#so here's fic

[iamanartichoke]

I don't know who needs to hear this, but as a creator -

I am fine with "the audience" -

downloading my fics

printing my fics

copy/pasting or screenshotting my fics

sharing your saved copy of my fics with anyone else who might want them in the unlikely but never impossible case that my fics are no longer available on ao3

making a book of my fic(s) and running your fingers across the pages while lovingly whispering my precioussss

doing these things with anything I create for fandom, such as meta, headcanons, au nonsense like 'texts from the brodinsons,' etc

I am not fine with "the audience"

doing any of the above with the purpose/intent of plagiarizing my work or passing it off as their own in any capacity

feeding my work into ai for any reason whatsoever

Save the fandom things. Preserve the fandom things. Respect the fandom things.

Enjoy the fandom things.

[lazylittledragon]

if i had a nickel for every au spawned from twitter that i SWORE i was going to be normal about

[fandom-drake]

Jason in the manor for movie night: How'd you convince B to let me in anyways? I thought I wouldn't get an invite till I dropped the real bullets.

Dick busy trying to wrangle Damian away from Tim and Titus away from the snacks: B is really bad at facing the words he throws around ya know? So I told him since it's my fault you died I should be responsible for bringing you home- Tim don't!!!

Jason: B said what!?!?

[astralpenguin]

self care is writing a fic that you’re literally the sole target audience for

[glorious-spoon]

i know we all laugh (mostly fondly) about the paper-thin plots in porn that only exist to make the sex happen, but i was reading some old stargate fic over the weekend, and i really think we're sleeping on the paper-thin hurt/comfort plot that only exists to force the characters to FEEL THINGS.

like, is this scenario realistic? no. does it make any rational sense? no. does it provide a built-in excuse for a character to collapse, bloody and disoriented, into the arms of his beloved/friend/partner? obviously, that's the whole point of this exercise.

i love it. it's my favorite thing in the world.

[thekaiserroll]

Hug

It's nearly impossible to have a quiet and peaceful day with the crew, like the strawhats. Nami is mostly used to the noise on Going Merry but one day she gets fed up with Zoro and Sanji arguing. Not only are they extremely loud, but they've also already broken way too many things during their fights.

She decides that If they want to act like brats, then she's going to treat them as such. So she makes them apologize and hug each other in silence for an hour. None of them are happy about this punishment, but Nami threatened to raise Zoro's debt, and Sanji couldn't say no to her. It could be worse.

It's awkward enough for them to not incite any fight for a long time and Nami is quite proud of herself. She knows it won't last forever but at least now she knows how to handle them. It inevitably happens again. And again. And again.

Much to her surprise, those fights became more and more frequent. And what's even weirder is that she could see the way both Zoro and Sanji occasionally glanced at her to make sure she was nearby. It's almost as if they wanted someone to make them hug each other. As if they needed an excuse.... these idiots.

Soon, they don't even need Nami's help. When they aren't busy training, cooking or fighting, they cuddle together. Sometimes Luffy or Chopper would join them, but most of the crew knew it was their time.

After two years spent separately, they became extremely clingy. It's no surprise when they start sleeping in the same bed. What is surprising is that despite them behaving like a lovey-dovey couple, those oblivious idiots are STILL unaware of each other's feelings.

[dcxdpdabbles]

Jason is helping the weird kid in class search for something: What are we looking for exactly?

Danny, looking in a trash bin behind the shcool: My soul.

Jason: Alright edge-lord

Danny: No I'm serious. My soul got away from me. You've ever seen Peter Pan?

Jason: Yeah?

Danny: Just like Peter Pan's shadow got away my soul escaped- THERE IT IS!

Phantom flying overhead: SUPER DANNY AWAY!

Danny: come back here and merge with me!

Jason horrified that this wasn't a excuse to make out behind the school like he thought and is now chasing a actual soul around: Bruce is going to kill me.

Danny: Nah, he won't hurt Robin. He needs a side kick

Jason: You know I'm Robin!?

Danny: Why else would I have asked you to help????

