#this is my compromise because i can't decide which of my many ideas to work on

[fictionadventurer]

Fairy Tale Retelling I'll Never Write: King Thrushbeard as 1930s screwball comedy

The "princess" is the daughter of a business magnate who has managed to hang onto his wealth in the midst of the Depression.

Girl has some kind of "coming-out" ball where she insults all the men with the best '30s zingers available.

Including our young, handsome, witty hero (son of an even richer business magnate) who can go toe-to-toe with her in arguments, until she slaps him with a Thrushbeard nickname that sticks.

Her outraged father declares he'll marry her off to the first tramp who shows up at their door.

Thrushbeard, who's really attracted to this difficult girl, learns of this from his cynical, sharp-tongued, somewhat-socialist journalist friend, and makes some remark about how he'd be willing to live as a hobo to have her. Journalist friend retorts that Thrushbeard couldn't last a day outside his life of luxury.

Because this is a rom-com, this leads to A Bet. If Thrushbeard can successfully wed this girl in the guise of a hobo, he has to live like one for a certain amount of time, without drawing on his father's resources or letting her on to his true identity.

Thrushbeard shows up in disguise, there is Witty Sparring between him and the princess, and the princess winds up marrying him mostly to spite her father--if he thought this threat would make her apologize for her behavior, he had another think coming. Now his family legacy's tied to a hobo and he's got to live with that.

Unfortunately, so does she. The newlyweds are out in the street within moments of the wedding.

There is Comedy about how the princess haa no clue how to function outside her clean and glamorous world, and Thrushbeard's not much better.

With some assist from Journalist Friend (who is not about to let the story of the century slip out of his grasp) they manage to hop a freight car and settle down in a shanty town.

More Comedy about her total inability to complete domestic tasks. So it's not Totally Sexist, she gets the upper hand when her husband also proves unable to complete these tasks he claims were child's play.

There are various attempts to Find Jobs and Make Money, which are all humorously thwarted by Comedy Shenanigans. Journalist Friend has his work cut out for him just to keep these two idiots alive. (He wants to win the bet, but he also doesn't want to be responsible for his buddy's death.)

At one point, the couple winds up in a boxcar again and share a heart-to-heart where they finally see each other as people instead of sparring partners.

Princess finally starts a sidewalk stand where she starts to make a bit of money. In an Unfortunate Coincidence, Thrushbeard's dad shows up in the area, and Thrushbeard has to meet him as himself to keep him from finding out about this cockamamie scheme. During this confrontation (with his father who thinks he's shirking his responsibilities), Thrushbeard is inadvertently responsible for destroying his wife's stand.

To Thrushbeard's horror, his wife responds by demanding a new job to replace the one she lost, and his father gives her a job working in one of his houses.

Now Thrushbeard has to live a double life as himself and as the hobo husband his wife knows.

At a Glittering Party, Thrushbeard as Wealthy Heir is the center of attention while his wife is working as a servant and frugally trying to swipe scraps for his supper.

He tries to avoid her, but Tangled Comedy Mishaps lead him to stumble over her, sending her scraps flying and causing her major embarrassment as some members of the press recognize her.

In trying to help her, he acts too much like her husband, and the secret slips.

His wife slaps him silly.

She subjects him to a scathing tirade about what a heartless nutcase he is, and how the worst part is that she had fallen in love with her hobo of a husband, but he's not even real, and you can die in a ditch for all I care.

She tries to storm out, but he catches her by the wrists and tries to explain that he did it all out of Love for Her, and he did everything wrong and she can have her divorce if she wants, but he loves her more than ever and he'll love her until the day he dies.

She just stares at him, and finally she's like, "You're worse than a nut. You're a sap. And I'm the nut who's falling for it."

(It's a screwball comedy rom-com. Emotional realism has no place here).

Kisses, reconciliation, big proper society wedding. Journalist Friend wins big with his inside scoop (which Mr. and Mrs. Thrushbeard allow him to publish because he did keep them alive (even though this is all his fault) and the story's public anyway so they may as well get the facts from a friendly source.)

Thrushbeard and his wife both take steps to improve their fathers' business practices and help out their hobo friends.

Journalist friend gives them a wedding present of an unpublished photo of them standing in front of their shanty looking all gooey-eyed at each other. The couple hangs it in a place of honor in their fancy house, and the story ends on that image.

#fairy tale retellings #king thrushbeard #adventures in writing #this is my compromise because i can't decide which of my many ideas to work on #so i'll just publish the one i'm only interested in sharing in summary form #(i hope you're envisioning this in black-and-white because that's its true format)

[sirfrogsworth]

Photo Restoration: Adventures in Upscaling - Part 1

After finishing my big photo restoration for Katrina's family I was organizing my files and noticed a scan I missed.

The scan was fairly low resolution and the photos were only 400x700 pixels.

But I was bored and restoring photos helps me relax, so I decided to fix them up anyway—even if they did not have great fidelity.

I did my thing, and it worked pretty well.

But I have been interested in a set of photo tools made by Topaz Labs. They are known for their noise removal and upscaling apps and are praised by many photographers I follow.

Before I jumped into this A.I. suite of tools I wanted to make sure it was trained ethically with licensed images—same as how Adobe operates.

So that made me feel better about that aspect. Plus I feel this is exactly the kind of thing A.I. is great for. A tool to help artists rather than displace them.

I have used a few upscalers in the past and have had varying degrees of success. Typically they just implore various sharpening tools and try to control the chunky artifacts with denoising tools—trying to find the best balance between the two.

Two opposites trying to reach a compromise.

But I was not expecting the results I got. This is way beyond anything I have ever tried before and I had no idea the technology had improved this much.

Here are the results...

All photos will be displayed in order of original, my edit, Topaz upscale followed by extremely zoomed in crops to help you better see the effects.

Crops...

Topaz has a specific "face recovery" algorithm and I was curious if these results were only because of that.

But then I looked at this little guy and he seemed pretty sharp as well.

I was stunned at how well this was working. I was able to upscale these photos so they could be printed as an 8x10 with 300ppi resolution.

Maybe that first photo was just a fluke, so I proceeded with the others.

Santa's face was mostly obscured, but it was still able to work its magic despite that.

Crops...

At this point I felt like I was a caveman discovering fire for the first time.

This next photo is interesting because it has a very creepy clown clearly plotting to kill baby Katrina. And the clown has on full makeup, which could confuse the face recovery.

Crops...

The clown face looked great, but there were two interesting artifacts involving text.

First, there was not nearly enough information on the clown's button. So the A.I. did its thing and rendered nonsense. I found a smiley face button and just did some classic compositing.

There was also a bottle of Elmer's glue on the table and even though I felt there was enough detail to make out the words, the A.I. still struggled. So I found a bottle of vintage glue with the same label and replaced it.

And it kinda feels nice that A.I. can't do everything yet and I still have to use my problem solving skills to make the best photo possible.

On to part 2!

#photography #photo restoration #long post

[lesbianranpoe]

i have so many bsd zombie apocalypse fic ideas in my google docs folder and idk which to write so im posting them here lmao

Soukoku

Fifteen-year-old Chuuya is on the run from Arahabaki Lab---the lab that tried to perfect the ARAHABAKI Project, an experiment with the goal of creating a human immune to the zombie virus that's ravaging Earth.  Chuuya searches desperately for a place where the scientists can't get to him, even if it means crossing the Wastes, the large expanses of infested land between Suribachi City and Yokohama, where he hopes to take refuge.

However, the Wastes are hard to cross, and when Chuuya runs into a boy who offers to guide him to Yokohama, he says yes. Dazai is annoying, but he's a good shot; and best of all, he doesn't ask about Chuuya's past.

The trip is long and dangerous. Zombies, violent groups of survivors, and scavenging missions are all hazards, and if they want to survive, they have to work together. Fighting their way through the ruins of Japan, bickering, and encountering new people, the two grow closer, but Chuuya begins to wonder... just who is Dazai? And what is he hiding?

2. Ranpoe

When the apocalypse started, Poe lost all communication with his best friend, Ranpo, who lives overseas in Japan. Now five years later, Poe decides to go looking. (Or: Ranpo and Poe are long distance besties, The Guild are a smuggling ring with a giant ass boat that is actually plot relevant, the Armed Detective Agency are doing ADA things in Japan.) (Or: Poe and the rest of the Guild sail to Japan on the Moby Dick five years after the apocalypse after like 50k words and ranpoe canon)

3. Kunikidazai

Kunikida and Dazai are college roommates that don't really get along. but after the apocalypse starts, they have to work together to survive, at least until they get to the safehouse on the other side of the city. But as they fight their way through Japan, they end up getting closer. (Dazai is immune to zombie bites lol. The idea of having a scene parallel to that one in Dazai's Entrance Exam where Kunikida threatens to shoot Dazai but its because Dazai might turn into a zombie??? mmm)

4. Fukumori (ik, im suprised too. i dont even ship them, idk where this idea came from)

When Fukuzawa was 32, the world ended. Now three weeks later, the Silver Wolf travels from place to place, searching for somewhere to settle down as the chaos of the apocalypse takes Yokohama by storm. When he finds a seemingly abandoned building, he hopes to start a new life there, away from the city.

However, Fukuzawa is not the only one looking for somewhere to live. The building he had intended to make his home was actually an elementary school—and the four children left; Ranpo, Yosano, Dazai, and Kunikida, are still alive. Most interestingly, there is a man there—a children's physician who introduces himself as Mori Ougai. His leg is injured, but as a doctor, Mori is a useful asset to both Fukuzawa and the children, so the two make a compromise: Until things in Yokohama calm down, Fukuzawa will scavenge for food and protect Mori and the kids, and Mori will take care of any medical necessities. It's only meant to be a temporary arrangement, but time passes, Fukuzawa and Mori stay; more kids are rescued, friendships form, and before they know it, years have gone by. (Or: i slamdunk fukumori into the found family trope)

5. Fukuzawa + Ranpo

This is just an Untold Origins zombie au.

When the apocalypse started, Fukuzawa lost his best friend. Five years later, Fukuzawa is a powerful hunter capable of bringing a whole hoard down. And he does it all alone. But when he saves a 14-year-old boy from a zombie hoard and the child insists on staying, he finds that maybe it isn't too late to try again. And when the kid gets in danger, Fukuzawa has to choose between keeping his current life, and starting a new one.

anyways. if any of you guys want me to write one of these, pls comment. (or if u guys want to use any of these as prompts, go ahead, just tag me when ur done writing !! i want to see the finished product lol)

#bsd #bungo stray dogs #bungou stray dogs #soukoku #fukumori #kndz #kunikidazai #ranpoe #fic ideas #fanfic

[kazarinn]

Future subbing plans

When I first put Hurricane Touchdown out three years ago (goodness, has it really been that long already?!), I wasn't really planning to make fansubbing a regular thing, but after having worked on the Saint Tail project enough, I've started getting a little more used to it, so I decided to put a little more proper thought on what I want to do with it. This post will only be here, so my Tumblr followers can consider this to be an exclusive scoop ☺️

Regarding Hurricane Touchdown: As probably many of you know, Discotek Media recently announced an upcoming release of the first three Digimon movies, which, naturally, will include the Japanese version of Hurricane Touchdown. As is etiquette for fansubbers, I will be removing the download links for the Hudie release once that drops. However, I will be leaving the translation script file accessible to preserve the hard work done on it, and to leave it accessible for anyone who can't use the Discotek version for any reason (importation issues, region locks, etc.).

Raw script files can still be used with videos by putting them in the same folder as the video and giving them the same name, and the transcript is very easy to open with any standard text editor, so I think this will be a good compromise to keep the translation accessible and easy to reference. This is a workflow I started using with Saint Tail due to the unusual nature of its localization situation, but it's something I think I want to consider making use of going forward as well.

