#they’ve got rhythm and rhyme)

[dkniade]

Me, a year ago or so: yeah I think I’ll just stick to translating Chinese prose like Mondstadt’s dialogue haha

Me, recently: I’ve written English translyrics to “The Divine Damsel of Devastation”

Me: ….and an alternative “tragic version” that explore Shenhe’s real backstory

[dalamjisung]

Matching Set Masterlist

college!AU

popular!jeongin x introvert!reader

summary: Y/N and Jeongin had been together since birth. Seriously since birth– their mothers were best friends and while hanging out to complain about their never ending pregnancy, bam. Rumor has it that Y/N took a little while to cry, blinking around for a couple of minutes until the gentlest of screams came out of her tiny body. Only later, when the parents got together to congratulate each other, did the mothers found out that Jeongin had been born five minutes before Y/N, and it seemed that her quietness had been her own early way to wait for who would later be her best friend. And as if sharing a birthday wasn’t enough, these two had to share everything else; from their lunch at school to the bed they slept on. Thankfully, as next door neighbors, the trip was minimal.

It continued like this for decades to come, through middle school, high school, and finally, college. Their applications were sent together and their letters came in the same day. Miraculously, they chose different degrees, and for an entire night, Y/N cried to her mom about losing her best friend. Maybe this will be a good experience for you two, she laughed, petting her daughter’s head. But Y/N just couldn’t see a positive side to being without her Innie. Later, they would make a pact– one that vowed to always be there for each other. And he looked so earnest and honest that Y/N just couldn’t understand where that nagging doubt tugging on her heart was coming from…

What happens when these two experience freedom like nothing they’ve ever seen? And what will be of the matching set when they are put apart? Can the lifelong friendship survive the ultimate test of time– college?

update schedule: Every Sunday :D

——————————————————————————————

🌚 chapter one: hyung I’m suing you

🌝 chapter two: fellow clowns

🌚 chapter three: what bothers you, my little freeloader?

🌝 chapter four: forgiven but not forgotten

🌚 chapter five: she doesn’t need me anymore

🌝 chapter six: Mandatory Movie Marathon™️

🌚 chapter seven: delayed reactions

🌝 chapter eight: no turning back

🌚 chapter nine: things are about to change

🌝 chapter ten: another case of innie being innie

🌚 chapter eleven: see you then

🌝 chapter twelve: it’s a date

🌚 chapter thirteen: we need to talk about yesterday

🌝 chapter fourteen

🌚 chapter fifteen 

🌝 chapter sixteen

——————————————————————————————

hi lovelies! I know I have been a bit gone from the fake text scene, but I’ve been working on this for a bit now, and I am really, really excited to share this new story with you all! Han’s story will be going into HIATUS as I’m trying to sort the overall plot and details and will be reworking it after I get my muse back fro Rhythm & Rhyme. Also: there are timeline plot-holes and for that I apologize! Because it’s been a while since I wrote these, there was a mixup with the timeline of all the following stories, so truly, I am sorry-- I’ll do my best to keep everything together neat and tight! Thank you for your love and constant support!

IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO GET TAGGED FOR THE RELEASE OF MATCHING SET PLEASE LET ME KNOW AND I’LL START A TAGLIST!

[clementineskesh]

Transcription:

Broadcasting live from the caves of Sinder Karst. That's right, we'll tell you where we live ‘cause you can't reach us; not in a way that matters. It's your boy, Baldwin Home AKA Black Screen, Concrete Front, you already know what it is. Hitting you with another missive from the frontlines, giving you an update on their missiles and known crimes, so you can move under their noses and know where they sharpen their knives, so you can recognize it by sound 

([BEEP]: Bank to Church. I'm at position Alpha. [BEEP])

and get your own honed too, cause they need to be! What did I say? Play it back, play it back! (Recorded) They're-they're-they’re moving on us now. 

Bilateral Intercession, yet they got three heads. So I gotta break it down for you. It's like this: Stel Kesh. They’ll try to confuse you with half-true museums and the shine of gold and silver. So let's keep it simple. They wear a lot of fancy shirts. I'm not kidding, you should see they closets. And that'd be fine by me, you should see mine! But I know who made my shit. And I know they didn't make it at gunpoint, direct or indirect. Kesh, Kesh only know what's on the label, with Kesh it's always about labels. For as long as there's been a Kesh

([BEEP]: He has no idea. Listen to him go. [BEEP])

they’ve been breakin’ everybody and everything down so it fits into little drawers, little boxes, they’ve been the same since before any of us were living here on Palisade. 

Next up, Stel Nideo. They run churches and the schools and the cameras and the swords and the blood coloured jewels. What can I even say that they haven't said themselves? Their little prophet and their big divines treat words like prison cells. It's a prison faith. It's a prison ideology. They locked up they own selves with a warden psychology. They preach fields into gardens, but turn land into landmines. They practice metaphysical

([BEEP]: You gotta give it to Connadine. They all speak on rhythm. [BEEP])

arson, and replace homes with confines.

Which leaves us with just one more head on the Hydra, one more round in the chamber. One more villain inside the intercession, war procession. Exanceaster March, you're worth half a bar, lightweight. But fuck it, I'll give you eight. 

You're the

([BEEP]: Roger. Executing now. [BEEP])

ideal mosquito, bloodsucker supreme, turned your back on your people so you could follow your dream of monopolizing the future 'cause fuck it, you want more. Well, so do I, which is why I rhyme and why we'll knock down your--

[Gunshot]

([BEEP] Kill confirmed. [BEEP])

[rillils]

notes: I’ve been going through a bit of a rough time lately, writer’s block being just one of the issues, so I thought I’d put everything on hold for a little while, grab a prompt from a prompt generator and see what happened. Today’s prompt was: cooking for one another or cooking together. Here goes nothing :3 wordcount: 1137 additional tags: modern setting – no powers AU, pre-serum Steve, fluff fluff fluff, domesticity, they haven’t tied the knot yet but they’ve been practically married since they were 15 pass it on. You can also find this ficlet on AO3!

🍂🍁🍂

November has the crisp sound of crushed leaves, and the color of Bucky’s cheeks stung pink by the wind.

His smile is a soft thing when he reaches his arm out to wrap around Steve’s shoulders, herding him close into his side. “Wanna head back?”

Steve shrugs, “Yeah, if you want,” but his head has already found its natural place in the Steve-shaped slot under Bucky’s chin, where the wool lining of Bucky’s coat collar will tickle his cheek all the way home.

“I’m not cold, though,” Steve wishes to inform him, while Bucky guides them down the street at an easy promenade pace.

“’Course not,” Bucky agrees, punctuating the sentiment with a kiss to the top of Steve’s ruffled head. “Should have worn a hat there, Stevie. Wanna borrow mine? You know I don’t mind.”

“Nah, I’m fine.”

“’Kay.” A beat of silence. Two. Three. “Hey, you’ve got your gloves on, right?”

“Sure,” Steve replies, slipping his very much bare hand into the warmth of Bucky’s coat pocket.

“Uh-huh,” Bucky hums against Steve’s temple, absolutely and irrevocably one-hundred-percent fooled. “You know you’ll end up getting frostbite again, don’t ya.”

His voice brushes warmly against Steve’s cold skin, and Steve soaks it up like it’s the last summer sun, ducking his head low so Bucky won’t see him grin. “Yes, Ma.”

If Bucky then chooses crime and deliberately tickles him just under his ribs, over the spot he’s known since 2nd grade will make Steve produce the most embarrassingly high-pitched squeals, then Steve may have, perhaps, had it coming just a little bit.

He catches their reflection in the shop windows as they pass by; there’s Bucky’s grinning profile right there, his bangs mussed by the cold breeze, stirring fuzzily under his beanie; Steve’s own laughing face, the red tip of his nose, and their legs stepping together in perfect sync, one-two, one-two, fluid and easy, like they have a million times before. It fills him with a soft kind of awe, the way they move as one. If life was a poem, Steve is sure their bodies would rhyme.

Bucky’s hand curls snugly around his shoulder, bringing them just that little bit closer. “Let’s make something nice and warm for dinner.”

“Can it have potatoes?”

He doesn’t need to see Bucky’s smile; he can hear it in his voice, soft and amused, half-hidden in the fluff of Steve’s hair.

“Deal.”

*

Steve leans back against the kitchen island, cuddling a steaming cup of tea to his chest, watching the room – watching Bucky – come to life one ingredient at a time.

Bucky throws him a knowing glance, knife in his right hand, the sleeves of his sweater already pulled back to the elbows. “Are you gonna help at all?”

Steve smiles behind the rim of his cup. “Nope.”

“Called it.”

Dinner is a soft, long-rehearsed symphony, and Steve stands close by and listens gratefully, warmth curling like tender fingers in his chest.

The gentle rhythm of Bucky’s knife on the cutting board, chopping carrots into wedges and dicing potatoes into neat little cubes. The silken glide through pork, cut into bite-sized pieces. The languorous sizzle of onion tossed for a sweet little waltz in a drizzle of oil and a scoop of butter, and the splash of wine from the first and only bottle they’ve bought since moving in, and forgot in the back of a cabinet for months. The lazy simmer of the stew muttering quietly on the stove, like the old ladies in the front rows at Mass, with too many tales to tell and not enough time in between Hail Mary’s to spill them all.

Steve gathers every drop of it, of home wrapping her familiar embrace around him, and leans into the sound with his eyes closed, savoring it, Mm.

“You getting sleepy?”

Bucky’s looking at him curiously; Steve allows himself the pleasure of looking back, taking the time to drink him in. The steam from the pot has caused Bucky’s short hair to curl against his brow, and his eyes are smiling even when his mouth is not, and the hoop of Steve’s apron, the one that says Stick a fork in me, I’m done, sits a little too high around his neck. He’s never looked as beautiful, as heartbreakingly sweet as this. The very same thought crosses Steve’s mind spontaneously at least once every day, and every day it feels just as true as the one before.

“No,” he says, closing his eyes again, “I just like watching you.”

He can hear Bucky’s amused snort loud and clear over the bubble-de-bubble of their stew. “Anybody ever tell you you’re a weirdo, honey?”

Steve hums, contentment spreading from the center of his belly to the length of his limbs, reaching down to his fingers and toes.

“All the time, Buck.”

*

Their ankles twine like young roots under the table.

“Here, tell me how it is.”

Bucky feeds him the first spoonful from his own plate, and Steve indulges him, diligently opening up for the spoon.

Flavor unfolds like a many-layered story on his tongue: the sweet tang of rosemary, a whisper of black pepper, the tender bite of pork and the enticing juice of carrot – each voice speaks to him, describing a richness that cannot come from herbs and spices alone.

It’s the measure of everyday devotion; the care that was poured in every gesture, the peeling and the cutting, the stirring and the dishing. The simple pleasure of making something from scratch and saying, without words, For you.

Steve feels the grin bubble up from the well of his chest. The potato’s so soft, it melts like spun sugar on his tongue.

“Well?”

Bucky’s watching him closely; a small, near-shy smile curling his lips.

There’s something in his eyes, in the way they soften like this, in the gleam always kindled within, that Steve has failed to put a name to since he first saw it there.

Perhaps – he thinks, not for the first time – perhaps it needs no name, only a heart to feel it. And he does feel it, every time Bucky looks at him like this. Deep, deep-set here in his heart, in his stomach; in the golden crucible where tenderness is made.

“Come on, don’t leave me hanging,” Bucky prods. “Does it taste okay?”

It tastes like so many murmurs of ‘I love you’, is what Steve truly wants to say; but that’s a little secret he’ll keep to himself for now.

He snuggles his sock-clad feet between Bucky’s calves, like he often does on cold nights, when Bucky pulls him back against his chest, and their legs lock together like puzzle pieces under the duvet.

“It’s perfect,” Steve says.

Bucky’s eyes crinkle softly with his smile. Like poetry, Steve tells himself, as he lifts his own spoon.

[brooklyn-xoxo]

Dabi meets y/n at a club

💗———————————————💗

“Alright boys…..and toga.” The manager of the club laughed it off.

“This is our clubs for Villians, Criminals, and people who just don’t wanna get caught for whatever shit they’ve been doing. Or some normal civilians come here, some civilians like the villians here.” The manager spoke again.

“Yeah yeah, stop yapping. Can you just lead me to your boss? We’ve got a meeting.” Shigaraki rolls his eyes at the manager.

“Alright, follow me but your little crew won’t be able to come. Boss only wants to see you and only you he will see. They’ve gotta stay out here.” The manager tells Shigaraki.

“Mhm, lead the way.” Shigaraki rushes him.

“We’ve gotta stay out here with this loud music and annoying people? Damn.” Dabi groaned.

“Awe, it’s not all that bad. The music isn’t bad and people are having fun.” Toga giggled.

