#(ooc really it's fine!)

[batcavescolony]

Tim: I love Christmas

Jason: did your parents celebrate with you or something?

Tim: no, but while at boarding school my roommate wanted to watch Home Alone and I just loved the idea.

Steph: oh this will be fun

Tim: so I forged my parents signature and signed myself out. Took a cab home and set trapps all throughout my house. Now that was fun but I wanted to whole experience so I hired two goons to break into my house.

Jason: what the fuck?

Tim: they didn't get permanently hurt, I wasn't cruel. I did give them payment and obviously I didn't want my parents knowing so I just let them go after. It's was fun

Steph: sounds like you.

Tim: hey, we should do that! We have better training and traps! It could be Family bonding!

Steph: YES!

Jason: ...that does sound fun. I'm game.

[gladoswantscake]

Need You, Crave You, Love You - Dracula x Reader (DBD)

Summary: In need of help comes with a price

Warnings: Captivity/kidnapping, horror, blood, mild swearing

A/N: This take place right before you are taken by the Entity

Available on AO3

"I am no good nor evil, simply I am, and I have come to take what is mine." (Ptolemaea, Ethel Cain)

It happened so fast. One second, you struggled to see through the storm and found yourself in submerging water. You managed to escape your car after hitting the front glass multiple times before the cold water sunk you further underwater.

You swam until you felt dirt beneath your cold hands and slowly regained your balance. You took a moment to look around you. A large dark cloud illuminated by lightning with large spikelike legs emerged from the cloud close to you. Maybe you were seeing things? You turn away from the water and look for any light source within your view.

As the rain slightly lightens up, the harsh wind picks up. Strange deep whispers call out from behind you. You then turn to see fog emerge from the water and towards you. Your eyes widen, and you make haste through the wooded area.

Everything began to look the same the further you ran deep into the forest. You started to lose hope until a small light shined through the trees. A house not far from where you stood. Just a bit up the mountains.

As you ran closer to the house, your legs burned, and you lost all feeling throughout your body from the prolonged exposure to the frigid weather. Luckily, by the time you arrived, no fog nor sound was made; pure silence.

You gave the large wooden door a few sharp knocks. "Hello?!" You knock again. This time, the door slowly opens. You hesitantly poked your head inside, seeing the large and empty place only accompanied by several lit candles to light the inside. The storm isn't letting up anytime soon, and the longer you stay outside, the more you risk dying from frostbite weather.

The large door shuts behind you. It's much quieter now since you were out of the storm.

"Hello?" Your voice rang out.

The room you stood in consisted of old architect of carved dark wood and large antique paintings. It was a rather beautiful room, and whoever lived here took great care and pride in their home.

Only taking a few steps deeper into the room, a voice startles you.

"Good evening. I bid you welcome." The deep voice says.

You whip your head towards the voice. A tall man stood just a few feet away from you. "I'm sorry for walking in here. Your door was unlocked." You apologize. "I got into a bad accident from the storm. And my car is gone. It was the closest place I could find help."

His eyes never leave you as the tall man walks towards you. "An accident?" He questions.

"Y-Yes, sir." You stutter from the cold.

The man's skin was pale, just not as pale as yours. His long white hair slightly swayed with each step he took. His white facial hair was sharp-looking and neatly groomed. There was not a single flaw on his face, and his attire was odd. It wasn't something you'd see today. It looked as if his evening attire was from centuries ago but better tailored. The colors he wore were deep red, crimson, and black, which perfectly suited his figure.

"My condolences." He places his hand on his chest.

"I'd hate to disturb your evening, but do you have a phone I could borrow to call a friend? I can be on my way."

He smiles and lets out a short chuckle. "My dear, I'm afraid a phone does not exist within the walls of my home." His eyes travel down to your drenched clothing in a stalking manner.

"Rest assured, you have not disturbed my evening." He begins slowly walking around your shivering self. "Although you are an interesting guest." His voice lowers as he makes his way behind you. A hint of an accent can be heard in his voice.

"I'm sure I have been an interesting individual: Showing up drenched and injured." You made a weak laugh to bury the anxiety.

He finally circles back, facing you. "Injured?" He raises a brow.

"I honestly don't know where exactly. It might've been my shoulder when I crawled out of my car window. I'm too numb to know, but I can manage it if it's just a scratch. Do you have any bandages I can patch myself up?"

The man's lips slightly grow upwards upon hearing your injury. "Of course. Please follow." He turns his heel, and you follow him into another room. The halls were dark and slightly warm. It was much better than the outside.

"Your home is beautiful." You say. I see you put in a lot of work."

He turns his head and smiles. "I take great contentment into making my sanctuary a place of comfort."

He leads you into a brighter, lit room. The fireplace gives the room a better view of your surroundings. He guides you to a large couch to sit on.

"I am surprised you have not dwelled into fear. Mortals who've stumbled upon me would have cowered."

You watch him light a few large candles. "I don't think you're intimidating." You glance around the neatly organized room: A couple of large bookshelves and a few pieces of sitting furniture.

"Intimidating? He finishes. He strides towards you. "I am pleased to hear that." He sits down next to you, just close enough for his clothed knee to brush against yours. The rich and smokey fragrances coming from his attire made your heart flutter. "Tell me, is it my presence that's intriguing you? Making your heart thump so loud?"

You stared, not knowing what to say. It felt like your words became twisted whenever you tried to speak. The longer the man's eyes never left you, the worse your heart beats. You could feel your cheeks flare up the closer he closed the space between the two of you on the couch. His aroma was entrancing you.

He takes his hand into yours. "Tell me," His thumb traces over your veiny hand. "Is my presence causing you to feel so strained? Or perhaps you've never met a man like me?"

He could read your mind, expressions, and thoughts so well. You couldn't think of anything to reply to him.

The warm heat from the fireplace thawed your freezing body, and you now feel warm liquid travel down your forearm. You slowly look down, seeing a dark crimson liquid paint your pale arm. It looks like you did cut yourself really well.

He looks down at your arm. A good amount of blood was running down from your shoulder, where you complained earlier. A smile creeps upon his face. "My you are hurt..."

His pale, slender fingers gently wrap around your forearm, causing you to tense up due to his cold hand. His other hand collects a sample of your blood with his fingers, bringing it to his lips to taste the warm metallic flavor.

He takes a minute to savor the fresh, lukewarm blood that was exposed to his tongue. He then hums to himself, "Your blood is so pleasing to taste." He slightly leans in towards you. His cold hand remains on your forearm. You could finally see something even more off: His eyes, a bright amber color. His other hand finds its way to your face, and his fingers cup your chin.

"Such lusciousness and magnificence you have presented to me. You remind me of my previous lover." His fangs finally appear with a large grin. "I need you."

"You get the fuck away from me." You finally speak.

Without giving him a second to respond, you shove him with all you might with your free hand. The feeling of his sharp fingernails digging into your forearm caused you to yelp. Ignoring the pain, you quickly bolt out of the room.

You ran to the front door to open it, but it wouldn't budge. You cursed to yourself. You didn't have a second to think as you heard him call out for you. With no other choice, you ran as far as you could within the dark manor.

He's never had a human captivate him so much. With the isolation swallowing him whole for many years, his craving for another being became intense. Perhaps it was why the isolation made him behave the way he did. He wasn't going to kill you. No. He was determined to make you his and part of him. It'll take time for you to surrender, but he has plenty of patience.

You hid in a spare bedroom. The room was cold and dark. Thankfully, a full moon shone through the window, allowing you to see the room. You locked the bedroom door and walked up to the window. You could see the strange cloud from earlier, only closer to you now. You quietly attempt to open the stubborn old window.

You tried to lift the window a few times, but it wouldn't budge.

"No, no, no." You whine. "Open, damn it!" Anger formed into tears as you soon discovered there was no way out.

Then his voice came from the other side of the locked bedroom. The stinging pain from your forearm caused you to look down. You didn't realize how much you bled. That was why he was able to find you so quickly.

"Go away!" You cried out. You pulled your bleeding arm to your clothed chest to try to prevent yourself from accidentally making a bigger mess.

He could hear you break down into pathetic sobs from the other side. "Please don't fret, love. My intentions aren't to hurt you." He reassures.

"I just want to go home."

"I'm afraid your loud pleading cries fall on deaf ears." His hand wraps around the doorknob to twist, only to find out you locked the door. He chuckles to himself. "This will only make things difficult if you keep this door locked. All that I ask is to see you."

Momentarily, no noise came from the other side. Then, soft footsteps grew louder towards him. The lock on the door slowly clicked, followed by the door opening. You stood before him, sniveling, knowing your fate. Your puffy eyes look up at him. You frown through tears.

His brows lowered as he raised his thumb to brush a tear down your cheek. A small smile forms on his lips, big enough to display his fangs, knowing he has you in his grasp. Your soft, fragile skin and eyes remind him so much of 'her.' He's waited so long to have someone that showed any resemblance to her. Maybe God grew bored of punishing him for centuries.

He takes pity for scaring you. "I apologize for my behavior. It's just been so long since I've seen something so exquisite before me." His thumb traces your warm cheek. "You have no idea how long I've waited for you." His accent thickens.

"Please…" Your voice let out a pathetic plea to him.

