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phoenixcatch7 · 1 year

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The Wayne doll house

Have some haunted doll au, since it's been bubbling away in my mind.

The bat cave is large and sprawling, many layers and tunnels and hollowed out cracks in the walls. It takes many years to fully reinforce to prevent stray kids from tripping into stagnant waters or fall down crags as he once did. The doll cave, as it becomes known, is in one of the deepest, darkest corners, one where the lights of the furnished caverns above don't reach.

It's one late night sitting at the computer when it suddenly occurs to Bruce that his first encounter with a doll was at the well entrance, many levels above.

There was nothing there when he went back.

The justice league stared at the subaru. The subaru, having no eyes, did not stare back.

The seven of them had just finished a very long, arduous mission, and narrowly escaped government censure after the base they'd been raiding had turned out to belong to some corrupt official. With the alert up, they couldn't escape through city airspace, or even in their hero suits.

So civilian it was.

Batman had hotwired some bloke's car while the rest of them ducked into alleys and shop bathrooms, but the problem remained. There was seven of them. And five seats.

"I can shift into something more suitable for being carried," suggested j'onn, "but I believe one of us might have to hide."

"Foot well?" Hal tried, and everyone looked around at the tall, bulky, broad heroes.

"Think they'd have to go in the boot," Barry finally said. Everyone immediately turned to him. "No."

Batman spoke up before the discussion could devolve.

"I think.... I would be best for that."

The team stared.

"Batsy?"

Having no lungs meant he could not drag in the tired sigh he wished, but whatever force allowed this body to talk was capable of approximating something suitably resigned.

"As I am, I am... incapable of fully passing as human. It would be best if I remained out of sight."

"So just? Go change? I swear we won't be weird about whoever you are under the mask. Even if you're like, bald."

"Thank you, Wally, but I'm afraid I'm being serious." Reaching for the mask in broad daylight was unpleasant, but the glue and wires held as he gave it a few thorough tugs. "It doesn't detach."

Everyone stared. Clark reached out as if he wanted to check, but withdrew.

"Do you even have a civilian identity??" Oliver eventually asked. "Because at this point I'm genuinely not sure."

Wayne Enterprises and Queen Industries had a meeting that same evening. "Hn."

"Can we go back to the 'incapable of passing as human' part?!"

"We can discuss it in the car," he snapped, stalking past Barry and popping the boot. "In case you haven't forgotten, we're on a time limit."

For once, that seemed to encourage them, and batman, with great dignity, folded his joints and cape into the small space, ignoring Hal's mutter of 'what kind of contortionist -' as he slammed the lid. With a little shuffling he managed to activate his comms.

"I will inform the watchtower of our delay."

"Batman, they're tapping all outgoing signals, you can't -"

"It won't trigger," he interrupted, before he twisted his consciousness and sent it spiralling across the country.

Bruce awoke with a groan, stretching his limbs and taking a moment to marinate in his annoyance before he reached for the comm and voice modulator on the beside table.

"Batman to watchtower, we've encountered delays. If the Texan state government calls we haven't entered the state in six weeks. Batman out."

"Alien?"

"No."

"Reanimated corpse?"

"No."

"Uh... Demon?"

"Hm. No."

"You're not just a meta human, are you?"

"No."

"Vampire?"

"No."

"Robot??"

"No."

"Batsy, please, someone's got to win the bet eventually. How do we even know you're not lying?!"

"You don't," Batman said, not looking up from his paperwork and Flash groaned, letting his sticky notes fall to the floor as he buried his head in his arms.

"One day," he bemoaned to the keyboard, "one day we'll figure it out."

"Until then please keep your eyes on the monitors."

Flash groaned again.

Robin ducked under superman's arm as he scuttled down the corridor, laden with the night's haul of snacks. The real problem wasn't getting them - stopping league members from raiding the kitchen would be extremely counterproductive - but keeping them until he could return home to his human body to eat them. Batman had started searching him each time they left and it was really cutting into his daily sugar intake. Unfair! Just because he didn't actually use energy to stay up my night to fight crime, it felt like he did!!

'Oh, you're broken, Robin, oh, don't go out until the glue has fully set, Robin' his arm was fine! It wasn't like there was much crime to be fought on the watchtower anyway! At least not physically.

So he was pretty pleased with himself until he went to set the snacks down and found that the tar like glue they used had soaked through the sleeve and gotten all over his chocolates.

With his other hand, he tried to pry them off, wincing as the wrappers tore and stuck. He tried to shake it, ignoring the way his elbow rattled in the joint.

"Come on, come on - aw, cheezits."

The arm fell off. Robin stared despondently at the limb, surrounded by torn wrappers and dripping black glue where it connected to the elbow. The sour stink of formaldehyde filled the air.

He was going to be in such trouble with Bruce.

The click of the door jerked his head up.

Flash stood in the doorway, wide eyed. Robin stared back.

Flash screamed.

