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callsign-rogueone · 3 months

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what was I made for? - g.t.

Garrick Tavis x Marked!Pacifist!Reader (continuation of keep her safe) The aftermath of War Games has you questioning your purpose, and what your signet truly is. wc: 4.4k 🏷: FOURTH WING AND IRON FLAME SPOILERS (I have 50 pages left, but I just can’t do it. send help.) canon-level violence, injury, canon character death, self doubt, anxiety. oops, I made Dain tolerable again. angst, then happy, then more angst. I also skipped over a smut scene / just made a reference to it happening, so if anyone wants that as a separate post, lmk and I can make it happen 👀 thank you to everyone who liked/reblogged/commented on part 1! it means a lot to me 🫶

Riorson House is more your home than Basgiath ever has been, but it’s become foreign to you in the three years you’d spent at the college. It feels like you’re hallucinating as you wander the halls.

Maybe everything that’s happened in the last few days has been a hallucination -- it wouldn't be the first time Varrish or Carr had pushed you to delirium with the amount of pain you’d taken for others.

Maybe it’s a dream. That’s it. A really bad dream. Any moment now, you’re going to wake up in Garrick’s bed and get ready for morning formation, and you’ll forget the sight of Liam dying by breakfast, when you’re sitting across from him at the table like you always do. Violet’s screams of pain will stop playing in your ears, replaced by her laughter at one of Ridoc’s jokes.

But no matter how much you pinch at your skin, you aren’t waking up. This is reality.

“I hear you’re a mender, too,” someone says in a gentle voice, bringing you out of your daze. Violet’s brother, Brennan.

“Does it ever get easier?” You ask quietly. “Does it always hurt this much?”

“Mending becomes easier. Seeing that kind of stuff every day doesn’t,” he replies, and the exhausted look on his face tells you he’s being honest. “But it shouldn’t hurt. Tell me more about that.”

“The second person I mended was a scribe who’d fallen from a ladder in the library and broken her leg. I did everything right, the bone set properly, but my leg hurt for a week, right where she’d broken hers.”

Brennan is silent, letting you continue.

“They broke Garrick’s arm in RSC. I was able to fix it for him, and I took the pain, but they broke it again two hours later. I mended him and Xaden over and over until I collapsed. I didn’t wake for two days. They both still think it was just exhausting for me. They don’t know about the pain.”

The tears are coming openly now, dripping down your cheeks, and you bring a hand up to wipe them away with the sleeve of your flight jacket. “But it isn’t all bad. I couldn’t save Liam, but I was able to make him more comfortable in the end. I took his pain away, and let him go in peace.”

You don’t tell him what death feels like. No description you could give could adequately prepare anyone for the cold sensation that still lingers in your chest. It will likely remain there for the next few days.

“Hey,” he says softly, “We’ll figure this out, I promise. For now, just try to get some rest.”

You nod quietly, looking back up at him. “Can someone please tell Garrick that I’m okay?” You ask in a small voice, folding your hands in your lap. You’d been heartbroken to realize that the rest of the squad had left for Basgiath before you woke, leaving you here alone.

You didn’t get to say goodbye to any of them, and you don’t know when you’ll see them again. Or if you’ll see them, you think, but you push the thought away quickly. They’ll survive. They have to.

Brennan cracks a smile - everyone in the rebel cause is aware of how deeply Garrick loves you. “Of course.”

———————————————————————

“Cadet Mairi died alongside his dragon, who was attacked by a drift of Gryphon riders. Cadet Avan attempted to mend them, and died trying,” Xaden says levelly, staring down the group of professors on the dais. “They both died honorable, but preventable deaths.”

Garrick knows Xaden is lying, knows you aren’t dead — or you hadn’t been when they left for Basgiath, at least, but his friend’s words have him on edge. Have you woken up yet?

Chradh speaks into his mind, sending a wave of hot rage through him. “Relax.”

“Relax?” He echoes, irate. “You’re telling me to relax right now, when-”

Chradh doesn’t bother to argue with him. “She is safe under the care of the silver one’s brother, where she will remain until the moment is right. It is better this way. She won’t be in pain anymore.”

Chradh doesn’t elaborate further. Fucking dragons and their constant need to speak in riddles.

The rest of the quadrant spends the night drinking and congratulating themselves on surviving, but Garrick doesn’t touch a drop of alcohol. The three of you were supposed to do this together. It wouldn’t be right to celebrate without you.

———————————————————————

“We’re gonna start from square one, with something that can’t hurt you,” Brennan says, placing two halves of a cracked plate on the table in front of you.

It’s simple enough to make the pieces rise into the air, using the same magic required to make a pen write for you. You concentrate, willing the halves to fuse together. They touch, and you think you’ve done it, your heart leaping, only to fall as they crash back down to the table again, splitting into even more pieces.

Brennan touches one of the shards, and they glue themselves back together perfectly; no cracks, no trace of the plate ever having been broken. “That’s what I thought.”

“Let me keep trying,” you begin, heart pounding. Brennan can’t think you’re a failure, not this early.

“You could sit here with this plate all day and it wouldn’t change,” he says gently, confirming what you know deep down. “I don’t think you’re a mender. I think you’re something else entirely.”

You sit with the information for a moment.

“Signets take the form of our base need as a person,” he says. “We need to find out what that is for you.”

You already know. “I wake up every day grateful that Xaden bargained for our lives, but I have done too much harm in my time at Basgiath. The crown has done too much harm to Tyrrendor. All I’ve ever wished for is to fix that, to undo the pain.”

“To undo the pain, or to help move forward and grow?” He asks gently.

You aren’t sure.

———————————————————————

You go through your morning stretches, as always, focusing on your breath to distract from the pain in your side.

“Your mate has returned.” Tab says, interrupting. “Thought you’d like to know.”

You bolt upright, running through the house toward the gates, bypassing Xaden to sprint straight toward Garrick.

He wraps you in a warm embrace, resting his chin on the top of your head. You still fit together like puzzle pieces, even after months apart.

“You’re alive,” you breathe. “Nobody would tell me anything, I was worried sick,”

“Of course I’m alive, angel. Had to come back to you.”

You trace the Lieutenant’s patch across his collarbone, memorizing the shape. It looks natural on him, like it’s always been there. It sounds good, too. Lieutenant Garrick Tavis.

“I need to tell you something,” you say quietly, “I haven’t been entirely honest with you about-“

Footsteps approach. “Sorry to break up the reunion,” Felix says, “but Avan, we need you.”

There’s something in his tone that has your heart pounding. Which of your friends is it going to be this time?

“Tell me later,” Garrick says. “Go. Do what you were made to do.”

You know he means well, but his words tie your stomach in a knot. What you were made to do. Were you truly made to endure the suffering of others?

———————————————————————

Every muscle in your body feels like it’s on fire as you slump into a chair, sitting down for the first time that day. If you’re lucky, you’ll be able to get some sleep before you’re needed again.

“There you are. I didn’t see you in battle brief.” Garrick says, relieved.

“Haven’t been going,” you mumble. “They need me here. Bren’s teaching now, so s’ just me and one other mender.”

He realizes no healers had come with the riot from Basgiath. You likely haven’t left the infirmary since they’d arrived.

“Come to bed,” he coaxes softly. “You need sleep. You can't pour from an empty cup.”

Yes, you can. You have been for months.

He takes your hand, not giving you a choice. You lean into him as he leads you up the grand staircase to a room near Xaden’s. Your muscles protest every step, but you keep quiet.

You haven’t been in here for years, not since you’d left for Basgiath as candidates, but it’s exactly the same as you remember; dark drapery, bookshelves, a neat display of the knives that he hadn’t taken to school with him.

The sight has you in tears.

“Whoa, hey,” he says softly, pulling you closer, and you whimper in pain at the pressure against your ribs. He lets go immediately. “Angel, I’m sorry — are you hurt?”

You sob, the dam finally breaking and grief flooding out of you. You haven’t seen each other since that horrible day, you haven’t seen anyone from the squad you went with to Resson, haven’t had anyone to talk about it with, until now.

You shake your head, tears dripping down your cheeks. “I couldn’t save Liam. I tried, I really did. All I could do was take his pain away.”

So Xaden had told Basgiath the truth, to some degree: you tried to fix Liam, and couldn’t. The boy’s death had hurt you badly enough that Xaden wouldn’t let you return to the school.

“There was nothing else you could do. Nobody could save him, not after Deigh…”

“I know that, but it wasn’t just him. Everyone I’ve ever… fixed, I’ve taken the pain from their body into mine, and I can’t get rid of it for days.”

Garrick’s heart breaks. So that’s what Chradh meant when he said you wouldn’t be in pain anymore if you left Basgiath. Those eight-hour days of mending infantry may as well have been torture for you.

Torture. RSC. You’d healed his wounds, Xaden’s, Bodhi’s, Violet’s, time and time again without complaint, and he knew it took a lot out of you, but not that it hurt. “Angel, why didn’t you tell me? If I’d known…”

“I wanted to,” you sniffle, “I wanted to tell you a year ago when it started happening. I thought it was normal, that I was just weak, until Brennan told me that this doesn’t happen to him. He just gets tired, like everyone else does when they use their signets too much.”

You try to steady your breathing, but the pain in your not-broken ribs is too overwhelming. “I’ve spent hours practicing and I can’t even fix a broken plate. I’m not a mender. I don’t know what I am. Nobody does, not even the professors. Brennan thinks it’s getting better, but I don’t have it in me to tell him that it isn’t.”

“I’m so sorry,” he whispers. He wants to pull you into an embrace, wants to stroke your hair and tell you it’ll be okay, but he doesn’t want to hurt you any more than he already has.

“S’ not your fault.” You sniff.

“But it’s not yours, either,” he reminds you gently. “You’re so strong, angel. You crossed the parapet, ran the gauntlet, you bonded a dragon, and you’ve endured everything else. Please don’t ever think for a second that you’re weak.”

He takes your hand in his, watching your face carefully, but you don’t wince at the touch. “We’ll talk to Brennan tomorrow, together. For now, I just want you to get some sleep, okay?”

You nod silently, having run out of tears.

“Attagirl.”

As you settle into bed next to him, freshly showered and wearing one of his warm sweaters, you swear the pain has dimmed.

———————————————————————

When Garrick takes you to see Brennan the next morning, he isn’t alone. Your professors are seated beside him, along with some of the Tyrrish elders.

Devera speaks first. “We owe you an apology, Cadet Avan. The faculty was unaware that Carr and Varrish were using your signet as a method of punishment, or that it pains you to use it.”

“And I owe you an apology,” you say quietly. “I should have come back after the War Games.”

“That was my decision,” Xaden says firmly, “and I stand by it. She was in no condition to return to the school, much less to graduate and be stationed at an outpost across the continent from her support system, while still feeling the coldness of Cadet Mairi’s death.”

How does he know that you could feel it? Had you told him in your delirium? Had Brennan told him? Had you even told Brennan?

“Your friends have effectively plead your case, and we agree that you have satisfied all the requirements for graduation from the Rider’s Quadrant.” Emeterrio says. “Congratulations, Lieutenant.”

Garrick slips your flight jacket onto your shoulders, and you notice the Lieutenant insignia has already been sewn on, to match his. When did he…?

You accept the handshake Devera offers you, still a little dazed, but there’s one more order of business to address.

“May I rejoin my old squad?” You ask the table of professors quietly. “They are family to me. I would like to ride with them again, and aid them however I can.”

They exchange hesitant looks, and your heart sinks. Do they not think you’re good enough?

“I don’t see why not,” Brennan says firmly enough for everyone else to agree — he outranks the professors with the years he’s been part of the movement.

You exhale in relief.

Garrick cheers. “The dream team is back, baby!” He pulls you into a gentle embrace, knowing you’re still in pain, but wanting to hold you close.

You laugh, not minding the ache in your ribs.

Xaden is unimpressed. “When have we ever once called ourselves the dream team?”

“We haven’t, but I’m starting now. It’ll stick. I’ll have it embroidered on your flight jacket, Xay.”

“Don’t you fucking dare,” Xaden replies, setting off a brotherly argument behind you.

You look to the leadership once more, bowing your head in respect. “Thank you. For everything.”

Devera gives you a warm smile. “I am glad to see you have found your place here, Lieutenant. Remember that your empathy is a gift, even in times of war.”

Empathy.

“Am I dismissed?” You ask.

“Yes, Lieutenants, you are all dismissed,” Emeterrio answers dryly, looking over your shoulder at Garrick and Xaden. The latter has the former in a playful headlock, messing up his hair.

“Human boys,” Tab says, exasperated. You laugh in agreement, leaving them in the Assembly room to sort themselves out.

It’s easy enough to find who you’re looking for — he’s the only person sitting completely alone in the mess, a textbook open in front of him that he isn’t reading. He’s gazing into the distance, eyes unfocused, but he looks up when he realizes you’re standing in front of him.

“I’m sorry,” he says quietly, “about what I saw in Varrish’s office. I had no idea how much you all have endured. What we are taught in Navarre is only one side of the story, but you showed me the other.”

“I’m glad I could help change your mind.”

He reaches into the pocket of his flight jacket and extends a hand. Your protection rune sits in his palm, complete with a new leather cord. “A peace offering. I stole it back from Varrish, and Brennan mended it.”

You smile, taking it from him and slipping it back over your head. “You’re turning into quite the rule-breaker, Aetos. But thank you. It means a lot to me.”

You’re about to leave, but something compels you to impart a piece of advice. “I know how it feels when people don’t want to trust you because of your family history. It’ll take a while for some of them to warm up to you, but you can make it go a lot faster if you keep yourself out of trouble.”

———————————————————————

Your first flight back with your squad is supposed to be easy, a surveying flight with a small riot, just to check their perimeters, but you can’t seem to quell your anxiety as you take off.

“We will be fine, gentle one. We’re in strong company,” Tab reassures. He stays close to Chradh, knowing Garrick’s proximity will calm you. “How does it feel to be back?”

“Good. I’ve missed this.”

“You have always enjoyed being up this high,” he agrees. “Shall we review some of our basic maneuvers?”

“Sure.” Maybe that will settle your nerves.

“Hold on.” Tab dips, practicing all the angles — banking right, left, up, down.

“Something is wrong,” you blurt, and Tab straightens his path immediately, falling back into the formation. Every nerve in your body pulses with a sensation you’ve never felt before, standing on end. “Something really bad is going to happen.”

