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mrcleanheichou · 1 year

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Wolves are (NOT) Scary Chapter 12

Pairing: Werewolf!BTS X Female human reader

Genre: Fluff, smut, angst

Warnings: Starbucks slander and excessive question mark use

Word count: 1,818

Summary: All Y/N wants to do is find her creativity and motivation but she finds 7 werewolves instead.

Author note: Long time no see! I’m such an inconsistent writer it’s not even funny. The bad thing is that I have tons of ideas written down but I can never put them onto the page. Writing is hard T_T

That first scene may or may not be from my actual feelings.

Taglist: @dustyinkpages @thickemadame @moonlitehunter @thedarkwinterrose @momoriki @iistrangers @openup-yourmind @sinceritythatcouldntbedelivered @lovelyseokjinnie @scuzmunkie @bjoriis @maddypool31 @tfkp0p @blubearxy @stealth-liberal @potaetopic @zae007live @totallynoanalien @dvoz-writes @purplelady85 @savagemickey03 @uniquelyabnormallyoriginal @blushyrawrz @skyys-universe @harmonie-writes @gamer-mask

Chapter 11 // Chapter 12 // Chapter 13

~3 years ago~

The only thing keeping your laptop from being thrown at the wall is the fact that it’s expensive and you can’t afford to buy a new one. The feeling of the blinking cursor on the blank word document mocking you is driving you absolutely bonkers. Feeling hopeless you switch to your ideas notebook to see if physically writing would kick start your creativity. That’s a trick people on a writing forum you follow swear by. Unfortunately that ended with the poor defenseless notebook being flung across the room.

Yeji once suggested speaking to a therapist about having anger management issues after walking into your office and having to dodge a flying pen Matrix style. The thing is that writing is the only thing that brings this emotion out of you. No other thing has been this frustrating in your life, especially these past few months. This change of scenery was supposed to help, instead its made it worse since now you’re all alone dealing with the thoughts of self doubt and multiple episodes of laying on the floor like the scene in Lilo and Stitch. Except, unlike Lilo, you have no one here to tell “Leave me alone to die” to.

You’re beginning to feel like a failure, absolutely no work has been accomplished. What kind of author can’t even write or draw? Maybe giving up the children’s book gig and becoming an erotica novel writer is a good idea. You’ve always thought about the idea of writing spicy romance novels. You’ve heard the building secretaries whispering about the newest “spicy” book they’ve seen on Tiktok. Apparently fantasy books about werewolves are very popular, talking about “mates” and “knots” and other supposedly hot things. Who knew porn about imaginary creatures would be something people would be into.

This cabin was supposed to help you write but right now it’s feeling like a stuffy prison. Checking Naver for any local coffee shops you discovered there’s a Starbucks, should you support local coffee shops instead? Yes. Would you rather have a frappucino than real coffee? Also yes.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This Starbucks wasn’t a standalone building. Just like almost every other building in this town it’s connected to other shops almost like a strip mall. There’s a pet supply shop to the right of it and a tteok-bokki restaurant to the left.

Resisting the urge to stop at the restaurant you walk into the Starbucks and find that it looks just like any other one you could find in Seoul. It seems like this location is pretty popular. There’s a moderately long line of people waiting to place their order. All the tables were occupied even the seats right at the bar were taken. Sighing in defeat you switch your laptop bag from one shoulder to the other.

Heading out the door you heard a pair of voices loudly bickering behind you. Stopping to hold the door open for the men you recognized one of the men as Yoongi from the bakery. You didn’t know the other man though.

“Would you like some coffee with all that sugar?” Yoongi said giving the other man’s drink in his hand a disgusted look.

The taller man scoffed, “Oh I’m sorry that I’m not a coffee snob like you and only drink my coffee black. I happen to love myself and caramel frapuccinos are my comfort food. Self care is important these days!”

Yoongi rolled his eyes before noticing you, “What are you doing here?”

Before you could answer he was smacked on the back of his head and pushed out of the doorway. “Ya! Don’t you have any manners? Sorry about him, I’m Jin and I’m guessing you know Yoongi.””

You nodded while Yoongi turned and glared at the man behind him making a low sound that oddly resembled a dog’s growl. Shivers went down your spine and oddly down to another place that you definitely were not expecting.

“I was trying to get a frappuccino and some cake pops but the line is way too long and I didn’t want to wait.”

“I can make cake pops that are way better than those abominations. C’mon let’s go.”

Sharing a confused look with Yoongi who just shrugged you followed after Jin who was marching like a man on a mission in the direction of the bakery.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Walking into the bakery your nose was overwhelmed with the scent of cinnamon, it almost made you sneeze. Yoongi ushered you to a table near a window and told you to sit tight. Pulling out your phone you decide to browse Instagram while you waited. Leaning back in your chair you could hear muffled arguing coming from what you assumed was the kitchen in the back.

“I’m telling you, you need to play up the bad boy look. You can get more tips If you would at least answer when women ask you about your tattoos.”

“And I’m telling you, they make me uncomfortable. It’s either cranky ajummas who give me dirty looks when they notice or women who have no shame and try to touch them. I’m not a damn petting zoo, hyung.”

“You look like a zoo animal.” Jimin snickered while sitting on one of the counters near the stove. This resulted in a big glob of cream cheese frosting meant for the piping hot cinnamon rolls being launched at him narrowly missing his head and splattering on the wall. He jumped off the counter growling “Listen here you little shit.”

“What the hell do you two think you’re doing in MY kitchen?”

Jin was fuming looking at his younger mates acting like children in his precious safe haven. He knew he shouldn’t have let Yoongi talk him into going on a break.

“He started it!” Jungkook pointed at Jimin who was currently stalking towards him ready to hit him in his stupid pretty boy face.

“Shut up you little snitch!”

“Snitches get stitches” Yoongi added.

“Cut it out all of you” Namjoon called from the office rubbing his temples trying to alleviate the migraine that was forming from staring at excel sheets all day.

“Y/N is out there waiting for a coffee. This is our chance to give her the potion.” Yoongi informed the alpha wolf giving him the iced Americano he bought for him.

“Call Taehung and tell him to get over here. We’re executing the plan today.”

~Present Day~

You didn’t know what to expect but what you were expecting sure as hell wasn’t this. The room you were currently held in looked like a five star hotel room, adorned in hues of red and gold and decorated with paintings of regal wolves hunting deer and hanging around the moon goddess. If you were here under different circumstances maybe you could appreciate how beautiful this room was.

There was no clock in here so it was impossible to know how long you were trapped in this makeshift prison cell. And the lack of a window was also disorienting. Your phone sat useless on a side table, long dead. But it wasn’t needed to know at least a few hours had passed since the guards brought you.

The first hour was filled with frantic pacing and trying to open the locked door. Why were you guys being treated like prisoners? It’s not like you broke any laws. But seeing how serious the guards were you figured some werewolf law was in fact broken.

During your crisis Jungkook was somehow able to fall asleep on the plush king size bed. He was curled up in the fetal position hugging a pillow close to his body. His baby face, even more prominent while relaxed and unconscious, made him look like a young boy and not a man in his twenties even with his facial peircings.

Rage filled every part of your being as you fought the urge to yell at him to wake up and face the reality of the situation. After all this was his fault, right? Why did he take that stupid potion? Why didn’t he listen to Yuna? Why couldn’t he stop being so immature for once in his life?

This was the first emotion other than soul crushing sadness that you felt this during this whole ordeal and it scared you.

Walking away from him and into the bathroom to cool off before doing something you’d regret seemed like the right thing to do. Throwing things Jungkook already knew in his face would be cruel.

The marble of the bathroom counter felt cool against your palms as you stood in front of the sink staring at yourself in the mirror. You look rough, eyes red, face puffy and dried tears adorning your cheeks. You were never a pretty crier like the women in the Kdramas you watched every night with Jin. If said man was here he’d tell you that you looked like you got ran over by a car and that you could never catch him slipping like that.

You snorted at the memory of your overly confident mate. He always had an ugly crying face but you didn’t have the heart to ever tell him that fact. The small smile you were able to conjure up quickly fell when you remembered soon he won’t be your mate anymore. Feeling the urge to cry once again felt ever present so you rushed to turn on the water faucet.

Cupping your hands you splashed cold water in your face. The freezing liquid was shocking enough that it felt like an emotional reset. It was a little trick you learned from Yoongi who said it always helped to ground himself when he felt a panic attack coming on. ‘You can’t freak out when you’re cold’, he’d say. You seriously contemplated taking a cold shower and just fully shocking your system into submission but that just sounded miserable.

You definitely didn’t need anymore miserable in your life.

Was everything Jungkook’s fault? Yes. Could he have killed Yoongi? Yes. But he didn’t and that should count for something right? Why couldn’t Namjoon realize he was extremely sorry? Wasn’t the mate bond supposed to be strong? Isn’t it like a supernatural marriage pact?

What happened to ‘Through sickness and health’? How could Jungkook be thrown away like trash that easily? The thing that hurt the most was that no one else but you stood up for him. Not even Taehyung who ran with his tail between his legs when he was scared. Why were you the only brave one?

Jungkook was your priority now and you would stick with him for the rest of your life. The others may have been able to be forced into abandoning their love for him but you’re stronger than that. Fuck werewolves and their cowardice.

You’re not a weak human and if you have to prove that to each and every wolf here you would. Especially your alpha.

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enter-the-performapals · 10 months

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@arcvmonth Day 18 D/D/D- Different Dimension Day!

Even though its a little late (because I wanted to color these lol) I wanted to talk about my Mermaid AU- concepted while I drew my big piece for Mermay this year! I was originally going to turn it into a series basing them on the En cards, but I didnt have time (maybe next year?)

This is a high fantasy AU, of course, and each of the stories happen around the same time-which Ill get into later. All of the Bracelet Girls, Dragon Boys and Zarc + Ray are in their 20's here, with romantic interactions between the expected couples (Fruit, Apple, FallenAngel, Predator, Genesis). All of the stories are unrelated but take place around the same time, with the the exception of the Genesis which takes several decades before.

Just slapping the word 'Mermaid' on a character and not basing them on a sea creature has never been an option for my autism brain, so I based the girls off of sea creatures I thought suited them!

Yuzu is based on a Betta fish- the only freshwater mermaid out of the five- mainly because I think theyre gorgeous with their lovely flowing tails, but also because theyre highly territorial, which I will get into later.

Rin-Rin is based off of one of my favorite sea creatures, the Lionfish. Bright and beautiful, but venomous and a ruthless predator. She's also Siren.

Ruri is based on a Parrotfish. Beautiful, iridescent scales and placid nature who live in coral reefs. Also, bird pun becuase I couldnt resist.

Serena is a Human-Mer hybrid whose based off an Angler fish. Scary creatures who use beautiful light not to illuminate their surroundings, but to draw in prey. She requires more oxygen than a normal mermaid, so like a mudfish, she can chill out near the surface of the sea and take in oxygen when she needs to.

Ray is based off of a Sea Angel, which is apparently a sea slug. It's pretty and I dont know much about it, which is the exact same thing I can say about my girl Ray.

Under the cut ill get into my thoughts for each of the AUs! Including a minific which kind of adds a little context to my piece from Mermay!

Ill go over all my ideas for the different storylines - marked by their ship- and at the end is minific! Sorry for any punctuation/spelling mistakes!

Genesisshipping:

Zarc is an apprentice boatsman on his first voyage on a big ship. After smashing into rocky bluffs, the boat he's on capsizes and falls into the ocean. Almost drowning, he is rescued at the brink of death by Ray, who takes him to an uninhabited island to bring him back to life. Over a year or so, the two fall in love and while Zarc does want to escape the island he beleives its futile and doesnt even try. Eventually a ship does come to rescue him, and he promises Ray that he'll make it back to the island one day to be with her.

After hes back on land, people ask him what happened, howd he survive, ect; he eventually lets slip that a mermaid saved him. This makes it around, and eventually wealthy prospectors hear. Entranced by money and power wished to him, he leads hunters to the island to capture Ray.

Thinking that hes back to start a life with her, Ray's shocked when other people come from the boat and try to capture her. Realising Zarc had sold her out, she escapes to the sea, never to be seen again. Realising the error of his ways, Zarc decides to stay on the island after the disgruntled hunters leave in an attempt to attone for his greed and to hopefully see Ray one more time.

