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deadboyswalking · 1 year

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I wanna write some touch-starved Tomura 🥺

there’s a cold breeze blowin’ over my soul

I. The First Incident

There was an itch beneath Tomura’s skin that he couldn’t scratch, no matter how hard he clawed at it. It didn’t matter, anyway, as he’d long since grown used to the feeling. He was just as accustomed to the emptiness inside him, a hollow place in his chest where he was fairly certain his heart was supposed to be. Yes, he was used to those things and had never known anything else.

Under the cover of night, however, those sensations often grew until the itch made him want to finally rip his skin off. Frustratingly, the hollow place in his chest also turned into a yawning chasm in his whole torso that begged for something he couldn’t even name.

He hated that hollowness the most and hated that he couldn’t figure out what the void wanted from him. What could Tomura possibly want? He had Sensei, his goals, his games, everything he needed. His frustration turned to anger and his anger to even more hatred, filling the abyss with more poison.

It was a night like any other when he woke up, curled in a ball and with a mouthful of blood from biting his tongue. He’d long since learned not to make a sound when having a... nightmare, he guessed.

He never remembered his dreams.

After he spat out the blood on a tissue and decayed the evidence, Tomura wrapped his arms around himself, palms pressed to his sweaty and shaking sides. There it was again, the hollow chasm he so hated. Tomura wanted... he wanted...

Fuck, he didn’t KNOW what he wanted!

His throat hurt and his mouth still tasted like blood, so he heaved his aching body to his feet and pulled a t-shirt over his bare chest before heading downstairs for a drink. Alcohol couldn’t solve all his problems, but he could at least pretend it filled the hole inside of him. At the very least, if he drank enough, he could probably sleep without dreams.

It was only by pure reflex that he didn’t jump and decay the whiskey bottle when a lazy voice drifted over from the other side of the bar

“Didn’t know you were a drunk, boss.”

Tomura’s head whipped around to see Dabi, leaning against the far wall and smoking a cigarette. In the darkness, the only thing that stood out were those bright blue eyes glittering from the shadows.

The glass started to overflow; Tomura cursed and set the bottle down.

“I’m not,” he responded through grit teeth. He took a large gulp out of his glass and felt it burn all the way down to his stomach, to the hollow place.

Good.

“You know, they say you’re only an alcoholic if you’re drinkin’ alone,” Dabi continued, “So why don’t you pour me one of those?”

Fuck it. Tomura got down another glass, sloppily filled it with booze, and slid it down the bar. Dabi pushed off the wall and caught it, downing a sip with a wince. Tomura smirked; clearly, Dabi wasn’t used to drinking like Tomura was.

“Should I be worried about you catching on fire?” he asked, gulping down another quarter glass. Maybe it was the whiskey, maybe it was just talking, but the hollow place ached less than it had when he had woken up.

Dabi huffed a laugh.

“Not unless you wanna see me shoot fire out of my mouth,” he replied, taking another sip before standing up and sitting a few seats down from Tomura. Dabi slouched on his stool, leaning heavily on the arm propping up his chin. His eyes were bloodshot, with heavy lids.

"It's like 4 am, why are you even here?" Tomura asked, knocking back another gulp. Normally he wouldn't bother with talking so much, but the whiskey had seemed to loosen his tongue as it loosened his tension. He re-filled his glass.

Dabi shrugged.

"My place doesn't have A/C and I can't fucking sleep. Figured at least a couple of rooms here did."

Well, he wasn't wrong. Tomura's room and the bar room both had A/C units. Unless Dabi wanted to sleep on the bar top, he was shit out of luck. It's not like Tomura would bring Dabi up to his room...

Anyway.

"You can sleep here, I don't give a shit," Tomura said, "Or you can have the walk-in downstairs. It's not like we use it."

Dabi hummed a low note and tilted his head.

"Might take you up on that offer, boss. So, why are you getting shitfaced alone at what, 4 am?" he asked, lighting another cigarette. Tomura didn't normally smoke much, but at that moment, Dabi made it look oh-so-appealing.

"Hey, pass me one of those."