You’re right.

“Wyvern,” Tab warns just as they come into your line of sight. They charge straight at the front of the riot, where Sgaeyl leads the pack.

You’re outmatched, nearly two dozen of them and only ten of you. You’re going to die here. At least you’ll be with your best friends.

“That kind of thinking isn’t helpful!” Tab scolds, tightening the formation.

One gets too close for comfort, spewing blue flame, and Chradh banks hard - too hard. You gasp in horror as Garrick is thrown from his seat down to the ground below.

“Dive!” You yell, and Tab follows without hesitation, making a near-vertical drop.

You’ve never been so grateful for the running landing they’d taught you last year. It had been excruciating to execute on top of the pain of unbroken bones, but it’s just manageable now after a few days off from the infirmary.

Clutching Failsafe for dear life, your only defense, you sprint toward Garrick’s limp body, ripping off your goggles.

His heart still beats, but multiple bones look broken, his breathing labored. Touching him is almost unbearable, which tells you he won’t last much longer if you don’t do something.

Deep breaths, like Brennan had taught you, to accept their pain as it entered your body, holding it before batting it away like a fly.

You still haven’t figured out how to make that work.

Hot tears roll down your cheeks, and you start to berate yourself; Why can’t you do this? Compose yourself. Garrick is going to die if you can’t pull it together. Garrick is going to die, just like Liam did, because you aren’t strong enough to fix a fucking plate.

Anger overcomes you for the first time since you’d watched your parents die six years ago. You scream, a sound like nothing you’ve ever heard before splitting the air. The pain dissipates almost instantly. For the first time in two years, your body isn’t aching, and you sob in relief.

Garrick bolts upright, gasping for breath as spring blooms across the snowy plain, trees with bare branches suddenly teeming with green leaves.

Tab roars in pride and the rest of the riot joins in, the cliffs shaking from the volume of their celebration.

“Lifebringer!” He thunders into your mind.

Your head snaps upward, and you realize that the ground is littered with motionless wyvern.

Garrick pulls you to your feet, brushing the tears from your cheeks. “Come on, angel,” he says, grinning, “we have a war to win.”

You’re still dazed as Tab brings you back to Riorson house, Garrick helping you dismount and leading you inside.

“We have a weapon,” Xaden says, actually smiling as he faces the assembly. “Something, someone, that can destroy wyvern in their tracks.”

Garrick keeps you glued to his side as Xaden tells the elders what happened, but it’s all in one ear, out the other.

You’re dismissed after a few minutes, heading back out to the mess, where your friends gather around one of the large tables in the library.

“Tab called me lifebringer,” you say, confused. “What is that?”

“I thought it was just folklore,” Violet says from a few rows down, scanning the shelves, and everyone turns to her, listening. “Lifebringers are said to influence healing and growth. In some cultures, they’ve been credited with ending famines by rejuvenating harvests, and saving the innocent from the grasp of Malek and his Death.”

“Wicked,” Ridoc appraises quietly.

“Aha.” Violet produces a thin volume, cracking it open to the right page. The illustration there looks uncannily like you.

“Only the purest of heart can be lifebringers, those who hold no malice toward their fellow man. The weapons they carry are sharp, but unused,” she reads aloud. “Garrick gave you Failsafe as just that — a failsafe. You never drew blood with it. You never hurt anyone except in challenges, when it was kill or be killed, and even then you held back.”

Bodhi speaks next. “With most signets, the stronger the wielder’s emotion, the more powerful the ability becomes. You feel empathy for the wounded, so you can fix them and ease their pain, but when you thought Garrick was going to die, that was another level of distress, and I guess it was enough to overcome the dark magic.”

Garrick squeezes your shoulder in reassurance that he’s still very much alive beside you.

Violet closes the book, setting it down.

“I’m not in pain anymore,” you whisper, still dazed. You’ve almost forgotten what that feels like, having spent the last three years holding both your own and that of all your friends.

“You needed an outlet,” Xaden says. “Pain makes it harder to channel, and you were in pain 24/7, which is why the professors thought your signet was underdeveloped. Getting angry, and getting that energy out of your body allowed you to use the full extent of your power.”

“If I had known this earlier, do you think I could have…” you don’t finish the sentence. Everyone in this room knows how hard you’d tried to save Liam.

“Maybe,” Violet says quietly, “but that is not a path you want to go down. Trust me.”

———————————————————————

“Do you want to explain why the hallway was full of sunflowers when I went to bed last night?” Xaden asks slyly, dropping into a seat in front of you with a plate of eggs and bacon.

You burn with embarrassment.

Bodhi grins. “You see, cousin, when a man and a woman love each other very much, - ow, fuck!” He exclaims, rubbing the back of his head where Garrick had whacked him.

“At least they didn’t set the vale on fire,” another of your squadmates says, looking at Xaden and Violet pointedly. “You still owe me for putting that out, by the way.”

Your eyes widen as you connect the dots. “So all that dry lightning last year was you two…”

“Okay, changing the subject!” Brennan says loudly, not liking the way this conversation is headed. “We need to figure out how to use your signet without endangering Tavis’s life again.”

“Well, it sounds like they already found another way,” Ridoc says, grinning, but he squeaks out an apology as Garrick begins to rise from his chair.

You tug your boyfriend back into his seat by the sleeve, looking past him at Brennan. “I think I need to work a few days in the infirmary between flights,” you propose. “If I build up enough pain, I could probably-“

“NO,” the whole squad says at once, Tab included.

“Your healing is only to be used when absolutely necessary,” Xaden orders, and even though you’re on equal footing now, both newly-minted Lieutenants, you agree quietly without protest.

“See, that’s your problem,” Sloane says, and all eyes turn to her. “You defer to literally everyone. You’re an officer now. Act like it.”

“Pardon?” You ask, looking at her in disbelief.

“That’s exactly what she’s talking about,” Imogen cuts in. “Pardon? You can’t even discipline a first-year cadet. Do you really think any veteran rider will ever listen to what you have to say?”

“Enough,” you say firmly, your nails digging into the wood.

None of your friends intervene, not even Brennan. This has to be another nightmare. There’s no way they'd hang you out to dry like this. Right?

Sloane isn’t finished. “It’s a miracle you made it out of Basgiath alive. You’re too soft. If you won’t kill anyone, what are you going to do when it’s between your life or someone else’s? Their life or his?”

The mention of Garrick is your last straw. “That is enough from both of you, Cadets,” you reprimand. Thorny vines burst from the seams of the table, whipping out toward them, and they stagger back to avoid being cut.

You startle, your heart pounding against your ribs as you realize what you’ve done.

Sloane is the first to apologize. “I’m sorry. We didn’t mean any of it. I just thought that provoking you might…” she doesn’t finish the sentence, looking down at the still-twitching vines covering the tabletop.

“We definitely took it too far,” Imogen adds, sounding genuinely remorseful. “That was a really fucked up thing for me to say. I’m sorry.”

Bodhi waves a hand, and the vines slither back into the table, as if they were never there.

Your eyes widen at the blood on his cheeks — he’d been caught in the crossfire. You touch his face with a shaky hand, only brushing your fingertips across the skin, and the scratches disappear instantly, leaving no trace of the harm you’d done.

Somehow that makes you feel worse.

“Well,” Garrick says in his section-leader voice, “that was certainly informative, but none of you are to ever disrespect her like that again. Is that clear?”

“Yes,” both girls answer quietly, heads lowered in shame.

Your breathing has steadied enough to speak. “I understand why you did that, but I’m not going to tell you that it was okay, because it wasn’t.”

With that, you take your plate and leave. Nobody follows you.

———————————————————————

The balcony door slides open, soft footsteps approaching.

“I want to be alone, Gare,” you say quietly.

“Not Garrick,” Xaden replies, settling down next to you on the stone floor, “and you may want to be alone right now, but you probably shouldn’t be.”

“I didn't mean to hurt anyone, Xay. You know that,” you whisper. You don’t move your gaze from the potted plant in front of you, as if you’re worried it will lash out at you — or him — if you turn away.

“I know, angel. I know.” He exhales deeply, a gentle cloud forming with the warmth of his breath.

There’s a moment of quiet before he speaks again, just the sound of the cold wind over the valley and the distant footsteps of cadets running on the trail below. “Working through this is not going to be easy, but if anyone can do it, it’s you.”

You’ve come to hate that notion, everyone’s insistence that the pain you’ve been through has primed you for more pain, different pain. Why can’t it ever end?

#garrick tavis x reader #fourth wing x reader #fourth wing fanfic #fourth wing reader insert #garrick tavis #fourth wing #reader insert #imagine

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thesoftestmess · 4 months

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this might not be canon, but personally i need furina to struggle a whole lot longer and harder with post-prophecy depression and mental illness. She's played the same tiring and painful act for five centuries, was constantly in a life or death scenario and had to hide her true self from the world the entire time and she won't just recover in a few years from that.

There's parts of her that will never ever be compatible with a simple human lifestyle, and parts of her that are irreparably broken. She isn't sure of her personality after everything that happened and the lie she had to live. She slips between personas and her archon temperament comes through like a defensive mechanism at any sign of conflict or trouble.

She's plagued by nightmares. Of the flood, of the trial, of the people closest to her conspiring against her behind her back, and of being found out in a million terrible ways. Of saying the wrong thing, making a wrong decision. Of being found out, of being found out, of being found out.

Lying or keeping a secret feels existential still. Being honest still feels life threatening sometimes. Putting herself first feels like putting both hands on a hot stove.

She doesn't live in the palais anymore, doesn't have to sit through trials anymore, but her heart and soul are still there. In her dreams she's still at the place she spent her entire life's memories at.

Yes, she can make new memories, but it'll take time. More time than she has, maybe, now that she's the closest to being human she'll ever be.

She'll never be human in the way the people around her are.

What sort of human has 500 years worth of memories after all? What human tells personal anecdotes and mixes up their centuries?

What sort of human can feel the absence of their divinity like it's a physical thing? A voice that will never speak to her again, or keep her alive? What human has no family, no childhood?

What human remembers so little, but still remembers death somewhere deep within?

She jerks out of sleep from it sometimes, gasping for air, and spends the rest of the night awake, almost frozen by fear. The flood is over, but it's hard to convince her racing heart that the danger is too.

Humans have entire family trees that go generations back, but Furina was put into this world a solitary creature, her blood heavy with sin ever since she turned human.

She owns a hydro vision now and doesn't know how to yield it, but the ocean still calls out to her some days. Sea creatures flock to her like they can smell she's not human enough.

She learns how to make little hydro companions for herself, so the darkness and emptiness of her apartment feels less ominous when she lies awake at night.

She can't turn her vision into a weapon quite yet, but when it rains the droplets seem to cling to her. She's watched them roll upwards along her arm, watched them gather in her palm like kin. She wonders if sea creatures flock to neuvillette in a similar way, or if his immense power makes them recoil. She wonders if elemental dragons can feel regret. Wonders if he, too, ever feels entirely foreign in that human body he was given. If he, too, lies awake trying to grasp faint memories of a past life.

She's extremely human in the way she's plagued by body pains from not being able to relax just one day in five centuries. The years catch up with her once she gets out of survival mode, and fatigue is a constant companion now. Sleep comes difficultly and getting out of bed was easier when the fate of a whole nation depended on it. On her. She's never lived for just herself before and some days she's not sure she wants to.

She did her duty and earned her retirement and the story turned out well, all things considered. She still has people by her side, some of them.

Still, she feels raw and tired and overwhelmed by the life lying ahead of her. As a human and as someone who will always be Something Else.

#you can have your perfectly competent fully healed hyper independent furina #if i can have my mess of a person multiply-disordered and trying her best furina #like i'm sorry but this babygirl can fit sooooo much ptsd and depression and personality disorder into her #that's a girl with lifelong chronic pain from not being allowed to relax for a day in five centuries #that's a girl who needs a teeth protector at night because she'd grind he #*them into a fine powder from all the tension she still holds #that's someone who gets so low so suddenly and loes all her joy in the matter of minutes #that's someone who wants to catch up on a lifetime of being human but is bone-deep exhausted #and crushed by fatigued #my disability beam went all over her like neuv's water gun #now she's sopping wet and shivering i'm sorry #genshin impact #furina #fari talks fic

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groovyfrog420 · 1 month

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SV Redeemed AU

INTRODUCTION / DISCLAIMER

First things first, these designs for Shadow Milk and Pure Vanilla are FAR into the future. Quite literally end game phase of the story, the “they grow old together and live happily ever after”. There's a long way to get there, and while I will write some of my thoughts about their journey, I'm a shitty writer. There's no single thought-out plot, it's just bits and pieces of my thoughts in one place.

I don't think I'd be making a tag or naming this AU anything specific. I'm still calling it an AU because there is a bit of canon divergence, but I don’t have a start-to-finish story. (EDIT: wellp that lasted long. new name is #False-Truth AU because I like the oxymoron. I still don't think I'll do much - maybe a few short comics, which you'll be able to find under that tag on my profile)

Keep in mind that these are just my own interpretations, if you imagine these cookies acting differently, that's ok! This is just my own made-up alternate version

LONG POST UNDER THE CUT - don't say I didn't warn ya

I’ve tried to divide it into sections, so if you are looking for just smth specific / only care about one of the characters, you can skip right to it!

Prepare for the ramblings.

PURE VANILLA'S DESIGN

more relaxed now - doesn’t need to keep up perfect appearances and the image of a hero, so he can lay back a bit more. (messier, less perfectly styled hair - more like his younger years. comfier clothes.)

focusing on herbology - with less power now (why explained below) and trying to not overwork himself, he’s taken to different healing methods, as well as taking on gardening as a hobby

slightly more open eyes - (heavily elaborated on bellow)

different staff - due to being able to use his own eyes more now, as well as staying more on the low, he’d decided to retire the famous staff. Since it’s a flower, it was planted somewhere and allowed to blossom and grow freely - fitting symbolism for a new beginning, I think. The lantern light glowing blue makes it easier on his eyes.

PV STORY BITS

In this AU Shadow Milk and Pure Vanilla retire together. I think PV would still like to teach, but would focus more on the medical and practical side of things, like herbs and healing practices. (He’ll leave telling tales about the past to Shadow Milk, though he might throw in his own comments from time to time…) He mostly offers advice and shares every-day methods for protection of different kinds with those who ask, but may take on an apprentice or few to fully pass down his healing knowledge to. He uses magic sparingly now.

