#the listen series

[superblycaffeinated]

This is from a list of prompts I had attempted to keep up with in March, let's see if August is the winner instead.

This would have spoilers for Gallagher Girls and The Listen Series by @averagejoesolomon . I like to think it takes place between when Morgan goes back to school & before a capture the flag game in "Love at First Fight".

Cameron Goode & Luke Collins

Rubber soles on cobblestone streets, arms sweat kissed and bumping anything in their way as they pump at her sides. 

Sirens.

Her name.

A man with a scar, a fist to her stomach, an arm to her windpipe.

“You can quit running now, Cameron, there’s nowhere else for you to go.”

Fingers wrap around his neck, but there are more around hers.

“Mrs. Goode!”

Her neck is free from everything but a cool sweat, her fingers tense around a pulse that should be much more erratic. 

It’s dark, room only lit by the moonlight seeping in through cracked blinds, but his hands are raised in surrender, his brown eyes blink calmly as they look down at her.

“Mrs. Goode, you’re okay, it’s just-“

She gasps, hands releasing his neck quickly, like a gun, hot from a fresh shot. 

“I’m so-“

“It’s fine,” Luke Collins interrupts, he clears his throat that’s dotted in red, some darker splotches forming in the shape of her fingers, “I’m sorry. I didn’t know what to do, you were screaming and-“

“No, you did the right thing.” Cameron Goode nods. 

He takes his spot on the chair next to the balcony once more, while she settles on the edge of the bed. 

She waits for him to say something, but she’s beginning to learn, on these ops they’re forced to go on together, that he doesn’t talk much, and when he does, it isn’t often he’s the first to break a silence. 

“Nightmare,” she offers limply, wondering how much she can let this kid know. Wondering how much he’ll even understand.

He nods, eyes on the blinds as he asks, “Do you need to talk about it?”

The question surprises her.

Not want to to talk about.

Need. 

“Not at the moment, no. Maybe someday.” 

Luke Collins’ eyes slice to her, they make her feel like she’s not the most trained operative in the room, like this kid knows more than she ever could. 

“Did you at least get some restful sleep?”

“A little, yeah.”

The lie is easy, and she wonders when it became so. Because an untrained person might say yes immediately, with no explanation. But this offers some vulnerability, it’s not denying her fitful sleep, but it’s not the full truth. Most people would leave it, they wouldn’t poke at the holes, they wouldn’t dig for more. 

She’s beginning to learn Luke Collins isn’t most people.

He blows a breath out of his nose, his arms cross, and he says words she aches weren’t true. 

“You look tired, Mrs. Goode.”

“I see they’re still teaching you Blackthorne Boys excellent bedside manner.”

“I’m not talking about the ways a lack of sleep affects your outward appearance, though, to be frank, you’re not really trying to hide that it seems.

At some point, you concede, because why lie about it when everyone already knows the truth, right?”

She frowns at Luke and looks at the electric kettle on the small counter top in the corner. 

“Do you like tea? I’m making tea.”

Cammie stands, fingers precise and eyes focused at the little kitchenette and she isn’t expecting him to break the silence as water heats and her teeth rip open a packet. 

“You said her name.”

She hands a mug to him, empty aside from a tea bag’s string dangling over the side that she keeps her eyes on as she asks, “Who?”

Luke sets the mug on the side table, he leans forward, elbows to his knees. 

“Morgan.”

Her lips form a soft smile as she resumes her spot in front of the kettle, watching the water get warmer and warmer until it can’t help but bubble. Can’t help but wonder when this boy started to say her daughter’s name like that. 

“Is it odd for a woman to say her daughter’s name in her sleep, Mr. Collins?”

“It’s odd for a woman to scream her daughter’s name in her sleep, Mrs. Goode.”

She pours hot water over her tea packet, slowly, watching the clear liquid turn darker before she goes over to his mug and does the same.

“Is it?”

She sits again, their tea steeps, and neither breaks eye contact. 

Neither makes a move to end the silence that follows her question, either.

