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lemonbronze · 10 months

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Title: Cold Rain (also posted on AO3)

Summary: Zelkov reminisces about his lost brother; a drabble commission for @kindcalico

CW: none

Words: 725

It was just after lunchtime when the sound of rain falling in heavy sheets around the castle jolted Zelkov out of his regular afternoon drowsiness. Rain was very uncommon in Elusia; typically, temperatures remained so low that any precipitation came in the form of snow or ice, and true rain only occurred a few times in a year. This was one of those rare days, and as he wandered down the halls toward one of the castle’s balconies, he couldn’t help but let it take him back to a memory from long ago.

Rain had been falling that day, too. It sloshed against the window at the front of the small log house where he had lived, and it dripped through cracks in the roof as the wind battered against the front door. Zelkov and his brother Mashka—both eight years old at the time—had spent the morning huddled in front of the fireplace, making sure the wind didn’t knock any embers out into the house and trying to keep warm. Every so often, a gust howled noisily past the thin walls, not unlike the sound of wolves on the distant horizon, causing Mashka to scoot closer to Zelkov each time.

“It’s only the wind,” Zelkov said, the third time this happened. “We’re safe if we stay inside.”

“I wish Mama didn’t have to go.” Mashka idly played with the key that hung around his neck—the one to the back door of their home. Their mother had only recently given each of them a key to each of the two doors of the little house, and both of the boys had been wearing them proudly ever since, certain that they were quite grown up with such a responsibility.

Zelkov, however, liked to think he was even more grown up than his brother. He sat up straight, crossing his arms over his chest and trying to sound mature as he spoke. “Mama has an important job as a healer, and she has to take care of people even if it’s storming,” he said, reciting what their mother had told them earlier that morning.

His brother frowned at him. “You’re probably scared too, Zelly,” he said. “Stop pretending.”

“I’m not scared of wind and rain.” Zelkov shrugged; he really wasn’t afraid of the weather, even if he didn’t have much experience with storms. It was a little unnerving being left alone during one, but he knew their mother would be back as soon as she could, and he didn’t mind taking care of Mashka in the meantime.

Another loud gust rattled the front door and Mashka jumped, startled, before pulling the hood of his shirt up over his head.

Zelkov hated to see his brother so frightened. The two were inseparable, the best of friends, and always there to look out for each other. When the other children in the small village teased Zelkov for his odd behavior, Mashka was there to defend him; when Mashka got hurt falling out of a tree, Zelkov was there to take him home and treat his injuries. Although Zelkov was older by seven minutes (a fact that he often used when he wanted to get his way about something), the two had never been apart from each other since birth, and they were both keenly aware of each other’s feelings and needs, too.

So, even though Zelkov didn’t mind the storm, he put an arm around Mashka and said, “I guess it’s a little scary.”

Mashka nodded. “I told you.”

“When it’s over, maybe we can go out and look for mushrooms.”

“You think Mama will make mushroom soup if we do?”

“I hope so.”

The two boys had spent the rest of the stormy morning chatting about their plans for an upcoming mushroom adventure, and so their mother had found them a couple of hours later, happy and safe as if nothing had bothered them at all.

The memory was an old one, long since buried under ashes and pushed into the part of Zelkov’s mind that he rarely explored anymore, but he smiled to himself as he remembered it anyhow. Leaning against the cold stone wall of the castle, gazing out the window to the rain beyond, he thought of Mashka, and he wondered if he might find some mushrooms for soup after the storm passed.

#bran writes #zelkov #this was SO MUCH fun to write #thanks so much again!!!

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valeriefauxnom · 7 months

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i just caught up to your post canon dragalia fic in one day and hollyy shit dude. i am on the edge of my seat!!!! its so enjoying and well versed and i cannot wait for the next chapter

Ahhh! I always am ecstatic to hear reviews or even just random thoughts of any kind regarding my work, but hearing people like my work on Scaling enough to binge it is even crazier! I will forever be more and more amazed people have done that as the length increases, like don't they say an average novel is like about 50k words?? That would mean you've just binged 3 novels of my crazy assortment of thoughts on a possible post game scenario for a dead game in 1 day, which is nuts!

