Put A "∞" In My Ask Box And I'll Shuffle My Music Player And Give You My Favorite Lyric From The Song

Whumptober Day 4: Sensory Deprivation

Beneath The Surface

The closet feels darker than it should be. Like Yusuke should be able to see some outline of the door or some light fluttering in through the window, but no it’s pitch black.

He can’t see the walls around him, but he can feel them, he can’t stretch out his arms or legs without hitting them. 

When he was younger the closet felt bigger, but now that he’s in that awkward part of puberty where Madarame is constantly complaining about having to buy him new clothes, it’s suffocating in a whole new way.

Yusuke would have thought claustrophobia was based on being able to see that you’re enclosed, but apparently not.

He steadies his breaths. Sensei will let him out soon, right? He can’t be that mad.

Yusuke had only wanted to keep a painting for longer, put on some finishing touches, it wasn’t ready for Sensei to display.

So what if he screamed, Sensei hadn’t been listening and–

And now he’s in this dark closet that’s both a void and much too small.

Yusuke leans his head back, and at some point falls asleep, because his neck is sore. Now that he’s had some time to calm down, he can admit to himself that he was lying.

Sensei’s real talent was his eye for appraisal; he'd been consulted on identifying forgeries before he became a big artist. Of course, he could tell Yusuke was lying, that he didn’t want Sensei to put it on display under a different name.

Yusuke didn’t care all that much the first time it happened, the twinge in his gut and being kept awake for nights thinking about what this meant for everyone who’d come through notwithstanding.

But, this one had been special. It had been a dream or a memory of going to the aquarium with his mother. 

There was a touch tank, full of creatures the other kids were gathered around, and Yusuke was scared to go up for some reason.

He can’t remember anything more than the hazy outline of his mother, not what she said, just that she helped him calm down and slowly guided him over to the tank.

And… he thinks he remembers her laugh.

A manta ray had come up to meet Yusuke’s hand and splashed him a little, and Yusuke can picture in his mind her laughing and saying See, it likes you! but he doesn’t know if that really happened or if it was something he made up to cope with the fact that other kids could remember their moms.

It was a stupid thing to base a piece on, not with more and more students leaving and Yusuke having to pick up more of the slack. If he hadn’t wanted Madarame to take it, he shouldn’t have made it in the first place.

Yusuke pulls himself tighter and takes in a shaky breath. When Sensei lets him out, he’ll have learned his lesson.

Don’t tell Sensei “no.”

And don’t think about his mother when making art. Not if he wants what fleeting memories he has to stay his.

AUgust 2020: Angels & Demons

Challenge given by @augustwritingchallenge

Summary: Goro won’t ever get justice. Vengeance, though… Vengeance Goro could get.

“Don’t you want vengeance, Goro Akechi?” A hand shot out from the darkness. “I can offer you vengeance. All I ask is possession of your immortal soul.”

Pairing: N/A can be interpreted as ShuAke

Characters: Goro Akechi, Joker (Akira Kurusu/Ren Amamiya)

Word Count: 2305

CW: N/A

Notes: the tumblr version is unformatted. for that reason, i highly recommend you to read the ao3 version instead so yall get that sweet sweet tone difference.

i didnt include the “angel” part of the angels & demons but you know. potato potahto. also, big thanks to @yusuke-of-valla​ for giving me an AMAZING prompt. hope i did it justice

AO3 Link: HERE

=

She was buried quietly, without fanfare and without mourners. Goro remembered staying at her grave hours after sunset, clutching the single flower he brought for her between his fingers so tightly it had crushed the leaves and petals and stem into a mangled mess.

The sky was a dark inky blot by the time a woman with tightly bunned hair and a blue and white striped uniform came for him and said that since his last living relative was six feet underground, Goro would be put into foster care. Dark clouds swirled over the horizon, flanking the boom of oncoming thunder. Goro wanted to tell her that he had a living relative still, a piece of trash masquerading as a man. Shido. Masayoshi Shido.