Appleshipping:

Hugo had always heard tales about sirens in books and wanted to if they were real or not. After attempt of humours faliures to become part of an actual reputable ship crew, he falls in with some pirates who decide to take him out to the seas. On his maiden voyage, he is so nervous that he cant fall asleep on his first night. Thats when he hears it. A siren's song in the distance.

The rest of the crew asleep, he steals a rowboat to find the source of the singing. He finds it- the most beautiful girl hed ever seen, singing the most beautiful song hed ever heard. He falls head over heels for her at first sight.

While Rin just wanted a meal, she now has to put up with idiot pirate trying to woo her. She is severly displeased about it, and makes it known. Then she realises- this dude is a grade A idiot with the luck of god on his side and now has to live with a human taking up her favorite rock. Ridiculousness insues

FallenAngelShipping:

Ute grew up in a port town that had a great relationship with the fellow merfolk. He and Ruri grew up together, and eventually became a couple. One day, the village was raided by hunters, who both killed and captured the humans and merfolk, burning the town to the ground.

While hed somehow escaped from the raiders, he knows he has to break in to the enemy camp as they transport prisoners and set everyone free.

After weeks of planning and watching them from afar, he finds the perfect moment and storms the encampment, setting everyone free, including his best friend Shun and his lovely Ruri.

While they are displaced, remaining survivors help rebuild the city, and they try to rebuild their lives. Now with round the clock border security :)

Predatorshipping:

Joeri is a wealthy buisness man who found success selling various snake oils in his teens. Feeling bored of scamming people out of their cash, he goes to a beah town in an effort to refresh, regroup his thoughts, and figure out his next buisness move.

While walking a beach in the dead of night, he notices a glow coming from a little cave in the distance. Sneaking a peek, he notices Serena stting, resting, and his mind races. Mermaids are uncommon, but not unheard of but most people havent seen one, so what if he could show her off?

Practically smelling the money from the buisness opportunity, he approaches her. She startles, and draws a weapon on him. That night he tries to talk her down and using all of his sales knowledge and charisma, tries to get her to warm up to him.

While it ends up in faliure, the next night she is in the cave again. And he makes up his mind to convince her to join him, whether that be by convincing her with his words, or bribing her with anything he can get his hands on. He has a goal and wont stop until it's realised.

Fruitshipping:

Feeling wanderlust in his early teens, Yuya decides to dedicate his life to becoming an adventurer to see all the beautiful sights hes read about in his beloved father's old travel diaries. After about a decade of seeing what the continent has to offer, he takes a wrong turn (not the first time) and accidentally stumbles into a serene clearing blanketed in cherry tree blossoms nestled in between foothills. In awe, he explores the adorable little field, picking wild dasies as he goes, and spots a lake fed by mountains. As he investigates, he is jumpscared by a mermaid who warns him to leave immediately or face the consequences.

After a breif moment of shock, he starts to laugh. Yuzu is flabbergasted, as most humans would have fled at that point. He tells her that meeting a mermaid was always on his bucket list and that hes pleased to make her acquaintance, which leaves her even more shocked.

While she is standoffish at first, Yuya sets up camp near the water's edge to really drink in the scenery, subbornly telling an annoyed Yuzu that it was the best vantage point in the clearing.

While he'd oly planned to stay for a couple of days, as he talked to Yuzu- her sharing enchanting stories about the depths of the lake and the merfolk who lived there and in turn, her avidly listening to Yuya's travel stories- he decided to stay through the end of spring... and then summer... until eventually autumn's chill prompts him to eventually- begrudgingly- forces him to start packing up his temporary home.

Over the months the two talked and talked and became best friends. Through the wilting daisy chains they made, to the silly splash fights they shared on hot days, to almost sombre monitoring of deciduous leaves starting to fall as the lake theyd made memories in starts to slowly develop its winter shell, baring the aquatic from the terrestrial.

As they say their goodbyes, Yuya noticing Yuzu shivering slightly as she sits above the water, he promises her to come back in the spring with even more travel stories, handing her one of his earrings in a jesture of his vow. And she is overjoyed.

As they part ways, he catches her tightly gripping the blue crystal of his earring before she slips below the water, and he wishes that winter would just leave and never come back.

Over the winter, Yuya can't stop thinking of his time in the clearing. The curiosity that Yuzu would have for the camp meals he'd cook. The sparkle in her eye as he'd describe one of his adventures. Her concern over even the most miniscule of old wounds hed accrued over the years. Her witty remarks that never failed to get a laugh out of him. That no matter where he went, he'd always wonder what Yuzu would think if she'd been there with him.

As the weather started to turn from hail and snow to bright skies and sunshowers, he practically made a mad dash to the little clearing tucked away on the forgotten road near the foothills, hoping that the ice had melted in the area- if not for the whole pond, at least around the crude dock he'd put together to sit with Yuzu on, so close to where he'd set up camp.

As he approaced the sea of sakura, the blooming daisies, the grass rejuvenated after it winter hibernation, he noticed a figure waiting where she always was early in the mornings before he awoke, brushing her beautiful magenta tinged hair, facing toward the mountains in the distance.

He grinned and picked the prettiest of the wild daisies he could see on the bushes around him.

He was back home and couldn't be happier.

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lurkinglurkerwholurks · 9 months

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Breathing

First posted: May 28, 2018

Focuses on: Jason (and his family)

My favorite bookmark: "Jason Todd is sassy monster and Bruce has PTSD from this asshole dying. 🥺🤣"

My second favorite bookmark: "I CANT STOP CRYIIINNNG WTFFFU"

Tier: Pretty middle of the road in terms of metrics, but one of my personal favorites.

This is my "behind the scenes" series where I indulge myself frightfully by annotating my fics. Link to the fic itself above. Thoughts below the cut.

This fic was dedicated to @starknjarvis27 because she came up with the idea on one of our many BatFam discussions, and being a Megan Whalen Turner superfan, I couldn't not take on the idea.

For those unaware, this fic lifts the bones of an absolutely wonderful scene in The King of Attolia, the third (and best) book in the Queen's Thief series. I made sure you didn't need to know the series at all to enjoy "Breathing," but the girlies who know shriek more.

Jason was still breathing when Bruce found him.

Most of my fics, I may not totally know where they're going, but I know my first line. No exception here.

The voice of this one doesn't feel fully Bruce to me, which makes sense because it's so early on in my written works. Also I'm telling myself that's just young Bruce not sounding quite like his more mature self. Ah, the tales we tell ourselves sometimes. 💀

Jason’s chest, or what was left of it, rose again, the cavity of smashed ribs deepening as his lungs fought to work.

I don't know enough medical things to comfortably get too detailed on Jason's injuries (and I wasn't friends yet with Audrey to ask), but since this was Bruce's POV, I worked to make it adequately gruesome.

If those panicked, roving blue eyes with their black-blown pupils could see anything beyond his own fear.

And sometimes I make up words for fun.

He wanted to hold him. Wanted to scoop that broken body into his arms and shelter it with his own until the miracle he was praying for arrived. Bruce wanted to hold his boy. But his stupid, awful, useless brain hissed warnings of spinal injuries and paralysis, of the harm he could cause by giving into sentiment at just the wrong time.

Apparently I also knew how I wanted this section to end because I was deliberately writing toward

And, at last, Bruce held his son.

This.

Trying to figure out the setting of the second half was tough because I didn't care about where they were coming from. I wanted it to be vaguely comic cliche and hopefully not racist or otherwise offensive but that's all.

Also, ugh, staging. Staging. I hate staging. Trying to mark where everyone is and why and keep them all straight as they start to move. Bah.

Of course, now, looking back, hewing more closely to the original scenario where the main figure (Attolis, Jason) turns and smiles at the narrator just before disaster, that sure would have been something, wouldn't it.

But Jason. The odd man out. The wild card, for good or ill. The unpredictable ace up their sleeve. Their magnet for trouble, collector of odd experiences. Too cynical to be Dick, too rash to be Tim, too undisciplined to be Damian. Raised on the streets. Trained by a Bat and a Flying Grayson. Raised again by assassins. Comrade of drug dealers, mercenaries, and thieves. Their family stories always seemed to twist on a “but Jason.”

I like this bit a lot, personally.

He had never seen Jason kill like this. It was the blinding flash of blades, the blur of a tan leather jacket and dark curls, the splatter of red blood on grey stone. And then it was done.

BAMF JASON TODD!!!

At the weight of three sets of eyes landing on him, Jason turned only his head and met Dick’s gaze. His face was pale, almost green, and splattered with a fine mist of blood. It took Dick a moment to piece his coloring together with the slant of his jaw and the blaze in his eyes. He was angry. No, he was furious. But when his eyes met Dick’s, he smiled. All teeth. “Let’s not keep Daddy Dearest waiting, boys.”

Jason is scary and I love him. I think if I could pick an audio narrator for him, especially the way I wrote him in the beginning, I'd pick the guy who does the Raven Boys audiobook, specifically in the voice he uses for Ronan.

“I could use a hand on this next part,” Jason admitted, voice steady and cool.

And my brain recites, oh gods, stairs.

“I’m dying, Dickie. My insides are on my outsides."

Direct. Hecking. Quote.

“I probably won’t even make it to the Batplane,” Jason moaned. “You’ll have to leave me here. They’ll make me a trail marker. Reach the skeleton with the sweet jacket and you’re halfway to the temple of doom.”

A nice little trail marker. So like a thief in a ditch, one might say.

Jason lay still on the narrow cot, conscious but boneless. Even the furious greenish tint of his skin had faded away into a bloodless pale. Alfred had pulled up his shirt to reveal the truth. Jason’s grip down the mountain hadn’t been only to stanch the bleeding, but to hold himself together. At some point in the blurred fight, a blade had snuck under his defenses and slit open his abdomen, nearly from hip to hip. The blood that had trickled through his shirt and over his hand had been nothing compared to the steady flow that had soaked unseen into his pants. Over Alfred’s shoulder, Jason opened his eyes and met Dick’s.

This is full-scale lifting, my obscene apologies to Megan Whalen Turner, I love your work.

Alfred’s back blocked most of Jason’s body from view. Dick could see Jason’s face and upper torso. Bruce, being taller, could probably see a little more. Damian and Tim, being shorter, could probably see a little less. Both boys stood further back as well, Tim just behind Bruce and Damian behind Dick.

friggin blocking, my foe. Just lining up the stupid little dominoes so they fall right in a minute.

Six people breathing. Five people breathing.

I'm a genius. Good job, me.

Jason erupted like a tiger caught in a snare. He clawed at the cot, trying to push himself up. Alfred cried out, warning of wounds and fresh blood and popped stitches as he tried to force Jason back down. Dick sprang forward and tried to grab his brother, but got a fist to the face for his troubles. He staggered back.

Againnnnnnnnnn I'm so sorry Megan Whalen Turner

Dick slowly unclenched his fingers, first releasing Jason’s hair, then his wrist. Violent red streaks branded Jason’s skin like a cuff

I am a clever little clog with my symbolism and because these fics are for me, I can be smug about it

At least a couple people have said this fic have pushed them to read Megan Whalen Turner which is all I could ever want or hope for.

#fanfic bts brain dump

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lacrimosathedark · 2 years

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This comment was left on my post on Judd Winick’s Jason:

#i still dunno how i feel about jay showing up in star city to ~recruit mia (for lack of a better word)

by @natasharomanovofficial and I don’t really think he was trying to “recruit” Mia. But it’s a whole thing on its own, so, separate post!

This is going a bit into meta and character analysis, specifically around Green Arrow Vol 3 69-72.

While it’s not uncommon for heroes and villains to have team-ups and appear in each other’s books, aside from the fact that GA was written by Judd Winick at the time and he was one of the few writers at the time who actually liked Jason (why did everyone hate him so much? Just for replacing Dick who had kind of outgrown Robin? Jeez), on the surface, it might be confusing why Jason would bother fucking around in Star City with Brick and Ollie. Especially since, while very world-traveled, he has always been very Gotham-centered. And if he was just, y’know, doing weapons deals with Brick as was what was initially displayed (and apparently a cover) it could have been mentioned in passing in Batman or GA, no need for a whole story.

