Fic Wip - Blog Posts
Short For Grenade update/excerpt !
every time i think im making solid progress with this fic, it keeps getting longer on me lol, so here's the most recent bit ive written:
“My, my, what a passionate statement,” Mitsuki pointed out, poking his knee. Katsuki frowned. “I hate you,” he hissed. “You are just chalk full of those feelings today, kid.” Katsuki groaned loudly and extricated himself from his mother’s gentle grip, stomping up the stairs with a few curses tossed over his shoulder to avoid her less-gentle, bitch-ass cackling at his expense. “C’mon Nade!” Katsuki called, grinning proudly to himself when he heard the sound of her nails scrabbling up the stairs behind himself. “Good girl,” he praised, waiting for her to trot into his room before he closed his door.
Still in the living room, Masaru fell into Katsuki’s abandoned space on the couch, intertwining a hand with his wife. “He didn’t slam it,” Masaru pointed out quietly, a wide, wobbly smile crawling over his face. MItsuki eyed the staircase for a long moment before raising their clasped hands to place a kiss on her husband’s wedding band. “Guess we’re not fucking this whole parenting thing up after all.” Masaru’s hair was greasy where it brushed against her neck, his body warm in all the places they were connected, and Mitsuki was…happy. She carefully stroked Masaru’s bangs away from his forehead while he began to sniffle on her shoulder, the sound of Katsuki’s raucous laughter echoing through the house, followed by the gleeful, yipping bark of Grenade the fucking dog. Maybe…maybe they really weren’t fucking up, she thought to herself- maybe for the first time since they’d brought Katsuki back from the hospital, away from the watchful, knowing gazes of the doctors and nurses, and Mitsuki was left wondering just what the hell she was supposed to do with her baby now. “You’re such a damn sap,” she murmured, tightening her grip on Masaru’s hand. Masaru chuckled wetly, lifting his face to press a lingering kiss to Mitsuki’s temple. His eyes shone behind his glasses. “Grenade,” he said wondrously, because neither of them could recall the last time Katsuki had stormed up to his room, angry, and not slammed the door. And nothing else really needed to be said. Mitsuki tipped her forehead against Masaru’s. “Grenade,” she agreed in a whisper.
Bullet Point Tag
@aalinaaaaaa thanks for the tag! i decided to complete it for my in-progress fic, Short For Grenade
Drumstick soup? my favorite, yum
Anger issues -> pet dog pipeline
No weapons of mass destruction
Weapons of medium destruction are chill tho
Hashtag parenting win
Hives of love
You say dog, he says evil compass
Happy kidnap your friend(?) day!
Deny, deflect, detonate (and detonate one more time for good measure)
Idiot, dumbass, useless, stupid (affectionate)
This house is a prison
When your secrets keep being spilt by a guy you're not even telling them to
Rabbit trade? Denied. Loser.
Middle aged lady thieves
That's code for "my son has no friends"
All the phobias
Missing Masaru hours
Kidnapping, the sequel
Aaaand
Squirrel 1, Katsuki 0
The End :)
found an iori-centric i7 wip in my files today that i'd like to finish up. id love to post what i have now but there's no good place to chop it into two parts so here's a snippet instead! the fic is called let it sink in
iori/riku pre-slash, self-discovery, angst & hurt/comfort
Iori ran his finger along the thin skin beside his nail bed, tempted to pick at it but far too restrained to give into the impulse. “Meeting Yuki-san helped you figure out who you were?” Was that just the alcohol talking? Iori had been under the impression that those sorts of answers could only come from some secret place inside. One that Iori was still struggling to gain access to. “Mhmm!” Momo-san agreed brightly. “He was just so…” he sighed wistfully, rocking up onto his toes for a moment before settling back onto his heels and staring up at the moon. “And then I kept coming back. And back. And back. To see him and Ban-san. Like he was drawing me in.” Iori gently bit the inside of his cheek. “That sounds…familiar,” he admitted. Momo-san grinned brightly, excitedly leaning closer to Iori. “I thought so!” Iori could smell the alcohol on his breath and took a subtle step back. “It’s the same for you and Riku, right?” Momo-san’s expectant gaze shimmered despite the wan lighting, oddly intense, and Iori turned his gaze to the moon to avoid meeting it. Iori wasn’t drunk but Momo-san was, so… “I think so,” Iori murmured softly. “It’s…I feel,” he tried, unsure how to end the sentence. Iori looked down towards his tightly clasped hands. “It’s weird,” he settled on. A complete non-answer if Iori’s ever heard one, but that was all Iori seemed to have lately and Momo-san supposedly had the key to his own lockbox so maybe Iori could learn something if the man simply talked long enough.
working on a dabihawks companion piece to the one above ^ (official version of probably not on ao3 but i only changed like two lines)
im thinking touya would be like 17 here instead of the 13(?) he was when he disappeared and was presumed dead in canon
here's what ive gotten down so far:
*cw for homophobia!
The first time Touya became Dabi, he was angry. The echo of his father’s parting words had been ringing sharply in his head- over and over striking the church tower bell in his mind with an unceasing hammer.
Disgrace, he’d said. Unfit to be my heir.
Touya’s face had felt on fire beneath his father’s stony gaze. His mother’s timid silence had crawled like ice across the back of his neck.
