Tumgik
#blue star themed graphics
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
requested by anon
256 notes · View notes
thecutestgrotto · 2 months
Text
Galaxy
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
27 notes · View notes
evan-collins90 · 2 months
Text
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
AMC Studio 30 Theatre - Houston, TX (1997)
"What the design attempts to do in the 110,000 sq. ft. space is simulate a movie studio backlot and the soundstage where guests become part of the action, and the experience "rekindles the magic and memory of movie going."
Elements from sound stages and studio road cases make up the central lobby space along with a guest service desk. Images of Hollywood's glamorous stars of the past add enchantment to the balcony walls. The space is divided into three themed areas that "transport guests into fantastic worlds of Animation, Action/Adventure and Cyberspace." The food concession stands within each area carries through the theme; "Fizz, Sizzle, Pop"; Wildebeest Feast"; and "Quantum Bits." The 30 auditoria are located off the soundstage lobby and within the various themed areas.
The architecture seems to come alive in the Animation area. The space is designed to resemble an animation cel: "flat, two-dimensional, cartoon-like graphics are outlined with black lines, filled with color and applied on an exaggerated scale." The Fizz, Sizzle, Pop concession's identity and blimp directional signs seem to float in a blue sky with flat, cut-out clouds. The setting for Action/ Adventure recalls a rainforest with heavy hanging leaves, bamboo and rock "carved" directional signs. The custom wall covering features petroglyphs of cave people carrying popcorn, megaphones and movie cameras. The fiber optic eyes peering from behind the leaves in the Wildebeest Feast stand change color. They also appear above rock outcroppings down the corridor. Patrons are invited to explore an abstract, futuristic world in Cyberspace where the floor and ceiling are the same color and brushed aluminum columns rise partway to the ceiling. To create the illusion of "endless space." custom light fixtures project beams of light along the walls and backlit graphic images have neon edges. Various colored lights and a high-tech fluorescent green/orange acrylic sign help to define the Quantum Bits concession area in Cyberspace."
Designed by Kiku Obata & Co.
Scanned from the book, Entertainment Destinations by Martin Pegler (2000)
792 notes · View notes
thesharktanksdriver · 7 months
Text
Determination! (Platonic)
Warning for this chapter: fisher tigers part is much more serious. It’s talks of slavery and while it isnt too graphic it does included a lot of mature themes. If that makes you uncomfortable please skip over it
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
You find that your dreams are very disjointed
Granted, you normally don’t dream at all
It’s typically just empty blackness as you fall into unconsciousness and then back into the waking world
But when you do have a dream every once in a blue moon
It’s…odd
Even for Dream standards you think their somewhat odd
The voices of those long past that you’d met cheering you on
Flashes of multicoloured sparks
The endless expanse of space as you stare at a star
It’s an old one, a dying one
Your not sure how you know that information yet you do
And you watch it die with sparkling eyes
It implodes on itself
Creating a massive explosion of light and energy that dispersed throughout the galaxy
Bright white light shattering into every colour imaginable into the void of space
The energy going in every corner of the universe
A supernova
Your not sure how you know that word but it comes into your mind
Perhaps it hasn’t even been invented yet because you know for a fact that knowledge on stars was vastly limited
Yet that doesn’t stop you from knowing knowledge you never knew before
You reach out towards the remnants of the dead star in a trance
The cheers of the dead yelling “stay determined!”
You open your mouth to eat the star shards
And then you wake up
How curious
Sun Pirates
In your time adrift at the endless sea you had come across many people of many races
Humans, odd winged people, mermaids, devil fruit users, marines and pirates
So it doesn’t come as a surprise when you come across a group of fishmen sailing the sea
They all look over deck at you with a mixture of expressions
Some worry, others pity and some with conflict
But as they all watch a Fishman with rose red skin, a tattoo of a sun on his chest and black hair tied back with a bandanna
He ushers them aside to look Down at you from what you assume to be his ship
“Hi! Do any of you know what part of the sea I’m in?. I think it’s the north blue? But I’m not sure. You’d think with the amount of time I’ve been afloat I’d be able to tell but-“
“Kid are you alone?!”
“Do you see anyone else on this ship?”
You don’t have much of a choice before your brought upon their ship
To their surprise though your not scared?
In fact you seem rather amused at the predicament your in
One that would usually leave normal people scared shitless
But it’s easy for the entire crew to tell your not a normal kid
Especially as you seem to find interest in what type of marine animals each member is
Even more so when you ask about how the capabilities/features of said marine animal
It’s…odd how knowledgeable you are despite your young age
And when they ask about it you just say “I know from experiences on the sea”
Like the fuck is that supposed to mean when your talking about the dangerous venom of the stonefish
They are worried
Like real worried
Some are still off put by the fact your a human but with how your talking the mixture of shock and concern overpower it
God they never thought they’d be fretting over a human but when you talk in visceral odd detail about how sharks occasionally eat people when desperate or confusing them for other prey
It’s a bit freaky
Doesn’t help that it’s oddly specific which makes it seem much more personal
And how you explain all these facts with a completely wide smile not noticing how their all horrified
Their captain Fisher tiger is especially worried when he questions you about how you ended up alone at sea in the first place
He keeps pressing you on the matter but always gets the same response of “I set out to sea and haven’t looked back” and “I’m not sure if my island exists anymore. It’s not like anyone would remember me, I’ve been gone for such a long time”
That implies so much and at the same time is very vague
This poor man is a few migraines away from bashing his head against a wall
But other than that and the worry he finds you to be an interesting kid
While watching you interact with his crew he notices that you treat them all as regular people
You don’t make snide comments nor do you go off of stereotypes to categorize them
Instead you see them as their own individual people
People who were owed respect no matter their race or appearance
And even when a few aren’t exactly the most friendly towards you your respect
Giving them space as you see their uncomfortable
For a kid your emotionally aware in a way that even most adults can’t compare
You can tell if someone has deep rooted trauma and don’t push the subject
Going out of your way not to bring up bad memories associated with humans if your presence did so
There were seemingly no bad feelings about it either
Just pure understanding in your eyes from possible personal experience
Even when he harbours hate for you it’s brushed off as seemingly nothing personal
When your not conversing your quietly helping around
Somehow knowing how to raise the sails and properly clean the deck
Never telling anyone of your deeds and just doing them to help out
It’s clear by how organic it is for you that your used to doing it
Yet your own …”ship” is something more akin to a poorly put together raft
Everything about you is odd
And for a long while he isn’t sure if that’s good or bad
Fisher is a man haunted by the actions inflicted upon him
A shared trauma among all his people from humans
He does not discriminate when rescuing slaves but he still has his own afflictions towards humans
The actions of them still on his skin and baring his soul
Yet he allows you on his ship despite it
Because he knows your a child
Someone who had not harmed him nor his people
Someone who’s innocent to the horrors of the world
To the harm done by your race
He grapples with his own hated for you because of something you cannot pick
He feels guilty and horrible for it
Yet the look in your eyes says that you understand him somehow
And that makes him feel worse
A child should not understand hatred from others
Let alone understand why he feels hatred towards them
And then also accept it with such empathy
it hurts
he's reminded of the guards who used to sneer at him for being who he was
you feel no sadness due to his gaze
only kindness as you do your best to avoid him
in some sense you understand why he gazes at you that way
you can't blame him, not when you yourself had been victim of the abuse of your own kind
looked down upon as dirt
seen as lesser
what hurts worse though is that you can't solely blame one group like he and some of his men can do
your human and your hurt by other humans
maybe it's worse in some aspects
it's why you give an understanding look in your eyes despite his occasional glare
Jinbe is perhaps the one you spend the most time with on the ship other than Hatchan
There is apprehension at first but what follows after a short period of time is kindness
Your just a kid
One not guilty for the crimes of others
He can’t blame someone’s actions on you
Especially when your nothing but respectful to them all despite their hesitation due to your race
He reminds you of a gentle giant which is fitting with what marine animal he’s acquainted to
Most times spent with him are ones where he listens to your words
Finding interest and intrigue in your stories and facts of the sea
It seems far fetched a child experienced all this but the look in your eyes says it’s true
The small mementos that hang on your form like hand woven bracelets, necklaces of shells and shark teeth, a coat befit for a captain hanging on your shoulders and bandana tied around your forehead to keep your hair tangled with pearls back
Their all signs that somehow your tales are true
As amazing and horrifying as they seem their true
And it leaves him feeling anxious
Your a good kid
Maybe one of the best he’s met so far and seeing the wear and tear on you hits him hard
You put up a smile and bare through whatever someone throws your way
Never once speaking back unless your standing up for someone besides yourself
It’s admirable but he sees how it has worn you down
Once upon a time he can imagine you smiling out of actual joy
And now it’s a mechanism for you to write off your pain
Your selfless to a fault
And on the sea people take advantage of that
But perhaps you already experienced that
And it leaves Jinbe’s stomach swirling with unease
He frets over you like a mother hen when you throw all regard for safety away and when you get something simple like a paper cut cause he knows either way you won’t care to tend to your own wounds
He honestly at the point wonders if this is what being a mother feels like
But he can’t contemplate that long cause Arlong is being a dick once again
Tension with him was high before but now Jinbe has half the mind to knock him square in the jaw if he kicks you again
And now he has half the mind to shake some sense into you when you walk it off
God he needs some sort of therapist cause he does not know how to help you beyond being protective and patching you up
It’s obvious that your hurt beyond repair on the inside
The times he’s found you just simply staring off towards the sea with a dead look in your eyes is a testament to that
A call of longing in long gone innocent eyes that still retain kindness despite it all
In those moments he just sits by your side and holds you
You grasp him like a lifeline
Something anchoring you down to reality as your mind makes you remember
He tells stories of fishmen island to distract you
He noticed though that when he tells of the promise to fishmen island from joyboy something in your eyes light up
Sparkles of light within them that dance but then fizzle away after a moment along with a shiver gliding down his back for some reason
He writes it off though
Just going back to his tales
It’s under yet another moon lit night you end up staring out at sea again
Memories of the past swirling in your mind like a hurricane
You can’t help it
Not after being reminded of one life you particularly didn’t like
You didn’t mean to overhear Fisher and Jinbe but it just happened
The captain of the crew talking about his time as a slave
The horror inflicted upon him at the hands of humans
You just keep staring out at the water
Burying yourself deeper into your subconscious trying to escape
But you can’t
Too distracted by the memories that you don’t even notice the two coming out the captains quarters to find you
Vacantly staring out at sea
Your staring out at the water
A deep empty stare
Darkness swirling in your irises
Occasionally you twitch, a jolt of imaginary pain burning your back once more
You sometimes still feel the pain of the brand that luckily now doesn’t haunt your skin
You hadn’t felt it in a long while until you realized after hearing him talk the tattoo of the sun on him was his brand covered up
It served as some sort of trigger
The memories came flooding back
The pain
The torture
The screams
The death
The rot
The overwhelming plea for death in a hell that became a limbo realm
Your hands trace the symbol on the wood lightly
Every couple of months (or maybe years? Your not sure) these thoughts and memories came up
It’s a normal cycle for you
Yet now they hit harder after seeing his tattoo
Cause it makes you think of them
Of the 3 sisters, the names of you never got as your mind makes the effort to forget what you experienced
Up until now you always had the worry of forgetting
You had been alive for a long time
so much so that your memories are inconsistent and blur together
Yet your time as a slave is something clear in your head that you wish erase
To wipe clean from your mind and bury
Yet you can’t will yourself to forget them
Because of those 3 girls you’d befriended over scraps of dry bread
Of the shared pain that was all understood from the four of you
Crying silently together while huddled in the dark
Cleaning one another’s bruises
The eldest girl of the bunch holding you one night when noticing your shivering form, the other two following in the action of huddling around you
A budding friendship formed from barely any words but silent understanding and conversations though looks
You can’t abandon their memory even if it’s attached to other ones you wished to bleach from your mind
It’s there staring into the darkened water you mutter 2 words that had been erased from your mind out of fear
“Celestial dragons”
The words are spat out like a curse yet your tone is full of emptiness
It’s something only someone affected by them could say in such a tone
Perhaps that’s why Fisher now looks at you with realization
“You…you were one too?”
“Yeah, it…I think it was a couple years back, I’m not sure though. The passage of time is hard for me to notice anymore, it all blurs together. Hell I can barely remember my life before the sea, I know I had parents and then they died but…I can’t remember their faces. Anyways, I was captured and sold, ended up in some dungeon.” For a moment you pause going over your memories as you pinch your chin in thought, the way you speak about it is nonchalant yet holds a lot of untold weight “it’s a blur of pain, I remember it specifically on my back. I try to limit how clear it is cause I don’t specifically like remembering it. There were these 3 girls though, sisters who all ended up in the same cell as me. We found kinship in our situation, I gave them the scraps of food I got since they needed it more than me.”
“Do you know what happened to them?” At hearing this you turn to Jinbe, a solemn expression crossing your face as an answer
“Not sure. I…like to hope that their ok, that they found their way back home” your tone is anything but hopeful, cracking with gloom that’s evident in your eyes “but hoping is all I can do. I wished for death when I was there, hoping they’d just finish me off so I could move on. At some point though I began to hope, those 3 girls needed someone there for them and I hoped I could remain just for them”
“Why’d you escape then?”
“I didn’t have choice.”
“What do you mean? That doesn’t really make sense”
They watch as an odd look forms in your eyes
They sparkle with unknown mystery
Something old and sentimental
Something ancient despite the young face you have
“Can you keep a secret?”
They look at one another for a moment
A silent conversation between the two
Jinbe is the one who nods first, your gaze then shifting to Fisher who takes a moment to look at you
He never noticed it till now but your eyes have something about them that…seems inhuman
For a second he swears he even sees stars sparkle in them
Great big shining stars that light the night sky’s and allow sailors to navigate the treacherous seas they love and call home
Stars that when he looks at reminds him of his freedom
Of not staring at the ceiling of a cage
Stars he wished to grasp at back in the days he wore shackles
Stars that for some reason now seemed to shine brighter, as if mirroring your resolve
He nods, watching a moment of vulnerability shine through eyes that look blank for a child
Eyes that have seen horrors
Eyes that had lost their twinkle of innocence yet still retain childlike charm in viewing the world
Eyes that sparkle of something ancient and old, residing in the depths of your irises like a great deity in the void of the night sky
“Have you heard about a star that never dies?” And so you begin your tale
By the time your done your tale they both sit there in silence
A deafening and choking silence that grips at you like the old collar of rusting steel or ball and chain that used to be attached to your leg
A sign of having your freedom weighed down
Locked away
You had once tried to break that leg but the girls stopped you
The eldest of them crying for you to stop
So you did
You watch them both stay in silence
And then see the tears line their eyes
And then they crumble like a cracked heart
Jinbe falling first as he grips you
Strong and battle-worn hands now soft and gentle
Afraid that you’d fade away
Afraid what would happen if he let go
It’s what you expected from him
But then You look to Fisher and find him in a similar state much to your surprise, if not he might be even worse than how Jinbe is handling what you told
Pure grief in his eyes
Regret
Pain
Solidarity
Familiarity
And most of all empathy
It pours out from him like his tears
Like a waterfall with never ending raging water crashing down onto the rocks
it’s loud and passionate
Covers up the internal screams of the past latching back onto him, into the lingering scars
Stinging Pain sinking back into those same spots like the angry gnashing claws of a beast
He’s hurting
But so are you
Your hurting together through shared experiences and ones he could never wish to experience
Jinbe holds you for a long while
Time melts away as do the phantom pains of those long past days
You hold him back
The soft material of his yukata pulling you in even further
Warmth
Comfort
Understanding
And your unspoken words of ‘thank you’ to his of ‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry’
You let time melt away a little more as they find themselves once more
“Why did you tell us this?” Fisher asks this with tears still falling down his face. Jinbe holds you close, webbed hand behind your head as he pulls you closer. You hear the waves lapping at the boat and the beats of his heart, it thumps like a drum. Rhythmically helping your equally torn apart emotions.