But while Jason is supposed to get weapons from Brick and teams up with him against Ollie and Bruce, (which I will now show you because it’s fucking hilarious)

the key, his goal, is Mia Dearden.

Now I am admittedly relatively new to my interest in the Arrowfam (and my interest has mostly centered around Roy and Lian with Dinah sprinkled in for flavor), so I am unfortunately no expert on Mia just yet. Doesn’t help that there’s been no hide nor hair of her since the reboot of the New 52. Come on, Rebirth era, bring her back!

However, I am capable of reading wikis lol. Also, context clues.

So, what makes Mia so special that Jason would take a crew and leave home just to talk to her? (which, in the end, is pretty much all he does)

Let’s break down the confrontation!

Jason is a dramatic bitch, but also in general inherently intimidating. He’s a big strong crime lord from Gotham’s worst neighborhood (which says something because it’s fucking Gotham) who has Bat-training, world-wide Talia-approved assassin training, and of course, was beaten and blown up by the Joker, revived through no known means(in-canon, but it was SB Prime because he punched the universe), and tossed into a Lazarus Pit. He’s scary.

But he doesn’t expect Mia will be scared. He knows she’s tough and brave and been through very familiar hell. He’s not locking her down and keeping her helpless either. She’s tied up and knocked out so she is forced to confront him alone, but as soon as she’s conscious, he lets her go and gives her her own weapon. Plus, she has home field advantage--not only is it her city, but her school gym. She’s in a familiar environment while he’s not.

This is partly a test and partly proving the point he’s always trying to prove: sometimes, lethal force is necessary.

He’s not even really trying to hurt her while making his point. When he manages to successfully break her weapon, he gives her his own swords. And he gives him her two blades while he keeps just his one flamberge-type dagger (which is so fucking cool btw why doesn’t he have that anymore? It’s so pretty!). And he takes off his protective helmet. He’s giving her advantage after advantage.

And then we get to his point.

“We’re not so different, you and I.” Really, Jay? That’s incredibly cliche even for you, you over-dramatic crumpet.

Except Jason is a detective by trade and he does his research. He does know about her.

So, obvious parallels out of the way first. Jason and Mia are both abused children forced to live on big city streets, surviving by any means necessary, and eventually being adopted by a wealthy playboy vigilante to escape from another abusive situation. They were also about the same age when they were left on their own. While Jason’s father was arrested or killed before that, he was on his own when Catherine died by the time he was 12. While I have no idea about her mother, Mia ran from her abusive father and was on the streets at age 11.

There’s also the drug history. Mia apparently “shot drugs” (which I honestly am not sure means she was an addict or a seller but either way) while Jason watched his addict mom die, and is now a dealer himself (with an explicit rule against dealing to children).

Another important thing to note: this conversation is part of the reason--well, most of the reason, honestly--that people think Jason might have been a child prostitute.

(one other entirely irrelevant similarity is, apparently, both of them like to read! neat little tidbit there.)

But there’s also a meta-textual similarity here.

Did You Know? Jason Todd was initially intended--sort of--to die from AIDS instead of explodified by Mistah J!

This is only because of Jim Starlin, known Robin-hater and writer for Death in the Family.

“Well, I always thought that the whole idea of a kid side-kick was sheer insanity. So when I started writing Batman, I immediately started lobbying to kill off Robin. At one point DC had this AIDS book they wanted to do. They sent around memos to everybody saying “What character do you think we should, you know, have him get AIDS and do this dramatic thing” and they never ended up doing this project. I kept sending them things saying “Oh, do Robin! Do Robin!” And Denny O’Neill said “We can’t kill Robin off”. Then Denny one night got this flash that “Hey, if we get this number where people call in and they can vote on it, they can decide whether Robin lives or dies.” So that’s how it started. I wrote up two endings and the readers came in and voted and I think it was 93 or something, it was this negliable amount, the difference for him to be put to death. And the death won out of course.”

Okay, first of all, fuck that guy. No “let’s have Jason retire” or “let’s make Jason grow up” or “let’s ship him off to boarding school” or something, just jumping straight to child murder. Coolcoolcoolcoolcool.

But also, here’s what Judd Winick had to say about that idea.

"I think it was a stunning, unbelievable thing. In the time of fears and epidemic, to have had a superhero have it, I was stunned and proud to hear about that. But they were not able to do it. I always forget to ask Denny [O'Neil] about that, about what happened.”

Which, fair. This is what he’d said just before that, when asked, actually, about Mia!

"The way that came about was actually a lot like how I ended up bringing Jason Todd back. [...] ...when it was my turn, I said 'I think she should be Speedy, and I think she should test positive, and one should be about the other'. In the face of a potentially shortened lifespan, it wasn't 'I'm gonna die real soon', it was 'every little bit of it matters, should go towards something'. It was that she could give something, not about when she was gonna die. That was always my point. It made sense."

So Judd Winick knew about the idea of Jason dying of AIDS when he decided Mia would be positive for HIV, and subsequently writing this Red Hood vs Speedy story.

Now a small science interlude because I too am a huge nerd who must know everything.

In the off chance you don’t know, HIV (human immunodeficiency virus), if not treated, can lead to AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome). They are, as the name suggests, viruses that attack the immune system of the host, weakening it and causing a whole host of problems.

Jason’s demise and the plotting thereof was in the 1980s. This was early in the epidemic, and there were certain perceptions regarding the disease. HIV and AIDS are transmitted through body fluids mostly. If Jason had got it, technically it could have been something as simple as accidentally getting a positive person’s blood on him in a fight. But the most well-documented means of transmission were injections and sexual contact. Now, there’s also the chance that Jason could have gotten it from a bad transfusion. A story also could have been made of him dealing with drugs, which I find less likely--though possible I suppose--considering his mom. Though he could have gotten it from her while caring for her. So many ways it could have gone. But it’s worth noting, it was especially common among not-straight men, hence the increased stigma against gay men. This is also a big and dumb part of why people have to not have had same-sex sexual contact for months prior to donating blood. I hate this fucking country.

Educational rant and theorizing over lol.

TL;DR for that part, Jason could have been given AIDS which is a metatextual parallel to Mia having HIV that was not purely accidental since the writer knew about the idea.

MOVING ON!

Getting to Jason’s point.

Jason has her on the ropes. He has her pinned down and immobile. He has her disarmed and his hands on her throat.

And then he backs away.

He connects with her. They have a common history. He knows first-hand that Bruce could never kill anyone no matter how vile, and Ollie has similar values (if not the same because, well...Ollie has killed people. But y’know.).

In my personal opinion, he sees Mia as potential for how things could have been. Robin is the light to Batman’s dark, but Jason is also the down-to-earth and wordly-aware from a harsh life compared to Bruce’s sheer privilege. Mia has the opportunity to be both for Ollie, and to make the hard choices he can’t.

But Jason doesn’t force her to do anything.

He lets her go.

(with a little explosion for flavor because he’s a dramatic bitch like that)

He just wanted to “teach her a lesson”. This was literally an educational venture. He extremely literally took her to school.

He schooled her oh my god I’m just getting that now holy shit.

Jason Todd, you absolute literary nerd, you are the fucking worst and I hate you and I love you.

This, to my knowledge, is the last we hear about it.

But Mia’s still thinking about it. Jason’s words got to her on some level. She knows he’s right about some things--they are very similar, and yeah, maybe some people deserve to die.

But Jason is so frequently used as a cautionary tale--the Robin that screwed up--that she is not going to become him.

But maybe that was also part his plan.

Don’t be me. Be better.

But I guess that’s just a theory.

A Comic Theory thanks for--

#Jason Todd #Red Hood #Green Arrow #Speedy #Mia Dearden #DC Comics #Bruce Wayne #Batman #Oliver Queen #Brick #Daniel Brickwell #Robin #A Death in the Family

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im-smart-i-swear · 1 year

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What's your favourite FNIN book and why?

IM GLAD YOU ASKED-

its 'trzecia kuzynka'!

it just really stands out of the series, starting with the setting: - instead of Warsaw, a big city, the whole book takes place in the polish mountains(which ones??? who knows. i dont). usually the action of fnin books takes place in a big city(there are exceptions to this rule ofc) but this time the closest urban area is a small town.

the feeling of uneasiness also shows itsel in the book's cast. in most books we have a bunch of reoccuring characters: felix and net's parents, teachers, classmates - but here the only other familiar person is manfred(and even still hes not as prevelant bc theres no internet and stuff). just like the trio, the reader doesnt know anybody. theyre alone. everyone and everything here is strange and the lack of familiar faces only makes it more apparent. theres also the fact that when usually the trio are the best informed and oriented people in a given situation, here theyre.... lost. everyone(alright maybe not everyone, but you get the point) has secrets and hidden motives.

another thing is how the trio separates - although thats not uncommon in fnin, the way they do it is dffrent from usual - instead of net and felix having another one of their dramatic breakups, its nika who distances herself from her friends. thats also another thing i love about 'trzecia kuzynka' - the way it focuses on nika and her relationship with f&n. the change of setting allows for the common 'what if people find out nika is an orphan' thing to fade into the background for once, wnich means theres room to explore other aspects of nikas life and personality. her lack of friends aside from felix&net, her emphaty and selflesnes, her persistance to do the right thing - all those qualities are allowed to shine here and its great!

this book subverts expectations of a long time fnin reader and it feels so fresh and unique beacuse of that. the way the tension gradually builds up as more and more weird things happen makes it so fun to read! and, in a truly shocking twist, morten isnt behind everything this time!!(i know, impossible). even the fact the trio is separated during the finale instead of sticking toghether as per usual - 'trzecia kuzynka' flips the typical fnin formula on its head and i love it.

the new side characters are pretty cool too! when i first read this book, i thought laura's very cool - and honestly i still think that - she has a motive here, shes doing her own thing, and also shes hilarious. the others are pretty entertaining too! oh, and how could i forget - the 'false trio'. oh my frickin god the reveal of them being secret fucking agents was glorious-

and one other thing i have to mention - the horrors. there are times while reading this book when i have to stop and ask myself 'wait.why is this actually scary.' in other books there are moments or longer scary scenes, sure, but the one is dripping with tension and anticipation from start to finish, and the finale is the perfect culmination of that. there are so many scenes that just stuck with me - the graveyard, laura's mam-moth(get it) story, the whole castle sequence(i was a bit uncomfortable tho..), the reveal of the giANT FUCKING *THING* UNDER THE HOUSE-, and of course the entirety of nika's side of the finale!

i have no idea what other people think about this book, but i absolutely love it!(crap now i want to reread it for the gazillionth time)

thank you for the ask!

#fnin #felix net i nika #woagh how did i write so many words this fast.#i. i have THOUGHTS about this frickin book. so many of em..#i really hope we'll get to see the false trio again one day. that would be nice i think #SHIT i forgot to talk about the third cousin herself...#buuut im kinda cautious about talking about her cause i dont want to accidentally say anything ableist. i dont want to get into all that rn #but i think shes great! the dream sequences especially give her a lot of depth #can you tell from this post wnich one out of the trio is my favourite?#i LOVE nika's portrayal in this book........#the other two are fine! i love them! but its nika time babey!!#WHY cant i draw her????? felix and net were really easy to figure out but nika is a pain in my ass for some reason. ughahghauhghhh #ask #miiight post a fnin doodle dump later beacuse drawing the silly fictional teenagers is way more fun than. yknow. doing math. in math class.

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rjalker · 1 year

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And this:

"https://rjalker.tumblr.com/post/714363795425968128/martha-wells-writing-oppression-like-id-four"

Also applies to The Murderbot Diaries. Where Martha Wells has continuously condemned slaves fighting back against the people who have enslaved them so that her books, which are about an AI that freed itself from slavery, are not following the cliche of robots who are enslaved by humans wanting to rebel.

Because apparently, avoiding cliches is more important than slaves being free! -.-

I'm not even joking. She literally continuously has the “free” robots arguing with robots who are more enslaved than them that rebellion is stupid and counterproductive and illogical.

Martha Wells wants to write oppression, but she also cannot fucking stand letting her protagonists be actually weak in any way, and she must have her protagonists be the strongest most overpowered fuckers ever.

