#all too well fic babey

[my-thoughts-and-junk]

my new thing is obsessing over a funny little guy for a few months before moving onto another funny little guy

[chubsonthemoon]

Last Binderary book is DONE!!!! This is the incredible Maybe sprout wings, by @moorishflower.

This post is going to be a doozy, so gonna just skip straight to the cut!

INTERIOR

INTRODUCTION

I really wanted to model this bind after my own copy of the Odyssey, (which is all highlighted and bookmarked and annotated to hell from my Great Text courses in undergrad ehe, so this bind was such a fun trip down memory lane!). But beyond just the cover/general aesthetic, I also wanted to give the book a similar feel to these kinds of editions of classics--there's usually an introduction, translation notes, and other supplementary materials, right? Like, a physical manifestation of the work of many, many people, all having conversations with one another across time and space.

So that's what I did! I wrote a short introduction (I will also probably post it to my AO3/my blog as well, in the name of preservation etc. etc.) and began reaching out to folks in the fandom who I knew had created art and meta for the fic. The result? 18k words of analysis, comments, and meta, and nearly twenty pages of art!

And this is what I love most about this bind, I think! This book is the work of several people--truly a collaborative work by the fandom--all of whom I will now be shamelessly calling out below :D

CHAPTER HEADER ART

First and foremost, this book would not be what it is without the gorgeous header art by @fancy-rock-dove! Thank you so much Dove for letting include your work, and for being so supportive and kind these past few weeks about this bind <3 You in particular have contributed so much to this book (which I will be getting more into in the next section ehe), and I'm so psyched I get to hold your art and words, too!

NOTES ON THE TEXT

This section was divided into four parts: Asks and Answers, Meta, Selected Comments, and Chapter Heading Art: Process

For Asks and Answers, I trawled Heather's blog for meta she had written in response to questions and other meta about the fic. Asks came from @fancy-rock-dove, @quillingwords, @kulapti, and myself! (I THINK I got all of them--tumblr's search function is finnicky even on its best days, so so sorry if I missed something T_T) I first got hooked into reading this fic because of one of these asks, so I'm very fond of this section in particular :D

For Meta, I included two wonderful essays written by @pastrypuppy (also known as @kulapti) about Hob as an author figure and the Disrupted Fisher King narrative in MSW. Her analyses were so fascinating and I just had to include them in the book! (And thank you as well for your permission, friend!) (also hello fellow Renegade comrade 🫡)

For Selected Comments, I owe everything to (once again :3) @fancy-rock-dove, whose insights are the epitome of transformative fandom at work. I'd look for their comments after I read every chapter to see what their takes were on this or that element of the story, and every single time I would go "!!!!! I didn't even realize!!!" or "OOOOOOOH I hadn't thought of that!!" It was like being in a lecture hall and always whipping your head around when one of your classmates raised their hand, because you knew they were going to say something fascinating that you hadn't considered before.

Aside from one of my own comments, Dove's comments make up the entirety of this section (for which I owe you my life--your long-form responses to fics are a gift to this world) but GOSH was it also so much fun going through the comments section while typesetting and seeing all the keyboard smashing, yelling, and crying from the other commenters. Communal nature of storytelling and ongoing meaning-making of fanfiction, babey!

And finally for Chapter Heading Art: Process: once again Dove coming in clutch with some wonderful insights into the design of each of the chapter heading art pieces! This kind of stuff is honestly my favorite: meta about art for a fic which is, in turn, a transformation of an existing story (not even to mention that The Sandman is its own kind of fanfiction of existing mythologies and histories)--I just!! Think it's all really, really neat :'D (for more coherent/polished thoughts on this pls see my introduction asjdfkls)

ART

The art gallery!!! A million thanks to @fishfingersandscarves, @honeyseller, @jazzpsych, @doctor-rainbowfoxey, and (HI AGAIN DOVE) @fancy-rock-dove for granting me permission to include all of your beautiful pieces!

As usual for artworks in my binds, I printed each piece out on specialty photo paper to really make the colors pop, then sewed each page separately to the text block! Behold, everyone's beautiful beautiful pieces!

The art gallery also satisfies the certain "oooh shiny" part of my brain that always activates when I see pictures in a book, so am also very fond of this section :3

CONSTRUCTION

And now on to the nitty gritty stuff! I used the German Bradel binding technique again, my second time using it. Even though it's more complicated than the case bind, I really love how it gives you the full board space for the cover designs (~it's free real estate~). Keep it a secret but I kiiiiiiind of made a small goof in the last few steps (I did the turn-ins a step too early and so had to paste an extra sheet of cardstock to secure the spine to the boards, whoopsie), but it's a pretty small difference, aesthetically speaking, so it wasn't the end of the world XD

Edges are once again fake gilded, but this time I tried something new with the colors! I did two layers of acrylic paint--one watered down shade of red for the base, then one metallic gold on top of that. I really like the red/gold effect! I'll have to keep experimenting with this kind of layering:

ALSO. Y'ALL! I think I'm finally getting the hang of endbands!!! Many thanks to the folks at Renegade who hosted all the endband workshops last month--I'm still working through them, but even the few sessions I've seen have been TREMENDOUSLY helpful. I learned that tension is Very Important, as well as thread thickness, so I tried doubling my thread and keeping a Very Close Eye on how I was holding the threads while doing the beads. And behold! I still have a ways to go (and one day I would LOVE to do the fancier designs), but I'm v happy with the progress I've made so far!

And finally the covers!! ARCHIVAL MOD PODGE MY BELOVED. I printed on the same matte presentation paper that I used for the art, then did several coats of archival matte mod podge + a pass of gloss mod podge over the title strip to make it ~shiny~. Then once those had dried and I'd adhered them to the boards, I sprayed two layers of matte clear acrylic sealer (also mod podge!) to finish it off. I had some issues with the paper tearing when I handled it before it was fully dry, but luckily the blemishes were small enough that it was easy to do spot corrections with my black acrylic paint. And now I know to be more patient next time LOL

(some non-photoshoot shots that show the shine a little better!)

FINAL THOUGHTS

I had a lot of thoughts while I was binding this book--about Sandman fandom, about Dreamling fandom, about the Odyssey, about storytelling, about fanbinding, about Binderary, about Renegade, about my friends--but really what came to mind the most was gratitude!

Simply put, I'm so grateful to everyone I've met both in this fandom and throughout the years I've been active online--this is SO fun, y'all. It's so much fun to love stories together--to talk about them, to write them, and of course to bind them! I hope I've adequately conveyed that gratitude.