Oh yeah @dehydratedmockingbird have a thing

#batman #Possessed doll au #bruce wayne #justice league #cryptid batman #Cryptid batfam #Didn't fit in there but I wanted to include that every bat member has a mask that covers their mouth #They've all got nutcracker jaws #I don't know the technical name but you know the ones where only a block moves for the mouth and the cheeks don't?#Super creepy on a life size thing I'd imagine #So if their mouth guard or mask gets ruined guess who's having nightmares that night!#Normally cryptid batfam go to great lengths to Look Inhuman and these guys still do it's just easier to not get joints jammed if you cover #Them up. Doesn't mean they haven't pavloved the whole criminal underground into terror at the sound of wooden clacking #They can turn ALL their joints 360 and it terrifies the average goon when you try to sneak behind a bat and it just swivels around to lock #With you. They grapple by shooting their hands out (so they can't lose their grapples) and it doesn't look nice. Yes they use it to #High five from across rooftops or grab things. Punch people in the face from the rafters. (pie the joker)#Their outfits look painted on (they mostly are). Ears swivel. They each have gliding wings installed in their backs after a scare with ivy #Clark was too polite to ask about the rattling and hissing noises he made until one day he was scouting with xray vision glanced over #And nearly screamed XD #long post #long tags

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cairafea · 4 months

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"How would we go about defeating a demon?"

"Any flesh that has been eaten and digested by other living things loses any of its individual identity. In this dungeon, where the line between life and death has been blurred... that seems to me to be the only clear and obvious rule."

#dungeon meshi #delicious in dungeon #laios #laios touden #my art #fanart #art #sketch #laios if he was 3% more insane #aka the au where laios eats the winged lion by devouring the entire dungeon. starting with kensuke.#this was how i thought the climax was gonna go while i was reading #i was like around the mithrus backstory chapter and Everything Started Clicking #'become a demon to kill a demon' ynno. eat or be eaten #maybe it's the houseki no kuni brainrot but i fully expected some sort of Theseus Ship with laios's humanity vs the demon he's consuming #as in like 'wow eating a demon has consequences. such as turning into a demon.'#tying right back into the falin-chimera parallel and his whole thing with wanting to be a monster #btw laios gets hungrier the more he eats parts of the demon until he reaches that 40% capacity in canon. do with that what you will.#anyways i just saw the JRPG tropes (adventurer party/chosen one/dungeon crawler) and assumed it'd end like a JRPG as well (killing god)#i just have a lot of thoughts. can you tell i finished the manga in less than 24 hours.#rip kensuke i was suspicious of you til the very end #dont repost or senshi will use your kneecaps for a broth #dungeon meshi fanart #dungeon meshi spoilers #his pose is based on the ch91 'desire eater' pose btw that panel (specifically the coloured version) fundamentally changed something in me.

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south-sea · 3 months

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i think a lot of people don’t always realize the difference between “this is how i interpret canon” and “this is how i want to write it because that’s what’s fun to me”. a lot of times the latter is all headcanons or AUs are, not an indication of what the writer thinks “is” or “should be” canon

more power to those who are super tuned into actual canon and know these details like the back of their hand, but sometimes people just wanna use a series as a sandbox, not a ruleset. genuinely nothing but respect for people who ARE that knowledgeable, but i and a lot of other people are just here to have fun with characters we enjoy—and want to put them in more accessible settings

#this isn't meant to be grandstanding or anything i'm just thinking aloud. i know i've said stuff like this before it just hit me suddenly #thinking about those weird anons from a while back who were really getting on my case about this #and i could not wrap my head around what the problem was because it’s like. that’s why it’s an au?#why are you mad about details of an au not lining up with canon #that’s the whole point of it being. an au #like of course shadow would normally be able to visit certain places. of course he should already know omega.#but there is a deliberate reason why second chance shadow can't/doesn't #and now i realize it's probably because they were seeing my posts entirely out of context #but still don't go attacking people for out of context posts either??#i'm shocked no one's seriously gotten on my case about aruna's hive yet because it's a prime example of 'intentionally nowhere near canon'#and like overall just don't be a penders and you're fine #lord knows i've got plenty of 'characters who have strayed so far from canon they may as well be OCs' in my pocket #but i still acknowledge they're not by definition OCs yknow #sometimes you just wanna use a funny lil guy as groundwork and then do your own thing #sea talks

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carnivalcarriondiscarded · 4 months

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a question for the lights out au

what would happen if someone new woke up like an oc or someone who was packed away in a corner away from everyone?

no idea! it's none of my business <3

#listen if yall want to fuck around w the au and throw your ocs in there - go for it! dont let me stop you #but - and i say this as neutrally if not positively as possible - leave me out of it <3 #simply put - not my basket not my eggs!#especially w/ lights out cause for me the whole Thing is that no one but the 9 were ever real #but yeah just. have fun. you dont need my permission or input to be creative #go do your thing & ill keep doing mine #rambles from the bog

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poorly-drawn-mdzs · 1 year

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not really an ask but MY SIBLING DREW YOUR FAIRY FANART!!!!!!!!!

we both love her

AAAA IT’S FAIRY!!!!!

