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thefinalcinderella · 4 months

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Tsurune Book 3 Chapter 5 - Declaration (Part 2)

Some juicy Masa-san lore drops

Glossary here

Full list of translations here

Translation Notes

A pun. The original is "denwa shite mo dare mo den wa"

A yorishiro is an object capable of attracting spirits and giving them a space to occupy

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At the long-distance range, Kazemai and Kirisaki were doing a joint practice.

Kyudo competitions were divided into short distance and long distance. For short distance, the distance between the archer and target was twenty-eight meters, and for long distance, it was sixty meters.

They were scored on this day, using scoring targets with a diameter of one-hundred centimeters. From the center, yellow was ten points, red was nine points, blue was seven points, black was five points, and white was three points. There were also large targets with the same pattern as the kasumi-mato. They used arrows normally used for long distance shooting. The shaft was thinner than that used for short distance, and the feathers had shorter widths and lengths. That was because the lighter the feathers, the better the arrow’s flight.

After entering the shajo, the three Kazemai second-year girls advanced to stand before the targets.

“Wow, that’s a long distance. I feel like a heavier bow would have an advantage here,” Hanazawa said.

“My bow weighs ten kilograms, but will my arrow reach the target?” Shiragiku said.

“I heard that you need to score at least thirty points on four shots to place at the National Athletic Meet,” Seo said.

It was then that Motomura and Sase, alumni of Kirisaki High School, appeared. They had been invited here as today’s special coaches. Those who met the two for the first time exclaimed, “It’s the legendary Saserin!”

Motomura had achieved eighth place at the National Athletic Meet. There was a gentle smile on his face.

“Even with a light bow, you’ll be able to hit the target if you learn the tricks. The purpose of this lesson is ‘hanare’. Since the first-years have just started holding a bow, their hanare tends to be small, so practice using your entire body to make a big hanare. The shooting method is the same Eight Stages of Shooting as usual, but the key point is ‘douzukuri.’ There is something called the ‘Five Torsos’ when it comes to douzukuri.”

Sase stood in front of everyone, holding an illustrated document. The illustrations depicted the idol Noririn, and there were detailed illustrated explanations of the Eight Stages of Shooting.

He opened the douzukuri page and showed it to everyone. Soru-dou, where the torso bent backwards. Kagamu-dou, where the torso bent forward. Kakaru-dou, where the torso was leaning towards the target. Noku-dou, where the torso was leaning to the right. Chuu-dou, where the torso’s center of gravity was the most stable with an upright douzukuri.

The Kazemai first-year Keyaki asked a question.

“I’ve heard that chuu-dou is better for short distance, but does that mean it’s different for long distance?”

“That’s right. Even if a slender princess like Noririn drew her bow like usual, her arrows won’t be able to fly far. First off, ashibumi should be almost the same as for short distance, or just a little bit narrower. And that’s where noku-dou comes in. Tilt your torso to the right. For hikiwake, the bow should be pointed slightly upward, and the arrow tip should be aimed slightly higher and at a fixed point. The arrow isn’t as horizontal as it is in front of the target!”

Sase, perhaps more enthusiastic than usual with Noririn in front of him, was speaking differently than usual. Kanabayshi’s eyes sparkled as he spoke vigorously, and Himuro was his usual Maitreya.

Motomura hid his mouth with a closed fist, brought the talk to an end while stifling laughter.

“I want you to focus on nobiai. In long distance, you should have a low trajectory, fast speed, and stretch yourself forward.”

Using Motomura’s voice as a signal, they stood in front of the targets with their bow and arrows.

First, Kanbayashi faced the target. Standing before a target that was farther and larger than usual, it was difficult to get a sense of distance. He wasn’t sure which direction to bend his body, so he swayed like a seesaw.

“Ah, I guess I raised the tip too high. It hit way too high up.”

He followed the arrow in a pose similar to a salute.

Keyaki went next. At kai, he leaned his body to the right, stretched left and right, and released his arrow. It missed the target.

“It’s surprisingly difficult to stretch out on the arrow line.”

Himuro shot in his usual form and hit the outermost white ring.

Hanazawa, Shiragiku, and Seo went after him. At daisan, they tried to bend backwards. They usually practiced to keep their douzukuri upright, so they had to do it a few times to get used to it. They had Motomura and Sase observe them from behind, and visually memorized which part of the yazuridou overlapped with the center of the target. After about twenty shots, they seemed to get the hang of it, and their hit rate skyrocketed.

At break time, they opened their lunch boxes. Minato passed around a large Tupperware to everyone.

“A former member of the bad pun association lives nearby, and he gave me some vegetables he grew himself. Have them if you like.”

Ryouhei immediately dug in.

“It’s eggplant and pork grilled with ginger. It really makes the rice taste better!”

“Recently, I’ve been trying my hand at home gardening. I was surprised to learn that there are so many varieties of vegetables.”

“Is there such a thing as a vegetable sommelier?” Nanao said.

Honeyed lemons were being passed around among the Kirisaki members. It was a staple snack of the Kirisaki kyudo club, which had been around for more than thirty years. Senichi put one in his mouth and another into Manji’s.

“I think I’ll learn how to cook too. I want to treat the person I like to a homecooked meal.”

“Sen-nii, you love me that much?”

“It’s obviously so that he’ll be popular with girls,” The third-year, Kabashima, hung his head. “Stop it. What happened to kickboxing? You guys are doing too many things.”

Next to him, Yushima nodded.

Kuon was also given a honeyed lemon. However, he said, “I don’t eat food made by amateurs,” and wiped his chin without even touching the container. The people around him either said “What’s with that attitude?” and “As expected of Kuon-sama.”

After the lunch break, the competition began.

Members of the Kazemai and Kirisaki kyudo clubs lined up with four arrows in their hands. The oldest students were going first.

Kirisaki’s Kabashima and Yushima were rolling their shoulders in preparation.

“Just you watch. I’m gonna land my arrow in the center in the name of Kirisaki. The Kazemai girls are paying attention. Yushima, why don’t you wear a wig? That’ll make you popular with the girls.”

“I wouldn’t mind going along with that if you put on a hippo’s tail, Kabashima.”

“…Did the twins’ foul mouth rub off on you?”

“Our club has a Young Prince, twins, and an antique doll, doesn’t it? If you keep staying in such an extraordinary place for a long time, hair will grow in your heart, even if it doesn’t on your head.”

“You’re quite right.”

As declared, the two hit the yellow and red rings and achieved the high scores of 35 and 31 points.

Among the second-year students, Shuu, Senichi, and Manji shot in a three-person team. The twins looked smug.

“Pupupupu, we’re the strongest trio.”

“Sen-nii, shoot right in the middle.”

Shuu’s arrows all landed in yellow, the highest point, and Senichi and Manji both got thirty-three points. When it was the first-years’ turn, Kuon also got a high score.

As for Kazemai, Hanazawa got eighteen points, Shiragiku got twenty, and Seo got thirty. Kaito got thirty-four, Ryouhei got twenty-three, Seiya got thirty, Nanao got twenty-seven, Minato got thirty-three, Kanbayashi got twenty-five, Himuro got twenty-eight, and Keyaki got sixteen.

After everyone finished shooting, Shuu had forty points and Kuon had thirty-nine, giving Kirisaki a one-two finish.

Unable to hide his delight, Kuon walked past Senichi and Manji and approached Shuu.

“Fujiwara-senpai, did you see?”

“Yes, congratulations.”

That was all Shuu said before he left. There were flames in Kuon’s chest.

That’s all? That’s all? He should have more praise for me.

Why can’t he give me the smile he gives to the lowly?

He watched Shuu talking to the twins with a smile.

After the competition, Minato stayed in the entrance hall with Keyaki, Kanbayashi, and Himuro.

“Narumiya-senpai, thank you for the delicious lunch. It’s sad that Masa-san is absent today. Is his urgent business related to the shrine?” Kanbayashi said.

“Maybe. I don’t know either.”

In actuality, since Masa-san said that he didn’t like eggplant, Minato made “eggplant and pork grilled with ginger” for him to try. Maybe Masa-san realized that he was going to make him eat eggplant and ran away.

Next to him, Keyaki frowned.

“I texted him in the afternoon, but it was left unread. It’s exactly ‘I tried calling, but no one answered.’ (1) Hah, the flexible thinking training paid off, didn’t it?”

“Hahaha…it’s like there are two Seiyas,” Minato said.

“Me reaching Takehaya-senpai’s level? How unthinkable. Anyways, this is the first time that something like this happened, isn’t it? We could try sending something like, ‘What are you doing right now?’ but I don’t feel comfortable with club members prying into the coach’s private life while he’s away.”

“You have a point.”

Just when the four were about to step forward, they ran into Kuon, who was acting alone.

Kuon had a blatantly disgusted look on his face.

“Is this a commoners’ gathering? How vulgar, standing around and talking near the doorway. Narumiya-kun, you seem to be going around talking about target panic like it’s a disease, but target panic is just an excuse for the unskilled.”

“Narumiya-senpai has never gone around telling people that he had target panic,” Keyaki objected.

“Really? Target panic is just the result of a bad instructor or bad practice method. It isn’t a disease at all.”

“Are you saying that you have follow-up studies on people who had target panic? It’s valuable that you’re doing your own research on yips. I’d like to take a look at that research.”

“Well, even without something like that, the best proof is that my middle school was a strong kyudo school, and there was no one with target panic around me.”

Just when it seemed like Keyaki was going to continue arguing, Himuro spoke up.

“That’s like saying, ‘No one around me has died from the flu or the new strain of virus, so you just have a cold…’”

Minato, Kanbayashi, and Keyaki’s mouths dropped open when Himura, who they had hardly ever heard before, spoke. Meanwhile, Kuon’s face turned bright crimson.

“You dare to speak to me, you lowly commoner!? Who do you think you are?”

Behind Kuon, who was engaged in a war of words, the twins stood with their arms crossed.

“You’re the one who should be answering that question, Kuon,” Senichi said.

“There’s nothing great about people who act self-important. Our kickboxing instructor is a former champion, and his motto is ‘Stay high in ambition, low in stature,” Manji said.

Just as Senichi and Manji struck a fighting pose, the Young Prince appeared. Ryouhei was with him.

“Kuon, the first-years have been summoned.”

Kuon gave Minato and the others a sharp look and left immediately. Keyaki and the others followed.

Shuu saw them off, then stood on Minato’s right side.

“Minato, there’s something I want to ask you. I talked to Ryouhei about it earlier.”

“Okay, what is it? You’re acting so formal.”

“I’m building my own dojo. I’m planning to invite famous archers from all around the country. Minato, will you help me?”

Minato looked into Shuu’s eyes.

“…Of course.”

Senichi and Manji also pounced on it.

“Fujiwara Dojo!? Wow! Let us join too!”

“Yeah, Sen and Man can also join.”

“Woohoo!” Contrary to the enthusiastic twins, Minato was looking at his palm.

When the people around them talked about their dreams for the future, Minato felt lonely, like he had been left behind. Shuu, his brother disciple and bow friend. He was going further and further ahead. Minato was busy with kyudo, housework, and schoolwork, and had no interest in anything else.

What did he want to do in the future? What kind of job did he want to have?

He couldn’t find anyone he wanted to talk to.

During that time, Masa-san was walking along a gravel road filled with the scent of the sea.

His stepbrother, Ren, was next to him.

“It’s nice to be able to go on a trip with my cute little brother.”

“Why did you follow me?”

“I helped you when you got injured, didn’t I? The nurses found out about that and got mad at me.”

“I was an idiot for making myself owe you a favor. We’re not sharing a room at the inn.”

“This is what they call ‘in for a penny, in for a pound.’ I guess this can’t be avoided once we became family.”

Masa-san had no choice but to remain silent.

The loud chirping of birds descended from above. Since the trees were covered in leaves, it was difficult to find the source of the voice. The slopes of the mountain were dotted with beehives.

The two walked around the island and looked around the wharf. Perhaps because Ren was holding a single lens reflex camera, he was often approached by locals who thought he was a birdwatcher. Everyone was friendly here. They got into the rental car and headed to their next destination.

Primitive Shintoism still remained on this island. The object of worship was a rock, which was the deity’s yorishiro. (2) The torii gates were built later with the introduction of Buddhism, and were not originally present. It was a land of strong taboos, and because it had resisted human intervention, the beautiful, untouched forests and creatures were still visible in their ancient form.

They stopped by a certain shrine. They climbed the stone steps that stretched through the thick forest. There was no one around the shrine, and the front shrine was locked.

Ren peeked inside.

