#I’ll maybe post some finals snippets next week but for now I will be mostly offline 👍

[paging-possum]

Trenches however mind is fairly clear portrait is looking good I’m emailing my prof to ask for a much needed extension and I actually don’t feel that stressed all things considered so I think we may be back 👍 will be continuing to stay offline for the next few days :3

[twentyfivemiceinatrenchcoat]

top 5 wips you’re most excited to write? :D

AH …. anon my beloved 🥺🥺🥺 tysm for giving me an excuse to talk about them!!!! i have a whole bunch but here are the ones i’m most excited for/planning to write soon :3 hopefully

TITLES ARE STILL UNDER CONSTRUCTION BTW but if you know where any of them are from you get a big gold star ⭐️

it’s your touch that i need

the best friend’s brother!satoru fic that i’m planning on posting next….. i’m . Unsure if i’ll have time to post it this week but :’3 i’ll get it done!!! honestly i just think bfb!toru is insanely attractive so this is mostly an outlet for that but . i have a plot mapped out kind of… the unrequited love trope is just perfect for him but it’s Me so it’ll probably be less angsty and more funny/bittersweet !!

here’s a snippet from it <3

”you’re a good kid,” he says, and his smile teeters on the edge of something apologetic. mostly, it’s pitying. ”there are lots of people out there for you.” the weight of his palm on your head is usually a comfort, but like this? it’s a specific kind of torture. he ruffles your hair, as affectionate as ever, the same as it’s always been. not a trace of any romantic intent. there are lots of people out there for you. (i know, you want to tell him, but your voice is raspy and your throat feels sort of dry. i know. but i want you.)

hunter, you were human

my neglected mer!sugu fic…… our beloved fish man….. one day. i’ll write it out. i’m having some trouble deciding the order of events + general formatting of the outline so 😭😭 i’m a bit stuck. i’ll get there though!!! this au has angst potential but it’s Me so trust that this will be fluffy and nothing else. lots of banter and cutesy moments. i have a lotttt of thoughts about this au and character/reader dynamic so….. i’m. really excited to eventually write it all out!!! i love him sm :cc

“i don’t really like freshwater.” … your eyes widen. his voice is silky, smooth, like a silver river running from the forked tip of his tongue; a melodic lilt that makes you think of the lullaby your mother used to sing you to sleep with. a long, slow moment passes you by, like the rocking of a rusty ship. silently, your tongue forms around a bundle of words, your mouth gaping like a fish out of water. staring at the merman in your bathtub. “you can talk?!”

consider the hairpin turn

THE BELOVEDEST OF THEM ALL …… my extremely neglected best friend’s brother!kenjaku fic T_T my magnum opus even . i started writing it out a while ago but had to stop bc i can’t decide how to format it …. i think it’d be best to tell the story through a lot of flashbacks but it’s difficult to decide where to put what flashbacks in a way that doesn’t disturb the flow, yk??? but i do have everything outlined and i’m super excited to finally post it :33 someday… bfb!kenny is the actual loml i have so much lore planned for him. this fic is just a whole bunch of yearning and tension… the tiniest tiniest bit suggestive bc he truly makes me ill.

nervously, your gaze trails towards the stairs. worried, your teeth gnawing at your bottom lip. kenjaku notices. a large palm cradles your cheek; making sure your eyes stay locked onto his own. ”don't worry about him,” he soothes, a rough thumb smoothing down your skin. ”it’s just us here… just you and me. why don’t you take a deep breath for me, hm?” (you do. without thinking. as if your body was waiting for instructions, waiting to satiate this gnawing desire to impress him, make him proud. be good for him.)  “now,” he exhales, in tandem with you, molecules mingling together. “do you want this?” 

only in the next world

ANOTHER DEARLY BELOVED WIP that’s been rotting in my drafts for a while ….. 👉👈 i think that out of all of these fics this is the first one that i wrote the outline to?? probably even before i made this blog. it’s basically just a canon-aligned au where gojo navigates his maybe-possibly-feelings for you, a new teacher at jujutsu high!! sooo really just my attempt to write what i view as a more canon-aligned gojo and his feelings towards love :3 mostly character-centered fluff and slowburn… some office au vibes…. i’m very fond of this reader!! and i love this version of gojo so bad i really hope i can do him justice…

“they’re a softie, huh?” shoko exhales — smoke drifting past her lungs, mingling with the cold air, a stench of tobacco that makes him crinkle his nose. ”they are,” she hums, glancing at him out of the corner of her eye. a dangerously knowing look. “it’s not often someone captures your attention.” gojo smiles. ”is that what it seems like?” he drawls, almost a chuckle. closing his eyes and thinking of you, the fading scent of your perfume. ”well, who knows.” (certainly not him.)

signs of affection

my sickeningly fluffy cult leader geto fic <333 bc i’m spreading the agenda that he is a puppy of a man towards his s/o. this one is just meant to be funny and sweet!! i adoreee the thought of him dating a retired sorcerer with a normal ass job so in this one the reader works at a preschool…. and they’re meant to attend some kind of event for the preschool + is offered to bring a plus one. mild chaos ensues (geto doesn’t want to be anywhere near your non-sorcerer colleagues but he also wants to support you so he’s having a bit of a crisis rn…..) i LOVE this one and i’m so excited to write it out <333333 i think this geto is the most endearing man alive.

suguru blinks, eyelashes fluttering, gleaming under the shallow light of the lamppost just behind him. illuminating the peach-dyed flush dusting his ears, those wide pupils. and his lips, glossy with something cherry-flavoured, soon to curl up into a smile — fond, fond, fond. melting into your touch, basking in your long-sought attention. if he were a cat, you’re sure he'd be purring. he places one big palm over yours, where it rests on his cheek, and he stares. silently, like you’re the only thing worth seeing; dreamy galaxies inside his eyes, all honey and star clusters, leaking adoration. a milky way of love. ”… another,” he pleads, nosing at your fingertips.

[uswntxfootball]

we’re just rivals (on the field) (leah williamson x chelsea!reader)

the “epilogue” / part 2 to we should be rivals

of course, the game she decided to come to was this one.

word count: 2418 ish

rated F for fluffy, I for idiocy (or injury), and C for charles.

——

it’s been about two weeks since you showed up to that arsenal game.

and about two weeks since you’ve talked to the english defender.

it wasn’t like you weren’t trying to talk, you just never had the time to.

training had been hectic for the both of you, and it always seemed like one was busy while the other one wasn’t.

“why do you look so blue?”

“jee maybe it’s because i’m wearing a chelsea shirt?”

jessie rolled her eyes before huffing:

“come on y/n you know what i meant.”

“do i?”

“you’re impossible.”

“no i’m y/n.”

“oh my god.”

you let out a loud cackle at jessie’s frustrated cry.

you ran your hands through your hair quickly, letting out a sigh of relief when jessie stopped questioning you.

truth is, you missed leah more than you’d like to admit.

you missed her flirty glances and slightly cocky demeanor, and it began to eat up at you a little bit.

by focusing on the task at hand, which was the upcoming manchester city game, you attempted to distract yourself from it.

it helped a little.

jessie could tell something was up, but after your previous exchange she stopped pushing it (for now) upon seeing your refusal to give in, and partly for the sake of her sanity.

you let out a sigh of relief when the whistle blew, signaling the end of training.

you grabbed your water bottle and jumped when you felt someone slap you on your shoulder.

“okay now spill.”

you turn to see jessie giving you a concerned look, the midfielder’s cheeks red and hair messy from the exertion of practice.

“you look like a sunburnt lion,” you snort, before taking a drink of water.

jessie scoffs.

“lions don’t get sunburnt. i thought you’d know tha-hey!”

jessie lets out a yell of protest when you spray your water in her face.

you shoot her a cheeky grin before making a run for it.

“get back here! y/n!”

~~

on the other side of the spectrum, leah felt the same.

she was however, less of a mess than you, and held it together much better than you did.

~~

you let out a little sigh as you stare at the tv.

there she was in all her glory, fuming and talking to lisa after a game, a sight which you rather enjoyed.

after all, it was kind of hot.

you rewinded that section for a little bit, and nearly shit your pants when you heard the apartment door open.

“hey i brought lunch what are you-“

jessie stopped dead in her tracks and stared at the tv.

she let out a snort when she saw you.

you were crammed behind the couch in a failed attempt to hide yourself.

“watching leah are we?”

you let out a grumble from behind the couch:

“i don’t know what you’re talking about.”

jessie rolled her eyes and you heard a rustle before letting out a yelp of surprise when her bag hits you on your head.

“you bitch you hit me.”

“yeah yeah whatever.”

you wriggle your way out from your “hiding place” and plop down on the couch, still rubbing your head.

“i think you made me lose a bunch of brain cells.”

jessie snorts.

“to lose them you’d need some in the first place.”

you growl and shoot her a glare before crossing your arms and huffing:

“i’m ignoring you now.”

the canadian rolls her eyes and shrugs.

“finally some peace and quiet around here.”

“you’re mean.”

“i thought you were ignoring me.”

“shut up.”

~~

the next game was a tough one.

manchester city was a tough opponent and you’re now realizing why.

it was chelsea’s first game against them since they signed the uswnt players, and good lord have they improved.

you watched from across the pitch as jessie was struggling to get the ball from white, your chest heaving slightly while doing so.

you were already exhausted and it wasn’t even half time yet.

your head snaps up when you see a movement to your right, and you took a quick glance to the stands to see the top of a red jersey peaking out behind a black coat.

that’s all you could see before your name was being called and you turned to receive a pass.

and then you got caught up in the game once again, too busy to realize what it meant.

chelsea went into halftime down 1-0.

your halftime talk was brief, mostly just emma giving quick pointers here and there.

when the talk ended and break finished, you were so determined and focused that you nearly walked into the door frame on your way out of the training room.

the second half was going just like the first.

the possession was deadlocked, opportunities were deadlocked, and if it continued like this manchester city would win.

so you decide to fuck it.

you’re getting this corner kick in no matter what.

as reiten prepared to take it, you positioned yourself right next to the keeper and the post.

just for a moment, you let your eyes drift to the stands, your eyes catching a blonde’s as you do so.

it took you a second to realize who that was.

almost instantly, butterflies tore through your stomach, and you barely miss the whistle signaling the corner kick.

just barely.

now you have to score.

leah’s here.

you have to.

reiten sends the ball into the box, and almost like magic it’s heading for exactly where you’re standing.

you could see roebuck beginning to grab for it, and you didn’t care, you were going for that ball.

just as your head makes contact with it, you hear a resounding crack and yours eyes start watering in pain as you hit the ground.

your hands were covering your face and you could taste blood in your mouth, but you couldn’t tell where it was coming from.

jessie’s hand and concerned voice brings you out of your thoughts.

“hey are you okay? what’s wrong?”

you groaned a little in pain and whispered:

“did we score?”

jessie let out a halfhearted eye roll before saying:

“that’s what you’re worried about? well you scored, but please don’t kill yourself trying to do that next time.”

you let out a soft chuckle before taking jessie’s hand and getting to your feet.

one of your hands were still covering your face, and when you put them down jessie lets out a surprised yelp.

“oh jesus! okay uhm we need a medic here!”

pretty soon you were surrounded by the medical staff, and taking one look at you they ask for a substitute.

there’s a ringing in your ears so you can barely hear snippets of the medical conversation, but you hear enough to know what’s going on.

broken nose. punched in the face by the goalkeeper. need to set it.

it’s when you’re being led off the pitch that you remember about leah.

your eyes widen and you turn to the stands, and you couldn’t tell if it was your angle or not, but you couldn’t see her anywhere.

you shook your head slightly and continued your walk off the pitch.

emma joined you in the room along with a few guys on the medical team, and said:

“listen, we can set your nose now, or we can wait until after the game. we’ll give you a few moments to decide.”

you give a nod and with that everyone left the room.

it was quiet for about a minute before you heard footsteps again.

“hey i haven’t…”

the rest of your sentence gets caught in your throat when you look up.

in the doorway stood the girl who’d been on your mind for the past few weeks, and you blushed a little at the sight.

“um uh i-how are you?” you managed to stutter out.

leah lets out a light chuckle before saying:

“shouldn’t i be asking you that?”

the defender walks up to you and gently places her hands on your cheeks, quietly examining your face.

“well it’s definitely broken,” she mutters softly, and in a sudden jolt of confidence you bring your hand up to cup hers in yours.

leah smiles a little at that and takes your hands down to rest in your lap.

“how did you get down here?”

leah blushes and smiles sheepishly:

“i may have had to sneak around a guard or two..”

“you wanted to see me that badly huh?”

leah gives a slight eye roll at your teasing tone.

“be careful, i could leave at any moment.”

you let out a loud laugh before wincing slightly, the action shooting a fresh wave of pain over your face.

“be careful, don’t want that pretty face to scar,” leah says teasingly.

“why would you like me less with a scar?”

“well i didn’t say that.”

you try to wink, only getting halfway before wincing in pain again.

it’s now that emma walks back in with the medical staff, who looks up in surprise when she sees leah.

“we can’t have visitors here-“

“have her stay.”

“y/n we really can’t-“

“nope she’s staying.”

your coach lets out a defeated sigh.

“fine.”

and you hear her mutter something that sounds like:

“i don’t get paid enough for this.”

leah shot you a look before letting go of your hand, much to your dismay, and moved to a spot next to you, out of their way.

“so y/n, did you decide t-“

“set it now.”

emma gives the medical staff a thumbs up and  the go ahead and glances quickly at you and leah with an expression of oh look, more gays, before heading out back onto the pitch.

a gruff voice focuses your attention back to the foreground.

“alright y/n, my name is charles, and i’ll be setting your nose today.”

you give an attempt at a snort, and wince before saying:

“sounds like you’re my waiter or something.”

charles gives a hearty chuckle, and as he examines your face says:

“this one’s got a sense of humor huh.”

you let out a wink in leah’s direction before saying:

“oh you know it.”

charles turns with his back to you, looking through his equipment bag and says:

“okay this might hurt a bit, so i recommend grabbing something, not me preferably.”

“do people do that?”

charles turns to you with a bit of tape and gauze in his hands and places them on the table beside you.

“like you wouldn’t believe.”

you let out a laugh.

“alright let’s get this over with.”

“okay then, since they still have a game going on, please try not to yell.”

you felt his hands on your face and you braced yourself for it.

“alright ready? on the count of 3.”

“1.”

“2.”

your hand shot out in leah’s direction and the defender took it without hesitation.

“3.”

charles moved his body with his hands and the pain was almost instantaneous.

still, you gritted your teeth as your eyes start to water, not noticing how tightly you clamped onto leah’s hand.

it’s only after when charles is wrapping your nose that leah whispers:

“i know we play football but i kind of still need my hand.”

“sorry,” you mutter, relaxing your grip, and at the same time refusing to let go of her.

“all righty! took it like a champ, you didn’t even yell.”

you shrug before saying nonchalantly, “yeah i’m not much of a screamer.”

you grinned cheekily when you notice leah’s eyes widening and cheeks reddening.

as charles was packing up his stuff, he asks:

“so is this your girlfriend?”

it was silent for a few seconds, and charles turns to look at the two of you.

“i’m sensing like a we’re friends but we flirted a bit and now we don’t know where we stand kind of a vibe.”

you and leah speak at the same time.

“yeah.”

“exactly.”

charles picked up his bag and said:

“i figured. anyways you guys look cute together, and i’m gonna go back to the game now.”

and with that said, he gave you a little wave and walked out of the room.

“well he was fun, i liked him,” you said to leah, who smiled and nodded a bit in agreement.

the two of you chatted about meaningless things for a little while, before you shot up suddenly and pulled her with you.

“come on, let’s get out of here.”

leah scrunched her eyebrows up in confusion.

“where are we going?”

you grin at her.

“well i promised i’d take you on a date if you came to my game didn’t i?”

leah’s cheeks flush a little and she says:

“w-“

jessie’s voice cuts leah’s response short.

“y/n! how are you doin-oh.”

the canadian’s eyes flickered between your face and leah’s face, before moving towards your joined hands.

a teasing smile made its way onto her face and before you could stop it, jessie stepped forward and began talking to leah.

“hey, i’m jessie, also y/n’s best friend, you must be the one who-“

you let go of leah’s hand and cut in with a pitiful attempt to stop her from talking.

“NOPE I’M GOING TO LEAVE IM-“

leah crossed her arms and watched the two of you with an amused smirk plastered on her face.

“got y/n, a diehard chelsea fan i tell you, to-“

“NOPE NOPE NOPE JESSIE LETS NOT-“

“buy an arsenal jersey. yours to be exact.”

you groaned and your face flushed red with embarrassment, closing your eyes and turning to face the wall.

you spun around and took leah’s hand, dragging her out of the room while flipping off jessie.

you hear jessie yell from behind you:

“love you too y/n!”

it’s when the two of you made your way out of the stadium when she says:

“so an arsenal jersey huh?”

your cheeks flush redder and you mumble:

“shut up.”

“i’ll bet it looks great on you,” leah added with a wink.

“it’ll look even better on your bedroom floor,” you retort.

leah’s eyes widened a little as her face became blood red.

“what?”

you grin cockily.

“nothing!”

leah just looked at you in utter disbelief.

[chyrstis]

WIP Friday!

