#I was just working on my HoW fic and this manifested itself on the page

[devil-doll13]

Wild Imagination

(Brahms x Nanny!Reader)

Tw: G/N reader, I just use ‘nanny’ as a catchall term, Angst, Typical Jealousy/Possessiveness, Stalking, a.k.a Brahms being Brahms, Alcohol Mention, also sort of a character study? Idk

So I remember I said something about writing for Brahms and this is sort of a warmup/experiment for him! This is fairly short too, so I may or may not make a followup but for now have this.

Dividers by delishlydelightfuldividers

Brahms is fascinated by you.

This is understandable; you are a kind, attractive person, and he has rarely seen those not only as fantasy manifested in the pages of a novel.

But it is also simply because you are you, and uniquely so. All of your preferences, habits, interests; every minute detail he commits to heart.

Brahms likes routine. Brahms likes structure. He watches closely and memorises you as if you are his favourite story; playing those special little moments over and over again in his head.

Only, in his make-believe world, he is right there with you. In spirit, he always is; the doll is by your side, therefore he is as well. He cherishes your presence within his home, he loves your cooking if only because it is made with genuine care, he enjoys your piano playing, whether masterful or amateurish. He falls asleep - however awkward his position behind the walls might be - to your soothing voice reciting poetry to the doll, as if those porcelain eyelids might be closed.

But that isn’t the same as being with you truly, really, physically. That doll; his child persona, is a barrier separating you from him, perhaps even more than his place between his walls. All his little games he likes to play, you assume to be nothing more than a figment of your wild imagination. He has become so attached to you, but you don’t even know he exists.

Sometimes Brahms wonders what it would be like to be with you as the man. To welcome you into his home, as he should have when you were hired. To play the violin or cello or piano for you and impress you with his musical virtuosity. To hold you in his arms - a real human being, not only a sub-par effigy of your likeness - and softly read along with you. To conceal a laugh at your momentary fright as his cold hands run goosebumps down your spine. To be your Darcy or Rochester or Heathcliff.

But… No. He must be good. He must stay hidden.

He reminds himself of this every passing day, but by every passing day his desire to have you see him, as Brahms, in the flesh and blood and sweat, grows stronger and stronger.

His need for this surges, rather violently, when he sees you smiling and laughing with that damn Malcolm - only at the door, because you are a good nanny and follow the rules as you should - for he is reminded so unpleasantly that you will never smile or laugh for him. Not for him, not for Brahms the man, flesh and blood and sweat.

Brahms’ resentment for this fact soon bubbles over, soon he feels a sort of hateful jealousy directed at that doll and how beloved it is; for he is not scarred or ‘odd’ or wrong, not a failure of a son or a disappointment. He is ‘Brahms,’ without flaws, without blemishes, without room to embarrass or bring shame. Silent and perfect forever.

Now he cocoons you in his wool knit cardigan, safe from the outside world. Although you might struggle, he knows you need him as much as he needs you; you must, for all the nights you have imbibed wine and spilled your deepest secrets to him. To the doll, to a figment of your imagination. But it was him the whole time, and now he has revealed himself to you for you to love as deeply as you did that broken bundle of porcelain.

He loves you. You do too, right?

I didn’t tag any of my usuals bc I didn’t know who would want it but lmk if you want to be on my slasher x list!

[myevilmouse]

I finished re-reading Dis Manibus for the hundredth time, and it’s still 100/100. You made me enjoy Luke as a character, and I think you really highlighted his compassion and gentleness, which not all stories do well. I also loved the Thryce, of course.

Two questions, if you don’t mind: 1) At the end, is Luke coming to like Pryce due to the residual influence of Thrawn, or does he genuinely like her as a person? Maybe a bit of both? 2) I vaguely remember a sequel being mentioned on your blog. Do you still intend to write one someday?

Thank you so much for this amazing note @mireilleblue! So happy to hear Dis Manibus holds up on the rereads!  And your words about Luke and Thryce just turn me into a puddle of happiness.

I do not mind questions at all (I love asks!) and in this case you gave me an excuse to talk about a fic that is a fave!  It was such an unexpected story that really wrote itself, and it was a real pleasure to get it on the digital “page.”

I am putting the answers to your questions below the cut because there be spoilers if anyone hasn’t read the fic! Anyone who would like to, please come back later and... 😊

So to your first question, the answer is definitely “a little bit of both.”  My idea was that Luke, being Luke, can see the good in everyone, including Pryce.  Early on, he believes she can be reformed and forgiven, even if she doesn’t see that as a real possibility.  He admires her resilience and skills, and because he is so compassionate, he tries not to judge her for the sins of her past (even though he does have initial reservations about it, he is able to trust in the Force enough to let them go).

But when he wakes up after hosting Thrawn, there is most definitely some spiritual residue coloring his perception, as you know.  Our first hint is this line:

“Something twinged inside him, an immediate sense of concern. Luke wasn’t quite sure where it came from.”

And then it continues to manifest in subtle ways, from being warmed by her compliments, his reaction to her touch, the way he knows how she wants to argue as if they had done it “a thousand times”, etc. 

Luke has the presence of mind to recognize these traces of Thrawn, and while Pryce doesn’t understand it, she also obviously senses something isn’t quite right when he “sounds like” Thrawn.

Poor Luke, complicating his own life to help others (he’s good at that).  But as the ending indicates, he’s ultimately at peace with how things turned out.  However, my intention with the last line regarding Luke’s dreams.was to suggest that Thrawn’s psychic residue may be quite a bit stronger than expected.

Now…about that sequel...

I think at this point it’s fair to say I probably will write it. I went into a lot of detail about it in this old post below (another wonderful ask from @beebee-76) that you can read if you would like spoilers for what is to come.

If you don't want to spoil it, I'll give some more general thoughts:

The point of Dis Manibus was, as I mention in that above post, to get Luke and Pryce to hook up…that was my original and only intention, and well, you can see that didn’t work out (not that I am complaining!  I love when stories write themselves).  But I do feel like there is more to Luke & Pryce's story, especially now that we know a little bit of Thrawn’s influence and love has seeped into our handsome Jedi’s soul.

So the sequel would explore that.  When I came up with the concept for the sequel, fully formed like Athena from the head of Zeus, I decided “well, if I just type it up for everyone on the Thryce Discord, then I won’t have any more desire to write it.”  Well hah, the joke is on me because this is one plot bunny that is not leaving my pasture, just hopping about, grazing, and reminded me occasionally that there is a rich and emotionally very complicated tale to be told. 

In the meantime, if you’d like more Dis Manibus content, I wrote a little drabble from the "someday sequel" here:

and the amazing @blackmonitor did some glorious fanart inspired by it here.

Thank you again so much for this wonderful ask and your kind words—it just makes my week to know you still love it! Readers like you are gifts. Please have this pic in gratitude!

[narcissa-black-supermacy]

So, I gave holli a whole list with things preventing me from writing the fic I'm working on. But I think I need your help too? Since you're the Black family specialist (I agree with holli, we need a better name) I hope you can help me with these things :)

The Black Family library. Would you be able to take books away from it and bring them with you? Like would Sirius be able to take books with him to Hogwarts?

What kind of prejudices would Sirius still hold in 6th year? And would he realise that he has them?

In this, Sirius is more dark leaning. He struggles with the differences between his and James's magical alignments (James is more light leaning). How would that manifest itself?

Feel free to ignore this, but any and all ideas are welcomed :))

okokokok (trying not to jump at point 3 bc its one of my fav tropes)

Ohmygod. THE FREAKING LIBRARY. So. Libraries in ancient pure-blooded households are one of my faaaav things in fics. (I am writing that Voldemort Wins AU which we talked about rn, and it also has a huge emphasis on the library, since a lot of it takes place in 12GP, so I've been working with it a lot lately). So since 12GP is more space-limited than, say, Malfoy Manor, or the Manor Cygnus and Druella live in, I think rooms like the Library would have room enlargement charms on them. It would have a huge tall ceiling and rows and rows of tall bookshelves with ancient books in many many languages. Think like... tall gothic church ceilings, stained glass, statues of gargoyles that guard the restricted Dark Magic section. A huge lounge in the middle with sofas, chairs, a chandelier. I think most rooms have wards on them, so nobody is allowed into Orion's study, private bedrooms, etc. The library probably has wards too, but more extensive, something along the lines of "anybody who's family or a guest can enter", but "only family can borrow books" and "only x specific people can borrow books from the restricted section". If you borrow a book and don't return it, the pages are charmed to go blank and it becomes useless. If the book lands in the hands of someone it's charmed to be protected against (muggles, enemies of the family), same thing happen, or worse (like it sets itself on fire). (imagine Remus touching a book Sirius brought with him and it starts screaming at him because it's charmed against beasts). Walburga is the only one who's allowed into specific parts of the Dark Magic section, because she's petty like that, and at a certain point she extended the access onto Regulus as well when he asked very nicely. If you try to enter the restricted section without permission or take a book from it, the gargoyle statues wake up and attack you. Or like... plants, ivies? suddenly grow taller, grab you by the limbs. Fun. Lots of room for imagination. Love libraries.

This is a fun one :D Classism, number 1, above anything. Snape's Worst Memory happens when they're all around 16, nearing 17. There are no poor people in Sirius' immediate proximity, he is not exposed to that in any way. James is a rich pure-blood, Peter is presumably not from a poor family either. Now, Remus - people tend to forget - is only poor as an adult; as a kid, his dad also comes from a pure-blooded family with enough wealth, they are not Blacks or Potters-level rich, but Remus did not grow up poor. Snape is poor by muggle standards, not like the Weasleys who are poor for the Malfoys but can still afford to dress, feed and send all their kids to school, and travel to Egypt. Growing up like this, it shapes your entire personality. Neither of the MWPP seem to even remotely acknowledge that. Every Snape vs Marauders interaction in canon just.... drips with classism. The comments about his clothes, his nose, his appearance, calling him names. I think if Snape was a pure-blooded, rich, attractive guy, this dynamic would look so so different. Intellectualism, number 2. Sirius is not just smart, he is effortlessly smart. Going back to SWM in canon, James and Sirius in particular keep making fun of Peter for not getting things, or having difficulty with the exam. They both have the kind of gifted intelligence where they don't have to work hard for it like Peter or Remus, I think Sirius at 16 years old still does not understand that some people genuinely struggle with concepts that seem easy and effortless to him. "how can you not get something so simple?"; "don't be an idiot!" number 3, let's just call it popular guy syndrome? James and Sirius both have this issue - they are both very popular from day one, their names are recognizable, they are good at school, good at Quidditch, girls adore them, they are very attractive, very magically powerful... Just the whole package. They do have the whole bully aspect to them, even if it's not on purpose, it gives off a feeling that's a little intimidating to other students. I think that while James would try to use it in favor of making others feel more welcome, become a captain, head boy, etc, Sirius would be a little more reserved, more picky about who he lets into his inner circle, more mean to people he does not like who "want in" on their inside jokes and projects that he considers private. He will be very protective of his little friend group, which will come off a bit as a mean, intimidating popular guy.

Oh my GOD. This. This one right here, is something I love exploring SO much and NEVER see anywhere. Because this would be a thing, I think this would be their biggest and only fall-out, during the war, because James is SUCH a "black and white" kind of guy, while Sirius is literally Mr. "the world isn't split into good people and Death Eaters, Harry". James would be 100% against Unforgivables, against torture, a "we are not like them" kind of person, while Sirius is a "fight fire with fire" and "an eye for an eye" kind of fighter. I can see them having this argument all the time, the "if we don't kill them back, we will never win" argument vs "if we do that, we become just like them". Therefore, situations where they catch a Death Eater, for instance, and Sirius wants to use more unconventional methods of torture, so they keep arguing. Or using curses that kill (not necessary Avada, but powerful explosions, fire, curses bordering on dark magic) during battles. I would love to see one particular instance of it when James chooses a light spell, and the guy survives and later severely injures and almost kills one of them, so Sirius kills him. So they keep going back and forth between "if you just weren't so stubborn and self-righteous, and killed him on spot, this would not have happened!" and "this is not the way, I barely recognize you anymore!"

