shostakobitchh

[shostakobitchh]

instagram

[shostakobitchh]

soooo looking forward to the next the splintering update!! is it going to have a happy ending?!!

[shostakobitchh]

happy birthday severus snape!  

[shostakobitchh]

deliverance.

[shostakobitchh]

I just wanted to let you know that I LOVE your work, I love how you write and unravel emotions in a very natural way and I love how you just let the characters be themselves in the situations you create for them. As an avid fanfic reader, I end up losing interest when characters start acting "out-of-chatacter" as a plot device. I think you have a super rare talent to keep everyone who they are as canonically as possible and yet have them experience out-of-canon situations. Your mind is brilliant and I'm in owe of your creativity!

Ariel and Snape relationship broke and then healed something in me I wasn't even sure I needed fixed in each one of your works.

I admit I've never commented under any creation or wrote to any author not because I don't think it's important to acknowledge them, but because I'm so so embarrassed about bothering people just going on their normal life giving unsolicited opinions about the gift they're giving us freely on their spare time, but here I am (still in anonymous, I am not THAT brave yet). Yet, I think you really really deserve all the public support and love, and it broke my little reader heart seeing older posts about feeling unappreciated. Fanfic writers, and YOU ESPECIALLY, are a treasure. Keep shining bright please!

A not-so-brave-secret-fan

YOU are the treasure ❤️❤️❤️ thank you for sending this, it made my day when I read it back a few times this week. literally so sweet of you to say and send in, I so appreciate this 🥹

I think the thing is that as fic writers, we want to talk about our work and know our work is being talked about. I go through dry spells where I lack creativity because I don’t really have anyone to talk to about the fic and it occupies a lot of my free time, so it becomes a bummer. messages like this feed the brain rot that is aim & ignite, so thank you ❤️

[shostakobitchh]

bad mood

[shostakobitchh]

Chapter 68: reposed

Remus thought he’d been prepared. 

He was not — not nearly enough — when the sound of a dog nearly caused his already weak knees to give out. 

Padfoot — 

It took him a moment to realize he’d said it aloud, the rasping wheeze that escaped him not at all what he’d meant to say or do — to show. He had gone over this scenario countless times in his head, most of them when he’d imagined himself pushed to the brink, but now — 

Remus' heart hammered in his chest as the massive black dog emerged from the shadows. The cat hissed and darted away, disappearing into the darkness. 

The dog disappeared then, too, replaced by a man. 

The man stood in front of one of the shadowed windows, rags for robes, his face every inch of the ghost he had become.

The house groaned and shuddered, and Remus wondered what was louder, the thudding of his heart, or the Shack, or perhaps some other, greater thing that roared away in Remus’ ears. 

The vocalization — the Padfoot — hung in the air between them, a fragile cadence ready to shatter as this husk of a man’s — this Sirius’ — haunted eyes lifted to meet Remus' shocked expression. In their depths, Remus saw a flicker of the person he once knew, of the mischievous sparkle that ignited, knowing Remus had come, but it was buried beneath layers and years of distance, a great, yawning void that had never been there before. 

“You look like shit.” said the man who looked like Sirius but didn’t, the years between when they’d last seen each other cracking each syllable.

“Look who’s talking.” Remus croaked back, his wand held so tightly in his hand that he could feel his tendons screaming out in protest.

Sirius eyes fell to his hands, wide and hollowed out, like burning pits. He was unarmed — which both surprised and confused Remus all the more. He couldn’t harm anyone without a wand, and physical brutality had really never been Sirius’ thing.

It told Remus he hadn’t expected a fight — hadn’t wanted one. 

Or that he hadn’t thought there had been a point. He’d been so easy to find tonight, on Christmas, of all days. Although it wasn’t Christmas anymore: a faint light was spreading across the floor, through the murky dark and onto Sirius’ thin frame. 

Remus felt his breathing quicken, the space between his heart and ribs rapidly filling up with something painful, something like whatever had happened to Ariel’s chest, to that poor, sweet girl’s heart, because if Sirius was telling the truth, then the world would crumble a second time, and if he wasn’t — 

“Back away,” Remus said slowly, keeping himself tight against the boarded-up wall behind him. “And start talking.” 

Sirius just blinked, holding up his hands. “I’m not armed, Moony. Don’t you dare fucking Hex me.”

“You’re not really in a position to be making any demands.” 

