#and then get to the billion other unfinished fics

[semiweirdshipper]

Altering Wesker's personality to make him an emotional supporter.

Usually I write this process on paper when I need to work on a slashers personality, but I wanted to share it with you guys so you could get an idea on how I turn the bad guys into emotional supporters.

So when it comes to working on the slashers' personalities, I always try to find a way to make them each more kind, sympathetic, supportive and likable while still somewhat staying true to their unique personality traits. Normally this process comes easy. I've never really struggled much with altering a slashers personality....

Until prince blondy bitch came into the picture that is.

Yes, this rip-off Corey Hart makes me wanna hit the snooze button in my brain every time I think about him. He's just so DIFFICULT and his personality is extremely unattractive to me. But I have him put down for future roles in billions of my fics and drabbles, so mentally I can't ignore him. I've gotta work on his personality and turn him into a proper emotional supporter.

Let's break down those traits, shall we?

Prince blondy is-

- narcissistic

- controlling

- manipulative

- dishonest

- powerful

- sadistic

- cunning

- polite only when he wants to be or if he's trying to manipulate someone

- disloyal

- teases and taunts people.

- gets jealous and loses his temper.

- gets bored of his friends and romantic partners

- views most people as insignificant and lesser than him.

- backstabbing attitude

- merciless

- gets bored easily and abandons people and/or projects.

- rude.

- does not value people for who they are but rather the benefits they can provide him with. Once someone is no longer valuable to him, he either runs away or kills them.

Yeah.... He's a real tough one. There's not a lot of positivity going on with this one. He's got every unattractive trait from A to Z. Imagining him as a supporter is like trying to walk on needles.

So what do I do during hard times like these? I make the positivity myself. I alter his bitch traits and give him some positive ones.

Altered Wesker

- Let's make him narcissistic still but with the ability to accept competition and rivalry without getting jealous or murderous.

- let's make him honest. Brutal honesty or keeping his mouth shut is better than lying.

- He hates unfinished business and will not abandon anyone or anything without explaining himself first.

- he can be manipulative but only during serious situations.

- He owns up to his failures, mistakes and misunderstandings. (There's nothing more attractive than a person who can admit they're wrong).

- he is still very intelligent, strong and powerful.

- He's still obsessed with uroboros and will murder, but he's more empathetic and less sadistic. He won't murder people he cares about.

- uses his honesty to defend his loyalty.

- has a high standard for people he considers worthy of his time. These worthy people will receive his kindness, consideration and attention.

- Likes independence, trust and dependability. These are traits he seeks in a partner.

- still egotistical and holds himself in high regard.

That's just some of the traits I'm giving him to make him more supportive. Now for a little bit of writing. Albert Wesker x reader headcanons. These help me get an even deeper understanding of his personality.

Original/unaltered: Wesker x reader.

Wesker enters the breakroom and notices you sitting at a table. You looked horrible; your hair messy, your eyes dark and your outfit wrinkled. What a ghastly sight for him to walk in on. You should do a better job keeping yourself in proper shape.

Focused on ignoring you, Wesker made his way to the coffee machine on the other side of the room. His brow twitched in frustration at the sound of your pitiful "morning sir". Of course he couldn't go without drawing your worthless attention.

"(y/n)," He answered flatly, his back facing you, "Don't you have morning patrol?"

"Leon switched me," You answered, "I had a really long night last night. It was rough..."

"Excuses, excuses," Wesker glared at the bitter taste of his coffee. Why couldn't things just be the way he wanted them to be? "Allowing your personal life to get in the way of your job is insubstantial. Do better next time."

You remained silent, soon finishing your beverage and rising up to leave.

Wesker didn't notice nor did he care.

Altered/my version: Wesker x reader. (same situation)

Wesker entered the breakroom and immediately noticed you sitting in your lonesome at a table. You looked exhausted and unkempt, the expression on your face tired and miserable. Hm, he wondered what was wrong. Normally you were well dressed and always upbeat.

"(y/n)," He addressed as he slowly walked past you, turning his head to meet your eyes.

Despite your situation, you still managed a smile at him, your body lifting and your voice kind, "Oh, morning sir. How're you doing today?"

He always respected how considerate and proper you were even during difficult times. "I'm doing well. And you?" He continued to give glances to you as he fixed himself some coffee.

"I'm fine," You say softly, "Just a rough night."

Ah, so it was something personal most likely. "I see you swapped positions with Kennedy. I'd rather not have short notices like this in the future. After you're finished here, meet me in my office and we will discuss what you are going through."

You smiled weakly and blushed. Wesker always knew when something was wrong, and he was always so quick to provide any care he possibly could. He really was a good boss.

That morning, Wesker sat with you in the breakroom.

Aaaannnnnndddd.... Emotional support slasher born. BOOM!

The reason why I have so much trouble writing prince blondy is because I really don't like him. His personality is like a smelly trashcan to me and if I ever met him in real life I'd kick him in the balls so hard his motherless grandkids would feel it. But creating these writing templates helps me to view him underneath a different light. It's how I build personalities and familiarize them.

I've done this process on paper for multiple killers. I just thought it would be fun to share with you how I altered personalities to write my stories.

[becauseitsyouandi]

my personal jalex fic recs because fawk, jalex maaaaan

Because you can never get enough jalex <3

♡ 𝕞𝕦𝕝𝕥𝕚𝕔𝕙𝕒𝕡𝕥𝕖𝕣 𝕗𝕚𝕔𝕤 ♡

OTP by Save vs. Magic ✿ Season 3 ✿ COMPLETE ❀ 'With 'Charmed and Dangerous' set to become a movie, Alex is shocked to discover the books based on her life are wildly popular. Even more shocking is what some fans are reading between the lines. And most disturbing of all? Justin might be one!' ✿ OMG. I love meta and I love Jalex, but more importantly I love realistically written Jalex where they don't want to jump each others bones as soon as the fic starts, so this is my #1 recommendation in a multi-chaptered fic if you think to yourself, wait, how in the F do they even start to realize they like-like (lol) each other anyways? Soo well-written, Save vs. Magic is a stellar author who has wrote plenty of gems for the jalex comm <3 After you read OTP, I recommend reading the Easter special for OTP A Handshake With God. So funny and a cute taste of Jalex's after.

Reflection by TheWolfHourx, TwistedWizards ✿ Post Season-4 ✿ IN PROGRESS ❀ Woooo boy, what to say about this one--- it's sexy, incredible sexy. Risque and full of tension, Alex is stuck in the You-niverse with daaark, eeeeevil Justin, who wants to make her his. She is living my dream! It is unfinished, and I want to give a disclaimer that it ends before they do the deed, so if you're okay with mild blue-balling, this is an awesome read that's not juuust smutty goodness yum, but has well written Jalex that makes you root for our main couple (and sexy evil Justin is there, did I mention sexy evil Justin?)

'More Transparent Than Water And Thicker Than Blood' Series by pandorium ✿ Season 3 to Post-Series ✿ COMPLETE ✿ Ooooooof. Talk about an emotional rollercoaster ride, my heart! Sweetness, and heartbreak, and then sweetness. A series of one shots span from post-movie codependency to Jalex as adults. Don't worry-- a happily ever after awaits with this one, even if the journey to get there for our two siblings is a bit long.

Something like Forever by someryn ✿ Post-Movie ✿ COMPLETE ✿ Two-part series that has Justin's POV Leave The Ashes, it's a look at how Justin and Alex cope, well fail to cope with the traumatic events of the movie. Alex struggles to communicate her emotions in Alex fashion, Justin is her steadfast brother who looks at her for just a bit too long, and there is sweetness and the perfect amount of spice added in (just a pinch). Delicious Jalex awaits with this fic <3

Truth Spell by saveyou ✿ Post-Movie ✿ IN PROGRESS ✿ This is an AU where Justin runs away from home post-movie--and only Alex knows why. It's an interesting set up, but last update was in 2010 and it ends off sorely unfinished. But it is a nice read and I enjoy how Alex and Justin are written.

˚ʚ ♡ 𝕠𝕟𝕖-𝕤𝕙𝕠𝕥𝕤 ♡ ɞ˚

Holding Back the Night by Nerissa ✿ Post-Movie ✿ More like hold back my tears when mentioning this fic! This is my #1 Jalex fic recommendation-- it holds such a special place because it fueled my Jalex obsession to unstoppable levels. The ultimate codependency trope fic for Jalex in my opinion. The conversations in this fic are so so cute, tender and emotional. This is the hot-chocolate-your-grandma-gives-you of a Jalex fic. Lemme re-read this fic now <3

so what if you catch me, where would we land by ladytahiri ✿ Child to Adult Jalex ✿ 'Justin and Alex's lives unfold like a butterfly in reverse' ✿ Starts off on an amazing hook with Theresa catching Justin and Alex in a compromising position, and traces back through the blossoming of Justin/Alex's relationship, to when they were just children. Mwah mwah a billion chef kisses!

reach out and touch someone by omens ✿ Season 4 ✿ “Careful, Justin; that almost sounds like ‘what are you wearing territory?’ there.” ✿ AKA Justin and Alex are horny teenagers, Justin is away at college, and late-night husky phone convos ensue. Sign me tf up!

Hands That Touch The Wrong Things by TheWolfHourx ✿ Season 3 ✿ 'This obsession. This painting. Something about this screams at her louder than all her other paintings. Something inside her rips and roars and howls.' ✿ Angst and pain in Alex's POV as she grapples with her feelings post-Puerto Rico. She uses painting as an outlet for her desires she can't express.

Louder than sirens by popsongnation ✿ Post-Movie ✿ 'The feeling stays with her as time goes on, the need to touch him as often as possible. She knows he feels it too.' ✿ Uuuugh author why must you slay me! Codependency trope done so so well it hurts! Secret handholding and rapidly tangled feelings, my heart squeezes in pain for our two sweethearts.

[melonteee]

May I recommend some One Piece fics? One of them has me clawing the walls and wanting to write ten billion fics about all the OP women _:(´ཀ`」 ∠): and the other fundamentally changed me as a human being.

The former is a Robin centred fic and the latter is a Sanji centred fic. If you have read these before, sorry if I’m just parroting what you’ve already read! Also please feel no pressure to read these, I just wanted to share with a fellow OP enjoyer :DDD

Sanji Fic: Custom of the Sea - 17K: https://archiveofourown.org/works/39516201?view_adult=true

So this one really, REALLY explores Sanji’s duties as a chef and how far he’d be willing to go to ensure that his crew won’t starve (if you know what the title of the fic means then you’re halfway there) and there are heavy warnings at the start of the fic that I won’t repeat but I will state that the fic is tagged with “angst with a happy ending” so a heaping helping of optimism is needed whilst reading!

(I did not read the tags thoroughly though I still enjoyed the fic, but please don’t be as silly as me)

I love when a One Piece fic explores the connections between the Straw Hats (some more than others, cough ZORO cough) and I especially love the flashbacks we get with Chef Zeff— I will never be able to stop thinking about them and clutching at my chest like I’m trying to ease an unseen weight (the burden, oh the burden of loving a fictional blond man).

I love how Sanji is written, how we get to see him reduced to his base components, how as he thins with each day we see what becomes transparent beneath all the layers; who he truly is when stripped down to the bone.

^ tryhard

There is also a scene that is so reverent; so intimate; so raw that it feels like a violation to intrude upon such a private moment and a discourtesy that it isn’t being analysed and examined by every literature study or professor alive. Wow it fucks me up that this fic only has 8K hits. The author also writes some good ZoSan fics if that’s also something you’d like :))

Robin Fic: What is and What could never be - 58K (unfinished as far as I’m aware): https://archiveofourown.org/works/42768912/chapters/107441889

Robin. Has. A child.

[incoherent wailing about motherhood, unconditional love, the fear of loving someone and letting them love you back, love you thought you lost but has endured all along]

I haven’t even finished it yet nor am I even anywhere close in the timeline in which the fic takes place but I already know it’s one of my favourite fics I’ve read, and has made me realised that I have overlooked the OP women in the most egregious manner possible.

I absolutely adore your OP character analysis videos, and having your big brain analysis sitting in the back of my mind while reading this fic has made me appreciate and enjoy this fic tenfold.

Nico Robin I love you in a way that heals me and hurts me.

I am also a tremendous sucker for Frobin (the author wrote smut for this fic which 😳) but I also adore her relationships with Chopper, Nami and Luffy which absolutely enamoured me and has scorched my brain, leaving a permanent mark. Also extremely cruel and wicked that this fic only has 8K hits.