This is so long, I'm sorryyyy ;;w;;

[caparrucia]

🤗🎉📚

🤗 What advice would you give to new fanfic writers that are just getting started?

I know this is hysterical and borderline hypocritical coming from me, but here goes:

If you find yourself trapped in an inescapable worldbuilding spiral where you're too busy figuring out the world to tell an actual story? You don't have a story.

Scrap it and start over.

With the caveat: there's nothing wrong with doing worldbuilding for fun and taking the time to explore your setting and make it your own, but in my experience, people who are too focused trying to pin down how their world works and making charts and lists and maps and bestiaries, before writing at least an outline or a first draft? Those are people who don't actually have a story to tell and won't ever actually do.

All those pieces of media you remember fondly, with the million worldbuilding addons that explore the world and give it more context? You're missing the part where the only reason you cared about it, is because you learned about it from the story itself. From its characters and actions. Worldbuilding that does not directly impact your story in some capacity is literal deadweight, a shower thought made manifest.

Work on your characters. Work on your story. Figure out the exciting, important bits and write THOSE. The world building will come naturally as you set the stage for the cool thing you want to write, as opposed to writing the world's most elaborate stage for two people standing awkwardly in the middle of it, talking in plain monotones about the pointlessness of the weather.

(Caveat of the caveat: write whatever the fuck you want and whatever makes you happy, but like. That's my hot take. Worldbuilding serves the story, not the other way around. I've seen far too many people desperately frustrated with themselves, unable to figure out why they're so good at worldbuilding, but when it comes to writing the story, they can't force the words onto the page and they almost always never realize on their own that they've forgotten to actually think up a story to go with their worlds.)

🎉 What leads you to consider a fic a success?

I got to post it on AO3! Mostly I write a lot and discard even more. I'm not very attached to my own words, until I make them public and then they're... out there! On their own! So I'm always a little giddy when I wrap up something and manage to get it ready to be posted on AO3. Everything else? Reception/metrics/popularity/comments... all of that is a nice bonus. The main thing is, I got it out! So that's the mountain I climbed and everything else is just a celebration.

📚 Would you ever want to turn writing into a career?

I very much would not! To put it blithely but very bluntly:

I worked in the publishing industry in my early 20s, all set to start a writer's career. I wrote columns and published articles and was doing the whole philology and theology thing for real.

And the things I saw in there?

Yeah, I moved onto the financial industry instead because it seemed more humane.

Yes, the financial industry I am liable to start ranting at the drop of a hat about how it is secretly the source of all the evil in the world.

Yep.

Better for my mental health and overall health than the publishing industry.

I have massive respect for people who do writing for a living. I do! But I know for a fact that's not a thing I want to spend the rest of my life doing. I don't need to be paid to write, in so far that I have a full time job and I am more than happy to keep my writing as a hobby. That's how I'm happy and I'm not liable to change that any time soon!

[altschmerzes]

Hi! For some reason, your Locked Tomb resurrection story has constantly been on my mind ever since I first read it a few weeks ago. I don't have an Ao3 account (yet) so it took me a while to find the fic (once the brain worms got too intense and I knew I had to reread or I would go insane)- but I am so glad I did!

A bunch of my jumbled thoughts about it:

Marta is suddenly a really interesting character?? I will admit, she didn't really captivate me that much when I read the actual books but the way she's portrayed in this fic made me abruptly care a lot about her. I'm really curious to see how she will contribute to the story going forward

Magnus and Abigail, on the other hand, I did very much care about on the first read of TLT and your fic only made me love them more! IDK what it is about their characterization, I just felt like they brought a very distinct warmth to the scenes, and it made the moments where their grief shows through all the more poignant. Their relationship with the fourth house teens is obviously completely heartbreaking (one thing that each of the reunion scenes with them had in common was that they all made me fucking cry) and it just makes for the perfect combination of hurt and healing. It's the amount of love and care that they have for those kids and the way that it pains them to see them suffering- more importantly it's the fact that you wrote a story that could make me feel this way about people who aren't even real. So much talent T_T

There is too much hate in this fandom directed towards one (1) child cult leader with serious issues, and it sure isn't Harrow

Your story is one of the few that actually aligns with my interpretation of Silas Octakiseron. And does it well. The guilt and the repression and the need to repent for every action and the justifications...it all shows up in the way that you wrote him, and it shows up perfectly. I honestly don't know what you're going to do with Silas next, but whatever it is I know that it will be cleverly devised and I cannot wait.

Harrow....baby....I can't even

She's so alone and just completely undone by Gideon's loss...any fics that take place right after the conclusion of Gideon the Ninth must be hard to tackle because of how apparent Gideon's absence is. It manifests itself in so many ways in this one, but in Harrow most of all. She's lost her sense of purpose, and so she needs another one. She finds an anchor in the task of resurrecting people, and she seems to be at least alive on a functional level right now- but it does make me wonder what will happen after all of this is done. Where will Harrow even go? What will she do? Will she have the strength to do anything any more, or will she spend the rest of her life repenting for all of the ways in which she failed Gideon?

(Silas parallels, yet again ^^^)

The only minor complaint I have about this story at all is that the timeline is kind of confusing (probably just a me thing TBH. I don't read into this stuff very well) and I don't really get how much time passes between each of the resurrections. Like is it only a few hours or a day or so etc.?

And I have so many more thoughts. My brain is literally about to split. Now you can see why this could not fit into a single Ao3 comment

In conclusion: absolutely scrumptious fic, nourished the Locked Tomb brain worms more than sufficiently and managed to go beyond recommended levels of both hurt and comfort just to spite me, an inferior author of both, with how it can be done near perfectly. The day that the next chapter comes out I will become the absolute most annoying version of myself and it may even be enough to cure my depression. Or make it worse. Either works, as long as it's as remarkable as everything you've written so far!!

SO SORRY IT TOOK ME SO LONG TO ANSWER THIS i had like paragraphs typed out and then my page refreshed and i had to wallow in misery for a week

ANYWAYS. thank you for this. thank you so so so so much for this. this message is beyond delightful, i am so floored that my little story has been enough to spark this many thoughts in you. i'm responding at length to the stuff you've said (AGAIN. THANK YOU FOR IT. I GO NUTS FOR THE ABILITY TO TALK ABT MY PROJECTS LIKE THIS) so it's under a cut because it got,,,, long sldkf

marta!!!! i'm SO glad that she's a character i've made you care about in this fic, and that my take on silas strikes true for you. those two are my little pile of personal high investment blorbos. the second and the eighth are My Little Guys and i'm absolutely obsessed. they weren't there much in the books, for obvious reasons, but what WAS there got me so good and now i can't stop rotating them in my brain. i keep waffling on whether my take on silas particularly makes.... sense? so i'm always thrilled to hear when someone enjoys my presentation of him.

especially bc that like....... captivates me. the parallels between silas and harrow, both that exist and that sit sorta just past the presented in what can be extrapolated. it makes me want to chew drywall. the parallels, the reflections. (the siken quote right - they are the same and they are not the same. they are the same and they hate each other for it.) i could write one million words about these two and then write one million more after that. this fic is a little window into all of my very big and very complicated feelings about silas and harrow and the potential of putting them in a room and making them deal with each other. augh.

AND THE FIFTH...... i'm SO glad they had the impact i wanted them to here, that was part of why i sent abigail with harrow in her journeys through the penumbra. i'm a big believer in dark or sad or difficult stories needing moments to breathe and take a second, to show that there ARE good things in this world and this life. it makes the absence of those things or when the sources of those things are hurt hit that much harder. i'm SO thrilled i could manage to get you to feel even MORE abt them and their relationship with the fourth. that whole thing makes me SO upset especially getting to contrast the fifth and the way they interact with the fourth and how the fourth view them back, and how they've impacted the fourth's view of the world. and then the way that the other teens and young people around here - you've got 17 year old harrow, 16 year old silas, 18 year old gideon, judith is in her early 20s, even the sixth are like. baby years old and they're doing better than some of the others but oy vey.

the fourth feel so much different than the others and it's not just about their age, they're not that much younger than harrow. silas is only two years older than jeannemary. they're so different and it's not because they're so young, though that is a factor. it's that they're young in a way that harrow and gideon, and by extrapolation the others, just never got to be. because they had magnus and abigail, and that made a world of difference. im SO deep in my feelings about it 100% of the time.

about the timeline - i promise that's a bigol 'it's not you it's me' moment sdlkfjsd, that's my big flaw in writing XD i can either nail down the setting or the timeline but never both. if i have a coherent setting, i have no idea what day it is. if i have a concrete timeline woven into the narrative, the country it's set in slips out of my hands. such is the way!! at any rate, i don't even know what the timeline really is, but it's way closer to a couple of hours between resurrections at most.

again, seriously, thank you so so so so so so much for this. i can't put into words how beyond delighted this made me, and i've been reveling in it since i got it. the next chapter should be coming out soon (though i know i sound like a broken record about that by now lmao) and i really hope you enjoy it when it does!!! and i know this was a joke but don't let anything i've written discourage you from your own writing! i feel the same way so much of the time about other stuff i've read, and it feels so much better to turn it into motivation. like oh this is exactly what i want to do, what makes this work for me? etc. anyways. thank you so much, again. i'm so thrilled you liked it enough to write me a message like this about it. really, really made my week.

[poisonflowercorvidae]

Ready to drop the bomb: how exactly did Kade end up carrying? I mean, some have headcanons where reproduction between bots happen only with spark-spark interaction and others in which human style reproduction is also part of the process. I ignore if mass displacement is possible (or if Kade ended up burrowing the minimazer)

Also, will these two ever bond? Like, make it official "this is my husband/conjux, hands off"

Those are some things I intentionally left vague.

Despite the fics I currently have up relying on sparklings being a thing for plot, they aren't really a normal part of my headcanon for Transformers media. I was less interested in the mechanics of how it all works than the consequences and implications of it happening. I also wasn't particularly interested in the debate over whether Cybertronians interface in the human fashion either, though I think I may have implied they do for the sake of short-handing some things.

That being said, on how Kade ended up carrying, here are a few lines from the fic itself:

"I couldn’t carry a protoform in there. Had to infuse one externally with his spark when it emerged." -Kade, chapter 1

“Usually, between two Cybertronian creators, you have to have a spark merge for a newspark to kindle.” -Salvage, chapter 7

"A spark is like a bot’s soul, right? [...] Humans have been trying to answer the question of whether or not we have souls for years[...]. But Kade might just have proved it!" -Frankie

I think it's reasonable to assume, from these lines, that only spark merge is strictly necessary, but there is some mechanism by which Cybertronians can form/carry a protoform (since Kade has to specify that he could not), likely human-style reproduction since that's the common fanon. Despite humans not having a physically manifested soul in the form of a spark, the human soul is still capable of interacting with sparks in the way another spark would.

(I also thought about jokingly implying that residual spark energy from interface could mimic human genetic material, but I don't think that's substantiated by anything I wrote.)

As for conjunxing/bonding, I started writing My Other Half not long after encountering a discussion about how not everyone wants to get married, even if they experience romantic attraction, and how marriage shouldn't be considered the endgame for every successful relationship. They're together; they're on the same page, finally, about what their feelings are for each other and where they stand; that should be enough.