This way with not focusing on a variety of subjects and many, many students, he’s able to rest more and doesn’t have to split himself between multiple worries. He can focus properly and give his students more individual attention, to make sure his knowledge will be retained for the future.

Eyes

(don't jump me pls read the footnote)

I've decided to take the closed/covered eyes motif PV has in a bit more symbolic way *. I want to interpret it as PV being blind (=ignorant) to the world around him, choosing to see the world and his own actions in an idealized light, and to look away from anything that doesn't fit that idea. Light sensitivity would be very ironic yet fitting - since his own powers are very light-based, by using them to help others he’d be blindinding/hurting himself in the process...

Over time, he realizes how futile it is. Even if he turns his eyes away from the wrongdoing in the world, from his own mistakes and imperfections, they will still continue to happen. He begins to understand that he has to accept that neither he nor the world is perfect, to stop wallowing over the past and start fixing the present. To keep moving forward and keep working on himself, not hide his imperfections under literal and figurative wraps.

With the help of Shadow Milk, he begins to open his eyes more and more and accept the real truth, no matter how imperfect it is.

*I’m not sure how confirmed it was in canon that he’s blind (from what I’ve seen it was mostly implied, but still). I'm not erasing that - for the sake of this AU, I'd like to say that he has partial issues with sight (including the mentioned light sensitivity), but now he learns to accommodate them rather than ignore them and hurt himself more for the sake of others. No, he doesn't magically gain full sight now, but he's more comfortable, healthier, and more honest about the world around him with all of its imperfections.

Burnout

I believe SM and PV complete each other so perfectly because they can help each other grow in areas where the other is lacking/struggling. With PV, I’d like to focus on burnout, false ideas, and how the pressure he’s constantly under has affected him. He was very much just a normal guy before receiving his Soul Jam. Years beyond a normal cookie’s lifespan of hard work and trying to be the perfect leader, to always ensure the happiness of all his people (whether that be as king or otherwise) are bound to take a toll on anyone. Obviously he'd never admit that, always putting everyone else before his own needs, and he’d likely run himself into the grave. That's where I think Shadow Milk would be helpful - he’d make him realize how unsustainable what he’s doing really is. He wasn’t built for handling immense power for all of eternity, he’s just a single cookie and whether he likes it or not, he can’t save everyone or make every single one of his people happy... Being selfish isn’t entirely wrong, sometimes might even be necessary.

Onto the idea of false truth - Pure Vanilla has a very idealized view of a lot of things and people. He’s trying to see everyone in the best light, but he also holds a high standard for himself - that he must be the ideal, shining and caring hero and a beacon of perfection . Shadow Milk is likely to pick that image apart - probably not in the kindest way, saying that in trying to be perfectly selfless, PV is putting himself on the pedestal above everyone else while still being just a single cookie with limited capabilities. He’d likely call this image egoistical, and while PV would argue that he’s doing it for the good of others (he is helping after all, right?), Shadow Milk wouldn’t be entirely wrong - this way of thinking, that he’s the one who must take care of everyone else, is harmful for both him and the ones he’s trying to protect.

Shadow Milk would show him that truth is relative, that “pure truth” doesn’t exist, for anyone could interpret it differently. That PV isn’t (and doesn't have to be) the perfect blameless hero. That his people aren’t as good or pure as he’d like to give them credit for, but neither are they helpless.

Shadow Milk metaphorically and literally helps him open his eyes - he slowly learns to lay back, to accept the reality and “truth”, whatever it may be, and is no longer blinding and burning himself out by trying to help everyone at once. With a new mindset and outlook of the world, he can allow himself to retire, and leave a calmer, out-of-the-spotlight life.

Retirement

Ok, controversial idea, but I think the ancients will have to one day retire and pass down their SoulJams. Yes, I played Cookie Odyssey, I know how important it is to them, but hear me out. As I said above (which is shown in the game btw, but correct me if I'm wrong), they were just normal cookies before taking on the roles of the Ancient Heros. Cookies with high achievements, yes, but still. They aren’t The Beasts, baked specifically for the purpose of handling the Soul Jams, and even then, The Beasts weren’t perfect. I’m not saying they’re bound to get corrupted like their predecessors did, but I am saying that this role is bound to take a toll on them. Not even just from the perspective of power, even just handling so many responsibilities with running their kingdoms is going to be extremely draining mentally. (Physically likely too, even if they’re said to stay “always young” thanks to the Soul Jams - many stories teach that you can’t mess with nature and that nothing lasts forever...)

I don’t know who they’d pass the Soul Jams along too - whether that’d be Gingerbrave and his friends, or a new batch of heroes, that is to be decided. The point is, they have served their purpose, they have (from the perspective of this AU) defeated Dark Enchantress, and deserve to now leave the rest of their lives in peace.

SHADOW MILK'S DESIGN

“mellowed out” a bit - continues to be eccentric and dramatic, but less manic

still unsettling - most level-headed cookies upon meeting him immediately get a feeling that there's something.. off about him, even if they can't put their finger on it. (I purposefully left some of his corrupted design elements or callbacks to them, like the marking over his eye, for that reason)

vibrant, colorful, very extra in both behavior and looks, everything he does he does with drama and flourish

quiets down when out of the eyes of the public, or alone with Pure Vanilla

peacock elements - fitting for someone with such a vibrant personality. also the eye connection is perfect - if you look closely at the feather he's wearing, you might even notice a familiar symbol in its “eye”

a playful bard - (elaborated heavily bellow) - an identity allows him to enjoy his favorite activities, while also being a slight callback to his academic past

SM STORY BITS

The bard

While spending more time with Pure Vanilla, PV encouraged him to pursue his creative interests. Partly to have smth to get SM’s mind off of causing chaos, and partly because they let him indulge and express himself without causing any serious damage. Now he’s joined PV in retirement, though still not fully stepping down from the stage.

Being a bard allows Shadow Milk to indulge in everything he likes most: being the center of attention, dramatics, theatrics, mischief, a tasteful dose of lies and half-truths, but also, in a way, calling back to his past self: for while a lot of his stories are made-up tales, he can also share the history of Earthbread that he’s witnessed. Yes, he may do so through over-dramatic performances or behind caricatural characters, but every tale holds a grain of truth, does it not? Whether his audience chooses to believe him or not is their choice to make.

Referencing the fact that a big part of human history survived through word of mouth, and how storytellers play an important role in preserving it, I think it’s only fitting to make him a bard.

About visual choices

I made his redeemed design less chaotic and asymmetrical, but still vibrant and based mostly on his current color palette, rather than the one from Blueberry Academy. That's because while he may be rediscovering his interests from the past, he’s not the person he was before corruption and never will be again. Instead, he too is learning to rediscover the world in a new light, with a new identity.

Visually I’ve tried to keep some elements from his current design, if slightly toned down: a wide collar, puffy sleeves, a flowy cape. Elements of his corruption are also still there: different colored sclera (= his one eye being black), the sharp teeth. He may have settled down and calmed down slightly, but he remains as playful as ever :))

He still causes local chaos once in a while or resorts to pranking unsuspecting cookies nearby (the slight charring at the bottom of PV’s robe is a result of one of such pranks getting out of hand), and PV has accepted that he'll never be a calm, put-together cookie he once might have been. However, SM's learned to not be a danger to others for the sake of the one he cares about the most, and that's enough for the both of them.

And that's all for now! If you've managed to get this far, thank you SO much for your patience, I hope you've enjoyed my thoughts and brainworms <3

#funny how this turned into an essay on accident #shadowvanilla #pureshadow #vanilla milkshake #shadow milk #shadow milk cookie #shadow milk cookie run kingdom #shadow milk crk #pure vanilla #pure vanilla cookie #pure vanilla crk #shadow milk au #cookie run au #blorbo-time #False-Truth AU

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eisfreiesspeiseeis · 2 months

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My Wakfu Season 4 Head Canon / Theory / Manic ramblings

I don't know if someone else already made a post about this, if yes, please direct me to it, anyway strap in:

So, what has always bothered me about the MMO Eliotropes was their weird skin tone and markings.

Remember, they were added to the game(s) before season 3 and the OVA were even out and all we knew about them was this blurb:

Having appeared via a freak accident, Eliotropes are but mirror images of their creator, the King-God.

I don't know wether this was confirmed back then, but we all just accepted that Yugo was the King-God. He was the King of the Eliatropes, he was a demigod, it made sense. We just didn't know what exactly this accident was yet. And that was the first time I got way too hung up on their skin color. (Some people might claim they don't see color, but not me.) I came up with 2 explanations: Explanation 1: This was how Yugos God-King-Form would look like

So in Season 2, when Qilby gets the Eliacube, his skin color changes and he gets these black markings;

While Yugo just gets these glowing tattoos in his "Eaxalted" form, which do, however, look kinda similar. Also during his transformation, Qilby's tats would glow at first, just like Yugo's, before turning black.

This let me to assume (all these years ago) that Qilby's transformation (which the Wiki calls "Lobotimized" for some reason) was the more evolved form of Yugo's. I basically tought while Yugo just unlocked Super Saiyan, Qilby could go Super Saiyan 2. And at some point, Yugo would archieve a similar form too, which would be when he became the God-King, and that was why the Eliotropes all had white skin and blue markings. (I just thought Yugos tats would turn blue instead of black because ykno, color schemes and stuff.)

Also there was this Krosmaster Mini called Yugo unleashed, so I thought this was the direction they were going:

Explanation 2: Their skin markings look like Adamai's

You know, this guy. With the white skin / scales and the blue markings.

In hindsight the easier explanation. Adamai is Yugo's twin brother, so it would make sense if the Eliotropes had an imprint of Adamai. Or maybe Adamai helped in whatever accident created the Eliotropes. The brothers already combined their powers a few times to do BIG MAGIC, so maybe that would also be the case for the "accident".

Then the OVA came and Yugo got the six Dofus

It all made sense in my mind. With the six Dofus, Yugo was more powerful than a god, so this would be when he reached his King-God-Form and...

It kinda just looked like his normal "Exalted Form" with different markings. Okay, I thought, so it has to be the Adamai explanation, right?

Then Season 3 and the Oropo OVA came and...

These guys don't look like the Eliotropes we knew until that point at all.

Okay,

maybe they changed the designs so Amalia would recognise Oropo as Yugo?

maybe as more Eliotropes died, they started to look more like Yugo/white people?

Either way, it's super weird that we have never seen a game-looking Eliotrope in the show or even in the OVA.

Also, aside from Oropo the other Eliotropes we see seem to be super variant from Yugo, with some missing the head-thingies and others not even able to create portals, it seems (Repulse dies because he gets thrown off the tower. I think he would have saved himself if he could). In the game however, the Eliotropes seem to be pretty much just reskinned (ha!) Eliatropes with all the same, maybe watered down powers.

Okay, so the rational thing would be to just accept that they retconned the Eliotropes for the show a bit, as there was quite a long break in production. Or just accept it as one of these wird things, like Osamodas evolving to have blue skin in at most a few hundred years.

Ankama has changed designs drastically all the time between media, they really don't like to enslave themselfes to esthetics and and hard lore and really if you think about it does that not give them so much more potential for creat

AND THEN CAME SEASON 4

Spoilers up til episode 10, I guess And the season starts with a reminder that the Eliotropes were created because Yugo did not have perfect control over them and who gets their grabby hands on all 6 (six) of them?

This guy

Notice how his markings are blue now? Hmmm...

"But Qilby should have far more control over the Dofus than Yugo, that's his thing, he has so much experience!", the strawperson said. Yes, but Qilby is also mentally unstable and hyper traumatoze, which he says himself.

He repeatedly has episodes, even while he is using to the dofus.

Also, attuning to the Eliasphere was super taxing and clearly outside of his abilities (as he says himself), so what I want to say is:

there were multiple occasions where he could have slipped up and created his own "accident".

Qilby is the King-God of the Eliotropes from the MMO.

Yugos accident resulted in the creations of eliotropes because

AND QILBY'S GREATEST FEAR IS TO BE ALONE, so it would make sense that his "wish" would also create more "family" for him.

This would also explain some of the differences between show Eliotropes and MMO Eliotropes:

Obviously, the MMO Eliotropes look far more like Qilby's true(?) form, with snow-white skin and blue markings.

Yugo did not really have a great idea what his people were actually like, which explains why his Eliotropes would have so much variance in appearance and power between them. In contrast, Qilby has the most perfect memory of the Eliatrope people in existence, arguably better than the Goddess' herself, considering her millennia-long absence. So it would make sense why his Eliotropes would basically be perfect copies, sans the skin color. Also, despite his mental health, he is still far more skilled than Yugo, which could also explain why his copies are closer to the real deal.

Also, Yugo's Eliotropes (mostly) have his memory, which seems like a thing that would like... come up? Like, at all? And it would make sense that Qilby's "wish" would include for his Eliotropes to be blank slates memory wise, since his recollection of his former lifes is literally the cause of all his suffering.

I rest my case.

In all honesty, this is all probably just a case of Ankama being all loosey-goosey with their lore, especially between the show and the games. But this theory presents a way for the MMO Eliotropes (or Qilby Eliotropes, as I will call them from now on) existing in the same canon as the show, which otherwise is probably the biggest canon "problem". Also, I like the Eliotropes, I like their design, and I like to have a reason to believ they will continue exist somewhere in this funny world some horny frenchmen made up. So, yeah this is my headcanon. First post ever on tumblr, after lurking for over a decade, please be kind to it. See ya when I have to vent my next crackpot theory. Or when I remember interesting parts from the MMO that might interest show-only folks.

#wakfu #qilby #wakfu season 4 #eliotrope #theory #i wanted to post this under colorism but i didnt im so proud of myself

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thefreakandthehair · 6 months

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@eddiemonth prompt, oct 22nd: First concert | Triumph of King Freak - Rob Zombie | Eager a/n: a missing scene from an older fic, counting stars (when I look in your eyes)! post-canon fix, eddie pov, established steddie, fluff with a dash of angst, mention of eddie's late mother read on ao3 + ao3 masterpost | tumblr masterlist

December, 1988

“Why does your acoustic have that written on it? ‘This Machine Slays Dragons’?” Steve asks as he watches Eddie strum without looking at his hands. It’s a bit mesmerizing, the way his fingers glide along the strings of their own accord.