“I heard you talking about your experience. I thought it’s fair that I do the same” it’s said in such a simple manner that it makes the two fishmen reel back in shock for the third time in a night. It’s said in such sincerity and innocence, as if that was something normal “an equal exchange,If you will”
The crew watch on in confusion the next morning at the expression of thinking Fisher has on his face
Along with the clear signs of crying that Jinbe and him hold
People push but neither say a word
They say it isn’t their story to tell as their eyes trail back to you sitting with Hatchan
Playing a game innocently
Obliviously
Like a regular kid
Most don’t push after their captains grim expression
The look in his eyes
Some keep their curiosity to a low lit flame yet don’t get anywhere on the account they can’t get you to spill anything and Jinbe doesn’t exactly like them being nosey
So it eventually fizzles out
Things back back to normal
You tell your tales
Show them games they’d never played
You in turn learn more about fishman and mermaid society
But then you leave just as abruptly as you appeared
It’s weird to say but at a diner with them all as shanties are sung you just randomly say that soon you’ll be leaving
And despite how most of them hate to admit it
They didn’t want you to go
Hatchan is comically crying as a few others stubbornly argue against it
That it’s dangerous and you could get yourself killed
They look to Fisher and Jinbe who had been more observant of you as of late (if that’s even more humanly possible for Jinbe)
But their met with a reaction none had thought would happen
They object
They say it’s your choice and they can’t shackle you here
The sea was your home
And so the decision for your leave was cemented
In the days leading up to it you spend time with most the crew
But they all notice that at night you and their captain look out to the sky at night
Silence conversations happening through mere looks
pure understanding
Just pure solemn understanding
None make comments on it if they see it
Don’t mention it and forget it ever happened out of respect for both parties
And when the time comes to leave they all watch (some crying even) while waving goodbye
You promise them you’d meet again
“You’ll all be at sea right? Then that means you’ll definitely see me again someday! Wait and see! Grasp your freedom strong and tight, never take it forgranted”
Fisher watches and waves as you drift off into the distance, he holds a gentle smile
He hopes he’d meet you again
Hopes that perhaps you’d somehow end up on fishman island and talk to his people
As much as he thought Otohime’s talks of humans and fishmen working together in harmony were a naive and impossible dream
Perhaps if there were more humans like you it could work
And maybe
Just maybe
It would help both sides see that in the end neither were that different from one another
In your words on the silent night before you left “we both bleed, we feel and in the end we both have the same fates don’t we?. At heart no matter if your fishman, mermaid, human or anything else we experience the same gifts of life. We are all equal in the fact we are born on this earth and die here, and with that comes the desire for freedom and the pursuit of happiness”
He and his crew still have a lot to grapple with on the road to change
But you helped them start the first steps in overcoming the hate for your kind
A young immortal human child who had seen horrors upon horrors
Inflicted by their own kind that they will never stop loving with all their heart
Because you believe that inherently almost every sentient creature is born with kindness in them. It’s the world that corrupts it
When they are asked to take a former slave girl back to her hometown he does not have any hesitation to do so
He hopes that this is the next step in overcoming his hatred
Mihawk
Mihawk thought he was going to have a nice and relaxing day
His morning had been going great, a nice glass of red wine before he trained, a good breakfast
And then when he went outside of his castle there he finds is a young child looking around confused
….god damn it
So yeah, you died and just randomly appeared on the island that houses the greatest swordsman currently in the world
Not exactly your first choice but it wasn’t the worse
Well wasn’t bad instil the swordsman himself shows up looking as confused as you were
Yeah seems like you have some explaining to do
And dying or running away wouldn’t exactly help with the endeavour either since he seems intent on an answer
So here you are
In a gothic mansion lead by Mihawk into a room as he calmly sits down and asks you to explain
Now
And so you do
Well…you do the best you can to explain your entire situation as he sits there with a blank expression
By the end he just sighs
To be honest he’s not sure if he believes it or not but he takes it as an answer for now
And after that you two form an odd friendship and routine as you spend your time on his island
To his pleasure your polite and not loud
Silently watching him train or go about his day
Along with that conversations with you are actually quite pleasant
Mihawk is a man of very few words
Only shanks is able to get him talking with the help of finely aged booze
Yet talking with you comes naturally as breathing the air around him
It’s intriguing
Especially as it seems your story isn’t a bluff for how personally and detailed your recounts of events are 
Colour him impressed
you talk of Roger in a way that only Shanks could do
Describe the gods valley event with details only found in classified marine files
Not only that but your also a good storyteller
Telling such events in glorious ways that he can’t help but listen to the liquid gold that is your voice
The treasure trove of stories that flow out your mind
He must admit that he can’t help but sit on the edge of his seat
Wanting to hear more
In this time he comes to care for you
Your a child eternally
One in a cruel world that preys on the weak
While you may be strong mentally (god knows if you hadn’t then you would’ve gone insane) but physical your not
What doesn’t help is your total and utter lack of self awareness
God knows the amount of times he’d saved your ass from being killed by Humandrills
After awhile they seem to get the memo of leaving you alone but that still doesn’t stop you from almost dying in other ways
Almost walking off a cliff
Almost falling into a river
Almost getting hit by a piece of falling stone
He is now paranoid and trails you like a shadows or has you stick around him incase of yet another near death incident
God is this what being a dad feels like? Cause that’s how Mihawk feels at this point
He has half the mind to buy a child leash or something similar
Cause if you wander off one more time and almost die he’s gonna-
You make his stress levels go through the roof
Doesn’t help you completely brush of dying as no big deal
As if being eaten that one time isn’t traumatic as hell
He wonders if his position of warlord has some sort of health benefits cause he might look into therapy
Not that you think you need it though, you think your completely fine yet he begs to differ
You find it funny how stoic he is yet you can read him like a book
He shows his growing care through actions
Like making breakfast or decorating a spare room of his castle to something more suited to your taste
The unspoken offer of “if you need a place to stay your always welcome here” through these actions
A silent way of also prepping for you leaving
He knows that moment is coming
Especially as your small “boat” drifts ashore
He’s hardly call that a boat but nether the less it floats on water and you call it a boat
In your time preparing to leave he insists on at least teaching you the basics of using a sword
The proper positioning of your grip and stance
How to give a powerful slash
You pick up quickly, years of watching experienced swordsmen coming into play
He’s proud yet worry sows itself into his brow
Your a kind soul
One that has been put through untold hell and back
Even the strongest sword can bend and break if pressure is put on the perfect point
He doesn’t know what your breaking point will be but he’s worried
Cause inevitably it’s bound to happen
He at least has some peace of mind knowing he taught you how to fight
And when he sends you off he promises that when you next meet he’d have Sword fit for you
The castle feels more lonely without your small pitter patter of footsteps
The air is still when it should be filled with your stories of old
The garden takes more effort than he remembers when your not there to pull out the weeds
The Humandrills seem to miss your presence
It’s odd but you’d left such an impact in such a small amount of time
Mihawk wouldn’t have it any other way though
Hiriluk
Recently on the spring island you found yourself on there had been rumours of a thief going by
Normally this wouldn’t had caught your attention
But one day as you walk past an odd eccentric man with Snow White hair in a ridiculous manner with clearly stolen objects you can’t help but be intrigued
Especially as he shifts into an alleyway, leaning against the grimy wall with a hand over his heart
Coughs racking his entire form
Almost crumbling down as the subsequent spoils of his stealing fall as well
It’s then and there you become invested in this odd man
His story
So you decide to help him
For someone’s who’s a thief you’d thinks he’d be less enthusiastic about giving out his name
But your sorrily mistaken (in a good way) as the man introduces himself as Hiriluk
A master thief of the grand line
A plunderer of countless treasures and various tales
You nod along
Listening intently to his words as you help walk him to his hideout
The poor man is still shaken after his illness acting up again
Apparently as of late it’s been worse, so much so that he fears his days are now limited
But despite that he keeps a quite chipper attitude
Somehow finding enjoyment despite his circumstances
He’s…much like yourself in that sense
Finding joy even in the bleak conditions of your reality
It…is nice in some sense
To find someone a lot like yourself in mindset
Makes conversation much more interesting as you both talk of similar viewpoints
Much like you he is plagued with a curse that follows him everywhere he goes
From island to island
No matter the pace he canning escape his disease
A factor of his life that he must now deal with as he enjoys the time he has left
He’d given up on a cure by now
But…despite that you can’t help but research a bit to at least try
He appreciates the effort but solemnly admits that he’s tried everything
Hell, his island is known for their doctors and they couldn’t help him
He’s a lost cause like anyone with white lead disease
It’s a fact he accepts
And sadly you do so as well
Your stand only works for you
It’s entire purpose is for its user and not for anyone else
Not versatile or has any multiple uses
At least not that you knew of anyways
So on that factor you can’t do anything
So as you accept that fact you instead focus on spending time with the man
Listening to him get drunk and talk of someone named Kureha
An “old witch” with a stubborn edge and sharp tongue
But also has a kind heart
Someone who became a doctor for a reason, to help others as best she could even if she caused some chaos in the process
An odd one just like him (and you he adds with a smile) someone who didn’t fit in with the crowd
But maybe that was ok
Being different could very much be a curse for several reasons
Especially in a judgmental society that is maintained by the world government
But that otherness was also a blessing
Weirdness serving as a catalyst for so many wonderful things
For new ideas
For stubborn creativity that wouldn’t be snuffed out but instead burn bright
For brining together the people society looked down upon and giving them a chance to rise up
Your stay on the island is coming to a close but despite that Hiriluk doesn’t panic or seem depressed at the thought
Instead he finds happiness in the time still left
The conversations that have been spoken
The time he has left in this world being used for something truly nice
Not just stealing
Instead now truly engaging with life
The spring island your both on is now at its fullest bloom
The place was somewhat famous for how beautiful it was but neither of you had yet to see it
So the day before you go you asked if he’d like to go see it with you before you left
A last hurrah
One that would be spent watching the cherry blossoms in full bloom and have lunch
He agreed
The next morning is spent with him getting snacks of all kinds
Him packing them in a small basket as you lead him with the directions you got from locals
The two of you go up the hill overlooking the light pink trees in full bloom
His hand gripping yours as he goes still in shook
The sight is breath taking
Even the air from your lungs is seemingly sucked out at the sight of the trees in full bloom
The petals gently cascading down like snow around you
Getting stuck in your hair and pooling in his cupped hands
His eyes tear up and stare down at the pink petals
It’s breathtaking
And for the first time in a long while he feels ok
There was no blockage in his chest
Nor the looming grip of death on his shoulders
He felt cured
Like an average man that he always wanted to
The dream of his that died long ago in a doctors office when they said it was incurable
But now as he stares he feels hope
Something igniting in him in place of his Illness
These small fluttering petals had an impact on him just as you had
It cured him somehow
You showing him this magical sight cured him
And now he wanted to do that for others
He wanted to show the people of his bleak winter island this magnificent sight
To see pink instead of the white fluttering snow
To see trees not covered in snow that dampened their beauty
To feel the air escape their lungs
The lunch goes by quickly as does your leaving but both of you do so with a smile
He sets off with a new goal and you wish him luck
Telling him that you believe he’d somehow come up with a solution cause people like the two if you always did somehow
He smiles
When he returns back to his home island he sets out to be a doctor
To help cure others just as you had done with him
Some of The petals he collected that day kept in a small glass jar he kept as a souvenir and for testing
When Kureha calls him crazy he takes the words in pride
Recalling back on your time spent together
That odd little kid who had a spirit beyond their days
One who would humour his ramblings
Took him to that fateful place of blooming Sakura that would go on to change his life course forever
A parting gift in both an experience and in changing his life for the good
So he works on bringing that miracle to the winter island he lives on
Despite how impossible it seems he tries
And he tries and tries
And he keeps going despite how many times he is pushed down by yet another failure
You motivate him
The gift you gave him that he wants to share with others motivated him
His new student that in a lot of ways reminds him of you motivated him
Chopper sometimes still wonders why Hiriluk had taken him in
It lingers on the small reindeer’s mind
And it’s glaringly obvious what he’s thinking making the old “doctor” laugh
“Us weirdo’s have to stick together. I learned that from a friend of mine” as he says this the small blue nosed reindeer watches as the man pulls a framed photo off the wall. In it is him and a child with a large smile. “Hopefully one day you’ll meet them.”
“You…do you think they would accept me?”
Hiriluk let’s our a large laugh at that, clutching his sides as small tears line his eyes “if they hung around a old crazy coot like me then I’m sure they’d love you”
His young apprentice feels hope at his words
Sometimes silently staring at the picture with faint hope that one day he’d meet the doctor-….no his dad’s old friend
Perhaps in the future
But for now he had to help him find a cure
His sickness is getting worse and chopper doesn’t now if he could live with himself if he didn’t find a cure
His only lead as of now is some mushroom that can apparently cure anything
It’s a long shot but he has to try
He gazes as the photo once more
Hiriluk’s smiling face staring back along with your own
He’ll make sure Hiriluk will get to see you again
He promises it
With that the young reindeer sets off in the snow
Whenever you see the cascading petals of cherry blossoms you wonder how that odd doctor was doing
Brook
It was at reverse mountain that you had found yourself being picked up by a particular crew
The rumbar pirates had originated in the west blue
A musical band of jolly singing pirates with instruments of all kinds
All of which varied from different islands and cultures
Brough together in musical harmony
It’s amazing to you how music seems to come to them wordlessly
They play and magic is produced from their songs
So much so a baby whale follows them in their journey and is now waiting for them to return
A promise they intend to keep as the travel the sea like any good crew
Whilst the captain and crew are welcoming and friendly there’s one person in particular your drawn to
Brook is a fun and free soul
Constantly with a smile or chuckling out his odd but charming laugh
The musician teaches you piano as best he can
His hands guiding yours as the crew eagerly watch with bright smiles
Eventually as they sing and dance he has you play side by side with him
Placing his top hat in your head as they all call you “mini brook”
It’s fun
Especially as the giant of a man picks up his violin and lets you play alone
The two of you stringing together a melody that the others join in on
Dancing and singing with slurred speech and jumbled steps
Those nights feel like a haze in your mind
One with a rosy tinted filter overtop those memories
Of the songs sung
The dancing as the crew took turns showing you their groove
Taking your hands into their own and your feet atop theirs as they showed you to dance
But then the music began to die
Despite your many deaths you’d experienced and saw of pirates
This was one that was common yet still chilling
Illness
Honestly with how many ships you’d been on your surprised you’d never experienced a death like this
And it’s certainly one you’d never thought they’d have to suffer through
It starts off as one person
And then it spreads
Brook and the others keep you away from the sight
Telling you that they were just hungover
You don’t tell them you know hangovers don’t last several days
As others being to fall Brook keeps to at least trying to keep the facade of things are fine in front of you
Even as he has to take the place of their captain
He has a good facade
But you hear his sobs at night
For his fallen Crew and the fact it’s still spreading
And for you
By god is he worried for you
They’d all talked of the possibility of having you take your small shipped tied to their own and leave
But they all agree it’s too big of a risk
Their at the middle of the sea, it would be a death sentence if they let you go on your own
They can’t have that happen
Even if there’s still a chance here that you’ll die
There’s still the possibility that at least someone will spot their ship
That help can come and at least rescue you
So for now they have you stay
The symptoms come slowly
You feel more tired
Burning up
Laboured breath
Their all mortified as you one day pass out on deck
When you wake up your tucked into bed
Nearby someone sobs
You recognize his voice and blurred figure despite your senses being dulled
Small shaky hands reach for his
And he reciprocated the action repeating that he’s sorry
That he’s so sorry
That it’s his fault
That he was supposed to keep you safe
You say it isn’t his fault but it falls on deaf ears
He keeps crying even as he coughs
You keep saying it’s alright even as it feels harder to breath
Eventually even though everyone is dead or on the brink of dying they decide to do one last number
One last piece
Binks booze
You sit beside Brook having to lean against him for support as both his and your hands drift along the ivory keys
The songs plays full force
The few left playing the tune
Some cheerfully sing with smiles and dance withe one another
But they fall first
Dying with smiles despite it all
You sing in their place along with those who are left
The singing goes down by one as yet another falls down
Violin clattering to the floor
You sing louder in his place despite how your lungs burn and throat feels as if needles scrape against it
Another violinist goes down after this
Brook shakes beside you
He keeps up a smile
You do so as well but tears escape your eyes
A quartet
The cello goes down
A trio
His smile wavers and tears trail down his face now
He’s breaking
The final goes down now
It’s just you and Brook left, but you feel yourself getting weaker
The edges of your eyes have black dotes and every time you close them it’s harder to open them once more
A duet
You keep playing for his sake
He looks down at you sobbing silently as he continues to play
Their flag waves silently in the wind
“I’m not sure how longer I can play…do you think you can do a solo?”
Tearfully he nods
Playing as you sing
Continuing even after the lyrics stop flowing from your mouth and you slump down into his side
A solo
He cries
Eventually the piano comes to a close
Despite there being no skeleton of you to put with the rest of the memorial Brook doesn’t question it
The sight of Your body disappearing into golden light was just a trick of the mind all those years ago to help with the grief of him failing you
He knows he went insane a long time ago
He’s spent years alone at sea mulling over their deaths, of yours and the promise to Laboon
His mind is long gone as he wanders the old tattered ship that used to be filled with song
Despite it all he tries to put up a mask of being happy
But he never sings
Never plays music
He can’t deal with another solo
Can’t deal with that last performance
Sometimes he thinks of the songs they made
The one the crew made about you that surprisingly got popular
Based off the odd tales of stars you talked about
An undying one
He wonders if it still plays
You remember they made a song about you
It’s long forgotten to the many new sailors of the sea
But on occasion you hear it from old souls. Those who had traveled the seas for many years and had retained the songs and myths now forgotten to the new
The sound of it always makes you smile, but it is tinged with sadness as you do so
Whenever it is sung or Binks Booze you promised yourself you’d always join in
A promise to them, that kind musical crew all those years ago that suffered a horrible death from a bad stroke of luck
You carry their memory along with Laboon
Whenever you end up at reverse mountain you always sing the songs they once did to ease the whales heart ache
It can only do so much but Laboon at least stops jutting against the mountain momentarily
Wanting to one day reunite with those jolly sailors
You wish you could one day do the same
But for now you carry their memories
Their songs that house the remnants of their souls
Sometimes you swear you see their rotting ship
But you always wave it off as missing them
Of delusions of your mind as you stare out into the darkness of the sea
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
350 notes · View notes
naomihatake · 7 months
Text
In search of freedom (Ch. 7)
Tumblr media
7. What do you wish for?
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
⠀⠀➺ fic masterlist
⠀⠀➺ Chapter 6 ; Chapter 7 ; Chapter 8
⠀⠀⠀⠀She's been searching for freedom her entire life and everytime she thought it was laying right in front of her eyes, she was mistaken. She was running around the East Blue, seeking herself and her dreams, meeting people she never forgot. No matter how much she traveled, she could only catch a glimpse of peace before realizing everything would crumble at her feet.
⠀⠀⠀⠀Maybe it was destiny that brought her on that ship with three strangers — foolishly, that's what she tried to believe when the moon shined beautifully and hope settled in her chest, squeezed by the same ribcage where feelings were blooming.
Pairing: female!reader x OPLA Zoro Roronoa
Warnings for this chapter: angst, graphic depictions of deaths and fatal wounds, self-harm, brief suicidal mention, canon-typical violence, tiny bit comfort at the end
Word count: 8,4 k
Theme song: fic spotify playlist (click on the link)
A/N: I'm glad I could finish the chapter so early and there are some scenes in here that I really loved writing. Also, I want you to pay close attention to the fight Witch has with the fishman. The anime watchers and manga readers that got far enough with One Piece will probably get it faster ;)
I'd be happy to hear your opinions on this chapter. Every interaction is appreciated and thank you so much for sticking to this story till now <3
The reader is referred to as "Witch" because I have no intentions of using "Y/N".
Tumblr media
"What is your dream?"
While she would've rather expected that question to come from Luffy, the tipsy Zoro by her side, leaned against the mast, seemed to be rather intrigued by her reasons to remain with Luffy. 
When she turned her head towards him, one of her suppositions was proved to be right: the stars above shone beautifully, but nothing could compare to the swordsman's brown eyes. In the dark, his dark chocolate irises were swallowed by pupils dark as the depths of the oceans. No. Dark and beautiful as the night sky she teared her gaze away from. 
Her silence could've been interpreted in many ways and Zoro might become suspicious, but his already flushed state seemed to swallow everything in. He only looked back at her. 
The witch couldn't exactly spot the specific aura of his gaze. He wasn't only flushed because of the alcohol, no. He seemed… soft, even. His shoulders were relaxed and the grip on the empty bottle loosened up. 
His question was simply something she didn't expect, as he was always down to earth, similarly to Nami. However, there was a tiny difference — he proudly admitted he wanted to become the strongest swordsman in the world. 
"I—," the word left her lips like a mere whisper. 
Her determination faltered under the weight of the alcohol. Until that moment, after sharing some ugly parts of her past, his remarks made her laugh and chuckle happily. 
"I want to be free."
One simple wish that could have so many connotations. 
"I don't see any rope around your wrists."
His voice was like a low rumble coming from the depths of his chest, such a pleasant and soothing sound. 
Their eye contact didn't break. Their gazes were locked together and she couldn't bring herself to be mad about it, especially when she was drunk enough to let vulnerable sides of her poor soul see the light of the stars. 
Faint, shy, but it was there. 
"I want to be free from myself and the expectations everyone has of me," she clarified. "Free from the rules of the world, written or unwritten. Free from the Marines that are now on my tail."
"Why did you become a pirate if you wanted to be free from the Navy?" 
"The sea always looked like a place where I could be free," she admitted with a weak voice. The same tiny voice her younger self used to have when dreaming of a future. 
Zoro knitted his eyebrows together and blinked, staring at the small beauty mark on her face he just noticed. He seemed deep in thought or rather trying to figure out the meaning of her words. 
He was rarely so concentrated outside of critical situations like fights. 
"Are you free now, then?" 
With a gulp, she shook her head. 
"No." 
One word. One heavy weight on her soul. 
"How do you wanna be free?" came another question from the swordsman. 
"I have no clue."
The cage around her was a metaphor. She always felt like iron bars squeezed her tighter and tighter, until she broke down, a situation that occurred only a few times a year and was always hidden from prying eyes. 
Realistically, there was no free place in that world. The Marine wasn't by any means as righteous as they wanted to look like and they were certainly not saviors. Of course, there were plenty of pirates that did nothing else but harm everyone and everything they laid eyes on. Some of them had ugly souls, dark and dirtied by greed. 
However, there were plenty of people that were so-called pirates and yet never harmed unless they had to protect someone. Like Luffy or Usopp. They never took anyone's life. 
Like her father. 
She wasn't one of those pirates. The witch has killed people, even if never solely for blood thirst. Or, at least, not yet. She deserved to die, to never see the light of a new day. 
A personal justice system — that's what she's always had, that's what she grew to learn about from the crew she left barely a year ago. 
Deep down, she knew she would never be free. There was no liberty for a monster. 
When she looked at Zoro, she also wanted him to taste freedom on his tongue. Maybe he already knew what that felt like. 
If she couldn't find her own freedom, she could settle for protecting her friends' freedom. That would be more than enough, right? 
"Aren't you at fault for your own lack of freedom?" Zoro pulled her out of her thoughts. 
His question might've sounded as insensitive and accusing, but she was aware the swordsman didn't mean it that way. He always had his own way with words and, unfortunately, he got misinterpreted most of the time. 
He was simply stating a probable truth. 
Then I suppose I should get rid of my—
No. There was no time to think of such things, even if she was drunk and vulnerable. Admitting that to his face would be shameful of her. 
Maybe she wasn't that ready to share secrets yet, was she? 
"I most probably am," the witch whispered as she averted her eyes back to the sky splattered with stars. "At the end of the day, I'm the only one taking into account what others say and how they affect me." 
She didn't know exactly how to pursue freedom, but she was certain of something else: if that beautiful future stood in front of her, Zoro was probably one of the ways to find out. 
•┈┈┈•┈┈┈•┈┈┈•
The witch wasn't able to find freedom if she died at that moment, with the blue hand of a fishman gripping at her throat. There was a lingering ache at the crown of her head from when he pushed her against the wall. 
Her eyes squeezed shut while life seemed to slip from her hold, the same way her fingers lost their force while clutching onto the fishman's forearm. She had to find a way to get out of there, to breathe, because her lungs were already begging for some oxygen. Her vision was getting blurry and the pain in her entire throat spread like fire through her body. 
Maybe it was because of her hyper-aware state, but she could swear the wound on her bicep was bloody again considering the sharp pain shooting through her arm. 
No. There was no time to die and beg for forgiveness — and whose forgiveness could she ask for if she stays alive? Exactly. No one's. 
The witch didn't know if she breathed in air or it just felt awfully familiar to that sensation, but her lungs suddenly swallowed something fresh and powerful. It ate the pain hungrily, destroying every doubt in her mind the more she thought of her promises, of the corpse of a father who still whispered in her dreams "go find your freedom".
The grip on the fishman's arm grew tighter, stronger, until her nails dug into the scales and penetrated them. Her fingers ached, the skin around her nails scratched harshly by the sharp broken scales. Fresh blood surfaced. 
Her eyes opened up slowly, burning with each one of her promises, this time including her own — If I can't find freedom, I'll make it. 