To get a little more into it, while I've seen a lot of fans treating conjunxing and bonding interchangeably, I tend to view them as different things. Conjunxing to me is closer to a formal, legal marriage, whereas bonding is a tangible, emotional connection of the souls. By the worldbuilding of my fic, humans are just barely starting to get rights on Cybertron by the end, and Cybertronians are still mostly a secret on Earth (therefore leaving their legal status ambiguous at best), they probably can't get legally married/conjunxed. As for bonding...if that's something that can happen in-universe, then I think one could easily read into some of the bits where Kade reads Heatwave's EM field or the emotional transference thing to mean that they're already bonded.

[comp-lady]

How long do you think it will take for you to finish An Empire From The Ashes Of Old? Anything special planned? 👀

Sorry this took so long to answer. You sent it in the middle of my work week, and with the holidays I'm lucky if I can even check my activity page lol

As for how long it might take to finish Empire? Hard to say. I mean it's over 60 chapters long and I've just hit the rough halfway point in writing it. It's been my focus during Nanowrimo this year, which definitely helped get a lot of those chapters out and done lmao. I'm hesitant to set an exact date though because like... that would require me to sit down, count out the rest of chapters, and figure out how they all fit into the posting schedule. Also what if I need to add a chapter? That would then set back that deadline. So who the fuck knows lmao

If you REALLY want a deadline I'll probably post one when I have all the chapters actually written and ready for editing/posting. But that won't be for a while.

Nano has been a STRUGGLE y'all

I do have fun stuff planned and they won't have to wait until Empire is done to see the light of day! If I only concentrated on Empire I think my ADHD would actually manifest a body for itself just so it could beat that shit out of me

BUT I'm planning on spending December getting a Ghost Christmas Carol fic written, hopefully done in time for me to post on Christmas. I also have a Secondo/Copia medieval arranged marriage au in the works. Plus a bunch of other WIPs I bounce between, some and shorter fics while others are longer. Once they're done or I have enough of a buffer written they'll get posted.

[sanitatemsss]

ABOUT ME

my name is jun but you are more than welcome to call me sani as well and i use he/him pronouns. here are some other things about me:

trans and mlm

korean-canadian

audhd (clint is one of my special interests)

this is not my main blog! i cannot reply or interact from this blog. that being said, i'm still getting used to tumblr as i've mostly been using it passively so please be patient as i try to work out formatting etc and just how i want my page to look overall

you can also find me on letterboxd and spotify

DNI

basic dni criteria (homophobic, racist, abliest, etc)

batcest shippers

proshippers

and here are just a few other things i enjoy:

video games: uncharted, re, jfo, tlou, tew, ff15

tv shows: twd, macgyver, manifest, the boys, wayne

movies: the old guard, saw, kingsman, pacrim, star wars

misc: dc, marvel, wallows

ABOUT MY WRITING

i can be a somewhat slow writer at times, however, i do like to have my fics fully or mostly completed before i start posting so if it's multi-chapter updates will be frequent

i also tend to write around my special interests/hyperfixations, that being said, here's what i'll likely write about a majority of the time: (will keep updated accordingly)

winterhawk

clint barton centric fics

parksborn

ocs (typically ocs in other media)

please note that whenever i write clint, it is his comics iteration. my parksborn writings are a jumble of the raimi, webb, insomnia, etc iterations. i typically don't write harry or peter outside of parksborn so i am never writing mcu peter

though i might be centered mostly on winterhawk and parksborn at the moment, please feel free to send an ask to see if i'd take a request/write for a specific fandom or pair as well, as i have a wide variety of interests

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[yostresswritinggirl]

Meister of the Stars

Genshin Impact College!AU but it’s in canon universe with canon elements

Otherwise: Hogwarts in Teyvat, Sumeru Academia

Welcome to Exiled’s first public domain post! What does that mean? Well that just means that this work is entirely repriseable and can be used by other authors for their own plots, fics, stories, or even AU characters. So long as you credit me appropriately by either tagging this post or just tagging my url hehe.

Why is this Public Domain? It’s too big and extensive of a plot for me to write alone and I’m sure other authors can do this plot justice than I do. Besides, with my schedule and writing manner, I won’t be delving into this plot anytime soon. Or at all.

Story Prologue Summary:

Sumeru Academia, the oasis of knowledge in the vast continent of Teyvat, is a constitution inhabiting scholars around the world. Within its walls harbors great minds and masters of elemental prowess and higher intelligence. Only select people can enter or even pass the trials of the scholars, some are gifted by invitation by the Headmaster and leader of the nation, the Dendro Archon.

When you had been gifted your Dendro Vision one day when you encountered and rejuvenated one of the many ley lines connecting the world together, it was guaranteed the next day that you were to receive a letter by a majestic hawk: within its claws it clutched a cured scroll, locked by a tie and the logo of Dendro, and the insignia of the famed Academia.

The Archon, shut and reserved as he may be, he knows and keeps close the gifted ones who received a sprinkle of his power.

Sumeru Academia does not value itself with how long you had been under scholarly guidance, students are not recognized by how many years they have been in the constitution, no. Instead the students are split into three different systems of prestige: elemental, mastery, and admission.

Elemental System separates students into different, well, elements corresponding to their Visions: Dendro, Pyro, Cryo, Hydro, Electro, Geo and Anemo. There are no titles do scholars who enter the Academia, but scholarly jargons had opted for either ‘awakening’ or ‘waiting shell’, because more often than not, many scholars had been blessed while inside the walls of the Academia, as well as the obvious fact that being blessed by a Vision comes at a natural time and age in your life.

Mastery System comes in four main hierarchies and two sub-categories, all of which are determined by the Trials of the Scholars upon being allowed admission into the Academia. The four main hierarchies are classified by prestige stars or which the amount you are allowed pinned on your Academian sash:

Six stars are those who come near the grace of Celestia’s understanding of the universe, very rarely are scholars placed into this category, and many scholars even dispute the existence of such a class. However, they do exist as they are honored by the God of Wisdom himself deeming them to carry the blessings of the wisdoms from the stars. A Six star only comes one in a generation, some say. Many speculations linked to this class are supernatural and absurd rumors.

Five stars are those who master the flow of their visions powered by their undeniable talents in their major scholarly interest, renowned as true geniuses of their professions, a lot of them turn into prodigies after leaving the Academia and even serving under ruling kingdoms with high roles.

Four stars are the base level a Vision-holder can reach and is the starting system for said Vision-holders; even tho this is the default level of Vision holders, wielders of Visions in Academia are not to be trifled with, as they are expected to exceed their mastery over Vision-holders residing outside the Academia.

Three stars are non-Vision scholars that have an adeptness in both academics and weapon mastery, they are proficient in combat prowess enough to par those who have basic grasp of their Visions outside of the Academia. Most three star scholars are also known to have a higher chance of receiving their Visions.

There has been no record of Two Stars or One Star scholars in the records of the Academia.

Sub-category of the Mastery System are reliant on physical properties of a scholar: Adepts are those with mixed blood with mystical beings of the continent, or simply put, scholars that are not just of mortal origins. Mortals are simply normal mortals. These sub-category, meaningless as it may seem, are actually used to observe patterns for research purposes regarding power and skill differences.

Admission System is the plainest and easiest judge for all scholars and is not that much given attention to unlike the other systems, except for the last one. Entrance Admission simply means you have taken the appropriate customary tests of the mind, body and element (if you are a Vision-wielder) and passed the marks to enter the Academia. Letter of Recommendation means that you were either transferred from another academy besides Sumeru or some prestigious bloodline convinced the headmasters of Sumeru to allow such easy admission. Meisters are those who wield Dendro Visions with full potential, invited by the Dendro Archon himself to join the ranks of the Academia.

During the Rite of Prominence in the main hall of the Academia, the Dendro Archon descends from his temple to hold this important annual event for new scholars, together with the Headmasters. Rite of Prominence is where new scholars are given their first prestige systems, and those who are convinced to have ascended gets their new titles.

Your knees almost buckled when your name echoed through the wide building, calling you upon the presence of the Headmasters to finally receive your classification. Your first friend and fellow newcomer Chongyun pats you in the back, urging you to approach the aisle that leads to the stage up front. His smile was enough to push your legs to a subtle tremble as you made your way through the carpeted path, standing before the Headmasters.

There was a beat of silence and unmoving, and then the Headmaster starts to raise his hand- before the Dendro Archon himself suddenly stands up from his large throne of a seat at the very back. The movement caused a series of gasps to erupt from the scholars and staff behind you, and you must have hallucinated one from the cloaked Headmasters, as the God of Wisdom made his way to stand in front of you.

His presence was both ethereal and overwhelming as his imposing figure looms over you. You politely raised your head to rest your view by the bridge of his nose, not wanting to offend by making direct contact. “Child,” he extends his large hand and you looked at it, “Your hand.” Your eyes fleet back to his with wary but his gaze softened in assurance. With a sharp inhale, you finally placed your hand into his-

And a burst of gold streams flew out from your connected hands, with enough force to send a pulse of a wave through the building. Hanging cloths were whisked by the elemental burst, flames of candles extinguished, as suddenly all the Visions in the building began glowing. You blinked the surge of nausea away, and it was only the Dendro Archon that noticed the golden glow that pulsed from your iris, and looked around in confusion.

“(Y/N) (L/N),” you felt the hand under your palm move away as six glowing rocks manifested and twirled around you. Scholars knowledgeable enough gasped once again at the sight. And you warily watched the glowing rocks forge themselves into star-shaped badges, slowing down as they descend in front of you and on to your palm. “Welcome to this new age, Six Stars Meister of the Stars.” And the hall blows into a series of thunderous claps.

(This area is a WIP)

In the back of the Ancient libraries of Sumeru Academia resides the domain of the record holder, and there upon are bookshelves of numerous records about every scholar that has been admitted into the Academia. Each book corresponds to a student and its first pages carry their basic information, however the pages after that are hexed with powerful lexical charms to make it unreadable to anyone that dare looks at the other pages:

Albedo: Geo Vision. A Five Star, Adept scholar who has been in the Academia for two years through a letter of recommendation. Albedo is a master of the sword too, but his expertise lies in his expert handling of the concept of Alchemy. Hailing from an unknown continent, Albedo aims to spread his knowledge and master it enough to become a Six Star, a prestige title his master once held before mysteriously disappearing. Upon your appearance, the master alchemist had been not so subtly observing and following you around whenever you were in the vicinity. You're not sure if you saw this right, but when you once had seen his passing look, you swore you saw a slight squint when he looks down at your sash.

Amber: Pyro Vision. A Four Star, Mortal hailing from Mondstadt. Her grandfather was an alumni of the Academia who mastered the arts of gliding, and was thus allowed the opportunity to accept his letter of recommendation for Amber when she reached the age of 15. She continued her grandfather's work in the Academia and carried the Outrider title, focusing on aerodynamics and her bow mastery. Seeing as she was around your age range but having been admitted years prior, Amber took it upon herself to tour you around the campus and also introduce you to her friends from Mond. During the weekends, you find yourself gliding over the university's towering buildings with her.

Baizhu

Beidou

Bennett

Chongyun: Cryo Vision. A Four Star, Mortal from Liyue with ties to the spiritual realm. His expertise in exorcism had earned him the title of Master of Spirits despite being a newcomer, and many of services are seeked out even in the new continent. With his mischievous Liyuean friends, he's seen roaming around the halls of the Academia during ungodly hours. Chongyun was your first friend in the Academia after you both rendezvous at the entrance as newcomers and finding solace with the company of each other. When you earned your Six Stars title, Chongyun had become protective of you yet still treated you as a normal friend, not wanting you to think he was only there for prestige. During random nights, you'd find yourself in the darkest and secluded areas of the Academia as he pulls you around with Xingqiu, hoping to find roaming spirits of scholars from years ago.