"What is it that you yearn for, my dearly beloved?"

You wince as you feel his warm breath hit your ear. You could feel his lips travel to your neck, leaving feathered kisses.

His fangs teasingly gently graze your puncturable neck. He could feel your veins pulsating beneath his sharp teeth. He was greatly aroused by it. He knew better than to turn you. It would be selfish of him. But he couldn't risk the chance of losing you. He'll convince you to join him. He'll make sure of it.

"H-Home." You whisper.

"You do not feel at home? With me?"

You wanted to say no but couldn't. You feared that anything you say that didn't align with what he wanted to hear would upset him even more. "What...are you?"

He pulls away from your neck. "A vampire."

"You...you're real..."

"I'm sure you know my name from the stories you've heard about me."

His hand lowers to lift up your uninjured hand. His cold lips kiss your knuckles. He takes his time feeling his lips against your skin and taking in your faded aroma. It's been a long time since he felt the touch of another person who he craved for. He couldn't let you go.

He lowers your hand and cups your jaw. "Let me take care of you." His free hand slithers around your waist.

It felt like you were in a trance. You couldn't move or speak. Only watch him tenderly touch you as if you were an injured animal.

"Stay with me, and I will give you anything you desire." Your body is pulled closer to his. "Let me make it right."

[greensaplinggrace]

the thing about characters like arthur morgan and harry du bois is that people will bend over backwards to argue that their worst choices are out of character. that being low honor or doing terrible things is simply for gameplay reasons and nothing more, but that couldn't be further from the case. truth is, they have the capacity to do all of those things because they're capable of doing them, and it's just as in character for them to indulge their worst traits as it is for them to be better.

[a-scary-lack-of-common-sense]

i am having. Many Thoughts. about my HWINEBHABWNAJCAHOWEEATOWEUB AU Ford, so here are some unfiltered rambles about him <3

The entire premise of this AU is that it goes exactly the same as canon right up until Bill betrays Ford steals Fiddleford's eyes, and then Ford kills Bill in retaliation. Everything just sorta snowballs into a huge mess from there, with this sad fuck of a man SMACK BAM in the middle of it all.

I like to explore my Ford in the way he reacts to things. It's interesting to see how far I can really take it until it becomes borderline OOC, especially when he kills Bill. He didn't actually fully mean to kill him, but at the same time that was exactly his intention, if that makes any sense?

Although Bill stealing Fiddleford's sight privileges instead of Ford's was one of the main reasons that triggered Stanford's decision to murder him, I'd like to compare his act more as a frantic, desperate grasp to survive, rather than a calculated, cold revenge being enacted. I think that he was just trying to live, in that primal, undeniable fear of death that can consume anyone, even Gods. Especially Gods.

I think that, as much as Bill's murder was a moment of power reversal, in which the victim got a taste of the power their abuser had over them, it was also a moment when Gods and mortals alike became so very aware of their own helplessness in the face of sheer and blind will to just survive. I don't think that Ford felt like a God when he killed Bill. I think that Bill wasn't facing wrathful being in that moment, he was facing a mere man who was so afraid to die he was willing to do anything. But you can't blame him for that, right? You can't blame him for wanting to live? For fearing death? He's only human.

"They say that when saving a drowning person, you have to be careful to not be pulled under the water by their flailing hands, because in their haste to survive, they might not even notice they are inadvertedly killing you."

[visceravalentines]

fever dream

Bo Sinclair x AFAB!Reader

7.6k words. dubcon ofc. reader is absolutely mentally bankrupt. stockholm is where we live, it's where we are, it's where we'll die. sporadic smut, pnv, fingering, and oral (fem!rec). blood and sweat everywhere. Bo calls reader a bitch a couple times but like, it's out of love or some shit. somno. alcohol use. nightmares. ghosts. swamp things. the ever-looming threat of death and depersonalization.

welcome back to my youtube channel. I have been. working on this fic. since May of last year. and it's finally done(?) it is long and weird and maybe bad and meant for you to get lost in. a journey with no destination. a haunted house only you are the haunted and the haunt and the house. tbqh I'm rewatching HoW today for the first time in months and months and I had to get this out of my drafts so I can check back into the sanitarium with minimal baggage, y'know?? I hope it makes you feel some type of way.

The summer heat is in your blood and the swamp is in your lungs and he is under your skin. 

You’ve never known an August like this, like a blister. You go to bed sticky and wake up drenched in sweat. The ceiling fan is a hurricane agent that offers no respite, just blows the humidity in vicious cycles. There’s no air conditioning in the house; it’s too old. Instead you wrap ice cubes in dish towels and press them to the back of your neck. 

A storm’s been hanging on the horizon for days. Thunder rolls out of a wall of iron gray, an idle threat. The air is soupy and super-charged. No rain comes. 

The nights are delirium. You go to bed on opposite sides of the mattress, oil and water. He sleeps naked, sprawled out like a water skeeter. The quilt sits scrunched at the foot of the bed for the season and he kicks the sheets off around midnight like something forcing its way out of a soft-shelled egg. 

You lie awake, listening to the cicadas and waiting. Just when you’ve started to cool down and drift off he reaches over and fumbles at your leg, grabs your arm. He pulls you on top of him, hands on your body beneath his old t-shirt. You ride him with your eyes closed and your breath hot on your lips. It’s a fever, the sweating, the shaking. 

You wake every morning suffocating under his arm in the center of the mattress with honey between your thighs. 

.

He drinks his coffee hot even though the steam can barely rise above the rim of the mug in the humidity. You pour yours over ice and savor the feeling as it seeps down your throat and into your stomach. You curl your toes on the linoleum and almost smile at him across the table. He’s golden from all his time in the sun. You can trace the lines of his wifebeater over his shoulders, across his chest. You stare at him across the table and think about the taste of his skin. You want to run your tongue along that tan line. 

He catches you staring. “What?” he says flatly. 

You redirect your gaze to your hands. Shake your head. Wait for him to move on so you can resume your perusal of his body.

When he looks away, out the window, the sun catches those eyes and turns them to sea glass. He needs a haircut; walnut curls crest over his ears like kudzu. When you get up to clear the table your skin peels from the vinyl seat cushion with a sting that makes you wrinkle your nose. 

“Be good,” he tells you before he leaves. You wonder what he means, what he thinks you might get up to in this house full of dust and guns and ghosts. You know better than to ask, and you nod and kiss him goodbye and feel his lips on your lips for hours afterwards. 

The day languishes. They all do. You kill a thousand flies. You mop the floor and track your own footprints across it before it dries. You hang his shirts on the clothesline in the side yard and feel like an insect trapped in the sap of time. You shave your legs in a cold bath and examine your skin:  sunburn, bug bites, bite marks. 

When he pulls into the driveway you’re on the front step eating a popsicle and counting the minutes. He saunters across the gravel like John Wayne, shoulders exposed, hair plastered to his neck. You meet his eyes and wrap your lips around the cherry-flavored mess dripping onto your fingers. He spits into the weeds and eyes you through his lashes. 

“What’s for supper?” 

You suck on your sticky thumb. There’s a full spread on the dining room table, ready and waiting. “Whatever you want.” 

He licks his lips. 

Supper gets cold. 

.

He brings home a bag of saltwater taffy, all raspberry. 

“Thought of you,” he says when he hands it to you. To your recollection, you have never mentioned taffy or raspberries or anything of the sort. You wonder who he thinks you are, whether he has you confused with someone else. 

You sit on the porch steps and amass a pile of wax paper wrappers beside you. It’s soft and melty, peels out of the wrapper with a sticky crackling sound. It’s salty and sour and tastes like cheap sugar. Like a memory of summer that may be real, or maybe not. Could be yours, or could be someone else’s.

You eat more than you want, until your teeth hurt and you can feel the hot spot on your tongue where a canker sore will form. You rake that spot back and forth across your incisors. You can’t help it. Sometimes it feels like things have to have a hurt to them. 

“You ever been to the fair?” you ask him over your shoulder.

He grunts from the porch swing. “Used to go when Vince ‘n me were little. Took Les a couple times when he was old enough.”

“You ever take a girl?”

“Nah.” His boot thumps on the porch, an offhand punctuation mark. “Couldn’t find one to go with me.”

You doubt that; you’ve seen his yearbook photos. But then again, maybe he was off-putting as a teenager. Spooky. Hadn’t quite learned how to camouflage yet. Came on too strong, wore too much cologne, used too many teeth.

You survey the vast swath of woods that surrounds Ambrose and try to imagine a ferris wheel, red and blue and blinking, rising from the green like the hump of a whale.  “I’d go with you.”

He snorts. “Yeah?”

You look down at the piece of taffy in your fingers. You don’t really want it. You unwrap it anyway. “Yeah.” You gnaw on the candy like a dog savoring a scrap. “Be like a date,” you say thickly.

“What, you wanna skip down the midway holdin’ hands? Makin’ out in the Tunnel of Love?”

You can picture it, sunset and a sundress. He’s laughing. You’re laughing. The crowd is made of wax. “You could win me a stuffed animal.”

He scoffs again, but then he asks you, “What kinda stuffed animal you want?”

You think for a second, unstick the taffy from your molars and push it around your mouth with your tongue. “A Louisiana crocodile.” A souvenir from your time in the South. Maybe it’ll be wearing a little trucker hat and a smile that doesn’t reach its eyes.