“There’s a huge kasumi-mato on the side.”

“That’s an oomato used for long distance shooting.”

“Now, where does the chief priest live?”

There was an unnatural vacant lot. Weeds were overgrown, and there was no house at the place indicated by the address.

As they descended the stone steps, a local called out to Masa-san.

“The shrine up there is wonderful. It’s said to have a sealing power.”

“Yes. There’s an oomato inside.”

“The chief priest shoots the target every year. It’s the town’s biggest festival that goes on all night long. In addition to the object of worship, human ashes are also enshrined at the shrine. They are the remains of an ascetic who’s said to seal every conceivable thing and returned them to nothingness. Someone claiming to be his descendant appeared, wanting his ashes to be buried somewhere else, but of course the parishioners refused. However, one of the townspeople secretly sold them. Three days later, they were struck by lightning. They reaped what they sow. The gods were watching.”

“Is this person the buyer?”

Masa-san showed the local a picture on his phone.

“…Yes, they look very similar. Let me go check it with the others.”

Masa-san looked up at the trees.

That night, the innkeeper spoke to them.

“We’ve been waiting for you two to come. Would you like to join our morning tour tomorrow at six? Let us take you to places tourists normally don’t go to.”

The club members were changing clothes in the Kazemai kyudojo’s changing room.

Outside the window, there were three tits perched on the fence. In the rain, they puffed out their fluffy feathers and huddled together.

After Ryouhei finished changing, he took out a book from his bag.

“Nanao, look, look. The First English Phrases Learned by Negatives.”

“Don’t you mean ‘natives’?”

“Huh? Yeah, that’s right. The store on the cover is retort.”

“You mean retro?”

“Huh?”

“Everyone’s been so out of it lately. Maybe the pun training was too effective. Is it because Masa-san’s away this week? Prefecturals is just around the corner, so we need to get our spirits back up.”

“You’re right. By the way, where’s Minato and Seiya?”

Speak of the devil, the door to the changing room swung open, and Minato appeared. He didn’t look good.

Nanao approached him.

“What’s wrong, Minato? Did you go back to get something you forgot in the classroom?”

“I’m going to be late for club activities today. My yugake’s missing.”

“What!?”

Ryouhei, Nanao, and even Kaito ran out of the changing room. They pinched their hakamas between their fingers like princess’s dresses and ran up the stairs, trying not to step on their hems. When they went to Minato’s classroom, they saw a crowd of people there. Seiya was among them.

The ends of Seiya’s eyebrows were lowered.

“It’s highly possible that it was stolen. There are several other students who are missing their wallets and phones.”

“At school? That’s crazy,” Kaito said.

“The teachers are checking the security camera footage right now. There’s no point in us staying here. Let’s go back to the kyudojo.”

Afterwards, all of Minato’s classmates were gathered together. They answered individual questions such as who was the last to leave the classroom, whether anyone from other classes had entered, and whether they had seen anyone suspicious.

Minato was also questioned.

“You’re the only one who had kyudo equipment stolen. Did you leave it at home?”

“No, I had it with me when I went to school in the morning.”

“Maybe the thief thought that there was a wallet in the drawstring bag. What time did you leave the classroom?”

“It was right after homeroom ended, so around four o’clock.”

“Is there anyone who can prove that?”

“A student from my club came to get me, so I think he can prove it.”

Even though they were victims, they were being treated like suspects. When everyone left the classroom after what felt like an interrogation, there was an air of exhaustion surrounding them. Now that they knew that the culprit might be one of them, all of Minato’s classmates suspected each other. The after-school interview lasted several hours.

Once released, Minato hurried to the kyudojo. With prefecturals coming up, he became impatient when his routine was disrupted and his practice time cut short.

Tommy-sensei and Seiya came out to greet him, and the three took deep breaths together.

“The staff contacted me earlier and said that a suspicious person was captured on the school gate’s camera. For the yugake, how about you borrow a beginner’s glove for the time being?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Wouldn’t a great detective solve this case? Like an elementary school kid with glasses, or a university student with bushy hair,” Kaito said.

“Add a man who likes black tea to that. I hope the yugake is found,” Nanao said.

“I’ll lend you my underglove. How about a Java sparrow pattern?” Ryouhei said.

The other club members also gathered around, and Minato’s cheeks slackened at everyone’s concern.

Minato quickly borrowed the club’s yugake, but it was too big for him. The thumb was so long that he couldn’t flick it at hanare. However, if he put his thumb in a different spot than usual, it wouldn’t fit, and the position of the tsurumakura also became slightly off. He learned unexpectedly that there was a sense of discomfort when the yugake craftsman was different.

He wanted to talk to Masa-san. But it also pained him to add to his errands when he was already so busy that he couldn’t even show up. Minato was restless that night, unable to sleep even when he went to bed.

The thief was arrested the next day. It was a man in his thirties, who confessed that he did it after he got annoyed at seeing high schoolers enjoying themselves. Minato’s yugake returned to him, warped by water absorption after the thief threw it in a river. Apparently, he got rid of it because it had Minato’s name written on it.

It was something truly irreplaceable. He hugged his yugake tightly.

His replacement strings and giriko powder were also ruined, but the dragonfly-patterned pouch was miraculously unscathed.

Masa-san, who was contacted by Tommy-sensei, finished his business and rushed over.

“Minato, I’m so sorry I couldn’t be with you as your coach during this critical time.”

“It’s fine. This yugake I borrowed seems to be a little big.”

“There are also yugake at the Yata no Mori kyudojo, so let’s try them out and think about whether you should buy a new one.”

“Okay.”

Minato breathed a sigh of relief when he saw his master’s smile for the first time in a long while.

He tried using the borrowed yugake for a few days, but it never felt right. His yugake was something he met when he was in his first year of middle school and used for more than four years. His hand had become so accustomed to it that it rejected other yugake. Normally, one should avoid changing gloves so close to a match, but it couldn’t be helped. After consulting with his father, he decided to buy a new one.

Minato was at the Yata no Mori kyudojo.

The moon spread ripples of light that pulsated. An owl hooted from somewhere, and the trees rustled. The night sky and the forest seemed to be singing.

Masa-san, dressed in a kimono, picked up his bow.

“The only way to get a new yugake to adapt to your hand is to shoot many times. Let’s do that.”

“I only need a place to shoot, you don’t need to accompany me. You seem busy.”

“I also feel calm here. Can I shoot with you?”

“Of course.”

Masa-san raised his bow up high at the target behind Minato.

Hikiwake, kai, hanare—. There was a sound of something piercing the azuchi. Masa-san also missed his next shot. For him to miss twice was very rare.

When Minato returned from retrieving the arrows, Masa-san had put his arm back into his sleeve.

“Even you have off days sometimes, Masa-san?”

“I haven’t held a bow for almost a week, so this is the consequence. Gramps would explode from anger if he saw me. He’d say that archers need a strong presence of mind and ask me what was I doing.”

Minato mentioned something that was bothering him ever since he visited Masa-san’s apartment the other day.

“Sorry for the rude question. I saw a bag of medicine in the corner of your kitchen. Are you going to the doctor?”

“Oh no, no. That’s for hornet stings. I was stung by a hornet in the past, so it’s just in case. I just bought a new one because the warranty had expired.”

Minato was relieved now that he knew that Masa-san wasn’t feeling unwell.

“I’m glad to hear that. By the way, when I came here, I ran into Ren-san and received souvenirs for the club. They are island specialty sweets. He said that he went on a secret trip.”

“It’s not a secret trip anymore, then, is it? That Ren, what is he planning?”

“Planning?”

Masa-san put his hand between his brows and took a deep breath. He had an “Oh crap” look on his face. He reached his hand out for the moon, and something with wings descended upon him.

“Oh, we’re high school students, so don’t worry, we won’t investigate who Ren-san went on a trip with,” Minato added.

“Ren went on the secret trip with me.”

“We were looking for someone. My birth father, and my deceased younger brother.”

“…What?”

Fuu the owl nibbled on Masa-san’s long fingers, then started to groom its feathers. Masa-san put Fuu on Minato’s shoulder and went to the archery range.

“Cutting things short, this time was also in vain. I had a younger brother who was three years younger than me, and we were related by blood. Even though I was young, I was proud of the fact that I became an older brother. I really loved him. But when he was three, he was kidnapped by my birth father.”

“Your dad and your little brother?”

“Yeah. He was in the photo Nanao gave me. I asked the parishioners to confirm it, so I’m pretty sure. Who is in the picture next to him? I couldn’t tell if he was my little brother grown up or someone else. In my memories, my brother was curled up sleeping in my lap.”

“W-What did Ren-san say?”

“Ren said ‘in for a penny, in for a pound.’ It looks like he’ll be going along with me. Ren’s father and my mother are childhood friends, and they’re helping me find my brother. When they found out that my birth father was planning to take me away as well, they hurriedly entered the family registry because it would be easier to move in case of an emergency. We’ve also consulted with the police, but it’s just an endless cycle of getting hints of them before they disappear again.”

“Why is your birth dad so obsessed with your little brother and you?”

“He said something nonsensical like, ‘Those who have the same special genes as me should be raised in the proper place.’ Even if I can see paranormal things, why does it matter? He was disliked for being shady but worshipped by others at the same time. Either way, he was treated as a heretic. Since Yata Shrine isn’t affiliated with any organization, there is no rule for inheriting surnames, and he’s a distant relation of the Yasaka family. He never did his duties as a priest and spent all his time in the shrine’s archives, and he never acted like a father even once. It happened the year after my mother remarried, when I was in my first year at university. He sent me the death certificate for my brother. And what’s more, it was on my birthday… Ever since that day, my birthday no longer existed.”

“That’s awful…”

“Give my brother back, give him back, give him back. I’ve chanted those words tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of times. It’s no longer a prayer. It’s a curse.”

“Masa-san!”

Minato reached for Masa-san’s hand, but was deflected. Fuu took off in surprise.

“Minato, don’t touch me right now. No one believes that my brother is dead, but there was a doctor who assisted my birth father in his evil deeds. He has supporters. I’m glad I didn’t find him this time. I don’t know what I’ll do if I see him and the people who helped him.”

Masa-san looked up at the sky. The full moon was shining.

When people looked up, it could mean a statement of declaration.

A declaration—a contract with the gods.

“My birthday has become the anniversary of my brother’s death. I will never forgive those people who rewrote the story of me and my brother. No matter how many times we’re reborn, I’ll always find them and end their lives with my own hands—”

Every day, he put his hands together in prayer.

I want to see you, I want to see you.

Why aren’t you in this picture?

Would his soul be reincarnated with this hatred that rose up within him? Memories engraved even in undifferentiated cells transcended dimensions. A flame that wouldn’t be extinguished for a thousand or ten thousand years.

Was it possible to live with such a heavy burden? Living was hell, dying was hell, there was no heaven or earth in the looping spiral staircase. Wandering forever, never getting anywhere. Unable to put down roots in the earth or soar through the sky. Days when he cut his own body with a knife. He knew it wasn’t something to be said aloud, so he kept quiet.

I wasn’t born to hate anyone.

That was what Minato heard.

A heartbreaking cry. A soundless voice.

He didn’t know whose voice it was, but this was Masa-san’s real voice.

“Correction! I’m correcting you. What you said earlier wasn’t true. Masa-san is just a dirty old man. That’s all!” Minato shouted.

“Mi, Minato?”

“If a priest said something like that and his wish was granted, wouldn’t it be a problem? I’m going to learn professional wrestling. I’ll put you in a chokehold and stop you!”

Masa-san blinked a few times, then burst into laughter.

“It’s too much, Minato.”

“What is?”

“Everything. My disciple really is cute.”

“Huh? Don’t call me cute! In the first place, everyone celebrated your birthday for you, and then you say that you don’t have a birthday? What a selfish thing to say. My mom used to say that your birthday is a day to say thank you for being born.”

“Yes, I’m sorry. I’ll keep it in mind. I take back what I said earlier.”

“Masa-san, you’re acting like a middle schooler.”

“I don’t want to be told that by a kid.”

“I’m not a kid! I’m sixteen, a second year in high school!”

Masa-san was clutching his stomach as he laughed. How rude. I’m being serious.

The bright red something that had shrouded Masa-san disappeared.

Guren, meaning “crimson lotus,” was originally a Buddhist term, and the seventh of the Eight Cold Hells, the Padma hell, was also called the “hell of the crimson lotus.” Those who fell into this hell were said to suffer from severe pain as their skin and flesh were torn off due to the severe cold. They were said to look like red lotus flowers.

Please, don’t go to the farthest reaches of the north.