Until she’s wrapping the string of the bag around her pointer finger three times, looping then unlooping, bobbing it as she smells peppermint and earth in the steam that rises from the cup.

Somehow, the scent reminds her of Gallagher. Of the subs. Of cozy corners in libraries and cobwebbed passageways.

Reminds her of her daughter.

“Did you know,” she clears her throat, “That a female deer will leave her new fawn all day long?”

Luke doesn’t question the change of subject, he doesn’t respond. He simply waits. 

She likes that about him.

“They find a safe place, one they can trust, and they leave their fawn all day. From before the sun rises to well after it goes down. They do this because their babies aren’t ready for the full extent of the day yet, they can’t keep up. They don’t know everything.”

Cammie sips her tea, fingers curled around both sides of the warm ceramic mug as she sits on top of the bed, crossing her legs like she used to as a kid. Like she used to do as a new mom, Maggie is in front of her and she’s braiding her curls after taming them for hours. 

“But, it’s risky, because so much can go wrong that the doe can’t possibly foresee coming. She can’t predict a car, or a hunter, or a predator, all which could keep her from returning. She just has to trust her instincts, she has to do what she needs to do, to provide, and to keep her fawn safe. So she has to trust the place she left her baby, and she has to leave it.”

Luke has settled back into the chair, brown eyes cold as he says, “Did you know, that fawns left alone often remain alone, due to all those things the doe couldn’t predict but were bound to happen? Leaving the fawn even more vulnerable to hunters, predators, and so much more than if they would have just remained together? That often the fawn ends up dehydrated, starving, or injured?”

They sit in silence, similar brown eyes blinking at each other in the moonlight, the weight of his words hanging heavier and heavier without a response until she can’t take it anymore.

“Why do you know so much about deer?”

“Why do you?”

“I think,” Cammie starts, narrowing her eyes, “That that didn’t answer my question.”

Luke finally sips his tea before he admits, “I read a lot.”

She runs a thumb over the rim of her mug, “I do too. What’s a favorite?”

“I like a lot of Shakespeare…Anna Karenina is great.”

She merely hums at his responses, mind somewhere else and too preoccupied to really think about his shocking choices. 

“Mrs. Goode?”

Cammie looks up at him, and he licks his lip, just once, before he says, “I think the fawn just wants to know how hard it was for the doe to leave.

She just wants to know that the doe regrets leaving her, wants her to know that she should have known her fawn wasn’t going to stay put. That of all the fawns in the world, she has the most stubborn, most impatient, most irritating one on the planet, and she should have known it was only a matter of time that someone hunted it, found it, and injured it without the doe there to protect it.”

“Maybe,” she admits, “Or maybe, the doe is right. That her choice was and is always an impossible one, and she did what she thought was best. That she had to trust her gut and that she knows her baby more than some boy who stumbled upon it by accident.”

“I think you and I both know from the fawn’s reports that, that boy didn’t stumble upon her. The fawn wobbled right up to him and punched his nose without warning.”

“She should have punched it harder.”

The phone rings, and she answers it on the second one, glaring at the boy, all too familiar aside from the eyes. 

When she hangs up, she dumps her tea in the sink and doesn’t look at him as she tells him to pack up. 

“Where to this time?”

She shoves her shoes on, lacing them up as she says, “To visit the fawn.”

Luke Collins stalls, his heartbeat picks up, he swallows.

“Is she…what’s going on?”

Cammie stands, watching him take deep breaths. He’s worried about Maggie.

She likes that about him.

She hastily reassures, “She’s fine. Everything is fine. Alex Hughes has just agreed to talk to us.”

“Oh,” his shoulders visibly relax.

“Uh-huh.” 

He grabs his bag, already packed and begins to follow her towards the door, when she spins.

“Before we go, the doe, thinks it is in the best interest of the fawn for this conversation to remain between her and the boy, what does he think?”

Collins’ shoulders roll back as he states, confidently, “I think that we should stop referring to Morgan as a helpless fawn, or the baby, and start treating her like who she is.”

“And who’s that?”

