#lev from unwind

[skisc]

Traumatized Blondes

[lei-lei-artz]

Unwind Band AU news:

The first chapter of this AU with be posted…*drum roll…*

April 1st, 2024 at 2pm (MDT)

yayyyy!!!

[starcloud-nova]

im reading undivided. are you fucking kidding me. what is going on.

[kahnah23]

I just cried for the past 2 hours finishing the Unwind books and I would do it again!

[bopeisdope]

Every time I listen to "Waving Through A Window" from Dear Evan Hansen I think about Lev from the Unwind Series. I feel like it fits his tithe-to-clapper-to-hero arc so well!!!! I want to make an animatic about it but I have no art skills :(

[metacove]

Connor's Internal Monologue: [I'm the stupidest person alive. I must have no sense of self-preservation. Oh well I'd better use this kid as a human shield now that I've got him in this chokehold]

Lev's Internal Monologue: [I must become an animal and BITE THIS MOTHERF-]

[arcofacatboy]

Remember when, towards the beginning of Unwind, Connor sees a storked baby on someone’s doorstep?

Connor has just escaped the juvies less than 48 hours beforehand. Right now, his main focus is not getting caught by juvies and being unwound as a result. He has Risa and Lev to look out for - not that he knows either of them very well at this point - but his main goal, at this point, is saving his own skin (literally). Connor didn’t object when his classmate, and fellow unwind, Andy Jameson, sacrificed himself for him. It was implied in a Facebook post (all the way back in 2011!) that Connor and Andy were friends - and Andy was ultimately unwound because he saved Connor’s life. Andy is never mentioned again. Connor feels no guilt over Andy entering a divided state for him.

And yet, when Connor sees that baby on the doorstep, he panics.

It’s not like the general public in the Unwind Universe care about storks that much. Starkey was tormented by his status as a stork - everyone else thought he was a joke because of it, and he hated himself for that. Bam feels similarly, and is no stranger to becoming aggressive with those who try to belittle her because she was abandoned as a baby. No adults seemed to want to help them in this regard - they sent Bam and Starkey off to be unwound in the end, because their status as storks and the lack of affection from everyone in their lives came to be too much, and their anger was no longer contained and internalized. Bam lived - but Starkey ultimately died because he, more than anything, wanted to be something other than a stork to be unwound, who wouldn’t amount to anything.

But that’s not the point here, really. Connor doesn’t know Bam or Starkey, let alone that Starkey will die at his only remaining hand. He’s not panicking because someone he knows is a stork, and is suffering because of it. Someone he knew was a stork, and died because not a single person in his neighborhood cared about keeping him alive.

A baby was put on the doorstep of Connor’s parents. They knew why he was there - they had been storked, and they were now legally, and morally, obligated to take in the baby as their own.

But they already had a seven year old and a four year old! Two boys, no less! They had no need for a third son. Surely no one had seen them be storked by whatever irresponsible girl had gotten herself pregnant and given her baby up to good, hardworking people, who shouldn’t have had to bear the burden of her bad decisions.

Surely no one would notice if they just moved the baby to the doorstep of the neighbors. Surely they wouldn’t mind raising a son.

But no one said a damn thing.

Two weeks later, the baby boy showed up on the Lassiter’s doorstep - again.

He was visibly sick, so close to death that only then, out of pity for the infant, did the Lassiter parents take him in. He died in the hospital - most likely alone, having never known a world in which he was wanted. He never knew a world in which he wasn’t passed from porch to porch, doorstep to doorstep, suffering, alone and sick, because of the silence and apathy of everyone around him.

Everyone in the neighborhood came to the baby’s funeral, a funeral that was only held because it would have looked terrible for the Lassiter parents to not hold a funeral for the baby that died on their watch, and was technically their son. And they all cried. They knew they were all responsible for that baby boy dying, so they cried and cried, never admitting guilt, never admitting that one of them could have saved the baby’s life - and they chose not to.

Connor was only seven when the baby died. And yet, at sixteen, the death of the baby still haunts him. And here he is, face to face with the same situation. There is a baby on a doorstep - and the recipient of this precious gift is complaining about having to care for another unwanted child.

He remembers the death of the baby who could have been his neighbor, or his baby brother, if anyone around him had showed an ounce of compassion. A horrible thought strikes him.

This baby could suffer the same fate.

Connor is already so close to death himself. He could be caught by juvies at any moment. If he gets caught, Risa and Lev could die, too.

But, if he doesn’t act now, so could the baby.

So he goes to save her. He confronts the recipient of the storked child with no real plan. He just wants to save the baby. He can’t let another baby die because of human selfishness and apathy.

Risa steps in, making up a lie that she and Connor are the baby’s parents, and tells the recipient that she’ll take her baby back. Risa is furious with Connor, and chews him out. What could make him do a stupid thing like that? The three of them could be caught at any moment, and a screaming, crying baby isn’t going to make escaping persecution any easier.

But Connor couldn’t let Didi die.

Unwind came out in 2007 - it celebrated its seventeenth birthday last November. Unwind is now so old that, if it was a teenager, it couldn’t be unwound itself! So why bring up a well-known scene from the very start of the book.

Like the book itself, it comes back to Neal Shusterman.

