Agrippa

All Right! Fine! I Will Take You! – Chapter 34 – Haruno Doesn’t Go on Dates 2

As it turns out, Iroha is the touchy-feely type.

Which means that, as soon as we exit the restaurant (and I pay the bill a still very pleasantly scandalized waitress presents me), she wraps herself around my right arm like a slender, curvy koala that I’m sure some otaku would buy a poster of.

And that is how Hachiman sees us enter the plaza in front of the station: a college-aged girl with a high-schooler looking like she wants to use her as a jungle gym.

… 2022-04-15 18:57:37 +0000 UTC View Post

We now resume our regularly scheduled programming

My father’s all right.

Well, now that that bit of suspense is out of the way, let me elaborate: I just got back from the hospital, where, after some very stressful hours, it turned out that the donor’s lungs were damaged and so the operation didn’t go through—we’re just back to waiting. This means I’m basically out for the night, as I’m in no state to do anything justice, much less Zaimokuza and his particular voice, but I’ll be resuming the work as soon as I wake up. So...

Delays, delays everywhere

So, I guess you may have noticed I've been even more scatter-brained than usual. This was due to my father undergoing the last clinical trials before getting on the lung transplant's list. Once he got finally in, we were told we could wait up to two years for a viable donor to appear.

As it turns out, "two years" and "two weeks" are more or less synonyms...

Long story short: I'm waiting outside the hospital while my mother waits with him inside the ER room, likely about to need me...

Wake-up Call – Chapter 35

Finally, after what feels like a night far too packed with emotions, events, and parental figures being insufferably stubborn, I’m back at my apartment.

My peaceful apartment. The one place in the world I’ve shaped to my personal preferences and needs to be both safe and soothing, to be perfectly suited for me to unwind and allow the effects Power can have on me to harmlessly disperse as I relax while lying on my couch and sipping on something hot and disgracefully not-ca...

Wordsworth – Chapter 14

Reading is as sensual as it can be mental.

Opening an old book, the smell of aged paper and ink surrounding you, your fingers tracing the grooves in smooth leather, your eyes following the shapes of beautiful letters as meaning unfolds inside you… It can be intimate. Special.

“Taylor—!” Lisa protests before I dive down from our kiss to her neck, but her fingers run over my back, the slender, graceful tips gliding over my satin pages as words and ink part before ...

April 11th to 17th Schedule and Poll Results

It turns out the advantage of posting a weekly schedule in advance it’s that it lets me see just how much I messed up the whole thing… So join me in dissecting what went wrong and just by how much!

I managed to write Wordsworth as planned on Monday, but Tuesday I had a family thing that, while not bad per se, managed to get me thoroughly out of it until I ended up writing Wake-up Call during Wednesday’s early morning. This had a domino effect on the rest of the week, where I defin...

An End, Some Means, and a Deranged Lesbian – Epilogue – The Girl Who Didn’t Die

I’ve never been to a love hotel in my entire life.

“Relax, Komaki!” the girl—Kirika says as she slaps my shoulder with entirely too much familiarity. “It’s not like Oriko’s gonna eat you! Well, she may, but you know, in the fun way!”

My cheeks are burning.

“I’m not here to do—to do… that,” I protest, staring at the numbers going up on the elevator and refusing to look at the short-haired girl wearing an infuriat...

Self Insert of the Dead – Chapter 2 – The Bath Fanservice Episode Should Not Be in First Person POV

Kouta Hirano is, apparently, in Heaven.

“This—this… This is a Springfield Armory Super Match M1A! Modified with a laser sight and a scope; it even has a bayonet attachment! And that’s an Ithaca M37! Modified with a dot sight! One of the most reliable shotguns in the world! And that… that… this… An Armalite AR10! Modded with both a folding bipod and a scope! Perfectly suited for sniping in urban environments! Uooooohhhhh!”

What… What is happening, Lee?<...

An End, Some Means, and a Deranged Lesbian – Chapter 3

She doesn’t smell like the sea.

Kirika’s naked beneath the sheets, her body warm next to mine, and I can’t fall back to sleep, not while my mind is stuck on why it’s important that she doesn’t smell like…

Oh. Right. Yesterday.

I feel my cheeks heat up as I remember our marine adventure, as I remember cold water splashing against her naked breasts, white seafoam being born between our bodies as our lovemaking became more passionate, golden eyes holding me, warming...

All Right! Fine! I Will Take You! – Chapter 33 – Haruno Doesn’t Go on Dates 1

I’m in a small Italian restaurant, out of the way so it offers some privacy from people walking by, yet with a friendly atmosphere that makes guests feel welcome even if most tables are currently empty. The waitress uniform is a simple, orange-checkered dress with a frilly white apron that won’t make anyone but the most hardcore (and creepiest) of waitress otakus give them a second thought. It looks, at first blush, like the perfect spot to have a first lunch date in.

It ...

Wake-up Call – Chapter 34

Wake-up Call – Chapter 34

“You should’ve called me,” Colin growls over the phone.

“Well, I know that now, but nothing indicated I should’ve prepared for an unknown parahuman to make her debut right in the middle of my brawl against the Merchants,” I very reasonably and not at all half-panicked point out.

“Thinker si—”

“I’ll hurt you. I don’t know when, where, or how, but I’ll find a way.”

“Maybe if you wer...

Wordsworth – Chapter 13

Once, there was a warrior god.

His name was Ares, and he was scum, derided. He cheated with another god’s wife, terrorized those weaker than him, and fled when wounded by a mere mortal. He was god of war, but far from its master.

Because there was another, a goddess, who claimed domain over war not as savage cruelty but as art and stratagem. Her name was Athena, and war was only one of many things she presided on.

And Athena was cunning and caring, even if as pr...