The song stops and Eddie slaps the body of the guitar in his lap.

“This old girl is an homage to one Woody ‘This Machine Kills Fascists’ Guthrie. Ever heard of him?”

“He did ‘This Land Is Your Land,’ right?”

Eddie claps his hands together and points two finger guns his way. “Ding ding ding, we have a winner. Yeah, he wrote that and a shit ton of other political critique folk music.”

“I didn’t know you liked that sort of thing. Sounds pretty far removed from Metallica, y’know?”

“Only in delivery. You’d be surprised how much overlap there is in meaning. But yeah, my uh—” Eddie stops and pulls the guitar closer to his torso and swallows the dust in his mouth that’s gathered from years of not talking about his mother. “My mom was a big fan of it. She loved Guthrie, Baez, Dylan, Grateful Dead, Cohen. You name it, she loved it.”

Steve’s heart tries to claw its way out of his body to run towards Eddie sitting on the floor with his back against the wall, timid smile, and fidgeting hands.

“That’s really cool, man. She sounds awesome. How come you don’t talk about her more?”

“It just—I don’t know. It still hurts, I guess. Which is stupid, I was eight when she died so it should get easier, right?” Eddie laughs humorlessly and stares at his strings like they hold answers to questions he didn’t know he had. He wants to crawl on top of Steve, desperate for warmth and comfort now, and looking at him makes the urge damn near impossible to beat back. So he doesn’t look up.

Steve adjusts his position on the bed, subconsciously making room. “Hell no, that’s not how grief works, Ed. Wish it was that easy but I’ve seen a lot of death personally and with work, and it changes people. You can tell me to fuck off if I’m like, overstepping here but you were a kid. You’re allowed to be sad about her death, and you’re allowed to talk about it.”

Eddie pauses for a long moment, considering the validation and how much he trusts Steve. He trusts him with his life, his soul, his heart, his everything. Maybe everything could include his past, too. His voice is wistful when he starts.

“She used to sing Dylan’s ‘Forever Young’ around the house.”

December, 1974

Eddie sits cross-legged on the floor, threadbare couch behind him as he flips through a comic book gifted to him by his Uncle Wayne. The page crinkle with each turn and he traces the illustrations of each villain and superhero, the words a bit lost on him but the pictures jumping off of the page. Varying shades of saturated reds and blues disappear and reappear beneath his pointer finger and grins. He hasn’t read the story yet– he prefers to make up his own first– but he can see that the good guy is about to win.

Happy endings are just so rare in real life.

His mom is in the kitchen, singing softly and stirring something on the stove in a corroded aluminum pot. Eddie picks up the delicate scents of tomatoes and peppers, maybe some kind of meat. She’s been in a bright mood today, singing as she cooks, singing as she did her best to clean up the beer cans and bottles that litter the living room. Eddie even heard her singing in the shower that morning.

It’s not lost on him that his dad’s been gone for a few days. Hell, that’s the only reason he’s able to sit in the living room: there’s room for him.

His dad is always too loud, drowning out the soft soprano of his mother’s voice. Everything she sings sounds like a lullaby, so it’s fitting that Eddie closes his eyes to listen.

Eddie loves when his mom sings, especially the song she’s singing now.

May you always be courageous

Stand upright and be strong

May you stay forever young

She never tells him, but he feels like she sings it just for him.

November 1990

Steve hasn’t been this nervous to give Eddie a Christmas gift since that first Christmas of theirs two years ago. Funny enough, the gift then had been related to his late mother, too. Maybe he has a pattern. The envelope shakes in his hands as he sits next to Eddie on the couch– their couch, actually. At least as of a few months ago when they’d put down their down payment on the small, one-bedroom apartment in the heart of Indianapolis.

Eddie glances over and sees Steve’s right hand nearly crumpling whatever his gift is, his fingertips white and his smile tight. Whatever it is must be time sensitive, since he’s insisted on giving it to Eddie so early.

“What is it, Steve? You look like you’re gonna shit yourself.”

Steve laughs, nervous and breathy. “I actually might, and we just bought this couch, so. Just– here. Open it.”

He pries the envelope from Steve’s hand and tears it open, Steve having to caution him against ripping it in half and voiding the fucking the gift. Three rectangles fall out onto his lap, full of typewriter style font.

“Oh shit, concert tickets!” Eddie smiles and knocks his knee against Steve’s. “Why were you so nervous? This is awesome!”

Steve nods at the tickets. “Did you see who it is?”

Eddie’d been too excited about finally getting to a proper concert, one that he doesn’t have to set up and break down with Gareth, Jeff, and Frank. When he looks down and actually reads the headliner, his heart stops.

University of Dayton Arena Presents: BOB DYLAN TUESDAY, NOV 13 1990 7:30 PM

“Steve… is this…?” He can’t find the words, buried and lodged behind the lump forming in his throat.

Steve watches him carefully as he traces the letters with one finger, a habit he’s picked up on over the years, and gently rests a hand on his thigh and gives it a squeeze. “You okay?”

Eddie nods. “Yeah, yeah, I’m definitely okay.”

Okay is an understatement. He’s bewildered, he’s humbled, he’s ecstatic. When Eddie tears himself away from the small rectangles that sit on his lap like the gold bars they are, he looks at Steve with wonderment. First, the music box. Now, this. How is he ever going to keep up?

“I know it’s your first concert but I saw that he was coming around and I just figured it’d be cool, y’know? I don’t know who he’s touring with or anything–”

He does this, Steve knows. He knows that he rambles when he’s nervous or when he’s put himself out there and for some reason, giving Eddie these tickets feels incredibly vulnerable. Even years later, even after Eddie’s constant reassurance that he could never, Steve would hate for Eddie to think that he’s encroaching on special memories.

Before he can finish his stream of thought, Eddie kisses him. Just leans over, tickets still in his lap, and claps both hands on either side of his cheeks as Eddie plants one on him. Then again. And again. And again.

Eddie peppers every inch of Steve’s face with kisses, interjecting in between each one.

“You’re–” Kiss to the nose.

“So fucking–” Kiss to the cheek.

“Perfect–” Kiss to the forehead.

When he finishes, Eddie rests his forehead against Steve’s and wraps his arms around Steve’s neck, feeling them shake beneath him as Steve laughs. “Always so dramatic.”

“And you love it. But, wait,” Eddie pulls back and picks the tickets back up. “Why are there three?”

“Do you honestly think Wayne would ever speak to me again if I got tickets for Bob Dylan and didn’t include him? C’mon, man. Christmas would be so fucking awkward.”

#steddie #steddie fic #steddie fanfic #steddie fanfiction #eddie munson #steve harrington #eddie month #stranger things #stranger things fic #stranger things fanfic #stranger things fanfiction #myblurbs #eddie month prompts

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mrsaltieri-real · 10 months

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Partner in Crime (Victim!Mickey Altieri X Ghostface!Reader)

Reader is AFAB

Word count: 5.3k

Warning/s: ghostface!reader, “victim!mickey” (kinda not really though), blood, gore, gruesome murder descriptions, changes to canon scream 2 (obviously), violence, language, smut, p in v, blood kink, riding, choking, slight orgasm denial, teasing, biting, reader is bat shit crazy and so is Mickey, lying, deception, partners in crime (duh), etc

God this took me a long ass time but it’s worth it because I LOVE how it came out. Took a LOT of trial and error from my part trying to capture this just right but we finally got there and I can post this. I am so so excited about this fic.

Once again thank you to the gorgeous @bisexual-horror-fan for beta reading and editing this for me and helping me with ideas to make this come out just right. Could NOT have done this without you Bex <3

On that note, LETS FUCKING GO.

“Who could be doing this?” Sidney mused quietly, elbow propped on the rustic wood of the bench she sat on, hand resting on her forehead. “I mean, how could this possibly be happening again?”

Derek sat beside her, hand rubbing small soothing circles into her back, Hallie looked at her sympathetically and Randy was gently biting at the loose skin of his thumb, eyes scanning the crowd. Mickey seemed to be in his own little world, gazing at the hubbub of cameramen and reporters bustling around the college square, his fingers absentmindedly drumming on your thigh. Your eyes were set on Sidney’s anxious face trying to resist the urge to smile at her fear, everything in her body language was communicating the tension and unease inside her.

All of this was way, way too easy. After discovering last year that the survivors of the Woodsbro massacre were attending Windsor, you’d found yourself intensely curious and decided to transfer there from your previous college. You’d easily managed to fit into their friend group within about a month of being there and eagerly put your plan in motion.

It had been easier than you’d anticipated to get most of them, especially Randy and Mickey to tell you just about everything you didn’t know, making sure to spread your questions over the course of a few weeks rather all at once. You didn’t want suspicion to arise due to overly keen and pressing curiosity, so it was just small things only being spoken about if another member of the group brought it up. So, whenever Randy brought up in a pissed off tone anything about Billy Loomis, you’d casually slide in a question, like “Why would he even do something like that?” or “How did it happen?“ and Randy would eagerly start chatting like a parrot, telling you just about everything you needed to know under the guise of your concerned friend act.

It was almost amusing how easy it all was.

“I don’t know, Sid.” Derek sighed, looking with nothing but undiluted fear at his anxious girlfriend. “But they’ll find the sick fuck.”

“Honestly, it might have nothing to do with you.” Mickey spoke up, dragging his eyes away from the bustling crowd. Sidney’s eyes flickered to Mickey and she frowned, brow creased as she questioned him.

“Two kids who attended our college got carved up by someone in a Ghostface costume and you think it doesn’t have anything to do with what happened to Randy and I?”

Mickey shrugged, stopping the drumming on your thigh and leaned forward on the bench. “I don’t know, Sid. But it was opening night for a movie based on real events. Maybe someone was just playing some kind of sick joke and it just went too far?”

“Wow. You’ve had a lot of time to think about alternatives haven’t you, Mickey?” Randy spoke up, eyes narrowing at him. Your gaze moved from Sidney’s anguished face and focused on Randy’s.

“What are you implying, Randy?” You asked in a clipped tone.

“I’m not implying anything.” He muttered and you felt your nails cut into your palm as your hands clenched into tight fists.

“Calm down, Randy.” Hallie rolled her eyes at him with a scoff, “I saw Mickey in the library last night.”

Randy muttered something that sounded like, “Sure whatever”, under his breath and you had to bite the inside of your cheeks so you didn’t rip him apart right then and there.

You couldn’t begin to describe the sudden unbearable rage you felt when Randy had even hinted at Mickey being the killer. From the day you’d met him, you’d felt yourself utterly drawn to and infatuated with everything about him. There was an all too familiar darkness about him, about his aura that caused you to magnetise yourself to him, refusing to break away no matter what. Did anyone else suspect Mickey? Your eyes scanned the faces of your ‘friends’ but the conversation continued between the four of them, slowly merging into something else entirely and you felt nothing but Mickey’s anxious eyes set on your face.

“You alright, baby?” He asked, feeling his large hand covering your tightly clenched one and you quickly blinked, flashing him a small smile.

“Yeah, of course I am. Why?” You asked as innocently as you could muster, praying that you came off as genuine.

He raised his eyebrows a little and pointedly looked down at your other hand gripping the edge of the bench so hard your nails seemed almost permanently embedded in the cracked wood. You moved your hand quickly and shook it out as you sighed. “I’m fine.” You assured him, lightly pressing your palm against his stubbly cheek. “I’ve got a class in a few so I should get going.” You announced to the group and you felt all of them glance at you.

“I’ll walk you.” Mickey said, standing up from the bench and grabbing his bag and video camera.

“No, no it’s fine.” You placed a hand on his shoulder, lightly pushing him back down onto the bench as you were shaking your head. “I’m a big girl, I can take care of myself. Besides, I’m sure the big bad monster isn’t going to attack me while I walk to class in the middle of the day.”

You lightly pecked him on the lips before turning on your heel and walking to class, feeling suspicious brown eyes watching you all the while.

—————————-————————-————

“So, you gonna tell me what the hell has been going on with you?”

You gasped, jumping as your hand clutched your chest and you glared up at Mickey, who was leaning against the wall outside your lecture hall. “Have you been waiting out here the whole time I was in there?” You asked with a frown.

“No,” Mickey lied and swiftly took your books out of your hands before you could stop him as he began to walk, begrudgingly you begin following after him. “So, are you?”

“Nothing is going on with me.” You insisted, rolling your eyes. “Why would you assume there is?”

“You’re not anywhere near as mysterious as you think, babe.” A smile toyed on his lips as you both walked down the hall, his free hand lightly resting on your hip.

“And you’re not nearly as intuitive as you think you are.” You muttered under your breath. He let out a frustrated groan before tugging you by the loop of your jeans into an empty classroom.

“Seriously, what is with you lately? You seem…” Mickey hesitated a little, teeth sinking into his bottom lip before he spoke again “…Different. You keep brushing me off whenever I ask to hang out and you always seem like you're kind of somewhere else. I’m worried about you.”

“Mick, I’m just really busy.” You sighed, lightly removing his hands from your body. I’ve got a dissertation due in a few days, and-“ you cut yourself off for a second, realisation hitting.

You knew Mickey far too well. As laid back as he was, you knew deep down he worried about you far too much. His analytical and downright clingy behaviour must’ve been down to one thing and one thing only. The murders he had no idea you were committing. You let out some air from your mouth and looked up at him with a sudden fondness.

“Is this because of what happened to those two kids?” You asked, tilting your head at him.

“You’re distracted.” He said simply, shrugging a little. “I don’t want anything bad to happen to you, that’s all.” You couldn’t help the soft smile that lit up your face as you moved to wrap your arms around his neck, pulling yourself up on your toes to affectionately kiss him. You felt him relax a little, relief evident in the way he kissed you back, fingers digging into the soft flesh of your skin from over your shirt.

“Nothing is going to happen to me.” You assured, your voice absolutely certain as you pulled back to look him in the eye. “I promise. And nothings going to happen to you either.”

“I’m not worried about me.” He mumbled insistently pressing his forehead to yours.

You sighed a little, moving your hand down to his and intertwining your fingers together. “I mean it, Mick. You have nothing to worry about. I can practically guarantee it.”

Mickey looked you up and down, confusion evident on his face at the way you’d spoken and you quickly changed the subject. “Are you going to the Delta Lambda party tonight?”

“Of course, why? Are you not?”