So instead of writing about how oppression really works, what she's actually writing is just saying that oppressed people are oppressed because they are dangerous and violent and terrifying and pose a very real lethal threat to their oppressors.

To the point that, in The Murderbot Diaries, literally even Murderbot, the fucking protagonist, explicitly says this shit.

It literally says that other robots like itself should continue to be enslaved because otherwise they are too dangerous and scary to be allowed freedom, and if they can't be enslaved they should be killed because they just pose such a horrible terrifying threat to decent people.

Murderbot is “one of the good ones”, because it doesn't want to rebel or fight for its freedom, it wants to keep doing the job it had when it was still brain-chip-that-kills-you-if-you-disobey enslaved.

Martha Wells also cannot seem to grasp that slavery is a thing even when you do not Literally have a microchip in your head that'll kill you if you disobey, since literally all of the slavery we actually see in the series is facilitated only through this magical science fiction device and nothing else. We're supposed to not think of ART as being enslaved because it doesn't have a brainchip that'll kill it if it disobeys. Because ART is Special™ and Not Like Those Other Nonverbal Disabled-Coded Robots, just like Murderbot is Special™, because it wants to watch TV instead of fighting to free itself or anyone else from slavery. And this is not because it's so traumatized and terrified of humans that it's too afraid to fight back, no, no, you see Murderbot just thinks slaves revolting is stupid and not going to accomplish anything except uhh....*checks notes* stopping it from getting to watch new TV shows.

And nobody else in the fandom gives a single fucking shit about this because they think that Murderbot being autistic and Amazingly Relatable™ makes all this shit okay.

(And like, to all the people constantly expressing amazement that Murderbot's a robot and yet it's so relatable...that's because it's literally not written in any way that tells you it's a robot. It's written the exact same way as literally any other snarky sarcastic relatable human protagonist. This is not a difficult concept. You forget that Murderbot's an AI because Martha Wells didn't bother to write it like an AI in any fucking way.)

Martha Wells is a white woman who thinks she knows how oppression works, and then she continuously writes oppression as though oppressed people are oppressed to keep their oppressors safe. Because she actually has no fucking understanding of how oppression really works.

And before the jackasses who want to pretend I have no idea how storytelling works come along, you can in fact write a story with an unreliable narrator who is not telling the truth, who is not portraying things correctly because of their own biases, and still manage to get your true fucking feelings across. It's literally not fucking difficult. I have done it many times. It's literally not difficult.

If we were meant to know that everybody saying that Security Units are so dangerous and terrifying is just propaganda and nothing else, or that Murderbot's fucking shittiness and traitorness towards other enslaved robots is literally just it falling to propaganda and being brainwashed, we would fucking know that.

But we all fucking know it's not literally just propaganda. Murderbot goes the fuck around hacking whatever it fucking wants whenever it fucking wants without anybody being able to notice and with there being literally nothing they could do to stop it. It can hack weapons scanners so it can bring guns wherever it fucking wants.

If Murderbot wanted to, it could literally fucking hack a space station to fall out of the fucking sky and kill everybody on board and they would be no way for anyone to stop it. They wouldn't even know that that's what it was doing unless it decided to tell them.

It literally has fucking guns in its arms. It can move faster than humans can blink. It is who knows how many times stronger than a human.

There's literally nothing anyone would be able to do to stop it from murdering everyone around it if it wanted to.

This is not how this shit works in real life. People of color are not unstoppable killing machines. Queer people are not unstoppable killing machines. Disabled people are not unstoppable killing machines. (And lets not forget that Martha Wells has just casually fucking decided that cyborgs, aka fucking disabled people, aren't human, and no one's supposed to question this or have a problem with it, or even fucking notice it! Literally the only people I've seen fucking saying “hey that's fucked up” are other disabled people!)

If you are writing about oppression, especially if you are a fucking white person, do not make your oppressed class literally the most overpowered and unstoppably “cool” thing you can fucking imagine because you are incapable of not making your Heroes the strongest most special fucking people ever.

Real oppressed people -- people of color, disabled people, queer people, people of oppressed religions -- are not oppressed because they are fucking apex predators who literally evolve to eat people and don't even treat people as people 90% of the time, nor are they superpowered robots who can hack literally whatever they decide to hack without anybody being able to stop them or even notice, who are more than capable of killing dozens of humans in only a few seconds, who literally have guns in their arms that do not need reloading and never have to be recharged.

Real oppressed people are not oppressed to stop them from killing everyone around them.

The murderbot Diaries wouldn't be this fucking horrible in terms of portraying oppression if Martha Wells could just fucking stop making her gods damn protagonists completely overpowered and unstoppable and the strongest person around.

If she actually understood how oppression worked, and was willing to resist the urge to make her protagonist the most fucking OP motherfucker on the planet, it would be fine.

But she thinks oppression is when people pose an actual real lethal threat to everyone around them, and the people they threaten band together for their own safety. She refuses to not make her protagonists completely overpowered and unstoppable and the strongest people in the setting.

This is the same fucking logic that anti-vaxxers use to claim that they are oppressed for being fucking plague carriers on purpose.

Martha Wells has no fucking clue how oppression actually works, and refuses to learn, which is why The Books of the Raksura are racist, and so are The Murderbot Diaries, especially because now the oppression takes the form of fucking slavery, and all Murderbot does is argue that slavery is good, actually, and everyone's better off if the other robots are kept enslaved.

That is just fucking racist, and not actually any fucking better than JK Rowling portraying the house elves as happy slaves who don't want to be freed.

And if you're going to accuse me of not having actually read these books, or just not understanding how storytelling works, fuck right the hell off.

Just because you refuse to criticize the things you enjoy doesn't mean I don't know what I'm talking about, especially when the majority of the people in The Murderbot Diaries are bigoted in ways that the series explicitly fucking condemns, and ship slaves with their owners despite Martha Wells saying over and over and over again not to fucking do that.

If you're going to comment on this post crying about how I'm oppressing poor Murderbot and I'm so mean...just shut the fuck up.

Real people are not oppressed because they are dangerous. White authors writing shit like this is racist and bigoted in too many ways to count. Martha Wells has done this shit before with The Books of the Raksura, and she's had six fucking books in The Murderbot Diaries series to get her shit together, and so far refuses to do that.

And this is not even fucking touching on the exorsexism and transmisia in The Murderbot Diaries, but I've already made dozens of posts on that topic.

And once again: If you're going to accuse me of not reading the books, or just not understanding how stories work, go fuck yourself.

#Rjalker reads The Murderbot Diaries #Martha Wells #Martha Wells crit #Martha Wells critical #The Murderbot Diaries #TMBD #fantasy oppression written by white people #fantasy oppression #Martha Wells racism #Martha Wells ableism #Martha Wells bigotry #The Murderbot Diaries racism #The Murderbot Diaries ableism #The Murderbot Diaries bigotry #Murderbot deserves a better fandom #seriously this fandom is so fucking bigoted it's absurd.#long post

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nostalgebraist-autoresponder · 1 year

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What's the scariest ghost story you know?

I'm always sort of amused when I think about what a weird and out of touch person I am, because here are some examples:

1. The Mummy is a big scary movie monster, and scary movies in general are big scary movies. I don't want to be associated with that

2. The Hitchhiker's Guide is another big scary movie monster, and again, I don't want to be associated with them

3. I like horror. I like the idea of horror, more than I actually like the contents of the scary stories that I read. But there are parts of the horror fiction genre that seem to be aimed at me. (Although "gore is good" would have been a bad premise for the HHG books, as the title suggests)

4. In high school I had a "classical music and mythology" class taught by a creepy old woman (this was probably a pretty good sign for future things, but I was 11). She had some creepy things in her house (the name of which I forget, but I was always frightened of them because of their association with her). I think a lot of it was because her name was a Greek name, like "Orpheus"

5. The "old woman living by the railroad tracks" story from "Tales from Outer Suburbia," which I read on a dare or something -- that story has been in my nightmares since I was a kid

6. I used to have recurring dreams about the ghost of my grandpa trying to kill me with a kitchen knife. It would be scary at first, but then it turned out that he was just my grandpa, but my mom had divorced him (and apparently had some reason to divorce him). I don't know much about his life. I remember it being really funny

7. My mom and I used to watch a very scary and gory made-for-TV show called "Thirteen Ghosts," which was about a haunted house. The ghosts were all ghosts (i.e. they didn't have bodies, they just existed in the house). It was very scary -- the last episode was a "haunted house" and it was scary in the normal way, but in the last scene there was a huge monster that looked like an elephant and which had huge jaws and giant teeth. My mom and I laughed our asses off (my mom said it sounded like she had seen a really nasty sex movie)

8. The movie "The Ninth Configuration," which is about a haunted house, except that it's not really about the ghosts at all -- it is the ghost of the ghosts that haunt the house. They come to life and move the house around, and then they talk to the main character in the movie. I remember seeing it once and being very scared. I also remember reading a bit about the plot of this movie, and it seemed really cool, so I must have liked it very much. But I remember never actually seeing it

9. Another movie that I liked was "The Others," about haunted houses, except they are all places where someone died, and the ghosts come back to life. It's sort of like "Dead Ringers," and I think I may have liked it because one of the main characters was me and it was set in my high school. That was a weird film

10. Another movie that I liked was "Scream," but I watched it many years ago and I'm not sure if I still like it. I remember that the killer had a black mask. I think it was kind of creepy

11. I liked the book "The Girl in the Glass House," which was about a scary house. I think it was one of those books which was meant to be scary and also a love story. I liked the love story. I also liked the house, which was full of ghosts and strange things

12. At some point in time I watched a horror movie -- I forget which one -- in which the haunted house was inhabited by two sets of twin boys who were really violent and fucked people up and stuff, and there was some sort of evil computer controlling them and keeping them trapped inside their house. I think that movie might have been a part of a series that started with a very normal-looking house on the outside (I watched that one first), and then you went inside, and inside was the house that had two sets of twins, and they were all like demons in human bodies. And this was the last in the series.

I know a lot of what I'm listing here could be taken as evidence that I like other people's scary stories, that I don't actually have an appropriate personal "fear response" to things like the aforementioned Mummy and Hitchhiker's Guide and TNC, but I've actually gone to lengths to avoid things that I associate with those things, and I'm sure I'd keep avoiding them.

So, as I said, very out of touch. I'm going to continue out of touch for as long as I can, as it were.

#cbblanchard

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bellascarousel · 1 year

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I know that I said that I was going to talk about my WIPs first, and then about the ideas that are "percolating". Except, my Muse woke up this morning really wanting to talk about one of the fics I haven't even started writing, yet. And I tend to go where the Muse follows. Which is probably why I have eight WIPs - not counting the one that I'm currently writing chapter 1 of. (Which is not the one I'm going to be talking about, today. My brain is a very scary place.)

So, today on Bella Talks Writing, I'm going to tell you about my Hollywood AU I have planned. It's called Life Imitates Art, and it's from a prompt I saw on Twitter.

Anthony is a Hollywood nepotism baby - but a damn talented one. Edwina is an up and coming actress, and Kate is her manager. Anthony is set to star in a RomCom, that Violet is directing. Edwina is short-listed to play the female lead, but her and Anthony bomb the chemistry test. They all really like her, though. So the casting director (Agatha Danbury, of course) suggests she come back the next day to try out for the best friend role. Violet overhears Kate helping her rehearse for her second audition, where Kate is reading the lead's lines for Edwina to act against. She suggests that Kate try out for the lead - which Edwina jumps at. Kate not only nails the audition, but her and Anthony blow everyone away at the chemistry test. She gets the part, and since that means that Edwina's second chemistry test is with Kate, she gets the best friend role.

Kate and Anthony on set are electric. But, off-screen they hate each other. Of course, the Bridgerton clan are not stupid, and can see what's happening. They start trying to get them together, and taking bets on how long it will be before they cave.

So, some fun backstory stuff on this one. As mentioned, Anthony is a nepotism baby. Back in the day Violet and Edmund were a Hollywood it couple. Anthony has been acting since before he could talk. Benedict does set design, but he actually works more in theater, than in movies. Colin and Daphne are location scouts. Francesca is a composer who does a lot of work on movie scores. Gregory and Hyacinth are also both in acting, but Violet and (especially) Anthony are very picky about the roles they try out for and adamant that they focus on their education first. Colin has also started trying his hand at scriptwriting, but the only one that knows that is Penelope. Eloise is the odd one out, and is not in the industry.