@nealshustermanreal - remember what you wrote. While The Schwa Was Here might have been your first critically acclaimed book, Unwind is why you’re here today - why you are anything to anyone. And while all your books (that I’ve read) have complex themes of morality, like the anecdote I just mentioned above, remember that Unwind is what most people who know you, know you from. They know about Baby Lassiter, and they know about baby Didi. They know that silence, apathy, and complacency does more harm than good - they know that because of you.

And yet, here you are. People are dying in droves, and the people that aren’t dying are being injured, having their homes destroyed, being forced to watch their loved ones die, or otherwise being terrorized. Palestinians are dying. And yet, you wait over two months to say anything about it. You wait until your book tour, promoting a graphic novel you wrote about another genocide, is over. You send out an email quietly, an email that only those who are subscribed to your newsletter will see. And your statement seems to be an afterthought, squeezed between a paragraph on how you approach presenting your books on tour, and links to where you can buy a signed copy of your new, shiny graphic novel about genocide. And this is what you say.

Most of your fans, at least on this platform, know of this email. We’ve all seen it. But I want to focus on that last part.

“I’ve taken a stand - by refusing to feed that mentality. The situation is tragic for everyone. We need empathy everywhere.”

You are being selfish. You wish to try to see why both Israel is justified in their slaughtering of Palestinians, and why Palestinians don’t deserve to be slaughtered. This is not a topic in which you can have your cake and eat it, too. Either you support the country who has proven that they will continue to murder Palestinians, destroy every aspect of their culture, and bomb every place that Palestinians cherished and loved, or you denounce that. Your refusal to acknowledge that the citizens of Palestine are the current targets in a genocide, to acknowledge that Israel will call anything or anyone they don’t like “Hamas” to slaughter them without criticism, and to acknowledge that all of this was the result of Israel wanting to destroy Palestine does not paint you as someone who is refusing to feed a black-and-white mentality. It paints you as someone who, because they aren’t being directly affected by this genocide, doesn’t think it’s their problem. That, by definition, is apathy.

This isn’t a perfect comparison by any means, but.

You are leaving Didi to die.

[heliads]

REQUESTS OPEN OMG EVERYONE CHEERED. hi i was thinking.. what if… hmm.. what if.. guardian angel y/n x connor lassiter where in unwind instead of lev saving him after the happy jack explosion its y/n. (they kiss at the end PLEase)

ANYWAYS ILY u survived exams i’m so proud !

'angel ex machina ' - connor lassiter

masterlist

They find Connor Lassiter staring at a billboard. He’s slumped against a wall, eyes hollow and vacant, like nothing in this world could possibly be more fascinating than a couple hundred square feet of boastful advertising. The bright colors seem to laugh at him, tantalizingly out of reach from where he crouches now, separated from the rest of the world by the walls of a harvest camp.

We have guardian angels! Low prices, high protection! 

Even if Connor somehow managed to piece together enough cash for their exorbitant prices, it’s obvious that a guardian angel would be wasted on him. Connor is days away from his own unwinding. Not even a real guardian angel could pull him out now, let alone the vapid models in suits they’ve got bedazzling that billboard. Everyone knows you can’t actually hire a guardian angel. They just show up somehow, save your ass however many times you need it, then disappear. There, then gone. Intrinsically a part of your life, and then it’s like you’d never known them at all.

Guardian angels are extraordinarily rare. The closest Connor’s ever come to meeting one is hearing a story his dad used to tell, and even then, Kirk Lassiter had only briefly glimpsed one of his neighbors getting saved from a car accident by one of the angels. Not exactly a core memory for Connor. His mom had never seen one at all.

That’s the way it usually goes. There aren’t that many guardian angels in the world. Rare things, they are. Somehow, they decide that a person is important enough to save, and then they swoop in and do what they do best. That’s usually saving them from disasters– floods, tornadoes, you name it. There’s an iconic photograph of a guardian angel rescuing someone from a burning building that Connor sees annually in his textbooks; something about the wings silhouetted against the flames is irresistible to school publishers. Hayden swears that he heard about somebody who got a guardian angel to do their taxes, but Connor figures that’s another of the boy’s bad jokes. Guardian angels are for real problems, not tax fraud.

Hell, no one even knows what guardian angels look like. There are photographs, sure, but they always turn out strangely blurry, like when the sun’s too bright outside and all you can do is squint. Even the people who’ve seen guardian angels say that their memories faded oddly quickly after the incident. No one can decide if they look like people, if their wings always appear, if they’re even recognizable as guardian angels at all. The only thing the masses can agree on is that guardian angels do exist, and they’ll never be good enough for anyone.

Least of all Connor. He’s harbored a hope that he’d get to meet one at some point, obviously, everyone has. Imagining that you’d be important enough to warrant an angel sent to watch over you is everyone’s secret fantasy.

Connor’s a few hours away from getting unwound, though, so he’s pretty sure that dream will die like the rest of his:  unwanted, unclaimed, unfulfilled. He’ll go to pieces as yet another boy who dreamed of being great, another poor soul ignored by the angels. The only difference is that, unlike most of the teenage population, he’s not even mediocre enough to live past sixteen. He’ll be in parts by tomorrow. Then, who knows? Maybe his elbow will go to a kid worthy of an angel. Connor wasn’t, but maybe his unwound pieces will be.

