I write a lot of SHIZAYA with most all of my current work on my AO3
My work features nonconventional horror with recurring themes that revolve around heartbreak, grief, struggles with all forms of intimacy, violence, trauma and the reactions to those traumas. Introspection into the self and the interconnection between social groups, masking, the nature of control or lackthereof all tied together with tragedy.
I wanted to say that I will be slowly sharing wips again, and easing myself back into sharing my writing. I do not know if I will post any completed works anytime soon, as I still feel very vulnerable in that regard.
But I also wanted to say thank you for the outpouring of support I received not only from my friends but from complete strangers as well, after my last personal post here. It means the world to me, and gives me hope that made it easier to work through a lot of the tumultuous emotions in regards to sharing my work publicly.
This year has been incredibly difficult, for myself and others as well, and this time of year will likely be the final hurdle before a fresh start for many just like myself. It was the support of my fellow fandom goers that has encouraged me to start sharing again, to feel a sense of community and avoid isolation.
So thank you, to everyone who reached out and to everyone who silently supported me and any other fandom creators. To those too shy to comment and those who leave paragraphs and everyone in between.
I've debated all day (a solid 9.5 hours, to be exact) about whether I should post about this and I've decided that I will.
This morning I received a troll comment on my most recent fic, claiming to have found the use of AI in my work. Which has hurt me deeply in a way I can't even begin to articulate, so I won't bother.
To be clear, I have not and will never use AI in anything I do.
It's been a long year of things that have hurt me where I've had to muscle through every moment of misery or grin and pretend I'm not affected to keep my sanity and my sense of self. I will no longer be doing this. I'm tired and will be taking time away from posting my writing, which is incredibly personal to me and things I've gone through, to the public for the time being.
I had wanted The Way That You Were to be my Halloween fic for the year, to really play with a lot of silly tropes and have it be a fun project, but it doesn't really feel like there's much of a point between the lack of engagement across the board and malicious actors flinging accusations of plagiarism around to cause hurt and distress.
Please be kind to each other and support each other. Thank you for reading and supporting my work if you have <3
Canon Divergence; Mid-Ketsu/Final Curtain Arc. | Major Character Death.
Threads of fate laid out like a system of roads, some running parallel and veering off in different directions.
“I will repair my impact on your world—” a pause, her face thoughtful a moment before a frown tugs the corners of her lips. “What I can, at the very least.”
Stories below, the strongest man in Ikebukuro raises his weapon. The metal twisting in his grip and contents of the machine clattering around are muffled by the cacophony of the crowd surrounding them. But the informant falls to his knees; some taunt muttered between bubbles of blood catching on his lips, and the dullahan looks on the scene with something close to sorrow clouding her features.
“Some things cannot be repaired it seems.” she says to no one in particular.
Though, her horse, he seems to reply with a huff. Turning on the stairs almost without the need for direction from his rider.
The man on the ground stands above his own body, unaware of the weight of it limp at his feet. And yet still he laughs, blades over slate shrillness ringing up and over the sound of the gathering. Arms outstretched wide to take in the thrill of the situation. He speaks as if still speaking to the man in front of him but the machine clatters to the ground. The crowd has gone silent. There is no standing ovation to be had.
Celty approaches the scene with a level of caution, watching the horror and realization twist and contort Shizuo’s features from the dissociative trance he’d seemed to have taken on. She notes the silence of the crowd around them, near every single body possessed by the sword but each and every single human eye locked on the man on the ground. Only Celty can see him standing now, stumbling forward nearly tripping over his own body still crumpled to the pavement with a blade between his ribs.
And it’s a moment before he realizes, that the weight of himself is less than it was.
Before he catches onto the shock silencing the entire city.
Before he realizes, Shizuo Heiwajima too, has fallen to his knees in abject disbelief.
The hand he reaches out with, attempts to swing at the bartender phases right through the rubble trapped in windswept locks. With his own horror freezing his movements he turns in shock—frantically looking to the faces around him before finally seeing his own listless and bloodied in a pool on the pavement.
Being on the receiving end of a punch from Simon is never something one tends to plan for. Then again, Izaya doesn't seem to plan for much at all, especially the consequences of his actions.
(* Drabble inspired by a convo with friends from the other day where Izaya loses sight in one eye after Simon's punch. )
CW: nondescriptive eye trauma, heavy focus on eye trauma
♤ ♧ ♡ ♢
The headache is agonizing.