[ghostbsuter]

"I can see dead people." He mentions with a shrug, using the chopsticks to fish more noodles into his mouth.

Dick stares at him. "Huh."

"Is that why you help?" He asks, getting more spring rolls.

"Yeah. Once someone becomes a ghost, word gets out quick, and they come to me. Always tatling about unfairness and justice." The kid waves the words around, rolling his eyes.

Dick just pretens to he uninterested, despite his mind racing at the new info. He is piecing past moments together, every shadow leaping away, every note with tips, leads and—

Huh.

"Do you... like it? Doing all that?" Richard approaches thus carefully, brows furrowed at the kid opposite of him.

Danny moves his head, giving a 'so-so' answer. "It's not much to like, I can see ghosts, and they know it and use it. If it brings them to peace or whatever– well, that's just a plus."

Dick stares. He places his chopsticks down and looks at Danny worried.

In turn, the kid sighs. "Sometimes gifts become curses the longer you have it."

And Dick understands.

Mind made up, he throws a pair of keys at the kid, watching fondly as the other catches them with confusion.

"Next time use these, instead of entering through the window."

Danny mock-salutes with a shit eating grin. "Yes, Officer grayson."

[somnimagus]

My page for @sheikahzine; about Impaz's duty to her village, empty of people and full of memories.

[id in alt text]

[thevioletcaptain]

i genuinely don't care how good a piece of ai generated art or writing looks on the surface. i don't care if it emulates brush strokes and metaphor in a way indistinguishable from those created by a person.

it is not the product of thoughtful creation. it offers no insights into the creator's life or viewpoint. it has no connection to a moment in time or a place or an attitude. it has no perspective. it has no value.

it's empty, it's hollow, and it exists only to generate clicks (and by extension, ad revenue.)

it's just another revolting symptom of the disease that is late stage capitalism, and it fucking sucks.

[phantomrose96]

Sham Sacrifice

(Hi it's time for my favorite headcanon)

...

Vlad Masters sat firm and proper on the Fenton Family couch, legs crossed, teacup pinched in his fingertips, fighting subtly against the sinkhole that came with the mistake of taking Jack’s usual spot on the couch. He appeared with all the same charm and delightfulness of an ant swarm rearranging your picnic.

Danny stood at the doorway, just-still-in-the-kitchen, just not inviting himself to join the adults in the living room where Jack boomed and rambled and Vlad sat so stiff and polite and nice that his tea in his hands was going cold.

“Oh, Danny you’ll love this story—Danny, you should join us—Danny this was, what, summer of ’84? When was that heatwave, Vladdy? The one where you—”

“There’s no need to bore Daniel with the mad ravings of two old kooks, Jack. Kids would rather be off at the mall or—some store, surely. No need to stick around Daniel on my behalf. I assure you I won’t be offended if you leave.”

“No worries, V-man. I’m good right here. I love hearing Dad’s stories." Danny met Vlad's challenge, speaking with more poisonous courtesy than Vlad had proffered first. "In fact I think he should tell a few more, if he’s got more in mind.”

“In fact I do have more in mind—” Jack answered.

Neither Danny nor Vlad were listening to Jack. They held eye-contact, Danny with a stern unblinkingness of a sheepdog on duty. A lot was said without words. A lot was understood when Vlad decided to visit through the front door. Vlad only used the front door when he wanted something.

And it was never good when Vlad wanted something.

“—the core reactor project, yeah? That summer? That was in the lab with no A/C. Top floor. We were sweating like pigs, all of us. And I dared you to eat the really moldy pizza from our fridge the night before and you ralphed right into—”

“—Surely you remember this more fondly than I do. Daniel, really, you can go.”

Not a chance.

“Actually,” Danny answered, brightening some as his opportunity struck. “I am interested in this. For science class I need to write a report on the invention of an important piece of technology. I was gonna ask Mom and Dad about the Ghost Portal. And now that you’re here, I can get the whole history.”

Jack made a giddy little noise. He leaned forward, words primed, but Vlad was quicker to the draw.

