Ezra did not need to go into details. “While the rush was over long ago, I figured I’d try my luck, see what was still left down there. If you’re lucky, it’s worth the risk of a visit. Unfortunately, owing to a dispute with my crew, I was left crewless, shipless and stranded. My only hope of getting off that rock was to find passage with another crew. Unfortunately there aren’t a lot of other harvesters willing to make space. Lotta trust issues. A case of Aurelac can make a man do desperate things. I thought my luck had run out, but then I stumbled across a father and his teenage daughter. I’ve never seen a girl so young down there. When I couldn’t bargain my way on to their pod, we struck a deal. The man was on his way to meet some mercenaries who claimed they’d found the Queen’s Lair - a most sought after, yet hitherto undiscovered deposit of the gem. Regrettably, greed got the better of him before we reached our destination and he attempted to relieve me of my own hard-earned case. A firefight ensued, leaving him and my partner dead, and his daughter fleeing back to their pod. I figured the girl was still my best hope of getting off the planet so I set out to find her. I eventually caught up with her, only to find her pod incapacitated and smoking and when I attempted to breach the entrance, I took a thrower bolt to the shoulder. She was feisty, I’ll give her that…” 

Ezra smiled and the memory of his and Cee’s first meeting. While at the time he was in pain and exasperated with her, he admired her tenacity and cool-headed negotiation skills. He’d never seen a girl in the green at all, but he’d never met a girl like Cee, period. The woman’s expression had changed from one of mild amusement to genuine interest. She waited intently for Ezra to continue, her brow knitted slightly in concentration. 

“She gave me a field kit to patch up my shoulder and we got to finding a mutually beneficial agreement to get us both off the moon. She could have taken me out then and there as recompense for my hand in her father’s death, but fortunately for me, she concluded I was her best bet at getting off the planet alive. We reached an accord wherein she would lead me to the mercenaries, and I would act as harvester in order for us to bargain our way onto their ship. Seemed a straightforward enough plan. However after walking for some time, it became apparent the toxic dust had made its way into my shoulder wound causing it to suppurate. By chance, we stumbled across a lone Sater who led us to his camp. We didn’t have much to trade, and Sater are notoriously difficult to deal with, but I didn’t have much choice; I could feel infection taking hold. I offered what little we had in exchange for medical supplies to treat my wound, but they had other plans. Their leader offered medical supplies and a great deal of Aurelac… in exchange for the girl.”

The woman’s eyebrows shot up, her eyes wide. She was genuinely invested in the story now. "So what did you do?" she asked in awe. 

"Well, I knew that no matter how much Aurelac I had, if I couldn't get off that planet, I'd have no chance to make use of its value. And since the girl was my only way to find the mercs and my last shot at getting on a ship, I couldn't make that deal. The idea of what those religious zealots would do to her made my stomach turn. As I was buying time to come up with a counter offer, my young friend made other plans. She took off running as quick as she could. She was fast enough that she was out of sight before they managed to catch her. I cannot fault her for her actions though. She had no reason to believe I wouldn't sell her out. To her I was just a thief and a murderer using her to get a ride home. In truth, I was growing quite fond of her and had no intentions of allowing harm to befall her. Without her though, I was useless to the Sater and they ejected me from their camp with nothing. I staggered through the thick forest of the planet, filter spent, arm septic and painful, until I came to an abandoned prospecting camp. With what little supplies that were left I attempted to excise the infected flesh, but I only made it worse. My options were two: die painfully and slowly as the infection spread, or amputate the affected limb before it got into my blood.” 

The woman now looked somewhat horrified. Her eyes moved down to his shoulder again, then back up to his eyes. Mixed in with the horror was something else: pity. Another reason Ezra didn’t like telling the story, or even talking about it, really. People ended up feeling sorry for him and he hated it. An heroic story of sacrificing his arm to a giant, fanged beast in order to save his crew garnered him much less pity, even if it was obviously a fabrication. But there it was in her eyes, unmistakable. “So… how did you do it?” she asked, with some trepidation.

“I knew I could not manage it on my own, so in desperation I put a call out on the radio hoping that someone in the vicinity would hear me. I cycled through all the channels just hoping I would reach anyone, as risky as it was to broadcast my location in a place where most people's intentions are justifiably self-preservatory. Just as I began to lose hope, I heard someone approach. Weak as I was, I waited by the door of the tent to surprise them should I judge them dangerous at first glance. The tent unzipped and a blaster poked through first, which I grabbed before tugging it’s owner into the tent and shoving them to the floor. You cannot imagine my surprise when I saw who it was: the young girl. Filter spent and near starving. I had no idea if she would help; she still had no reason to trust me, though when she asked if I would have left her to the Sater I told her truthfully I would not have. She must have believed me because she agreed to help. With nothing but a syrette of anaesthetic for me and a small e-scalpel for her, she got the job done. Didn’t wince, didn’t flinch. Cool, calm and collected, the whole time.” He shook his head and smiled, remembering just how levelheaded Cee had been. He’d been so impressed. “I, on the other hand, was a babbling mess.” He chuckled. 