Collei

Cyno: Pyro Vision. A Five Star, Mortal that had been in the Sumeru Academia for years. He is one of the senior scholars and running for Headmaster after his graduation. In the Pyro Visions, he is one of the renowned masters of the element, and can usually be found tending the books of the ancient libraries of the Academia. As of Sumerian descent and strong ties with the Academia, under the buddy system Cyno became your senior buddy on your first year to make sure you do not incur a failing grade nor misunderstood the practices and customs of the Academia. Because of this, you meet with him daily for check-ups and tutoring.

Diluc

Fischl

Ganyu

Jean

Kaeya

Keqing

Lisa

Mona

Razor

Sucrose: Anemo Vision. A Four Star, Adept of an unknown cat species from Mondstadt. Master of Bio-Alchemy as renowned of her multiple contributions to the field, Sucrose made her way to Sumeru Academia at the news that it harbors the one and only Master of Alchemy in it. She passed the entrance exam with expected ease and has then exhausted the laboratories and resources of the Academia for her researches. You've ran into her once when you were lost in the halls of the large Academia, stumbling on her unsupervised experiments in one of the laboratories. Her cat ears caught your attention and had since then become engrossed in researching about it, with her next to you, you were both brought together into a friendship focused on nature and a thirst for discovery.

Tartaglia: Hydro Vision. A Five Star, Mortal that carried with him a different aura opposite of the stars. Childe entered the Academia after near perfecting all his scores in all the tests, before the Headmasters realized that he carried a letter of recommendation from the Tsaritsa, which was then useless by the time he revealed it. One of the few Masters of Hydro, Childe was more fond and known in the arts of combat, Warmonger was a title he was more confident in as he shows prowess in all weaponry he touches. When Childe heard about the existence of a Six Star, his first instinct was to test out the difference between him and the fabled child. But his mastery in combat alone was enough to show he was still ever more superior. Irked yet still curious of a hidden potential, Childe ended up tortur- tutoring you in mastering weapon proficiency. He manages to persuade you in his test spars (still looking for that six star glory) by a promise of an expensive dinner everytime. Damn rich people.

Venti: Anemo Vision. A Five Star, Adept that was personally invited by the Dendro Archon after his retirement from his position as archon of Mondstadt. Despite the idea being absolutely preposterous and against his principles, clearly he had nothing better to do, he was ultimately persuaded after hearing his fellow retired archon resided in the Academia as well. The Master of Winds and Weaver of Tales had become your partner in your Anemo classes, and what better way to teach you about Anemo than flinging you into the sky to 'feel the fresh air' up there? He'd always make sure that you were there everytime he performed for the Academia, and lingers around you whenever you were free just to loiter around before the next class.

Xiangling:

Xiao: Anemo Vision. Five Star, Adept that passed the examination in hopes to follow his master in search for the truth. Master of the Polearm is the title he boasts, and a lot of pupils under him are always devastated upon entering combat with him. Although he's only been there for a year, he has secretly been enjoying the new atmosphere. Xiao had noticed you during the Rite of Prominence when he felt the familiar touch of the Gods, and he had found that whenever you are near, there is a cleansing aura that silences the demonic whispers in his head. Ever since then he'd be found usually in your vicinity yet unapproaching, subtle. When Zhongli officially entrusted him of your safety during your stay in the Academia, he doesn't know whether to scuff or sigh in relief as he was finally introduced.

Xingqiu

Zhongli: Geo Vision. A Five Star Adept that was also invited by the God of Wisdom but was dependently persuaded by Venti. He carries with him 6000 years of knowledge and had since then assisted in collating those sacred years to be immortalized in the Academia's libraries. As the Wielder of Earth he prides himself with his elemental mastery despite the removal of his true power, and yet he is more known of his title as Historian of the Wars. Zhongli was no ordinary student, he carries himself like that of a Headmaster and yet he does not situate himself with matters of either scholar of staff interests. You encountered him during a nightly walk to calm yourself over the burden of your academics and Meister title, and his presence had been the best comfort. Ever since then you'd always find him when you need him, and he always helps you with any troubles, if you count a 500 words dialogue as such.

Storyline - Arcs

Arc Socrates : the foundation

i. Rite of Prominence - earning ones title

ii. Welcome to Sumeru Academia - the dormitories

iii. The Seven Majors - first classes for the seven corresponding elements

iv. Buddy System - newcomers are always paired with senior scholars on their first year in the Academia

v. Labyrinth - the libraries of Sumeru Academia is large and secretive, hence the perfect domain for treasure hunt exercises

vi. Combat Mastery - dive into the trials of weapons, another major

vii. Science Side of Sumeru (SSS) - numerous laboratories harbor different individuals and strands, from alchemy to biology to— wine-making?

ending. The Walk of Scholars - every midyear, scholars are entitled to a week long fieldtrip/vacation in the nation of Sumeru, beyond the walls of the Academia

Plato : the calling of the stars

i. The Midyear Examinations - annual exam to retest your standing in the Academia

ii. Divine Intervention - archonistic convention of a looming celestial presence

iii. The Leyline Disorder - a leyline in the Academia became corrupted, forcing a halt in the academics as malignous forces plague the Academia

iv. The First Miracle - as the Six Stars scholar with a touch blessed by the stars, you were the only one to succeed in repairing the problem

ending. Advancement of Medicine - after the First Miracle, the Six Star scholar was plagued with eternal sleep. With this new case, the Academia scrambles for medical intervention

*shrugs*

This is not a series I'll be working on, but may be referenced in oneshots in the future.

[callmearcturus]

here is ur obligatory invasive question on ur thots about The Jake English and his classpect

pls proceed to go feral ma'am

thanks babe

A few points to set up my thesis:

One: I love Calliope but I think her whole system of passive/active classes is kind of bullshit, which is totally fair because she's working with a very limited data set, how the fuck is she supposed to extrapolate so much from just the players she has access to information on

Two: when everyone says pages are a slow class, I don't buy that either really. I think Pages are served by their aspect. For Tavros, that manifested as a growing freedom from the quests and mechanics and shit that everyone else worried about in favor of what he wanted (to fly around prospit and communing with minions and shit). For Jake, his entire life is him being served by this glowy amorphous bullshit intuition power that even before he enters the game he's proficient in.

So I think the thing with Pages is that they are supposed to be on a slowly iterating, growing power curve because their power manifests more subtly that other classes but also their top potential limit is dramatically higher than others.

I made a remark in my Page writeup that a page spends their entire life sneaking treats to a monster under their bed, and that monster is devoted to the Page, and by the time a fucking full grown dragon shows up, everyone but the Page is like "where the fuck did THAT come from"

Three: This specifically manifests with Jake in the really really fucking long dirkjake log. Towards the end, as the illusion of the memory falls apart, BGD makes a crack about how Pages sure are a slow burning class.

But that's literally not what's happening in that log. At that point in Act 6 Act 3, Jake has spent the entirety of Act 6 just fucking wanting to talk to Dirk jesus fucking christ and getting waylaid over and over because of shit outside his control.

So when he goes to sleep, he proceeds to have a dream about a time Dirk did have time for him and was kind to him and told him stories and complimented him, for 34 fucking pages before the thing starts to shake apart.

Jake, Page of Hope, wanted Dirk to talk to him, so he sustained a dream bubble of Dirk talking to him for literally one of the longest logs in Whomstve,

and people fucking think Pages are slow on the uptake. No, they just get what they fucking want.

THIS is my point:

Jake is my favorite character in Whomstve in part because his power is subtle and all-encompassing and dangerous. And the slow power curve is necessary because when you take the fucking limiter off him, like Aranea does? The game strains to handle the force of him, and at that point Jake can't even handle his power, he is chained to a fucking comet of Bullshit God Power.

I said in Discord yesterday that:

Jake wants what he wants and expects to get it with just a blithe guilelessness that people mistake for ignorance, and the world itself bends in curvature to the weight of his desires.

And that's why he's the best character in Whomstve and if anyone was going to be The Peak Villain of the Epilogues it should have been him and my next fic has Jake as an anti-villain and I love him? I love him. I love him.

[perriewinklenerdie]

History repeats itself  (Ethan Ramsey x MC)

Open Heart, Ethan Ramsey x MC

A/N: Hi guys! I'm on a roll (it's that high that patients that are about to die experience right before they crash. Kinda fitting, giving the fact that I'm going to die tomorrow bc of OH, isn't it? :D), like back in the old, good days. This was a request made by a wonderfull Nonnie. Thank you so much for suggesting it! I hope you enjoy it and that I didn’t disappoint :D

This fic is part of the ESIMY series (Claire and Ethan met and got married before they started working together and that’s basically all you need to know, as the fic can be read as a separate work)

Tag list: @paleweasels, @kittykatchoices, @valiantlychaoticbarbarian, @radlovedreamer , @usuallyamazinglyaverage, @awhmilkywey @palestazure, @cordoniaqueensworld, @universallypizzataco, @princess-geek, @faithhasnowords, @mightyfangirlofthefandoms, @drakewalkerfantasy, @timmagicktoad, @laceandlula, @greywitchyshots, @llamasgrl, @gingerjane15, @bucket-harrington , @marywrites-things , @ethanplaysfavorites , @mfackenthal , @betelgeusebee , @simsvetements, @buzz-bee-buzz, @owleyes374, @cora-nova, @aworldoffandoms, @l822, @cream-ray, @ughhhxjazzy, @silverlitskies, @justendlesssummerfeels, @togetherwearerapture, @desmaranj, @edgiestwinter, @friedherringclodthing, @daisy-ashton, @waytooattuned, @choicesgremlin , @lapisreviewsstuff, @the-soot-sprite, @writerapprentice, @chasingrobbie, @choicesobsessedd, @x-kyne-x, @thisperfectmemory, @drakewalker04, @rookie-ramsey, @jlynn12273, @thepinknymph @dr-brianna-casey-valentine, @a-i-n-a-a-s-h @justanotherrookie @mvalentine @starrystarrytrouble 

  Enjoy! <3

-----------

Paging Dr. Ramsey to Dr. Banerji’s office.

He looked up from the article he was reading, expecting a message from his wife. They were supposed to go home soon, finishing her last day of work before she would go on maternal leave. The page didn’t read as urgent, and yet somehow, a shiver ran down his spine. He couldn’t explain it. Call it a hunch that made him abandon his work and rush through the halls of the hospital.

Naveen was waiting for him by the door, his expression gravely. The air in the room was so thick that Ethan, who was running, stopped abruptly in his tracks, feeling weight being slammed against his chest. He didn’t know what was happening yet, but it couldn’t have been anything good.

“Naveen?” he asked, walking closer, treading slowly and carefully, as though it would save him from the approaching heartbreak he could already feel. His friend sighed heavily, stepping towards to him and laying his hand on Ethan’s shoulder.

“You might want to sit down.”

“Tell me. I need to go pick Claire up from the locker room in five minutes.” He didn’t miss how his mentor’s face fell at the mention of her name, making his stomach drop in worry. “What happened?”

“Claire is being transferred to the OR as we speak.” He said, the next words being an almost exact echo of his own words years back. “She had a seizure, full eclampsia. We’re delivering the baby.”

------------

That day, from the very beginning, was a bust. Her head was pounding, slowly but surely rising and breaking through the threshold of her pain tolerance, causing her to reach out to her OB-GYN in search of any advice, along with some painkillers. Her vision was getting blurred around the sides from time to time, making it incredibly difficult to read charts or look her patients in the eye. Esme asked her about it, figuring out something was wrong when she misread the patient’s name while they were walking towards their room, but she dismissed her with a kind smile.

“That’s pregnancy for you.” she joked, seeing in her resident’s eyes that she didn’t believe her. Sighing heavily, she nodded. “Okay, it’s not typical. I- I would appreciate if you kept your eye on me today. I feel like something is about to go south and I’d like to avoid that.”

“Of course, I’ll watch you like a hawk.”

