There’s a child living in a house full of girls and magic.
He’s always been a cheerful child, a smile rarely leaving his face, sadness never touching him for long. He’s always been the bright ray of light in a story with far too many shadows.
His name is, was, and wil...
2022-01-26 22:08:32 +0000 UTC View Post“I used to admire you.”
Those are Armsmaster’s words. The last ones he says to me before he exits my office.
Former office.
I would usually be expected to gather my personal effects. To put them all in a little box and walk out of the building, a last disgrace f...
2022-01-26 12:54:41 +0000 UTC View PostShould the august lion concern himself with the ramblings of a boorish hyena?
Well, the obvious answer would be no, because he’s a lion and has very big jaws (grandiose… no, huge? Ugh, this will bother me all day), and the hyenas… Actually, I think they have stronger jaws. ...
2022-01-25 16:37:41 +0000 UTC View Post“This feels somewhat unfair, Lisa,” I mutter into the Bluetooth headset hidden in my hair.
“Tay, I love you dearly, but if you insist on being a solo heroine, I don’t think you can afford to be chivalrous about it,” her voice softly crackles against my right ea...
2022-01-24 05:37:39 +0000 UTC View PostHere it is! The extra 4k words I promise every month to those of you patient enough to keep checking when the Hell will I remember to post the poll!
(I'm sorry.)
2022-01-22 21:23:38 +0000 UTC View PostThis can’t be happening.
“So… Taylor, tell me how do you feel?”
Definitely not happening.
“I… Ms. Lang—”
“I told you to call me Kristen,” the brown-haired woman says with a genial smile that screams practice, practice, practice.
And pro...
2022-01-22 20:54:16 +0000 UTC View PostAll Right! Fine! I Will Take You! – Chapter 28
There comes a point of no return in any serialized story that makes the author look at the flashbacks, filler episodes, beach episodes, hot springs episodes and think they no longer cut it. No, the plot has taken on a life of...
2022-01-21 03:31:54 +0000 UTC View Post“Absolutely not,” Colin says, trying to set reasonable boundaries, discouraging me from taking unnecessary risks, and overall being on the verge of screaming in sheer frustration.
Sometimes, I think he takes the parenting stuff a smidge too far.
Lisa Wilbourn’s fe...
2022-01-19 11:56:50 +0000 UTC View PostYoshiteru is warm, soft, and smells like he uses mint-scented shampoo.
These are three things I’m currently very aware of, because I’m hanging from his neck as I shove my tongue down his throat.
In front of our school.
…
I haven’t thought this through. 2022-01-18 14:22:59 +0000 UTC View Post
I dodge to the right, my feet skidding on the floor as I dive behind the nearest concrete block, and the ground explodes in shards of cement along a line that follows my trajectory a split second too late, the penetrating smell of ozone signaling the nature of the bolts that just misse...
2022-01-17 08:27:20 +0000 UTC View PostSeeing Dad taking notes on his stupid clipboard while he examines the latest victim of a superpowered serial killer shouldn’t be something I could get used to.
Good thing that, so far, I haven’t.
“So… Your dad’s working with my dad, and Emma’s mom switches depar...
2022-01-15 22:09:55 +0000 UTC View PostUsually, if someone said something like ‘Heroism is a lie,’ we would be forgiven to assume the line-spouter is wearing a black cape, gigantic pauldrons, and probably sipping red wine like a pair of homoerotic mass-murderers (one of whom says actual Mass). It is a line that expresse...
2022-01-14 08:17:45 +0000 UTC View PostRiding my bike through Brockton’s most deserted streets with Taylor hugging me from behind, feeling her sticking to my back as if we were cuddling in bed should have been a distant dream for the future.
A future where threats had been dealt with, where she could be free to rela...
2022-01-12 05:24:48 +0000 UTC View PostLife isn’t fair.
There, I said it. Any illusions about a perfectly ordered world where good things happen to good people are no more than lies we tell to children so they don’t cry even more at night, as if the annoying existence that a little brother already is could somehow...
2022-01-11 00:26:25 +0000 UTC View PostLisa’s apartment is as soothing as ever.
It may be the dredges of the memories from the time I spent here while she was still piecing me back together, or it may be just another perk of being a Thinker who can apply her power to interior design, but the warm tone of the eggshel...
2022-01-10 01:29:26 +0000 UTC View PostSuccubi.