“Sorry to say, your faith in me is unfounded. I wasn’t the portal guy back in college—that was always your mother and father’s passion project. I was their skeptic.”

“Bet that’s got you feeling pretty foolish right now, doesn’t it V-man?” Jack chided, a quick jab to Vlad’s ribs that nearly unseated the teacup from his suspended saucer. “Considering the fully-functioning portal right beneath our toes.”

“I hardly feel foolish, Jack. Your calculation for the portal in college was never going to work.”

“What do you mean? Of course it did.” Jack thumped the ground with his foot. “It’s running the old girl right now.”

At this, Vlad’s eyes narrowed. For the first time he’d been shaken off whatever skeezy machinations had brought him in. His pride was being challenged, and by Jack no less.

“Absolutely not. With that calculation? Absolutely not.”

“Well forget the tea biscuits Vlad, because you’re going to be eating your words in a second. Mads, hold my spot,” Jack said, as if anyone was planning to take his spot. He bounced from the couch, scooted from the living room, and vanished into the dark maw of the lab stairs, leaving only the waning beat of his footsteps behind.

His absence filled only a swallowing few seconds. The footsteps returned, bounding upward, creaking with his heavy cadence, and Jack bounced back into the room in much the manner he left. A pad of yellow lined paper was clutched in his hand. When he dropped it on the coffee table, it revealed row after row of tight scribble, churning math, carrying down the page and occupying two entire pages more that Jack flipped through.

“Same baby I came up with in college. It just needed heavier dampening and higher voltage than what we made back then. The portal downstairs has that in spades. Well, in like two-thirds of a spade.” Jack tapped something on the last line. “The projection was still only hitting 70% of the threshold we calculated to reach dimension penetration. But it’s an art, not just a science. We fired it up anyway, and it took!”

Vlad grabbed the paper pad, agitated. His eyes ran over it. Then again. Until he settled on one line, a firmness overcoming his face. He tossed the pad back onto the coffee table, and Vlad leaned back into the couch, arms crossed.

“The lambda, Jack.”

“The lambda?”

“Check it again.”

Jack did, lips pursed, pad of paper nearly swallowed in his big meaty hand.

“What about--?”

“It squares. The units don’t balance otherwise. It originates from an integration step of λ*∂λ/∂t. It squares.”

Jack’s brow remained furrowed, firm, until delight cracked into his eyes, and he let out a laugh.

“Gods, my handwriting is gonna be the death of us. Mads,” he tapped something unseen on the second page. “That’s the genius of Vladdy. Cracked this puppy wide open with just a glance. I never noticed that in all my checking. That explains the missing 30%, at least. That explains how the portal took. Lucky for you Danny that Vlad was here—”

“Jack,” Maddie said.

“—your report can have the correct formula. It’ll be—”

“—Jack—”

“—A+ worthy—”

“—Jack,” Maddie said, curt. “Lambda is the ambient ecto-energy. It’s a few ten-thousandths of a unit.”

“It—huh.”

Maddie had surfaced a pen from her pocket. She sheared a few blank pages out from the back of the pad and started the formula fresh. She made quick work of copying it over, quicker work of solving it through – lambda-squared intact.

She hit the final line and hatched a pen mark beneath the number. Jack stared, confused.

“That can’t… no.”

He repeated the same. New pages torn loose. Formula copied over, processed, line by line by line—lambda squared—by line by line by line.

Jack settled on his answer. Same as Maddie’s.

Confusion made his face tense.

“So it’s not 70% of the way to the threshold… It’s 0.013% of the way to the threshold.”

He held the pen hard, his whole body holding firm and taut as the gears turned in his head. Jack’s eyes flickered across the formula, again and again and again. He looked to Maddie, like a dog issued a command he did not understand.

“But it worked,” he said, small. “But it worked.”

Jack stood, robotic almost, eyes lost in something far away. He disappeared into the lab almost as quickly as he had a few minutes before, but now he exited with a smoothness and a quietness so very uncharacteristic of him. It bothered Danny, somewhere deep in his gut.

Maddie followed, a possession matching Jack’s.