Every nerve in her body burnt and she tasted drugs on the tip of her tongue, an addiction threatening to clutch onto her and take control. 
Power. 
The witch has never been one to love power, to ache for it and yet, there she was, with a devil-like grin growing on her face. 
Power. 
It ate her alive and she loved that sensation. The steadiness of her heartbeats, the cage of ribs that broke to make place for that overwhelming feeling. 
Power will never take control of me. 
Her eyes bore holes through the fishman's entire being. There was no need for her revolver when two shining irises had the same effect. 
Her vision and mind has never been clearer. 
The fishman was struck. A weight settled on his shoulders, pulling him down, doubts flickering in his head. 
Claws sank into his eyes, into his face and throat, clutching at his heart, threatening to pull it out of his chest. 
The fishman stumbled and dropped her. 
His strong grip on her throat left blooming red marks. They were ugly and her neck felt tender, but her nerves didn't register the pain properly because of the adrenaline running through her veins. 
The witch immediately took the opportunity, despite the lack of air in her lungs. She crouched down to take her gun, but before she could shoot again, a loud sound got her attention. 
The door of the restaurant broke at the floor underneath her when Luffy got thrown right into it by Arlong.
On the side of the stairs where Usopp crawled down was Sanji struggling to get back up after he cracked his back at the harsh contact with a table. 
People were hiding under chairs and bars from the fishmen's wrath. 
Her anger was fueled by each single detail. One of her shoulders felt light, while the other was heavy. The monster lurking inside her had one eye open — the same one that pushed her to cuss out Mihawk back when Zoro got a cut through his chest. The same monster she wouldn't trade anything for, because wrath has always been her forte. 
The small flame of revenge started burning in the pits of her stomach. Steadily. Still vague, easy to control. 
She ran down the stairs and passed by Usopp, who was at that moment helping Sanji get on his feet. The witch got out of Baratie, suddenly stopping in her tracks when she saw Arlong standing a few meters in front of her. 
That fucker—
Luffy shouted something along the lines of Gum Gum and she knew that was his fight to deal with. 
However, it was a fight she didn't know if he would win at that time, considering the way Arlong only turned his head to the side when he got punched in the face by Luffy's fists. The fishman spat blood on the wooden floor while he stepped closer and closer to the Straw Hat. 
In a fraction, the punch Luffy received sent him flying in the sails of a boat and he fell down with a thud, grunting. It was stupid of him to provoke Arlong further, but Luffy has never been to give up or let his enemies feel the satisfaction of a victory without a proper fight. 
The witch wondered if her captain didn't break a rib or two after being punched and thrown around for so long. He still had the energy to throw his fists into Arlong's face with all he's got, using his rubber arms to attack from meters away. 
His Devil Fruit powers were definitely the only reason why he was alive. 
But not for much longer. 
Arlong muttered something with a growl and once he sank his hand in the water, the witch knew it wasn't going to end well. 
The fishman didn't just splash Luffy; no, he soaked the Straw Hat to the bone and the hit with both sea water and brute force got Luffy to the ground. It was his biggest weakness. 
The witch's eyes widened when she saw Arlong grabbing at Luffy's shirt and lifting him in the air, opening his mouth to reveal razor-sharp teeth. 
Her feet carried her for only a second and she almost shouted out for Luffy out of despair — she would rather be stabbed in the stomach countless times than feel helpless again. Out of instinct, the hand holding the gun raised, aiming at—
"Arlong, wait!" 
Nami. 
The witch snapped her head towards her friend. 
The orange-haired woman stomped her feet and came, leaving the Going Merry behind her. The tank-top she wore exposed a strange old tattoo on her left shoulder. She was clutching tightly onto a thin and long cylinder. 
"I have it," she addressed Arlong. "I have the map." 
The map. 
"I got it for you, just like I said I would."
The witch blinked away the confusion that almost made her hazy and stepped in front of Nami, stopping her from moving forward. 
"Nami," the witch knitted her eyebrows together. "What's going on?" 
Nami's eyes held no clear emotion besides a flicker of anger. 
"Exactly what you knew all along."
It was one of those times when the witch wished her tarot was wrong. 
She shook her head, one of her hands gripping at Nami's wrist. 
"Nami," the witch squeezed her friend's hand tighter, scared it would slip from between her fingers. 
"Let go."
Nami snatched her arm out of the witch's hold and her jaw ticked. She wasn't only annoyed, there had to be more in her eyes. 
"You cannot possibly tell me you want to do this," the witch insisted, stepping even closer, until she was one breath away from the navigator. 
Their intense gazes clashed together and none of them let the walls fall. 
"But here I am, ain't I?" Nami cocked an eyebrow. 
When the orange-haired passed by, her shoulder collided harshly with the witch's who was still stuck in place. 
No fucking way. 
The witch needed time to think, she had to search for some clarification with her tarot cards. She needed more time to read the energy, to figure out the situation, to understand what, where, why and when. Nothing made sense and time passed by so fast she couldn't even process it all. 
Luffy was so disoriented he didn't even pour enough force in his hands to get rid of Arlong's grip on the collar of his shirt. 
"Nami?" he firmly spoke. "What are you doing?"
"I tried to tell you, Luffy," Nami continued walking towards him. "I was never on Your crew. I only joined up with you so I could steal the map." 
"I don't believe that," Luffy denied. 
"That's because you only believe what you want to believe. Doesn't make it true."
Nami, for fuck's sake, we both know you're lying—
The witch opened her mouth, ready to argue, to yell from the top of her lungs, but with one glance thrown to Arlong, she stopped. Saying the wrong thing might get Nami in great danger and she might lose credibility in front of him. 
"Sister Nami's a loyal member of the Arlong Pirates," Arlong started speaking, pointing with his chin towards the one in question. "She has been for years."
The witch didn't know why she still protected Nami, but she was certainly not going to give up on her friend at that time. 
Nami shoved the map in Arlong's nose to get his attention to her — or maybe the witch has gotten to another level of delusion. 
"Why waste your time killing a Devil Fruit eater?" Nami reminded the fishman as if it wasn't a death sentence. "Let the sea do it for you."
"Nami, this is too far, cut the crap—" the witch revolted immediately. 
Before she could make any step towards Luffy, she was grabbed by the back of her neck and launched into the wall of Baratie with sheer force — it was one of Arlong's asshole crewmates. She groaned in pain and squeezed her eyes. The shoulder she fell on sent sharp spikes through the entire left side of her body. 
She cussed out, struggling to get back to her feet when Arlong let Luffy drown in the sea. The witch let out a shout of the Straw Hat's name and one of her knees betrayed her, resulting in another unceremonious fall to the ground. 
Lucky for her, an arm curled around her front to help her up, a silver ring resting on the finger of the man. 
"Luffy fell in the water, go now!" she didn't even wait to be properly raised to her feet to urge Sanji to jump. 
Her aching body and the lack of strength wouldn't help her get Luffy out of the sea. She didn't even clearly notice when the cook left her side and jumped into the sea, too caught up in the agitation inside of her. Events passed by her faster than light. All she saw was a discarded shirt. 
She wasn't sure because of what powers she managed to walk on the deck, at the edge where the other two should appear from under the water. Her head turned when she recognized Usopp from her peripherals.
"Luffy?" he asked, panic building up as his hands shook. 
The witch would have responded if not for the answer to appear right under their noses. Sanji held Luffy tightly by the collar and pushed him on the dock with Usopp's help who dragged him. 
The witch extended her hand to bring Sanji on the dock with them and since then, things turned blurry despite her open eyes. 
•┈┈┈•┈┈┈•┈┈┈•
Now the only woman in the crew, the witch sat on the floor in the room that used to be Nami's, her back leaning back against the wooden wall. With eyes devoid of life, she stared up at the ceiling while pulling her knees closer to her chest, once again trying to hide herself from everyone. From everything. 
On Nami's bed there was still an inert swordsman and he didn't even flinch when she tentatively said his name after entering the room. 
"Fucking dammit," she squeezed her eyes shut. 
Nami left. Zoro was unconscious. Luffy almost drowned if not for Sanji. Usopp was bluffing about how "everything has to be alright". 
She didn't know if he was trying to convince himself or her. 
Because everything was wrong. It felt wrong. 
The witch took in a deep breath, but only half of the oxygen she inhaled got to her lungs and brain because of her constricted throat. Tears were sitting on her waterline for the fourth time that day. 
Too much happened since the crack of dawn and it wasn't even sunset. 
Exhaustion made her look years older than she was. Her head fell forward, forehead hitting her knees before the light sneaking through the windows could fall on her face. 
Tears filled with anguish ran down her cheeks and it was the first time she allowed herself to let at least an ounce of the weight on top of her body dissipate. The droplets of pain melted down her cheeks and sank into the material of her shirt. 
The witch sneaked her arms around the back of her thighs and squeezed herself tighter in a ball, lips trembling. Her breathing was ragged not only because of the lump in her throat, but also because of the firm grip that fishman had on her neck. The skin was sensitive to the touch and it hurt to swallow. 
Every event of that day got added one on top of another. Her fight with Zoro, the fact that he was unconscious after that dwell, Nami leaving just like the witch expected to.
Betrayal. Maybe I was a fool for trusting her. 
Or am I? 
Teeth sank so deeply into her lower lip it drew blood and she tasted copper on the tip of her tongue. 
Pain. That was right. 
The only right thing happening that day was the physical pain. Palpable, real, bringing her back to earth. 
Except that time it failed, because the tears didn't stop. She squeezed her eyes shut as sharp pain traveled through her body, from her chest into her limbs, puncturing each nerve, shaking her to the core. 
Her soul screamed, caged by sorrow, an ugly animal that sank its fangs into her flesh and ripped from the inside. Blood was pouring from her heart, soaking organs and bones, melting into the skin like acid. It burnt so fastly, yet it never seemed to end. With a throbbing head, she couldn't hold the pain back anymore. 
However, no sound ever left her lips parted in a silent scream. No whimper, no sob, no cry for help. The room was filled with silence as a heartbeat drummed in her ears in an agonizing rhythm. 
I shouldn't have come on this ship in the first place. Only if I had been wise enough to leave when I got the chance. Syrup Village was a perfect option, I could've gone on another ship and continued my mindless traveling. Why did I bother myself with this? Why did I suddenly decide it was a great idea to be part of another crew when this only has brought me suffering? 
With each second, she willingly aimed the gun at herself and every word was like a bullet. 
I should've left. I would've been happier. I should've left it all behind when I realized this won't go well. Fuck the premonitions, fuck the destiny, damned be the world. 
A body stripped of clothes and skin, only burnt flesh left behind the monster's bites. Broken ribs and a shattered heart pumping a meaningless life. 
As seconds passed by one after another and her tears came to an end, the gentle swinging of the ship pulled her into a half-asleep state.
She noticed when Luffy came into the room and she was aware of his position on Zoro's bed — the cracking of the wood gave him away. As the Straw Hat talked, she only heard the swordsman's name being spoken, some words here and there, but most of his monologue was muffled. 
He probably thought she was asleep because of her slow and steady breathing. 
Exhaustion was clawing at her muscles and brain, but something kept her aware of the surroundings for a few more minutes. 
Everything turned pitch black in her perspective. A husky and deep voice made her believe she was dreaming, the tips of her mouth curling shily upwards. 
Only if it would've been reality. 
"Zoro!" 
Her entire body flinched and she raised her head, wide eyed. If she didn't know any better, she would've said her soul jumped out of her. 
"Luffy?" she whispered, confused on why he yelled the swordsman's name—
"You're not dead!" Luffy shouted again, loud enough for everyone in Baratie to hear. 
He's alive? the witch thought to herself. I really heard his voice. 
Luffy crawled on top of Zoro and squeezed the life out of him. Literally. 
"Now I wish I was," she heard Zoro mumble between grunts. 
He was alive. 
The witch's lungs filled with fresh air for the first time that day. Relief washed over her and her body relaxed, shoulders deflating as some of the weight sitting on them fell into the sea below. 
While leaning her body against the wall, she managed to get up just to get a better view of the swordsman who was squinting his eyes at the ceiling. A heavy sigh escaped her lips, head falling forward. 
At least one thing went right, didn't it? 
After Luffy got up from above Zoro, the swordsman managed to take some deep gulps of air, chest raising up and falling rhythmically. 
"I had the strangest dream that Nami left," he said with a frown on his face as he closed his eyes. 
"She did," the witch responded faintly. 
There wasn't enough courage in her to look at him as she said that, instead choosing to glance at the window. 
Zoro looked again at the ceiling and realized her voice was too faint for all of that to be a mere joke, a prank thrown at him for staying unconscious for… for how long? 
"It's my fault," Luffy said with his chin lowered.
From the corner of his eye, Zoro saw the witch place a hand on their captain's shoulder. 
"We'll find a way."
There was a promise etched onto her fragile smile. As if a simple brush of air or one wrong world could make her crumble. 
But she didn't. Instead, she threw a knowing look to Zoro and silently told him to talk with Luffy. She knew the Straw Hat needed his first mate's support at that moment. 
What confused Zoro the most was watching the witch get out of the room without too much of a word. Her hair bounced as she stepped further away from him and their friends. Even as his ribs and body hurt at every inhale, he wanted to understand the real reason for her leaving. 
Last time they talked, she expressed worry. What happened in the meantime? What the fuck went wrong? 
There was a fat chance she was still mad at him for whatever reason. Sure, she was calm, collected, but he could swear he's seen fire burning in her eyes more than just once and a grin splayed on her face at the thrill and adrenaline of a fight. She snapped at him when they fought and he had to admit it would've been sadder if she treated him with silence. 
However, he didn't know if that was silence or something more. 
Weird, he concluded. 
His attention went back to Luffy. The swordsman couldn't manage watching the ever happy-go-lucky captain speak like a ghost. 
"You didn't do anything wrong." He seriously hoped he could find the right words to bring Luffy back to reality. 
There's no way that crew would fall apart without a proper fight. What has been was just the beginning. 
"You acted like a captain."
"But the crew is falling apart," Luffy pulled his lips in a tight line. 
"No, it's not," the green-haired firmly affirmed. 
Maybe a lot more than Zoro thought has happened, but that was definitely not the end. 
•┈┈┈•┈┈┈•┈┈┈•
Before the sun could set and hide in the sea, they gathered some supplies for their new journey. They found out from the clown head — who they found out told Arlong where to find the Straw Hats — that Nami was most probably heading to Conomi Islands, specifically Cocoyashi Village. Sanji joined their crew, which made Luffy jump in excitement for the second time that day. 
Luffy's folded arms were resting over the railing of Going Merry while he stared down at the water splashing against the ship. 
"Does it always take so long?" Luffy spoke so softly. 
Sanji chuckled with the fishing rod in his hand as he waited for a fish to catch the bait. 
"We've only been here for two minutes, be patient," the cook reminded him. "Some days, they bite as soon as you drop the line and some days, it takes hours."
Then, he threw a knowing glance towards Luffy with an arch of his eyebrow. 
"But we're not talking about fishing, are we?" 
"I highly doubt it," the witch mumbled as she curled her fingers around her tarot deck. 
She didn't dare to shuffle through the cards again, a side of her afraid of what was waiting for them. It felt uneasy everytime she got the impulse of taking the cards out and finding out which one of them holds the truth. 
The witch was leaning with her back against the railing, not so far away from the Straw Hat, pressing her fingertips into the old box made of cardboard that fit perfectly in her hands. 
Luffy smiled towards Sanji before he stared into the horizon with hope. 
"I just want to know if Nami's okay."
"A beautiful, talented woman does not choose to ally herself with a pirate like Arlong," Sanji said firmly, convinced of his beliefs. "Nami clearly needs to be rescued." 
The witch breathed in deeply and widened her eyes, trying to find the right words to tell them what she knew. A pair of heavy steps caught her attention and she immediately recognized the chiming filling the air. 
Zoro. His hand was resting on his Wado Ichimoji — his only sword now. 
"Her tattoo says different," he said. 
The way he looked at the witch was bringing back to life some shattered pieces of her soul. He might look serene when sleeping, but he was better that way — wide awake and an asshole. 
Also, he noticed something she couldn't pinpoint. There must've been a scar on her face, most probably. At first, he only stared at her face, just to lower his gaze. Oh. She didn't sleep for two days and got in a fight with a fishman, which left some nasty bruises on her bare neck. 
"Well," Sanji argued, "tattoos don't tell the whole story. And like any woman, she's a mystery to be unraveled."
"Am I supposed to feel flattered?" the witch arched her eyebrow at the cook after she turned her head towards him. 
Right at that moment, Zoro stepped between her and Luffy, restricting her view. All she could see was his chest, bandaged and with a red patch in the center. 
"You should change your bandages," she looked up at him. 
However, the witch was hesitant when she did so. As if the man in front of her could vanish in thin air. 
Zoro turned to Sanji and decided to completely ignore her comment. 
"Nami made her choice." 
The cook immediately frowned, creases appearing on his forehead. His scowl was deeper than Zoro's.
"You don't know why," Sanji retorted. 
As if getting snapped by Usopp, Zoro scoffed: 
"The only thing I want to hear from you are dinner specials. You don't know Nami."
"Sounds like you don't know her either, Mosshead," Sanji spat with a taunting smile on his lips. 
"Oh God, stop, you two," the witch sighed heavily, annoyed. 
Just to get the swordsman's attention to her, she poked his back with the tip of her finger, digging deep enough to receive a light flinch. It seemed like she took him by surprise. She bent her back more as she continued resting her elbows on the railing to glance at Luffy over Zoro's shoulder. 
"I'm sure Nami has her reasons," their captain nodded. 
"I know Nami's reason."
All of their heads turned to the witch. 
Usopp was just walking up the stairs of the forecastle when his eyes sparkled curiously.
"What are you guys talking about?" 
"Nami," Zoro said quickly. "Why didn't you say anything until now?" that time, his sharp words were directed to the witch. 
The witch shot him a glare, displeased by his reaction. However, she would've acted the same if someone was to hide something so important. 
"It would've felt unfair to tell you before talking with her," the witch clarified. 
"You talked with her about it?" Usopp suddenly intervened, surprised by the news. 
The witch gripped at the tarot deck in between her hands tighter and clicked her tongue, trying to find the best words to explain. 
"I did. Somehow," uncertainty latched onto her voice. 
None of them rushed her anymore so she took her time. 
"Listen, this isn't as easy as it seems to be. Yes, Sanji, she didn't willingly get into Arlong's crew."
A snarky remark sat on the cook's tongue and he wanted to throw it Zoro's way. 
"But," the witch continued in order to stop an eventual argument, "she's fully aware of her actions. She was forced by the circumstances to do what she's doing, but it doesn't mean she likes acting like Arlong's crewmate. Nami certainly hates him from the bottom of her heart. He did something. Something that forced her to act like she's a friend just to protect something or someone. Or both. She's not only protecting herself, she's protecting what's most dear to her heart."
It wasn't the witch that spoke, but the gut feeling she had. Her thoughts didn't seem so clear in months, since her last successful tarot reading. Now, as the significance of each card sank into her brain, she knew what everything meant. 
It wasn't her that spoke, but her intuition. 
"She's keeping us away because she's scared we'd get hurt, not only because we would get in her way. Nami cares about us and that's exactly why she's pushing us away."
"Who does that?" Zoro wondered out loud. 
Maybe he should've kept that to himself. 
"You do that," the witch's head snapped towards him. "I do it. And Nami does. She said she tricked us — which was true. At the same time, she's tricking Arlong. He isn't her crewmate, he's an asshole that stole something from her—"
The witch got so carried away she didn't even realize what she just said. She suddenly furrowed her eyebrows into the void and received confused looks from her friends. 
"He stole something. Her freedom."
Those words were said as she actively figured the details out, staring into the void. 
"Witch?" Usopp nudged her. 
"Yes?" she turned towards him. 
"Did she tell you all these things?"
There was a light chuckle that left her lips at that question. 
"The cards did. Her reactions just gave her away and answered my doubts." 
The witch knew what games she was playing. She's been doing these things for years and not only — she trusted her gut feeling above everything else. 
She received an especially confused look from the cook, who had no clue why she was called a witch. He probably supposed it was because she was beautiful or maybe secretive. 
He should've taken that nickname literally. 
"What do we do then?" Zoro turned his head towards their captain. 
Luffy listened intently to everything the witch had to say and he made up his mind since long ago:
"I want to hear her decision for myself."
"That's for the best," the witch nodded. 
There was more she would've liked to say, but speaking from the gut was both easier than usual and harder when tired. Considering the last time she got some proper sleep was before they got attacked by the Marines, she could say it's been long enough for her mind to get clouded. 