Regarding Saint Tail: Nothing really special to report here; I'll be releasing and revising sub scripts as usual until I've finished the series (I'm hoping to get it done by the end of the year). I haven't made a firm decision as to what will happen after that, but since it is a fact that the official release still has serious translation problems, I do think I want to do something to address that a little more aggressively once it's done.

Regarding Digimon Adventure 02: The Beginning: Based on the US screenings of the movie, it seems that the official English subtitles for the Japanese version are actually a transcript of the English dub, but with Japanese names swapped in. Surprisingly, this isn't as much as a detriment to the translation as you'd think it might be (the English dub script seems to be surprisingly close to the Japanese script, rather unusually for Digimon standards), but nevertheless, this is extremely bad translation practice and offends me on a personal level. As such, if future releases turn out to still be using this translation, I am considering making my own subtitled script for it.

For the record, because of how close the English dub script is to the Japanese script, I don't think this is actually that much of a detriment to understanding the movie; in fact, I would argue that LAST EVOLUTION Kizuna's official English subtitles are far worse and mistranslated in a more dangerous way. A theoretical The Beginning fansub would be, at most, something that would be done to satisfy a personal pet peeve and to address some minor loss in nuance that isn't reflected in the dub script, especially in regards to the Chosen Child partnership lore it presents (something that I know can be quite a serious issue to a lot of Digimon fans). So I'm not going to make guarantees about whether I'm going to do it in the end, and I wouldn't get your hopes up if I were you, but I do at least want people to know that this is an issue and that I currently have this idea on the table. As with Hurricane Touchdown, if I do put this out, it probably would be in script-only form.

As a side note, I do plan on translating The Beginning-related material (interviews, etc.), but I would rather put them up at a time when a sufficiently large percentage of fans has actually seen the movie. If you're from a non-American country and your country will be having a screening in the near future, please reply to this post with the date so I can get a good idea of when people will be watching it ☺️

#Digimon #Digimon Adventure 02 #Hurricane Touchdown #Digimon Adventure 02 The Beginning #Saint Tail

[tideswept]

I was tagged by @yourfavoritefridge and am taking a page from @sendpseuds ('s) book and answering this while deeply compromised. Sober, I am not.

You have been warned!

1.) How many works do you have on ao3?

62!

2.) What's your ao3 word count?

800,347! (Ooh, big round number!)

3.) What fandoms do you write for?

Currently: Kingsman & Star Wars. (I really never thought I'd be in either of them but I'm glad I am.)

4.) What are your top five fics by kudos?

gold and pink and glittering: 498, Hartwin, E. I'm still surprised to this day how much people liked it. First smut in several years.

the lean and hungry type: 453, Obikin, E. First time getting to do alpha/beta, and written from around 11pm to 4 am and then another hour proofreading. I was mildly delirious, ngl.

offer a little salt for that wound: 463, Hartwin, E. OOH man I had this one in my head and wouldn't leave me tf alone. My plot bunnies aren't USUALLY visual, but this one was!

cold water on your tongue: 429, Obikin, E. Still surprised this one took off tbh! I had a lot of moments where the fic felt awkward to me and not worth salvaging. But I think it makes people happy, and god, I can't really ask for more than that!

somebody to lie in the dark with: 302, Obikin, E. That's the second time today I've typed something instead of someone in that title. HMM. (Sith-Wan, my darling!)

5.) Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I do when I can! Have a pretty decent streak going, I think? I think I owe a really lovely commenter from like 5 days ago and nnnghh the guilt is heavy.

6.) What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Potentially empty spaces, empty phrases (Obikin) depending on how you decide the ending goes! But objectively: let me stay (TimJon).

7.) What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

oh fuck, who are you, the cops? (me, looking at my fics in despair)

I think the honor goes to cold water on your tongue. Everything else tends to end in a bittersweet or incomplete ("to be continued") kind of way.

8.) Do you get hate on fics?

Not outside of TMA. It's been absolutely lovely being in Kingsman / Obikin fandoms. I genuinely showed up here low-key scared for my life, and I've been shown nothing but kindness and support.

9.) Do you write smut? If so what kind?

Yes, and welcome to the first of the "UH IDK? [awkward shrug/hand wave]" questions because... I have no idea how to answer that. Like, what are the quantifiers here? Level of depth (NO PUN INTENDED) in how explicit it is, or what bits are rubbing against what bits, or like, if I specialize in any particular kind of smut (if there aren't pins for "I WRITE BDSM SMUT", I demand we print them) or— tldr: IDK. Vibe. The vibe kind. oh my god not vibrator vibe brain why are you doing this

10.) Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

Nope. I've thought about fusions, though! Like, I feel a fic where Obi-Wan is a Kingsman and picks Anakin as his candidate--maybe it was Qui-Gon's dying request still, and when Obi-Wan became a knight and a seat next opened up, he reluctantly said, FINE.

(Now I'm wondering what knight Obi-Wan would be. Gawain? The original version of him, not the vulgarized mythos of later romances. Which leaves Anakin to be Agravaian, which is pretty perfect tbh. I mean he could also be Mordred since they're all brothers)

11.) Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Yup! Multiple times. It never stops feeling Not Okay.

12.) Have you ever had a fic translated?

Not that I know of?

13.) Have you ever cowritten a fic before?

Nope.

14.) What's your all time favorite ship?

oh fuck you are the cops.

Uh. tbh this is a really hard question until I asked myself: a 100k fic written by an amazing author: what pairing would you be more excited about? And my heart... my heart said Hartwin.

15.) What's a WIP you'd like to finish, but doubt you ever will?

Ahh, sadly the post-Vday canon divergence Hartwin fic. I'm told it stands on its own as is, though. So maybe that counts for something?

16.) What are your writing strengths?

I have no idea. You saw what happened during the smut question, I fell apart like a jenga tower! And that was a simple question!

Honestly though, I don't know. That I manage to carry enough vibes to be entertaining? That's pretty good.

17.) What are your writing weaknesses?

I will not clutch the camera and shove my face into it and whisper everything in a voice ragged with despair I will not clutch th—

18.) Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

Google Translate, my dearest friend. (Unless it's Spanish, I can handle that on my own.)

Granted, if I have a friend who speaks the language, you can bet I'm knocking down their door like a SWAT squad.

19.) First fandom you wrote for?

UH SO FUNNY STORY. I watched IT (the TV series) when I was like, 7. Was very confused for many reasons (partly because I missed the first hour) but also i was a Weird Child, and also Not American.

But! I didn't know it was based off a book written by a dude, so one day I just... started writing the story down in a notebook when I was 8. Because I figured I liked the movie (I assumed it was a movie at the time) so much, why NOT turn it into something to read?

20.) Favorite fic you've ever written?

Beholding's Own. Lightning-in-a-bottle kind of situation, 10+ year break from writing, and also re-entering fandom after said 10+ year long break. It's really hard to live up to that kind of fondness.

From new fics? the devil is a gentleman. I can't help it, this Obi-Wan and Anakin are hilarious. They are so dumb and yet so smart.

I'm supposed to tag people now for this, so imagine me throwing Your Candy of Choice at @irrationalsense, @veloursdor, @kingdomvel and @howlbrooklyn like a fastball. (And anyone else who'd like to do it!)

#ask game #thanks for the ask!

[veliseraptor]

is it time for another 150 words meme? guess it is!!

for those who haven't been around for one of these - pick a number from the list of wips below and I will write 150 words in that project. you can send me up to three if you really can't decide on one. if you don't recognize or are curious to know more about what these are, my wip list has a brief summary of I think all of them.

twelve options and it's basically vegaspete and yi city all the way down with two wild cards

1. This place was too open and there were too many people around, none of whom he knew. There could be more of whoever those people had been around; he didn’t want to divide his focus to see if either of the two he’d dropped had ID. Pete was on his own and Vegas was compromised. “We have to go,” Pete interrupted. 

“You – what? What the fuck – are those guys dead?” 

“Sorry,” Pete said, adjusting his grip on Vegas. Then, because he felt rude and a little bit bad and Vegas did seem to like these people, he added, “have a good night.”

And he half dragged, half carried Vegas out into open air. 

Pete wavered between driving without somebody else as eyes or waiting for a car with a basically incapacitated Vegas and decided he wanted to get them out of an uncontrolled environment now. He disentangled himself from Vegas to put him in the passenger seat, which was more difficult than it sounded because Vegas didn’t want to let go and at one point bit his neck, which made it very hard for Pete to focus the way he needed to. (Drift)

2. Vegas wondered if he should try to pretend to know who he was talking about. Nobody liked hearing that the death that’d meant so much to them hadn’t made an impression. 

“You don’t even remember him, do you,” said his captor. 

“I have no idea who you are,” Vegas said. “So, no.” 

He didn’t like that, and expressed as much with another kick in the ribs. Vegas gritted his teeth so he didn’t yelp even though his vision swam and his head spun, his still mending insides vehemently protesting.  (All's Fair)

3. Xue Yang had a deep professional respect for Wei Wuxian’s work. He was, unquestionably, a master of their shared craft; Xue Yang had built a not insignificant part of his own work on the scraps of foundation he’d left behind. He was skilled, and smart, and based on his activities during the Sunshot Campaign had a nasty streak Xue Yang could appreciate. 

On a personal level Xue Yang sort of wanted to gut him with a dull knife. (demonic cultivator team up fic)

4. “Why are you guys being so weird,” he said aggressively. Vegas shot him a look that Macau met without wavering. “What? It’s making you really uncomfortable to be around.” 

“So go find somewhere else to be,” Vegas said. “Nosy.”

“I live here,” Macau said. He turned his gaze on Pete. “So?” 

Vegas could see Pete hesitating. His eyes darted toward Vegas and then away. 

“Don’t try to pry shit out of him just because you think he’ll crack before I do,” Vegas said. 

“He will, though,” Macau said, eyes still fixed on Pete. “You’ll tell me what’s going on. Right, P’Pete?” It hovered somewhere awkwardly between a wheedle and a command. Vegas reached over and smacked the back of his head.

“Cut it out, you little pest,” he said in English. 

“Did you have a fight or something?” 

Vegas’s insides seized up a little but before he could respond Pete said, “no, it’s not like that. Everything’s fine.” He smiled and Vegas felt like there was something scraping against his skin. He clenched his molars together until his jaw hurt. Macau looked even more suspicious.

“Riiight,” he said. “Sure.” (post canon vegaspete long(er) fic)

5. “Are you sure you don’t want me to come with you?” Pete asked again, for the fifth or sixth time. Vegas gritted his teeth so he didn’t snap.

“Yes, I’m sure,” he said through them. “Stop asking.” Pete barely flinched before relaxing into an easy smile. 

“Okay,” he said. 

“You’ll have sightline from here,” Vegas said, by way of…not apology, but maybe it would help Pete feel a little better. “Don’t worry. I don’t think…” his voice wavered and he cleared his throat. “I won’t be long.” 

Pete scanned him with watchful eyes that didn’t quite match his smile. “You can stay as long as you want,” he said. In his eyes Vegas read I don’t like this. 

“I know I can,” he said sharply. “I wasn’t asking permission.” He turned before he could see Pete’s reaction and walked into the cemetery. (Fidelity)

6. “Can I tell you a secret,” a-Qing said, her voice now dull. Song Lan made an affirmative sound, though he tensed. A-Qing chewed her lower lip. “It’s bad,” she said. 

“Mm-mm,” Song Lan said in denial. A-Qing turned a little in his direction, looking at him through her eyelashes. 

“I think Daozhang is still in love with him,” she said despairingly. Song Lan’s heart sank, the hope that he’d been wrong dwindling to nothing. He said nothing, waiting, and a-Qing kicked her heels. “I thought he’d get over it, now that he knows how awful he always was but he still…it’s not fair. That bastard is dead and he’s still making everything worse.” 