Tagged by the wonderful @johnnycranes @englass @scungilliwoman   @adelaidedrubman @lilwritingraven @fadedjacket @faithchel @stacispratt @gamerpurgatory and @prometheas! I hope you all know how much I appreciate these tags over the past week and am glad to finally be able to show off some work I’ve got brewing too! <3

Tagging: @writerofblocks @painterofhorizons @hunnybadgerv @cobb-vanthss @amistrio @shallow-gravy @tommymillers @jackiesarch @geronimo-11 @ma-sulevin @nightwingshero @shellibisshe @redroci @unlikelynick @jackalopestride @chazz-anova @solesurvivorkat @its-jeph @consumedkings @vasiktomis and @aceghosts but no obligation intended at all, especially if you’ve posted snippets recently. 

I’ll start this off with a little bit from the No Cult AU, b/c I’m so close to getting this one done now and I’ve really missed this verse too. Just a bridging section’s needed, so here’s Sharky trying to say hi to Joseph in the meantime. 

---

They’d made it, and sure, he was short one hell of a heroic kiss for a job well done, but he was still feeling pretty good about pulling it off to begin with, and after a few handshakes and sloppy fistbumps later, was ready to get back to the reason he’d been on the road to begin with. Making sure every speaker down at Moonflower was able to sing.

He whistled, picking back up on the beat he’d settled on earlier, only to have it quickly reach a pitch only dogs could hear when he caught Joseph Seed heading towards him.

“Charlemagne,” he called out, greeting him, “this is a pleasant surprise.”

He picked his jaw up, clamping his mouth shut for a few seconds, before finally working his way to a proper response. “Uh, yo.”

“Is John with you?”

“John? Nah, he’s-we’re not on for today. Probably off flying, or doing you know, lawyer stuff. Dotting Is and crossing Ts, shaking hands and smiling all big and wide while talking to people so they think you’re listening to ‘em, like you do.”

Joseph folded his hands in front of him, and hummed in response even though he’d started frowning a bit.

“But anyway, I uh, in case you’re wondering why I’m here, I caught a couple of your people on the side of the road. Was going towards Moonflower to get my set up ready for some fresh tunes, ‘cause the last time I was there the wires shorted, probably had something chewing on them when I wasn’t looking, but they’d pulled over. I saw they needed a hand and helped ‘em get here. Didn’t even have to piss in the radiator to do it either.”

“That’s-“ Joseph was definitely giving him a look that reminded him almost straight up of John, but shook it off. “Fortunate…?”

---

I’m definitely still plugging away at the Trap fic too, so here’s a part that I’m hoping to get to within the next few chapters? *crosses fingers*

---

“Give me all of their names, one by one.”

They were listed off. Repeated each without a single tremor.

“Have any of them transferred to the plant within the last month?”

“Yes.”

Hana’s eyebrows climbed up.

“How many?”

“Three members, all of whom are still at the plant. I have their-all of what they’ve packed. Where they’ve transported it, and-”

“And have you at any point before now seen any cause for concern in their behavior? Think very carefully, William. What happens next is going to depend on you.”

The silence that carried through after that stretched long enough for her to think the recording had ended, but she heard a throat clear. A shaky breath, then William’s voice again. 

“...Nothing at first. They’ve been hard workers. Reliable. We trusted them, but when they fell behind, they would frequently help each other. That had to have been when the fertilizer was first taken.”

“Early tomorrow, I will need both you and Sister Rebecca at the ready. I don’t want a single word of this to be shared with anyone on the premises, not a single soul, because our little would-be conspirators could get wise, and the last thing we need is to make them aware of it. Now, they could prove to be innocent, that is true, but until then we must be careful. Do you understand?”

“Yes. Yes, Herald.”

“It takes great courage to do this William. To bring these things directly to my attention since these are claims that will not be taken lightly. But until the truth has been found, and we know for certain that our brothers and sisters can be trusted, we will remain vigilant, and and if this proves to be true, you will be rewarded for this. That I promise you.”

---

...And maybe a little something saucy I’ve been poking at for a while for Hana and Sharky on the side? This also jumps way ahead in their fic timeline too since I do feel a bit bad for subjecting these two to so much pining hell in their current one. :’D

---

“Morning,” Hana said, giving him a soft smile.

Cracking open an eye to look at her, a grin settled on Sharky’s lips, and he shifted onto his back so that his face was no longer buried in the pillow clasped between his arms. His hair was sticking out in every direction, and when he scrubbed a hand through it, he messed it up even further.

“Mm, morning.”

It had her breath catching just for a second. Just seeing him damn near beam up at her, when all she’d done was wake him up.  

So she took that view in. Smiled right on back as she rethought her original plan, which had been to head down to the cafeteria and sneak them both a couple of cups of coffee to bring back, but she’d forgotten just how nice it was to catch him like this. To wake up on the days when neither of them had an early shift and find him right there next to her.

So, she went through a few options. Turned them over in her mind as she chewed on her lip, and he started to doze off again.

Fisting her hand in the sheet, she pulled it right off of him, and his eyes snapped open.

“Whoa, what the-“

Her shirt was drawn up and over her head after, and whipped to their right. She hadn’t bothered to put on anything else under it, mostly using it to keep the chill off, but she had him now. Crawled up and over him, soaking every last bit of it up as he blinked at her before everything clicked into place.

[sukifans]

PET • RI • CHOR

[n] a pleasant smell that accompanies the first rain after a long period of warm, dry weather

ZUKO X OC SERIES

SUMMARY: a captured waterbender and the fire prince may sound like an unlikely pair, but kena never much cared about others’ expectations and zuko, well… he was just along for the ride

A/N: uhhh so i guess i’m writing fic again for the first time since i was like 15 thanks to quarantine. here’s a snippet of a zuko x oc i’ve been writing to gauge interest ig. i used to write h*rry p*tter fic and post it to a fan account i had and it got pretty popular even though it was garbage so... let’s see. here is my hat, it is in the ring 🎩 also thanks @beifongsss for answering my anon ask and being my first (and maybe only) tag lmao 🥴

⏎ MASTERLIST // PROLOGUE i » PROLOGUE ii

“I like your hair loopies.” The voice made her jump and throw the water she had been trying to bend from the pond at its source behind her. “Hey!”

Kena turned and saw a young boy about her age in red silk pajamas now soaked in water. His long black hair hung limply around his face, dripping. “Tui’s gills, you scared me! You can’t just sneak up on people like that!”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“It’s okay. I’m sorry I splashed you.”

“It’s okay.” He shook his head, throwing water droplets everywhere. They both giggled.

“I can try to help, but I’m not very good yet. Here.” She waved her arms and hands in a waterbending stance, drawing water out of his clothes and hair. She pulled some out and discarded it back into the pond, but the poor boy was definitely still wet. “Sorry,” she said sheepishly, dropping her hands.

“That was so cool! I’ve always wanted to see waterbending in person.” His face lit up, golden eyes sparkling. She blushed and looked at her feet. “Sometimes I wish I was a waterbender. But what are you doing here?”

Her face was dark when she looked up at him again. “The Fire Nation invaded my village and took me and my mom as prisoners because we’re healers. She tells me we’re lucky to be alive since they’ve been wiping out waterbenders. I don’t know, though; I think I’d rather be dead than be a servant for some snooty royal.” She aimed a kick at a small pebble and launched it into the pond. “Now I’ll probably never see my dad, or my brothers, or my friends ever again.”

“Oh,” the boy said meekly, looking away. “I’m sorry that happened.” He didn’t know what to say to the girl.

“Yeah, me too,” she grumbled. There was silence for a moment before the boy smiled hesitantly again.

“I’ll be your friend here, if you’d like.”

The tension in her small body loosened when she slowly grinned at him. “Yeah, I think I’d like that. You seem alright, for a Fire Nation kid.”

“Thanks, I think,” he laughed. “What’s your name?”

“Kena. Well, that’s my real name. When they brought us here some weird guy told me my new name would be Ariye.”

“I like Kena better for you.”

“Me too. Ariye is a dumb name. I told him that but he got mad. What’s yours?”

“Oh, I’m-“ he started, flushing, then paused and looked behind him. “Someone’s coming. Go, hide!”

“What about you? Won’t you get in trouble?”

“No, no! It’s fine! Just go!” He shooed her away and she finally complied, diving into a patch of brush just as someone rounded the corner in the distance. She was about to make her escape when she paused to listen in.

“Prince Zuko,” a woman’s voice chided, “why are you out of bed so late?”

Wait, Prince Zuko? He’s a prince?

“I couldn’t sleep so I came out to see the turtleducks,” Zuko said. It wasn’t entirely a lie, after all — that had been his intention.

“Why are you all wet?”

“I... slipped, and fell in the water.”

The woman sighed. “Prince Zuko, you must be more careful. Come along, let’s get you cleaned up and into bed.” Kena slipped away as her voice got fainter and eventually disappeared from earshot. She felt incredibly stupid for going on and on about the invasion and how much she disliked being here to the prince of all people. She was surely in for it now. Her mother had always said her mouth would get her into trouble if she didn’t control it. A glimmer of hope rose in her chest, though, because Zuko had seemed really... well, nice. He didn’t rat her out or get upset when she spoke poorly of royals even though he apparently was one. Maybe not all the people of the Fire Nation were so bad... just most of them.

The next night, Zuko snuck back out to the turtleduck pond in the hopes of seeing the girl again. He was absolutely fascinated by her — she was probably the only person he knew who wasn’t, as she had said, “some snooty royal,” or someone who worked for one. That, and she was definitely the only waterbender he knew. He loitered in the grass for a long time before giving up and going back to bed. This cycle repeated for a week with no luck. Kena had said her and her mother were healers, so maybe he’d be able to find her in the infirmary. Now, just to come up with some sort of excuse to go there...

Kena nearly felt like dropping dead when a familiar boy walked into the infirmary, escorted by a servant. His eyes brimmed with tears and he was sniffling softly, holding one hand in the other delicately. Reluctantly and with her face burning, she bowed with her mother.

“Prince Zuko, what happened?” the older woman asked, leading him to sit on a cot in the corner of the room.

“Azula b-burned my hand,” Zuko whimpered, showing her his reddened skin. Kena’s mother tutted and waved her daughter over.

“Prince Zuko, this is my daughter, Ariye,” the woman said, smiling as she smoothed Kena’s hair. Kena bowed again, mostly to avoid looking directly at him.

“Nice to meet you.” Zuko beamed and she nodded stiffly, looking at a spot on the wall above his shoulder.

“You as well, Prince Zuko,” she responded quietly. “Do you need anything, Mom?”

“Yes. Can you get the burn salve while I heal what I can, my love?” Kena nodded again and scurried away as soon as she had the excuse. Zuko watched her as she searched cabinets at the other end of the room, snapping his eyes down to his hand when he felt the cool wetness of water against his skin. Kena’s mom was holding his hand with both her own, bending water around his seared flesh. His mouth dropped open a bit when the water started to glow. After a few moments, Kena’s mom pulled her hands back and bent the water away as the girl returned with a small tin in her grasp. He frowned when she still refused to look at him directly.

“Thank you, my dear,” her mother said. “Can you put some on the prince’s hand while I talk to Miss Sana?” She tilted her head to indicate the servant that had brought Zuko in who was standing on the other side of the bed he sat in.

“Yes, Mom.” Kena sat on the bed across from him as her mother stood and walked away with Sana. Zuko grinned again once he was certain the adults were out of immediate earshot.

“Hi, Kena,” he said, waving at her with his injured hand. It was no longer a blistering red, but the skin was still a bit stiff and dry. The salve would help with that, he assumed.

She furrowed her brow. “Why are you here?”

“I wanted to see you again. I waited by the pond in the gardens for a few nights but you never came back.”

“You did this on purpose?”

“Yep!” he said, obviously proud of his cunning plan. When she rolled her eyes, though, he deflated.

“That was dumb,” she scoffed. Her bluntness shocked him. Nobody ever talked to him, the prince, like that. Well, except Azula. But she was mean to everyone.

“What do you mean?” He looked obviously distressed and even a bit irritated. “I let Azula burn me so I could talk to you again!”

“You should’ve just pretended you felt sick or something,” she said like it was the simplest thing in the world. And really, it was. Zuko felt a bit silly now for all his dramatics.

“Oh,” he said. His cheeks were bright pink. Kena finally gave him a small grin as she gently held his hand, slathering the salve onto his skin. “Your hands are cold.”

“And your hands are warm.”

“Because I’m a firebender.”

“Well, I’m a waterbender.”

He hummed thoughtfully. “I guess that makes sense. It feels nice, though.” They were quiet for a few minutes while Kena delicately massaged in the weird paste. “Can we still be friends?” he asked suddenly. She looked up at him, startled.

“You still want to be friends with me?”

“Uh, yeah. You’re super cool!”

She blushed. “Even though I said that mean stuff about royals and all that?”

“I mean, you weren’t wrong. A lot of people around here are snooty.”

She thought it over for half a second. “Yeah, we can be friends. Like I said before, you’re not so bad, for a Fire Nation kid.” They smiled at each other, and it was settled.

A/N: i don’t know how to write dialogue for kids... anyways if this gets attention i might post more because i write when work is slow so! feel free to send me an ask/dm/reply/carrier pigeon. also sorry for the long post, mobile is ass and won’t let me do a read more cut ~~

[bibliocratic]

For your writing prompts, I’ve always found that the phrase “for you” has a certain gravity, so maybe something with that? :3

This was such a good prompt, which is my only excuse for why this is three days late and barely counts as a drabble at all.

jonmartin, post-S5 domesticity and parenthood

“He was showing me another room he's made it to on his game,” Jon offers as an explanation as he ambles back into the living room. “Some sort of creepy dungeon, lots of what I can only presume are zombies. He can turn into a dragon now with this magic cloak thing, it's all very sophisticated.”

Martin, whose knowledge and ability with video games both started and ended with having a go on someone's Game Boy Colour one rainy school break, makes a supportive, 'showing-interest' noise as he feels around for the remote before finding it wedged under his thigh, muting the sound of a gritty BBC drama he is clearly not enamoured by. He shuffles over to make room on the sofa. Disturbing the cat, who jumps off his knees, casting a betrayed gaze upon the offender before she haughtily goes to commandeer the high-backed chair usually taken up by Jon.

“Dragons are one of the few things that haven't turned out to actually exist, and tried to murder us.”

“Oh, don't be like that,” Jon smiles as he drops down next to him.  Martin's got a beer out of the fridge now Lewis has gone to bed, and Jon leans forward to snaffle it from the coffee table, takes an  slow sip, winces at the flavour and puts it back down on its coaster. “Swimming's at ten Saturday, isn't it? Still haven't fixed his goggles.”

“Half past, they had to move the rota round for some other thing,” Martin says distantly.  In the background, someone on the TV has their mouth bared in shouting, and some grim-dark poorly shaved detective is holding a gun.

Martin's shoulders are set tight. He's twisting his wedding ring round and round and round, fidgety and unsettled all evening, and now he's leant forward with his elbows on his knees, half-way through a beer on a Thursday night even though he can get funny about drinking in the house on a weekday.

“You want to talk about it?” Jon asks quietly.

Martin frowns, but doesn't ask how he knows. His palm opens from clenched to fold their fingers together, his touch chilly from the condensation on the bottle.

Jon waits for him.

Martin clears his throat. He sources out the remote again and flicks the TV to standby, the dour detective vanishing morosely.

“I'd like to talk to you about something,” Martin replies eventually. “And I know that we're not going to agree on it, but I want you to at least – hear me out, alright?”

“Alright,” Jon says carefully. A frown has rooted on his own face, but he pushes the curious simmer to a lower heat and tries to be patient. “Alright. What – what do you want to talk about?”

“What happened last week.”

“Martin...”

“Let me finish,” Martin says, his tone slightly sharper. He doesn't shout, never in the house. The only time Lewis sees his dad raise his voice in anger, he's belligerently got his hands in the guts of the boiler, pride the only thing stopping him call a plumber, or else he's stubbed his toe against the side table he always manages to catch.

Jon lets out a heavy breath.

“Fine,” he says. “Fine – we – we can talk about it. You know what I think.”

“Yeah, well, I don't.”

“It was an outlier. It doesn't mean there's a conspiracy.”

“I can't see why you're downplaying this. It was a threat, and you got hurt.”

“A few bruises from the fall. Look, Daisy and Basira handled it. They were – they were a lone Hunter. It wasn't anything organised, so I don't see the need to twist myself in knots when it won't happen again.”

Martin scoffs dismissive. “Last I counted, we've had three 'it won't happens again' in the last ten years. Face it, we've been lucky. This one got too close.”

“So what are you suggesting?” Jon says, deliberately calmly. Martin'll get to his point eventually, but he'd rather cut through whatever he's been stewing in for the past several hours.

Martin throws up his hands.

“I am suggesting that we consider the very real possibility that something like this might happen again. Something worse than some mangy Hunter or clueless cultist. These things out there.... there's more than one of them who'd see a former Archivist as a threat, Christ, I just want you to take this seriously...”

“I do take – ” Jon's voice spikes before he exhales hard and lowers his tone again. “Of course I take this seriously. Of course I worry. But if someone came here, if anyone came here, I'd – I'd Know....”

“Knowing didn't stop you from getting hurt,” Martin insists.  “It – it doesn't make you invincible.”

“I've never thought that...”

“We need to prepared, is all I'm saying. Your... the knowledge you get from the Eye, it's so much, it's so much less than before. So what if it's not enough, what if it tells you something too late or not at all?”

“Martin, I'm not going to get myself worked up over maybes.”

“Maybe you should!” Martin snaps.

They are both bullishly quiet for a moment before Martin holds his hands up again.

“Alright,” he presses on, lower pitched than before. “Alright, then lets deal with facts then. Fact number one: there are – there are forces out there that want to see you come to harm.”

“Martin.”

“Am I correct?” Martin repeats. His gaze won't leave Jon's. His temper's made his neck and throat go blotchy, but he's pressing his hands down too hard on his knees to stop their tremors.