Danny’s fingers curled and uncurled. He’d succeeded. He’s successfully interrupted Vlad’s… whatever this was. But the disquiet infected him. He didn’t like it.

“So what does that mean?” Danny asked, perhaps to Vlad. “What’s wrong with the calculation?”

Vlad sipped on tea ice cold.

“Who knows?” Vlad lied.

…

The math didn’t work.

Maddie and Jack burned through paper, burned through pencils, burned through hours.

The math didn’t work.

Clothes stuck to skin. Sweat lingered fetid and stale in the cold basement air. Exhaustion beat like a slurry through their veins.

The math didn’t work.

The portal supervised all, placidly green, the light for their table, the light for their work when the lightbulb overhead burnt clean out and neither Jack nor Maddie could be pulled away to replace it. It stood, it watched, a testament of contradiction to everything they could not solve on paper, and yet everything they built directly into the fabric of reality.

And it should never have worked.

They threw every radical what-if they’d ever conceived over 20 years of ghost research.

The ecto-ether layer.

The latent activation stitches in space fabric.

The anti-ectomatter collision proposal.

The positive-feedback crystallization theory.

And still nothing worked.

All together, every crackpot theory in their favor taken for granted, racked them up to an activation energy 200x more potent than the calculation, and still just 2% of what would be needed to rip open, and hold open, a stable fissure between their reality and the ghost zone.

Maybe by pure luck, unfathomable luck, Fentonworks basement was directly situated atop a natural portal.

Maybe that would explain ripping it open. It did nothing to explain the stability. Natural portals were unstable by definition. There and gone in a few seconds. Not hours, days, weeks, months, a year, that the Fenton Portal had been open. Never so much as faltering.

It was late. 3am ticked away to 4am, and 4:30am. The discarded paper stacked higher than Jack and Maddie both. Calluses oozed from their hands at another attempt, and another, and another.

Maddie flipped through a folder’s worth of yellowed papers, aggressively thumbed over and over after two decades left untouched. And she settled on the one she’d passed over a few dozen times already, always seeking something else, something better.

This time she unsheathed it, and she placed it on the lab table.

“…If a mouse died. In the machine. If a mouse ran through the machine and accidentally bridged two live wires, and died of violent electrocution. 500 milliamps. Instantly melted into the circuitry.”

Maddie’s mouth was cotton-dry while she wrote. Ambient ecto-energy was low. Always very, very low.

Unless something very, very bad happened to something with the capacity to become a ghost.

The numbers wove. Maddie started the formula fresh, and it was pure muscle memory. A mouse. A big mouse, even. A 99th percentile beast of a mouse. And a wire that had been wired incorrectly. Something grounded that never actually grounded. An absolutely horrific amount of electricity.

0.37%, by pure numbers. If she included every permissive crackpot idea they had thrown on top, it topped out at 6% of the needed activation threshold.

Not a mouse.

“A cat,” Jack said, words gummy, tongue dry, face tired. “If we’ve got mice down here, maybe… a stray cat wandered in. Chased the mouse.”

Maddie nodded. It didn’t matter if it made sense.

She penned it in. A large cat. A devastating electrical short. Cats carried more ecto-potential than mice did. Ecto-potential did not necessarily go up with size. It went up with complexity. The things with the most ecto-potential were the things that most became ghosts.

1.45%, by pure numbers. 18% at absolute, absolute crackpot best.

“A dog,” Jack proposed with a shaky laugh. He swallowed. “A mouse… chased by a cat… chased by a dog… all electrocuted at once”

Maddie didn’t say the thing they both knew, which was that both of them would have noticed the evidence left behind by the electrically exploded pieces of a dog.

Maddie did it anyway. A mouse and a cat and a medium-sized dog, maybe just small enough to notice no evidence of, all together. All at once. All violently ripped apart, sacrificed to a machine still asleep in its wall.

Mice did not often make ghosts. Cats did not either. Dogs, occasionally. But infrequently. Very infrequently.

37%. At best.

“Jack.”