Don’t disappear from my sight.

A second time.

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#tsurune #tsurune translation

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theragnarokd · 11 days

Text

[i deny anything to do with this. dirk writing fanfiction, modern no sburb au, rated T so far, lots of self loathing and judginess]

It was the end of the evening shift. He did a lot of closing nowadays, night blurring into dawn: there wasn’t anyone to drag him out. Not anymore. On the counter, there was a finished drink, the customer’s name written on it in sharpie. His coworker must have ducked out just before calling out their name. He picks it up. It’s not until he calls out the name that it registers: “Enkidu!” From the back of the coffee shop, a familiar figure approaches, and Gilgamesh’s heart clenched. For a desperate moment, he dared to hope.

Dirk exhales, rereading the paragraphs for typos. Then he saves it into the folder titled Oubliette, and opens a different text file. His SBaHJ reverse-mpreg vore isn’t going to write itself, and Dirk can’t disappoint his readership.

Even as the thought forms, his inbox dings. His heart speeds up at the view of the sweetest words known to man or machine:

[AO3] Comment on SBaHJ: the Romeomance

Of course he immediately opens the notification.

centaursTesticle left the following comment:

My admiration, as always, is yours. I would be happy to read more in this GRIPPING tale

Dirk permits himself a small smile. This guy has been commenting on Dirk’s fics, first in a binge and now on every new installment he updated. Dirk mentally fist-bumps him before opening his WIP folder, where the relevant fic document lives. It’s a good day.

It is not a good night.

Dirk should go the fuck to sleep. Or at least to shower. He washed the dishes earlier and his shirt has more unmentionable fluids on it than his latest fic update, which is saying something.

Instead, he goes to Romeomance’s page and hits refresh.

Not even a tick on the visit count.

This is stupid. Dirk is being a useless idiot. If people can’t appreciate his subtle satire and how it corresponds with the tone of the original comics and movies, that’s on them, and not on him.

There’s a newer fanfic than his with twice the hitcount, not even looking at kudos.

Well, so what? People like what they like. As long as Dirk is happy with the stuff he writes – and while he’s always aware of places he could improve, he rather is happy with it – what does it matter what response some other person’s fic gets?

The title is a lower-case quote from a song that was in the top 40s ten years ago. The tags include Enemies to Lovers, Only One Bed, and Slow Burn. (The fic isn’t even 10K, and it’s marked as complete, so Dirk is a teensy bit skeptical of how slow that burn is.)

Dirk clicks in. Maybe he can learn a thing or two.

The first two paragraphs make a fairly clever allusion to the famous stairs monologue. It’s a surprisingly fresh outlook on a piece of canon that’s been worn to palimpsest and back by fanon. It could be a good fic. Dirk might enjoy it. Better, Dirk might learn how to write something that isn’t worthless drivel–

He closes the tab.

This would be an excellent time to go shower.

He opens the tab again. He reads through the story grimly, marking how the dialogue sounds lively and not like two finger puppets squeaking at one another. Yes, okay, it’s a stylistic choice for Dirk. That, and he can’t fucking write dialogue to save his life.

By the time Dirk reaches the author’s notes at the end, the only argument he can make against deleting all his own fic is that it can serve as a cautionary tale.

The end notes thank two beta readers. Dirk runs his fics past Roxy when he can swing it, but for the most part, he hasn’t managed to attract a beta reader in years. Maybe that’s why everything he writes gargles balls.

There’s also a link to the author’s entry in the Every Little Bid Helps fanfic auction. Dirk clicks on the link mostly out of self preservation: if he rereads this fic, he really will orphan his account. That would be sad for that centaursTesticle guy, wouldn’t it? Think of the testicles. The centaur ones.

#my fic #dirk strider #whomstve

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lincolndjarin · 9 months

Text

BKS ✦ notes & bts : chapters 1-5

spoilers for chapter 1-5 of Best Kept Secret!!

✦

a/n :

I feel like this is just SO self indulgent of me but whatever I guess lmao, bks is my brain baby currently and I will take any excuse to talk about it. These posts are going to be long in-depth dives into my writing process, dress inspo, music i was inspired by, etc. of the mentioned chapters so settle in cause this is what i'm doing today lol. also this might be the longest one bc i'm gonna talk about starting and coming up with everything.

starting writing and original outlines :

i've said this so many times lmao but i wrote the ending first. like the ending ending. i work really long hours at a job that has me listening to music for like ten hours a day while i work so i get a lot of thinking time lmao. basically i originally wrote it as a story with no specific characters in mind. I'm a big Pedro fan so i was between characters i thought fit the fic but settled on din because i think he fit the character i was imagining best. (it helps that he's in my top three pedro characters lol) from there laid out a vague outline in my mind of where i wanted to start so i created a set list of characters and basically just dove right in without much to guide me except for an ending point lmao. it wasnt until closer to like chapter 15-16 when i started properly outline each chapter in advance in the document, before that i just wrote vague notes in a notebook that i didn't end up following all that well lmao

music :

i've also said this at one point but the original name of best kept secret was "my keeper and i" i wrote the first three chapters in the same week and spread out the posting but i used the same playlist for most of the early stuff so here's that!!

original bks playlist

inspirations :

if you've seem/read bridgerton then you might know that i took a lot of inspiration from the pattern the show uses and still do.

basically the show has a pattern of the couple getting together and breaking it off or having an issue that's resolved and then there's a new issue. i've sort of been following that sorta kinda

also reader is heavily based on charlotte because i had just finished queen charlotte when i started writing bks

din is more based on anthony bridgerton than george, (anyone unfamiliar with bridgerton, george is the love interest in queen charlotte)

also a lot of din's style of self loathing is based on edwards from twilight LMAO

notes :

here's a random page of misc. notes that i lowkey can't decipher lol

here are my chapter four notes! shoutout to when i didn't realize it was sarad'ika and it was originally ika sarad lmaooo

there's some unused dialogue here, specifically there was going to be a longer conversation about how he wanted to get her out of the castle more often as well as a scene where she was going to eat fruit ands it was gonna drip down her front and he was gonna wipe it off. it was gonna be a whole thing lmao but it didn't really fit the rest of the chapters vibe.

so.... originally there was a timeline issue where the first lunar interlude (i'm a huge taz balance fan and that's where i got the name lunar interlude from lmaoooo, i have 2 taz tattoos) was going to be chapter 4 and then it was going to be chapter 6 and then it made the most sense to make it 5, so any timeline notes here are wrong.

in my original concept for the fic, every chapter was going to end with a small portion of din pov, but it didn't flow well and i really didn't like it so it ended up being easier having it be specific chapters.

when writing the first lunar interlude i went through and read the previous chapters and wrote down how i thought he was feeling during each scene which is what these notes are ^

dresses :

here's a collection of the dresses i used as inspo for chapters 1-5 (these were posted on my old account but i'm gonna put them here as well!!)

chapter one :

the wedding dress was based on this dress!!

and this is the sort of jewelry i was picturing but this stuff is still pretty, i couldn't find anything as ugly as what i was picturing for her wedding jewelry.

this is the sort of stuff i pictured for her blue dresses she hates but honestly all of these are pretty as well LMAO. in all honesty i think that the blue dresses she doesn't like wearing are probably pretty i think she mostly just hates what they stand for and also they put her in gaudy makeup and jewelry as well which doesn't help

chapter two :

used all sorts of dresses as inspo for this chapter! here are these!

chapter three :

sort of a combination of these for the chapter three dress, if that makes sense lmao

chapter four :

something along these lines for the garden dress!!

that's all for these chapters!! I'll probably do 6-15 for the next one since there won't be as many notes for those and then go back to five each for the rest!! i have to do some practice makeup for the concert i'm going to this week so the next one of these will be up either tonight or tomorrow!!

#lincolndjarin #best kept secret #the mandalorian

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signiorbenedickofpadua · 2 months

Note

For the ask game: Risk and Reward 2, 6, 10 and 24

(For the Behind the Scenes Fic Ask game)

2. What program did you use to write this fic (Word, Google Docs, etc)? Is that the program you use for all your fics?

I’ve got a bit of a back-and-forth thing going on at the moment! I wrote the first draft in LibreOffice, because I find that Google Docs get wayyy too slow after a couple of tens of thousands of words (and I knew this would get long). But then I did the first round of editing chapter by chapter in Docs because different word processors tend to catch different errors. I also sent the fic for beta-reading through Docs. LibreOffice has definitely become my favourite program to do most writing in though, because I often need to jump around in the document to fact check things in earlier chapters, and LibreOffice never lags when doing that (unlike Docs).

6. What do you need to write? Is there anything special you need to do/have to help your creative flow?

Most important is a calm, quiet space without a bunch of distractions (noises, moving objects in the corner of my eye, etc.). Sometimes I write in silence, but most often I listen to music through my noise-cancelling headphones. I prefer instrumental music so I won’t be distracted by other words than the ones already in my head, and I can wholeheartedly recommend the artist Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou if you like interesting piano music!

10. Share a screenshot of the original outline (if you dareee😈)

You know, I would share it all, but there's like 8 pages of it in varying stages of coherency, and it no longer really resembles anything like the original outline. I'll compromise and share one page from a version of the document which was last edited in June 2023, so a while back, at least! Heads up for spoilers for anyone who is planning on reading the fic but hasn't gotten around to it yet! (Though not all of this made it into the finished product in exactly this shape...)

24. Did you write every scene in order? What was the first scene you wrote, and what was the last?

I always write every scene in order! That’s just how my mind works; I often put the characters in a situation, and then see where they go from there. Even if I may have ideas for future scenes that I jot down in the outline (and I don’t always have a written outline), I could never risk actually writing a full scene which is still several chapters away when the characters might surprise me and choose to do something completely different, making that scene obsolete!

#Risk and Reward fic #ask games #my writing

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wily-one24 · 6 days

Note

💾 🤔

Thanks @detritusanddross!

What is your document of your wip/ a wip called? (not the stories actual title but what you’ve saved it as).

"Foolish Game Current" - which differentiates it from "Foolish Game", where I post the completed chapters. It saves the current file getting clogged up by tens of thousands of words.

"D5 Current" - which differentiates it from the other D5 documents. There is D5, D5 Two, and D5 Corrected Timeline. D5 is the original, but it got waaaay too long, even if I don't type in it, just paste the completed chapters in it. So I started D5 Two, which holds the later chapters (all linked, like a contents page, to each chapter). The Corrected Timeline is all the flashbacks in corrected timeline order, complete with dates and time of day, the length of imprisonment, etc. This may or may not be posted later as a whole. The original was called "What I Won't Post" at first, because it was really dark and I didn't think it would make a good fic, I just wanted it out of my brain. Then it became "What I Might Post" and eventually just D5. And now it is 30 chapters long and almost 200,000 words.

I am not that orginal with my document titling.

2. What’s a story you’d love to write but haven’t even started yet?

Oooh, going for the jugular I see. ;) I don't really have a lot of ideas/plots in the back of my head right now. I used to have so many, for my past fandoms, I would let them multiply. But... beware! That way lies danger. Ask anyone from my past fandoms, particularly Once, I end up with a lot of WIPs and the pressure becomes too much and I flame out. I had years of fic writing sabbatical wherein I didn't write anything and worked on my mental health... writing SVU was a surprise, I didn't plan on it. It just happened. WIcked Game was my first foray back into fic writing after about five years. Eventually, that story got too strong NOT to write. I didn't expect it to be big, I didn't expect it to be popular. It just... happened. And it happens a LOT. I became prolific... in ways I thought I never would become again. Instead of months upon months without an update, suddenly I had almost weekly updates. So I am being very careful right now NOT to imagine new stories. I have two. That's it. Two stories and that's all I will allow myself, because I do not want to get overwhelmed, flame out, and abandon these stories. I want to finish them.

I have a pervasive idea floating around, it is kinda crack fic, but in a dramatic, angsty way (ha, it's me, of course there's angst), and it would be a tad devastating, but... I do not pander to it. I won't write it... and as such, I'm not going to start describing it, because that's where the danger happens! That's when it GROWS.

I am limiting myself so as not to disappoint everyone.

I hope that's an acceptable answer.

#detritusanddross #look ma I got an ask #Jacqui writes fic #interesting questions

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quantum-leap-writing-prompts · 1 year

Text

1/24/2023

Hello everyone, and welcome to a remastered Masterlist of Quantum Leap Novels included on the Web Archive of Archive.org!

This is not a definitive list -- yet-- of every single Quantum Leap Novel on the archive; that post can be found here. from @fandomjoy ! Instead, this will be a WIP Masterpost of the "Remastered" Quantum Leap Novels, as they're uploaded them to the archive with the help of some volunteers !