Jon meets his eyes.

“Correct,” he says. Because it's what Martin wants to hear, because it's what Jon tries not to think about when the night-time drags loud and sleepless, and every noise he cannot account for takes on the guise of malevolence.

“Fact two,” Martin continues. “There is the possibility – no, no, listen to me, Jon – there is the chance, however small, that those forces, those people, could come here.”

“So what, we should install more locks? Buy more fire extinguishers?”

“This isn't funny,” Martin says waspish.

“I'm not laughing,” Jon replies dogged.

Martin lets out another aggrieved noise. He takes a moment, steeples his hands against the lower half of his face.

“That Hunter,” Martin says slowly. “Had our address on them. Knew where we lived. If Daisy and Basira hadn't sorted them out, they would have come here, and tried again. And if it can happen once, then it could happen again. A-and some of those people, the ones that serve their gods a-and want to make a name for themselves by going after an Archivist – ”

Here Martin's voice catches thready, the centre of his terrors finally excavated.

“I can't – I can't protect you from that, Jon,” he confesses. “I can't protect Lewis from that. And if someone comes here, what if you can't either? You're not – you're not exactly in the game of e-exploding people any more.”

“Been trying to give it up,” Jon replies. Martin's laugh is a little wet.

“Sets a bad example anyway.”

Jon rubs the skin of Martin's hand. He doesn't know what he can say to make this better.

“I would like to propose an idea,” Martin says. Softer now. More tired. “and I-I want you to hear me out.”

“OK.”

“Whatever it is.”

“You're not exactly inspiring confidence.”

Martin gives him a Look.

“OK,” Jon says, rubbing his thumb over Martin's knuckles. “OK, I promise. Whatever it is, I-I'll at least listen.”

Martin nods, and though his lips are pinched, he squeezes Jon's hand once gratefully. He separates them, and gets up, going over to his shoulder bag slouched by the door. He'd been vague, earlier this week, when he'd gone out on an 'errand'.  Jon had assumed it was something to do with their anniversary in the next few weeks.

Martin takes out a thick clump of folders from the stomach of the bag. Jon's heart drops when he sees the green-ink stamp of an imperious owl on the front of the beige folders but he says nothing.

“I have been thinking,” Martin says, planting himself back down. “About back-up plans. Last resorts, you know.  If someone does come here, if they're more than either of us can handle, if we can't keep our son safe.”

He passes Jon the folders. They're stuffed wide with statements, corroborating evidence, photographs, police reports, newspaper snippets attached with paper clips. Jon reads the introductions of a few statements as he flicks through, feeling not a little unmoored by the way this conversation has progressed – Statement of Dai Williams, regarding a library in Blaenau Gwent; Statement of  Michalis Charalambous, regarding an unusual wedding present – and something aches in him like a barely-forgotten hunger, twinges like an old wound.

Near the top of the pile,  there's a photograph, blown up to A4 size, of a book. The backdrop of an unremarkable desk, the cover itself blue backed, scuffed and foxed with age, the silver title decorated with florid curlicues: The Shipping Forecast and Other Nautical Curiosities. There's no author.

“What's this?”

“It's a Leitner,” Martin says. Not briskly, but straight-off the bat.

Jon pushes down several reactions with difficulty. Martin knows how he feels about Leitner. Martin wouldn't bring this to him, knowing what histories have left their scars on him, and beg for Jon to listen to him if it wasn't important.

“Go on,” Jon says, and nothing else.

“This book is currently in Archive Storage, where it's been for the past twenty or so years,”  Martin continues. He's to-the-point now, direct, and Jon appreciates it.  “Those are copies of all the statements I could find related to it, or people who have been in contact with it, and it makes up a fairly consistent picture of ownership and exchange for at least the past hundred and fifty years, records get a bit patchy before that.”

“Which Power?”

“The Lonely.”

That makes Jon look up. Martin's jaw is set for an argument but his voice betrays him.

“Tell me,” he says.

“The statements are all mostly the same. The book gets found or left as inheritance or in library donations, and some poor sod picks it up. Specifically, what happens is it renders people invisible when they read it.”

Jon blinks.

“... you're taking the piss.”

“No. Practical research did some basic experiments to test it before it was boxed up properly, they've – there's notes there, if you want to read in detail, but basically, you read a few lines of it, and you and whatever you're holding can't be seen. It wears off after a while, depending on how much you've read. The researchers went up to about a page.”

“There's a catch, obviously.”

“It's addictive to some people. Some of the people in the statements can use it once, get the heebie-jeebies then never touch it again, some of them can't shake the urge. The – er invisibility is more tempting to those vulnerable to the Lonely, or so the hypothesis goes. They read a little more, a little more and then, they're just gone.”

“So it's dangerous?”

“Yes.”

“Then why? Why show me this?”

“If someone comes here,” Martin says, “If it's – if it's the Vast o-or the Desolation or even th-the Slaughter, we can't fight them. We can't, OK, we-we have nothing that we could fight them with. So we can't fight them, and we can't outrun them, and I don't think hiding under the bed and hoping they leave is going to do much either. The best we can hope for is that we have a few minutes grace courtesy of your magical eyeballs. And that would at the very least give us time, to get Lewis somewhere safe, get out of harm's way, to go to Daisy's or something.”

“And your great plan is that we use a Leitner to what, turn invisible and sneak away unseen?”

“I'm asking you at least consider it.”

“I have considered it and it's – it's a Leitner, Martin! You know how I –  They're not toys, they're dangerous!”

“I know that! Of course I know that. But so is being unprotected! We wouldn't be using it for – it would be a last resort, nothing more. You can read the statements and the reports. I've read them all, over and over again, I-I've checked and doubled checked. As far as I can tell, the turning invisible is a temporary state.”

“For the right people. What about you?”

Martin does not meet his eyes.

“I wouldn't be using it.”

“...What.”

“I wouldn't – I wouldn't be able to,” he says. Quieter, self-conscious. “Much as I like to think that I'm – no. No, it'd be, it'd be too much of a temptation.”

Jon's tone has slipped flat and hard.

“So you're suggesting an escape plan that, what, doesn't include you?”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Jon – ”

“No!” Jon wants to get up, to stand, to shake Martin by his ridiculous shoulders, because how dare he, how dare he. “No, how can you even ask me that?”

“Because I need to,” Martin urges. “Because it's not just us. Because if the worst happens, I need to know we have some way of protecting Lewis, that you could use that book to make sure he's safe.”

“And leave you.”

“I'm not the one they want.”

“I don't remember them being all that picky about hurting whoever was in their way,” Jon bites back, and he knows he's louder now, that his eyes are getting wet and his face hot. “You can't know that.”

“No,” Martin replies honestly. “No, I-I can't.”

Jon rubs at his eyes. The anger's boiled over and out of him at a dizzyingly come-down from furious. He listens, wondering if they've woken Lewis, but he doesn't hear the squeak of bed-springs. There's a wind picking up outside, and the cat twitches in sleep.

He doesn't feel angry any more. Just sick and scared.

“That's not fair,” he swallows, looking at the damp-blurred image of his husband's face. “That – that's not fair, to ask this.”

Martin's moved closer. Places his hand back over Jon's.

“I know,” he murmurs, and he sounds sorry, but that doesn't help either of them.  “I know it's not. And if there was – was any other option, I wouldn't even think of suggesting it. But I'd, I'd like you to think about it. Please. For me.”

Jon leafs through the folders in his hands without taking any of them in. Martin strokes his back soothingly, and crowds in too close, not close enough.

“I'll read them,” Jon says eventually. Wetly and unhappily. “ The statements, reports, I-I will. For you. And if – and only if they seem legitimate – I'll come with you and have a look at the book myself. And that's all I can promise you.”

“Thank you,” Martin whispers, and presses his lips to the thinning crown of Jon's hair, Jon leaning back slightly against his chest. He clears his throat. “Basira's all for performing some more clinical tests on the book, if you wanted some more concrete validation.”

“Why am I not surprised,” Jon says, feeling too tired to enquire further.

They linger on the sofa for a while after Martin shoves the folders back into his shoulder bag.

“I better put the dishes away,” Martin says.

“Leave them. I'll do them in the morning.”

Their bedtime routine is closer and quieter. Usually Martin goes up first, and Jon watches the newspaper review or the tail end of a documentary, but tonight he trails after him as Martin checks all the plugs and double-checks all the locks.

Martin pokes his head into Lewis' room, even though they said their goodnights hours ago. Jon can't begrudge him the anxiety.

“Kicked all the blankets off as usual,” he reports back as they knock elbows in the bathroom, Jon's mouth full of toothpaste, passing Martin a water glass to take his statins. Martin dutifully swallows the pill before reaching for his own toothbrush. “He sleeps like you, arms flung out all over the place.”

Jon doesn't deny it.

Jon gets into bed first, and fusses with chargers and alarms while Martin gets into a t-shirt and boxers. He gets the light and Jon follows the sound he makes as he approaches the bed in plunging darkness, the disturbance of the covers. Jon immediately curls against his shape, tucking himself tight and buried against his chest.

Martin doesn't comment on how clingy Jon is, how he knots their legs together, clutches him over-tight. On how hot the bed is going to get, on how his arm will go numb quickly from the angle. His own arms come around just as fiercely. He tells Jon goodnight, that he loves him into his hair, and Jon whispers it back into the dark and the heat, and knows it's true to the bones of him.

Neither of them sleep all that much that night.

[shadowsong26fic]

Coming Attractions!

A day late, but ah well...

As usual, we’ll go ahead and do an Open Question Night. Which basically means that, while my ask box is always open, tonight I’ll be keeping an eye on it and answering things as they come in. Any fandom or work I’ve talked about here (or posted on AO3) is fair game, as are general questions about writing, etc. I do accept prompts, but I am. Not very good at filling them in a timely manner unless they Immediately spark something, lol.

So, yeah, what’s on your mind?

Also, since I don’t think I have for a couple months, plug for my Discord server! It’s pretty quiet, mostly intended to be a slightly more interactive extension of this space, but you’re welcome to check it out!

Anyway, the usual Coming Attractions details are behind the cut!

PodTogether 2021:

I participated in this challenge for the first time this year, and it was a whole lot of fun! Of Other Suns is a SW/AtLA crossover, and I think it turned out pretty well! My reader/podficcer and I worked pretty closely together during the initial brainstorming process, working out what we wanted to do, and also bounced off one another during the whole editing/finalizing process. There’s a lot that I didn’t end up putting into the fic (because time and length; I am a. Uh. Very wordy writer; the aim was for 6-12k words, we ended up with nearly 15k as it is...), so I might poke more at this specific AU, or crossovers linking up at a different time (either a different point in the SW canon, or in the AtLA canon, or both). I...definitely have extensive headcanons for SW characters as benders of various elements (or nonbenders), and there are at least two Force-sensitive AtLA characters who were outside the scope of the crossover.

Anyway, if you want to check it out...click this link XD (and definitely listen to the podfic too!!! It’s really great)

Precipice:

So, between the final push on PodTogether and some origfic stuff I got done, I...did not get anything finished and posted for this, alas. But! I am saying it here in the hopes that doing so publicly will for once get me to actually stick to a deadline, which is that I will get either the first Protectors chapter or the next Preludes one-shot (or both!) up by this Sunday, September 12. The Protectors chapter will be mostly scene-setting, establishing where various characters are when we open, six years after we last saw our heroes. The Preludes segment will involved Hondo contacting Obi-Wan (and Anakin, who’s with him when he gets the call) about something Relevant To Their Interests.

I will for sure get that Prelude out this month, and hopefully at least two Protectors chapters, but we’ll see how things go at work and how much brain that takes, which is always a factor...anyway, with any luck, I’ll start establishing a Rhythm. I don’t think I’ll be doing weekly updates, the way I did for the first few arcs of Precipice (in part because there are some other longform projects I intend to start putting out and if I am going to do Weekly Fic Posts, I’ll probably alternate), but we’ll see how things go.

AtLA Fic:

Again, I didn’t finish what I wanted to (other than the aforementioned crossover for PodTogether), but I have been working on stuff in the background and, while I’m not going to commit to a Specific Deadline like I am for Precipice, I do plan to post at least the opening chapter of the still-untitled Avatar Zuko AU I’ve been working on this month, so watch this space!

Other Fic Projects:

I’m poking around at what to do for next years SWBB (if only because my wordcounts have been Steadily Increasing and I’d like to get a head start in anticipation of that happening again this year, lol). Still considering exactly what to do, whether I pour all my focus into OFLAM, like I consider every year, or see if I can work up Bail Unfucks the Timeline or another half-plotted AU I have in the back of my head, or go with a different prompt/storyline that occurs to me at some point between now and then, but I’m starting to Actively Ponder things.

I do have that BSG1 crossover outline in the works, I swear XD I’ve got...uh...maybe half to two thirds of the first third of the overall storyline written up? XD It’s a. Uh. Long one. I might go ahead and release it in three parts, just for length/convenience, and because it does more or less have three distinct sections (the initial contact/New Caprica fallout and establishment of the Haven settlement which makes sense in context; the second contact/algae planet; and then an adventure on a resurrection ship to retrieve a Specific Boxed Five and possibly walk away with Ellen because that would just ruin Cavil’s day and I do so love to ruin Cavil’s day, lol). ...I’m going to go ahead and post a preview snippet at the bottom of this post, as Motivation XD

I think that’s all the fanfic stuff I have specific updates for. There’s generally always stuff noodling around in my brain (lately, for Star Wars, AtLA, BSG, or some combination of the three), it’s just how much of it materializes, lol.

At some point, I plan to revisit some BSG epics I had going on (Serenissima; rewriting For Sorrow Sung or doing a slightly different storlyine with the same concept; The Other Battlestar; a few others), but no concrete plans as of yet.

I also kind of want to explore a far-past AtLA setting I designed for a challenge community way back? But I’m not sure if that would work better as an original work with the serial numbers filed off, if I could figure out how I wanted to do that (I have done it before, as I’ll talk about below, but this concept, while not directly involving any characters from Avatar canon as it’s set 2000 years prior to Sozin’s reign, does to an extent lean on the Avatar specifically as a concept, in a way that the other fic I did this with did not).

Original Fic:

Due to a challenge on rainbowfic, I actually got. Quite a bit written? Most of it was not super plot-relevant, but I dropped some Hints about a character in Lux and I got to play in some heads I don’t very often. I might go back to the Regency AU at some point, and there’s a specific reveal I want to write up for a secondary character in The Farglass Cycle, but I haven’t quite figured out how to structure that one, so we’ll see how it goes.

Had an interesting discussion the other day about the way original fiction sometimes starts as fanfic with the serial  numbers filed off and...well, a lot of my original stuff starts that way? Or has some roots there, anyway.

Lux doesn’t quite as much, but I definitely ported in at least two characters who started as fanfic characters (leaving aside that this is, y’know, The Apocalypse IN SPACE so, like. Various fandoms that deal with that probably influenced things, plus several key players are Public Domain Characters sooooo), plus some of the way the world is constructed draws on the Native Tongue trilogy and I flat-out stole a concept from Queen of the Damned, though the way it works in this world is different (also, to be fair, I think I’ve seen it in other places, too; but I personally got the idea from there).

The Farglass Cycle and Untitled Intrigues Story, however, straight-up started as fanfic concepts. And I don’t think it’s obvious unless I point out what the source materials were? Farglass, in particular (it’s the AtLA fic I mentioned earlier), because it started as an alternate future and then the map and magic system got reworked, plus the Avatar themself wasn’t even super involved in the original fic context, and while certain characters are very loosely based on AtLA characters, by now they’ve been so altered by the setting that it’s...I used the same archetypes, if that makes sense?

And then Untitled Intrigues Story started as a fusion between two wildly different fandoms, and while one character is a pretty clear expy if you know where he comes from, and another character kept the same actress in my head, I don’t think it’s very clear other than that.

...anyway, not sure where I’m going with that, other than it’s been in my head lately, lol.

...I think that about covers it! What about you guys? What are you all working on? Slash any questions, etc.?

Teaser for BSG1 AU outline, as promised:

So, anyway, SG-1 is prepared for rain and mud and a survivable-but-kinda-unpleasant environment. They’re also prepared for the usual shenanigans--Goa’uld, cranky local politics, weird alien tech that Daniel really should know better than to touch but sends him into another dimension anyway...

Just. Y’know. A normal mission.

They’re...not quite prepared for what they actually find when they step through.

Which is a very tense and now slightly Confused crowd of people, and a firing squad made up of very large killer robots, with a teenage girl as their target.

(One of the large killer robots is. Uh. Well. Half a large killer robot now; that particular Centurion was in the wrong place at the wrong time and got kawooshed in the face. As one does.)

(Said Centurion absolutely wins the ‘Weirdest Death’ pool for the week in Download City, because that is clearly a thing that exists because it entertains me)

There’s a beat where everyone just stares at everyone else, trying to figure out what the hell is going on.

The wormhole disengages.

Daniel takes half a step forward, opens his mouth to start the ‘we are peaceful explorers from Earth and y’all seem to be having a Moment here, sorry for interrupting, but, uh...’

And then the moment end and absolute chaos erupts.

[katierosefun]

author interview tag game

thank you for the tag, @pandora15! <3

Name: caroline

Fandoms: mostly the clone wars, but i also have some marvel stuff, and waaay back in the day, i wrote some doctor who and merlin stuff!

Where you post: primarily on ao3! i mostly just write on tumblr when i’m accepting prompts from like...ask games or something.