Light sensitivity came next. Supply closets were her biggest friends that day, providing with as much darkness as she wanted, blocking out any traces of light. She couldn’t barricade herself in there, no matter how much she’d want that, so she braced herself and pushed through.

She knew all those symptoms too well. She was, after all, treating her pre-eclampsia since it reared its ugly head three weeks ago. The moment she heard her diagnosis, she felt as though she has been struck by a lightning. It was the same diagnosis she gave Dolores not even three years ago.

Ethan wouldn’t survive it if this case ended the same way.

Claire was battling with herself. Should she tell him about it and let him worry about her every second of every day until she gave birth and the postpartum eclampsia was ruled out, or should she shoulder that weight on her own, treating it behind his back and praying that he’d never have to find out that the very same complication that took away his dear friend not that long ago, now threatened to take away his wife too.

She opted for something in between. There were symptoms that she couldn’t hide from him, about which they talked and she let him ask about them on their appointments. Dr. Weland, her OB-GYN, was aware of the whole situation, carefully formulating her answers for the first-time father.

It kept her up at night. She knew he would be scared, disappointed that she didn’t tell him, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. He’d lock them both up at home for the remainder of her pregnancy, with a private doctor at hand, and treat her with extra caution. But most of all, she didn’t want to see the panic in his eyes, which she knew she’d find there. He would stop sleeping, watching over her at every moment.

Dr. Weland expressed her concerns when she saw Claire that day, hence her asking Esme to keep an eye on her. It wouldn’t be wise to send her home; she would need help in case something went horribly wrong.

Three hours later, as though on cue, she felt pain in her stomach, right below her belly button. All the symptoms she’s been experiencing that day cumulated, striking her at once with double their force, bending her in half. Esme, who was just down the hall, called out her name, rushing towards her, just in time to catch her as she crashed towards the ground, her body shaking.

“She’s seizing! Page Dr. Banerji!” the resident shouted, taking care of the fallen doctor.

“What about Ramsey?” someone asked, pager in their hand.

“Do as I say!”

What happened next could only be described as a chain reaction, its magnitude that of an avalanche. Naveen was called, OR was ordered, Claire was moved onto the bed and wheeled away. The hardest was still ahead of them.

Ethan fell against the wall heavily, struggling to catch his breath. “What do you mean eclampsia? Did she have any symptoms before that? Did she know? Who found her?”

“Dr. Ortega. She probably has more answers for you than I do. Come on, we’ll talk to her and Dr. Weland.”

His every move felt as though there were two impossibly heavy bricks attached to his feet, and another three on his shoulders and his chest. Panic began rising in his chest, fighting the overwhelming urge to let the tears fall. Esme was waiting for them by the entrance to the OR, worry spelled on her face.

“Can someone tell me why my wife and my daughter are fighting for their lives in there?” he barked the question, shaking in emotional distress. Naveen placed his hand on his shoulder, asking him silently to let the doctors speak.

“She’s been not feeling well for the whole day. Asked me to keep an eye on her; she told me she felt like something was about to happen.” the youngest doctor explained, stepping away to make space for Dr. Weland.

“Claire was treating her pre-eclampsia for the past three and a half weeks. The symptoms you noticed and were asking about were all a part of it. She asked me to not tell you, hoping that she would be able to avoid developing eclampsia.”

Never before in his life had he looked up at someone so fast. “She knew? And she didn’t tell me?”

“Ethan, I know you’re angry but-“

“I’m not angry. Right now, I’m terrified, because my family is fighting for their lives and I’m here, instead of being by their side. Step aside, I’m scrubbing in.”

“No.” Naveen shook his head, pulling him aside firmly. “And you know why.”

“Move out of the way, Naveen, I’m going in there.”

“I’m going to lock you in my office if you don’t calm down. You won’t help anyone by being emotional and reckless. Breathe, son, they’re going to be alright.” Ethan’s breathing was treading on the line of hyperventilating, panic rising in his chest even more. At last, tears fell, two trails running down his cheeks. He fell into his friend’s embrace, sobbing like he hasn’t done in a very long time. Helplessness, anger at fate and at himself for not noticing it sooner. “Claire is a fighter, so are you, and so is your daughter. They’ll pull through.”

“The last time I had to give this diagnosis to a person I cared about was Dolores, and she was dead within ours. Don’t tell me to calm down.” He stumbled over his words, holding onto Naveen’s arms for dear life.

“This time will be different.”

---------------

Not even an hour passed before the surgery ended. It gave Ethan enough time to go over the last weeks, all the pieces falling together into one tragic picture. It was all there, right before his eyes. Edema on her hands and feet, which could be written off as a pregnancy symptom. Headaches plagued her quite often even before she was married, so he didn’t even bat an eye on it, maybe except for the intensity of them. Her nausea returned long after her morning sickness phase passed, but again, pregnancy manifested itself with a variety of things.

He blamed himself. After Dolores died, he thought he’d be able to see the symptoms and prevent it from getting worse, but when it mattered the most, with his own beloved wife, he failed to add two and two.

“Ethan, you can see them now. The baby is safe and healthy, Claire’s condition is under control, she’s stable and conscious.” Naveen called out for him, a small smile on his face spelled out relief.

Jumping to his feet, he ran towards them, catching the room number from a shouting Naveen, not waiting for anyone. Nurses and doctors moved out of his way, some of them knowing what happened, others having no idea but knowing better than to stand in Dr. Ramsey’s way.

The lights in the room were dimmed, curtains closed, providing privacy and peace. Ethan opened the door as quietly and gently as he could, his stare falling onto Claire immediately. She smiled at him lazily, watching his every move in anticipation. He strode towards her, sitting at the edge of the bed and taking her hand in his, rising it to his lips and kissing it, over and over again, saying silent prayers of gratitude. Tears started running down his cheeks again, wetting her skin, his shoulders shaking as he let out all the emotions.

“I’m sorry.” She whispered, choking on her words, her face wet with tears too. He looked up at her, shaking his head.

“No. It’s my fault. I- I somehow attract tragedy. My Mother, Naveen, Dolores… and now you.” She looked at him confused, not understanding his reasoning at first, only seconds later did she remember his thought process, her eyes filling with horror.

“Ethan, that’s none of your fault. I won’t be sitting here, letting you blame yourself for something completely out of your control.” She grabbed him by the sides of his face, hauling him onto her, pressing their lips together and lingering there, connecting them, again and again. “Your Mother wasn’t your fault.” Kiss on the nose. “Naveen wasn’t your fault.” Kiss on the forehead. “Dolores wasn’t your fault.” She kissed both his cheeks, catching his tears.  “I wasn’t your fault, and neither was she.” She cried, her voice getting thick from tears. Her head crooked towards his left, pointing towards their daughter.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” his words stabbed her like a knife that she herself was holding against her heart. She knew he’d ask, but she wasn’t prepared for it, no matter how many times she rehearsed it in her head.

“I didn’t want you to worry.” She explained after a moment, biting her lip in shame. “I thought if I can get through this and not have any complications, you’d never have to find out. Especially with how it ended for Dolores…”

“There isn’t a single thing in this world more important to me than you two. Whatever it is, however hard it gets, I want to be there for you. For both of you.”

Both of them cried silently, embracing each other as closely as they dared, refusing to let the other get away even for a mere inch. Silent comfort, not needing any words, only each other, alive and well.

The soft sound of wailing pulled them out of their little bubble, pulling their attention towards the crib by the bed. Ethan stood up, walking over to look inside, Claire peaking from her position on her bed.

A little girl was staring up at him, her eyes blue and curious. She couldn’t smile yet, but that didn’t mean that he couldn’t see how at peace she was. Perfectly fine.

His whole family was perfectly fine.

“Katherine…” he muttered, running the outer edge of his index finger along his daughter’s cheek softly.

“She looks like a Katherine to you?” Claire asked, humor in her voice. He nodded, turning to his wife. “I was thinking of Isabelle.”

“We can compromise.” He embraced her, kissing her head tenderly.

“Katherine Isabelle Ramsey. Perfect.”

[soshesighs]

Fic: Set The Bad Day By The Bed

Fandom: @speakergame

Pairing: Li/Speaker/Seb poly

Note: Title from the song “Orpheus” by Sara Bareilles. The line I wish I could use (but alas, you cannot use a whole line from a song for a title, as much as I might want to) and that I wanted to vaguely attempt to capture the feeling of in this little ficlet was “If the bottom drops out / I hope my love was someone else’s solid ground.” This is based on a conversation in the Speaker discord about which ROs would enjoy having their hair played with, so the original idea isn’t mine. (I imagine this being set when their relationship is all fairly new feeling, for some context.)

Lily Version here!

---

You startle suddenly from your daydream, feeling as much as hearing the front door slam, almost hard enough to rattle the house. Deft fingers briefly halt their ministrations as you strain to hear who it is that's arrived; you weren’t expecting any of your friends to drop by this afternoon.

A slight jingling, a heavy thunk as boots are set next to the door, and you instantly know who it is.

"He sounds upset," Sebastian murmurs, voice heavy, seconds from falling asleep. For a fleeting moment, your heart dances between feeling rightfully concerned and quietly pleased that you both immediately recognize your partner's footsteps; you can't help but be a little pleased at how far the three of you have come.

Concern eventually wins out, however, and your eyebrows furrow together as you hum a noise of agreement, leaning down to press a kiss to Sebastian’s brow as you think.

"It’s not like him to slam things around,” you agree. Your eyes bounce between the door to the bedroom and the man curled up by your side in bed, a debate warring internally. Sebastian is so content - finally allowing himself to relax some, even if he is still reading through your currently compiled case research - that you don’t want to disturb him.

But Sebastian, also ever observant, reaches a hand up to still the one of yours that’s still trailing through his hair, tilting his head up until his eyes meet yours. “Go,” he says simply.

You slump a bit, worrying your lower lip unintentionally. “But you just settled down,” you protest, sighing. “Besides, you know how he is. He needs his time. I imagine he’s heading to the library.”

As if a manifestation of your unease, your fingers begin to twirl a long strand of his hair again, unable to hold completely still. You respect the fact that Li needs time to himself to uncoil whatever aspect of his day has gripped him so harshly, but that doesn’t make it any easier to sit idly by.

The two of you sit there in heavy silence, the only sound the muffled turning of pages as Sebastian reads on for a solid 7 minutes, before he sighs and sets the file aside. After a pause, he says, not unkindly, “Your unease is slightly smothering, not that I’m able to focus much either. How about I make coffee and you can take some to him? If only one of us goes in, it shouldn't feel too intrusive."

If you practically bolt out of bed in eagerness, he doesn’t mention it, just chuckles to himself as he pushes up off the bed to follow.

---

A short while and one pot of hellish coffee brewed later, Sebastian sends you on your way. As you suspected, you spot Li’s silhouette curled up in a tight ball on a couch in the library. Not wanting to startle him by just appearing at his side, you knock softly on the archway until you get his attention.

His head snaps around harshly, deep, black eyes meeting yours from across the room. Even from here, you can see the bruise-like shadows beneath them, and you try to hold back from wincing sympathetically. To his credit, when he realizes it’s you, his eyes slip shut on a slow exhale, the slightest bit of tension leaving his body. After a second, he nods - the okay for you to come in.

You pad over, socked feet making only the softest muffled sound on the rugs. Coming up behind him, you slide a hand down over his shoulder from behind the couch and lean down to press a kiss to his hairline. His fingers grip the notebook and pen in his lap so tightly that his knuckles turn white, but you’re glad to see him writing. Hopefully it helps, you think to yourself, filing the information away to ask about later, if he’s willing to share.

“I won’t keep you,” you say, voice equally as quiet as your steps so as not to disturb him more than necessary. “But Bas made you coffee, so I wanted to bring it in while it was warm.”