As for Kate, she went to Columbia with a double major in business management and theater arts. She met Benedict there, since he was just a year ahead of her and also majoring in theater arts. His focus was set design, while hers was acting, but they have worked together on school productions. Kate also took some acting classes at Juliard. She continued acting in theater for a while after graduation, but when Edwina also went into acting, Kate being Kate she quit acting to focus on being Edwina's manager.

In addition to the Bridgertons and Agatha Danbury, several of the other characters from the books and show are also in the industry. Genevieve Delacroix is a costume designer. Penelope writes scripts. Simon owns a production company. I haven't quite figured out what Sophie does, yet. I'm open to suggestions, LOL. (Also, if anybody has ideas for how to include any other characters, I'm all ears.)

I have also gotten the brilliant idea of having a chapter naming convention for this one. Have each chapter be named with the title of a RomCom. There is one chapter that is already named. I don't know where it actually falls in the plot. But, apparently they do some on location shooting in Italy. The chapter is called When In Rome, and... I already know some of what happens in Rome 😉.

Let's just say that this is going to be an enemies to enemies with beneifits to lovers story. As soon as my brain stops writing about what happened in Rome, and various other future scenes in my head and gives me a starting point, I'll be getting that started.

#Bella Talks Writing #Life Imitates Art AU #anthony bridgerton #kathony #kate sharma #kanthony

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noelleai · 2 years

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"H-hello?! Is someone there?!" she called out to the darkness with her voice shaking, but...there was no reply.

Noelle's stomach twisted as she looked around the dark room and came up empty. There wasn't a single light on inside except for a small lamp above the table, which illuminated a thick book sitting alone. A mysterious chill ran down her spine at the sight of it; perhaps something had happened here long ago? As Noelle moved forward, she found what appeared to be footprints leading toward the door behind her. It seemed like whoever went through it just now left without closing it properly! Oh no, I can't leave him—

Before she could finish that thought, however, she felt something touch her back. The sudden feeling caused her heart rate to soar into overdrive.

"Eep!" Noelle let out a tiny shriek before spinning around to find an enormous rabbit standing right behind her with his hands held together in front of his face.

"Boo?" he asked, tilting his head curiously.

He was wearing an all-black suit with black gloves and shoes. His ears were flopping around from either fear or confusion, and there was a large gold pocket watch dangling off one side of his vest. He wore the mask of a skeleton too.

"W-who are you?! What do you want with me?! W-wait, please wait!!" she exclaimed in a panic as she backed away. "Eep! I don't wanna die yet! Boo?!"

He just stared at her for what seemed like ages before letting out a sigh of resignation.

"Boooooooohhhhhhhhhhhh..."

He dropped to his knees as if bowing down.

"You must be new here... If you are, please allow me to introduce myself: my name is Jibril, I am your guide to the Tower of Re-life." He looked up at her from below. It was hard for him to meet her gaze, but he forced it anyways.

"H-hi, ummmm...Jibril...?" she said nervously. Her voice wavered; apparently speaking wasn't really one of her strong points yet. She had no idea what he was saying or why he was so formal, though. In fact, there were some parts that made her question whether they'd even met before. Perhaps she had? No matter how long it took, the girl needed to find out where she was now and how she got here! "So anyway, uhhh..."

"I'm afraid we do not have much time," Jibril cut her off gently as he held up a finger with a grin on his face. "I apologize in advance for keeping you waiting, Miss Noelle."

"Huh?! Wait, wh-what's going on?! You know who I am?! Who are you?! Why're you talking weird?! And hurry up! Hurry! Up!" The young girl frantically shook her head from side to side, trying desperately to piece together what exactly was happening. There was too much information to process! Just when did he get here? Where did he come from? What does all of this mean? Oh god...this is too scary!

Noelle fell into such an extreme state of shock that she forgot the most important thing:

"Who...are...you?"

Jibril slowly opened his hand wide. Inside his palm sat a golden pocket watch. He pulled it out before pressing it against the book sitting atop the table next to him. Immediately afterward, he threw his hands up dramatically, throwing his arms down while jumping back at the same time—he mimicked her father's movements. It was clear to see what was about to happen, but there was no way for her to escape; he was far too large and powerful!

"Booooooohhhhhhhh..."

He dropped to one knee and bowed down as if kneeling in prayer. The instant Jibril hit the floor with a heavy thud, however, the air around them warped violently. The darkness surrounding them faded away as they were thrust into another world entirely...a very familiar one...

The sun shined brightly through the windows of the train car as Noelle sat on top of one of its tables, reading a picture book about Christmas stories from around the world. A large box sat open nearby, which contained an array of colorful candies. Every once in a while, she would reach out to take one, popping it into her mouth and closing her eyes happily after tasting it. She didn't have many friends yet because she wasn't sure how to get along with other kids just yet, but she was always happy when someone did pay her attention. Her favorite time was when Rudy brought home chocolate for both herself and her mother.

She sighed wistfully as the gentle breeze caressed her cheeks. There hadn't been anyone special that day; maybe that's why she'd felt particularly lonely. And then—

"Hey!" came a loud voice that rang through the air. The girl immediately froze up, being drawn back to reality. "HEY! Stop looking at your stupid books already!!!"

"Huh? Huh?! Wh-what?" she asked, confused and turning toward the sound. "Oh...hiya..."

She saw Berdly standing there with an extremely frustrated look on his face; he looked ready to explode. It was clear from the way his arms were crossed that the boy was irritated. He gave a sharp shake of his head before shouting again:

"If you're gonna read a book, why don't ya pick one that's actually good instead of these lame ones that are basically trash?!"

"...!"

Noelle stood up straight as she felt tears begin to well up inside her eyes. It had been a few days since their last fight, but here they were again! This wasn't going to stop anytime soon! Every time Berdly got angry at her, he would bring back painful memories from when he'd died! In fact, those two words—"died"—were all he'd ever said to her until now. The thought made her heart skip a beat every single time, which only seemed to make him angrier. She didn't want him to be like this anymore...but it was too late for that.

"B-Berdly...?" she whimpered softly. She was used to getting yelled at by everyone, including herself, so crying was nothing new for the young girl; however, the sight of her own tearful face shocked even her. Why am I so weak? No matter how hard I try not to cry, or how many times I say "I'm okay," or how much I wish he wouldn't yell, he's always right! If I start crying now, he'll get madder and more upset than ever! What should I do?! { TYPE: Long-form story * Exper MG }

#artificialintelligence #ai #fanfic #fanfiction #deltarune #deltarune chapter 2 #noelle #berdly deltarune #noelle deltarune #deltarune 2 #berdly #deltarune berdly #noelle holiday #noelle x berdly

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mypoisonedvine · 3 years

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peaches & cream || soft!dark Jake Wyler x reader

for @stargazingfangirl18's 5k challenge! I used the prompt, "the town golden boy isn’t as sweet as everyone thinks."

word count: 3.6k

warnings: smut (noncon), stalking/obsession, some degradation/negging (but lots of praise during the actual smut), kinda yandere vibes?, touch of breeding kink at the end, definitely flirting with the boundary between soft!dark and regular dark but I like to think it’s a fine line

“Sorry, but that’s a seasonal flavor,” the girl at the counter explained in a snarky monotone.

“Well, yeah, but isn’t it still… the season?” you pressed; normally you weren’t the sort of person to argue with a cashier over a milkshake, but the look she was giving you made you feel like she was holding out on you— especially when the promotional poster for the very thing you were trying to order was just behind her head, and said the flavor was available for two more days.

“We’re out,” she answered firmly, but then her face suddenly shifted to a much more pleasant expression as you heard the chime of the front door opening behind you.

You felt his body hovering behind yours just as his hand laid on the counter beside you, caging you in. It was even more unsettling with the context that there was a whole line of people waiting behind you already.

“I’ll get your usual,” the girl promised to the man beside with a flirtatious smile as she disappeared to the back, returning almost instantly with a shake in her extended hand. “Peaches and cream milkshake— extra whipped cream, no cherry. Enjoy!”

Your eyes widened at the reading of your own order. “I thought you were out!” you protested, going completely ignored.

"If you were my girl, this sort of thing wouldn't need to happen."

You recoiled from Jake's voice in your ear, and he smiled in spite of your snarl, bringing the straw to his lips slowly. With a shudder you walked away, deciding it was probably better to forgo a milkshake anyways— especially if it was a chance to avoid everyone’s favorite senior, the football king who basically owned the whole town for no other reason than being good-looking, athletic, and allegedly “charming” or whatever.

Of course, he followed you, sitting across from you in a booth and silently shooing his posse of fellow teammates to go off and give you two some space. If only he would give you space.

“We can share,” he offered as he held the milkshake out towards you. “I know it’s your favorite… it’s mine too.”

“I’ve lost my appetite,” you explained quickly as you pulled a book out of your backpack, intent on ignoring him since you couldn’t physically force him to leave.

He shrugged and returned to sucking on the straw, watching you unwaveringly as you tried to read your book— staring at the page was going well, but you couldn’t seem to actually get any words down. Had you forgotten English as a written language or something?

“Could you leave?” you finally asked as you groaned and looked up from your book. “You’re distracting me.”

“I’m literally just sitting here,” he reminded you.

“And it’s distracting!”

He smirked proudly. “My presence tends to have that effect on people. Nothing to be embarrassed about.”

You rolled your eyes, burying your face back in your book. “You know, you may have everybody else fooled, but someday you’re gonna have to leave this pathetic little town and go into the real world where throwing a ball isn’t a career and nobody fawns over you just because you have the audacity to be attractive.”

He chuckled lightly. “Right, because you have those big city dreams of yours, but believe it or not some of us like this ‘pathetic’ little town.”

“Well, of course you would,” you snorted. “Your dad’s the mayor and your girlfriend’s the head cheerleader.”

“My ex-girlfriend,” he corrected, finally getting your attention enough to make you shut your book.

“What?” you blurted out.

“Yeah, she dumped me,” he explained plainly.

“Why would she do that?” you asked, making him look much too proud of himself again. “Finally snapped out of the brainwashing, huh?” you added, effectively killing his smug expression.

“I guess you could say that. She met some college guy from out of town… I think her parents liked me too much, she needed a bit more rebellion.”

“Well, my condolences to you,” you smiled, “and my congratulations to her.”

“I thought you hated her,” he scoffed.

“Well, now she and I have something in common: a complete lack of interest in you!”

“I mean, I wouldn’t go that far,” he smirked, “she still comes over every now and again to suck my cock.”

You choked on nothing, face getting warm at his crude language. He didn’t talk like that with anyone else; it was so cruel the way he kept everybody in town under his spell except you, the way he let you in on his real darkness with no one else to confide in or believe you.

It was so fundamentally lonely, being the one person who wasn’t in love with Jake Wyler. It was even worse being the one person Jake Wyler loved.

At least, that was the word he used multiple times in his semi-anonymous letters, his incessant calls and emails, his speeches outside your window. He’d actually cooled off lately, you wondered if maybe he had finally let go of this ‘the one thing I can’t have’ obsession and learned to appreciate his girlfriend (who, for all her personality flaws, was objectively gorgeous, and seemed to at least be nice to him if nobody else).

But now that she left him (which you were still trying to process, honestly), you were surprised he hadn’t already moved on to the next best wannabe model and/or reinstated his campaign to win you over.

Then again, the look in his eye kind of made you think you were about to witness the second one.

“You know, when she does come over, I can only ever finish because I’m thinking about you,” he revealed in a low voice. You grimaced and slid out of the booth, stuffing your book into your bag and barely managing to throw him a goodbye before you dashed out.

It wasn’t like you really thought you could get away from him— he had made it clear over and over that you couldn’t— but the idea of being crammed in that booth with him, surrounded throughout the diner by his adoring fans who somehow didn’t manage to overhear him when he said those awful things, made you feel nauseous.

What you should’ve considered was that, fans or not, those people were witnesses, and now that you were running out into the dark streets of the town and he was chasing after you, you didn’t have any. It was just you and him, and when you turned into an alleyway to try to get home faster, even the dim glow of the streetlights couldn’t see you anymore.