What does "remastered" mean in this sense? Well, to start, all of the novels originally on the archive were just PDFs. and by PDFs I mean almost raw book scans, sephia background with black text and everything. Great for finding them in the first place, but not very accessible for people who need larger text, more contrast, or need some kind of audio format.

So, the "remastered" Quantum Leap novels that are linked in this post have been painstakingly edited from those original PDFs into actual, readable, editable Word Documents that were then exported into EPUBs (Generic ebook format, widely used), MOBI (old kindle format) AZW3, (new kindle format(?)) and clean PDFs of black text on a blank white background.

So now, you can download the file format of your choice; everything except PDF should have the option on your ereader or ereader app (ReadEra is my top Android recc, and Calibre for PC) to increase the font size, color, font style, and a ton of background and color options for more accessible reading!

and that's not all ! These links will also include homemade audiobooks of the Quantum Leap Novels, created using the program Balabolka :)

Anyways, it's already a long post, onto the links!

(please note, this is a work in progress, check back here often for updates!)

Begin Masterpost:

Book One: Carny Knowledge Here

Book Two: Too Close For Comfort Here

Book Three: The Wall Here

Book Four: Prelude Here (added 4/3/2023)

Book Five: Knights of the Morningstar Here (added 4/13/2023)

Book Six: Search & Rescue Here (added 4/4/2023)

Book Seven: Random Measures Here (added 4/3/2023)

Book Eight: Pulitzer Here (added 4/13/2023)

Book Nine: Double Or Nothing Here (added 4/5/2023)

Book Ten: Odyssey

Book Eleven: Independence Here (link added 2/8/2023)

Book Twelve: Angels Unaware

Book Thirteen: Obsessions

Book Fourteen: Loch Ness Leap

Book Fifteen: Heat Wave Here

Book Sixteen: Foreknowledge here: (link added 4/3/2023)

Book Seventeen: Song and Dance

Book Eighteen: Mirror's Edge Here (link added 4/3/2023)

separate continuities:

The Beginning (Novelization of the Genesis Part 1 Pilot):

The Ghost And The Gumshoe (Novelization of "A Portrait for Troian", released exclusively in the UK) :

End Notes:

As of 1/24/2023, we still need a physical copy of Foreknowledge to even begin the digitalization process! We were very lucky and two of us were able to get Mirror's Edge for under $60, but Foreknowledge is still very expensive out there!

If you have a physical copy of Foreknowledge on hand please consider DMing me or joining the Quantum Leap Lovers Discord to find out how you can help contribute :)

1/24/2023: Book 15: heatwave is currently being re-edited to make a cleaner page scan (no watermarks or fingers visible) and then it will get the Epubs, mobies, clean PDF, audiobooks, etc uploaded once the OCR has been cleaned up. 4/3/2023 done! original pdf has been cleaned up and reuploaded as an edit, and the other files will follow in the next hour or so.

4/3/2023: Someone uploaded an old book scan of Foreknowledge to the web archive ;)

#Quantum Leap #long post #bold text #this post is a work in progress!#Ql #Quantum Leap Novels #Project Quantum Leap Novels #book preservation #media preservation #out of print books #accessibility

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hollandorks · 1 year

Text

saved

matt murdock x original female character

chapter ten

Summary: Fleeing from an abusive relationship, Grace St. James goes to the only place she still has a friend: Hell’s Kitchen. She’s forced to live in her car and beg for a job from the law firm Nelson, Murdock, and Page all the while making sure her past doesn’t catch up to her. Enter Matt Murdock: cocky, handsome, and willing to let her live with him for free until she can afford to get a place of her own. Grace is drawn to Matt in a way she’s never been drawn to anyone, causing sparks to fly as they inevitably grow closer and closer.

a/n: Oh look some actual plot in this chapter! (P.S. how does this fic have so many words already??)

Series Masterlist

word count: 3657

Grace’s heart pounded as she realized that Daredevil might be the solution she needed.

Grace’s POV

The problem was that Grace had no idea how to contact Daredevil short of attempting to get herself attacked again. While she entertained the thought briefly, she knew that she couldn’t count on him saving her at the last moment like before.

Saturday night she waited until after midnight to creep out of the apartment and onto the roof. Matt was already asleep on the couch so she used the outer door to the roof so as not to wake him. If he asked where she’d gone, she’d make up some story about needing emergency tampons or something, she decided.

It was cold up on the roof, but she’d brought a throw blanket with her. She leaned against the cold bricks and scanned the rooftops for even a hint of a moving shadow.

Maybe she could leave a note?

Grace started pacing as time ticked by. He’d stopped once when he’d seen her on the roof, so maybe he’d do it again. The rooftops are kind of my thing, he’d said.

She scanned the rooftops as she paced the small space and shivered. Autumn had started to sink into the bones of the city, erasing summer’s heat slowly but surely.

An hour went by.

Okay, maybe she’d leave a note.

Grace went back inside, tiptoeing past Matt, and dug out a notebook from her bag. She scrawled a note and took it back up to the roof, using a brick to weigh it down. There wasn’t any rain on the forecast, but she would check each night and rewrite it if she had to.

As she finally settled into bed, she thought maybe she was going a little crazy.

But she couldn’t just sit with what she knew, couldn’t sit back and do nothing. She had done nothing for too long, and all it had gotten her was more bruises and a few broken bones. She might as well get hurt trying to do something.

Grace idly wondered what had gotten into herself as she fell asleep. When had she stopped being content with how things were and started aching to change them?

–

“What are you working so hard on?” Matt asked as Grace typed on her laptop at the kitchen table. She had one foot balanced on the chair and the other on the floor, her elbow resting on her knee as she leaned over her keyboard.

She blinked. “Uh–just a personal project.”

She’d been compiling everything she knew and things she thought she might be able to prove in a document. Then she’d searched news headlines and things about Dean and his company and was methodically adding them together into the lists of can prove, might be able to prove, and absolutely no way in hell anyone will believe me. So far the first list was empty, a couple of items were in the second, and the third was getting longer the more she worked.

Matt seemed to be waiting for more of an answer. Grace rubbed at her eyes. She had no idea how long she’d been at it, but it was now approaching evening and she was pretty sure she’d missed lunch. Matt had been gone most of the day–or at least, she thought he had.

“I’m also apartment hunting,” she said, which was partially true. That morning she’d heard back about touring two of the most promising listings. “I actually found a couple of places to look at. Only two, though.” She was constrained by both her limited budget and the need to stay within walking distance to work. She’d already figured she’d need to sell her car to get any kind of furniture she needed, along with paying security deposits and the first month of rent.

“Anything promising?” Matt asked, but there was an odd note to his voice.

“Maybe.” She chewed her lip. “I’ve got an appointment to look tomorrow after work. I’m not holding my breath though. My luck hasn’t been the greatest lately.”

Though, now that she was thinking about it, her luck had been…good, actually. She’d found a perfect job, a place to stay for free, and three incredibly kind people to surround herself with, to become friends with.

“Want me to come with you?”

A wave of anxiety rose within her. She didn’t want Matt to see just how inexperienced she was with, well, life. “No, that’s okay. It shouldn’t take too long.”

Matt bobbed his head in a nod.

Grace’s laptop pinged with a search alert and her attention was immediately diverted back to her research. She barely noticed as Matt walked away. She was sucked right back into her lists and the world around her ceased to exist.

Matt placed a pizza in front of her later and she ate without hardly looking up to thank him. He ate too, content to sit in silence, and then was gone again.

“I’m headed to the gym,” Matt said an indeterminate amount of time later. Grace blinked and realized her entire body had gone stiff.

Sure enough, Matt was in a tight t-shirt and sweats, duffel bag in one hand and cane in the other. It was dark outside now, the trash from the pizza cleared away without her having noticed.

Grace stretched. Several joints popped from disuse.

“Sorry,” she said. “Thanks again for the pizza.”

Matt smiled softly. “You’re welcome. See you later.”

“Bye,” she said. It was probably time to take a break anyway, she decided. She would shower and get ready for bed, then continue her research somewhere more comfortable than the kitchen table.

And then it would be time to see if the devil had decided to meet with her, if he’d seen her note.

Matt’s POV

Matt had taken to using the gym as an excuse to leave and take his suit with him. It had been Foggy’s idea when Matt had bemoaned the difficulty in keeping his nighttime activities secret with someone else in the apartment. The gym was somewhere he did go frequently, and the suit fit perfectly into his gym bag.

Sometimes he did use Fogwell’s to warm up. Most of the time he simply went up to a rooftop–his own or one that was blocks away, depending on the night–and changed in the dark before stowing the bag. He always listened to make sure Grace was asleep before coming back, or to change and come back inside the front door of the apartment as if everything were normal.

That night, he had been itching to go out, to follow a few leads in a string of recent disappearances.

Impatient as he was, he snuck up to the roof using the door outside his apartment instead of the one inside. No one was around, and Grace was still immersed in her mysterious project.

Immediately he scented Grace on the air, likely from the night before. He cocked his head and tried to focus. When had she come up? He’d had an early night the night before, asleep on the couch much sooner than usual because he’d been exhausted beyond belief. Two nights in a row he’d been out close to dawn and it had caught up with him.

There was something else, too. Matt stalked forward slowly, letting his senses ghost over his surroundings. A brick out of place and–a paper?

Matt moved the brick and picked up the paper. He ran his fingers over it. Grace’s scent was all over it. She’d written it and left it up there. Why?

Her hand had been quick and light as she’d written, the indentations too soft for him to make out most of the letters with his fingertips.

He grit his teeth in frustration.

Should he ask Foggy what it said? What if it was something…personal? Grace might now want them both to know what was on the paper.

Matt started to place the note back under the brick but his curiosity got the better of him. With a soft growl of irritation, he changed quickly and stowed the duffel bag with his gym clothes in a hidden alcove the next building over.

Then he called Foggy.

“Is Marci home?” he asked without preamble. The note was practically burning a hole in the pocket of his suit.

He could almost hear Foggy narrowing his eyes. “No, why?”

“I just–need you to read something for me,” he said. “I’ll be there soon.”

“Okay?” Foggy said, but he was used to Matt by now and didn’t question it any further.

Matt hung up and took off at a run.

Not too much later, he dropped onto the fire escape that led to Foggy and Marci’s bedroom. He took a moment to focus his hearing on the apartment within to make sure Foggy was in fact alone. Then he knocked lightly on the window.

“Should’ve known you wouldn’t use the door like a normal person,” Foggy grumbled at him as he came to open the window. It gave a slight screech of protest as it was shoved open, making Matt wince.

“Hey, Fog,” Matt said as if he weren’t dressed like the devil and hanging out on the fire escape. “I…found this. Can you read it for me?” He held out the note.

“Found where?” Foggy asked as the paper rustled when he unfolded it.

“My roof.”

“You–huh.” More rustling. Foggy hummed.

Matt bit back his impatience. “What’s it say?” He snapped the words more harshly than he meant to, but Foggy paid him no mind.

“It’s from Grace,” Foggy said instead of answering. Matt wanted to grab him and shake him.

“I gathered that much.”

“How–Nevermind. It says, Dear Daredevil. You might remember saving me from three attackers a couple of weeks ago, for which I’m still really thankful. We also met briefly up here one night. You seem like a busy man, so I’ll get straight to the point. I need your help again, and there’s no one else I can ask. If you even see this and if you can help me, I’ll wait up here at twelve-thirty each night for thirty minutes for the next week. Unless you’d rather leave me your phone number, because now that I’m writing it, it seems kind of weird to wait on a roof every night. But I’m out of options and I need help. Your friend, Grace.”

They both paused.

Foggy was the first to break the silence. “What does she need help with, you think?”

Matt was still as he considered it. There’s no one else I can ask.

“I don’t know,” he said softly. He leaned one hand against the building as the wind picked up and threatened to make him unsteady where he crouched.

Foggy’s heart picked up unexpectedly. “What if she knows?” he said.

“There’s no way,” Matt said, but then he wasn’t so sure. He had been lying pretty obviously when he’d told her about sleepwalking. But then again, she’d had a pretty high fever at that point. Though maybe she’d realized she recognized his voice from the two times she’d met him as Daredevil. They did live together, after all, and she was becoming familiar with him whether he liked it or not. “I don’t…think so, at least.”

“Maybe if you don’t show up for a week she’ll leave you another note,” Foggy said helpfully. The paper crinkled more as he held it back out to Matt. He took it and pocketed it again. “Oh! Or you could leave her the phone number for your burner phone. Duh.”