But who’d believe a dirty bastard child over the nation’s darling upstanding politician? The son of a whore with not a single yen to his name against a “respectable” and reliable Masayoshi fucking Shido. Even as a child, Goro understood that he won’t get his justice. This biased, pathetic excuse of a system won’t ever give him his justice. He followed that woman into an orphanage and let the years pass being shuffled from place to place. No roots. No friends. No bonds. Just a pebble thrown into sea, meant to be swallowed and spat back out again.

Goro won’t get justice. Justice for the years he suffered unwanted, unneeded, and unloved. He won’t get justice for his mother whose only mistake was being too kind and loving something that deserved no love at all. Justice for the society that looked at his face and deemed him unworthy to be saved and left him to drown.

Goro won’t ever get justice.

“But I can give you vengeance.”

Vengeance.

That word, over and over again in his dreams, a promise, a vow, an offer and an absolution. Goro didn’t know when it started, exactly. All he knew is that at some point in the blur of his adolescence, a voice started calling out to him in his dreams. Hands with black-painted nails, perfectly manicured, beckoning him into the depth of an endless void. Pointed horns and red eyes. A smile and the glint of shiny teeth. And in his mind, the voice would ring out, “Vengeance. Vengeance. Vengeance.”

Justice is for children. Wide-eyed children with petty idealism and a gross misunderstanding of how the world works, of how cruel the world is, of how unwanted and unneeded and un-special they were. Vengeance, though… Vengeance for his mother’s life ruined by the selfish ego of one man undeserving of every breath he deigned to steal, his cruelty, his blatant disregard for the one thing that Goro had in this sham of a life. Vengeance for Goro. Vengeance to quell the pit of hatred and despair and the thrashing of wild listlessness and chaos.

Vengeance, Goro could get.

“Don’t you want Vengeance, Goro Akechi?” asked the voice in his dreams. “Son of a whore and a bastard child. You are playing an unjust game in a world that will never deliver justice.” A hand shot out from the darkness. Pale skin. Dark nails. And past that, further in, gleaming eyes. Blood red. Inhuman. “I can offer you vengeance. I can offer you Masayoshi Shido’s head on a pike, his legacy tarnished, the vision of Japan he was willing to burn the world down for handed to you on a silver platter.”

And in his dreams, Goro always refused. Denied and rejected and lashed out with violent words and the hurl of his fists that only ever seemed to pass through smoke. Even in his dreams, he was taunted. Taunted with something he can never truly have.

That time though, that night, on the eighth anniversary of the day of his mother’s death, on the day Goro stood alone over her grave crushing a delicate flower in his murderous, loveless hands, the creature lurking in Goro’s head won.

In that dream, Goro had reached out back into the darkness, hands shaking as he hesitated mere inches from the flawless hand beckoning him into a mad abyss. “And you’d want something in return, I presume?”

There was almost a chuckle in response to that. “But of course,” said the creature. Horns flashed for a brief moment, sharp and black and angled forward. Flames seemed to lick up the creature’s smile. “All I ask is possession of your immortal soul, Goro Akechi. Give that to me upon your death, and you will have all that you want and more.”

A soul. A soul to finally see Shido fall. To see his pathetic excuse for a father finally get his just desserts. A soul to get the justice -the vengeance- for his mother, for himself. Goro leaned forward, let his bony half-starved hand grasp the one shrouded in darkness, and spoke:

“You have yourself a deal.”

Because really. His soul was dirty, broken, and worth less than the mud on his shirt.

If that’s what he had to give, then he’d give it. Gladly. A hundred, a thousand, a million times over.

The figure in the darkness of his dreams grasped his hand, grasped it tightly, too tightly, until it began to hurt but Goro held on. Then the hand shaked his, slowly, deliberately, and a burning searing pain followed. Not in Goro’s hand but further in, his chest, his head, his heart. His soul. It burned and burned and burned a searing pain, like something was peeling his skin away bit by agonising bit. Still Goro held on.