He takes the cup and opens his mouth like there’s something he wants to say - like part of him wants to overflow and spill out whatever it is that’s strangling him inside - but nothing comes out. After a second, he gives the barest shake of his head, and you know for certain now that he needs more time.

You turn to go, but his hand rises up to cover yours on his chest, giving it a quick squeeze. “Thanks," he finally manages, his voice a bit hoarse from disuse.

“Of course, love. Anytime,” comes your gentle reply, and you hope he can hear the slight smile in your words and know that you’re fine - that everything is fine - and that you both understand. “Come find us in a bit, okay?”

He doesn’t reply again, but you don’t expect him to. Instead, you wait until he takes a sip and then head out, sliding your hand free of his embrace, content to leave him to his quiet meditation now that you’ve seen that he’s (at least physically) okay.

---

You barely step foot into the bedroom before you hear, “How is he?”

With a shrug, you crawl back up onto the bed, resuming your previously situated position against the headboard. “Exhausted, tense, locked up more than I’ve seen him in a while. But he was writing, which brings me some comfort. He says thank you for the coffee, by the way.”

Sebastian nods, a bit of a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Not in so many words, I presume.”

“No,” you concede, reaching out a hand to will him closer. “But I could tell he was grateful. And thank you for humoring me. I know you were about to nod off.”

He settles against your side once more, head resting in your lap. “It’s not humoring you if I’m just as concerned. It’s hard leaving someone you care about alone when they’re struggling. Besides, I can sleep whenever."

“You’d think after all these years, I’d have gotten used to it. He’s been like this ever since we were kids, but…” you drift off, struggling to find the words. After a moment, you shrug, shaking your head. "And don't give me that, Mister 'I'll sleep when I'm dead'! You have no idea how proud I was to get you to stop pacing and lie down."

He grins, hand reaching up to cup the nape of your neck and pull you down for a kiss. "I'll rest once I've read through all of this - how's that sound?"

"I'll believe it when I see it," you reply, lips still brushing against his in the ghost of a touch as you do, and you swallow down his replying smirk with another kiss.

Eventually - when the need to take a deep breath begins to win out over the need for each other - you separate, fingers smoothing a lock of his hair back behind his ear despite the fact that its currently messy state is entirely your fault. “I know what you’re trying to do,” you whisper, a sly smile working its way onto your face.

“And what is that?”

You sit up fully and tap a finger on the tip of his nose. “You’re using me to stall. Get to reading, mister. You promised me you’d rest after, and I fully intend to see that through.”

With an over-exaggerated roll of the eyes, Sebastian picks the file up off his stomach and flips back to where he previously had stopped reading. “What exactly are you going to be doing while I’m reading your notes then, hm?”

“Providing incentive, of course,” you reply, as if it should be completely obvious.

Eyebrows raised and feigning indifference, he asks, “Incentive, huh? Remunerative, coercive, moral-?” He flips a page, eyes trained coolly on the words before him and looking for all the world like he’s completely disinterested in your current conversation. “You’ll have to be more specific.”

You laugh and don’t even bother to reply, merely beginning to scratch at his scalp, focusing on where his hair had previously been gathered into his trademark ponytail. He bites back a moan, but very quickly makes every attempt to school his features into their previously neutral position. “You drive a hard bargain,” he admits, meeting your eyes and pursing his lips to bite back the smile threatening to reveal itself. “I suppose I have to accept.”

“I suppose you do,” you agree, blatant triumph shining through every word. In time, he relents and pulls his gaze away from yours, focusing back on the work that, unfortunately, must be done.

You settle swiftly into a routine after that, with Sebastian reading and flagging specific aspects that seem particularly important or promising and you bouncing between massaging his head and simply playing with his hair, humming softly as you do - a lullaby from your childhood, you realize, having subconsciously gone for something low and soothing.

Just when it seems that Sebastian might once more be about to nod off, a quiet knock sounds from the other side of the room. You immediately freeze, eyes wide and hopeful, as the door slides open.

“Liam,” you exhale, tension you hadn’t realized you were still holding flooding out from what feels like your very bones at the sight of him.

He holds up the now-empty coffee mug and gives it a shake before setting it down on the dresser, his long and lanky frame leaning heavily against the door jamb. “Finished. Thank you again.”

Sebastian yawns - a rare sight in and of itself - and nods in acknowledgement before turning to angle his body more towards him. “You don’t have to knock, you know. I don’t know how many times we have to tell you that we want you here before you believe us.”

And Li finally cracks a smile at that: a crooked, barely there thing, but it’s there all the same, and it feels like daylight breaking through a monsoon. “Thought someone might’ve finally convinced you to sleep. I didn’t want to wake either of you.”

“Working on it,” you reply faintly. In an echo of your earlier request to Sebastian, you hold out your hand to him, silently beckoning him forward to join the two of you - if he’s ready.

He hesitates a beat too long, and in those few seconds you convince yourself that he’s going to decline.

"It's okay," you whisper, letting your hand drop back to the bed. Liam's eyes follow, watching as you reflexively clench the comforter in your fist; sitting still, especially when stressed or upset, has never been your strong suit.

Adam's apple bobbing harshly, Liam swallows and shakes his head. "I'm sorry for shutting you out earlier."

He pauses again, and you try not to let your heart catch hopefully on that last word.

Sebastian also immediately picks up on the careful phrasing, knowing as well as you do that Li of all people rarely minces his words or says what he doesn't mean. "And now?" he asks simply, setting the file to the side. "Feeling any better?"

Liam ducks his head, hiding his softening expression. When he glances back up, his trademark tilted smile is back in place. "Got room for one more?"

---

“Do you want to talk about it?” you eventually ask, voice barely audible even in the quiet of the darkened room.

Liam tenses a bit from his position now lying at your other side, head pillowed on the thigh opposite Sebastian who has, at long last, finally fallen asleep. “No, not… not yet.”

“Alright, I understand.” You trail off, finding it hard to voice exactly what it is you want to say. Between the three of you, Liam is the one who has the gift with words; you’ve never been particularly eloquent in expressing your feelings. Ultimately, you settle on saying, “Just promise me you’d tell us if it was something serious - if you were hurt or you needed our help? We love you, Li.”

You look down to meet his eyes, holding his intense gaze in the hopes that you can impart how serious you are with every lingering second.

He tears his eyes away after a moment and reaches out to your hand lying in front of him on the bed, slowly and deliberately running his fingertips along your palm as if trying to memorize every dip and line and callus. “I’m not good at asking for help, you know that,” he admits carefully, somewhat reluctantly. “I take care of people, not the other way around. That’s how it’s always been.”

“You have us now,” you reply, gently combing the fingers of your free hand through his forest green locks, attempting to untangle the knots you know he must have formed earlier by anxiously tugging at it. “You don’t have to bear anything alone.”

Liam glances back over his shoulder at Sebastian, whose face is more relaxed and at peace than he’s looked in days now that he’s finally crashed, who is the first to sacrifice caring for his own well-being to do whatever he can to help the two of you and all of your friends, who quickly and quietly wormed his way into both your hearts until he was so deeply entrenched that neither of you can imagine life without him now. And then, he nods.

“Yeah, I think I’m starting to understand that now.”

[smorgasbordofobsessions]

liveblog: bnha/mha, vol. 1

i'm gonna assume that the chapters are the "normal" size for manga chapters, and just go by volume instead of chapters. also, i don't want to write over 300 posts.

ch.1

i know that kacchan is bakugou and i want you guys to know now that i already know that bakugou is gonna be in my top 3 favorite characters

yes, this is solely based off gifs but i can feel it in my gut

extra: "i'm sorry, sir... a villain appeared out of nowhere and smashed the train... i don't know when i can get to work..."

this is honestly the content i'm here for. i love the struggles of an extra.

midoriya is cute

kamui of the woods: "you're charged with unlawful use of a power during commuting hours..."

literally a different way of saying "disturbing the peace" but i'm actually sure - without knowing shit about the civil government in this series - that those are two different charges even though they're the same thing

the tree dude is giving me huge yamato vibes

oh heroes get income from the state??? i hope the benefits pacakge(s) are fucking amazing

kacchan! love this as a nickname for him

kacchan's a bully :(

oh well. they are only 14.

...you're really trying to tell me that doctors know if a person has a quirk by looking at the joint of a person's pinky toe? that's literally how they know (short of a manifestation itself)?

... i have no words for that, but i'm glad that just because this is a world with super powers, that doesn't mean that doctors are smart

i absolutely wish i had the self-determiantion of midoriya

all might had a very explosive entry into this comic haha

all might: "when next we meet, it'll be through a tv screen!"

all might: "pros must do battle with villains, and time itself."

oh kacchan and midoriya used to be best friends?

so now i fucking understand why people call this gaunt looking dude "all might"

so i'll assume that it gets explained at some point why it's only 3hrs he has of powers? or maybe that's his quirk itself, and he had a longer time period years ago?

if thats the case, that's like "tiger & bunny"

all might: "i won't denigrate dreaming. that being said... you need to see reality for what it is, kid"

midoriya: "my legs moved on their own!"

SASUKE?!?!!??!?

hm what the fuck is up with kacchan wow just say thanks for wanting to save my life

this is getting disgustingly long i'm sorry

ch. 2

all might is all tight!!!

all might: "there's a lot i keep close to the chest, but i don't tell lies

can all might devise me a training regimen because i need one

i'm so proud of midoriya. he's so committed. i really wish i could be like him

oh midoriya has to literally ingest all might's dna, interesting

ha! i'm sure there are fics out there where the ingestion was not food

ch. 3

please... i just want to know more about kacchan...

using mario characters in shadow form so you can't get sued - smart

napoleon bonaparte was a hero???

present mic: "and may you all suffer gladly the trials to come!"

i've never read mockingjay but this sounds like something from that series

all might: "when you use 'one for all,' clench your asshole super tight and scream the word from the bottom of your heart..."

this glasses duded said that he would've sacrificed himself to save someone if they weren't doing an exam and, hm, i smell bullshit, but okay

oh but he just realized that thhat might've been the point of the test, so, kudos

midoriya got into yuuei!!!

ch. 5

we love supportive mothers!!!

kacchan is not happy!!! that midoriya got into yuuei

imagine you had a teacher that literally rolled into class in a sleeping bag drinking a capri-sun

oh wow aizawa has expelled 154 students goddamn

this is a character i absolutely recognize since i see him on my dash all the time

ch. 6

i was literally just thinking that we need character profiles

shooting lasers from your navel... intersting

though, also gives a fun new meaning to "navel gazing" haha

...curious as to why you would erase a person's quirk, belittle them, then give it back?

then again, this method os.. teaching? motivation? has never appealed to me

midoriya concentrated his power into the tip of his finger and the last second. thats my boy!!!!!

ch. 7

aizawa's quirk only works if his eyes are open

he must drink eye drops

the results are in! no one is expelled, but midoriya is definitely last

todoroki is icy hot and he's 2nd

kacchan's third, glasses dude fourth, the gravity girl is tenth, and the only reason i recognize mineta is because i read his wiki page but he came in 19th

midoriya accepting a belittling nickname because a girl said she liked it wow

what does "deku" mean if it's a belittling nickname?

midoriya knows about past participles!!! love him for that

that's so cool the students got to choose their own costumes/uniforms!

kacchan looks great

honestly i have such a heavy bias for kacchan because i feel like i know him much better than anyone in the series! again, i see him a lot on my dash, so that familiarity with him makes me like him

but also he's My Type of character, so even if i had never seen him before i'd be into him

ch. 7.5

yes character profiles!

midoriya likes katsudon and he's great for that as well

ohmygod midoriya and ichigo share a birthday!!!!!

about kacchan: "originally, while still a natural born genius, he was also airheaded enough to inadvertently be hurting others without any malicious intent. then i realized that was lame, so i just went foll bore and made him explosively rotten and detestable."

the definition of some of my favrite character types haha

ochako's bday is dec 27, neat!