Song Lan’s chest ached. 

“What are we going to do,” a-Qing said, her voice small and unusually young-sounding, so unlike her usual brash, confident self. 

I wish I knew. I wish I knew what was right. No, Song Lan had to admit to himself that was no longer his first question. He wished he knew what would help. Right or wrong, if it brought Xiao Xingchen some peace… (Life After Death)

7. That was the trouble, wasn’t it? Xue Yang was right: Song Lan did want him to suffer. He wanted him to feel every miserable bit of pain he’d caused him and Xingchen and so many others; he wanted him beaten down and broken and begging forgiveness that he would never, never receive. The violence of the thoughts he’d had about what he could do to Xue Yang frightened him. The ease with which he’d already done some things – nothing against the torments Xue Yang had inflicted, but that was not a standard he wanted to live by – sickened him. But that didn’t mean he didn’t crave vengeance. He hadn’t spared Xue Yang’s life out of kindness. 

“Yeah,” Xue Yang said, reading Song Lan’s silence correctly. “So there you go.”

Song Lan grimaced, closing his eyes and taking a moment to center himself before saying, “whatever – baser urges I might have, as I’ve said, that isn’t how I want to conduct myself. With anyone.” 

Xue Yang looked away from him. “Seems to keep happening, though,” he said. “So much for daoshi discipline, huh?” 

“You are remarkably good at trying my patience,” Song Lan said. Xue Yang’s eyes darted back in his direction and he laughed; this one sounded significantly less wild than some of his others. 

“It’s not just you, Song-daozhang,” Xue Yang said, his voice suddenly bright and lilting. “I try plenty of other peoples’ patience too.” 

“I can imagine,” Song Lan said, which drew another laugh from Xue Yang. 

“It’s a gift,” Xue Yang said, with a sunny smile. (Walking Far From Home)

8. Xiao Xingchen had to laugh. “I would try to coax you back out,” he said. “I’m sure you’d be a very cute tarantula.” 

Xue Yang laughed and grinned at him even more widely. “You would think tarantulas are cute,” he said. “Sure, okay. I’ll be your special tarantula and I’ll only bite other people, not you. I’m very venomous, though, so be careful.” 

Xiao Xingchen tried to look solemn. “I trust my tarantula boyfriend,” he said, but he couldn’t hold a straight face, breaking into a giggle. 

“Your first mistake,” Xue Yang said, the two of them laughing together. Then Xue Yang lit into tickling Xiao Xingchen, and Xiao Xingchen almost kicked him in the stomach by accident, and the shadows of his dream faded from his mind. (Redux)

9. So. He was back. 

He was back and he was alive and something was wrong with him.

There were a lot of things wrong with him. Clearly. Or maybe had been wrong with him all along and now it was just…exposed, laid bare, yanked out in the open where he couldn’t ignore it. 

Vegas had done a lot of things to him but Pete thought that might be the worst. (jiggety-jig)

10. “Why won’t it work, you mean?” Xue Yang said, and laughed. “I can’t tell you all my secrets, Zichen.” 

Don’t call me that, Song Lan almost wrote, but he stopped himself. There was almost certainly no better way to ensure that Xue Yang called him nothing else. Instead he wrote, I would expect you to want to brag.

“Ha,” Xue Yang said. “What would be the point? It’s not like you’d be impressed. And you already know how good I am. Was.” His smile fell away a little, momentarily, and for a split second Song Lan saw him as he’d truly been when he died, hollowed out and exhausted, bloody and beaten even before Song Lan slid Fuxue between his ribs. “You are how good I was. My greatest creation. Even more than the Yin Tiger Seal. I just remade that, after all, but you were all mine.” 

Song Lan couldn’t actually vomit but the nausea was still overpowering. (the poison in your bones)

11. Liu Mingyan was a problem. 

If she had to be fair (though Sha Hualing was not generally interested in being fair), she was less annoying than her brother, but that was setting a remarkably high bar, and she was more annoying to Sha Hualing specifically. As far as Sha Hualing could tell, Mingyan-guniang had made it her business to interfere with Sha Hualing’s business at every possible opportunity. Sometimes it seemed like she couldn’t turn around in the Human Realm without running into her, even when Sha Hualing wasn’t doing anything wrong. Or hadn’t done anything yet, anyway. 

Or at least hadn’t done anything Liu Mingyan could possibly know about. 

It wasn’t like Sha Hualing couldn’t handle her. Obviously she could; she’d defeated her one-on-one, and later on held her captive. It still made sense to be cautious. A little wary. Human beings could be tricky sometimes, and Liu Mingyan in particular made Sha Hualing uneasy. Not that she would say as much to anyone. (under pressure)

12. “All of us,” Gabriel said, “must, in our lives, learn how to surrender to some greater power. Preference may not come into it.”

Lymond’s unnaturally bright eyes blinked once. “Not mine, at any rate,” he said. “I’m sure your preference is quite informative, in this case.” 

“Your wound,” Gabriel said, removing his hands, “needs tending.” 

“And you, with your healer’s hands,” Lymond said. “Ille more suo victus pietate, nec sordes cavit, nec fetorum exhorruit.”

“I make no claims to the miraculous,” Gabriel said. “But such things come first and foremost to the faithful.”

“Accept Christ,” Lymond said, “and my deformities shall disappear. Deny him, and I am cast out of the body public. Is that it?”  (et ipsi sunt jacula)

#fic excerpt #150 words meme #i have an upcoming 5 hour flight so....time for this meme [fingerguns] #also just generally feeling scattered across a lot of projects and sometimes this helps me focus

[estbela]

The Birth of Nations(or at least my headcanons about it)

So, for some time I've been thinking about how nations come into being. So I decided to write down the way it works in my hetalia verse (no promises on not changing my mind one day tho)

Nations can come into being in multiple ways, some being more common than others. The known ways in which a nation can be born is:

Sometimes, randomly, they can "spring from the earth", at least that's what they call it. Nations sometimes just randomly appear, typically as infants or babies, or toddlers(very rarely do they spring from the earth in any other stages of life, though it can happen) . There isn't one specific location they appear in, although where they appear might tell something about them. Some nations who don't remember their parents (if they had any) and origins might claim to have been born this way. It's a pretty common way that nations are born, and those born this way are called "autochthon(plural: autochthones)" like the men that would spring from the earth/soil, the rocks & trees in greek mythology. Sometimes these nations might have features from other personifications, and might be in some strange way the "children" of other nations(or sinply just ambigously related), so they are also a way for nation to reproduce I guess, if they can't in the usual way. Nobody has a solid idea on how it works(but people try to figure it out, to prevent it or to make it happen), but there are many superstitions, myths & beliefs about it among nationkind(that some consider to be nothing more than old wives' tales in modern times, especially younger nations).

They can be born from 2 nation parents, and in that way they essentially have all the attributes of a nation (immortality, a little screwed up perception of how time passes etc.) but do not have to necessarily personify something. They can simply exist(although later in life, sometimes accidentally or not, they may start to personify something). Some consider that these beings that are the children of nations but do not personify anything should be called something else, but no one has come up with a name for them yet. (And really, nation is not exactly a great term since, at least in my hetalia verse, personifications of many things besides countries exist, such as some regions, cities, states etc)

A nation parent and a human. This is a pretty unstable way of a nation being born, because there's no knowing how children born out of this union might be like. They might be born a nation, they might be a seemingly normal human, or they might be in a...strange "compromise of sorts" between the two. These "crosses" can have attributes of humans and nations mixed together. If they are immortal, they are only functionally immortal, and when they die once, usually, that's it(well..it's more complicated actually). And the immortal ones either age normally like a human(until they stop at maturity or at random), or slowly like a nation. Also, these beings do have a kinda high chance of turning into nations.

From two human parents! Sometimes, at random, two humans might be "blessed" with a nation! It might be more common with humans that have a nation as one of their forebears(or more if a family has somehow managed to mingle multiple times with nations lol). Usually, as soon as the fact that they aren't human is noticed, a nation will come to take the child away, to raise them.

Sometimes a human just becomes a nation, for no apparent reason, usually through death. Although humans with nation forebears have a highed chance of becoming one. It's pretty rare.

The way that nation genealogy works...they aren't truly related. I mean they have all that shit that humans have in their body (and perhaps, more) but they're not like. Related the way two humans apart of the same family would be, at least not biologically. They do use kinship terms to refer to those they consider family, thought.

#just talking recreationally #Hetalia meta #Nations #Nationhood #Nationverse #Aph #Hws #Hetalia #hetalia headcanons

[separatist-apologist]

i know you said you stopped reading them, but were there any dark romances that hit just right for you? i also struggle a lot with liking the idea of a darker romance, but not wanting to read about the mmc assaulting the fmc and they just fall for them anyway. seems like too many dark romance fall under that and i'm left there like... where was the romance in this??

the only one i read recently was twisted emotions by cora reilly which is a mafia romance/arranged marriage. it's dark-ish? like *trigger warning* the fmc was abused as a child, but the mmc had zero to do with that and instead helped her heal. not a great difference, but considering the mmc wasn't the abuser i guess that's a win? i will say i did enjoy this book, but it's one of those MY GOD HIRE AN EDITOR books because i believe the author is german and there's some major spelling/grammatic errors. it was pretty blatant so that sucked, but i did enjoy the characters and i thought she did a good job (as a survivor of child abuse/SA myself) writing a survivor healing and dealing with their trauma and trusting their partner to bring them joy during sex and intimacy.

Again, beneath the cut

I have such a love/hate relationship with dark romance because I'm not opposed to dubious consent (obviously). I think my issue is a lot of dark romance thinks it can only be dark if there is this element of emotional abuse that I find difficult to deal with, especially if its not resolved.

So like, the MMC kidnaps her, or he won't let her leave his home without watching her 24/7 because she belongs to him, to the point that he controls her phone, her finances, her friends and everything else. And I think a dark romance book could start that way but there should be growth, you know? You can be possessive and also trusting? Like why CANT she leave without an escort, why do you need to watch her 24/7? Why can't she work if she wants to, why does the FMC have to give up her autonomy entirely in order for the romance to work. I don't like that and I know a lot of people do which is fine, but it doesn't feel like a happy ending.

I also don't like the arrogant "im so hot i could have anyone i want and youre lucky im even looking at you" MMC that seems so popular in dark romance. What happened to being pathetic? What happened to being down bad for one woman to the point youd ruin the world for her, you know? You can be a piece of shit and still wet and pathetic, like sir you can really have it all.

I think my issue is the MMC is never required to grow or change and its the FMC who accommodates him and in the end decides she actually likes this/prefers it and so he is never required to compromise or alter his life for her to prove he loves her. Again. Bring back sopping wet men.

And finally, I wish dark romance would center on themes outside of just sexual assault. I am weary of the "hes so hot that sexual assault is forgivable" like girl c'mon. What if we just leaned into the murder, example, you know? That's enough to give ANYONE pause, if I was dating a man and found out he was killing people regardless of the justification I might have some thoughts like "what the fuck" and "hello 911?"

And if he is murdering its always this backflipping justification for why thats okay like i don't know, maybe we just. Call it what it is, ya feel? He's killing people, thats wild. No need to add morality to it, maybe he just likes to blow off steam by killing strangers.

Anyway all this to say no, I haven't read anything I really liked outside of fanfiction. Maybe I'll give your recommendation a shot and see how I feel about it.

#haters bookclub #if you do have a dark romance rec you can always hit me up #but i think this year im going to actually read all the monster books you all sent me #and i gotta read some of the omegaverse books #i have the dumbest idea based on those alpha books you always see on facebook #you know the ones im talking about #i want to write a parody of this so bad for feysand

[youareinbarbados]

What you "see", is what you get.