#mdzs #equineswap au #fanart #fairy #oh my GOD your sibling absolutely nailed the design and took it to a whole new level of princess-cute-core #Please give them a big thank you from me!#I'm especially in love with the shoes. Love the idea of the curved shoes for the Jin Ling and Fairy design. Cannot draw them (yet)#Fairy is the type of girl who walks into starbucks and looks like shes gonna get the pink drink or a very complex order #but she's just there for a puppuccino for her little dog that she delicately carries around everywhere #She loves that little spoiled dog so much <3 Jin Ling is the most pampered creature in this entire AU #They don't have puppuccinos in AU canon but she is definitely only feeding him premium meats.#Oh if horses talk do dogs also talk? I cannot recall if dogs also talk in the MLP Canon...#Ok back from the wiki with some horrific knowledge about the animal sentience situation in Equestria #Dog Lore wise; There is *one* dog in the whole series and its applejack's boarder collie Winona. Spike in EQ girls doesnt count.#Jin Ling cannot talk but he thinks his thoughts very loudly

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insomnya777 · 21 days

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Hey! I found you though your superhero AU, which i love, by the way! I really enjoy your writing style, so I was wondering what your writing process is, in particular, do you have a plan/outline you follow, or do you have a list of little snippets of writing you want to include, etc. Just really curious!

oh my god the question i've been dreading. so funny thing, for the longest time, i actually didn't have an outline or like. a plan. at all

this wasn't even originally going to be a series, it was just supposed to be the first part 😭 but then people started liking it so much (and i live off of attention and comments) so i decided to make a part two and it kind of skyrocketed from there. did not expect we'd be getting past 20k words this is my longest series ever LMAO

but it's not like i have nothing planned out — like i know what's going to be happen with etho and the agency (to an extent) and i've pretty much got the whole ranchers and gempearl storyline down. but desertduo and boat boys..... i've kinda been taking it part by part.

that however does lead to things being repetitive and getting a little stale. so i've been planning things out more lately, and i'm very pleased to say that now i do have (kind of) an idea on the ending. which i have no idea when is going to happen

#yeah i'm very unorganized #i was honestly not expecting this series to go on for so long #almost two whole months!!!!!! a lot for me #but yes i have no intention of leaving this unfinished 🙏#i have no idea how i'm going to fix boat boys tho i'm gonna be very honest rn #slightly terrified it's getting a little repetitive.#bfop au #my asks #about around the fourth part of the series i made a notes app page for all the things i want to have in this series #like titles (you like your girls insane is one of my favs) and lines (which i will not spoil cuz i've got some BANGERS) and other details #(like ages #i do have certain parts outlined however #there was going to be a part titled “interlude — xelqua” and it was going to be about grians story #i have so much written for that. idk if it'll be published ever but #yeah it had acts (act i: destruction act ii: salvation act iii: war act iv: peace)#and i had pages upon pages of notes #but for the general story i have very very little

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skitskatdacat63 · 1 year

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2009 Australian Grand Prix - Jenson Button(ft. Rubens Barrichello & Jarno Trulli)

#brawn is like amr to me in which they make me very weepy and emotional and unhinged #me watching the podium was just me screaming internally: JENSONNNNN JENSONNNNNNNNNN sob sob #also i spoke abt this at length before but still the jump in production quality vs 2005 vs 2009 vs 2023 is so jarring honestly #and related to that ^ what did i say about ending up with a million gifs what did i say....tho less than i expected tbh #btw this post is my comfort post in case baku is chaotic #also omg i am still screaming over seb's DNF like the way he and kubica had a double takeout ;;;;#him continuing to drive another lap with his whole ass wheel basically broken off LMAO #maybe this is bcs its still fresh in my mind but its so funny to compare this race to aus 2023 #like do you remember the kmag red flag in 2023? like one wheel popped off and they had a red flag #meanwhile in this race kubica's tires were literally rolling around the track and theyre like 'eh safety car okay ig'#es tut mir leid jarno and rubens but jb is my babygirl and i love him #i hate having to cut out gifs but i want to try to keep it to ten UGHHHHH #if i let myself be uncontrolled these posts would be like 20 gifs....#jenson button #jb22 #rubens barrichello #jarno trulli #f1 #formula 1 #formula one #we do a little bit of f1 #2009 australian gp #2009 australian grand prix #(2009: 1/17 races watched)

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lilpuffyart · 16 days

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MV human characters who were badly used but had such an interesting idea around them, I love you (looks at the KOTM and GvsK crew)