“Yeah this is fun…. No it’s not.” Twice said, with both his voices speaking.

“I’m gonna get me a drink, twice stay with Toga.” Dabi turns to the bar.

“Why can’t I have a drink???? Dabiiiiiiiiii.” Toga spoke childishly.

“Your 18. You can’t drink.” Dabi rolled his eyes. Dabi headed to the bar and sat down. He ordered the drink he wanted and looked at the dance floor.

Dancing wasn’t really dabi’s thing but he wondered how so many evil villains like himself could just let go and dance. There werent a lot of people dancing just the people who were lucky enough to get someone to dance with them and some who were practically begging for someone to dance with.

There were some but not much girls dancing due to all the creepy villain men who were 100% going to harass them. Which meant if any girl were to dare step on the dance floor it would be all eyes on them.

“Here’s your drink sir.” The bartender set the drink down for Dabi. Suddenly everyone at the bar including Dabi turned to the dance floor as they heard some men shout excited cheers and dirty sounds directed to someone on the dance floor.

A women swaying her hips side to side to the rhyme caught Dabi’s attention. At first he only looked at her because he recognized her for her strong quirk on the news. Then he started staring at her for a very different reason.

She danced with a man behind her trying to grind his body against her’s, he stopped once he realized she wasn’t interested. Another man danced with her, they were both great dancers, they both received entertained but dirty shouts.

Her smooth (hair color) (curly/wavy/straight) gorgeously swung to the rhythm, as she moved her body perfectly with some guy. Her dancing was ruthless but not as dirty, she never did anything very inappropriate like the other girls but she did do seductive and slow moves.

If dabi was into dancing he would have already said ‘fuck it’ and had his hands around your waist, you two chest and chest and starring at eachother face to face. Letting the music play, but he didn’t.

Dabi sipped his drink and looked around for toga and twice. They seemed to be just sitting down and joking. He looked back at the girl on the dance floor, who still flipped her hair and swung her hips from time to time. Damn, he really like how you danced.

A few minutes passed by, Dabi only had two drinks. At the point he was ready to sleep at the bar. Why was Shigaraki taking so long? He turned back to the girl on the floor who was no long there to his surprise.

He turned to see her at the bar, surrounded by a whole bunch a creeps. Some even made an attempt to kiss her. She politely declined not liking the attention. As most of the creeps walked off as they saw Dabi staring at them, the girl ordered her drink.

She was a bit emotional less but clearly tired from all the dancing. She gave a quick smile to the bartender and drank her stress away. Suddenly toga came running up to her. They smiled at each other as if they knew eachother while twice followed behind.

Toga grabbed her hand and led her towards Dabi. Dabi began to grow self conscious and look behind him to see who they were walking to.

“Hey Dabi! This is one of my friends.” Toga smiled.

“Hi, the names y/n.” She smiled at Dabi.

“The names Dabi.” Dabi replied quickly. He saw some pervs staring at Dabi to make sure he didn’t lay a hand on her. Dabi took that as a challenge.

“We’re gonna go to those seats if you wanna come. You can continue to drink y/n!” Toga giggled and skipped to the near by seats leaving y/n and Dabi alone. Dabi smirked and the challenge began with him and some pervs across the bar.

“I saw your lovely dancing. Who taught you all those moves?” He asked as he put his hand on your shoulder. Receiving a groan from some dirty creep.

“My parents weren’t great people. I practically grew up in clubs making friends with the managers.” She shrugged.

“What are you doing here?” She asked while side eyeing the same perv across the bar like Dabi was. She knew what the perv was so mad about, so she took it to her advantage.

“You like the feelings of jealousy when a girl like me comes on the dance floor and start grinding into another guy?” y/n spoke slow and seductively, locking eyes with one of the most wanted villains. Dabi.

“What can I say? Your way to fine not to stare at.” Dabi placed his hand on your thigh, receiving a nod from you, assuring that it was okay. As you both leaned in to kiss, the perv across the bar rolled his eyes and moved away.

Instead of making the perv mad and stopping the kiss Dabi and y/n proceeded to make out. Everyone including toga and twice looked at you both in disbelief. Some were even turned on.

You moaned into dabi’s mouth quite a few times, as dabi’s hand went up your dress and put his hand between your legs. Dabi wasn’t stupid, he wasn’t gonna do it with here, he just needed to tease you. Plus you guys hardly knew each other.

This session lasted for 30-45 minutes. As Dabi sat back and licked his lips, you guys exchanged numbers.

“I’m gonna go hit the dance floor again. See you around honey.” You said seductively while walking away.

“What just happened?”

“I don’t know…” toga and twinge whispered to each other and stared at Dabi who just grinned.

“Let’s go boys……a-and toga….. Jeez im turning into that stupid manager guy.” Shigaraki said tiredly.

“Finally.” Dabi groaned and acted as if he didn’t enjoy his stay. They all left the club and headed back to the run down bar they lived in.

“Dabi made out with y/n.” Twice blurted out, covering his mouth in disbelief he said that.

“Yeah. I saw.” Toga added not helping dabi’s case.

“What? You made out with y/n l/n?!” Shigaraki turned a full 360 just to look at Dabi. Making sure he felt ashamed for whatever.

“I was in their for an hour while you were having the time of your life making out with y/n l/n?!” Shigaraki put his hand on his forehead and rested it on his knee.

What a night…

[m1ckeyb3rry]

hello, i hope you’re doing fine! just read the new chapter of sith and came to banter about it again!!

- i’ve always wondered how colt felt about his little brother being a warrior candidate and i’m so glad you chose to touch on it in this chapter! of course, he would be upset but i also find myself thinking like was he angry or maybe disappointed in marley? because i’m pretty sure that in the first place he thought that him becoming a candidate would be enough to fix his family’s reputation and when he found out that that wasn’t the case, he must’ve been disappointed. it’s so sad to think that the moment colt was born, he kind of became the “savior” of the family and even though i’m sure that his parents love him and everything, they probably saw him as some kind of “pawn” to save themselves. i can imagine colt not wanting the same fate for his baby brother but not being able to do anything about it must be infuriating as hell. i’m sorry i just can’t help but feel awful about colt’s position in his parents’ lives🥲

- i truly enjoyed some heartwarming moments with y/n’s parents in this chapter, it was just so sweet🥺🥺 and we can now see that her mom is starting to get used to colt’s presence in her life, hopefully she’ll warm up to him a bit more!

- i must admit that nursery rhyme was so clever on your part. anyone who deals with some sort of anxiety knows the urgency to indulge into something familiar. y/n having a comfort rhythm hits too close to home.

- MY FAVORITE PART in the entire chapter was the banter between our fav trio😭 I JUST LOVE THEM SO MUCH. when they were talking about falco having a crush on gabi and friedrich coughing knowingly?? i died, that was soooooo funny. following that colt talking about cordelia and friedrich almost choking?? sooooo funny😭 and when y/n said that she would prefer spending her days with two of them even if she were a queen… i melted. i just want to protect them at all costs

- i absolutely loved your descriptions of the little warrior candidates, they were PERFECT. i was smiling the whole time i was reading that part. “a devilish grin compared to falco’s angelic frown” is a perfect way to describe gabi! gabi and falco truly compliment each other because they are literally the opposite. why are the grice boys so sweet😭 y/n mistaking gabi for alice was so fucking sad… my mood went down immediately after reading that.

to be honest, this was one of my favorite recent chapters! after the athyaen war, everything got a bit darker and i’m sure that it’s going to get even more darker, and i’m not complaining! but i just loved reading some light stuff and y/n being with her favorite people in the world and showing affection🥰 i also must say that i love your writing. the dialogues, the descriptions… it’s easy to read but descriptive when necessary. another amazing chapter🥰

HII!! I’m doing well. Or at least as well as I can considering it’s winter and I hate the cold 😭 but I love banter so I was happy to get another long ask :)

- colt’s relationship with his family always makes me so sad because like he really has had no other choice and he’s just so kind that he doesn’t even complain, he genuinely wants to save them (esp falco) and the fact that he can’t protect falco from being a candidate while knowing what the candidates go through is so hard for him. and i agree with what you said about his parents!! i actually think it was mentioned somewhere in the first chapter of sith let me find it

“This isn’t news to them. They’ve always been more hands-off with me; I’m their sacrificial lamb, remember? Falco’s the one they really care about; though, to be fair, it’s almost impossible to not care about Falco. Anyways, as I was saying, they’ve had years to prepare for this day. I promise you, they’re not upset about any of this,” he said.

that was when they were waiting to hear about who got into the candidacy program and y/n was telling her father to stop crying lol simpler times 😢 but yes although colt’s parents don’t dislike him and certainly love him, they’ve always kind of been resigned to his eventual death so they were just never as close with him as y/n’s parents are with her if that makes sense.

- speaking of her parents, i’m glad you like them!! i didn’t want to go the typical dead/absent parent route that’s so common in fics, but i wanted them to be realistic, too. i try to make them have typical human reactions to things like their daughter not coming home when she said she would, although at the same time, y/n isn’t exactly a typical kid, she’s a highly trained soldier, which is hard for her parents to balance. honestly i feel so bad for them because they deserve better…then again who doesn’t in this fic HAHAHA

- thank you!! i wanted to show that she’s doing her best to find coping mechanisms, and even if they’re not foolproof, they help at least a little. slowly but surely she’s finding a new sort of normal which is super important i think. this arc (which is actually almost finished!) and the next are mostly about the trio recovering from athyae so there’ll be a lot of finding little things that help them get through each day. i think a lot of the time the lasting impacts of things like war are glossed over in fiction and for some stories it works but ship in the harbor is one where i really want to show the effects it has on the characters! although there’s a lot of plot in the story, it’s also very internal/character focused, so i thought it didn’t make sense for y/n to do what she did in athyae and just bounce back immediately and be perfectly fine yk?? which is why there’s literally going to be ten chapters of just her mental state improving (amongst other things ofc)

- HAHAHA I MISSED THE TRIO TBH!! the three of them haven’t been together for a while, and the last time was on the train from athyae to liberio so y/n was in a VERY different headspace — it was immediately after her mirror-destroying mental breakdown LMAOO so there was minimal room for banter there. but they’re back with a vengeance now and thank goodness 😭 FRIEDRICH IS GENUINELY MY FAV CHARACTER EVER i think the way he’s the biggest y/n x colt shipper while simultaneously being totally in love with y/n is the funniest thing. the scenes with him and colt together are so much fun to write because they feed off of each other in such a strange way. honestly i think that the only time the boys act their ages is when they’re together which is so personal to me 😩 they really are best friends!! AND THEN YOU ADD IN Y/N AND IT’S JUST EVERY EMOTION POSSIBLE UGH I LOVE THEM TOO (but that won’t stop me from making them suffer)

- the little warrior candidates are so cute tbh!! i had a lot of fun describing them. even just through their looks i think you can tell a lot about their personalities! and i realized the alice/gabi parallels while writing and it made me so upset 😐 and the way alice was always jealous of y/n and now gabi idolizes her for being the “hero of athyae”…also the way y/n literally hates how she was in athyae and now she’s famous for it KILLS ME like no one is ever going to let her forget about it because they all think it’s so badass that she literally took down an entire country. meanwhile every time someone mentions athyae she gets actual flashbacks and has to leave 😭

- THE GRICES ARE THE SWEETEST BOYS EVER i think it was so funny when gabi was kind of shit talking colt and he was just like 😊 the entire time. canonically (i think it was mentioned as a fun fact at some point? which i just realized i didn’t do one for this chapter lol rip) all three of the trio are good with children but i think colt LIKES kids the most. he’d be such a good father one day ugh what a shame isayama killed him off 😒 keeping it undercover whether i’ll go the canon route w him or not 😁

this chapter felt like a breath of fresh air after everything w athyae and it was nice to write! i think that the impact of the more angsty/darker scenes is lessened when there’s no happiness to balance it out. for example — to me at least — hadrian and y/n’s ending was so much worse because we saw how happy she was with the amatas. that’s why i like showing occasional moments of happiness and lightheartedness with the trio!! it just makes it hurt more to read while knowing what’s to come 😈 and yes sith will get dark again soon (about six chapters from now, so the remaining chapter of this arc and then all of the next arc), but for now it should be pretty relaxing — more chapters like this one! because we all need time to decompress and recover from the entire defeat of athyae arc. also there just really won’t be many more “downtime” chapters after the next arc so i’m putting it all in now so that i don’t feel as bad about pretty much solely causing the trio trauma for like 65 chapters straight

AHH i’m so happy to hear you like my writing style! sith has been my longest ongoing story so it’s seen a huge evolution in my style, and i’m sure as i continue to write it will continue to evolve (we’re only about a quarter of the way through the story so it’ll definitely be some time before it’s finished which leaves plenty of room for development and improvement) the difference between the beginning and latest/ending chapters of the story will only grow, but i’m pretty happy with my style atm. i don’t like sounding pretentious or poetic for the sake of sounding poetic if that makes sense?? like i think some writers focus more on how pretty a sentence sounds instead of how functional it is, and although i do love pretty sentences, i think it’s important to also have them make sense and be comprehensible. i also love writing dialogue haha i think that’s what i get complimented on the most!! it’s just very fun for me to imagine entire conversations in my head…tbh sometimes writing dialogue feels more like i’m just transcribing what the characters are saying more than i am making something entirely knew up as weird as that sounds HAHA. but i’m glad you liked the chapter and thank you for reading!!