Anyway I wrote all of this at 1am, so if I sound mad it’s because I am. Thanks for creating hilarious and extremely insightful analysis videos, I’ve been watching your channel since the MHA character design video (I still burst out laughing thinking about Todoroki’s design sometimes) and I always look forward to new vids :D

Thank you for these but I can’t promise I’ll read them haha, I don’t tend to read too many fics but I appreciate the thought. I know you didn’t do it here but I also ask to please not send me smut fics or anything since I’m not an nsfw account and also a stranger to you guys 😅

And thank you so much for enjoying my content! ❤️

[snzinite]

ok i've decided to post the shirayuki sneezefic. this was from quite a while ago and is unfinished. i don't think i'll write any more of this one in particular but i wanted to get some more of my stuff on here besides the headcanons. i'll write more fics in general for sure

female sneezes (shirayuki) / illness

The harsh afternoon sunlight glinted without warmth off of the thick plexiglass of Rhodes Island’s exterior. Winter had approached this side of Terra some time ago. Landscapes of rolling hills surrounded by jagged earth were blanketed in a thick layer of snow. Billions of tiny crystals shone brilliant white beneath the sun.

Shirayuki stood here against the railing of the outdoor observation deck. You thought you’d find her here. The cold had grown a bit of a bite, and not many others would venture out even during this time of day. 

Shirayuki was different. She liked the snow. You knew this because she told you so in as many words the first few times you saw her out here like this by herself. She held your gaze for mere moments after you expressed your worries over her being out like this, and politely yet firmly declined any bid back indoors. Eventually, you learned better than to fuss over her, instead accepting this eccentricity of hers. 

You still tried to make conversation when you could, with mixed results. At first, you thought you were bothering her with the way she replied in curt, clipped lines, or how she seldom even spared you so much as a glance from the snow. The more you kept at it, though, you realized she just had few words. Come to think of it, your stunted conversations were more than you had ever heard her speak. You had only ever known the sound of her voice compressed and hazy through a radio during missions. You were surprised how clear it sounded, soft beyond the muting of her mask. Pure. White.

You voiced a greeting with a small wave. Shirayuki didn’t so much as look back at you. This didn’t bother you; it was common to receive no acknowledgement from her. You’re certain she heard you open the door, at any rate. You made your way to the railing to join her in silent vigil over the gentle drifts.

She sniffled. This bothered you. The sound itself was not the offender–rather, Shirayuki did not make sound. No doubt part of her ninja training, you’d have trouble making out so much as a footfall in a quiet hallway from her, much less a breath or rustling of her clothes. To hear something like this out of her was strange, to say the least. 

You couldn’t help but look her way. Was she crying? Had you caught her in a moment of sadness? Not that you had ever had any precedent of Shirayuki being vulnerable in any capacity, but you would make yourself scarce should she need to be alone. Alas, her silvery-white hair imposed itself as a curtain between your prying gaze and the few visible features of her face after her mask.

Without any further noise, she picked herself up off of the railing. She rose toward the sky, allowing her hair to fall away from her face to reveal those big, pale blue eyes of hers. Before you could get lost in them, you noticed that they have a quality to them that you’ve never seen before. They were unfocused. A second later, they snap shut as she pitches forward.

“Ah-tshhew!”

Shirayuki sneezed. You could hardly believe it. Her eyes fluttered open for only a moment before screwing shut once more as she braced herself against the railing.

“Ah-TSHheww!”

Her head bobbed downwards once again with the sneeze, this time throwing her hair over her face with the aid of the wind. She held the pose for a while before relaxing into a normal stand. She brought a hand up to free her face from her hair, her eyes having regained their usual focus. They turned onto you. 

“Hello.” Her voice sounded off, as though she were congested. She sniffled as if to confirm that fact.

You suddenly remember that you’re just sort of staring at her. “Bless you,” you manage to stammer in a tone that conveys in unfortunate detail how awkward you feel.

“Thank you.”

Words would not intrude on the moment that followed. Shirayuki returned to her watch over the distant drifts, and you to yours of her. In this watch, something else stuck out to you: you heard her breathing, light and shallow. You could deduce from the shape of her mask that she was breathing through her mouth. Then, as her breathing picked up, her head tilted back once more. Her hands hovered around her face as her eyes drifted shut once more.

“Hhah-TSCHHhhewww!”

This sneeze sounded wetter than the rest. Shirayuki didn’t snap forward with it. Rather, her whole body scrunched inward, exposed midriff tensing with toned abs. Her hands continued to hover around her mask, black-nailed fingers curled inwards. Her eyes were visible through them, small tears welling up at the corners. 

The faintest sound escaped her. You just catch it–you wouldn’t have had you not been listening well. It is a squeaked groan of agony. Without thinking, you reach out to her.

“Are you all right?” The words leave your mouth before you can consider them. 

Her ears perked up before her whole body jumped at the sound of your voice. It’s as though she’d forgotten you were there.

“I’m–” the one-and-a-half a word she managed to say sounds even worse than the ones from before. She interrupts herself with a thick, long sniffle. “I’m fine.” The look on your face must have belied your doubt, because she turns back away from you. “I just have a cold.”

“You don’t think you should come inside?” Out of the cold? 

You received exactly what you expected: silence. The cold shoulder. 

You sighed. “Do you at least want some tissues?”

Catching her eye dart to you at the offer, you couldn’t help but smile at Shirayuki. Ever-dutiful, except when it came to herself. Digging around in your bag to produce a packet of tissues seemed to win her over. When you looked back up, she was a foot in front of you. Her silent step nearly made you jump off the deck the first few times, but now it just amused you.

You handed her the packet. Her fingers were ice to the touch.

[brasideios]

[20 Question Fic Writer Tag]

tagged by @findusinaweek - Thank you my dear 🤍

How many works do you have on AO3? 16 atm

What is your AO3 word count? 451,021 words

What fandoms do you write for? Assassin's Creed Odyssey & Valhalla, Stardew Valley, Ancient History & Historical RPF, Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War (Yes, I insist this is a true fandom lol), and Hades game (though they aren't on AO3 atm). Oh, I also wrote a AC Syndicate fic ages ago which I still have somewhere.

What are your top five fics by kudos? Snatched Moments (ACV); The Warmth of Home (ACO); Another Turn Around the Wheel (Stardew); Unfinished Business (ACO); and The Gods Only Know (ACV).

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not? Absolutely. I know exactly how hard it can be to leave comments, and I think it's important to acknowledge that - from the single love heart to the genuinely long comments (like several paragraphs) - I want to show my appreciation. Also, I get loads of historical questions, and I'm always so excited to answer those.

What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? Rising to the Surface, hands down... Though come to think of it, The Good Spartan is a close second.

What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? Most of them end well, but I think my current fic is going to be the most traditionally happily ever after... probably. If not, then Another Kind of Odyssey wins.

Do you get hate on fics? Not really - though I've had the ol' 'You owe me an ending, I read this far!' before.

Do you write smut? If so, what kind? Yeah, mlm mostly; but I don't think I'm particularly good at it, so the story really has to demand it for me to go there.

Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written? I mean, technically The Good Spartan is a Thucydides/Odyssey crossover, favouring Thucydides - but unless trying to make a game which is almost entirely historically inaccurate [affectionate] into something accurate is crazy... which yeah, now that I write that, I think it probably is :D

Have you ever had a fic stolen? Not that I know of.

Have you ever had a fic translated? No.

Have you ever cowritten a fic before? No - I have tried writing collaboratively in non-fic projects, but it's not for me.

What's your all-time favourite ship? I could not possibly choose one.

What's a WIP you'd like to finish but doubt you ever will? Crawling Kingsnake, my Hades game fic. I really like what I have so far, but my brain has moved on and I can't see myself getting back into that mindframe again.

What are your writing strengths? So just from what others have said of my writing, off the top of my head, I'm good at: conveying a lot of information clearly and succinctly; drawing out the signficance of small everyday moments; writing non-conformist characters and *waves a hand vaguely* the historical stuff.

What are your writing weaknesses? I have a penchant for interiority in my characters that I have to fight against, or there would be far too much thinking in every chapter. I use 'in a moment' so much I have to do a word search every time and remove a billion instances where it's not necessary; and I don't use contractions naturally, so editing is a lot of fixing that.

Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic? I mean, I'd do it if I could, but my language skills don't stretch that far. More broadly, I'm fine with it in other work if a translation is provided .

First fandom you wrote for? Assassin's Creed Odyssey technically, if we're talking knowing it was fanfic as I was writing it; though back when I was 6 I wrote a story heavily inspired by Gone with the Wind so... Gone with the Wind, I guess. (Or LOTR when I was in my teens...)

Favourite fic you've ever written? The Good Spartan and Shadow-Twin, maybe?

Tags with zero pressure @krankittoeleven (you knew it was coming lol) @ainulindaelynn @myriath @merelyafigment @softest-punk and anyone else who might want to jump in 🤍

[bendingwind]

20 asks for writers

I wasn't tagged I just like talking about myself 😌

how many works do you have on Ao3? 158

what's your total Ao3 word count? 429,818

what fandoms do you write for? Just, so many. I think there's over 25. Top 5 by number of fics are Doctor Who, The Witcher, The Avengers, Dragon Age: Inquisition, and Bleach

what are your top five fics by kudos? - The Orphan Boy (Avengers) (sigh) - Reputations (Protector of the Small) (legit what, when did this happen) - Dreaming (Avengers) - Adventures In Social Media (Avengers) - Shapeshifting and Shenanigans (Avengers)

do you respond to comments? Sometimes! I generally respond pretty regularly to comments on new fics I've written and I try to respond to long comments regardless of when they're left.

What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? Okay. Ironically, given how much I love angst, I hate angsty endings. It has to be i've got a feeling (this was meant to be) (Avengers) which isn't properly an ending, because this is my only unfinished work on AO3. It was intended to continue and have them meet when they were older and fall properly in love then.

What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? I tend to skew towards happy endings except when I write dark endings, but maybe (don't pay no mind to) the demons they fill you with fear (Avengers) just for the sheer sense of hope?

Do you get hate on fics? I got some flames when I was younger for a variety of reasons, most often when I wrote material that I wasn't really old enough to handle respectfully or correctly yet and people got (rightfully if rudely) angry. The end of 2023 had a weird rash of people nitpicking minor canon details with me though.

Do you write smut? Yes.

Do you write crossovers? I was about to say no but I literally linked a Pacific Rim/Avengers crossover earlier so. I suppose I do.

Have you ever had a fic stolen? Not that I know?

Have you ever had a fic translated? Yes, someone translated Adventures in Social Media into chinese, and I think one other story though I'm a loose ends trying to think of what it was.

Have you ever co-written a fic before? Yes! Die on Every Hill (Dragon Age: Inquisition). It was a delightful experience.

What’s your all time favourite ship? Look this depends on everything from what i ate for dinner to the phase of the moon. I am a multi-shipper and i will die a multi-shipper.

What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? I've gone over these I think twice recently so skip. (But it's the 10 BILLION WORDS ABOUT KEL RIP)

What are your writing strengths? I think I'm good at characterization and at, idk, mimicking author voice? So that the tone feels like the original material, where appropriate.

What are your writing weaknesses? I really, really struggle to write if I'm not ✨inspired✨ in the sense that I... simply do not write if I'm not inspired. I'm trying to do better about that this year.

Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? I usually try to write it in the original language or the anglicized version of the original language and build up the appropriate context around it so that it's clear what the character is saying. Otherwise, italics.

First fandom you wrote for? Arguably Narnia, in that my fourth grade standardized test essay was basically Narnia meets the horror genre fanfiction, as seen by a nine-year-old. The first I ever posted was Harry Potter, Ron/Hermione. I still have it. It is... so incredibly bad. I believe I was about ten at the time I wrote it.

Favourite fic you’ve written? all my possessions for a moment of time (Dragon Age: Origins)

[cosmic-navel-gazin]

"About the Blogger" Meme by @razielim

Haven't seen one of these in forever; I'm being the change I want to see. (You're encouraged to adapt/remove questions or add new ones to better suit yourself.)

Favorite Pseud: Cosmic is the new hotness but my indecisive ass has had a billion! Alas-poor-yorick! is an old one I'm still fond of because my child self really went and saw Hamlet and thought: "YES! THE SKULL OF THE DEAD JESTER! THAT'S WHO I WANNA BE!"