“Stubborn,” chuckled the voice in Goro’s dream. The hand receded, the pain faded, until all that Goro was left with was darkness and the piercing red eyes. “We will get along well, Goro Akechi.”

The eyes vanished and left behind an echo.

“You may call me Joker.”

Goro woke up.

He was not a child, not a teenager fraught with dreams of deals and vengeance and darkness. He was Goro Akechi, a respected detective fresh out of the academy, praise and accolades and connections to his name. Loved by the common folk for his humble beginnings, an orphan who had to work and bleed and sweat to claw his way into the upper echelons of society, a beacon of hope that maybe they too can make their way up the ladder. Loved by the elite for his charm and wit and charisma, his flawless manners, his cadence, his posture, his mask. One of his masks.

It took years. Years longer than what Goro would have wanted, years longer than what Goro could have been patient with, but at last, he could begin the endeavor that kept him going through years. Bring down Shido. More than a quick death. More than humiliation. More than anything Goro himself could have thought of.

The thing that Masayoshi Shido valued most. Himself. His reputation. His power. His legacy. His control. Brick by fucking brick, Goro would tear it all down. Watch the ruins burn in ashes. Have Shido’s name cursed for years, for generations, for future historians to come. Have the entirety of this nation sneer at the mere mention of his name.

All it took was a soul.

The best damn thing Goro’s soul could ever be worth, honestly.

“I can do many things, Goro, but even I can’t delay a dedicated media crew,” came a voice in his head. Familiar, after years of hearing it. Joker stood at the doorway, insouciant, relaxed, leaning against the frame of Goro’s bedroom door with that irritating nigh-permanent smirk on his face.

He looked human now, which was probably the most unsettling thing about him. No horns. No face wreathed in fire. No clawed hands, no tail, no wings. Joker’s red eyes were a very human black, framed with glasses that made him look innocent and harmless when he was anything but. “Out of bed Goro.” Really, the only thing that belied Joker’s true nature was his smile. The glint of canines just a bit too sharp to be human, visible for only a breath before vanishing once again into this perfect veneer. A mask. “The new Detective Prince can’t be late for his own interview, Goro. Out of bed.”

The pillows were soft, the mattress inviting, the window positioned just so to let the right amount of sunlight in. Ultimately simple, so that when reporters and paparazzi invaded what little semblance of privacy he had left, all they’d see was a humble man living a humble life. The image Goro wanted to cultivate, that Joker advised him to cultivate. The perfect mask.

With a heavy sigh, Goro dragged himself back to the realm of the conscious with a false smile, practised so often it reached his eyes, crinkled them at the edges and lit them up how a real smile would. It was terrifying how he didn’t even have to think about it, how it was as easy as breathing. “My interview isn’t until after noon.” Goro can’t quite remember the last time he smiled genuinely. It was terrifying that Goro didn’t care. And though sleep clung to him still, Goro sat straight-backed, knees slung over his bed and crossed at the ankle. An image. A mask.

Joker gave him a smile. Well, it wasn’t entirely a smile. There was joy in it, sure, and more than a little excitement, but Goro had never quite seen another human being give that look. One of hedonistic greed not for power or wealth but for thrill, chasing something that can’t be caught and loving every second anyway. A dangerous thing, an incorporeal thing, an emotion or an experience or just the mere imaginings of something too alien for Goro to grasp.

“It isn’t. But wouldn’t you want to witness the death of the IT President that eats from Shido’s hand like a loyal dog?”

But then again, Joker wasn’t human.

For all Goro knew, this look was how creatures like Joker smiled. If they could even smile. If Goro could even smile. His camera-ready expression slipped into something other at the news. Lips stretched wide, teeth bared. It might have been a smile. It might have been him imitating the expression Joker’s face. It might have been simply Goro, delighted to know that the crumbling of Shido’s empire had already begun. Sadistic and feral and removed.