This goes back to what I said in an earlier post about self-imposed parameters. What we have in consciousness, had to come from somewhere. A lotta people are obsessed with the how, because the haven't DECIDED the how, and coupled with 3d-compulsion, it ends up unmanifested. They spend a lot of time trying to rationalise the origins in the 3D to the point where the integrity of their awareness of the thing is so compromised, that it doesn't materialize.

You decide everything. You decide the what and the how. There are a lot of people that really can't cope with just how much freedom they have in regards to conscious creation. Because freedom is also responsibility. When slaves were first freed, there were slaves who actually chose to continue working, because the idea of freedom was just so unimaginable for them that they had no idea where or how to start their new lives. So they just continue doing what they were used to.

A lot of people do the same thing in terms of conscious creation. They are so encumbered by the Dynamics of the 3D that they can't imagine anything other than what they are used to doing and being. So many people I speak to want to manifest billions while they are are currently with two part time jobs, in debt. So where is this money going to come from? Are you playing the lottery? Is your wealth going to come from an insane investment ? Are you going to save some toddler from getting hit by a car and their dumb-rich parent blesses you with a bag in thanks ?

Bad news for some people, you decide that. We remember how Neville's brother what did a specific building. We're not told as to how he wanted to get the specific building, but we know that he wanted a specific building. He saw in his mind's eye his family name on that one particular property. It took him 2 years of twice a day SATs. My point is that he could have gotten that building way sooner if he had just let the law provide him with a building. But in his heart, he wanted that particular building. He got exactly what he wanted, and had to be subject to the time taken to objectify. He made two decisions: He owned building, and he owned *that* building. You have to understand that you build the mould for what you want. Reality fills that mould. If someone wants to be a millionaire movie-star, odds are their millions will come from their work in acting. How many years will it take for them to become a star ? 🤷🏿‍♂️ Dunno man. But you set the trajectory. This is why it's important to know **EXACTLY WHAT YOU WANT** Do you own your own online business ? Odds are you're probably going to want to make your wealth from your business. These decisions are made in your self-concept. People what all this stuff, but don't give to thoughts as to the implications of their desires. Do you want an SP? Are they currently in a relationship ? Well the implication is that they would have to break up. How long is that going to take ? My point is that a lot of people just see themselves in the end but don't take any consideration as to the parameters of the end. All of this stuff is decided in the **MENTAL EQUIVALENT** *-emmet Fox* I know you want your stuff but you're going to have to give it some thought, which is what the internet is great at ruining. Your ability to think meticulously. We are all victim to this. Even me. Comes with the territory. When you conceive a wish fulfilled, you need to know everything about that wish fulfilled. It needs to be rock solid. Any holes that you have in it will be filled by the law. And it might not always be pretty. You are the one who sets the conditions and the parameters. Each decision you make affects how the law works. Sometimes conditioning your desire makes it take less time, and sometimes conditioning your desire makes it take more time. If you want something a certain way then make it so.

What did Neville say ?

*"'I have a lavish, steady, dependable income, consistent with integrity and mutual benefit."

That's an end that has been decided and conditioned properly. You need to know what you want and how you get it. This takes some time and self knowing.

When someone tells you that their wealth came from hard work sacrifice and time, so it is.

There are people who make money without even realising it and there is no sweat involved. So it is.

This is why the ancients said *"Be IN the world, but not OF it."*

Do not take on someone else's parameter for yourself. If there is an imaginative, intuitive artist who listens to a very uncreative, unintuitive person about success, the artist might be damning themselves to toil and labour as a result of being impressed by someone else's suggestion. People's conceptions are a result of their lives and mental equivalents.

Conscious creating for a while will start to show you what you should and shouldn't condition. If you are late to work with no car, then live in the end of you being at work, and having gotten there super-fast. Don't condition you getting in a red Uber that is a Toyota with a V6 engine. It's a bit confusing I know but as I said before it's all about experience and knowing yourself. Knowing when and when NOT to condition creations.

I cannot consciously create the same way my brother can. Therefore I should not take his parameters on to myself. This takes self-knowledge. This takes airplane mode for a little while.

*"..BUT ISNT THAT A CONDITI-.."*

Nvm.

🚰💧💦

#neville #neville goddard #nevillegoddard #manifesting #manifesation

[firedragon1321]

Hair Symbolism in My Writing the Movie

I know I just made a shitpost version of this but I want to yell about this trope more instead of writing. Fair warning- it turns into an OC rant halfway through.

TW for sexism, child abuse, trauma (in both adults and children). Also TW for a cartoon burn scar (on one OC).

I think Luke Tales of the Abyss flipped a switch in my teenage brain. He flipped a lot of switches, honestly (I have a thing for long haired guys in large part because of him). For people who haven't played the game- uh, play it. But also spoilers for mid-game.

Luke starts the game as a childish noble. The only one he listens to is his swordsmanship teacher, who also happens to be the main villain. Said villain convinces Luke to use his powers to destroy an entire village. Oh, and he also learns he's a "replica" (aka- clone). This is all a huge kick in the pants that forces Luke to re-evaluate his entire psyche. He decides he's going to change his ways, and cuts his hair to symbolize that.

(I still like the long-haired design better but anyway...)

I started rotating the idea of using hair to express a character's personality/development in my writing a lot since then. The "haircut of change" is a common trope (usually for girls- it's also in Final Fantasy IX). But I don't really use that specific trope (when I do, the character's hair usually grows longer, lol).

Traumatic haircuts are my obsession. Especially with guys. The trope is done to death with girls. They are expected to have long hair, so the loss of it is traditionally the loss of femininity, sexuality, or purity. Which by itself is boring and dumb. Give me a legitimate reason for that character's trauma that isn't steeped in sexism. Go into her mind and assign a reason specific to her.

Traumatic haircuts are even more fun when they enforce conformity. Whether that be gender conformity, conscription into the military, the rules of a dystopia- I really don't care. "Everyone has to act the same" symbolized in how they look my beloved. Which is why I think it's more fun with guys. It's a little unexpected unless you marathon read everything I ever wrote.

My main OC Soren is literally terrified of cutting his hair- even for trims- due to a traumatic forced haircut his father orchestrated. His father's abuse in general is one thread of many he has to untangle. The longer I work with the character, the more central that thread becomes. But in-story, he hasn't realized it.

And I don't want the solution to be cutting his hair to shed himself of those memories. I want him to keep his hair long, because it's his head and his father doesn't get to dictate what's on it anymore. Granted, he might do something independently. But the chance of that is pretty low. Honestly, I can't draw him with short hair except for flashbacks because he essentially "stops" me.

Soren isn't an anomaly. I have one character I'm working with who dyes his hair so he doesn't see his parents every time he looks in the mirror (context- they dumped him at a school and don't visit him). I have more than one OC who is of a species that can't cut their hair without losing their abilities, Samson-style. I have another character in an early novel who kept ping-ponging between short and long hair, cutting it short when he wasn't being true to himself.

Really, I could go on all day. But you're probably bored, so here's just one more.

This is Jackie, another main OC who pulled this trope out of nowhere simply by neglecting to notice how long his hair got after multiple traumatic events (he was in a depressive slump, so he didn't notice a lot of things). Unlike most of the others, Jackie settled on a compromise (he cut the bangs so he could see, but the back's still long). Jackie is in an evolving situation and I want to see what he does, so I'm just gonna let him do as characters do.

#writing #tropes #hair symbolism #analysis #tw child abuse #trauma #tw sexism #traumatic haircuts #soren #jackie #and the ocs i didn't name #leo #scarlet #rampion #elly #ocs #the babies #this is a bit of a cis perspective because i am not trans #it would be interesting to explore that angle one day #tw burns #rant #my art

[obeymematches]

moving in with with your om! bf (GN MC) (not nsfw)

inspired by irl events🙈 see more at the end of this post dfghj

HoL = House of Lamentation

Lucifer: Stays in HoL but possibly renovates it a little bit to have more privacy. (as a compromise in case you reaaally didn't want to stay there - now you have your own bathroom + a small kitchen)

His brothers still depend on him so you continue to share family moments. (which isn't too bad, Lucifer is usually busy so sometimes you might actually want their company) Though now you get noticeably more alone time together - which makes him realize how it would've been a good idea to actually move out (he'd immediately regret that tho because he very care family).

Helps out with chores most of the time. Going OUT on dates is a must at least once a week or so otherwise both of you lose your minds. Nothing else changes, really. Mammon: More likely to move in with you in the human world but would (slightly) prefer the Devildom. (he'd only do that tho if he can secure a spot in a safer area for your sake. even if you are a powerful sorcerer.) Paying rent&bills is going to require hustle which might be a reason why you have to move back into HoL. (though...in canon if he is in love with u, u get rich even if u do nothing...so that'd be handy in this case) Definitely enjoys how he gets to keep you for himself and he is living for the small moments with you (such as morning cuddles) but also! with you everything is much more fun, even if both of you work multiple shifts; after each day you are so tired you can barely watch a movie. Both of you visit HoL on the regular.

Leviathan: The only reason he'd do it is to get more alone time with you. Would take ages to actually do it, but he'd prefer to live in the human world with you (it's safer + its better for anime and gaming). (Lucifer is against the idea which also slows down the process but he eventually gives in). You'd probably have an apartment in a city with fast internet connection (dw he's done his research) and where you can afford rent. He works from home (either esports or programming) so he is always there to greet you when you get home. Decorates the entire apartment with figurines and posters plus there is never enough space for him. Henry is there also. You'd think he cooks / bakes and you'd be wrong. 92% of the time it's take-out food time. Definitely needs help with chores at first but gets the hang of it easily. Occasionally you visit HoL.

Satan: Definitely would rather moving out and renting an apartment. I think he'd prefer the human world. I feel like he'd want to change cities often (every 3-5 yrs or so). He is a curious demon and there is always so much to learn about humans. Very domestic. Does the chores and he does them well. You can never complain. Somehow can balance work & you & chores. (probably needs explanation sometimes with equipment he isn't familiar with but we can excuse that) Every weekend is date weekend where you learn something new about each other and the culture of the country. Asmo visits every month or so & stays for ~3 days.

Asmodeus: hmm...i think he'd let you decide on the realm but he picks the exact location. He picks a very busy area with rich nightlife, but to your surprise he only participates like a couple of times a week, usually with you. Listen he adores being with you. Posts about your life together very often. Would start a new vlogging channel if you'd let him. Rent & bills are No Big Deal, though at first he is shocked at how expensive they are. Is fine with most of the chores but since he refuses to do the dishes, when it's him on dinner duty you both go on a date instead. Beelzebub: Refuses to move out if Belphie can't come, unless it's literally the house next to HoL. (/closest to. i'm not sure if they have like. a close neighbour) Rather domestic, does the chores and puts in work to get the bills. Sometimes you might not find him at home - he is either getting groceries or decided to visit Belphie. Would rather have a movie night with you than going out on a date. Depending on what kind of house it is, he might pick up gardening as a hobby. Belphegor: Similar to his twin he'd prefer staying close to him if possible, but if that can't happen he's fine with moving in with you in the human world. (yes he prefers that over the Devildom) Lucifer doesn't like this idea at all so you probably need to convince him.

Bills might be an issue as he keeps losing jobs but you can't really blame him for that, can you. Regaring chores, he only does the groceries, vacuuming, laundry, and changing sheets, everything else is up to you. Every Sunday you spend sleeping in & cuddling. Beelzebub visits you every week, usually on the weekends.

The rest of the characters are under the cut... long post

Barbatos: Hm... I think you'd probably need to move in the castle, or a small apartment very near. It is because of his job obviously, can't help it.