[kinetic-elaboration]

May 16: Jasper/Monty, Why?

Heeeeey yeah sometimes I write.

Southern Gothic fic universe, aka, part of devil’s gonna get me one of these days

Jasper/Monty

~1,000 words

Written in about 45 minutes

*

"Why do we do it?" Monty asks, sober, but thoughtful, as he stands at the kitchen counter and chops up vegetables from their garden. He's wearing a silly-looking apron with red frills, which Jasper got him at a thrift store once as a joke. But after all this time, it suits him. The window over the sink has been left open just a crack, and through it the softness of a warm, pink spring evening floats in, scented with new blooming flowers and the spiky undertones of fast-lengthening grass. The light filters in pink and gentle, too, on a lingering dusk. Jasper watches the deft and familiar movements of Monty's fingers, half-caught in shadow, half-glinting in the soft light, listens to the rhythm of the knife against the cutting board, and thinks, yeah, he loves him best like this.

At the question, Jasper leans all the way back in his chair, until its front legs leave the floor and the back hits up against the stove. The clang disrupts the other sounds, the shimmer of the bugs in the garden and the knife against the board, but only for a moment, and when Jasper hums the deep thrum shuffles in easy with all the rest. It's a good question. The only question that matters, or at least the only one that will matter, someday.

Why?

A question for the history books.

Money—that's the easy answer. The money to escape their parents' homes. The money Miller slips away to them in secret, and that they hide in the safe among the dust bunnies under Jasper's bed. Not enough to do anything real with, not build-a-new-life money but it's something. Even the thought of it glows warm in him some nights, when he thinks he'll never have to rely on anyone else for security again.

So maybe it's not the money, but the safety of the money, the independence of the money. After they pay their bills, he rarely thinks of it. He's not greedy for it. The first time they thumbed their way through a stack of twenties, joked about the size of it, smaller than they'd imagined, how they should have gotten it in ones or maybe just a bunch of heavy, gleaming coins, he felt a small thrill. And the way Monty's eyes grew wide and his dirty fingers flickered through the stack again, counting in thin whispers under his breath—a bigger thrill.

But even then, he'd known to pick apart the feeling of greed from the rest. Dax is greedy. Bellamy, sometimes, is greedy, though he'd never say the word. Miller and Emori and Murphy are in it for the satisfaction of the steal and the rotten fuck-you feeling of it, swipe and rob and pilfer because they've been angry too long and because they deserve this and because they can.

Because we can, he almost answers. That's always been their reason, hasn't it? To prove that they can and then to revel in it.

"I used to think it was because we were bored," Monty says, when Jasper doesn't answer, and slides the neat carrot slices decisively into a bowl. Then he reaches for another, and for a moment he glances up and over his shoulder, and meets Jasper's eye with an expression almost of guilt.

"Smartest kids in school," Jasper murmurs.

He understands now that Monty isn't talking about the thieving anymore. He never was.

That query is both simpler and more difficult, because he cannot pinpoint anymore when it began: rhymes they learned on the playground, talismans they found in the woods, eyes peering out at them from the shadows of the mountains and the ghost-breath of wandering tendrils of mist after a hard rain, and the whistling they heard, while they held their breath, standing quiet and still in the graveyard out by the old church. Or the first time they shared a joint, offered by one of Monty's cousins on the Fourth of July, while they out in the cool shade by the entrance to the cellar and the younger cousins yelled and laughed and the sprinklers hissed and spit in the neighbor's lawn. They were thirteen then, and Jasper kept a collection of smooth worn stones in his pockets, for luck, and Monty kept a list of superstitions in a notebook in his room. Their mouths full of smoke, they knew that everything they couldn't see was real, and everything they saw was mutable and temporary as shifting clouds before rain.

"I always felt," Jasper adds, now, "that we didn't just know faster than the others, but we knew more."

"Of course," Monty answers.

Hubris. Is that his answer? Why—well—because we knew we could. Curious and confident, until curiosity becomes a sort of lit fuse, burning itself up and he follows and follows, not wanting to lose sight—

Why?

"Did you want—" He starts, and when the words choke off and no more come, Monty turns around to face him, wiping the pulpy guts of a clean-sliced tomato from his fingers. As a kid, he was always so impatient, but gardening has taught him a certitude in waiting.

"Did you want to possess it?" Jasper asks. His voice comes out smaller than he'd intended. Spindle cracks form down the middle of it. "Or just to know?"

Because that is greed again: greed, gnawing greed, wanting more and more just to satiate an instinct you can no longer describe--greed for money and for power too, which might be called safety or independence or even moral right, but it's all greed. It's all the same lit fuse.

Still he lets out a long, slow breath when Monty says, "To know."

To know what's out there, the soft sighs in the quiet, the lights in the empty house, the crackling of unseen branches in the woods, the animals who haunt his dreams, the destination of the river.

He's felt power and he's felt knowledge too. The one has no meaning without the other.

Jasper lets his chair fall forward on the floor again, then reaches out and grabs for Monty's hands and pulls him close. He tilts his head back so Monty can see the way the overhead light gleams in his eyes, as outside the shadows fall darker and the pink-gold of dusk deepens and cools, and night thickens over the garden, and the dark and chill of seep into the room. He squeezes Monty's hands tight. "I think we do it," he says, and without meaning to he lets the Reverend's words flow through him, as if despite the curl of his lips he believed them, too, "because we're a little wicked, aren't we?"

[egg-on-the-run]

More singing headcanons for the rise! turtles

Hehe requested 💖💖

💙❤️💜🧡

Michelangelo:

When you sing for Mikey it's usually to try and help him sleep but he always goes doe eyed to stare at you. He's in genuine awe. Even though it's a little rough and off key your voice is so soft at this time of night because you don't want anyone else to hear but he would gladly hold the microphone so you could sing to the world.

Mikey adores it when you sing out the instructions in his cook book.

"One beaten egg! A pinch of salt! Mix it altogether and do the waltz!" "Do the waltz?"

You pull him to waltz around the kitchen. It was in the song so it's an essential part of the recipe.

Mikey likes a lot of music, especially rap, so if you can memorise some speedy lyrics he will just happily hype you up in the background

He loves loves LOVES when you know basically every song on his playlist but he LOVES LOVES LOVES it whenever you can recommend him new songs you know he'll like

"I heard this song yesterday and I thought of you! It's so funky and fun :)"

He bursts into flames.

Leonardo:

Leonardo goes BONKERS when you cheer for him like a cheerleader. If you make up a fun little rhyme to make him feel special his ego inflates like a balloon.

"Nine, eight, seven, six! Gotta get my daily fix! Five, four, three, two! Take my medicine - it's you!" and he has to kiss your cheek because yes. Doctors orders. Give kisses now.

"I only counted to two because you're my number one."

His cheeks go beet red.

Much like Mikey he also loves it when you sing and narrate things.

Leo takes you driving out in the truck and it's just the two of you jamming out to his playlist. He pulls into an alleyway to dance and you guys are going to get at least one anrgy, tired New Yorker banging on the door to get yous to shut up

You guys both go too hard and have sore throats the next morning.

If anyone in his family complains you both pretend to be blissfully unaware of how loud and awful you guys sound

"Would you PLEASE stop trying to make my ears bleed?!" ":( Aw Donnie that's so mean. I've been practicing really hard lately :(" "Yeah Donnie :( they've been taking lessons that's so rude :("

Donatello:

I can make a water drop noise with my cheek and I like to imagine doing that in Donnie's lab and he's like "is the faucet leaking? It shouldn't be leaking." and then when he turns back doing it again until he whips his head around.

As annoying as it is, Donnie does like making funny noises with you. Especially if you try and beatbox.

Can you beatbox? No. Are you going to anyway? Yes.

After so long you have perfected the art of timing Donnie's face palms. When you know he's going to face palm you pull a quick "ba dum—" and the last note is him hitting himself.

He appreciates the dedication and it usually cheers him up a bit

It takes a while for either of you two to actually sing in front of each other.

For a start, he mostly listens to electronic music and stuff and it doesn't have a lot of words to sing to. Plus, neither of you are very good at singing, so it's also partly due to embarrassmemt

You start becoming more comfortable after he comes round to visit and you're in the shower. He waits in your room but you don't know he's there so you're singing at full volume

It's the most awful and simultaneously the most beautiful thing he's ever heard

He pretends hebhates dancing with a partner because he's stepped on your feet so many times (it's just his nerves) so you bribe him and say you'll only sing if he dances.

He secretly enjoys both dancing and your singing so it's a win-win for him. But you don't need to know that...

Raphael:

Raph loves listening to you sing because sometimes you'll actually, like, hit a good note and you both freeze and just "did you hear that?" "I heard that" "that was actually pretty good" "that was actually pretty good!"

You very clearly fail at hitting a high note, he retorts with "Calm down Miss Mariah Carey."

"I should be on Broadway! :)" "Well you've certainly got the lungs!"

You both know you can't sing and it's okay. He much prefers it when you absolutely scream the lyrics to a song because he also wants to scream the lyrics with you.

Usually you are absolutely bopping out to songs with high energy but whenever it's just the two of you and things are a little calmer and he's playing some soul radio, that's his favourite time.

You just hum along to the rhythm, and  whenever you recognise the song you quietly sing a few words he just melts because his brothers' music tastes are all very fast and loud and high energy and yeah he likes it but he really appreciates it when someone just acknowledges his own interests and makes him feel special.

He actually likes to look at the history of soul music and a lot of celebrities and such, you let him ramble and let him play some songs.

If you come back the next day and are like "Hey I was listening to that song you played the other day! It's really nice I added it to my playlist :)" he will propose. On the spot. He's so happy

[antique-traveler]

wróżka

read it on ao3

Jaskier’s hands drive him.

They push and they pull.

They push and they pull and sometimes they have claws.

Geralt never sees them.

He never sees them push or pull and he never sees the claws.

He never sees them push or pull the edge of the forest, or the growl of a beast.

He never sees the claws swipe at monsters that Geralt has neglected to kill.

Jaskier’s mouth is soothing.

It is soothing and it is filled with teeth.

The teeth can be sharp and dangerous, but Geralt doesn’t see them.

Geralt hears as his voice carries through the wood in a strange, haunting way. Not the way he sings in pubs, not the way he sings to children in town squares, only the way he sings to the forest. Because that is who he’s singing to.

Geralt does not know that.

Geralt only knows that, after they’ve been separated for too long, he finds it hard to look Jaskier in the eye, and he can never quite remember how tall Jaskier is, or how long his fingers used to be, how wide his smile should be. He only knows that when he’s with Jaskier the weather is always favorable, and he can always find enough to eat. He only knows that Jaskier has two voices, and sometimes they sing together.

He spends a long time accumulating glances.

He spends a long time trying to focus on memories that someone has made him forget, trying to piece together fuzzy edges and censored images from his past, things that can’t quite add up.

Were his eyes glowing, or was the moonlight merely reflecting off of them? Had those flowers sprouted around Jaskier, or had he simply not noticed them before? Were those horns atop his head, or where they only conveniently-posed branches framing him?

“Are you ever going to tell me?” They’ve been walking for days, and Geralt has started to notice how Jaskier seems to be tripping on purpose.

“I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about, Geralt.” Jaskier trips again, flying just a bit too far forwards.

Geralt is shown more.

He knows that he is not simply seeing, no, he is being shown. He is allowed to know a secret.

He is allowed to see the glint of Jaskier’s teeth as he smiles.

He is allowed to see the glaze over the tavern patrons’ eyes when Jaskier strums his first chord.

He is allowed to see the shimmer around the pool of water in the tree stump that Jaskier drinks from.

Jaskier is lithe and graceful.

He dances around tree roots and stones on the forest floor.

Unless he knows Geralt is watching him.

If he knows Geralt is watching him with those big swords on his back, he will trip and stumble and fall over every bump in the path they trudge.

If he knows Geralt is watching him with those big swords on his back, and with potions that will make him unstoppable, unkillable, he will sing just a little worse than otherwise. He will make himself miss a string on his lute, or fall flat on a note every now and then. He will mispronounce a word, or force himself into a slant rhyme.