The lingering ghost of soft lips pressed sweetly against his own- tall, handsome ones; a new hire in his father’s precinct- had all but disappeared under the way Touya’s teeth had bit into his skin, desperately holding his tears at bay.
Choose that lifestyle, and you’re dead to me, his father had spat.
It was purely by accident that someone had failed to lock away that day’s evidence into its proper place, a few cans of spray paint left abandoned on a precinct desk next to a bloody flyer and a broken phone.
Touya had swiped the purple as he stormed away from his father’s stupid promotion party, scrubbing uselessly at his face. Half-hoping that his mother would have skittered after him once his father’s back was turned to wipe them away herself.
Half-hoping that his father would have finally hired Touya to work alongside him, proud to announce it in between important handshakes and celebratory drinks.
Half-blind with rage, Touya had spilled out of the back door like a drunkard, laughing softly to himself at first- grief grating the tender sides of his throat and then spilling harshly out into the open air like a hyena among the broken bottles and forgotten alley trash.
Alone, behind the building that was his father’s one and only pride and joy, the can in his grip had felt heavy with promise and Touya didn’t pause to think before his trigger finger was pressing down on the release.
Probably dead by now, he'd scrawled, the angry words biting into pristine red brick. Spite drawing a humorless huff from Touya’s unsmiling mouth.
“All for a fucking kiss,” he’d whispered.
But Touya knew- in the same, wordless way he knew his mother had never loved Touya more than she’d feared him- that Enji Todoroki was never going to hire Touya in the first place. No matter how good his marks, how fast he ran the mile, how much he volunteered with the other interns. The ones who always whispered behind his back that Touya’s last name made him golden.
“Fuck him,” Touya had hissed furiously, slamming the can of spray paint onto the ground where it clanged satisfyingly against dark-cut asphalt, drowning out the sound of his disownment. Then he’d kicked it, for good measure, blinking wetly as he’d watched as it rolled into the shadow of a broken street lamp.
The cars whizzing by had been none the wiser.
Slowly, Touya had walked forward- boots thumping step by step by step until he was encased entirely in the single halo of darkness left on a bright, lamp-lit street.
There had been a cracked-open window. A pop of champagne. A muted cheer.
Without a second thought, Touya had crouched down to retrieve the can, slipping it into the pocket of his suit jacket before stomping away, an alias on the tip of his tongue and the life of a cracked-open son left behind. The ghost of a kiss left abandoned like a cigarette stub on the sidewalk.
@probabydeadbynow i saw your user (though im now realizing i misread it, lol) and it sparked this short fic idea so i wanted to share it with you before i post to ao3 (bnha, no quirk AU)
There was a piece of graffiti Izuku always saw around town. Sometimes it’d be done in white, other times blue, but most of the time it was purple- each letter looped and sprawling and bleeding into the next.
Probably dead by now, it always said.
Izuku didn’t know why he liked it so much. It felt odd to smile at those words when he saw them spray painted underneath the Musutafu bridge but, then again, he remembered seeing those same exact words when he was being driven home from the hospital after breaking his arm for the first time, a lollipop between his lips and a new All Might plush under his arm. And then again the morning his Dad came home for Christmas, surprising Izuku at the door. And then again the day of Kacchan’s 10th birthday party. The one with the All Might impersonator that had carried them both around on his shoulders for a while, their sweaty hands linked behind his head for no other reason except that they were happy.
White then blue then white again. Purple today.
Probably dead by now, it always said.
Probably not, Izuku thought back, peering out of the passenger window with a growing smile.
Izuku had never seen the artist. Never even caught a glimpse, but their handwriting was paint-splattered over so many of Izuku’s brightest memories.
“What’s got you so smiley, huh?” Kacchan asked.
Izuku turned away from the window, watching the way Kacchan’s sweaty hands gripped the steering wheel like his life depended on it. He’d only had his license for a few weeks now.
“I think something good’s going to happen today,” Izuku replied.
Privately, he was pretty sure it already had.
Kacchan hadn’t invited Izuku anywhere since that 10th birthday party at the arcade and now they were on their way to tour a newly built school together.
Kacchan scoffed lightly. “What’s so good about college?” he shot back.
“I don’t know,” Izuku replied honestly, idly flicking through the UA pamphlet resting on his lap. “Maybe…” Izuku glanced towards Kacchan. Quieter, he said, “Maybe we’ll end up going there together. You know, like old times?”
Really old times, anyway. When Izuku would trade his apple slices for Kacchan’s potato chips at lunchtime and they’d walk home together in their baby blue smocks, hands clasped firmly together.
Not like the way they’d make passing eye contact in the halls of their high school, always in opposite motion even if Izuku’s eyes would sometimes trail after Kacchan's back.
Even if sometimes he caught Kacchan looking, too.
Kacchan was quiet for a few moments, the careful tick of the turn signal a feeble echo of Izuku’s hammering pulse.
Izuku was pretty sure he remembered seeing that same graffiti- purple, and nearly washed out by a recent rainstorm- the day Kacchan threw Izuku’s notebook from a third story window in junior high.
“Just don’t expect me to fucking hold your hand,” Kacchan eventually bit out, eyes averted- his focus too intense on the empty road for it mean anything other than embarrassment.
His tone too light for it to even feel like a denial.