As he is the royal butler I imagine you wouldn't need to worry about bills / rent because. Yeah. Chores, on the other hand, fall on you very often - sometimes his job requires him to be there 24 hours a day. Even when he has more break time he'd rather not do chores at home as well because then he'd literally have no time left to spend with you. But when he can afford to do them, he definitely helps out & does them better than you (no shame in that tho he does this for a living)

Diavolo: Pretty obviously you move in the castle. No rent & no chores to worry about unless you are desperate to help Barbatos out.

He'd spend literally all his time with you if he could & Lucifer often scolds him for it. Neglecting work isn't a good idea right.

Every weekend there is something new to do, he spends lots of time thinking about how you are going to spend it. Also this would be the first time(s) you'd actually see him stress about work, since you live close enough to him now. (obviously he mentioned it many times before but that's a different experience) Solomon: Honestly you are free to choose where you'd want to live as he'd follow you anywhere.

Tbh I'm not sure about his finances but I'd like to imagine you don't have to worry about paying the bills. (as in: you have to work too if possible but that's ok)

He does his chores but he does them his way. If you do them differently he might comment but usually he just lets you be. It's entertaining to learn how many different ways there are to,,, doing dishes.

Simeon: Definitely prefers the Celestial Realm & I don't think there is much you can do to negotiate if you want to live with him. Similar to Solomon, paychecks aren't a big deal but it's something to consider; if possible you'd need to work to help out.

He has his favourite chores to do but occasionally he helps out with others as well, especially if he sees you might struggle / hate one.

a/n: for those wondering... no we didn't move in together yet because i'm still waiting for my vaccine... but once it's done we're ready<3 i'm a little bit nervous ngl but i'm so excited also dfgh

#obey me #obey me swd #om! swd #om! headcanons #om! hcs #obey me headcanons #obey me hc #obey me x reader #obey me x you #obey me x mc #om! x mc #om! x reader #om! x you #obey me lucifer #obey me mammon #obey me beelzebub #obey me barbatos #obey me leviathan #obey me solomon #obey me belphegor #obey me asmodeus #obey me satan #obey me diavolo #obey me x gn!reader

[kaisa-ryo]

Attention deficit (pt. 1)

jujutsu kaisen

Characters: Itadori Yuji, Satoru Gojo, Megumi Fushiguro, Inumaki Toge, Sukuna Ryōmen, Nanami Kento, Suguru Geto

Warning: English isn't my native language!

☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*

Itadori Yuji

Itadori in this situation acts, oddly enough, completely primitive. The less attention he sees from you, the more he tries to get him back. In other circumstances, this might even seem exaggerated, but here and now this is the most critical moment. What does he do? Yes, everything in a row: drops the book, turns its pages, rummages in the bag, humming softly to himself, and so on ... And all this continues until it comes to stroking the hips and lightly squeezing one palm, while the other rewrites the abstract ...

- I miss the old y/n. - he gives out with sadness in his eyes.

At this moment, the game of interest begins: you feel how simultaneously there is a feeling of spontaneous and purposeful manipulation, how you are gently and imperceptibly pushed towards the long-awaited goal.

In such a situation, one could easily succumb, but you, resisting this, answer:

- Yuji, I'm very busy right now.

It would seem that a strong guy fights curses, trains with the strongest shamans, but with ordinary words it is so easy to break.

It's hard for you to realize that right now he is depressed because of you. It's unusual to see a sad Yuji almost always smiling and making others do the same. Especially you.

And so you compromise, intertwining your fingers, frowning slightly and pretending to listen to something inside yourself ... After that, Yuji remains in this position for a long time, as if afraid to frighten you off, because now such closeness between you is too valuable to miss out.

Satoru Gojo

It turns out that sometimes even acting like a fool doesn't help you pay attention to Gojo. First, the way you constantly focus on the same thing, so that the words in your speech get confused, takes on a comic character, and he comes to the idea that, for no reason, for no reason, you decided that work is more important to you than himself. Then you stop paying attention to him altogether. You no longer look at him from under your brows, do not frown at the idiotic jokes with which he is trying to distract you, as it was yesterday. Satoru notices that you are much smaller. He is puzzled and even confused. Finally, it occurs to him that you just have nothing to do, and comes up with the craziest idea to entertain you.

- What are you doing? - a voice of a man sounded nearby, who had been watching you with interest for some time.

There was no answer. However, it is not surprising.

- Okay, okay, you don't have to answer... - He looked away.

This was his usual technique. After asking several meaningless questions, he suddenly fell silent, as if giving you the opportunity to think over the answer properly, and he himself imperceptibly removed, leaving you in complete confusion. But this time, due to the circumstances, the technique had to be slightly changed.

In the next moment, he was already pressing you to him and, taking advantage of this, with his other hand began to explore the curves of your body. The reaction was as if you were doused with boiling water or doused with cold water.

- What are you doing? - You asked in a trembling voice.

- Checking to see if you got fat after we lost sex. - still clinging to you, he answered. You were taken aback and began to push him away from you.

- I have not grown fat, let me go! You barked, feeling his arms tighten. - Let go! Fool! Let go!

Hands rested on your back, and he began to rock you slowly, stretching the moment when you finally stop resisting.

- It's okay, y/n. You just need to calm down. - he whispered, not hearing your words.

There is a mess in my head, the goal of your resistance has fled somewhere, and you start desperately hugging the man while he grins at the fact that he managed to do what he wanted.

Megumi Fushiguro

Megumi is not one of those who will behave like a child, attracting attention to herself when you do not even know the reason for her loss. He will speak to you as soon as he notices it.

- Do you want to talk about it?

You rub your eyes with fatigue, but you shouldn't ignore Fushiguro's question, because it concerns the two of you. No matter how serious his intentions are, he will always be there to remind you that you can talk to him about what worries you.

- I... will hardly give any good advice, but I will try to make it easier for you after the conversation. Megumi continues after a minute of your silence.

Even such a seemingly small detail as being able to talk to someone else significantly reduces stress and other not-so-good emotions. And the guy knows it.

- You can always count on my help. - already with a drop of confidence he says, and it's like the touch of a soft, pleasant hand on your shoulder. Of course, he does this primarily because he is worried, but this is only a secret cover for the fact that he is upset that you turned away from him, without noticing the real reason.

"Fushiguro, if I do this, I don't know... I... will feel like this..." The words elude you. It’s hard to even think about what you’ll say next.

The guy spreads his arms to give you room to hug and apologize, but you just put your head on his shoulder. You don't want to talk about anything else. The chest against which your head is pressed turns into a pillow. And then a quiet voice is heard:

- I'm not mad at you. You can stay here as long as you like.

But here you won't need anything as long as Fushiguro is around.

Inumaki Toge

Not surprisingly, the first thought that comes to him is "it's all because of the damned speech."

Does he talk to you too little? Maybe he is too quiet and invisible for you? Perhaps you are afraid that someday he will take control of you? From such questions echoing in my head, my jaws come together and a lump appears in my throat. But the worst thing is that Toge begins to doubt his right to meet with you, because he cannot even talk to you with dignity, as a person to a person. Even your sweet persistence, which sometimes breaks through the boundaries of ordinary attempts to turn the conversation back on track, does not help. As a result, when it comes to your attention deficit, he begins to think that all this time you did not notice him, as if he was one of those whom you forgot on the first day.

- Okaka? - the young man has been trying to attract your attention with his eyes for a long time, but it seems that even words cannot help.

- Sorry, Toge. I'm not in the mood today...

The guy was actually a perfectionist and would rather have your smile shine every day. I wish he could turn back time right now, scroll to the moment when something went wrong and fix it at any cost.

Inumaki tucked a lock of your hair behind his ear to see your face behind it. He knew you had flawless skin and plump, sensual lips. He would admire your face for hours.

The next second, the blond rested his head on your lap, looking into your eyes. You liked such cute things from him. They weren't vulgar or inappropriate. They were what she needed.

You smile faintly and stroke the hair on the back of his head, touching his cheek with your fingertips.

Sukuna Ryōmen

This is the case when Sukuna uses passive aggression. Slightly wrong, some small sign of ignorance - his speech turns into direct pressure on your relationship with him. He can really hurt you a lot if you don't appreciate his efforts to make you even a little happier. Most often they are small and insignificant, the kind that anyone would do, but for the King of Curses, this is really something grandiose. And since he has many ways to destroy your relationship, if you think he made a mistake, remember how it hurts him.

- Will you ignore me again? - Sukun asked with imperious anger, the last pieces of despair were dying in his soul. - And where is your mercy? If I have become disgusting to you, why do you continue to need me?

There was nothing to answer. It was not pride that tormented him at all, but an ever-deeper regret that with your equanimity you just caused another outbreak of rage in him. Most of all, the thought that you, perhaps, does not even notice it, and your eyes clouded with pain glide over something that is very dear to him, terrified him.

The dead silence continued, and my chest ached more and more. Then there was a soft groan:

- Y/n, I love you.

Tears ran down your cheeks, but did not brush them away with my hand. You knew it wasn't going to help. Bitter emotions generated by the word "love" are not able to be burned out on the face, like the sun on clay. You can't stop feeling. And all the same, looking at you was as painful as seeing your motionless glazed gaze.

He hugged you from the back as soon as he felt that you were repenting. Like the time you forgave him for calling you your own. He had strong hands - you can be sure. He was very gentle. You felt less pain. Maybe in the future it will be difficult for him to remember this, but now he tightly squeezed you in his arms and was so affectionate that you wanted him to never let you go.

Nanami Kento

He begins to suspect that something is wrong very early. First, morning kisses disappeared somewhere before leaving for work, then sincere conversations at the table, and then completely short meetings with glances. Moreover, the last remnants of intimacy are gone. Nanami began to think that something had happened to you. He always tried to protect you from any problems. And so you found yourself right in front of him, so closed and detached, he could not so easily take away the comfort and peace that he had been creating for so long and skillfully. And first of all, of course, he will lend you a helping hand to make it easier for you as quickly as possible.

A perplexed look will appear from under dark eyelashes after a man touches your forehead with his palm. It seems that the whole thing is not about health.

- You don't have a fever. He began.

- I know, thanks.

But Kento was clearly hinting at something.

- So what's up? - then you know what Nanami means. But she said nothing.

- Y/n, I do not want to impose anything on you, I just need to know what is happening to you so that our relationship with you does not suddenly go downhill.

The man took your hand and brought it to his lips. Nanami felt that if he said something now, he would commit tactlessness. And so he was silent, waiting for your answer.

- Sorry... - Tears began to burn my eyes. - I am very, very ashamed. I... it's just hard for me now, but it will pass by itself. I'm sure.

You pressed as tightly as possible to the man, hugged him and buried your face in the chest. He put his hand on your head encouragingly. I already didn't care about the problem as a whole. Now for you there was only what you felt - his soft stroking, the smell of a strong male body, warmth and care, and there was nothing but that.

Suguru Geto

He will take it calmly, without intention. But she won't ignore it. Often he will offer tea or something else, just to get at least one word out of you, in an attempt to bring you into conversation. He will not touch you without asking, because he knows about the value of personal space. And yet, for a while, it can fiddle with spontaneous statements in order to simply take away the soul and break a long silence.

- I see your day is going well... - Geto smiles with restraint. - Lots of news for me?

Guessing that he is once again trying to create a dialogue between you was almost nothing. But you are, of course, silent.

- I see. - Suguru sits down next to you, as close to your side as possible, not giving a damn if you don't like it.

- Maybe I offended you in some way? - he continues. - Or are you just not too open in your thoughts?

- Nothing. It's okay. - you throw.