But of course, this book would not exist without the wonderful words of @moorishflower. Heather, thank you so, SO much for sharing your stories, thoughts, and time with us--it is always a happier, better day when I get an email notif from you and when I see you on my dash. I love your work so much, and I'm so happy I finally get to put it on my shelf! So thank you so much again, for everything <3

and OKAY THAT'S IT FROM ME FOLKS!!!!! Binderary 2023 is officially a wrap! I had SUCH a blast--will probably write up a reflection post on it uhhhh after I take a very long nap ajslkdfjslk _(:3」∠)_

all my love! <3

[spinjitsuburst]

ramble about ur favs i wanna hear abt ur thoughts -zaptrap

HAN’S INFODUMPING ABOUT JAY... START!!!!

so like sgdkdhdkdhd I say Jay and Lloyd are my “favorites” but honestly it’s so hard to pick favorites out of this skittles squad like I love EVERY character for a variety of different reasons. I was going to also infodump about Lloyd but then I started talking about Prime Empire and then this post got. Long. So. it's just Jay I may infodump about Lloyd another day especially since I'm very Conduit Brained Rn but yea yea!

this is long so i'm putting most of it under the cut so y'all don't kill me for making a huge long post

I considered putting Zane and Sora on here as well since I’d also consider them my “favs” but like this is already gonna be. A lot of. Infodumping (also i typed THIS part before I even started and decided not to yell about Lloyd because this already got long enough). Maybe I’ll make a separate post for those two hmm hmm much to consider but for now MY (technically) FAVORITE NINJAGO CHARACTER: JAY WALKER

THE SPARKPLUG WHO INVADED MY BRAIN LIKE A PARASITE

so hey his name is a pun this makes me laugh ridiculously hard every time I remember he is named. After a misdemeanor HSKSHDKFH

Jay is such an interesting case of a character for me because I started out the show not liking him. Which is. Stares at my entire account I think my feelings have changed somewhat

Jay starts out as an asshole I don’t think anyone can disagree with me there (although honestly they’re all assholes in early ninjago they bullied a ten year old and left him dangling several feet off the ground) but over the course of the show you can see him start developing into a much more interesting character. He goes from being so insecure he's faking everything about himself to someone who knows who he is and is so genuine about it

now yea we could argue about whether his character was too uwu-ified post-season 10 but this is the FUN HAN POST SO WE'RE NOT GONNA TALK ABOUT THAT the point is you can SEE the growth that Jay has gone through and I am going to show you that growth through what I call

✨ The Skybound to Prime Empire Effect ✨

I AM SO PASSIONATE ABOUT THE IDEA THAT PRIME EMPIRE WAS WRITTEN TO BE A DIRECT PARALLEL OF SKYBOUND AND WAS CENTERED ON SHOWING HOW THE NINJA ESPECIALLY JAY HAVE GROWN THROUGHOUT THE SEASON

when season 12 rolls around we are at the point in Jay's development where he is CONFIDENT in who he is. He's a fun-loving jokester with the power of lightning and the drive to help people whenever he can. He uses jokes and humor to help alleviate tension and get people through whatever's happening. And when on his own what does he do?

BECOME AN ENTERTAINER BABEY

i like to think jay's club in prime empire was a safe haven for anyone stuck in the game who figured out hey. we Can't Leave and felt freaked about it. Also Jay would generally try and spread the word that hey something ISN'T RIGHT HERE which would lead people to want to stay with him

(totally plugging my friend's fic but this kind of thing is explored in would you like to enter prime empire by @finn-m-corvex y'all should check it out cool cool)

also the prime empire shorts which i watched all of in the midst of typing this video cuz i love them go watch them please please please jay was publically fighting the red visors which I imagine may have raised some red flags for some players

THIS SOMEHOW TURNED INTO PRIME EMPIRE INFODUMPING LMAO ANYWAYS Jay's confident! He becomes an entertainer because it's who he knows he is! And it's something that will get people hyped and having fun, which is very in-character for Jay to do! He uses those kinds of things to mask the Bad Things going on and get people remembering what's good

I've talked about this sort of thing before but that's Jay's whole philosophy as early as season 9! Which is a DIRECT contrast to how he views it in season 6, as Nadakhan puts it scarily accurately

"You make jokes to mask the fact that you're afraid"

(i was gonna grab a screenshot for that like i did with the hunted scene but netflix has bloCKED THE ABILITY TO TAKE SCREENSHOTS THE WAY I USED TO and i don't have them already and i'm too lazy to grab them from elsewhere so alas trust me he says it)

making jokes to hide your fear and using humor to remind yourself of what's good and coping with the bad are two VERY different outlooks on it

so I think this outlook is what drives him to make this glamrock persona in the first place - this is a bad situation, one he's in with other civilians, and what better way to keep him and themself safe until the others get there than throwing a big performance at a safe place!

also it's just so gender okay I want to look like Superstar Rockin' Jay so badly

it's also interesting to see his outlook on his parents change over time! In season six he finds out Ed and Edna aren't his birth parents and feels upset about it, not understanding why his birth parents would've abandoned him. In season twelve, that outlook changing is EXACTLY why Jay's able to get through to Unagami

"I was abandoned by my parents, too!... I never understood why, and I never had the chance to even ask. But I always hoped there was a good reason. What if there's a reason?"

(again curse you netflix i wanted SCREENSHOTS whatever whatever)

It's this scene that gets Unagami to calm down long enough for Milton Dyer to get there, and presumably is what stops him from just. Flattening him and Jay like a pancake.

to piggyback off of this i absolutely adore how Unagami and Jay consider each other adopted brothers in that one book I still haven't read and I hope he's in Dragons Rising at some point Unagami is my favorite "villain" (no longer a villain) in the whole show he deserves more screentime

like this is where i found out about this and it's plagued my mind ever since. i need to read. this book just for them

SO YEA OKAY Prime Empire is "Who is Jay as a Person Post-Skybound" to me also it opens up so many fascinating things about Jay. I rest my case

so backpedaling a little bit. JAY CARES SO MUCH ABOUT HIS PARENTS GUYS IT'S SO SOFT AND I'M sobs

like yea the first episode with Ed and Edna in it has Jay avoiding them like the plague but this gets explained very easily when you remember he was bullied for his home life before he became a ninja. It makes a lot more sense why he wouldn't want them around his new friends, assuming they'd react the same way. Also how was he supposed to know literally all the rest of the groups parents were either dead, presumed dead, or had a toxic relationship with their kid lmao

(Cole calling his mom kills me. Cole's mom is dead. I know they probably just didn't think that far ahead when writing the dialogue but it's so funny mans pretended to call his dead mom to get on Jay for not appreciating his parents iconic behavior)

anyways literally every episode Ed and Edna are central to (except like the one in skybound) Jay stops at nothing to protect his parents and it means the absolute world to me he's so much like them!! They raised an inventive little nerd and he will stop at nothing to make sure they're safe and it's. It's SO IMPORTANT TO ME OKAY

