Hello! My name is Tori Morningstar. Or well, my Alias is! This is my new Wrtiblr! I write religious, Fantasy, and Scifi novels! I also write short stories! I am almost 30, and inspired to be a novelist! Hope you enjoy!! Header is by the amazing Luntian-Berdenghuitte!
"Thank god it's nothing crazy," he mumbled, pouring himself a glass of whiskey and a look behind him. "...do you want any, Kasukabe-san?"
Toshiro sighed. "No, thank you. I told you, call me Toshiro."
His bodyguard snorted softly. "You're my boss. Gotta at least keep an air of professionalism around you... and an ear to the ground. Something just smells with this party, and I know it's not that cheeseboard they pass around like a bunch of fancy pants."
"You aren't a fan of large gatherings, Hasegawa-kun?"
Zenkichi scowled. "I've been to enough tuxedo events in my life. And every one of them was to push an agenda that no one voted for... or a charity event to line pockets with. Even if it was the force."
Toshiro's gaze softened. "I'm sorry you've never had a good experience."
"What about you?" Hasegawa swirled the drink before taking a slow sip and scrunching his brow. "...ooh, that's rough..."
"I- hm." The man stroked his chin. "You have a fair point. I'm not entirely sure if I've ever been to one I actually *enjoyed,* due to an arranged marriage. All of those events left a bad taste in my mouth, but… maybe this time will be different."
I'm about to do what every demiace writer can do. (NSFW!)
The microsecond he slowly sat down on Akira's cock, his head rolled back with hands splayed on the man's chest; and Zenkichi moaned.
If he wasn't already a hot mess after the foreplay, he certainly was now as sweat trickled down his forehead. Akira was panting heavily, hands tied to the bedposts and eyes closed. "...how many... times... Hasegawa...?!"
Zenkichi leaned down slowly; with a husky whisper, "You're my first."
Prompt provided by @wild-selenite-caffine from a while back. July has been another exhausting trip into the world of work and just generalized emotional tiredness again. This was gonna be something else before, but.
Anyway, enjoy the (unexpected) fall into angst that you were waiting for, Caff- and anyone else, really.
--
“You’re hurt.”
“It’s nothing; should see the other guy.”
“I don’t care about the other guy. Let me see it.”
“I said it was—”
“Now.”
There was a peacefulness behind the words that he didn’t dare question; Zenkichi sighed, shutting the door as Akira went to the bathroom to get the first aid kit. He pursed his lips, looking down at the wound on his chest with a grimace and back to Akira’s own backside. The shirt came off slowly, peeling back to reveal the dozens of scars that littered his body- not at all what he wanted to show off in the first place.
They were still on mere civility, speaking terms… and certainly not of his own will and accord.
Akira walked back into the bedroom, Zenkichi dropping the shirt on the floor and sitting down on the bed. “The kids’ll be home soon. Let’s hurry up.” He didn’t look at the CEO, hand on his leg. “Antiseptic and—”
“You’re awfully casual for someone that just took a knife for someone he claims he hates.”
Zenkichi snorted softly at this. “Well they did say not to let you get hurt.”
“So you’re just doing this out of duty- like a dog still chained to fate.”
The comment got him to bristle. “You should probably keep your mouth shut and your nose out of places it doesn’t belong.”
Akira raised a brow. “That’s a nerve if I’ve ever seen one pinched.”
“I don’t have to explain anything to you,” the thief continued bitterly, watching Akira grab the bandages and some wipes from the kit. “Why the hell would it even matter?”
“Well considering you’re just as much a broken man at the rest of the kids you look after, from what I saw… there has to be something in there that makes you a miserable old ass,” Akira replied calmly.
“What are you, my therapist?”
“No, just a man trying to understand why one so angry at me goes out of his way to save me.”
Zenkichi still refused to look at him, even as Akira began to gently dab and wipe away at the blood on his chest. Just as nosy as the kids.
Just as bad as the damn kids.
For fuck’s sake.
The father closed his eyes, clenching his jaw as the wound began to sting and Akira cleaned it little by little. He wasn’t just supposed to spill his entire life story to this… this… this…!!
(this stupid jerk of a man that had nothing to fucking do even with Akane’s jail, just a man of miserable circumstance that had the power to change the world and got fucked up by his own app)
“Look. …Akira.” What the fuck was wrong with him? “You’ve felt empty before, right? Like nothing you do is enough, no matter what the hell happens. And you keep trying and trying and fucking trying, and by the time you’re my age… what’s left to give.”
Akira stopped dabbing the wound for a moment.
“I’ve seen these kids. I’ve watched them for- who knows how long now. Weeks, months… and all I see? All I see is—“
Breathe, you idiot.
“—is what little I have left to give to any of them.”
Akira never blinked.