Dabi raised a curious eyebrow, but tapped another from his beat-up pack and handed it to Tomura. Tomura shivered as warm fingertips brushed against his own, an unfamiliar sensation that crawled up and down his spine. When was the last time someone touched his deadly hands?

When was the last time someone touched him at all?

"Shit, I don't have a lighter on me," Tomura grumbled around the unlit cigaratte, thinking about the one he had stashed away upstairs for the rare occasions he turned to weed instead of booze. He could go upstairs and get it, but he really didn't want to leave whatever this was. Feeling a little less empty for once was definitely not something he wanted to let go of.

The other man rolled his eyes and held up a pinkie; a blue flame flickered to life.

"Lean forward a bit."

Tomura did, too quickly in his buzzed state, and nearly lurched off of the stool. Nearly. Instead, a hand gripped his shoulder tight to steady him, the warmth and pressure radiating through Tomura's t-shirt. It felt nothing, nothing like the dead hands that held him day in and day out. Dabi was warm. Dabi was alive. And Dabi was still touching him.

He choked down an overwhelmed gasp at the foreign feeling and looked up at Dabi's equally wide, confused eyes.

"Um, you good?" Dabi asked.

Tomura nodded, not trusting his own voice at that point. When did Dabi shift a couple of stools closer? Now there was only one empty space between them and Tomura could feel his body heat.

He straightened up and Dabi let him go. Tomura immediately missed the feeling of his hand and the hollow place opened up into a great pit, a void that he teetered on the edge of and that begged him to fall into its depths. A blue flame flickered and lit the cigarette in Tomura's mouth, and Tomura tried to conceal the trembling in his fingers as he took a drag.

"You didn't answer my question from earlier, boss," Dabi said in a low voice, almost a whisper. They were close enough that the near-silence of the bar didn't require more than that.

"Can't remember, what was it?" Tomura muttered back.

Dabi laughed quietly.

"Fucking drunk," he teased, "I asked you why you're drowning yourself in whiskey at 4 am."

Tomura puffed on his cigarette, trying to think through the alcohol in his brain.

"Woke up and couldn't get back to sleep," he replied, "Guess I was sick of thinking."

"Aw, did someone have a bad dream?" Dabi teased again, a sharp smirk playing at the edge of his scars. Tomura stubbed out the cigarette and took another swallow of his drink.

"Dunno."

The two men were silent as they drained their glasses. Most of the way to drunk, Tomura didn't trust himself not to blurt out something stupid like 'please touch me again, it felt so good and I want to know why.' He abruptly stood up, swaying only as slightly, but there it was again: a warm hand holding him up.

"Shit," Dabi hissed, "are you even gonna be able to get back upstairs by yourself?"

"You think this is my first time drinking down here? I can handle myself," Tomura scoffed, "I think Kurogiri's got an extra futon or something in the closet under the stairs, you can camp out here if you want."

Dabi let him go, but not before Tomura felt him gently squeeze the place he'd held on his forearm. His eyes snapped down to big, hazy blue eyes that openly gazed at him.

"As long as you're sure you don't need me to drag your drunk ass up to your bed."

Wait.

Was he–

No, Dabi wouldn't mean something like that. Not towards Tomura. He was just drunk, that was all.

"I'm sure. G'night," Tomura said.

"Night."

Later, as he lay curled in his bed alone, he touched the shoulder and arm that still echoed with the ghost of Dabi's touch. He shifted uncomfortably on the bed, unsure what to do with the new sensation he'd felt in the bar. In fact, he only knew one thing.

He wanted Dabi to do it again.

#shigadabi #saro's writing

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senselessalchemist · 24 days

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wrote 30k words and decided I didn't like them or the order i put them in and so started over. alright cool great thank you brain 👍👍

#ah the joys of fanfic #writing in general but since i rarely write anything but fanfic its all intrinsically tied up with the fanfic experience for me #wish i could have realized id end up unhappy with it 20k words ago #some of it will get used but the rest goes in the great gdoc trashpit with all the rest of the stuff i wrote and said naaahhh to #on the upside im feeling mildly hopeful about this attempt #god work is bad for creativity #all i wanna do when i get home is play noita and listen to naddpod #but i also like living in a building and food and my medication so #work it is #also people ive helped are now pregnant which is exciting #there will be babies that i had a very very small part in bringing into the world #a kind of funny thought for a person who does not want children personally #but anyway reset the “its been x days since saro scrapped a fanfic” clock

