I know It's dark moon but I don't feel like IH is really sun x moon, I feel they are more sun x sun or star x sun. Ichigo is sunshine just a little darker.
Publishing your work online and wanting the approval of your audience makes it hard to remember sometimes that you don't owe anyone your creativity. Sure, it's a give and take. You bless them with your work and they show gratitude. But one does not dictate the other.
Write and create when you feel like it, not because you feel forced to satisfy someone else.
I get my media recommendations the old fashioned way: by watching someone I follow on here go on an unhinged reblog spree of media related content until I eventually decide to go "alright, what's all this then"
fanfic writing culture isn’t “oh dang! I wanted to write about this prompt with this character but someone else already wrote it, so now I can’t”.
fanfic writing culture is always “two cakes is better than one. the more the merrier. there can ever be enough fics of this character with this prompt!”
For J, whose expectations I'm afraid I won't meet.
I used to call you my best friend way back
before you were my everything
Unlike her, Yoichi Nagumo had never truly felt the sweet escape that nicotine promised.
Delighted by the long sigh escaping from her lips every time a new cigarette touched them – those same lips that constantly cursed him, and the same ones that he found himself suppressing his desire to shut up with a forceful kiss more often than not —, he was desperate to feel that relief, a temporary cure for the numbness clouding his days…
But the elation never came.
He tried smoking a few times.
Effortlessly cool was the way others often described him. He didn’t mind it at all. He guessed that any man as tall, good-looking, and approachable as he pretended to be was naturally bound to stand out in a crowd. That prominence had become his best disguise.
Yet…
Effortlessly cool was the last combination of words that would come to his mind whenever he smoked.
Or, better said, clumsily attempted to smoke.
Pathetic mess gave a more accurate picture. Awkwardly, he held the cigarette in his long fingers, doubting if he truly wanted that filter to touch his lips. The answer always came soon enough. Those coughs that followed the first exhalation were so terribly painful. He inevitably bent his statuesque frame in half, holding his stomach until the overpowering smell of burnt skin coming from the hole in his expensive shirt gave him another reason to worry.
Normal people would’ve been concerned about him.
Taro, as detached as he was, even offered to call an ambulance the first time he witnessed that spectacle.
However, there wasn’t anything normal about her.
Instead, she always laughed wholeheartedly at the show he was giving her, enjoying the front row seat she occupied while holding her own cigarette as if it was an extension of her sturdy fingers – a stark contrast with the ethereal beauty of her face.
But sometimes, she just came close to him, patting his back lightly and failing miserably at holding back the joy that his suffering brought her.
“You’re such a pathetic mess,” she added teasingly, trapped in a smoke cloud that lured him to get lost in her big, amber eyes.
Perhaps, those eyes were the sweet escape he urgently searched for, a fickle light in the obscurity he was fully submerged from a young age…
Rion Akao would’ve also laughed at his vulnerability.
“A pathetic mess, huh?” thought Yoichi as he played with the cigarette in his right hand, its ends starting to wither.
“Something to remember me by” she had said playfully back in the day, when one carefree afternoon she threw that cigarette at him. Before he even realized, he had caught it might it.
Rion smirked, another cigarette swinging on her lips.
“Good boy”. And then her face lit up.
“You’d die before you smoke it.”
Nagumo instinctive smiled with that disgusting, sweet grin that made her skin crawl. Rion always found it extremely unsettling, the closest to an uncanny valley she would ever know in her whole life. She knew, better than anyone, how fake it was. His real smile barely crossed his face nowadays, especially after she captured it in a photo she refused to delete.
Yet, she still actively chose to pretend she didn’t notice the difference.
She seemed unaffected by that grin on his face.
Whereas Taro was the closest to an older brother she never had, Yoichi was the closest to a best friend she would ever have in her lifetime. But in their line of work, none of them could afford vulnerability, fragility or strong bonds.
“Call yourself lucky if I don’t throw it away later.”
Calmly, she just gave her first huff.
“Be my guest” and her amber gaze fixated on his dark eyes. “Deep down, you won’t dare”
He hated that she was absolutely right.
Of course, she was.
Months later, he was still holding to that cheap cigarette because it was his last memento of her, the last memory of her he could cling to, the last reminder that she was real and not a figment of his imagination.
Rion Akao was dead.
Or at least, that was the word on the street. They claimed that Kei Uzuki had killed her.
Yoichi couldn’t help but to hysterically laugh at the absurdity of the rumor. Had they truly seen Uzuki? That man was as weak and pathetic as it could be. And if he remembered correctly, Rion was a bit taller than him. How the fuck did he manage to put a bullet in her?
She was stronger than him. She could’ve pinned Uzuki down and disarmed him quicker than what it took to say his first name.