Izuku quickly turned his gaze to his knees, smothering a smile. The UA pamphlet creased beneath his fingers.
Probably dead by now.
Purple. Scribbled across the window of an empty storefront.
Kacchan had grabbed Izuku’s hand two blocks later and shoved that same pamphlet at him, holding on for a beat too long.
“You dropped that,” he’d lied.
His hand had been warm.
“My dad and I were gonna tour it this weekend but he’s got a work thing.”
Izuku’s eyes had been wide and curious. He’d held his breath while Kacchan scratched the back of his neck and scuffed the toe of his shoe on the ground, casting around for the right words to say.
“I guess you could take his spot or whatever,” he’d continued with a shrug. “If you pay for gas. ‘Cause I’m going whether you catch a ride or not.”
Izuku had thought that Kacchan would probably leave him in the dust by the time it came to go to college. Or not go, he supposed, but…
Izuku lifted his head again, listening to the way Kacchan hummed softly along with the radio. His sunglasses were All Might themed- a custom release with a subtle design that Izuku hadn’t been able to afford.
There was a second pair, just like it, shoved towards Izuku’s chest when he first climbed into Kacchan’s car, along with a muttered comment about how Kacchan didn’t want to hear any crybaby complaints about the sun.
They rested comfortably on Izuku’s head now.
Probably dead by now, it always said.
Izuku pulled them down until everything in his field of vision was tinged a soft yellow.
Life was funny that way, he thought.
looking for fellow writers!! togachako writing game edition
interested in writing a second part to a short togachako fic i wrote?
i dont really plan on doing anything with this piece so i think it'd be really fun to see people's takes on how to continue it! like a super low pressure writing game
if you do participate, pls tag me or reblog so i can see your contribution!! even if its just a few lines!
the fic is a loose play on frankenstein with some adam & eve elements thrown in (and the unnamed girl is ochako)
have at it! :)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Toga was a bloodied thing, she knew.
She was born with cold metal kissing her bare skin and electricity shrieking down her spine. Her first breath- a choking, cut-off scream- was not even her own, the memory too tightly braided with the boom of Dr. Garaki's laughter in his small laboratory.
I made you, he had explained, pain still ringing oddly in her skull.
She had been made, not born, and no one loved to remind her of this fact more than Dr. Garaki himself.
Pet, he called her, grinning indulgently in his tall, wingback office chair. The reflection of his glasses shone like fire. Like the spark that had jolted her alive.
I made you, he’d say. I made you.
But what am I? Toga would ask, twin pinpricks of too-sharp teeth digging into her too-wide lips while she fumbled out the words, warmth dribbling from her rosy smile.
Dr. Garaki did not like this image, nor the question.
You are my creation, he’d snap, the floor rumbling with the force of his rise from the wingback chair. Do you not trust me, pet?
Toga would watch the sky flash outside the dark windows of the laboratory and nod, nod, nod because she did not know what she was but she knew punishment well.
All Toga knew was punishment and Inside.
The Inside of the laboratory, which smelled faintly of the coins that slipped between uneven couch cushions, and the Inside of Toga- drawn from her own disordered lips- red as plush velvet and twice as sweet.
Good, Dr. Garaki would say from behind his wide, unbreachable desk. Now behave.
Behave, behave, behave.
This word buzzed around Toga’s head like the constant drone of heavy machinery in the lab. It followed her when she closed her fists around home-smelling coins, retrieved from their hiding places late at night, and when she draped her goose-bumped body in the off-limits, grass-green curtains, and, louder still, when she peered out of small, dirt-smeared windows, asking after the word for grass.
Red had leaked from her cheek, then, bursting forth from the skin by the rings adorning Dr. Garaki’s punishing hand. But the word had slipped out as he’d shouted.
Toga’s tongue had darted to the corner of her mouth and she’d imagined the word blooming over her tongue- swallowed and safe within herself.
Yes, Toga knew of Inside well. She craved the taste of Outside, now.
Outside she saw a girl with red flowers in her hand, picked from the border of Dr. Garaki’s property, and high on her cheeks laid a dusting of soft-petalled blush.
Toga had never known the color red could be so gentle.
Toga longed to be picked from the laboratory like the thorned stems in the girl’s steady hands. To be lifted up. To be held.
“You’re not supposed to be looking through there,” Twice whispered from over Toga’s shoulder. “It’s bad.”
Toga gnawed on her bottom lip, drawing red to the surface until she matched the roses being carried further and further from the laboratory.
“Why?” she asked.
Toga didn’t know who she was asking- Twice, the disappearing girl, or the flowers?
Twice was the only one to respond.
“Because Dr. Garaki said it’s bad,” he reminded her nervously.
Toga watched the girl’s form begin to blur on the horizon.
Twice shook her shoulder and Toga’s gaze slipped to the touch, observing the firm boundary between Toga and Twice. His fingers held the same shape as Dr. Garaki’s- more same than Toga’s- yet held none of the anger. Only urgency.
“How come Dr. Garaki gets to make all the rules?” Toga asked.
Twice’s hand slipped away like the question had bitten him, and, Toga thought to herself, maybe it had. With Twice’s same-enough hands he could cradle lessons from Dr. Garaki on how to name the objects in the laboratory. His scratching fingers could be gently pulled away from his seams. He could hold close the smiling shape of son on Dr. Garaki’s lips.