Connor shakes his head slightly to rid himself of the thoughts. He’s not usually like this. He’s not a quitter. He’ll go under the knife protesting his unwinding. It’s just a little difficult to keep up the fighting spirit when he knows that at last, despite all his running and hiding, he’ll be unwound anyway. There’s no fighting the Juvenile Authority. All his great efforts just delayed the inevitable. It cuts him to say it, but it looks like they were right after all.

In an attempt to get his mind out of obviously dangerous waters, Connor rips his gaze away from the offending billboard and glances around him. Only now does he notice another future unwind drawing close to him. Connor stretches and stands, forcing the corners of his mouth to upturn slightly so Y/N, his closest friend here and only ally among the cops and lambs to slaughter, don’t think he’s totally deranged.

“What are you doing?” Y/N asks, coming to a stop by his side.

Connor shrugs listlessly. “Nothing. Drafting my will.”

With anyone else, he’d probably stay silent, but Connor learned a long time ago that trying to hold his tongue around Y/N L/N is a losing game. They met in the basement of Sonia’s antique shop, Y/N having arrived barely a few minutes after Connor and Risa. Talk about a coincidence. They quickly hit it off, and as proof of their friendship, they’ve even ended up at the same harvest camp after it all went south back at the Graveyard.

If Connor were trapped with anyone, though, he’s glad it’s them. Not even Hayden can make Connor laugh as much as he does with Y/N. They understand him in a way that no one else ever has. If he were feeling particularly stupid, he would call it love, but Connor knows better. They’re both about to get stripped to pieces. If he spills his guts now and they friendzone him, Connor will have ruined the best part of his life for nothing.

So he stays silent, and watches Y/N laugh at his joke. “I want your car after they unwind you,” they inform him. “Maybe even the house.”

Connor pretends to be outraged. “Both? That’s absurd.”

Y/N snorts. “Who else would you give them to? The tithe?” Then, in a quieter voice, they glance towards the billboard Connor was staring at, and add on, “Maybe an angel?”

Connor sighs. “They can’t sell real guardian angels. No amount of flashy billboards can hide that.”

Y/N nods. “You’re still tempted, though?”

Connor lifts a shoulder. “Who wouldn’t be tempted? The idea is great. I’d love for someone to save me right now. Or maybe just care enough to try.”

“I care,” Y/N offers.

Connor gives them a wry smile. “I know you do. But you’re stuck in the same mess as I am, so maybe I’ll hold off on believing in your escape plan until you’re out, too.”

Y/N looks at him for a second, too deep for Connor to understand, then cracks a grin. “You should believe in me, Lassiter. I’m tunneling out from under the dorms with just a spoon. I might make it halfway to Florida by the time we get the unwind order.”

Connor scoffs. “That only works in movies. You’d need a miracle to break through an inch of concrete, let alone all the way past the borders.”

Y/N smiles at him, a little secretively, a little knowingly. “I’m pretty good with miracles.”

“Sure you are,” Connor says, stretching his arms to rid himself of an unpleasant pinch in his muscles. “Any chance you can whip one up to save me from my impending doom?”

He isn’t expecting Y/N to respond, obviously, but when their face drops at the sight of something approaching behind him, Connor knows it’s not just from his lack of belief. “I’d have to make it quick, wouldn’t I?” They mutter under their breath.

Connor turns around to see a squad of Juvey-cops bearing down on him. He swears under his breath. “This is it, right? They’re going to take me away?”

Y/N’s face looks ashen and wrong. “I should have saved you. “

“We should have saved each other,” Connor corrects gently. Usually, he isn’t the sentimental type, but as the guards get closer, he can’t resist the urge to lean closer to Y/N and whisper to them, “Hey, I’m glad for the time we had, alright? It meant– It meant a lot to me. You know. If I was going to talk to anyone on my last day, I would have wanted it to be you anyway.”

Y/N sucks in a breath. “Don’t say that.”

Connor stares at them. “Why not? It’s true.”

Y/N looks like they want to argue– why, Connor isn’t sure, but the guilt in their eyes is like nothing he’s ever seen before– but before they can say a word, the Juvey-cops close in around him, cutting Connor off from Y/N like slamming a door in their face. They give him the usual speech about how it’s time for him to be unwound, but Connor can’t find it within himself to pay attention. It’s so typical of him, honestly, to be zoning out during what may be his last hour whole, but all he can think about is Y/N, who disappears into the distance as the cops drag him away, Y/N, who he’s now left here alone, Y/N, who will join him in this fate not long from now.

Connor doesn’t want to be unwound. Obviously. He doesn’t want this, and the sheer force of his not wanting overwhelms him as they lead him closer and closer to the doors of the Chop Shop. A crowd of other unwinds has gathered by the door; apparently the final moments of the Akron AWOL make for some good entertainment. The band is playing. Connor wants to run, run far and fast like he always does, but for the first time in his life he realizes how pointless it is. If he tried to flee, they would catch him. They would drag him back, and it would be like nothing ever happened. There is no way this day ends with anything but Connor in pieces.

Connor forces his legs to move him mechanically towards the Chop Shop entrance. Just before the darkness of the place swallows him whole, something tells Connor to glance over his shoulder one last time and he sees Y/N staring at him beseechingly. He doesn’t know how he’s able to spot them so easily in the crowd, but he can. Like he would know them anywhere. Like doing anything but looking at them is impossible.