Matt made a face. “I can’t read it if she texts me, either.”

“Yeah but if she calls you…”

“And what if she calls and hears it when I’m Matt in front of her? Or if I forget it in the suit, and she calls and hears it in the closet?” Matt’s mind conjured a thousand other possibilities of ways things could go wrong even after he stopped speaking.

Foggy sighed and leaned against the wall beside the window. Matt cast his awareness outward out of habit to make sure no one was watching them converse and tying Foggy to him. The coast was clear, at least for the moment. But Matt needed to hurry the conversation up.

“What if she recognizes your voice if she sees you in person?” Foggy countered. “Or your face? You do have a very unmistakable jawline, my friend.”

Matt scoffed a laugh. “At least in person I can stick to the shadows. And I need to know if she’s lying about anything, which I can only do in person.”

Foggy hummed thoughtfully. “Yeah, okay. Good point. Well, it’s only ten thirty right now so you’ve got two hours to decide if you want to meet her.”

Matt almost sighed. Two hours wasn’t quite long enough to chase down the leads like he’d been hoping but…maybe, for once, he’d get lucky and Grace would somehow be able to shed light on his current investigation. He doubted it, though. He was never that lucky.

“I’ll see you later,” Matt said, then darted away and up the fire escape.

“Hey!” Foggy called after him–too quietly for others to hear, but it might as well have been a shout to Matt’s ears. “Are you meeting her or what?”

The problem was that Matt hadn’t decided yet. He’d tell Foggy about it if he did meet her. But he’d already stayed too long at his friend’s window. Just because he hadn’t noticed anyone noticing them didn’t mean they hadn’t. He always tried to err on the side of caution, especially where his friends were concerned.

Two hours later, Matt found himself a block away from his apartment listening for the rooftop door to open.

Within a minute, the familiar creak of the door into his apartment reached his ears. It had a different, quieter sound than the one into the building’s hallway.

Even from a block away he knew it was Grace. He’d become completely tuned into her in the past few weeks. He could pick her heartbeat out of a crowd, recognize her breathing from long distances, could detect even a trace of her scent.

He started moving closer as silently as possible, crossing from roof to roof easily. He was at the next building over as she started pacing for a moment, no doubt looking for him.

Then a scrape as she lifted the brick the note had been under. He heard her heart pick up speed and a rustle as she started to look around. The wind blew her soft, feminine scent right towards him.

He crept closer and dropped down on silent feet behind her. From the angle of the nearest lights, he was pretty sure he was in the darkest shadows on the rooftop, but just in case, he would keep his head angled down and away.

Grace sighed when she didn’t catch sight of him.

Then she turned. Her heart took off like a rocket in her chest.

“Fuck!” she said, halfway to a shriek. She took a deep breath as soon as she noticed it was him and her heart rate almost immediately started to calm. Matt wanted to frown. He’d noticed that, like Foggy, she seemed almost exceptionally good at calming herself. Except for Foggy it was because his default was carefree, happy. He calmed himself because he hated being agitated and because he was just naturally happy. For Grace, he wasn’t sure what it meant.

“You got my note,” she said softly, a thrill of something in her words. Excitement? Worry? He didn’t scent the telltale smells of adrenaline and cortisol that would tell him that she was afraid, that her body was debating fight versus flight. She wasn’t scared of him, even though he’d startled her.

He inclined his head in a nod but said nothing else. He was suddenly incredibly worried that she either had recognized him already or would after this conversation. He had to be careful, more so than usual.

“Sorry if it’s…weird,” she said uncertainly. A scrape as she shifted from foot to foot. He could feel the rise in temperature as she blushed, could scent it on her skin. “I just…I know something, but I can’t prove it, and I need help.”

“What is it?” he asked, pitching his voice a little lower than usual.

“There’s a warehouse,” she said. “Not in Hell’s Kitchen. I think it’s where Harry Spencer was killed.”

Matt froze. He’d heard that name–a body found in the Hudson. Mahoney had even asked him about it when their paths had crossed last. Another in a string of disappearances, though this one seemed unrelated to the rest.

“Where?” The demand was a growl as adrenaline surged in his veins.

She gave him an address. So far, she hadn’t lied.

“How do you know this?” he asked, more demanding that he probably should have been. He wanted to protect Grace, to be kind to her. But that was for Matt Murdock, not the devil of Hell’s Kitchen. His kindness might be what gave him away.

“I can’t tell you.” She shivered a little and–there. There was the fear. She wasn’t lying though, as far as he could tell. “I really, really can’t. But if you…maybe if you took a look around, you could prove that’s where he died? Then I might be able to…help more.” The fear was almost tangible in the air. Matt could taste it heavy on his tongue as he breathed.

Something about this man’s death had her utterly terrified.

His heart and mind raced in tandem. How did she know about a man’s death? Why?

Maybe that was why she’d left her life behind, he thought suddenly.

A lot of things started to make sense the longer he thought about it.

The reason she hadn’t wanted them to tell her job references where they were calling from. The payphone call to her mother. The hints to starting over, to leaving her old life behind, the fear and nervousness he heard in her sometimes. Even the nightmares.

He’d been quiet for too long. Grace hurried to say, “I just–I can’t prove anything. I don’t want to cause trouble for myself over nothing. But I can’t just sit by.” A note of steel in her voice that he recognized.

Matt remembered more of the story he’d heard about the man she’d named. His body had been found a couple weeks before. He’d been missing for six months, but his family hadn’t reported it. And Grace–Grace had said someone she had known had died. He remembered that day, the way she’d reacted to something on her phone so sharply he’d had to ask about it.

“Why now?” he finally asked.

Grace blew out a breath and started pacing in front of him. “Because I can’t do nothing. Not anymore.”

That wasn’t a lie either. In fact, it rang more true than anything else she’d said thus far.

“I’ll look into it,” he said. And without another word, he leapt to the next rooftop and into the shadows.

“How do I contact you?” she called after him, but he didn’t look back. He would figure it out if her lead panned out.

But the longer he was near her, the more chances he had to give himself away.

He decided to go ahead and check out the warehouse. It was still early in the night yet, and it might lead to more information on the other disappearances.

It was a bit far for his liking–outside of Hell’s Kitchen though not by much.

As he made his way closer, he thought about Grace. Something had scared her–something that had led to the death of Harry Spencer. Something that had likely led to her leaving an entire life behind. Something that had scared her into living in her car.

Instead of assuming she was lying, that she was bad like he normally would have, Matt instead felt a surge of protectiveness. It was plain that Grace was deathly afraid of something. And she was seeking help the only way she knew how–through him.

When Matt got to the warehouse…it was empty.

He paused on the closest rooftop.

Had Grace lied to him? Led him astray with a half-truth?

He focused on the building, mapping it out, listening for any signs of life.

There was nothing inside, not even equipment or goods of any kind.

Matt dropped to the ground.

It was easy enough to get past the locked doors–one of the window locks was broken, allowing him to let himself into the first floor through what must have been an officer. There was a desk in the room but nothing else.

Matt hesitated with his hand on the doorknob before stepping into the large open space.

Still no one. Not even electricity. Everything was dark, empty, and silent.

Something in Matt’s gut prickled with alarm.

He swept the place methodically. Nothing.

But there was very little dust. It was almost too clean.

He made his way up to the second floor and–

He jerked to a stop.

Blood–lots of it. Old and covered up by bleach, likely without proof the normal eye could see. But it was there. Lots of blood. There were rooms on the second floor, all empty, but there was the scent of blood in each.

What was this place used for?

He wasn’t sure he could prove Harry Spencer had died in the building, but someone had lost a lot of blood there. Likely several someones.

Though Matt went over every inch of the place, he couldn’t find anything else other than the scent of blood that someone had gone to great lengths to cover up.

He left with more questions than answers.

He needed to find out who owned that building and where they had gone and when they might come back.

And he had to find out what their connection to Grace was.

Next Chapter

taglist:

@zaminoo @yanna-banana @bellal1 @thetrinitytest @harry-bowie-mercury @lorosette @feliciab1990

#matt murdock x oc #matt murdock x ofc #matt murdock x original female character #matt murdock x original character #matt murdock #daredevil x oc #daredevil x ofc #daredevil x original character #daredevil x original female character #daredevil #netflix daredevil #saved #saved fic #saved daredevil

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ask-de-writer · 11 months

Text

FIENDSHIP IS MAGIC (Part 56 of ?)

18+ readers only (sex scenes)

Return to the Master Story Index

Return to MLP Fan Fiction

FIENDSHIP IS MAGIC

Making Fiends and Influencing Ponies

An Anthro *Tail* of the Mane Six

Part 56 of ? (Work in Progress)

De Writer

61697 words (story in progress)

//////////////

This story is age restricted to 18

years or older!

Users of Tumblr.com are specifically granted the following rights. They may reblog the story provided that all author and copyright information remains intact. They may use the characters or original characters in my settings for fan fiction, fan art works, cosplay, or fan musical compositions.

All sorts of fan art, cosplay, music or fiction is actively encouraged.

///////////////////////

New to the story? Read from the start HERE

///////////////////////

Ex officer Overmark snarled, “This ain't fair at all! Got you looking for any little mistakes and THAT so called pony reading my mind!”

Princess Twilight quietly reminded him, “You were directly instructed to say only whether what Kin said was true or not. Shall we add a charge of perjury by refusal to answer truly in a trial under the Royal Wing?

“The purpose of this whole trial is to find the entire truth and also any mitigation that there may be. Restrict your answers to the truth and you have no need to worry about either Princess Luna's Bridge of Dream or Kin's rather unique abilities.

“Now a clear and simple answer to the question. Is what Kin said the true reason that you were not there when the fires started?”

Overmark glanced fearfully at Kin, who smiled angelically at him. “Yes, Your Highnesses. It was set so that it would not start a blaze for like a half hour.

“Princess Twilight mentioned mitigation. The reason that I did it was orders from Priest Sunshine. He was really angry at Minty. Not only would she not pay for the Blessing, she would not sew up their priestly outfits as a donation. She might not look it but she is really strong! She chucked him out of her shop and told him what she thought of the whole church scam.”

Kin was chuckling at his oration. Nodding her head, she offered, “Not only true, he was there and saw it happen!”

Priest Sunshine snapped, “That vile mare had no respect for a Pony of the Cloth! She laid violent hands upon me! It was not to be born!”

Reverend Tightcollar actually looked at Priest Sunshine in dismay. “You really did that without consulting the cooler heads of the rest of us?”

Turning to face his judges, he pointed to Kin and said, “We have, as you have already proved, done many things that we should not. Of this arson, however, the rest of us are innocent. Ask the mare there who reads our minds. She will tell you so.”

A smiling Luna replied, “No need. The Bridge of Dream shows clearly the truth of what you said. This actually surprised you. We will accept that and release you from the arson charge, which will be laid only to Priest Sunshine and your minions.”

Pinkie Pie spoke up, “I've known Minty for a long time. Her place was insured but she never got a dime.” She looked expectantly at Kin.

Kin nodded. “Now that its been brought up, Pinkie is right. Judge Horsefry was in on the scam. He got a double indemnity payment made to the court and counterfeited a rendering to Minty. He passed the money on to the Dawnguard.”

Priest Afternoon nodded thoughtfully, “So that is where that big anonymous donation that Priest Sunshine gave me came from. Your Highnesses will find it listed on page six of ledger two.”

Luna gave the others a nonplussed look. “Bridge of Dream confirms that. Only priest Sunshine was in on the arson. The other priests are innocent of that particular crime. He, Judge Horsefry and mister Overmark are guilty of both the arson and insurance fraud.”

Twilight nodded smiling, which caused some obvious nervousness among the assorted priesthood of the Dawnguard. “Well, that about wraps things up except for the tiny problem of how they could pay that Secure Gold Transfer. I mean, it is for more than the total of all of the church's assets, buildings and lands as declared on their last Principality Tax forms.

“I will be most interested to know how they are going to explain why it is not Prima Facie tax evasion.”

Priest Afternoon squirmed uncomfortably in his seat. He gave both Princess Luna and Kin uneasy glances and finally replied, “If you trace the accounts that much of the Secure Gold Transfer is drawn upon, you will find that they are not ours as such. Certain of the high nobility sympathetic to our Church and cause have created accounts that we have access to. They can be drawn upon as needful but are not technically ours. The SGT nearly depleted them.”

Princess Twilight quietly ruffled papers and withdrew several sheets. “This is your filed taxation form for the Dawnguard. It is formally signed by all seven of you, as Senior Officers of the Church. On the second to last line it states under penalties of purgery that you have listed the value of all properties, goods and accounts AVAILABLE to the Church. These funds, which we have verified, are not listed.”