April 4th to 10th Schedule

One of the things that was pointed out in the recent polls was that maybe I should try to communicate with you all rather than keep dropping chapters like a writing machine devoid of a soul and its own life—I mean, like somebody who knows what they’re doing.

Truth be told, I don’t work that well when I feel like I’m being somewhat under scrutiny, but that seems like one character flaw I should at least make a nominal effort to get rid of, so, at least as an experiment, I’ll tr...

All Right! Fine! I’ll Take You! – Zaimokuza Gaiden – Chapter 16 – A Girl in Love

I… I don’t know what to do.

It’s a sensation I’ve become used to over the past few years, ever since I started trying to live by some rules that only made sense because I thought they should, ever since I stopped being… myself, I guess.

But… that’s not the case anymore, is it?

Because it’s been… it’s been frustrating, and confusing, and a roller coaster that’s left me dizzy more than once, but I—but Yoshiteru has dragged me back to the Mina...

April's Plot Bunnies Poll

All right, the following is a list of ideas that have been gnawing at my brain for months. It's not even a comprehensive list.

Help...

I mean! Please let me know which one of them I should exorcise over this month. The damn things keep breeding.

Self Insert of the Dead – Chapter 1 – My Overpowered Cheat Is Crap (As I Expected)

Disclaimer: So that this story fits inside of Patreon’s Community Guidelines, it’s been revised so that it occurs in an AU where all the characters are legal adults. This includes the characters not involved in sexual events. Everybody is an adult, without a single exception. Sorry about the inconvenience.

My head throbs.

I just got out of a zombie-infested school—my school, and my head throbs.

“Takashi? Takashi, are you ...

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes - Part 3: Focus

In the last installment of me pouring words on you all without rhyme or reason, I said that, when I started this whole thing, I never expected to be managing more than ten stories at once.

… Quite a few more than ten.

That was a mix of both pessimism and optimism at once. I really couldn’t conceive of anyone paying me regularly to write something just for the pleasure of reading it and sharing it with others. Contributing to a story with an established fanbase or asking for a ...

Wordsworth – Chapter 12 – Colors 5

The docks are burning.

“Just call it in, Ems. That’s Lung on a rampage; there’s nothing you can do.”

Sophia’s voice comes from behind me, terse and severe, but far softer than it was mere moments ago. Before we heard the explosion.

I feel… something. I’m still not good enough at identifying all of my emotions, far too used to hiding them behind the always present rage, but there’s… an urge. Almost a longing.

There’s a pulse of amber, of the eagernes...

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes - Part 2:The Polls

To be completely honest, the polls have been a bit of a headache since the beginning, and that’s entirely my own fault.

When I set this whole thing up, I just had started regularly posting Wake-up Call and All Right! Fine! I’ll Take You! on a weekly basis. It was something new to me, as I had always worked on assignments on which I just wrote till the damn thing was done, so forcing myself to keep to a weekly deadline was not only new, but a bit of a journey of self-discovery. I saw...

All Right! Fine! I’ll Take You! – Zaimokuza Gaiden – Chapter 15

Rituals. I like rituals.

I mean, of course, there are the everyday kind of rituals that make it so there’s some kind of… order, I guess? No, it’s not that, more like certainty. That, you know, the day at school may have been shit, and somebody may have mouthed off a bit more than usual about the weird, fat guy who talks funny, but you get home, and you put the copper kettle on the stove, slice a bit of ginger, measure the right amount of dark green leaves, let it all br...

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes - Part 1: Incentives and perks

All right, do you remember when, near the end of February, I told you all I would be polling you relentlessly throughout March? My, how does time fly…

The thing is, I really need to make some changes around here, but I would like to get your input on them for the dual reasons of me being crap at making decisions on my own and because this is… Well, as trite as it may sound, it’s really not just mine, you know? I’m very used to writing in solitude for products that end up with me...

Wordsworth – Chapter 11

“Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?”

It is an old question. The words fall from lips wise in magic and poison, lips that should know better than to ask, and the mirror listens.

The mirror only shows another image, though. Shows the one who asked, distorted and twisted around, an image that she recognizes as her own even as it isn’t.

The mirror lies.

Because that’s what the mirror does, all it can do: it shows a world that is...

An End, Some Means, and a Deranged Lesbian – Chapter 2

I wake up feeling better than I have in months, then I turn to the side and see why.

I spend far more than I would like to admit just watching her sleep, that dumb grin of hers apparent even as she unconsciously gropes my breast in a way that is more amusing than enticing.

Then I silently get out of bed, get showered, cook breakfast, leave the extra portion on a covered dish, kiss the sleeping Kirika goodbye…

And go to school.

Go to school and pretend everything’s ...

Ginosko – Chapter 2 – Lawrence

I watch myself glide through the defenses of a

Of Sisters and Shadows – Chapter 6

This is bullshit.

Oh, sure, I get a second trigger which turns my shield into a very versatile, ridiculously lethal weapon—I just need to face myself in a duel to the death to get it. No biggie.

Armsmaster, though…

“Colin, would you stop that?” Dragon says, with the tone of someone trying very hard to pretend they haven’t already run out of patience. Don’t ask me why I’m so familiar with said tone. It doesn’t bear recounting.

The Danger of Komachi Points – All Right! Fine! I Will Take You! Omake – Chapter 5

One of the archetypes of anime rarely seen in other kinds of fiction is the badass intellectual.

As far as I know from my limited exposure to anything that doesn’t involve gravity-defying cleavage, most Westerners identify intellectuals as ‘nerds,’ which share far too many traits with otakus for them to be anything but outcasts whose main contribution to the plot is to assist a hero who has some actual chance not to die childless and unloved. Here, with our society’s ...