“A girl who did an awful lot of growing up without her mom around, and should be allowed to know more than she does right now.”

“Would you like to hear what I think about that?” Cammie grounds her jaw, unsure if she likes this kid or not. Especially when he says,

“Not particularly, no.” 

“Great.”

“Fine.”

“Do you have any books with you?”

Luke blinks, not expecting that, so he asks, instead of says, “Yes?”

“Good. Since you like reading so much, you can. The whole plane ride back. Since we won’t be talking, ever again, or discussing this, anymore.”

Collins shrugs before he says, “Great.”

“Fine,” Cammie growls. 

Most people would drop it. Most people wouldn’t keep going, most people wouldn’t stoke a fire that’s already burning.

Luke Collins isn’t most people.

“They all compare her to him, you know.”

Cammie blinks. 

Luke shakes his head.

“They’re wrong.”

He walks past her, and this kid, this guy, he holds the door open for her still, despite it all. 

She likes that about him. 

[averagejoesolomon]

Hey, just wanted to say that I’m a HUGE FAN OF YOUR LISTEN SERIES!!! I’ve read it more times than I’ve read the original Gallagher girls series, because your Series has just touched my heart in ways I can’t even begin to describe, so THANK YOU. Do you ever see yourself continuing to write something with the characters, maybe taking place in the future. I just wonder so much about how Maggie’s, Luke’s and all the other characters future looks like :/

Thanks for the kind words, friend 🧡 I'll never say never, but I think my time with those characters has come to an end. There's always the possibility that they call to me in the future, but I haven't heart Luke or Maggie in my head in years, which I think is for the better. For now, I'll let them have their happily ever after. If ever I do publish anything with them again, it'll be a happy surprise for us both.

[frostedpuffs]

HAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

[hottubsandwiches]

needed to draw scar in the sunflower field after seeing his tweet about it

[the-vegetarian-artist]

the PJO fandom working their butts off to find two italian babies in the background only to realize the Easter egg is Nico calling for Bianca around the 12:3 mark.

[mellozheist]

The Red means I love you // Tragedy of 3rd life Animation

Watch The animation on Youtube >:D

@inthelittlewood 

[mish-mash-marsh]

The Queen has arrived!

(I feel like the Pearl Winning Compilation has been expanding at a very rapid pace.)

Made some art to celebrate the victories :)

[grabyoursaintsandpray]

X-Men '97

Season 1 Episode 2: Mutant Liberation Begins

[aletterinthenameofsanity]

Does it ever hit you that for Charles Rowland, death was kinder than life? That he never felt something kind until the night he died? And that when he did finally die, when the peaceful, kind glow of Death arrived, Charles sacrificed Heaven for the boy who had crawled out of Hell, the boy who was the first person to be kind to him? Do you ever want to chew some drywall?

[radishearts]

Girls who don’t draw for like a week and have to relearn their artstyle it’s me Im girls this happens every few months 😔🙏

Anyways EVO/lifers crew bc I love them and. And. I watched Solarocks ‘Watcher, Tell me So I say.’ PMV (DEF RECCO. REALLY COOL).

[averagejoesolomon]

Have to totally commend you on your writing—it’s incredible! I’ve read the listen series twice and it still gets me 😭 Seriously reads like a published book! (Also loving full circle!) Am wondering what inspired you to write the listen series, did you plan out the plot of the books before writing the first one, what was your character development plan like, are there any things you’d change if you had to do it again, is there any scene you wish you would have written but it somehow didn’t fit?

Thank you, thank you 🧡✨ I'm quite fond of the Listen Series. I started it because I wanted to write Catherine's backstory, but I also wanted to write Cam and Zach as parents. That's how Maggie came to be.

At the time, I was just writing for fun, so I was winging plot and characters. If you look closely, you can see some of the loose threads (a grey-eyed boy in Book One comes to mind), but all in all, The Listen Series was a plan-as-we-go effort. The exception might be Book Six, which required some simple scene plotting to wrap everything up the way I wanted. Because it's fanfiction, I got to put pretty much everything I wanted into the Listen Series. There are definitely things that I would do differently if I were to rewrite them now—but that's because I'm a different writer than I used to be. As they stand now, I think the Listen Series perfectly encapsulates how I wrote during those years, and I love them for that. Thanks for reading!