“Um, Princess, Duke Edgecliff of the Exchequer himself told me that it was not needful to list them. He stated that so long as we helped the Ducal Council in their goal, we would not have to.”

Princess Luna looked over to Kin as she offered, “Bridge of Dream confirms the source and reason of the tax evasion. Sadly, they are actually innocent of anything but needing to make up the arrears. Kin? Have you more to add?”

Kin nodded, “I am afraid so, your Highnesses. The Ducal Council, the same ones behind the attempted Summons of Princess Luna to hear their Requirements and do their bidding, do not exactly want to replace your Royal selves on the Thrones. They wish instead to install a King upon the Empty Throne of the Queen, sitting above you both. He will Rule, able to override your Royal decisions, but leaving the difficult running of the nation to you. Oh, and he will sire foals from you both to insure the PROPER SUCCESSION.”

Twilight nodded to herself and muttered, “Sedition. Absolutely sedition. The whole Ducal Council?” Turning to Princess Luna with a sweet smile that clashed with her words, “Any ideas for filling all those suddenly Vacant Duchies? I suspect that the Thrones Room won't be popular with the Dukes, containing as it does the Traitor's Drop.”

Celestia interrupted crisply, “Princess Twilight, dear, this is the wrong court and venue for that discussion. Luna needs to brief me on Kin in better detail than I presently have. Do join that discussion after we adjourn this court. I gather that it will be most illuminating.”

TO BE CONTINUED

<==PREVIOUS ~ NEXT==>

Return to the Master Story Index

Return to MLP Fan Fiction

#FIENDSHIP IS MAGIC #Part 56 of ?#age restricted 18+#MLP Fan Fiction #Written by De Writer #WORK IN PROGRESS

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quordleona03 · 20 days

Note

Hi, if you have time, I'd love to ask a couple of things:

How do you and your beta/proofreader share texts? Do you use email, Google Docs, or a different app? Just curious as someone who is starting to write and trying to get a feel for things. I'd also love to hear any advice you might be willing to pass on about posting and writing.

When I finish a section in All We Know, I send the latest version of the entire document (though once we got into dealing with March, and all the sections up til the end of January had been published, I split the manuscript into All We Know 1962 and All We Know 1963 - all of 1962 was now on AO3 if Jakrar wanted to check back with an earlier section.

On posting and writing, well: my advice is to sit down and write for an hour every day for ten years, and at the end of that time, you are a writer. (I use the site 750words to get my hour-a-day in, no matter what.) When trying to write a story: unless it is a very short story, plan it out ahead of time, chapter by chapter - what has to happen when. Let yourself be flexible, of course: sometimes the characters will tell you things about themselves as you write that mean the story changes direction. And then write: get the shitty first draft down, and then pause for at least a day - sleep on it, definitely - re-read, make what changes seem good to you, repeate - and finally, find someone to edit/proofread, and, hopefully, to beta-read. A beta-reader tells you their emotional responses to the story. Pay attention to their reactions. A sensitive reader picks up on what you meant, and what you want, and what they feel. The beta-reader's changes may be more difficult to introduce, more painful, but the work in doing so will generally make the story better.

I use LibreOffice, and save as a .doc file, and email that .doc file. For convenience, the .doc file is indexed with a table of contents and each section has a comprehensible heading, so that sections can be easily found.

Jakrar sends me back a .doc file with sections from my manuscript quoted, and her proofreading notes and comments underneath, identified by page number in the file.

What this can look like is (my original text in green, hers indented):

Mulcahy could have told Mrs Hunt he was going to see his sister - that was true: but he didn't think he could explain to anyone who knew what his salary was as a teacher, that he planned to fly to California tonight, and home on Monday. That hardly seemed real to him either, though their flight was at seven. He was looking forward to it with a wincing kind of anticipation, but beyond the flight, he had to meet BJ Hunnicut, who he needed to talk to, and Kathy, Maria Angelica, whom he both wanted and did not want to talk to.

In the first sentence: you might consider changing “that” in “that was true” to “it” I’d suggest changing the colon after “true” to a dash I’d suggest putting “(at least,” right after “anyone” in “could explain to anyone” I’d suggest changing “who knew what his salary was as a teacher” to something like “familiar with his teacher’s salary” I’d suggest changing the comma immediately following the word before “that he planned to fly” to “)”

Jakrar will also note contradictions in the text:

Page 368

Hawkeye got up when Mulcahy came in - paused a moment - presumably for Mrs Jamieson to close the door - and then came round the desk and took Mulcahy briefly into his arms. He let go, moved back, looked down.

At the end of the first sentence, delete the extra blank space following “briefly into his arms.”

Page 368

"Okay, wait," Hawkeye said, still holding on to him. "It did not escape my notice that when we flew up to Boston back in October, your ears hurt."

First, three paragraphs up, Hawkeye takes Mulcahy briefly into his arms and then lets him go and moves back, but here Hawkeye is still holding on to him. You need to change one or the other or have something in between where Hawkeye takes hold of him again. Second, they flew to Boston and had their interactions with Charles and Martine in November.

Sometimes, she'll also include comments on the text itself.

Page 431

"Fantastic," Hawkeye said, very cheerfully. "Lucky chance you knew that guy." "Never saw him before in my life," BJ said. "You knew him, didn't you?"

beats head on desk How have these guys survived this long?

Page 431

Hawkeye stopped short, turned, and looked at BJ. His eyes were wide and his eyebrows raised. "BJ? He's on the convention staff. I handed my dress bag in at the desk this morning, and asked them to find me at the mezzanine after my seminar, and take me to a room I could change in. He showed up with the bag and a key to that room, and I told him to come find me after the banquet. That is the sum total of our long-standing unacquaintance. When you called him 'Jack' I thought you knew him."

Near the end of the fifth sentence, delete the extra blank space after “take” in “the mezzanine after my seminar, and take” In the eighth/last sentence: put a comma after “Jack” (before the closing single quotation mark) I’d undo the italics on “him” (but leave the italics on “you”)

I used to be a stellar proofreader myself. But, since my glaucoma diagnosis, I've had to accept that I will no longer be able to notice if I've missed small issues in the text. Leading to comments such as these:

Page 432

BJ gave Hawkeye a beat of silence Hawkeye looked amused "Okay - "

Put a period after “silence” Put a period after “amused”

Sometimes, I disagree with Jakrar's suggestions (my comment text in red italics) and I often add notes on the decisions made in guiding the plot of the story.

Page 98 (from the AWK 193 doc)

"Hey," BJ said, calmly. "We couldn't invite all four kids, one of them a boy about Erin's age. We're not inviting any kids." And they had heard from Erin about that, at the top of her voice. "We just couldn't make an exception for Lorraine Blake. Anyway - "

In the fifth sentence, you might rearrange “We just couldn’t make an exception for” to “We couldn’t make an exception just for” The reunion just became a thousand percent better.

To me, the suggested placement of "just" sounds dismissive of Lorraine - "just couldn't" sets the emphasis on "couldn't for anyone". Does that make sense?

When I was discussing with Ajay65 how to plan the reunion at the end of the story, Ajay65 pointed out that if the party included children, the hotel had to be bigger, events had to be organised for parents-with-children, a sitter-service had tbe available for the banquet or the entire event had to be child-friendly - and I conceded the point and abandoned any ideas about a family reunion.

Page 398

Hawkeye was sitting bold upright and plainly indignant. "Beej, everyone there would know the circumstances."

In the first sentence, change “bold” in “sitting bold upright” to “bolt”

Page 398

"I didn't," BJ said. "And a lot of people who only remember Colonel Potter wouldn't either. Anyway, Hawk, if you'll cool down and listen to me, I heard back from Lorraine Blake, and she's now Lorraine Reynolds."

In the second sentence: you might consider rearranging “people who only remember Colonel Potter” to “people who remember only Colonel Potter” put a comma after “wouldn’t” in “Colonel Potter wouldn’t”

"And a lot of people who only remember Colonel Potter wouldn't either."

To me this (the above) sounds a more natural way of saying what BJ is trying to say than

"And a lot of people who remember only Colonel Potter wouldn't either."

The above comments are all editing or proofreading. Anyone experienced enough to know what correct grammar, spelling, and punctuation are, and with a good enough memory to catch glitches, can proofread your story. It is always easier to have someone else read your manuscript and catch errors than for you do it. This is because - unless you set the story aside for a few weeks - you yourself know what you meant to write, and your mind's eye will produce that for you on the page, even if that's not what you actually typed. A proofreader is only responsible for picking out the typos, punctuation errors, grammatical errors, and so forth: an editor will track things like "Hawkeye and Mulcahy actually flew to Boston in November". But in fandom, if you are fortunate enough to have someone who will be both proofreader and editor, they can and should do both.

But - when your editor/proofreader loves your story enough to read it with fannish appreciation, they will also notice things like this:

Page 471

"When did you tell him to go back?" Kathy said. She was beyond astonishment. That Ben might have been a voice urging Francis to return to the priesthood was not something that had ever occurred to her. She was bewildered, but she could not disbelieve him.

"A couple of times in Crabapple Cove. In New York...." Ben shrugged. "A few times. I don't remember. He told me to stop, last year. He told me he wasn't ever going back, they wouldn't let him be a priest, and I had to stop saying it, or he'd be angry."

"So you could get him to go," Sister Maria Angelica said, with delicate care, "if you weren't afraid of making him angry?"

It could be just me, but it feels like Maria Angelica's switch here, from the shock of realization back to manipulation, is a hair too quick and smooth. Maybe if there's a hint of pause at the start of the third paragraph, before she's all composed again, and delicately trying to get Hawkeye to see things her way...?

Jakrar was right. A beta reader notices emotional mistakes in the text. So I amended my text (new text in bold):

Kathy stared at Ben. She wasn't sure what to say. She moved her hands togeher under her scapular, and summoned herself to go on.

"So you could get him to go," Sister Maria Angelica said, with delicate care, "if you weren't afraid of making him angry?"

And sometimes, a good editor can save your life. On Page 516 of the total WIP so far (Page 210 of the 1963 version), there's this:

But it wasn't even seven in the morning in New York: the call rang out, with no one there to answer in the empty offices. Hawkeye stared at the San Francisco telephone directory, and thought of making prank calls.

It’s going to be three hours later in New York than it is in California. But if it’s about nine in the morning in San Francisco, it’s about noon in NYC, so maybe there’s a lunch break and no one is answering the phones at the office because of that?

I said "OH SHIT!!" out loud when I read your email, and M, who was passing, said "What?" sounding very worried.

I said, "no no, nothing important," and then correcting myself "nothing in the real world - I got the time difference between New York and San Francisco exactly BACKWARDS"

"Oh," said M, sounding very relieved, "oh well shame on you, tut tut" and went on downstairs to make more tea.

I don't have the red cloak and magical comic book powers to reverse the direction of the Earth and besides people might notice if I did, so i guess I have to rewrite that bit.

Thank you.

*sobs with relief*

Thank you.

Will send you corrected and updated version ASAP.

Love and huge appreciation

Result: But he ate, and asked the waitress where he could make a long-distance phone call. He might as well call Shirley Mason and get it over with. A man answered the phone. He said Miss Mason was at lunch. He did not offer to take a message. Hawkeye stared at the San Francisco telephone directory, and thought of making prank calls. He called Charles's office. The hospital switchboard passed him through without comment: Charles's secretary, who always reminded Hawkeye of a very well-bred robot but with less warmth, said that she would inquire if Doctor Winchester wished to speak with him. Finally, Charles's clipped Boston voice said, "Afternoon. What is it, Pierce?" "Good morning, Charles," Hawkeye said. "Pierce. What is it?" Charles paused. "Are you in California? What do you want?"

Ah, that's a question...

#writing #proofreading #editing #beta reading #how I write #all we know

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jetblackknight · 21 days

Text

I sincerely apologize that my Google document is ten pages long, by the way, and that a whopping seven out of that ten is dedicated wholly to Vergil's ( admittedly detailed ) lore. In having this blog open to fandomless characters ( originals too, unless they are one in the same, then I suppose that shows how old I feel ), I had to add it all, in case people didn't know, and didn't want to spend an hour looking up complicated backstory and the like.

Vergil may not be a man of many words, but I, unfortunately, am.

I suppose I should also introduce myself: my name is Theodora, yes, really, and I am an autistic ( almost ) 27-year old. I use they/he pronouns (wholly interchangeable, I am fine with either / or ! ), and I am the mun dedicated to bringing this role-playing iteration of Vergil to life !