#puffy talks #this is mostly around kotm crew tbh #speciallyyyyy the Russell family #god i could go a whole essay about them #i looove that emma is implied to be that type of mother who seems so sweet and kind but actually is very manipulative and gaslit (?) you #into believing in her narrative #to the ppint that #if you were to bring it up people wouldnt understand your poiny bc 'but she was so nice wtf do u mean'#both mark AND emma had a huge ass issue with seeming to ignore that yes Andrew was dead but their daughter was ALIVR and she NEEDED thrm #and then maddies trauma over everything that happened #god i wish they went forward with the russells and their connection to godzilla #i would imagine Madison would probably take goji and studying the titans as escapism #abd thats why i have my godzilla au <3333 #their relationship (goji and madison and mark) are very important to my au #mostly bc of gojis issues with humans and maddie being one of the first in a long time hes comfortable with and in a way that changes how he #sees humans as a whole #i have a comic for that #but godddd time short #gonna try to finish this one with god #*godzilla and maddie so i can work on that other one

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gobstoppr · 2 months

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and btw im in my hater arc rn. as time goes on the more i find a lot of 'fandom' stuff insufferable (i like art n stuff. just the way that fandom refits every media to fit a single mold and set of boring archetypes is exhausting.)

i just get really easily annoyed lately. and have been unfollowing people on a whim a lot. its not personal i promise

#fandom culture has made me actively dislike shit i was fixated on a year ago. looking at your ninja turtles #its not even like what they were doing were particularly offensive it was just exhaustingly boring #im sorry i just really dont care about ur 2 million fics about leo being a sadboy. or one million seperated aus.#theres definetly a part of the whole situation in general which has been me coming to terms with my own internalized misogny #actively re-examining my tendencys to gravity towards male characters #idk maybe its making me dislike art more. but idk. ive always analyzed why i react certain ways to certain things. this isnt new for me #anywaays. i had been following a bunch of ninja turtle blogs and they sorta kept messing around with shows like ninjago too #and at some point i was just like. i dont know if these shows are actually that good guys. i think youjust like shows for little boys #and fandoms tend to shaft female chars so it sure helps that their casts are 98% male .#maybe theyre not your blorbo maybe theyre just Guy McAverageMan. thats not inherently bad but you have to consider it.#guys rottmnt is isnt even that good . its not that good ok. its alright/pretty good. and the movie does a few neat things #i feel like ive become one of those people that turn 18 and then immediately go 'minors dni'. im not there yet but i just.#we're watching kids shows. its ok . you can say it.#you may have noticed ive been reblogging a lot of dungeon meshi stuff. i read it all over the past week.#but here's the thing. i thought it was mid/good for like 70% of it.#i think its got some really really cool worldbuilding ideas and stuff #but i think a lot of the writing was sorta. uninteresting to me.#my discord friends have been raving over izutsumi for months.#but i found her presence in the story to be weird and underdeveloped. she felt out of place and her introduction felt clumsy #i felt when the story was ramping up the manga got a lot better. because again theres some rlly cool ideas at play #all the shit with the lion? incredible. the way all the infighting led to more problems bc the elves refuse to explain anything? rlly good.#marcille landing in power? reallly good shit. (i still thought it was a lil undercooked still tho)#i cant stop thinking about laios in that climax scene. i think he shouldve been feral a lot more often #uhh. i got distracted. fandom bad and annoying.#saw a post talking about marcille realizing izutsumi is only 17 and then describing how 'omg shes a mom now' and i wanted to throw up #im done. i swear. im done talking for real. aagh #text

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cherubytes · 8 months

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to me the funniest thing about making a warrior cats ultrakill au is that you don't really have to change a lot to make the characters and story fit into the warrior cats universe. being able to enter cat hell without dying was literally a major plot point for one of the arcs, so having some random kitty go and fuck shit up over there is totally believable as far as im aware.

#ramblings #ultrakill #warrior cats #yes im tagging both #this is vaguely inspired by a random tag game that said to ''combine your first real fandom with your most recent one to make a horrible AU #and here we are #before you read this i feel the need to point out that i only ever read the first 3 books bc that was all my library had #im mostly stuck on what to do with the whole council in heaven and god is dead/has abandoned us thing #i guess maybe starclan is no longer communicating with the clans or something. so a bunch of cats claiming to have a strong connection with #them decide that they'll fall in for starclan and order kitty gabe around to ''take care'' of cats that dont agree with them #then enter some rogue cat v1 that either figured out how to enter cat hell or is just causing problems on purpose #my headphones died and i was an hour long bike ride away from home ok. i had time to kill.#im not drawing this i just need to get my brainworms out. dusting off the good ol brain cave and what not

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howlinghound11 · 10 months

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Presenting:

My very first AU: Welcome Home Scooby AU

Lmao i already gushed about it on the original post but it's still so funny to me, imagining the neighbors in like classic scooby doo hijinks lol

I just had to draw the gang all together and make it all pretty!