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scribbleswithsaro · 2 months

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#writing prompts #snippets from saro's notebook

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lostlegendaerie · 12 days

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Veritas Ratio and Autistic Representation

Chances are you know autistic people in your life; autism itself is a fairly recently coined term, dating back to 1911, and can encompass a wide variety of symptoms and eccentricities which have existed since the dawn of humankind. (The 'fey-touched' child or changeling in European lore shares a lot of traits with autistic children.) Autism is a spectrum, encompassing and overlapping a lot with ADHD and other neurological disorders. There are probably millions of people out there, especially from older generations, who are on the spectrum and have no idea. I did not even get my diagnosis until I was 27.

So it is entirely possible that the creators of Veritas Ratio from Honkai: Star Rail did not intend to write him as autistic and based him on people they knew in their own lives, who, diagnosed or not, are on the autistic spectrum. However, the point of this piece is to talk about the ways in which Veritas Ratio is good autistic representation (in my opinion as a autistic person), and how people who want to write characters like this can take a page out of Honkai's book in their own work.

1) SPECIAL INTEREST. Ratio shows a *staggering* amount of dedication to the pursuit of knowledge and his quest to cure the world of ignorance. This quest of his tends to supersede everything else in his life, with no mention of any friends, family connections or romantic partners in his character story. (Said as a Ratiorine shipper - not sinking any 'ships, here) His dedication to education started early, with reading college undergraduate education levels while still in middle school - seven or so years ahead of his peers. Autism is considered a disability, yes, but it does not exclude you from being smart, and the fixation on your chosen topic(s) can be extremely useful in motivating you to reach the top of your field. His path being The Hunt also outlines this dedication; he is seeking his target without rest or distraction.

2) SENSORY ISSUES. Ratio very explicitly can become distracted and disgusted by the feeling of dirt or sweat on his skin, something that tends to be more prevalent with specific clothing textures but absolutely can manifest in a need to feel clean. He also can apparently become very irritated and overwhelmed by lights and sounds, and wears his plaster mask as a way to deaden and deafen the amount of sensory input that he receives. This allows him to think better, and is a fantastic example of what it feels like to suffer from sensory overload. (If you find yourself getting stressed in crowds, try bringing earplugs and putting them in the next time you're in a noisy restaurant and see if doesn't help you out.)

3) STRONG SENSE OF MORALITY. Autistic people tend to suffer from a somewhat black-and-white feeling of right and wrong, and can hold themselves and other people to an extremely strict moral code. This does not mean that they are always correct in what they believe is right and wrong, but it means that they can be extremely passionate about following those rules. Ratio's beef with the Genius Society and their selectivity is indicative of his unwavering passion towards sharing knowledge with the masses, but the tactless way in which he wishes to cure ignorance bleeds into our fourth point.

4) DIFFICULTY WITH SOCIAL CUES. In one of his earlier conversations with Aventurine (where he is clearly irritated at how careless Aventurine seems to be about their entire mission), Ratio inadvertently insults Aventurine's his lack of education and parents. He apologizes afterwards, stating he did not intend to come across that way, but he maintains the same imperious tone of voice. Autistic people often, but not always, struggle with social cues and can often be considered rude when we are trying to be direct and easily understood; and we can especially struggle with understanding sarcasm or sounding sarcastic when we intend to be sincere.

With my reasons for believing Ratio to be Autistic coded firmly established, let's move onto why I think he is good representation. The two most important parts of representation, in my lived experience as an Autistic person, are RELATABILITY and EMPATHY.