Twice held the honor of being made same-enough while Toga’s hands and heart and smile were wrong, wrong, wrong.
Pet, Dr. Garaki said, teeth glistening behind a simper. Filthy-
“Mr. Garaki wants what’s best for us,” Twice said, twitching on the last syllable and scratching the ragged line carved down his forehead.
“Does he?” Toga questioned.
How do you know? she wanted to ask. She craved his certainty with a desperation that left her Inside chest pounding hard against the firm line of her Outside body.
Twice twitched.
“I trust him.”
The dull roar of the laboratory seemed loud today, and Toga felt restless.
“Do you trust?” Twice asked.
Toga’s mouth quivered and she turned her gaze back to the small window. The girl was gone now but she would be back tomorrow.
Toga flinched as the door slammed open and Dr. Garaki appeared a moment later.
Pet or-
“Filthy woman,” Dr. Garaki muttered, striding forward to yank the green curtain from Toga’s body. The view of Outside disappeared.
Toga shivered.
“Don’t you know your shame dirties you?” Dr. Garaki continued, staring at the Outside of her body.
Could he see the Inside?
Toga desperately hoped that he couldn’t.
“It’s unbecoming of my creations,” he stated before spinning on his covered foot to stride through his office door, a box of rattling machine parts held in his arms.
Toga’s trust in Dr. Garaki was as brittle as the vase she had tipped over the other day, fascinated by the sound it made when it hit the floor. Left in a puddle of red after Dr. Garaki had found her.
Inside herself, Toga said, I do not trust Dr. Garaki, and shame bloomed hot and heavy in her chest.
She felt like the vase, one breathless moment before it shattered.
“Toga?” Twice whispered, eyes drooping with concern.
“It’s cold,” Toga whispered.
Twice fidgeted for a moment, his nails hesitating a few inches from his sewn-together face. After a furtive glance towards Dr. Garaki’s closed office door, he gave into the urge to scratch, leaving raking, red lines across his Outside.
“I know,” he murmured. “Do I? I…yes. I know.”
Toga blinked away the blurry heat gathering in her eyes and reached out with her not-same-enough hand until it rested on Twice’s knee.
Slowly, she ran her hand up and down one length of his leg. Then faster.
Twice stared.
“See?” she whispered. “It makes warmth.”
“I…” Twice peeked over his shoulder, towards the door Dr. Garaki had disappeared behind. “…see. I see. I do.”
Toga removed her hand and watched Twice repeat the action for himself.
Toga turned back to the green curtain, looking in the place she knew the window lived, and began rubbing warmth back into her arms as she imagined the girl.
I trust her, Toga decided.
And how lovely was it for there to be a her that wasn’t Toga? A her that Toga might be same-enough for.
Dr. Garaki cursed the Outside people but Toga bit her lip and danced with the idea that the girl from Outside might see Toga- red as the roses she always returned to- and pluck her, instead.
And then maybe Toga could live how she wanted to. Cursed or not.
also . wanted to share a portion of my current twst fic wip! idk when i'll post this nor how long i want this to be, but it's just a malleus & silver (brothers) fic and an introspection on their relationship dynamic as the years pass by :D i think it's just super interesting to analyze, particularly since malleus (or fae in general) easily lose track of time, which is contrasting to humans' concept of time.
time is a social construct..... it's a very interesting theme to play around with. i think my philosophy class has been getting too into my head lately.
tell me about your favorite of your wips. >:)
uhhh
I have a lot I'm fond of and my favorite one is going to be kept a secret because I want to reveal nothing about it until I actually finish writing chapter one 😔
Anyways, one of my other favorites is my wip "I picked the petals, he loves me not"
It's a hanahaki sskk au, where Akutagawa starts coughing up flowers due to a crush on a...certain someone...
But yk, with his lung condition and all that, the hanahaki will probably kill him in like a month or even less
And the hanahaki strikes while Atsushi and Akutagawa are heading back from a mission and then Atsushi gets all worried bc wtf people don't just start vomiting petals everywhere and then Akutagawa has to brush it off like "it's nothing weretiger" when it's very clearly not nothing 😔
Atsushi goes to Ranpo for advice and Ranpo tells him about hanahaki and how it all works. So now Atsushi's determined to save Akutagawa, and saving him requires Akutagawa to confess his feelings to whoever he loves (I wonder who that could be 👀)
Chaos ensues
Also I've had this idea for like at least a year now but my snail of a brain is just like "I'll get to it later"
Also the title is a lyric from the song You're On Your Own, Kid by Taylor Swift
what’s like an ambitious fic idea you have? Or idk favorite au to write/read?