Here's the original post btw! (I forgot to link it) also the full colors are in the notes of that post

#lol i imagine this as just being like a one off bit rather than like a whole au but its still so funny #bc the story i have in my head would probably just be like an episode long #ill get around to drawing it all probably maybe lol #im just real slow at drawing and then transferring into my drawing app and coloring #it took me so long to make this lol #and i found out my drawing app doesn't have a symmetry tool which would've been REAL helpful for drawing Home and his design #its all a little off even the gangs proportions #but i tried #i had to stop working on it bc i kept going in and making little changes for a day or two i had to stop myself lol my app couldn't take it #just did a simple background too #anyway!#i wont fill up the tags completely lol #i would love feedback!#and any questions too! please!#ill have to remember to link the original post where im talkin about the designs and stuff #ok!#welcome home #welcome home au #welcome home scooby au #like man i do not wanna tag all the characters rn #scooby doo au #my posts #my arts #forgot to link the og post until after i got a bit of activity tch #i guess its ok

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ifyougoillfollow · 11 months

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as we sink into the open sea

M/F, Gen | QPR MicNight | 1720 words | Selkie AU CW: Depiction of Suicide Attempt (non-graphic)

On the eve of his nineteenth birthday, Yamada Hizashi walks into the ocean and comes back with a wife.

Please understand, that wasn't his intention. Yamada Hizashi is not the kind of man to believe in tales of sirens and sea wives, and he is especially not the kind of man with dreams of snaring one for himself. He is, in point of fact, not a man of any dreams at all. Not anymore.

So he walks into the ocean, figuring that if he can't find the will to keep dreaming, then he can at least find some peace at last. He finds a wife, instead.

Or rather, she finds him.

She finds him as his body hits the sea floor, at the very moment the first wave of doubt rolls over him in one fell, unrelenting swoop, much too late for him to do anything about it. He's so overcome with it he doesn't think much of the figure that glides out of the ocean murk and sidles right up to him. Wide, shark-bright eyes peer at him, so close they fill up his entire swimming, pin-pricking vision, and all Hizashi can think about is how soon he's going to die, and how he’s not so sure he wants to die after all, and how little what he wants matters in this final moment, as in all the rest before it, and then the figure places one cold hand on his colder cheek and kisses him. She's all Hizashi can think of, then.

She's dark-haired and beautiful. And strong. And a good swimmer, too, but that's to be expected. She drags him back to shore, lips locked tight over his the whole way, and she doesn't let go until his lungs are clear of ocean brine.

Hizashi lies there, alive and silent on the cold, wet sand for a good while after. Long enough for the first hint of morning blue to blush over the horizon. The sea maiden lies with him, just as alive, just as silent, and infinitely more at ease. Cozied right up to his side, as if she belongs there, seemingly content to remain there for however long Hizashi has left on this Earth now that she's saved him. Try as he might, he can't figure out whether he's grateful or not. He does, however, remember his manners, on occasion, so when he finally finds his voice again, he uses it to thank her.

"You're welcome," the sea maiden replies. There's laughter in her voice. Hizashi doesn't know what there is to laugh about, though he finds himself wishing she'd actually done so, just so he could hear it. He used to love laughter. Impossibly, he still does.

Yamada Hizashi had a knack for making people laugh, once. It was all he knew how to do, really. He doesn't know much of anything now, least of all how to make the sea maiden in his arms laugh, so he says nothing.

The sea maiden in his arms says nothing either, at first, for just long enough Hizashi startles when she does speak: "Is that it?"

"Pardon?"

"Is that all you're going to say?"

"... Is there more I should be saying?"

"There must be." There it is again – the laugh in her voice. "You don't strike me as the quiet type in the least."

That's what it is – she's teasing him. It's much too familiar to do anything but rankle. "Listen, Miss –”

She snorts. "Nemuri."

"Listen –” his face burns as he realizes that's her given name, and he refuses to say it "– listen, I'm grateful to you for saving me and all, but you don't know anything about me."

She peels away from his side. "Liar."

"Pardon?"

"You're not grateful at all," she grunts through an impressive stretch, current-strong arms flung upward and out towards the heavens. She's wearing a sealskin cape and nothing else, and is so unembarrassed by it Hizashi can't muster up any on her behalf. She winks at him. "But you will be," she adds. Then: "Take off your clothes."

"Pardon?"

This time she does laugh – seagull-like – loud and sharp and to the point. "Well, I don't know much about land folk, but it's my understanding you don't handle being wet all that well."

Hizashi wraps his arms around himself, scowling. "I'll be fine."

"Suit yourself."

The sea maiden stands – or at least tries to. She heaves herself upward in a motion that would probably be fluid underwater, then loses her balance, toppling backwards onto the sand, rump first. The sight of her glaring down at her legs is almost enough to pull a laugh out of Hizashi.

"Stupid things," she grumbles, kicking up sand.

Hizashi does laugh, then, which is a mistake. The sea maiden stands, suddenly sure-footed in her indignation, and uses her newfound mastery over her lower appendages to kick sand in his direction.