- But it seems to me that no. - he takes your hand in his, as if trying to make you smile. “I think you have something to tell me, don’t you? He raises his eyebrows, expecting your reaction. Instead of answering, you grimace with a shrug. Suguru repeats the question:

- So what happened? Why don't you want to share your thoughts with me?

- What would you like? You ask. - Would you be happy to know that there is a perfect girl with great manners, beautiful and intelligent, whom you deserve?

To be honest, Suguru did not expect such an answer. You can see that he is a little dumbfounded, but quickly comes to his senses. And then he starts laughing - so sweet and sincere that you start to feel embarrassed and blush with shame.

- And I was already expecting something more terrible. He laughs. - Okay, be it your way. I'm not a particularly sentimental person. I do not know what to say.

- Tell me you feel terribly in love. - grabbing his wrist, you say.

The brunette makes a startled face again. But you do not retreat - you hold him for a few more seconds, forcing him to surrender. - Only from the bottom of my heart ...

- Y/n, I feel terribly in love with you and will never fall in love again next time. So? He asked, grinning.

Wiping away the tears of happiness, you hugged him without words, while he, hugging you with one hand, exhaled with relief.

☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*

#jjk #jujutsu kaisen #jjk imagines #jjk x y/n #jjk x you #jujutsu kaisen x reader #jjk x reader #jjk itadori #jjk megumi #jjk satoru #jjk fushiguro #jjk fluff #itadori yuji x reader #megumi x reader #satoru goj�� x reader #sukuna x reader #nanami x reader #itadori x you #megumi x you #satoru x you #inumaki x y/n #inumaki x reader #sukuna x y/n #nanami x you

[newvegascowboy]

*banging fists on table* RED X ARCADE AU (I am a huge fan of this idea) Anyways, for the drabbles: 6 and/or 37? You know, whichever (or both) you wanna do :3

from this prompt list

this one was so hard to decide on hjjhs i went with 6 just. because. but i do want to do 37 as well so!! in a bit :3c

under a cut because it got quite a bit longer than i thought hjjsg

--

"Kiss me," Red says. "Or shut up."

"Are those my only options?" Arcade asks.

"Can you think of something else useful to do with your-"

Arcade jabs Red in the ribs. They grunt, shying away, their fingers curling in the collar of Arcade's suit jacket. Both of them stagger on the pavement; Arcade's foot slips off the curb and splashes into a puddle. He grimaces.

Red laughs softly, their breath ghosting across Arcade's cheek. "Too much, huh?"

Grunting, Arcade rights himself. He grabs the back of Red's shirt to keep them from toppling over. "You had four drinks," he says. "How are you this drunk?"

"Oh, I'm a lightweight," Red says matter-of-factly, putting their free hand on their chest. "I'm practically wasted right now."

"Wow," Arcade says dryly. He tugs Red down the curb and they begin to make their meandering way across the street towards the Lucky 38. "I appreciate the honesty. Wish you'd been honest a little earlier in the evening about how useless you'd be, but we can't always get what we want."

"I can throw up on your shoes next time," Red offers. "That's honest."

"I'll stick to dragging you home," Arcade grunts. They stop before the doors of the Lucky 38. Arcade releases his hold on Red's arm for just a moment to reach out and haul the door open. Red's arm curls around his neck, tugging him close enough that Arcade can smell the whiskey on Red's clothes.

Red drops their cheek to the top of Arcade's head, humming. "And don't think I don't appreciate it," they say, patting Arcade's cheek as they stagger across the lobby to the elevator. "If I get left unsupervised in the Gomorrah, ten to one I'm getting stabbed."

"Who's to say I'm not going to be the one doing the stabbing?" Arcade asks as he lifts a foot to tap the call button on the elevator. He feels Red hum, and the faintest twitch of their head against his own.

"You're a doctor," Red says. The elevator dings softly, doors sliding open.

"Duly noted," Arcade mutters, shuffling them both into the elevator.

Waving a hand, Red brushes over the interruption. "Which means you're too much of a goody two shoes to stab anyone unduly."

"I would say you've more than earned it," Arcade says mildly, glancing up at Red. He can't see much from his position, but Red's fingers are brushing the side of Arcade's jaw too consistently for it not to be deliberate.

"Plus, you've patched me up too many times for you to make all your hard work go to waste," Red says.

"That is true, Arcade says, nodding. The elevator rattles, slowing to a stop. The doors slide open to the suite level and Arcade starts tugging Red along. "I guess you owe me."

"For a lot," Red says, sounding surprised. "For a guy who supposedly hates me, you sure do spend a lot of time making sure I don't die. Or spend the night in a gutter."

Arcade sighs. He pats Red's ribs. "Unfortunately, I can't compromise my morals. Even for you."

Red hums, sounding skeptical. They reach out, nudging the door to their room open. Arcade hits the lights. The inside of Red's room is surprisingly spartan, with little character beyond their gun sitting on the dresser and a duster thrown over the back of a desk chair.

"I don't think that's true," Red says, staggering once before Arcade relinquishes them and lets them drop onto the bed. Red falls backwards, eyes closed. Arcade sighs, rolling his shoulders. He plants his hands on his hips, leaning over Red. Red's eyes crack open, muddy green and not quite there. They smirk, lifting a hand to prod Arcade between the eyebrows. "I think you just like me."

"Do I?" Arcade says dryly, a half amused quirk to his lips. Beneath him, Red grins.

"Yeah," Red says, reaching up to grab Arcade's tie. Arcade lifts his eyebrows. "I think somewhere in your cold, calculating little heart, you like me. You'd be sad if I got stabbed at the Gomorrah and/or had to spend the night outside."

"And why should I like you?" Arcade asks. "You've done nothing but make my life trouble since I met you."

Red just smiles slowly. Their hand slides up Arcade's tie to the knot at his throat. They tug once, not hard enough to pull Arcade down but enough to put some pressure on the back of Arcade's neck. "I don't know," they say, the point of one canine snagging on their lip. "You tell me."

Arcade eyes them for a moment, then slowly reaches up and uncurls their fingers from his tie. "You won't remember a bit of this in the morning," he says.

"Not a word," Red confirms.

Smiling, Arcade pats Red's hand. "Goodnight," he says, letting their arm drop down to the bed sheets. He turns to go, hitting the lights on the way out.

"Goodnight!" Red calls.

Arcade just shakes his head, letting the door swing shut behind him.

#fallout #fallout fics #kal talks #kal writes #asks #courier red #courier six #arcade gannon #arcade x courier

[itsclydebitches]

Here's a quandary I've suddenly found myself in: where do you stand on writers deleting their own works, fanfiction or otherwise? I've had this happen to me on more than one occasion - I go to look for an old favorite and find it's since been deleted from whatever site I read it on.

On the one hand, I'm inclined to think that, "Sure. The author wrote it, it's their call. I don't own the work - I certainly didn't pay for it. It's their decision, even if it's disappointing."

But at the same time I can't help but consider the alternative - if I believe in death of the author (and I do), that an author's work fundamentally isn't solely theirs once it's been published, posted, etc., then it also seems wrong to have a work deleted. Stories aren't the sole property of their creator, after all.

But then I circle back. D'you think there are different obligations between authors and readers and the works being made in fandom space? I know if I had bought a book and the author decided they wanted it back, I would feel pretty comfortable telling them no, given I'd paid for it and whatnot. But that's a different world from fanfic and fandom space generally.

So. You're insightful Clyde, I'm curious as to what you'll have to say here (and to all y'all thinking about it, don't flame me. I haven't decided where I stand here yet - haven't heard a good nail-in-the-coffin argument for or against yet).

Val are you a mind reader now? I’ve been thinking about this exact conundrum the last few days!

(And yeah, as a general disclaimer: no flaming. Not allowed. Any asks of the sort will be deleted on sight and with great satisfaction.)

Honestly, I’m not sure there is a “nail-in-the-coffin argument” for this, just because—as you lay out—there are really good points for keeping works around and really good points for allowing authors to have control over their work, especially when fanworks have no payment/legal obligations attached. In mainstream entertainment, your stories reflect a collaborative effort (publisher, editor, cover artists, etc.) so even if it were possible to delete the physical books out of everyone’s home and library (and we're ignoring the censorship angle for the moment), that’s no longer solely the author’s call, even if they have done the lion’s share of the creative work. Though fanworks can also, obviously, be collaborative, they’re usually not collaborative in the same way (more “This fic idea came about from discord conversations, a couple tumblr posts, and that one headcanon on reddit”) and they certainly don’t have the same monetary, legal, and professional strings attached. I wrote this fic as a hobby in my free time. Don’t I have the right to delete it like I also have the right to tear apart the blankets I knit?

Well yes… but also no? I personally view fanworks as akin to gifts—the academic term for our communities is literally “gift economy”—so if we view it like that, suddenly that discomfort with getting rid of works is more pronounced. If I not only knit a blanket, but then gift it to a friend, it would indeed feel outside of my rights to randomly knock on their door one day and go, “I actually decided I hate that? Please give it back so I can tear it to shreds, thanks :)” That’s so rude! And any real friend would try to talk me out of it, explaining both why they love the blanket and, even if it’s not technically the best in terms of craftsmanship, it holds significant emotional value to them. Save it for that reason alone, at least. Fanworks carry that same meaning—“I don’t care if it’s full of typos, super cliché, and using some outdated, uncomfortable tropes. This story meant so much to me as a teenager and I’ll always love it”—but the difference in medium and relationships means it’s easier to ignore all that. I’m not going up to someone’s house and asking face-to-face to destroy something I gave them (which is awkward as hell. That alone deters us), I’m just pressing a button on my computer. I’m not asking this of a personal friend that is involved in my IRL experiences, I’m (mostly) doing this to online peers I know little, if anything, about. It’s easy to distance ourselves from both the impact of our creative work and the act of getting rid of it while online. On the flip-side though, it’s also easier to demean that work and forget that the author is a real person who put a lot of effort into this creation. If someone didn’t like my knitted blanket I gave them as a gift, they’re unlikely to tell me that. They recognize that it’s impolite and that the act of creating something for them is more important than the construction’s craftsmanship. For fanworks though, with everyone spread around the world and using made up identities, people have fewer filters, happily tearing authors to shreds in the comments, sending anon hate, and the like. The fact that we’re both prefacing this conversation with, “Please don’t flame” emphasizes that. So if I wrote a fic with some iffy tropes, “cringy” dialogue, numerous typos, whatever and enough people decided to drag me for it… I don’t know whether I’d resist the urge to just delete the fic, hopefully ending those interactions. There’s a reason why we’re constantly reminding others to express when they enjoy someone else’s work: the ratio of praise to criticism in fandom (or simply praise to seeming indifference because there was no public reaction at all), is horribly skewed.

So I personally can’t blame anyone for deleting. I’d like to hope that more people realize the importance of keeping fanworks around, that everything you put out there is loved by someone… but I’m well aware that the reality is far more complicated. It’s hard to keep that in mind. It’s hard to keep something around that you personally no longer like. Harder still to keep up a work you might be harassed over, that someone IRL discovered, that you’re disgusted with because you didn’t know better back then… there are lots of reasons why people delete and I ultimately can’t fault them for that. I think the reasons why people delete stem more from problems in fandom culture at large—trolling, legal issues, lack of positive feedback, cancel culture, etc.—than anything the author has or has not personally done, and since such work is meant to be a part of an enjoyable hobby… I can’t rightly tell anyone to shoulder those problems, problems they can’t solve themselves, just for the sake of mine or others’ enjoyment. The reason I’ve been thinking about this lately is because I was discussing Attack on Titan and how much I dislike the source material now, resulting in a very uncomfortable relationship with the fics I wrote a few years back. I’ve personally decided to keep them up and that’s largely because some have received fantastic feedback and I’m aware of how it will hurt those still in the fandom if I take them down. So if a positive experience is the cornerstone of me keeping fics up, I can only assume that negative experiences would likewise been the cornerstone of taking them down. And if getting rid of that fic helps your mental health, or solves a bullying problem, or just makes you happier… that, to me, is always more important than the fic itself.