[astearisms]

but it ain’t called love without a little tragedy 🍁

[alice-everafter]

"Stop moving around, herbivore."

The otherwise heavy silence is broken by Leona's deep timber of a voice. Rolling onto your back puts you in line of sight of his bed, where you can see the Savanna prince half covered in sheets you couldn't even afford to breathe on. He's facing away from you, barely moving. If he hadn't just spoken you'd assume he was dead or something.

"I could hear your squirming from half way across campus. Settle down or get out, you're disturbing my sleep."

"...Sorry." Your throat twinges with the faint reminder of how you got to sleep in the dorm room of Leona Kingscholar in the first place.

After being so rudely ejected from your beloved Ramshackle home on such short notice, possible sleeping arrangements were few and far between. Now, you could've taken Ace and Deuce up on their offer, but Jack was... he was Jack. And only Jack could convince you to stay in Savanaclaw. But, then Leona had to come and say no, and then you panicked cause you saw yourself and Grim on the street. And that panic plus the sleep deprivation from finals lead you to perform your own rendition of "Cotton Eye Joe" outside his bedroom out of sheer desperation.

You didn't even get to the second verse before he bodily dragged you inside with a growl that had you accepting death like an unspoken principle.

The room was once again blanketed in a thick silence. Grim, who slept by your feet, didn't even make a peep. Banging those pots around while providing you backing vocals must've taken it out of him. Poor guy. Out of anyone in this room, he's the one you'd feel the most bad for disturbing.

So, with a sigh, you accept your fate and get up from your collection of floor blankets. Your destination being one of the Savanaclaw couches.

You knew your mind, you wouldn't be sleeping for a while. There was just... too much. Azul and his contracts, Jade and Floyd and their sharp teeth, Leona and his eyes. The ones that once looked at you like you were vermin to crush through the haze of a raging sandstorm. While Ruggie batted and kicked and cried for breath. And you swore his eyes had glazed over as he fell limp and━

"Hey."

You stop, both bodily and mentally, as his voice once again breaks the silence. There's a cold sweat you didn't notice gathering on your back. You turn to find him staring at you with those same green eyes. You can't tell if he's searching for something in you or debating heavily with himself. But, whatever it is, it isn't for long before he seems to come to a conclusion with a rumbling sigh.

"Come here."

What. "What."

"You heard me, come here."

To say you were conflicted would be the understatement of the century. You had just been spiraling not even 30 seconds ago and now the object of your trauma was beckoning you closer like the parent to your distressed child.

"I don't have all day, herbivore. You coming or not?"

"...It's night."

"..."

"..."

"Just get over here before I change my mind."

"Right."

He heaves another grumbling sigh as you shuffle across the room. Stood next to his bed gives you a view reminiscent of that time in the greenhouse. Him, splayed across his bed, hair cascading over his pillows. While you're stock still and more than a bit puzzled and kind of scared. Even though you're looking down on him, you don't feel like you have the advantage that you should. He looks almost too calm, too relaxed. Like he's assured of a victory yet to come.

That thought sends a chill up your spine, reminding you of the sweat that persists on your back.

"Well?" He raises a brow expectantly.

You blink, "well, what?"

"Are you laying down or what?"

"...Am I laying down or what?"

"Need me to spell it out for you? Or should I help you into bed?"

"Not necessary."

You don't know what possesses you━whether it's self preservation or annoyance or curiosity or just straight madness━but you get in. You pull back those luxurious sheets and slide beneath them where you're immediately accosted by warmth. Heat seems to be radiating from him like a fire.

The revelation is... not an unpleasant one.

You realize he's still staring at you. But, not intently, not like he's trying to pry a secret from you. Leona never looks at anyone like he means to take their person apart. He simply observes and acknowledges, anyone and anything.