With Scaling in particular having such long chapters I worry sometimes that I'm getting a bit too lost in all my thoughts for it and getting too wordy, so it's always nice to see people are still enjoying it after it has grown increasingly complex, even if we are starting to get closer to a more definitive break in the case, were it a proper mystery novel.

You're the first person to send anything on Tumblr about it (or anything in general really), too, so this message is precious in another way! I'm always glad to field questions (though of course would shy away from spoiling my own works) or explain more about why x decision was made because boy I think I should just make 'overthinking' my hallmark at this point!

As a treat for how much this makes my week, here's a little snippet of a dragalia fic in progress that will probably be a long time in the making yet if it ever does see the light of day on AO3 properly, (so I don't get distracted by yet another thing instead of working on Scaling and/or finishing Control). It's a tentative collection solely based around the concept of the siblings finding out just how weird the Halidom is, especially Leonidas and Chelle since he was in charge of it for all that time and she's always poking about for info.

---

But when he looked back up to the expenses log, all the expenses listed were sky-high as well. The food expense, dragon expenses, aid expense, equipment expense, everything was all exceedingly high for such a small nation (as they should be, given what he knew about Euden’s governance). But to still draw a profit if expenses weren’t being understated meant an even more ridiculous income.

Sure enough, the few categories under income were even more egregious. Tax revenue was relatively moderate, but other revenue sources like ‘precious gems/mining products’, ‘gifts’ and ‘tourism income’ were far, far beyond what was rational in a kingdom engaged in war for its entire history.

Just as he was about to start demanding explanations for the inflated income, he spotted yet another egregious, incomprehensible bit to the income column. “Pipple?” He said, almost hostile, “What exactly is a pipple, and why is it on the income statement, let alone for such riches it is supposedly bringing in? No, no, I think I understand now.” Not waiting for an answer, Leonidas began to speculate. He’d never heard of anything sounding like ‘pipple’ before, and Leonidas boasted quite the vocabulary as crown prince. He was expected to have a suitably verbose and eloquent bank of words with which to communicate with foreign heads of state and domestic nobility alike. That meant this was likely something of a new invention in language.

A new invention, and something that brings in exorbitant funds…something very well hidden, if Chelle did not report on its trade or presence in a service business when we made joint moves on the Halidom, and it’s that sizable of an industry in New Alberia…Ah.

Quite devious of you, brother. I never expected for you to become so involved with such a shady industry, but it explains a great deal of their surprising shadow wealth.

There was only one thing this ‘Pipple’ could be: some sort of newfangled illicit drug his brother was putting to market as a supplier, raking in rupies hand over fist as people learned the effects of whatever potent cocktail this Pipple was composed of.

Desperate times called for desperate measures, and a new nation in war against a vastly more powerful, established land was desperate indeed.

---

So yeah, thank you again for your message! Not to toot my own horn too much, but if you're eager for maybe a bit more dragalia fic from me as you wait, I've got another fic up on AO3, though it's not connected with Scaling or even canon in general as a bad-end au what if! It's also likely not quite as polished, being written in like 2 days, but hey I'm just too happy about the two artworks my best friend made for it and now am legally obligated to try and show the art off at any given moment!