Time Zone: GMT

Star Sign(s): the one that's a COSMIC RAM! 🐏🌠✨

Favorite Holidays: every holiday is always tinged with just a tad of existential dread, a pang reminding me of the time that's already gone by, that I'm one day closer to death , I guess the ones during Spring and Summer, just because of the weather and that the days are longer

Last Meal: Soup and a piece of bread with olive oil (and olives)

Current Favorite Musician: my dear friend who plays the piano^^ (whom I hope never finds out about this blog and reads this or I'll never hear the end of it). Not sure if current, but I've listened to a lot of it regularly so, shout-out to Jordi Savall and his Hespèrion XXI group *gnaws on their many variations of the spanish Folías*

Last Music Listened To: Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Is In) · Kenny Rogers & The First Edition

Last Movie Watched: Saw X and The Lobster

Last TV Show Watched: The Bear

Last Book/Fic Finished: Can't remember what was the last book so I'm going with: One of only two in existence A Field In England fics on AO3 😳

Last Book/Fic Abandoned: Kafka's The Trial (not abandoned, I just wanted to finish the ones I had started first before continuing because I know this one's gonna hurt for sure)

Currently Reading: Solaris by Stanisław Lem

Books/Shows/Movies/etc. You Want to Get Around To: For Films I have some listed on this ask. For books I got some Strugatskys to get to, some Terry Pratchett, some Kafka, some Horus Heresy, my sister got me Foundation *looks at bookshelf and ignores the dozens of others that have been sitting there for years, waiting for me*

Last Thing Researched for Art/Writing/Hyperfixation: Wild boars! Boarzinhos if you will.

Last Eureka, Breakthrough, or Neat Fact/Concept Learned: Have learned nothing and remain a fool.

Favorite Online Fandom Memory: I don't think I've ever been in a Fandom™ per se. It's usually just, sitting in my dark lair and enjoying a thing with a handful of other people. But, if it counts since it's the closest to interacting with Fandom I've had: these past (4?) years on tumblr in general. From the months-long (sometimes years-long) discussions about this or that piece of media and the insightful observations traded, the juicy meta, the joy and privilege of people sending you unfinished pieces of their art and writing through DMs (the trust and intimacy of it all!!!), sending each other memes and posts we think the other might enjoy, the nice messages, etc... all of it really.

Favorite Old Fandom You Wish Would Drag You Back In/Have A Resurgence: Am baby and haven't really experienced this yet.

Favorite Thing You Enjoy That Never Had an Active or Big "Fandom" but You Wish It Did: I literally can't choose because almost everything I love is some flavour of weird-ass-obscure thing! But uhmmm, *flips through enormous tome of interests* : Here! Rule of Rose ! I was starving for psychological horror games after the Silent Hill series and this is the closest I've ever seen to them while also not being just a rip off/clone of SH, and telling its own beautifully tragic story (the combat is broken and there's other issues but everything else, maaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnn).

Tempting Project You're Trying to Rein In/Don't Have Time For: I will draw Rumata and Budach's Conversation™ from chapter 8 in full, in comic form, skill to pull it off and do it justice or not, EVEN IF IT KILLS ME!

Tempting Project You're 100% Going to Undertake: It involves sandcastles and the joys of creation... but it needs to *gasp!* actually be written and not just daydreamed about.

Tagging: AAAAAA I DUNNO ANYONE WHO WANTS TO!

[goddesspharo]

director's cut? any and all insights into 'move it to the exits' and 'living in a rhythm where the minute's working overtime', please!

There are brilliant people who exist who have well thought out plots and intricate outlines laid out before they actually start writing. I am not one of those people. (David Fincher, I am not!) I tried outlining a very convoluted fic once with three different concurrent timelines, color-coordinated the thing, wrote 20k, and then gave it up. My process - if one can even call it that - is that usually I will get one line of dialogue or narration stuck in my mind like an incessant earworm until I have no choice but to do something with it. So a lot of times, the scene is built around that one line or the entire story is in the service of getting to that one particular moment. It'll be like 20k of words just because I couldn't get the image of someone leaning out of my head. There's an entire graveyard of unfinished google docs that occasionally get cannibalized into parts of other things that started off with one stupid thought incepting my brain.

living in a rhythm where the minute’s working overtime (The Batman; Bruce/Selina): I was back on my Bruce/Selina bullshit after The Batman. (To be fair, when am I ever NOT about them? I love them in almost all iterations! And having Bruce Wayne be a sad weirdo who smears on grease paint while overidentifying with Kurt Cobain? While Selina Kyle is objectively rad and played by Zoe Kravitz who can actually pull off calling a dude wearing bat ears "baby" every other line? Excellent choices!) It got me to write fic again after a billion years! The line that started this one off was "Think of how guilty you'll feel if I die without knowing you are," but I think originally I had pictured it as happening on a rooftop in the context of Selina having already figured out Batman's secret identity (I was - maybe still am - obsessed with that scene where she asks if he's hideously scarred under the mask) and trying to get him to admit it, but then it morphed into her milking a fairly benign injury to score a trip to the batcave instead and the rest is history. I think this one had room to be a longer thing, but I wrote it on the heels of having already written a 16k and 14k fic about these two idiots already (when historically I rarely used to cross 10k) and needed a break. move it to the exits (Roswell New Mexico; Kyle/Isobel): I really loved the idea of a drunk Kyle wrapping Isobel in his herringbone coat as the snow started to gently fall around them. In the back of my mind, that imagery was part of a very long-form story with them secretly dating but Isobel trying to hide it from her well-meaning mother because she doesn't want Ann Evans to get invested in case it didn't work out. In true Isobel fashion, she makes sure Kyle is on call when Ann comes to visit that weekend. In true Michael fashion, he accidentally lets it slip to Kyle that his girlfriend's mother is in town and it would be a great idea to surprise them at dinner. The dinner, already stressful because Ann is meeting Liz for the first time, is of course a disaster that starts with Isobel introducing Kyle as Liz's ex-boyfriend (which he thinks is kind of weird) and only gets worse from there. Ann Evans keeps trying to get Kyle to arrange a meet-cute between Isobel and a hot doctor in his hospital (which he thinks is really weird). And Max keeps choking on his wine because he's laughing so hard. And then Ann Evans finally asks Kyle why someone who is such a catch doesn't have a girlfriend and he finally gets that Isobel has been lying to her mother for six months when he convinced his own mother to invite her over for dinner even though she kept referring to Isobel "Max's sister with the sex toys" when he first told her they were dating. Naturally, Kyle's anger manifests as him punching Jordan Bernhardt in the parking lot of The Crashdown after he fakes a stat page from the hospital to get out of the dinner from hell, which leads to where this starts off.

[little-svt]

do you think youll open requests again soon? i lov ur writing and i have lots of ideas, but also dont force urself

The short answer is probably not for a while 😭 big rant ahead. Just here to pout about life haha.

I don’t mind if you send ideas but I will probably take a long time to get to them since I’m juggling so much right now. I have a billion hobbies and my autism wants to divide my time between them equally but not all of them always provide the same amount of dopamine so that’s def not happening. I manage group orders, sometimes large ones for Carats and some other fandoms so that takes so much of my energy. Then with school I end up having no energy left. I’ve been doing a lot of school related writing lately too so that is gross and makes me not really want to write at all. I draw, game, study Korean, design mailing stickers, manage group orders and pack trades, fit in a little writing when I can on top of just day to day stuff I end up with zero energy when I hardly had any to begin with. My mom also just had surgery so I’ll be helping her out the next 6 weeks.

I have a lot of ideas as well. A LOT. So many unfinished projects bc of my short attention span and low stamina. I’m still working on my last request here and there as well 😭 you are free to send ideas any time though. Sometimes I’ll respond with thoughts, a headcanon or a fic. Each of those are gonna take longer than the previous options 🥹🫶 not sure where I was going with this I’m so tired but again feel free. I do wish I got more asks but I couldn’t handle taking on requests right now. ~ 🐶🐰🍓

[unproduciblesmackdown]

WIP Files Game tagged by @nothingunrealistic

RULES: post the names of the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them, and then post a little snippet or tell them something about it!

au where i had the organized approach to Have wip folders. but i also like to finish one effort in a straight shot, so returning to them after stepping away doesn't tend to be too relevant. like, i forgot abt plenty of these writing wips b/c the vast majority are just several sentences or paragraphs from one night's effort that i just saved; f for those that got hundreds or thousands of words & many nights' efforts in, but we have fun. plus just like some [throwing down ideas] docs are included, for more fun:

another riawin attempt rian pov evening out

benston attempt

benston breakup

benston fic another attempt he's nice to everyone

benston post hookup was it a mistake

benston pwp

benston take two

benston tomato plant

ideas plans planning tayriawin threesome hookup

ideas re riawin fic

just a casual swing at horny tayston

just having a start at tayriawin threesome

mellman

my tayston pwp lol as though

october started tayriawin effort

planning benston fic

planning more tayston riawin triawin attention sex fic

polycule foursome maybe winston fic

riawin cassandra future idea

riawin fic in bed

riawin fic written out attempt

riawin fic

riawin not great fwb fic attempt

riawin evening out hookup take 2

starting yet another attempt at tayston riawin triawin fic

taking a stab at a riawin fic cozy and sexy lol yolo

tayston crying sex

tayston fwb fic

tayston take two

triawin taylor fucking winston while rian watches wahoo yay fic

winston hcs

winston winstuk fic not going anywhere billions

inverse of re: writing, i finish most drawing efforts i started. but, similarly, here's some that were, like, throwing down ideas, unfinished, or restarted (ft. a good amount of this being material that's been posted in intermittent "here's some stuff that didn't get finished" collages)

adjudicator outfit

another tayston handjob take

barely benston kiss

benston cooking kiss

benston looking at each other sketch

calving 1, 2

color scheme for kleinsen sunset

effort attempt at a super scary play section animatic

just some winston sketches messing around

kissing winston

mess of an effort at tayston quant head

of course i'm coming with you

rian getting winston off from behind

rian taylor winston working together

riawin kiss angled

riawin kiss isn't going so hot here lol

riawin kissing

riawin spoon

setting up winston and tuk sketches possibly

sketches riawin snowfall streetlight

tayston couch kiss

tayston handjob i hope

tayston hug rest against chest

tayston laugh

tayston winston taylor wip offering hot drinks

winnie n tay

winston beset by bisexuality

winston cozy plant shaded blue green sleep

winston lingeries

winston shadow about to be kissed

zeke matthews goosebumps design effort the first

[cielsosinfel]

I never posted about this on here, but back in June I organized a Sagamaji Week for fans to come together and create fanwork based on a prompt list. (You can see what everyone shared on twitter here and here !) It was so nice to see so many people expressing their love for these characters and all the ways their relationship can be contorted... And all the different interpretations of the prompts... So much horny and fluffy and angsty Sagamaji!!!

I'd been wanting to organize one since 2021, when the last time someone had done a ship week was in 2019... But the fandom is so hostile to Sagamaji/Sagawa fans I kept getting too scared to lol. But it ended up going better than I could have hoped...

ANYWAY This post is actually to share the fanfic I managed to finish and upload it, since i never shared here. I started multiple WIPs in May intended for the week, but my health is terrible and always strikes when I most need the physical and mental health stability to follow through with my hobby passions.

So here are the fics:

fetters of the flesh by foxgloveincense (CNTW, 3k words E-rated PWP, CW for dubcon/consent issues, references to rape/noncon, and use of homophobic and misogynist slurs.)

I wrote that one for the prompt "First Kiss" and it ended up being the usual messy extrapolating on Majima's PTSD in as horny a way as possible... I really need to do some deep-editing of this, I wrote most of it over a couple days (finished same day it needed to be uploaded) and it is MESSY. But I really do think I managed to execute the idea the way I wanted lol.

the season of warm interventions by foxgloveincense (CNTW, T-rated but subject to change, Chapter 1 of 2, 852 words, no CWs)

This is actually a WIP I had started way back in December 2021 mid-snowstorm; I have the second half half-written but what started out as silly fluff inspired by a cute doujinshi I own, ended up... about more Majima PTSD angst and Sagawa offering Comfort in a creepy way. I got frustrated and gave up lol but I'm gonna try to just embrace my predilection for Majima emotional whump, and finish it one day, health allowing.