ALSO this is an excuse to clip my favorite piece of dialogue possibly in the entire show. Except Netflix won't let me now. So you just get the text dialogue

Jay's just fallen from the sky with a messed up eye and is incredibly distraught that all his friends are captured. And his dad just. The woRLD IS FALLING APART AND HE'S EATIN' SOUP-

Ed i love you

anyways

anways anyways this just turned into me rambling about prime empire and then Ed and Edna and a lot of disjointed other stuff but thank you for this opportunity i was going to also ramble about lloyd but i put this post in a word count and

yea i think that's enough for a tumblr post anyways! If anyone wants any like. More logically thought out and direct thoughts about characters feel free to send me asks this was fun thank u @zaptrap for this opportunity to scream about jay

[zarvasace]

It’s “appreciate yourself” hours! Pick five pieces of writing/art that you’ve done that you love and talk about them! ❤️❤️❤️

Ahhhh okay, thank you!! 💜🌻 I finally have a free moment (aka work is slow) so I'm going to work on drafting this out :) I have far too much art I'm proud of—I'm at a stage in my progress right now where I think my art looks pretty awesome. So this list will be stuff from my Greatest Hits collection on AO3. In order of oldest to newest, I think:

incandescently happy

An LU post-adventure work, one of the first longer fics I posted. I released one chapter a day over the summer of 2022, so a lot of the notes have something about my day in them. It's about 30k all told.

I absolutely adored expanding on what the boys might do after the whole LU adventure happens (though I did forget about the fact that I think Time and Malon have a kid during this time!) This work features some proto-Shatterproof stuff, like Wind having a prosthetic leg and Four starting to specialize in crafting prosthetics/disability aids. I gave Hyrule longer hair and a job making maps for the royal family. Legend got another adventure but also started a magic garden/orchard, which pulls in more business than Ravio's stuff. Four and his grandpa adopted a single mother and her two kids. Man I went off with some of these headcanons. I've always considered writing more in this world, but I think it stands very well on its own. Maybe someday I might revisit and rewrite it with some of my new skills. :)

Rise and Shine and Fall

Whumptober 2022, focused entirely on LU! Guys this thing is almost 78k. I realize now that most people pre-plan or pre-write for things like Whumptober, but I wrote these one by one every day, which was extra-hard because I had both college classes and a day job at the time. I came up with some fun AUs, learned a lot about writing (especially whump), and proved to myself that I can do hard things like this!! I've adored doing daily challenges since, though I haven't done it in a while. I look forward to this year's whumptober though!

I really like the table of contents in the first chapter—it makes things easy to find. I know individual works are probably more accessible, but I was still getting to know AO3, and those big numbers are fun. XD I have a hard time picking favorites, because I really went off on these, but I'd say a couple of them are:

Chp 3, "Right Here" about Sky

Chp 7, "Proof of Life" about Four and Shadow

Chp 18, "I'm onwy a babey :(" about Wind

Chp 21, "6:13" about Hyrule and Time

Chp 26, "Silence is Golden" about Wild

Chp 31-32, "The Worst Thing About Earth" about Legend, but kind of more specifically the rewrite/expansion I did last year... haha...

The Marvelous Misadventures of Wind and His Merry Band or Maybe-Human Heroes

It's been a while since I updated this story (56k, 6/8 chapters), but it's constantly on my mind. I've started chapter 7 twice, and I know what I want to happen, but I am easily distracted by the siren call of some other whump fics. XD

I freaking love this story, though. I really want to finish it. It's kind of an... experiment? I guess? I want to get published someday, and I picture myself writing middle-grade novels. This story is sort of my attempt to hit that tone. Also I just love Wind so so so much. Let him be cool!!

Blood-Sucker's Guide to High School

56k Four Swords completed story! I wrote this in a frenzy of like two or three weeks, then took another two to edit. It takes plot points from a vampire novel I enjoyed and twists and applies them to a story about Shadow and the Four Swords manga boys. I'm very proud of what I accomplished here, and that it's a complete story! I think it worked out really well. I learned a lot about plotting and handling larger stories, and it helped that I had the half-remembered structure of an existing novel to use as training wheels.

I love the worldbuilding in this story! The premise is that Shadow is an evil soulless vampire from a (rather abusive, not that he sees it) family of the same, but then he gets the ability to walk in the sunshine. He's assigned to go to high school for a while to get a feast for the vampire gala, but meanwhile he's developing a conscience and getting very attached to these human boys. I think I did a good job. I love rereading this, every scene is just so fun! :)

Counterbalance

55k exactly of a stupid LU darks AU. This started life as a series of oneshots and then the plot progressively got more and more convoluted and I love these stupid boys so much. The plot is very much not tight, in contrast to Blood-Sucker's Guide, but I learned a lot about how I write and how I like to plan with this one, too.

The characters are stupid and the plot is just kinda silly and there is both a bathhouse scene AND a spa scene. Legend blows up multiple things, my lovely nasty little Dark Links need smacks and therapy, and Prince has a legitimately emotional moment at the end. I love how it turned out, it's like an ugly little stuffed animal I made and hug until the eyes pop out.

That's five but I would be extremely remiss if I did not also mention something from Shatterproof:

The Incredible Shrinking Chain

About 10k, this is entry 31/68 in my series Shatterproof, which is a close-canon AU in which each of the boys has a different physical disability. This series also plays into my publishing ambitions, because whatever I publish will very likely have some disability representation. I'm rather passionate about it, actually! Shatterproof is close to my heart, and I'm so honored that so many people seem to love it too. :) I need to work on the next entry again!!

This entry in particular is so much fun. In it, the whole Chain sans Four is stuck mouse-sized, and Four has to travel out to Twilight's castle with them to get Dusk to help break the curse. They all have to figure out how to navigate while tiny, and Four pulls some very silly stunts. I love them.

Anyway, there's my list!! I've written a lot over the last like two and a half years, and I'm so so glad that I get to be here and part of this community. The LU fandom as a whole (or at least the parts I've seen!) is so welcoming and positive and I try to give back where I can! I'm going to suggest looking through my bookmarks and ultimate rec list collection to find some new favorites from some very talented authors! :) (oof I need to update the collection soon!! I've been seeing some awesome stuff!)