Which is truly nothing in the face of what it could have been. After all, not very many people can walk away from one of Simon’s punches at all let alone with just a black eye and a persistent headache. Then again, most people are not Izaya Orihara. It’s not like he’s never been hit before, Shizuo has managed a few times over the last decade; and Simon, pacifist that he is, has always managed to catch Izaya by surprise on the rare occasion he throws one instead of blocking them.
He spends the worst part of the week icing his swollen eye and poking at the edges of the bruise, focusing on the hard edge of the discoloration as if he could find any inconsistency in the way it fades into his skin. Ugly purples and reds splotched together darkest around the edge of his swollen eye socket despite the bruise spanning up and around his eyebrow and temple.
“You should have gone to the hospital.” Namie quips, tapping away at her laptop; pretending not to notice the way Izaya twists the mirror around himself. “Make sure he didn’t fracture anything.”
Izaya laughs, the mirror in his hand clattering to the desk as his hand reaches for the ice pack instead. “Don’t be silly, I’ve had worse.”
“Suit yourself.” unphased by the reaction, she doesn’t even pause in her typing. “If you go blind don’t come crying to me about it.”
Izaya laughs, the mirror in his hand clattering to the desk as his hand reaches for the ice pack instead. “Don’t be silly, I’ve had worse.”
“Suit yourself.” unphased by the reaction, she doesn’t even pause in her typing. “If you go blind don’t come crying to me about it.”
It’s easy to dismiss such a dramatic claim, after all, it was just a slap on the wrist. Izaya’s temple throbs and it hurts too much to look at the light from his monitor. He leans back in his chair to feel the warmth of the sun through his windows, both eyes closing with the icepack over the left. The pain radiates like a halo around his head, a throb in his temple spanning the entire hemisphere where his eye sits uncomfortably in the socket. Even though time has passed enough the pain should be starting to fade by now.
He doesn’t think about the discomfort of trying to see through his left eye for the past week, assuming it had been just a matter of easing the swelling. And sure, the swelling has gone down quite a bit compared to the first few hours after the blow.
The thud of something hitting his desk snaps his eyes open—well, the right eye at least—the left stays closed under the warming ice pack, and Izaya uses the chair to turn to see Namie standing with her bag slung over her shoulder. Her palm is flat on a stack of documents, the light of the day feels different than before. Warmer, darker, like the sun is lower in the sky than just a few moments ago when he first closed his eyes.
“Or maybe you should be more worried about a concussion.” She chides, smirk twisting her mouth into an ugly mimic of Izaya’s own mask. “I expect to be paid whether you die or not, by the way.”
With a huff, Izaya waves her off, bidding goodnight before turning to his own monitor to get back to work.
He doesn’t remember it being so close to quitting time for her, not that time as a structure has ever meant much to Izaya, but something just feels off about the whole thing. Had he fallen asleep? He could swear he was only resting his eyes for a moment, but that headache won’t ease up and he starts to consider maybe a trip to the doctor isn’t such a bad idea after all. It takes more effort to stand than he would like to admit, and even more to get around the office to put his ice pack in the freezer. Scrolling through his phone to find Shinra’s number feels like a task reminiscent of pushing that damnable boulder up a mountain as he unintentionally scrolls by the contact two or three times before finally catching the contact name.
He stumbles a bit, missing the distance between a step and the floor when he goes for his coat and shoes, irritation bubbling and growing at his such mundane missteps at every turn. It’s easy to blame Namie for putting the idea in his head, to blame her for noticing each and every little slip up, but it’s the easiest time he’s had maneuvering the office since getting hit and when he presses the little green call button for the third time the phone finally starts to ring.
Shinra, the bastard that he is, takes approximately forever to answer the phone and Izaya is not in the mood to beat around pretending to get rejected just because he wants to spend the evening with Celty.
The line cuts, and through the phone Shinra’s voice is a beacon and a terror on Izaya’s headache. “Nnnyellow?”
He does not admit to relief or surprise when Shinra actually picks up the phone. “You have time for a check up?”
There’s a pause, and Izaya doesn’t really care what the answer is because he’s already locked the door behind himself. Managing a straight line towards the elevator of the building and pretending the lights buzzing overhead aren’t needles at the base of his skull. Shinra’s initial uncertainty and then recognition evident alone in the way he hums and haws on the other end before he realizes, by way of Izaya’s tone or simply getting to the point that fucking around may not be the way he’d like to find out.
“Sure, I’ll be home soon if you want to meet me there.” though he still sounds chipper as usual.
Izaya can practically see the way his smile is beaming.