Hizashi cannot stop laughing. He laughs until his new companion loses interest in burying him under sand. He laughs until the sun finally frees itself from under the weight of the horizon. He laughs until he almost forgets he just tried to kill himself.

When he's all laughed out, the sea maiden is still there. Sitting across from him, hands and feet planted firmly in the sand, peering at him with a smile so dry it's a wonder she doesn't hail from land herself.

Without a word, she stands again, solid and steady, all remaining traces of sea legs gone, and hauls Hizashi to his own significantly less steady feet. While he's still reeling from... all of it – the strength of her hands around his, the seafoam-salt smell of her filling his impossibly pumping lungs, the laughter still clanging through every hollow part of him – the sea maiden takes her sealskin cape and drapes it over Hizashi's shoulders.

It's soft and musky and so warm it feels more alive than he does, but, most of all, it's heavy.

Hizashi tries to shrug it off. "Thanks," he says stiffly, "but I said I'm fine."

"I heard you," says the sea maiden, rearranging the cape around him.

"I don't need it."

"I know."

She fastens the cape closed around his neck, patting his chest firmly. It's so long it covers Hizashi all the way down to his shins. On her, it must have just brushed over the sand at her feet. The uncanny warmth of it doesn't seep even as the seafront breeze hits it, makes it flap and flutter around him in a heavy, even bump-bump, bump-bump beat. Nothing could ever hope to reach him past that beat and that warmth.

"I don't want it, either," he lies, because he has to, because he's never known what to do in the face of so much want, because he's always wanted too many things, and he's wanted them too much.

"Neither do I," says the sea maiden, breezy as the morning. "Maybe we should leave it here, lying around. I'm sure no one else would find it, if we hid it well enough."

Hizashi blanches at the thought. He may not be the kind of man to believe in tales of sea wives, but he has heard enough of them to be wary of the kind of man who does. He fumbles for the clasp at the base of his throat. "Just take it back. Go home."

"Hm, I don't think so." She sidesteps his attempts to foist the cape back onto her, walking away backwards, hands clasped behind her head. "I think I'll stick around here for awhile. Explore the land realm. It seems exciting."

Hizashi chases after her, cape held out like a net. "It isn't."

She twirls away again. "Liar."

"It's too exciting, then. Dangerous."

"So is the ocean – didn't stop you from walking into it."

"That was –" Hizashi falters, loses his footing "– different," he finishes lamely, hands fisted in the sand-soiled cape caught under his knees.

The sea maiden stands over him. "You're right," she says, "that was different – I'm not going into this trying to die. I'd say that alone makes my odds of survival look pretty swell, don't you think?"

Hizashi stares up at her, looming tall against the dawn sky, so tall she dwarves the rising sun itself, and has no doubt she'd survive even the drying of all seven seas if it meant she got to live.

"You're naked," he says, because he's running out of arguments, and the will to keep making them.

"I wouldn't be if you gave me your clothes,” she shoots back, “I gave you mine, didn't I? It would only be fair."

The cape is velvet-smooth as Hizashi slides it out from under himself, warmer still from the heat of his body and the sun-washed sand, which slides off of it like ocean spray from mossy seaside cliffs. His sea maiden – Nemuri – takes it from him and helps him back to his feet. She folds it over her arm, as if merely holding on to it for the moment, and arches an expectant eyebrow at him.

Sighing, Hizashi shrugs off his coat. "Yes,” he relents, “I suppose it would only be fair."

On the dawn of his nineteenth birthday, Yamada Hizashi walks into town with nothing but a sealskin cape on his back and a wife.

Or so the townsfolk like to tell it, because the townsfolk love a good fairy tale romance almost as much as they love to pity him. In time, they will come to pity him even this moment and his sea-wild wife, as outrageous as she is beautiful, as the very ocean itself, and Yamada Hizashi will do what he has always done in the face of undue pity, which is to laugh in it and continue loving whoever and whatever he loves, in whichever way he sees fit.

But that will come later. For now, in the rosy light of a dawn he never planned to see, Hizashi walks into town beside Nemuri, the sea maiden who saved his life – the woman who will be called his wife and be so much more – and is content enough to have finally figured out he’s grateful, even if he has yet to figure out much else. The rest will follow, he’s sure, in good time and – even better – good company.