there's sooo many big fics I want to write but idk if I can handle all that 😔 so I stick to oneshots and short fics (like six chapters max for me tbh, I have commitment issues)
So smth ambitious for me uhh
That might be my WIP "stole my heart" which is a thief Atsushi x detective Akutagawa longfic set in 1920s America. I've written little for it but it's huge in my head, I'd say it's ambitious because I'm writing like a whole mystery plot to it (Poe pls help me) but it's also gotta incorporate lots of romance 😔
There'd be a lot of miscommunication and pining and probably smut and lots of angst and moral dilemma and ofc m u r d e r because even though Atsushi is just a thief in this doesn't mean I won't go all Agatha Christie and murder some people in the fic (also Atsushi isn't a petty thief, he's a big-time wanted criminal :>)
It's been really exciting to brainstorm! :D
And for favorite AU to write might be...hm... ngl I hate like all of my writing but an AU that's fun every time is a wild west AU
My favorite AU to read is probably a college AU ngl they just hit different every time (I may also have a soft spot for it bc it was a college AU that got me into fanfiction)
tell me about the as we dance in the pale moonlight fic :000 from the ask game
That's the most boring WIP I have lmao 😭 but sure :D
It's a fluffy, kinda indulgent, oneshot I'm writing where Atsushi and Akutagawa simply just spend a night together. And, can you believe it, they end up dancing in the ✨moonlight✨
Idk I just love the idea of sskk dancing together but with no music and like, it's just *them*, together. It's peaceful and I love peaceful sskk
Here's a snippet (and no I don't know how to get italics on Tumblr 🙏 bear with me and my asterisks);
Akutagawa watched his red blood swirl down the drain of the sink, the pain from his injuries stinging lightly. He quietly sighed and looked in the mirror.
His black and white hair was messy, his skin was paler than usual and the bags under his eyes weren't helping with his tired appearance.
Akutagawa had gotten back from a mission, bloody and bruised, and gone to the bathroom almost immediately to wash his wounds and bandage himself up.
He heard a knock on the door, before a voice spoke up.
"Ryuu?"
Akutagawa felt the corner of his mouth twitch up. Hearing Atsushi's voice made his muscles relax. He loved being able to come back to his apartment and Atsushi was there to greet him.
"Yes, weretiger?" He answered back, turning off the tap and drying his hands on a towel.
"Are you alright?" Atsushi, on the other side of the door, creased his eyebrows as his tiger-honed ears caught the sound of the water shutting off. He knew it was inevitable for Akutagawa to have been injured someway or another, that was just the nature of ex-vampire's job, but it didn't mean he wouldn't *worry.*
"I am fine," Akutagawa reassured in his weary voice. He unspooled the bandages and wrapped them gently around his raw, but now clean, wounds.
Atsushi let out a small sigh of relief, he couldn't help it. After a few quiet moments, Akutagawa swung open the door with a loose tendril of Rashomon and was greeted with the sight of a very concerned weretiger.
The white-haired detective immediately assessed Akutagawa's bandages and how bad they appeared.
"Weretiger, I said *I am fine,*" Akutagawa repeated, knowing what was crossing Atsushi's mind.
He cupped Atsushi's face in his hands and looked his boyfriend in the eye, Akutagawa's silver glare turning soft as he met the weretiger's upset gaze.
"You don't *look* fine." Atsushi grumbled, leaning into Akutagawa's calloused yet lithe touch.
~~
Yeah I have no idea what the heck that even is, it's definitely not my best work 😭
Also anyone seeing this post can ask me about my other WIPs I'm very lonely and want to talk about writing 😔
Am I cooking?
A little snippet of the beginning of my current wip for you guys :]
tw: mentions of drowning, panic, disorientation. (it's not too bad though)
Regulus thought that he had had enough of these damned nightmares, but apparently the universe thought otherwise. He once again woke up with a start, sweating, sitting bolt upright, clutching his sheets in a death grip, with wide eyes scanning the dark void of the almost unfamiliar room. For a moment he couldn't tell where he was, or if he was even awake.
He had dreamt of the sun, the moon, the stars- and the feeling of drowning. Of being unable to get to the surface, being pulled down further from the warm, smiling face of the sun by thin, bony hands, further into the cold, lightless depths.
Regulus' dreams never made any sense, always just flashes of different scenes, as if seeing the sunlight refract off the ocean's surface. He isn’t ready, though, for the sudden freezing cold that pounces on his bare arms, goosebumps rising up towards his shoulders before he ducks under the safety of the covers again. God, how he hates these freezing January mornings.
How many soldiers do y’all think it would take to take down Ghost (2022)???
Five? Six? Seven???
I’m talking, all working together, and they manage to get the drop on him. (After he’s had like, a few-ish days of not sleeping well, and not eating as much as he probably needs to while on active deployment.)
Just capturing him, not like, killing him or anything. (Possibly with the help of tranquilizers/sedatives/what-have-you too?)
Help.
sentences from my wip matt/juan hurt/comfort fic that i had a little giggle while writing because matt engarde third person limited pov is one of my favorite writing styles:
- ...he doesn’t know where to put his hands and they rest awkwardly on Matt’s shoulders, and there’s enough space in between them to appease Jesus at a fucking middle school dance. [just to clarify the 'he' here is not Juan]
- ...the guy’s only sticking his tongue in Matt’s mouth and not doing anything with it. He’s like a frog. [this is the same guy as above, still not Juan]
- He slurs out a response that amounts to something something whiskey dick, and he’s in the clear for now.
- Matt’s in a high enough tax bracket that buying everyone in this seedy shithole three rounds of his favorite top shelf brandy wouldn’t make a dent in his monthly earnings, but he’s not the type to turn down free booze.
For wip game: Within Reach!