“And neither are you.” Sirius was frowning, now, as though it mattered, as though he — “Like I said, you look like a herd of hippogriffs ran you over.”

Kill him, Conscience hissed, every minute you stand still and let him speak, you’re putting Ariel in danger. 

Seconds trickling by, seconds that James and Lily and Peter weren’t a part of, seconds that counted to Ariel — an innocent child. A traitor to her, to all of them and beyond, making Remus invert on himself — 

Remus's hand shook as he kept his wand trained on Sirius. The urge to strike, to unleash twelve years of grief and rage, was nearly overwhelming. But something held him back - a flicker of doubt, or perhaps just the bone-deep exhaustion that suddenly crashed over him like a wave.

"I trusted you," Remus said, his voice low and ragged. "We all did. And you — you destroyed everything."

Sirius — the man — whatever he was, only stared. “Didn’t you see my note?” 

Remus let out a harsh bark of laughter, the sound grating and foreign to his own ears. “You call a bunch of sticks strewn about in the middle of the bloody forest a note?” 

Sirius' face crumpled, his eyes growing impossibly wider in the gloom. "You don't understand, Moony. I had to — I had no choice. I couldn't risk anyone else finding out before I —” 

"Finding out what?" Remus snarled, his patience fraying. "That you betrayed James and Lily? That you killed Peter and all those Muggles? What could possibly justify any of that?"

“That little fuck isn’t dead,” Sirius snapped, a desperate, almost manic glint in his eyes, now. “He — look, he’s right there!” 

He whirled around and started shuffling through a pile of rags and debris in the corner, muttering under his breath. It was then that Remus began to wonder what sort of mental state Sirius was really in — what thirteen years of Azkaban would’ve done to his mind, but after a moment of frantic searching, Sirius straightened up, a crumpled piece of newsprint clutched in his hand. He turned back to Remus, his movements jerky and agitated, and thrust the paper towards him.

"Look," Sirius insisted. "Look closely."

Remus hesitated, his eyes flicking between Sirius' grimy, trembling fingers smoothed out the crumpled newspaper clipping. It was a photo, Remus realized as he peered at it warily, still keeping his wand trained on Sirius. The moving figures smiled and waved, clustered together in front of what looked like an ancient Egyptian pyramid. A large family of redheads — the Weasleys, Remus recognized with a jolt. Molly and Arthur stood in the center, their children fanned out around them.

“Where did you —” Remus started, but was quickly cut off when Sirius jabbed the newspaper at him again. 

“Look at the boy — the one Ariel is friends with.” Sirius urged. “The one on the left, look at his shoulder. It's him — it’s fucking Peter."

Remus squinted — there was a rather plump but ordinary looking rat on Ron’s shoulder. Its fur was a dull gray, patchy in spots, and one of its front paws looked oddly bare, almost like it was missing a toe, oddly stunted. 

“Peter wasn’t missing a toe,” Remus said slowly. 

Sirius let out a frustrated growl, his fingers tightening on the newsprint, causing it to crumple further. “Because he cut it off, Moony. He made everyone believe I blasted him to kingdom come so he could get away, the little fucking shit. It’s a little too on the nose for a sniveling, traitorous piece of filth — hiding as a rat all these years.” 

The room had started to wobble a bit around the edges for Remus, so he put his other hand to the wall. “Peter is dead. Like James and Lily.” 

Sirius let out a strangled noise of frustration, his eyes wild and desperate as they bored into Remus. He began to pace, his movements erratic and agitated, like a caged animal. The newspaper clipping fluttered forgotten to the floor.

"No, no, no," Sirius muttered, raking his hands through his matted hair. "You're not listening, Moony. Just like before, when I tried to tell you, but you wouldn't — couldn't — see what was right in front of your face."

He whirled on Remus, closing the distance between them in two long strides. Remus instinctively took a step back, his shoulder blades pressing painfully into the rough wooden boards behind him. Sirius loomed over him, that untethered gleam in his sunken eyes.

"We switched, don't you get it?" Sirius said, his voice low and urgent. "At the last minute, I convinced James to make Peter the Secret Keeper instead of me. I thought it was the perfect bluff, that no one would ever suspect that sniveling little shit — no, not poor Peter , but it was all a trap — Peter was the spy, he had been passing information to Voldemort for months and I played right into his dirty little hands —” 

Sirius' words hung in the air between them, heavy and pulsing with a desperate, feverish energy. Remus just stared at him, and it felt like his heart was breaking, watching the desperation creep into them, watching the moment when he realized Remus did not believe him.