Other fics I started for the week and WILL finish (I say this for the last two years when I have 20+ unfinished fics for them): Cigarette-themed fic set post-Y0 with Majima reminiscing with a pack of Cabin; After The Hole-themed fic of Sagawa cleaning Majima up in his recovery; Kemonomimi-themed fic where that 1 Billion Yen Drug Test leads to not-quite-furry not-quite-omegaverse porn shenanigans.

[reivenesque]

Not The Best Around CH5

Chapter 5: You’re The Best (Around)

(x)

The couple of nurses that came and went were about as much excitement as Laura received that night before the sun finally came up. The morning greeted them with Johnny’s very first visitor for the day it was someone Laura was always happy to see.

“Ali,” she said happily when the familiar face popped up from behind the door.

“Hi, Mrs. Lawrence,” said Ali, lingering by the door for a moment before hesitantly stepping in, not getting more than a few feet into the room before she stopped, hands fidgeting nervously behind her back. “How is he?”

“He’ll be okay. He just needs a little rest and some TLC but he’ll be right as rain in no time. What about you? I feel like I haven’t seen you in ages. You don’t come by the house anymore,” Laura said inquisitively.

Ali’s mouth opened and closed in an effort to find an appropriate response to the statement but obviously couldn’t come up with anything rational.

“I just – uh, I wanted to see how he’s doing. I don’t want to be a bother –”

There was an uneven sound of footsteps by the door when a new figure appeared, looking much more nervous and much more hesitant than Ali when she first stepped in.

“Umm, Mrs. Lawrence, this is a friend of mine, Daniel,” she motioned towards the newcomer, who looked hesitantly between the two women before raising an uncertain hand in greeting.

“N-Nice to meet you, Mrs. Lawrence,” said Daniel, careful to stay beyond the threshold of the door.

Laura returned the greeting before reaching over to shake Johnny’s shoulder. “Johnny,” she called softly, “Ali is here to see you.”

“Oh, you don’t have to do that, Mrs. Lawrence. I don’t want to disturb him,” said Ali quickly.

“Oh nonsense, Ali. I know he’ll be thrilled to see you.”

Daniel had the literal look of someone caught between a hard place and an even harder place and nowhere to escape.

“Johnny.” She resumed shaking his shoulder gently until his eyes finally cracked open, heavy lidded and bleary, attempting to blink his vision into focus. “Honey,” she said once his eyes finally focused on her, “Your friends are here.” She motioned towards the door and Johnny could only follow the direction she was indicating with his eyes which widened the moment they fell on Ali standing awkwardly near the far end of the room. “If you two could stand a little closer in his line of sight,” Laura said, indicating towards the foot of the bed.

Daniel had the look of someone who’d just stumbled upon a cave full of hibernating bears and was trying to back out slowly before any of them smelled fresh meat and decided that they didn’t need the sleep that badly but had inadvertently woken all of them up. The moment Johnny’s eyes fell on him, it was clear from his expression that he’d picked the bears any day of the week.

However Ali beckoned him in and like with everything to do with Ali Mills, Daniel was too weak to refuse.

“H-Hi, Johnny,” said Ali, forcing a chipper appearance as she approached the foot of the bed. “How are you feeling?”

Johnny remained silent for a moment before he plastered on a smile which looked more pained than happy when he returned Ali’s greeting. Laura didn’t seem to notice the obvious tension in the room, or the one between Johnny and Ali and Daniel who was still skulking by the door.

“I’ve been better,” Johnny said, swallowing the lump in his throat before his eyes glanced over to stare at Daniel who was trying his hardest to blend into his background. “I’m really… glad to see you, Ali,” he added, though from the hesitation in his voice it was obviously only a show put on for his mom’s sake.

“Me too. We were all so worried.”

Johnny tried to keep up the smile but it ended up looking more like a grimace, though lucky for him Laura’s attention was more on the situation between him and Ali as opposed to whatever was going on inside his head, because his mother was one of the few people who could read him like an open book. “Yeah…” he answered simply because the atmosphere of the room descended into silence.

“I’ll just give you kids your privacy,” Laura said, obvious misinterpreting the situation and the silence as being brought on by her presence. “I’m going to get a cup of coffee, sweetheart, I’ll be back in a few minutes,” she said, reaching over to stroke Johnny’s hair and plant a kiss on his forehead. She gave Ali a brief by warm hug when she passed by her before stepping out of the room, leaving Johnny alone to face off against two of the people in the world he probably wanted to see least. Though, maybe second after Sid.

The silence remained for a while after her exit. Daniel ended up toeing his shoe against the linoleum, eyes glancing over at everything in the room besides Johnny, willing himself to shrink down into nonexistence because of the awkwardness of the situation. Ali was fidgeting with the hem of her skirt, eyes downcast while Johnny finally tore his eyes away from the sight of the two people in front of him and opted to stare at the far end wall because it was pretty much the only thing in his line of sight that didn’t cause little stabs of pain inside his heart.

“What do you want, Ali?” he asked finally, his voice cold. “Come to rub it in my face, LaRusso? Don’t worry, I’m not such an idiot that I didn’t realize I’d lost.”

The hesitation immediately drained from Ali’s shoulders when Johnny finished. Her eyes snapped up instantly, the look in her eyes blazing. “God, Johnny, can’t you ever not be so… so… vindictive? We were genuinely worried about you – I was worried about you, despite what you might think of me.”

Johnny clenched his eyes shut tight as Ali continued her almost tearful monologue until the point he couldn’t take it anymore. “Please,” he said, sounding more broken than Ali had ever heard him which caused her to stop mid-sentence. “Just… please. I’m tired of fighting,” he said with a sigh. “Please just leave.”

Ali immediately looked apologetic, almost deflated by the defeated tone in Johnny’s voice.

“I’m sorry,” she said with a sigh. “I really didn’t come here to upset you. Just… I really did just want to see how you were doing.”

Johnny mimicked the tired sigh. It genuinely hurt how much Ali’s presence had come to be more painful than pleasurable and he knew he had only himself to blame for that. “I know, but… the truth is you being here isn’t helping anything, Ali. I appreciate the concern but just… I’d rather if you didn’t come by again.”

“I understand,” Ali replied sadly.

Hurting Ali was something that hurt Johnny deeply, but so was having her so close but at the same time so far out of reach. He knew he would probably never be over her, or over the relationship they once had, especially with her being around, taunting him with the unattainability of her presence.

Johnny looked away when Ali turned to leave and he expected to hear the sound of footsteps leading away from his room, leaving him to his privacy to let his tears flow, but instead there was a shuffling sound and the voice that had at some point become the bane of his existence all of a sudden called his name.

“Hey, Johnny,” LaRusso called out and it took all of Johnny’s will power not to roll his eyes outright. He kept his eyes averted hoping that LaRusso would for once take the hint and just walk away from the situation in which his presence was neither required nor wanted.  “Look, man. I know we’ve had our differences, and we’ve made each other’s entire year hell – though some of us more than others –” he added the last part as a mutter under his breath, “But I never meant for anything like this to happen. Not even to you. So… just – just know that. I’m really sorry that it turned out this way.”

Johnny could appreciate the balls it took for LaRusso to step up and say what he said, to apologize for it nonetheless. The way he never would have done. He’d hurt his fair share of opponents in tournaments but it was never anything personal. It was just for the win. What his sensei asked him to do… what he’d asked Bobby to do… it went against even his own skewered moral compass, but he never in a million years would he have apologized to LaRusso for what happened.

Maybe he really had been the bad guy all along.

LaRusso obviously took his silence and lack of eye contact as his definitive reply and was about half way towards the door where Ali was waiting for him when Johnny found himself calling out to him.

“LaRusso,” he said, finally meeting LaRusso’s eyes when he turned around. He took a deep, measured breath before lifting his left hand up slightly, holding it out to LaRusso who looked between his face at the offered appendage confusedly. “Now we’re finally even, huh?” he asked. He wasn’t sure how he even remembered the words or why they chose to come out at that moment, but he thought it was appropriate.

LaRusso looked confused for a moment and Johnny could see the exact moment the significance of the words finally dawn on him. He smiled, and Johnny found him own lips curling slightly at the edges. “Yeah, man,” he said, walking over without hesitation and grasping Johnny’s hand, holding his firm and giving it a slight shake. “Now we’re even.”

They both let go at once and LaRusso finally turned to join Ali who was staring between them confusedly from the door.

The calm that settled in his heart, probably for the first time in years, as usual, didn’t last very long, because just as Ali and LaRusso both turned to leave, the last person either of them probably wanted to run into appeared at the door.

“Well, well, well, what do we have here?” asked Dutch in a sing song voice, grin plastered on, stopping dead in his tracks the moment his eyes fell on LaRusso.

Johnny just sighed. He was too tired to have to deal with that particular situation. Though he was half proud and half hurt watching Ali put herself without hesitation between LaRusso and Dutch.

The sound of multiple footsteps signaled the arrival of the rest of the Cobra Kais, stepping in into the room behind Dutch who was prowling threateningly around Ali and LaRusso like a wild animal.

“Dutch,” said Tommy, his tone almost cautionary as he said Dutch’s name.

Johnny thought he should break up the tension before it escalated but he didn’t even get the chance to open his mouth to tell him to stop once Bobby walked in.

The immediate shift in Dutch's body language was apparent, it was almost like he deflated; the prickly hairs standing on end like an aggravated feline settled down though his typical smirk stayed on. He raised both hands as if in surrender, taking a deliberate step back.

“I’m good,” he said immediately, looking between LaRusso and Bobby. “Cool as a cucumber,” he added, bowing slightly and motioning towards the door with both arms. “Careful, Danielle, don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”

LaRusso looked about as confused as Johnny felt on the inside by the unexpected turn of events. However he was obviously not too confused to recognize the escape route when it was handed to him on a platter made of gold. He immediately grabbed an equally bemused Ali by the wrist, tugging her away from Dutch. Just before they disappeared out the door, Johnny found himself calling out one more time.

“Thanks,” he said, “For… for coming and for playing along; for not telling my mom the truth about us.”

For the first time in a long time, Ali looked back at him with an expression other than disdain on her face. She actually smiled. “You don’t have to thank me for that,” she said. “Your mom’s a lovely person and I genuinely care about her. But you really should tell her the truth eventually,” she said.

Leave it to Ali to always tell him things he didn’t really want to hear. Johnny guessed that was why he loved her so much.

But then she left with LaRusso, walking away with a last lingering smile before she disappeared behind the wall and far out of reach.

Johnny exhaled through the ache in his chest; furrowing his brows because it was pretty much the only part of him he could move without pain.

“How you feelin’, Johnny?” asked Bobby as he approached. He seemed to be the only person in the room unaffected by Dutch’s strange behaviour. Everyone else was still gob smacked silent by Dutch’s uncharacteristic reaction. Though knowing Bobby as well as he did (the real Bobby that not everyone got to see all the time) Johnny was positive that something had happened between the two that he didn't know about.

The question immediately erased the thought of LaRusso clear from everyone’s minds and they turned to approach Johnny’s bed; some with slightly more spring in their step than others as demonstrated by Tommy who nearly skipped up to Johnny’s side.

“Yeah, man. You doing okay?” he asked, reaching down to grab the side rail of the bed with both hand, leaning down into Johnny’s line of sight.

Johnny gave them a tired smile. The exhaustion was just a default mode of his lately though he was glad to see his friends. “Probably going to have to hang up my dancing shoes for a while,” he said.

Tommy laughed, probably a little too fervently, but then again, it was Tommy. Everything he did and said was slightly more exaggerated than that of a normal human being.

“Really glad you’re okay, Johnny,” Jimmy said, stepping up on his other side, across from Tommy.

Dutch stepped up to the foot of the bed as Bobby came up on Jimmy’s left, his warm smile plastered on his face immediately lifting Johnny’s spirits by just the sight.

“We’re Cobras,” he said, “It’ll take more than this to keep us down.” Though the voice saying the words inside his head wasn’t one that belonged to him, they were words he wanted to believe with all his heart.

“Damn straight,” said Dutch determinedly. “But I still can’t believe you let LaRusso drop you like that, man.”

The resounding sharp intake of breath was apparent in the room and Johnny turned in time to see Bobby deliver a sharp slap to Dutch’s shoulder with the back of his hand, his expression both of disbelief and irritation.

“What?” whined Dutch, feigning offense with a shrug of his shoulders.

“Seriously, man?” stated Bobby, half in query and half as an exclamation of disbelief. His expression was one that Johnny could only describe as an ever suffering mother dealing with petulant two year old who’d just thrown a tantrum. But then again, that was Bobby’s default more when it came to dealing with Dutch most of the time.