Stuck in her thoughts as she was, the grip on her tarot deck loosened up and the object fell from her hold on the wooden floor. The witch's exhausted brain registered that too many seconds later. 
A deep frown appeared between her eyebrows, blinking in an attempt to clear her vision while she bent down to take the deck in her hand. 
Obviously, she failed. 
When her back was straight again, her vision went pitch black and a heavy throbbing settled in her temples. The ship swayed worse than a second ago. She groaned and pinched the bridge of her nose, eyes closed. 
The witch has been in that situation before. She stood still, because attempting to walk would've ended in a passionate kiss with the floor. 
When the sensations dissipated little by little, tiredness was everything left behind. 
"I'm gonna get some rest," she mumbled, the words a little slurred. 
With her eyes now opened wide enough to see where she's heading, she walked towards the stairs and cussed them out one by one. 
Falling like an idiot wasn't on her to-do list for that day. 
By some miracle, she managed to walk all the way into the galley. The room she shared with Nami was hers, but it was too far away. Her feet barely carried her to the dark red sofa she let her body fall on like a sack. 
She didn't care about the clothes she hasn't changed from, too caught up with everything that has happened. There was enough time for a shower later, when exhaustion wasn't seeping into her bones. The only thing she had the decency to do was to take her boots off. 
She stretched her legs and put an arm under her head, resting on her side to face the room. Not the most comfortable place to sleep in, but after all of that tumult, nothing mattered anymore. 
The sweet sound of jingling disturbed her again. 
Oh, god dammit. 
She was one breath away from cussing Zoro's ass and his earrings — despite being in ecstasy that he woke up. The witch, as if expecting his next move, bent her knees to make space for him. The swordsman plopped himself down with a grunt at the other side of the sofa and her bare feet touched his thigh. 
She didn't dare mutter a word about his presence. Zoro could stay. Gosh, as she was thinkingln about it, she could only believe it was a blessing he wasn't only awake, but also throwing remarks her way. 
It was so much better than telling stories of her past to an unconscious Mosshead. 
Right. 
The edges of her mouth curled in a smile. 
"What?" 
"Mosshead," she chuckled, eyes still closed. 
Zoro let out a scoff and she could imagine him rolling his eyes to the ceiling. 
"Didn't you say you were going to rest?"
His voice was unusually low and even soft, pulling her towards the dreamland. 
"I'd say this place is perfect," she mumbled.
The witch didn't bother to explain she was tired out of her mind or that her feet would most likely betray her if she dared to get up. 
The silence was filled with their breathing and the sounds of the water splashing against their ship, the cracks of the wood. She remembered the times when she traveled with her father's crew and she would many times fall asleep curled next to a barrel while the vice-captain was still singing sea shanties in the middle of the night. 
"Zoro," the witch whispered. 
She was too weary to care about what left her mouth. It acted like alcohol — it clouded her mind and she felt shameless. 
"What if I wouldn't have stepped on this ship?" 
That question plagued her mind and she finally said it out loud. 
"So the last ship was more to your taste?" he snickered. "It almost sank in the sea." 
"You're such an ass," and while that phrase might've sounded harsh in the past, at that moment it was filled with fondness. 
"Been told that before." 
I really missed that voice. 
"For someone with a big ass bruise on your neck, you sound more like a coward than I thought."
Maybe she deserved that serious tone thrown her way. Was he right? Only halfway through. 
"No," she was stubborn enough to fight the sleep for a few more minutes. "What if I would've been happier? Y'know, less worries, no people to haunt my ass. No anxiety."
No crying over you for being almost dead. 
The continuation sat on the tip of her tongue and got swallowed back with a gulp. Was there really a need for an admission? Puffy eyelids and dark circles under her eyes, chapped lips and bandages around her forearm soaked in blood. Those details were enough proof. 
"Do you hate us that much?" his low voice sent shivers down her spine. 
"It's not about that. Just…" she gulped and curled her fingers around the tarot deck she was still holding onto. "I want some peace."
"I say you should get some sleep." 
•┈┈┈•┈┈┈•┈┈┈•
Standing on the deck felt right, even if the witch doesn't remember why she was there. She can't point out the weather clearly, it feels blurry. Seconds ago she was in the kitchen talking with Sanji about some unusual topic she couldn't remember. 
Then why was she suddenly on the deck, face to face with a kneeling Zoro who had two swords piercing through his upper body from behind? She didn't only know it was him, she felt like it was him, as if the pieces connecting in her head were just right. However, it horrified her. Everything around him was blurry except for him. 
Him, whose essence of life was pouring down his body, creating a puddle under him, sinking into the cracks of the wooden floor. The crimson liquid melted into his white t-shirt. Now that she was looking better at it, she noticed the sharp point of a sword penetrating all the way through his stomach to the front side of his body. 
He was looking up at her, despite the way his chin was tilted down. Those sharp brown eyes were boring holes through her. His beautiful irises painted with the warm nuances of chocolate and coffee were scary, like no other time. 
Was Luffy next to her? It feels like it was him, even if she can only distinguish a silhouette in the corner of her right eye. 
Why was Zoro looking at her like that? She couldn't move, as if her feet were stuck in place. She didn't know if she was breathing or if she was alive anymore. She didn't know why she was on the deck, why those swords took his life away. It barely made any sense that he had enough energy to stare at her. 
He didn't falter once. He didn't beg for help, her name didn't come out of his mouth, no groans, no nothing. 
She couldn't move. As she stood in the same place, her anxiety was rising up, up, up, until she felt like panicking despite the lack of reaction. She felt like exploding, but she couldn't express those horrific feelings. 
She couldn't help him. Her arms were stuck by the sides of her body, as if someone had put a spell on her. She had the will to move her legs, to get closer to him, she wanted to, but she remained glued in that spot. She couldn't feel her body. 
She had to do something, but she was trapped inside an unmoving object that was her own body. Why? 
Everything snapped. 
The smallest hope towards an escape woke her up. Her eyes opened instantly and she raised up in a sitting position, eyes frantically searching for more clues, for answers about the horrifying images she just saw before her eyelids. 
Her heart was beating so fast it made her wish she didn't have it at all, a deafening ba-dump repeating in her eardrums over and over again. 
Unfortunately, she was face to face with the swordsman she dreamt of. Instantly, as if she was shot, she looked at his upper abdomen. For no more than two seconds, she saw a big black patch on his bandages. 
She inhaled deeply and her heart was beating faster, suddenly unable to release that breath of air. Her eyes widened and her hands shook, chest tight. 
"Hey," she heard more of a background sound. 
She blinked countless times, until her tired brain figured out that it was just her imagination. It was so dark in the room and her nightmare was a shock, the reason why at some point the patch started blurring out, inviting her to blink until it turned to be one small spot. It has been there since he woke up from his slumber. 
When the realization sank in, she let go of that breath and let out a pitiful whimper. Deep inside, it felt like relief, her eyes now squeezed shut. 
This time, he clearly called her name after his fingers securely gripped at her shaking shoulders, avoiding her wound. Her hands were trembling, her entire being disturbed. 
Zoro said her name, not the nickname she got so used to hearing on that ship. Not the usual Witch, a word that sounded so endearing coming from her crewmates; no, it was her name and it was spoken so softly she could've confused him for someone else. 
She had a poor attempt at recalling those images in order to figure out the reality, but it backfired. The bloody scene stuck before her closed eyes pushed her to open them up again. 
Thankfully, his dark gaze was warm, filled with unspoken worry. For a brief moment she wondered how he woke up, since he slept like the dead sometimes. 
"I'm surprised I managed to wake you up," her voice trembled. 
He didn't joke back at her. Instead, his thumbs started rubbing slow circles into her shoulders in order to bring her back to earth. Or, better said, back to the ship that was peacefully sailing on the sea during the night. 
"I think you should correct your breathing," he pointed out. 
Once she changed from autopilot breathing, it felt like her throat was tight. 
"Breathe in."
Blindly, she trusted his instructions. That mere breath shook her again, feeling shivers when she allowed the oxygen to sink into her lungs, the same way his voice sank into her being, in the cracks of her soul. 
It took a few minutes until that normal bodily process didn't seem like an impossible task. Her muscles were tense until Zoro squeezed her shoulders again. 
She could distinguish more of his face than just the warmth she noticed not long ago. His expression seemed pained with worry and not from a wound that could kill him, even if there still were bandages wrapped around his torso. Maybe it was also fear that made him look so different from usual; or was it confusion? 
"I'm sorry for destroying your sleep."
It was half a lie. She wasn't sorry about the touch keeping her afloat, about how she managed to breathe again only because of his presence, because he was clearly awake and alive. At the same time, she knew he needed to rest so his wound could heal properly. 
"Be serious," he huffed in a lower voice, clearly displeased. 
"I am. You should sleep."
"Just like you should, but I doubt you will."
"I'd argue about that."
She was still tired, even if her shock from earlier struck her like thunder. Her eyes could close at any moment, which she feared, because another nightmare didn't sound good even for how stress resistant she became. 
Since he heard her soft whimper when she was still sleeping, he had no clue what to do, how to act. One thing was clear: it was better to wake her up, despite the possibility she might get defensive and attack. 
Alright, now what the heck do I do? He's had nightmares before, he's seen horrendous things during his sleep countless times, but he didn't have any idea about what to do for her. Was he even supposed to do something? She didn't like being pampered — maybe he should act like nothing happened. However, the fear coloring her face earlier shocked him as well. The witch has always been collected, she had such a firm grip on her reactions it was annoying sometimes. 
The swordsman shook his head, but didn't let go of her. Instead, he leaned against the cushions on his side, while his hands fell down to her forearms to get a comfortable position of his limbs and upper body. The wound on his chest sent daggers through him at each movement. Barely a day of consciously dealing with it and he's already got annoyed. 
The witch looked down at where their bodies were connected. His long calloused fingers were securely wrapped around her arms, close to her wrists. When did her legs end up in his lap she didn't know. Her bare knee tingled with warmth — why? 
"You had a weird reaction after you woke up," his whisper stirred something in her heart. 
"What do you mean? I had plenty of reactions."
Are you playing the idiot with me? Zoro thought. 
"You were more scared of seeing me than of the nightmare."
"Oh."
Why did the Mosshead have to be so observant? It was one of the reasons why she was attracted to him, evidently, but sometimes he exposed her too easily. 
She dropped her chin and looked down at her own hands. Admitting that she feared his role as the main character of a tragedy for the second time felt embarrassing for some unknown reason. She's been in enough humiliating situations and he never ridiculed her. 
Zoro was utterly stuck. Was he supposed to move away? His body felt too heavy to get off the sofa and go to his room. It wouldn't be alright leaving her alone with her crippling anxiety either, considering she was prone to overthinking. 
He wanted to do something, but what? 
He let out a long sigh and rested his head against the cushions, his fingers still curled around her wrists. Her pulse was fast, but as seconds passed by, it slowed down under the weight of his thumbs. 
The witch became hyper aware of the situation, but it felt too good to move away. Her tired brain entirely registered his presence and her eyes closed. She breathed in the chill air of the night and, while focusing so intently on Zoro's presence, she fell into a deeper state of mind, half asleep. 
He was disturbed from his own journey into the dream realm when he felt a light weight on his shoulder. Once his eyes opened, he saw the cause: she leaned in closer to him, clearly unaware. 
He smelled like the sea and the familiar scent of soap clung to the unbuttoned blue t-shirt he wore. With her forehead resting against his neck, the witch could vaguely point out his pulse. The safety of his embrace lulled her into a dreamless sleep while she focused on his slow breathing and the secure grip he had on her.
Zoro filled her senses so fiercely it was impossible not to melt into him, inhaling and exhaling in sync with him. 
The swordsman had different sentiments about this and they were all confusing. 
What am I doing? he scolded himself.
He moved his head and angled his face so he could look at the right side of her sleeping face. With long eyelashes resting over her soft cheeks, she looked like she didn't have a worry in the world, even if he knew better. Her shoulders would rise and fall rhythmically in such a slow pace, making him wonder what exactly exhausted her so much. 
Then, his gaze fell on the purple marks on her neck and his jaw clenched. If he would've been awake when Arlong appeared at Baratie, maybe none of them would be like that. Maybe he would've had enough stubbornness to get answers from Nami and maybe Luffy wouldn't have been so close to drowning. Maybe those marks on her neck wouldn't have been there in the first place. 
What the fuck am I doing? 
Giving up, he rested his head back against the cushions with a scowl. He didn't understand himself and it was even harder to understand the woman sleeping so peacefully, too close to him. 
Zoro let out a low displeased sound and closed his eyes, deciding to rest for a while. He didn't dare move away or wake her up either. 
First and foremost he was displeased about the fact that he liked the proximity. 
I wonder what that fishman's face looks like. It'll surely be a pleasure to slice him in half.  
Tumblr media
Tag list: @emelia07 @dimplewonie @tfamidoingwithmylife @murnsondock @the-skys-musical-echo @conspiracy-crows @hallow33nz @ramae17 @gaslysainz @bunntsu @katt58 @katiemrty @hopefulrascalstatesmantoad @freyademartel @boofy1998 @ponyboys-sunsets @melsunshine @loveyluv7 @waddlingwanderer @jesssssmaybankk @nadlx33333 @yoong1c0re @untoldshortsofthefandoms @mizzy-pop @zoromyluv
170 notes · View notes
saradika · 8 months
Text
Tumblr media
Masterlist Headers + Matching Divider Sets
edit: as of 11/20/23 this will no longer be updated - please go to @saradika-graphics for requests & new resources!
Tumblr media
FANDOMS
Star Wars
— Andor (The Eye)
— Dark Blue (& R2D2)
— Din Djarin
— Din Djarin & Boba-themed (Star Wars)
— Endor (Forest)
— Pastel Colors
— Pink/Mauve (Star Wars)
— Poe Dameron
— Red & Orange-themed
Tumblr media
Marvel/DC
— The Batman
— Blue Beetle
— Bucky Barnes
— Marvel Inspired
— Loki Inspired
— Miguel O’Hara
Tumblr media
Games/Series
— Astarion (BG3)
— Call Of Duty
— House of the Dragon
— The Last Of Us
Tumblr media
AESTHETICS
— Ace (Moon/Stars)
— Alchemy
— Bi-Pride Colors
— Blush Romantic
— Burgundy & Gold
— Constellations (Blue/Green)
— Cottagecore / Dark Academia
— Forest-themed
— Golden-themed
— Halloween
— Hyacinth
— Maroon/Purple Witch
— Misty Forests
— Orange-themed
— Seasonal Aesthetic
— Skulls & Lace / Skeletons
— Taupe and Teal
— Yellow-themed
Tumblr media
✨(Everything was made in and using Canva - so definitely check that app out if you’re looking to make your own! Here, here, here and here are some tips on using the app / making graphics if you haven’t before!) (and credit is not required but a reblog would be great if you use! 💕) ✨
178 notes · View notes
vladdyissues · 4 months
Text
We Have A Problem
Danny could scarcely contain his excitement. After eight long months, the wait was finally over: Tonight was the premiere of the hotly-anticipated new television docuseries, Knowing Universe.
The product of decades of research and collaborative efforts from the world’s greatest minds—astronomers, physicists, astronauts, engineers—Knowing Universe was rumored to have had a production budget somewhere in the hundreds of millions and boasted the latest advancements in computer graphics and long-range photography. New lenses had to be fitted to NASA’s telescopes to provide viewers with high-resolution images. Helmed by a famous Hollywood director and scored by Hans Zimmer, Knowing Universe was expected to go down in history as the most pivotal science documentary ever created, eclipsing even Carl Sagan’s beloved Cosmos.
A year ago Danny would have eschewed such blasphemy, but the litany of promos and sneak peeks on The Science Channel had finally won him over. It was all he had talked about for the past month.
Every member of the Fenton family knew what a monumental occasion this was to Danny, and had marked their calendars accordingly. With the big day finally here, a festive atmosphere descended upon Fenton Works. Pizza was ordered. Living room furniture was rearranged around the TV, the windows blacked out with construction paper. Glittery blue streamers festooned the ceiling. Glow-in-the-dark stars and meteors spackled the wall. Jack made three enormous batches of “galaxy brownies”, a regular brownie recipe but studded with white chocolate morsels and multicolored candy sprinkles. Maddie and Jazz took care of the music, arranging a playlist consisting of space-themed songs that featured such hits as David Bowie’s Space Oddity and anything by Daft Punk. Sam brought over a tray of veggies that had been cut into star shapes, and Tucker had printed out cards for an astronomy-themed parlor game to play while they waited.
At eight o’clock the lights were dimmed. Everyone gathered in front of the TV. Danny, hyped out on too much sugar, grinned like a maniac, practically vibrating with anticipation.
Sam passed a smirk to Tucker. “I think we know what to get him for his birthday this year.”
“Yeah,” Tucker laughed. “Posters, t-shirts, the DVD set—”
“Shh, shh,” Danny hissed. “It’s starting!”
Six pairs of eyes glued themselves to the opening sequence: a panning, high-definition shot of Earth, complemented by a gentle, sustained note on flute. Then, a voice:
“For as long as humanity has existed, we have looked to the stars…”
The ecstatic grin slid off Danny’s face.
It wasn’t David Attenborough’s educated gravel, or Neil deGrasse Tyson’s friendly, conversational baritone. No, this voice was intimately familiar, lightly accented, arrogant, with phlegmy fricatives and a rolling, almost musical modulation.
Tucker clapped his hand over his mouth. Sam goggled at the screen.
“Oh, my God, no,” Danny murmured.
Jack Fenton popped to attention. “Hey! That’s Vladdie!”
“No.”
“Vlad’s narrating the show!”
“No.”
“Hey, Danny, isn’t this—”
Outside Fenton Works, a howl rose over the rooftops, and every dog in the neighborhood took up the call:
“NOOOOO!”
Read on AO3
120 notes · View notes
Text
Xenofiction (& similar) Media Masterpost
PS. This list is for keeping track only. This is not a recommendation list and I won't be advocating for any Work, Author or Company listed. There will be footnotes about a work/author for undesirable behaviour or themes if necessary.
This is a WIP and will be updated whenever I have the time to. Feel free to recommend works or inform me about an author so I can update the post. Be Aware works on this list might have been cancelled or on indifinitive Hiatus and not all works are available on English.
Sections:
Literature
Comic Books & Graphics Novels
Picture Books
Indie Written Works
Webcomics
Manga
Animated Series
Live-Action & Hybrid shows
Webseries
Short Films
Animated Films
Live Action & CGI Assisted Movies
Documentary
Theather
Videogames
Online Browser Games
Table Top Games
Music
Other Online Projects
Youtubers
Gen. Videos
Worlds
Franchises
To search is Ctrl + F (Windows) or Command-F (MacOS), on phone browser you have "Find in page" (Drop menu at top right)
Literature
A
Age of Fire - E. E. Knight
Adventure Lit their Star - Kenneth Allsop
Alien in a Small Town - Jim Cleaveland
Alien Chronicles (Literature) - Deborah Chester
Animal Farm - George Orwell
Animorphs - K. A. Applegate
Am an Owl - Martin Hocke
At Winters End - Robert Silverberg
Avonoa - H.R.B. Collotzi
Astrid and Cerulean: A Parrot Fantasy - Parasol Marshall-Crowley
A Wolf for a Spell - Karah Sutton
The African Painted Wolf Novels - Alexander Kendziorski
The Alchemist's Cat - Robin Jarvis
The Amazing Maurice and his educated rodents - Terry Pratchet
The Amity Incident - C. M. Weller
The Ancient Solitary Reign - Martin Hocke
The Animals of Farthing Wood series - Colin Dann
The Art of Racing in the Rain - Garth Stein
The Author of Acacia Seeds and Other Extracts from the Journal of Therolinguistics - Ursula K. Le Guin
A Magical Cat Named Kayla: Whiskers of Enchantment -Carlos Juárez [AI Cover]*
The Animal Story Book - Various Authors [Editor: Andrew Lang]
Abenteuer im Korallenriff - Antonia Michaelis [DE]
B
Bambi: A life in the forest & Bambi Children - Felix Salten
Bamboo Kingdom series - Erin Hunter
Bazil Broketail - Christopher Rowley
Beak of the Moon & Dark of the Moon - Philip Temple
Bears of the Ice series - Kathryn Lasky
Beasts of New York - Jon Evans
Beautiful Joe - Margaret Marshall Saunders
Beyond Acacia Ridge - Amy Clare Fontaine
Birddom - Clive Woodall
Black Beauty - Anna Sewell
Blitzcat - Robert Westall
Blizzard Winds - Paul Koch
Books of the Raksura - Martha Wells
Braver: A Wombat's Tale - Suzanne Selfors & Walker Ranson
Bravelands series- Erin Hunter
Broken Fang - Rutherford Montgomery
Bunnicula series - Deborah Howe & James Howe
Burning Stars - Rurik Redwolf
A Black Fox Running - Brian Carter
A Blue So Loud - Tuesday
The Ballard of The Belstone Fox - David Rook
The Bear - James Curwood
The Bees - Laline Paull
The Biography of a Silver Fox - Ernest Thompson Seton
The Blue Cat of Castle Town - Catherine Cate Coblentz
The Book Of Chameleons - José Eduardo Agualusa
The Book of the Dun Cow - Walter Wangerin Jr.