Ratio exhibits some of the same mentalities and symptoms I've had, such as being misunderstood and accidentally offending people and becoming extremely stressed in large crowds due to overstimulation, so he checks off the first box. But the way that the other characters in the game respect him and do not ridicule him for his eccentricities marks the second. Whether in marketing material or in character dialogue options, Ratio's love of baths, his plaster bust, and his ceaseless drive to educate other people (whether they need it or not) are seen as charming and generally positive, and those attributes are not constantly brought up (and mocked) in his interactions and dialogue with other characters. Aventurine doesn't constantly ask Ratio if he needs to leave the Dream to take a bath, and the TB's text conversations with him allow you to engage with his special interests such as his requests for problems to solve and debates to wage against you. He is canonically seen and respected as a brilliant individual, and not reduced to a joke or viewed as comic relief (e.g. Sampo, who almost exclusively is given negative dialogue options for the player to use when interacting with him and who almost every character in the story openly despises.)

Some of you are going to disagree with me in the comments (which is fine, it's my opinion), but for the few of you who read this all the way through, thank you. I hope that this helps you view Ratio and Autistic people overall in a new light, and I am excited to see where else we go from here with him and the rest of the cast!

#saro's writing #hsr meta #hsr ratio #dr ratio #Veritas ratio #autistic experiences

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stellarhistoria · 10 months

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@brawlqueen could use a little bit of magic.

"It's all in the hands!" the eighteen year old magician does an exaggerated flourish of her hands, a spin and a bow, only for a fluttering of paper cranes to fly off from her jacket pockets. "Eheh. I suspect you're here tooooo investigate lil' ol' me?"

#❥ saros. ic ﹕ the trickster princess.#brawlqueen #[ HELO finally i can muster courage to write smth ]#❥ saros. verse 01 ﹕ fortune favors those who dare.

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deadboyswalking · 1 year

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Twitter Fic: "More"

#tdbktd #todobaku #tdbk #bktd #saro's twitter fics #saro's writing #in the likely event that twitter shuts down

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senselessalchemist · 2 years

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This is how I want to exit this mortal coil

#saro screenshots youtube #unrelated tag ramble #still cant draw very sad #fic however still unfinished and 18k plus words #like just stop writing #it needs so much work and every word means that much more editing #but maybe within a month there will be a new fic #very tired from yelling and climbing stairs #also the other nb ta is real hot in person wowowow

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fromsidereal · 2 years

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A warning or a promise - Project GATE

Short BowieSaros story ✨ Their dynamic is super fun to write, ah, but I don't want to go overboard with it for spoiler reasons

He was lounging in the circular pit of Saros' office, his feet kicked up on the table in its center, which he knew Saros hated but couldn't bring himself to care too much. Bowie liked to push his luck with everyone, the admiral of his battalion, and now the wretched crime lord of Paradiso. It would catch up with him eventually but for now the worst that Saros had done was threaten to take away his hovercraft privileges which Bowie knew he could get back if he asked nicely and apologized.

Saros wasn't a pushover, he just liked causing problems, and enjoyed the looks everyone gave him when he let Bowie off with warnings instead of wounds. Bowie had gotten used to it but didn't dare get too comfortable, even with his luck. He had seen Saros in action, fangs out and eyes wild, every inch the terrifying, monstrous thing the dev could be. So for now, he would settle for putting his feet where they didn't belong.

When the door to the office opened, Bowie half expected Saros to scold him, but when not even a word came from the entrance Bowie took his feet down and scooted up to see. Saros was fretting with his robe, which was stained with something dark and red. Bowie frowned at the way it dripped, then found himself scrambling from the pit and over to him.

"You're bleeding--" He said, unthinkingly approaching which made Saros snarl at him.

A warning.

Bowie paused and looked at him. Saros looked back, his eyes still fresh from the fight and burning with barely tamped down rage. Bowie put his hands up to show that they were empty.

"You're bleeding." Bowie said, "All over the floor too." he added.

"I can help you."

Saros spat a laugh, "I don't want your help." he said, and if he didn't look so much like a wounded animal, maybe Bowie would have believed him.

"Yea right, take your robe off before you ruin it." Bowie said, more firmly this time.

Saros expression flickered for a moment, his features softening with uncertainty, but he didn't let it last. The look went from one of anxiety to fury before settling on annoyance. Despite this, Saros jerkily pulled off his robe and threw it somewhere to the side. Bowie watched him, feeling very much like he was watching his dog throw a tantrum about being made to take a bath.