#yamada hizashi #present mic #kayama nemuri #midnight #micnight #qpr micnight #i wrote a thing #mermay #cw: suicide #it feels weird adding such a heavy content warning given that this is not a heavy story overall but better safe than sorry #anyway surprise mermay fic everyone!#it's me i'm everyone #this fic blindsided me ngl but i quickly grew obsessed with it and needless to say i got Lore #lore that i refused to even hint at in the fic because i Do Not need any more long form wips and i do love me a good one-shot #but who knows maybe one day i'll revisit this au i do so love it #also decided to post the whole fic here instead of just doing my usual ao3 link thingy because i recently locked my fics to registered user #-only because of the whole ai fuckery going around lately which y'know sucks #but this way anyone who wants to read it but doesn't have an ao3 account can do so through here so hopefully that helps #anyway #enjoy loves <3

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cheswirls · 14 days

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looking @ old fic i started when i was 14/15 is so funny bc im realizing once again why i never mark fics as abandoned even if its been literal years since i've touched them. specifically i was checking docs for stuff i started and either did or didn't post to ffn.

and its like. nothing is bad??? like i can see where my outside-the-box ideal of fic writing comes from. not just fics but writing in general, i'm p sure. even if it's a total cliche plot setup, there are details on each that rly make it stand out like oh yeahhhhhh i did have this great idea once upon a time.

funny too bc was it executed well in prose??? no absolutely not i wrote like shit when i was 15. would i revive an idea one day and revise it to be less cliche or cringy while still keeping the stand-out elements??? yea maybe. i might. everything i'm currently working on that i started from 2021 up to now still holds my supreme interest, but like i'm not gonna say never.

esp since i write fic first and foremost for my own need and specifically what i like to read, it makes it impossible to consider an idea i've thought extensively about "not worth writing anymore". anyway not making this too long i jus found everything interesting to consider

#writing #this fic i pulled up from JUNE 2014 crazy was the old chosenshi au i was trying to write for a friend #i dont ship blue/silver and never will and thats prolly why i never finished it #but i do still like!! the idea of rocket!blue raised w silver and breaking free of tr while running the hoenn branch #no idea how i remembered bc it wasnt in the plot pts on the doc but she was gonna get sent to the battle frontier #to nab jirachi and have encounters w frontier brains and change her mind at the end of it all #hell i could go back and not make it ship fic at all - have silver be a little one-sided obsessed or #even jus like.. attached to blue as a rivalry like as a way to show her up at every turn #another fic around the same time was the old pokespe hs au where i changed all the dexholder's names for some reason #i have no idea where i was in reading spe bc i put lyra in for some reason and had the sinnoh trio even tho i never read past v2 of dp #idk if it was more gameverse or what but its so funny looking @ the ship list n seeing i had gold paired w black #bc i had manga!ss and manga!ferriswheel so was it rly speverse or was i projecting????#actually i think black was supposed to die and gold was gonna go thru this whole thing abt grieving #looking at the ship list so funny bc i never shipped gold/crys or entourageshi #and clearly i did not know the superiority of pmshi if i threw lyra in jus for silver #god but i do love (most!) of the alt names i gave them #would absolutely fuck up the ship list if i ever redid it tho #also have perfectworld tho im sure i have the most recent rewrite on pen and paper somewhere #that one i also gave up bc the idea i had for flare!sycamore was cringe along with #every time i went back to work on it enough time passed that i thought my writing sucked #i rewrote that damn thing so many times but oooooooo i still love the idea #as long as i changed the cringe parts to smth better i could still rock w most of these #that fic rly had everything... psychic!korrina. leaf/serena. sycamore hacking the secret to mega evo. lys/syc that ends in failure #bc of the ending line i will never forget > only in a perfect world could you and i be together. destined and doomed from the start #im rambling n im boutta run outta tags gimme a sec

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moosemonstrous · 4 months

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yep I misspelled Guero in the last one my bad anyway! this has to get posted or I'll never move on

Ghost Rider Pacific Rim AU - calm waters

“What’s with the tracker?”

Robbie belatedly realises this isn’t the first time Guero asked him this question. It’s hard to hear anything with the number of people all eating, talking and moving around in the mess hall. Third shift is always the busiest for food, all three kitchen bays turning out enough trays to tile the base. Over the last week it became rather obvious that Robbie can indeed fit in twice the rations after a six hours training session, but that means he needs to make sure he doesn’t inhale it all before Gabe has finished eating. It’s your damn food. Just tell him to stop fucking around with that tablet and hurry up. It’s assigned reading. He’s been doing tons of his own reading now, that’s good, it’s good that he doesn’t need Robbie to read for him— “Sorry, what?”

Guero points his chin at the black band around Robbie’s left bicep. It’s just him joining in for dinner today, the rest of the guys unwilling to wait until he was finished with the school handover. Robbie’s pretty sure he’s trying to hit on the TA. She doesn’t seem terribly interested, but it’s not his place to point it out.

“It’s for blood pressure,” he shrugs. He’s almost forgot about it, the steady squeeze and release around his arm just part of the general static his head fills with after running suicides. He hates running. His opinion doesn’t count for much in the gym. “I’m—”

“She jumped off!” Gabe interrupts him, finger pressed hard into the tablet screen to highlight a passage. “Robbie, she jumped off the roof! I don’t want her to get hurt!”