But, of course, it’s still devastating for everyone who loses the work, which is why my compromise-y answer is to embrace options like AO3’s phenomenal orphaning policy. That’s a fantastic middle ground between saving fanworks and allowing authors to distances themselves from them. I’ve also gotten a lot more proactive about saving the works I want to have around in the future. Regardless of whether we agree with deleting works or not, the reality is we do live in a world where it happens, so best to take action on our own to save what we want to keep around. Though I respect an author’s right to delete, I also respect the reader’s right to maintain access to the work, once published, in whatever way they can. That's probably my real answer here: authors have their rights, but readers have their rights too, so if you decide to publish in the first place, be aware that these rights might, at some point, clash. I download all my favorite fics to Calibre and, when I’m earning more money (lol) I hope to print and bind many for my personal library. I’m also willing to re-share fic if others are looking for them, in order to celebrate the author’s work even if they no longer want anything to do with it. Not fanfiction in this case, but one of my fondest memories was being really into Phantom of the Opera as a kid and wanting, oh so desperately, to read Susan Kay’s Phantom. Problem was, it was out of print at the time, not available at my library, and this was before the age of popping online and finding a used copy. For all intents and purposes, based on my personal situation, this was a case of a book just disappearing from the world. So when an old fandom mom on the message boards I frequented offered to type her copy up chapter by chapter and share it with me, you can only imagine how overjoyed I was. Idk what her own situation was that something like scanning wouldn’t work, but the point is she spent months helping a fandom kid she barely knew simply because a story had resonated with her and she wanted to share it. That shit is powerful!

So if someone wants to delete—if that’s something they need right now—I believe that is, ultimately, their decision… but please try your hardest to remember that the art you put out into the world is having an impact and people will absolutely miss it when it’s gone. Often to the point of doing everything they can to put it back out into the world even if you decide to take it out. Hold onto that feeling. The love you have for your favorite fic, fanart, meta, whatever it is? Someone else has that for your work too. I guarantee it.

So take things down as needed, but for the love of everything keep copies for yourself. You may very well want to give it back to the world someday.

#fandom #fic things #mymetas #never any easy questions on this blog huh? lol

[rogue-durin-16]

THINGS NEVER GO AS PLANNED (Part II/VII)

"candy floss"

Summary: After Fred's death, George and Y/n lean on each other to carry on. This wasn't the most brilliant idea, though; George was pretty much in love with the girl, and Y/n— well, she had been dating Fred prior to the Battle of Hogwarts.

Pairing: George Weasley x Reader

Genre: angst

Tags:

Suggested by: @crispykittywitch

Things never go as planned: @sarcasticallywitty15 @beautyschoo1dropout @s1ut4georgeweasley @leovaldez37 @missmulti @weasleywh0r3s

Permanent taglist: @elia-the-bibliophile @randomparanoid @karlthecat15722 @thebutchersdaughtersblog

Warnings: grief, feels, brief mention of Fred x Reader ig?

A/N: I decided to name the parts bc why the fuck not so keep an eye on the titles 👀. This story is based off this convo and these headcanons. If you wanna be tagged in the next parts tell me, and enjoy <3

Prologue :the aftermath

Part I : sleepless nights

Part III: shock therapy

Part IV: wrong name

Part V: the perfect excuse

Part VI: the downfall

Part VII: apart

Epilogue: I still love you

Rogue-durin-16 masterlist

The moment the last group of customers decided it was time to call it a day and exited the shop, I left the till counter and grabbed my wand from my pocket, instantly turning the sign in the door so it could be read from outside 'closed'.

A sigh escaped my lips as I leaned against the multicolored wooden rail.

I was drained.

The shop helped our minds to get distracted and stray from the grief, yes, but it was also exhausting.

We had been subconsciously overworking ourselves to the point where it was borderline self-destructive.

It didn't help that I was throwing myself into comforting George, either. I could not be blamed for doing that, though; he was broken.

A part of me, the rational one, knew he would pick up the pieces and build himself up again, it would just take a lot of time.

There was another part of me, though, that depressed, drained part, that was beginning to think he would never heal by himself —maybe he wouldn't heal at all— but still held onto the hope that, if I tried hard enough, I would be able to mend what had been broken in him.

A terrible idea, really, because I started to dismiss in its entirety my own miserable, damaged state.

And George, ever the caring, sensible one, would have noticed that; he would have made me realize I was not doing nearly as well as I thought, he would have talked some sense into me, but he wouldn't— he couldn't, because George was lost in an ocean of grief, trying so hard not to drown that he wasn't able to notice I was trying to aid him from my very own sinking boat.

It also seemed to be working; he was more animated, slept more soundly, and his smile was a bit brighter even —at least the one he had for me.

"Rough day?" My eyes, which I didn't know I had closed, fluttered open at George's voice.

"Very."

He walked to me with a tinge of guilt in his face. "You know we can switch places, right?" I had been working as the public face of the shop since we had reopened, and George had taken on the task of doing the paperwork and shippings instead, showing up from time to time to help me and to let people know there was still a Weasley running the business.

I had been the one to suggest this, since I knew George had compromised with reopening only because of me, and he was clearly not ready to put up a sociable, positive attitude for dozens of people every day.

"Nah, it's fine like this." I assured him with a reassuring smile.

He measured me with his eyes for a second; I couldn't really tell if he saw through me or not. "So I was preparing the today's shippings," he rocked a tiny purple basket I quickly recognised in front of me. "I found this in the back of the stockroom."

"Are those—?"

"Candy floss cupcakes, yes." A year and a half ago we had bought five baskets of candy floss cupcakes from Honeydukes per George's request in order to unsuccessfully try and implement them.

"Are they even edible anymore?" I couldn't help but laugh.

"I hope so?" He chuckled too, tearing the film covering the sweets. "Thought we might as well finish them."

My eyes travelled from the basket to him and viceversa before stating, "well I'm hungry so..."

"Same here." He was the first one to pull out a pastel colored cupcake, though he handed it to me. "Wanna get food poisoning together?" Laughing, I gave him a nod as he grabbed his own cupcake. "At the count of three?"

"One"

"Two"

"Three." We said in unison right before taking a bite of our respective madeleines.

I frowned at its surprisingly good flavour. "Am I delirious or are they actually edible?"

"Dunno," he shoved the rest of his cupcake into his mouth with a shrug. "maybe we're just starving."

"Go big or go home, I guess." I finished my cupcake before leaning on the basket to pick another one. My head snapped up with my brow quirked when I heard a soft chuckle. "What?"

"Nothing." George shook his head, motioning at the stairs. "Shall we sit down?" I followed his lead, sitting on the stairs and waiting for him, who had stepped towards the drinks aisle to grab a couple of juice bottles, to do the same.

We stayed there, eating and drinking in a comfortable silence until the basket was empty and our eyelids threatened to shut.

"I think we should head back to the flat." He spoke, leaving the half empty juice aside so he could stretch.

"I'm gonna learn how to cook." I stated, getting up. "We can't get by based on most likely expired sweets and whatever is in the Leaky Cauldron menu."

"Aight." He mimicked my actions, picking up the stuff we left on the stairs. "We will learn the basics tomorrow." He got behind me and began to gently push in the flat's direction. "But now we're gonna get some sleep, miss."

I would be lying if I said my heartbeat didn't pick up when his hands landed on my shoulder blades and made their way to rub both my arms reassuringly.

I would be lying if I denied I leaned back when he did that, letting myself get closer to his chest.

And I would definitely be lying if I said I didn't crave going back to my room so I could cuddle him all night.

One Week Later

"—right in the cauldron, love." I pointed at the cauldron besides me, giving a sweet smile to the kid in front of me, visibly going to be sick thanks to the free sample of Skiving Snackboxes.

"Y/n!" I spun around at the loud calling of my name above the shop's racket. I was able to discern a long, red mane flowing fast towards my position right on time for the owner to wrap her arms around me.

"Glad to see you too, Ginny." I laughed, trying not to lose balance due to her enthusiasm. "How come you're here?" I questioned, pulling away.

"We heard you were open." Harry walked up to me, appearing from behind the girl, "And thought we'd pay a visit to our friends, right?" Ginny nodded, looking around while Harry gave me a quick, yet comforting hug. "Where's George?"

I motioned up to the small office, redirecting the couple's eyes to the second floor. "Doing paperwork—AH!" I jolted when a pair of hands tickled my sides, my head snapping to see the towering ginger standing behind me. "Speaking of the devil."

"I thought I saw Gin through the window," George explained, his hands lingering on my waist for long enough to his sister to stare, before pulling Ginny into a tight hug. "And came down to check if she was distracting my employee."

"You got her all bored here, mate." Harry pointed out, a light joking tone in his voice.

"And you're the one supposed to help with that?" George rolled his eyes dramatically. "Pfft... What a world we live in." With the said, he gave the boy a side hug. I heard Harry murmur an 'We missed you' before they pulled away with a pat on the shoulder.

My gaze landed on the youngest Weasley, whose welled up eyes were trained on her older brother's half smile. I only averted my eyes and waited for her to discreetly wipe away the unspilled tears while Harry and George catched up.

By the letters she had sent me, I reckoned the last time she had been near George, he had been lifeless; seeing a glimpse of who was once one of the most cheerful, funny and charismatic people in her life, was probably poignant to Ginny.

I hadn't realized she had moved closer until I didn't hear her soft voice. "Thank you." I offered her a confused smile, though deep down I knew what she meant.

Two Days Later

George was having one of those days.

We both knew it was coming soon; it had to happen sooner rather than later, since he had been in a surprisingly good mood for almost a week. I suspected seeing Harry and Ginny had brought back the events of the Second of May.

I suggested to close the shop for the day, since he was unable to move out of bed; he refused to do so, but I convinced him to stay in the flat and rest —it was Tuesday, anyway; I wouldn't have to handle many customers.

Due to that, when I saw Hermione, Ron, Bill and Fleur entered the shop, it was understandable that I hadn't become the happiest person in the world.

I greeted them, there were hugs, kisses, and even a joke or two, and when Bill asked about George, I excused him without giving much detail.

They understood.

Fleur was the one to restart the conversation, lightening a bit before requesting a tour for the shop, since she had not yet been there.

It was when we reached the love potions that Hermione, using the fact that Fleur was very much interested in the product, held my hand and pulled me aside.

"So... how are you doing?" The frown in her face, the fact that she was whispering, the squeeze her hand gave mine, let me know she had read me the moment her eyes met mines.

I sighed with a shrug.

"You can tell me." Could I? "No one's asking you to put on a happy face, Y/n." The girl assured me, her eyes digging into mines. "It's not just George, we all lost—" she shook her head at her own words before correcting herself. "you lost him too."

I lost him too.

I bit my lower lip to stop it from quivering.

The memory of Fred's broken smile as his corpse laid on the stretcher, that memory that haunted my dreams, appeared vividly before my eyes.

My lips started to burn with the ghost of that kiss he gave me before we split up, him with Percy and me with George; it hadn't been meant to be a goodbye kiss. It was meant to be a good luck kiss.

I covered my mouth to muffle a sob, and Hermione's arms were quick to be wrapped around me, reassuringly rubbing my back.

GEORGE'S P. O. V.

I saw them entering from Y/n's balcony; I wasn't emotionally ready to face them all at the same time, but when I didn't see them exit, I figured Y/n hadn't been able to dismiss them.

I decided I owed to them all to bite the bullet, so I threw on a shirt and the first trousers I grabbed, cleaned up a bit and left the flat.