Most Popular Oneshot: real

Most Popular Multichap: to these memories (this fic only recently hit 1k kudos, and my heart?? w h a t)

Favorite Story You’ve Written: def. to these memories because a) longest fic i’ve ever written, and b) oh, the hours i logged into writing this fic, and c) oh, the outlining that went into this fic...i’m very proud of myself for completing the fic, and of course, i credit this to everyone who showed their lovely support for the story. :’)

Fic You Were Nervous to Post: uhhh definitely too far just because it’s...rather personal. i sometimes say that there’ll be a scene or two or just straight up a line or two that’s plucked out of my real life, and i think it’s inevitable for writers of any kind, including fic writers, to isolate their real lives completely from whatever they’re writing, and?? this fic is probably the most personal for me because of that. i remember kinda hem-hawwing about posting it, because i was like whoa, maybe this is a little too personal? but then i steeled myself and was like, “okay, well, would this have lifted my spirits when i needed a story like this??” and then decided to post it.

How you choose your titles: i def. toss and turn between titles! there’s a few fics of mine that are straight-up song lyrics (no surprise there), but to my surprise (as i was looking through my catalogue of fics just now), i realize that a lot of my fics are usually just words or two about what i think might have been extremely important to the story. (or captures the overall tone/theme of the story, anyways.)

Do you outline? for multi-chapter fics and relatively long one-shots with lots of moving parts, i’ll outline. but for shorter one-shots and prompts, i’ll usually just stick with the image that compelled me to write the prompt/one-shot in the first place! (and then kinda write around that.)

Complete: uhhhhh, i’m gonna answer relatively for all my clone wars fics, because in total, i have 74 completed fics. (make that...75, hopefully in a few minutes or hours!) but out of clone wars fics, i have 46 completed fics! (and again, hopefully 47 in a little while.) a part of me is lowkey hoping that i’ll get up to 100 total fics by the end of this year. a part of me highly doubts it, but given how much i was able to write over summer break, i’m...intruiged if i wind up somehow writing another twenty or so fics by the end of this year. (asfsf my wip list is long enough to fill in for another twenty fics. caroline finish all your wips challenge.)

In Progress: okay, so officially, time, wondrous time is in progress and online. but in terms of the works in progress on my laptop...i have...*mutters, counting* fourteen official wips. (ten of them are one-shots, and the other four are longform fics. one of them, i’m hoping to release next week (!!!), and another, i’m hoping to release hopefully around mid-december. uhhh so fingers crossed??)

Coming Soon/Not Yet Started: oops, i guess i kinda already answered that question, but eh, might as well! the one coming out next week (hopefully!! caroline get your shit together challenge!!) is titled most ardently, and it’s an obitine au based off pride & prejudice because i cannot and will not shut up about obitine being the period drama ship out of star wars okay--

and then the other longform fic that is very overdue is called getting lost in a big galaxy, which is a fix-it of sorts taking place after season 5. anakin’s gone missing, and obi-wan winds up going on a galaxy-ride road trip with ahsoka (who, remember, has left the order) to find their idiot. this is honestly my excuse to just write more obi-wan and ahsoka content. hopefully, that’ll be posted in december!! (despite the fact i...originally meant to post it in august oOps.)

and then there’s this other longform fic which...might be coming in early 2021 called red, underlined, which is essentially...uh. everyone’s a stressed out law-school student, and anakin might have accidentally murdered professor palpatine, and now anakin, obi-wan, ahsoka, padme, and rex are all trying to find out what the hell to do with themselves because they’re all in on it. (def. influenced by how to get away with murder except without the criminal justice professor to lead them through the ropes. so more chaos. kind of a dark comedy vibe, if anything else? anakin no is major theme in this one. uh, i mean, maybe anakin was justified in murdering creep palpatine because our gang’s gonna find out what was going on in the background, but either way! lots of “holy shit are we good people are we bad people what are we doing”. lots of questions about morality! ethics! law school student study nights with anakin sprawled out on the floor and obi-wan wearing glasses (which he pushes up the bridge of his nose whenever he’s about to lecture anakin that no, that’s not how that statute works, dumbass) and ahsoka just bringing snacks and rex catching paper airplanes and padme being the one to supply everyone with very neat flashcards. this fic is gonna be an absolute beheamoth, and i’m estimating about 45 chapters? like...130K+ words? help? yeah idk either this really blew up in my head

and then...this stupid, wonderful, boring, amazing job, which is...office x tcw au. only not? it’s very, very loosely based off the office, but not really. obi-wan moves in as a new manager of a company, and we’ve got anakin being like “lol new guy i’m gonna mess with him”, and ahsoka being the one who’s both like “please don’t mess with our new boss” but also being like “actually, wait, lemme help”, rex being in hr and being like “i don’t get paid enough for this”. (also there’s some parts that are written like actual interviews like you would find in the office, so there’s this one bit where uhhh

Obi-Wan flicks his eyes to the cameras in silent question before turning back to Ahsoka. “Well, if you need to call maintenance, then I hardly think you need my permission—”

“Thanks!” Ahsoka says quickly, and she’s about to disappear from the doorway when Obi-Wan stands up.

“Wait, Ahsoka, what exactly—”

Ahsoka re-appears at the doorway. “Oh, right,” she says. “Um—maybe just stay away from the men’s bathroom for a little bit.” She pauses.

“Actually, just stay away from them for the rest of the day.” She hovers by the door for a minute longer, and then she adds quickly, “And maybe also avoid the breakroom. Everything’s fine!”

And with a perfectly not-fine smile, Ahsoka disappears from the doorway.

Obi-Wan stares at where Ahsoka was just a moment ago, and the he turns to the cameras in disbelief. “Did she just—” Unable to finish his own sentence, Obi-Wan starts out the door. “Ahsoka?”

The camera follows Obi-Wan out of the conference room and into the breakroom. There are only muffled shouts—Anakin’s shouts, and then Rex’s, and then Ahsoka’s frantic “no, sorry, everything’s fine!”, and then Obi-Wan’s loud, “What is going on in here?”

surprise y’all just got a snippet i’m sorry can you tell i’m weirdly into this au?? i need to rewrite some scenes but uh there you go

Prompts: for the most part, yes! i have some stuff in my faq about prompts that i’ll probably turn down (mostly anything that’s...above a certain rating/really, realy heavy themes that i just don’t think i can tackle with justice or with enough education on my end). i can be a little slow with prompts, but i’ll get to all of them in time!

Upcoming Work You’re Most Excited About: uhhhh i have too many that i’m excited about. literally i can write a mini essay on every single one of the fics i’m working on? but uhhh i guess since i already talked about all my major longform fics above (asdfasdfsd didn’t mean to do that, i’m so sorry for everyone who had to scroll past that word-vomit), i guess the one i’m most excited about releasing is the post season 7 obi-wan-and-ahsoka-finally-talk-about-how-they-miss-each-other-also-sorry-for-fighting-with-you-i-know-you-were-just-trying-your-best fic. (not a whole ton of spoilers for this one, but uh. i’m looking at some of these scenes and making frustrated sounds because there’s this one particular instance where i’m like, ahsoka. ahsoka just talk to him just ta lk to him but then lol no talking :)) also maybe some h/c? lowkey sickfic might be involved in this somehow? might have accidentally served as a precursor to to these memories? help? this fic just ballooned. caroline keep your ideas contained challenge!)

No Pressure Tags: @lightasthesun @soplantyourownflowers @ohhellokenobiand anyone else who wants to join!

[goindownshipping]

You make me feel something like summertime

Pairing: Peter Parker/Tony Stark (Starker)

Rating: Teen (T)

Notes: I was thinking about my own beach vacation and my head was suddenly filled with thoughts of Starker meeting at the beach. The following fluff ensued. Thanks to @ohwereusingourmadeupnames for several nudges throughout this!

Words: 4.6k

Summary:

There was the older couple staying a few houses down that always walked by in the late afternoon, the family with three kids that passed by around noon, and then there was the Golden Boy, as Peter had started calling him in his head. He was Peter’s favorite. He strolled by in the mid-afternoon with a couple of older folks, who Peter assumed were his parents. Golden Boy had dark, curly hair, his upper body was tan from days in the sun, and his smile was more blinding than the sun’s reflection off the ocean. 

Or, Peter and Tony only have eyes for each other while they’re both on vacation with their families. A lovely summer romance follows.

Throughout his entire life, Peter couldn’t remember anything better than summer vacation. His childhood was filled with plenty of ups and downs, more downs if he was being honest, but summer vacation was always a highlight. Although he and May didn’t live a life of luxury, their annual summer trip was, without fail, the best week of the year.

Over the years, the trips to the family beach house contained more memories and traditions than Peter could possibly put into words. As a child, he lost his first tooth at the house, conquered his fear of jellyfish (mostly), and learned the hard way why he needed sunscreen on his ears. As he got older, the week at the beach provided much-needed relief from the stresses of summer jobs, college essays, and job applications. No matter what was going on in his world, the beach made everything better, it was truly his happy place, no matter how cheesy that sounded even to himself.

During college, the trips to the beach were more difficult. New jobs and less time off made the annual trip less frequent, but all the more special. A few years post-grad, Peter was settled into his job enough to take the time off for him and May to take their trip. It had been a couple of years since they’d gone, and Peter was itching for that feeling of home. As soon as the salty, humid air filled his lungs, Peter felt his entire being fill with relief. May had barely parked their rental car at the house when Peter practically ran down the walkway, eager to feel his toes in the sand and let the sounds of the ocean drown out the buzzing of work he’d left behind. 

May came up behind him, equally relieved to be at her family’s beach house. 

“Feels like we never left, huh?” she sighed.

Peter took a deep breath in, trying to soak in as much sea and sand as he could. “Best feeling in the world,” he agreed.

The next day passed in a blur of rolling out of bed late and heading straight for the beach - after he covered himself in sunscreen, thank you very much. He and May spent the day in comfortable quiet, sharing snippets of the books they read, pointing out cute dogs on the beach, and deciding which restaurant they wanted to visit that night. It was peaceful, comforting, and everything Peter needed from a vacation.

The following day, Peter started recognizing the faces of folks that passed their chairs on daily walks and shared kind smiles in acknowledgment. There was the older couple staying a few houses down that always walked by in the late afternoon, the family with three kids that passed by around noon, and then there was the Golden Boy, as Peter had started calling him in his head. He was Peter’s favorite. He strolled by in the mid-afternoon with a couple of older folks, who Peter assumed were his parents. Golden Boy had dark, curly hair, his upper body was tan from days in the sun, and his smile was more blinding than the sun’s reflection off the ocean. 

Peter attempted to be subtle when he walked by, but even his dark sunglasses couldn’t hide the way he stared when the other man passed by. After the first time he’d walked past, Peter was determined to find out where this beautiful human was staying. He immediately popped up to take his own beach walk, searching for the bright red and gold swim trunks he’d seen the man wearing. When his eyes found the very loud fabric, he blushed, finding Golden Boy’s eyes trained on him. They shared a small smile, neither man willing to take the leap to say hello. 

Tony looked up from his seat in the sand, struck by the curly-haired boy he’d seen on his walk a short while ago. Although he complained at his parents’ insistence that he walk with them, he was grateful he’d given in. The man he’d seen lounging under his umbrella absolutely took his breath away, and he was thrilled to see those long legs passing in front of him now. He smiled shyly, hoping his blush was hidden by the slight sunburn on his cheeks. His attention was quickly redirected by his mother calling from him from their walkway, forcing him to turn away. When he looked back, the other man was already headed back the way he came; Tony could only hope that meant he’d walked all this way just looking for him.

The following day, Tony and Peter took more beach walks than either of them had taken in their lives. Each time they passed each other they shared a smile, maybe a wave. At one point, Peter was taking a quick dip in the ocean, cooling off from the sweltering heat and humidity. As soon as his head popped up out of the water, his eye’s met Golden Boy’s. The other man appeared to stop in his tracks, just staring for a moment. Bravely, Peter threw him a wink before pushing off the sand and diving further into the water.

By late afternoon, they both started walking toward the other at the same time, unintentionally colliding mid-walk. They saw each other at a distance, slowly approaching each other in the sea of people around them. As they got closer, they both slowed, coming to a stop in front of each other. Peter looked down at the tide washing over their feet, not sure what to say to the person in front of him.

“In all the years I’ve been coming here, I’ve never decided to take a walk on my own,” Tony shared quietly. “I blame you for all the exercise I’ve done today”.

Peter let out a loud laugh, unable to stop the snort that accompanied it.

“That’s about the best thing I’ve ever been blamed for, so I’ll take it”. 

Peter smiled up at Golden Boy, unable to resist. He extended a hand between them, gripping tightly when the other man reciprocated the gesture.

“I’m Peter”.

“Nice to meet you Peter, I’m Tony”.

“Tony,” Peter repeated with a smile. “It’ll be nice to stop referring to you as Golden Boy in my head,” he admitted.

“I don’t know, I might prefer that,” Tony chuckled.

They dropped the hands between them, and Peter returned his gaze to the sand, unsure how to continue their conversation. Tony interrupted his thoughts before he could get too unsure of himself.

“Well, since we’re both walking, we could walk together?” Tony asked carefully.

Peter nodded, excited at the prospect of getting to talk to Tony a bit longer. 

The two men walked for nearly an hour, completely unaware of time passing or any obligations they had to their respective families. Peter learned that Tony had been visiting this same beach for years but usually came much later in the summer. Peter blushed when Tony noted it was a shame it took this long for them to cross paths. Peter talked about living in Boston and Tony lit up, excitedly sharing that he’d gone to MIT before moving to New York City. The two of them swapped favorite stories and traditions at the beach, embarrassing moments from college, and agreed that the working world was far more terrifying than they expected. 

At some point, they turned around and started walking back toward both of their houses. When they finally made it back to Peter’s house, they came to a stop. May had already headed up to the house, just Peter’s chair remained under the umbrella.

“Are you free at all tomorrow?” Peter asked before he could think too long about it.

“I have a very busy day of doing nothing on the beach,” Tony grinned.

“Can I steal you for a couple of hours in the afternoon?” Peter requested.

“Absolutely, Petey. I’ll meet you here at two o’clock?”

“That’s perfect, Tony”. 

Tony reached out to take one of Peter’s hands, squeezing tightly before turning and continuing down the beach toward his house. Peter quickly gathered the last of his belongings on the beach before turning toward their walkway. He took one glance in Tony’s direction, thrilled to see Tony looking back at him over his shoulder. They shared a quick smile before nodding and heading off.

When Peter opened the sliding glass door to the living room, he was met with May’s knowing gaze. He smiled, knowing she’d see right through it.

“So, I uh, I need the car tomorrow afternoon,” he explained.

“Is that so?” May asked with a smile. “Does this have to do with your sudden interest in beach walks? It’s romantic, don’t get me wrong, but not really your style,” she pressed.

Peter sighed, sitting down across from her. “His name is Tony. I don’t know May, there’s just something about him. He’s brilliant, makes me laugh, makes me feel,” he paused, “important, somehow. I know that sounds nuts, but, uh, yeah. I’m taking him mini-golfing tomorrow”.

May just nodded, happy to see Peter excited about someone. “Well, I expect a full report tomorrow night”.

With that, May left the living room, squeezing Peter’s shoulder on her way toward the kitchen. Peter was grateful for the easy relationship they’d always had. They were everything to each other for as long as Peter could remember and he would never take that for granted. 

The rest of the evening and the following morning were uneventful for both Peter and Tony. Both men went about their respective routines and family traditions, counting the minutes until their date. Tony’s parents had pressed him when he arrived home after the walk with Peter, mostly concerned about his absence from cocktail hour. He brushed them off, letting them know he’d be out for a few hours the following afternoon. His dad hadn’t thought twice about it, but Tony didn’t miss the small smile on his mother’s face, curious about her son’s happy demeanor.

On the beach the next day, Peter refrained from taking any walks down the beach, not wanting to appear too excited to see Tony. He knew they would have some time to themselves later, and that was more than enough to look forward too. Tony, apparently, got roped into another walk with his parents and smiled widely when he passed Peter in the middle of the day. May glanced up, watching the interaction between Peter and Tony, smiling to herself at the way Tony looked at her nephew.

A few minutes before two o’clock, Peter was showered and ready, dressed in casual shorts and a t-shirt. It was far too warm for anything nicer, even for a first date. He perched himself on the railing of their walkway, facing the direction of Tony’s house, eagerly awaiting the other man. When he saw Tony emerge from the crowds of people on the beach, it felt like his breath had been knocked out of his lungs. Tony was wearing slim-cut shorts that ended just above his knees, and a short sleeve button up that hugged his waist. His golden skin went on for miles, and Peter couldn’t tear his eyes away.

Before he knew it, Tony had ascended the few steps and came to a stop directly in front of Peter. 

“Tony, you look incredible,” Peter breathed.

“Thank you,” Tony blushed. “You look lovely as well, Peter”.

He smiled, hopping down from his perch on the railing. “Shall we?”

“We shall,” Tony answered easily. “Although, you never did tell me what you have planned for us”.

“How do you feel about mini-golf?” Peter asked.

“You’re on Pete,” Tony beamed.

They made their way to the car, and Peter led Tony to the passenger door before opening it for him. Tony smiled a brilliant, heart-stopping smile, and Peter had to fight the urge to comment on it out loud. The drive to the mini-golf course was comfortable. The radio played quietly while Tony and Peter chatted about their music preferences, both sharing a love of live music and concerts. They laughed when they discovered they’d attended the same Shakey Graves show in Boston a couple of years prior.

Peter pulled into his favorite mini-golf course, the same one he and May used to come to every summer. He and Tony were surprised to find the course mostly empty, pleased to have the place almost to themselves. Once they were situated with their colorful golf balls and putters, they approached the first hole.