If he does not know Geralt is watching him, he will float across the moss and soil effortlessly, never misplacing a foot, as if he has known every single pebble on the ground for all his life.

If he does not know Geralt is watching him, he will harmonize with himself, and his lute will sound like a dozen instruments that Geralt has never heard before. He will sing lyrics in an unfamiliar language, every rhyme perfect, every stanza unblemished.

Geralt begins to wonder if Jaskier is really unaware of his surveillance, or if, once again, he is being shared a secret.

Geralt has had enough. He is not fond of lies or secrets.

He hears Jaskier strumming his lute, and singing in a strange tongue, and walks up behind him.

“I’m not familiar with that one.”

“Geralt!” Jaskier turns pink, and his hair seems less shiny than it had been a moment before, less curly, “I didn’t hear you coming!”

“What were you playing?”

“Oh, not really anything.” Jaskier has never been a good liar, “Just some nonsense, you know me!”

“Jaskier, I know.”

“Pardon?”

“I’ve seen you. I’ve seen your teeth. I’ve heard you speak in a language I’ve never heard before. I’ve seen tree branches bend out of your way without you touching them.”

“Surely you must be mistaken. That’s impossible! Are you sure you’re feeling well?”

“Yes, I’m fine.” Geralt is quiet for a beat. “Tell me what you are.”

“Geralt, I don’t know what you’re talking-”

“Tell me what you are.” Geralt is trying very hard to stay calm.

In an instant, Jaskier is no longer nervous. His hair glistens, and his eyes shine. Perhaps he grows a few inches taller as he sighs, and perhaps a few flowers bloom beneath his feet.

“I think you know, Geralt.”

“Tell me anyway. I need to hear it from you.”

Jaskier sighs. “I am Jaskier, Prince of the Seelie Court, son of Rzeka, Queen of the Faeries.”

Geralt’s pupils shrink into slits and his brows knit together. “Take it all off. I know there’s more.”

“Geralt, don’t make me do this-”

“Take it all off.”

Jaskier looks away. The sun dips behind a cloud, perhaps on purpose. Jaskier’s shape grows hazy for a moment, as if Geralt were looking at him through a thick fog. When he comes back into focus, he is glorious.

He is tall, much taller than Geralt, thin arms and legs sprouting from his wide shoulders and thin hips. His face is sharper, with electric blue eyes nesting above a mouth just a little too wide, holding fangs sharper than any sword. His hair curls, and small yellow flowers peek through the waves. His large, delicate hands grow claws. From his forehead emerge long, twisting horns. His shoulder blades sprout two massive wings, the wings of a lark. Moss and mushrooms grow quickly on the log upon which Jaskier sits, and flowers bloom around his feet.

Jaskier avoids Geralt’s startled gaze. If Geralt didn’t know better, he’d say he looked ashamed.

“I never meant for you to see this.”

“Then why keep giving me hints?”

“It starts to hurt, after a while, not using my magic. Feels like I’m drowning. I’ve got to let it out.”

“Then why hide it in the first place?”

Jaskier turns to meet Geralt’s eyes. Geralt finds that it almost stings. Jaskier’s eyes are shining and vibrant. “Because I wanted to see everything! I wanted to see people! If I meet them like this, they act strange. They’re afraid of me. And they have good reason to be. I only wanted to experience life as they do.”

“What else can you do?”

Jaskier smiles softly. “Everything.”

Geralt sighs and looks away, noting how the trees seem more full, and the moss on the forest floor seems greener. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Jaskier scoffs. “Don’t be daft, Geralt. I know what your lot does to the fae folk. I’ve seen the wings nailed above door frames. I’ve seen the heads on pikes.”

“But have you seen me do that?”

“Of course not, but Geralt, you must understand my position. You’ve been alive for, what, a hundred years? A hundred twenty? I’ve been alive for seven hundred and eighty. I’ve seen the first witchers slaughter my cousins. I’ve witnessed the Great Cleansing. I’ve seen how humans treat us.”

“I’m not-”

“Don’t be stupid. You know that you’re more human than you let on.”

Geralt hesitates, measuring his words. “I wouldn’t do that to you.”

Jaskier takes his hand. “I know that, love.”

Jaskier does not recast his glamour until they get closer to the next village. He seems less tired. He keeps up with Roach easily, and he moves stones and fallen trees out of their path.

Geralt hunts.

Geralt hunts rabbits and deer for food, and he hunts bruxae and alghouls for coin. Jaskier hunts with him.

Jaskier is too fast to see.

Jaskier is too strong to hold down.

Jaskier is too smart to catch.

Jaskier is too, too, too.

Jaskier is so much more than he was before.

But still exactly the same.

He loves music and women and men and shiny things.

He hates cramped inns and shitty ale and being dirty.

He touches Geralt on the back while he passes by him, and Geralt feels strange. Like the strange coldness one feels when first getting into a steaming hot bath.

He lets down a bit of his glamour when they’re alone in an inn and Geralt feels his mind go foggy.

He kisses Geralt for the first time.

They are in the woods, Jaskier is happy to be so close to nature, to his home.

He has let his glamour down, and he dances across the leaves and soil gracefully, trees bending out of their way and stones rolling away from Roach’s hooves.

They set up camp, and Jaskier prattles on about how he despises the latest musical trends while Geralt brushes Roach and agrees to whatever Jaskier says with a hum.

Jaskier moves over to him elegantly.

“Geralt?” Jaskier takes Geralt’s chin in his hand and plants a kiss on his lips, soft and chaste, before continuing his ramble about meter and rhyme.

Geralt has heard lovers say they felt a pleasant dizziness after kissing their betrothed for the first time.

This is not that.

This dizziness makes the hair on his neck stand on end, and makes him unsteady on his feet. It makes his heart pound in a strange rhythm and the world around him spin and shake. Jaskier does not seem to notice this.

Lying awake on his bedroll, Geralt thinks about that kiss.

How, despite the nausea and uneasiness, it was rather nice. He recalls the pleasant, stinging tingle on his lips, and the strange heat radiating from Jaskier’s breath.

Geralt has never kissed a man before. He knows that most humans don’t really fancy the concept. Does Jaskier even count as a man?

Does it matter?

Jaskier kisses him again.

They are in some anonymous inn in a small village, waiting for news of a contract.

Jaskier has his glamour on, but he does not hesitate to make their food taste better, or to make their blankets a little softer.

Jaskier is about to go downstairs to begin his nightly performance while Geralt mends his armor.

Jaskier places a hand on Geralt’s shoulder and presses their lips together. This one lasts longer, Jaskier squeezing them together before letting go nonchalantly and leaving Geralt alone.

Geralt feels the same dizziness and unease, but it goes away soon.

He touches his lips.

They taste like honey now.

They taste like honey for days.

Geralt and Jaskier enter a town. Before crossing its border, Jaskier stops.

“This place is wrong.” Jaskier is staring at a white flower growing at the base of a stone.

“We’ll be fine,” Geralt urges.

Jaskier is tense as they walk along the dirt road in the center of the town.

They approach the alderman’s house. Jaskier sees a pair of horns above the door, bloodied.

Jaskier runs into the brush and vomits, tears streaming down his face.

They leave the town.

Geralt and Jaskier enter a forest. After a few hours of walking, Jaskier removes his glamour and sings in the voices of a full choir.

He is singing in Elder. Something about elaine aen vatt’ghern, and something else about caen me a’baethe Gwynbleidd. Geralt has always been shite at Elder.

Through a clearing in the trees, Geralt catches sight of a small ring of mushrooms. Jaskier follows his gaze and, with a wave of his hand, a thick patch of trees grows between them and the clearing.

“Should probably stay away from that, don’t want any trouble.” Jaskier seems nervous.

Geralt knows what those mushrooms were, and he knows why Jaskier was nervous.

Geralt kisses Jaskier.

They are alone in the forest. Jaskier is playing with some flowers while Geralt oils his swords. They ate a rabbit for supper. Jaskier muttered a small blessing over it before he let Geralt skin it. They sit now beside a roaring fire while Jaskier hums the tune to a song Geralt’s never heard before.

When Geralt has finished sharpening his silver sword, he gets up to grab his steel. He steps over Jaskier’s outstretched legs, careful not to step on his feathers.

Before he sits back down, Geralt bends over Jaskier and takes his head in his gloved hand. This kiss is unlike their previous kisses. It is sharp and it stings and it tastes like smoke. Geralt does not want it to stop.

He does not feel dizzy afterwards. Jaskier looks up at him with wide, wide eyes and a smile full of teeth.

They fall into a habit of kissing each other without a word. Always when they are alone. Never in public.

Geralt is scared. Jaskier is not.

Geralt is scared.

They sit on the bed in their shared room at an inn. Jaskier has draped a wing across Geralt’s body, and his head lies on his chest. His horns tickle Geralt’s chin, but Geralt’s hands are too deep in Jaskier’s hair for either of them to care.

Jaskier sighs. “Have you ever been with a man, love?”

Geralt thinks for a moment. “No. Didn’t know I could.”

“You can. You are, I suppose.”

“Are you a man?”

“I think. Maybe.”

“I’ve heard it’s different for Fae.”

“It is. You humans and your rules, it’s very hard to keep up, you know.”

“Hm.”

“You can kiss me in public.”

Geralt is quiet, pensive. “How?”

“Pardon?”

“How? People disdain me enough for sleeping with women. Don’t see how me being with a man would be any better. Worse, probably.”

Jaskier looks up at him, eyes full of sympathy and a dash of sorrow. “I’ll make sure no one has a second thought, love.”

“What about me?”

Jaskier blinks.

“I never knew I was allowed to do this. I feel like I’m breaking a rule.”

Jaskier sits up and rests a hand on Geralt’s cheek. “My dear, you are a mutated beast-slayer who’s been kissing a Fae prince that masquerades as a human for the last six months. I’m not sure if there are any rules left to break.”

Jaskier leans down and presses himself into Geralt, pushing his tongue into his mouth and inhaling his breath. Geralt knots his fingers into Jaskier’s hair as Jaskier bunches up Geralt’s tunic in his fist.

Geralt pulls away. “I love you.”

“Oh, dear heart, I love you, too.”

Geralt and Jaskier are travelling, as they always do.

They will always travel.

They will always travel, and they will always kiss without a second thought, and they will always stay away from small circles of mushrooms.

Geralt will always let Jaskier bless whatever he kills for dinner. Jaskier will always beg Geralt to stop for a while when they come across a picturesque stream.

They will never not travel.

Geralt will never stop Jaskier from stretching his wings when they’re far enough from humanity. Jaskier will never stop warning Geralt of signs that his family is near.

Jaskier’s hands will always drive Geralt. They will always push and they will always pull. His mouth will always be full of teeth, and he will always sing in two voices.

[westerhos]

Our Story: Chapter 5

Here marks the middle of our tale, that vast, perilous land between the beginning and the end. The going is treacherous in these parts—the wayward couple must heal on their own, tread the sea of two decades with arms and souls akimbo—but still, it is not unnecessary. The middle is never aimless. Always, always, it has one goal: the ending.

When the lights go up and the curtains close, you clap—perhaps, should the couple reunite (which, of course, they will), you shout “Encore, encore!” But then, at last, you return to your car. You catch the train, or you grab a taxi. At last, having started at the beginning and waded through the middle, you reach the final destination. The night is over; you go home.

Home. Whether a place, a person, a feeling, or a thing—it does not matter. Home is always the goal and the ending, the northernmost star we pray to and walk towards.

[December 24th, 1996]

Two weeks’ vacation in a cabin, tucked deep inside a fold of mountains. Here, amongst the stretches of living nothingness, even the silence has a voice. Owls hoot in the night. The pines’ chatter, their needle-whispers pierced by caws and shifted air—a hawk swooping to ensnare her prey. And if one listens closely enough, one can hear the hunter's a shaky, traitorous breath, which launches the doe across the snow—the echo of his heartsong, the drum to which the doe’s hooves beat. Come back, come back, come back.

This is why Jamie has come here: for the endless conversation between man and mountain, more steadfast than the chill in his heart. In the past four years, Jamie has sold the twin cot (it lies in a salvage yard somewhere, all broken springs and dreams). A different couple has moved into the studio, and when they had spoken of paint jobs—“Perhaps mint green, what d’ye say, hon?”— Jamie had thought, Thank God. He’d happily offered them the keys when they turned to him, pupils dilated with youthful optimism. By that point, there was no space for Jamie and Claire inside that Edinburgh Eden, and so he’d chimed in, “Aye, a bonny color.” (Indeed, the walls are mint now, though a forgotten strip of marigold shines in the northern corner.)

For two years, Jamie has lived with Murtagh in Glasgow, having shed not just his home but his editorial career in publishing. He has grown tired of fixing other’s mistakes—too many of his own in need of correction—and so here he sits on this Christmas Eve, writing towards redemption.