With a deep breath, I made it to the second floor and mentally prepared myself to go down to the first one.

As I began to climb down, though, I noticed Hermione and Y/n talking in private, closer than the others to the stairs.

I didn't mean to eavesdrop, but all my senses were automatically focused on Y/n whenever we were in the same room; she just stole me away from reality.

"You lost him too."

Hermione's words visibly triggered something on Y/n.

'Something', as if I didn't know what they had triggered, as if I didn't know what— who was on her mind.

I guess he was always on her mind, though.

What was left of my heart shattered in a million pieces when she broke down to tears —for several reasons—. "I miss him." She whispered in Hermione's shoulder. "I miss him so much."

If I had any tears left, I would have cried my eyes out right there. Had I been so selfish that I had disregarded how she was feeling? So blinded by the light and love and warmth she was constantly giving me that I had forgotten about her grief? Was I that bad of a person, that I would have rather live in the illusion that she had not lost the boy she was dating?

My mind told me I didn't want any of those questions answered.

"George!" As Ron yelled my name in surprise, Hermione and Y/n pulled away, the latter rubbing her eyes while both of my brothers jogged upstairs to hug me. "Ginny told us you're open—"

"But Y/n said you weren't feeling well." Bill finished, squeezing my shoulder. "We only stayed a little longer for Fleur to see the shop."

"Yeah, we'll come back tomorrow," Ron assured me. "So you can rest and..."

My brother's voice sounded further and further with each word; I felt myself drifting off, getting lost in my own mind and gravitating towards the same thought over and over.

She deserves better.

#george wealsey imagine #george weasley #george wealsey x reader #fred and george #george weasley x y/n #george weasley x ravenclaw!reader #george weasley x hufflepuff!reader #george weasley x reader #george weasley x slytherin!reader #george weasley x you #george x reader angst #george weasley x gryffindor!reader #george x reader #george x you #george x hermione #george weasley fluff #george weasley fic #george weasley fanfiction #george weasley fanfic #george x angelina #fred weasley x reader #fred weasley angst #harry potter fanfiction #harry potter #deathly hallows #harry potter and the triwizard tournament

[echo-three-one]

Run run run....

Table of Contents

Previous Chapter : Going Dark - Part 1

Chapter 23 to another story made by Ray (echo-three-one) Comments and Reviews appreciated! I hope you enjoy! Love you all ❤️

Going Dark - Part 2

John "Soap" MacTavish

London, United Kingdom

Soap never knew that the bloody guy would pull that trick off his sleeve. He's been sick of the same ringing he first experienced when they went out with Francine.

So he did what he could and quickly got up to his feet as soon as he saw Alex attempt to halt the hostage on his tracks. That bastard's going to pay for stomping on Alex like that.

With comms down once again, he had to act fast, stomping down the stairs, never leaving sight of the runner. He could sense someone following him and assumed it's any of Roach, Price or Jack. And it looked like Ghost caught wind of what happened too.

"Oi! Let's flank him!" Soap roared across the empty streets as Ghost and Roach split ways and ran toward their target.

They're not kidding when they said the Shadow Company is at par with the 141, the guy ran like a horse which Soap never expected from his build. He could see Ghost and Roach sprinting from his sides, one wrong turn and he's done for, but he still had one last trick. 

He raced to the emergency stairs as his heavy feet clanged against the metal. Soap followed, optimizing the steps on edges to gain on him. Going up the rooftops was his biggest mistake.

"Bollocks, he's still running!" he announced as he felt his ears crackling. 

"Well…. st….by…. do….airs.." His earpiece crackled through the static. It's recovering but they're already far off MacMillan's truck where their line connected.

He leaped. Soap almost stopped in his tracks as the runner courageously leapt across the huge gap and rolled on to the next building. He braced himself and continued dashing across the roof and did a mighty leap, his arms circled like he was swimming and he carefully placed his feet to perform a proper land and rolled.

That's going to hurt as soon as the adrenaline fades, but he quickly got up and made use of his remaining burst of energy. 

The runner stopped in his tracks as soon as Roach emerged from the opposite fire escape, raising a pistol pointed straight at him as he raised his hand in surrender.

"Nowhere to run now." Roach said, cautiously walking near him. He's aware that his phone is still inside his pocket and that they had no idea when it'll go off again.

He didn't talk, but he looked panicked. He was sweating all over and his face was beyond recognizable. It looked like he's out of options.

"Tell us Where Shepherd is…" Gary pointed the loaded gun on his head, the desperation in Gary's eyes were obvious.

"There's an abandoned plane graveyard near Afghanistan…" he whimpered. His voice was shaky enough to warrant the truth.

"What's he doing there?" Soap added.

"He's trading the blueprints for the I.P. Address… Please that's all I know" he begged and they quickly left the place, walking back to MacMillan's car.

"You got something?" Ghost asked as soon as Roach's feet landed on the dark alley.

"A place. In Afghanistan." Roach answered.

"And he also had the I.P. Address.." Soap added.

"But that's impossible… didn't Samantha already forget about it?" Ghost asked but there was a quiet pause. Their brains almost looked like working together.

"Holy Crap." Roach finally broke the silence.

And from that moment they realized the other reason behind Samantha's memory returning. One way or another, her memories were once again toyed with.

~

"So how was it?" Price asked the team that ran off to chase the runner.

"We got an address. An abandoned plane yard in Afghanistan." Roach replied. Soap turned to Alex as he sat at the back of the jeep tending to his wound. 

"You okay mate?" he asked walking close to his ally, who was wincing in pain.

"The guy's boots are heavy." He chuckled and so did Soap.

"Listen, Alex. We heard that Shepherd has the I P. address, did Samantha tell you anything about remembering it?" Soap asked as the whole team fell silent and turned to the two.

"Not really. What's bothered me is that she remembers everything except after when Shepherd explained his plans to her… Could it be that…" Alex trailed.

"She remembered because they undid their operation on her…" Jack continued. The whole group stood in silence. 

Price's phone rang and delivered them with more bad news. It looked like while chasing the runner, Shepherd had caught wind of their activity and had some of London police scour the nearby streets for them.

"Da, It's time to go, my comrades." Nikolai announced as soon as Price relayed the message. Their ride home was compromised.

"Where to?" He asked.

"I know a place." Soap said.

TRAIN STATION

It looked like Soap's hunch was right. None of the people onboard to Scotland mind about the faces of the fugitives flashed on the news recently. 

Their day packs had reserved clothes and they opted to change to something more civilian. Soap could smell the fabric conditioner France used to wash his newly bought clothes and couldn't help but miss her. If they weren't on a rush, Soap could've topped up for international calls.

"How long is this trip? 7 hours?" Price asked a civilian with surprised expressions.

"Wow. It's like a plane ride, but I'm still in the same country!" Jack cackled at the idea. He does have a different sense of humor. Just as Alex described him.

The rest of the team took this time to rest, they sat on the emptiest part of the train, away from the people that might recognize them and report their presence.

"I've contacted Samantha. It looks like they're having a small problem over there." Alex said.

"Someone saw one of us fugitives and tried to get inside the house to claim his bounty. At first they just talked him off but he's persistent now. So they decided to fly to our location and regroup there. And Soap, where exactly are we going?" Alex asked. Soap took a careful look around his team and felt nervous about his decision.

"Our old house. In Scotland. It's far off civilization. I think no one would look for us there." he muttered, gaining a nod from Price and Jack. Soap sighed in relief as soon as they thought of it as a good idea. Roach actually felt excited despite having to go there by train for seven hours. He immediately made that decision a few minutes ago without anyone's approval, but desperate times called for desperate measures.

"Hey, you three… Thanks for chasing that runner while we were out. Go catch some sleep. We'll watch over this train. It's going to be a long trip." Price nudged and Jack nodded. Soap gave a pair of earbuds to Price, the old man immediately looked at him with question.

"What's this? A hearing aid?" Price asked.

"Our runner wore that so it might be the reason he wasn't affected by his own blast." He muttered before crossing his arms.

"Thanks, mate. I'll let someone have a look at this." Price nodded and Jack immediately inserted with a suggestion.

"I know someone near Glasgow. A close friend of mine." 

"That's great. He's closer." Price agreed and Soap slowly drifted himself asleep, trying to rest his tired legs all while also trying not to worry about Francine.

GLASGOW, SCOTLAND

The never shifting scenery of the road home sent John MacTavish into a little nostalgia trip. The sound of trains screeching across the station reminded him of so many things from the past.  The road they're walking along now was the same road he's walked on everyday of his life, and now after a lot of years, he can't believe he's back.

"I don't see anything nearby,  are you sure we're not lost Soap?" Roach asked.

"We aren't. The house is just obstructed by the trees. They've grown taller since I last left." he replied enthusiastically. He looked obviously excited to see his home.

As soon as they reached the short curve, a huge cream-painted house greeted them from the distance. He could hear Alex and Roach's collective oohs and aahs every step they took closer.

"When you said old, I was really expecting it to be abandoned." Roach mused.

"It is, actually. My parents are off… somewhere else." he replied leading the way inside the house. The pool was already dirty and most weeds already outgrew the fences.

Soap pushed the huge wooden double door open and was greeted by the same visage of their entrance way back when he was a kid. Same pictures hung on the walls of his adventures as a kid up to the recent photo of his graduation. His mom was always proud of him no matter what, but he couldn't forget the way she looked at him once he chose to enlist to the riskiest job ever.

The rest of the team helped themselves to discovering the inside of the house, looking at photos, sitting on the couches and grabbing a glass of water. Soap quickly gave them a tour of the house and that they're free to pick a guest room of their choice. It was appropriate that they'd feel comfortable after a tough day.

"Nice place you got here, comrade. Why'd you give this all up for a life that's always hanging on the ledge?" Nikolai asked, tapping his shoulder. 

"I don't even know." he muttered and Nikolai chuckled, making his way to the living room. The team was quick to adapt to the place. Roach and Ghost already chose their rooms and he assumed they already attempted to recover while the three older men gathered around the television and watched the news. Alex was by the telephone, probably contacting Samantha. He wanted to check on France himself, so he planned to go to his room and make a call.

"The New York attack stopped." Price discussed with Nikolai and Jack, the three began speculating about a lot of things. Soap would love to join in the conversation but he decided to update on Francine first.

His room looked the same as when he left, the same shade of blue wallpaper, the same color sheets that were changed weekly and the same things on top of his bedside drawer.

Dialing her number, which he subconsciously memorized, he immediately placed the receiver on his ear and anxiously waited for her to pick up the phone.

"Hello?" her voice sounded different over the phone, but it still sent shivers across his spine as soon as he heard it.

"Hey. It's me." he replied.

"Angelo?" she asked, her voice almost sounded like she's fighting herself not to laugh.

"It's John." 

"I know, silly. Who would mistake you for anyone else with that accent." she retorted.

"Do ya like it?" he teased, making sure he emphasized his Scottish accent well.

"Why'd you call?" She changed the topic. She wasn't budging on his teasing, but he knew she's already blushing on the other side of the line.

"Did Price give you the landing coordinates?" he asked.

"Yeah. Maxine looked it up on the map. It looks like a shady house in the middle of nowhere. Who are you?" she joked.

"Great. I'll see you here. I-" he hesitated. He wanted to tell her how much he misses her. But even with his oozing confidence, he felt like chickening out this time.

"Yeah. We're on our way. Take care out there John." She said and dropped the call. Soap sighed and plopped himself on his bed, deeply sighing at his actions. This girl was making him crazy… and the funny thing is he's all fine with it.

Next Chapter : Going Dark - Part 3

Notification Squad my Beloved

@smokeywhalee @samatedeansbroccoli @enderio @beemybee @whimsywispsblog @ricinbach

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