The Book of Night with Moon - Diane Duane
The Books of the Named series - Clare Bell
The Bug Wars - Robert Asprin
C
Call of the wild - Jack London
Callanish - William Horwood
Catwings - Ursula K. Le Guin
Cat Diaries: Secret Writings of the MEOW Society - Betsy Byars, Betsy Duffey & Laurie Myers
Cat House - Michael Peak
Cat Pack - Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
Cats in the city of Plague - A.L Marlow
Celestial Heir series - Chester Young
Charlotte's Web - E. B. White
Chet and Bernie mysteries - Spencer Quinn
Chia The Wildcat - Joyce stranger
Child of the Wolves - Elizabeth Hall
Clarice the Brave - Lisa McMann
Cry of the Wild - Charles Foster
Coyote's Wild Home - Barbara Kingsolver; Lily Kingsolver & Paul Mirocha
Crocuta - Katelyn Rushe
Coorinna: A Novel of the Tasmanian Uplands - Erle Wilson
Cujo - Steven King
The Calatians Series - Tim Susman
The Cats of Roxville station - Jean Craighead Georde
The Chanur Novels - C. J. Cherryh
The Cold Moons - Aeron Clement
The Color of Distance || Through Alien Eyes - Amy Thomson
The Conquerors - Timothy Zahn
The Council of Cats - R. J. F.
The Cricket in Times Square - George Selden
The Crimson Torch - Angela Holder
The Crossbreed - Allan Eckert
The Crucible of Time - John Brunner
D
Darkeye series - Lydia West
Deadlands: The Hunted - Skye Melki-Wegner
Demon of Undoing - Andrea I. Alton
Desert Dog - Jim Kjelgaard
Dinotopia - James Gurney, Alan Dean Foster
Doglands - Tim Willocks
Dimwood Forest series - Avi
A Dog's Life: The Autobiography of a Stray - Ann M. Martin
A Dog's Porpoise Duology - M. C. Ross
Dogs of the Drowned City - Dayna Lorentz
A Dog's Purpose series - W. Bruce Cameron
Dolphin Way: Rise of the Guardians - Mark Caney
Domino - Kia Heavey
Douglas' Diary - Andrew John
DragonFire series - Lewis Jones Davies
Dragon Fires Rising - Marc Secchia
Dragon Hoard and Other Tales of Faerie - Cathleen Townsend
Dragons and Skylines series - Rowan Silver
Dragon Prayers - M.J. McPike
Dragons of Mother Stone series - Melissa McShane
Dragon Girls Series - Maddy Mara
The Deptford Mice series - Robin Jarvis
The Dogs of the Spires series - Ethan Summers
The Dragons of Solunas series - H. Leighton Dickson
The Duncton Chronicles - William Horwood
The Destiny of Dragons - J.F.R. Coates
The Diary Of A House Cat - Ileana Dorobantu
Dogtown - Katherine Applegate & Gennifer Choldenko
Die schwarze Tigerin - Peer Martin [DE]
Die weiße Wölfin - Vanessa Walder [DE]
Die Wilden Hunde Von Pompeii - Helmut Krausser [DE]
Das wilde Mäh - Vanessa Walder [DE]
E
The Eyes and the Impossible - Dave Eggers
Eclosión - Arturo Balseiro [ES]
Ein Seehund findet nach Hause - Antonia Michaelis [DE]
F
Fantastic Mr. Fox - Roald Dahl
Faithful Ruslan - Georgi Vladimov
Feather and Bone: The Crow Chronicles - Clem Martini
Feathers & Flames series - John Bailey
Felidae series (1) - Akif Pirinçci
Fifteen Rabbits - Felix Salten
Fire, Bed & Bone - Henrietta Branford
Fire of the Phoenix - Azariah Jade
Fluke - James Herbert
Firefall series - Peter Watts
Firebringer - David Clement-Davies
Flush: A Biography Book - Virginia Woolf
Fox - Glyn Frewer
Foxcraft series - Inbali Iserles
Frightful’s Mountain - Jeanie Craighead George
Frost dancers: A story of hares - Garry Kilworth
The Familiars series - Adam Jay Epstein
The Fifth - Saylor Ferguson
The Firebringer series - Meredith Ann Pierce
The Fox and The Hound - Daniel P. Mannix
Freundschaft im Regenwald - Peer Martin [DE]
(1) Felidae's Author - Akif Pirinçci - is known to be a Xenophobic, Anti-muslim, Anti-Lgbt and Extreme Right-Wing guy (A N4zi by his on words). Won't be going onto details just know he has a non-fiction work called "Germany Gone Mad: The Crazy Cult around Women, Homosexuals and Immigrants." His works has been out of print ever since.
G
Guardian Cats and the lost books of Alexandria - Rahma Krambo
Guardians of Ga'Hoole series - Kathryn Lasky
Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Griffin Quest - Sophie Torro
Gryphon Insurrection series - K. Vale Nagle
The Ghost and It's Shadow - Shaun Hick
The Golden Eagle - Robert Murphy
The Golem and the Jinni - Helene Wecker
The Good Dog - Newbery Medalist
The Guardian Herd series - Jennifer Lynn Alvarez
The Goodbye Cat - Hiro Arikawa
The Great Timbers - James A. Kane
H
Haunt Fox - Jim Kjelgaard
Haven: A Small Cat's Big Adventure - Megan Wagner Lloyd
Heavenly Horse series - Mary Stanton
Hive - Ischade Bradean
Horses of Dawn series - Kathryn Lasky
House of Tribes - Garry Kilworth
Hunter's Moon/Foxes of First dark - Garry Kilworth
Hunters Universe series - Abigail Hilton
A Hare at Dark Hollow - Joyce Stranger
The Hundred and One Dalmatians & The Starlight Barking - Dodie Smith
The Hunt for Elsewhere - Beatrice Vine
Hollow Kingdom Duology - Kira Jane Buxton
I
I am a Cat - Natsume Sōseki
I, Scheherezade: Memoirs of a Siamese Cat - Douglass Parhirst
In the Long Dark - Brian Carter
The Incredible Journey - Sheila Burnford
Im Reich der Geparde - Kira Gembri [DE]
J
Joe Grey series - Shirley Rousseau Murphy
Jonathan Livingston Seagull - Richard Bach & Russell Munson
Julie of the Wolves - Jeanie Craighead George
The Jungle Book - Rudyard Kipling
Journey to the West - Wu Cheng'en
K
Kävik the Wolf Dog - Walt Morey
Kazan duology - James Curwood
Kine - Alan Lloyd
Kona's Song - Louise Searl
The Killers - Daniel P. Mannix
Kindred of the Wild - Charles G.D Roberts
König der Bären - Vanessa Walder [DE]
L
Lassie Come-Home - Eric Knight
Last of the Curlews - Fred Bodsworth
Lazy Scales - D.M. Gilmore
Legends of Blood series - Ethan Summers
A Legend of Wolf Song - George Stone
Luna the Lone Wolf - Forest Wells
Lupus Rex - John Carter Cash
Lutapolii: White Dragon of the South - Deryn Pittar
The Last Unicorn - Peter S. Beagle
The Labrador Pact & The Last Family in England - Matt Haig
The Last Dogs - Christopher Holt
The Last Eagle - Daniel P. Mannix
The Last Great Auk - Allan Eckert
The Last Monster on Earth - L.J. Davies
The Life Story of a Fox - J. C. Tregarthen
The Lost Rainforest series - Eliot Schrefer & Emilia Dziubak
The Lost Domain - Martin Hocke
The Last Whales: A Novel - Lloyd Abbey
M
Mammoth Trilogy - Stephen Baxter
Manxmouse: The Mouse Who Knew No Fear - Paul Gallico
Marney the Fox - Scott Goodall & John Stokes
Mattie: The story of a hedgehog - Norman Adams, & G.D. Griffiths
Matriarch: Elephant vs. T-Rex - Roz Gibson
Migon - P.C. Keeler
Minado The Devil - Dog - Erle Wilson
Monkey Wars - Richard Kurti
The Mistmantle chronicles - M.I. McAllister
The Mountain Lion - Robert Murphy
The Mouse Butcher - Dick King-Smith
The Mouse Protectors Series - Olly Barrett
Maru - Die Reise der Elefanten - Kira Gembri [DE]
N
New Springtime series - Robert Silverberg
Nightshade Chronicles - Hilary Wagner
Nugly - M. C. Ross
Nuru und Lela - Das Wunder der Wildnis - Kira Gembri [DE]
O
Old One-Toe - Michel-Aimé Baudouy
Of Birds and Branches - Frances Pauli
Outlaw Red - Jim Kjelgaard
The Old Stag - Henry Williamson
The One and Only Ivan - Katherine Applegate
P
Painted Flowers - Caitlin Grizzle
Pax & Pax: Journey Home - Sara Pennypacker
Petrichor - C.E. Wright
The Plague Dogs - Richard Adams
The Pit - Elaine Ramsay
Pride Wars - Matt Laney
A Pup Called Trouble - Bobbie Pyron
The Peregryne Falcon - Robert Murphy
Pork and Others - Cris Freddi
Q
Queen in the Mud - Maari
Quill and Claw series - Kathryn Brown
R
Rak: The story of an Urban Fox - Jonathon Guy
Rats of Nimh series - Robert C. O'Brien
Raven Quest - Sharon Stewart
Raptor Red - Robert T. Bakker
Red Fox - Charles G. D. Roberts
Redwall series - Brian Jacques
Rose in a Storm - Jon Katz
Rufus - Rutherford Montgomery
Run With the Wind series - Tom McCaughren
Runt - Marion Dane Baeur
Rustle in the Grass - Robin Hawdon
Rusty - Joyce Stranger
The Remembered War series - Robert Vane
The Rescuers series - Margery Sharp
The Red Stranger - David Stephen
The River Singers & The Rising - Tom Moorhouse
The Road Not Taken - Harry Turtledove,
The Running Foxes - Joyce Stranger
Revier der Raben - Vanessa Walder [DE]
S
Salar the Salmon - Henry Williamson
Scary Stories for Young Foxes Duology - Christian McKay Heidicker
Scaleshifter series - Shelby Hailstone Law
Scream of the White Bears - David Clement-Davies
Seekers saga - Erin Hunter
Serpentia Series - Frances Pauli
Shadows in the Sky - Pete Cross
Shark Wars Series - EJ Altbacker
Silverwing series - Kenneth Oppel
Silver Brumby series - Elyne Mitchell
Sirius - Olaf Stapledon
Solo's Journey - Joy Aiken Smith
Sky Hawk - Gill Lewis
Snow Dog - Jim Kjelgaard
Song of the River - Soinbhe Lally
Spirit of the West series - Kathleen Duey
Survivors series - Erin Hunter
Stray - A.N Wilson
String Lug the Fox - David Stephen
Swashbuckling Cats: Nine Lives on the Seven Seas - Rhonda Parrish & Co.
Swordbird series - Nancy Yi Fan
The Sheep-Pig - Dick King-Smith
The Sight & Fell - David Clement-Davies
The Silent Sky - Allan Eckert
The Silver Claw - Garry Kilworth
The Stoner Eagles - William Horwood
The Stink Files - Jennifer L. Holm & Jonathan Hamel
The Snowcat Prince - Dina Norlund
The Story Of A Seagull And The Cat Who Taught Her To Fly - Luis Sepúlveda
The Story of a Snail Who Discovered the Importance of Being Slow - Luis Sepúlveda
The Story of a dog called Leal - Luis Sepúlveda
The Story of a Red Deer - John Fortescue
The Summer King Chronicles - Jess E. Owen
Schogul, Rächer der Tiere - Birgit Laqua [DE]
Stadt der Füchse - Vanessa Walder [DE]
T
Tailchaser's Song - Tad Williams
Tarka the Otter - Henry Williamson
Three Bags Full - Leonnie Swann
Thy Servant a Dog - Rudyard Kipling
Tomorrow's Sphinx - Clare Bell
Torn Ear - Geoffrey Malone
Thor - Wayne Smith
Trickster -  Tom Moorhouse
Two Dogs and a Horse - Jim Kjelgaard
The Travelling Cat Chronicles - Hiro Arikawa
The Trilogy of the Ants - Bernard Werber
The Trumpet of the Swan - E. B. White
The Tusk That Did the Damage - Tania James
The Tygrine cat - Inbali Iserles
U
Ultimate Dragon Saga - Graham Edwards
Under the Skin - Michel Faber
V
Varjak Paw duology - S.F Said
Vainqueur the Dragon series - Maxime J. Durand
W
War Bunny series - Christopher St. Jhon
War Horse - Michael Morpurgo
War Queen - Illthylian
Warrior Cats series - Erin Hunter
Watership Down/Tales of Watership Down - Richard Adams
Ways of Wood Folk - William J. Long
Welkin Weasels series - Garry Kilworth
West of Eden - Harry Harrison
Whalesong Trilogy - Robert Siegel
Whale - Jeremy Lucas
Whispers in the Forest - Barbara Coultry
White Wolf - Henrietta Branford
White Fang - Jack London
White Fox Series - Jiatong Chen
Wild Lone - Denys Watkins-Pitchford
Wild Animals I Have Known - Ernest Thompson Seton
Willow Tree Wood Series - J. S. Betts
Wings of Fire series - Tui T. Sutherland
Winterset Hollow - Jonathan Edward Durham
Wolf: The Journey Home | Hungry for Home: A Wolf Odyssey - Asta Bowen
Wolf Brother series - Michelle Paver
Wolf Chronicles - Dorothy Hearst
Wolves of the Beyond series - Kathryn Lasky
Woodstock Saga - Michael Tod
A Whale of the Wild - Rosanne Parry
A Wolf Called Wander - Rosanne Parry
The Waters of Nyra - Kelly Michelle Baker
The Wolves of Elementa series - Sophie Torro
The Wolves of Time - William Horwood
The Wolf Chronicles Series - Teng Rong
The Way of Kings - Louise Searl
The White Bone - Barbara Gowdy
The White Fox/Singing Tree - Brian Parvin
The White Puma - Ronald Lawrence
The Wild Road & The Golden Cat - Gabriel King
The Wildings & The Thousand names of darkness - Nilanjana Roy
The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
The Wind Protect You - Pat Murphy
The Wolves of Paris - Daniel P. Mannix
Y
Yellow eyes - Rutherford Montgomery
The Year Of The Dinosaur - Edwin H. Colbert
Z
Zones of Thought series - Vernor Vinge
Z-Verse series by R.H
Comic Books/Graphic Novels
Animosity - Marguerite Bennett
Age of Reptiles - Ricardo Delgado
Legend - Samuel Sattin Koehler
Mouse Guard - David Petersen
Pride of Baghdad - Brian K. Vaughan & Niko Henrichon
Rover Red Charlie - Garth Ennis & Michael Dipascale
Stray Dogs - Tony Fleecs & Trish Forstner
We3 - Grant Morrison & Frank Quitely
Beasts of Burden - Evan Dorkin & Jill Thompson
LOBO: Canine Crusader of the Metal Wasteland - Macs-World-Ent
The Sandman: Dream of a Thousand Cats - Neil Gaiman
Animal Castle - Xavier Dorison & Felix Delep
Blacksad Series - Juan Díaz Canales & Juanjo Guarnido
Scurry - Mac Smith
The Snowcat Prince - Dina Norlund
Rankless - Maggie Lightheart
Animal Pound - Tom King & Peter Gross
Animal Castle - Xavier Dorison & Felix Delep
BlackSad - Juan Díaz Canales & Juanjo Guarnido
Picture Books
Steve the Dung Beetle: On a Roll - Susan R. Stoltz & Melissa Bailey
Hot Dog - Doug Salati
The Rock from the Sky - Jon Klassen
Whoever Heard of a Flying Bird? - David Cunliffe & Ivan Barrera
A Cat Named Whiskers - Shana Gorian
Ocean Tales Children's Books Series - Sarah Cullen & Zuzana Sbodová
Jake the Growling Dog - Samantha Shannon
Indie Written Works
Fins Above Series - MIROYMON
Journey of Atlas - Journey of Atlas
Webcomics
A
Africa - Arven92
After Honour - genstaelens
Awka - Nothofagus-obliqua
Arax - Azany
Amarith - Eredhys
The Apple's Echo - Helianthanas
Alone - Magpeyes
B
The Blackblood Alliance - KayFedewa
The Betrothed - Kibisca
Black Tyrant - Zapp-BEAST
Blue - HunterBeingHunted
Beast Tags - TheRoomPet
Spy - Utahraptor93
Be Reflected in my Eyes - Aquene-lupetta
C
Carry your voice - TacoBella
Caelum Sky - ALRadeck
Crescent Wing - Mikaley
Crescent Moonlight - AnimalCrispy
City of Trees - SanjanaIndica
Corpse - doeprince/ratt
D
Darbi - Sherard Jackson
The Devils Demons - Therbis
Doe of Deadwood - Songdogx
Dyten - Therbis
Desperation - PracticelImagination
E
Equus Siderae - Dalgeor
Empyrean - Leonine-Skies
Enchantment - FeralWolf1234
F
Fox Fires - Pipilia
Forget me Not - Nitteh
Fjeld - Dachiia
Felinia - Rainy-bleu
G
Golden Shrike - doeprince/ratt
Ghost of the Gulag - David Derrick Jr.
H
Horse Age - BUGHS-22
Hiraeth - AFlameThatNeverDies
Half-Blood - majkaria
Horns of Light - ThatMoonySky
I
I Hope So - Detective Calico
The Ivory Walk - TacoBella
I'm not Ready - Wolfkingdom372
J
Jet and Harley - doeprince
K
Kestrel Island - Silverphoenix
Kin - Fienduredraws
KuroMonody - IrisBdz
Krystal - Nitteh
The King of Eyes - CloverTailedFox09
L
Legend of Murk - Azany
LouptaOmbra - Loupta Ombra (OngakuK, MlleNugget & joeypony)
Leopards bring rain - Kyriuar
M
Mazes of Filth - petitecanine
Minimal All You Are - mike-princeofstars
N
Nine Riders - SpiriMuse
No Man's Land - TacoBella
Never seen the Day - R3dk3y
Norra - shadowmirku
O
Obsidian Fire - SolinaBright
Oren's Forge - teagangavet
Off-White - Akreon
Out Of Time - IndiWolf
R
Rabbit on the Moon - Songdogx & Nitteh
The Rabbit Hole - Detrah
RunningWolf Mirari - Mirella Menciassi
Raptor - ElenPanter
Redriver - FireTheWolf777
Repeat - Songdogx
The Rabbit's Foot - riri_arts
S
Scurry - Mac Smith
Simbol - Zoba22
Spirit Lock - Animal Crispy
The Sylcoe - Denece-the-sylcoe
Sunder - Aurosoul
T
Tainted Hearts - Therbis
Taxicat - owlburrow
That's Freedom Guyra - Nothofagus-obliqua
Three Corners: A Kitten's Story - Lara Frizzell
Tofauti Sawa - TheCynicalHound
Two of a Kind - ProjectNao
To Catch a Star - SleepySundae
U
Under the Ash Tree - ChevreLune
Uninvited - Nothofagus-obliqua
W
Water Wolves - LuckyStarhun
What Lurks Beneath - ArualMeow
Water Wolves - LuckyStarhun
Wild Wolves - Lombarsi
White Tail - SleepySundae
What's your damage? - FrostedCanid
The Wolves of Chena - Yamis-Art
Waves Always Crash - Hellhunde
The Whale's Heart - Possumteeeth [Warriors Fancomic]
Manga
A Centaur's Life - Murayama Kei
Beastars - Paru Itagaki
Chi's Sweet Home - Kanata Konami
Ginga Series [Silverfang] - Yoshihiro Takahashi
Gon - Masashi Tanaka
Houseki no Kuni | Land of the Lustrous - Haruko Ichikawa
Inugami-Kai - Masaya Hokazono
The Jungle Emperor - Osamu Tezuka
My roommate is a cat - Minatsuki & Asu Futatsuya
Crimsons – The Scarlet Navigators of the Ocean - Kanno Takanori
Rooster Fighter - Shū Sakuratani
Simoun - Shō Aikawa
The Fox & Little Tanuki - Mi Tagawa
Yuria 100 Shiki - Nobuto Hagio
Massugu ni Ikou - Kira
Cat Soup
The Amazing 3
Cat + Gamer - Wataru Nadatani
Animated Series
#
101 Dalmatians: The series & 101 Dalmatian Street
A
A Polar Bear in Love
B
Baja no Studio
Bagi: Monster of Mighty Nature
Bannertail: The Story of Gray Squirrel
Bluey
C
Centaurworld (2021)
Chirin's Bell
Chironup no Kitsune
D
Dokkun Dokkun
E
F
G
Gamba no Bouken
H
Hazbin Hotel
I
Invader ZIM
Inu to Neko Docchi mo Katteru to Mainichi Tanoshii
J
K
King Fang
Koisuru Shirokuma
Kemushi no Boro
Kewang Lantian
Konglong Baobei: Shiluo De Wenming
L
Little Polar Bear
M
Manxmouse's Great Activity
Mitsubachi Maya no Bouken
Mikan Enikki
Massugu ni Ikou -
My Life as a Teenage Robot
Mikan Enikki
N
O
Ore, Tsushima
Okashi na Sabaku no Suna to Manu
P
Primal
Polar Bear Cafe
Q
R
Robotboy (2005)
S
Seton Doubutsuki: Risu no Banner
Simoun
T
The Amazing 3
Tottoko Hamtarou
The Adventure of Qiqi and Keke
Tama & Friends: Third Street Story
U
V
W
Watership Down (2018) & Watership Down (1999)
What's Michael?