( I adore this one so much. Hua Cheng's worshippers have always been so interesting to me, and I love the idea of them having very different stories about who he is (ghost; a fox; man; woman; some other animal). And an eye symbol for 'helping' him find his beloved is so touching! Xie Lian picking up on little hints and slowly learning more of his new (not as new as you think my prince) dearest friend and being so tender with his San Lang 🙏 Also it also having Hua Cheng sickfic-hurt/comfort bits! Whump is my jam, and it's not so often I see a good one for Hua Cheng.)
Within Reach! I'm so happy you like it. It was one of my very first ideas for a TGCF fanfic. Alongside The Newcomer and Heavenly Damnation —which was the one I ended up submitting— it was one of the pitches I prepared for the TGCF minibang 2022. At the time, I was translating manhua for Bilibili Comics, from which I learned a lot about Chinese mythology and wuxia/xianxia tropes. This led me to understand just how big MXTX had made the sandbox for TGCF canonverse fancreations, particularly with how loose she made the magic system, and how she built Hua Cheng's backstory up through rumours and half-truths. I thought I could explore this by writing about Hua Cheng's side of the 800 years of separation, but I didn't want Xie Lian to miss out! I then needed a lapse that MXTX had left open to interpretation, and during which Hua Cheng's ability to conceal his story or interfere was limited.
Now, if I wasn't a rabid fan of The Legend of Zelda, I don't think I would've chosen the time when Hua Cheng was sealed in a child form to tell this story, even if it's possibly the best moment for doing so. I don't like children in fiction. I've got nothing about real life children, on the contrary, but the use and connotation of childhood in fictional narratives is more times than not shameless propaganda for reproductive futurism, and I hate it. However, the biggest sidequest of The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask features Kafei, a man who has been de-aged by a curse, and his fiancée Anju, who he's to marry on the same day the moon is going to fall and end the world. Kafei hides from Anju and the rest of the town in shame by wearing a fox mask (known in the game as Keaton mask, being Keaton a golden fox spirit). One good day, I looked at Kafei, thought of Hua Cheng, and had an epiphany, hahaha. If I'm very idle in the future, I'll write a TGCF x Majora's Mask crossover with Xie Lian as Anju, Hua Cheng as Kafei and Link as, well, Link. It'd be the ultimate "target audience = me", reason why I'm not in a rush to write it (I can simply daydream) but this explains the design of Hua Cheng's mask in the cover art I made for the fic. It's just Keaton's mask with Hua Cheng's trademarks, lol. Also, the eye windows/carvings might be Zelda's influence, too. There's a lot of eyes in the series, as they're the weak point of most bosses, and the emblem of the sheikah, a tribe of ninja warriors at the service of the Hyrulean crown.
In general, coming up with ways for Hua Cheng's worshippers to show their devotion and support has been a lot of fun. Hua Cheng will never appreciate the love they have for him or how they want to help him (he only cares about Xie Lian), but Xie Lian will see it and be very proud of him, I think. He's also delighted to be able to take care of his dearest friend during this trying times, and he'll baby him to oblivion, as he should —you're so real for the Hua Cheng whump appreciation, I salute you.
They'll be a bit further from human settlements in the next chapter, so we'll mostly encounter creatures, rogue travellers, and cultivators with their own bewildering theories about Crimson Rain Seeking A Flower. I hope you enjoy it when I finally post it, and thank you for the ask!
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Back to WIP game main post.
From @/thisonethereader on BlueSky:
I’ve been following treasure hunting in the clouds and am stoked for your next chapter ^_^ where did your inspo come from? So many airports for poor Gege 😭. (Also sincerely hope you’ve never been THAT effed over by flights <3)
The seed of that entire AU is this tweet, which reads:
@/eddy_sarah: Had a new experience tonight: on hour one of a six-hour flight, I got up to use the bathroom and when I came back the guy beside me was wearing my sweatshirt
I found it hysterical and shared it on Puqi Shrine, the TGCF Discord server where I spend most of my time, elaborating on the spot with some clever and funny interventions of other members. Later that day, my good friend @tiiracotta told me on DMs that they found the idea hilarious as well, and we brainstormed some more—we decided together that Xie Lian would mudlark in his free time, for example. Tiira ended up making the animation featured in the fic as a birthday present to me, which gave me the final push to write!
I'm happy to say that, although I've gone through my fair share of airport misadventures, it's never been as bad as Xie Lian's experience in this fic. I keep putting this poor man through the exaggerated, horrible version of everything that happens to me, hahaha.
I'm determined to post the end of the fic before Christmas. I'm glad to know you're looking forward to it, and thanks for asking!
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Hi! 💜 For the wip ask game: please please please, tell me more about in memoriam 👀
Hi! Of course, let's see: both In Memoriam and Scars surged from my curiosity about how Wei Ying (and Lan Zhan, plus the rest of the cast) processed Wei Ying's change of bodies in the long run. The novel shows some of it, yes, but it's such a strange occurrence! Surely there's more to it than saying, "alright, this happened. Moving on~"
Specifically for In Memoriam, I thought about the people who used to know Mo Xuanyu. His family was killed at the beginning of the novel, and no one in the Jin clan cared about him, but there are more people in the world. Someone had to remember him dearly from his childhood years, right? I thought of their reaction upon learning that who they used to know as an odd yet sweet child of the local gentry is now a completely different person. What an unholy aberration it must look like for someone outside the Jianghu who can't even imagine the power of cultivation! That's why I chose a former nanny, someone humble who looked after the clan's kids when needed, isn't well-read nor has contact with the Jianghu—she might even be wary of cultivators. She's gentle and a little superstitious, and would definitely die of horror and shock if they told her what happened with xiao Xuanyu. Her last wish is to see him because she's had dreams of something terrible happening to him, and thus her family decide to lure Wei Ying to the Jin territory with an outrageous story in order to ask him privately to help, so the old lady can leave the world with no worries.