The woman held up a hand to interject. “Do you mean to tell me that a teenage girl cut off your arm in a dirty tent with only a scalpel and a single injection of pain relief?”

“That is the truth, yes.”

“Well, first of all, this story is way more interesting than some tale of beasts and heroics!”

Ezra chuckled. He knew it was, but that didn’t ease his discomfort in telling it. The woman shook her head in astonishment. “So… what happened? Did you find the mercs? Did you find the Aurelac deposit??”

Ezra nodded. “We did. We finally located them and after some hard bargaining we secured passage on their ship in return for harvesting the Aurelac they’d found. It was indeed a bountiful site.” Ezra knew he was seriously skipping over some details of the final part of the story, but she had asked how he had lost his arm, not about the scar on his chest, that still, to this day, ached in the cold. He rubbed at the scar absently as he thought about the last, few, horrifying events on the moon before they finally escaped. This woman did not need to know that he couldn’t harvest one-handed. That they had had to resort to shooting their way out. That he had received a stab wound to the chest and then used a scalpel to the throat in bloody retaliation. That he had watched Cee run into the darkness after he insisted she get off the moon while she still could, only to have her return to him and save his life. Again. The sadness and relief he felt when he saw her and she sprayed his wound with the cream and helped him to the ship. No. She didn’t need to know these details. They were for Ezra alone.

As it was, the woman’s mouth hung open in awe. “And… what happened to the girl?”

Ezra downed the last of his drink and smiled sadly. He missed Cee. He had grown accustomed to her presence in his life and enjoyed being her guardian, as surprised as he was by this. The woman took this response to mean the worst.

“Kevva, I’m so sorry, I--”

Ezra shook his head adamantly and held up his hand, “no, no. She’s fine. She attends a boarding school back in Central. Brightest in her year. We exchange correspondence every week, her missives filled with stories and details of her life and school, far more interesting and colourful than the stories I’ve told tonight. I think she’ll publish a book before she’s even graduated.” He couldn’t hide how proud he was of her.

The woman smiled and it was the first genuine smile Ezra had seen from her all night. It lit up her face and made her eyes sparkle. Eyes that were now filled not with pity, or doubt as they had earlier, but with understanding and kindness. She held out her left hand to better shake his. “Ezra, I’m Ida.” 

Ezra took her hand. “Ida. It is a pleasure to meet you. Now, do you have any harrowing tales you would like to recount in return?”

She let out a loud laugh and tossed her head back, her flaming hair swishing under her hood. “Let’s have another drink and see where the night takes us.” She flagged down the barman.

Ezra figured that if he thought about it, there was a lesson to be learned here about the benefits that honesty and discomfort brings, but for now he was happy just to enjoy Ida’s company a while longer.

[catsitta]

Another Poll!

As y'all are aware, my current daily drabble fic is in its final arc, which means I'm looking for my next daily drabble project. I have some summaries and possible ships here for you folks to look at and vote on to help guide me in my final choice. That said, I am STILL OPEN to ideas and suggestions, pairings and prompts.

So here are a couple summaries I have. Some are wips I have begun but am willing to rework, while others are ideas that have come to mind that would be interesting to write out. Again, nothing is final, and I may latch onto a completely different idea when it is time to write! Also, if you really like an idea but feel it would be better off in a oneshot or chaptered style, say so! I am open to suggestions and thoughts on this.

.

The Good Doctor You should be dead. The mugger was going to kill you when you had the audacity to be broke like nearly every other working class gal or gent in Ebbot City. But then HE intervened. A young nursing student by the name of Papyrus. You weren’t expecting a monster to save you, much less heal your wounds. But he did.

And suddenly, in that moment, your simple little life of just trying to make ends meet is turned upside down. As they say, the path to hell is paved with good intentions.

Modern!Mafiatale | Dark Romance | Multiship

(Can be Reader fic or Frisk centric (or heck, I'm even willing to throw poor UT!Sans into the mix as a possible MC in the name of rare pairs) | MC/Sans MC/Papyrus MC/Gaster | Modern day | Monsters were never underground? | Rated M for potentially dubious themes)

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Just Survive Sans just wanted to see his brother alive again. He wasn’t expecting to be drop kicked sideways into a literal hellscape where his only hope at survival rests in the claws of his paranoid, shark-toothed alternate. At least he has a version of Papyrus back in his life. Even if he is a squalling babybones.