“What?” Dutch repeated, putting on the face of the wronged party so convincingly that even Bobby could barely suppress the grin tugging at the corner of his lips.

“You’re incorrigible,” said Bobby once he finally gave up trying to hold back the chuckle.

Johnny couldn’t hold back his either and eventually the whole room descended into laughter.

“You’re the real ace-degenerate,” said Tommy with a cackle and Johnny honestly couldn’t agree with the statement more if he tried.

Tbc.

[bio-nerds-corner]

Star Singer

the first of, perhaps, five unfinished fics. i do hope that ,even inspite of the parts that arent done, you enjoy this :)

soft vore, extreme size difference. isolation, perhaps fear of the void?

~6000 words

Nine-Metis. Home sweet fucking home. One of the larger nickel-iron mines within the asteroid-belt, and Wilbur’s new home for the next three years. An entire lump of rock in space all to his own. Fantastic.

Stepping from the transport shuttle airlock into the airlock of the mining operations center, he frowned a little at the grime and oil inlaid in the metal flooring, and the way that the air was far too cold for human comfort. Thank God he had put on his cardigan when the shuttle had arrived, it was clear much of the auxiliary life support systems were left on low-power. 

The air pump wheezed and caught with a ragged cough of space dust, before registering a clear-to-entry sigil on the inner door of the airlock. Wilbur considered turning around and fucking off back to his home Orbit Station right then and there. Surely even Somnus, with its choking population and underwhelming job prospects, would be better than being blasted into space halfway to Jupiter? 

Do it for the money. Do it for Dad.

He stepped into the mining control center, looking around at the stale air that seemed to sparkle with ice crystals, none of the lights yet on and the only light visible was a pale dull glow of the faraway sun coming through the shaded windows. 

Wilbur pushed his way through the zero-gravity corridor, pulling his tablet from his pocket as he went to try and pull up one of the billion schematics that Astero-idea Mining Corp had sent him along with the job confirmation notice. One of these ought to be the layout of the mining operation center…

Ah, there it was. Heating was a floor up. Set up so the living quarters would be coziest, while he could freeze his balls off whenever he had to go down to the machine storage areas to work.

His job wasn’t glamorous. If anything, he was mostly a glorified machine baby-sitter. His job was to sit here for three years, keep the mining equipment happy, and occasionally send reports home about the quality of the meteor dust that it grinds up. Easy enough. 

It also was supposedly the kind of job that changes the person who takes it forever. The kind that drives those to isolation madness, the kind of loneliness that cannot even be fathomed by the rest of the human race. 

But hey, it paid really well as a result. And Wilbur needed it. He could deal with a little homesickness every once in a while, right?

Right.

There was a sudden heavy clunk that reverberated through the cold dark center that almost sent him jumping into the ceiling-wall panel, and he had kicked off back towards the sound before realizing it was probably the outer airlock disengaging from the transport shuttle, sending the now empty vehicle to dock in the shipping supply bay to refuel for the journey back. 

The sound did attract his attention to the starscape around the meteor that was now his home, however. He knew that he would be able to see other tiny asteroids from his place on Metis, but he had never imagined how they might sparkle and shimmer like miniature moons.  He thinks he could get used to a sight like that, but for now he would drink in the marvel of such an experience. 

    There was something curious about one of the closer meteors though… As if there was something stretched over the surface. Was there another meteor mining operation so close to his own base? Maybe he wouldn’t have to feel totally lonely after all?

    He squinted some more. No… It didn’t seem like a base. He had gotten a good look at the shape of the center when the transport shuttle had arrived, and that dark patch seemed more…

    Organic. Like an outstretched bird’s wing, or some large and elaborately finned fish.

    He blinked a few times, and the shape’s organic shape dissolved into patches of light and shadow against the tiny meteor. Just a trick of the eye.

    Abruptly he was feeling the cold again, and pushed the neighbor meteor’s curious shape out of his mind as he went back to fire up the auxiliary life support on this rock.

…

(feeling lonely, getting into the groove of working there. It mainly involves watching over a bunch of robots that shuttle in piles of dust. He tries to fashion it like he’s a shepherd, and the machines his flock. He grows tired of the joke by the end of that day though. Establish his singing - he does it a LOT while bored because the dull machine silence of the habitat would just drive him crazy otherwise)

Hello?

Wilbur full-body flinches. Then whips around to stare at the dark corners of the room, searching for something living amongst the floating piles of rubble and disassembled drill-bits that threatened to float out of arm’s reach. Nothing. 

Hello?

There it was again. Right at the edge of his hearing, bordering on the unhearable. Did he just imagine it? He might have just imagined it.

Can you hear me?

This is fine. Just fine. Everyone’s heard of the exhaustion catching up to the average asteroid worker, the way the isolation causes auditory hallucinations. He’s just having a minor one. It’ll clear up after he gets some rest. 

Hello, Wilbur.

He’ll break open an extra caff pack tomorrow morning. He deserves it. Especially after sleeping through the night with all of the lights on.

You can hear me.

…

Wilbur had decided, after much groaning, to reclassify his brief mental break as ‘ongoing’ after the third experience of hearing something whispering to him right at the edge of his hearing. He had honestly hoped that he would be able to avoid the ‘meteor madness’ everyone talked about for more than three months, he had really expected more from himself. 

After the fourth instance of hearing voices whisper from the walls of the inner hull of the station, he decided that, what the hell, there was nobody else here to listen to him other than the mineral auger drill bits hes still got to polish and replace. So he answered back.

“Yea yea yea, I hear you, I’m here, I’m here. Could you speak up?” He called out to nothing in particular, taking the time to stop squinting at the newsfeed burst that had come through for this week (all some dumb political dick measuring contest happening back on one of the Venus orbiters, he really didn’t care about it but there wasn't much reading material out on a space rock like this) and stretching out his back in a cacophony of pops.

There was a couple of moments of silence that made him feel like an idiot, straining his ears only to hear the faint hum and chuff of the ventilation system. Then -

How about now?

The voice was extremely clear now, loud enough that it made Wilbur twist and stare wildly behind him. He could almost hear the breath that his mind had inserted into the voice, the inhalation that preceded those words.

As his heart slowed down from a race, he muttered a “fuck” under his breath. “Please- Please don’t do that again. Please.” For now there was too much adrenaline in his bloodstream for him to think of how ridiculous it was that he was begging with his own now obvious case of meteor madness. 

Ok Wilbur.

And with that it had faded back into a far-away echo.

Wilbur didn’t read another two words from the news burst that day, and decided to turn on some loud music over the intercoms of the station instead.  

…

hes really lonely. And one night on his time off he ends up sleepwalking to one of the larger windows on the small base and he… sees…. Something that looks like more than reflected rock on one of the asteroids. Something with enormous wings that glitter like comet trails

he doesnt see it again for a while. He starts hearing things though.

he tries to mention it to his family, but apparently isolation issues are a common thing with asteroid workers (inspo from antarctic workers?). dad puts it aside.

…

[This Call Has Been Inactive for [30] Minutes - Disconnecting in [5] Minutes To Save Broadband]

Fucking Tommy. He had planned this for a week, had done the time conversion to Earth Orbit schedule, everything. He’d even fucking called into his supervisors to get the long-range call times double-checked so he wouldn’t end up with his signal blocked by Mars or something. And Tommy hadn’t picked up.

Wilbur pushed out of the zero-gravity hammock contraption that acted as his chair with a groan that edged into a scream around the edges. He had looked forward to this for so long, long enough that he no longer cared that it sounded pathetic that this was the only thing he was looking forward to at all in recent memory.

“My own fucking brother! Standing me up on a call! Can you fucking believe it!” He yelled at the ceiling, rocking his head back and leaning back as far as the ‘chair’ would allow. He kind of wanted to kick something. Or bite something. Preferably Tommy. 

The on-screen display ticked the [4] minutes and he closed it dejectedly. If Tommy wasn’t showing up right on time, he wasn’t ever going to show up. What kind of excuse would he give, Wilbur wondered. He hoped it was at least elaborate enough to make up for his rapidly plummeting mood.

Hopefully at least the voice will chat with him later today. 

...

Today was shipping day, the anti-Christmas as they (as in he, and absolutely nobody else) called it. The day where all of those rock-dust filled capsules had to be packed into the homeward bound shuttle, and where he had to spend fourteen hours scrambling over boxes and completing checklists in making sure everything was properly labeled and accounted for and the rockets weren’t about to blow up and destroy millions of dollars worth of raw material (and maybe also him). And then after that he got to spend another four hours filling out more forms to pack with them asking for the higher ups at home to maybe please send some more mining equipment, and also food? 

Shipping day fucking blows. If it weren’t for the voice intermittently coming in and keeping him company (and how weird is that, how can a hallucination keep you company?) during those long and backbreaking hours he might have just given up on even writing the worker-products request slips and slept for two days straight. As it were...

Why do you need to request for food? 

“Well, voice in my head,” he said as he tugged at his foot, which had caught itself between two 600 pound capsules that bobbed around like balloons in the null gravity and might just crush him by their sheer inertia, “If I don’t put in the request then they can’t have enough ready to send back next time they send the delivery shuttle. And if they don’t send enough then I’ll have starved to death before the next one can arrive.”

That is silly. Isn’t the sun bright and beautiful from out here?

“I can’t exactly eat the sun, and no. This is pathetic compared to a summer’s day back home.”

Can you tell me about summers?

“I’m probably not the best person to answer, given I had them in England, but I can try.” The foot came free, and he hurried to keep the capsules from drifting too far with a couple of tether cables that he attached to the inner carapace of the delivery shuttle. 

Thank you Wilbur.

…

With the shuttle barely another glimmer of light to hide among the stars, Wilbur couldn’t help but stare out at it. That was the only way home, before his tenure was up at least. With each shipping day come and gone, the desire to huddle himself and a couple of tanks of oxygen up in the spaces between the capsules and try to survive the two month journey back to the nearest meteor processing center grew more enticing. As if he would ever survive the trip, without suffocating or getting crushed by one of the shipping pallets or running out of food. 

Besides, this paid good money. He needed to keep reminding himself of that. Money was hard to remember when he had nothing to spend it on, after all.

He tried to squint at it one more time, just one more before he would go and finally get his much-needed rest, but his tired eyes drifted and he found himself watching one of the smaller asteroids that orbited far off. It glittered slightly in the weak sunlight, and it was close enough that he could see it tumbling very slowly end-over-end. 

He stifled a yawn, about to turn and leave, when he detected the faintest movement from the meteor that wasn’t consistent with its orbit. He was abruptly awake and aware, squinting as hard as he could at it. There was something… dark, cast against the surface of the meteor. He could barely see it stretch into the void above the meteor, but with the blotting out of a nearby star he could almost see… wings?

Wings, like the ones he had seen that one night so long ago, a shape that seemed more at home flitting around in the Earth sky than the darkness of empty space.

He hesitates before, in a feat of exhausted reasoning, he waves an arm at it as if he were hailing a spaceship.

Hello Wilbur! 

He froze mid-wave. Did the voice in his head just… 

The shape on the meteor changed slightly and, against the deep blackness of space he could almost see… an arm? It must be an arm, but of impossibly large size to be seen from so far away. It mimicked his wave.

“Is that you?” He asked, immediately feeling dumb about it. Probably visual hallucinations again. 

(But… He had seen the wings before…)

Yes! I have come to live closer! What was the small flying thing? 

His arm dropped to float in the zero-gravity air, his heartbeat suddenly pounding hard and fast in his ears. The voice was real. There was something out there. Was it aliens? Was he first contact with alie-

No. He had to take this logically. And the logical thing was that he was just having an exhaustive hallucination because he just spent an entire day doing hard work, both physically and mentally.  

He needed sleep.Without much fanfare, he located the nearest decently soft surface and collapsed on it as much as one could without gravity.

Ok Wilbur. I’ll be here when you wake up.

…

And it was still there the next time he woke. Inexplicably, there was a dark shape upon a nearby meteor that was utterly unexplainable. That is, unless it was…

Hello again Wilbur!

“That’s you.” He pointed out at the shape again.

Yes! 

The voice sounded a little bemused, and he realized he had probably asked that question already. He still had to ask it again. “Are you sure that is you? And not some… other… space… thingy?”

The voice actually laughed, less a sound and more a feeling that fluttered around the inside of his skull like a trapped bird. 

It’s only me Wilbur. I think I would know if there were anyone else.