That said, I never planned to make the fic about their meeting, but rather, of the before and after, and the narration is a third person vaguely close to Lan Zhan's perspective. Wei Ying goes to see the nanny without giving it much thought, but the experience makes him face the fact that he was shoved into an already started life that had memories and significance and an identity, and he comes back pretty shaken. Most of the fic would be about how he and Lan Zhan come to terms with it together.
I find writing for MDZS pretty intimidating. The worldbuilding and characterization are both very solid, I don't find as many crevices to get in as with TGCF. I don't know if I'll ever post any of these ideas. Have a preview of what I have written, to compensate, and thanks for asking!
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“I am talking nonsense, aren’t I? I'm sorry, Hanguang-Jun,” he said and leaned on Lan Zhan’s chest, looking up at him with eyes filled in equal parts with mischief and adoration. “I really want to see them try to explain their scheme to my face, and they won’t dare doing so in front of you. They are not worth your time, anyway; it would even stain the reputation of the Gusu Lan Clan to meddle with such affairs, don’t you think?”
“They will try to kill you.”
Wei Ying smirked and stretched a bit in order to get close to Lan Zhan’s ear.
“Let them try,” he purred, malicious. “Let me have some fun.”
Lan Zhan could feel Wei Ying’s slender fingers slide across his chest, drawing his collarbones and making little circles around his burnt scar. He didn’t falter.
“I’ll behave, I promise.” Wei Ying smile turned into a kiss against Lan Zhan’s neck. “I’ll be good, very good. I'm only ever naughty with you.”
“Stop it.”
“I can’t fly on a sword, so I’ll take Little Apple with me. It'll be a good bonding experience.” Wei Ying sat straight to see Lan Zhan in the eye and offered him the most innocent, purest smile, exquisitely fabricated. “Your uncle will be happy to have some peace; maybe you yourself will remember how much you enjoy silence and how bothersome I am.”
“Wei Ying…”
“Isn’t it true that I am bothersome, and that I love to bother you, and that you love to be bothered by me?”
Lan Zhan couldn’t stop the smallest smile from briefly appearing on his face. Wei Ying noticed it, and he was delighted.
“It is true, it really is!” he said, and leaned forward to point one finger at Lan Zhan’s chest. “Yet don’t tell me you don’t feel at least a bit tempted to have one day of your little five-to-nine clan rituals without my sabotage.”
Lan Zhan frowned slightly. Perhaps Wei Ying was the one in need of a break. He had always been a walking terror, ill-adapted to discipline and routine. Maybe the night hunts were not enough to compensate for the rather domestic, uneventful rhythm of the Cloud Recesses. That was understandable, but why did he want to go alone?
“Lan Zhan, are you pouting at me?”
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For the WIP game, The Newcomer one sounds so cool!! I'd love to hear more about it!
Heavy spoiler warning for Heaven Official's Blessing. Hi! Right, so, The Newcomer. I came up with the idea around two years ago, while re-reading the Ghost City arc. Do you remember how the mortal who's betting against Hua Cheng when Xie Lian arrives uses his daughter's lifespan and fate in marriage as a wager? It established fortune/fate as a sort of currency in the world of TGCF, a notion that later got reinforced by things like:
-How Hua Cheng can transfer luck in games of chance to Xie Lian -How Shi Wudu could use He Xuan's divine fate to make Shi Qingxuan ascend instead -How Jun Wu physically took Xie Lian's fortune away from him with the second shackle and scattered it among mortals (or so we hope, because Xie Lian asked for that to happen, but with Jun Wu, you never know) -How Jun Wu can put his resentment to bake in the Kiln and cook curses of horrible misfortune with it, which was what made Hong'er's brief life so miserable
The whole thing is quite intriguing. Does the Gambler's Den have a vault of good and bad fortunes in different areas of life, that they've been hoarding for centuries in order to offer them as rewards to new patrons? How, where, and from whom did Hua Cheng learn the magic required for such a thing? Does part of his extremely good luck come from gambling earnings, or is it all his, and the house has its own separate reserves? Is there anyone able to audit these transactions and confirm that there's no cheating and everybody involved gave their informed consent, which seems to be the requisite for the magic to work without breeding resentment (as opposed to a stolen fate, like the Blackwater case), or do they have to believe in what Hua Cheng says because he's too strong to be opposed or challenged?