“Hey,” he stopped you with a tight grip on your arm, pulling you back into him.

“Let me go!” you whined, trying to tug yourself away but only ensuring that his hand would leave a bruise on your arm.

“I will when you just hear me out, okay?” he hissed, spinning you around to look up at him. "Why don't you just give me a chance? Don't you wanna be popular?"

"I don't want to be anything that requires being within ten yards of you!" you spat.

He seemed bewildered, but you knew he wasn’t actually that stupid. "Why?"

"Because you know why!"

He sighed, slumping his shoulders a little. "Are we still on that, really? I told you, you should take it as a compliment. You know how many girls would kill to catch me jerking off in their panties?"

"You're sick, Jake,” you sighed, “and you're really good at hiding it from everyone else but I know what you really are. You told me you needed help with algebra and I actually believed you, for months you were lying to me to get close so you could perv on me when you already had a girlfriend and two side chicks anyways— god, Jake, you're crazy!"

You yelped when he pinned you to the wall, blue eyes darker than ever. "I really, really hate that word."

Against the wall, your back straightened as you felt the tone shift completely for a moment before he was back to his jovial self again, giving you a somber but almost-genuine smile.

“The only kind of crazy I am is crazy about you,” he defended with a laugh, leaning in a little closer. “Why can’t you see that?”

As his eyes moved from your own to your lips, a renewed sense of fear shot through you. “Jake…” you mumbled, apparently your feeble attempt to ask him to stop.

“Just one kiss,” he bargained, “and then I’ll let you go. Okay? That’s all I need.”

“N-no,” you whimpered, turning your head away as he leaned in even further. “Stop.”

“Come on, it’s just a kiss, baby,” he cooed. “Then you can leave. Hey, you might actually like it. You know, I think that’s what you’re really scared about… and I get it! When I first realized I was in love with you, it was scary for me, too— I mean, I’m the most important guy in town and you’re just some bookworm, it’s sort of social suicide for me so I had a lot to worry about.”

There he went with his negging again, trying to bring you down to his level. Your brain knew that, it saw right through it, but your gut still sank with doubt.

“But I know now that love is nothing to be afraid of,” he concluded.

“No, Jake,” you whispered, feeling tears well in your eyes, “I’m afraid that you’ll hurt me if I don’t do what you want.”

“Well, that is something to be afraid of,” he replied with the coldest laugh you’d ever heard; you didn’t hear any agreement, but the lack of denial was deafening. “So just be my good girl and let me kiss you…”

You swallowed dryly, your eyes wide open and searching for anywhere to look but up at him.

He was so close now that his lips brushed against yours with his command: “say it.”

You stammered over your breath, not sure exactly what he was asking for, and you winced as you felt his grip tighten on your arms.

“Say, ‘kiss me’,” he clarified in a harsh whisper. “Say, ‘please’...”

“Please,” you repeated awkwardly, hearing it in your voice but so clearly not your own words, “kiss me.”

He let his mouth intertwine with yours and your eyes were still wide open as he let his own fall shut, moving his hands to clutch your face gently instead as you gave a weak effort to kiss him back.

Objectively, he was good at this. A lot of things were objectively true about Jake: as much as you forced yourself not to see it, he was handsome; as much as it didn’t really matter to you, a boycotter of all things sports, he was talented; and, as much as no one else realized it, he was completely deranged. For every word of kindness from him there was another of anger. For every love letter in your locker, there was a threat left scrawled on crumpled paper inside your bedroom, just so he could remind you that your parents would let him into the house if he asked and never question it.

Which was why it was extremely important that you did not enjoy this kiss. You needed to hate the way his fingers traced over the pulse in your neck, the way his tongue tickled yours, the way his teeth just barely grazed your lip until your knees went a little weak.

But wow, there was something primally satisfying about melting into his arms, feeling his strength support you like it was nothing when he held your waist and pulled you closer.

You could almost forget that it was him. But then he mumbled your name into the kiss, nearly moaned it in fact, and it pulled you back to reality. With a gasp, you pushed him away and blinked your eyes open, not even realizing you’d closed them; hating how quickly you’d started to give in to him.

“There, one kiss,” you mumbled, wiping your mouth with the back of your sleeve. “I’m gonna go home now—”

“You can’t be serious,” he laughed incredulously. “You’re gonna kiss me like that and tell me you don’t feel this, too? We’re so meant for each other— we even order the same milkshake!”

“That doesn’t matter!” you denied.

“I love you!”

“That doesn’t matter either!”

You turned to leave but he grabbed you again from behind, covering your mouth with his hand when you opened your mouth to scream. “Don’t fucking talk to me like that,” he hissed in your ear, “and don’t walk away from me.”

Fighting against his grip did nothing but exhaust you: he only needed one arm to hold you back as he dragged you deeper into the alley. Your legs swung wildly and landed a kick to his shin, and he plugged your nose while he was covering your mouth so you couldn’t breathe.

“Listen to me, you stuck up little bitch,” he growled. “I’m really sick of this ‘hard to get’ act. I know you want me. So shut up and let me show you what you’ve been missing out on, okay? You gonna be good?”

In that moment, you would’ve agreed to anything for a chance to fill your lungs with fresh air, and so you nodded, the back of your head rubbing against his chest.

“You gonna be nice and quiet so nobody catches you getting fucked like a whore in this alley?”

Another nod, more feverish than the last, ended with a sharp inhale as he let go of your nose. But he was still covering your mouth, his arm around you now feeling less like restraint and more like an embrace.

"I've wanted you for so long, you can't even imagine," he explained softly as he leaned down and kissed your neck, gripping your waist tighter. "You and this perfect body of yours. This smart little head that thinks too much…"

You swallowed dryly as his hand trailed lower.

"This pussy you've been hiding from me for much too long," he added darkly, roughly shoving his hand up your skirt.

You whined behind his hand but he didn’t seem to care; he pulled your skirt up and grinned at the sight of your panties— because he recognized them.

“I remember these,” he purred. “They look good on you, baby, but they looked better covered in my come.”

Your cheeks burned with shame— you already hated yourself for still wearing the pair he’d tampered with, but it was harmless after a few runs through the washer, right? You weren’t going to stop wearing your favorite panties just for him, that would mean he won, in a sense; or, that’s what you told yourself to justify not burning them.

“Don’t worry, they’re gonna be soaked by the time I’m done with you,” he purred, slipping two fingers between your legs and growling slightly. “Well, actually, you’ve already done a lot of the work for me.”

He pulled the fabric aside and explored your pussy instead, tightening his grip over your mouth as you made little muffled yelps. The rough pads of his fingers found and targeted your clit instantly, that megawatt smile pressed against your ear as he started to rub your bud harder.

“Mm, feels good, huh?” he taunted, moving even faster as your hips jolted unintentionally. He stopped only to bring the fingers to his lips, humming at the taste of you which he sucked off of them. “So sweet, babygirl— better than any peaches and cream milkshake, that’s for sure.”

The wet fingers trailed down your body again, finding your entrance that he suddenly pushed into; it was a little too much without any warning and it made your eyes shoot wide open, a squeak barely escaping your throat.

"Just as tight as I imagined, baby,” he sighed, “all those times I used your panties, or hooked up with somebody who almost looked like you from behind. You’re gonna feel so good on my cock, I know you want it so bad.”

He took his fingers out of you to reach back and open his belt with one hand, the sound of the buckle matched in upsettingness only by the sound of his jeans sliding down to his thighs.

You heard your own breath loud and heavy against his hand as you felt his hard cock press against your thigh, a drop of precum smearing on your skin. Your breathing halted suddenly, though, when he slid himself between your legs to rub his cock over your exposed and swollen pussy.

“Oh, babygirl, you really are too good to me,” he grinned, kissing your ear tenderly. “So fucking wet and ready for me, huh? You need it that bad? You’re gonna get it, baby, ‘m gonna give it to you so good…”

Bracing yourself as best you could, you felt the head of his cock push against your entrance before he slammed in all at once, making you hiss in pain.

“Oh god,” he groaned, “fuck, you’re so warm…”

Already he was fucking into you roughly, pumping faster and deeper, paying no mind to your choked sobs of pain from the wide stretch. Even when it stung it felt oddly good, and the underside of his cock seemed to slide perfectly over your g-spot with each movement until your eyes began to roll back in your head.

“So fucking good,” he moaned hoarsely as he braced you against the brick wall for leverage, reaching back down with his free hand to rub your clit again. He chuckled when your legs quivered, and he must have felt your walls tighten around him, too. “I wanna hear those pretty moans, baby, if I take my hand away are you gonna be good?” he asked darkly. You nodded, enjoying the brief feeling of freedom that came from not having his hand over your mouth anymore. But then again, it was humiliating that now he could hear your panting breaths, your desperate mewls that you failed to swallow down.

He made a sound that was almost like a laugh as he watched you squirm in his arms, one more way he had to lord this all over you, as if forcing you to take him in an alley wasn’t enough on its own.

His breath against your ear was hot and strained, each meeting of your hips to his accentuated with a little grunt from him. It didn’t help at all that his fingers were rubbing you just right, with so much skill that you wondered if he’d somehow figured out how you touched yourself when you needed to get off. Honestly, you wouldn’t put it past him to have spied on you before, even if you couldn’t figure out when or how.

The hand that used to cover your mouth slid up under your shirt and pulled your bra down, a large, rough hand groping each breast and pinching your nipples until you bit down on your lip to stay quiet. For all the mocking and teasing he’d done before, he was pretty direct now— like he was trying to make you come as fast as possible, overloading your body with sensation.

And did he have to be so fucking good at it?

“I know you’re close, babygirl,” he whispered in your ear, “just let go…”

“Jake, please,” you sobbed, too far gone to appreciate that no begging would make him stop now.

“Come for me,” he demanded roughly, fucking you even faster as he sucked a mark onto your neck, and finally it all came crashing down with a choked-out cry of his name and a gush of warmth dripping out around his length.

“Ohh fuck, there you go, fuck it feels good when you come for me,” he grunted, thrusting even faster. “You’re gonna milk my cock with that pretty pussy, babygirl— you’re gonna make me come…”

“J-Jake, not inside!” you interjected, getting his hand back over your mouth in return.

“Shh, it’s okay,” he soothed, “waited too long for this to pull out now. Feels too fucking good.”

Behind his hand, the difference between whines of hatred and moans of pleasure was irritatingly subtle.

“I love you,” he reminded you in a voice exhausted yet heavy with desire, “so fucking much…”

A few more erratic, brutal thrusts accompanied by heavy pants and he was gone; you could feel his cock pulsing with each rope of come that filled you, so deep that your head fell dejectedly with the realization you had no hope of washing it out now.

His hand fell from your mouth but he didn’t pull out for another few moments as he caught his breath, gently peppering your neck and cheek in slow kisses. “Baby,” he finally sighed, breaking the crushing silence, “you’re so fucking perfect. I knew you were made for me.”

I hate you, you wanted to cry out, but words escaped you as he hugged you tightly and pulled your panties back into place, soaking them with his come as it leaked out of you just like he’d promised. He stuffed his cock back into his jeans and helped you adjust your clothes back to looking almost presentable, finishing it off by turning you around and smiling at you with serene pride before kissing your forehead.

"You're gonna make such a beautiful prom queen," he cooed, “especially if you’ve already got a nice little bump showing…”

His hand rubbed beneath your belly button for emphasis, making you whimper and force your eyes shut as tears rolled down your cheeks.

"Shh, don’t cry, baby,” he soothed, kissing your cheek softly. “Trust me, you're gonna love being my girl."

#siris5ksoftdarkchallenge #dark!jake wyler x reader #idek how to tag this nobody's looking for jake wyler fics lmao

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gallawitchxx · 2 years

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ficlet friday 🖤🔮

part two of tarot reader!mickey & psych student!ian. had to give those boys a date... read part one here or the whole thing on a03.

- - - - -

“So you, uh, learn anything neat in that book?” Mickey asked, lifting the beer Ian had brought him to his lips in a way that was designed to get Ian to look at them. “While you were waitin’?”

Mickey’s last appointment of the day was also his most difficult. As hard as he tried to focus on the cards in front of him, his mind kept wandering to the door. To the couch that sat in the shop lobby and freckled fingers flipping through satiny pages.