He was half way into eating a bowl of something he would be generous and call scrambled eggs when the uncertain calm he had been feeling upon waking up breaks like poorly-made glass. He’s conversing with an alien, who is not a hallucination. 

“Holy fuck! I’m talking with an alien!” He cried aloud, because why not, he’s already being pretty pedantic this morning. 

Another laugh, gentler.

Can I come closer?

“Oh, of course you can!” He was up and out of his seat, letting the spoon spin freely in the air as he swung towards the window and peered out desperately. Like a kid in a candy store, he laughed to himself.

The shape on the meteor moved, and to his amazement grew closer. And larger.

A lot larger.

As it approached one of the closest nearby meteors that took up large chunks of the ‘sky’ for Wilbur, he could see it was easily able to dwarf not only him, but probably the entire base he lived on and all of the machines that swarmed it.

He was panicking now, something animal in him violently rejecting the concept of something inhumanly large and dark flying towards him through the silent void of space. Before the - he couldn’t call it a voice anymore, it was an alien, it had a body  - could, he didn’t know, leap from the next meteor towards his own, it stopped. 

You’re scared.

He probably should be more worried about how easily the alien was able to determine his mental state, but he could only manage a nod. “Can you… stay there for now?”

Ok Wilbur.

He took a few stabilizing breaths, letting his heart settle, and leaned in closer to the window. With the alien now closer, he could see a little more of its body. For one, it was massive on a scale that baffled him. Human brains weren’t really meant to interpret such large scales, but he could tell that a living being and a crater should not be of comparable size.

He eventually calls it Sally. It says that it likes him. That he’s funny. He doesnt know why he feels so happy that an auditory hallucination that is brought on by asteroid isolation called him ‘funny.’ 

He mentions Sally in passing on one of his calls back home. Everyone is concerned because clearly hes having a mental break.

Finally, he starts to get desperate enough and starts asking Sally if it (now she) will come visit him. That he is so lonely and that he loves talking to her and if she was on that asteroid maybe they could see eachother? Sally laughs and tells him that she’s always been seeing him. But yes, she can come.

He’s never been so delighted and excited. This is the most energetic hes been in months, since he took this job even, maybe even beforehand.

...

Are you ready?

“I’ve been ready all morning, Sally. I’ve been so excited.”

Good. Come on out, I’m here.

He had the EVA suit on already, had been sitting impatiently in it for hours at this point. The helmet was pressed to his knees, and he now hurriedly put it on and sealed it tight. Without a second thought he checked his oxygen (2 hours, not too bad but would mean he probably would have to come in and trade out tanks a few times) and the seal on the suit. He lifted his tether rope and hooked it to his suit, and floated into the airlock. Sally was right here! Right outside the door!

He bounced from one hand-hold to another, as impatient as a small kid, and wished that the airlock cycle would just happen faster, damn it! Why couldn’t he just open up the door right away, he didn’t need this air that it was pumping out. Not when Sally was right there.

Wilbur?

“I’m almost there, I promise I promise,” he placated, smiling widely at just the sound of her voice. 

The airlock at long last finished cycling, and he pushed at the outer door with a bit more force than he probably needed. Without sound in space he couldn’t hear the clang of it hitting the outer edge of its hinges’ range of motion, but he could certainly feel the jolt. He giddily scanned the dark and endless sky for a hint of those comet-light wings, the flash of red and green. “Sally?”

You have to come out further, Wilbur. I’m just a little further out.

Of course, of course. Stupid of him to think otherwise. He’s getting ahead of himself. That’s why he brought the tethers along in the first place after all. He reluctantly tore his eyes from space and, with the hand not holding onto the open airlock door, clipped the other end of the tether to one of the many hooks bored into the surface of the asteroid. He let the rest of the line run slack and, carefully closing the airlock door behind him, prepared to jump. 

The gravitational pull of asteroids was minimal, which is why basically everything he owned was made for zero g. There was some pull, enough that it might eventually drag him back down, but if he jumped far enough it would be as if there was none at all, at least long enough for him to find Sally. He jumped, and felt the tether spool out behind him. 100 meters, 200 meters, 350 meters… and it caught him with a jolt at the end of the line.

Then a knot somewhere along the tether, tied with not nearly enough care by excited fingers, pulled loose. The reassuring tug of the tether back down to the asteroid was released and, with a feeling of horror, Wilbur felt himself float a little further than the 350 meters he’d been allotted. He couldn’t even turn around to grab the rope again - the knot was another 30 meters down. 

He flailed and thrashed for a moment like it was his first day in space. “No!” He cried out, seeing his end of the tether whip around and curl in circles around his kicking legs in languid spirals. No air in space meant his movements resulted in no change to his trajectory, which appeared to be up and out. 

So caught up in his terror, it took him a moment to hear Sally.

Wilbur! I am here. Please do not be afraid. I will help you.

Sally. Sally. That’s right. Sally who did not live inside of the asteroid. Who could help him. What amazing luck that there would be someone on the other side of the airlock who could help him right when he needed it most. 

He turned himself around, automatically pointing himself towards the asteroid he had first seen Sally at and.

She was there. So many wings that burned like liquid light and soaked up the sun’s rays so completely that she became a star herself. A fish-like tail that flicked in slow strokes in the empty space, covered in scales that gleamed as bright red as the great jovian storms. A face with all of the love and kindness and power that he had grown to know of her in all of this time. 

His love, Sally. He burst out crying at the sight of it.

Wilbur, Wilbur, Wilbur… She crooned in her head. You came out for me. You came to me. Thank you my love, thank you my heart.

He couldn’t stop the tears that messily wet the inside of his helmet for even a moment as he stared in awe and adoration at her perfect face. She reached forward with hands the size of ships to cup around him gently, plucking him out from the open space so easily. 

I have so much to show you. 

She opened her mouth, exposing teeth the size of moon landers and a darkness as absolute as a black hole, and he let himself be consumed totally.

…

Wilbur, take my hand. I want to show you something. 

They were sitting on a boat, floating in the ocean. It bobbed gently under his feet, the scent of salt was sharp in the air. The sun was just hitting the 

He looked over at Sally. She was (blonde-haired black-haired tall short dimpled freckled) beautiful and exactly as he had always imagined her. She was smiling to him, feet kicking beneath her as she rocked on the boat’s bench. Her hand was outstretched.

He took a moment to soak in the sunlight, the beautiful sea air, her beaming face, and he took her hand. She stood up, pulling him with him, and they walked over to the edge of the boat.

Look down, Wilbur. Take a look at the sea.

He looked down. The sea was dark as wine, endlessly deep, and yet he couldn’t focus on the dark depths. His gaze was caught on the tiny sediments that glittered in the setting sun’s light, the tiny silvery fish that nipped at the craggy side of the rocking boat. Tiny sparkles of light against an unfathomable void.

He pointed it out to Sally. Look at the little fish, look at the sand and tiny floating plankton. Isn’t it beautiful? She laughed so beautifully, and nudged him.

Aren’t you so silly? Those are so small and close. Do you always see the little close things as the most beautiful? I have so much more to show you.

She pulled on his hand. Encouraging him to lean forward more. The ocean was so close now -

Wilbur tumbled forward into the ocean, which leaped forward to catch him in a warm and gentle embrace. It wrapped him up and held him so closely and he rejoiced in the sheer physicality of it all. So different from the quiet, the cold, the dead feeling of space -

Space? Why is he thinking about space? He’s in the ocean.

Beside him, Sally splashed down into the water with a flurry of bubbles, and through the inherent murkiness of the sea water he could see her smile gleam brighter. She tugged him down a little more, pulling on his billowing clothes. 

We need to go further down, Wilbur. I want to show you so much more than you know. 

So he followed her. He kicked feebly against the sea water, pulled further down by the weight of his sodden clothes, but he wasn’t able to keep up with the strong and confident kicks of his love.

Please help me, Sally. I don’t want to fall behind. He called with a voice that shouldn’t exist underwater, watching her disappear into the darkness underneath him. Panicking, he thrashed harder, trying to overcome a lack of ability in the water with pure stubbornness.

Come here Wilbur. I’ll show you.

All around him tendrils of glowing ghostly light, like trails of phosphorescent salps, reached out of the void to wrap around him. In the heart of them was Sally, smiling ever so beautifully. 

I’ll help you. Come and see.

And he was pulled down into the dark, leaving behind the boat and the bright surface and the setting sun for the endless void. 

The dark was beautiful. A crystal depth that was so unlike the endless vacuum of space. He could feel that press of water around him and, even more present, that of Sally. He had drawn closer to her and her self-assured swimming rhythm, knotted in the glowing tendrils like he was caught in a jellyfish’s tangle. 

She pointed off into the encroaching darkness. Look, Wilbur. Please look.

He saw.

Civilizations living and dying like sparkling plankton. Solar winds blasting out in bellows that reflect across wings leagues across. Asteroids, hundreds of thousands of kilometers apart, and yet each one like a friend and neighbor to her.

Ships passing her by like fretful silvery fish, too blind to her to hear her call, her curiosity. Drills breaking into asteroids, so different, so small… 

Her, perched in her asteroid, her nest in this oceanic astral life of hers, reaching forward to see if she could catch the tiny krill that live and die in those tiny glass and metal bubbles… 

A small creature, barely a copepod, planktonic in his powerless tumble through the tides of the universe, reaching back. He sings so sweetly in his tiny tones, finding a fraction of the beauty in the universe that she experiences every day. And yet, those tiny reedy tones, things that only she could hear and which would never echo unending across the galaxy in gravity-distorting tones, were precious gifts in of themselves. 

She reached out and plucked him from his metal habitat, careful of his fragile body not meant for such depths as what she lives in. He sees her, and she carefully takes her little gift back with her to her asteroid. 

Something just for her. A song with notes that are so very small.

A song that can only feel the edges of her own tones without being drowned out entirely, for she does not want him to have to yell in order to be heard at all. 

Wilbur, little ballad-maker, will you sing me another song?

He spun in the reassuring pull of tentacles around him, and in the voice of one untethered from simple vocal chords, Wilbur sang of the majesty of the stars.

...

Wilbur awoke with tears crusted thickly on his cheeks. All around him was a tight and dark warmth, not in the darkness of space but of something comforting and living. The darkness of an overturned log, lush with life, rather than that of an endless cave system. 

“Sally?” He managed, croaking out through a voice that had splintered in every direction. The pressing warmth around him held tighter, like a crushing hug that he had so dearly desired for so long. He let himself melt under the sensation, the warmth that sank into his bones for the first time since he had left Earth, the softness that he had been so devoid of in the sharp grey walls of the asteroid mine.

His body apparently still had tears to give, as when he leaned back into the softness even more he could feel his vision slip out of focus behind a film of tears in the warm orange light.

Wait. Light?

He blinked furiously and, with enormous willpower, leaned up and out of the cozy comfort that cradled him. Held in his hands, pressed against his chest in a dense hot ball that was dampened only slightly by the EVA suit he was still wearing, was what looked to be a tiny star. It shined and glimmered with vermillion, and even as he watched it the glowing ball shifted. 

It was alive.

Carefully he held it closer and could feel, beneath the obscuring bright light, limbs press against the suit and a head tuck into the side of his suit’s life support control panel. He didn’t realize he was holding on so tightly to it until that moment, and he didn’t have the willpower to let go.

Wilbur? Her voice almost... echoed, like it was bouncing off of the endless cavern that resided within her.

His head popped up automatically, and he smiled on instinct. Sally! 

Do you trust me?

With my life, my love. Where are you? What’s going on?

Remove your helmet.

But… wouldn’t that, y’know, kill him? Last he checked he was on the wrong side of the airlock, the endless void of space. Though, it was warm and soft and oh so comforting, so different from the death that had always been promised by its endless expanse.

You said you trusted me. I will keep you safe.

His grip loosened on the star held against his chest, and drifted up to his helmet. With barely a thought he broke the seal on it and the air rushed out in one fatal blast. He should’ve been unconscious in less than fifteen seconds, oxygen starvation quickly turning his brain off and sending him into a downward spiral towards a cold and lonely death. 

He couldn’t breathe, there was no air but the wispy remains of what was in his suit’s tanks, and yet… wherever he was, it didn’t matter.

I told you so. 

Yes, she did. Why did he even doubt for a second? He tried his best to wiggle out of the EVA suit, which was definitely not built to be wiggled out of. He made do with awkwardly freeing his arms so he could better cradle the star that was now lying more comfortably against his chest. It seemed to solidify further with the skin contact, and he could see a muzzle of a soft earth animal, a swishing tail, large eyes that shined like quasars. 

