#daily fic snippet

[bedlamsbard]

670 words written today -- I have been having a WEIRD day, which is partially the weather and partially just ???? Also trying to deal with an advising crisis that might end with me having to teach an extremely last minute independent study. (Friends who are still in school, may I gently suggest that if you have any uncertainty that you've met graduation requirements and you need to graduate that term because you've been accepted to graduate/professional school, need to move, have a job offer, etc., double and triple check that you've met those requirements BEFORE THE MIDDLE OF THE SEMESTER, especially if it's summer semester when there are far fewer options available.) Plus the weather is still doing stuff to my hands, which is not ideal. (I mean, it could be stress, but it's almost certainly the weather, since this happens a lot in summer.) My ability to actually Do Things has been shot lately, probably because I am pretty burned out, but I still have things I need to do so it is. hmm. unhelpful.

Snippet from Down to the Flood chapter 2.

Coulson looked at Steve, obviously waiting to see if Steve had any questions; when Steve didn’t say anything, he said, “I’ll see you tomorrow,” and went back into the elevator. After the doors had closed behind him and they heard the elevator begin to descend, Natasha said, “There was quite the buzz around here when they found you.  I thought Coulson was going to swoon.” Steve rolled his eyes. Straight-faced, Natasha asked, “Did he ask you to sign his trading cards yet?” “Trading cards?” Steve said, startled and a little appalled. “They’re vintage.  He’s very proud.”  There was another flash of crooked smile, quickly tucked away like she had gotten used to hiding it.  “Coulson’s not that bad, not compared to some of the others, especially the ones who’ve been with the Games for a long time.” Steve glanced at her, frowning.  He knew how the Capitol had treated him and even from the little he had seen, it was obvious that it hadn’t changed much; he could guess how it would treat a beautiful girl.  Natasha caught him looking and lifted a shoulder in a shrug.

[setmeatopthepyre]

Hostage [@118dailydrabble day 41] [part of antarct-fic | bucktommy | 118 words] [precedes this]

Lucy likes Tommy, she really does. He's a good guy, an excellent pilot. His gallows humor plays well with hers. Even better, he never objects to a risky rappel, encourages it, in fact, if it means he gets to try an obscure maneuver with a name like aft skid cobra. He holds his own at karaoke.

The problem is that Tommy is also a dramatic son of a bitch who would rather eat glass than admit he's struggling.

...unless he's had a drink or two.

Hungry Heart appears in the up next-box on screen. Lucy lunges.

She gets his arm. “Aaand you're done holding everyone hostage with Springsteen. Time to talk about feelings like a grown-up. C'mon.”

-

this drabble was made possible by @frogsinflannel (for sending me the kindest message ever and reminding me how fun writing tommy+lucy banter is) and @rcmclachlan's tommy is batshit insane actually post (that is 100% canon to me)

[actuallyrandompersondaily]

Eddie's touch was soft as he helped Buck with his shoes and pants, and Buck sleepily complied with his movements. Once Eddie was done, Buck heard him start to quietly make his way out of the room, and let out a noise of protest.

"You all good?"

"Stay," he requested, grasping blindly in Eddie's direction.

"I—"

"Please?"

Eddie sighed, but it sounded amused, and he made his way back around the bed.

"Okay, I'll stay."

Buck felt the mattress dip slightly as Eddie got in, and rolled to bury his head in the crook of Eddie's neck before relaxing fully.

"G'night," he mumbled, and Eddie brought up a hand to gently card through his hair before placing a gentle kiss on his forehead.

"Good night, Buck."

[wenttotheairport]

wip wednesday <3

thanks hugh @tanktopdiaz for the tagging the world @ large & giving me an excuse to post this lil mayravi secret relationship snippet :D

“Twist my arm, why don’t you,” he mutters, chasing after her mouth, then looking up at her through his lashes when she stays out of reach. “Finally gives me a good reason to turn down the matchmaking services of the 118.”

May’s nails dig into his neck, involuntary. Ravi is smiling crookedly, like he knows exactly what he’s asking for and expects to get it. 

“Oh, really?”

“Uh-huh.”

He’s really almost unbearably sexy when he’s all self-satisfied like this, sprawled out underneath her and grinning lazily, her pastel rainbow French tips pressing little crescent notches into his skin.  

“The matchmaking services,” May says with a tone of faux-consideration. “Interesting. Guess they should probably know you already belong to somebody, shouldn’t they?” 

“They really should,” Ravi says dreamily, and May gets to work affectionately mauling the side of his throat. 

He locks himself in the bathroom for nearly twenty minutes the next morning and emerges with her peach-toned color corrector smeared all over his neck, looking hunted. 

“May,” he tells her very seriously while she fixes it for him. “They’re going to kill me. One time, Buck nearly took my head off with a chainsaw and that was before he knew we were having sex.”