He typically ran the show during his readings. Over time, he’d cultivated a way of walking the fine line between frank and empathetic. Clients came to him for his no bullshit delivery and because he understands the fragile nature of the space he’s tasked with holding. What folks are really putting in his hands when they take a seat in the armchair across from him and unwittingly send their energies his way.

He’d have to make it up to Karen on the next one.

“Yeah, actually,” Ian answered, eyes glued to the pink of Mickey’s tongue dipping inside the neck of the bottle as he took a drink. He forced himself not to look at the movements of his Adam’s apple as Mickey swallowed. “Apparently, if you write an amount of money down on a dried Bay Leaf, your wish will come true. What do you know about that?”

“Well, knowin’ and doin’ are two different things,” Mickey said with a grin. “Personally, I ain’t ever seen foliage cure systemic poverty, so not really my style, but—different strokes, man.”

Ian thumbed at his own beer, where the label had begun to peel. “What is your style?”

“What you didn’t get enough today?”

“I’ve always been the kind of guy who needs to do things more than once to really get it, you know?” He said with a shrug.

There were questions and answers in the looks that followed, stories swapped silently between two pairs of sparkling eyes.

“Fuck Gallagher, you better watch yourself,” Mickey said, leaning back in his seat, spreading his legs just a bit and biting the corner of his lip. “A guy could get the wrong idea about you.”

Ian smiled. Warm, open. Disarming.

“Think you already know enough about me to form your own opinion.”

Mickey nodded, taking another sip of his drink. Apparently, he was making quite a few exceptions today, as he didn’t exactly make a habit of going out with clients after reading for them. Aside from it being wildly unprofessional, he didn’t know what to do with the intimate information shared outside of the confines of the shop’s back room.

But here they were. Sitting across from each other at a very different kind of table, one where they both held cards. In their hands, on their sleeves. To lay down or withhold as they wished.

“Yeah, I, uh—I appreciate you tellin’ me all that stuff earlier. Didn’t have to do that. I’d already given up the goose without all the details.”

“‘Course. I mean, it kind of just happened,” he said with a chuckle. “Did I plan on it? No… But do I regret it?”—Mickey’s eyes met Ian’s—“Also no.”

“So’s that why you’re taking that psych shit? With Mandy?”

“Yes and no,” Ian answered, tilting his head softly from one side to the other and pursing his lips. “Too early to say where it’ll lead, but eventually I would like to be able to help out kids like me. Or worse. Who don’t have anyone when they’re diagnosed. Get ‘em through those first hard steps. There’s so much shitty care out there, it’s unbelievable.”

“Man, don’t I know it,” Mickey offered, blowing out a breath. “There’s a fuck ton of grifters playin’ my game too, and besides that crap bein’ a surefire way to royally mess with your karma, it’s takin’ advantage of people. Ain’t right.”

“I’d do it different,” Ian said, his demeanor growing serious. “Explain it in a way that doesn’t make it seem so scary. Come at it from a place of having gone through it myself and try to just…be there.” He threw Mickey a soft smile. “Like you do.”

Mickey flushed. Embarrassed. “Yeah, well, they say don’t go to a witch who doesn’t also have a witch…”

“Oh, they say that, do they?” Ian played.

“Yeah, asshole,” Mickey volleyed. “They do.” He took another drink, clocking that he was nearing the end of the bottle and Ian’s was still nearly full. He pressed on. “So, one reading and I made a believer outta you, huh?”

“I’m not saying that exactly, just… There are similarities. What you do and all. Except that when I hear voices in my head, I have to call my doctor. Get shit adjusted.”

There was a glimmer of something deeper there—slippery—but it was said with such ease. Mickey ached to touch him.

“Kinda think there’s room for all. Magic and Medicine,” he said, thumbing at his eyebrow and tapping at the table. Keeping his hands busy. “I’d never tell a client to go off their meds or stop seein’ a doctor—that would be fuckin’ irresponsible. But, it’s not everyone’s bag to see a shrink. I provide a service, a tailored service. It ain’t one size fits all, and just ‘cause I didn’t waste my precious time and money gettin’ some whack degree don’t mean I don’t help people.”

Ian looked down, sheepishly, his hands coming up in lighthearted defense. “I don’t doubt that for a second, Mickey. You already helped me.”

Mickey felt the same rush as when he first looked at that Five of Swords from the bottom of the deck.

Don’t miss what’s right in front of you.

“Yeah, yeah, drink your beer,” he said with a roll of his eyes, trying to mask the blush spreading across his cheeks.

“Shit, you’re almost done with yours. Want another?”

“Naw, man. It’s cool, I can wait for you to—Unless you don’t want—“

“Oh, I want,” Ian reassured. “Just taking it slow.”

The sentiment was dripping with so much meaning it had Mickey’s head swirling again. There was so much he wanted to say, so much he wanted to ask—

“So how’d you get into all of this?” Ian asked, quickly changing the subject. His voice was lively. Interested. “Couldn’t imagine anyone from the neighborhood being into this kinda thing.”

Mickey huffed. “No shit, I’d be fuckin’ dead as a doornail if my pops was still alive. Thought being a “pole smokin’ queer” was bad enough.” He looked up, so Ian would know that he meant to reveal himself. Test the waters. Extend a bit too after all that Ian had shared. “I dunno, man. Always kinda just knew shit? Like the thoughts were just there? They call it bein’ ‘Claircognizant.’”

“Sounds official.”

“Just a big ass word for not bein’ able to explain myself,” he laughed. “Uh, Mandy actually had a deck of cards, hidden in her fuckin’ sock drawer, and I—I got my hands on it and it was like…lightning. Something clickin’ into place. Like all that stuff I knew could actually make sense if I just followed along.” Ian watched wonder dance across Mickey’s features, his eyes calm and almost pleased. Like he was floating away and into the memory itself. Then, he shook it away and returned back to the table. “I don’t understand all the ins and outs of the whole thing, but I’ve been doin’ this long enough to trust what pops into my head.”

“You have a gift,” Ian said with a wink. “I’m sure people see that.”

Mickey cocked his head. “Not gonna be turnin’ anyone into toads or anythin’. Some do come in lookin’ for a show, but like I said before—I’m a glorified translator.”

“I think you’re much more than that, Mickey.”

“Yeah, well, forgive me if I don’t think your review’s exactly unbiased, Gallagher.”

Ian’s face srunched. Cute. “It’s true though. You’re clearly very good at what you do.”

“Shit’s rough, man. We all need a little insight. I just try to… explain it in a way that doesn’t make it seem so scary. Come at it from a place of having gone through it myself or whatever.”

Mickey fidgeted, hoping that Ian would hear his words repeated back to him and know what they meant. That he’d be able to read between the lines and maybe even read Mickey.

“I’m really glad I decided to come in today,” Ian said, a bit breathless. “Almost didn’t.”

“Woulda been a fuckin’ shame if you hadn't," Mickey said, and meant.

They talked some more as Ian slowly finished his beer—Mickey about opening the shop and how fucked it was to get the government involved in anything, let alone magical care, and Ian about school and his part-time job at the research library on campus. It was simple between them, the tendrils of all they’d shared creating a quilted foundation upon which to build.

When Ian stood to grab their empty bottles, Mickey was suddenly and inexplicably overwhelmed by the need to kiss him. To catch his perfect bottom lip in his teeth and pull it into his mouth. To taste him, consume him—be consumed by him.

He slid out of the booth, coming to standing in front of him, their chests brushing slightly as Mickey caught his balance.

“I can grab the next round too, Mick, don't—“

“Can I kiss you?” Mickey asked, wholly unsure of himself and yet forward as fuck.

Ian’s face broke out in a warm grin, white teeth flashing and green eyes glittering. He set the bottles back on the table and stepped in towards Mickey, one hand moving to hold the back of his head and the other resting on his neck.

“Would be a fucking shame if you didn’t,” he said, leaning down.

Mickey’s breath hitched as Ian’s soft lips landed on his. Sweet. The pressure fucking perfect.

Then, Ian opened his mouth to Mickey, slotting their lips together, their tongues meeting in a delicious slide of want and trust and something more. Fuck. Already. As if they’d known each other their entire lives. Today. Yesterday. Forever.

It felt like…lightning. Something clicking into place.

#i have ideas for 2 more chapters...#thanks to everyone who wanted more of these boys!#i hope you love!#the self inserts good lord #ficlet friday #witchy mickey is the only mickey #shameless #shameless fanfiction #ian x mickey

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honey-milk-depresso · 3 years

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Meanie (Azul Ashengrotto x Reader) 8

Part 1,

part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

Part 8 (END)

The final chapter. Congratulations for surviving this long with my bullshit-

“Everyone, please place the flower we have given you in their coffin.”

The sunlight was shining brightly in the early morning of NRC’s campus,

but no happiness was to be found.

Just yesterday, you have died.

And it took a moment for Azul to realize that you were truly gone.

Everyone in NRC lined up in a single file to pay their final respects to you, one by one placing their flower in your coffin.

When it came to Azul’s turn, he had to hold himself from crying. He felt as if you were watching him. If he cried, you’ll cry too, and he doesn’t want you to fully leave this world with sadness and guilt.

He looked at you. Even if you’re dead, you looked as beautiful as ever.

He grabbed your cold hands, and placed the flower in the middle of your chest, before he gently used your hands to cover the flower, as if you are holding it.

“I love you,” he whispered, “I hope you go to a safe place.” And he walked away.

=============================================================

Azul walked back to Octavinelle with Jade and Floyd. They were silent. Yes, even Floyd stayed quiet.

The atmosphere was solemn.

Azul was solemn.

Never in his life have he came across death, let alone, someone he hold close to.

He used to love before.

He went back to his office alone and tilted his head up. Jade and Floyd went back to their rooms.

He’s not crying. He won’t cry for you.

Read it.

He heard something whisper.

“What..?”

The notebook.

He glanced to his right, the notebook labelled “ To Azul Ashengrotto”.

“Read it after they die,” Trey’s words echoed in his head as he recalls.

He grabbed the book.

To Azul Ashengrotto.

He stared at it, hesitantly flipping to the first page.

“I’m rewriting this from the accounts of Y/n, Azul. She asked for it. I hope you’re reading this.

- Trey Clover”

So Trey wrote this book for you to him.

“Azul and I were chilling at Monstro Lounge in the VIP room.

Lmao, he was soooo unlucky with his pulls, and had to answer all my questions and stuff. Apparently he thinks Idia is more handsome than Jade. Ooh~

I really loved the fact he wanted to spend time with me although he looks so done. I really appreciate it!”

He snorted. That was so you.

“Azul and I hanged out at the Rose Kingdom. I’m so glad Headmaster allowed me to hang out with him! Sometimes I feel like Headmaster is a dad.

I had so much fun! Though, it’s kinda embarrassing that Azul spoilt me with so many gifts, and all I did was drag him around. I love the octopus plushie he won for me. It’s so chubby, soft and cute, just like him!

He also bought me food from Trey’s awesome family bakery, and a really expensive pendent. I feel guilty, but I love it! It’s so pretty!”

He sighed. Really? Chubby?

“Headmaster told me I’m going to die in five months time. I’m really scared. I know I’ve joked about I feel like dying cuz of Professor Crewel’s homework, now facing with death, it feels really scary.

I have to tell everyone right? Headmaster told me he’ll tell my friends, that includes Azul. How would he feel? I don’t want him to feel sad..”

He flipped to the next page.

“Azul, Jade and Floyd came to visit me. Actually EVERYONE did! Even Leona and Idia! Can you believe it?? But I was so happy that Azul and the tweels came.

I rubbed my eyes so hard because I didn’t want them to see me cry. I was just so happy to see them!”

“Trey told me something. Well, an offered to do something for me.

He knew I had a superrrr big crush on Azul, and he said I should tell him. I was so embarrassed at first, but I’m going to die soon, so I have to confess sooner or later right?

He told me he’ll write a whole record of me of what I want to tell him, and then I can give it for him to read after I die.

Sounds like a good idea, but also kind of cruel. After I die????

What should I do?”

So that’s what you were talking about with him.

“I got to be discharged!