Robbie draws a blank. Normally, he’d keep ahead of whatever Gabe is reading so he can reassure him everything will be okay down the line. This whole week, though, he’s been going out like a light the second his head hit the pillow, and he’s not even entirely sure which story this is— “Hey, buddy, it’s alright,” he reaches out to grasp Gabe’s hands as they begin to clench and unclench in distress. “You have to keep reading, yeah? I’m sure she’ll be alright; you just need to keep on reading to find out.”

Gabe squeezes his fingers until his knuckles turn white and does the three-fours breathing a few times. It seems to work, because rather than starting to fidget in his chair he reaches back for the tablet. He nods to himself, steady, before clicking the device back on.

“Don’t forget your food,” Robbie pushes the fork back into his hand. He can feel Guero’s gaze on the side of his face. “What?”

“Kid’s got a lot of feelings, huh.”

“He’s right here,” he mutters. Gabe doesn’t seem to be paying attention to anything other than his book, but it doesn’t mean he can’t hear this kind of crap. “It’s okay to get upset about a story.”

Guero frowns for a moment before he figures out the last comment wasn’t really meant for him, but Robbie’s glare definitely is. “Are you—” he glances significantly between Gabe and Robbie’s blood pressure meter.

What a dickhead. Like they’d let you into the academy if you were—“It’s just for monitoring.”

“Monitoring what?”

Aw, he’s worried you’ll weigh him down. Fucking upstart. “I don’t know, it’s not like they’re telling me anything. It’s just a lot of brain scans.”

Gabe had a turn in the magnetic scanner a couple of days ago. It was hard for him to keep still for long enough, but for all that Robbie agonised he’d unwittingly set his brother up to be a test subject right alongside him, Dr Montesi never asked him back. Cho said they were just being thorough – that Gabe’s brain was fine, considering. Robbie is still considering if it’s really worth learning all of those martial arts if he can’t use them on annoying pricks in lab coats.

Meanwhile, Guero’s face goes on a bit of a journey. “Damn. They’re really pushing you forward.”

He sounds like he’s trying to hide he’s angry about it. Robbie puts his fork down just in case. “What are you on about?”

“Is it because of your dad? They’ll really let you pilot Hell Charger?”

“What?” Last Robbie heard about it, it was Cho arguing with Stark about extracting The Charger’s Conn-Pod for further testing. Apparently a no-go. “No, it’s decommissioned. It doesn't even have a reactor.”

Guero crosses his arms over his chest. “I’ve heard the techs talk. It’s getting a refurb. You can just tell me, you know.”

“I’m not going near that thing.” Liar. He hasn’t told anyone what landed him in R&D’s clutches in the first place. Nobody said he couldn’t, not even the Colonel, but it feels like the kind of thing he should be keeping to himself. It’s bad enough that the word spread his dad was a ranger. People look at him and Gabe funny whenever their last name comes up. “Besides, they’re getting a new jaeger any day now, right?”

“Well, I don’t know. You’re the one cosying up to the strike team.”

“I’m not—”

“Forget it,” Guero waves him off. He’s so fucking jealous. Watch it, guys like that will stab you in the kidneys to get ahead. “And if you really don’t know what the tests are for, fucking ask, are you insane? There are like, reps.”

“Yǔyán,” an older woman chides them from across the table. Guero bristles.

“Mind your business,” he barks. Stops swearing, though. It’s one of those weird unspoken rules in the Shatterdome – you’re supposed to keep it civil in the support areas. This is why soldiers tend to stick to their own barracks. It’s kind of embarrassing to be told off by a cleaning technician and impossible to assert dominance with hundreds upon hundreds of other civilians surrounding her, watching.

Cho mentioned they’ve got two sociologists on staff, studying cultural development in the semi-enclosed environment of a Shatterdome. Apparently Hong Kong is particularly interesting to researchers, what with a major city only a short ferry ride away. Sometimes, Robbie wonders if the L.A. base was at all similar. It didn’t really use civilian contractors. He rarely gets to ask follow-up questions when Cho goes on a tangent, and he doubts Guero would know, or care.

“Anyway,” Guero says, still giving the woman a stink eye. “Reps. Get one.”

Yeah, sure. See how long they keep you if you start complaining. And it’s mostly just training now, anyway. There are no new tests, just repeats of the same ones. Dr Montesi wants Robbie to have another full psych eval, but with the intake of new recruits for the academy there’s a bit of a waiting list. Is it weird that he’s relieved, that he has to wait for his turn? Yep. But it’s not like a psych eval will show anything, anyway. Cho seems to be doing everything at such a breakneck pace, it’s nice to know Robbie has a schedule to follow for at least the next couple of weeks.

Funny. That’s how long until the next demon is due.

#ghost rider pacific rim au #robbie reyes #gabe reyes #guero valdez #another one where Not Much Is Happening but uh time is passing we're getting there #i wrote out a whole combat-by-words between tony and ivanov but it's Not Working so #seriously tho if something isn't working do tell me 😂#i have enough self-esteem to go around

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