Then the guards shove him into the Chop Shop, and Y/N is gone, replaced by the dark certainty of Connor’s unwinding. The hallway seems to stretch out forever, but before Connor can take even one more step, a few very confusing things happen all at once.

First:  there’s this shift in the air. Connor can’t describe it. It feels strange and wrong, burning on his tongue like electricity. The hairs on the back of his neck stand up, and Connor knows at once that something is about to go wrong.

Second:  the room erupts in fire and smoke. The bone-rattling boom of the explosion comes later, a little delayed, but Connor sees the white flash of heat and light first. He’s knocked off of his feet, and time seems to slow down. The entire world is gone, replaced only by Connor, floating hazily through the smoky air, and the blossom of fire around him, searing off everything else.

Third, and most confusing of all:  out of nowhere, Y/N is right in front of him. Y/N, yes, but Y/N different somehow. It takes him a moment to realize why. Their eyes glow white, brighter even than the explosion, and their skin is radiating off this cool, pearlescent light. He has no idea how they could have possibly gotten in front of him so fast. He has no idea how they’re seemingly immune to the heat and force of the explosion around them.

Y/N reaches for him, pulling Connor into their arms. Their head presses against his, and they whisper quietly, forcefully, “Be safe, Connor.”

The command reverberates through Connor’s entire body. He doesn’t even remember hitting the ground, and when the explosion clears, he’s– He’s fine, actually. Nothing hurts. When Connor stares at his body, he’s utterly unharmed. Not even a scratch on his skin. He is totally untouched by the explosion that has just decimated the entirety of the Chop Shop.

Connor looks around him and realizes that Y/N is sitting in front of him. They’re both on the grass outside the Chop Shop, although he doesn’t remember getting there. Y/N is unharmed also, although Connor can say for certainty that there is still something wrong about them. It takes him a moment to get his scattered thoughts in order, and then he remembers. Y/N’s eyes wink pearlescent at him from a few paces away, and he knows.

“You’re a guardian angel,” Connor stammers out.

Y/N nods. “I am.”

Easy as that. They say it like it’s nothing. Like Connor hasn’t just had his life saved by a supernatural being currently sitting criss-cross applesauce in front of him on the waving grass. He’s had a lot of time to wonder what it would be like to meet a guardian angel, but it never would have occurred to him that one would have been in his life this entire time without him knowing.

Connor stares unseeingly at them. Try as he might, he can’t force himself to believe that Y/N is anything other than, well, Y/N. His friend. His best friend. The person he’s been crushing on since they stumbled into him by accident in the dark of Sonia’s basement. He remembers the flighty beat of their heartbeat when they were in his arms then, and he remembers what it felt like when they embraced him again in the smothering heat of the Chop Shop inferno. All Y/N. All an angel.

“You were trying to save me,” he begins, then stops. That really sums it up.

“I was,” Y/N agrees. “It was always about you, Connor.”

The idea doesn’t compute to him. “Then why wait until now to save my life? Why not make sure the Juveys never found us out in the first place?”

Y/N tilts their head to the side, considering this. “The job of a guardian angel is to save their primary assignment, sure, but also to minimize suffering wherever they go. I knew the Chop Shop explosion would happen if I didn’t save you. This needed to happen so everyone else here could be rescued. Worse things would have happened if I didn’t interfere now. It may not seem that way, but it is.”

Connor can practically feel gears in his head spinning. “So you knew how this would end the whole time?”

“I knew the great catastrophes of your life,” Y/N corrects. “I knew many paths you could take. This was the big risk, though. I didn’t get to see any more after that. Now I know just as much about your future as you do.”

Connor whistles under his breath. “That’s comforting.” Then, a terrible thought occurs to him. “Wait, that means I was your assignment. Like a job? Were you ever really my friend at all, or was that just something you had to do to complete your assignment?”

Y/N rears back as if hurt. “I have always been your friend. Guardian angels aren’t supposed to ever reveal themselves. I was actually meant to never talk to you until I saved you.”

“What changed?” Connor asks. He can’t stop himself.

Y/N smiles softly. “I saw you. You looked like someone fun.”

“Someone fun,” Connor echoes. He tries to think about his life, if anyone could see that and decide he was someone worthwhile. Someone fun. Someone an angel could watch and want to befriend. A warm feeling blossoms in his chest. Pride, maybe. Or the realization that the one secret he’s been keeping may go both ways after all.

“Yeah,” Y/N says, growing a little embarrassed. “I like you. My bad.”

Connor laughs. “That’s not bad. I like you too, by the way. In case you didn’t see it when you were receiving visions about my life.”

Y/N’s eyes dart up to his. “Really?”

“Really,” Connor says. “What, you didn’t know?”

Y/N shakes their head. “Like I said, I could only see what happened to you up to the Chop Shop exploding. Everything after that is a mystery.”

“Well,” Connor says, drawing closer to them. “I’m glad I get to surprise an angel once in my life.”

Before Y/N can ask him what he means, Connor kisses them, and after a moment of shock, they kiss him back. He’s not sure if he’s the first person in the world to have kissed an angel before, but he wouldn’t mind having that accolade under his belt. Just so long as he gets to be the person to kiss an angel two times, or three. Or forever.

requested by @julysn, i hope you enjoy!

unwind tag list: @reinekes-fox, @locke-writes, @sirofreak

all tags list: @wordsarelife

[lazysailor]

Oh my god it’s Lev and Cyfi from one of Neal Shustermans book series Unwind 😱

[squeakybit]

The DAMN Fam Spotify Playlist

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/25JoiJWm91JmYrC2WM5ifA?si=OEMzJS7bSSmXGrskN56UxA

The DAMN Crew has a Spotify playlist that Freelancer (Lev) started during one of their classes and invited the others to add to it.