“I don’t even want to imagine what Hen’s gonna do to you,” she agrees easily, wiping off the last of the concealer. “Babe, I don’t really have anything for this in your shade, I think you’re just gonna have to deal.”

“Not even contour?” He asks with such real distress that May shakes apart with helpless giggles. She loves how big and sparkly his eyes get, and in the full rainbow of feelings, too. Love and happiness, usually. Today: fear!

She smacks kisses all over his face and says, “Not even contour. Come on, I’ll take one last shower with you before Buck kills you with a chainsaw.” 

“Maybe I’ll just crack my head open and die in the shower instead,” Ravi muses, dutifully following her back into the bathroom. “Now that would be the way to go.”

[psychicthepsychic-daily]

stalemate

[vickyvicarious]

....and then Van Helsing has the absolute gall to tell Lucy not to wrinkle her forehead because Arthur won't like it

Van Helsing knows NOTHING of what the young men like. He's directly contradicted in such claims at least twice for Arthur alone (wrinkles, jealous over giving blood) and I seem to recall him making a very similar stumble about Jonathan also. He needs to stop giving any sort of relationship advice because he's wrong every time.

In fact, you know what, let me fix that wrinkle scene right now:

"These are for you, Miss Lucy," he said. "For me? Oh, Dr. Van Helsing!" "Yes, my dear, but not for you to play with. These are medicines." Here Lucy made a wry face. "Nay, but they are not to take in a decoction or in nauseous form, so you need not snub that so charming nose, or I shall point out to my friend Arthur what woes he may have to endure in seeing so much beauty that he so loves so much distort. Aha—"

"Actually, Professor, Arthur is quite fond of it." Lucy blushed prettily when Van Helsing raised his bushy eyebrows at her interruption. Yet far from retracting her statement, or relaxing her expression, she instead took up a flower and smelled it with an exaggerated thoughtfulness. Her nose twitched, and her forehead puckered. She had a small smile, and her voice was firm, though low as she continued: "When I wrinkle up my face, that is..."

There was a momentary pause. The Professor blinked at her, then glanced over to me.

"Oh, er, yes." I cleared my throat, feeling expected to contribute but unsure what to say. "I have heard him say as much, myself."

Lucy smiled wider, biting slightly at her lip, and the stem twirled in her fingers as she ducked her face down to hide her expression. After a moment, Van Helsing cleared his throat loudly, and resumed his speech. "Ah, yes, the eyes of a lover see beauty only even in distortion. Still - this is medicinal, but you do not know how..."

[lightgriffinsect]

psychic’s review of official void plush

[meowrimo]

also good morning friendz and happy tuesday !! it’s soooo cold out today so if you need me i will be tucked away in zoro’s arms ❤︎ please remember to unclench your jaws + relax your shoulders hehe me and your blorbos are rooting for you to have a wonderful day !! :3

[seventh-district]

tfw you're trying to write a Genshin fic but ur memory is shit so u have to leave urself [REMINDERS] to come back and correct your spelling/figure out NPC names/scour the wiki to double-check character and story lore, because if u even so much as glance away from the google doc in the moment you'll lose all of your writing momentum

coughs [link to some other (better) excerpts from the fic since the post didn't make it into the tags and i'm too lazy to remake it]

[spilledstars1234]

my new link click fic, currently nicknamed "golden" as just a placeholder name, has reached around 5K words, though i'm still barely at the beginning, haha! Still unsure of whether it'll be a multi-chap fic or just a oneshot, but i'm leaning more towards the first option. though i'm not sure yet, so we'll see! it is one of my many WIPs i have for link click, but honestly? I'm having the time of my life with this one! i'm so excited to share it.

and just for fun, i'm just gonna drop a little snippet from it here!

i can tell this fic might take a long while to finish (perhaps even longer than how long my last LC fic, 'Thanatophobia', took), but it's been such a fun ride so far! So please, please wait for me!!!

[bedlamsbard]

1800 words written today, which is more than I have written in one day since March 2024, at least going by my word count tracker. (Though I switched trackers about a month, two months ago? But did import the last couple years from my old one before it went off into the ether.) (New one is trackbear, old one was the NaNo website, if anyone is wondering.) Today has been kind of A Day for me, since I was supposed to have More Conference today but the Zoom session didn't start and after about fifteen minutes I just gave up. Aside from that I had one thing I absolutely had to get done today and I did get it done, but it should have taken me half an hour to do and I kept getting so distracted that it took me like...six hours to do.

Snippet from the Avengers x THG concept. (It will develop a title if it goes to AO3; I very deliberately don't give my concepts titles.)