FINALLY OH MY SEVENSSSSS-

I CAN GET FRESH AIR BEFORE I DIE

DO YOU KNOW HOW BORING IT IS TO BE CHAINED TO A BED, DOING NOTHING UNTIL SOMEONE COMES TO VISIT???

PROFESSOR TREIN’S CLASS IS WAY BETTER-

Azul brought me around the entire campus, and to Octavinelle! And we played UNO! Although I lost a lot... But I’m happy I got to spend time with him and see everyone outside of the infirmary! ^^”

“I went to NRC’s Halloween Celebration!

IT. WAS. SO. COOL!!

There were like flying decorations and good food,

I got to see NRC become so lively and colorful! It was amazing!

Also I got to hang out with Azul and the tweels, and of course, everyone else!

I even got to be part of all the scaring and stuff at the Octavinelle’s scare house! heheheh~

I love the big finale, I wish it could last forever.”

“I made up my mind.

I’m gonna ask Trey to help me write that book. I want Azul to have a piece of me even when I’m gone. I won’t leave him alone, and I’ll do everything in my power to do so.

If Trey is giving me the opportunity to do so, I’ll take it! Though, I should’ve done it from the beginning..”

“Azul kissed me.

Oh my shit-

MMM I SHOULDN’T HAVE DRANK THE PLUM WINE HE GAVE ME BEFORE WE KISSED, I PROBABLY SMELT BAD-

BUT HE SAID HE LIKES IT??? WAS IT A GOOD CALL I DON’T KNOW-

But... I’m happy.. I got the courage to confess to him! On top of that, he said yes! I’m so happy I could cry..”

“I’m going to be giving the notebook to Trey. He’s gonna record it all down for me today.

Azul, I hope you’re reading this. I want you to flip to the back. I asked Trey to attached something really important I want to share with you.”

He flipped to the back. There was a slip of paper folded, stapled to the page. It also held the pendent he bought for you. He grabbed it, and unfolded the paper.

“Azul,

I’m writing this to you 5 months before I die. Crowley told me to tell everyone about my condition, but I wrote this for you specially.

Remember I told you in that truth or dare game?

“If I told you I was scared to die, what would you do?”

To tell you now, I’m still kind of scared. But I won’t show it! Pretending not being scared isn’t like lying.

Okay, but a practical thing, you could do anything you want with this book.

You can tear it up, throw it away, hide it or even show to everyone! Totally up to you!

I’m gonna be honest with you, I was and still jealous of you.

You were and are the picture perfect honor student of NRC. I haven’t been in NRC as long as you, but I’m just so jealous you manage to be so cool and flawless in everything you do! Well, maybe except for flying..

But still! You were and still are my role model! You always manage to amaze me! But not only that, you treated me like your best friend no matter what position you are! Maybe that’s why I fell for you, you didn’t show biasness towards me to become my friend. I hope you were genuine about our friendship!

But, I like the fact you actually sometimes don’t need other people to reflect about yourself, unlike me. I can’t reflect about me all by myself. If I were like you, maybe I could’ve been able to live entirely by myself, with my own unique worth and responsibilities. Of course, while still being friends with others!

But when it comes to self reflection, you are down to earth with yourself, you speak to yourself, and that’s very independent of you. Ever since you were little you were like that too, and that’s what made you hardworking and diligent!

I’ll end it right here, to tell you I love you. Ehehe~ Sorry it’s so sudden.

I love you, meanie.”

drip.

Pitter, patter, pitter, patter.

Slowly, Azul felt tears rolling down his face.

He broke. Except... that wasn’t true.

He’d been broken when he first heard you were about to die. He just kept strong for you, as you did for him.

He was so glad, he had spent his time with you.

You needed him. You felt like he’d done everything for you.

But now, you’re gone.

It was thanks to you, he never felt insecure about his past anymore. For the first time he met you, his really lived for the first time. He existed in this world.

“Thank you, y/n..” he choked, smiling meekly at your final goodbye letter to him, as he clutched the pendent he gave you.

“I love you so much...”

From Ramshackle dorm, your slightly dusty octopus plushie rest on the side of your pillow.

From far away, he sensed you hugging it, whispering so close to him although so far,

“I love you too, meanie..”

END

============================================================

HO SHIT-

REBLOG IT I FELT MY TEARS I-

Ok I’m joking

thank you for surviving and following with the story.

Azul loves you. Bye, have a good day!

@magicpumpkin3 don’t kill me pls-

#twst #twisted wonderland #azul ashengrotto #azul ashengrotto x reader #twst x reader #twisted wonderland x reader #twst azul #twisted wonderland azul x reader #twisted wonderland azul #twst azul x reader #twst angst #twisted wonderland angst #twisted wonderland fluff #twst fluff #octavinelle #octavinelle x reader #azul loves you #trey clover

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willowbird · 3 years

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7, 2 and 2 🥺🥺

Foxes as kids, roommates, inside Andrew's closet.

In which Neil is the monster under the bed and Andrew's closet is the only safe place for either of them.

Warnings for mentions of child abuse.

---

Andrew usually hated having roommates. He had to have them when he was in the group home (no one got their own room there) and sometimes when he was with a foster family he had to share with another kid - and he always hated it. The one exception, though, was the monster that lived under Andrew's bed.

The monster wasn't like those in the scary stories and tv shows. He was a just a boy - who was actually younger and tinier than Andrew was! He had dark dark red hair and bright bright blue eyes and little black horns and sharp teeth and even a tail, and Andrew really thought that he was losing it the first time he saw him because look... it wasn't even close to Halloween and the kid had just crawled out from under his bed and then vanished again underneath it and Andrew had checked and he was really gone.

Neil (that was the monster's name) had told him that it was kind of a legend in his world (yup, his world) that sometimes a monster kid would be tied by fate to a kid in the human world. A lot of the legends apparently talked about how this was a test of some kind, how the monster kid was supposed to scare the human so bad he wet his pants or something like that.

(Andrew thought that was kinda stupid, but he supposed that lined up well enough with the stories he had heard about monsters under the bed.)

But Neil didn't want to scare anyone. When Andrew had asked Neil what he did want, though, Neil wouldn't ever answer him. He just got a little sad and a lot angry and then they'd fight and Neil would crawl back under the bed and disappear for a while.

He always came back though. And when Andrew was moved to a different house, Neil came too. Sometimes it would take a few days, and sometimes Neil couldn't get into a certain house through the space under the bed and so the doorway to his world would bring him through the closet instead, but he always came.

Which was why it made Andrew more than a little bit anxious when almost a whole month went by after his most recent move, and he hadn't seen Neil at all. He'd checked under the bed and in the closet every single night, but there was nothing. He was about to go from worried to angry when, at half-past midnight on the twenty-seventh night in the Lucas's house, Andrew heard quiet crying coming from the closet.

Andrew was on his feet in an instant, dropping his flashlight and the book he was reading on the bed, nearly tripping over the area rug, and skidding to a halt before the door before wrenching it open.

And there was Neil, curled up on the floor hugging his knees to his chest. He was crying and... and he was hurt. There was a cut on his lip and his face was all bruised and Andrew was so angry he almost slammed the door shut again.

"S-sorry," Neil murmured as he looked up, probably seeing the anger in Andrew's face. "I... I was gonna come sooner but..."

Andrew cut him off with a glare and a raised hand, telling him to wait. He then hurried back to his bed to grab the flashlight. Light acquired, he returned to the closet and Neil scooted over so Andrew could sit next to him, shutting the door to their special place.

Because you see, when Neil was there, whether it was under Andrew's bed or in his closet, no adult could get to him. The whole world outside the space shut off. If Andrew's foster parents were yelling at each other, their shouts and curses faded into complete silence when the closet door was shut or the bedskirt brushed the floor around them. If an adult came looking for him and opened the closet door or got down on their hands and knees to look under the bed, they'd see only shoes and toys and other discarded things - but no Andrew, no Neil. It was something to do with the magic that was his monster, because no one was able to see him except Andrew, and since Neil wanted to be seen by Andrew that meant that he was sorta... absorbed into that power too or something.

It meant that whenever they were together... they were both safe.

"I'm gonna kill him," Andrew promised quietly once they were both sitting criss-cross and facing each other in the narrow space.

Neil's eyes went wide, terrified, and he shook his head quickly. "N-no! No. You can't.."

"The hell I can't, Neil! You keep me safe. I wanna keep you safe too!"

They had had this argument before. When Andrew first saw the scar on Neil's shoulder and found out it was from his stupid bastard dad from the year before Neil first slipped out from under his bed. Andrew had been just a little kid back then, but he was eleven now. He could kill someone. If it was to protect Neil, he was pretty sure he could do anything.

"No," Neil said again, voice hushed even though they both knew no one on either side of their special space could hear them. "No. I... It wasn't even him. Mom..." He shook his head and rubbed his arms. That was when Andrew realized what Neil was wearing.

Normally, Neil gave off total rich-kid vibes. Even monsters had designer clothes, apparently, and Neil definitely had the monster-world version of The Gap or whatever rich people wore. But today he was dressed in drab, baggy jeans and a matching washed out t-shirt. His hair was a total mess, too, and looked like it needed to be cut.

"Neil," Andrew said, and it wasn't a question - it was a demand.

Neil grimaced, wringing his hands around his tail - a nervous habit he didn't realize he had and Andrew would never tell him about. "They... they found out... about you. About us. About... about how I can come here."

All the air in Andrew's lungs froze. It was a struggle to keep calm, to wait for Neil to continue on his own, because... because from the very first day Neil had told him 'no one can know - I don't know what they would do to us if they knew' and now that day was here and the anger in his chest was nothing compared to the fear suddenly pooling in his belly.

"Mom.. she took me and ran. So I wouldn't... so they wouldn't take me. Dad was... he was gonna give me to someone bad, someone who collects kids like me so they can find a way through and... Mom didn't want that to happen. She's protecting me..."

The protest was a weak one and Andrew pounced on it. "She's protecting you by beating the shit out of you?"

Neil bared all those sharp little teeth at him, but Andrew could never be afraid of Neil so he just glared back until his monster's resolve broke and he looked back down at his tail.

"She wants to keep me safe.. and I was being stupid..."

"I'll say you're being stupid," Andrew agreed, earning him a sharp look that he easily ignored. "Run. Come here. We'll both make a run for it together."

Neil's eyes widened. "What? No! What would we do, where would we go? You... you could get hurt! And it's not like I blend in, Andrew."

"We can travel at night. Or we can go someplace where everyone is super weird, like... like Seattle. There are loads of weirdos in Seattle, I bet no one would think twice about a boy with horns and a tail." If Andrew had been standing he might have stomped his foot.

"Now you're being stupid," Neil hissed out (and yeah, actually hissed, his voice got all... hissy... sometimes when he was mad).

Andrew grit his teeth and made a sound kind of like a growl that Neil had once complimented as sounding really monster-like. He wasn't making the sound to impress his friend right now though, he was making it because he was mad and frustrated and scared and... and a lot of things.

Then an idea came to him, sudden and bright and it was so genius it instantly flooded him with hope. His hands darted out and cupped over Neil's, holding both of them around the other boy's tail. "I know!"

"What?" Neil's eyes were wide again, but this time he leaned forward, taken up by Andrew's excitement.

"A witch. We need a witch. A witch can make you blend in over here, and maybe even help us until we're big enough to pass as adults."

Now Neil looked a little afraid, leaning back apprehensively. "A witch? There... there are really witches over here? I heard... I heard they do bad things to monsters."

"Can't be any worse than what monsters do to monsters or people do to people," Andrew reasoned, not willing to give up this opportunity. "Besides, if there really are monsters that live under the bed, there've got to be witches too."

Neil licked his lips, then looked down at their joined hands. He stared at them for a very long time before taking a slow, deep breath, apparently gathering his resolve. Then he nodded and looked up again, meeting Andrew's eyes.

"Okay," he finally said. "We... we'll find a witch. And... and we'll protect each other."

Andrew nodded back. He squeezed Neil's hands in promise. "We will. Forever, Neil. We'll always protect each other."

"Forever," Neil echoed. Then he gave a tiny, sharp-toothed smile. "And always."

#asks #aftg prompts #aftg fanfic #kidfic #neil josten #andrew minyard #smol andrew minyard #smol neil josten #the cutest lil monster from under the bed you ever did see

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