Lev added “Wasteland” from NEONIE first. They've always liked the music, but after the inversion the line “got my pack, my pride, my brothers” hit a little different. They wanted the guys to know just how much they all meant to them.

When told that this playlist was to unwind and just enjoy each other's vibe, Lasko was, surprisingly, the next to add a song, choosing Girl in Red, loving the carefree summer vibe. He'd listen to ”I wanna be your girlfriend” while grading papers or documenting notes in his guidance counselor cases. He used to picture Lev in place of “Hannah” in the song, especially when they started hanging out one on one. “I don't wanna be your friend, I wanna kiss your lips” when he added that song, a slight flash of those feelings returned, but with his new partner in the kitchen making them coffee, he shrugged it off. He just likes Girl in Red.

Gavin likes jazz. The slow smooth music and round vocals. It's classy. The song "Fly me to the moon” played in a movie he and Lev watched very early on in their relationship. His hand on their hip, their head on his chest, he listened to them hum along, and the moment had been so perfect. He deemed it their song. He'd drown himself in it if he could. The version by The Macarons Project is his favorite.

Lev added Can't fight this feeling anymore to the playlist, dedicating it to Huxley and Damien after they'd all watched Rock Of Ages together. Huxley finds it funny and a bit sweet, listening to it whenever he's at work and missing Damien. Damien is embarrassed, feeling called out, but will listen to it and fantasize being held by Huxley like that. (Happens fairly often in the bedroom)

Heaven by Julia Michaels was put in by Lev in honor of Gavin, and after he actually listened to the words, he rifted right in the middle of a crowded DAMN-owned bus and into the apartment where he saw the walking out of the bathroom and he picked them up off the ground in a hug and kiss.

Pure imagination by Kathleen it's a lullaby for caelum that Lev found sometime after the inversion and before Caelum returned from Aria. They put it on the playlist too listen to when they missed him with the determination to sing it for him if he ever had an emotional attack like that again.

Stressed Out by Twenty One Pilots - The first song that Damien added to the playlist. He'd never say it to them but he loved TØP during adolescence, and only justified it by “well aren't we?” he says it's too relatable.

Centuries by fallout boy - Huxley added this for no other reason than immaculate vibes.

Warriors and bad liar by Imagine Dragons - Huxley added both of these to add some pump to his morning jogs. He loves Imagine Dragons and wants to get his friends into it.

I hear a symphony by Cody Fry - Lev added this song immediately after hearing it as a Spotify suggestion and got really emotional, sending a voice memo to the group chat, telling everyone to listen to the song and that they loved all of them.

Gavin added Immortal by Reinaeiry to the playlist after finding it coincidentally during an internalization of the Damn crew’s - particularly Freelancer’s - mortality. The lyrics made him cry, and he walked around the apartment parking lot around 2am while Lev slept soundly. These nights happened often as the years went on, but especially around each of their birthdays and he always feels guilty for feeling a littlesad while everyone else is having a blast.

[leafydinosaur]

unwind spoilers

i'm one of those people who believe strongly in destiny and that you can't change your destiny. connor's destiny was to be unwound, and he was later in the series. risa was never meant to be unwound, and she wasn't. lev was unwound mentally. his entire life was all in bits in pieces, to the point he didn't know who he was anymore. lev was also a tithe, and he did actually sacrifice himself for his friends and for all of the unwound kids (his body represented them because he tattooed (almost) all of their names on his body & he saved connor and risa from the chop shop explosion in unwind.) idk what this is but i just had an eureka moment tbh

[skisc]

E G G

[canonically47]

also i HATE when fandoms make up ships just for the sake of making them up. the biggest example i know is reed900, those guys never interacted and barely had ten minutes of screentime combined (and that's being generous), why do we have one fan-created full-length movie and multiple fanmade spin-offs based on them?

or in the TADC fandom, everyone immediately started saying "pomni and ragatha are in love" or "jax and gangle/jax and zooble enemies to lovers" or "caine x kinger >>>" or literally ANY PAIRING YOU CAN THINK OF. just for the sake of shipping. (for the record, i ship royalteeth; these are just examples)

now, am i saying i am against shipping culture altogether? absolutely not. i love shipping my silly fictional couples, often they are a source of comfort for me. but you cannot deny that some ships are made just for the sake of having characters in relationships - as if they wouldn't be good or even better off without one! who the hell came up with pomni x jax? they don't even have chemistry, are you just shipping them because main girl + main boy = love? is that really a good base for your ship?