#scaling the walls of a mystery #dragalia lost fic #Thanks so much again!!!#inbox responses #dragalia lost

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vi-enti · 10 months

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i have been stuck in a cycle of rereading ur postgame fic over and over and over ever since it's release it's SO good........ i understand if u r writing up more to it and so don't want to disclose but i am dying to know more abt ur takes on both postgame as a whole and what's going on with each of the survivors..... if u wouldn't mind sharing, ofc :3

!!!! thank you so much, i'm so happy you enjoyed it. i do want to keep some stuff secret (partially bc i'm still fleshing out ideas myself) but i can share some stuff about the survivors!

hajime: so i'm not the biggest fan of hajime and izuru being separate personalities, but i do like them being perceived as such. hajime and izuru are one and the same, but the person he was as izuru and the person he was even before then are perceived as different to the others, they'll keep make excuses for him and claiming that wasn't him, but he has to learn to accept that he was the person who did those things, that there isn't a separate entity in his brain to blame. a lot of his journey is going to be about discovering the type of person he wants to be in his future and whether he even can be that person, or if his brain is too altered to understand the imperfections of happiness.

i don't want to say much about akane, fuyuhiko, or kazuichi yet. what i will say is that their journey of healing begins with the physical, and the mental gets pushed to the side for way too long. i can see Queen Sonia, Who Is Above All, and izuru kamukura taking care of themselves during the Tragedy, which is why they're some of the only ones to come out unscathed (not including nutrition deficiencies from being in the NWP pods). the other survivors aren't that lucky, so they have to overcome being weak before they can fully focus on the sins of their past and the futures they want. akane is the most malnourished, kazuichi has suffered so much damage to his limbs creating the monokumas and death traps in unsafe work environments, and fuyuhiko gave up his views of the world for those of a tyrant (literally lol bc. his eye. yknow?). how do they even begin to cope with the people they've chosen to become? how do they begin to cope with all they've lost physically and in their lives?

sonia: the next section i'm writing is about sonia actually! so i'll just share a snippet of that :)

When she had first woken up, Makoto and Kyoko had been there to help her, slowly lifting her upper body so she could sit up. She trusted them, of course she did, but who she really wanted to see was Hajime. Hajime, who had shone so brightly at the end of it all, who had overcome a despairing truth in order to help them all, who had lit a path to the future for his friends.

In that moment, she had seen the sort of person she had always wanted to be. Being a princess, born to be a queen, there was a lot of expectation for her to be the perfect leader. No matter who she asked, however, nobody could ever define what that really meant. Was perfection being an absolute authority? Being completely open to every request from her people? Maybe it was letting others do all the work and just smiling and waving, presenting a facade of peace when there was none. Or, worst of all, maybe it was being cruel, crushing all that stood in her path and ruling with an iron fist.

No. She had tried that last path, and now had no kingdom at all to rule. The princess, born to be a queen of perfectly nothing. Still, Sonia was a ruler at heart, a leader and guide to those around her. Before the others woke up, she knew she would need to define for herself again what the perfect leader was. All of these thoughts had run through her mind in the five seconds it took for Makoto and Kyoko to lift her to a sitting position, the detective hiding a smile as her partner babbled on about how great it was to see her awake, how much work they had to do, how happy he was to meet her in person. Sonia barely heard his words at the time, her eyes darting around the room of glowing pods, looking for that perfect leader to learn from. She had wanted to see Hajime.

#thanks so much again!!!#and sorry if this isn't exactly the answer you wanted lol i got overexcited and went on a bit of a tangent #i haven't completely decided if i will be focusing so heavily on all of them either. hajime and sonia are certainly the easiest for me to-#envision and write for so that's where i'm at the most rn #moon babbles #ask #anon #moon writings #danganronpa

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edsbacktattoo · 2 years

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1, 22, 25!

Oooh, thank you!!

1. What’s your sexual orientation?

I’m bisexual! :)

22. Tag someone you think is hot.

I don’t know what anyone looks like but for ✨sexy hearts✨ i’ll tag my beloveds @skysofrey and @nofeelingisfinall (sexy heart means i’m in love with them. my beloveds. 💕)

25. Describe your perfect Friday night.

This is a tough one! Probably rainy weather, a cup of tea that never goes cold. Fresh sheets and a nice candle. Like six bags of mini Reese’s peanut butter cups. Yeah that’s the good shit.

Be nosy!