The Grampians are a peaceful place, big hulks of rock scattered with trees—bouquets of fir, oak, and pine cradling other cabins. At dark, their windows flicker, candlelit with the dreams of the aspiring novelists, essayists, playwrights therein. Men and women, all bowed before the cleansing hum of nature’s speech. Like Jamie, they had seen the fliers: WRITER’S RETREAT, TWO WEEKS IN THE MOUNTAINS—and so it was. They were small colony taking its temporary leave, hoping to reconstruct the world according to their own, more favorable terms.

Over supper, the group gathers and shares their ideas: outlines, pieces of dialogue, an inspiring poem they’ve loved since childhood. And while Jamie is generous with his advice, he holds his notebooks against his chest. Enraptured by this warm aloofness (for is it not the way of all great wordsmiths?), the others whisper behind their palms, “Have you read Fraser’s story?” Into napkins, “No, have you?”

But among the fifteen guests, only one has read Jamie’s story—and tonight, Jamie waits for her inside his cabin. His latest draft is fanned around him, some sections highlighted and others slashed. They are not unlike Claire’s old strike-throughs, which had snipped the would-be Dalhousie and eventually, Jamie’s own name, from her life (a reclamation of Beauchamp, a transformation to Randall). Among Jamie’s scribbles are his friend’s edits, which are much more forgiving, much less forceful than the lines of his own red pen. Each comment reads like a bashful request: “More clarity?”, “Switch the verb here?”, “Too many adjectives?” as if she needs permission to occupy the margins. Should I really be reading this?, she seems to say, the bare-backed rawness making her squirm.

But she is helping him, his friend. And so she sees Jamie’s drafts before John, his agent, and before Fergus, his assistant and most loyal advocate. With each comment, she brings him closer to understanding, to the better beginning, middle and end. Note by note, to the way his story (their story, for it can never be Jamie’s alone) should be. All rhymes and logic, had it not veered off-course.

Is Alexander too cold here? Shouldn’t he say something? (He should have.)

It seems out of character for Alexander to never visit his daughter’s grave? (Grief carves cowards out of heroes.)

Shouldn’t he try to win Elizabeth back? (God, yes. He should have tried harder.)

The knock comes three minutes later, as expected.

“Hello?”

“Door’s unlocked.”

“Oh!” A muffled apology, embarrassment for the delay. “Sorry,” the visitor says. “It’s late. Didna ken if ye still wanted to talk or not. I brought—well, I finished reading your last chapter.”

And now another player enters this fifth act, tip-toes quietly onto the stage. Only a slip of a thing in the cabin’s doorway, cheeks pinked by the storm’s sharp nip. She is Jamie’s friend-slash-critique partner, and even her entrance is punctuated by a question mark. The score of owl, pine, hawk and hunter swells, buffeted now by new notes: the crack of chapped lips smiling, the anxious shuffle of papers, and—

“Dinna fash, I couldna sleep anyways,” Jamie assures her. “Did ye like it, though? The new ending?”

His friend inhales sharply, stealing as much oxygen as the room will allow. Everything—the threadbare futon, the TV’s antennae, the welcome mat and Jamie’s body—bends towards some invisible presence. A ghost between between all.

“It was…a bit different from the last one.”

“I’ll take that as a ‘Nay, I didna like it.’”

She looks shyly at the ground, one foot treading nervous circles into the planks.

“It was a bit too sentimental is all. After everything. All that time and silence…D’ye really think Alex and Lizzie could make it?”

Her words are a blow to Jamie’s stomach, and the pages are fire in his hands. He puts them down, wants to thrust himself under a blanket of snow to freeze the flames.

“In a fairy tale, maybe, but life isna a fairy tale. And d’ye no want to write truths?” She looks up, and her eyes gore him. “This story isna a fairy tale either, Jamie. Yours never are.”

“Aye…aye, I s’pose they’re not,” he replies, thinking of his other novels and short stories, essays and poems. Each accepted by John’s gimlet eye, only to meet their end in a publisher’s slush pile. (“Too dark, too wallowing,” an editor once wrote.)  

“Give it another go. I’ll help ye tomorrow, if ye’d like,” his friend offers. “Three days left. I reckon we’ve time to sort the kinks, right the wrongs.” (Three days will never be enough for Jamie’s wrongs.)

“I’d appreciate that, lass. Verra much.”

His friend looks behind her and at the moon, a shy sickle in the sky. It draws her toward the door and the snow-covered mountainside.

“Weel, it’s a long walk back,” she says. “Wanted to give ye that before the morning, so I guess I’ll just…”

“Will ye stay with me tonight?” Jamie blurts. And he hates himself for saying this, the way it sounds outside his mouth and inside his cabin, landing on the unmade bed. Its despair makes it ugly. But.

But if his friend stays, Jamie thinks, perhaps the emptiness will leave. If his friend stays, perhaps his story will correct itself, falling into its natural rhythm, by the force of whatever solace she can give him.

“It’s Christmas Eve,” he continues, “and I…I dinna want to be alone.”

She pauses, thinks it over before saying, “Okay. Just for a bit?” (Just for a bit? Another loaded question, and one he doesn’t want to answer.)

“Thank you,” Jamie whispers, and Mary McNab removes her coat.

____

Long before daybreak, Jamie wakes. He gathers his draft, made complete by that final failing chapter, into a single stack. He retrieves a box from his suitcase, which is swathed in his old holiday sweater, and it speaks to him. A quiet loudness, like the murmur of the Grampians. You mean your lager-stained pullover? With the Santa looks that looks like he’s got vomit in his beard?

Inside the box is a gift—a vase, azure porcelain—though Jamie has no plans to send it across the Atlantic, to the Boston apartment where his ex-wife kisses another man. No. This vase will stay with Jamie, forever hidden on the high shelf of a closet, or exiled to the back corner of a desk drawer. Like his grief, it is something that he owns—this small cut from a cloth of unraveled dreams—to be kept and locked safely away. There, there, always there. All fancy people have vases.

Jamie wraps the box with his manuscript. One by one, he folds the pages over and under, seals the edges with tape to form an inch-thick layer. So much history around this small, delicate thing—their story, with the ending Jamie cannot use and which cannot be the truth. At last, he cuts the string of wool, which still drips from his sweater after all these years, and it rasps, Do we have time? Of course we do.

Finally, Jamie weeps—a mournful sound that joins the chorus of this great, big mountain—and ties a frayed, red bow.

____

(Jamie does not realize that Mary watches him from the bed. “Tell me about her,” she wants to say—for once a statement and not a question—but she does not. Instead, she calls to Jamie, presses her goosefleshed nakedness to his. And as they move together, slow but unfeeling, she pretends she is a vessel. Closes her eyes. Makes room for the ghost. I’m Claire Beauchamp. Just plain Claire Beauchamp.)

____

Here, the idea of a writer’s retreat, the introduction, and the parentheticals (although those are also inspired by one of my favorite authors Kate Atkinson) are my lame attempts at trying to be Lauren Groff. Actually, the next handful of chapters are the result of my obsession with her novel Fates and Furies—which you should absolutely go read, right now.

One of my favorite parts about writing a modern AU is finding ways to fit in canon characters or references. I started this chapter having no idea who Jamie’s critique partner was, but it very quickly came together once there was a remote cabin, Jamie inside it, and a woman coming to visit him. I hope the reveal is at least somewhat...fun? The vase is also obviously a nod to Outlander, and, well, I’m assuming y’all caught on to Jamie’s character names (a bit on the nose, lmao).

I’m not crazy about this introduction (it’s...a bit much...but it’s meant to tie into the introduction of Chapter 1), but the final paragraph from Mary’s POV is actually one of my favorite paragraphs in the whole fic.

I also think I wrote this during a snowstorm, wheeeee!

[drakefeathers]

anyway this is the beginning of my twewy fic that’s been consuming me for the past month. it’s like. almost 11k now. i'm so close but the last 5% goes the slowest always. neo spoilers obvs.

--

The route is a little different each time, but it follows the same rhythm. He hits up the usual spots—the scramble, Hachiko, 104. The mural in Udagawa. Then over to Cat Street, and always ending at the river, looking down into the dark entrance of that tunnel.

He’ll mix it up in between, depending on how the mood strikes. Take a loop through Dogenzaka, linger around Center Street or roll through the park. Headphones on, music playing, he keeps it loose and lets his board lead the way, hoping it’ll take him to what he’s looking for.

Scramble’s as crowded as ever today. Beat steps off his board and crosses on foot to avoid crashing into anybody. As he moves along with the stream of pedestrians he keeps an eye out for a pair of headphones, Jupiter brand clothing, a bright head of hair on a scrawny frame—the kind of familiar things that could use a second look.

In the middle of the crossing, he stops. Someone bumps into him, but he stands firm, and the crowd flows around him. He closes his eyes and focuses on screaming one thought as loud as he can in his mind, loud enough to drown out all the noise in this city. 

Loud enough that if someone was out there, listening, they couldn’t help but hear him.

A moment goes by. Beat opens his eyes again and keeps walking, stepping onto the curb just as the walk signal blinks over to red.

—

The three of them used to search Shibuya together, at the beginning. But that was a long time ago. Now each of them does their own thing. Beat likes it better this way—alone, he can cover more ground faster on his board. And he can roll with each hit of disappointment as it comes, easier than shielding someone else from it.

Most days he’ll find Shiki by Hachiko. She brings homework or a sketchpad and sits on the railing nearest to the statue, working, but mostly waiting. They don’t always talk—sometimes there isn’t much to say, and he’ll just give a nod as he glides by.

It hurts to see her sitting there. Makes it tough to ignore that hollow feeling in his chest when the same yearning is written clear on her face. Every few minutes she’ll look up and scan the crowds around her with a kind of quiet hope, then lower her gaze again in resignation. The same motion over and over, day after day.

They’ve never brought it up, but Beat knows she can feel it just as much as him, that Neku isn’t erased. That connection from their pact never disappeared, not completely. When they fought the Noise together in the UG it blazed like an inferno, since returning to the RG it’s dwindled down to a spark. But it’s not gone, and neither is Neku. He isn’t even that far away. 

He feels so near that Beat can’t shake the sense that the next time he looks over his shoulder he might see Neku there, looking back at him.

Shiki isn’t waiting outside today, but Beat spots her in the nearby cafe, sitting at the counter against the window, facing the square. Her stuffed animal is placed on the tabletop where it can be easily seen. Shiki smiles brightly at Beat and waves at him through the glass, and he waves back and heads inside.

“I heard it was going to rain soon, so I snagged a seat in here,” Shiki says as he sits down on the stool next to her. She pushes over a plate with an untouched half of a sandwich. “Here, you can finish this if you want.”

Beat’s not going to say no to that. Shiki sketches a bit frantically on her tablet while he eats. At one point she lets out a stressed little sigh and scrubs at the screen to erase half her work. 

“Whatchu got there?” Beat asks. 

“I’m finishing some new concepts for our winter collection. We got funding to double the size of the launch, if you can believe it. I’m hoping we can fit a few more items in.”

“Winter? But it ain’t even summer yet.”

“I know, I’m super behind, actually.” She taps on the screen and pulls up a picture of a plaid coat, smiling at it fondly. “I think Neku would like this one, don’t you? Maybe he’ll be able to wear it in the UG.”

The figure she drew doesn’t even have a face, but it’s Neku. Something about the tilt of the head, the line of its outstretched arm… Beat can’t pinpoint it exactly. He has no idea how Shiki does that, or if she’s even aware.

“Ever since we got the shop in 104, I sometimes think… what if he just walked in one day?” Shiki confesses. She adjusts her glasses as she looks up and gazes out the window hopefully. “I mean… I guess it could happen.”

Beat takes a quick glance over his shoulder. “Yeah. I know what you mean.”

“Anyway, how’s Rhyme? I’ve been so busy, I haven’t talked to her in a while.”

“Good. Busy, too, burnin’ through all those computer courses she’s taking. She’s always holed up in her room, and I don’t understand half of what she’s talking ‘bout these days.”

“She’s still trying to find a way to hack into the UG, right?” Shiki taps a finger against her chin thoughtfully. “That would be amazing. Is it even possible?”

“If anyone can do it, it’s her,” says Beat, his pride clouded with worry, because, honestly, he wishes she wouldn’t. He hates the idea of Rhyme getting mixed up with the Reapers again, even from behind a computer.

“What about you, what have you been up to?” Shiki asks.

“Nothin’ new,” he says with a shrug. “Hittin’ the streets, like usual. Been a long time since I seen anyone from the UG, though.”  

“Besides that.” There’s a concerned crinkle between her eyebrows. “How’s school? Or— are things at home any better?”