[volivolition]

hey, so your drama skilltober drawing (which is amazing btw!!) got me wondering, do you headcanon that the skills are like, aware of how many levels they have? like obviously endurance and volition have those health pool meters but theyre kinda special cases lol

but do you think the others are consciously aware of their levels or do they just kinda vaguely know its easier/harder to do their job when harry is wearing this or that clothing, has this or that thought internalized, etc

HI OMG THANK YOU!! yes they do! not aware of the whole game aspect (except Tutorial Agent who is Very Aware of All Of It), but the skills are often aware of meta things in my fics and headcanons, where they acknowledge things like skill points, tasks, giving harry choices, check difficulties/successes/failures, and a few other mechanics (usually when it'd be funny tbh hgdhjf, i find a lot of humor in leaning into the fourth wall <33)

for clothes specifically, i have a whole bit in Meet the Parts where they suit up in Shivers bonuses so they can go talk to her hjkgjgs

SAVOIR FAIRE – Best to dress for the occasion!  INLAND EMPIRE – Her voice can be elusive otherwise, lost in the bluster and breeze. VOLITION – Which ones are her favorites again? I know your big white coat is one. She gave that to you. ESPRIT DE CORPS – The RCM patrol cloak. It’s one that she and I share. A keen knowledge of the city while searching the streets in her name, to protect her people. All of your half-siblings serve her well, wearing this. She guards us as you guard her. SUGGESTION – The scarf with the spring perfume! PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT – Ugh, I hate that thing. You want to talk to the big lady while sneezing all over her? I don’t get what she likes so much about it. Though, her tastes aren't all bad. She likes the Hjelmdall shirt too. AUTHORITY – I thought you said they *aren’t* all bad. The shirt is terrible. You’re an officer of the law, not some T-shirt wearing hooligan. Zip up the coat if you're wearing it, that's an order. INTERFACING - Alright, that's +3, which totals 7 for the city.

^ as a note: Polar Anorak gives +1 Composure (<- he says something after Esprit's line actually, i cut it for space) and +1 Shivers, RCM Patrol Cloak is +1 Esprit and +1 Shivers, Scented Scarf gives you +1 Shivers, but -2 Phys Instrument (due to allergies lmao), Hjelmdall T-Shirt gives +1 to both Phys Instrument and Shivers, but -2 to Authority hkgj (since you can't wear both jackets, it's only a +3)

all this to say, yes, they know their levels!! :D actually, in my headcanons, Conceptualization created the skill chart specifically so they could all keep track of skill points!! it's a tangible thing in their headspace, built right into the control board (if you look closely, you can see it under volition's right hand here actually!!) :] all the skill portraits? that's Concept's art style babey!! xe painted all of them, Logic sorted them, and Interfacing set it up to work! gotta love some skill teamwork <333

[spectralsleuth]

🧩🎨☁️🏜️❄️🍬💌🥑

WHOAH WE GOT A BIG ONE HERE

🧩 ⇢ what will make you click away from a fanfiction immediately?

Disclaimer: every piece of fanfiction is a gift from an angel. I love it all, because no matter how cringe or silly it is, the alternative is that fic NOT existing and that is unacceptable to me. That goes for any art.

Okay salty little hater time: Who the fuck started saying "greenette" or "pinkette" to stand in as an indicator for a person with a certain hair color. It is the new "orbs" in fanfiction. I literally have backed out of a fic, walked around a bit, and then gone back in resigned. It's so funny and I actually think of it really fondly, because it's a symptom of fandom the same was all the old fic tropes back in the early 2000's were. But god it even hurt me to write out. Weird formatting and paragraphs breaks I can adjust to pretty easily.

🎨 ⇢ link your favourite piece of fanart and explain why you like it

THIS TAROT SERIES FROM KAYSON (@tangledinink) They picked all of the series perfectly for the cards, they didn't just half heartedly pick the aesthetics that fit, and every single one is absolutely GORGEOUS. The style fits in with the other art/fics perfectly while still having that special little background/detail flair that Kayson likes to use. Fantastic. ('Strength' for LSoW Yoshi was an inspired pick as well. Love it.)

MATCHING BEST IS THIS COMIC by @cool-chocolatebouquet A whole comic! On one of my fave parts of mine and @alicat54cwriting's crossover??? So funny and good.

☁️ ⇢ what made you choose your username?

My username was 'spectralsleuth' for a while because I had thoughts of making a webcomic series about a detective who is dead, and was brain rotted by Homestuck naming conventions. (Which in itself was a satire of early 2000's internet culture, only dramatized.) That never happened, but the name stuck for all my accounts because I'm too lazy to think of a new one.

'audioEidolon' was what I started with on discord forever ago, and I wasn't ever planning to talk to anyone on voice chat because I was shy. (Thus the 'audio eidolon' name.) But I made some really good friends playing DnD and we talk almost every day, and have done for almost seven years now. So I guess my internet nickname will forever be 'Audio' or 'Audi'.

🏜️ ⇢ what's your favourite type of comment to receive on your work?

I love comments that pull out a line they specifically liked, or struck them. Maybe it's selfish, but I like seeing the specific things they liked because THAT'S the kind of comment that you think about while writing and forever after. (Despite how nice and easy as generalized comments are. I love all comments!) I even prefer comments that pull a specific line to say they didn't understand it, or noticed it was a little weird or out of place over generic ones, because it shows that they're invested and actually internalizing the writing. In this day and age of bots and AI, it's nice.

❄️ ⇢ what's your dream theme/plot for a fic, and who would write it best?

MAN THIS IS A TOUGH ONE. Every time I think, wow I wish that fic existed, I generally write it myself! I really can't think of anything I've wanted that I haven't at least started to write myself.

🍬 ⇢ post an unpopular opinion about a popular fandom character

Oh man I don't know if I even HAVE an unpopular opinion about a popular fandom character? My 2003 Leonardo opinions are surprisingly rare I think, he's one of my favorite TMNT characters of all time, and I think he and ROTTMNT Leonardo actually have the MOST in common between their counterparts. I never understood those crossovers where Leo and Leonardo were so bewildered by each other.

💌 ⇢ how many unread emails do you have right now? 

ZERO BABEY. So I actually have OCD and notification stress me out really bad. Like make my tummy hurt and I dream about them. This is the notifications for all three of my main email accounts:

Ignore the ranchers I'm too lazy to crop, the photo widget has like 100 pieces of fanart I really like for all my fandoms. (Natural evolution from printing pictures at the school library to put in your see through binder cover)

🥑 ⇢ you accidentally killed somebody, which mutual(s) do you text for help?

@heckitall honestly? Not because we are besties (WE ARE) but I think Heck would have genuine logical knowledge and together we could figure things out and how to hide the body. (Heck hmu I got a job for you.)