“I’ve been around for so many years doing this shit- trying for so long to have some kind of faith in humanity or whatever the kids do nowadays… and I keep giving and giving and trying and giving. But…” He shook his head. “But the longer I’ve lived, the more I’ve lost what’s inside me—and ended up empty.”
He gestured to his body tiredly, shaking his head. “Hell, I think… I think this is all proof enough. I don’t… I don’t have anything left to give.”
Akira set down the wipe and closed his eyes, unable to hold back a chuckle. Zenkichi growled a little. “It’s not funny.”
“No, it’s very funny. For how much those kids love you, you are a dense asshole.”
“I never asked for your damn opinion, much less for you to try and take care of me!”
“Someone did ask you to keep an eye on me, though- to make sure that I didn’t have any more plots in me or whatever to make the world mine, to rid the world of evil in the face of my own want for justice like the Phantom Thieves wanted their own.”
Konoe couldn’t help but keep the sarcasm out of his voice.
“But isn’t that what everyone wants? Their own brand of justice? You want me to go down for Akane’s jail, and you won’t take it laying down until I’m back behind bars because of another world and some false god overtaking me and my own desires and twisting it to match theirs.”
When he opened his eyes, there was a quiet ferocity in them- flickering flames, angry.
“How close am I to the mark, Hasegawa?”
Zenkichi didn’t answer, matching Akira’s own glare.
“You really think you don’t have any more to give?” He picked up a new wipe and opened it, turning back to the wound in question. “I think you have too much left to give- maybe in all the wrong ways.”
Story time: I started a book about 23 hours ago and just finished it. Also in that time I slept for 10 hours, spent time with family, was at work, etc. Anyway, I enjoyed the book (Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda). But it felt like it flew by, so after I finished I looked up the word count because what are pages? Pages are meaningless. I only function in word counts anymore.
The estimate I found was 58,580. My immediate reaction was “oh, that’s why. That’s nothing!” But what a shitty response. Because no. That’s not nothing. That’s a whole. Damn. Book. An entire novel! And Fic authors regularly bust out 30k, 50k, 100k, 150k words. AND THEY DO IT FOR FREE. WHILE WORKING AND LIVING THEIR LIVES.
So anyway, thank your favorite fic author today because they deserve it. Because they’re amazing. They’re the MVPs.
This is awesome. With that said, huge appreciation also to fic writers who write shorter fics - 10k, 5k, 1k, 500 words. Because yeah, huge long fics get a lot of love, and a lot of labour goes into them, but the same is true for tiny fics as well. Not everyone is banging out huge great novels, but little ficlets are fantastic and still bring readers a ton of joy.
So if you’re feeling a bit downcast because you can’t write that 50 chapter epic or your latest WIP is “only” 2k and it still took you ages - that’s amazing. Seriously. Not everyone is naturally wordy or prolific. And you can say a ton with just a few hundred or thousand words.
Props to short fic creators - you guys are awesome.
For those writers who discredit themselves because they feel they aren’t writing the novels that others might, you’re still writing a novella, my dears. You’re still putting time, effort, and passion into something. Well done.
(honestly shout out to all fuckin fic writers. You didn’t have to give us shit and still y'all out here living ya best life and doin something you love. Bravo.)
The most amazing, disturbing, heartrending, worldview-shaking story I have ever read (There Will Come Soft Rains by Ray Bradbury): three pages long. It can be read in fifteen minutes.
I can’t find a word count online. But DuckDuckGo tells me that in English, you get an average of 500 words per page.
So it’s about 1500 words, give or take. I cry every fucking time I read it, and I have read it many times.
Novels and novellas and fanfics of that length are great. But if you’re the shorter type—
—know that part of my heart stands forever on an empty hill in a fictitious city in California in the year 2026, crying for a fictitious child who never caught a ball, and it has been crying on that hill for over twenty years.
Its so weird because i was so happy about this post, like, yah!! Go fic writers!!! You rock!!!
but then i realized that i have written a 30k story before.
What? That was years ago. And a sucky first draft. What are you talking about?
How do you know youre a fic writer? How do you know your story is loved?
At the end of the day, numbers are just numbers
So make sure to tell fic writers how much you love their fics. Tell them what you love about them. What twists surprised you.
Let them know that their works are appreciated
Currently im only continuing my fics because someone told me “<this> is one of my favorite tropes and its all because of this story!”
Like, wow. If im the best of the trope, it feels like I’m really accomplishing something that others cant.
And thats the thing. Every story or fic does accomplish something that other fics cant, because of the passion in those stories. But when you are creating it is easy to become blind to the creation itself, because you’ve been focusing on the details so long that the old artist trope of “staring at it until i hate it” happens
Remind artists what is beautiful about their works. I don’t doubt that they’ve forgotten.