Beat smiles. “It is what it is, like my sis’d say.” He stands and slings his bag over his shoulder. “I gotta bounce, yo. Later, Shiki.”

“Bye, Beat. Maybe I’ll see you tomorrow.”

—

Some event is going on at 104 this afternoon, the entrance is blocked by a crowd of excited teenagers. Beat gives them a wide berth as he takes his usual quick pass by the building, watching the bustling shoppers and the big video screen for signs of anything suspicious that might hint at the Reapers being up to some shit again. He doesn’t spend a lot of time around here, it’s always too busy, and Shiki’s got this one covered.

There’s a lot of people carrying shopping bags from her store today. He’s happy she’s making her dream come true. She was so torn up with guilt over it for so long, even though they all know it’s what Neku would’ve wanted. It sucks that he isn’t around to see it.

Beat tries not to dwell on these kind of thoughts—there’s no point to it, and it’s not his style, better to keep moving—but as he heads up Center Street he passes a group of friends standing outside a photo booth, laughing loudly over the pictures they’d just taken, enjoying their day together, and he’s freshly gut-punched with how fucking unfair it is. 

They won that game. They’d made it out. They were *good*. For those few short weeks, it had really felt like things were going to work out.

Coming back to life had been like a second chance. He and Rhyme were closer than ever, and he had some new friends, forged in fire. His parents were actually a bit better when he got home from the “hospital”, distraught after nearly losing both their kids, and they were cutting him some breaks for once. He even tried pretty hard with school again, and did alright on a few tests.

Not that it was all great. He’s still haunted by that lost look on Rhyme’s face as she sat cross-legged on her bedroom floor their first day back home, her old diary open on her lap, flipping through half-blank pages. “There’s nothing here,” she’d said quietly, with a heartbreaking kind of acceptance.

Beat stood in the doorway, his shaking hands clenched uselessly into fists. “I’m sorry,” he choked out. His vision blurred with tears, and he fought them back, knowing he didn’t have the right. He shouldn’t be crying, he wasn’t the one to lose something precious.

“Hey, it’s okay.” Rhyme stood and gave him a comforting hug that he knew he didn’t deserve. He was probably holding her too tightly, still trying to convince himself that it was real, that she was really there, but she didn’t complain. “All that matters is that we’re together.” After he finally managed to let her go, she went and picked up the diary from the floor, shutting it with a clap. “It’s a closed door. I just have to find my window.”

Rhyme smiled then, small but determined, and Beat knew she would be all right. She always finds a way to face forward. And, for the first time, he felt like maybe he was, too.

It was nice, for a while. But it sure as hell didn’t last. 

Now he moves through this city on an endless loop. His grades are trash, his parents barely speak to him except to complain about what a disappointment he is, and he spends too many nights awake trying to outrun nightmares on his skateboard, which just makes the rest of it worse.

But none of that really matters. Not school, definitely not what his parents think of him. The only worthwhile things he’d ever done had been with Neku. They saved Rhyme together, and this whole city. Beat owes him everything. He’ll be damned if he lets his best bud just slip through the cracks of reality. He’s gonna keep looking, no matter how long it takes.

[morningsound15]

hi! i’m a major fan of yours across several fandoms (bechloe, fuffy, hermione/anyone 👀) and i’m always really impressed with your ability to jump around fandoms while telling these very complete stories with awesome characterizations. any chance you’d be willing to share what your process is like for preparing to write a story? thank you for sharing your work! really enjoy it.

asks like this are so so sweet! compliments AND writing process questions at the same time is just *chef’s kiss*

i got a similar question to this in a comment on one of my stories a few weeks back, i hope you don’t mind that i’ve lifted some of this from that answer!

when i’m starting a new fic, these are the 3 basic things i focus on (not always consciously, this is just how my brain works):

characterization (who is the story about/why is the story being told)

plot (what story is being told)

and form (how is the story being told)

(this is long! more under the cut)

CHARACTERIZATION: the first thing i do is try to get a feel for how the characters think and speak. so the first thing i’ll write is usually something light and banter-y between two main characters. i find that story beats, reactions, emotions, etc. (all important parts of scenes) flow from me much more easily if i have a good feel for the characters and how they interact with each other. for example, the first scene i record in a voice note on my phone or dump in a word document might be: character A and B are eating breakfast the morning after sleeping together for the first time. they haven’t talked about it yet. they are trying to hide what they did from the other people in the room while trying to subtly see how the other one is acting

writing a scene like this would help me figure out a few important things about my characters, like how they interact with each other when they need to be covert (are they embarrassed? flirty? ashamed? cold? nervous? blushing?), how their friends might or might not pick up on their dynamic, and most importantly it lets me practice the pace of how the characters speak and the basic nature of their conversation styles with each other (do they crack jokes, are they unnecessarily cruel, do they openly flirt, is there a competitive undertone, exasperated fondness, etc.?).

people should be able to understand everything important about your characters from the way they speak and hold themselves in a scene. having the characters’ voices, rhythms, and interpersonal banter down is really important in making sure that whatever is happening in your story is compelling. if the characters feel real, the plot will feel real, and you can hook people into reading stories for fandoms they otherwise wouldn’t.

PLOT: this is kind of cheating, since i GUESS technically ‘plot’ is the first step to preparing to write a story, but to me, the most fundamental thing you need to have down to write fic is an understanding of the characters. you can use whatever tried-and-true soulmate/fake dating/bed sharing/alternate universe tropes you want, but the thing that makes or breaks a story is its characters, so that’s why i put that part first.

but okay, talking about plot. for me what comes first is less ‘plot’ than ‘situation’. 

here’s an example: i decided a while back that i desperately want to write a sansa x margaery hogwarts au. has it been done before? yes. does it sound fun? yes, and also, i love writing hp universe, and i love sansa stark. but the idea’s been done before, so what am i hoping to write that contributes to the genre/trope? what’s my hook? what’s my angle? what’s my read of the characters and how do i want to get them together?

i settled on this: Sansa is the first Stark in five generations to not be sorted into Gryffindor.

suddenly bam, i’m off and running. i’ve got a story universe, i’ve got a couple of characters whose voices i’m starting to settle into, i’ve got a whole cast of characters i have to suddenly squash into this alternate universe, think about what roles they should play, how THEY should speak and interact. suddenly i’m drafting scene ideas to make sure that i highlight the sibling dynamics i want between the starks, the tension between sansa and arya, sansa’s alienation and the family’s pride.

the next step is thinking about story beats. what are good tropes in hp universe stories (spell casting scenes, hogsmede scenes, quidditch scenes) -- how can i write some of these with a new fun twist? similarly, what are good tropes in romantic stories (jealousy/pining, being forced to work together when you don’t want to, romantic rivals) and how can i use these characters to pull off these tropes in a way that feels natural and novel? and of course, hugely important — when should the characters kiss for the first time? (every story’s gotta have a good first-kiss scene.)

.

i like my stories, generally, to have 2 main plots going: the romance plot between the two main characters, and the maintext plot/situational hijinx they’ve gotten themselves into. figuring out how to weave those storylines together (and ideally to have the Big Climax Scenes Converge Somehow) is tough. so i write in bursts, jumping around between chapters and paragraphs and scenes, cutting whole sections and shuffling them around constantly.

FORM: the first drafts of my chapters are mostly dialogue; i go back in and add actions and internal monologue as some of the last things that i do. scene transitions are also some of the last things i write, or beginnings/endings to scenes. that’s just a personal preference.

i don't tend to write linearly. i guess you could say i write in a vignette style; that’s why most of my fics are organized with individual scenes divided by a textual break, rather than long continuous stream of consciousness/linear time. this allows me a lot of freedom in my writing; if something isn’t working at the end of a scene, or if i can’t figure out a way to transition between moments/times of day, i can just add a text break in. easy as pie. it keeps my stories tighter (lol i know they’re so long who am i kidding) and lets me move things along.

while i jump around a lot, writing scenes that strike me when they strike me, filling in the gaps here and there as i go along, i do like to make some important decisions early on. i think about tracing the arc of the main relationship — are they interested in each other right away, what are the obstacles to them being together, is there going to be an issue with sexuality/queerness or is that a non-issue in this universe? — stuff like that. i think really important scene ideas to have early on (if i’m writing fic, obviously this applies strictly to writing fanfiction romance stories, which are already pretty trope-filled (that’s not a read i love tropes)) are the scenes that Change the direction of the story: the get-together scene and the plot climax. having an understanding of how those crucial scenes are going to play out means that i can make sure that all the writing before those scenes is building in the correct direction.

that doesn’t mean i stick to my outline, or that i’m afraid to change things up! on the contrary. i like to have an idea of where my story is going to end up as i'm writing, because then i can shape the characters and let them grow in a way that naturally arrives at the conclusion. but of course the conclusion is usually just an idea, a vague notion (‘they break out of the curse dimension’ or ‘they’re going off to college uncertain but hopeful’). i avoid writing the end of the story until the very end because the natural conclusion changes as my story goes through more drafts and i get a better feel for the characters. i also like to see how the readers are reacting to the story, what they're noticing, what questions they still have that i need to answer, if there are any scenes that aren't coming across the way i want them to, that sort of thing.

.

and one last note for fic writers -- this is what i always think about as i’m writing/about to write a story: why am i writing this story? what am i trying to say, how am i trying to better understand the characters or deepen my understanding of canon with this? am i adding to canon or just repeating it? is this personal catharsis, meaningless smut, a bittersweet fix-it?

readers are smart, and most importantly, they’re fans! they’re coming to fic from consuming the original product! they don’t want what they’ve just seen regurgitated to them. take risks in your stories! know the characters, dig deep into their relationships and get inside their heads. if you’ve got the characters down you’ve got everything you need to write a good fic.

mostly i just hope people come away from my stories satisfied by what they've read.

.

you all know me, i write for any fandom i want to with no rhyme or reason. i have a lot of ideas and varied interests. but i don’t speak a TON about my role as fanfic consumer, so i wanna do that.

fanfiction, for me, is a way of better understanding these things that i love. i come to fanfiction after i finish a show or video game, if i’m revisiting childhood movies or books. ao3 is one of the first places i go after i finish watching something, because i am enchanted by the way fans take characters that exist and with just a few twists of a word or a look, they change the meaning completely, elevate canon, or flesh out side characters that basically had nothing going for them. and because when i finish something i love i don’t want it to be over. sometimes that means i write, sometimes that means i read, but i always go to fic. i love it, it’s comforting and beautiful.

.

phew! that was long-winded. thanks for the ask!! sorry for the word vomit

(also yes hermione/anyone aka hermione/happiness)

[anothermcytblog]

Of Theseus, Of Echo || Tommy and Tubbo Interlude

Style: One Shot Word Count: 1669 CW: None that I can think of!

Summary: The story of Theseus popular on this server, and Tommy wonders which Theseus people think of. // As he walks into New L'manberg, Tubbo wonders if Echo would have exiled her best friend. // "Besides, who wants to admit they didn't notice gods among men?"

Contrary to popular belief, Tommy was not an idiot. Impulsive, reckless, loud, childish, possessive- All true, but he isn't an idiot. He knew that perhaps his choices weren't the best- but come on! Exile seemed a bit extreme. He deliberately told Tubbo he didn't want to be vice president yet- not while Dream still had his discs- but did anyone listen? Nooo, they just continued to act like he was still vice president! And he wasn't just going to repeat himself, it would make him seem like a coward! And Tommy Watson-Innit was no coward!

Still, as he sits on the shore of the beach with a fishing rod in hand, he can't help but wonder if perhaps he really was an idiot. Why did he stick up for Ranboo? A guy he barely knew. Sure he was Nikis' old friend (Younger brother? Tommy really didn't know. Gentlemens' rule of the SMP, you don't ask about someone's past) but he didn't need to lie for him and take the sole blame. Ranboo may have stuck up for him but was it really worth it? ("Of course it was," a Wilbur- Not Ghostbur- sounding voice told him, "That's how I raised you. Always be kind unless given a reason not to be. You're not a bad person Tommy, you're just a child.")

Dream appears beside him and Tommy half wants to snarkily ask him if Dream wants to blow up his fishing rod but he holds his tongue. No use arguing with Dream now, not when Dream is his only real person to talk to outside of unreliable messages with Ranboo and an amnesiac ghost who's just a shadow of his older brother. "I wouldn't take you as a fisher," Dream says after a moment. It's hard to tell but Tommy thinks Dream is looking at him from the corner of his eyes, but it's almost impossible to know with his dumb fucking mask.

"There's a lot you don't know about me bitch," He responds, reeling in the rod and grabbing the fish, tossing it back into the ocean as he waits for another bite.

"Really?" Dream asks and Tommy knows Dream is baiting him to reveal some grand secret, a chance to 'one-up him' in something big, "Like what?"