“Maddie, I know just—maybe something really smart—”

“—Jack—”

“—like an octopus—”

“Jack.”

“I hear, maybe, pigs are smart. If it was—”

Maddie was writing, already. Not for a pig. Not an octopus. Jack watched, and he knew what the numbers meant. The ecto-potential she penned gave her away. An ecto-potential that high.

65kg, an estimate

10,000 milliamps, a catastrophic accident, a death certificate.

A human’s amount of ecto-potential.

Maddie wrote.

And she wrote.

And she did not apply a single crackpot theory, not a single discredited proposal, not an ounce of exaggeration.

138%.

Threshold, and then some.

Comfortable, easily, then some.

For the first time, after all the hundreds of times she and Jack had penned this equation over the course of 2 decades, the number met her and Jack’s threshold.

A breakthrough.

A revelation.

A pure eureka moment.

Jack and Maddie were silent.

Alone in a humming basement. Alone with only the soft swirls of the portal for company, happy, stable, purring its contentment, singing to the cold air.

“It has to be something else,” Maddie said. And she said it weakly. And she said it childishly.

“You’re right. It can’t be this,” Jack echoed. “If someone died down here, we’d know. Dead bodies don’t walk away. We’d have seen it. O-or even if, if the body got stuck in the portal, we’d have heard of someone going missing.”

Maddie sat, quiet. A thought held her mind hostage.

“Unless they didn’t go missing,” Maddie said, and she said it barely audibly. “Unless the portal spit them right back out.”

“Then—that’s what I said—a dead body, on the floor, we’d have seen.”

“Not a dead body.”

“It had to be lethal, Mads—”

“I know Jack. But if they died, here, in the portal Jack, then their ghost did not get ripped away from the body and sent to the Ghost Zone. …They ripped the Ghost Zone here.” Palms slick with sweat smoothed over her notes. She pointed to one specific line and found her pen tip trembled no matter how badly she stabilized it. “The ecto-potential of a creature is how strong of a pull their ghost creates on the Ghost Zone. A strong enough pull means the ghost can reach the Ghost Zone and stabilize, like a fish reeling itself up, yeah? We agree on this Jack, yes?”

“Yes,” Jack answered.

“It’s what makes the math even work, Jack. Someone dying in the portal didn’t reel themselves to the boat. They reeled the boat in. Jack, they brought the Ghost Zone here…” Maddie wasn’t breathing right. She pulled sweat-soaked bangs away from her face. “Their ghost never left their body Jack. They died, Jack. And they walked back out.”

“…No. No,” Jack said. “No, they didn’t.”

“Then what?” Maddie asked.

Jack stared. He looked away. He didn’t like the expression on Maddie’s face.

“It—what about the ecto-ether theory?” Jack said, of the theory they’d tested and retested and tested all over, all night. He grabbed his pencil back up and pointed it aimlessly at Maddie’s piece of paper, pointed end out in self-defense. “If the ecto-ether is maybe… if it’s only 250-times stronger than we calculated. Then it could…”

Jack’s voice died. His pencil hung idle. Maddie’s paper remained unblemished.

“If it… was a pig,” Jack offered. “If it was a pig that died in the portal.”

“How, Jack? How would a pig get in? We lock all the doors at night, Jack. No one else can get in, Jack. It’s just us, Jack.”

Jack and Maddie were not there when the portal turned on.

Maddie’s statement carried two possibilities. Only two. Both felt like claws digging all the flesh right out of Jack’s heart.

“I want… I want to try the ecto-ether theory again,” Jack choked. “I think it’s the ecto-ether. I think it’ll work.”

Jack slid a piece of paper over, already covered in scribbles. In its single untouched corner, he started the equation for the several-thousandth time that night.

Above their head, birds were singing.

Sunrise hailed unseen from the windowless laboratory.

…

At 6am, Vlad answered his cell phone. The reception crackled, struggling through the layers of sheetrock above his head.

“Vlad?” Maddie’s voice crackled. “Sorry, did I wake you up?”

“Not at all my dear.” Vlad leaned his weight against the wall, playing with the singsong melody in his voice. “But you sound exhausted. Is anything the matter?”