“No, no I’ll be there. I’m just making sure you’ll be. I might be a little late though I have some more work to do on my dissertation and call my dad. He’s worried given everything going on, you know?” You internally sighed. Now you’d actually have to fucking call him to stay true to your alibi. Great.

“I can wait with you and we can go together.”

You felt your teeth grind together and you wracked your brain for some kind of excuse.

“Mickey.” You said gently, looking at him sympathetically. “Randy’s suspecting you...” -another situation you’ll no doubt have to deal with sooner rather than later. “- so I think you need to stay within his sights for a while. You know how he gets. No doubt he’ll start stalking you so it’s probably best just to stay on top of that.”

Mickey looked unconvinced by your reasoning and something odd crossed his features but disappeared just as quickly as it came. “Alright, babe. I’ll be there the whole time.”

Mickey’s eyes flickered out toward the sound of a laugh and he rolled his eyes, making you turn to see what he was looking at.

“Why are you looking at Cici Cooper like that?” You asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Just something she said in my film class.” Mickey said dismissively but you pressed, frowning.

“What did she say?“

“In a nutshell? My ideas on film and cinema are stupid. Apparently I’m biased because I believe there are a lot of sequels that are better than their original.” Mickey shrugged a little.

Your frown deepened.

Mickey had always been heavily passionate about films and extremely defensive about the films he loved. It may have been a tiny insult to any other person but anybody talking about Mickey in a way that was even somewhat negative? With the bloodlust you felt right now?

Well, it’s just a fucking recipe for disaster.

—————————-————————-————

“Where’s your girlfriend?” Randy slurred a little as he spoke to Mickey, flopping down beside him with a loud huff. Mickey recoiled slightly at the uncomfortable closeness.

“When I left her dorm she was talking to her dad. He seemed really worried so she might take a while getting here.”

“Hm.” Randy hummed, unamused and unconvinced before taking another sip of his drink.

“What, Randy.” Mickey sighed. “Got any more theories? Think she’s the killer now?”

Randy laughed too loudly and shook his head with a dismissive wave of his hand that wasn’t holding his drink. “Her? The killer? Please.” Randy leaned back. “No way she could’ve taken down a guy as big as Phil Stevens.”

Mickey nodded slightly, completely dissociating after Randy confirmed he didn’t suspect her.

But did Mickey?

He thought for a second about your behaviour leading up to the deaths of those two students. You were erratic, excited and ridiculously horny. Your sex drive had been so high for a week prior that even he was beginning to struggle to keep up. It had been kinkier than ever, and you were oddly dominating in a way Mickey wasn’t at all used to. He was used to being the one in control but recently, it was like you were a completely different person. It would be messy and rough. You’d bite him, scratch him and leave marks all over him just as he enjoyed doing to you. The give and take was a lot more fun than he would’ve anticipated. It never crossed his mind that someone as sweet as you could have this much of a sexually repressed edge.

Of course, he didn’t complain. He liked that you were comfortable enough with him to bring it out. This side to you was just as exciting as it was endearing to him. But then after the murders, it didn’t change. It built up more and more. You’d come back to his dorm after “studying”, eyes bright and almost menacing and practically pounced on him. In all honesty, it was probably the best sex the two of you had ever had.

But after that night, it changed drastically in a very different way. You’d stopped touching him, started avoiding him. You became more on edge and agitated yet ten times more focused.

He would never tell anyone about these changes he’d witnessed in you, but he was pretty sure he was the only one who noticed. He paid so much attention to you day to day that even the slightest change couldn’t go past him. And now? What the fuck were you really doing?

Randy was distracted, leaning over the arm of the couch and chatting to some girl. Mickey almost laughed at his lack of game before standing up, deciding to go and check on you. Something didn’t quite add up in his mind and he was going to find out what it was even if it killed him.

——————-————————-—————————

The undiluted pleasure spreading through you spurred you on as you stabbed Cici in the torso, her feeble attempts to fight you off fading every time the blade in your hand came down and plunged the cold steel deep into her.

Tormenting her via the phone call was fun, but this was ten times better. Perhaps she didn’t deserve this, she was only messing around with Mickey in class. It was a debate about films after all. But that didn’t matter to you. The fact she’d insulted someone that was yours made killing this sweet girl all the more fulfilling. Besides, you needed to kill someone whilst Mickey had an ironclad alibi. You didn’t need him on anyone's suspect list.

You watched in glee as the light in her eyes turned into a blank, glossy stare and brought the knife down once more, directly into her throat. She let out a muffled gargle and her mouth went slack. Cici’s fingers and legs twitched a couple of more times before you heard the release of air burst through her lips and just like that, she was dead. You moved from straddling her to stand over her as you wiped the blood off of the blade with your gloved hand.

“Stupid bitch.” You muttered, eyes quickly scanning your surroundings before removing the mask, sighing and cracking your neck.

You’d caught your first two victims, Phil and Maureen completely off guard, so although it had been fun to kill them, they were almost too easy to overpower and that took away from it a little. It made it almost boring in comparison to this. Cici on the other hand? The slight blonde girl had put up quite the fight. She’d kicked and scratched, she’d screamed and tried her best to fight you off of her to no avail. Your bloodlust made her absolutely no match for you.

You finally understood why Billy Loomis and Stu Macher had called their victims to taunt them first. The taste of satisfaction on your tongue was almost overwhelming, the sight of her crying, begging for you to spare her made you feel a way you’d never felt before.

Whilst you were revelling in your victory you heard the snap of a twig and your head snapped in the direction, the Ghostface mask gripped tight between your fingers.

“Mickey?” You gasped his name as he walked toward you, eyes huge and mouth open while he looked from Cici’s badly mutilated corpse and to your shocked face.

“It’s you? You’re the killer?”

To your surprise, he didn’t sound angry, or surprised. He didn’t look disgusted or even the slightest bit afraid. He looked… Almost curious. His intrigued brown eyes finally focused on your face after they dragged up from the girl lying dead on the ground.

“I..” you couldn’t seem to form a coherent thought as you stuttered. The last thing you wanted was to kill him, not Mickey. Not your Mickey. As he stepped closer, your hands instinctively lifted the knife and pointed it at him defensively and his hands rose, palms up. “You’re not going to fucking tell anyone.”

Mickey’s expression turned from intrigued to almost offended. “You think I would?”

You gave him a doubtful look but didn’t drop your guard, eyes monitoring his every move as he asked, “Baby, why?”

You frowned at him, tilting your head. “Why Cici or why am I doing this?” You felt frustrated, a raise of your hands and a shake of your head as you said, “Whatever, I don’t have time for this. Why the fuck did you leave the party, Mickey? I told you to stay there. That was your goddamn alibi so no one would suspect you.”

“I…I came to look for you,” His finger pointed in the direction of your building that was about a five minute walk from the sorority. “-and I heard screams and I was curious. So I walked up here and saw you stabbing the fuck outta Cici.” His shoulders turned up in a slight shrug.

“How the fuck are you acting so normal?” You hissed at him. It was hard not to be suspicious. Mickey was acting as though he caught you cheating on a damn test. This wasn’t normal behaviour for someone who’d just watched his girlfriend brutally gut somebody right in front of him.

He ignored you, asking once again, “Why?”

You sighed, briefly glancing around at your surroundings before your gaze focused back on your intrigued boyfriend. You hesitated a little, unsure what to do with the knife still pointed at him. It felt wrong pointing a weapon at Mickey. You loved him, but how could you let him live now? He was a witness, a loose end, and there’s nothing you hated more than loose ends.

Mickey watched as your face changed into a look of frustration and he lowered his hands, glancing down at the knife before hesitantly taking another step toward you. You didn’t stop him, suddenly needing to feel him closer. When you felt stress like this, you always needed him around. He made you feel better, normal somehow. Well, as normal as you could feel given who you were.

But can you trust him? The small voice in the back of your head muttered to you and you sighed, the agitated desperation evident on your face.

“Does it matter?“ you asked between gritted teeth.

“Baby, I swear I’m not going to tell anyone.” Mickey spoke gently, as though you were a wild animal he was trying to tame.

“How do I know that?” You snapped, glaring up at him.

“Because I wouldn’t do that.” Mickey looked offended at your comment, a small frown taking over his features. “I love you, and I’d never do anything that would put you at risk. Come on baby, you know that!”

“You promise?” You asked cautiously. One thing about Mickey is that he never lied to you. You always knew he had somewhat of an edge due to the movies he watched to his depraved sense of humour. Maybe that’s why you felt so bonded to him. Maybe that’s why you trusted him so entirely with even the darkest parts of yourself you’d never allow anyone else to see. As you felt his hand gently wrap around the knife in yours, you visibly relaxed as he gently pushed your hand down along with the blade, eyes filled with nothing short of admiration as he whispered, “On my life.”

“Okay.” You breathed as you nodded, sweaty hair falling into your eyes. You believed him, but still felt a little tense. Looking at him now, you knew he wouldn’t betray you, he loved you far too much. “I trust you. But Mickey, please go back to the party. I need to make sure you’re not a suspect and it won’t be long before someone stumbles across this.” You gestured down toward the mutilated body about a foot away from the two of you and he nodded thoughtfully.

“I’ll go back. But what do I tell them if they ask where you are?” Mickey frowned again, not liking the thought of them suspecting you. What would he do if you got caught? He’d always needed you but now? He needed you more than ever. He wanted you to tell him everything, how it felt to kill, how you felt when you did it and more importantly why. He’d always had a dark curious side and knowing the woman he loved not only had that too but actively pursued that darkness? No way he could let anything happen to you now. No way you could leave him.

“Try and go back in there without anyone noticing. Call the phone in my dorm and I’ll answer and tell you I fell asleep. That’s the best we can do now if I do become a suspect and they trace my calls.”

Mickey nodded, hands moving to touch the back of your neck with his rough fingers and the other on the small of your back as he pulled you close to him, lips enveloping yours. It was tender and nearly desperate, making you feel weak as he pulled away, a smile on his face as he began hastily walking back in the direction he came.

You watched after him for a few seconds as he slowly disappeared into the black night before pulling off the Ghostface costume, rolling up the mask and knife inside of it, taking one last look at Cici Coopers mangled corpse, smiling in admiration at your work before turning and walking back to your dorm, thinking of all the possibilities that await you now you didn’t have to hide such an enormous part of yourself from the one person you’d never hurt.

—————-————————-—————————

It had been two days since Mickey caught you murdering Cici Cooper, donning the Ghostface costume. Within those two days, he’d been nothing short of bombarding you with questions with the most intense curiosity you’d ever seen. His questions were all about your motive and you told him without hesitation.

“I want to finish what Billy and Stu started-” you’d told him with a small shrug, sitting perched on your countertop as he cleaned the bloody knife you’d used to murder Cici. Watching him do this helps you, he offers to do it for you without prompting and it makes you feel warm, assured in what he said, what he promised, that he wouldn’t tell on you. He is an accomplice now, cleaning your murder weapon, there is a particular domesticity to it that you could really get used to.

“-but I didn’t want to go straight for Sidney and Randy. I knew I needed practice, and how better than to fucking terrify her than to kill people with names of the original victims first and work my way up to them?”

He’d listened intently, utterly fascinated by you and you had to admit, it felt good to be worshipped by someone. Especially Mickey who had zero judgement in him and if anything, desperately wanted to learn more.

You were no longer even slightly uneasy with answering his questions as you’d initially been, willingly responding to each query with heavy detail which he seemed to thrive off, eyes bright and expression keen.

According to Mickey, after he had gone back to the party, it had taken a matter of ten minutes before someone had seen Cici’s dead body and the police had been called. Luckily, nobody had noticed Mickey’s absence, but your small friend group had noticed you were nowhere to be seen. He’d lied smoothly after calling you and quoting what you’d previously told him to say.

The best part of being a woman? Especially one who looked as sweet and innocent as you did? Nobody thought twice about it.

Your original plan to attack Derek and bombard Sidney with hesitation and doubt about her own boyfriend would have to wait for a later date. Mickey’s little discovery had somewhat put a wrench in the works but much to your own surprise, it didn’t bother you. It felt incredible to have someone you could share the darkest parts of yourself with without an ounce of judgement.

And the sex? It had been non-stop since the moment Mickey had walked into your dorm room after he’d been interrogated. It had been intense in ways you’d never imagined. With him knowing everything, you didn’t have to hold back anymore and neither did he. He wanted to fuck you whilst you still had Cici’s blood on your hands and arms, something that did not only catch you by surprise, but instantly turned you on. How could you say no to that? The image of him, smudges of tacky and quickly oxidising scarlet painting his torso, along with hickey’s you left on his neck, shoulders and collarbone, hair a wreck post sex was burned into your brain.

You were straddling Mickey now, both of you stripped completely bare as you had been from the night he found out you were Ghostface, fingers woven through his dark hair as you angled and ground your hips down against him, small sighs falling from your lips as you felt him gliding in and out of your drenched pussy. His head was resting back against the headboard, dark lustful eyes watching your face as you leaned forward and moved your lips against his, his fingers gripping the soft flesh of your hips so hard they were bound to bruise.

“What’s it like?” He asks it softly and you pull back looking down at him, the smile spreads on your face and you ask, “What’s what like?”

Another fall of your hips, enveloping him totally once again, the roll of your body and the rhythm serving you both well, he asks, “What’s, ugh, what’s killing like?”

The laugh breaks out as you slow your pace, “That is what you are thinking about right now?”

You slam yourself down harder and he gasps out, “Yes,” The look in his eyes is practically pleading, “Please, tell me?”

Well how could you deny him?

“You want me to tell you what it feels like to slide cold steel into a warm body?” you whispered to him, one hand sliding from his hair to his throat, finger pressing gently against his racing pulse. “How it feels to see the terror on their face when they realise they’re going to die? Watch the life drain from their eyes?” A small whining sound escaped Mickey’s lips as you moved again, trying to fight the urge to flip you over and fuck you into the mattress as you spoke.

“Yes.” He murmured desperately.

“It’s like sex,” you said gently with another roll of your hips making him groan again as he felt your clit rub against him and your pussy clench around him. The slow, teasing pace you were giving him was driving him crazy, he needed either you to ride him with wreckless abandon, or be able to fuck up into you so hard you’d struggle to take it.

“-there’s something intimate about it. Nothing can compare to the feeling of having someone’s life in your hands and being the one with the power to take it away.” Your hands moved to his throat as you spoke, applying enough pressure so it wouldn’t really hurt him but it would definitely have an impact. He let out nothing short of a growl as you did, fucking up into you even harder.