“Moony,” Sirius said. “Moony, Jesus Christ —”

"If what you're saying is true," Remus said, each word feeling like it was being dragged out of him. "Then why didn't you and James tell me? Why keep me in the dark about switching Secret Keepers?"

If we go, you can’t tell anyone — 

Sirius's eyes flickered, like a searchlight calling out to sea. 

"Because —" He swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing in his throat. "Because they thought it might be you. That you were the spy."

Remus felt something inside him fracture, like a fissure splitting through ice. The pain was so acute, so visceral, that for a moment he couldn't breathe. Betrayal and hurt and rage churned in his gut, rising up his throat like bile. He’d known it — he’d known it for a long time, now, but to hear it come from him was — it was — 

“Not they,” Remus said, his voice surprisingly quiet. “You. You would’ve told them about — us. That I’d tell Voldemort it was you, to get to James and the baby.” 

You BOTH knew and you kept it from me! 

Sirius's gaze dropped to the floor, his shoulders hunching inward as if he were trying to make himself smaller. The betrayal cut deep once more, only this time it felt like a serrated blade twisting in Remus's gut. 

"You thought I was the spy," Remus said again, his voice barely above a whisper, now. It wasn't a question. The truth of it was etched into every line of Sirius' haggard face, in the guilt and shame that radiated off him in waves.

Sirius opened his mouth as if to speak, but no words came out. He just stood there, his shoulders slumped in defeat, looking for all the world like a man who had already been broken a thousand times over.

[shostakobitchh]

snapetober 2020 | day 2   ✦ poisoned ✦ 

[shostakobitchh]

Megan Nolan, from her novel titled "Acts of Desperation," originally published in March 2021

[shostakobitchh]

Stephanie Foo, What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma

[shostakobitchh]

Another song for the aim & ignite playlist (do you have one?): Eye to Eye by Tevin Campbell. It was used in the Goofy Movie, and portrays his complicated relationship with his son Max. And these excerpts:

“Maybe we'll discover,  What we should have known all along,   One way or another,  Together's where we both belong.

 If we listen to each other's heart,  We'll find we're never too far apart,  And maybe love is the reason why,  For the first time ever we're seeing it eye to eye.

 If a wall should come between us,  Too high to climb, too hard to break through,  I know that love will lead us,  And find a way to bring me to you.”

These got me.

I do indeed! You can find it here!

This one got me crying in the club. Cut to Snape turning green while Ariel is bawling into her sleeve.

[shostakobitchh]

Ariel: Can I climb that tree?

Snape: No.

Ariel: But Hermione and Ron climbed it!

Snape: They're an owl and a weasel!

Ariel: But—

Snape: NO!

Bahahaha

Crow Snape: *tries to fly away with fawn*

Hermione & Ron: Uh

[shostakobitchh]

in splintering, will we get the chance to see snape utterly destroyed in the wake of lily’s death?

i absolutely love the dynamic between snape & ariel, and how tense the atmosphere is with lily’s death still fresh in their minds, and i’m pretty curious of the direct-aftermath.

you'll actually see it next chapter. the direct aftermath is why they're in the situation they're in in the first place!

glad you're enjoying it, writing it (when I have time) has been a blast.

[shostakobitchh]

lily and severus.

[shostakobitchh]

finished today! will have it up this weekend (need more time to edit and mull over the angst fest that’s going down)

❤️❤️❤️

send me thoughts and prayers i’m gonna try and finish chapter 68 today

[shostakobitchh]

someone I follow on the bird app just announced they’re starting a very exclusive private fic server because they and a bunch of other people want to talk about how much they love the fics they’re reading, and as an author can I just say that a really great place to talk about a fic you love is in the comments for that fic

I understand that people are trying to create safe spaces, but as the number of comments that I get on my fics dwindles with each passing year, knowing these spaces exist where my fics are being discussed, places that I am excluded from, makes me want to write fic LESS

I mean I guess who cares, right, because if I stop writing, there’s 10,000 other people that will continue…but if you participate in a fic “book club” server and you say nice things there about a fic you loved, maybe copy and paste that into a comment on AO3?

the only thing fanfic writers are asking for in return for hours of hard work is attention. please don’t rob us of the one thing that we hope for when we hit “post”

[shostakobitchh]

send me thoughts and prayers i’m gonna try and finish chapter 68 today