“Yes. Well… Yes. Jack and I have—all night—trying to fix the equation.”

“Naturally.”

“We found something that maybe works.”

“Oh?” Vlad asked. He straightened, pacing now, cracklingly attentive. “And what might that—”

“If someone died. Activating the portal. We have an on-switch inside the portal’s interior. The trigger we use to press it is external to the portal, of course. But if someone went inside the portal, and they pressed it directly, and if they died, and pulled the Ghost Zone here—”

Vlad’s red eyes reflected pools of iridescent green. He twirled his free hand in the fringes of his cape, tongue working over the fanged edges of his teeth. He stared, consumed, forward.

“—and just, you, I was thinking, you’re the only other expert I’d trust to… maybe weigh in.”

“What does Jack think?”

“He denies it. He’s still. He’s trying other theories.”

“Well who knows, surely? The answer may lie somewhere you haven’t looked.”

“…I’ve looked everywhere, Vlad. That's the thing. There is no more ‘somewhere else’. I’ve looked.”

“You sound like your mind is made up.”

“I just… if maybe you have some idea.”

“Am I meant to talk you out of this idea?”

“Vlad.”

“Do you think I have some secret information you don’t? Sorry to say, I’m just your skeptic.” Some noise came through muffled from the other side. Vlad flashed a smile. “But…as your skeptic I will offer you this—It all sounds a bit absurd, doesn’t it? To kill someone and have them come back intact and… for you to never notice? Who would they be? How would they be? Surely not human anymore, surely. How would you never notice?”

Vlad paced forward, booted feet clicking along his laboratory floor.

“It would be ridiculous,” he continued, with a building crescendo, “so unfathomably self-centered surely, to not notice something like that befall someone so close to you, who died at the hands of your own invention? …If I’m correctly inferring who, in your household, you suspect of having activated the portal?” Vlad’s tongue lingered along his teeth.

Maddie’s line held, quiet. And the seconds of static drew long.

“Ah, apologies. I’ve overstepped,” Vlad continued. “I meant this as a vote of confidence in you. You and Jack both. Two people as attentive, caring, compassionate as yourselves. You would notice. I promise.”

“You’re… Okay, thank you, Vlad. I appreciate it.”

“Is there anything else, my dear?”

“No. No. Thank you, Vlad. I’ll think about this.”

Maddie’s line clicked dead. A chuckle built to Vlad’s lips and he let his head tip back with mirth. It lasted only a moment. He stowed his phone. And as if the interruption had never happened, Vlad reaffixed his attention on his own portal swirling in front of him. It bathed him, swimming green, purring contentment.

And Vlad vanished into his portal.

(Chapter 2)

[turtleinsoup]

@thedawningofthehour

drawing for profile in quicksilver

[starrystevie]

“i must have been real sweet on you,” eddie murmurs as he runs his fingers over his husband’s cheek, sleepy and sated, warm in their bed. 

steve chuckles, twisting his head to catch the tips of eddie’s fingers with a kiss. “why are you talking past tense? you’re not sweet on me now?”

the room is peacefully still. years of baby monitors are long gone only to inevitably give way to their daughter’s teenage years of slamming doors and too loud stereo speakers. but in this moment, with the pale moonlight streaming in through the windows and crickets chirping in the distance, the room is peaceful, thick with love. 

“quit your pouting, ‘course i’m sweet on you now.” eddie wipes away steve’s fake frown with a kiss, turning it into a sticky sweet grin. “it’s just something my mom used to tell me. that freckles are all the places your soulmate in a past life kissed you.”

eddie pushes steve back so he’s laying flat on the mattress and dips his head to press featherlight kisses on the side of his neck. across his shoulders. over his cheeks. his fingertips flutter over the spots afterwards, leaving goosebumps in their wake despite the heat radiating between them. 