Wolf's Rain
Wonder Pets
X
Y
Live-Action/Hybrid show
Fantasy High
A Crown of Candy 
Burrow's End
Good Omens
Webseries
Dinosauria - Dead Sound
My Pride - tribbleofdoom
Whitefall - Chylk
The Stolen Hope - Galemtido
Dragon's Blood - FluffyGinger
Helluva Boss -
Murder Drones -
Short Films
A
Alone a wolf's winter
B
Baja's Studio
Beautiful Name
Burrow
C
Cat Piano
Cat Soup
Chicken Little
D
E
F
Far From the Tree
Ferdinand the Bull
Frypan Jiisan
G
Genji Fantasy: The Cat Fell in Love With Hikaru Genji
Gaitou to Neko
H
Hao Mao Mimi
Houzi Dian Bianpao
I
J
Je T'aime
K
Kitbull
L
Lava
Lambert the sheepish lion
Laoshu Jia Nu
M
Mahoutsukai no Melody
Monmon the Water Spider
Mushroom - Nakagawa Sawako
N
O
Of Mice and Clockworks
Osaru no Tairyou
P
Piper
Q
R
Robin Robin
Rusuban
S
Sauria - Dead Sound
Smash and Grab
Street of Crocodiles
She and Her Cat
Space Neko Theater
Shiroi Zou | White Elephant
Shi | Food
Sugar, With a Story
Straw-saurus NEO
T
The Chair
The Blue Umbrella
The Shell Shocked Egg
The Dog Door
The Dog In The Alley
That's Why They Were Made
U
Ushigaeru
V
W
With a Dog AND a Cat, Every Day is Fun
X
Y
Z
Zhui Shu
Animated Films
#
101 Dalmatians duology
A
A Monkey's Tale (1999)
All Dogs go to Heaven
The Adventures of Lolo the Penguin
Alpha and Omega saga
An American Tail
The Aristocats
Antz
Animals United
Annabelle's Wish (1997)
Alakazam the great (1960)
B
Back Outback
Balto
Bambi / Bambi II
Bolt
Brother Bear / Brother Bear II
A Bug's Life
The Big Bad Fox and Other Tales
Bee Movie
The Brave Little Toaster
Birds of a Feather
Back to the Forest
C
Cars
Chance
Chicken Run
D
Dinosaur
Speckles: The Tarbosaurus || Dino King: Journey to Fire Mountain
Dumbo
DC League of Super-Pets
E
Elemental
F
Fantastic Mr. Fox
Fantastic Planet
Felidae
The Fox and the Hound
Finding Nemo/Finding Dory
Free Birds
The Fearless Four
G
The Good Dinosaur
Ghost in the Shell
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio
H
Happy Feet/Happy Feet Two
Help! I'm a Fish
Home on the Range
Hoero! Bun Bun Movie
Hokkyoku no Muushika Miishika
I
Ice Age Franchise
Isle of Dogs
I Am T-Rex
J
Jungledyret Hugo
K
Koati
The King of Tibetan Antelope
Kuma no Gakkou trilogy
L
Lady and the Tramp
The Land Before time Franchise
The Last Unicorn
Leafy, A Hen in the wild
Little Big Panda
The Lion King Franchise
Lucky and Zorba
Lilo & Stitch
Luca
Last Day of the Dinosaurs
M
Marcel the Shell with Shoes On
Marona's Fantastic Tale
Millionaire Dogs
My Friend Tyranno
Minuscule: Valley of the Lost Ants || Minuscule - Mandibles from Far Away
Mouse and His Child
N
Nezumi Monogatari: George to Gerald no Bouken
O
Oliver & Company
One Stormy Night
Over the Edge
P
Padak
The Plague Dogs
Pompoko
Pinocchio by Guillermo del Toro
Pipi Tobenai Hotaru
R
Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure
Rango
Ratatouille
Raven the Little Rascal
Reynard the Fox (1989)
Rio
Robots
Rock a Doodle
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1998)
The Rabbi’s Cat
S
Samson and Sally
Sahara
The Secret of Nihm
The Secret Life of Pets/The Secret Life of Pets II
Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron
Sheep & Wolves
The Seventh Brother
A Stork's Journey
Stowaways on the Ark
T
A Turtle's Tale
The One and Only Ivan
Toy Story
Twilight of the Cockroaches (1987)
The Trumpet of the Swan
The Enchanted Journey
U
Unico
Underdog
V
Vuk the Little Fox
W
WALL·E
Watership Down (1978)
White Fang
Wizards
The Wild
Wolf Children
Wolfwalkers
X
Y
You Are Umasou
Z
Zootopia
Live Action/CGI Assisted Movies
Au Hasard Balthazar
Beverly Hills Chihuahua franchise
Cats & Dogs franchise
Charlotte's Web
EO
Fluke (1995) - Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Homeward Bound duology (1963 & 1996) - Disney
The Legend of Lobo (1962) - Disney
Strays (2023) - Universal Pictures
Pride (2024) - BBC
101 Dalmatians duology (1996 & 2000)
Documentary
March of the Penguins
Meerkat Manor
Lemur Street
Gangs of Lemur Island
Orangutan Island
Prairie Dog Dynasty
Chimp Empire
Monkey Thieves
Monkey Kingdom
Theather
Cats
Videogames
Animalia Survival - High Brazil Studio
Cattails - Falcon Development
Endling: Extinction is Forever
Gibbon: Beyond the trees - Broken Rules
The Lonesome Fog - Might and Delight
Meadow - Might and Delight
Niche - Stray Fawn Studio
Shelter / Shelter 2/ Shelter 3 - Might and Delight
Paws - Might and Delight
Stray - BlueTwelve Studio
The WILDS - Gluten Free Games
Wolf Quest - eduweb
Golden Treasure: The Great Green - Dreaming Door Studios
Spirit of the North - Infuse Studio
Ōkami - Clover Studio
Rain World - Videocult
Feather - Samurai Punk
Eagle Flight - Ubisoft Montreal Studio
Copoka - Inaccurate Interactive
Untitled Goose Game - House House
PaRappa - NanaOn-Sha
Night in the Woods - Infinite Fall & Secret Lab
Monster Prom - Beautiful Glitch
Them's Fightin' Herds - Mane6
Toontown
E.V.O.: Search for Eden - Givro Corporation
(Pretty much most of Might and Delight games)
Online Browser Games
Lioden
Wolvden
Flight Rising
Lorwolf
Table Top Games
Bunnies & Burrows
Chronicles of Darkness
Wanderhome
Mage: The Awakening
Werewolf: The Apocalypse
Pugmire
Three Raccoons in a Trench Coat
World Tree (RPG)
Pawpocalypse
Heckin' Good Doggos
Humblewood
Dungeons & Dragons (Depends on the GM)
Music
In My Eyes You're a Giant - Sonata Arctica
It Won't Fade - Unia
The Cage - Winterheart's Guild
Other Online Projects
Youtubers
Cardinal West
Xenofiction Reviews
Gen. Videos
Trope Talk: Small Mammal on a Big Adventure by Overly Sarcastic Productions
youtube
Worlds
Mirolapye - Varverine
Franchises
Sonic the Hedgehog
My little pony
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Hamtaro
Pokemon
Digimon
Kirby
Monter High
Tom & Jerry
Baldur’s Gate
Maya the Bee
The Little Polar Bear
130 notes · View notes
tamapalace · 7 months
Text
Converse x Tamagotchi All Star Sneakers
Tumblr media
Just announced, Converse will release new All Star Tamagotchi sneakers in collaboration with Tamagotchi this November 2023 in Japan! These are beyond adorable, and the box too. Converse collaborated with Tamagotchi on sneakers that are themed after the Original Tamagotchi released back on November 23rd, 1996 with the concept of nurturing your digital pet which cause a big boom, a global phenomenon!
Tumblr media
The Tamagotchi All Star sneakers feature ankle patches on the high tops with the Tamagotchi logo in original font from the 90s, the iconic Tamagotchi UFO with Tamagotchi written on it, and the Original Tamagotchi clock that was featured on several Tamagotchi Original’s.
Tumblr media
The tongue of the shoe features a Tamagotchi Original screen patch featuring both Mametchi eating, and Ginjirotchi pooping! Inside the tongue, you'll see the happy and health meters too.
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
You’ll even see some Tamagotchi pixel graphics featured inside the shoe too, which is the branding for the Converse x Tamagotchi collaboration featuring both Mametchi and Masktchi.
Tumblr media
The Tamagotchi All Star sneakers will come in both white and blue, two of the colors featured on the Original Tamagotchi back in 1996.
Size will be available for adults, kids, and baby sizes! It is recommended to wear them matching with your family. Adult sizes will be priced at ¥10,450, child sizes will be priced at ¥7,150, and baby sizes will be priced at ¥6,600.
Tumblr media
Did we mention the box is decorated as a Tamagotchi Original box from 1996? These are absolutely a MUST HAVE on your list this holiday season!
139 notes · View notes
h0unds-of-h3ll · 1 year
Text
Baby hotline
You’ve been talking to a man who calls himself big daddy for over a month now, he calls every night to talk to you. Some conversations are wholesome whereas some lead to sin. When he calls you tonight you wonder which it shall be.
Big daddy! Elvis x call girl! reader smut.
Word count: 3k.
Warnings: Descriptive talk of sex. Mutual masturbation, fingering and jerking off. Explicit detail, graphic imagery. Hint of stalking. Innocence and corruption kink. Daddy kink. Talk of prostitution. Smoking and language. Talk of unprotected sex and cream pies. Age gap of 20 years. Heavy sexual themes. Mature.
A/n: Based around 1975, Elvis is a lonely pervert looking for young 🐱.
Tumblr media
The silk curtains were tied in the middle as you pushed them aside. The large window in the hotel room overlooks the dark alleyway of Hollywood Boulevard. A few lights were scattered throughout the building across from where you stood. Traffic was slow and the people were scarce. Cars are parked by the sidewalks. Most are Volkswagens. The block you stayed on was occupied by protestors who preached free love and peace. It was a warm inviting community that brought you here, all those months ago. However, there was a dark brooding car that made you anxious. It was out of place in the rainbow pallet. A shiny 1973 Stutz Blackhawk. It loomed over all the other vehicles, like a dark storm cloud on a clear night. The car was parked on the other side of the road, closest to your window without being directly below. It was strange but maybe they were just visiting for a session with one of the girls.
The residents of the hotel you lived at including you were either prostitutes or call girls. You being the latter. It was a movement to lift women's sexuality. You decided what's the harm in selling the most organic thing, sex. You get paid for doing it as well and won't have to see the person who's paying. A man who was your most reliable client paid the highest. You didn't know his real name or what he looked like. Only what he told you throughout the months you've known him. You knew that he liked being called big daddy, and he loved routine. He told you he had blue eyes and dark black hair, and that he was a very wealthy man. However, with all that charm came a cost. Some of the calls he made were personal, talking to you like a child. Telling you that he was a lonely man, that women didn't love him like they used to since he gained some weight. He was older, more mature. He talked to you like a guardian. He wanted to protect you, a stranger. A call girl he's never met at that.
Unabashedly you liked him more than you should. He paid fairer than most of the men you talked to, and he always kept his word to spoil you. Big daddy also had a routine of calling you, every other night at midnight. Tonight however is nearing that hour and you haven't heard a word from him. It was strange since he was a creature of habit. Has he lost interest? Surely not, sometimes he called just to talk to you. He didn't care that every minute was ten dollars he just wanted to know how his little darling was doing.
You sighed, sitting on the window banister. Propping the window open you hear Hollywood's busy atmosphere. People yelling and conversing, and the traffic. The cool night air hitting your bare thighs made you shiver. Your baggy sleep shirt isn't adapting to California’s climate.
Hitting the bottom of the pack of reds, you open the brim. Plucking one of the last cigarettes out of the box. Placing it between your lips you take the lighter you keep stuffed in the box out. Cupping your hand around the flame you light the smoke. Puffing the flame to keep it steady. You tuck the lighter back and set aside the box on the side of the sill.
If you focus hard enough you swear you could see the stars behind Hollywood's fog. You inhale the smoke and breathe it out of your nose. You feel a pit in your stomach grow as the minutes pass as he doesn't call. The embers fall onto the window pane and you throw the rest of it out, puffing a long train of smoke and pushing it out into the night.
There's rhythmic rapping on the other side of your door. The sudden noise makes you jump, your skin tingling with fear. Who could be asking for your presence at such a late stage of the night? Hesitantly you stand and walk over to your door. Wrapping your fingers around the knob, bracing yourself for what’s to come when you open. When you open it, nothing is there. You stick your head out and look at both sides. Empty. You take a step out, and your toes hit something solid. Looking down you find a box. The box is about not big, not small either. More of a rectangle than anything. One of those boxes you find at a woman’s boutique. It doesn’t have a brand but it’s a hot pink color. There’s a white bow on top, and a small card tucked under it. Did someone else’s mail get delivered to you? You crouch down and take the card out from the sash. In barely cursive writing, it reads.
To my sweet darling,
May you bless these garments, with your lovely body.
Sincerely,
Your daddy.
Briefly your cheeks heat up, and the rest of your body follows. Your hands are sweating when you pick the box up. A smile erupts across your face. He cares. However, it strikes you with fear about how much he does. For example, how did he find where you lived? Did he trace the line? Surely not, you were just overthinking. You set the box down on your bed. You tucked the card under the lamp on your side table. The only light that is shown in your room. It illuminated the pink rotary phone on standby.
You slipped the baggy shirt over your chest, the cold air of the night made your skin prickle. Your nipples pebble from the icy grasp. Your little white panties were the only thing you had on. Untying the sash you opened the box. Your eyes turned glassy, your pussy clenching around nothing. Your brain is running wild with assumptions. A dusty pink bra with a little white bow in between the cups and matching lace panties. Your ears started to ring. You took the fabric into your hands, examining your gift further. It was silk. The stitching was embroidery, not factory-made. Did he get this tailored to you? You snorted a laugh at the idiocy. But upon further inspection, picking up your chosen underwear for the night. You found a pink sticky note with the number three written on it. Three thousand dollars in one hundred bills wrapped with a pink rubber band stuffed into the crotch. You huffed a loud noise in the form of a gasp. You should've known he’d do something like this. Taking the wad out you placed it by his note.
Unclasping the delicate strap you place the bra on. It shouldn't be a shock that it fits you perfectly, but it also raised the question. How did he know? You hooked your fingers under the waistband of the white panties you had on and slipped them off. You shake your head at the damp spot in the middle. God. Did just thinking about him do this to you? He could be the ugliest man alive for all you knew. His voice though. That heavy southern drawl, that makes him sound drunk sometimes with how slow he talks. You roll your eyes and groan. There it is again, you psycho-analyzing your client. It's just business. Where is the line between client and lover? You didn't know and you're afraid that you're too far gone to understand the concept.
You slid on the soft pink ones and pulled them up your legs and they hung snugly around your hips. Bizarrely you felt a wild hit of lust. Like those smelling salts they've been selling around your street lately. A boost of confidence hits your psyche. You knew you looked pretty just from how the lingerie felt. He somehow knew what looked best on you. He knows what's best for you. You ran your palms flat over your curves, stroking yourself. Suddenly, you understood what men saw. That unbridled sexual libido.
The phone rang. Your eyes almost bulged out of your head and you ran over to the pink plastic. Kicking the box off of your bed in the midst of it all. When you first pick it up and hold it to your ear you don't hear anything. Other than the hushed sound of breathing.
“Hello?”
You whisper into the bottom. You lay flat on your stomach, anticipating who is on the other line.
“Hello, darlin’. Been missin’ you.”
Your heart hammers against your chest. You smile widely. His voice is deeper than it usually is, softer as well. He's composed.
“Really?”
Listening to his breathing fogs your thinking and makes your stomach tighten.
“Of course, honey, been thinking about you since our last call.”
You snort a little at how silly his answer was. You trail your fingers over the curly cord.
“You’re so funny daddy, our last call was yesterday. You couldn't have thought about me that much.”
Instead of the line going quiet and listening to his breathing he immediately replies.
“Trust me, yittle girl, I have.”
You start to burn. He’s thought about you so much to the point where it’s not even a question. He adjusts himself and you hear leather squelch. Is he calling you in his car? You can’t think about it for long.
“Do you like my present?”
You scoff.
“Like it? I love it, daddy! Thank you so much!”
“I was a little worried it wouldn’t fit. Had to make a guess using what you’ve told me.”
You wonder if he keeps tabs on you, a notepad dedicated to details about you. You feel flattered by the sentiment.
“Are you wearing it?”
You can hear his swallow, a thick audible sound coming from his throat. Hearing him lick his lips too. You smile.
“Mhm, it’s very pretty. Expensive too, and I noticed the cash. You didn’t have to, our call was only a couple hundred last night.”
You felt a little apologetic for the amount of money he gave you. You honestly valued the conversations you have with him, you felt saddened to know that he probably thought you only talked to him since you got paid in the end. You hear him scoff on the other side.
“Baby, I'll tell you one thing. You don't know nothin’ ‘bout me if you think I can't spoil my yittle girl.”
You smile.
“Point taken.”
It’s quiet again. His deep breathing follows, it’s strangely comforting hearing him breathing. It’s as if you were cuddled up next to him. You’d lay on his chest, rubbing your hand on his bare chest. Feeling his heart beat faster as you trail your hand lower under the waistband of his velvet track pants. You wondered what color they’d be. You know undoubtedly he wouldn’t have trouble getting hard. A pretty little thing like you was the only dose of medicine he’d ever need. You rub your thighs together trying to appease the urge to touch yourself. Fantasizing what his hands would feel like on your body. How big he was.
“Need to stop smokin’ honey.”
You blink dumbly. Your heart is running fast. How’d he know? Was he watching? No. You refuse.
“W-what?”
Your words are rushed.
“A lotta girls in the valley are startin’ to smoke those cowboy killers. They’re called that for a reason. Pretty young girls can’t take that kinda smoke. Makes your poor daddy sad seein’ them ruin’n their lives because of a fad.”
“How d’you know I smoke?”
“Like I said, lotta pretty youngins are startin’ up the nasty habit.”
Shutting your mouth you think for a few seconds, contemplating his answer. He’s most likely around your demographic all the time for his profession. He’s just in one of his overprotective moods. He’s been getting into those moods more often lately. A hint of jealousy grows a pit in your stomach. If he’s always around young women then why does he talk to you? There’s nothing special about a call girl. Or so you think.
“Daddy, do you ever think about me outside of our little talks?”
“I'm ‘fraid you got a listen’in problem. Told you before darlin’, I think ‘bout you every damn minute.”
He starts huffing, breathing quicker.
“Starts gettin’ bad when I'm on the job and I start thinkin’ ‘bout you.”
You push your hand on the mattress, laying flat on your back. Adjusting the phone to your other hand so the cord isn't in your way. Smiling mischievously to yourself. Running your nails along your stomach.
“What do you think about me when you're working?”
“Oh, Lord honey, all kinds of things. Your daddy gets so very lonesome without his yittle sweet thing. He starts thinkin’ ‘bout how it feels to have her legs wrapped around his hips. How her tiny sooties wouldn't be able to touch. If he put all his weight on her if he’d feel his cock in her stomach every time he fucks up into her.”