#▪──── ⚔ ❝ Shall I ENTRUST it... to HIM ? ❞ 「 mun 」

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ceilingfan5 · 9 months

Note

Can I have author's choice bonus content please? Because I am bad at decisions but I wanna hear the secret brain spaghetti.

let's do run away with me!!

the working title was Long Haul, and the document is still named that, which means it took me ten minutes to find. the document has 69 pages btw

the chapters being carly rae jepsen song lines was a literal last minute decision, i ended up picking one every time i had to post a new chapter and it was terrible lol, one time i realized i used one twice and had to sneaky edit it really fast

Here are the original chapter titles:

yes i always pull this bullshit with chapter titles

Kravitz's family's mug collection is based on my mug collection + i had a lot of fun choosing garyl's bumper stickers

i love raven and istus so much by the way, i might make my fic for the sapphic week thing about them. they are simply krav's moms i do not know what to tell you.

my favorite part was Escalating their bullshit, i spent so much time on horrible wedding obsession websites looking for terrible lines

also i made up the thundermen song, of course, for some reason it always surprises people i like to make my own song lyrics? my guys i am one hyperfixation away from fully becoming a lyricist or something, i will pull this nonsense so easily, especially when i get to rhyme, fuck yeah

also i wrote this fic while i was going insane in lockdown, teaching first grade was basically a joke "online" and i had nothing to do and i was going Crazy. i also crocheted a HUGE and very heavy rainbow blanket, and did a diamond painting i later threw away, and i pretty much cycled between eating and sleepying and these three hobbies from st patricks day until like, june

[stares at the horizon]

immediately after i started posting it i was hit with the most powerful fucking What Now, also

#bonus features #thank youuuuu #run away with me

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strayed-quokka · 2 years

Text

his last song || pt 6 || hwang hyunjin

» summary: it was your last year wherein a stroke of luck determined whether or not you could be sent to your likely death. and of course, the last year is when fate tries to play the cruellest game. for not only is it you, but your best friend’s name is caught in the hands of the woman selecting who’s to face their death. and not only that, but a certain career has his eyes set on you, and you doubt that’s a good thing.

» pairing: career hyunjin x district 10 reader ft. district 10 jisung & mentor minho (platonically)

» rating: 16+ for depictions of violence

» genre: hunger games au, fluff, angst, weak enemies to lovers, strangers to lovers, childhood friends to lovers, unrequited love

» warnings: mentions of violence, reader and jisung breakdown, minho is moody still (more than before), hyunjin keeps threatening reader with death, alcohol consumption

» words: 4,699

» previous chapter

» a/n: i have no excuse for why this took so long other than i’ve been doing really badly mentally. i’m really sorry. also this chapter tugs at my heartstrings so brace yourselves lmao... next chapter we finally move on to... well... the actual damn arena. only took 7 chapters (originally i only wanted it to take 5 chapters but i wanted to establish relationships between characters and that apparently took like... 50+ pages in my documents).

You were one step closer to your death. The thought wasn’t a peaceful one. It was turbulent, a chaotic melancholy tearing you apart every day as your heart wanted to give in to defeat. Yet you refused to let it. There was nothing you could change about what you’d already done, so you did your best to make peace with whatever results you may get from the gamemaker’s.

If they’d wanted to punish you in death before the games, they would’ve done so by now. You could breathe.

“I say a six. Maybe Jisung will push a seven. Right?” Minho looks between you both, Daehyeon on the couch with his sketchbook again and Seokhwa half asleep beside him. He looked gloomier today, or maybe he was just tired. You suppose you didn’t look much better, maybe even worse.

Who were you kidding, you definitely looked worse next to someone as elegant as him.

“I can never tell if you’re complimenting us or insulting us.”

“It’s a bit of both,” comes Daehyeon’s reply to Jisung, just as Ceasar appears on the TV, ready to give out the scores.

“What do you think you’ll get?” Jisung whispers to you, hand on your knee to stop it from shaking up and down as you sit there. If you’re entirely honest, you have no idea what score you may get. All you presented to the gamemaker’s was a recklessness that could either be admired or hated. You didn’t see a grey area in how this could go.

“Maybe… four?” though it’s more a question than an answer.

“No, I’d guess a seven for her, maybe eight,” Seokhwa speaks up, now laying in his blue haired friends lap to rest whilst staring at the screen that is going through the district one career, a male who’s incredibly muscular and from what you remember when seeing him train, incredibly strong.

“That’s generous. Especially from you,” Minho replies, finally taking his own seat.

“Yeah,” Seokhwa looks at you then, a small smile on his lips as if he knows something more, “but I think she manages better than you think.”

There’s a lull, a short break in where no one speaks, if just from sheer surprise that he seems to think far more highly of you than even you would’ve expected.

“How do you know what I think?” Minho’s eyes are colder, less impressed but the young man with peach coloured hair isn’t phased. Minho can’t intimidate him, at least you don’t think he can, and it’s something you wish you could mirror.

“Don’t underestimate someone simply because you think they’re weaker than you,” he sits up, back straight as he looks at your mentor dead in the eye, “it may be your greatest mistake if you do.”

“A ten,” everyone’s attention moves from the two men in the room towards the TV, seeing Hyunjin with his score. It’s incredibly high, usually as high as it goes and whilst it’s a result that proves he’s someone you should stay clear from, it also makes you want to ask what he’d done to earn it.

“Wonder what he did,” Jisung takes the words right from you, and then the waiting game begins. Minho is writing something down, you presume the scores and making mental notes of odds and tactics, and maybe you should rush to do the same. He’s not the one playing, yet out of everyone in the room, he behaves as if he is the most.

“He scored higher than I would’ve thought,” it’s Daehyeon now, referring to district 5’s male, maybe your age with incredibly sweet features. Jaemin.

“If you’re going to pair up into groups, he’s a good bet. Doesn’t get on with his district partner so he’s likely traveling alone.”

“But what if he just wants to kill us?” Jisung asks, a probable scenario that both of you are thinking about.

“It’s two to one. He’s an interesting one. Not the weakest but not the strongest. I’d take my chances with him. Even if it’s just to save your own life.”

“You want them to throw this boy to the wolves?” Daehyeon asks, and whilst he sounds unimpressed, he doesn’t look it as much. Like Minho, it doesn’t really bother him, and for just a moment you wonder what emotions Daehyeon portrays are real and what may all be pretend.

Maybe he fit the capital far better than you’d ever want to admit, given that you really liked him as a person.

“If it means it’s not them, yeah,” Minho says it so casually, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world to you, and all you come up with is the exact response he wants, but nearly didn’t expect.

“Okay.”

“Y/N!” Jisung hits your shoulder, forcing you to look at him, and he’s disappointed. Not because he doesn’t understand why, but because he doesn’t want you to risk anything stupid.

Little did he know you’d already risked a lot.

“Han Jisung,” all of you stare at the screen again, Nerium walking into the room as if she’d timed it perfectly, and you briefly acknowledge her presence, “an eight.”

There’s cheering, mostly from Seokhwa and Daehyeon who both stand and pull Jisung up with them, hugging him tight while Minho stares blankly ahead. There’s a smile on your face as they make space to invite you into the hug, and you let yourself get dragged into something warm and comfortable, you never want to let go of any of them.

Maybe it’s absurd, to nearly see Seokhwa and Daehyeon as your friends. It had only been a few days, but emotions were heightened in the face of death, and if Minho wasn’t going to congratulate either of you, at least they were ensuring that you knew someone was proud.

“Better than expected,” Daehyeon ruffles his hair, awfully cheerful until Seokhwa shoves him away.

“Hey! I have to fix that,” your vision blurs to them, fixated on Minho now. He doesn’t say anything. All he does is write something down, but you see how his hand is shaking. He’s not focusing and a sorrow breaks through him that he can’t hide. You’re not surprised that he doesn’t cry, for you know Minho isn’t one for emotion, but you can also tell that he likely would be if he was alone.

“A nine,” Seokhwa jumps up on the couch, absolutely elated and cheering, and it takes a while for you to notice that they’d been talking about you. It was you who’d gotten that score, and suddenly you’re being tackled on the couch by the same people who’d been hugging you for Jisung’s points seconds ago.

“Let’s open some champagne!” Seokhwa cries out in glee, and even Nerium seems to agree from where she’s standing.

Though as elated and disbelieving as you are from the high of your score, it’s all torn out from under you when Minho slams his notes down and walks away, a slam of a door heard not long after that’s so loud, you feel the floor shake in response.

“Ignore him,” Jisung whispers, moving a strand of hair behind your ear and it makes you tremble. It should be easy to ignore, to pretend it doesn’t bother you. That what Minho thinks doesn’t actually matter. But to you it does. As impolite as he could be, you did look up to him. He’d won the games. He knew how to play.

You were letting him down. And it was incredibly hard to just let that go.

“So, we just have to befriend someone two days before we’re sent into a deadly arena where that same person has to kill us. You know, sometimes I really don’t know what Minho is thinking-”

“He’s thinking of how to survive. He wouldn’t have without Hyunjin’s sister. Maybe he thinks we won’t without someone either.”

Jisung sighs, standing quiet as the two of you take the elevator down to the training center. There was an odd tension between you now, maybe because your approach to the situation at hand was very different, but you weren’t about to bring it up. If you caused a fight just a few days before the games, your odds would lower considerably.

“How do you want to approach him?”

“I say watch him first. See what he does, if he’s working on his own or with someone. Feel it out. Then approach him.” you nod, stepping out into the hallway with your best friend right behind you.

“I might try climbing today. I’ve seen Hyunjin do it a lot.”

“Why do you care what Hyunjin does?” Jisung is immediately on alert and it bothers you instantly, though you knew it was completely justifiable. Hyunjin was dangerous to you both. He’d continue to be so. You having a few conversations with him, no matter how civil, wouldn’t change that.

“I don’t. But knowing how to climb may be useful.”

“Alright how about this. We just keep an eye on him today. See what he does. Maybe I’ll approach him after a few hours. We just can’t force it or draw any suspicion.”

“Why don’t you ask him to partner with you for a round on the mats. You know, fight it out?”

“That’s… actually kinda genius,” Jisung admits, for it would make sense. Partnering up with tributes to fight one on one wasn’t unheard of or very unusual.

When you arrive, the two of you separate and you immediately look up at the ceiling, seeing the fabric that would hold you up and away from the ground. It doesn’t look that secure, but if it can hold Hyunjin, it should hold you fine.

You just wondered where the hell he even climbed up.

You wander around, seeing what some of the tributes are up to, and you realise that it’s the first time you really pay attention to them. Maybe you should’ve been studying their movements ages ago.

“You know, you’re so obvious. It’s almost pathetic,” you hear his voice, know it already within just a few days, but you don’t see him anywhere. He’s not behind you, nor is he in front of you or next to you, and it’s only when you hear him laugh that you decide to lift your head up.

He’s grinning, almost manically as his feet rest on the fabric beneath him, his one hand holding what you think is the very knife you used just yesterday to make a point, the other holding himself steady by gripping onto the ropes by his shoes.

You decide to ignore him, something that doesn’t bode well with him, and it’s scary to realise how quickly he moves up there without falling, for he’s back in front of you in seconds, hanging upside down as he sends you a mocking wave in greeting.

“I must say, one point off from me sweetheart, I nearly fell in love,” he lifts himself up, twisting his body around before jumping down and onto the ground, right before you, “wonder why they decided that.”

“Why don’t you ask them?” It’s humorous to you, how thinking about him when he’s not there always has you curious to speak to him again, yet whenever he’s around, you yearn to get away from him.

“Hmm, don’t think I will,” you go to walk away, wondering where the hell Jisung went when you separated (though you think he’s conveniently or inconveniently behind the wall that you’re standing by), but the threat of a knife to your collarbone stops you, “at least tell me if this whole act is a game or really what you’re like.”

He leans against the wall, retracting the knife as you stare at him, unsure of how to answer. Maybe you weren’t physically the strongest and mentally you were being thrown left and right, but something in his words pisses you off. Yet just as you go to speak, he interrupts again, “I just don’t understand how you went from such an easy kill to something to chase, sweetheart.”

What scares you most about Hyunjin, you realise, isn’t in his appearance, nor in the way he’s able to so easily sneak up on just about anyone. It’s in his words, the threats and taunts, but it’s also in his confidence to really end your life, his nonchalance to it and that he simply doesn’t care. At least he doesn’t seem to. But you don’t want him to know truly how uneasy it makes you.

So you ask him something that he’d never expected.

“Do you want to train with me?”