He hugged it close as much as he could. “Sally?” He called again.

Do you like them? I made them for you. A child. 

“A child? Ours? They are… They’re beautiful.” It was ridiculous, and some part of his brain seemed to slip out of the elated state it was caught up in. “Wait. A child? Like, one of your kind?”

Not quite. Almost, though. I want them to be able to live with you, not out in the stars like I must. I want something from me to always be with you, even when we are apart.

A thing made of star-stuff and scales and human flesh, something that could only have hatched in the close warmth and suffocating darkness, rather than the endless depths of space. A planet-creature, not a void-creature

Wilbur names him Fundy. As he gives him a name and continues to cuddle him close, his shape becomes more and more solid, more and more a creature of the earth.

Sally’s stomach is, as he begins to adjust more and more to the soft light, more like an entire crater, an endless expanse so large that he nestled quite comfortably within one fold. As he watches he can see dust and rock disintegrate in the far sides, lumps of metal and plastic that are all that remain of 9-Metis mining station, having been carved from the asteroid and chewed up for having deprived Wilbur so much, knowing to the depths of his heart that he is in no similar danger. 

He knows he could live here forever, safe and protected and so very close to Sally’s heart.

Sally starts to feel unsure of herself as a result, realizing that what Wilbur needed far more than her love, her coveting of him as a most precious jewel, was his own people. His mind had splintered in a way, becoming reliant on her own to keep its shape, and even as it leaked song and light for her to enjoy she knew that if she truly loved him she needed to bring him home.

She asks for one last song from him, dancing with him in a dream. He is far enough gone that he cannot tell just how bittersweet the dream had become around him, wrapping him up in pain and love in equal measures.

We are almost there.

Sally seemed sad. Why was she sad? Where were they going? He didn’t know if he said it aloud or not but Sally seemed to hear it nonetheless.

I need to bring you home. You miss your family.

But what about you? Sally, I cannot miss them when I am with you. 

And that is why.

What is going on? Wilbur pulled Fundy closer, quietly shushing the small child as they nipped at the loose fabric of his EVA suit. Did he do something wrong?

I’ll miss you Wilbur. Thank you for letting me 

No… no… Sally was leaving? No no no this cannot be happening. He didn’t want to leave. Please don’t make him leave he doesn’t want to leave he refuses to leave -

The warm cradle of muscle around him flexed and hardened into steel, and the comforting press turned claustrophobic. What was once endless and magnificent closed around him like a cave-in, and he yelled into Fundy’s fur and curled into a tight ball that Sally forced him into. There was a terrific yank feeling as the tether cord that he had long forgotten went taught and dragged him upwards, tangling and knotting around him.

He felt the frigid cold first, less from a temperature and more from a lack thereof as the warmth and protection Sally gave him dissipated, then the crackle of drying spit that held him in a tightening shell. He blinked open eyes and uncurled as he was tangled in the tether cable and caught in Sally’s outstretched hands. Without the protection of a shaded helmet he could see her even clearer, the tiny scales larger than his outstretched palm dappling her face, the hundreds of lacey wings that were thicker than the toughest skyhook cable spiralling out from her in long strands into the enormity of space. Compared to her, the 320 meter cable that had seemed so sturdy was like a strand of spider silk.

He’d never felt so small, not even when he had been all alone in the void. Somehow, it seemed so much larger when he got to see someone who truly belonged out here, someone for whom these endless pelagic open seas were home.

He didn’t belong out here. That’s why Sally was making him go.

Fundy whined inaudibly in his arms, the sound echoing on the inside of his head, and pushed their snout under his head into the crook of his neck. He held them closer to hide his shivering, the despair that had burst inside of him and threatened to swallow him whole more absolutely than Sally had. 

I will miss you. I won’t forget you. But you cannot stay with me.

Don’t go! He wanted to scream it, to try and pry open Sally’s mouth and find somewhere to curl up in within her, where it was dark and he knew a glimpse of the true universe, but whatever was allowing him to stay unaffected by the vacuum of space didn’t seem to extend to allowing him speech in the void.  Please don’t let me go, please don’t leave me out here, I need you.

Sally looked sad, in a quiet way that shivered up through her wings. 

You need to be with your people again. Please take care of Fundy. Raise them well.

She oh-so-delicately untangled the cable from her hand, pinching the loose folds of his EVA suit gently and letting him drift in zero-g. He kicked as much as he could, but he couldn’t truly flail and try to keep a grip on her hand without letting go of Fundy, which he couldn’t risk.

Sally’s gaze finally left his, and she looked around her. Her vast dark eyes gleamed with distant stars, and her trailing light-filled fins flicked. 

They are almost here. You are going to go home. I hope you live well, little Wilbur.

Before he could try to shout out something, anything to beg her to stay or at least say goodbye in return, all of the enormous wings on her bag expanded, and she flicked her tail and sank into the darkness again. He tried so hard to follow her form as it moved quicker than any ship he had ever seen, but his panicked flailing had left him in a rotating drift that made him unable to keep his eyes on her.

    And then, like an unwary fly on a long highway, he smacked bodily against the front of a cargo spacecraft.

Hes brought aboard, seemingly miraculously still alive despite being hundreds of thousands of miles from Metis, and to his surprise its his family. Sally had brought him close enough to them that he is reunited immediately.

He can’t stop holding close to fundy as hes asked how exactly he was there, what happened, they heard something happened to the station, is he ok? 

All he can do is cry, heartbroken about Sally.

[amporella]

I stumbled upon your account and I've fallen in love 😭 style genuinely fuels the blood that runs thkigh my veins and it made me so giddily happy scrolling through your board! Thank you for being awesome, I am bowing,,,

Also! So sorry if this has already been asked, but do you have any style fic recs ? I like to think everyone in the style fandom collectively stares at their open Hollycomb ao3 tab upon being asked this question HAHA but aside from Hollycomb since you've already highlighted your favs from her, are there any others?

AHH thank you so much!!!! This is so sweet augh <3 style fuels the blood that runs through my veins too and trust me when I say I will NEVER stop posting them!!

This is a really good question, and unfortunately, I haven't been reading a ton of fics recently, but I reached out to some friends and got some fics you might want to check out! Some are my own additions, some are those of my friends - and fair warning that I haven't read all of the ones I'm recommending here, but I trust their judgement.

Fic Name (with link) - Author - Rating

Alla Breve - Julads - E - I feel like I've already recommended this one here, but honestly, anyone who sees this should just go read it again. I'm usually put off by some of the tropes found within it, but I loved it so much despite that - it's heartbreakingly tender, sad, and should be required reading for all stankys.

Red String - The Pink Striper - M - I have actually not read this fic, believe it or not, but I was told that it's extremely formative and was basically a stanky touchstone. It's unfinished, but worth the read!!

Visions of Gideon - apollos - T - So sweet and tender and such a good Stan exploration. I'm really trying to rec only one work per author here, but Shirtless and Fat and Crying in Hell (G) is also a great one - really, apollos has a ton of great fics. Read them!!

dirt wizard - applecrumbledore - M - I know it's orphaned, but this is the author, trust me. One of the first style fics I ever read, and even though I know it's been recommended literally a billion times, really just think it's so good. Seven Days of Alien Summer also probably doesn't even need to be recommended as it is such a classic, but it's also extremely good.

like a couple of cosmonauts - tullievolf - E - Ugh, this fic is so good, and while it's still in progress, the penultimate chapter is up! This is really the Post-Covid fic that every stanky adorer needs in their life, honestly? To be fair, I haven't read a ton of PC works, but tullievolf does them justice more than any other one that I've read.

Significant Growth - kasen - E - Extremely tender with extremely good dialogue, and blessed with art by sn33z3s. I haven't read kasen's longer work Final Thread, but I've heard it's very good too!!

Always Starting Over - DaftKneazleHairedMuppet (or lyingmakesyousterile, on tumblr) - E - I'm betaing this fic, and it's been SUCH a pleasure to read; only the first chapter is out so far, but I highly recommend getting into it early!! I promise you won't be disappointed.

Tumblr Prompts - intergalacticattempt (or south-park-meta, on tumblr) - T - south-park-meta obviously has wonderful meta on here, but their fics are really amazing too, and unfortunately easy to miss out on. Please read them!!! They obviously know the characters EXTREMELY well.

A Bowl of Oyster Crackers - heelbruiser (or traitor-boyfriend, on tumblr) - NR - Another one that I haven't read, but fully plan to at some point; and really, if you've read traitor-boyfriend's meta for long enough, you know that you can trust this fic to be good.

There are SO many more amazing stanky fics out there, and it's a shame they aren't coming to the top of my head right now - but I feel like I don't need to tell you how much I love the works of the big three if you're looking for something to read (or reread), and honestly just scrolling through the ao3 stanky tag can find you some gems . Thank you so much for the ask!!

[searidings]

....🥺 can you please tell us more about that season 5 alternate ending where andrea ends up using the dagger pretty please, just like who does she end up hurting and the others reaction? if only you want to of course !

hooookay this ask got me to open that wip for the first time in a year and actually it's not that far from being complete! but idk how to finish it and i feel like i've done the s5 conflict resolution thing in multiple fics now like how many is too many? i fear i may have hit that limit. BUT since you asked, here is the beginning of it. please note:

1) this thing is angsty and also it's unfinished, so read at your own peril

2) because i wasn't ever expecting to finish/publish it, i've recycled bits of description from it into other fics. so if you see stuff i've repeated elsewhere no you don't <3

-

The last thing Lena sees is a flash like dark shadow pass over Andrea’s eyes, before a kryptonite dagger slides between her ribs.

The sound she emits is less of a scream and more of a surprised squeak as she sinks to the ground.

If you want to get to Supergirl, you’re gonna have to go through me.

It’s not that she hadn’t believed Andrea would do it. Lena was under no illusion of safety when she placed herself between Supergirl and the glowing green rock in Andrea’s hand. She’d come to terms with the possibility of dying for Kara long ago.

What she hadn’t been able to prepare for was the pain. The abstract of sacrifice was all well and good, but. Reality, this searing epicentre, a point of white hot agony turned molten, seeping through her body. No amount of her mother’s decorum training had prepared her for this.

Something is filling her mouth, thick and dark and oozing. She can’t scream. Kara sits, eyes silver, a world away. Kara. Lena has to move. She can’t. Andrea steps over her, and is that the pounding of receding footsteps or the dogged beat of Lena’s heart? Either way, it’s slowing. Every inhale cracks her body down the centre, each exhale buries shards of glass inside the gaping wound.

Her eyes are beginning to mist at the edges but she strains, listens. The sound that cuts through the haze is not the scream she dreads, Kara’s agony as her veins sear emerald. It’s not a scream, but a shout, and then a blur passes over her like light and shadow.

Concrete cracks, or perhaps it’s Lena’s ribs. Sounds are muffled now, the world dulled down like the inside of a snow globe. Underwater, time passes sluggishly to where she lies, drifting, encased in glass. But someone is fighting the current, resisting the pull. Hands grasp her shoulders, burning where they touch. Through the rolling fog comes Kara’s face, blurring out in red and blue and gold and sickly green. Lena wants to push her away, keep her separate from the venomous substance protruding from her chest, keep her untainted. But Kara’s hands are dancing there-away along her cheeks, her jaw, Lena’s own name sounding from her lips over and over, a siren song, calling her home. It’s raining now, wet spots peppering her brow, or maybe the sun is crying.

“Lena, Lena,” Kara is saying. It sounds like her heartbeat and she cannot bear for it to stop.

“Kara,” she manages, a whisper, a prayer.

Her face flashes within Lena’s line of sight for one perfect moment, and is she green-tinged or is it Lena’s failing vision? A shiver passes through the air between them, I’m sorry fluttering like a bloodstained white flag but whether it falls from her own lips or another’s, Lena cannot say. Then a sudden pressure at her ribs, a heavy push and release that feels like salvation and damnation all at once.

Lena hears a scream, two screams, billions. She is left gaping, open and exposed. Invaded by the air and exalted by the sticky-sweet blush of her own blood, her body purging itself. Through the slick of gathering crimson her head rolls to the side, darkness pressing in around her, eyes blazing with the final image of a limp hand on the ground beside her, veins shot through with glowing green.