[myfavbau]

twisted fate. (1)

a/n: thought of this idea yesterday and felt inspired! i’m thinking of turning it into a series

also this fic is loosely based on episode 4x01: Mayhem  

She could feel her steps landing against the white tiles of the hospital, but she barely registered the sound. Instead, her body made its way to the woman sitting at the reception desk.

A young female with a nametag reading ‘Carla’ was in the middle of her work, when a figure covered in blood making its way toward her got her attention.

“Hello? Excuse me ma’am?” the woman said, trying to get Y/N’s attention.

Y/N could see her moving her lips, but she couldn’t quite make out what she was saying. The ringing in her ear was growing sharper by the second.

It confused her.

She tilted her head as if it would help her hear the receptionist any better.

Instead, the small action only moved to worsen her migraine, as she took a step closer to the counter in order to steady herself.

Everything was going in slow motion.

Her ears were still ringing.

Carla was already paging for a nurse when Y/N lost her footing, falling to the floor and crashing into a cart of medical supplies. 

“Ma’am, can you hear me? I need a nurse at the front desk on level 4. We’ve got a Code 10, I need a nurse, ASAP!”

Y/N had already closed her eyes, darkness overtaking her vision.

_________________________________________________________________

Spencer raced over to the hospital as fast as he could. He was almost sprinting down the halls until he approached a reception desk. 

Surrounding the desk was crashed cart and splotches of blood on the ground, that were being cleaned up with a wet mop.

He walked up the receptionist with his badge.

“I’m Doctor Spencer Reid with the FBI. Two other agents were brought to this hospital. I need to find out where they are.”

The woman gave his badge a glance before turning to her computer and clicking a few buttons.

“Agent Hotchner is currently about to undergo surgery while Agent L/N was taken to Room 407.”

Spencer needed to talk to Hotch before he went into surgery.

“Where is Agent Hotchner right now? I need to talk to him,” He told her.

“Well, if you’re lucky, you’ll get a couple of minutes with him. He’s in the OR down the hall.”

“Thanks,” Spencer nodded, before sprinting his way to the end of the corridor.

He found Hotch attempting to take his mask off while the nurses were trying to instruct him to put it back on.

He flashed them his badge, before requesting them to let him talk to his Unit Chief.

“You got 3 minutes. If the doc walks in here we’re gonna have to take him,” one of the nurses told him.

He nodded his head, before turning to Hotch. But before he could even speak, Hotch started talking.

“Spencer, I need you to listen to me. I don’t have a lot of time.”

Spencer nodded, letting him continue.

“Where’s Y/N? She’s gonna go into shock. She was so busy trying to keep me alive that her mind didn’t even get a chance to process what happened.”

“They’re taking a look at her right now,” Reid told him.

“No, Spencer, you need to be there. The shock isn’t good for her, combined with the fact that we’re in a goddamn hospital-”

“Wait, what does the act that we’re in a hospital have to do with anything?” Spencer interrupted.

“ S-She has a fear of hospitals. Hates them,” the sedatives were starting to kick in at this point, but Hotch wasn’t finished yet.

Spencer wondered how Hotch knew that. Hell, Spencer was her best friend and even he didn’t know that about her, but he guessed that was how they were; the bond between Hotch and L/N always had been different, something deeper than just being teammates.

“Reid, she’s going to try to fight you. Help her. Please, take care of her.”

“I will,” The young man said. 

“No, I need you to promise me, Spencer. Promise me you’ll take care of her.” The man in front of Spencer looked so desperate at that moment that it shocked him; he had never seen his unit chief so… vulnerable.

“I promise.”

Spencer watched as Hotch let the nurses replace his mask, and he was wheeled away. 

------------------------------------------------

When Spencer arrived at Y/N’s room, he saw Y/N just barely waking up. He walked up to her side.

“Well, look who’s up,” he smiled. “Let me go get a nurse.”

A nurse came in from the hallway. The sweet African-American woman started checking all of Y/N’s monitors before turning to her patient.

“You gave us quite a scare there, Missy,” she joked. “You’ve been unconscious for more than an hour now.”

Y/N’s immediate instinct was to move to sit up, to which the doctor had to stop her. Her mind was still struggling to catch up with the events leading up to her passing out.

Suddenly, her eyes shot open as she tried to get up again, remembering something.

“M-My partner… w-we were in an explosion. I-I need to f-find him.”

“Y/N, you’re still in shock,” Spencer told her. “I just talked Hotch, they were talking him into surgery.”

The nurse spoke up, “Yeah, it might take a while. Hopefully your friend’s a fighter though.”

Y/N looked frantically between Spencer and the woman.

“And how long will that take?” she asked, worried.

It seemed that part of her shock was manifesting itself in the form of separation anxiety, Spencer noted. His best friend was also speaking louder than necessary, likely due to the ringing in her ears (which was a little funny) but also didn’t go unnoticed by him.

“I can’t be sure, honey. I wish I could say,” the nurse said, looking at the girl in front of her sympathetically.

Spencer thanked the nurse and stepped out briefly in order to discuss with her the extent of Y/N’s injuries.

When he walked back in, the beeping monitor got his attention. Y/N had ripped out all the wires that previously been attached to her. Now, she was limping around the room, apparently looking for something.

“I can’t find my clothes. Can someone please give me my clothes?” She yelled.

‘Oh, boy,’ Spencer thought.

He put his hands on her shoulders, turning her so that she was facing him.

“Woah, woah. Settle down, Y/N. You can’t go anywhere until you’re cleared.”

“But we’re in the middle of a case!”

“Yes, I know that, Y/N. But you’re hurt. The doctor says that lost a lot of blood. They had to pull shrapnel out of your leg, and you’ve got three broken ribs.” He told her. “Not to mention that you’ve head trauma and the twenty-two stitches in your side.”

Apparently, Y/N decided that she wanted to be stubborn about it.

“Spence, I’m fine.”

Luckily, Spencer knew how to deal with her when she got like this.

“Oh yeah? Then walk towards me.” 

Spencer stood a couple of feet away from her, challenging her. Y/n took a tentative step her limp evident. She started to take her next step when she felt the stitches in her side and her legs gave out from under her. Fortunately, Spencer was there to catch her before she could actually fall.

She thanked him, before taking a seat on the side of her hospital bed so that she could take a minute and catch her breath.

Spencer didn’t want her to feel so defeated, so offered her a deal.

“How about this: if you don’t leave and rest like you’re supposed to, then, when the team gets here, I’ll get the doctors to sign your papers. Sounds good?”

“Will you stay here with me?” Spencer could how hard she was trying, not even bringing up her fear of hospitals. Sometimes, he wished she didn’t act so strong all the time, and just let people take care of her. But oh well, old habits die hard.

“If you want me to, of course, I will,” he told her.  

“Okay,” said Y/N with a small smile, settling into her hospital bed, the exhaustion and the sedatives causing sleep to overtake her.

[renaerys]

PPG One-Shot: Blowing Off Steam (Brick/Blossom)

@carriedreamerx and @kiebs have been hard at work these last couple of days drawing some really pretty art over on IG for various of our collective fics (check out their IGs, the art is super gorgeous). Since I have the artistic skills of a rock, I thought I’d say thanks with some Reds fight-and-make-out fic! This is an excerpt from an upcoming multi-chapter fic that will feature the Punks along with the Girls and the Boys. Gist of it is they’ve all been warped to a different planet and are stuck in a weird, possibly haunted house as they try to find a way out of it with punches and problem solving and *gasp* teamwork. They’re all in their late 20s in this. In this excerpt, Brick and Blossom blow off a little steam and Berserk takes all the credit.

(Unbeta’d and subject to change when I get around to posting the actual multi-chapter fic itself.)

xxx

Blossom had never felt more discomfited by Berserk’s absence than her presence, but she felt it now across the table from Brick with no one else around to draw her wandering eye, or his. He shifted his weight in his chair. She stretched her neck. He took a sip of water. She cleared her throat.

After ten minutes of this, he slammed his book shut. “What is happening?”

Blossom fixed her gaze firmly on her book and the passage she’d re-read at least four times now without absorbing any of it. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“It’s taken you twenty minutes to read two pages.”

The knee-jerk urge to refute him tugged at her like a dog begging for table scraps, but she ignored it. He wasn’t wrong. “I guess I’m finding it hard to concentrate today.”

They watched each other across the long table, and it struck her just how red his eyes were even from afar: two burning pits fixed entirely on her. Unsettling, yet strangely warm. She thought about retiring early, but she wasn’t tired. In fact, she was having some trouble sitting still in her chair. Maybe a walk outside would do her good, or even a run. Maybe Buttercup was free and up for a spar. Just anything to get her body moving and her brain blanking before her thoughts burned a hole through her skull and exposed everything to him.

“Let’s go a round,” Brick said. The sound of his chair sliding over the tile screamed in the cavernous, quiet library.

“What?”

“I feel like I’m trying to crawl out of my own skin.” He flexed a fist, and red sparks spiderwebbed along his knuckles to the wrist eager for something to burn.

Blossom’s mouth went dry at the manifest threat of his power calling to her like old ghosts. She could retreat, provide some excuse, it had worked before. But no excuse came to her now, and under the table, her fingers curled around a mass of pastel power itching for a summoning. She rose from  her chair, books forgotten, and headed for the door. “We can’t have that,” she said.

He fell into step after her not a moment later and followed her down the hall and up the second floor balcony to the first challenge room. The house was quiet and empty tonight, its vaulted ceilings cold and distant. It was as though they were the only two people awake in this uncanny place.

It took everything Blossom had not to stop and wait for him to catch up. His eyes at her back gave off a singular heat, homing and hyper-focused. Perhaps years ago, she would have never entertained the thought of turning her back on someone so dangerous. Now, the thought of what she might invite if she faced him kept her squarely focused on her destination ahead.

“Ladies first,” Brick said directly behind her when they reached the challenge room. He grabbed the edge of the door and held it open for her.

Blossom looked anywhere but back at him and stepped over the threshold. The change of pressure entering the pocket dimension made her ears pop and the access band on her wrist heat with power. As before, the walls on all sides moved as concrete structures grew and shifted, sky scrapers blooming like flowers and withering to dust, only to sprout again elsewhere. Brick followed and closed the door behind them. Already disoriented, Blossom began to float as she adjusted to the altered gravity and tried to abandon the idea of up versus down.

“Restrictions?” Brick asked. He shed his red jacket, leaving him only in his matching pants and a form-fitting tank top.

Blossom very maturely averted her gaze lest he assume she was ogling him, of all the ludicrous notions. Steeling herself, she unzipped her own red jacket and tossed it aside to join his. “Since when can you afford to restrain yourself against me?”

His laughter, light and low, shivered her to the bone. “All right, then. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

He was on her in a flash with a hard punch. Blossom blocked at the last second, but the force sent her crashing into concrete. She barely had time to cough when he came at her again with another punch aimed at her face, but this time she dodged in the nick of time and it was his turn to eat rubble.

Adrenaline and Chemical X made for a heady, explosive cocktail in her veins that spread from her fingertips to the very ends of her long ponytail. Incandescent, pink power jumped over her bare arms as she poised to receive him again.

“Come on,” she said.

Brick glowed red, and it was her only warning before he rocketed after her. Blossom took off deeper into the maze of ever changing obstacles, the exertion only fueling her faster along in a familiar chase they had not run in years.

The pocket dimension was a death trap. Blossom darted over and under spikes and spires closing around her like jaws, her movements precise and fluid. But Brick was just as adept and wasted little energy swerving around the masticating mandible they had chosen for this evening’s playground.

Blossom swung around and under a sprouting obelisk, trusting her body to move exactly according to her will, but Brick abruptly changed course and met her mid-spin. Anticipating his sneak attack, Blossom let him have it with a wicked kick in the ribs.