[soleilnomoon]

Hi again! Still absolutely adore your Kid fic from your last event 💜 Never got around to asking for a Sanji one, so here I am again😅 But seriously, congrats on over 550 followers!! Love seeing your blog grow, cause you’re really talented and deserve them all and legit can’t wait til you hit 1k+ 🥰

For the event order, may I please ask for a #1 with my boi Sanji, with anmitsu, konpeito, and keylime pie and with honey, please? 🥹 i hate this but need some sanji angst 😭

I also dunno if these three would work particularly well together for a prompt, so you can choose whatever! just really feeling angst and sanji rn and maybe comfort if you’d like 🥰

Thank you for all your works you’ve done so far 💜💜

hiiii omg haha i loved that fic fr (i'm obsessed w that man!!!) also ily for requesting sanji i don't write him nearly enough 🥰️ but thank you sm!! 😭 making me all soft and i am so so sorry this took forever, as u know i am so slow but!!! i had fun tormenting sanji w the angst ngl 💓💓💓💓 also those were great choices for the prompt, i wanted to write more but it would've been 8k words before i finished and who has time for that (i do, but listen... that's besides the point) ✨

2k words, fem reader (honestly gn too now that i think abt it), sfw (SHOCKING i know), 18+ mdni, a lil bit suggestive but nothing wild, angst angst angst city babey, fluff if you squint, also i gave u comfort bc u deserve it bb 💗(and sanji does too); feat. sanji being in denial forever and ever, mutual pining, fake unrequited love, reader is determined and sanji is a coward; also i made myself sad writing this but a good sad bc sanji deserves happiness and i'll fight oda if he doesn't get it i s2g... (if u see grammar mistakes/spelling errors... no u didn't 💗)

“loving each other began this way: threading / loneliness into loneliness / patiently, our hands trembling and precise.” — yehuda amichai

STEP 01:

what does it take to kill a soul? —

a question that’s posed unironically, without a hint of remorse or tact, the words precise and venomous, slicing through the thick veneer that he’s carefully crafted. he’s never been able to answer that question — not at six years old, not twelve or fifteen, and not at twenty-one. his siblings took pleasure in taunting him with seemingly philosophical questions, ones that clamped down onto his thoughts with heavy shackles.

even after he’s extracted himself from that life, he can’t scrub those memories from his mind — no matter how hard he tries. they sit, still raw and bloody, giving rise to unpleasant emotions that make his stomach churn from so many things left unsaid. he never set out to be a pirate, but piracy has given him the sort of freedom that he could only wish for as a child.

it’s with tender hands, with nimble yet graceful fingers, and with a fastidiousness that puts him in a category of his own, that he creates and creates and creates —

he’s told he’s an artist, which only pushes him to work harder, to be better. and when he asks himself why, he doesn’t have an answer. or, rather, the answer he does have only serves as a punishing reminder that he’ll never be good enough. no matter how many times his crew mates thank him — their emphatic, genuine praise a soft, warm breeze against his heart, gentle caresses that he commits to memory — despair still manages to infiltrate, a darkness choking out what little light he has left inside of him.

STEP 02:

how far are you willing to go to reach the truth? —

when you join the crew, he’s unnerved by your presence, which is wholly unlike him. usually, he’s able to put on his façade of the flirtatious cook, one that’s jovial and sociable, that lives to serve and please those around him. his first conversation with you ends in disaster; he spills the drink he tried to pour for you, despite your insistence that you are perfectly capable of pouring your own drink — and he knows it’s not out of malice, but it cuts into him all the same.

he tries again and again, bringing you little treats that you only agree to eating if he sits and eats with you; confusion eats away at his mind, and when he opens his mouth to decline, you pat the seat next to you and he acquiesces. he sits stiffly, at first, unsure of why he always feels on edge around you — an irritating need to impress you in a way he’s never wanted to for others grows stronger by the day.

you think it’s cute that he always seems flustered around you — that he stumbles over his words, refuses to hold eye contact with you for longer than thirty seconds — you also think it’s cute that the false bravado that he puts on for the world, diminishes immediately the second you come close to him. if he’s skittish, it’s because you always catch him staring at you; despite his quick reflexes, his reactions around you are slow but pure — childish, almost.

lately he’s clumsier and scatterbrained, nearly burning dinner when you decide to keep him company. you lean against the countertop, a teasing smile on your face — the same one that that caused him to bump his forehead against the cabinet door earlier — as you prattle on about a dream you had. he can barely keep up, his eyes drifting from the skillet to your face, gliding around the curve of your cheek, dipping lower in a slow descent along your neck.

he blinks repeatedly when he reaches your clavicle, stunned at his restraint; and it’s only when you call his name loudly that he realizes he’s left the heat on for too long.

“are you okay?” you ask when you see that he’s fussing over how best to save the dish, mouth moving as he quietly mutters to himself. he barely registers your voice, as an insidious one whispers harshly into his ears about his perpetual incompetence and lack of talent.

you can see that he’s retreated even further into his mind, a feat that also leaves you frustrated. you want to shake him but refrain and grab his hand instead. he snaps out of whatever stupor that held him captive just moments ago, lips parting as he sighs softly before glancing down at you.

“thank you.”

the words are quiet, but impactful, as he didn’t think he’d be able to get them out. you let go of his hand too soon, but he doesn’t say anything else, choosing to focus on cooking than embarrassing himself again in front of you.

you take his silence as a silent dismissal, but you don’t fight him on it — it’s bitter, that sort of rejection, and you swallow back your argument with great difficulty.

STEP 03:

what’s the difference between cowardice and self-preservation? —

frustration bubbles underneath his skin when he can’t find where he placed his lighter; he runs a hand through his hair and tugs on impulse, accidentally ripping a few strands from his scalp. they swirl and tumble onto the ground, pathetic in a way — just like me, but he never really says that out loud. he doesn’t hear your footsteps, although you did your best to remain as quiet as possible.

a cigarette sits in between his lips, and he has half a mind to toss it over the railing of the ship, but a warmth suddenly appears in front of him in the form of a flame. you found his lighter on the floor earlier and meant to give it to him, but every time you got closer, he found every excuse to leave. you don’t realize the impact you have on him — not really, anyway — because he’s genuinely surprised that you can’t hear the heavy beats of his heart that grow more intolerable the longer he hangs around you.

always afraid of being found out, he opts to keep his distance. it’s easier this way, he tells himself, better. but he doesn’t quite believe that; the evidence is plain as day when his tongue feels like its grown three sizes in the span of seconds, where his words get lost and forgotten. it’s all your fault, he reasons; you who insists on talking candidly with him, who insists on listening to him ramble about his dreams, who absolutely insists on stubbornly tearing down his walls, steadily chipping away without a care in the world. he looks at you as if you are the source of all his problems, but he also looks at you as if you’re the solution.

the intensity behind his stare makes your hands tremble slightly, it’s a miracle you’ve managed to keep yourself composed for this long. you light the end of his cigarette with ease, as if you’ve done this for him hundreds of times —and place the lighter into his pants pocket afterwards. if he wasn’t so used to you getting in his personal space all the time, he’d retreat immediately. the proximity is almost too much for him, but he doesn’t step back; you take that as a good sign and keep him company for a few minutes.

you don’t care for the smell of smoke, but on him it smells good. you almost tell him that, but instead bite down on your lip and keep your comment at bay, nerves getting the best of you as you nearly choke on the possibility that your feelings won’t be reciprocated.

another time, maybe. cheeks flushed, you turn your face to look elsewhere. although, you wonder if there ever will be another time. with him, you never know.

he’s still trying to figure you out and why he feels a different sort of calm around you; it’s alarming and new, drumming up an irrational fear within him. he doesn’t think he’s deserving of your attention or affection, and he’s convinced himself that you don’t harbor any romantic feelings for him. and why would you?

one by one, his thoughts pummel into him, acerbic and overwhelming. he exhales a sliver of smoke and puts the cigarette out. he gives you a quick, apologetic look before telling you goodnight, the smile on his face is melancholic and barely existent. you don’t dare say a word, keep your lips pressed together stubbornly; exasperated and dejected, you don’t know what’s worse — his inability to lower his guard around you for longer than ten minutes, or your inability to stop yourself from trying to carve pieces of yourself to give to him.

maybe if you helped him fill the gaping holes in his heart, he’d truly understand how you feel.