Unless…
Kei Uzuki had managed to achive the only thing Yoichi Nagumo always failed at: Earning Rion Akao’s full trust.
The cigarette in his hand was burning him, despise the fact that it remained unlit. He wanted to throw it away, as it was suddenly a reminder of his own cowardice. Born into a family of spies, he had rationalized that love was transactional, an excuse to inflict pain on others without feeling regret. And for an assassin, what was the use of love? Love was just a tragedy in the making…
Yoichi wasn’t in love with Rion. But her face was the first thing in his mind when he woke up, and her name was still the only one he desperately called in his dreams.
His body remained still in the cold rain, the grip on the cigarette firmer than before.
The end of Rion Akao’s life sounded like the kind of fucked up jokes she loved to throw around, especially when Uzuki and her body faded into nothing.
Perhaps, she…
Unable of letting it go, Yoichi Nagumo, once again, put the cigarette inside his chest pocket, close to his heart.
He would relentlessly tease her about falling for Uzuki. She would get so annoyed, but before she could land a punch on his face, he would give Rion her cigarette back, lighting it up. And as she always did, she would find that nicotine sweet enough to soothe her, enough for her to cockily smile about her being right: Yoichi wouldn’t dare to throw her away. Yoichi would just smile in return.
For his sanity, he needed to find her. He selfishly desired for her last smoke to be with him. After all, he still had her cigarette.
Author's Note: English isn't my first language, and I don't plan to fully respect it at midnight. Nevertheless, this is the first final draft of a little one shot I'm still a bit too insecure of publishing in ao3.
I hope this message finds you well. My name is Aziz, and I’m reaching out with a heartfelt plea to help my family find safety and reunite with our mother. 😞
The ongoing war in Gaza has torn my family apart. My mother and newborn sister are stranded in Egypt, while I, along with the rest of my sex family members, am trapped in the midst of the genocide in Gaza. We have not only been separated but have also lost our home and are enduring unimaginable hardships. 💔
Your support can make a difference. Whether by reading our story, donating, or sharing our campaign with others, you can help us reunite, find safety, and start anew. 🙏🕊
Thank you, from the depths of my heart, for your kindness, compassion, and solidarity during this difficult time. ❤🍉
https://gofund.me/58268669 🔗
Hi,
Sadly, I'm not currently in a position with disposable income. However, I'm sharing your message and I'm praying it helps to reach someone else who might be able to donate.
Be proud of the dumb, little thing you wrote, just because you wanted to write a dumb, little thing. Your writing doesn't need to be serious and award-winning for you to be proud of it.
Inspired by Cicatrices, perfomed by Kalimba. If you're Mexican, you understand why there isn't any link to the song.
Ven y dime corazón, ¿cómo empezar
Come here and tell me love,
Una vez más sin ti?
how can I start again without you?
Ven y dile al corazón que puede seguir
Come and tell my heart that it can move on
Que puede vivir sin ti
That it can live without you
Este amor que se fue
This love is already gone
Y que no puedo vivir sin ti
And I can’t live without you
Este amor que se fue
This love is long gone
Y que no puedo tener
And I can’t have it anymore
Que era de los dos, pero se olvidó
It was ours, but it’s already forgotten
Dejando cicatrices
Just leaving scars behind
Another day long gone, another day in which Kazutora Hanemiya didn’t receive any letter from the outside.
He felt like he was slowly losing it completely, because he kept waiting from that particular letter since he came back to juvie. Only 15 years old, and two murder chargers were already weighting on his shoulder. He was lucky enough that his father’s money could afford an outstanding lawyer that managed to prove that his guilty confession was just a trauma response for seeing that boy of his same age lying lifeless next to him. He was even luckier that he wouldn’t get transferred into an adult’s prison before he became of age.
Maybe that was the reason no one wrote to him. He was a murderer.
But he still looked up to the moment in which mail was delivered to his fellow inmates, waiting anxiously for an envelope with the messiest handwriting that has been known to man. Sometimes, Kazutora could swear that the kanjis used were actually mistaken, but he just shrugged it off with a chuckle.
He knew that his best friend was a little slow. But he didn’t care. Why would anyone mind that he had a hard time spelling when Keisuke Baji was the most loyal person that had ever lived?
Not matter what kind of hell awaits us, I’m with you until the end!
Kazutora was proud to admit that he spared Baji the hell that juvie was. As physically strong as Baji was, he was too pure to survive a system in which only the deranged survived. Even if both were present when Shinichiro Sano was murdered, Baji – who tried to stop Kazutora and was already struggling with adapting to junior high – was held back for a school year. But he was free.
And it was all that matters.
Unlike the others who eventually turned his back to him, especially those who were closer to Mikey, Baji still wrote to him every single week.