Unfortunately, he was damn fast and grabbed her by the ankle just as her kick connected, and they both went flying with the force of her attack. A receding column broke Blossom’s fall with a rude crunch, and she broke Brick’s. Rose met red through a cloud of dust and electric Chemical X.

“Caught you,” he said.

Maybe it was the rush of the moment that drove her, the old thrill of the hunt from their heyday, never acknowledged but deeply felt. She felt him now, palms searing around her knee and pinning her neck, and she reached back.

Too close to avoid her open palm on his chest, Brick took her ice at point-blank range and blasted away in a flurry of snowflakes. He nearly hit a stone pillar punching out of the undulating wall, but managed to flip out of its path at the last second.

Blossom floated higher, her arms sleeved in ice and her breath misty. The temperature plummeted further as her power rippled through the pocket dimension. “Not quite,” she said in a voice that crept in between the shifting sky scrapers like hoarfrost.

Across from her, Brick’s power sluiced off him as thick as magma. He was a bright, burning star in this grey world, and god she could feel him pushing back and fighting for ground as if he were right in front of her. The chemically saturated air shimmered around him and ignited the blood in his eyes as they met hers. “Come here.”

It was all the encouragement she needed to give in to the timeless spark between them and unleash. Frost met fire as they collided, broke, and collided again. His punches smoldered, but her ice tempered them to cleansing smoke. And when she caught him in a freezing hold, he inevitably slipped through behind a veil of steam. Each unable to smother the other, they were evenly matched and forever at odds as they ricocheted off stone towers and toppled thrusting obelisks in their bid for dominance.

And that was what this was, what it had always been. Blossom had never felt the need to control and dominate another like she felt it fighting Brick. Call it fate, or design, or maybe it was just him, but there was nothing like this release, this honest surrender to the creature she was and always would be, made magnificent in the eyes of a true equal.

“I’m right here!” she taunted, with snowflakes in her hair.

Brick landed on a cracked block. The cement began to melt under the heat of his power where he crouched and captured her in those pyre-bright eyes. “Is that an invitation?” he shot back. “Or a threat?”

Alive with the thrill of unfettered competition, Blossom grinned. “Let’s find out.”

She took off at a punishing pace, half flying around the cement blocks and half skating over their frozen faces. Brick was right on her tail, his steps scorching the swaths of ice she left in her wake to cataclysmic ends. Wherever the two Supers’ extremities came into direct contact, the concrete collapsed and exploded like a parade of supernovas.

He was close, she could feel it, but he wouldn’t catch her, no way. Blossom was the best at what she did, and no one knew that better than her counterpart. But he was fast closing the distance between them, and when she chanced a glance back, there he was haloed in haze, his fire rising like great, golden chains, and he reached for her.

Blossom gasped, and it was her mistake. Brick caught her waist and pulled her back hard. The blizzard in her lungs went up in steam between his fingers clamped over her mouth. They hurtled together head over heels with Blossom kicking and jabbing with her elbows. But Brick locked her arms to her sides and anchored her to his chest until they came to a stop and she could hardly move. Pink power crackled on her skin as she thrashed in his arms, but he only laughed.

“That tickles,” he murmured.

Blossom immediately ceased her struggling. Immured in his arms with no chance of escaping unless he let her go, she became acutely aware of just how close they were. His breath was warm in her hair, and he smelled like smoke and parchment. He hadn’t loosened his hold around her at all.

“Brick,” she said, sotto voce.

He laughed again, low and husky. “Yield.”

The very word inspired an electric disdain in her. “No.”

He pressed his nose to her hair, and when he spoke his lips brushed against the side of her neck. “Are you sure?”

Blossom turned her head to look him in the eye and held on to her nerve out of sheer force of will. “Are you?”

This close, she could count his freckles and taste the heat he radiated, but there was no reading him beyond his singular and absolute focus on her.

He loosened his grip around her and pulled away. “No,” he said.

Blossom caught him before he could move away. Thoughtless perhaps, but Blossom never stopped thinking, not about their entrapment here, not about finding a way out, and not about him since the day they arrived in this strange place. She barely tugged at his shirt before he was on her again, arms around her waist and kissing her hard. Her fingers sparked with power as she threaded them through his short hair, making him groan, and he suddenly shoved them against the freezing, concrete wall until it cracked. His kiss was volcanic, as relentless as he was, and Blossom pulled him deeper with a smile.

The wall lurched at her back, and as quickly as it had begun, Brick ended the kiss and pushed her out of the way of a wicked spike just as it erupted from the enchanted wall. Blossom landed deftly on a nearby block and watched him do the same. Breathing hard, she wiped the traces of the best kiss of her life from her lips.

“Best two out of three,” he called to her.

Unable to resist, she smirked. “Restrictions?”

“You couldn’t restrain yourself against me if you tried.”

A retort sat poised on the tip of her tongue, but it still remembered his kiss and refused to cooperate.

“Blossom,” he said in a commanding tone that wanted answering.

Blossom’s power burst around her, radioactive, and she launched herself skyward. “Try and keep up.”

They spent the next two hours raining tempestuous ruin, on the pocket dimension and on each other.

xxx

Berserk took one look at Brick and Blossom when they returned to the Red Wing later that evening in their soot- and sleet-stained clothes, set her book down, and drained the rest of her bourbon. “Oh god.”

Brick rolled his eyes headed for his room. “There better be some of that left when I get out of the shower.”

Berserk flipped him the bird, which he returned behind his back before slamming the door.

Blossom hovered like a deer caught in the headlights until Berserk took pity on her and poured a fresh glass. “Here. You look like you need this more than I do.”

Blossom snapped out of it and took the offered bourbon automatically. “What?”

Jesus Christ.

You try to be nice for once, and nobody fucking appreciates it. Typical.

“Whatever.” Berserk went back to her book and her own glass of bourbon, which she topped off with the rest of the bottle so there would be none left for Brick.

Blossom didn’t fuck off to her own room like she ought to have, but instead sat down on the red sofa across from Berserk. She was smiling like a creep. Before Berserk could ask her if she needed medical assistance with whatever the hell was going on, Blossom said, “Cheers.”

Magenta eyes narrowed over the top of her book as Berserk studied her counterpart for any hint of a scheme. When she found none, she cautiously clinked her overfull glass to Blossom’s and drank.

They sat there in silence for a while. The sound of Brick’s shower was a low din behind his closed door as Berserk slowly flipped the pages of her book, some boring shit about this planet’s agricultural practices. Blossom had picked up a book of her own and curled up, her legs tucked under her in a perfect mirror to Berserk. Every once in a while Berserk would steal a glance at her counterpart and find her quiet and content with her book and bourbon. Peaceful was not quite the right word for this weirdly tranquil ambience, and Blossom for sure needed a shower. But, well…

Well.

“Thank you.”

It was so softly spoken, that had they not been reading in complete silence, Berserk may not have heard her speak. Blossom didn’t look up to acknowledge her sitting there, or even to check that Berserk had heard her.

Berserk curled a lock of her frizzy, red hair around her finger and buried her nose in her book. “Whatever.”

Blossom hid a smile behind her book and finished her drink.

xxx

Thanks for reading! <3

[sarahwyland]

It’s sick that there’s a version that Nick walks out on his kid or where Sabrina refuses to let him see him or her. It’s an AU I know you like writing angst, but keep the characters in character from who they are based on. Deeply saddened and just offended. Nick wouldn’t walk out on his kid. Nor would Sabrina refuse to let him near said kid. If you’re going to write the single fic go with the other.

I’m sorry you feel this way and I’d like to talk a little more about this fic idea because of some of the comments I’ve received about it. This is lengthy, but I feel it’s important, as a writer and a person, to dig into this more. 

I do like to write angst. I like to explore the darker parts of our characters. Because they all have very dark sides to them. That’s what drew me to Sabrina - the depth and dimension of some of these characters and the boldness of the stories they told, particularly in parts one and two. 

We like to focus on the love Nick and Sabrina have for one another, the attraction, the connection. But Sabrina has faced loss, abandonment (who else’s heart broke when Edward said he didn’t want her?), and Nick has faced a world of trauma, shown a tendency to lean on alcohol and drugs to cope. Hell, he committed suicide. Some view that as a grand romantic Shakespearean gesture. I don’t. I view it as someone who a hurt and darkness they couldn’t conquer. Sadly, I think we all know people who have lost their lives because their internal struggles were just too much. My mom’s favorite cousin is one of those people. He suffered from deep depression and PTSD. My stepdad’s nephew is another. He was transgender in a family that “doesn’t believe in that.” I will go to the mat over mental health, over access to care, and the stigma around speaking up when you’re hurting. Advocating for mental health is a big part of my life you don’t necessarily see on Tumblr. 

As a writer, those dark sides, those things we each have in us, no matter how sunshine and daisies we are, are what gives our characters dimension. It’s what gives them an emotional journey and makes the reader/viewer want to root for them - or hate them. It’s what makes you look at a Nick or a Sabrina or a Prudence or a Zelda and see yourself in them, the good and the bad. I won’t apologize for exploring these darker parts or for tossing around thoughts and ideas with my “internet friends” about stories I may or may not share. 

If this version of this story ever sees the light of day, it will likely not be in this fandom. I only wrote a handful of pages, exploring as I tend to do. At this point, I’ll give the characters new identities and write a manuscript or a pilot that will either live on my laptop forever or land me a Netflix deal.  

On a more personal note, I, like many of you who also write, tend to “write what I know.” I know a lot about addiction and mental illness, not as a professional, but as a person who has been deeply affected by it. I have anxiety that tends to manifest itself at the most inopportune times. I’ve had panic attacks that have put me in the ER. I’ve alluded to the suicides that stemmed from depression my family has experienced. 

A lesser known but not secret fact about me is that my dad, who I love and adore and will swear hung the moon, is an alcoholic. He’s been in the hospital due to alcohol withdrawal twice in the last year. The first time he nearly died. Delirium tremens (DTs) is a terrifying thing to witness. I imagine it was even more terrifying for him to go through. Two weeks ago, while I was posting prompts and updating ‘The Hunted’ and lamenting how I’m going to shoot a short film in a pandemic with all the COVID rules, I was also fielding calls from the other side of the country from my dad’s doctors, giving me updates and discussing his treatment plan moving forward, AA meetings, psychiatrists... I also had to sign an advanced directive for him - just in case. 

I see him struggle with his addiction. I also watched him stay sober for more than 20 years, only to relapse when he lost his sister to a nasty battle with cancer a few years ago and then struggle to regain that sobriety. He’s a good man who works hard, has done well for himself, loves his family, takes care of his 93 year old mother, calls me to ask if i’ve remembered to get my oil changed (the answer is always no), but he’s also an addict and he’s done things I would have never thought he’d do while under the influence. Even 20+ years sober, he was always an addict. 

And so, this very long note to say this fic would have been bigger than “Nick left his pregnant girlfriend.” It would have been a story about a man who has struggled with addiction, who made mistakes, who still carries the love he had for a girl with him in hopes that he can redeem himself in her eyes and be the man he so wants to be, and about a girl who faced loss and heartache at a young age, who tried with all she had to help the man she loves, only to learn the very hard lesson that you can’t help someone who isn’t ready to be helped. It would have told a story about overcoming those obstacles and making a life from the ashes. 

You probably didn’t bargain for this long of a response, probably didn’t bargain for an answer at all. But for reasons I can’t wrap my head around, this single mom fic idea that’s popped into my inbox a few times over the last year from various folks causes chaos (no pun intended) and I felt the need to explain the rational behind a story that I doubt I’ll ever publish in this format. 

I always encourage sharing of opinions. But I also encourage the sharing to be done with grace and kindness and for criticism to be constructive, feedback helpful. My inbox is open.