“Ain’t got crocodiles here, sugar. ‘S all alligators.”

“Fine, an alligator then.”

You run your hands over your shins, sticky with the humidity. The chains of the porch swing creak rhythmically behind you. The sea of trees is dark and still and endless.

“Fair don’t come ‘round here anymore,” he says finally.

You force the taffy down your throat, swallow hard, and reach for another one.

“Figures.”

.

You’re buzzed and reckless, sucked down a pair of beers too fast just because they were frosty. The shears snick like some needy, nipping thing. You found them upstairs under the bathroom sink once upon a time and you always put them back when you’re done. They’ve been there longer than you’ve been alive. You comb your fingers across his scalp and loose locks drift onto your clean floor. 

“Don’t take it too short,” he admonishes into the mouth of his beer bottle. “You butcher me, I butcher you.” 

You roll your eyes behind his back. “Have I ever?” 

He grunts in acquiescence. That’s as close to a win as you’ll get. 

The windows are open; the thunder presses against the frayed screens. A gigantic moth flings its feathery body repeatedly at the ceiling light. You run your hand through his hair slow just to feel it between your fingers, thick and soft. Your thumb glances off the scar on the left side of his skull and comes back for another pass. 

He jerks his head, puts a stop to that. “You done?” 

“Almost.” 

You’re particularly fond of the curls at the nape of his neck, always save them for last. You coil one around your finger. You want to ask him if you can keep it, but you’re afraid he’ll say no or worse, that he’ll say yes. He’ll ask for something in return. You’ll give it to him, no matter what it is. You give him anything he wants, everything he wants. It’s the least you can do, the most you can do. 

You snip them one by one, bittersweet. 

“Done.” 

He leans over in the chair to examine his reflection in the window. “Good enough.” 

He stands up and drains the dregs of his beer. His hand finds your waist and he pulls you in and you bend like a reed, peering up at him, inspecting your work. He smells like sweat and sun. You grip his shirt in your fists and move with him as he sways lazily side-to-side. 

He gives you the gift of a smile, half-cocked and handsome. “You wanna dance, mama?”

Your fingers spider-creep up the shield of his chest and lock behind his neck. His skin is hot and sticky against your wrists, clipped hairs poking and itching. Your hips bump against his like a car on a back road, lost, no cell service. You wish there was music playing. 

He tilts his head towards you and you get caught in the trap of his mouth. The thunder moans. You can feel the sweat beading on your upper lip, in the pit of your elbows. His hands are heavy on your bones. 

His jaw scrapes along your temple like a razor blade and a fever chill rolls over your skin, hot-cold. “G’on upstairs, get those clothes off.” 

Have you always been such a good listener? 

.

He comes home drunk and fucks you on the table, in the midst of supper left cold and waiting for him. You knew he’d be hungry. You are right about some things and wrong about others.

You wince every time a dish topples off the table and shatters on the faded linoleum. He doesn't look at you, not once.

Afterwards, he disappears for a while and leaves you to clean up the kitchen. You are dazed, legs unsteady, leaning on the counter like an old friend. It’s been a bad day. Dinner has soaked through the back of your shirt and so you take it off, hang it over the back of a chair for later, and set to work on the mess.

You cannot puzzle out how he managed to get blood on every dish you are trying to wash until finally you realize it is yours, seeping quietly from a slice on your palm. When he comes up behind you your spine stiffens, arching like a snake making a final stand. He puts his hands on your bare waist and his lips against the back of your head like a sweetheart, like a husband, like a different person.

“Leave it, darlin’. Come sit on the porch with me.”

You bite your lip, lift your palm so he can see it, watch the world blur with saline. “I cut myself,” you say, and only then does the sting set in, so sharp you can feel it in your teeth.

He makes a sympathetic noise and cups your hand in his. “Now why’d y’go and do that?”

You open your mouth to answer but only a moan comes out as he lifts your arm and seals his lips over the cut. He sucks, gently at first and then harder, hard enough you feel the seam of skin separate and your fingers jerk like puppets to the pain. He lets you go and you cradle your hand to your chest as he laps your blood off his lip.

“You’ll be fine,” he says, takes your arm, tugs you from the sink. “C’mon. I need a smoke.”

You follow him onto the porch, curl up in his lap with a dishrag pressed to your palm and watch smoke and moths float around the light.

Your blood dries on the dishes with the gravy.

.

The clouds boom a reminder that they are still hanging above the house, but you are already awake in the split second beforehand. You are cocooned in the sheets and panic for a moment, arms pinned to your chest, bedroom black as a coffin. When you claw free, gasping, the air is like moss draped spongey and damp across your face. 

You worm out of the bed, out of the room, stagger into the hallway and down the stairs in the dark. You are mere steps ahead of some emaciated beast, its breath muggy on your cheeks and the back of your neck. You twist your shirt off and throw it on the floor of the den before it can strangle you, wrench the front door open and slam through the screen with both hands. 

The night is wet in your nose. One hundred million insects scream to God. In the back of your mind you think about joining them. Your toes scuff to a stop on the precipice of the porch and you peer into the darkness with round eyes, bare chest heaving for more air than you can hold. You are drowning here, surrounded by trees, surrounded by more green than you ever knew existed in the world. 

Somewhere out there, someone is mourning you. You can feel it tonight, crackling in the ozone like the storm that won’t break. 

You wrap your arms around yourself and sink to the ground, sit perched on the top stair in your panties and sweat-drenched skin. The nail of your index finger rips apart the cuticle of your thumb. Mosquitos float open-armed to your legs like swamp angels. It’s too hot to cry. 

The yellow porchlight struggles to life. The screen door bangs flatly behind you. He can’t ever pick up his feet, scuffing through the dust you haven’t swept. 

His fingers brush the bone of your shoulder. You don’t flinch nowadays, usually. “Y’alright?”

You don’t have to answer that. Let him wrap his hand around your throat and fishhook his fingers into your mouth to pull your jaw open, you don’t have to answer that. You grit your teeth and dig crescent moons into your thighs with all ten fingernails.

Your silence doesn’t bother him. He leans on the railing to your left, curling his toes on the concrete, looking out into the night. Sleep has mussed his hair to one side and left imprints of the sheet fanning across his chest. There’s a hickey in the shape of your mouth in the curve of his neck. Lightning flutters shy among the clouds and the thunder reprimands it. There’s something stuck in your throat, something you can’t swallow down no matter how hard you try. Moths flock to the porchlight. If anyone was alive in the town to look up the hill, they’d see you haloed, and him too. 

“‘S late. Come back to bed.”

You can’t remember your home address. You can picture the house, the sidewalk in front of it, cracks in the driveway. The rest is like a dream. The house behind you doesn’t have an address. No number, no mailbox. You can feel it sucking at the base of your spine like a leech, coaxing you in, tipping you backwards all wrong like a gravity hill. You feel eyes on you, all the time, no matter what room you’re in. 

“You listenin’ to me? Let’s go.”

You can’t go back inside. You can’t go back inside. Something in you doesn’t line up right. Someone is holding a pillow over your face.

“No,” you think you say out loud. The word flutters off into the night. You watch a mosquito drift beyond the reach of the porchlight and disappear. The stars bow gracefully into the arms of the clouds. 

After a beat, he shuffles out of your periphery. The screen door slams. Maybe this time. When you least expect it. Maybe he's sick of you at last. You pick at a scab on your knee until it comes loose and flakes off, and then you pinch the skin around the wound and squeeze until a bead of blood, scarlet-black, mounds and breaks and gets all over your fingers. You raise them to your mouth and suck them clean and it tastes familiar. Safe. 

He doesn’t come back with a knife, or a gun. He comes back with the quilt and sheet from the bed, a pillow stuffed under his arm. He unfurls the quilt on the porch. The pillow flops to the ground like something hunted to extinction. He follows suit. 

“C’mere.” He wrestles with the sheet, props himself up on an elbow and punches the pillow into place. “C’mon.” 

You breathe, just for a minute, watching him. You want to hate him so bad it hurts. You want him to hit you so you’d have a reason to hit back. You want to fight for your life because you can feel it slipping away, waning, evaporating in the heat. Already you’ve found shreds of yourself under the couch, covered in dust. You are drowning. You are thirsty. He is water, cold and brackish. 

You rise from the stairs and come to him because you need him, because he is all you have. 

“Get the light,” he says. 

You go and come back and his hand finds your calf in the dark, slides up the back of your knee, guides you to the ground. The quilt is a mockery of softness, the porch unyielding beneath. You curl up with him at your back and he folds his arm around you, thumb worrying aimlessly at your nipple. His breath is hot on the nape of your neck. 

The air roils in your lungs. The night surges in. You are alone, so alone, aching with loneliness, now and always. You close your fingers around his wrist and guide his hand between your legs. He rubs the cotton of your panties with something like pity and you let a moan seep from your throat. 

Your face lolls into the pillow and it smells like fever dreams and cold-sweat nightmares. The fabric of your underwear catches on your clit and you gasp, arching against his chest.

“Easy,” he murmurs as his fingers drag back and forth. He hooks his foot around your ankle, forces your legs open. You asked for this. You’ll take it and thank him. 