But he was a liar.
Baji died before they both saw the end to the hell that Kazutora was going through.
However, Baji didn’t die. Kazutora killed him. Instead of running away, Kazutora stayed behind when the police arrived at the junkyard in which the Bloody Halloween took place.
I died on my own.
Those words still echoed Kazutora’s mind whenever he started to drift into sleep.
That big oaf was trying to reassure him on his last breathes.
Baji could’ve saved them. Maybe if he hadn’t exhausted himself, he wouldn’t have been declared dead on the scene.
Kazutora still regretted not being able to face his mother. She already hated him for the incident at SS Motors, and she asked her son to end their friendship as soon as she learned the first verdict. Baji was the one who confessed it in one of his letters because that idiot couldn’t hide anything from Kazutora.
But only if Baji hadn’t gotten in the way of his knife, maybe Kazutora would’ve done anything and beyond to earn Ryoko’s forgiveness instead of spending his days wondering when Baji’s next letter would arrive.
Kazutora couldn’t change the past. What was done, was done.
He wondered if he ever told Baji how much he loved him. Did he feel it? Were his actions enough?
Kazutora still loved Baji.
Love felt like such a strong word, but it was the only right one to accurately describe and label his feelings towards Baji. He remembered that his mom once told him that love endures all things. The only one who had been by Kazutora’s side since the day they met was Baji. And he never left him behind. He was the first one to openly calling him out for being bullied, but also stood up for him without expecting anything in return. Baji was also there during the trial. And he also followed him to Valhalla just to assure that he was safe.
Kazutora wasn’t sure if his feelings for Baji were romantic. Both were still so young. But love didn’t have to be romantic, right? Love could be manifested in numerous ways…
Even in a destructive manner, just like his parents had shown him. And the way in which Kazutora himself had loved, ending the life of the only person that had deeply cared about him.
Yet, he was still holding to the delusion of receiving another Baji’s letter to keep himself sane.
His gaze was already lost, looking at nowhere in specific, when he heard a distant voice calling him.
Hanemiya, it seems like your little girlfriend finally forgave you for coming back to this hole. You got a letter.
Not even the warden’s mocking made Kazutora react. Silently, he just took the letter and walked back to his bunk bed. It wasn’t exactly quiet, but his cellmate was somewhere else.
The calligraphy on the envelope was different. It was cleaner than Baji’s, even elegant. If he didn’t know better that the only girl he actually talked to before juvie was Emma, he could’ve believed it was indeed a girl who wrote that letter to him.
Hanemiya-san,
I don’t think we have truly met, and it isn’t like I really want to because you’re far from being my favorite person right now. But Baji-san wouldn’t forgive me if I left you alone… Whatever. My name’s Chifuyu Matsuno, vice-captain of the Tokyo Manji First Division…
I’m knockin’ at your door, just answer me
I can’t breathe
I’d give to you
My heart and soul, but you’d just take from me
What you need
But if I lost it all
And if I had to crawl and beg
Would you help me back?
As soon as Maki Zen’in was old enough to understand, she realized that her only real choice in her life was to become a monster.
Only a monster could free itself from the chains that were holding her back.
A heartless monster wouldn’t hesitate to hurt those who had labelled as disgrace, a dishonor to the legacy of her family, and treater Mai and her as scums – despise their young ages — who weren’t worthy of the bare minimum of courtesy due to their low levels of cursed energy.
She was never meant to lead a normal life. Aspiring for happiness never truly crossed her mind.
She only desired freedom. Freedom for Mai and her to decide their own fate.
If she had to become a monster, so let it be.
Maki Zen’in would gladly take the burden. After all, her whole life she had threaded that road…
But for a fleeting moment of happiness, she deluded herself into believe that she wasn’t a monster. At Jujutsu High she found the per… No, not the person, but rather the place she belonged to. Calling it a home would be terribly cheesy, especially when for a long time she had to share her space with a talking panda and a kid whose mouth only spurted “salmon”, but home was also the closest word to define the atypical and questionable school that had sheltered for the last two year, that so much needed escape from the suffocating estate she was raised in.
No one at Jujutsu High, from her classmates to her even more dubious teachers, would dare to call Maki a disgrace. Instead, she was the always reliable Zen’in-senpai, a weapon specialist and an expert in hand-to-hand combat. But she wasn’t just a tool. She was a dear friend, a title she never really felt worthy of. Why would she even bother in bonding with others if she was going to take them down with her? Her goal was something that only she could do by herself, and for herself… And Mai.
Without any Zen’in clan, Mai and Maki would finally be free to be whoever they wanted to be.
And she knew perfectly that Mai wasn’t willing to become that monster to achieve it.