His rough hands moved from your hips to your ass, kneading the soft flesh and his breath hitched as you began to move faster, eyes watching as your tits bounced in front of his face, thrusting his hips upward to match your pace. He moved one of his hands to slide down your torso, finding your swollen clit and began to move his fingers in small, deliberate circles around your swollen bud, applying the perfect amount of pleasure that he knew teased you in just the right way. You let out a small groan as he did, feeling the pressure begin to build in your stomach for what felt like the hundredth time in the last two days.

“Not yet.” He grunted, fingers slowing to an agonising pace. Even with you straddling him with your hand wrapped around his throat you listened, letting out a small gasp as he gripped your waist, flipping you over so you were on your back with him hoisting your legs around his waist as he started to thrust into you, eyes dark and almost menacing. He liked to be in control and although he knew your secret, it didn’t mean that was going to change.

“I want- fuck- I want to be there next time.” His tone was uneven as he fucked you, pinning your hands above your head with one hand, you groaned into your arm, relishing in the feeling of his cock hitting that perfect spot inside of you and the slight stubble of his trimmed pubes grinding against your clit. The pressure was almost unbearable as you tried to fight the instinct to let the pleasure completely envelop you. “And I want to help you.”

This made you snap back into reality for a moment and you leaned your head back, looking at him in shock. “You- you what?”

He didn’t stop but slowed down, releasing your hands and cupping your cheek. “I want to help you,” he repeated, a smile on his beautiful face. “I don’t want you to do this alone. Besides, Billy and Stu did it together. Why don’t we?”

You couldn’t help but let an almost sadistic grin take over your face. Maybe that could work? It would surely help you, and he was right. Billy and Stu worked together and Mickey was definitely twisted enough to be able to pull this off with you. You’d already killed three people solo and just imagining Mickey being there and helping you…

“I need to injure Derek and kill Randy next.” You breathed, smirking a little as you looked up at your boyfriend, legs still wrapped around his waist. You felt him twitch inside of you, anticipation evident on his face as he moved his hand down between the two of you. “I’ll start you off easy with Derek,” you said, voice cracking a little as you began to circle your clit once again. “Don’t kill him, but make it fucking hurt.”

You could hear the smile in Mickey’s voice as he began to roll his hips again, fingers moving expertly across your clit, a small moan falling from between his lips as he felt your teeth sink into the skin of his shoulder hard enough for you to taste his blood.

“I will, but I want to help you kill Meeks too, I wanna see him gutted.”

God, you loved him.

#damn this is my longest one yet #this is the only way I can picture ‘innocent’ Mickey #so here you go!#god i fucking love him #scream #mickey altieri #scream 2 #mickey altieri x reader #mickey altieri smut #mickey altieri x you

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sonicexelle-junkary · 8 months

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I have suddenly gotten very hyper-fixated on FNF vs Sonic.exe (insert update/ encore) which led to me being back into Sonic and Sonic.exe, Then I found your blog while catching up on 10 years of missed lore and I am over the moon!!! I love the corruption!AU its gorgeous, I just read through everything I could in the tag lol I do have a few questions though- maybe suggestions to stew ups some ideas, just suggestions <3 I saw a post about how did Sonic get infected? My brain went right to "How did The Rot get on the planet? Was it dwelling underground or..." What my brain went to was an astroid and Sonic being Sonic went to check it out, because he's the hero! he has to make sure people are okay! But that made me think? Would Sonic be patient zero? or are there a bunch of others who have turned already? City's are canon within the comics. The Rot wants to infect would it restrain itself? Say like scoping the area, say go out act as normal as possible and observe others, looking for the biggest group of people (family, friends, etc.) strategizing basically? or does it attack first chance? would it be able to use its host's "powers" like chaos control, Sonic's speed, Silver's telegnosis, and Espio's invisibility? What does it do when there's nothing left to consume? one last thing, wherever it comes from, would it have to practice speaking? like patient zero, being the first to be consumed, would it have to "test it out"? Sorry for the rant, I'm just in love!! <3 It has my gears turning

I’m glad you like the au! This type of story has always been my favourite, so seeing people enjoy it makes me very happy!

A few of these questions have already been answered in previous asks, so I’ll answer the ones that I haven’t answered yet

How did The Rot come to Sonic’s world? Is Sonic patient zero?- Now that’s spoiler territory. You’ll know soon enough. He is ‘patient zero’. That’s all I’ll tell you.

Would The Rot restrain itself from infecting? Does it attack first chance?- The Rot doesn’t have an ‘urge’ to spread. It’s just doing what it wants to do. Like an animal in nature. It will wait as long as it needs to before it infects someone, that wait time can be days or weeks, even months if it comes to that.

Would it have to practice speaking?- Not exactly. It already knows how to speak as it can simulate lungs and vocal cords and whatever else it needs to speak. Though it takes a while before their hosts voice becomes less layered and growly and more clear and unsuspecting. The more hosts it has, the easier it can be to speak clearly. Until then, it rarely speaks in front of others, only saying short words or sentences when it needs to.

What does it do when there’s nothing left to consume?- Well, there has been a thought bubbling around in my mind about that for a while… but I sure ain’t gonna tell you it. You’re just gonna have to figure that question out yourself.

#inbox #ask #sonic horror au #contaminated! au

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mazzystar24 · 24 days

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Do you think they've had their "OH" moment?

I think Eddie has had his but thinks it won't go anywhere, that it's unrequited... I sometimes feel like Buck has his years ago, like either the will or when Eddie said he doesn't anyone else other than Buck to look after Chris, but then something I think has Buck had that "Oh" moment yet?

Sorry this took me a few hours to get to😭😭

Love this ask anon because I actually think about this a lot!

Personally I like to think they both have had their “oh” moments but I can see the writers making an onscreen explicitly stated oh moment if they do make buddie canon just because that would be easier to communicate to new audiences.

(though I would prefer the former with a love confession followed by maybe a cute little morning after scene talking about when they knew to eachother)

Anyways, my personal thoughts on when the buddie oh moments kinda vary

Like for Buck, I think he was having a little crush on Eddie in like EARLY season two like especially after seeing him with Chris and I think he was aware of it but like in a hey it’s just a crush way but I think his oh moment was the post tsunami conversation but then he was like internally like “nope not gonna risk that friendship there is no chance that’d happen so I’m gonna bury it” and I think he mentally reasoned it away over the years as being due to all the things going on at that point in time but like it still is in the back of his head

Eddie I think is a more complicated little tough nut to crack, I think that he’s so repressed and like that comp het has him in a CHOKEHOLD I think he kinda has slipped in and out of knowing like he knows and he has known but he doesn’t know, you know?

Like I think the shooting was low-key his oh moment then he went right back on that comp het beat. I think s6 therapized Eddie gave me hope for him fully having accepted and had his og moment and then they threw Marisol in but I’m holding out hope that his head is out of his dump truck ass by now😔🤞🤞

#911 #buddie #evan buckley #eddie diaz #911 fox #evan buck buckley #911 abc #911onfox #buckley diaz family #911 speculation #911 spec #asks #asks open #send asks #answered asks

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wolfspurr · 1 year

Text

Way Down We Go (50131 words) by Wolfspurr

Art by @idkmyartwork & Art by @thotpuppy Rating: Explicit Warnings: Underage Relationships: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski Additional Tags: Post-Nogitsune, Nogitsune Trauma, Stiles Stilinski is Seventeen, Canonical Character Death, Stiles Stilinski Has Nightmares, Stiles Stilinski Has Panic Attacks, AU - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Season/Series 03B, Canon Compliant up to end of 3B, Minor Stiles Stilinski/Malia Tate, Slow Burn, Road Trips, Getting Together, Sharing a Bed, Hurt/Comfort, Making Out, Top Derek Hale/Bottom Stiles Stilinski, First Time, Anal Sex, Happy Ending, + More... Summary: Set during 3B and its aftermath. The blacklight party at the loft leaves Stiles with more than one revelation playing on his mind. He's losing time, and apparently he might be more than just a little bit interested in Derek Hale. By the time he's fought off the Nogitsune and somehow lived to tell the tale, the rest of Stiles' sanity might just rest on Derek, the Camaro, and a few hundred miles of Pacific Coast Highway. It's going to be one hell of a road trip.

Excerpt: In hindsight, it probably shouldn’t come as a surprise.

Stiles generally considers himself to be a pretty intelligent guy; his GPA is second only to Lydia’s - and he still maintains that he could beat her. If it weren’t for all the nightly wanderings, research binges and general chasing after things that go bump in the night, he’s certain he’d be giving her more than a run for her money.

The point is, Stiles knows stuff. A lot of stuff, including a truly impressive number of things he’ll probably never actually need to know, but has squirreled away in his head regardless. His brain is a sponge, ready and waiting to soak up as much useless shit as he can come across.

Apparently it’s the stuff a little closer to home that he’s been having trouble with.

Stiles has always thought he had a pretty good grasp on himself (no pun intended, but second meaning also definitely true), so he really has no idea how he’s managed to miss the glaring epiphany that has just been handed to him this neon night in Derek Hale’s loft.

"I thought you liked girls?"

"I do like girls! Do you?"

"Absolutely!"

"Great."

“So, you also like boys?"

"Absolutely! Do you?"

Stiles knows stuff. This is a question he should definitely know the answer to. The anticipated response is right there on the tip of his tongue, but something about it just doesn’t quite taste right. The expected ‘no’ sits heavy on his palate. It feels like a lie.

It’s not like bisexuality is a foreign concept to him. Stiles is a worldly guy, and it’s not exactly complicated; it’s just never occurred to him to try applying it to himself. He’s definitely applying now. He’s trying it on for size, and surprisingly enough he doesn’t hate the fit.

Maybe it’s because he’s been fixated on Lydia for so long, strawberry blonde goddess that she is. No one else has really got much of a look in for years, because that’s who Stiles is. He falls too hard and too fast, and he’s too damn stubborn to give up when he’s convinced that he’s on the right track.

But recently, if Stiles actually stops and thinks about it, maybe that stopped being true a while ago; somewhere between the night his life got infiltrated by werewolves and the night Jackson’s creepy lizard self was saved by true love. That kind of shit is hard to ignore.

If he’s completely honest with himself, maybe loving Lydia had become a habit that was easier not to break, because Stiles knows himself. He loves deeply, he falls too hard and too fast, and he always, always falls for the most unattainable person possible. And if that’s not Lydia anymore, Stiles is a little terrified of what that might mean for him now.

Yeah, Caitlin. I’m pretty sure I do.

Stiles is losing time.

He thinks he’s known it for a while, but it’s like he doesn’t want to know. It keeps slipping his mind.

Maybe he’s losing that as well.

He knows he should tell the others, but there’s something stopping him. Stiles genuinely isn’t sure if it’s just him burying his head in the sand, determined to ignore the implications, or if there’s something else that’s keeping him from telling anyone about the tracts of time that he just can’t remember.

Something not entirely Stiles.

Keep Reading

#teen wolf #sterek #derek hale #stiles stilinski #sterek art #sterek fic #my writing #my fic #eternalsterek #sterek big bang #sterek is eternal #ao3 link #fic #fanfic

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nobodyfamousposts · 11 months

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I love the newest part of chloe's lament!!!

As always, the problem with all of chloe's plans Are that she doesn't think them though, because she doesn't think she needs too. She has it in her head that she has future knowledge, and so operates solely on that.

I am very curious as to which student overhead Chloe and Bustier. Sabrina or Adrien who already knows of Chloe's wish? A classmate with no idea of theyre even being a wish? Maybe marinette herself?

Thank you for writing and Sharin chloe's lament btw it's one of my favorit miraculous aus and I just reread it all when i saw the newest post <33

To be fair, it's not just her future knowledge.

The thing about Chloe (or at least the way I'm doing her), is that she has this perception of how the world works and how it SHOULD work based on the many years where the world DID work that way. For years, Chloe could essentially do whatever she wanted and not only were there no consequences, she was never even suggested that she was wrong or anything she did was wrong.

Look at canon: even in the few instances where Chloe "lost", she didn't really lose anything. At most, someone else "won" and she just didn't get something she wanted. And even when she was revealed to have been cheating or acting dishonestly, nobody really calls her out on it. She still at most doesn't get something she wanted. That the adults seem to ignore her behavior and even the narrative made more of an effort to woobify her didn't help matters.

Chloe in this setup is the prime example of someone who thinks she's the main character and the world is just supposed to make things work out for her. This is combined with her future knowledge to make her think that this is an advantage she can use to benefit herself...not realizing that the entire setup has changed and whatever benefits she had before that protected her from consequences are no longer there.

In her limited defense, at this point her future knowledge is really her only advantage. Through it, she knows things that most other people don't. But not only is she trying to use it for selfish reasons, she's trying to apply it in ways where it simply can't be applicable due to the changes already made by the setup of the world.

Half of the akumas Chloe knows about were created because of her. But Chloe isn't in a position anymore do to as many of them this time around.

Do you really think Princess Fragrance is going to happen? It'd be Marinette whom Rose would ask instead of Chloe, and while Marinette may not be able to personally introduce Rose to Prince Ali, she could still take Rose's letter to him. At the very least, she certainly wouldn't just rip it apart in front of her.

Vanisher? Sabrina and Chloe aren't friends.

Rogercop? Haha no. Chloe doesn't have a golden bracelet.

So yes, while she is acting on future knowledge that may not apply, the bigger problem is this "protagonist centered morality" Chloe has where she is operating under the belief that SHE is the protagonist and that things are just supposed to work out in her favor because she is herself. Because that's how they always did before.

But as a result of the Wish, Chloe gave that up. Not just the money and social status, but also the protection and ambivalence she received not just from the adults around her regarding her behavior. Chloe is getting first hand experience of what Marinette and others had to go through when it came to her, and she hates it. But what Chloe especially hates is that unlike her, people don't resent Marinette for being better off and she fails to see it's because of her actions.

It's easier to just act as if Marinette's manipulating everyone or that they're brainwashed than admit that Chloe caused her own issues.

The worst part is that Chloe could have turned her situation around at any point. Her future knowledge would have helped her do that. But that would require her to accept her position for what it is and more importantly, stop repeating her previous behaviors. And given it's Chloe, that's going to be the hardest thing for her.