"Think you can finally go to bed and stop flopping around like a dead fish?"

"...Haven't I dealt with enough fish today? And now you bring them up in Savanaclaw of all places. Is no where safe?"

You're surprised when his brows pinch in amusement and a short but gruff chuckle leaves his lips.

"My bad then, for touching on such a tender topic."

"Yeah, your bad indeed."

No one says anything else afterward and he seems to take that as an invitation to turn onto his back. Letting out a deep breath through his nose while nestling an arm behind his head, eyes sliding shut.

Somewhere between you climbing into his bed and him settling down to sleep, the sweat has cooled off your skin. Not to mention the sudden heaviness dragging at your eyelids. Seems that you would be able to sleep some after all.

You turn away and towards the open balcony, towards the spot where you had once laid and Grim continues to snooze. The moon lights up the room, and though it's not the sun, it still feels just as warm somehow.

Speaking of warm, there's a heater pressed to your back. Scratch that, Leona is pressed to your back. And that's his arm, sliding over your hip and resting draped over your side.

It feels like the world hiccups when you feel his next breath puff against your hair. But, surprisingly enough, you're not shaking in your metaphorical boots. Just... very confused, once again.

"...Is this supposed to be punishment for 'Cotton Eye Joe?'"

He says nothing at first, and you begin to fear for your safety before he eventually does.

"Whatever helps put you to bed faster."

That arm over your side moves before you feel his hand settle atop your collarbone. Those same hands that had once brought ruin and pain were now just a small brush away from your neck.

This should terrify you, but it doesn't. Because he's gentle in this moment. His arm isn't an insistent press, it's a steady weight. His hand isn't a branding clasp, it's a soft touch.

There are words left unsaid between you two that his body seems to carry instead. And you drift off with the feeling of his tail draping over your ankles beneath the sheets.

[liloinkoink]

one thing i think people get wrong about Martyn in the life series is he really isn’t loyal

like yeah, we all know him as the Hand, following the Red King as far as their shared grave, but that is… truly the outlier and not the norm with him

i mean, let’s take a brief look at other seasons. i can’t speak to Secret Life, as it came out when i was incredibly busy and i haven’t yet had time to watch it, but what about the others?

he won Limited Life because he’s a chronic traitor! he betrayed Scott, his ally for the whole season, so that he could win, and said he’d been planning it / wanting to do it the whole session. spent a whole season protecting and helping Scott, and laughed in his face to betray as soon as he saw a shot to do so

Double Life was a whole mess of Martyn and weird loyalties. just one example: he spent all of the first session hanging out with Pearl in favor of even looking for either of their soulmates, with no regard for how he’d been putting his soulmate in danger. when their soulmates dumped them due to being ignored all session and stormed off, he dumped Pearl just because. one session in and he’s betrayed both his soulmate and his day one alliance!

Last Life he teamed with the Southlanders and then made the Shadow Alliance in secret, so he was on two teams and never truly committed to either. he tried to kill Grian basically immediately when he got boogeyman, for example, and in the final fight he tried to lure Ren to himself by offering to team and then tried to blow Ren up

of course, i’m simplifying and ignoring a lot. he doesn’t earn the loyal reputation for nothing. he does a lot of things to help his teammates, like giving a life to Ren in Last Life, trying all season to win Cleo over for all of Double Life, or working to protect Scott for all of Limited Life. it’s not like Martyn doesn’t play the part of a loyal friend well, but, well.