“Do you remember what happened to you the day you went missing?” Pierce said instead of answering. “I –” Steve started to say, then hesitated.  “I had a date,” he said finally.  “I was supposed to meet Peggy and Howard for dinner, but – but – I don’t remember.”  After a moment he realized that maybe he shouldn’t have been so blunt about the word date, since he was well-known enough that he had been recognized as district before, and there were plenty of people in the Capitol who didn’t like the idea of someone from the districts stepping out with someone from the Capitol.  It was widely known that he, Peggy Carter, and Howard Stark were friends, but not more than that. Though Johann Schmidt had known.  He had always seemed to know everything, as had his Head Gamemaker, Arnim Zola, and his hungry eyes that followed Steve every time they were in the same room together. Steve had woken up that morning, had breakfast with Colonel Phillips – who like everyone else in the Capitol hierarchy was trying to figure out what to do with him, since almost the first thing decided after the Games had ended was that Steve Rogers wasn’t going to be allowed to return to his district to molder in obscurity like the previous nine survivors of the Hunger Games – and gone up to his room to read for the rest of the morning.  One of the few good things about being stuck in the Capitol had been unlimited access to books, once everyone had gotten over their surprise that a boy from the districts knew how to read.  After that – “I don’t remember,” he said again. 

[setmeatopthepyre]

Flame

[@118dailydrabble day 1] [part of my tommy begins snippets]

Tommy Kinard does not keep skeletons in closets, but he does keep their ghosts in the back of his sock drawer: his dog tags, a house key, an engraved lighter.

To this day, he doesn't know how Eli had managed it. Only remembers how he'd pressed its familiar weight into Tommy's hand as they'd stood side by side in their dress blues. How tracing the words had kept his hands from shaking.

B.E. to bad habits T.K.

He'd found the probie smoking on the roof after his first bad call. It became their thing for each one after.

Now, Tommy tries to remember only the friendly flame that lit their shared cigarettes, and not the inferno that had followed.

[actuallyrandompersondaily]

"Hey," Eddie said, dropping down beside him on the couch.

"…Hey," Buck replied. His voice was flat, he knew, but he couldn't quite manage anything else right now.

"You holding up okay?"

A moment passed, then two, before Buck sighed.

"As well as I can."

"So, no," Eddie replied. "You know you don't have to lie to me, Buck."

Buck sagged at that, curving his body in slightly towards Eddie.

"Would anyone be okay after that?"

One of Eddie's arms came up to drape around Buck's back, and he tried to coax Buck even closer.

"Probably not," he admitted, brushing a kiss against Buck's forehead. "You know Bobby would let you knock off early if you asked to. You could go see Chris, remind yourself he's okay."

Buck hummed a disagreeing noise.

"I— I wouldn't be good for him. Right now. And I wanted to stay around you."

Eddie frowned at that, reaching a hand out to gently lift Buck's chin so they were eye to eye.

"You're coming home with me tonight," he declared, frown deepening when Buck tried to protest. "You shouldn't be alone right now and you know it, baby. Our kid is strong, he knows some days are harder than others."

Another few moments passed, Buck's wide and slightly wet eyes locked with Eddie's own.

"Okay?" Eddie eventually asked, eyebrow raised, and Buck swallowed, nodding his head.

"Okay," he whispered, leaning in to brush a gentle kiss on Eddie's lips. "I— Okay."

[wayfaringauthorofficial]

WIP EXCERPT!!

The sun beat down hard on her as she pulled that basket along, placing peaches inside with delicate hands. Frances did her best to stay focused and determined, knowing the level of excellence that was required of such a woman in her position. What would Mr. Deveaux do to her, should she dare to stray from the path that had been laid for her? Would she end up in a cell, like all the other girls, or would she be dealt a worse, more permanent fate, like that of her brother? The thought sent chills down her spine, sent her head deep into a pit she was almost certain was an early grave, waiting to bury her alive.

She tried not to think of those things during her everyday life, but the fear ebbed at the front of her mind anyway. Frances knew by now that pleasing the men in this place was no easy feat. There were nights where she sat in her room alone for hours, wondering how she had made it this far, and what she might have to do to keep her place here, to keep her little bit of freedom, if she could call it that. She never got an answer, and sure as hell wasn’t going to muster up enough strength to voice her concerns. Women in this place were better obedient, seen and not heard. She knew that.

One, two, three, four. Drop. Again, then again. Her back screamed for relief, sweat raining from every pore on her body. Frances craved a moment’s rest, a drink of water. But she would have to show her elders that she deserved it. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Mrs. Hadlon, hair pulled back into a tight bun with not a strand out of place. Frances remembered when she was younger, when all of these women seemed strong and beautiful, when she looked up to them. That was before she came of age, before she knew the truth about it all. Now, she could only look at her elders with fear or anger. What else did they deserve?