You can't speak, running his filthy words through your mind. How your feet wouldn't be able to touch just from how wide his hips are. The confidence he has in his size is a complete contrast to the insecurity he normally voices. You don't know what the change was in his ego but you love it. So much to the point where you cup your hand over your pussy. The warmth from your labia makes your arousal build. You can feel the dampness of your essence seeping through his lacy panties. Your clit is already swollen and throbbing from the friction of the elastic band.
“How-,”
You bite back a whimper, clutching the phone closer to your ear to hear his rapid breaths.
“How big are you?”
He chuckles under his breath, how innocent you are. He's talked to you about what he wants to do to you. You're not shy or bashful when you warm up to him. The fact of the matter was you were as much of a freak as he was, maybe even more. All you were was just a little minx.
“You know those glass co-la bottles that used to sell wild back in 55?”
“It's like that honey.”
You dip your fingers under the band of the panties, you tease the outer lips of your slit. Your folds are soaked in your juices. Hearing him talk in that dirty southern drawl makes your hips buck. The poor man can't even say cola right because of his accent. It causes your breath to hitch. You spread open the lips of your snatch and drag the wetness from your core to your clit. Up and down.
“Goddamn, I don’ even think my pinky could fit in your little cunt. I betcha you couldn't even take in your daddy's knuckle.”
He cleared his throat, the pause made you push two fingers into your fluttering hole. Automatically your back arches. You can only imagine his features pushing into you, how his cock would stretch you out. The burn of him pulling out only to plunge back in.
“How am I makin’ you feel?”
He pulls you closer to the edge, you can hear the wet squelch of your fingers fucking into your channel. Your palm flattens and rubs on your clit. Your body feels electric and pulsing with every thrust.
“Listen real close, daddy.”
You bite down hard on your lip to stifle a whine. Taking the phone from your face you place it between your thighs. Right above the hand, you're fingering yourself with. He groans loud and heavily into the speaker.
“Uh huh, mhm.”
The tension in your stomach snaps, and you can feel the rush flow from your abdomen and down into your hand. Your legs straighten out and you let go of the phone, soaking the plastic your bed and his panties. Your eyes roll back and your mouth parts as your breath becomes ragged. When you come back down to earth, the only thing you can imagine is his face stuffed into your neck telling you how good you did. You lift up and take the phone back up, wiping it off with your duvet.
“How’d that sound?”
“Lord have mercy on me.”
You smile at how astonished he sounds.
“That darlin’ sounded as good as the lord's gospel.”
“I swear to god daddy's gon’ fill you up, make you his forever. Allow you to be blessed by raising his kid. He’ll never be alone again having you as his little mama.”
This was new. His mantra about wanting to play house with you. Maybe it was because you had a crush on him or that your mind was still foggy but that didn't sound bad at all. Actually, it sounded like a dream.
“Did you cum daddy?”
He laughs into the phone, one of his warm authentic ones. The one that makes your stomach flutter.
“Honey, I finished when you told me you were wearin’ the little thing I gotcha.”
You blush, smiling wide. Maybe it's because of him telling you that he wants a future with you. Or the delusion that you'll have a life with him, but you can't help but ask him.
“When can I meet you?”
He sighs on the line, a deeply disappointing one. That crushes your soul a little. Your feelings get twisted slightly before he answers.
“Tonight.”
The line goes dead after his reply.
204 notes · View notes
rottenparasite · 4 months
Text
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
rui kamishiro rentry graphics for anon ~ f2u
[id: three blue and orange themed rui graphics. the first is a msked gif with a rui png on the left. the second is a masked gif in a star themed frame with a laced ribbon png on the left. the third is a pop out rui graphic in a star shaped frame with a rui gif on the bottom right]
psd filter credit
35 notes · View notes
hananenetanabata · 1 month
Text
THANK YOU ALL FOR VOTING ON THE GOOGLE FORM!! Submissions for the HanaNene Tanabata Week 2024 prompts are now closed! 💕
With that said, this year's Tanabata Week will use the following prompts, starting Monday, July 1st, and ending Monday, July 8th!
DAY 1: Constellation/Galaxy
DAY 2: Sun/Stars
DAY 3: Fate/Dreams
DAY 4: Separation/Tears
DAY 5: Reunion/Shine
DAY 6: Reflection/Evening
DAY 7: Marriage/Blue
DAY 8: FREE DAY/First Kiss/Escape
As usual, the prompts for Free Day were taken from user submissions, and they don't adhere as closely to the Tanabata theme! Thank you all so much for your answers and your prompt submissions--there were so many good ones that I'll be keeping some of them for next year's prompt selection poll!
With all that said-- I hope to have the official graphic up sometime before June (I make no promises; life is crazy haha)!
Thanks again, everyone. Hope to see you all under the stars and beneath the Tanabata Tree 🎋🌌
23 notes · View notes
justjams2003 · 9 months
Note
Can you write a dark!Thor fic, with fem!reader (Medieval AU), where the reader is taken as a slave, when her village was destroyed. I LOVE your writing so you can do whatever plot or theme you want :)whenever you can. I hope you're safe and I wish you a great day/night. xxx
Sweet Savagery
So... I loved this request so much! And it gave me so many ideas and motivation that I decided to make this a series! Hope you enjoy it!
Paring: Dark!Thor Odinson x Slave!Reader
Summary: All your life, Thor's blue eyes have haunted you. You believed you outran him, but now all your hopes come tumbling down.
Warnings: Death of loved ones, violence, nightmares, non-con, p in v, degradation. Tell me if I missed any.
Word count: 2k+, Unedited
1st Divider by: @firefly-graphics
2nd Divider by: @cafekitsune
Tumblr media
Are you cursed by the Gods? Or is it entirely only him? You were only just a small thing when it happened. The violently blue lightning striking down on your father’s wheat fields. You can remember it as though it was yesterday. Even after years of trying to forget.
When the dark consumes you, the light of the colossal fire takes over your mind. Your mama had scolded you just the same evening, pleading with you not to wander too far into the forest. Repeatedly saying that she wanted you home before sundown.
Like always, your mind floated into the sky, only to be vehemently struck down to earth, by that lightning bolt.
The one that started it all. Your little legs carried you as fast as you could, and still, the flames had engulfed the little farmhouse you had lived on for so long. The wall of fire had long since cleared any sign there ever was of your family’s only income. Leaving only a black streak of ash as it made its way further into the village.
If only you could’ve cried so much that it put out the fire. If only it didn’t burn down Aunty Cathy’s house, who was practically your second mother. Or the local baker’s house, who always gave you a free loaf, unable to resist your doe-eyes. Or even the blacksmith’s house, which you only saw on occasion. At least you knew him.
There are a lot of regrets surrounding that night. The most prevalent one is; not listening to your mother. The gods might have been merciful and have let you die with your parents. They might have spared you from looking into those blue eyes. The same shade of blue that caused this all.
The fire still roared; the moon was full and round; even the stars twinkled and yet those aggressively blue eyes lit up the dark of the night more than any of the previously mentioned. You remember the fear that surrounded you, praying to the gods you knew at the time, that those eyes weren’t searching for you in the night.
And you couldn’t help but wonder if the man with the eyes was the one to cause the lightning. Or maybe you were cursed by the gods. If they were laughing in their ivory towers at the cruel joke of a coincidence.
At that time, you thought that these deaths would be the worst of your worries. That those eyes wouldn’t surround every part of your fate. The gods did laugh.
Thieves found you hiding in the woods. They tied you up and used you as they saw fit. Only to grow tired of you, purely just because you became too old for them and sold you off to a slave trader. Which is where you find yourself now. Just barely clothed, waiting in the throne room.
Your bones are clattering and you’re unsure if it’s from the cold or utter fear. You’ve heard many stories of this deranged king. Crimes are punished harshly in a superfluous manner. The circles from which you’ve spent your formative years, the best thieves on the globe, could only speak in terrified tones.
And when they did, they spoke of a man who defies god’s creation. Some even mentioned that the fates and time itself dare not touch him. A king, with the stature of a giant, unmissable and unmistakable. The people who made other people shake in their boots, questioned if this king is just maybe an ancestor of the Titans.
Bred to raise an army and challenge the gods' thrones.
Judging by the extreme size of the throne, all rumours seem to be true. With each passing moment, your anxiety only grew. Until, finally, you can feel the vibrations through the floor. Slow and steady steps, no need to rush. Each of the slaves would stand there waiting for however long they are told to.
The doors open, again; slow. The men that enter are huge, yes, but none compare to him. The king, no doubt. Nevertheless, his size is the least of your worries. All you can see is that night flashing before your eyes once more, the same eyes.
What scares you most is that you haven’t made up his power, or just how much his eyes remind you of storms. His gaze follows from your far left until it finally lands on you. The storms in his eyes are steady, he remains stoic and unreadable.
The room stays silent. His gaze does not move from you, but he does. You can hear his throne creak, which now looks small in relation to former imaginations. Your eyes meet the floor and soon after his perfectly polished boots. He doesn’t dare look as silly as the other kings, with no tights and no pointy shoes.
His breath is heavy, you can’t help but fear breathing. He towers over you, and you can feel his gaze burning holes through your skull. Suddenly his hand grips you by the neck, forcing you to meet him face to face. At first, he seems to scan your body, what for, only the gods know.
Then finally his eyes meet yours. If he recognises you, he certainly doesn’t show it. He gives nothing away. At the same time, it feels like those blue eyes are burrowing themselves deeper into your mind. As if he’s saying, “Remember. Remember what I did? I fucking loved it.”
The king lets go and the second he does your shackles are undone. Maids shuffle all around you and the last you see of him is his blood-red cloak dragging across the floor.
You can hear the slave trader audibly sigh in relief. You can hear the few coins that your life and body was traded for being handed to him. That’s it, it seems. The end.
Tumblr media
Once more, you feel barren. Exposed in the little amount of clothes you were given. This is his chambers? You wouldn't be able to tell it from any other room in the castle. To such a degree that you wouldn't be able to see a difference from any other bedroom in any other castle in the world. It's almost entirely empty.
There is no smell that lingers, no portraits, no trinkets. There is no soul. It's kept pristinely clean, so much so that you wouldn't even know a man of his size stays here. The bed, yes, is huge to match his stature, but the bedding is one you would expect from any other.
A sudden thump erupts in the room, this causes you to jump. His hammer, his weapon of choice hits the ground. The wooden floor is dented, in the spot you presume where the hammer is placed every night. Once again, he's quiet, yet somehow you know exactly what to do when he turns his back to you.
Your hurried, shuffling steps can be heard across the oak floor. Like the mouse running to the cat. You unclip his blood-red coat from his steel shoulder plates. Now, after the initial shock, you can truly take in all that is him.
His blonde luscious hair that falls just below his shoulder is kept loose. It’s covered in dirt and grime but still, somehow it looks like golden threads, each placed perfectly. You then unbuckle the mentioned shoulder plates. They each carry a heavy weight from their sheer size. You fold it all neatly together and place it by the cupboard next to the door.
The mighty king turns to you, and with one quick shrug, he throws off his shirt. Could he indeed be a giant? Was he made to overthrow the gods? Or perhaps he was made by the gods himself, made alluring and beautiful to gain the human's trust.
You've experienced the lies of beauty before. Beauty earns trust that years of friendship can't compare to. Just the same, it stabs you in the back. At least with beauty, there's a pretty sight while you bleed.
Heavy footsteps shake you from the past, his presence forcing you all the way with your knees against the bed. The king's hand engulfs your neck, all around. He's warm against your icy skin, your body leans against him, for the heat. At the same time your mind fights, fights the need to give in and want this.
The man in front of you bends his neck low, his nose grazing from your collarbone all the way to your ear. A sudden storm begins to rumble in his chest, shivers form up and down your body as he speaks his first words to you.
"I know who you are." A rash of emotions hits your mind. He knows. He knows. He knows. The words reply in your head. The little hope you had that he would use you as just another whore is defenestrated. His wrath is not limited by time and his grudge will not fall.
"I remember that night. How can I forget how your parents screamed?" It's as if he chuckled, but at the same time, it can be heard as a growl. Like that of a clap of thunder. "They begged and pleaded for me to save your life."
The cruel king takes the thin straps of your night dress and pushes them off your shoulders and onto the floor. The wind sweeps through the windows, cold air making your body perk up.
"I was merciful, was I not?" That same cold air clashes with his hot breath. Now comes the time to decide. Would it be worth it to run?
Is there a point? He-His hot tongue is pressed against the base of your neck. It follows the curve of your tendons all the way up to your lips. "Now you must pay the debt of your life." Those plump lips ghost against your own. -He will catch you. "Yes, my king."
He is not soft; you have decided so. The thoughts that swim behind those icy-blue eyes, those which the world cannot see, do not contain mercy.
Yet, somehow, his hands are soft on your upper arms. “You will learn to love it.” He furrows his brows ever so slightly. The corners of his mouth are pulled down, just barely. As though he is seeing your future, the future he will cause, and is somehow saddened by it.
As if he suddenly realises that he’s shown more than the rock wall around his heart, he twists you around and throws you on the bed. You can hear his bottoms hit the floor and know it’s started.
His hands are rough, and huge, surrounding all of your waist. And just like every other part of him, his cock is immense. And in one harsh stroke, he impales your insides. There is no possible way to hold back the gasp that escapes your lips.
Your hands grip the sheets and already, you can feel the tears form in your eyes. On top of all that, he grabs you by the shoulder and pulls you even further down on him.
Sweat beads down your back after many violent thrusts. Grunts escape from the man, but not another word. There is no halting the moans that free themselves from your body.
Not soon after you can feel his dick grow even bigger somehow. His legs pull himself closer to yours and the liquids between your bodies soon are joined by steaky loads of cum.
Everything rocks and shakes your body. Your legs are raw and littered with bruises from the brutal beat of bodies. There are red marks all over your back and an ache in your shoulder.
Exhaustion is heavy weight forcing you down onto the mattress. Fire burns between your legs when he pulls himself from you. He seems to lay you down gently, still on your stomach.
You can feel his hot breath on your back. In contrast to the earlier savage fuck, he places gentle kisses on your neck. His beard tickles your skin, and you can feel his long hair graze against you.
“Thor. You may call me Thor.” You furrow your brows but before you can protest, the giant man is gone. Not that it matters, fatigue has taken over you and like every time before the dark is filled with bright blue eyes.
69 notes · View notes
ordinaryschmuck · 11 months
Text
Quick Thoughts on Nimona
Based on the graphic novel by the creator of that She-Ra reboot no one likes anymore, Nimona is a movie that is well-worth the wait.
For those who don’t know, this WAS originally a Blue Sky Studios produced movie intended to be in theaters. They got about...80-90% done before Disney shut down the studio and forced Nimona to be indefinitely shelved until someone wanted it.
And it turns out that Netflix wanted it. And boy...Blue Sky REALLY dodged a bullet with this one.
Oh, not because the movie is bad. Again, it is VERY well-worth the wait.
The animation is stellar, having a unique style that sets it apart from other animated movies, as well as having fluent movements and bombastic facial expressions. The most it shines are in the action sequences, which are fun to watch even if there’s not many of them (really wish there were, though).
And the characters are also pretty decent. Ballister has a very tragic beginning to his story, as well as a character arc that’s pretty endearing.
His boyfriend Ambrosius is also endearing, having a decent conflict that makes you understand his side and why he’s always willing to go back and forth on what to do.
And the main antagonist, who is a surprise that’s cleverly revealed halfway, is a great villain representing the flaws of authority and why the people who make the laws actually have zero value on human life. It IS easy to tell they’re the twist villain, and their motivations are a little lacking, but you can let that stuff go if its thematically appropriate, which it is.
But then there’s the real star of the film: Nimona. At first, I found it a little weird how she’s top billing with how much of the story’s conflict is based on Ballister, but the film really picks up with Nimona, who is the heart of the movie. She’s definitely that character who some are going to love while others are going to hate, but I find her wild and violent tendencies entertaining and her chemistry with Ballister to be on point. Plus, her backstory and attitude towards how people see her really helps to endear her.
Seriously, I wasn’t expecting too much drama from Nimona, but BOY does it deliver with a few heart-clenching scenes that almost got to me a few times.
Not to mention that the themes of...I guess anti-police is the best way to put it. It’s made pretty obvious that the knights and their director are to represent the police system, and the movie does well to illustrate the flaws of it. Not EVERYTHING is perfect, but it’s...good enough.
Any real complaints I have towards the movie is the pacing and the jokes. The movie knows when to slow down for when it’s important, but there are some scenes that fly by, particularly some bonding moments between Ballister and Nimona and the development of their relationship. And the jokes can be hit or miss. When it hits, it’s REALLY funny. When it doesn’t, it’s REALLY awkward.
But that’s about it...So, WHY do I say that Blue Sky dodged a bullet with this one?
Because this is a movie that’s very against police and VERY supportive of the LGBTQA+ community. Nimona makes it clear that the bad guys are the ones who kill what society deems as monsters, even though some of these monsters got that name because all they did was exist.
If Disney didn’t kill Blue Sky, the amount of homophobic and conservative parents demanding that Nimona got pulled from theaters WOULD.
People already aren’t alright with the gay and mind-changing stuff that’s on TV nowadays. Hell, I saw on Twitter that a guy destroyed his sons Funko pop collection AND TV just because the kid was watching THE OWL HOUSE. There are VERY bad parents out there who would do anything to “protect the children,” and Blue Sky would have undoubtedly went down for a VERY brave stand to take.
Which is a shame because Nimona really is that good. It’s a solid 7/10 film that left me entertained throughout and should be seen by everyone. Bit of a warning, there’s a bit of an attempt to self-harm/suicide near the end...but thankfully it was only an attempt.
Still, check out Nimona. It’s fun, it has heart, and it’s pleasant on the eyes. You won’t be disappointed by this one.
71 notes · View notes
Tumblr media
[Masterlist]
Welcome to Choices September Challenge!
Hello everyone! I'm Aura (@midnightmelodiz ). This is my first time hosting this monthly challenge, so I'm really excited about it. I really hope you all will like the prompts chosen for this month.
🍁GUIDELINES🍁
This is a prompt based contest. There's a prompt given for everyday, using which you'll have to create a content. Some days have multiple prompts, and different types of prompts. Feel free to use them all in the same work if you want.
You can use multiple prompt for the same work if the prompts are for same day. Don't mix and match prompts from different days.
Almost all kind of contents are acceptable. List of acceptable contents : fanfictions, drabbles, short-story/one-shot , poetry, microtale, art, mood board, theme, banner or other graphics etc.
Work based on any book from the Choices universe are welcome.
Submitted works will be featured on a weekly masterlist.
You can participate as many times as you want throughout the month.
Multiple entries for the same prompt, or same day prompts are allowed.
If your work contains NSFW/mature or triggering content, please use appropriate warning.
Mention/list the prompt(s) you are using in your content.
If possible, in stories, drabbles etc., write the prompt(s) in bold.
You can use the tag #choicesseptemberchallenge2023 & #choicesmonthlychallenge .
Please tag @choicesseptemberchallenge2023, feel free to tag me too : @midnightmelodiz . You can dm me your entries as well since Tumblr glitches a lot. Honestly I'd prefer if you dm your works, as Tumblr tags don't always work.
If I don't mention your work in the weekly masterlist, please send me a dm with the link.
🍂PROMPTS🍂
🍁 DAY 1 : Memories •||• "I can't be who you want me to be"
🍁 DAY 2 : Stars •||• Two people who keep crossing paths but miss actually meeting.
🍁 DAY 3 : Sea, Ocean •||• "You really like it?" "No, I was kidding."
🍁 DAY 4 : Moonlight, Moon •||• They have been secretly in love with each other for a long time.
🍁 DAY 5 : Diary, Journal, Notebook •||• "We're here now. Everything's alright."
🍁 DAY 6 : Dreams, Day Dream •||• "I'm in love with you!"
🍁 DAY 7 : Hope •||• Sharing something personal about them that they've never shared with anyone before.
🍁 DAY 8 : Coffee, Hot Beverage •||• "Come back! I'm not ready to get up yet. So you aren't either."
🍁 DAY 9 : Date Night •||• "I'm home, sweetheart!"
🍁 DAY 10 : Gift •||• "I care about you. I always will."
🍁 DAY 11 : Travel, Holiday , Vacation •||• Sharing an ice-cream together.
🍁 DAY 12 : Books, Reading, Writing •||• "You and me, it's never going to happen."
🍁 DAY 13 : Flowers •||• "I want to be with you." "I don't."
🍁 DAY 14 : Polaroid, Picture •||• Clicking candid pictures of their S/O to capture the special moments.