“I thought you said that Shido shouldn’t die,” said Goro conversationally, in the same tone one might discuss the weather. Despite how still and steady his voice was, he could not hide the excited tremor that ran through his body, the thrill of seeing his dream finally begin to take root and bloom into an ugly thorny rose.

If Joker noticed, he did not say. “True. I said Shido shouldn’t die. But I said nothing of the men working under him.” Goro was on his feet. Wordlessly, Joker handed him a simple summer outfit, a coat, his gloves. “The ultimate suffering for Shido is a life without power, without influence. A long life of being less than nothing. His subordinates though?”

“Weapons,” said Goro as he dressed himself. To be used against Shido. To have their lives be the sword and the bullets and the gun. To have their deaths be a wound.

For a split second, Goro could have sworn that flames erupted in Joker’s eyes. But when he blinked, it was gone, and Joker was laughing.“Right you are, Goro. They’re casualties in the war. Trash. Tools that have outlived their usefulness.” Joker led Goro out the bedroom, into the hall. Handed him a cup of coffee and a sandwich. “A threat to Shido perhaps?” Joker paused his stride just long enough to look into Goro’s eyes. “Maybe our IT President found something about Shido that he shouldn’t have.” They did not stop in the dining room for Goro’s breakfast.

“Did he?”

“Does it matter?” Joker asked.

“It doesn’t.”

Joker chuckled. The hallway light flickered with each breath and the shadows curled at his ankle. “We’ll create a story, Goro. The president dies from some… unseen force and you’re simply the good samaritan who wanted to help. You’ll get closer to the public, you get an in with Shido, and you get to watch the fall from inside the ivory tower.”

Goro took a sip of his coffee. Roasted to perfection. “And you will get my soul.”

They passed by the floor mirror in the living room. Joker’s reflection was not that of a man with fluffy black hair and a dark button-up. It was shadow and flame and a creature with horns and black-clawed hands. “And I will get your soul. But only after you watch Shido get dragged through something worse than hell. Such is the terms of our deal.”

All for the price of Goro’s soul.

“Well,” Goro smiled, sharp and fake and utterly convincing, “I suppose I’ll take my morning walk. I have an interview coming up, after all. I should clear my head.”

Joker laughed. Deep, hungry, triumphant. He vanished into black smoke and receded into the dark corners of the house just as Goro opened the door. He wasn’t gone though, not really. There was a fire in Goro’s chest, painful and freeing and damning all at once. A brand of malediction and a stain on the soul he already sold.

And when Goro saw a brown-haired man in nice clothes with a laptop bag slung over his shoulder suddenly collapse in the middle of the street, grasping his throat for invisible hands that slowly strangled life out, he heard Joker’s voice in his head again. Loud, clear, and malicious.

Vengeance.

Vengeance.

Vengeance.

Goro dropped his coffee and his breakfast and rushed forward, putting on a mask that fit far too well on his face. “Are you alright sir!?”

Vengeance.

Fuck it, OC brain rot won. Get ready for the Secret Ask List

1) Does your OC have a voice claim, if so who?

2) Who's your OCs best friend? How did they become best friends?

3) What song describes your OC?

4) What song describes your OC and their partner/love interest?

5) Do you ship your OC with a Canon character? If so who?

6) If your OC is in a fantasy setting, what profession would they be in the modern day?

7) Vice-Versa! If your OC is in the modern day, what fantasy class would they be? Would they be a different race?

8) What hobbies does your OC have? What do they do to unwind?

9) How does your OC handle their physical health? Do they take care of themselves?

10) How does your OC handle their mental health? Do they take care of themselves?

11) What was your inspiration for your OC?

12) Does your OC interact with other people's OC? If so, who's their best OC friend?

13) Does your OC have a rival? How did it start?

14) Who's a character your OC cannot stand! It's on sight when they see them!