#thanks so much again!!!#the last question got me thinkin #ask game #about me

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junosmindpalace · 9 months

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you don’t like to kiss satoru when he wears his blindfold.

you understand why he wears it, and you don’t have any problem with it besides how distanced you feel from him when he tries to be intimate with it on. so while you never ask him to take off his blindfold, you simply refuse to engage him when he wears it.

guilt eats at you for even feeling this way in the first place—after all, satoru’s health came before your own menial, selfish wants. still, you couldn’t help the uneasiness that came as a result of trying to be affectionate with him while half his face was completely blocked off from you.

and satoru doesn’t like this. he’s not immensely clingy, or at least not often enough to call him clingy, but he does like to have you near him, tuck you into his side and steal a slow kiss or two from you on occasion. especially when he’s feeling stressed or annoyed does he seek out your soothing touch, which tended to be pretty often from how demanding the higher ups are of him.

you’ll still lend a listening ear, lean in real close and scan his face as if trying to see those bright blue eyes of his through the dark mask he often wears, perhaps even wrap your arms around him and card your fingers through his hair held up by the fabric around his head. and most of the time simply being near you, touching you in one way or another is enough to soothe his aching muscles and tense mind. but when he leans in to press his lips against yours and you dodge, he immediately realizes that it’s not enough.

“you’re mean.” he pouts, and though you can’t see his eyebrows crease in distress, you can certainly imagine it, and you laugh.

“when we’re at home.” you reassure him, rubbing your hands up and down his arms.

he speculated for some time that you rejected him because of the setting, that it was unprofessional or perhaps embarrassing. but you had no problem angling his head toward you and stealing a kiss from his lips on the rare occasion he decided to wear his glasses to work, and so he eventually managed to piece together that the blindfold was the problem.

satoru’s frown only deepens, because he wants a kiss from you now. why should he have to wait to kiss his own partner?

“just a small one. a quick one.” he tries to bargain, holding your elbows, but you only shake your head with an amused smile.

“later.” you promise, and before he can press further, your students start to approach and your attentions are required elsewhere.

you uphold your promise, cupping his face and kissing him with so much love behind closed doors, as if you were anticipating the moment as much as he was—when his blindfold is off. but he’s still troubled by the fact that you refuse to kiss him with it on. it’s a part of him. do you think he’s ugly with it on? that’s got to be it.

he continues to whine and chase after your lips when the two of you are at work, but you only chuckle and angle his face away, and eventually it really strikes a nerve with him, frustrated over not knowing why you were so adamant on avoiding his kiss when he wore his blindfold. you haven’t tried to initiate, or even reciprocate his advances, even once!

he brings up this concern one day when you two are at home, when your bodies are messily intertwined on the living room couch, satoru’s chin propped up on your chest and your hand cupping his face as you cuddled and giggled about whatever sort of conversation you were making that night. in the security of your shared home, and in your comforting embrace, does satoru allow himself to wind down, letting his cursed energy seep out, and using it as an incentive to relax a slight bit.

you say something and he laughs, and upon seeing his smile and endearing eyes crinkle happily, you lean in to close the space between your lips.

he immediately reciprocates the kiss, the hold he has around your waist tightening. but then he remembers being in a similar scenario hours prior, and you refusing to meet his lips then. he pulls away gently as the dejection bubbles up in his stomach again, and his smile slightly drops.

“why don’t you kiss me when i wear my blindfold?”

the question, coupled with the blunt and slightly miserable tone satoru asks it with, catches you off guard, and his knit brows makes your breath hitch.

this was the thing about satoru without his blindfold. every piece of him—every vulnerable expression, every crease on his face, every emotion of his—was on display for you to bask in. rubbing your thumb over his cheek is welcome. there isn’t any fabric to bump into and make you feel like you’re being pushed out, make you feel like your affection is being suppressed.

satoru without his blindfold was open, intimate—whole. but when he wrapped the fabric around his eyes, it felt like he was also hiding a part of himself you adored. not the overwhelming strength he held in those enchanting cerulean eyes of his, but the love and affection they glimmered with when he was with you, a glimmer you’re sure was reciprocated in your own eyes as well. a part of him that displayed his adoration for you, for the things he loved most, clear as day.