🍁 DAY 15 : Childhood, Nostalgia •||• "I love you. It's always going to be you."
🍁 DAY 16 : Cooking, Baking •||• Pretending to date each other to get out of a situation.
🍁 DAY 17 : Picnic •||• "That's all I really need. Some time with just you."
🍁 DAY 18 : Cuddle, Snuggle •||• Taking care of the other when they're sick or feeling low.
🍁 DAY 19 : Museum, Library •||• Picturing a future together even though they know it might never be true.
🍁 DAY 20 : Blue •||• " Are you saying that there's hope? Maybe in the future-" "No."
🍁 DAY 21 : Love, Kiss •||• Sending love letters to the other.
🍁 DAY 22 : Friends, Friendship •||• "It feels like I've known you forever."
🍁 DAY 23 : Fall •||• "I'm seeing someone."
🍁 DAY 24 : Serene •||• "Guess all those romance novel paid off after all, huh?"
🍁 DAY 25 : Secret, Surprise •||• "Is that my shirt?"
🍁 DAY 26 : Chocolate •||• Predicting the other's words or moves.
🍁 DAY 27 : Sunset •||• "Why did I know you would say that?"
🍁 DAY 28 : Wedding •||• "I always knew you would get together someday. What took you two so long?"
🍁 DAY 29 : rêveur, rêveuse •||• " You are all I could ever ask for."
🍁 DAY 30 : Home, Heart •||• "I'm here for you. Always."
**{Credit for most of the dialogue prompts goes to this blog~ @youneedsomeprompts}**
Have fun creating!
98 notes · View notes
punk-in-docs · 2 years
Text
‼️YOU (don’t) KNOW I’M NO GOOD‼️
Detective (Killer) Quinn x Reader
3.6k words - Sequel to Tainted Love -
Inspired by *that* photo shoot - this is for @ceriseheaven 💋
Tumblr media
Summary: Danger is apparently closer than you realise. ‼️ TW dark themes within: graphic descriptions of death/murder, and some mild stalking ‼️ porn coming up hot in the next one folks (I forever wish I could be one of those writers who just hops right on into writing smut - you’ll have to hear me waffle a little bit first Kay?)
A Hooker is found dead off Sunset Boulevard. Throat slit.
Her lanky limbs, stuffed into a horrible stinking dumpster behind the Whisky a Go-Go.
A blue dime store high heel lays in the alley. There’s blood spattered on it
You were there like a flash. Still tripping into your heels and zipping up your skirt, pulling on panty hose. Doing up your pussy bow blouse as you waited at the bus stop. No food or coffee in your belly. You’d no time.
Just sheer gut adrenaline and deep throbbing hunger for this continuing nightmare. Your story is here and you’ll hunt it out.
The bucking up bootstrap talk you give to yourself every morning. Shaking off shallow sleep. Finding that well of your elbow grease and getting the bit tight between your teeth. Grabbing your lipstick and your voice recorder as you run out the door.
Forever hauling ass to and from the corner of Clinton and Larchmont at the Chronicle office. Whenever you’re needed; have pen and gumption, will travel.
Sleeping at your desk with a deadly knotted crick in your neck. Back and fucking forth, from your baby pink and slowly rotting Las Palmas apartment building.
You exist from ends to end of cigarettes and chucking back shots of bourbon at night after a steamy shower. You scrounged your way by on half snatched lunches on the go, mustard hotdogs or everything bagels, black coffee, two sugars, no creamer. Gin with ice and lemon on Friday nights, and little to no sleep at all.
News never sleeps. Why should you-
You’d scrape to the bottom of this hellscape crime if it killed you.
Oh Birdie, Birdie, Birdie.
Another girl mangled dead. Another bloodstain soaking into the very same stretch of tarmac that’s laid with the gold star walk of fame.
A house way up in the Hollywood hills with two male roommates. And now a Hooker dead a stones throw off the boulevard. It’s random. There’s no pattern there. No food-chain event to yet glimpse a rhythm in.
You’d managed to elbow your way past the male reporters. Balding fat Murray’s and Brad’s, who came flocking from the Times and the Glendale Press.
With their cheap brown suits and oily moustaches. Ketchup blobbed on their polyester shirts and sweat pit stains, and usual brand of misogynistic bullshit. The way they talk about the dead hooker is like she was vermin.
You struck gold. You found the girls. You shamelessly shove your nose, and your cheap Jet Rag heels, all up into the business of the deceased’s friends.
Gathered around the cordon with you, tear streaked. Wiping weepy mascara trails. Last nights make up still caked on and very high heels. Hickies around their necks and up fingertip marks cobwebbed up their thighs.
You don’t take shit from them. No male reporter thinks their input is valuable? You do. You carve out time for them in this callous fast paced city that sees them as unwanted features.
You learn her name. Skinny Tina. So called because of her love of smack. Junkie to it. Liked leopard print dresses and her blue denim jacket. Smoked lucky’s. Came from Nashville. Old fixture on this block. Older than the stars she trod over.
You learn how she kept her corner. Worked her patch solid, from Bob Hope, all the way up to Ella Fitzgerald. That was her turf.
They tell you about the John she got off with last night when they last saw her. You cling to that morsel like it’s your lifeline. Root out as much as you can.
Scribble furiously. White male. Mid forties. Red Thatcherite braces, whiff of Wall Street about him. Prick from a lawyers office or some shit like that.
You nod. You ask. You write. Pulling meat off the bones of this case
You’ve no idea you’re being watched.
From behind the shiny windscreen of a Porsche no less. He sips his shitty weak coffee. Slips his eyes all over you as you stand there with the hookers. Unswerving determination behind those glasses lenses of yours.
You give each of them your card. You tell them to get in touch if another girl goes missing. Or if anything happens. Catch anyone skulking around. Ring you. Day or night.
Like you care toots. You just want your name in the paper right? They stand there with one hip cocked. Eyeing you with spiky pessimism.
You’re punchy. You meet eyes and you don’t shrivel away. “I care.”
You scribble your personal number on the back in red biro and hand it over. Shove it at them with hard core stoicism. You take the time to stand here and give a shit about these women.
You stand behind the yellow tape and write endlessly on your pad, the girls drift away from you. Heels clicking sharp on tarmac. Back into the filthy streets. Back to brutality and drugs and trying to make a living.
The cops buzz around the scene like the very same flies that drift off the trash. Shooing people off from the alleyway. Overflowing garbage trampled all over the sticky greasy puddles in the concrete.
Poor girl. No place to die.
You feel your heart sink low, dragging deeper down like sediment as you consider how it must have been to have it all end like that, in a place like this.
This shining golden city of angels and hope and promise, and this is the worst part of its seedy underbelly. Rock clubs of legendary name and girls selling themselves outside of it. Dying out in the back alley, being left to rot like trash.
Worst of all, is that no one gives a shit. Another hooker dead.
That’s LA’s normal beat baby.
Out the corner of your eye you catch that car again. Flash of it. Hot rod red. Waxed shiny. You know he’d be here somewhere.
He strides into the crime scene past you. Time of no concern. Dunkin’ coffee cup in hand. Licking sugar glaze off his lips. Box of six glazed his other hand. Like this is some sort of brunch date, and not the scene of a homicide.
The big boots are still a fixture. Bell bottom black trousers like he’s on the set of Starsky & Hutch. Sitting on that trim slutty waist. Sways with his hips as he walks. A satin black button up with a too big collar, undone to his sternum. Wearing a gold medallion chain with a saint, but he sure as hell ain’t one.
His neck swims in sainted things but his hands have committed all manner of sins.
Peers at you across those ray bans. Brown eyes swimming up your legs. Licks his lips. Sweet sugar.
That prim little blouse he swears he can see your bra poking through. Dainty lace cups holding your tits. Skirt grazing good big sexy handfuls of your hips.
Fuck you look heavenly.
“Well well. If it ain’t my little Birdie.” He calls across to you as the tape is lifted for him by a stony faced cop. Macabre grin.
You look up from your pad. Meet those swallowing chocolate eyes. He’s leering over his shades at you.
“Quinn.” You swallow.
Try to ignore the way the blaze of morning sun slips like liquid amber down his skin. Slipping between his pecs and collarbones like he’s bathed in mandarin orange oil. Glimmering off that necklace. Ocean cold blue neon from buzzing sign shot through those dark curls from behind. Bleeding out the alley.
You don’t know what it is about him that you like. He looks so wildly slutty that it’s making your mouth water. He’s definitely anything but boring, and your mind absolutely runs to a filthy place with that insinuation
He’s got you trying to recall the last instance you carved out time for some sex in your life. It had been months. The clench in your gut made you aware.
“Are we making a habit of this?” He checks. Narrows eyes at you all playfully.
You, me, the yellow crime scene tape. Mangled bodies. Sirens shrieking. Yeah. Romantic as hell-
“Let’s hope not. Detective. Hardly the stuff of foreplay.” You counter. “Can I get a quote for tomorrows edition.”
“Wouldn’t that be neat of me.” He teases.
You bite back annoyance. He sees it in the scrunched set of your jaw.
He brings up another doughnut to his lips and takes a huge untamed bite. Smirking at you.
He swaggers away and up to the dumpster. Prances around the evidence. Not that the killer left much- blood spattered shoe. The cut throat. Same old same old. Blah blah blah.
You sigh as you make ready to leave. Blood out of a stone. You won’t get anything else here.
Only a small scrap of what you’d hoped for clutched in your pocket. That will get you shunted back to your usual place on page six.
You turn away and begin to head up the Boulevard. Maybe you’d find a place for some breakfast. Your feet are aching. Head sour for lack of caffeine.
“Miss.” Comes a bark from a gruff cop. Who steps under the tape and towards you.
“Chronicle. I was just leaving.” You flash him your staff badge and back away thinking you’re gonna get chewed out for being nosy. You’re a girl reporter, the axe blows tend to fall heavier on you from grumpy cops. Sexist fuckers.
“Quinn asked me to give you this.”
He hands you an empty cigarette packet. Lucky Strikes. The paper is worn thin. Perfumed like it’s been in a purse. Not a pocket.
Skinny Tina smoked Lucky’s.
You look at the cop. He just rolls one shoulder up in a shrug. Not his job to care. Plods away.
You open the well thumbed crimson cigarette packet and inside is a line of scrawled text. Slanted spidery scrawl. Pin nib stabbing into the paper.
This is the work of a serial killer.
Your world grows cold. Sudden and terrible like someone’s sucked out all the dry choke of that LA heat. You thumb the packet in your hands. When you peer up and spin back to the cordon-
Quinn locks his eyes on you. And smiles. Those eyes glow at you.
There’s your story, Birdie.
~
Rain is LA is vanishingly rare. But when it comes, it comes fucking furiously.
It’s spitting down your windows so hard it’s like it will do anything in its power to shatter the glass.
Palm fronds from the stumpy trees outside your windows skate and scrape the glass and cast long fingers of spindly shadows. A faded essence of tropical paradise about this shabby place. The pink walls, palm trees. The empty pit of a mouldy swimming pool out back, filled with graffiti, crumbling tiles and trash.
The air walking home was so thick and smooth you could sip it. Full up of rain clouds and chasing away the humidity.
You turn home and show your back to this water-logged night. Your shoulders and hair damp from running from the station.
You draw your thin drapes but the red light soaking into the room through the shitty pink things. The light stains them up like they’ve been left bloodied.
Your bedside lamp glows in the corner. Peachy pink from the rosy shade. Your room is entirely bathed in lapping tongue red and rose pink.
You cranked your pathetic shower up high and stood under the warm spray until it drained to cold. Your scrubbed your hair from dripping to damp, and slipped on an old white t shirt that slipped off one shoulder. Black lace panties.
Hair still wet as you padded through to your bedroom. Empty glass of bourbon on the nightstand. Half full bottle. You’ll be dipping well into it tonight.
Today was long. Endlessly so. Dragging you down like you’ve got concrete blocks tied on your heels. Cutting into skin as it drags you down.
There’d been another one. Found tonight way out past skid row, under the 6th street bridge.
Stabbed in the back and left to bleed. A kid. A stupid punk teenager, with his apple green spiky hair, belt chains and ripped spray painted anarchist shirt. Bruises on his knuckles showed he put up a fight.
A bag of weed and ketamine in his pocket. Track marks up his arms. All tangled and fired up in fiery self-rebellion. And it led him to dying under a bridge like some junkie.
There was such a clamour at the crime scene cordon that you got physically shoved aside, and ended up skinning your knees in the process. Tearing your pantie hose. Walking home with blood peeling down your calves. Stuck with muck and grit.
You felt miserable. You were miserable. Another day designed to sink you. All teeth and stomping jaws clamping on your pride and happiness.
You hounded as much as you could squeeze out the cops on scene with bleeding knees burning. Hands scraped from your fall. Not much at all.
Your mood was as far in the gutter as it could get. The shower helped. You swiped stinging betadine across your broken skin and chucked back Bourbon to ignore the grating pain.
You drunkenly shuffle to your small strip of a kitchen. Aqua blue and white tiled lino. Cheap but clean. Your whole place was really. Pink drapes and thick blue carpets bleached and matted with age.
Bathed briefly in the blue light and puff of cold from the fridge. You reach and chuck more ice in your used glass and fill it up with even more brown liquor. Mind swirling away and you let it. Close your clunking fridge door with a sloppy hand.
The booze helped. You were ignoring the irony that after a hard day you were crawling into the bottom of an Old Taylor bottle.
You were supposed to be a man about all this. Man up. Well. You’re a woman and you have to do this job twice as hard and relentless and with double the scrutiny from men. And in heels. So you decided long ago;
Fuck that.
You laid on your bed and thought about having dinner. A sad tin of soup or some box of ramen you’d forgotten about in your cupboard.
But instead you just lay there on your sheets and let the bourbon take you away.
And then your phone rings. Shrills to attention on your bedside.
You twist your head back to look at it. Past your cheap peach satin sheets. Your crappy cracked pink telephone won’t shut the hell up.
You launch over the bed and sit up to answer it. If it’s another call out to a murder site, you swear you’ll quit. “Yes?”
There’s a second or two of huffing crackling static the other end. And then,
“Nasty night isn’t it?”
That voice makes your whirling head sit up and pay attention. Oh that voice. He hears the way skin grazes on your covers. The pull of your lungs seeking breath. That makes him outwardly think of your tits too and he can’t help his mind wandering off into filthy plains.
“Quinn?” You check. Your mind is curling and blurry. But by now you’d know his tone when you hear it.
He bites his lip cause it gets him hard. Rubs his fingertips into the square box of the telephone he’s curled against. Sweat on his fingers chafes against the black plastic.
“Hey Birdie.”
“How did you get this number?” Your drunk mouth blurts out. Your tongue feels all fat and clumsy with drink. Loose- even.
He chuckles. It’s breathy and it’s beautiful. Slips like melted chocolate into your ear through the receiver. It may be a smooth sound but it does something sharp and twisting to your gut. A tug.
“I have my ways.” You can hear his stupid big grin.
“Cop ways I’m guessing?” You counter. He detects a tone levelled at him. Flash a badge and he can own this town. Walk in anywhere.
You reach over and bring the phone onto the bed. The cord of it trailing behind as you wrap the coiled wire around your finger. You sit up and cradle the phone between your ear and shoulder.
Eyes flicking over for a second to that well thumbed Lucky Strike’s packet. The one he wrote in and gave to you.
“I don’t need to go flashing my badge as much as you’d think. I can be very persuasive.” He charms. Like he could pluck down all the hanging stars and set them at your feet.
You don’t doubt that. Silver tongues and doe brown eyes seldom mix.
“You weren’t at the scene today. Worried me a little.” He adds.
“I worried you? You hardly know me.” You state.
“I personally-“ There’s a clink as he presses his hand flat to his collarbone. Clink of a chain. “Think we should change that.”
You sigh in confusion because you just can’t think of what else to do. Is he asking you out? Is he hitting on you? Is that what’s happening here?
“I was at the 6th street bridge today. Up until I got knocked down by the clamouring TV and camera crews and skinned my knees. And then it started to rain, I was getting nowhere so I called it a day.” You offered up.
The blazes up something in him. Sparks churning friction against the liquid gunpowder of his temper. All it takes is a spark. He has to take a deep breath at the thought of you bleeding.
“You alright?”
No not really.
I saw a kid brutally mangled and stabbed today. Skin ripped where someone tore him open with a knife.
I’m fucking lonely in this city and I have no friends for miles.
My job is the fucking pits of Tartarus some days.
“Ask me after my hangover tomorrow. When I don’t feel like a failure. And I didn’t see a dead kid torn to strips. And I’m- sober.” You curse under your breath.
Bulldog tone of yours all snappy and treading the borders of your patience. Bone weary.
“That sounds like a lot on your plate.” He offers. He sounds tender. The tenderest thing you’ve heard in a while.
“It sure as shit is. But I’m not sure I should be venting to a cop about it.” You admit gruffly. Standing up and holding the phone to your ear. Idly gazing at the rain outside. Coming down in sheets, hammering cold at your window ledges.
You pour yourself out more bourbon. Cause fuck it.
Oh, you play spiky and icy and he likes it. He’ll play you into his hands. You’ll be worth the wait.
“What if I’m one of the good ones.” He grins. Licks his lips. Outright lies.
“Don’t play games with me, Quinn.” You warn.
Funny; that was his line. Usually with a knife in his hand edged against a fragile throat.
“What if I can help you out with some private information on these cases.” He leans right in and purrs into the phone. It makes you feel squirmy. Like you’re under his gaze again. That flirty one that gets peered over his ray bans.
“And why on earth would you be doing that for me?” You keep your head screwed on straight. What little sense there is left that Bourbon didn’t steal.
“Mutually beneficial arrangement.” He drawls.
“Listen Detective, if you think you’re gonna get your dick wet just cause you toss me some scraps, you’ve got another thing coming, and it’ll be my heel stabbed in your eye.” You promise with punch.
He chuckles. He can’t deny the threat of that and the thought of fucking you had him harder than he’d care to admit. The glimpse of you he had in his head on your back and taking it. Indecent. Glorious.
“I’m no idiot, Birdie.”
His dark eyes graze through the glazed rain walls of the phone booth. Glass striped with wriggling rain and haloed car lights burst through in reds and searing white. The Porsche sits waiting behind him. Dotted in silver.
He can see you through your window.
He’s across the parking lot in the phone booth. One arm braced against the metal wall. Eyes pinned on the slice of that tongue pink room and the vague shape of you he can see through the thin drapes.
White shirt. No bra. Lace panties. Sat on your bed in that entirely pink-red washed room. Light kissing and wrapping your skin. And you’ve no clue he can see you.
You’ve no idea how bad he truly is for you. It’s delicious that.
“Why did you give me that cigarette packet, Quinn?”
He’s quick to answer. He’s thought about this answer. “Leverage.”
“Leverage?” You repeat like you can’t comprehend the word.
“Over those assholes at your paper who think that you don’t deserve your spot alongside them. Scraping together your sanity for every shot at the front page.” He says.
He cut to the quick. Like he’s torn your skin away to see in. Your dimly lit life with your bottles of booze and your struggles. Somehow he pieced you together so well it was like he had your blueprints.
“You don’t know me.” You gasp out. It’s incredulous. He’s making your head spin.
“I know a lot more than you’d think. It’s my job, after all. I like to think I’m good at it.”
“That sounds like a lot of ego talking.”
“In that case you should let me take you out for lunch tomorrow and see for yourself. Buy you something to soothe that little Bourbon hangover.”
Your spine flashes clammy.
“How the hell do you know what I’m drinking?”
Your head is thumping. Dread curling horrid up in your stomach like dead burnt leaves come fall. Crunching and crushing.
“Like I told you. Birdie. I’m just that good.” He chuckles.
Oh but he isn’t.
There’s a click and he promptly hangs up.
You’re left there watching the rain skate furiously down your windows. Listening to the dead tone on the other end blare. Thunder grazes the valley.
It feels more sinister than it should.
~
My Taglist for my JQ babes: (if I’ve missed anyone out I’m so sorry !) if anyone would like to be added drop me a comment on here babes !
@indouloureux @stiegasaw @munsonquinns @fujiihime @youaremyfamiliar @captain-tch @ghosttownwherenoonegoes @svenyves @sammararaven @ceriseheaven @feralgoblinbabe @groupie-love-71 @andromeda-andromeda @starbxcks @morganamoonstone @ramona-thorns @gvtosbith @poppy-metal @munsonswhore86 @munsonlov3r @lunatictardis @shenevertricks1831 @hazzaismyreligion @harrys-tittie @anaisweird @cerinthussulpicia @cinnamoncunt
389 notes · View notes