As far as your question, I'm not going to reveal just yet which student it is. Though I will go ahead and say it isn't Marinette. She's still at the contest, marveling over the other entries and maybe even giving feedback to some of the contestants if they want it.

You're welcome! I'm glad you're enjoying it so far!

#nobody answers #lament series #chloe's lament #chloe salt

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inimitablereel · 4 months

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2023 Fic+Vid recs

A variety of things I liked this year, made this year. Once again, this got long, so fic recs and fandom-specific recs for dmbj are below the cut. But first a few miscellaneous vids

[vid] Cockroach Motherfuckers by eruthros, thingswithwings multifandom Immortal queer characters multi-vid! This is exactly as much fun and hopeful as it sounds. I've seen maybe 2 of the sources so you know, you don't have to have seen them all.

(We) Didn't Just Come Here to Dance [Fanvid] by FairestCat fandom: Newsies I haven't actually seen newsies, but I really liked this vid. Taking the (very dramatic) musical theater dancing and putting it to a Carly Rae Jepsen song works SUPER well, visually very fun time. Also, unions!

[Vid] Oceanographer's Choice by absternr fandom: Heroes (cdrama 2022) Bai Choufei, Su Mengzhen, and Lei Chun's fucked up relationship(s)/falling apart bad times. This vid is deeply upsetting, just a real exploration of sometimes caring a lot about each other makes everything worse. For maximum sad times, this goes well with absternr's other heroes vid, hey, I just met you, which is the meet-cutes that led to this whole mess.

[AMV] The Draw by Lovely Goblin fandom: Revolutionary Girl Utena Black Rose Arc! I've watched this vid so many times really good weird and creepy black rose arc vibes really good parallels between all the different duelists

Also blanket rec that if you've seen Everything Everywhere All at Once, consider looking for vids for it. There's a bunch on ao3 (which can be easier to navigate than youtube, though there are definitely more total vids on youtube) and they're pretty much all spectacular? I was going to include one or two in this rec post and couldn't decide

The wild phonemes of 40 Eridani Keid by astronicht Fandom: Star Trek (aos/tos mashup canon) relationship: Spirk ~10k words rated E You know if you'd told me a year ago I'd be reccing a spirk fic in 2023 I would have been a bit surprised. This is not particularly my fandom wheelhouse. But you know, they're always good, and this fic is really great. This is almost an episode-fic except that nothing really happens plot-wise. But instead of a plot we get a lot of musing about geology and diplomacy and clever references to current events as history in that very trek kind of way and Spock being bitchy just for fun.

fuori dal mondo by bladedweaponsandswishycoats fandom: Qi Ye relationship: Beiyuan/Wu Xi, Beiyuan/Zhou Zishu (more plot than ship focused) ~60k words rated E This is a retelling of Qi Ye except Beiyuan is... some kind of eldritch horror, part-time. It pretty much goes beat for beat through canon (which I appreciate, I loved that book and do not like any of the current tls enough to reread) but with the added layer of whatever is going on with this eldritch thing, which is very cool and tied into canon so don't let me spoil it for you.

We're Leaving Our Shadows Behind Us by lady_ragnell fandom: Tortall - Protector of the Small relationship: Kel/Neal/Yuki ~70k words rated T Canon retelling of Squire and Lady Knight but from Neal's POV. This fic really digs into Neal as a character and the details of the worldbuilding of Tortall, especially the chamber of the ordeal. Also somewhere along the way it sold me on this ship, which I wasn't exactly rooting for when I read the books the first time.

The Untamed/MDZS

a harmony between qin and se by Alaceron relationship: Wangxian ~60k words rated E This is a gender-bent (to make it a het romance) no magic historical drama au where Wei Wuxian is a woman who's arranged to marry Lan Wangji. Honestly this is pretty far from the untamed, especially in terms of themes, though some plot elements will be familiar, but mostly it's just a really great compellingly written historical drama, that happens to have main characters with some familiar characteristics.

Like a Game of Chess by countingcr0ws relationship: Wangxian ~40k words rated T Modern au: influencer Wei Wuxian runs into Lan Wangji on a trip to Taiwan and they travel around together. I love all the little details of their trip - it's like getting to see a new place without going anywhere. Also sometimes I forget that wangxian are very cute? They're a good ship brant

The Epic Highs and Lows of High School Zine Production by el_em_en_oh_pee relationship: Jin Ling & Jiang Cheng, Jin Ling & the mdzs juniors ~7k words rated G Modern au: High schooler Jin Ling has big feelings about a lot of things, including zines, gender, and family. One of those juniors-centric fics that makes me say oh they are Teens huh.

DMBJ

A Little Hole in the Wall by MountainRose gen, Liu Sang centric ~8k words rated G Honestly I would rec this fic even to people who know nothing about tomb shows. One thing that really draws me to a book is descriptions of food (I have read multiple food memoirs this year), and this restaurant au has AMAZING food (and food prep) in it. Not too plotty, mostly just descriptions of delicious things and characterization via cooking.

green with an attitude by ilgaksu relationship: heihua ~8k words rated T If you are in the English language dmbj fandom and you care at all about heihua you probably have already checked out ilgaksu's fic, which has basically defined heihua for the English language fandom. My favorite heihua moments are when other people show up and give you that foil to realize how weird they are, and this fic has that both via Xiuxiu and Wu Xie. Also, a fic about dancing!

making anything last, keeping anything safe by A (mumblemutter) relationship: Wu Xie/Xiao Bai (background pingxie) ~8k words rated M Post canon Xiao Bai takes Wu Xie to explore a tomb that should be perfectly safe... (They set off a sex pollen trap.) I don't particularly ship this, but this fic was extremely well done and kind of sold me on the ship. Fun tomb, really fun characterization for everyone involved.

A World Made Over, Fresh and New by Thimblerig gen, iron triangle, Wu Xie & Li Cu ~1k words rated G If you've ever gotten specific dmbj fic recs from me, it's probably included something by Thimblerig, they're amazing at pulling in very specific canon snippets in under 5k words and I'd generally recommend going through their work by tags if you're looking for fic with underloved side characters or fic set during a part of canon that isn't UN or post-canon, which are generally easier to find. That said, this particular fic is in fact the fandom staple of post-reboot let's go look at a tomb and pulling in a big ensemble cast including some reboot folks. But it's a staple because it's a good vibe, and this is a really well done sliver of friendship and relationship building and perhaps even a tomb trap?

[Vid] Still Into You by absternr iron triangle ot3 This vid is a bop! Multi-tomb show iron triangle being in love, through the years! I've got this bookmark tagged as "joyful"

[vid] When He Died by teyla Wu Sanxing-centric This vid really leans into the weird tomb nonsense and conspiracies and builds to something quite odd, meant in the best possible way. A concentrated version of what tomb shows want to be at their best, from a horror/strange spooky things perspective. Mind the tags.

[Vid] Before I Do by absternr Xiuxiu character study A vid all about Xiuxiu being a badass - she's so clever and cunning and she will figure out and surpass her family history.

#reclist #last year's version of this I had a nif section and I was a little surprised I didn't have ANY this year #but the nif exchange is a little later this year and also tbh I have more or less just reread nif fics so my rec would be...#reread that ruthless love (or check it out if you haven't already)#once again if you have been thinking about making a rec post please do I would like to have recs #tumblr really wanted this to be formatted with big font hopefully I caught all of it :/

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ceruleanwhore · 3 months

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WARNINGS: TW for talk of addiction/alcoholism and then also just a heads up that there will be lots of spoilers for Jin and Luke’s routes.

So I’ve talked before about how I don’t like Jin and why but I was recently thinking about him as I started reading Luke’s route again and it occurred to me that maybe part of the issue is just bad writing, like we also see with Leon, Silvio, Chevalier, and others. The most common source of bad writing in this series is mental health and I think that’s a big part of the issue with Jin. They do this thing with him and other characters like Silvio, or Kenshin from ikesen, where they make him The Guy Who Drinks A Lot and then refuse to acknowledge or write addiction because addiction is messy and unattractive. However, I think being messier, more mentally ill, and more pathetic is exactly what Jin needs (and also Silvio but this post isn’t about him) and I wanted to make a post exploring what alcoholic!Jin could look like and how it could change his character in what I see as a positive way.

First is the question of when this addiction would have started and what inciting incident may have pushed Jin into it, and then that also will affect how long he’s been struggling with it by the start of the story. Personally, I like the idea that it started with Bloodstained Rose Day because of all those messy, complicated emotions he probably would want to drown out. I like that idea mainly because it clearly shows not just actual remorse but also how his own life was destroyed by taking Layla’s, and that’s something we just never get in canon which has led to my issue of not being able to believe that his primary motivations around all that are actually good. With something like this, I feel like it would be easier to believe that he did what he thought was right, as best he could at the time but, after all that, is stuck questioning night and day if it was the right thing to do, which then sends him spiraling into mental illness.

The next thing is just what this would look like after ten years, or whatever other time frame if it were a different inciting incident. Keeping in mind that he would have the security of wealth and not having to worry about anything like homelessness, I think some of the main changes that would happen would be isolation from the others and then a gradual decrease in how well and how much he does his work. By the time Belle gets there, he could be lurking around in the shadows and having this sort of cryptid status within the palace as even servants never see him anymore. Also, if he gradually stops doing his work, I like the idea that Luke could be brought in not just for the Belle thing but also to start training to pick up that slack.

Now, one of the main things with mental illness is some level of insecurity about it, and I really want that dialed up with Jin. What I mean is that yeah, of course there would be stuff around worrying about what the people around him think of him as he struggles with this addiction and starts to change because of it, but also, specifically with him, it would soothe my soul for eternity if he had to deal with chronic whiskey dick too. I have this beautiful vision of him trying to drown his sorrows after BSRD and figuring out the hard way that, after a few days of hard drinking, he can’t get it up and then he’d probably try a few more times before being sufficiently embarrassed that he would just stop going out at all. Depending on how bad you want his insecurities to be, it would also be reasonable to include something about how, over time, as his schedule starts to fall apart as his responsibilities are dropped in favor of alcohol, he’d end up developing a gut and then could also be really insecure about that.

The reason I’m going off about all this stuff around insecurities is because all of that would significantly change his dynamic with Belle when she arrives and how he talks to her and everything. If he’s a reclusive alcoholic with crippling insecurities and pretty significant anxiety around the Belle process especially, he is going to be nothing like the cocky casanova we get in canon. Personally, I like this a lot better because I find it a whole lot easier to empathize with than canon Jin’s fuckery, but that’s just me. His arc would have to be hella deep with a ton of character work and it would be all about Belle digging into all his shit and then helping him process the BSRD stuff, bringing Luke in for closure on all of that, helping him heal his childhood trauma from his parents’ relationship. It could end with him deciding to get clean and not wanting her there for that whole messy process, so he’d send her home and ask her to wait for a year and that he would then come get her, which I think is a much less annoying way to do the endings we got with Jin’s route.

Overall, something like this would fix a lot of issues with his character — forced celibacy turning right into a monogamous relationship would mean I don’t have to watch him hit on women or drag Belle into town just to ditch her to go hit on women, having this all start with Bloodstained Rose Day would make his motives and feelings around that more believable, and it would provide better reasoning for some of the things that happen in canon. What I mean by that last point is that, in his route, it makes no sense for him to go to such lengths to force her to spend a lot of her time with him, given his anxieties around Belle, but, if he’s all isolated and mentally ill, that internal push-pull of craving human contact but being so afraid because of who she is makes that work. Also, I feel like his condition would mean that Clause 99 wouldn’t exist because, depending on when he added it in canon, he might have been out of commission by then in this version, which also would fix one of my biggest issues with Jin, so that’s cool.

Anyway, lmk what y’all think!

(Oh and I might make another post later about how ikepri fetishizes mental illness and how they won't tackle addiction because of that but idk.)

#ikepri #ikemen prince #jin grandet #ikepri jin #ikemen prince jin #addiction #alcoholism #ikepri headcanons #mental illness #ikemen series #cybird ikemen

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luckystarchild · 14 days

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how different would be lucky if if you had chosen maya as your self insert instead of keiko? what would u have named the story?

I considered using Maya, actually! Not too seriously (Keiko made more sense for the story I was intending to tell, and that was obvious from the jump), but still. A few people have asked this question over the years; there's even a few unanswered asks in my inbox about it. In one past post on the subject, I said the following:

"If she ended up taking Maya’s place in canon, she’d have to think on her feet to avoid having her memory erased. Now THAT would be a recipe for disaster."

Early on in the story, I think Not-Quite-Maya's goals would center around avoiding getting her memory wiped the way Maya's is wiped in canon. She might stay away from Kurama only to get dragged back into his orbit by fate or destiny or whatever you want to call it. Having my mind messed with is a HUGE phobia for me, so knowing Kurama might try and alter my memory after a run-in with Hiei would probably influence my/Not-Quite-Maya's actions until the danger zone has passed.

What would that avoidance look like? I might try to stay away from Kurama, I might try to change Maya's relationship with Kurama, I might try to make friends with more of the YYH cast... who knows? But that would be a huge focus on the early part of the story.

After that point and once canon started up in earnest, Not-Quite-Maya's journey would be VERY different from NQK's. NQK is often preoccupied with the ramifications of increasing Keiko's roll in canon. If she were reborn as Maya, she'd be increasing the changes to canon even more since Maya was never intended to be there in the first place. It makes me question if I would allow myself to get involved at all. At least Keiko is supposed to go to the Dark Tournament; Maya isn't supposed to be featured after Kurama meets Yusuke, so tagging along as Maya would likely wreak even greater havoc than what we got in LC with NQK. There's a case to be made that NQM would stay away entirely as a result, and we'd probably get a Not-Quite whose story didn't intersect much at all with the canon cast's.

That's why I picked Keiko, in the end. Her role is much more involved with the main character's, which makes it easier to involve her in the story and bend canon to accommodate her presence. Accommodating Maya would mean BREAKING canon, not bending it. And since I'm a cautious person, I can't see myself giving readers a very interesting story while inhabiting the role of Maya. Using Maya as the insert character, therefore, didn't contribute to the story I was trying to tell, and Keiko had to be used instead. But it still fun to think about this AU.

As for what I'd call it... the themes of the story would be very different from LC's themes, but I haven't explored what those themes would be yet. Since I tend to choose titles that reflect the themes of their story, it's tough to say what I'd call a NQM story at this juncture.