If I have those questions, surely some characters in the story could have them too. Cue the new Earth Master, formerly an overseer of a big mining operation at the service of the Chinese empire, who swears that he was coerced into betting his extraordinarily auspicious fate in marriage in the Gambler's Den, and claims that Hua Cheng used it to marry Xie Lian, because otherwise there's no way "any respectable god would agree to marry such a vile monster." He ascends shortly after Hualian get married, which in turn is not too long after Hua Cheng's return. Many gods are still resentful towards Hua Cheng for his past deeds and the fanfare of the bells singing him praises every day, so they rally with the new Earth Master to see if they can take him down. Naturally, Xie Lian doesn't believe any of it for even an instant. He's devastated by the turn of events, and when he's told that he should not only stay away from the case because he's biased, but also stay away from Hua Cheng altogether until they determine if their love is legitimate or the product of a fate switch, he almost gets into his second calamity era and locks himself in Paradise Manor, refusing to leave until the case is closed (he's too strong for anyone to force him out, so at least there's that).
As I mentioned, Ling Wen takes on the case to get some fresh air and see if that can get her out on parole. She's in terrible terms with Hua Cheng, but I think she's too pragmatic to try to use the chance to get back at him. Instead, I think she'd be genuinely interested in finding out whether the old fox is as cunning as people paint him to be.
That's what I have defined so far. The rest is rather nebulous because there are a lot of possibilities, both in regard to what actually happened, and also in regard to the POV(s) I want to focus on. I could stay with Ling Wen and show how the Earth Master mirrors the men who looked down on her and mistreated her through her life, or I could focus on Hualian, or do a mix of both... I have started the story two or three times, testing the waters, but I'm still unsure.
Thanks for asking!
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Back to WIP game main post.
Last Line Game
Tagged by @e-n-t-r-o-p-i-c-f-r-o-g weeee
The last line I wrote:
The sight is so that Xie Lian concludes he’s still dreaming. The proportions of this person are mythological. How tall can he be?
If you're reading this and want to join, feel free!
Fic WIPs Openings
@boomchickfanfiction changed a meme that consisted of sharing the first lines of ten fics for one of sharing the first lines of ten fic WIPs, which suits me wonderfully because it's the only way many of these texts are ever going to see the light, lol. 1 to 7 are TGCF, 8 is MDZS, 9 is Hades and 10 is BotW.
"Ghost, ghost! How can you say that I'm not dead? How would I be able to see you again, if I weren't?"
Hua Cheng seemed to toss the dice casually, but the two little cubes dented the skull of the last demon standing like stones shot from a powerful slingshot, nailing it to the bloody floor. Two sixes.
Neither gods nor ghosts needed to sleep. The fact that they didn’t need to, though, didn’t mean that they didn’t do it.
Tap. Tap. Tap. Hua Cheng didn’t know if that was the best of the worst day of his afterlife.
Upon waking up, the first thing Xie Lian noticed was the unusual warmth. Yawning, he pushed the blanket away and supported himself on his elbows, blinking hard in the darkness.
Despite the generalised hatred its inhabitants felt against the sun, Ghost City did have days and nights.
“Cheng’er is too old to share beds with grown-ups, you are going to spoil him.”
When the only sound coming from Wei Ying arriving to the Cloud Recesses was the clapping of Little Apple’s hooves against the stone road, Lan Zhan knew something had gone wrong.
The waters of the river Styx were warm, and their bitter flavour managed to get inside his mouth as it always did, no matter how tightly he kept his mouth shut.
The sunset made their secret lake glow with an orange hue. Link sat at the shore and splashed the water with his feet, which made Sidon smile.
Feel free to join if you want!
Thanks @liviapeleia for tagging me, your wip excerpts made me very curious to know what's next :D!
Rules: you will be given a word. Then you share one sentence/excerpt from your wip(s) that starts with each letter of your word!
Tagging @breadkween, @achillesuwu and @futurepastme if you're interested! Your word should you choose to accept it is FISH!
Livia you gave me 'myth.'
M
“Merlin is a-”
But he knew, he had known for a long time.
Across from him his servant looked like a startled hare, wide-eyed, gaunt in the dim light. The thing they had not been saying had almost been said. Did Merlin think that just because it was said aloud that suddenly Arthur would change his mind, have him executed?
Instead he made a show of sagging in relief and Merlin hesitated and then sagged with him.
Y
“You’re lying. You have something you must do, something that might help me. Maybe it'll turn the tide of this battle.”
“Arthur-”
“Whatever you're about to say, let it be the truth for once. I need to hear it, finally hear it. How many years has it been? We never spoke about your magic, not once, not really, not like we should have.”
“My-?”
“It’s said now, I don't care, not anymore. I can't go into this battle without you, not unless I know it’s for a good cause and not unless I know that you’ll be safe.”
T
“The spitting, what's that then?”
“To ward off curses! Anyone can do it!”
“The asphodel?”
“The dead need appeasing!” Merlin threw his hands in the air and then towards Arthur. “You’ve seen the ghost of your father, you've fought the undead!”
Arthur was throwing his hands too now. “The cabbage leaves? Prophetic dreams have to be sorcerery?!”
“Yes but not the kind you get from cabbage leaves!”
H
He is the custodian of our stories, the golden age we brought about together and he’ll be the custodian of the stories after I’m gone, learn them from him, help him to hold them and share them, I think some days he might find them too heavy to carry.
He’s the most powerful and the most precious thing to ever walk this Earth, it would be a tragedy too immense to imagine or bear thinking about if he lost what made him human. But more than that, I ask you to do this, to pass on this message to those who come after you because I love him and I cannot do all of these things myself.