Lightning silhouettes the world beyond the porch in black and purple. When you close your eyes, you see the rooftops of the town in the colors of heaven. You rock against his hand and pretend you’re someone else somewhere else. You feel the thunder in your teeth and wish with all your heart the rain would fall. 

He puts an abrupt end to the friction and cups you in his palm, wide and warm. You make a plaintive sound and wiggle your hips, push your ass against him. You need to feel something. You need him to help you. Otherwise, you might disappear beneath the horrible blanket of the night. 

“Please,” you moan. 

He presses his lips to the back of your neck, whispers into the shell of your ear like a lover. “You love me?” 

You squeeze your eyes shut. “Yes.” 

His teeth graze your skin as he slips his fingers past the waistband of your panties. 

“Good.” 

You wonder if he knows he keeps saving your life. 

.

The house is a midden of family misery. There’s barely space for you between heaps of clothing and glassware and mass market paperbacks. You live sideways amid the boxes and bottles and beer cans. He refuses to let you throw anything away. No matter how much you sweep and dust and tidy, the clutter seems to crawl right back across the carpet like morning glory. 

Late morning finds you in the master bedroom. It’s sweltering up here. The air sticks to your face like tattered gauze. The junk in here is of a particular breed, more meaningful—photo albums, baby clothes. Much of it has been stacked high just inside the door like a battlement. A fortification between this room and the rest of the house. You’re not allowed in here. 

Neither is he. 

Beyond the wall, everything sits untouched. A layer of dust rests primly on the bedside tables, the vanity, the yellow quilt still neatly made up on the bed. The art on the wall is sun-bleached in evenly spaced lines from the half-open blinds. The silence crowds your ears. It feels like standing in a tomb, the family crypt. 

With courage paper-thin, you've decided you'd like to confront the heart of the horror. Like shoving your fingers down the throat of the beast trying to bite you. Like making a home in its mouth, a bed in its bed. You want to eat me so bad, you’ll have to savor every scrap. 

It’s eerie in here. This room is brighter than the rest of the house by far. You can feel that parasitic presence all around you, cajoling you with hands that are soft and dry. There is a faint, floating smell of faded flowers. You breathe slowly to keep yourself from sprinting back downstairs.

You gaze at yourself in the vanity mirror. The dust almost erases you from sight, almost. You reach a finger out and draw a single streak across the silvery surface. You’re in there, somewhere. Sometimes you forget. 

The front of the vanity holds a trio of slim drawers with tiny gold handles. You catch one with the tips of your fingers and tug, just slightly. It creeps open without resistance. The inside is lined with green velvet. You pull it open all the way and search through the contents with your eyes. Blush, lipstick. Eyeshadow in seven shades of blue. You slide the drawer closed and move on to the next one, the widest one in the middle. 

This one holds a treasure trove of golden baubles:  a jumble of earrings, half a dozen hairpins, a long, thin cigarette holder. A string of pearls that look too chipped and dull to be real. And a locket, oval-shaped and decorated with a halo of tiny vines. You pick it up and the chain slips over your fingers like a thin, shining snake. 

You dig your nail into the seam and pop it open. To your muted disappointment, it is empty. No husband. No children. 

It’s yours, you decide suddenly. You want it. You've earned it. A prize, a consolation for the hell you’ve been through. For the fact that you have survived him, and she has not. You wonder if he’ll recognize it. Part of you hopes that he does. You imagine the look on his face and his hands on you afterwards. Your mouth is wet. 

This might be her house, will always be her house. But you do not belong to her. You have been spoken for again and again, and perhaps you should thank him for that. 

In the daylight you remember that you aren’t scared of ghosts, and that you have nothing left to give. Plenty of dead women have laid claim to you already. This one cannot have you, and for that matter, she can’t have him either. 

You hear the rumble of his truck out front and the thrill of fear that shoots down your spine is so cold it’s almost welcome in the stuffy room. You shove the locket into the pocket of your shorts and fling the drawer shut. It closes with a soft, complicit thunk. 

You pick your way back through the boxes and slip through the door like a reptile into water; smooth, silent. You make sure it latches behind you before you hurry to the top of the stairs. 

Out of the corner of your eye, just before you dip out of sight below the banister, you see something bend the light that reaches through the crack beneath the door. You freeze, turn your head only slightly. You see nothing. Only sunlight. Certainly no feet, dainty and bare, padding across the carpet with red-lacquered toenails. 

Panic, delayed, breaks loose. You gallop down the stairs so quickly you forget to skip the ones that creak. 

By the time he comes inside, slamming the door fit to shake the frame of the house, you are hunched over the dishes in the sink like you’ve been there all morning. If you are unduly quiet, he doesn’t seem to notice, and if he notices, he doesn’t seem to care. 

.

“I think I love you.”

You say it half-casual, half-pronouncement, the way you might tell your mom you’re dropping out of college. Tell your boyfriend you’re over him. Tell your boss you’re moving to Louisiana. “I mean it this time.”

Bo snorts, lifts his beer to his lips. “That so?”

You shoo a bee from the rim of your glass and suck down the last of your drink. You just might be drunk. “Yup.”

“Think that’s the bourbon talkin’.”

You roll your eyes, shimmy a little in an effort to make the busted lawn chair more comfortable. You thought he’d be more excited. “Why don’t you ever believe me?”

He smacks his lips like he’s considering his answer. The sunlight shifts through the trees and you close your eyes, blissful. “Lemme ask you this. You ever set a snare, baby?”

You can feel it in your blood:  the sun, the breeze, the brook bubbling over your toes. It’s not so bad, you think. Sometimes. It’s not so bad.

“Hey.” He leans over in his chair and snaps his fingers, splintering your peace. “I asked you a question.”

“Nah. Never set a snare. Some of us were normal kids.”

He ignores this and you feel like you’ve gotten away with something. “Well, sometimes you catch a critter, but it don’t strangle to death like it’s s’posed to.” 

You frown. 

“So you gotta do somethin’ about it, right? But you gotta be real careful. Can’t get caught up by the sufferin’. Gotta keep your head about you, y’know?” He’s not looking at you, but you can picture his lips, twisted in something like a smile. “‘Cause it don’t matter what it is…raccoon, possum, bunny rabbit…that sucker’ll take your hand off if y’let it.”

Your throat is sensitive all of the sudden, feels closed off. Maybe you swallowed a bee. “What are you even talking about?”

His head lolls lazy to the left and he stares at you for a second in a way that makes your hair stand on end. Then he chuckles, winks at you, turns away and leans back in his chair. 

“Nothin’, sugar. You’re awful cute.”

.

The heat wreaks havoc on the lifeless inhabitants of the town. You trail behind him like a listless kite as he makes the rounds, checking for damage, hauling the worst afflicted home to Vincent. It baffles you how much he seems to care about them. How much investment he has in keeping the rot contained beneath a pristine cosmetic veneer. For what? For who?

You don’t tell him it’s all rot, all of it, the people, the buildings. The trees. The air. Him. You. 

Some days, most days, you can’t quite look them in their faces. It’s guilt, you suppose. Guilt and acknowledgement of a fear so pervasive you no longer notice the way it clings like a second skin. You’ve convinced yourself if you meet their eyes you’ll find them glaring at you, envious and accusatory. Or worse–you’ll see the future, suspended in the flat, glass pupils of a dead game animal.

Occasionally you punish yourself by looking too closely. You note the receding hairlines, where the skin beneath the wax has dried and pulled taut and shifted the scalp along with it. You observe the way the light shines through plump round fingertips that are only hollow shells of wax, all that soft flesh desiccated and shriveled to a skeletal wedge underneath. You wonder, sometimes, whether Vincent smoothed over any flaws–scars, moles, asymmetrical lips. You touch your face subconsciously and think about the things he might fix for you.

It makes you feel like you are tiptoeing on the precipice of sanity, arms wide, just waiting to topple.

You take a particular interest in their clothing, wonder whether it belonged to them or to someone from the town. You never ask Bo, although you know he could tell you. You ignore the obvious parallels like a badly stitched seam. None of the clothes you wear belong to you either.

There are more residents than you ever imagined, half the houses not as empty as you assumed. Ten years, three brothers, three hundred and forty-nine holes to fill. You were decent at math in a past life, but nowadays, you try your hardest not to solve problems, no matter how they howl and scratch at the door. You’ve become adept at avoidance of the obvious in favor of learning how to assimilate into the cobwebs and shadows. No one can kill you if you’re already dead. You believe that so hard sometimes you can’t see your own reflection.

You believe it so hard that when you find it, on a girl in a house on a street you’ve only been down once or twice, you can’t make sense of it for several long seconds, staring dumbstruck and stupid while the static subsumes your brain.

“Let’s go,” he barks from the sitting room. The couches are pink and floral and faded.

You cannot move. You are made of wax.

“You deaf? Come on.”

She’s wearing cutoff jeans and the t-shirt you bought on a trip two years ago, or maybe three. There’s blood, brown and faded from half-hearted washing, streaking the collar and left sleeve.

Her hair is lighter than yours, and shorter. Her feet are smaller. Her nose is bigger. But the shirt is yours, and so is the blood, and for a second, you know you are a ghost.