15) Will your OC ever retire? Do you see them making it?

16) How's their relationship with their parents? Are they alive?

17) If your OC has kids, are they a good parent? Do they ever feel guilty if they have to leave them?

18) What are their pronouns? What would they like to be called?

19) What's their sexuality? What's their love language both giving and receiving?

20) If they fight, what's their weapon of choice?

21) What song best describes their relationship with their enemy?

22) Fight or Flight? Are they a lover or a fighter?

23) Is your OC reliable? Can I call them up at two in the morning if I have a flat tire?

24) Can they play any instruments? If so, what do they play?

25) Are they the kind of person who can't resist a good song? Can I catch your OC singing to themselves while they do the dishes?

26) What flower do you associate your OC with?

27) What's their spirit tamagotchi? Or an animal you associate them with?

28) What clique would they be in? (Draw them in the clothes of said group!)

29) Imagine a mood board for your OC! What's on it? (Make it if you want!)

30) My OC and your OC are friends. This isn't a question. I'm not asking. (How do they respond?)

Please someone ask me about my thoughts on the ProSeka theater kids and what their best songs would be. I have whole playlists dedicated to this question. Please.

Angsty Sentence Starters #4

"I'm just so afraid."

"Don't you dare leave me alone!"

"We just don't work any more."

"I can't bare to lose you."

"You don't own me."

"This will end tonight."

"Maybe we should stop trying."

"It just wasn't meant to be."

"Sorry for everything I did."

"I guess this means goodbye."

"We had a good run."

"Nothing we can do about it."

"You never listen to me."

"I give up. You won."

"Are you happy now?"

"So this is it?"

"I need to leave."

"No, I don't owe you that."

"You have to let go."

"I'm sorry it came to this."

More: Angsty Masterpost

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Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: The Caligula Effect (Video Game) Rating: Mature Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Characters: The Caligula Effect Protagonist, Aria (Caligula Effect), Biwasaka Eiji Additional Tags: There are so many more characters, but there are like 30 fics in this fandom, Descriptions of falling off a building, TCE spoilers Summary:

When Mizuki Shima makes an almost fatal mistake in fighting Eiji Biwasaka alone, she must bring her two identities together to finish this.

NOTICE: As more and more fanfic writers are using generative AI for their works (you uncreative dweebs), I hereby swear on everything I hold dear that I have not and will NEVER use generative AI in ANY of my written work. Everything I post will be organically and creatively my own.

📓

Prince I CAN’T BELIEVE I didn’t notice this I’m sorry-

So. Fic idea. P3 for you!

Minato, Yukari, and Junpei just having a whole night where Minato and Yukari talk about their stupid crushes on their stupid pretty seniors and Junpei is just like “…I love my Chidorita…”

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Coffee Talk (Video Game) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Barista (Coffee Talk)/Freya (Coffee Talk) Characters: Barista (Coffee Talk), Freya (Coffee Talk) Additional Tags: In the next installment of Skye is a sucker for friends to lovers, spoilers for the true ending, Female Barista Summary:

This was it. The barista of Coffee Talk was finally going to confess her affection for Freya.

Peace of Mind

Whumptober Day 3 Prompt: “Who did this to you?”

Summary: Shiho decides to find out what Ann is keeping from her.

Wordcount: 1330

TW: Mentions of Kamoshida, mentions of abuse, nothing explicit.

AO3

~

Ann, bless her heart, is a terrible liar.

She passes of cuts and bruises as “work out trainging” or clumsiness, but Shiho isn’t stupid. She knows Ann is lying to her and that hurts. Wasn’t keeping secrets from each other what caused all the trouble with Kamoshida?

The voice of Shiho’s therapist reminds her that Kamoshida is responsible for all that trouble with Kamoshida, but even if that’s true, that thought doesn’t help. Her therapist says it will, eventually, but eventually isn’t good enough because Ann’s being hurt now.

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