"My real name is actually Theseus," He says, unable to hide the pleased look on his face when Dream physically turns to him in what Tommy assumes is surprise, "Techno named me and Phil just agreed to it to make him happy. Wil-" His name gets caught in his throat and he knows that Dream heard it, "He gave me the nickname Tommy and I much prefer it. Though, I can't help but wonder," Tommy says, laughing so Dream can't hear the way his voice wavers as he tries to hold off of mourning whatever he had left to feel about Techno, "Do you think he knew? That I'd grow up to my namesake? Once a hero, now exiled. All that's left is dying in disgrace."

Dream stays silent, and Tommy can't help the pride he feels to have caught Dream off guard. He half wonders what Dream is thinking right now, and he almost asks before Ghostbur interrupts and asks Tommy if he'd like some blue.

The story of Theseus popular on this server, and Tommy wonders which Theseus people think of.

--

New L'manberg is pretty at night, Tubbo has to admit. The lanterns Ghostbur made light up the sky and the paths between areas, giving Tubbo the warmth he's been slowly losing. In the back of his mind, he wonders if this is what Wilbur meant when he said he was always cold. Walking along the path, Tubbo makes his way to L'mantree and sits outside of the obsidian encasing the tree. "Ah, Mr. President!" Someone calls for him, and for a moment Tubbo believes it to be Ranboo but a flash of green next to him tells him it isn't.

"Dream!" Tubbo greets, giving the masked man a smile, "You're out late, are you on a walk?" ("He's using you kid," Schlatt whispers in his ear, voice soft in a way it hadn't for a while, "You need to open your eyes. Dream has never been on your side. He made you exile your best friend, remember? Dream isn't your friend here, just like I wasn't your friend.")

"I could say the same to you!" Dream laughs, light hearted and friendly, "Just like you said, I'm taking a walk. How about you?"

"Just thinkin'" He shrugs- because it's true! Technically, at least. The entire reason he went on a walk was to clear his head, the upcoming Green Festival weighing heavy on his mind. When Dream tilts his head, Tubbo realizes he needs to come up with something- what did Schlatt tell him? The best lies were based on truth? "About Techno," He tells Dream, turning to face him, "He used to tell me this story- an Old Myth- whenever he and Phil would come home from adventuring. I... I miss hearing about it, Wilbur did his best to tell them but he was more of a Modern Myth slash Sky God story kind of guy. He spoke so much about then you think the Sky Gods actually told them the stories themselves!" He laughs a bit, "Do you know the story he'd tell me?"

"Theseus?" Dream asks, making a confused noise when Tubbo shakes his head.

"Echo," Tubbo says, smiling a bit, "He wanted to name me Echo actually, though Wilbur put a stop to it and since Techno named Tommy, Phil let Wilbur name me. Have you heard the story of Echo?" He asks, almost perking up when Dream shakes his head no, "Right- Okay, it's been a while since I've heard it so I might get a couple things wrong but! Echo was a mountain nymph and Zeus was just in love having sex with nymphs and would visit the overworld a lot because of it! Hera naturally became suspicious and tried to catch Zeus in the act with a Nymph but Echo, under Zeus order, kept distracting Hera. Eventually, Hera found this out and took her wrath out on Echo and cursed Echo so she could only repeat the last thing she heard! Echos' misery doesn't end here though, because she fell in love with the handsome Narcissus! However, she was never able to tell Narcissus how she felt- not like Narcissus liked her anyways- and eventually Narcissus was cursed to fall in love with his own reflection and Echo was forced to watch Narcissus perish due to his own vanity! No one really knows what happened to Echo after that though, I feel bad for her. She was pretty much forced to become everyones yes man after she was punished because Zeus told her to protect him from his wife even though Zeus was in the wrong. I think Techno was trying to warn me."

"Warn you?" Dream echos back, a curious tone in his voice.

"Yeah!" Tubbo nods, "I mean..." He trails off for a moment, suddenly remembering who he is talking to and how he needs to be careful, "Like, I've always been Tommys yes man you know? I go along with what he says and does what he asks- sort of like how Echo, well, echos back whatever people say! Then with Schlatt I did everything he asked of me, even when it led to my own exe... execution- Like Echo did what Zeus said even though it got her cursed! Ooo do you think Techno can see the future?"

"Maybe," Dream says, content for now, "You should head on back though, mobs are beginning to spawn and you're not very armed. Maybe you can tell me more Old Myths later."

Tubbo nods, giving Dream a wave goodbye. As he walks into New L'manberg, Tubbo wonders if Echo would have exiled her best friend. He shakes his head, picking up his pace as he hears a Zombie groan- Of course Echo would have, only if Zeus asked her though... If Tubbo is Echo, would that make Quackity his Zeus?

--

Sitting on top of a grand tree, Wilbur looks over at his dead ram friend, the pool of water around them shimmering as the image of Tuboo walking into New L'manberg fades, "Think they'll be okay?"  He asks, although he already knew the answer to that.

"Ehhhh..." Schlatt replies, "Depends on if they listen to us or not. Though, we haven't done this in a while so who knows how effective it'll be."

WIlbur snorts, as Schlatt waves his hand over the water, switching it to a sleeping Ranboo, "You think Connor would be able to sense us, or at least you."

Schlatt shrugs, laying on his back as he looks at the sky, "He was never the most magically adapt, he was better at the human shit. Besides, Mr. Sky God, it isn't like he knows what Dreams aura is. The tricky bastard likes keeping his secrets."

"Well, Mr. Sky Champion," Wilbur responds, the familiar cocky grin on his face as he looks up from the water, "It seems like the narrative is going to get a lot more interesting from here on out. Dream seems to be preparing for something. I always have been a fan of history rhyming and the God of the End has always been a word smith."  

"Gods of old I forgot how much you talk," Schlatt groans, "I forgot how fucking cryptid and nonsensical you are as well."

Wilbur cackles, "Well, you have an eternity to remember at least. They won't figure us out for a while at least, I have zero faith in them. Besides, who wants to admit they didn't notice gods among men?"

Rain falls somewhere in the distance as TNT explodes, a pool of lava bubbling somewhere below though the god and half-god don't pay much attention to it. They've already dealt with the rhythm of betrayal from them.

[ghostsofmemories]

Writing My Obituary (context on my weird poetry collection)

I realized today that I very casually bring up my poetry collection all the time and a large majority of my followers have no clue what I’m talking about, so here’s a WMO explanation post thing! I should definitely give a content warning though: this book deals with suicide, abuse (both physical and emotional, by both parents and other people), homophobia and transphobia, allusions to major appetite and stomach issues (which while reading sound a lot like eating disorders), toxic relationships, just a lot of really heavy emotions in general. Please don’t read the book or this post if those things could trigger you. This post also ended up super long, so the rest is under the cut.

So. first thing’s first, this collection is being published by Pure Print Publishing this fall (due to covid there aren’t any exact dates available). I didn’t query it, someone reached out to me after reading my poems on Instagram, hearing that they were in an unpublished collection, and basically connected me with their friend who runs the indie publishing house and is an author himself.

A big part of the reason this book is so difficult to talk about in context is because that requires getting pretty vulnerable - most of this book is just me dealing with everything I’ve struggled with over the last 4 years of my life. So if there’s discussion about the book in the replies, please keep it to the content of the book and not the validity of these experiences or details of things that happened to me.

The collection is about me and my journey from 13 to 17, starting with my suicide attempt at 13. There are several poems from around that time in my life, but they’ve changed a lot over the four years of editing. However, you can definitely still see changes in the way I write and the way I approach poetry by the end of the book - which was the goal. The book is centered around learning about identity, about how relationships should work, about friendships, about learning to handle mental and chronic illness, and above all, growing. There’s really no “breaking point” where everything about the way I write changes all at once, so in context, the change is almost difficult to see. So to sort of represent these changes, I’m putting a poem from the beginning, from the middle, and from the end all right next to each other (and some bonus analysis of my own poetry!).

Call me a monster is probably the most stark change from the past to the present. I almost never rhyme my poems anymore and if I do, they’re fleeting and mostly for rhythm. The lines are also extremely short, which I only do now when it really fits - in general, I make an effort to avoid consistently short lines. I like to tell myself that it’s symbolism I did on purpose to represent how all over the place my brain was, hopping from one thought to the next, but I don’t think it’s symbolism. I think my brain was really too jumbled to have more than five words in a line.

 I also took my own poems very seriously back then - writing a poem was an Occasion, so the first letter of each of those lines is capitalized like I’m some sort of English classics major. Both stanzas are also the same length (I still do that now sometimes, but back then it was in so many of my poems that I think I thought it was a requirement). Basically, I wrote this like I was going to turn it in somewhere.

Still pretty heavy on the capitalization here, but I definitely got more flexible with stanza length and slightly longer lines (7 whole words, yay!). This poem was somewhat of a turning point for me, basically realizing that I could not only vent through poetry, but still make it poetic and artistic in a lot of ways, and also explore contrast in my own emotions and conflicting feelings. For some reason, prior to this, I thought a poem could only be one emotion at a time, but now I think a poem can be one topic and the way multiple or conflicting emotions revolve around it. This is also one of the first poems I wrote that I was proud of from beginning to end.

This poem isn’t totally representative of the last couple changes I want to talk about (especially line length - for being relatively recent the lines are still pretty short), but I don’t want to use too many poems that haven’t been posted online before and this one has been posted and read aloud on an Instagram live, minus one stanza I added, which I’ll get to. I also wanted to choose this one because it has a direct reference to The Universe In You and several other poems, which gives me a chance to talk about how much I love referencing my other poetry in my poetry. Buckle up, this one might be long.

By this point, I had pretty much realized that there actually aren’t any rules at all. I’ve figured out what I want to say and I’ll say it however the hell I want to - I don’t need to capitalize things unless it suits the form, I don’t have to be totally consistent, I can repeat things as much as I want. I reached back into my 15 year old angst for this one, though, so I could more properly write about the relationship in a way that made sense. 

Now, I could honestly write a whole other book about how I reference other poems in each poem, but for now I’ll just break down the ones here.

Sort of a half reference right at the beginning: I have so much to say. I bring that up in different words in so many poems, both about my relationship and my dad. This is probably because, growing up as someone who had a speech impediment (meaning I talked too much no matter how little I said because of how long it took to say it), I always felt like I never had the space to say everything I wanted. It’s brought up in at least 3 other poems.

lost signals: a direct reference to my poem Thread Unavailable:

We’re riding down a dirt road in the middle of a conversation and lost signal. Message failed.

empty spaces: a reference to The Universe In You!! Pretty much the whole reason I included this poem.

burned poems: this one is basically just a reference to all the poems in the collection that are breakup poems, or poems where I directly addressed my ex saying don’t read this, you don’t have to read this, I shouldn’t have written this, etc. Specifically, A Long and Lonely Letter, Tired Eyed (The Homecoming Poem), and The Poem That Shouldn’t Exist.

another July come and gone and I didn’t write about you: this reference is hard to really understand the context of unless you know me in real life, but in two other poems I mention the month of July, in a couple others I reference summer, but there are dozens of poems that didn’t make it into my cut of the collection that talk about July. Basically, in context of the relationship, it was the only time we were actually happy and we split up and got back together over and over trying to replicate that fleeting, 30 day feeling that was overtaken by school, seasonal depression, and our own instability as people. For so long, all I could think about was that one month, and that line was my way of showing how I was done writing about it.

you told me, once, that we’re soulmates: this entire little stanza is directly copied from Tired Eyed (The Homecoming Poem). In order to continue talking about it I’ll throw a piece of that here:

If you want to come back, be sure of me. Be sure of yourself. I don’t want to be a consequence of your impulses.

You told me, once, that we’re soulmates. That once you find a person you want to spend forever with, it feels like nothing else matters. Do you believe that like I do?

That’s just a really short chunk of a really long poem, but basically the re-use of that section goes to say that me truly believing nothing else mattered was not good and extremely unhealthy. I put it there even though the poem was just fine without it because I really wanted to get that message across, especially since most of my target audience falls between middle and high school.

I know love in so many shades and I give it in every color: this references a couple different poems that aren’t in the collection, but in terms of the book, it’s a reference to Red, Like You, which is about color association and love and stuff? I I still don’t totally get it. I say in the poem that I don’t totally get it. No one totally gets it, but all in all I went from loving just one person in just one way to loving everyone in tons of different ways and realizing that those other types of love are just as, if not more, fulfilling to me, and that romance is not the be-all end-all of love and happiness.

All the other references are repetitions so I’ve pretty much already explained those. But anyway, that’s my book! It has 77 poems total, quite a few of them more than a page, and some that are probably several pages once in paperback format because, you know, I never shut up. Since I did my mini beta reading round (I got a lot of necessary feedback but that was so much to keep track of, I’ll probably just get a couple feedback partners next time), I’ve cut 34 poems and added 16 newer ones, edited the crap out of the whole book, and gotten the perspective of a professional editor.