“I feel like now is the time to tell you that I’m really good at this,” Tony said as he lined up his first putt. 

“Well, I’m absolutely terrible, so we’re in for a fun afternoon,” Peter laughed.

True to their words, the first couple of holes were smooth sailing for Tony, easily navigating windmills and tunnels, while Peter just tried not to hit his golf ball out of bounds. They shared easy smiles and soft touches as they passed each other between putts. When Peter launched a putt clear over the barrier, Tony just winked as he replaced the ball, giving him several do-overs.

“How did you get so good at mini-golf anyway?” Peter asked as they walked toward the next tee.

“So full disclosure, I’m a total nerd,” Tony began. “I studied physics in college and my friends and I used to make our own little courses to try and stump each other. They got crazier over the years, it just became our thing”.

“You’re right, you are a nerd, but that also sounds amazing,” Peter chuckled.

“It’s still a thing too,” Tony continued. “My best friend Rhodey is getting married later this year and his bachelor party is going to be one big homemade mini-golf course, designed by yours truly”.

“You have a lot going on in that head, don’t you?” Peter inquired, turning to head for the next hole.

Tony just shrugged. “I guess so, I’ve just gotten used to it over the years. I am pretty hyperactive though,” he admitted with a touch of self-deprecation.

Their hands were hanging between them, nearly close enough to brush pinkies. In a moment of bravery, Peter reached out and squeezed Tony’s hand tightly, hoping to convey even a fraction of the thoughts and feelings swirling inside of him. Tony gripped back, just as tightly, smiling over at Peter. 

The rest of the course passed in a similar fashion. Tony gave Peter all the extra shots he wanted while absolutely smoking Peter with too many holes-in-one to count. They held hands each time they advanced to the next hole, grinning at each other every time. As they approached the final hole, complete with an upside-down loop, Peter was determined to get it on the first try. 

Tony stepped up first, demonstrating where to aim and how hard to hit, making it through the loop easily. His red golf ball rolled easily down the turf, dropping into the cup.

Peter pouted slightly. “Now that’s just unfair”.

Tony laughed, walking down the path toward the loop. He used his putter to point out where Peter should aim. “Aim for this right here, and hit it harder than you think you need to, nice and easy”.

Peter rolled his eyes, stepping up to his blue golf ball. He checked his aim, rolled his shoulders, and took a deep breath. He swung back and through, feeling the solid contact with the putter. He watched the golf ball glide down the turf, taking the loop with ease and slowly approaching the cup. He held his breath, willing the ball to make it to the lip of the cup. He dashed down to where Tony was standing so he could see how far his shot made it. When he saw the little blue golf ball just barely drop into the cup, he threw his arms up in celebration.

“Yes!” he exclaimed.

Tony erupted with loud applause, cheering for Peter’s success. Peter absolutely beamed at him, and Tony was taken aback by the beauty in front of him. Without much thought, he wrapped Peter up in a big hug. Peter’s arms were trapped between their torsos, but he was more than happy at that moment. He couldn’t understand why he was so excited about silly mini-golf shot, but if it meant Tony hugging him like this, he wouldn’t question it.

When they pulled back from the hug, they both smiled at each other, happy and carefree. They were pulled out of their reverie by a father and daughter approaching, clearly trying to finish their own round of golf. Peter blushed, grabbing Tony’s hand and dragging him toward the little clubhouse to drop off their putters. They continued holding hands as they walked toward the car and this time, Tony approached the driver’s side to open the door for Peter, waiting until he was settled before shutting the door firmly.

Peter grinned widely, waiting for Tony to round the car and get settled on the passenger side. As soon as they were set, they started back toward the beach. Tony shared more stories about college at MIT and his favorite parts of Boston. Peter took it all in, still figuring out the city he now called home. Tony made several restaurant recommendations, most of which Peter hadn’t even heard of yet. As they turned down the quiet street leading to their houses, Tony directed Peter a bit further to his own driveway. 

Before exiting the car, Tony turned to Peter with a slight blush on his cheeks.

“Thank you Peter, I haven’t had that much fun in a while, honestly.”

“Me too, Tony. Come find me on the beach tomorrow morning?” He asked hopefully.

“You bet, Petey”.

The next morning, Tony did exactly that. Peter had just gotten settled under the umbrella with May, an extra chair next to him, when Tony approached. May smiled but kept her attention trained on the book she was reading, giving Peter some privacy. Peter stood, smiling widely at Tony.

“You came,” he said with relief.

“Of course I did”.

Tony came in close, giving Peter a tight hug before stepping away to introduce himself to May.

“You must be Ms. Parker,” Tony said, extending his hand as May rose to her feet.

“Oh lord, please call me May, honey”.

“May, it’s great to meet you, I’m Tony. Thank you so much for letting me crash your beach day with Peter,” he said sincerely.

“Sure thing, Tony. What’s a good beach trip without good company?” May winked in Peter’s direction, making him groan with embarrassment. Even at 25 years old, May knew exactly how to embarrass him.

“Alright, enough of that. Tony, I brought you a chair and an extra towel,” Peter gestured toward the beach gear. 

May subtly scooted her chair a bit further over, giving the men some space of their own. 

Peter and Tony settled into their chairs, with just a hint of space between them. They spent the whole day lounging on the beach together, taking leisurely walks, and jumping in the ocean when the heat became unbearable. It was surprisingly easy to spend such an extended amount of time together. They never seemed to run out of things to talk about, but also sat in companionable quiet while reading and people-watching. Every so often, they would head up to the house, grabbing snacks and cold drinks for them and May. Peter quickly showed Tony around the house, loving the way Tony’s eyes widened with the stories he told throughout the short tour. 

The next day, Peter threw his beach gear in a bag and headed down the beach to Tony’s umbrellas. Tony had been more than willing to come back to Peter’s spot, but Peter insisted, wanting to see Tony in his own element. As he approached, Tony met him at the water’s edge, twining their hands together with a big smile.

“My parents are a lot,” he said quickly. “But my mom is excited to meet you”.

“I’m good with a lot, Tony”.

Tony pulled him toward the umbrellas in front of his house, his parents already standing from their chairs.

“Mom, Dad, this is Peter. His family’s house is down just past the big green one. Peter, this is my mom Maria and my dad Howard”.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you Mr. and Mrs. Stark,” Peter greeted as he stepped forward to shake Maria’s hand. 

“Call us Maria and Howard, dear,” she said easily, smiling kindly at Peter.

Peter turned to Howard, shaking his hand with a firm grip and a small nod. Peter knew the relationship between Howard and Tony was tense, but he could see the love for his son in Howard’s eyes.

“Thank you so much for having me down here for a bit today,” he said, mimicking Tony’s statement to May.

“Nonsense, we’re happy to have you,” Maria waved off. 

Peter and Tony spent the say much like the previous one, laughing and smiling, sharing a few more touches as they got more comfortable with each other. At one point, Tony challenged Peter to a round of bocce ball and hauled his family’s set up from the house. Their competitive spirits kept them entertained for a while, each man throwing the Palina further away than the last round. After one too many close calls with the dog in the group next to them, they packed up the set and settled on a swim, desperate to rinse the sand off. 

Peter wasn’t sure what happened when they got in the water, but suddenly it was as if magnets pulled them closer together, unable to separate for too long. They floated out to shoulder-deep water and Tony felt Peter’s arms wind around his waist, pulling him in close. Embracing the buoyancy of the water, Tony allowed himself to be pulled into Peter and wrapped his legs around Peter’s waist, his arms settling around Peter’s neck. Water-slick skin slid together easily, and Tony found himself bobbing with the current, secure in Peter’s grasp.

“Hey there, Pete,” he breathed, his nose nearly pressed against Peter’s.

“Is this okay Tony? I just couldn’t help myself,” Peter admitted shyly.

“More than okay, as long as you don’t dunk me under a wave”.

They stayed like that, just holding each other close, bouncing with the waves, enjoying the feeling of being pressed together. They were both avoiding the same topic, neither wanting to break the spell they’d fallen under together. Eventually, Tony leaned his head into Peter’s shoulder, sighing loudly.

“So, we leave tomorrow,” Peter began.

“If we ignore it, maybe it won’t happen,” Tony pouted.

Peter squeezed Tony tightly. “What do you want to happen, Tony? After we leave tomorrow, anything can happen,” he murmured.

“I want us to keep doing this. I mean, obviously we can’t stay in an ocean forever, but I want there to be an us”. Tony lifted his head from where it was resting against Peter’s shoulders, gauging the other man’s reaction.

Peter leaned in, closing the minimal distance between them and pressed a salty kiss to Tony’s lips. He kept one hand secured around Tony’s waist and brought the other one up to tangle in Tony’s hair, holding him close as if the waves would carry him away. Tony hummed against Peter’s lips, tightening his arms around Peter’s shoulders.

A wave knocked them off balance, causing them to pull back with a gasp. Once he had his feet under him again, Peter smiled at Tony.

“I’d very much like for there to be an us too, Tony”.

“New York and Boston really aren’t that far apart, right?” 

“Definitely not too far,” Peter agreed. “We should probably head up, huh? I promised May I’d be back in time to make dinner”.

“Only if you let me steal you in the morning before we go. Just a quick walk?”

“Sounds perfect Tony”.

With that, Tony unwound his legs from Peter’s waist, opting to grab his hand as they made their way toward the shore. Once Peter had his beach bag in hand, Tony leaned in to leave a quick kiss on Peter’s cheek.

“See you bright and early, Pete”.

“Bright and early, Tones”.

When Peter finally made it back to the house, May was waiting on the porch. He knew his smile gave him away when May raised her eyebrows in surprise.

“So, not just a beach fling, Peter?”

Peter shook his head. “Not just a beach fling”.

With that, Peter headed inside for a quick shower before starting on dinner for the two of them. He felt bad that he hadn’t spent as much time with May this trip, so he planned to make it up to her that night. Once dinner was ready and they were seated on the porch, he couldn’t help but gush about Tony. May just smiled, trying to remember seeing Peter this excited about something. 

“So, when are you gonna visit him?” she asked.

“Um, we haven’t really talked about it yet. I guess we’ll just see how things go for now,” he said nervously.

“Make plans before we leave Peter. Distance is hard, but having a date to look forward to makes things easier, May advised.

Their conversation shifted after that, and they talked late into the night wishing their vacation would never end. Before Peter went to sleep that night, he checked his calendar for open weekends, wondering how soon he could visit Tony. On a whim, he bought a train ticket to New York for just over a month later, hoping Tony wouldn’t find it aggressive. He went to sleep with a smile on his face, hopeful for what was to come.

At eight o’clock the next morning Tony and Peter met up on the beach, about halfway between their houses, exactly where they’d collided on a walk just a few days prior. Time moved differently that week; Peter felt as if he’d known Tony much longer than he had.

They joined hands and walked quietly, enjoying the emptiness of the beach as most families were packing up and leaving that day. They smiled as they passed by some other folks soaking up their last few breaths of salty air, doing the same thing themselves.

Tony was the one to break the silence after a while. “This feels silly at this point, but um, can I have your number?”

Peter cracked up at that, looking over at Tony who smiled right back at him. He reached for his phone and handed it to Tony, encouraging him to enter his information. He immediately fired off a quick text and heard Tony’s phone ping in his pocket.

“This might be too much too soon,” Peter started, “but I bought a train ticket to New York City at the end of next month. I just wanted us to have tentative plans to see each other, but I can always change it,” he rushed out.

Tony stopped walking, using his grip on Peter’s hand to pull him in close. He pressed a tender kiss to Peter’s lips, lingering for just a moment before pulling back. 

“I guess now’s a good time to tell you that I bought a train ticket to Boston in two weeks,” Tony admitted sheepishly. “I couldn’t bear the thought of not knowing when I’d get to see you next and I got a little eager”.

Peter was speechless and blown away by Tony. He fisted one hand in Tony’s shirt, the other in his curls as he pressed his forehead against Tony’s own. “Tony,” he breathed. 

“I’m not letting you get away, Pete,” Tony murmured softly.

“Right back at you, Golden Boy”.

[missmaxime]

2, 3, 17?????

2. Tell us about what you’re most looking forward to writing – in your current project, or a future project I’m working on Chapter 5 of Wild At Heart. I know I’ve mentioned this a lot over the past months, and a lot of it is finished. But I had a scene I wasn’t happy with that I finally found the solution for. And I’m working out a structural problem in another scene that I think I’ve got down, but I still need to write that part. Also trying to work out if and how the actual s3 does and doesn’t fit in with it took me some time. It’s probably next on my list, unless I run into another problem. Another thing I’m really looking forward to is the Modern Arranged Marriage AU I posted a snippet of yesterday. The plot still needs some work, but I like the Amber POV in it (it’s multiple POV this one). It’s also my first AU, so that’s super exciting to me. And if I ever manage to write something more PWP than Plotty McPlotface I’ll be over the moon

3. What is that one scene that you’ve always wanted to write but can’t be arsed to write all of the set-up and context it would need? (consider this permission to write it and/or share it anyway) Okay, so it’s not like I can’t be arsed to write this, but both of these ideas will require research, one more than the other, and I just really do not have the time to do that just now. The one I’m sure I’ll definitely write (maybe I’ll even bang it out when I have a few weeks off this summer) is a Pretty Woman AU. I have some story beats written down for it, and I can’t wait to write mommy-mode Beth all floral blouse and sensible shoes going into the Versace store. But I need to look into how this escort world kinda works. And I would love to write a Brio period piece someday, but that really requires extensive research (I know, technically I could probably wing a lot of it, but I’m a detail focused ho on these things and I like accuracy) so I’m filing that away for some time in the future.

17. Do you think readers perceive your work - or you - differently to you? What do you think would surprise your readers about your writing or your motivations? Uhmmm, I have no Idea actually. My three GG-works on AO3 are (aside from writing style) pretty different from each other. I think when it comes to story-structure it could go either way, either people think I’m overachieving in originality, or they like that I go out of my way in terms of creativity. Personally, I think it’s kind of in the middle. If I had started Wild at Heart as a reader I would’ve thought ‘Wow, this writer really put a lot of work in planning! She must be so well organised’, while I wrote the first chapter, published it and was like ‘Ok, now what?’. (Did plan story beats after that haha). Maybe people think I plan a lot extensively because my stories are a bit of a puzzle, but truth is a barely do. I lose interest in writing things when I plan too much, so it’s for all our benefit that I don’t, really. I’m also pretty messy at home (unlike work, I’m super organised there), which mostly pains my mother.  I have no idea how people perceive Technicolors in relation of what I’m trying to tell with it, I intentionally layered it a lot so people could enjoy it as a kids adventure fairytale type of story, but you can read into a lot more. To me there’s two big overarching themes that I personally wanted to explore; number one is granting forgiveness when someone or something wronged you, and number two is processing trauma and moving on. Two themes that hit close to home for me, but I translates wildly different in this fic. Still don’t really know what that might say about me, tbh, but I doubt that’s the first thing people think about.

[why-this-kolaveri-machi]

dick grayson fic rec post

i’ve read a fair amount of dick grayson/nightwing-related fic over the last few months–and have so many favourites that i revisit frequently!–that i thought it was about damn time that i made a rec post. feel free to add on any gems that you think i’ve missed.

s/o to @cautiousamber who actually inadvertently got this ball rolling, and who is just awesome in general.

-

these fics are listed in no particular order. almost all of them are sourced from ao3 and a lot of them feature dark themes, blood and violence. i’ll put fic-specific warnings next to each title, but make sure to check out the tags on the fic itself before reading in case i missed something that you’d rather not read.

-

like a rubber band until you pull too hard by @perissologist Summary:  Morgaine le Fey curses Dick Grayson to absorb the pain of everyone he loves.

Warnings: Violence, blood & gore, whump, some swearing. Also, it’s Jason Todd/Dick Grayson, tho that’s not the focus and more or less subtext until the last few paragraphs of the fic.

this is a gloriously simple h/c premise that packs in so much potential that i’m still kicking myself for not thinking of it before. the writing is wonderful, the interactions between dick and his family are heartfelt without being sappy, and the writer treads a fine, fine line between jason’s general standoffishness and the aching core of his love for his family so damn well. 

Half Lost, Half Found by takadainmate Summary:  Driven underground, Batman fights to keep Nightwing alive.

Warnings: Violence, blood & gore, graphic descriptions of injury, some swearing. And it’s, uh, incomplete, and likely to remain that way.

this… THIS is the fic that truly inspired me to make this post, because everyone needs to read it. rich in detail and full of glorious h/c, it manages to give us a nuanced, dynamic portrayal of bruce and dick’s relationship even while ratcheting up the tension as batman struggles to keep a gravely injured nightwing alive and save them both from Peril. it lacks the final chapter where (presumably) they are rescued and finally get a chance to recover, but i would 100% recommend reading what’s there even if you aren’t a fan of incomplete fics.

Black and Red by Eboni_A Summary:  Jason Todd is the Boy Terror to Dick Grayson’s Boy Wonder and proud of it. Where Dick is graceful, Jason is brutal, but they work together like clockwork. When a serious illness takes Dick down, Jason makes it his duty to watch over him. Jason loves his adopted brother and will kill to protect him.

Warnings: Violence, chronic illness, blood and gore, swearing, dick is fourteen and jason is twelve and they go through a lot of Shit. first person perspective.

this is nominally set in the young justice universe but there are a lot of changes–with jason todd adopted far earlier than he has been in other batman media and working as a batman sidekick of a different name while dick is still robin. given i’m not a big fan of reading robin-era fics (literal children in Peril makes me squirm) or first-person perspective, this fic still managed to win me over with how well-rounded and sympathetic it made an angry and prickly jason todd feel. dick also has to deal with a fairly serious medical issue, but despite spending most of the fic in hospital, his humour and charm and bravery shine through.