“must have loved you a whole lot in our last lives to leave so many on you now,” eddie whispers, pulling back to stroke the back of his hand over steve’s face once more, letting his lips curl up in a dopey half smile that only steve ever gets to see. 

it doesn’t take long for steve to tilt his head up and press kisses of his own where he can; under eddie’s eye, the bottom of his chin, right over his heart. it doesn’t take long for eddie to giggle as his sensitive spots are found and attacked with ticklish kisses and fluttering eyelashes. it doesn’t take long for their legs to tangle together underneath the sheets and their breaths to get caught in their chests and their hearts to start beating a beautiful melody of their own making. 

steve lays a firm kiss to the side of eddie’s chest, over jagged white scarring and half bitten away tattoos. over memories that somehow don’t haunt them as much anymore. 

“what was that one for?” eddie asks, eyes half lidded, the adoration in his voice loud across the quiet room. 

another kiss on another scar. “wanna give you some freckles. for your next life and for this one, too. so you know just how sweet on you I am-” kiss, “ -and was-” kiss, “- and forever will be.”

they won’t know for however many more years if it worked or not. but here in this lifetime, they have all the time in the world to try their damndest to make sure it does. in this lifetime, they don’t have to worry, because they know they’ll  find each other in the next one. 

[morganbritton132]

I want a fic where Robin is adopted.

The only parents she has ever known are her own and the only time being adopted has ever bothered her was when Amanda St. James made fun of her for it in the third grade. But Robin told her that at least her parents wanted her and were not just stuck with her like Amanda’s parents, “And maybe that’s why your Mom and Dad are so unhappy all the time.”

She got in trouble for making Amanda cry and went back to never thinking about her birthparents. She had no interest in knowing anything about them and it stayed like that until she turned sixteen.

On her sixteenth birthday, her mom gave her a letter written to her by her birthmother. Robin doesn’t read it immediately, but eventually gives in to her own curiosity. She reads it over twice before her mind snags on a sentence, ‘I wanted to give you and your brother a better life…’ … you and your brother…. You and your brother…. You and-

“I have a brother.”

This eats at Robin, especially after her dad’s call to the adoption agency goes nowhere. It eats at her so much that she finally gives in – Fred Benson swears up and down that Nancy Wheeler is the best investigator on the school paper – and asks for help.

Nancy says yes and is maybe a little too invested in finding the truth, but honestly, Robin is having fun and she wants to find her apparent twin. She wants to know about his life. Settle the whole nurture over nature thing.

They hit a lot of walls, a lot of dead ends. They break a few rules and maybe commit a felony. They enlist Jonathan Byers to help and even Eddie Munson at one point because he knows how to pick locks, and it’s all for nothing.

One day when they have everything they’ve found spread out across the Wheeler’s dining room table, Steve comes over to pick up Dustin. He looks down at the whole mess and points at her birth certificate like, “Hey, we were born on the same day.” 

[insufferablemod]

You watch him hem and haw over answering, feet shifting, same beat up black shoes, scuffing the gravel, cape swishing behind him in a one-two step. The halo of his hair, bleached eery white in the street lamp, how the light never seems to catch the rim of his shades. You missed this, you think. The bits of him that are so unsettlingly inhuman, how he's so close to you, but just far enough that you couldn't reach to touch. - Metempsychosis

[weaponizedducks]

imagine what the ealdor villagers must have thought of merlin. when he lived there they thought he was a bit odd, probably accident prone, on the outside, bit of a funny guy. he had exactly one friend. all of a sudden he leaves to go to fucking camelot of all places. why? stfu we don't need a why. they think nothing of it and forget about him.

IMAGINE THEIR REACTION WHEN HE RANDOMLY SHOWS UP WITH THE FUCKING PRINCE OF CAMELOT, THEIR ENEMY, FOLLOWING HIM LIKE A LOST PUPPY. I WOULD BE SHOCKED OUT OF MY FUCKING SKIN IF A LITTLE WEIRDO REAPPEARED HAVING BAGGED A PRINCE. NO WONDER WILL WAS SUSPICIOUS. WHY IS AN ENEMY PRINCE HERE. WHY IS HE HARDCORE FLIRTING WITH MY BESTIE. WHY IS HE SO WHIPPED.