“Hey.” He grabs your arm and turns you around. You think maybe she’ll move, now that you’re not looking. “You got a problem?”

You cannot answer him, because you do not have a voice. Because your lips have been glued together and painted the perfect pink. His gaze flicks from you to the girl and back and you wonder if he kissed her the way he kisses you. You hope he can see it, the way you are withering under the wax. You hope he will pick you up, cradle you in his arms, take you home and take care of you, make you whole, make you human.

Isn’t that all you’ve ever asked for?

He snaps his fingers in front of your face and you flinch, because you are real after all.

“Let’s go.”

You let him push you towards the door, hear him close it behind you, feel the floorboards shiver as he follows you down the hall. He puts his hand on the small of your back and ushers you out of the house, down the sidewalk cracked and stuffed with weeds keeling over in the heat. You can feel your feet melting to the concrete, skin crawling, sagging. You try not to stumble. You don’t want him to leave you behind.

“She ain’t you,” he mutters at the end of the street, so low you barely hear him over the buzz of the cicadas.

You aren’t sure if he’s lying, now or ever. You don’t ask him where her clothes are and he doesn’t offer. She might not be you, but you might be her. And you both might be someone else.

Either way, the shape of her is burned into your vision in blue and green, and she shakes her head at you when you close your eyes.

.

You wake to the sound of rain on the roof and it pulls you immediately from bed, stumbling sightless over your feet to get to the window. You yank on the mangled cord to raise the blinds and sure enough, the dust of summer is melting down the window in waves.

“Bo,” you say hoarsely. “Bo, look.”

It is then that the silence of the room seeps into your brain, the conspicuous lack of snoring. Your heart sinks into your wringing stomach. 

In a perfect world, he’d be taking a leak. He’d stumble back to bed and wrap you in his arms, press a kiss to your temple, and you’d drift back to sleep in the bliss of air conditioning. 

Your world is a few dirt road miles south of perfect.

You have to go find him. Find him and haul him out of whatever dark place he’s waded into, before he comes back worse than he went in.

The hall is a throat you have to fight against to get to the stairs, black and humid with walls that breathe. You feel cobwebs on your face and slap them away only to realize it’s your own hair caught on your lashes. The glow of the TV laps at the bottom step like floodwater, makes the carpet undulate like something just sank below the surface. You hesitate, for just a second, before you step down and feel solid ground beneath your feet.

He sits slouched on the couch in front of a screen full of static, deadeyed, jaw clenched. He doesn’t seem to notice you, quiet, creeping thing that you are. The static sounds like rushing water. Mangroves rise from the shadows in the corner of your eye. Lilypads part around your feet. If you turn your head just right, his eyes flash red in the light.

You stop halfway between the stairs and the couch, unsure what kind of animal you’re approaching. Your hands float up like a shield, like a bridge. “Bo,” you say softly, and it echoes in the night. “Are you okay?” 

He blinks, like a person. You notice a bite mark, a purple half moon in the meat of his forearm. Your skin is well acquainted with the shape of his teeth. 

“Bo,” you whisper. You don’t want to get closer. “Come back to bed.”

You hear a splash in the kitchen. The carpet squishes between your toes. Something brushes your ankle and wriggles away. You need to get out of here. You can’t leave without him. 

“Baby…please.” You step towards him and freeze as he lurches forward, sits up straight. His hands dangle between his knees, his gaze still locked on the fuzz of the television. 

“I killed my mama, y’know.” 

His voice is pitched, low and dull. A sheen of sweat glistens on his upper lip and cheekbones. The color is gone from his face and here, in this place, he looks almost green.

You fight to form breath into words. “I…I know.”

He’s speaking again as though he didn’t hear you. You can see in his eyes he is far, far away. “I watched her die. Took a real long time. But I stayed…waited. Had to make sure.”

The water is rising, cold and slick, over your ankles and up your calves. Panic rises with it, packs into your throat like silt. “You were real brave, baby. You did it. You made sure.” Your voice is thin as a reed. 

A terrible, empty grin cracks his face and then vanishes without a ripple, and now he looks at you for the first time and his eyes are hollow and blue as marbles and he whispers, “Then why ain’t she dead?”

The water surges to your knees like it’s been displaced by something large, something prowling. You teeter forward, heart hammering, splashing as you regain your balance. Too loud, too loud. Do alligators eat each other?

“She’s dead, Bo. She is.”

“Don’t lie to me, bitch!” He rises to his feet so fast you lose your balance again, flinching back from him. “She ain’t and you know it. You’ve seen her, she’s here! In this fuckin’ house!”

You shake your head quickly and in your periphery something ducks beneath the surface of the water. “No. She’s not.” Convince him, convince yourself, make it true.

His chest is heaving, his gaze darting around the room, searching. You can picture a shadow in shadow, curled up and waiting in the corner of the ceiling like a fat black spider, fingers splayed wide and tipped sharp and red. 

Bo grips the back of his head and moans and it echoes off the trees, too loud, too loud. “Fuckin’...everywhere.”

Faded flowers. Blush, lipstick. A trick of the light. A locket wrapped in vines. Something hunting, just below the surface. If you let it rip him apart, would it come for you next?

“She’s everywhere…in my goddamn head….” He sways on his feet like he might fall and if he does, if the swamp swallows him, you’ll die here in this place.

“Hey.” You close the distance, push through the muck, brush his elbow. “Hey!”

He smacks you away, snaps his jaws closed. “Don’t touch me!”

You cringe and the hair on the back of your neck stands up. Something groans in the dark. Something moves near the ceiling. 

His eyes on you are predatory, cold and empty, and his brow furrows. “Who are you?” he demands.

Wide-eyed, you open your mouth to answer him, but there is nothing on your tongue but moss. “I don’t…I don’t know.”

He leans toward you. “Who the fuck are you?”

You hold your hands up in front of you, backing away, mud between your toes. Your fingers are skeletal. Your nails are painted red. “I don’t know!”

A terribly low, vibrating sound is rising from the water, sending ripples in all directions, freezing your heart in your chest. He moves towards you and the swamp parts around him, allows him to pass like he is a part of it.

“You ain’t leavin’, baby.”

His teeth are sharp.

He lunges.

You scream.

The sound gets caught in your throat like a wad of feathers and bones and you choke, twisting, coming to in your bed. In his bed. Disoriented, you gasp for breath and release the death grip you have on the sheet. Your brow is so sweat-soaked your eyes are beginning to sting. The air is dry on your skin; the blanket is gone. The lower half of your body is tingling.

His head lifts from between your thighs and he looks at you with eyebrows raised. “Easy, sugar. Ain’t done with you yet.”

“Wh…what?” You rub at your eyes, trying to shake the sensation of water closing over your face. Somewhere, some version of you is bleeding in the silt.

His tongue makes another pass and you whimper, arms shaking with the effort of holding yourself up, of treading water, of fighting the maw of a monster. “Relax, baby. Go back to sleep.”

It’s all so insurmountable, the weight of it on your chest, and you sink back into the mattress without a ripple. His mouth is wet and warm. His dark hair is disheveled and you wonder absently if he misses it, that lock you stole. The room is silent save for the sound of your drowning.

“Is it raining?” you whisper, and hate yourself for the hope behind it.

He pauses, meets your gaze over the watery surface of your body. All you can see are his eyes and you could swear, for a second, they reflect neon red. “No.”

You let your head drop back onto the pillow, let him devour you, feel a tear slip over the brim of your lashes and disappear into your hair.

.

The storm breaks on a Wednesday. 

At first, you don’t register the rain on the roof. You don’t even take note of the thunder anymore, after weeks of torment. It’s become a fixture like the dust, like the pervasive smell of decay.

It starts slow, cautious, rolling into town like a tourist with a busted GPS. You mistake the patter for the familiar buzz of TV static even though that makes no sense, even though you’re the only one in the house, even though the TV is off in the next room. All you can hear is the rough swish of the scrub brush on the hardwood floor, coaxing flecks of blood from the gaps between the boards. It’s already beginning to reek in the heat.

You wanted to clean it up last night when it was fresh but he wouldn’t let you, strongarmed you up the stairs and pinned you to the mattress. You’d never admit it to him, to God, or to yourself—and really, is there a difference in Ambrose—but he fucks so good when he’s riled up like that, when it feels like he can’t get enough of the killing so he’s going to take it out on you, take everything you have to offer him plus a little bit more.

The cut on your palm is half-healed and hurts when you put your weight on it. There’s something about that—familiar, comfortable, not grounding, not really, but like static. Stable. Buoyant. Like the bruises on your knees. A constant that cradles you and takes you up and out of here, not too high, just above the trees.

A stair creaks behind you and you freeze like a hare in the shadow of a hawk. It could be Vincent, but he’s busy with last night’s batch. It’s not Bo.

You ease yourself up onto your knees, rock back, stand up, and creep to the foot of the stairs. They are empty. You are alone with the sense that someone has just disappeared out of sight, retreating up into the aching cranium of the house, skirt swishing.

You are never alone, not really.

It’s only then that the sound of the rain seeps into your brain, soothes the hair standing up on the back of your neck. A weight you have been holding on your shoulders since the end of July dissolves like sugar and your spine lengthens by inches. You drop the brush, forget the ghost, walk barefoot through the bloodstain on your way to fling open the front door.