If there’s anything I can do to help, let me know! Let’s crush the Zen’in clan!
That boy, the one who looked like he hadn’t slept a single day in his whole life, said that with a nervous smile in his face.
But he had never lied to her. That Christmas, she felt cold feet for the first time in her fifteen years.
Maki had never felt more comfortable and open with anyone, but him. That goofy looking kid with an awkward smile.
She left the room after that. She told herself not to believe it.
But she didn’t forget what he also confessed so earnestly genuine.
I want to be like you. Strong and resilient. I want to be like that.
Monsters weren’t meant to be admired. They were frightening. Others feared them.
Yet, his eyes were fixated on her. He didn’t know what was in his eyes, but they never left her.
So, she, unconsciously, tried to become the person he saw, even if his gaze was now admiring the landscapes of a faraway land.
Sometimes, she can’t help to wonder what would’ve gone differently if he had been there, by her side as he naively promised, when she took every single life that had spitted on her and murdered her younger sister.
If he had been there, maybe Mai…
No. Her destiny was always to become a monster chained to a heavenly restriction, that anomaly in the jujutsu system born once a generation.
It didn’t matter how stubborn she was. Even if she fiercely fought against it because she found some comfort into thinking that she was in charge of her own life, that she could change that trajectory…
Her fate was sealed.
Maki became that monster.
And whatever little remained from her soul, silently prayed that her sacrifice was enough to protect those precious to her, especially the smile of that boy who, just like her, was looking for a place to belong.
She couldn’t protect him.
It was inevitable that. He had always been stronger than her, except for those first few months in which he could barely hold a sword firmly in his hands.
She shouldn’t have been surprised that his self-destructive ass had jumped at the idea of becoming a monster, to profane the body of the mentor he had revered, if his sacrifice meant that everyone else would be safe. His loyalty to those he loved was as unwavering as her.
It was a terrible idea.
Didn’t he just start to believe that his life was worth living?
No one, but him, truly listened to her opposition. A bit roughly, Maki reminded him that they cared deeply about him while the others kept quiet, resigned to what they were already addressing as their last resort.
She only made him furious.
He was quick to remind her that it was fair that only Gojo-sensei had to take the burden of becoming a monster on his own every time their weakness cornered them.
Maki hated to admit it, but he was right. But the truth was that she didn’t care as much for Gojo in the same way she cared for him. As she had overheard Panda a few times, she was only nice when Yuta Okkotsu was around.
She couldn’t help, but to put her faith in Satoru Gojo, as blindly as he did. She gasped when she noticed that she was praying that the strongest were enough to prevent them to bring into reality Yuta’s suicidal fantasy.
And before someone else noticed she was willing to participate in their plan, she left like a storm.
Stomping loudly, her feet led her to her room.
But if she was being honest, that room wasn’t hers alone.
It was their room. The dawn of humanity was upon them as to care that a teenage boy and a girl were sharing a room. Every night, they pretended they were normal teenagers and tried to catch up. He fascinated her with all the tales about the food he tried while he was traveling around Africa with Miguel, and he listened attentively when she reminisced happily about the goodwill event he missed when he was abroad. They both avoided certain topics. Yuta just quickly glanced about the fact that he was commissioned to assassin Yuji Itadori, whereas Maki barely delve into how much she missed Nobara and her sister.
By the time they realized how late it was, neither of them wanted to move. He was gentleman enough to give her the bed, while he barely managed to cover his taller body with a couple of blankets on the floor.
Maki’s knuckles were hurting.
The only way she could deafen the loud knocks on their door was by punching the wall.
She knew perfectly that Yuta was behind the door.
Fifteen minutes went by until he stopped, exhausted. She heard his long sigh before his body hit the floor, stridently.
Maki, what do you want from me? We both know that we don’t have any other choice. None of you is willing to become a monster, so I’m stepping up. Don’t worry, I’ll be the monster, so you don’t have to if we go to those lengths…
Maki looked down at her hands, covered in blood.
Yuta was wrong. He didn’t need to become a monster, especially not for her.
She was already a monster.
And she wasn’t even a good one if he was so willing to still take that role from her.
That night, she refused him the privilege of hearing her answer.
Violent Softness . 2024
I owed Shenhe a fanart! I had started one a few months ago but i abandoned it bc i didnt really like how it was looking (also bc drawing genshin designs is excrutiatingly painful and my mind refused to do it lmao). I started this this week and decided to not render it too much so i wouldnt feel overwhelmed by it. Really really liked the end result :')
Let me know if you'd like me to upload it to inprnt for prints! :)
romaincrisis
baratheonpilled
kaledo-art
gummygunk
pixelskylines
ellievsbear
izzy806
annaxmalina
andulkaphoto
snowghoul
2087