 This book, even though there’s a lot of it I’ve grown out of, is super important to me and it’s so hard to let it go. Part of me wants to keep this book going forever and just keep growing until it has thousands of poems, but all of these “character arcs” in my life are finished. I left my toxic relationship and friendships, I figured out my gender and sexuality, I learned how to love openly, I cut off my dad for good. There’s obviously always more to learn about my relationships with these other people and myself, and I do that unconsciously every day. But in all honesty, I have nothing left to say about these people or events that would change the conclusions I’ve already come to - they would only further prove them to be true.

I absolutely always want to talk about this book, so if you have any questions, send an ask! Also feel free to scroll through the poetry tag on my blog and ask me about any poems I have posted there, there are a few that I’ve written since the completion of the collection that’ll (most likely) end up in whatever I write next. Basically, I’m obsessed with poetry and want to talk about it all the time. Please ask me about it.

[jus-tea]

Going to explain a little about the Miss Rhona lyrics, what inspired different aspects etc, as I’ve seen a lot of people speculating over it, and coming up with their own ideas (which I fully support!) but for those who are curious...

1st Stanza

“Daddy’s at the food store” So, when this was written, myself, my partner, and seemingly everyone was spending so much time going from supermarket to supermarket trying to find the basics, the essentials. Pasta, flour, sugar etc were sold out seemingly everywhere. The weekend just before this was written he’d lined up for half an hour before Costco opened to ensure he acquired some toilet paper- which seemed impossible to get ANYWHERE. I had colleagues who sent their adult children to shops everyday (they couldn’t cause they were at work) to try to find toilet paper somewhere. We ran out at work, and ended up with tissues. People, generally, were spending so much more time trying to find essentials at supermarkets. It’s not nearly as bad now, but just over a month ago when I wrote this it felt like a big issue. Also, “food store”?! NO ONE HAS CALLED ME OUT ON THIS which I find so weird because no one actually says, “food store”?! What a weird expression! So why did I use it? Well! Initially I thought “cost-co” but didn’t use it because I wanted the rhyme to appeal more universally. And we only got a Costco in my city a few years ago and I know plenty of places in the world don’t have one so... I thought maybe supermarket? But thought maybe they didn’t call them that in other countries- market? Market sounded so strange as it’s really only fresh fruit and veggies we get in our local markets here (in my part of the world) and didnt fit with the image I was trying to create and besides all our markets were cancelled as they were too crowded.. so “food store” was initially just a place-hold. I still can’t believe literally no one has said “hey wtf is up with “food store? No one says that” but there you go. It’s in literally every version ive seen as that so... that’s what it is now. So, that line about the food store and collated with the next line, “mummy’s our of town- she’s working at the hospital” was based on news articles I’d read about doctors having to isolate themselves from their families by sleeping either at hospital or in their garage. People who couldn’t see their kids for ages, it was really sad! And then combining these lines, it’s about how these little kids for the first time really are sometimes being left home alone because their parents have stuff they *have* to do; get food or work, and lots of kids these days don’t get left home alone anymore, it was common when I was little but not for a long time! But seemingly suddenly with this pandemic it’s happening again. And I hadn’t seen that talked about but I was seeing glimpses of it and it, felt weird? I guess? So that made for the perfect beginning to a covid19 nursery rhyme- a kid getting left home alone a lot and not being really sure how to respond to that.

So, with the hide away lines, there’s 3 stanzas and in each miss Rhona gets closer. The first one is she’s “come to town”. Now I remember that feeling on that day learning that the first coronavirus case had occurred in my city. Up until then there was a bit of a sense of dread, like you knew it was everywhere else, then in the news it got closer and closer, with cases in small country towns nearby. But when it got to my city it was suddenly so real. And that’s where the story starts because Miss Rhona was HERE. She arrived in the kid’s town. The line, “she’s come to take us down” is another way of saying “she’s going to get you” and also links to the final line which reveals her success “she took us down/she’s brought us down”.

2nd stanza

So, she goes from being in town to being “at the doorstep” which represents getting closer- being in those people the child might interact with everyday- and imagined more literally in the postal worker delivering a package (actually ON the doorstep) or food delivery or anyone who they’d still have close contact with. But “I’ll keep 6 feet away” is a self reassurance that if they just do the right thing and keep their distance everything will be ok. But then the conflict! Grandma needs toilet paper, EVERYONE needs toilet paper and no one can get it anywhere! No doubt the dad is our trying to find some more while he’s at the “food store”. And I was thinking... my children’s grandmother lives in a different state to us but if we were in the same one you can bet your life id be out dropping essentials at her doorstep whenever I could- tp included. (Although, tbh the tp issue didn’t seem as bad in her state from what she told me) so in this bit I guess I imagined myself as the child because that would be something important to me, to make sure my elders had their essentials. Idk I tried to help where I could, got baby wipes when I found it for a friend with a newborn, stuff like that. So the conflict is the child’s sense of responsibility ensuring their grandmother has what she needs, while also knowing that the coronavirus, Miss Rhona, could reside in anyone they meet along the way. Kind of like a little red riding hood situation linking the dangers of strangers. So they open the door due to this sense of responsibility and, oh no, Miss Rhona was at the doorstep, remember? Now the child has it too; “Miss Rhona’s come to stay” IN THE CHILD. This line was to use the imagery of Miss Rhona coming to stay with the child at their house, like an aunt might come to visit for the weekend, but symbolises the virus coming to live within the child, they’ve caught it now, which is why they definitely, “can’t come out to play”.

Stanza 3

“But grandma needs the paper” that’s where the conflict arises again- the child’s sense of responsibility, maybe guilt even? Overshadowing their understanding of just how serious the virus would be should their grandmother catch it. They’re just a kid remember? They don’t understand. So they take her some anyway, everyone needs toilet paper! Also, I know that phrasing it as such misleads the listener to think about a newspaper. Thats how we talk, “I’ll get the paper!” My dad says ... often. But, 2 things, it rolls off the tongue easier than “grandma needs toilet paper” which would’ve messed up the rhythm anyway, and also, for anyone who’s lived it you would automatically know about the “great toilet paper shortage of 2020” 😅 there were so many memes about it and it was funny that everyone was obsessed with it but if you were one of those people who genuinely really couldn’t find any- and there were lots!- then it kind of sucked. And that’s a memory that’ll stick with you 🙈

So. The note. “And here’s a note from Rhona she wanted me to say” imagine the child at the grandmas doorstep, she’s bringing her tp (that’s nice) but the child is infected, and hands grandma a note. I imagined like a little filed up piece of paper in their back pocket they take out and hand over, to pass on the message from their aunt living in their house. As kids would do- what teacher hasn’t given their student a note and said “go tell mr x such and such” and the note is a reminder of what to say. But the note they hand over is also a metaphor. It symbolises contact between the grandmother and grandchild, and as grandma took it, she caught the virus too. And the note reads,

“Hide away, hide away, keep 6 feet away”

Which is that line repeated all the way through the rhyme. In the end, it’s what Miss Rhona was saying all along. Hide away children...

And the final line is a throwback to near the beginning, “she took us down” because earlier remember she came to “take us down” but now it’s happened and we’re in past tense. She did it. She took down the grandma, and possibly the child too, although I left that as ambiguous. To be taken down here is the symbol for death, of course. It’s pretty grim. But that was the point i suppose.

And that’s where it ends. Anything after that, while I’ve seen some adaptations made which sound really cool, doesn’t really make sense with the story, because they died in that moment. And continuing on after that seems a bit overkill, because I gues, perhaps symbolically at least, who would be able to continue singing the rhyme once they had already died?

But having said that, it’s still nice to see people get exited about it and want to contribute more lyrics too. Making up stories, songs, games, art in general, it’s a way we’ve found to cope i think? Like dark and morbid stories are a part of our culture because we respond to them. Lessons, feelings, etc. people far more articulate than I have explained before...

So. That’s Miss Rhona. This explanation was written really roughly and I apologise for that, but you get the gist. I strongly recommend for anyone who hasn’t already to check out the #miss Rhona recordings hashtag on my blog, because some of these melodies people have put to it are really beyond words. Dreamy, haunting. Peaceful. Childlike. Much more than the original chant-like skipping rhyme I originally envisaged.

Thanks for reading this far... please be safe and look after your grandmothers ❤️

[goldkirk]

Some thoughts about Tim and Damian and neglect and failure to thrive

Can I make you. really sad for a hot sec about Tim and Damian with neuroscience and something that Jason hinted at in Blackbird and Latchkey but I didn’t go into

so when kids are deprived of touch and loving interaction?? it’s really fucking bad????? like not just in a bad-for-psychology way

everyone can get touch starved and it SUCKS but when young kids are deprived of ENOUGH loving touch—even if they’re getting SOME physical contact—it not only stunts their healthy psychological development but their physical and neural development as well

and you end up with mild to severe cases of failure to thrive essentially, where a kid is undersized no matter how much you feed them through a feeding tube if it gets desperate, and they struggle to hit milestones, and things like the neural centers for a sense of rhythm get halted and stuck at whatever point they ceased to get enough stimulation and development (because sense of rhythm and coordination come as LEARNED skills from hearing spoken language and things like music and experiencing movement, which is why speaking to and singing nursery rhymes to and dancing with little kids is so important)

so like when you see a one year old who can’t even talk yet holding onto a coffee table while they can’t even stand quite by themselves yet, and they’re wiggling their tiny little diaper butt around to some song that they like the sound of, that’s actually critical neuromuscular development not just a cute thing to make us laugh

and when kids don’t get that it affects them for YEARS until someone works with them in like, neurology physical therapy, to develop it from whatever point their missing. And regardless

In severe cases kids will end up underweight no matter what, even with 24/7 hospital care, if they’re not getting the emotional and physical interaction and love they need. so like

Damian obviously got a ton of physical development bc he’s a lean little fighting ninja machine and they started him early probably with things like kid yoga and dance training and all that

but he’s SMALL AS HELL

I would bet that despite being Bruce’sbiological offspring he’s been on the low end of the charts his whole life

like who else?? TIM

Tim, little neglected Tim, left with nannies Tim, who had his parents home when he was little bitty but they left as soon as he required more interaction. Tim who had nannies rotated out often. Tim, who learned real fast that he didn’t get punished if he was good and quiet and didn’t take up space or attention, didn’t ask for things, didn’t need people’s time more than the bare minimum

Tim wasn’t underweight just because of his eating habits—they might have been weird (cough like mine cough) for a few different reasons but he was getting enough nutrients that he shouldn’t have been THAT underweight if at ALL—at most, maybe a couple mild deficiencies. But he WAS. and You Bet Bruce and Alfred noticed immediately, since they’ve raised two teenagers already from very different circumstances and it’s a matter of life or death whether they’re healthy and strong or not—Jason would have had to pass nutrition AND physical tests at least 3 months in a row before Bruce let him out with him in costume I’m sure

Clearly Tim and Damian never got so severe (or noticed) that they ended up with concerned doctors who were stumped, like, admitting them to a hospital or anything—Damian was raised strictly in-house, and Tim’s parents probably only took him to get shots and that was it at best

And a LOT comes down to genetics and epigenetics, of course—Tim doesn’t have the same genes and structure as Bruce or Jason, and Jason and Dick are Very Different, etc.

And also yes they’re young. They haven’t hit puberty yet, or they’re only starting to, blah blah blah. But they were underweight and below the curve for height too and I’m basing that off a lot of people in the COMICS talking about how ridiculously small Tim is, and how small Damian is written most of the time (although yes, he is younger than Tim was. Let me take my liberties with headcanons)

But at the end of the day, Tim and Damian both come to the manor still essentially living with un-caught failure to thrive, and once they start getting (on purpose, whether they’re comfortable with it or not) enough caring touch, compassion, loving interaction, and continue to be fed the same healthy amounts of food both of them ALREADY previously had access to, suddenly both of them started packing on weight and muscle and height at REALLY fast speeds, because their bodies made up for lost time (remember how Tim mentioned to his mom how many sizes he’d grown in a short time??)

and that’s that on that and I hope you enjoyed my mini ted talk on why the family’s care and attention plus Alfred’s continually dependable cooking was critical in repairing some of the damage done by Tim and Damian’s childhoods and why Bruce hides the book talking about all these concepts from the manor library once Tim moves in because there’s no way he’ll be ready to learn that stuff until way down the road, and he doesn’t want to freak Tim out when he knows Tim is going to be following Jason’s lead and reading most of the library within the first year of moving in

(the moral of this story is I possibly need to read a lot fewer books on viruses, child development, trauma’s neurological effects, and biological development, but at the same time, REALISTIC CHARACTER EXPERIENCES?)