The wound was to Saros' side. Bowie didn't think it hit anything important, but stepped closer to inspect it anyway. The entire time, Saros held perfectly still, tracking Bowie's movement with his eyes.

"Where do you keep your balm?"

"Bowie--"

"No, Saros, I don't trust you to do it right when you're like this."

Was it a gamble for him to say that? Maybe. Saros hated being challenged by the people he deemed beneath him, and Bowie, as entertaining as he was, definitely fell into the beneath him category. To Bowie's great relief, though, Saros had lost a considerable amount of fight after being inspected. He pointed vaguely towards his desk and Bowie went to it, pulling out one of the drawers and finding the cactus balm and a roll of fabric bandages.

He went to the bathroom behind one of the walls and found a towel before returning. Saros had gone to sit in the pit, putting pressure on the wound in his side and staring blankly up at the crisscrossing lights of the ceiling. Bowie came and sat beside him, gently pulling Saros' hand away and beginning the process of disinfecting and mending. Bowie had heard from Ina that Saros barely took care of himself and only did so if Regan forced him to. At the same time, though, Regan would not challenge Saros if he told her to leave him alone. It was almost like she couldn't challenge him, even if she wanted to, even if it would save his life. One of the many little things Bowie learned about Saros and his onterage from the short amount of time he had with them.

Bowie was dipping the bandages in the balm when Saros finally spoke.

"I don't understand how you have the guts to do what you do, Bowie." Saros said quietly, his eyes were closed now as Bowie began wrapping him up in bandages, "I walk in covered in blood, and your first thought is that I'm in injured. It's humiliating, you know. That you think I'm weak."

"I don't think you're weak." Bowie says, securing the bandage in place and using the towel to wipe the excess balm from his hands, "You didn't say anything when you came in, you're usually pretty chatty. If it was someone elses blood you would have said something to me."

Saros was watching him now, the ring of his eyes seeming thoughtful.

"Did you know that everyone in the Palace thinks you're some vapid little thing?" Saros asked suddenly, "They sit and wonder how you manage to do anything, it's like they think you're so dumb that you'll forget to breathe."

Bowie didn't say anything, watching Saros' expression just as much as Saros was watching his reaction. When Bowie didn't react, Saros smiled. Slow and devilish.

"I know better than that." he says, "You're always watching, you're always listening. I'm sure you already know more about me than half the people in this wretched place."

Bowie wasn't so sure about that, shrugging and putting the lid back on the balm, "If they think I'm stupid, that's fine. I don't want their respect."

"Do you want mine?" Saros asked, sounding curious.

"Maybe." Bowie said, "But who doesn't. You run the show around here, after all, and I've always aimed over the moon, not at it."

Saros chuckled quietly, "You make it sound so hard to obtain my regard, but you had it the moment you walked through the door of my Palace."

I know that, Bowie thinks, I know that but why? What use am I to you?

If Saros was somehow able to read Bowie's mind he didn't show it, instead putting an arm over Bowie's shoulder. Bowie allows it, leans into it even. Saros smiles like it pleases him and Bowie wonders if Saros knows he can tell when it's a real. This one is, despite his sour mood earlier, Saros was in a very good mood now and the smile on his lip reflects that.

"I'd love to see you snap." Saros says, his hand coming up and to put his fingers through Bowie's mullet, "What would you do if you were cornered, what's it like to be met with your last resort."

Bowie closes his eyes, from where he's leaning, he can hear Saros' heart beat and almost taste the clinical smell of the balm.

"I don't know." Bowie murmured, "Something awful, I think."

Bowie feels Saros' fingers grip the hair at the back of his neck and gently pull so that Bowie was made to look up. They met each others eyes, Saros' searching, Bowie's as neutral as he could make them. Saros hummed thoughtfully, once more threading his fingers through Bowie's hair, scratching his scalp. Bowie closed his eyes again, not wanting it to feel as good as it did.

"I'll see it eventually." Saros says, continuing his expert ministrations, "I'll see the thing you become when you've got nothing left to lose."

Was that a warning?

Or a promise?

#my writing #project gate #bowie #saros #bowiesaros

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