Everybody knows what succubi are like in their anime incarnations, and some will even admit they know what they are like in their doujinshi versions. And what they are is an almost ideal example of how otaku culture processes Western myth.
You have a noble king tha...
2022-01-07 04:13:45 +0000 UTC View PostThere’s a degree of separation between personas.
Take, for instance, the moment where an uncaring student brushes past me in the hallway, hitting my bag hard enough that I stumble.
Skitter automatically tags him. A fly on the back of his head to know where he’s looking,...
2022-01-05 19:52:54 +0000 UTC View PostYukinon’s breath tickles.
It’s… It’s a silly thing to focus on when I have her this close, when she lies next to me, the heat of our bodies trapped beneath the sheets, her slightly cold feet touching mine, her closed eyes so peaceful, so restful just right beside me, her ...
2022-01-05 01:41:21 +0000 UTC View PostThere are always three brothers.
It’s sometimes sad, and sometimes uplifting. Often the older fails, the second struggles, and the youngest succeeds, and it is their father who sets the challenge for them.
Be that as it may, for tragedy or comedy, with their inheritance o...
2022-01-03 03:04:08 +0000 UTC View PostThroughout anime history, there have always been iconic lines. Sequences of words so utterly perfect that the impact they leave on an impressionable mind can be still felt years after the fact—especially when said impressionable mind is an aspiring writer unable to stop spewing line ...
2021-12-31 22:51:31 +0000 UTC View Post“This is ridiculous,” I say to Brian. Unnecessarily, really, because he knows. He’s just decided to be a prick about it.
“The gun, Tattletale,” he insists once more, blocking the entrance to the Undersiders evil-lair-slash-teenage-shelter.
“Do you reall...
2021-12-29 14:12:05 +0000 UTC View PostThe ominous ringing of the phone… Is a bit boring, to be honest.
Or, well, it would be if—
“Yui? Is everything all right, sweetie?” Mama asks, her voice sending me into outright panic with the question.
“Yep! Of course! Why wouldn’t it be?” … Smooth, Y...
2021-12-28 11:09:47 +0000 UTC View Post“It was an accident, Amy,” I say for what feels like the hundredth time.
The sulky brunette looks at me, at Sophia still unconscious in my arms with her own bolt protruding from where an eye used to be, and arches an eyebrow that has been getting a workout since I managed to ...
2021-12-27 02:30:34 +0000 UTC View PostAgrippa’s Christmas Special
Well, remember how I’ve hinted (or outright stated) through the whole week that I wanted to do a little something extra for Christmas? And that I wasn’t sure I would manage? The good news is that, depending on what part of the world you are...
2021-12-26 03:42:38 +0000 UTC View PostA mirrored situation is one of the most ham-fisted, direct ways for an author to establish that a moment is about to highlight a change in circumstances for the characters involved. Let’s say a shounen hero shrugs on the uniform left behind by his martial arts master who was murdered...
2021-12-24 05:36:31 +0000 UTC View PostWaking up next to Taylor is both a familiar sensation, something I’ve horribly missed over the past few days, and an awful ordeal involving a cramped back, a cold, uncovered leg, and the terrible, dreadful certainty that I’m going to be renovating her whole bedroom’s furniture wi...
2021-12-22 06:05:47 +0000 UTC View PostMy apologies for doing this one so late, I didn't want to get it out before I finished last month's Chef's Choice. So, here it finally is, I'll try to finish everything before the year's end this time around.
2021-12-19 15:54:30 +0000 UTC View PostIf you expect me to begin this by being run down by a runaway truck, you’ll be sorely disappointed.
Because we all know how that shit goes, don’t we? A loser with a face so generic anyone can self-insert in it dies through some set of contrived circumstances, and some kind of...
2021-12-19 02:43:41 +0000 UTC View PostFor decades upon decades, romance manga has revolved around a single question: will they or won’t they?
It’s faintly ridiculous, seeing as, more often than not, said question revolves around the lead and the first person with a compatible sexual orientation they meet, who, ju...
2021-12-17 10:09:34 +0000 UTC View PostTaylor’s tongue wrestles mine into submission, which I’m pretty sure is a non-trivial part of the appeal that kissing me holds for her.
I would be offended if I didn’t enjoy the results so much.
Her legs are straddling me, her weight making sure I can’t get up from ...
2021-12-15 09:08:12 +0000 UTC View Post