this may just be because the concept of romance is beyond me as an aromantic person, but i swear, i am so tired of some of these ships. i do love a good crackship (lord knows what i've done with yansim, you would call me a hypocrite if you saw my fics) and main boy x main girl can always be done correctly (mostly if it's canon though, and not just for the sake of having the two main people in a straight ship) - conrisa (connor x risa from the unwind dystology) for example is an amazing protag x protag ship, but where conrisa excels, miracolev (miracolina x lev from the same books) falls flat for me;

but sometimes i do feel like shipping is done just for the sake of having a character in a romantic relationship, and not because the ship makes sense, has chemistry or interest in one another - just because romance is the way to go, i guess. another example is hank x connor from D:BH, my god, where the fuck did that one come from? it ruins the aspect of both characters as their stories have nothing to do with romance and they even have a father-son-like relationship! jeez people

and especially in media like TADC or hitman, which do not focus on romance at all but on existential crisises (TADC) and murder and moral questions (hitman), we do not need all the pomni x jax, gangle x jax, diana x 47, diana x lucas etc. nonsense. just enjoy the thing. just enjoy the individual character.

if this comes off wrong, i'm sorry - i have a lot of thoughts about this, and i cannot word it better <//3 i don't mean disrespect as, as i've said, i love a good crackship or just ship in general... it's just... why do we always have to ship everything and everyone?

[p1nkc4tb0t]

OK GUYS IMMA GO ON A RANT ABT THE NOVEL UNWIND, OK? OK.

HOLY SHIT.

guys it was so fucking good i swear.

ok so yeah, warning spoilers n shit. yeah.

ok so i really like the concept of the whole Bill of Life thing, unwinding especially.

like holy smokes was it good.

OK SO IK ITS NOT THE MOST POPULAR NOVEL I DONT THINK SO FOR MY MOOTS WHO R SEEING THIS THIS IS THE GENERAL CONCEPT: since abortions r banned pretty much, ppl either “stork” unwanted children or “unwind” children when they became unwanted. like the story starts off abt three unwinds, being unwound for completely different reasons. Connor was like, a troublesome kid and his parents just didn’t want that so they signed the orders to get him unwound. i missed why Risa was unwound but im pretty sure the state house just didn’t have much room for her anymore(she got storked there i think. she really didn’t grab my attention at the beginning sadly). Lev came from a Christian family, and churches make everyone sacrifice one of their children for God by unwinding them second they turn 13, Lev being one of them(it’s considered an honor)

OK SO the concept of storking is that, the mother delivers a child, doesn’t want it, leaves it at some person’s doorstep and then it’s “finders keepers.” however if they are caught they have to take the kid back and legally obliged to keep it. same with the finders keepers situation, got storked and ain’t no one at ur doorstep? legally obliged to keep it like it or not. however Connor’s parents once got storked and passed it into the neighbors house, and the baby rotated for a week and back to their house, but already sick and dying. Connor then gets traumatized and further on in the book he’s so overridden with the memory that when a bitch got storked she yell at them (Connor abd Risa) to take it back even tho the kid wasn’t theirs.

the concept of unwinding is that legally between 13-18 your guardians can send you to a harvest camp where you’re taken apart and given these parts to those who need it. like for example: you got unwound, taken to a harvest camp, they take your hands and give it to a guy who lost his across the fucking continent. ppl literally stopped trying to cure things, just replaced faulty organs with healthy ones. and no one really knows what’s going on in those harvest camps. do they kill you off immediately or do they wait and wait for weeks on weeks to get to you while you never know when’s your last day.

SO ANYWAY

I really like Connor’s relationship with Hayden, and tbh if they would make them canonically in love i’d be the happiest person on this planet. but again that would cause even further complications w the plot so i get it ig. but at the same time i don’t. Connor never really struck me as a cishet dude even from the beginning of the story, and though him abd Risa r a very good pair i’d just kinda like it more if they paired him up with Hayden. cuz first of all it would add on to tge reason he got unwound in the first place. abd like, i want a gay protagonist in a horror book is that really too much to ask?

same thing with Lev and CyTy, tho i see them more as moirails. yk, homestuck. heheh. no bc they’re so caring for eachother it’s crazy. but again i don’t see them in a romantic relationship, i just rlly like their dynamic. live laugh love how Lev was willing to go through with CyTy’s shit and vice versa.

Hayden and CyTy gotta b my fab characters frfr. anyway so CyTy’s name is actually Cyrus, but he has an eighth of a brain of a kid who got unwound and his name was Tyler. so like, he sometimes does things that Tyler would do but himself won’t, leading them to Tyler’s parents’ house and it actually made me tear up.

ALSO RISA IS AN EMO GINGER. NOT DEBATABLE. I DO NOT CARE IF IT CAN NEVER B CANON, I LIVE FOR EMO GINGER RISA.

GUYS THIS BOOK IS FUCKING BEAUTIFUL GO READ IT

i NEED to make a Homestuck Unwind AU

(imma just tag 4 moots i think would find this interesting @hiddencattoes @kovuspams @r3z1l1c1ous @imgoingtoeatyourfirstbornchild sorry guys this felt necessary)

[julysn]

my random unwind headcanons

a/n: HI THIS IS SUCH A MESS LMFAOO

everything i say here is FACT. truth. it’s canon guys trust!!

— hayden and connor 100% wore baggy clothes. i refuse to believe any americans in the future would wear skinny jeans

— brooklyn had a secret crush on risa when they were at the state home but she didn’t want to admit it…..,..

— lev wore skinny jeans in his childhood

— starkey tate defender. he got into chess bc of him

— nelson ABSOLUTELY stinks. like no shower no deodorant no toothbrush. PURE STINK. and he has horrible breath too.