BUUUUT... I named LC after the translation of Keiko's name (when spelled with slightly different kanji than what was used in canon, but w/e). Maya's name is spelled with a character that can mean either "hemp" or "numb" and a character that can mean "increasingly/further" (or a variation that denotes distance/a measurement growing bigger) or "mend." Other spellings of the name use characters for "truth" and "reality," and also "night" and even "irony." I'd probably make a title that plays on those definitions.

Just spitballing here, but if NQMaya's main hurdle is how distant she is from canon compared to NQK, I think a title that plays on that latter kanji could be cool? Something that plays on the distance between her and canon, and possibly mending that distance, or maybe that distance increasing over time. Throw in "numb" for some color if possible.

Typing all that out made me realize one of the themes of a Not-Quite-Maya story, especially one where she chooses to distance herself from canon, might revolve around the theme of learning to let go. So her story's title could very well be something like, "The Irony of Distance," or "A Distant Truth," or some kind of play on the "so close and yet so far" adage. Hard to say without actually writing the story, but you get the idea.

Thanks for this ask! Was a fun brain teaser.

#yyh maya #luckychildfanfic #yu yu hakusho fanfiction #yu yu hakusho

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livingmeatloaf · 16 days

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WIP Wednesday snippet

"washed up nobody worms his way into local governmental leader's heart" was in the lead when i last checked the Out of Context Wip poll.

Taxes fried my brain on Wednesday, so you get it now! What is time anyway!!

The summary refers to "A Serpent Among the Lotus", my double-post-canon crossover with endgame Jiang Cheng/Zhuzhi-Lang. Zhuzhi-Lang is stuck in a form closer to his birth form right now, mostly monstrous.

"I am dangerousss."

"Yeah? So am I. And so is the sect leader. If he's not worried, I'm not." Jiang Cheng shrugged. It had gotten easier to shed the awkwardness of referring to himself like that with each day. Now, Jiang Wanyin sat separate from Sect Leader Jiang, held at a distance if only for the hours they spoke together.

Zhuzhi-Lang considered him, propping his head up on his folded arms. "Tell thiss one about your ssect leader? He musst be different from thosse I've met before."

Jiang Cheng sighed. "What's there to tell? He's loud and short tempered and yells a lot {lists his negative qualities as he sees them or has heard}."

"Jiang-gongzi does not like his sect leader."

"What? That's not true!" Jiang Cheng huffed at Zhuzhi-Lang's disbelieving look. "He's powerful," he said slowly. "He has a very strong core." That little fact comes with a bewildering stab of guilt and grief that he shoves back down. "He looks out for everyone in his sect. He makes sure no kids are running around begging on the street with no home. He does his best to be fair in dealings." He was quickly running out of nice things to say about himself. "Um, he looks fine, I guess? People used to say he was the fifth most handsome bachelor of his generation."

"Only fifth then? What doessss he rank now?"

Jiang Cheng stopped. Lan Huan was still technically a bachelor, secluded though he was. Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian were married. He did not dwell on them. Jin Zixuan...

"Second, I guess, of those who were originally ranked."

"Handssome man."

"I guess."

"Oh? Jiang-gongzi preferss women?"

"Maybe?" He scratched his head, then shook it. "Who has time to consider romance or attractiveness or anything? We're still reestablishing our sect."

Zhuzhi-Lang hummed. Songs of insects filled in the long stretch of silence. Jiang Cheng fidgeted.

"Do uh... Do you prefer lady demons or guy demons?" Zhuzhi-Lang looked at him and Jiang Cheng puffed up defensively. "Fair's fair, you asked first!"

"Thiss one hass only found a human man attractive." Zhuzhi-Lang tipped his head, long hair sliding over his arm to pool against his chest in a dark waterfall. "Where does Wanyin-gongzi rank on the list?"

Jiang Cheng choked on the sip of water he had just taken. He sputtered some incoherent response about not ranking at all.

They turned to safer topics, Jiang Cheng complaining about the water ghouls that cropped up around this time of year and how annoying they were to hunt down. It was nice to complain casually. As sect leader, he didn't really have anyone he could talk this candidly with. They compared water ghouls to some demons and similar resentful dead further west.

The notes Jiang Cheng has taken from his conversations with Zhuzhi-Lang far outstrip the few scrolls they have on demons. He sets some of the scholarly disciples who work in the library to organize and transpose his notes into useful scrolls. After all, if one demon has floated down the river, what would stop more from following?

Whatever choice wins the poll will get a snippet post like this! Go vote, or send me an ask with a summary and I'll be happy to talk about any of these! :D

#My fic #Work in progress #A Serpent Among the Lotus #Wip Wednesday #Jiang Cheng/Zhuzhi-Lang

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workingforitallthetime · 11 months

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hello, i would like to talk at you for a bit about girl!rutger and adam and the boys and girls can't be friends verse.

what if adam and rutger were still longtime best friends, but it was girl!rutger? never lived in the same place, but kept seeing each other at tournaments and CAA events and always hit it off, reflecting the same brand of goofy energy plus hard-nosed competitiveness right back at each other.

like, imagine every photo of rutger on adam's canonical instagram except rutger's a girl. rutger in a bikini floating in adam's pool. girl!rutger and adam arm in arm on the beach at CAA camp, towels draped over their shoulders. girl!rutger at the baggage claim, just a stupid little picture adam posted when he picked her up at the airport one time, but somehow years later it's still in his saved stories.

adam's friends are like "are you hitting that or what?" and adam's horrified. "she's my best friend!" adam protests. ok, his buddy says, then give me the inside track, you can be my wingman. and adam's like no, absolutely not, don't talk about rutger like that.

meanwhile rutger rolls her eyes whenever her friends ask if anything's going on with her and adam. "boys and girls can be friends," rutger huffs, swishing her ponytail over her shoulder. rutger considers herself pretty enlightened on that front. she can have a best friend who's a boy. she's cool like that. maybe other girls can't be friends with boys without falling for them, but rutger can.

and rutger already has a boyfriend, anyway. cutter's great! they're together all the time. and yeah, he's always hovering and draping his arm around her when the ntdp plays the steel and she and adam get a few minutes to catch up on the concourse afterwards, but it's not like cutter has anything to worry about. adam's just a friend.

once they're off at at college, long distance is hard though! like, rutger and adam have basically never lived in the same place but every time they see each other at a camp or a tournament or a hughes party it's like they pick up right where they left off. but cutter's not like that. now that he's in boston and rutger's in michigan, talking on the phone is so awkward. rutger keeps accidentally missing cutter's calls and forgetting to call back, and then he's mad the next time they talk, and that makes rutger less likely to call him, and it's just a whole big thing.

college is, like, so much fun though. it's great to finally be on a team with adam, and their teammates are awesome, and living in the dorms is fun, and there's just always so much fun stuff going on! cutter's just kind of... a distraction from everything else in her life that seems so much more immediate.

they'll probably straighten everything out at world juniors. they just need some time together, right? and that's exactly how it works out! it takes a couple of days but pretty soon she and cutter are right back to normal. everything's easier when they can just, like, make out in the back of the charter bus instead of talking.

wjc is such an intense little bubble. even with seamus rooming with her and gavin and duker down the hall, michigan seems so far away. after a few days rutger's not even texting her other umich teammates. adam's not texting her either. but whatever, it's different for him going to team canada than it is for rutger to just go down the road to usa hockey. she gets it.

she does look over at the other side of the ice during warmups before their game against canada. she's not, like, going to distract adam if he's focusing or whatever. but if he wants to say hi, she wouldn't want to miss it, is all.

"looking for someone?" cutter plows to a stop in front of the bench, blocking her view.

rutger plays it off like she’s not startled. she picks up the closest water bottle and squirts it at cutter’s jersey. "checking out bedard, obvs."

“yeah, sure.” he skates away and rutger hops over the boards, snags a puck, and wires it over trey’s helmet, so it bangs into the glass after missing the net entirely.

---

a couple of weeks after world juniors, cutter texts her. he’s been doing some thinking. long distance isn’t working for him. maybe they should take a break.

rutger immediately facetimes him, indignant. “you’re breaking up with my over text????”

“oh so now you pick up the phone,” cutter says.

“i…” rutger stammers. “fuck off.”

“have fun with adam.” cutter hangs up before rutger can protest that adam’s her friend.

rutger looks furiously around her dorm room. where’s seamus when she needs her? she storms down the hallway to gavin and johnny’s room and dramatically bursts through the door. “cutter and i broke up.”

“aw, babe.” seamus immediately gets up from gavin’s bed to give her a hug. “i’m sorry.”

“shocker,” gavin says.

“be nice.” seamus swats him. “we’re mourning.”

“what?” rutger demands.

gavin shrugs. “just didn’t seem like you liked him that much.”

“of course i liked him! it was almost our two year anniversary!” rutger’s lip starts to tremble. it feels like she failed.

“what’s up?” rutger hears adam’s voice as he walks into the room.

“rut and cut broke up,” gavin says, indifferently.

a tear trickles down the side of rutger’s nose. their nicknames always sounded so good together.

adam makes a sympathetic noise and offers her an arm. rutger gratefully wraps her arms around him and sniffles against his t-shirt.

behind her, gavin snickers.

“stop laughing at me,” rutger says miserably into adam's chest.

adam pats her back reassuringly. maybe she'll live. maybe this isn't so bad. maybe it will be nice not to worry about cutter anymore. and there’s so much else going on! the second half of the season is so much fun, and she and adam are finally playing on a line together and they’re killing it, just like they always knew they could. now she can focus on hockey. now she can go out and really dance with guys, not just her teammates. now she can...

rutger picks up her head. "hey, now i can hook up."

adam stops patting her back.

rutger flounces over to the bed and snuggles up next to seamus. "who should i hook up with?"

seamus pets her hair. "maybe wait a little bit?"

"or not." rutger pokes gavin. "who's moyle's lacrosse friend?"

gavin snorts. rutger makes him and johnny talk through the merits of the entire men's lacrosse team. she doesn't notice when adam leaves.

---

lacrosse players are... well, they're okay. they're fine. rutger hooks up with a couple of them, at a couple of different parties. the second one is ryan, or maybe justin. he gropes her tits like he doesn't remember they're attached to the rest of her. rutger shrugs her neck away from his mouth and straightens her bra out and tells him she's going to find her friends. maybe she should try football players.

she snaps the elastic out of her ponytail and redoes it as she walks down the stairs of the senior house. adam's watching her from the beer pong room. his eyebrows pull together when he sees her expression. "everything okay?"

rutger points at the solo cup in his hand. "can i have a sip?"

"take it." adam hands the cup over. he drapes an arm around her. rutger steps out of her heels so she's a little shorter, and leans against his side.

---

everything falls into place as winter turns into spring. holtzy gets healthy, frankie gets healthy, and they go on a tear through the playoffs. rutger makes out with a few more people at a few more parties, but mostly it's good to be with the team.

after the big 10 tournament, rutger gets pleasantly buzzed on watermelon truly. she trips going down the porch steps at the senior house and grabs adam's elbow. "fucking heels." she straightens up, shifting her feet in her shoes so her toes aren't so pinched. "ugh, i'm going to have blisters." the heels are so cute, though, and they make her legs look about a million miles long under her little skirt. worth it.

adam crouches down a little. "want a ride?"

"oh, for real?" rutger swings a leg over his back. "awesome!"

adam straightens up and she wriggles into a decent piggyback position. he tucks his hands under her knees and starts to walk them back toward south quad. the night smells like springtime trees, everything blooming. rutger rests her cheek on adam's shoulder.

adam carries her all the way into the lobby and leans forward so she can reach the elevator button. as the slow dorm elevator makes its way up to their floor, rutger tries to slide off his back. "i think i can make it from here."

as soon as she says it, she stumbles over her heels on the dismount. adam catches her around the waist, and impulsively kisses her.

rutger's not expecting it and the kiss only sort of lands on her mouth. it's bad.

adam lets her go. he's looking at her, aghast. "sorry, i..."

rutger's aghast too. she and adam are winners. they can't have a bad kiss. that's just not who they are. "we can do better," rutger says, firmly, and kisses him for real.

the elevator doors open. they close again. adam backs her against the elevator wall as the slow descent to the lobby begins. this is great! why hasn't she thought about kissing adam before? he's actually a really good kisser! rutger smacks blindly at the elevator buttons, trying to get back to their floor while adam's tongue is still in her mouth.

by the time rutger's lying on her back with her tiny little skirt flipped up and adam's tongue tracing a path up the inside of her thigh, it occurs to her that maybe cutter was right about some stuff after all. well, whatever. cutter broke up with her. she can hook up with adam. it's not like adam's in love with her.

---

rutger thinks that adam and his tongue make for an ideal friends with benefits situation. because she and adam are friends, so this must be friends with benefits. boys and girls can be friends! rutger is determined to prove it! friends can hook up! even if it's like every weekend, and at the frozen four, and rutger isn't hooking up with anybody else! even (especially) if they haven't really talked about it! every time rutger thinks maybe she should clarify that this is absolutely definitely friends with benefits, she gets distracted by adam's tongue and she decides that there's no reason to disrupt a perfectly delightful status quo where her best friend also loves going down on her.

i want all of this to come to a head when gavin and seamus hook up and it immediately blows up in everyone's faces. luca and johnny are team "how could you do this to seamus" and gavin expects adam and rutger to have his back, which rutger absolutely does.

"like, how were you supposed to know she thought it was a whole thing?" rutger hangs her head over the edge of gavin's bed and kicks her feet up against the wall. "like, you can hook up and still be friends," rutger pronounces authoritatively. "it doesn't have to change anything." she looks upside down at adam, sitting in johnny's desk chair on the other side of the room. "right, adam?"

"...yeah." adam says slowly. "i guess so." the legs of the chair scrape against the floor as he stands up abruptly. "i'm gonna... go... find luca, i guess."

anyway i don't want to get into act 3 where everybody's sad. eventually girl!rutger realizes that clinging to the principle of boys and girls can be friends is much less satisfying than admitting that a best friend who you also have amazing sex with is actually just a boyfriend. idk how it all goes down but there's definitely a scene where a chastened rutger shows up on adam's doorstep, full of tears and dramatics.

#woohoo it's a campfire story!#feels good to put some words down after a rough couple of months #boys and girls can't be friends verse

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