STEP 04:

if you had to do it all over again, would you do anything differently? —

sleep evades you after that night, and the night after that, and so forth; it gets so bad that you’re yawning in the middle of the day, falling asleep before you can have a cup of coffee or tea. this does not go unnoticed by the others, and after talking with nami, you feel less out of your element and finally can see the parts of sanji that he wants to keep hidden. her advice is simple: approach slowly and with intent; corner him and don’t let him escape.

you bide your time, full confident that you can find a moment to sit down with him and talk this all out. it doesn’t come easy, but franky mysteriously swaps sanji for the night’s watch — something that should strike you as odd, but it’s a small opening that you take without thinking as you hurriedly climb up to the crow’s nest with a renewed sort of energy.

even with his eyes closed, as he sits lazily on the bench with head tilted back against the wall, he knows it’s you.

“go back to bed,” he says firmly, refusing to look at you.

your stubbornness, unfortunately, wins out. “i’m staying.” at that he sits up, his attention completely on you as his eyes widen at your words. he wants to ask you why, but cowardice wins out — again. as his features soften, a flush crawls along his face, lightly painting his cheeks pink. he closes his eyes again, tries to steady his breathing as he counts backwards, only for his efforts to be obliterated with ease the moment you sit next to him.

as your thigh presses against his, you take his hand and on impulse you trace your fingertip along the lines on his palm. he watches you with a morbid fascination that scares him; but then you start to say things like, “you will live a very long life,” and “you are courageous, and you have a big heart.”

a small part of him wants to pull his hand away, so you won’t say anything else — but he remains put, so still that you almost think he’s stopped breathing. your voice is sweet and disarming, even when you carry on this charade of reading his palm. a belated realization hits him forcefully, making him blink several times; it dawns on him that you’ve always been so kind and gentle with him, even when you teased him. he’s spent all this time overthinking and hiding behind his past, that it never occurred to him that he could have simply let you in. you’ve never given him reason to believe that you’d betray or harm him intentionally.

he takes a deep breath, voice a little uneven, “i—”

you lean in close, adoration dripping onto your words as you interrupt him. “hey, have i told you?” the question glides along his skin, the words seeping into him as you continue, the lilt in your voice a honeyed, melodic spell. “you remind me of starlight and the mysteries of space.” your lips brush against his when you tell him that, and a warmth settles into the middle of his chest, makes it hard to focus. he doesn’t think when he curls his fingers around yours and doesn’t think when heleans down to kiss you — tender yet electrifying all the same.

the move disarms you in a way that doesn’t quite make sense to you, so you simply hum in approval and lean your head against his shoulder. a comfortable silence settles around you both, but you don’t mind that at all; it’s nice, not having to tip-toe around him anymore, and the demons that plagued him for so long don’t seem so intimidating with you by his side.

[akaakeis]

gnawing at my nails rn i miss my bf (i dont have one) how do u pick like,,, one person to selfship with bc���️⁉️⁉️⁉️⁉️⁉️⁉️⁉️⁉️⁉️⁉️⁉️⁉️⁉️

like there r so many options ushijima i dont even know who's my favourite character rn ushijima like guys☹️⁉️⁉️

BUT I cant wait for savyaku😼😼😼😼😼 SOCUTE

goshiki is my babey though he is sososososososososo cute and i would want him irl and i bet i could even pull him irl toooo

yk what this type of starting is called! a HOOK sentence cuz u got HOOKED and now ur reading this long ass ask. WAIT FUCJ mattsun guys hear me out here ANYWAYS. HRU SAV!!!!!!!!!!!! its 4am for yew rn right!!

anyways.. its 4pm havent had lunch yet am so fucking tired but soft rice.. soft white rice.... i want to sleep but rice....... call me basic but soft white rice is the best fucking thing in the entire world right after u. teacher gave my english composition an 80 i think ill end up on the news. i just stood up abruptly and the world went 🌀🌀🌀🌀 should i be worried..!!!!

THERE WAS AN OWL ON OUR ROOF THE OTHER DAY SO COOL i almost started writing akaashi hurt comfort (???) at school today but i didnt get time and now im Too Tired :(

im reading and the mountains echoed by khaled hosseini and erm. the plot is so questionable at times like wdym the guy was in love with his chauffeur wdym she tried to kill her sister and changed her mind last second so it was only paralysis but its ok bc she killed her fr next time. wdym this one girl dated her moms ex and then married her friend's ex like guys.. guys i have Questions..

IDK IF U READ JJK MANGA BUT U SHOULD READ JJK MANGA

i cant wait for ur birthday #weirdkidthings Im So Funny Guys Im So Funny

im going to sleep so hard tonight grrgrgrhrgrg i had ice cream on the way home from school YUM and then math kid era p2 i finished this one thinf before everyone else even started and the teacher asked if i did it qt home cuz wtf. ew now i remember her using her nail to create indentations in the paper and i feel nauseous my skin is crawling

WHATEVER eRmmrmrm im sitting on the stairs rn hashtag procrastination ahahahahah ive been writing this and zoninf out for the past 7 minutes yyyyyippeeee

im so tired guys let me sleeeep

my parenrs were supposed to find baby gender today but the little shit kept its legs shut and didnt let them see (just like me frl)

correction im lying on the stairs rn ..

honestly me x goshiki would be Bomb why is he so unpopular all his fics are mid or questionable so far,,,, anyways. konoha is so beautiful i would want him excpet i have like no grip on his character so #tweaks. i hate andrew tate so fkn much. i cant wait till i turn 16 idk i feel like life will be significantly cooler then. anyways bb i take my leave gotta go eat lunch

i hope youve eaten by the time ur reading this!!! stay hydrated and safe and dm me to be silly together whenever >:]]]]] i hope u have a WONDERFUL day sav!! ily <3

look at my man hes so gorgeous btw

alina... bf... :D alright then! umumumummm honestly there were many characters that i wanted to do a selfship with but i didnt want to be self shipping with the same character that someone im following consistently self ships with LMAO cause i feel like it gets weird for me at that point cause all the hcs in my head get mixed up? ANYWAY i just think of selfships with any character im hyperfixating on at that very moment... in fact my selfship very well may change!!!