It shocks you both, the simplicity of the question and what it means. It’s the only time you expect to ever see him rendered speechless in the little time you’ll know him.

You don’t like the guilt that comes with that. Though if you were to ensure Jisung comes home, it meant dying. So you assume that the loss of Hyunjin wouldn’t be remembered by you anyway if you were six feet under.

“What do you suggest we do, princess?”

“That sounds horribly condescending.”

“My bad, I’ll improve my manners in your last few days,” how considerate you think, though you still shiver at the thought. Twenty three people were living out their last days in the room you were in.

“I want to climb.”

“Do you know how?”

“No. But I know you do,” he sighs, though he must admit that something about you amuses him more than it frustrates him. Sure, to him you were a weakness and he didn’t care much for your survival, but unlike the first day he’d seen you, now he was more curious.

There was something else to you. If anything, he believed that if you were pushed into a corner just enough, that you’d snap into something that might actually become a threat to at least some of the tributes around him.

“Alright, I’ll show you how to climb. I’ll show you whatever you want. But I want something from you,” you nearly scoff, but instead you look away, arms crossed until he grabs your chin with his hand, and suddenly you’re staring right into his eyes.

They’re the darkest shade of brown you’ve seen and yet whilst many claim that eyes are the window into the very being you’re looking at, his tell you absolutely nothing. You can’t tell what he’s thinking, yet you feel like he can tell everything about you from simply staring back.

“When I eventually come after you…” he leans closer, so close that he’s right in your space. He’s warm and there’s a hint of cologne that lingers, and if he wasn’t gripping your chin so tight, you’d fight harder to look away, “put what I taught you to use. Don’t make it easy for me.”

And for the first time, his threats don’t scare you the way they should. His promise of your death doesn’t make you want to crumble to the floor. It’s the first time that you feel a fire light within you, and you smile at him, “don’t worry, I don’t plan to.”

“Oh c’mon, you’re not even up there yet!” his annoyance captures the attention of other tributes, though one look in their direction and most of them turn away again. It nearly makes you laugh, the way his arms are on his hips and he’s huffing in frustration similarly to how Jisung would pout at you when you’d say something absurd.

“It’s harder than I thought!” you retaliate, mustering up the strength you have in your upper body to lift it up and finally push your knees up onto the fabrics of black rope to crawl across.

“You don’t have that type of time when someone’s on your tail,” he sounds like Minho. Hell, when you really think about it, the two share a lot of attributes alike. The difference in them was that whilst Minho’s attitude towards you came from a will to keep you alive, Hyunjin was the opposite. At least that’s what you’d assumed.

“I’ll go again.”

“You just got up there,” but you’re already halfway down, and Hyunjin comes up beside you, “alright, we both climb up. See how much slower you are.”

You huff, looking up at the wall you need to climb again, and maybe you should’ve listened and just stayed up there.

“You better have a very good explanation for this one, Y/N,” it’s Jisung, a frown on his features and you know how unhappy he is. Nothing in you blames him for it either, but right now, you only see the benefits of learning how to use the strength you have.

“Ah, the so called best friend, you wanna join?”

“No, I don’t,” he’s staring right at you, ignoring Hyunjin entirely, “I’ve been looking for you. Do you remember what we talked about? Have you done any of it?”

His sudden anger takes you aback. The two of you had disagreements before, but never did he approach you with such hostility. It was another reminder that the games were taking away qualities that made you and Jisung uniquely yourselves. It hadn’t even started, yet both of you had already lost the playful nature in which you’d interacted with just days before.

“I… no. I haven’t.”

“Right, I wonder why,” his words are bitter, venomous both to you and the man behind you, and it’s the first moment you truly think that something broke between the two of you.

“Ji, it’s not what you-”

“Don’t. I don’t want to hear anything from you right now. You want to fucking die, go ahead.”

“Hey, that’s just unnecessary,” Hyunjin leaping to your defence is unexpected, but you welcome it. For right now, you don’t have anything else you can say. You feel guilty, yet you’re not sure you’ve done anything wrong either as you watch Jisung push past you both without a second glance, “yikes, trouble in paradise?”

“Just… not now. Okay?” you hide the way your voice shakes, the way you blink back your tears, but the career next to you is so annoyingly observant that nothing slips past him. He knows how it hurts you, and whilst it’s to his advantage that you’re breaking down, it still bothers him.

“Alright,” he agrees, standing up straight, “but don’t cry. I don’t need to see that again.”

He moves further away, a good five meters away from you, “I’ll give you a head start. Not a big one but it’ll give you something.”

For a very small moment, you’re grateful that he ignores the pain you’re in. And you’re grateful he’s not using it to mock you. He’s pretending it doesn’t exist, and so you try to do the same.

“Ready… 3… 2… 1… go!”

“Alright, neither of you idiots are at the dinner table. Minho isn’t at the table. Nerium is insufferable to listen to and-”

“Hwa,” it’s strange, to not hear his full name leave your lips, and he can’t decide if he likes it or hates it yet, given that the way you speak it is so horribly depressing.

“Do you want Daehyeon instead?”

“Cause I’m here,” he comes up behind Seokhwa, making you chuckle as the two approach you quietly.

“Can I sit?” Daehyeon asks, and you nod whilst Seokhwa takes a seat on the floor before you, “consider yourself royalty. I’ve never seen Seokhwa get on the floor for anyone.”

“It’s true. I’m only doing it because I know the cleaners were here earlier,” you laugh quietly, staring at your fingers. It’s silent, none of you saying a word.

“Shouldn’t one of you check on Jisung?”

“Don’t worry, he’s next on the list of patients,” you’re so very grateful for how they make you smile, but you also know that they’re worried and likely wondering why everyone seems to be furthest away from each other.

“So, why did you two argue?”

“How did you know that?” Seokhwa scoffs, placing his hands on your knees as he rests his chin on one of his knuckles.

“Please, it’s not that hard to figure out.”

“You don’t have to act like such a smartass all the time, you know,” Daehyeon intervenes, crossing his legs over each other to make himself more comfortable.

“Don’t be mean to him,” you tease your stylist, earning you a playful glare that eventually breaks into a beautiful smile.

“I doubt it can be that bad-”

“I’ve been talking to Hyunjin…” you interrupt Daehyeon, awaiting their response. Actually, you wait for them to yell at you, to tell you how incredibly stupid you’re being or that whatever happened, Jisung is entirely in the right. You wait for them to tell you that they’re completely on his side.

But none of that happens. You’re not sure if that’s better or worse. If them saying nothing is their silent disappointment in you, and suddenly you want to make excuses to justify it.

“We kinda knew,” Daehyeon starts, “at least we figured when he was here yesterday.”

“You saw him?”

“Saw, overheard. All the same. When I heard about what you did with the gamekeepers, I had to make sure Seokhwa wouldn’t start laughing and give us away.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever been more proud of anyone in my life,” Seokhwa laughs, and it makes your heart flutter and gives you the reassurance you need that you can tell them the rest.

“I trained with Hyunjin too,” you start, as if it’s also shameful and something meant to be hidden, “he’s good at climbing. I figured I’d give it a shot and ask if he could show me. I actually… I did alright, you know? Took a few hours but...”

Hyunjin himself had seemed awfully proud, despite getting up quicker than you even with your head start. Once the two of you were up there, you fell into a rhythm of conversation as he helped you manoeuvre around. He reluctantly showed you how to observe, told you what to look for in all the tributes below whilst purposely leaving out just enough to not tell you all that he knew, and it had almost made you forget that Jisung and you were breaking down. You only really remembered when you saw Jaemin from afar.

“I know Jisung is probably just worried. I mean… I know Hyunjin wants to kill me. I know he will.”

“Don’t say that-”

“But it’s true. Daehyeon, I’m not stupid. He’s targeted me and I know it. Of course I do. There’s nothing left for me to lose though, aside from my best friend. So if I can learn something, anything, that’ll help me get Jisung home then… why the hell not? Why not learn it from him?”

There’s a hand on your back, rubbing soothing patterns whilst Seokhwa is looking up at you with a frown, making himself look even more youthful and innocent than he already was. It makes you want to cry again, wondering about the last time you’ll see all of them.

When will you last see Minho give you a snarky insult about the games? When is the last time Daehyeon will give you something to wear? When will Seokhwa see you for the last time with such an innocence that holds so much strength and attitude in someone so young?

And when will you last see Jisung?

“Hey, hey… listen… you just have to talk to him. Just tell him exactly that. He may not like it, but I doubt he won’t understand. He loves you a lot more than I think you know. This isn’t something that’ll change anything.”

“Seokhwa’s right. Talk to him.”

“Also saves me from having to walk into another depressing situation,” Seokhwa sighs, but you know his words aren’t actually meant. If anything, you think he’d do it over and over again, oversee you both until you feel better.

“We still have Minho to talk to though,” Daehyeon adds while you rest against him, thoughts of your best friend clouding your mind.

“Right,” the man before you stands up, readjusting his incredibly elegant dress shirt, “make sure to grab some food okay? You really need it.”

You knock on Jisung’s door with two full plates of food, desperately hoping he’ll answer but not hearing anything. So you dare to glance inside, seeing his figure sat on the balcony in one of the chairs, staring straight ahead, looking like the entire world is weighing him down.

“Ji?” you step outside, but he only acknowledges your presence by moving his head to show that he heard you, “I brought you food.”

You put it on the table next to him, placing your own plate on the ground as you sit, choosing to be right across from him rather than next to him on the other free chair.

“Why are you really here?” He’s seen right through you, you suppose. Jisung knows better than to think that’s all you came for.

“I’m here because I love you. You’re my best friend. And I don’t want to go into this thinking you hate me-”

“I don’t hate you.”

“I know you’re worried. I’m worried. I’m sorry I didn’t look for Jaemin like we said. And I’m sorry that I’ve been speaking to Hyunjin-”

“Y/N,” you stop, looking up at him slowly. His eyes are sad, but what worries you more is how they seem to just… want to give up, “if you want to talk to Hyunjin, I can’t say anything. I don’t like it, but I don’t choose it. I’m just… I’m so scared.”

Jisung lifts his knees up to his chest, making himself even smaller than he’d seemed sat out here alone, and you feel horrible, “I’m so scared for you. I don’t care if I die. I know you don’t want to hear it, but I don’t care if it means you live. But I see him and I just… I know the danger you’re in and that I’m entirely helpless to do anything about it. And that scares me so fucking much that I can’t… I can’t do it. I can’t fucking go through this with you!”

You don’t know what to say. All you can do is cry with him, pulling him down into your arms while you both crumble, and he’s gripping you so tight that in this moment, you’re so afraid of ever letting him go.

“I’m sorry,” he laughs weakly against you, for he knows that really, you have nothing to apologise for. It’s everyone else around you, it’s the reaping that drew your name and then drew him right after. It’s the fact that you can’t keep your promise to each other of being the victor for it meant losing the other.

“I was angry because I… I’m trying so hard to keep you alive. I watched Jaemin constantly. What he does, how he works. I spoke to him. You just threw that away. I listen to so much of Minho’s heartless bullshit because it may actually mean you have a shot. And I just… when I saw Hyunjin it just felt like I was doing it for nothing.”

“I understand. I didn’t… to be honest, I didn’t think of it like that at all,” though it was cruel and ironic, that everything you’d been doing and trying to learn was for Jisung, and everything he’d been doing was for you.

“Y/N… I’m so afraid,” it breaks your heart to hear him admit it, making fresh tears fall down your cheeks and onto his shoulder. You wish so bad to run away, but that meant even more certain death than the hunger games themselves.

“I know. Me too, Ji. I’m terrified,” he moves his head back, resting his forehead against yours as he lets out a trembling breath of air.

“It’s just two more days,” though you already know that. You’ve been counting the days yourself, the minute you’re lifted up and watched by all the districts as you hope to survive.

The minute that you and Jisung are meant to become enemies.

Until the inevitable minute that one of you loses the other.

|| masterlist ||

any comments or feedback please let me know cause also idk how i feel with some of this chapter but it’s been dusting away for two months so... 💜 also like... i don’t wanna pull a twilight on this but like... are people team jisung or hyunjin? also don’t ask me why i decided to put na jaemin through this i adore him so like... idk why i hurt myself like this...

taglist: @crispy-chan, @hyunjinspark, @geniejunn, @she-wintersoldat, @a-person-with-void, aletacroker

next chapter

#skz hyunjin #hyunjin x reader #jisung x reader #skz han #straykidsland #series #hunger games au #skz minho #skz felix #wei daehyeon #wei seokhwa #nct jaemin

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