The light was almost gone when she finished loading up the wagon, then locked eyes on Mr. Price. He cocked his head for her to join him in their walk home. Knowing she couldn’t say no, Frances put up her skirts and broke into a jog until they were side by side. His hand was cold as it gripped her waist, sending Frances’ heart into her throat. “Did you work hard today?” It sounded like a threat, as if he was looking for a reason to take his anger out on her.

“Yes, sir,” she gulped, doing her best not to let her gaze or mind wander as he led her to their so-called home. Lights were switched on as families started to spend their leisure time together, cooking dinner and preparing for bed. What she wouldn’t give to see the world, to be able to spend time with her family on her own terms, no one else’s. In the back of her mind, she was sitting on the floor with Elias, laughing as he made up a magical land, free of harsh rules and even sterner masters, a place where she was free to do and love the things and people she pleased. At night, Frances often fell asleep wondering if such a future would ever be possible for her, for any of them.

Mr. Price didn’t respond, instead just stepped into the mansion and dropped his hat on the table. He didn’t have to tell her to hang it up, didn’t have to order Frances to pour him a drink. She knew what he wanted; maybe that was the only reason she was still walking free, still alive. But no matter what his reasons were, no one in this twisted place would ever dare to ask. The punishment for forgetting their place wasn’t a pleasant one. Cold, dirt cells, with more rodents than people. Only a few rays of light would grace the prison every day, otherwise you were cloaked in darkness. Just walking by the place sent shivers down Frances’ spine, sending tears to her eyes thinking of what August might be going through. Bile rose in her throat as she remembered just what the prison guards were capable of. The brutality they could deal at the drop of a hat.

What would their relationship be, if he was different? If this was a different place, a different reality? Maybe they could be happy, have a more familial relationship, rather than this nightmare. Maybe, Frances thought, he would approve of her choices rather than punish everyone she loved for being young, for falling for who he and Mr. Deveaux deemed was the wrong man. She would be able to live with her family, could still see her brother smile as she danced around in the meadows. Tears sprung in her eyes, a lump throbbing in her throat, as the memories came flooding in. And they stayed, pressing on her, making her want to explode. Each pulse was stronger, more earth-shattering than the one before, no matter how many times she willed it to stop.

Mr. Price nodded at other residents or children as they walked, Frances making sure to keep her face composed, eyes on the ground. No one could question her pain if they couldn’t see it. No one would notice her breaking if she remembered her role in the game. And that was all he asked of her, wasn’t it? All he had ever wanted from her was for her to play the dedicated wife, whether the role was true or not. He wanted Frances to provide, to nurture the young. This was all practice, he would tell her some nights as he locked the front door and trapping her along with it, for the long, inevitable future they would spend together. Maybe it sent shivers down her spine, made Frances want to scream and tear the very skin off of her bones, but she couldn’t react. She couldn't say yes, or no. So she would smile, barely. She would show little to no emotion in her eyes, as was expected of her. He wouldn’t hate her for that. He couldn’t.

[psychicthepsychic-daily]

welcome to psychic daily, where half the posts mention void’s name but not psychic’s /lhj

[halonicheart]

𝓜𝓪𝔂𝓫𝓮 𝓲𝓼 𝔀𝓪𝓼 𝓽𝓱𝓮 𝓭𝓮𝓮𝓹 𝓻𝓸𝓸𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝔂𝓮𝓪𝓻𝓷𝓲𝓷𝓰 𝓽𝓱𝓪𝓽 𝓶𝓪𝓭𝓮 𝓱𝓮𝓻 𝓬𝓵𝓲𝓷𝓰 𝓽𝓸 𝓽𝓱𝓮 𝓲𝓭𝓮𝓪 𝓲𝓽 𝓬𝓸𝓾𝓵𝓭 𝓫𝓮 ‘𝓱𝓲𝓶’… 𝔀𝓱𝓪𝓽𝓮𝓿𝓮𝓻 𝓲𝓽 𝔀𝓪𝓼, 𝓲𝓽 𝓭𝓲𝓭𝓷’𝓽 𝓶𝓪𝓽𝓽𝓮𝓻. 𝓘𝓽 𝓯𝓮𝓵𝓽 𝓻𝓲𝓰𝓱𝓽.

“He’s here! He has to be!”

The chase led all the way to the Crystal Tower. The streets thankfully barren. “Please Mosha! Listen to me!” By the time Lovette catches up, they are already in the ocular. She grabs Mosha from behind and apologizes, all the while trying to calm her down.

The Exarch is there, stunned by the sudden intrusion. Mosha stills at the sight of him. Lovette mistakes it for her being calm and lets go with another apology on her lips. But the apology quickly turns into a gasp when she sees Mosha throw herself at the Exarch, arms wrapped tightly around him.

She is whispering to him. Lovette can only watch as her dear friend has her heart shattered.

‘You’re him aren’t you? It’s you G’raha isn’t it?’

The Exarch is silent for too long. ‘I am sorry. I am not’