anyway since im replying after you decided on yuulina... NOYA AGHHH U GUYS WILL BE SO CUTE TOGETHER!!! IM UR NO 1 SUPPORTER THIS IS YUULINA SUPPORT CENTRAL‼️‼️‼️

savyaku sounds so funny i need to thank of something that sounds better stop rn 💔 BUT I LOVE HIM SO SO SO SO SO MUCH IM SUPER EXCITED TO DO SOME SELFSHIP STUFF :))

u would so pull goshiki irl 🙂‍↕️

HELP thanks for the english lesson lina 😭 those terms always make me shudder because they were drilled into my head in my college comp class it was horrifying. and NO not mattsun i do NOT approve of that at this point in time!!!! AND IM OKAY!! tired as hell and i have 3 projects to work on <3 (i stacked my classes this year, im not proud.) IT IS NOW 3 PM AS I ANSWER THIS ASK SO SORRY IT TOOK ME LIKE 12 HOURS WOAH

honestly u were probably tired because you didn't eat but i digress... AND SOFT WHITE RICE HAS MY HEART IT MAY BE AN ASIAN THING?? and awh stawp😋 ARE WE TALKING ABOUT THE ENGLISH TEACHER THAT YOU CORRECTED IN CLASS? THE ONE THAT CANT SPEAK AS WELL AS YOU?? insanity 😨 i may end up on the news as well. AND YOURE PROBABLY HUNGRY AND DEHYDRATED GO EAT AND DRINK WATER IF YOU HAVENT ALREADY WHAT??? PLEASE TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF!!

WHAT AN OWL ON THE ROOF THATS SUPER COOL!! bro i love owls :( and ugh i get what u mean i feel like sometimes the time just slips away... but its okay! you'll have time at some later date <3 make sure you rest enough!!

guys what my jaw just dropped?? THOSE WERE THE MOST RANDOM PLOT POINTS YOU COULDVE LEFT ME WITH. NOW IM JUST CONFUSED? KINDA WANNA READ IT NOW (my readlist has 100+ books on it)...

AND IVE READ SOME OF IT BUT IM NOT UP TO DATE RN I HAVENT HAD MUCH TIME TO CATCH UP RECENTLY

im excited for your bday too!! im trying to math away the time differences in my head so like i would dm at 12 pm the day before your bday so i would catch u at midnight i THINK.

i hope u are having an AMAZING sleep rn alina!!! and u are so smart <3 barf ur teacher needs to stop doing that thats lowk unsanitary? in my book

HELP ME NOT THE JS LIKE ME FR 😭😭 hopefully u guys are able to figure out the gender soon!! im so excited for you guys <33

goshiki is under appreciated as a character honestly and i think its cause of his fuckass haircut 😭 NO OFFENSE TO YOU WHATSOEVER IM SORRY!! HES CUTE BUT THE HAIR IS NOT FOR ME. when i saw him shirabu AND tendou i was like "what the HELL is wrong with shiratorizawa they are all fucked" no they werent they had semi and ushijima BUT THAT WAS FIRST IMPRESSION ANYWAY also konoha UGRHSHSBNDMSJABD hes so!!! so!!! yeah!!! i love him sm... also how did we get on the topic of andrew tate hes such a weird guy i dont like him 💀 AND SO REAL im excited to be 16 <3

AND I HAVE!! make sure u eat something nutritious before school! and drink some water!! i hope your day is lovely <3 ily!!

[adelaidedrubman]

John and Jestiny put on a show for Skylar and Sherri. read here on ao3. 

notes: just in time for labor day, the sound of the summer is back! it’s hook, line, and sinker chapter 3 babey.  wordcount: 7.3k warnings: per usual, unhealthy relationships out the wazoo. stalking and harassment of past romantic partners (dealt with in a lighthearted manner but called for what it is in text), physical violence and semi graphic threats between present love interests (pre-relationship, but ft. john trying to pretend he’s not turned on about it), general deceit and manipulation, albeit mostly unsuccessful. humane animal death (it’s a fishing fic), weird sexual tension over fish gutting, littering, catchall johnjess warning. catchall my minimal proofreading warning.

“You got the plan down, right?” Jestiny hissed at the man fumbling uselessly with the task of baiting his hook, leaning into the motion of casting her line to inconspicuously shove in front of him and hopefully block the embarrassing display from Sherri and Skylar’s view. “Don’t need me to fuckin’ rehearse it with you again?”

By the time they’d parked the skiff just under the bridge connecting the road nearest Can of Worms Fishing Store with the island directly across from it where her ex-girlfriends were presently fishing, Jessie was beginning to think this entire thing had been a massive, undeniable mistake. 

“Yes,” John replied in a whistle through his own gritted teeth style into a grin, harmonized with a twang of his fishing line snapping. “You shouted it in my ear approximately ten times on the drive over.” 

He shuffled to her side, batting his eyelashes at her as he cocked his rod clasping hand back. “Dear,” he tacked on, with all the uncanny artificially synthesized saccharinity of a splenda packet. 

“Not your line,” she smiled in reply, letting go of the crank of the reel just long enough to reach over and bop the tip of his nose. There was no way she was going to let him actually cast in front of Skylar and Sherri. 

A well timed tug on her rod confirmed that luckily she wouldn’t have to — she was able to effectively knock his right arm down as she staggered back to oppose the force pulling against the line. 

She briefly darted her eyes to John to ensure was looking back with appropriately visible impressed enthusiasm — and not set to reach for his own rod — before settling her gaze on Skylar and Sherri as she wrangled her catch.  

The irritation at their stubborn refusal to look back was mildly assuaged by the sight of big, beautiful golden trout dangling at the end of her line as she yanked it from the water. 

“Oh, Jessie dear!” 

She resisted shooting another glare at the exclamation — Sherri and Skylar would know damn well she wouldn’t like being called that. 

This was definitely a mistake. 

“That might be the most impressive catch yet!” At least he was back on script now. “Please, let me have the honor of doing the work of gutting it for you.” 

“John,” she chimed bright with gratitude, dropping the fish into his outstretched arms. “That’s such a considerate thing to do for someone!” 

She gave a pointed look to Skylar and Sherri. 

“Anything for you, my dear.” 

She tried not to let tension settle too deeply into her jaw as she forced a grin. “I’ll cast your line for you while you do!” 

She made the barest of eye contact with her rod as she threw it out, the vast power of her stare settled on the tattooed hand bringing a knife down to pierce through the fish’s brain with expert precision. 