Collar Me (Don’t Collar Me) by CaramelMachete and spread_my_wings Summary:  A basic patrol ends in a common injury. However, complications may turn a simple broken arm into something potentially career-ending. Dick copes as best as he can. Until he doesn’t. His family tries to help.

Warnings: blood and injury, serious complications of said injury, descriptions of surgical procedures and discussion of permanent disability. some swearing. a work in progress.

i am obsessed with this fic. spoiler: the complication is compartment syndrome, and the way the fic approaches not just dick’s ways to cope with this, but other members of the batfam and several of dick’s friends ring very true to their characters. it’s emotional without being melodramatic and wonderfully written. an update on this fic ranks among the highlights of my day, honestly.

through sandstorms and hazy dawns by Makalaure Summary: “Robin,” Bruce grinds out, “stop talking. You need to stay sharp.”

Dick knows he is walking a fine, fine line. “Aw, come on, B,” he says, going for cheerful but feeling like something in him, something he has kept carefully in check till now, is about to snap.

Warnings:  mature themes, mentions of forced prostitution, homophobic language, implied paedophilia, implied past abuse, and exoticisation. panic attacks.

this is a beautiful fic, dealing with all the highs and lows of the earliest stages of bruce and dick’s relationship–both of them utterly out of their comfort zones but learning all the same. being batman’s first robin is so much more of a struggle than dick ever lets on later in his life, and in spite of everything, their growing love for and wonderment at each other shine through like a beacon.

Yellow Submarines by jerseydevious Summary: A collection of Batfam prompt-fics.

Warnings: there’s some swearing, violence and blood in some fics, but mostly harmless, i think.

not all of these are dick-related, but each and every one of these 52 fics have made me cry like a lost child. i love this author’s batfam–they’re softer, more open, and utterly unafraid to love each other with all their heart. it helps that the writing flows so well, too–there are some phrases here that will stay with me for a very, very long time.

Atropa Belladonna by Embleer_Firth0323 Summary:  A routine traffic stop sets off a domino effect that will forever shatter Officer!Grayson’s entire world–transforming a once temperate existence into a lurid nightmare of obsession, deceit, violence, and finally murder.

Warnings: Rape/non-con, abuse, suicide. suicidal thoughts, violence, blood and gore, multiple character deaths (none of the batfam), discussions of pregnancy and miscarriage, swearing, first person perspective. i’m sure i’m missing some warnings; please check the tags for the fic. there are also chapter-specific warnings in the notes that precede the chapters.

HOKAY. this is a VERY long, very soap-opera-y retelling of the infamous tarantula arc from the comics. somehow, it is even darker, but hopeful in that all of the damage it inflicts on dick and those close to him is actually acknowledged and addressed. the world around this particular version of dick is rather nicely fleshed out and full of likeable people… bar catalina, of course. catalina flores plumbs the depths of awfulness and digs even further when it comes to her relationship with dick, but even at her worst, her anguish and trauma is always palpable. it’s a long, difficult, but extremely engrossing read. 

i would recommend reading this author’s other novel-length fics as well, but beware that they deal with very, very heavy topics, and not always with the deftest or most sensitive hand.

Come One, Come All and The Only Thing To Say by incogneat_oh

both of these are really cute fics where members of the batfam care for/spend time with an injured!dick. they are sweet, rich in detail, and honestly a delight to read. warnings-wise, i can’t think of anything beyond the odd swear-word.

Little By Little by paramountie Summary:  Six times Tiger found himself stuck in Bludhaven.

Warnings: swearing, blood and injury, mind control, violence. Tiger/Dick. 

this fic builds on all the the strengths of the Grayson comic series–a breezy tone, spy/thriller content, and tiger and dick’s fun dynamic. this fic is very funny and kind of heartbreaking in turns. my only caveat is that this dick tends very much towards the happy-go-lucky, quippy, emotional, a-bit-of-a-disaster characterisation that tends to plague him in fanon–but to be fair, that is the persona he put up while at Spyral in Grayson.

O Clouds Unfold by lowflyingfruit Summary:  Over the years, Alfred tries to introduce the younger members of the Batfamily to the noble sport of cricket.

Warnings: none that i can think of, really.

THIS FIC DELIGHTS ME ON SO MANY LEVELS. little snippets of alfred bonding with bruce’s adopted kids over the years by trying to introduce them to cricket–alfred’s voice is consistently amazing, and it is charming af from beginning to finish. 

i’d recommend all of this author’s batfam fic tbh.

Tectonic Doom by paganpunk2 Summary:  Dick and Tim head out for a week of brotherly bonding in the wilderness only to find themselves caught up in a scheme to put humanity on the ‘extinct’ list.

Warnings: violence, blood, injury and gore, minor character death

this is a lovely, long, plotty fic–with a wonderfully imaginative premise that’s brought out in rich detail, with so much glorious, glorious Dick/Tim bonding. there are way, way too few fics that focus on these two.

Ducklings on the Freeway by pentapus Summary: Jason worries about the younger Robins. He doesn’t worry about Dick – Dick’s untouchable, and even if he wasn’t Jason wouldn’t care.

(Or Dick gets hurt, and it freaks Jason out more than he expected.)

Warnings: swearing, injury. Jason/Dick, but more subtext than anything.

jason’s voice in this fic is so perfect–the tentative ways in which he reconnects with his family, and especially dick, while still dealing with a fuckton of trauma and resentment ring very, very true. and tired-but-knowing!dick is a delight as always.

-

this is maybe ~33% of the recs i had in mind, but this post has gotten long and i’m tired, so. i’ll add more later. if you have anything that i’ve missed, please feel free to add it to this post!

[those-pink-specs]

So, um, yeah … I finally finished my great long rave about the Klámstrákur video … make of it what you will …

Maybe this is a load of hot garbage, but my starting point was what they’ve said about self-image and toxic masculinity.

But I reckon that if your toxic masculinity shows up in a latex crop-top and corset, there’s probably something interesting going on.

I had a quiet Sunday a couple of weeks ago, so I watched it really, really slowly and overthought the hell out of it.

Sssooo … tl;dr (because the bit after the cut is really long).

What if ..

·         the lighting and colours (and costumes) have consistent meaning, and are part of the storytelling?

·         it’s basically all an attack of angst in a bathroom: an internal power struggle with no clear winner?

·         everyone who appears is part of that person’s own psyche (except Einar, who is a memory)?

 I’m definitely not saying that any of my thoughts are a ‘right’ interpretation, or especially original for that matter. It was just fun to fit all the bits into a nice pattern that makes sense – at least to me.

[Even I’m quite surprised by how much I had to say about this in the end...]

Klámstrákur

The toxic-masculinity-in-a-corset interpretation

*TW: low key for discussion about anxiety and gender angst. Nothing heavy, but, hey, I know how easy they can be to set off at times …*

 So, this thing is Art and it can mean basically anything you want it to.

Most people see a narrative around sex work. The lyrics make it hard to get away from, in fact (though could be a metaphor for queerness – but never mind that). Anyhow, while I agree that sex work is the background, in my overthinky way, I don’t think the song is about that, precisely.

I like to overlay it with the idea that the two voices are the same person, and we’re mostly having a tour through his angst. This works okayish for the song on its own, but it’s much better in the video (or so I think).

Anyhow, we start in the bathroom. The scene is saturated in a deep, velvety red light. (I’m going to talk about lighting a lot.) A choir hums gently in the background. Our lad stumbles in, washes his face and has one of those ‘is that really me?’ moments in the mirror.

He shakes his head, as though trying to dispel bad thoughts – and that’s where we immediately go … and stay.

Bad thoughts.

We get a flash of Einar alone in a theatre. Then three nearly subliminal flashes of Matthías as we see him at the end. Only with his head in hands like this:

(Sorry for the shitty screen shot. Perfect gifs of this bit do exist, just not here.)

This has got to mean something, surely. It’s not there by accident. I pause to mention it now, but I’ll come back to it later…

 00:25 – … on stage…

A curtain brushes aside and we’re on stage. My interpretation is that the stage is his perception of the outside world and/or memory of the recent past.

Why? Because that’s where Einar is – and it’s the only place we see him. Einar is the only ‘outside’ person we see. So he’s being recalled and thought about as an audience. It’s a perfect metaphor for playing a role, as the outside world looks on. As I flippantly said on another post – Einar is the ‘male gaze’ on this rather ambiguous body. (I wrote it as a weird academic joke [‘male gaze’ is a feminist art theory thing], then went … oh wait … what if he is?)

And then … there’s that red light bathing everything in the theatre. I think the red represents (or reinforces) a concept. Possibly desire … for sex, sexuality, submission, androgynous or feminine expression … money, whatever – anything except the accepted norm for a nice cis-het bloke, basically.

We’re just 26 seconds in at this point – and our lad is recalling stripping off and dancing on his pole for Male Gaze Einar. But the recollection is starting to make him feel guilty, ashamed, anxious and sick (or just more so than he already was). He starts to panic, and think he’s dying – as you do. But he’s not really dying: it’s anxiety.

His thoughts start to circle. There’s a nightmarish hospital trolley – that he’s literally chained into (perhaps by the anxiety if we want to really push the metaphor – or at least by those serious-looking girls in catsuits). And then there’s the theatre where he’s dancing like the sinful, slinky mink he accuses himself of being.

The first time we see the trolley (at 0:59), it’s in a blue corridor –the first real change from the red – but as the other three in the scene approach, the trolley swings slowly back into a red corridor. Then, just as we get to the end of the intro … ég sé að deya (1:16)… back onto stage.

Don’t worry – I’m not going through the whole thing this slowly. In fact, for the first verse – where we’re hearing about what a degraded, weak little smut addict he considers himself to be – it’s mostly visual escalation. We cut between him being strapped tighter into the trolley in the red corridor, the stage, and a few shots of Male Gaze Einar starting to look … frisky…

At the end of the verse, it’s crisis time, because we get our first, momentous: Þú ert klámstrákur!!! … and so enters Matthías properly.

He’s mostly lit with blue. He’s wearing some very important pink specs (ahem) and a lab coat. And he is most certainly playing the part of ‘toxic masculinity’ as in internalised shame, guilt, and a self-hating need to conform to society’s expectations of maleness. He’s a part of our pole dancer’s psyche, though. Not someone else shouting at him: just his own desire to be someone else, to be another way. To be in control of himself. To not be gay or gender-bendy or a pole dancer … or whatever.

So I see something implied in the settings and lighting: red scenes, desire and immersion in the klámstrákur lifestyle; blue scenes, self-loathing and a need to control, purify and conform. And it’s a real tussle with … I think … no clear winner.

 01:45 … The spin out

I particularly like the next little bit.

Don’t look now, but between one bellow from Matthías and the next, we’re back on stage. And Einar has got a bit over-excited and is clambering over the seats. As in a dream, the pole has transformed into a chair full of pole dancer, and in one of the most memorable snippets, we get fingers tenderly/sexily making their way down Klemens’s chest.

Let’s enjoy a crappy screen shot of that for no reason at all:

[… oh my …]

And then that fabulous chair spin from the red stage to the blue clinic room (screen shots do not do it justice, so please just replay that bit in your head … I’ll wait …)

… Now how about this?

When he stumbled into the bathroom at the start – he was just starting to get anxious. And that bit with Einar was what set him off. Desire for some stranger. A touch. Something too gay or too … something … for his self-loathing part to handle. He panics, spins out and goes into cold self-hatred (blue clinic) needing to regain control, and to conform and purify.

And from the two minute mark – right through the next bit of verse where he lists all the things that ‘sometimes’ happen – that’s what’s going on. The list maybe be factual, or his fantasies, or angsty exaggeration, or some of each. It doesn’t matter, he seems to think he needs or deserves the treatment he’s getting, and submits to it wholly, like a góður drengur.

But – as I said at the start, that toxic masculinity in control of the situation is dressed a wee bit less masculine than you might expect. I mean – when you think about gender-panicky homophobes IRL, you don’t usually think latex crop-top and corset. But maybe it’s more about domination and control. This is the part of the psyche that seeks and exerts those things – so dominatrix chic may be just the ticket.

Anyhow, he’s bathed in the purity of that blue light, busily head-massaging away the gay, while screaming at himself for being filthy and disgusting.

[This is so fucking camp … why am I like this?]

 02:30 – ambiguity – or who’s the anxious one here anyhow?

From here on, things get really ambiguous and therefore really interesting.

New setting: this is a chamber with a nice pole in it, and windows so the Matthías character (now in a nice fluffy red coat that just screams ‘pimp’) and the serious girls in catsuits can watch at a safe distance.

And our pole-dancing boy is released from captivity for observation. And what happens then?

This …

Followed by this …

This little backward glance. An implied moment of eye contact.

What do you see? Is porn boy anxious? Unsure? Obedient?

Well, maybe.

But I like my queer boys a bit bolshy, so I see defiance. A look that says: ‘Think you can control me? Well game on, bitch.’

Because he really goes for it on the pole after that. Surely that lightning-quick crotch grab at 02:43, when he’s being called ógeðslegur karlmaður is a very clear ‘fuck you’!

[Really though?

Well why not?]

It’s easy to listen to the Eurosonic version and hear the Klemens voice suffer and panic, and just assume that he’s a victim. There’s no real story line to the lyrics, but the Matthías voice gets the last word, so we naturally suppose that our poor little filthy boy is somehow lost, or fighting a losing battle for survival.

But to me, the video evens things up a lot.

One of the reasons that I thought that both voices might be the one person even just in the live versions, was that the name-calling is so over-the top it seems kinda panicky. The video reinforces that – with the shouty voice being so obviously controlling. And the need to control is an anxious need. Internalised homophobia as a fear. So, Mr Shouty in the crop-top is as much an embodiment of anxiety as the filthy boy. Maybe more.

Because if they’re both inside the head of a lad having a panic attack in a bathroom, then it’s Mr Shouty who has caused it. He (Matthías) desperately needs to control his impulses (Klemens), maybe because he’s afraid of what will happen if he doesn’t.

[Does that make sense? I hope that makes sense to someone besides me.]

 Anyhow … back to the action … it’s game on, and the next bit (02:45 to 03:00) is a lot of shouting about filth and a whole lot of arse.

Uhm …

[well … quite …]

The battle pushes to-and-fro until we’re suddenly back here:

 What is this? Opening his pores? Who knows, but it’s a very cool effect. It definitely looks like punishment/purification (so very like opening one’s pores). The light is blue – just as hard and bright as before. No red in sight (there was a lot of red in the observation chamber – such was the power of the filthy boy’s wiggles). So control is seriously asserting itself again.

The struggle is real.

Now, from 3:02 – the really difficult bit – the couch:

The couch is long and low, lit blue and red at opposite ends with a homoerotic / bondage picture partly obscured by curtains. What does it signify?

The messages are really mixed, even just with Mr Shouty. He’s in his pimp coat screaming about his disgust, sometimes lit blue sometimes red – but he’s got filthy boy by the leash now.

So what is it? He hates himself, but he kinda gets off on being a slinky-mink pole dancer? It’s the same mixed message as the clinic outfit: ‘I’m your need to be a normal bloke – but I’m rocking this crop-top and corset look.’

Well … at risk of overdoing it by trying to fit everything together too neatly – what if the couch bits are about balance? Getting over the attack with a little give and take between the warring selves. Or something like that.

In the last minute, the war between clinic and pole is fierce – with interludes of couch.

When we see the couch we also see:

Porn boy’s leash being held, him dancing obediently and wearing more clothes. So less impulsive – under some control. The purifying ‘treatment’ has worked a bit. Pores cleansed.

Control freak still shouting but, as I said, he’s not looking like a dominatrix anymore – more like a pimp. So arguably, he’s secretly enjoying porn boy’s show while calling it filthy and disgusting. I think that’s the point – which I guess means that toxic masculinity also makes one a moralising hypocrite (‘that type: making a scene’ – though that’s not the official translation, sadly!). However, for now he seems comfortable watching – and he’s no longer trying so hard to control his filthy-boy self.

But, of course, the war isn’t over. How could it ever be, for an androgynous pole dancer with internalised homophobia and gender panic?

[Sounds horrible and I don’t recommend it. Just be a happy slinky mink and a cheeky sinful seal, that’s my advice.]

 So lastly …

This whole emotional-breakdown-in-a-bathroom theory would have been greatly assisted if we had even the tiniest throwback to the bathroom right at the end. But we (probably) don’t.

What we have instead, however, is a throw forward from those flashes of Matthías on the couch at 0:24 (I said I’d come back to that!). If I’m even vaguely right, then those flashes show the balance breaking down. The visual is of Matthías’s shouty half of the psyche – head in hands. What’s he feeling?

Our pole-dancing lad is staring at himself in the mirror at that moment, thinking of that excited audience member. His inner control freak, who had been moderately at ease with the dancing, and sitting on his comfy couch, is suddenly overwhelmed by guilt and flickers into breakdown … and it begins where it ends.

So it’s a cycle. Maybe.

Or maybe this is a load of hot garbage.

[echo-bleu]

Writing thoughts : August

How is it already the 1st of September?

Most of this month has been spent working 40h hours a week on my dissertation, and I haven’t taken an actual day off in over two months. Add to that a bunch of family health issue and it was pretty crazy.

I wish I could say that September is going to be better, but it’s not shaping up that way. I need to finish my dissertation (yes, I was supposed to be done two weeks ago), run it through several layers of correction, file it with my department...