It rains.

It rains even though the clouds are thin, the sun forcing its way through in places like it just can’t bear to admit defeat. It rains and pools in the potholes of the driveway that have been waiting open-mouthed to be filled. It rains and the grass and weeds release a sigh of bliss, stop begging for mercy.

You step down from the porch in a trance, palms up and open, trailing pink-tinged footprints that melt across the concrete like raspberry taffy. You walk across the lawn, scuff your feet in the grass, wonder if maybe you’re dreaming and decide you don’t care.

You sink to the ground, sprawl on your back, feel the damp soak into your clothes and your skin and it makes you whole, makes you new, makes its apologies for taking so long. You are floating, only eyes above the water, surrounded by salvinia and duckweed.

You hear his footsteps just before he calls to you. “The fuck you doin’, girl?” he shouts, but when you open your eyes, he’s losing a fight with a grin, picking his way up the slippery hill.

You sit up halfway. “It’s raining.”

“Y’don’t say.” He drops to his knees beside you, slumped with relief.

His wifebeater is splattered with blood and water but you grab it with both fists and pull him to you, catch his mouth and coax him to the ground.

“Crazy bitch,” he mutters, but he guides your hands to his belt and grips your ass with both hands as you fuss with the buckle, even rolls onto his back to ease your way and lifts his hips so you can tug down his jeans. “Right here, huh?”

“Yes.”

“In the front goddamn yard.”

“Yes!”

“It’s fuckin’ rainin’!”

“I know!”

He laughs and the heavens giftwrap it with a roll of thunder. You're giddy, beaming at him, and he traces your smile with the pad of his finger and something akin to admiration.

You're brand-new, him too, and both of you together. Like it's the first time, a better first, another universe. His hands are on your thighs and his shirt rides up above his stomach. Water drips off your nose and onto his lips and he licks it off like it might save him and maybe it just might. Maybe it’ll save you both.

Exhausted, exalted, you wash the sweat and grime off each other with filthy hands and thirsty mouths. You wrap your fingers around his bare shoulders and ride him with your eyes open and your breath hot on your lips. It’s a fever breaking, the panting, the shaking.

The locket taps against your chest, the lock of his hair tucked inside it. He cups your face, slips his thumb in your mouth, and there’s blood beneath his fingernail. You suck it clean with greed and obedience, savor it, turn your face to the sky and let the crocodile tears run down your cheeks.

“That’s my girl,” he growls, and you bask in the rare and wondrous glow of his approval.

You come apart in splashes like raindrops, small, staccato swells in your core while he kisses the rain off your skin. His hands find the bruises they’ve left on your hips and squeeze and it’s all you could ever ask for, to be held. To be hurt. To be his.

Maybe it’s not so bad, you think. Sometimes. It’s not so bad.

“Y'know, girl, maybe you're right,” he says. "Just this once."

You’re confused until you realize you’ve spoken out loud. You look down at him, cold skin, wet curls, a smudge on his jaw that could be mud or blood, his or yours or someone else’s. He looks back like he sees you.

“You love me?” you ask him before you can think better of it. Before the rain stops.

The corner of his mouth twitches. His gaze slides past you, goes somewhere else, above the sea of trees. The sky is in his eyes. “Sometimes.”

You don’t smile, don’t sigh, just push the hair off his brow and sink slow and gentle beneath the surface and into the green, not a ripple made in your wake.

“Good.”

[puppppppppy]

doodles of my fav sillies

anton belongs to @poicyss

[campbyler]

Hello!!

I’ve had an unpublished modern au byler fic in the works for an embarrassing amount of time and I’ve noticed that you two talk about characterization a lot, which has been my main struggle. I’ve figured out choices to make for characters and how they relate to choices and characteristics of the canon characters in the show, but I’m not sure if the reasoning behind those choices and traits will translate to readers.

I love the fic and I feel like y’all did a great job with making those reasonings clear in your writing without directly saying it, so I’d love to know if you have any specific tricks for that!

Also sorry if this kind of formal, I’m stuck in email mode with finals coming up :|

hello! soooo sorry this is such a late response — i was thinking it over when it came in and then i ended up talking about something similar on another ask and totally blanked 😔 thank you so much for asking for our input, i’ll try to be as concise as i can! (<- edit from future me who has finished typing up her answer to this ask: famous last words. you were not concise. at all. oh my god i’m sorry) i know you said you already made your initial characterization choices and everything so please bear with me while i word vomit and rehash what was probably part of your thought process anyways just to be able to follow my own train of thought lol

some general thoughts here that thea and i have been mulling over for the last few months regarding how we’ve written our fic and choices we have made for it: we’re both well aware that acswy is not everyone’s cup of tea for many reasons, but i’m specifically bringing this up in response to your ask because every once in a while, we do see someone refer to our mike and will as being written out of character, whether or not that’s a deterrent for them in reading. and i want to make it clear that this doesn’t bother us and nothing im about to say is meant to sound defensive or like we’re making a case to people who feel this way — we have our reasons for making the decisions that we did and also already heavily retconned our og concept for them on account of it having been pretty ooc at the time, even to us, so we’re confident with where we are now — but it has made us think about what people actually consider to be “out of character.” this brings me to my first point re: characterization which is, to us, the importance of differentiating between something that the character in the source material doesn’t/probably wouldn’t do versus something that is more of a direct contradiction to the character themselves. for example, we’ve seen people say (often while reading for the first time) that will is ooc specifically in the first couple chapters of acswy, a big reason being because he’s “mean to mike.” it is, of course, vastly different from how he acts in the show and is probably a slightly jarring dynamic to be dropped into right off the bat, especially since the entire premise of the fic is that the reader has almost zero context for why he’s behaving this way, and even more so at the beginning of the fic before his and mike’s relationship develops further. to me and thea as writers, the importance lies more so in the context for it all: how mike and will would turn out after growing up without each other as best friends, with a lot of the cultural pressures of the 1980s removed but having some new ones of the 2010s/20s introduced; not going to high school together, being in the same friend group for years and getting closer over time with many interests in common, but also facing a lot of conflict and having that friend group be geographically separated while a lot of it goes down.

and with this context, what we would consider to be ooc would be if we just like. made will a straight up DICK or something lol. no nuance involved, constantly berating mike with no reason to do so, even with their unknown history, like just ragging on him all the time and never backing down, even when mike isn’t engaging (side note: giant personal pet peeve of mine that max constantly gets written this way but i digress). we see in the show that will is often snarky and sarcastic and will stand up for himself when needed, especially with mike — which imo is another sign of will’s trust in him and their bond, that he can be honest with mike and not fear genuine retribution, and in acswy, he knows mike will meet him where he’s at. he sometimes isn’t afraid to hit a sore spot, but he would never ever just be a jerk for the hell of it -> we even see him apologize after their fight in s4, despite it clearly being a very emotional moment for him and a lot of truth behind what he was saying. whether he intended for it to come out that way or not, he still felt bad for reacting that way and apologized to mike’s face about it. likewise, there’s a reason acswy will acts the way he does with mike specifically, and we were also intentional with making mike match his energy like he does in canon, which will counts on, even — the way these boys BICKER, oh my god — and he has his own ways of pushing will’s buttons which prove to be very effective. even in the early chapters there are a lot of moments of softness and real friendship between them that (we hope!!) make it pretty clear that it takes some effort to maintain this facade, that there is more than enough of their “canon” bond and dynamic and chemistry where being friends and having fun together is a much more natural state to exist in, and is where they usual end up during those brief periods where they let that mask slip. same principle if we had made mike some uber-jerk who had completely different interests than he does in the show (we are so glad that book annotator and zelda fan mike wheeler is ringing true for you all ☺️), or someone who’s super self confident and popular and charming (outside of will’s very unreliable pov) once he and will start hooking up. i think most people would look at that and look back at canon mike wheeler and say yeah that is Not my mike, because making will an actual asshole or making mike any of these things would be going against core character traits that are central to their arcs in the show. will wouldn’t be will if he was generally a confrontational dick, and mike wouldn’t be mike if he was popular and exuded self confidence and so on. that’s just not them! so to summarize, i guess the question to us is more along the lines of “would they ‘not do this’ in the show out of circumstance/lack of necessity (e.g: canon byler going to the same schools until s4, never having a reason for rivalry to develop, growing up living in close proximity to each other and all of their mutual friends, etc) or would they ‘not do this’ in the show because it’s antithetical to the way they have been written?” we find it much more interesting to put a character in a situation and then essentially work backwards in a way to see how they would react to it, rather than putting them in situations that correlate to things we have seen before, and therefore would probably result in them reacting in a way we have seen them do before.