the thing about Martyn is that he’s selfish. he’s basically always going to prioritize his own survival over anything else. he’s never going to roll over and die, especially not for another person. he’s good at looking loyal, because having allies will help you survive, and he knows making outright enemies is a bad idea. he knows he can’t make it obvious he’s a traitor, because then he’ll certainly be killed. but, when it comes down to the wire, he will generally bail at the last minute to save his own skin rather than protecting the people around him. when his loyalty is tested, nine times out of ten, he will not only fail, but do so completely without remorse

it doesnt take a lot to become Martyn’s ally, and once you’ve got a foot in the door, he will take his allegiances seriously (at least, to a point). but it takes effort to really earn Martyn’s trust. and, even when it looks like you have, there’s no guarantee he won’t yank the rug out from under you if he decides having you alive is more detrimental to his survival than seeing you dead

and yes, you can especially see all of this in Third Life. Martyn was absolutely not instantly ride or die for Ren—for a lot of the earlier episodes, he won’t say he’s on Ren’s team or that he lives at Ren’s base, and often tells other players he’s simply Ren’s employee rather than teammate and that he’s wandering or homeless. he trusts Ren so little due to Ren’s inability to keep a secret or stand up for himself that even Ren acknowledges in the third session that Martyn is probably going to leave him and find someone else. Martyn’s loyalty had to be earned, and it very nearly wasn’t. if Ren had taken a session more to grow a spine, Martyn probably would have left

but Ren became an ally that Martyn could rely on, who could stand up for himself and keep secrets. it became more beneficial to Martyn’s survival to have Ren around, so he stayed with Ren for the rest of the season, and committed hard to their kingdom. Ren earns Martyn’s trust by becoming a more dependable ally, and because of that, Ren earns Martyn’s loyalty…. probably

(half related, bc i want it in the post and i don’t know where to put it: after the execution, two sessions after Ren officially earns Martyn’s loyalty, Ren admits to being genuinely convinced Martyn was going to take him out of the series as soon as Ren gave him the chance!)

because yes, even here, even after Ren earns his trust and Ren trusts Martyn to execute him and they become King and Hand, Martyn was okay with killing Ren to save himself. Martyn has said he was going to betray Ren in the final session of Third Life. his entire plan was that when he and Ren hit the final 5, he was going to kill Ren. end Red Winter, usher in Red Spring. even the most loyal version of Martyn was a traitor!

now, you can decide for yourself if you believe he could have actually gone through with this—he and Ren were 6th and 7th out of the game, after all. maybe he wouldn’t have been able to steel himself. maybe his loyalty would have, for once, been too strong to kill Ren.

but it’s very possible that even the most loyal version of Martyn—the version of Martyn who has created this “loyal” image of Martyn in fanon—was only loyal because he died too soon to show his true colors

[map1e-1stru3]

I love this trope

[ironinkpen]

The dynamic in Rise between the rest of the team and Leo is. so fucking funny. Because like you've got these three extremely talented individuals who all seem like perfectly reasonable people at first glance, right, but then if you squint hard enough you realize they're actually all batshit insane (affectionate) and the clown boy standing behind them is secretly their common sense.

Clown boy will occasionally put himself and the others in danger to Prove Himself or Prove Someone Wrong (see Minotaur Maze and the movie) but like otherwise... i think people forget Leo's overwhelmingly the voice of reason in most situations?

Raph, Mikey, and Donnie are all incredibly powerful boys with very specific skill sets. They are also, as a direct result of this, the WORST decision-makers on god's green earth lmao. When presented with a problem, Raph will smash, Donnie will blow shit up, and Mikey will razzmatazz. They will all run straight toward death with the same oblivious enthusiasm of a dog about to run straight into a screen door. None of them realize this and all of them think they are Extremely Good At Problem-Solving.

And the guy cursed with the common sense to realize this is literally the LAST person anyone would expect.

When you look closely, the entirety of Rise is actually a chronicle of Leo trying to find new and creative ways to keep this team of superpowered fools alive while simultaneously white-knuckling his Cool Fun Guy persona so the others don't realize he's secretly the Boring Responsible One. Haha, you know what would be Cool and Fun, guys? Not going after the Spine Breaking Bandit lol. Getting home before the sun goes up lol. Evacuating that civilian lol. Not telling the guy dangling me off a roof "you won't, no balls" lol.

The sacred struggle of every iteration of Leonardo is thanklessly wrangling the most trigger-happy siblings in the world, and Rise Leo has not escaped it. He just does an occasional shenanigan to avoid detection and his brothers fall for it every time.