On to the interesting stuff. Somehow I hit 40k words, which I didn’t manage last month when I was actually trying. That includes my work writing though, so it’s a bit of a cheat. I started writing for a new fandom, Roswell New Mexico, and I can feel that hyperfixation settling in, though it’s basically the worst possible time. I’ve been drawing a little bit too, which is very nice because I hadn’t had time to draw anything in ages.

Actual writing progress. I’ll separate it into my two current fandoms. I haven’t touched my Leverage/The Librarians WIPs in a while, but I don’t think anyone who follows me reads that (if you do, please give me a sign though).

The Gifted

I’m losing my focus a bit because writing for RNM currently fulfills me more (because hyperfixation) but I swear I’m not abandoning the fics that are started.

The Underground: this one is the least at risk. I have three chapters ready beyond what’s currently posted, and I’m still in love with that story. I could technically end it almost anywhere, but I have plot ideas spanning about six more storytime months, and we’ve done three so far.

All We Stand To Lose: I don’t have a next chapter yet, and I’m also pretty much at the end of the part of the story that I’d planned out, but I’m not lost either. There’s still more to tell, and I will. Just be patient with me.

Other stuff: If You’re Still Breathing has been on standby for a while, and I don’t know if I’ll ever finish it. Maybe one of these days I’ll find the time and motivation to rewatch season 2 and get there, but I don’t know. Sequels to The World As We Know It are sitting half-finished on my computer, and I’ll probably get around to finishing them at some point, but don’t expect it soon. There is one last part planned for Broken Things, set short after Pulse’s death, with Lorna and Marcos helping John through the worst migraine of his life, but it’s not even started at this point.

Roswell New Mexico

I’ve got a bunch of fics planned. The first few days after I finished watching the show, I’d sit and start a new one nearly every night, never finishing the others. I’ve calmed down a bit, but i want to write them now.

One Reason To Stay got the most amazing reception (I have to say it’s a wild change from my usual five-people fandom) and I want to thank everyone for that. It’s not meant to get a sequel, but I intend to write more Malex.

I have a so-far untitled one-shot-y (maybe two parts, I’m not sure yet) post-finale fic that’s Alex&Liz friendship, mostly a long discussion with angst, hurt/comfort and a lot of friendship feels.

I have one chapter of a multi-part Alex&Isobel friendship fic, called Lines of Fear and Blame, where they bound over trying to live with PTSD.

I have the start of a long fic, a Roswell Mutant!AU loosely based on The Gifted, where most of our characters are mutants running from the government. It’s called Power Through.

Before I even finished season 1, I’d started on a possible series of one-shots, in an AU where Alex called Michael when he was in the hospital after his injuries. I kinda want to scratch it because characterization isn’t so good, but maybe I’ll rewrite it instead.

I’ve start a long-ish one-shot that was supposed to be fluff, with established Malex, where Michael invites everyone over to movie night at Alex’s. It’s turning into not-fluff, because I’m terrible at writing fluff. We’ll see what it becomes, I guess.

Finally, I have a strange little fic centered around the three aliens throughout their lives, exploring gender, sexuality and neurodivergence. It’s mostly a series of snippets of their lives.

Pfff, that got long. Feel free to tell me what you most look forward to!

[werewolfdays]

Recovery/Scars snippet

this is a snippet that fits a couple of the prompts from this lovely angsty @whumptober2019 post. Yeah it’s a little early, but I’ll definitely participate in more prompts during October

(Also as a little disclaimer, this drabble has a very brief abuse mention. Doesn’t go into details, but if its something you’d rather avoid I totally understand) -

Jayde poked her head into the bathroom, likely hearing all the shuffling I was making from gathering the things I needed from the cabinets, “What are you doing?”

“The stitches are ready to come out.” I explained while carefully pulling my shirt off. My shoulder didn’t hurt even a fraction as badly as it did when the crossbow bolt was being removed, and the soreness was mostly gone, but it was better to be careful with it until it was fully healed. 

“Here,” Jayde fully came into the bathroom and plucked the bottle of hydrogen peroxide I picked up out of my hand, “Let me.” 

I nodded in gratitude, my shoulders relaxing slightly. It would’ve been difficult to reach behind my shoulder. “You know how to do it?” 

“I’ve taken a lot of my own stitches out.” She told me, pulling my bra strap down and using a cotton swab to disinfect the healing wound on my back. “And I’ve helped Toby and Skye a few times.”

“Have you ever treated a human?” I asked curiously.

She placed the bottle and swab down to grab the small pair of scissors and tweezers, “No, but I think I can manage.” 

“I guess it’s not that different,” I smiled, “Apart from the slower healing and vulnerability to infections and diseases.” 

“It did take longer for you to heal than I was hoping for.” There was a small snip as she cut the first suture, slowly pulling it out with a pair of tweezers and moving on to the next, “I mean, it’s been weeks. I was starting to worry that something was wrong.” 

I shook my head, “Nope, just normal human recovery.” 

“It’s tedious.” Jayde sounded a little distracted.

I’ve never really thought about it before, having spent so much time working in a hospital. “Yeah, I can imagine it would drive someone like you crazy. Having to wait that long to heal.” 

“Not just that.” Jayde paused to gently rub ointment on the wound after the last suture was removed. “Seeing just how slowly you recover makes me feel… helpless. Knowing how long the pain lingers with you makes me sick. And pissed off.”

“It’s really not that bad, Jay.” I told her honestly, handing her a bandage when she reached for it. 

Jayde sighed, “I know you can handle it, I just prefer that you didn’t have to.”

“I know.” I replied quietly.

Once Jayde placed the bandage on the back of my shoulder, I turned around so she could work on the exit wound. My eyes met hers and she managed to give me a small smile despite her somber mood about what I went through. Her hands gripped my waist to gently lift me up and onto the counter. Maybe the angle made it easier for her, maybe she just wanted to be a little playful to lift the mood. I wasn’t complaining either way, grateful for her proximity and the comforting familiarity of having her between my legs. I felt her thumb brush the bare skin on my side before she let me go to tend to the stitches.

“Do you need these?” I joked, grabbing my glasses from the counter beside me. Jayde snorted, accepting them and putting them on. She raised an eyebrow at me, and I couldn’t deny the immediate reaction. “Okay, now I get why you like it when I wear them.”  

She chuckled, “Then maybe we should find some lensless ones or something, ‘cause I can’t see shit through these things.” Jayde took them off and blinked rapidly a few times, making me giggle. “Damn, I think I already have a headache.” 

I shook my head at her in amusement, “Hence, why I need them.” 

Jayde’s playful gaze caught mine for another moment longer before she started on my shoulder again. I watched her smile drift away to a concerned furrow in her brow while she carefully cut and removed every suture. The frown started as just concentration, but the longer she focused, the more I realized that there were twinges of pain on her face. Our strange role reversal didn’t escape me. This was one of the rare times that Jayde was the one patching me up. For once, it wasn’t me that had a worried frown. To me, it felt odd, but I could see it was hard for Jayde. 

“These are gonna scar…” Jayde mumbled, lightly brushing her thumb over the wound. 

“Yeah,” I agreed with a small nod, “They won’t be too bad, though.”

She didn’t look very placated, “I guess.”

“You have worse ones.” I pointed out as she applied the bandage. “Way worse.” 

“That’s different.” 

“How?”

“Because…” Jayde struggled for an excuse, “Because it’s me. I’m used to it. You never should’ve gotten hurt.” 

“You know, neither of us are strangers to pain.” I told her carefully. Being shot with the crossbow may have been the most pain I have ever been in, but my brother made sure that it wasn’t the first time I encountered it. 

Jayde’s face twisted in a pain that I’ve only seen a few times. A pain that was deep and rooted in rage. “Please don’t remind me.” She begged quietly. 

It wasn’t something I wanted to bring up either. I spent a lot of time pretending like I forgot, hoping that it would make it less real. But even when I wasn’t thinking about it, it was always there. I think it was always with Jayde too. As soon as I told her. Just like all of her suffering was with me. 

My hands went to her waist, where I gripped her shirt and began tugging it up. Jayde blinked at me in confusion, but let it happen. As soon as her shirt was pulled over her head, my eyes scanned all the scars I knew by heart. The tips of my fingers brushed over the one on her side that she got the day we met. My other hand ran down her arm, tracing another scar on her bicep that looked like a knife wound of some kind. I rarely ask her about the origins of her scars, knowing that a good number of them were from her time in captivity, and not wanting to reopen that wound more than necessary. 

Then I reached up to cup her face, caressing the largest scar on her right cheek while noting the others that marked her features. Like the one that must’ve been from a particularly nasty split lip. Or the one that cut through her eyebrow. Jayde watched my exploration curiously, which finally prompted my question.

“How’d you get this one?” I asked, the tip of my index finger following the marred line on her cheek that went all the way down to her jawline. 

“When the agency found us and killed my dad, I tried to fight back.” She explained, her voice sounding somewhat distant. “I don’t remember much because they beat the shit out of me, but I think it was a silver knife.” 

I took in a long inhale, holding it for a few seconds before letting it out. After that, I leaned in to place my lips against it. Willing away all of the pain and trauma with the gentle kiss. Both hers and mine. If only for a moment. Just to banish it for even a second was worth it. 

Jayde’s expression met mine when I pulled away, and I could tell that she understood my intent. The glint in her dark blue eyes told me she felt it. She didn’t say anything. Didn’t need to, because she bent her head down to plant a healing kiss of her own on my shoulder. I closed my eyes, letting my hand rest on the back of her neck to hold her there for a little while longer. The feeling was nearly indescribable. She made me feel so safe- so untouchable. Jayde’s lips promised to protect me from the world, and I believed them. 

More than anything, I wanted her to believe the same from mine. When she pulled back, I gave her a grateful smile, my hands going to her hips to gently urge her to turn around. I brushed her hair over her shoulder and took in all of the scars that marred her back as well. There was one in particular that looked surgical. It ran down most of her spine, starting between her shoulder blades and trailing down to the small of her back. As I slowly traced it, I felt her body shiver against my touch. Worried that it bothered her, I shifted my attention to some of the other smaller ones

“I got some catching up to do.” I said to break the silence.

“Don’t joke about that.” Jayde told me seriously, though I heard the faintest smile in her voice. 

My arms wrapped around her torso, pulling her closer to me. “Of course not.” I quipped, planting my lips between her shoulder blades. 

The warmth of her body enveloped me even though I was the one holding her. I concentrated on every slow inhale and exhale her lungs made with my eyes closed, letting the serene feeling of it wash over me with her comforting scent. My lips ran up along her skin to another scar on the back of her neck, giving her another kiss before I rested my forehead against the back of her head. 

I could stay like this forever if she let me. Hold her until the sun dies, and even then I wouldn’t let go. Jayde wasn’t in any rush to end it either. We seized every moment like this that we could. Knowing that is was more valuable than any amount of riches the world could hold. I wouldn’t trade this for anything. 

“All better?” I eventually asked. 

“Mhm,” Jayde confirmed with a small nod, bringing her hands up to rest on top of mine, “All better.” 

[annerb-fic]

What’s your writing process like?

A hot mess.

No, seriously. It’s a complete mess, but it’s my mess, tailored to me perfectly, and I think that’s the big battle with writing–coming up with a system that works for you, and being able to deal with it and modify when it stops working for you.

Here are my current eleven painful steps to writing a fic:

1. Conception - I daydream a lot. Like, while I’m falling asleep at night, while I’m doing the dishes, taking a shower, commuting to work, running an errand, sitting through boring meetings, I’m constantly running scenes and imagining snippets in my head. This is usually when a new story idea hits me. So I daydream about it for a long time. I start collecting emotions and visualizing moments. A lot of ideas die at this point, getting lost in the chaos of life or just not capturing my attention long term. The ones that do though, eventually crystallize enough that I feel compelled to start actually writing it down.

2. The Mad Scramble - At this point, I open a document and word vomit. It’s a scramble, to try to purge all those various imaginings and scenes and snippets of dialog and feelings and just get them down as fast as possible before they fade or I forget them. Totally out of order, totally unconnected, just vomit, vomit, vomit. Interspersed with brainstorming, since most of my stories are AU, I’ll just write long narratives of where are we, what has changed, why, and often the ideas change and evolve as I am writing them down. That doesn’t make sense, what about this instead? What would happen if that happened? In this phase I try very hard not to edit myself. I always know I can come back later and massage and edit. Again, a lot of stories die in this phase. Or fizzle out and get chucked back in the writing file as another idea starts taking over my daydreaming.

3. Rough Skeleton - After a lot of word vomiting, I usually pull back a bit to try to wrest some sort of logical order. Usually this just means shifting things around so there is a Point A: where the story starts, a Point B: what is the big dramatic beat where conflict erupts?, and a Point C: where are we when it ends? Often these specific three scenes are the first to get written, even if never in their final form. This starts to crystallize the overall journey of the fic. What is the plot change? What is the emotional change? What is the character change? And since I write mostly ship fic: how has the relationship evolved by the end? This is usually the point I can start imagining titles, which lets me know that I kind of know what the point of the fic is.

4. Useless Puttering - Now I descend back into my favorite past time: daydreaming. I imagine scenes, once again totally out of order, but that fill in between Point A and Point B, and Point B and Point C. Other important beats get established. I just dream up dialog and scenes and imagine emotions, and things just happen. Some of them get down on paper again. Not necessarily in their final place, but I get the most important dramatic beats in between the main points. The story is now full of unhelpful notes like: Have Hermione show up here and say something that makes Harry think about blah blah. Or, don’t forget that Ron is still mad at Ginny here. Was blah blah ever explained? And my least favorite placeholder: kissage. Stuff I will go back later and deal with but don’t want to now. I pretty much let myself write whatever the hell I want at this phase (the ‘good’ bits), knowing I can come back to things later. Momentum is too important here.

5. Rereading - Now comes the phase I get stuck in endlessly. At this point, I start obsessively rereading what I’ve already written. On a good day, that means I will start editing and filling out and toning some things down (my first word vomit versions are usually over-the-top DRAMATIC), pulling threads through the fic as I go along, making sure the emotional beats are going in a believable and satisfying way. Chapters start to form if there are going to be chapters. But more often than not I just re-read and re-read with very little changes. This is another big stall out point for me.

6. Walk Away - With almost every story at this point I feel the need to walk away from the story. I get bored with it after re-reading it so many times. I get frustrated. I run out of ideas and I generally stop caring about it. I have to admit, quite a few stories die at this point. And sometimes for good reason. (This is also where I start whining to people who are kind enough to listen, as I am sure @bethanyactually and @weatheredskies and @runawaymarbles can attest.) This is a really good point to put it away and just ignore it. My daydreams go somewhere else (and inevitably this is where my next story is born). When I was writing The Changeling and hit this point, this is where the majority of the Armistice Series was born. When I was stalled out on pick it up, this is where my coffeehouse AU was born. It’s good palette cleanser. Sometimes this lasts a few days, a week, a month. For The Changeling that one time, it lasted A YEAR. (Though there were other Real Life considerations influencing that as well.) I fill out a lot of memes at this point. Get caught up with asks and comments. I read other people’s fic.

7. Hello, Old Friend - If I’ve been away long enough, coming back to the story for a fresh re-read is like coming home to an old friend. Hey, this isn’t as bad as I thought! I really like this bit here. And this new wave of energy comes up. I start daydreaming again, I re-read and modify as I go, and the story starts to fill in more and more. I start getting antsy to share it with people. I might give small snippets to my long-suffering friends who listened to all my complaining.

8. Pen and Ink - At some point the second honeymoon ends, and I start getting frustrated with the document, feel overwhelmed trying to wrap my brain around things. Depending on the size of the story, this might be post-it notes and outlining time, where I use color coded paper and/or pens to make sure there is balance between narrative POVs and plots and themes and whatever threads are being dragged through the fic. I will also hit a point when I can’t edit on the computer anymore and I print out a chapter. I will take that chapter with me to a coffee shop, pull out obnoxiously garish pens, and write all over it. This is how I know I am very nearly there. I will scribble that print out to death. I take a break again here, and then come back and input the edits on my computer. Sometimes the process has to be repeated, but more often than not, the chapter is now in rough draft format.

9. Betas Are a Writer’s Best Friend - At this point I upload the chapter/story to a google doc to share with a beta. For Armistice, I am spoiled enough to have four (!!) people looking at chapters for me right now. One is a literal Squee Beta. She reads it and squees at me and helps me believe that it is not complete garbage. Another is a beta who is very willing to completely disagree with all my life choices, which I find hugely helpful because I have to justify my choices and admit when I’m being lazy–this often leads to disgruntled rewrites that make the story better. My two original betas are great at not just grammar (which boy do I need) and catching mistakes here and there, but discussing character beats and plot points, and asking me questions, and being endlessly willing to just talk about the story with me. (How are there people this awesome that exist?)

10. Final Edits - Sometimes the final edits are painless, but often there is some melodramatic whinging on my part at this point and some rewrites, as I battle the need to just be done with it and getting it done right. Though I am also known for sitting on a final draft far too long. Like, maybe not making a single change for a week, but still not just POSTING it. Again replying to asks and getting caught up on comment replies is my best stall tactic. (hmmmm…)

11. Posting - I usually do this when I am completely sick of the chapter/story. That lets me know I am done. I am no longer daydreaming about that part of the story. I don’t want to talk about it anymore. It becomes this immutable canon-like thing in my head that can’t be changed anymore. So, I post it. And then spend the next day a total and complete wreck as I wait for validation of some sort. If I’m lucky, I get some, ride a high for a few days, and then back to Step 5 for the next chapter, because, boy, if they liked that, I can’t wait to share this next bit with them.