-

For a long time, there is only darkness. The deepest blackness she has ever known, all-encompassing. Devouring light, thought, feeling. Lena floats, tethered to her own existence only by the pressing weight of the dark, closing in until the end of the world.

Slowly, sensations begin to blur in and out. Cold, a deadening flow, hooking into her very marrow and stripping her from the inside out. She drifts, and then there’s heat, scorching, radiating out from her ribs in scalding waves, and she wishes for numbness.

For a moment, Lena thinks she sees the star-burst of veins behind her eyelids, but then they are gone and all is black again. Sound fragments filter through her peripheral awareness. A great noise, banging and shouting and exploding. She slips back under.

Vibrations reach her, but they must be sounds because Lena no longer has a body with which to feel them. She floats, untethered, sinking beneath the surface of a dark ocean so vast it surely cannot know she’s there. In the deep, voices flicker.

“Haven’t you heard that you’re supposed to leave the knife in? She’s minutes from bleeding out.”

The blackness turns to blood around her, not vibrant red but sticky dark, the kind so loaded with the very force of someone’s life that it moves slowly, crawls under the weight of it, sucking light from all it touches.

“Her veins were green, Alex.”

An eternity passes.

She dreams of her mother, dark hair fanning behind her as she cuts through the still waters of the lake. The scene is calm, but the growing dread means Lena knows what’s coming and suddenly it’s not her mother but Kara before her, and the lake isn’t clear but radioactive, glowing green, and still Lena stands at the shore and watches her slip away, helpless.

Words float through the haze and Lena wishes she could reach out, grasp them, weigh them in her hands to know the truth behind them. Radiation and poisoned and flared and gone, the sounds making physical shapes in the darkness. She thinks of a child, two dark-haired children, of hours spent pouring over a dictionary. A cruel laugh when she got a definition wrong, grudging silence when she got it right. How she wishes now to be wrong, to mishear, a stay of judgment on the world these words conjure into being. But the focus is gone, and she slips away again.

“—whatever you have to do! Or so help me, I’ll—”

Though Lena is nothing now, just an exhale in the wind, she smiles. Warmth blooms, the blackness not crushing but caressing for a moment, and she drifts into memories of happier times.

A million years pass, a billion. Lena is upside down, and right way up, and no way up at all. If she still had a face, she might feel the pressure of a warm forehead against her own. If she still had hair, the imprint of lips pressed gently against it might still ache. If she hadn’t burned every meaningful bridge in her life in the year before her death, she might believe the trick of a whisper wrapping on the breeze, words of comfort, of promise.

But she had, so she doesn’t, and time collapses in on itself as Lena watches, motionless and alone.

-

Though she has always been nowhere, she can feel herself drifting further and further from the last thing that might just resemble a somewhere. The eons slow. If she were a doctor, Lena thinks, then this would be the time to make herself comfortable. To say her goodbyes.

She cannot look at blackness any longer, cannot bear the glowing green after-image that seems to stick to every corner and edge. She thinks of blue, of rain-washed skies and Kara’s eyes, conjures it into being with every fibre she has left. Wraps herself up in it, plunges headfirst, drowns.

“Like it matters!” Kara says, no, shouts, from somewhere far above and below her. Lena would flinch, if only she still had a body. The voice rings out through the void. “Like any of it matters now.”

Lena is privately inclined to agree. She tries to breathe, but the full weight of the universe, of every universe, presses in. As everything, even the blackness, dulls, there emerges a crushing, cracking suffocation, and Lena wonders why she can’t even die in peace. A high-pitched scream, maybe hers, maybe Kara’s, maybe her mother’s, maybe the world’s, stretching out before her like a pathway. Though there’s no doubt where it ends, Lena almost wants to follow it, if only to escape this sensation of being crumbled, submerged, denied life as its very essence is wrung from her being.

And then a hundred trillion bolts of lightning shoot through her at once, and Lena is gone.

-

When she wakes, she wakes secure in the knowledge that she must be alive. Sure that the pain that had burst through her, blighted every nerve with an agony so intense she feels its phantom grip even now, could only lead back to life. Sure that no departure could hurt that much.

When she wakes, it is through cracked, dry eyes to the sight of pipes and ceiling vents, the bland, industrial grey that can only denote underfunded government property.

When she wakes, Kara is standing at the foot of her bed, hands behind her back and looking every inch the righteous hero, and Lena’s unsteady heart sinks. She’s been on the receiving end of this authoritative pose more than enough for one lifetime. At least her hands aren’t on her hips.

But Kara’s eyes brighten as they meet Lena’s fluttering gaze. “Lena.” Quiet, reverential. “How are you feeling?”

Lena takes stock. Alive, to begin with. Every limb still intact. Aside from an unnerving constriction in her chest and the fact that her blood feels a little like it’s burning her cells as it courses through her veins, it could certainly be worse.

When she speaks her voice is hoarse, cracking. “What happened?”

The same darkness creeps into the edges of her vision as she listens to Kara list the extent of the damage. She presses her lips together, willing away the blackness, registering only snippets.

Stab wound. Kryptonite poisoning. Collapsed lung. Cardiac arrest. Resuscitation.

Leviathan, gone. Andrea, captured. Lex, escaped.

The words wash over her like a freezing tide, and Lena wonders if maybe the darkness had been easier after all.

It takes far longer than it should for her to realise that the room has fallen silent. Kara is watching her, concern etched into her features like tears carving through stone.

Lena swallows as best she can. “And you?”

A corner of Kara’s mouth quirks up. “I’m fine. Thanks to you.”

But she doesn’t look fine. She looks exhausted, her face drawn, blue eyes lacking their characteristic shine. Even her hero’s stance can’t mask the fatigue weighing heavy on her shoulders.

But Lena doesn’t have the strength to argue the point. She rolls her head to the side, joints popping and releasing, noticing for the first time the tangle of IV lines threading into her skin. She lifts her other hand to touch them, feels the warning tug of more needles even as Kara steps forward, arms raised as if to stop her.

Her hands reach toward Lena, or at least, the spaces where her hands should be. Huge white dressings swaddle Kara from the wrists down, so bulky they do not resemble hands at all. Lena’s breath catches in her lungs as she takes in the unwieldy bandages, third degree burns and possible nerve damage echoing through her mind and she understands now why Kara had hidden them behind her back.

The inhale she aims for seems to stick in her ribs and she can feel again the crushing, the cracking, the dizzying lack of oxygen as her head spins. Kara is by her side in an instant, radiating warmth and just breathe, Lena, it’s okay, a comforting weight settling against her hip. Lena thanks the thick blanket for blurring the press of rough bandages where there should be warm skin, softening it into something just nondescript enough to be calming.

When her pounding pulse has slowed, the heart monitor downgrading to a less frenetic beat, she sucks in a breath despite her lungs’ protestation, waits for her vision to clear. Kara is still there, and dread opens up in Lena’s chest.

“You— you touched it. The kryptonite. You pulled it out.”

Kara doesn’t move, doesn’t speak. Just nods, her gaze locked on Lena’s own. Lena lies catatonic, paralysed with the knowledge, unable to move even as Alex enters the room. Dimly aware of low words exchanged between the two sisters and then Alex at her bedside, gentler than Lena’s been worthy of seeing her in years. Just rest, Lena, the press of a button on the IV monitor, and she sinks back into oblivion.

[ironxan]

(very very late) WinterIron Fic Recs

We Don't Have Each Other by jordan-barnes (elliebex3)

explicit, 5k words, unfinished

"Bucky could barely hear the gravel under his shoes as he stormed toward his bike. He was vaguely aware of Tony yelling behind him, but the last thing Bucky wanted was to hear Tony out. 'You know I didn’t want to do this, right?' Bucky didn’t dignify him with a response. 'If you don’t turn that thing off and come inside… this is YOU leaving. You’re walking out on ME here.' Bucky turned the handlebars and left him in a trail of dust."

this is a fairly recent fic i've become head over heels for. the author is incredible, with amazing ideas and the talent to back it up. seriously, support this fic!!! read it!!! you won't regret it, i promise!

Time Falls Away by NotEvenCloseToStraight

mature, 79k words, completed (in 2 parts, explained below)

"The Battle of New York: Tony flies himself and the nuke through the wormhole and when his suit shuts down and he starts to fall, he knows he's going to die. But then he wakes up in an alley in Brooklyn, two strangers staring down at him in confusion and Tony is sure he is dreaming when he shakes hands first with pre-serum Steve Rogers, and then Bucky Barnes. Trapped in 1942, Tony befriends Steve, and falls in love with Bucky but America is at war, and Bucky and Steve ship out to join the cause. Tony knows all the stories about the Howling Commandos and knows what’s coming for the soldiers, and has to live through history as first Bucky falls, and then Steve disappears. Tony is left alone in the 40's, crying himself to sleep in the house he had shared with his best friend and his lover. But then he wakes up on the pavement in New York, the Hulk roaring in his face, Steve staring down at him, and he has to wonder if it was all a hallucination. When Tony fell through the sky, did he fall through time as well? Why does Steve act so cold towards him? Were he and Bucky really that happy together? Did it all really happen, or is Tony in love with a life he can only have in his dreams?"

I'm not joking when i say this is the best fic i've ever read. hands down, it's amazing. if you take anything from this post, go read this fic. well, read 'we don't have each other' then read this one lol

apparently the author added a 2nd part with !!spoilers!!

stevetony endgame that i refuse to read haven't gotten around to reading. bless you author but i'm living in a fantasy world where he found bucky again and they lived happily ever after! i'll read it someday i promise!

Warriors by Eternal_Peace_is_Overrated

not rated, 5k words, completed

"No one saw them. No one heard them. And no one knew they were coming. When the Chitauri attack, Earth becomes a battleground; stubborn humans against bloodthirsty aliens, the stuff movies are made of. People get hurt, they die, they’re gone, you’re alone. Sometimes Tony wonders if he’s the last human on earth. Sometimes, he hopes he is. At least that way, he’ll know exactly who he’s fighting for. He’ll know he fought the good fight, he’ll know that those billions of lives lost are the reason he’s going to blow those fuckers to pieces. And when he dies, he’ll know he made a difference."

Winteriron by Layora88

explicit, 26k words, completed

"Bucky moves into the Avengers Tower and Tony Stark is amazing and shows him some love; it's lovely really. Slow build and love confessions and sex...sex at the end of course, haha. So enjoy! I couldn't think of a better title...sorry xD. Bucky and Tony...first fic I've written of them and I had a lot of fun writing this."

Stuckony Honorable Mentions!!

Sing Me A Song, Piano Man by Bourneblack

explicit, 49k words, unfinished

it's dom/sub au. if that turns you off, just read this quote and i hope it'll convince you to give it a go:

"'I can’t talk about any of this with Steve,' Bucky says. 'Even if he were here. He’s just so emotive, and he’s just so good and passionate. To give him any of this…' Bucky looks down on himself, sallow and broken, the type of unhealthy that makes a man look strong but feel weak, all muscle and no fat."

We All Have Scars (Some More Than Others) by DobbyRocksSocks

teen and up, 2k words, completed

this one is sort of stuckony, moreso buckytony with unrequited stony. short 'n' sweet, oh so sweet.

Looking At You by NotEvenCloseToStraight

explicit, 28k words, completed

Closing

sorry this is so short! it would be way longer if i could put in more honorable mentions: zimskivojnik's fics. zimskivojnik was a fic author i got into around 2018/19, and wrote at least 10 different winteriron fics. she deleted around 2020, or at least mid-2020 was when i tried to open up my fave fic by her, 'a thousand and a half degrees', and a 404 error page came up :/. anyways, if she ever comes back or orphans/reuploads her fics, look 'em up! they were wonderful, beautiful additions to the winteriron community, and just fandom in general. i'm serious, she was really talented. anyways zim, if you're reading this, your writing is a work of art, and i hope you find a happier place to show it :)

i'd also like to add if you would like even more winteriron/stuckony content, Potrix and 27dragons are both authors that have a decent backlog of winteriron! they are quite literally pillars of the community (as many of you may know if you've been floating around the b/t fandom for a bit, but i thought i'd include them for any newcomers!!). NotEvenCloseToStraight also has plenty more winteriron as well.

if i find more fics (this post was originally supposed to be longer anyways, but i couldn't find the right links :/) this post will be updated to reflect that! <3

if there's any tags and/or warnings you'd like me to include, fics you'd like me to remove from/exapand upon in the post, or anything i might have missed or that needs clarifying/doesn't make sense, please don't hesitate to shoot me an ask or a message (anon is on)! :)