Kustard | Dark Fic | Babybones

(I have a starter written, but I am willing to rework/rewrite to fit a 100 word a day style. Rated M for strong dubious or potenially non-con themes and other Underfell BS. Happy ending possibly not possible, but bad fics are fun to write too.)

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Artifice “Who are you? What are you?”

“i am the sentient artificial neurological system, but the doc generally refers to me as s.a.n.s.”

When Gaster dies unexpectedly, Papyrus accidentally unearths troubling secrets about the mysterious genius that was his father. Among them is an advanced AI named Sans. Why would he keep such an amazing invention hidden? What is Project ARTIFICE?

And what exactly does it mean to be alive?

Sans/Papyrus | Drama | Slowburn (maybe?)

(Can be either romantic or platonic | Probably T rating for some slavery/slave mentallity/dubious ethics issues since Sans is an AI and y'know, programming, free will and all that | Are the monsters underground? Were they once underground but freed before Papyrus was born? THINKING)

. VOTE HERE!

[dragonologist-phd]

1, 4, 8, 9 and 10 for the Meta Asks, please!

thank you!

1. Tell us about your current project(s) – what’s it about, how’s progress, what do you love most about it?

ooh fun question! i have a lot of drabble/one shot ideas but I’ll take this to mean current multi-chapter fics! Right now I have three stories that I’m currently (more or less) updating

Of Diamonds and Dust- Dragon Age Origins fic featuring the journey of Wardens Darvis Brosca and Marja Aeducan during the first game! It basically started with me playing the dwarf origins and thinking “Wow my Aeducan and Brosca would really not like each other”, and so of course I had to write about them being forced to work together and eventually developing a reluctant found family relationship. Updates are kinda slow but pretty consistent- it’s definitely my longest fic and honestly I’m a lot further than I expected to get when I first started. I just really like these characters and want to keep writing them!

If The Creeks Don’t Rise- Pillars of Eternity Desta/Aloth fic! It feels like forever since I’ve updated this one, but I’m hoping to work more on it soon once fluff inspiration returns! I love developing the “between the scenes” moments in games, and Desta and Aloth’s relationship is so sweet and soft.

Prodigy- Tyranny fic focusing on the family dynamics between my Fatebinder, Bleden Mark, and Sirin! I’m replaying Tyranny right now (with DLC’s this time!) and I have so many headcanons on these three that I just had to write them. Progress isn’t too fast but also Tyranny fandom is so small I’m pretty sure very few people are actually reading it so I don’t feel bad about it XD it’s basically just me fulfilling my wish to write some Evil Found Family!

4. Share a sentence or paragraph from your writing that you’re really proud of (explain why, if you like)

Hmm...I’ll go with this bit from Of Diamonds And Dust! I like it because I think it captures Marja’s personality so well- she is very focused in her ambitions and has a sort of relentless optimism that drives her forward, and although her values are very noble and chivalrous there’s also an edge of ruthlessness that comes from her upbringing in Orzammar. She’s just such an interesting character to write and these paragraphs from one of the early chapters are still something I’m very fond of:

How many of her ancestors have seen such things? Not many, she believes. Self-respecting, noble-born dwarves don’t visit the surface. Trian certainly would have died before letting himself be brought up to the surface world to look into the sky. Which, Marja numbly supposes, is exactly what happened.

But she’s alive. Everything else may be ashes around her- one brother dead, another turned traitor, and a father who thinks her a liar and a murderer- but she is alive. And even if she joins the Wardens and the Shapers purge her name from all records, she is an Aeducan still.

And when she is ready, when Bhelen has grown complacent in the belief that he is safe, she will return to this city and show her brother what it looks like when an Aeducan wages war.

8. Is what you like to write the same as what you like to read?

I do like to read the same genres that I write, but also a bunch of stuff I don’t write. I love mysteries, but turns out developing plots for mysteries is really hard!

9. Are you more of a drabble or a longfic kind of writer? Pantser or plotter? Do you wish you were the other?

A little bit of both- drabbles are definitely easier to manage and I’ve got way more of them, but I’ve also get a few longfics I like. I’m definitely a pantser, I’ve tried using outlines and they just don’t work all that well for me. Any time I try to plan more than two chapters ahead I end up changing everything by the time I actually write it. But that’s what works for me!

10. How would you describe your writing process?

It depends. Sometimes I’ll have an idea for a story first, and I’ll usually throw together a quick bullet point list of what I want to happen and elements I know I want to include. Then I’ll go back and expand on those bullet points until I have the story. I more often do this for my multi-chapter fics where I’m trying to keep track of plot points.

If a scene is focused around a conversation, I’ll usually write the dialogue first and then go fill the descriptions after. It helps to get the actual conversation out of my head right away.

Sometimes I’ll just think of a specific description or line of dialogue and get so attached to it that I’ll build a scene around that. It’s usually how I end up with drabbles, but it happens sometimes with longer scenes too.