— i like to think risa likes lana del rey and newjeans

— hayden absolutely loves wham. his fav 80s musician would be george michael and he listens to careless whisper thinking about connor and how he’s w risa and not him WHO SAID THAT WJATTT

— lev made those cringy (no offense i swear) christian youtube shorts where he was like “press like if you believe in jesus 🙏” and the background was him playing roblox

— i refuse to believe connor wasn’t a chick magnet. he HAD to have been pulling hoes left and right.

— man bun roland 😣

— emo lev

— BASKETBALL PLAYER CONNOR guys wjatttt are we hearing me out. maybe he began playing to have an excuse to get away from home..;… omg him in a jersey i’m CREAMING someone draw him in a jersey and I WILL LOVE U FOREVER

— bam listens to ayesha erotica..,,

— i really really love the idea of curlyhead hayden and connor. like they have curly hair FIGHT ME! (don’t. my knees hurt)

— lev unironically listened to big nik in the first book bc he thought he was being trendy

— risa has little freckles on her cheeks this will not be debated

— starkey tries to be wattpad sexy mafia boss jungkook core but FAILS

— miracolina had a gacha phase and would watch boys vs girls singing battles religiously

— now. now what if i said. WASIAN HAYDEN

— ADDING ONE AFTER POSTING but.. conrisa/haycon/hayconrisa in matching hello kitty pajama pants. can we see the vision ARTISTS I NEED U

i’d add more but like. my head EMPTY

[bopeisdope]

I posted an Unwind AU fic! It's from a Ghost!Roland au I made up. Read on Ao3 here

Connor wakes up in a haze, unsure of where he is. His whole body has a dull ache and there is pressure over his right eye. A bandage. The smell of bleach penetrates his nose. A soft and constant beep comes from his left.

He peels his left eye open to reveal a hospital room. His right shoulder aches as he moves his hand over the bed. The sheets are soft and feel as cottony as his brain does at the moment. Blinking the cobwebs from his mind he recalls what he can remember last.

The chop shop. The doors closing on him for what felt like the last time. An explosion. A revolt. And Lev, standing over him. That's all he can remember.

A nurse walks in carrying a chart, "So you're finally awake! How are you feeling?"

"Good," he croaks, then tries again. "How long?"

She glances down, "You've been in a medically induced coma for a little over two weeks."

Two weeks? The way his life has been going over the past year, where everyday feels like an uphill battle, two weeks seems like an eternity.

His mind is slowly catching up to him.

Risa... what about Risa?

He's too tired to mask his desperation. "There was a girl," he says, "She was on the roof of the Chop- the harvest clinic. Does anyone know what happened to her?

"That can all be sorted out later," the nurse dotes.

"But-"

"No buts. Right now you need time to heal-and I have to say, you're doing better than anyone expected, Mr. Mullard."

Connor's brain stutters, he must've misheard. "Excuse me?"

The nurse shuffles things around, "Just relax now, Mr. Mullard. Let us handle everything."

His first thought is that he's actually been unwound. He was unwound and his brain was put in another body. But realistically he knows that's not right. The voice he hears is his. He can feel his teeth as he moves his tongue across his gums. He can feel his unkempt hair on his head.

"My name is Connor," he tells her. "Connor Lassiter."

The nurse gives him a mysterious look. One filled with kindness and a deep sense of knowing. It's calculating- disturbingly so. "Well," she says, "as it so happens, an ID with the picture charred off was found in the wreckage. It belonged to a nineteen-year-old guard by the name of Elvis Robert Mullard. With all the confusion after the blast there really was no telling who was who, and many of us agreed that it would be a shame to let that ID go to waste, don't you agree?" She changes the angle of Connor's bed until he's in a more comfortable sitting position and looks into his eye. "Now tell me," she asks carefully, "What was your name again?"

Connor gets it. He closes his eye, takes a deep breath, and opens it again.

"My name is E. Robert Mullard."

The nurse smiles widely and reaches out her hand to shake his. "A pleasure to meet you, Robert."

Instinctively Connor reaches his right hand to reciprocate and gets that same ache in his shoulder.

"Sorry," she says quickly. "My fault." She shakes his left hand instead. "Your shoulder will feel a bit sore until the graft is completely healed."

"What did you just say?"

The nurse looks like she's been caught saying something she shouldn't. "Well, the bad news is that we weren't able to save your arm, or your right eye. The good news is that, as E. Robert Mullard, you qualified for emergency transplants."

Connor rotates this in his mind, letting it sink in. Eye. Arm. Emergency transplants.

She sighs, "I know it's a lot to get used to. I'll let you be alone while I get your lunch." She heads for the door.

"Yeah," Connor replies absently, having focused all of his attention to the arm. "Lunch. That's good."

The arm has a slightly darker complexion than his skin tone and the nails need to be trimmed. It is more muscular than his left; he recalls reading about physical therapy for this type of thing. He touches all of the fingers to his thumb. His sense of feeling is the same. He flexes the fingers. They flex. He twists his wrist. It twists. When he rotates it a bit farther he sees something that makes him stop. His stomach plummets and he feels a surging wave of panic. He doesn't want to believe it. Connor refuses to even acknowledge it. On his arm is the unmistakable tattoo of a tiger shark.

Still reeling from shock, Connor hears a voice he thought he would never hear again. A voice that, given the arm surgically grafted onto Connor, couldn’t possibly be here at all.