The End

[decaffeinatedcatastrope]

Sorry for not posting much this week, it’s the busy season at my workplace and I’ve been doing 60′s!  Mostly just teaching people how to not be stupid or lazy.

Anyway, have this snippet from the fic-in-progress; Red and Sans meet for the first time.  

aka: Sans is pissed that he got blamed for dumb stuff Red did, got thrown in jail for three days, and wants to ‘talk’ to Red.

aka:  Red thinks Sans is gonna kill him (he’s not) and falls off a roof, and Sans gets threatened with dick biting.

There’s some weird perspective shifts, since Red still thinks of himself as Sans at this point in time.  There’s also some Papyrus being a cutiepie.

warnings:  cursing and injury

‘should be a good haul this time’  Sans thought with a grin, as he practically jingled with loot he’d lifted off random humans around town.  Cash and coins were all well and good, but so many humans only carried those stupid plastic cards protected by PIN codes that were completely useless to him.  So, he’d moved on to sneaking off with watches and jewelry, sometimes whole handbags and even sunglasses.  So many humans owned stupidly expensive pieces of garbage.

The door to the pawn shop beeped as he entered, and the pawn broker, Johan, beamed at him.  He’d become a regular in the past few months, and the shady little shit of a man never questioned exactly where he’d gotten all his loot.  Sans swore he’d stolen the same custom Rolex off three different people already.  But as long as he got paid...

“’ey bud.  got some good stuff for ya.”  Sans sauntered up to the counter and began to empty his pockets.  

The door beeped again, another customer, but no one got in line behind him, so he ignored it.  He was well disguised enough now that he didn’t worry about getting recognized.  Curiously, he plucked a ring out of the pile of shit he’d stolen before the broker could snatch it away.  Thick band, gold with a ruby red gem.  Fake, but pretty.  Some kind of class ring or something, probably not worth much.  

It fit on his middle phalanx nicely, and he just grinned as Johan gave him an incredulous look.  “Cheap.  It suits you.”  He replied, mildly amused.

“fuck you too bud.”  Sans grumbled, also amused.  He felt pretty good today.  Less pain.  Today was gonna be a good--

He jolted as he felt himself being checked, and barely stopped it before it completed.  Whoever had entered the store was a monster, and one with shitty manners at that.  Hardly anyone just randomly checked him anymore, unless he freaked them out.

Curling in on himself, Sans hid his hands in his pockets and looked over his shoulder.  He didn’t see anyone, but he knew they were there.  He could feel them staring daggers into his back.  “...hey, i’ll be outta yer way in a sec.”

Johan was just finishing up the tally on his haul before dumping it all into a box and setting the case full of cash on the desk.  “Alright, I can give you 250 for all of--”

“250?  the fuck man, you know that watch is worth at least a hundred on its’ own.  350.”  Sans snapped.  

Johan rolled his eyes and sighed.  “Fine, you’re right.  300?”  

“fine, you frugal ass.  gimme.  ‘m in a rush.”  Sans held out his hand for the cash, and as soon as Johan was done counting, he turned to leave.   “alright i’m out.  see ya.”

“Until next time, friend!  Maybe rob a Hot Topic this time so you don’t smell so much like a fast food dumpster!”  Johan called after him, laughing.  Sans snarled and flipped him off, before taking all of three steps before he ran right into whoever had checked him.  

Sans glanced down to see his alternate in all his short, shitty glory glaring up at him, his sockets dark.  Welp.  “...hey buddy.  i think you and me need to have a talk.”  Spoke an all too familiar baritone.  Just barely an octave deeper than his own.  

Of course it has to be him.  Fuck this day.  Fuck me.  Just fuck.  Sans paused for just a second before shoving his alternate out of the way and bolting for the door.  

“shit shit SHIT.”  He hissed, slamming through the door and running for the corner, before he felt himself bodily flung against the side of the pawn shop, held there with blue magic.  “fuck, why did it have to be him!”  

“well that was rude.”  Other Sans replied, approaching him cautiously.  His left eye was blazing with magic, and he hardly looked like he was putting any effort into keeping Sans pinned.  It was actually infuriating how easy the weakass bastard made using Blue Magic look.

“the fuck’s your problem, man?  put me down.”  Sans demanded, trying to play the ‘i have no idea what’s going on so you better stop’ card.  Hopefully his hood was keeping his face hidden.  

Other Sans caught his bluff and simply scoffed.

“nah.  you and me, we’re gonna have a chat.  if you behave, maybe i’ll put you down.  but maybe not, since you’ve got some pretty heavy LV going on there.  you’re probably pretty dangerous, actually.”  Other Sans commented.  

Sans flinched.  He’d stopped the check, when had he...?  Oh god, was this Sans also The Judge?  The cold, knowing look he was getting told him that yes, this was The Judge of this world and his ass was getting Judged real hard.

Sans tried to speak, to say something, to do something, but he was panicking.  The way he was now, he was way too weak to do much damage, even backed by strong intent.  But all it would take was one hit, just one, his alternate only had one HP.  But...he didn’t want to do that.  What kind of damage to the timeline would that cause?  What would happen to him if the anomaly reset while he was here?

Other Sans raised a brow bone at his silence.  “...uh, you okay there pal?  you’re looking a little rattled.  heh.”  He asked, sounding almost concerned.  Almost.

‘do something anything fuck fuck FUCK’  Sans’ mind finally screamed at him, and he delved into what little magic he’d stored back up.  His alternate jumped in shock before being thrown across the street into traffic, causing his hold on Sans to falter.  Unfortunately, Sans’ own hold failed not long after, letting his alternate shortcut safely out of the way of a passing truck.

“shit.”  Sans whispered, ducking into the alleyway before forcing himself into his own shortcut.  Just getting on top of the building hurt like a bitch and made his soul scream in protest, and he barely rolled out of the way in time to dodge a set of bones flung at him with surprising accuracy.  For someone with such shitty stats, Other Sans sure seemed to have good aim.  

It took him another moment to realize that now he was actually being attacked by his alternate, and decided he’d probably pissed the smaller skeleton off enough to be worried.  Another set of bones came a second later, and he took off sprinting across the roof.  There was a pop as his alternate appeared behind him, and Sans managed to escape another attempted pin by shoving Other Sans back with his own Blue Magic.  But his alternate barely stumbled.

He was nearly at the edge of the roof when a wall of bones shot up to block him.  Out of instinct, he pulled himself into another shortcut - at least, he tried, before he felt the most god awful stabbing pain in his chest and he screamed.  His magic had refused, and he tumbled into the bone attacks before slipping off the roof.  

Looking back, he barely caught the shocked look on his alternates face before he crashed against the railing of a fire escape, bounced off a closed dumpster, and tumbled onto the asphalt to lie in a heap.  

Everything was pain.  Drawing in air for non-existent lungs was pain.  Trying to moan in pain was pain.  He shuddered and felt the tingle of shortcut magic shoot up his spine, his soul screaming at him for magic he wasn’t using.

“--oh fuck.  i thought you’d shortcut around them, not run right through them, geez.”  His alternate whispered harshly, tentatively reaching out to touch his shoulder.  “i’m sorry, i just--”

Sans snarled, and snapped his teeth in an attempt to bite the little fucker’s hand.  “don’t fuckin’ touch me, you little bitch.”  He hissed.

His alternate pulled back and glared at him.  “wow, aren’t you just a ray of sunshine?”  He spat.  “sorry for actually worrying about you, asshole.”  

Sans managed to choke out a laugh.  “y-you should be sorry.  for being a f-fuckin’ creampuff.”  He shook with the effort of talking, and everything was just...pain.  Why did this hurt so much??  “...although, for someone with only 1 ATK, this...hurts.  a lot.”

His alternate actually looked...remorseful?  “that’s because of your LV.  only one attack, but it hits you once for every LV you have.  So, five bone attacks multiplied by your 13 LV--”

“i know basic math, dipshit.” Sans coughed.  He tried to get up, and cried out in agony as his bad arm gave out.  His alternate had the gall to try and hold him down.  

“don’t move, you also took some pretty nasty damage in the fall.  just, uh, don’t try to bite me again.”  Other Sans let him go after a moment, and pulled a monster candy out of his pocket, offering them to him.  “here.”

Sans’ soul clenched at the sight.  He wanted to, he knew that the candy was full of magic he so desperately needed, but he also knew it’d probably kill him at this point.    “god no, please.  no monster food.  i can’t.”  He moaned, almost sobbing.

His alternate pulled back in confusion.  “what?  you need to heal, this’ll--”  

“i know what it does, i just - i can’t take it.  yer fuckin’ creampuff magic is trying to kill me.”  Sans explained.  It didn’t seem to help.  “ugh, i’m not...from here.  this universe.  so turns out, my magic is different enough from yours that they’re incompatible, or some shit.  i dunno...”  He felt something in him give way, and everything went dark for a moment.  But at least the pain stopped.  

Wait, that was probably bad.

“...so you are me.  how did you even - wait don’t fall asleep, you gotta stay - oh fuck.”  

---------

Holy crap, so this was actually Sans’ alternate from another timeline.  Or universe.  An entirely different set of timelines, so different that he said his magic couldn’t even process their food.  And he’d probably just killed him by chasing him off the side of a building.

“paps, it’s near the pawn shop.  yeah, i’m fine.  i’ll explain everything in the car, just hurry.”  Hanging up the phone, he cautiously gave the other skeleton a quick check, since he couldn’t just cheat his way out of it this time.

Sans

LV: 13

ATK: 60 DEF: 10

HP: 12/145

*His bark is worse than his bite.

Sans grimaced.  Just...what kind of twisted hell verse did this guy come from, where any version of himself was forced to have so much LV?  At least his HP seemed to finally stabilize.  He sighed, deciding that there wasn’t much else to do but wait for Papyrus, since he’d figured a shortcut would probably do more damage than good.  

Cautiously, he reached out and touched one of his Other’s distal phalanges.  The ends were slightly darker, curled into barely noticeable claws.  He wore a well-worn leather jacket that held the lingering scent of Dust that he’d hoped would stay in his nightmares.  

And his teeth, they were jagged and pointed, one of them having been knocked clean out at one point to be replaced with a false, gold one.  The bone around the area was still cracked, and Sans hoped that was from the fall rather than being a lingering injury - it wouldn’t scar like that unless it’d had to heal the natural way.  The long and painful way.  

It...hurt, to see someone, anyone, this...worn down.  And yet...he couldn’t ignore that LV.  There was no way anyone got that amount of EXP just by defending themselves.  And yet, his alternate hadn’t attacked him.  Actually, no one had been attacked.  It would’ve been on the news.  And, if he was correct in thinking that this was the suspicious ‘doppelganger’ that’d gotten him thrown in jail for three days for missing curfew too many times, he’d clearly been here for months already.  But where?

Then he realized.  The pawn broker had taunted him about smelling like a dumpster.  He’d...he’d been on the streets for months.  Had resorted to petty thievery to survive.   Was literally starving to dust because of some kind of...magical incompatibility?  Sans jumped when the skeleton in front of him groaned.

“hey, don’t move too much.  you passed out.”  He said, his tone as gentle as possible.  It didn’t stop the doppelganger from jolting and struggling to scoot away from him, staring at him and at his surroundings in confusion.  In complete terror.  

“it’s okay.  you’re okay.”  Sans assured him, and his Other focused on him for a moment before slumping in exhaustion.  Sans noticed his eyelights, the normal ones, were red instead of white.  Maybe another result of his LV twisting his magic?   He certainly recalled Frisk’s eyes having a crimson glint in the bad timelines...

“...ugh.  well, ‘m still alive, so...i’m guessin’ yer not gonna kill me.”  His alternate whispered, his voice hardly audible.  Sans looked heartbroken.  

“no, i’m not going to kill you.  also, what the heck kind of accent is that?”   He asked, genuinely curious.  Maybe he could make light of this situation, kind of put him at ease.  The doppelganger snorted.

“...picked it up off mobster movies, to sound intimidating.  it, uh, kinda stuck.”  He replied quietly, and Sans was surprised to hear just how similar they sounded when his Other got rid of the accent.  Similar, but different enough.

“whoa, that’s...so weird.  to hear you talk in my voice.”  He commented.  

“that’s my voice, you asshole.”  And the accent was back.  Along with the anger.  

Sans shook his head.  “stars, are you what i would’ve sounded like if Paps hadn’t forced the swear jar on me?”  

His Other stared at him in shock, and after a moment he realized it was because he’d mentioned Papyrus.  “do...do you have a Papyrus?”  The doppelganger’s eyelights went out, and he started to shake a little.  Sans backpedaled, holding his hands up in apology.  “hey, s-sorry i mentioned--”

“yeah.  yeah i do.”  His alternate choked on the words.  “i...i was hopin’ to avoid yours.  i miss paps so much.  he’s still...back home.”  

“...oh.  i’m sorry.  i can’t imagine...”

His alternate let out a shuddering sigh.  “it - it’s fine.  he probably doesn’t even care that i’m gone.  probably thinks i’m dust.  he’s better off.”

Whoa.  Hearing that shook Sans to his very soul.  It just sounded so wrong, Papyrus would never just...not care.  About him.  They were brothers.  “that’s not - stop.  don’t think like that, i’m sure he’s worried about you.”  Sans tried to assure him, and his alternate just gave him an empty laugh.

“that’s a nice thought, princess.  i dunno what yer paps is like, but sounds like he’s a lot better than mine...”

“that’s not what i meant, your brother can’t be that--”

“SANS!”  Papyrus ran towards them, before skidding to a stop at the sight of the other skeleton.  “WHAT...SANS, WHAT HAPPENED??”

“it’s...a long story, bro.  just help me get him home, he’s hurt pretty bad.”  Sans said, getting to his feet.  His doppelganger didn’t even try to fight him when he looped an arm around him, he was too busy staring at Papyrus.  

Papyrus shook himself out of his shock to help Sans lift the stranger.  “WHY ARE THEY INJURED??  AND...A SKELETON?”  He asked.  Sans ignored him to wheeze at the effort it took to lift his doppelganger.  

“oof, why the fuck are you so heavy?” He asked, only to wince when Paps glared at him.  “LANGUAGE, SANS!  ...HE IS ODDLY HEAVY FOR A SKELETON.”

“oh for fucks sake, let go of me you absolute fuckin’ weenies.”  Sans’ alternate snarled, and the brothers jumped back in shock.

It took some effort, especially with his injured arm and barely being able to stand, but the doppelganger finally managed to shrug off his jacket.  It landed on the pavement with a disconcertingly heavy ‘thud’, and the brothers looked between the jacket and it’s owner for a few moments before Papyrus reached out to grab Sans’ other before he toppled over again.

“what the heck is that thing lined with, concrete?”  Sans asked incredulously.  

“special metalized-polymer i developed back in my lab days.  stronger than concrete but heavy as shit.”  The doppelganger panted slightly, before yelping when Papyrus picked him up bridal style, his face flushed faintly with red magic.  He seemed so much...smaller without the jacket, too.  More similar to himself.

“WOWIE!  THAT WAS CERTAINLY WHY YOU WERE SO HEAVY, YOU HARDLY WEIGH ANYTHING WITHOUT IT!!”  Papyrus chimed, before heading towards the car.  

Sans looked back at the jacket for brief moment, before turning to follow.  

“you better not leave my fuckin’ jacket back there you dick!”  “LANGUAGE!”

Flinching, Sans rolled his eye lights and retrieved his Other’s coat.  It must’ve weighed 100 pounds, at least.  Thankfully, Paps had the trunk open and he wasted no time hefting the stupid thing into it.  Panting, he headed towards the passenger seat before he noticed his brother shaking his head and pointing to the back.  

“i can’t sit back there, the uh...our friend is back there.”   He said through the door.  

“BECAUSE HE IS INJURED, I DON’T WANT HIM TO ACCIDENTALLY ROLL OFF AND HARM HIMSELF FURTHER.”  

“sooo...?”

“SANS, JUST SIT BACK THERE AND HOLD ONTO HIM, PLEASE.  YOU SAID IT IS URGENT THAT WE GET HIM HOME AND, WELL...”  Papyrus fidgeted shyly.  

“ah, right.”  Paps was...well, to call him a hazard behind the wheel was a understatement.  Sans opened the door to find himself being glared at by his flustered alternate.  “heh...hehe, you’re lookin’ a little red there, bud.”

“shut the fuck up and get in before i die in your brother’s car.”

“PLEASE DO NOT DIE IN MY CAR.  OR ANYWHERE ELSE FOR THAT MATTER.”  Papyrus tensed, upset.  

Sans shoved his alternate further into the car so he could sit and put on his seatbelt.  His other elbowed him in the knee, before scooting back so his skull was resting on Sans’ leg slightly.  Sans raised a brow bone at him curiously.  “...w...what are you doing?”

“makin’ sure i can bite you in the dick if you let me fall on the floor.”  

Sans tensed, his look shifting to one of horror.  “wh - i don’t even have it - what the actual fuck is wrong with you??”  

“LANGUAGE, SANS!  AND DO NOT BITE ANYONE, Uh.”

“...let’s just call him Red, bro.”  

“that’s not my name.”  

“do you wanna tell him your name?  be my guest.”

“...name’s Red.”

“HELLO RED!  PLEASE REFRAIN FROM ACTUALLY BITING ANYONE, ESPECIALLY IN...INAPPROPRIATE PLACES.  LIKE MY CAR.”  

Sans’ doppelganger, now dubbed Red, broke out into wheezy laughter at Papyrus’ statement, before whispering “oh my god, creampuff, he’s precious.”

“Paps can you please just drive?  now??”  Sans hissed, his face dusted with blue.