and now coming back to what i think you were actually asking: i think my biggest tip to making those references without it being said outright is honestly just to have faith in both your readers And the creative choices you make. which sounds like a bit of a cop out answer but i simply can’t understate the important of trusting your readers to pick up what you’re putting down, and to trust that they’ll read between the lines for you. a lot of my favorite characterization moments in aus are ones that are really really subtle, where a character does or says something that is clearly a callback to something in the source media, but it isn’t explained in a way that’s actually calling attention to it — it always seems much more natural that way, like whatever they did is just a progression of who they are in that story instead of the author trying to make a point or force a connection. just off the top of my head a small example might be how i see so many authors in non-magic/no upside down aus still make will really struggle with the cold, often just as a throwaway line or paragraph which imo is much more effective for me than trying to explain why he’s feeling this way. or having him enjoy the same media as in the show in a slightly varied and less direct way (e.g: being into the new star wars shows as a continuation of his canon interests, putting him in theater club to play off of the posters we saw in his room, etc). i think it also helps to have something specific in mind that you’re trying to tie back, like an important moment for that character’s story or something that stood out in the source material. like, i love writing lucas and dustin bickering over stupid stuff bc it takes me back to them in s1 in the principal’s office or s2 in general, or one of my personal favs in my own fics was one where i had will be on a constant rotation of fun patterned socks. he’s creative, he’s an artist, it’s (hopefully) a pretty clear connection to make once i write it in, and i really do think a modern version of him would get a kick out of something like that! and sometimes people just won’t pick up on what you’re trying to say and that’s okay too! everyone reads fics a little differently so some connections might be more obvious to some people than others and so on. from my experience as a reader, i find it pretty easy to connect the dots between an intentional and thoughtful moment of characterization vs one that doesn’t quite hit the nail on the head, or the author felt the need to spell out for the reader which maybe took me out of the moment a little too much or something. to me, making those choices and translating canon to an au is honestly the hardest part, especially with a modern au and a show like st that is So defined by the period it’s set in, so if you’ve already got that out of the way i genuinely think you have the rest of it in the bag as well. unless you worked through it in the month it took me to get to this in which case i am so so so sorry LOL

okay that’s been my word vomit of the day, hopefully any of this made sense or was useful at all, but thank you again for your kind words and support and for thinking to ask us! always always happy to chat writing, even if it takes me a million words to do it 😗

[raddogakito]

closed started for @blueberries-and-willows :3

His solo practice was going shit.

He wasn't on the main street, nor any of the corners where people normally practiced. He was in an alleyway at the very edges of what could be reasonably considered "Vivid Street", and he wasn't performing. He was going over the exact same 10 seconds or so for the fourtyith time.

He wasn't planning on stopping until it was straight perfect. What was the point? And it's not like anyone would care that some kid was practicing in an alleyway well into the night.

...He was getting cold though. And he hadn't eaten anything that day. And he didn't have any water on him, and his throat was getting raw.

He knew what the right thing to do was. Keep going. Push through it. He'd be fine. He was always known for being overdramatic. He also knew what the weak thing to do was. Go home. Sleep it off. Eat something. Get his energy back. He could also see a reasonable middle ground: go to the SEKAI and take a break, before coming back and continuing.

...He was getting weaker and weaker by the day, huh.

Fumbling for his phone, he pressed Ready Steady, waiting for that familiar tingling feeling.

[bugeyedfreaks]

I bought the comic! 💖

I have a couple of my usual little minor nitpicks (as I am want to have), but I don’t even want to get into them because there were so few and they didn’t impact my enjoyment of the comic all that much. I thought it was super cute!

I won’t spoil anything in case anyone’s interested in buying it for themselves (which, I would say… yeah, buy it, totally!), but what I appreciated the most– especially since this is the first issue and it’s establishing who the girls are for anyone not super familiar with them– is that the girls end up saving the day together. It shows the importance of them not just being heroes, but also being a team (and also being supportive sisters, which… 🥹🫶) and that makes me feel like, even on a basic level, they get the characters. And that’s reassuring! Yay!

[euclydya]

[eshithepetty]

So.

This is it, mobsters.... our final stand. When the poll starts on @autismswagsummit, go....... do your part.

[Short ID: a comic pertaining to the autism swag summit, featuring Mob and Tome. Mob reveals that he feels insecure about how seriously everyone's been taking this, and how he's not sure he likes all this attention on him for it, but Tome argues and encourages him, saying that his could help him get Tsubomi's attention, since she's autistic herself, and might appreciate Mob being more confident about that. In the end, Mob brightens up, and gets pumped to win the bracket, before it's revealed that Tsubomi actually hopes Papyrus wins. End short ID]

Extended ID under cut:

[ID: a comic pertaining to the autism swag summit, featuring Mob and Tome. It's done in pink and orange tones, except for the last panel, which is purple.

First page: Mob sits down at the table in the telepathy club room, sighing. Tome, who is playing a video game and eating fries, looks at him and asks: "? What's wrong, Mob?" Mob looks to the side, eyes downcast, and says: "It's nothing really... it's just- the autism contest thing. Everyone's taking it so seriously but- idk. It feels weird. Like Mezato-san's cult thing, kinda." Tome, meanwhile, slides him the fries, and he takes one, and continues, "I don't think I like all this attention on me. Not for this." and Tome looks at him, chin on hand, and asks: "But wasn't that like, one of your main goals? To be popular?"

Second page: at this, Mob startles, and in the next panel he shrinks in as he replies "um- yeah, but. To be honest, I only wanted that to-" and shrinks even further in the next, blushing, trailing off with "to..." Behind him, there is the tapping of footsteps as Tome, off screen, rounds the desk, and makes Mob jump with a loud SLAM, and yells "LISTEN, MOB!" Then, she is looking at him with a frown, gesturing with one hand, and continues: "You need to look at this from a different perspective. What if this is the contest that winning would aid you the most? After all, isn't Takane herself autistic?" Mob, eyes wide and blushing, loudly interrupts with "S-SHE IS??"

Third page: Mob asks, "How do you know??" Tome, her arms crossed, eyes closed and a smirk on her face, says "Look. I'm autistic. You're autistic. We're ALL autistic, I know my kin, alright?" Under her breath, (under the speech bubble) she also adds "Plus I kind of heard her say "Leave me alone, I'm autistic" once," before she interrupts herself, her arms spread wide and flapping, with "but that's beside the point!" She continues in the next panel, only one of her moving hands visible as Mob looks up at her, wide-eyed, "My point is, maybe this is your chance to show her what you're all about; that you know who you are; are secure in your identity, proud of it, even!"

Fourth page: Tome crosses her arms again, a confident smirk on her face as she looks down at Mob and asks, "So tell me. What are you gonna do?" Mob, hunched in, shyly responds, ".... I'm gonna win...?" Off screen, Tome replies: "Say it with more confidence!" And Mob does, back straightening and a blush creeping in: "I- I'm gonna win!" Tome yells "Louder!", and Mob stands up, leaning on the table, yelling in response "I'm gonna WIN!!" And Tome, a fist pumped in enthusiasm, yells back "YEAH!!"

Last panel: Tome's dialogue box is cut off, as we see Tsubomi, meanwhile, laying in her bed, sucking a lollipop and phone in hand, as she thinks: "I hope papyrus wins." End ID.]

[altarfates]

I want to preface this by saying that I am holding myself accountable for not stepping up and either breaking off the friendship sooner or defending myself properly. As it stands even now I am not someone who copes well with confrontation and would rather stay as far away from it as possible. I’m speaking now because other people are coming forward with their stories and experiences. Whilst I have very few actual screenshots of conversations please understand that the interactions I’m discussing impacted me quite a lot mentally. It’s up to you to decide if you think I’m overreacting but by the end of those six months I had basically decided I no longer had a place in the rpc where I was welcomed after losing that friendship. I’ll be putting this under a read more so look at your own discretion. I won’t be speaking about this again after this.

If terios / ty sees this and decides they wish to unblock me and speak about it in order to see these feelings discussed and resolved im okay with that and if anyone else who has been in a similar situation needs someone to talk to or discuss it with in also open to that.

At the beginning of our friendship things were pretty intense and feeling like you were the main writing partner for someone who had already established themselves a place in the rpc was such a good feeling ? It’s like you really belong and you have someone who is so invested in your portrayal that you feel really important. There were many times where this once good feeling became tarnished by negativity, bitterness and what to me, felt like being bullied or belittled.

I’ll touch on a few things I really do remember quite clearly and be understanding that my adhd / ptsd and other things impact my capacity to retain information all the time I try to be very clear with this when talking with mutuals to avoid them becoming frustrated when I don’t remember everything all the time. they would tell me I wasn’t listening or paying attention when I tried to explain this.

there was a lot of time monopolising that I ended up enabling, this one in particular was mentioned to me by my partner who ended up feeling like I really distanced myself from them and even when I did want / try to spend time with them terios’ reaction would always be to change their tone to speaking bitterly or giving off this change of energy and if you recognise it you know it’s the sort where you’ve done something wrong and you need to fix it immediately.

There were also times where other friends became an issue, terios had problems with someone I was interacting with on dash. At the time I wanted to be in their corner because we were really close, they were my closest friend but these people had also been nothing but nice to me and I didn’t have issues with them. This tension went on for a while until terios let me know that I was two faced for not taking their side fully and I ended up blocking them which I thought was the right answer to appeasing someone who was upset. Yes, this was my fault I should have said no but they were a really important friend to me and I wanted them to feel like they were heard and understood. In the end I lost both of those friends and another friend who told me that if I continued to always take terios’ side in arguments like that I would have no one else left but them in the end.

It also happened when I mentioned that I was watching things with my mutual, we had only just started writing again after not speaking for a long time and terios was instantly making comments about it, usually vague and never good and when I finally said hey you know this isn’t cool to be saying this their response was just that I should have told them that sooner.