"So," the figure sneers, "the Akron AWOL goes into the Chop Shop and lives to tell the tale.”

Roland is leaning against the wall, looking hatefully down on Connor. But once what used to be a whole boy is now a nightmarish apparition covered in stitches. He could almost be real if it weren’t for the gaping hole where his arm used to be. While there is no blood, the wound seems to emit an inky blackness that Connor cannot tear his eye away from.

“H-how…”

“You did this to me, Connor.” Roland’s glare shoots daggers as he moves closer. Suddenly, Connor is acutely aware of his vulnerability, his logical mind is telling him this ghost can’t hurt him, but his heart doesn’t get the message. The monitor to his left starts screaming.

His mouth opens and closes like a fish, “No! You- you should be dead!”

Roland stops at the side of his bed, remaining hand toying with the cord of Connor’s IV. “Don’t you remember Connor?” A malicious grin spreads across his face, “Unwinding isn’t death.”

Paralyzed Connor watches as Roland silently reaches for his arm. “Weren’t you ever taught to share?”

A nurse rushes into Connor’s room, finally coming to investigate the shrill noise coming from the machine beside him. “Your heart rate is through the roof! Are you all right Mr. Mullard?”

Connor turns to where Roland had been mere seconds ago to find him gone. What just happened? Was that… real?

“Oh, I see you took your IV out! You really have to be more careful next time.” His heart rate slows but his mind fires at full speed. When did he take his IV out?

The nurse pats his hand satisfied that he’s all fixed again and goes to leave. “Wait,” he has to make sure he’s not going crazy, “has anyone been in my room since you left?”

Her smile never falters, “No, hun, just me. If you want to see any of your friends you’ll have to wait till after lunch.”

“What drugs did they give me? Would any, um, cause hallucinations?” Her picture-perfect smile wavers, probably rethinking her decision to save some kid who turned out to be a nutcase. “It could be a side-effect from your coma. The brain often tries to fill in gaps or create its own explanations when recovering from a trauma like this. It should wear off after a good sleep.”

Connor is doubtful more sleep could do him any good. He just slept for two weeks straight after all, but he doesn’t want to be here any longer than he needs to be by convincing people he’s insane. He returns a smile to the nurse, “You’re right Doc, thank you.”

—--------

After a hearty lunch of jello and chicken soup, Connor is finally allowed to leave his room to see Risa.

The nurse leads him to her room, most likely glad to be rid of him for a few minutes, and he lingers in the doorway. Risa is in a bed that reminds him more of a dentist’s chair. There are pins and rods supporting her up that Connor recognizes as signs of paralysis, something he’s only read about in textbooks heralding unwinding as the solution to all of your problems. His gut swirls with guilt. Risa didn’t accept unwind parts and she’s much worse off than what he would have been if he hadn’t either. How will he face her like this?

“You have a visitor.” The nurse steps aside and he can see Risa’s face. Her eyes fill with tears and she holds back a sob. “I knew they were lying,” she says. “They said you died in the explosion–that you were trapped in the building–but I saw you outside, I knew they were lying.”

“I probably would have died,” Connor says, “but Lev stopped the bleeding. He saved me.”

They talk of the victory at Happy Jack and the losses taken to get there. He tells her of his coma and new identity. In his happiness of seeing Risa he almost forgets his arm and the demon that came with it until he spots Risa looking at it. He flinches and the bandage shifts, revealing the tattoo. Her breath catches in her throat and Connor turns his head. She’s going to hate me. I mean, how could she not? This arm will always carry him with it.

“Connor…?”

“I promise,” he breathes, “I promise I will never touch you with this hand.”

Risa looks at Connor and he looks back, a broken soul. Connor takes her in, for this might be the last time she will ever want to see him.

“Let me see it,” she says, giving nothing away.

He hesitates, so Risa gently takes it from the sling. “Does it hurt?”

“A little.”

She brushes her fingers across the knuckles of that hand, and her voice is quiet, “Can you feel that?”

He nods. He watches her lift the hand to her face, the palm against her cheek, and she holds it there. When she lets go he decides. He decides what this hand will do. He decides its pressure, its direction, and its intent. And he tells himself he always will have that choice, not his parents, not Proactive Citizenry, and certainly not Roland. His hand brushes a tear from her face, moving down her cheek, across her lips. He takes his hand away and Risa opens her eyes and tightly clasps the hand in hers. “I know this is your hand now.” When she speaks, there is not a single thread of doubt, “Roland would never have touched me like that.”

She pulls him into a hug and he closes his eyes, sinking into her embrace. This moment is for them, after two eternal weeks of not knowing, after surviving the Chop Shop, after escaping the PC’s grasp, they can finally be teens again. There is still much more to do, but at least they will have each other to rely on.

However, a twitch in his arm shatters the peace, and he opens his eyes. Roland peers back at him from the doorway, watching them silently.Doctors and nurses shuffle about, unconcerned about the boy standing in the doorway, for this is not their fight. Connor realizes he’s the only one who can see him, because whether he likes it or not, they are now connected. He suddenly remembers what Roland said before he disappeared as he feels another uninvited twitch in his arm—Weren’t you ever taught to share?

A/n: I hope you guys enjoyed it! Feedback is always appreciated. Also I have a LOT of thoughts about this AU so let me know if you want me to spill lol