“it’s silly, satoru.” you tell him reluctantly, gently playing with his hair. his sad smile makes you feel guilty, gnaws at your heart. but the part of you that feels shut away with that blindfold overtakes an insecurity deep inside. “i don’t want to concern you with it.”

“you gotta tell me what’s up, sweets. think i’m ugly?” he tries to tease, and you roll your eyes.

“just feel distant from you, ‘s all.”

voicing it aloud makes you feel just as small and silly as you told him it is. perhaps you were overthinking things too much.

you’re afraid to explain any further, because you don’t even know if you can without sounding even more insecure than you feel, but satoru immediately understands, and all the tension he’s built over the situation melts away in an instant, and he chuckles.

“like my eyes on you, huh?” he wiggled his brows, and you scoff, moving your hands down to his neck. he leans in a little closer, speaks a little softer. “they’re always on you.”

your heart flutters as satoru kisses over the side of your jaw, giggling at the slight tickling sensation. he mimics your smile from against your jawline when he hears you laugh.

he thinks he understands. if he wasn’t able to see those gorgeous eyes of your as they crease when you laugh, or gaze up at him in awe when he pulls away from a kiss only you could make so sweet, he thinks he’d also feel shut out, robbed of that small but intimate and beautiful part of you that leaves him breathless. he had a responsibility as the strongest to keep himself in line, but he also had a responsibility to you. he committed himself to that responsibility ages ago when you first met.

satoru stares up at you from the crook of your neck, and it’s as if there’s hearts in his eyes, a sight that never fails to fluster you when you realize that it’s all directed toward you, a result of you. it reminds you just why you were so insecure in the first place. why would you want to kiss him when he wore his blindfold when you were deprived of this sight while doing so?

“just try to kiss me with my blindfold.” he mumbles, and it sounds insensitive after what you told him, but it’s exactly why he wants to prove that not a single ounce of love for you is hidden away when he wears it.

you frown, but still reach to grab the black band from when he threw it on the coffee table hours ago. you wrap it around his eyes for him, feeling slightly saddened by the sight already, but his lovesick smile never falters.

as soon as your hands lower from behind his head, he’s gently pushing his lips against yours, and it feels every bit of kind and loving and special as it did when you kissed him without it. his lips move slowly, yet passionately, with yours, and for the first time, your hands move to cup his face in reciprocation. the touch elates satoru like nothing else in the world, and you can’t believe you ever expected anything different.

when he finally pulls away, you could swear you see those bright blue eyes of his staring at you with that dizzying gaze that makes you feel light and loved. the blindfold makes you feel a lot more exposed than he is though, and you can’t help but blush and bring your hands over your face to try and even the playing field.

he laughs at this reaction and tries to pry your hands away from your face. “so? anything different?” he grins, feeling proud knowing he accomplished his goal from your reaction, and you laugh.

“i still prefer it off.”

“that’s fine,” he hums, lowering the band so it hangs loosely around his neck with one hand, bringing your hands down away from your face with the other. “i prefer it off, too.”

and from then on you become a little more comfortable kissing satoru with his blindfold on, and he’s over the moon at you now indulging him when he’d pull you into a random empty classroom and lean in close.

but he doesn’t see the harm in compromise, however, so he’ll indulge you too. and when he’s feeling particularly eager, he’ll wrap an arm around your waist, quickly tug his blindfold down to his neck, and capture your lips in a breathless kiss.

whether he does this in an empty classroom or to say hello or goodbye before heading off on a mission with his students, you get to see those mesmerizing eyes of his shine with all the affection and love he holds for you.

besides, you can't help but admit that it’s even more satisfying when he does it in front of others, tugging the blindfold off simply for your sake, showing off to everyone else the state you reduce him too.

so perhaps you’ve grown to like kissing satoru when he wears his blindfold.