They were always unpleasant about Gepard ships that weren’t ours and I don’t know if that was because they just had a bias or not but I remember plotting an almost au verse with a firefly writer and dropping it because they were telling me when and how would that happen why is this something you’re writing ? basically implying that I owed it to some how justify what I was deciding to write for my muse ?

This also happened when I was creating an au for Gepard around being a vampire hunter I was so excited about it and I wanted to tell them and their response was to pick it apart reminding me oh this doesn’t make sense for Gepard’s canon age or this doesn’t make sense for his family and whilst I get caring about canon it really made me feel ? like my spark had just been squashed something I was so excited about just being torn to shreds completely and I never spoke about it again, tobias was there when this happened I had just came home from the gym in tears because I was so upset about it.

As those who interact with me know I am someone who is always earnestly trying to expand my vocabulary and learn new ways to incorporate cool stuff into my writing and there was one time one time when I used a word wrong and I did apologize for it and they ended up bringing it up over and over again for three months and whilst it was a joke in their eyes I don’t doubt it really just made me not want to try to improve my writing anymore and minimised myself to be someone they would approve of.

it also felt like anytime I began to get the confidence to bring up how I was feeling that it was turned around to make me feel worse or shit and like the whole situation was my fault rather than looking at it and both taking accountability and working to find a solution. I found this so challenging because so many times I left feeling like I was truly in the wrong because they had told me I was.

SC:

The last thing I will mention is that they will jump between gepard writers quite frequently. I wasn’t on the receiving end of this but I do know that when they blocked me only a day later then were dming a mutual and friend of mine who they had all but ghosted for those six months asking to write again. While this isn’t the worst thing ever I can only imagine how shitty that must feel and I know when they spoke to me and I said this it really hit home for them that they had been second best for those whole six months despite being there before me. This has happened with other Gepard writers too not just me and that person.

In the end a lot of this shit could have been amended if I told them your behaviour is shitty and it’s making me feel like shit but who wants to be put in a situation with a friend or writing partner where they feel like they have to make that choice.

I still do think terios is a good writer and they’re committed to the sampo they’re shaping but there are ways to interact with people that are kinder and not always with this undertone of being nasty or mean or spiteful. Again, if they or anyone else does want to talk to me about this they can and I trust that everyone can decide who they want to write with themselves. I just want my feelings and story to be heard and others to know they can speak up too.

[transinistor]

𝙱𝙰𝙲𝙺𝙶𝚁𝙾𝚄𝙽𝙳 𝚂𝚃𝚄𝙵𝙵 ::

I know I've mentioned things before but I wanted to mention again..... Nothing really happened to Alastor to make him such a twisted, demented freak. He wasn't necessarily abused or bullied. He was always a sadist in some way and always kinda morbid. This goes all the way back into his childhood.

When he was a kid, and I'm talking like, early 1900s because in my headcanon, Alastor would have been born around 1901, he used to play in the swamp and part of that play entailed hunting small animals like birds and rabbits. He'd bring them home to his mother to cook which was pretty normal in 1900s. In fact, domestic refrigerators didn't even exist until Alastor was around 17. He used to very much enjoy watching her butcher them, though, like, he had a perhaps abnormal and elevated interest in gore. This went unnoticed by his mother though because she saw Alastor as simply eager to help her out in the kitchen which was seen as something sweet and endearing. Which really, he was eager to help out and of course he was delighted when she decided she'd teach him to cook so he could do all that for himself but... No. There was always this twisted, morbid fascination with the feeling and look of raw meat and death.

As Alastor grew older he got interested in the occult and its darker fringes. This wasn't clocked either, given voodoo was in his family. Louisiana voodoo specifically is a blend of haitian vodou and christianity. So his family that he was in contact with, like his mother and grandmother, were vodouists/serviteurs which was already considered 'different" from more mainstream spirituality. Therefore anything concerningly 'different' about Alastor or his interests that could have possibly been clocked as a "red flag", so to speak, was instead looked at as normal and even encouraged. But even then I wouldn't say Alastor was necessarily dangerous or destined to be a monster. He may have become a slightly sociopathic but not actually evil or demonic surgeon if he was able to get his way initially, but that didn't happen due to the  racism and segregation of the time period.

So Alastor's frustrations and malice came less from being abused or bullied personally and more from simply living as a queer, mixed-race guy in the early 1900s and navigating the nuances of that, and thus having everything sort of slanted against him from the beginning. It resulted in a very special, visceral rage toward the oppressors and that is almost always who Alastor took it out on. To me the concept of Alastor having a weird moral code refers to this. Louisanna in this time period was more forward than other places but still not near enough for Alastor not to be acutely aware of stuff like racism, misogyny and homophobia. All things that negatively effected him and the people he cared for in some way and to varying degrees. Of course Alastor was more privileged in life than some, being seen as male and straight as far as most people cared to question and he was able to get even more wiggle room out of being largely white passing, along with the fact that for the time and for Alastor's racial background, he was able to get a decent education and while he wasn't wealthy he didn't live in any kind of poverty but, even with all these things, he knew he was seen as lesser.

In fact, since Alastor did have a good education for that time period thanks to his mother AND was articulate, literate and sophisticated to a very "white standard " (keeping in mind, it wasn't even uncommon for white people to be illiterate back in the early 1900s.) And STILL he was denied and rejected from certain opportunities and this helped to drive his ass crazy. It was hard to comprehend not being able to have or do things just because your family is racially diverse and the wrong person might find out you're not as white as you talk ! Its a very deeply fucked up situation to find yourself in and a special kind of trauma that isn't exclusive to dark skinned individuals, though they certainly suffer it worse due to colorism particularly in this time period. Alastor was always kind of balancing on a line here and it was a source of endless frustration. I also wanna make a quick note to say Alastor's family are not "predominately" black or white. Alastor has multiple relatives who are mixed in some way or another and thats typically what creole  refers to in Alastor's region of living and especially what it describes when used today. I imagine Alastor's mother was lighter skinned also. He also has some native american ancestry here from his grandfather and even some latin american, too, because a few of Alastor's direct relatives, including his mother, are also mixed and I think a lot of people seem to imagine it as Alastor's family background are strictly all afro-american and his father is some random lone white guy, which is probably why I see so many people in the fandom whining about Alastor's skin and features being ""not mixed"" enough when actually he's the very epitome of mixed and social media has made people racist but just in a woke way LMAO. Even getting on radio was somehow marred by this. As far as my personal HC goes, I wouldn't depict it as him always aspiring to be on radio. For me, he stumbled into it due to having undeniable charisma and talent as a singer and speaker which he picked up from frequenting speakeasys in his late teens/early 20s. After preforming at one he was confronted and accepted by a pair of studio directors who considered him as a personality for their station and Alastor was all about it because FINALLY some real attention and praise. This way, Alastor's "" racial ambiguity"" didn't even matter because no one was gonna actually be looking at him to ever wonder or ""suspect"" anything.

So, yeah. No. The most horrifying and traumatic thing Alastor ever experienced in life was his death, which was also aggravated by Alastor being Not Actually White in my HC, effectively making it more of a lynching than an ""accident"" because I don't really see how he could have been mistaken for a deer or, whatever, lol ( So thats not really where Alastor's deer traits come from in my HC. ) And by that time Alastor was already a killer !

Again, not attributed to trauma or abuse and more to things like Alastor's morbid fascination with death and gore, his sadism and enjoyment of violence, his interest in the occult and dabbling in "black magic ", creating kind of a bokor out of him ( resulting in a certain cringy puppy dog squish he had on a certain demoness but thats for later post ) and just the sheer frustration and rage he felt for those around him who looked down on and would aim to mistreat him and others like him.

[thisisallthehattersfault]

I haven't read the Ace novels yet but I read the manga not too long ago and. Deuce baby I'm so sorry. I'm sure you're a great character but your fans are so delusional and obnoxious that I've started to hate you by proxy.

Like, the fact that every single Ace/Deuce or even just Deuce-centric fic is OOC Whitebeard Bashing that completely ignores Ace's autonomy in order to make him a sad pathetic widdol UwU babu who was tricked and manipulated and oppressed by the Whitebeards and needs Deuce to save him from himself~

It's all just. Like obviously that's not Deuce's fault and he seems cool when he shows up as a minor character in Ace-centric or Whitebeard Crew fics but good lord at this point every time I saw him on a manga panel I had a visceral reaction of like. Ugh. You creepy stalker incel, go away, Ace isn't gonna fuck you.

Which is not fair to Deuce! As far as I know he did nothing wrong! But Here We Are. Let's hope it gets better after I read the novels and get to know this guy outside of fanon.

[deadendtracks]

I’d probably care less about bad characterizations if there was more fic with good characterization like sure it’s a spectrum but not many people seem interested in anything close to the canon version. Which is fine it’s just not what I like to read personally. And idk to me you can do alot if you try to stick to a core (canon adjacent) characterization while putting your favorite guy in situations. But you have to have a decent grasp of the canon characters and their motivations and so often these get flattened into I guess what we call flanderization now? Eventually in every fandom you get the copy of a copy of a copy of a flanderized version of the character as people base their fic characterization on fic rather than going back to canon.