It was a genuine marvel to her how he managed to handle the task with such a natural grace that he seemed a completely different man from the one she’d watched flounder with the simple task of baiting a hook. 

If the fingers sliding down the clean, straight, perfectly placed incision along the fish’s underside weren’t branded with the same distinctive black ink, she would have thought they belonged to someone else entirely. 

She could almost imagine that he was someone different — someone she respected, even — as she watched his hand disappear into the cavern of the fish’s belly. 

The way he found the red knot rooting its spinal cord without delay, squeezing it tightly between his fingers. The way the delicate placement of his grip retained every bit of its exacting care even as his forearm flexed with powerful force to yank the long tether of nerves from the body. The way he remained completely unphased by blood dripping down to splatter atop those stupid, hideously expensive looking loafers. The way his arm flourished with a smooth, dramatic flair he threw the plucked out rope of organs into the water. 

“You’re good at that,” she murmured aloud before she even processed her mouth was moving. “I love watching you work,” she added with a deflecting chuckle and wink, forcing herself back into character. “Babe.” 

He blinked twice, a hint of genuine surprise seeming to spark through his eyes as he looked up to flash her a satisfied grin. 

“You might want to watch your line instead,” he replied with a nod towards her hands. “It looks like you have a bite.” 

Jestiny turned forward to see her pole bent to the point of being practically folded in half. 

“Fuck!” she screamed as she buckled her knees and yanked her arms back to oppose the fish. 

Jesus, this was embarrassing — how the hell had she missed the fish tugging? Had his shitty angling skills somehow infected her? She’d never had a fuck up like that when she was fishing with Sherri and Skylar. 

And now, thanks to him, she was making a fool out of herself right in front of them. 

Fuck. 

So embarrassing. 

Her cheeks flushed hot with fresh shame, only swelling as she successfully yanked up a massive largemouth bass. 

Fuck. She’d almost let a good one get away. 

This wasn’t like her. 

This was his fault, somehow. 

She should have never agreed to his stupid plan. 

This was a mistake. 

“What a catch!” the mistake in question cried with equal parts drama and vagueness, clearly lacking the know-how to comment on the specifics of the fish beyond the acknowledgement that it was one. “Would you like me to gut that one, too?” 

“She can wait,” Jessie replied, holding the fish up proudly. “Gonna wanna get a picture with her fully intact first. Sure beats that ten pound rainbow trout you caught earlier.” 

Listen to her. Even giving false credit for one of her catches. How far had she fallen? 

“Just pop open the cooler for me, then grab me some more bait.” 

She glanced forward again — Skylar and Sherri were looking now, at least, and she would tell herself they only started once the fish was pulled from the water. 

“Of course,” he offered pleasantly, to his credit tipping the cooler up so that the fish crowding it would be visible to her ex-girlfriends across the water. He was better at empty theater than he was at fishing. “All yours.” 

She swore she saw Sherri roll her eyes before turning to whisper something to Skylar. 

Those bitches. How dare they whisper secrets about her. 

Whatever. Moving on.

She swiped the cup bearing a proud ‘Drubman Marina’ logo perhaps a bit too hard from the cupholder, making a show of looking inside it. 

“Fuck!” she exclaimed, this time in feigned surprise. “Looks like we fished through all our bait!” 

“Fish biting a little too well, today.” 

“For some of us,” she replied, looking directly at Skylar and Sherri and the arrow-straight, undisturbed poles of their fishing rods. “But speakin’ of, I do believe that’s the proprietor of Cans of Worms Fishing Store over there with a full cup of bait. Let’s drive this baby over there to give their small business a little economic stimulus, at least.” 

“Jessie, do not fucking come over —” 

Jestiny cut off Skylar’s shouting with a rev of the motor rumbling to life, idling there as John pulled up the anchor. 

She could not so effectively drown out him whispering directly into her ear. “I didn’t say you could drive the boat,” he hissed. “The agreement was you would pretend to drive as we pulled up.” 

“I know,” she rasped back with a smile she didn’t have to fake. “I was pretending when I agreed to that. I deceived you. I’m good at that. You need work,” she said with a raise of her eyebrows. “You’re overselling. Make it subtle, don’t ham it up so much.” 

“Acting note taken,” he replied, scooching into the seat next to her. “Now give me the —”

She jerked the wheel and slammed her foot on the accelerator — giving it enough gas in the single pump that they were able to coast the distance to Skylar and Sherri’s place on the bank, the bow landing gently in the mud. 

“Expert docking, dear,” he commented syrupy sweet as he hurried to swipe the key from the ignition, slipping it onto his wrist. 

Possessive, paranoid, materialistic, overdramatic diva. 

Guess that explained the key she’d noticed hanging over his heart — must be to an even nearer and dearer expensive toy. 

God, she couldn’t wait to fake end their fake relationship. 

The sentiment only grew stronger as she watched him carefully tiptoe through the mud with sudden apparent concern over dirtying his already bloodied shoes. 

“Ms. Woodhouse,” John held out a hand towards the brunette that was met with nothing but a scowl in return. 

He made an apologetic ‘ah’ noise and wiped the hand on his shirt, but Jessie knew it was not the fish guts Sherri was repulsed by. 

“My apologies.” He bowed. “I haven’t yet had the privilege of patronizing your little store.” Jessie smiled. Patronizing was right. And Sherri deserved it. She had to admit she could revel in his condescension, when it wasn’t directed at her. “It’s so difficult when I have my own boat ramp right in the backyard to remember to get out there and support the small business owners in the community.” 

“Support?” Skylar cut in, scowling even harder than Sherri did. “When have you ever supported any business around here? You call trying to shut everyone down and take their property from ’em support?” 

Huh. That’s weird  — Skylar seemed to have history with this guy. And it was bad enough he was a lawyer at all, did she fuck up and start pretending to date a fucking foreclosure attorney or something? 

John waved the accusation off. “Please, I hate discussing business matters during my recreation time.” He reached into his back pocket to take out his wallet, pulling another hundred dollar bill from it. “I would love to support Can of Worms now.” 

He turned to Sherri, gauchely waving the bill in front of her. “I’m afraid my lovely date and I have fished through all of our bait. But it seems you have plenty left. He nodded towards the unopened can at Sherri’s feet. “I’d like to purchase it.” 

Sherri met him with a dead-eyed stare. “Store’s closed.” 

John turned, looking across the water at the Can of Worms storefront. “Your hours say open until 9.” 

“Well, I’m not on the clock.” 

“Oh, don’t be unreasonable. I’m paying well above market rate for something I could just waste time going over and buying from you, for much cheaper, in the store.” 

“No, you couldn’t,” Skylar said. “Store’s closed.” 

He pointed behind him. “I see it open.” 

“Store’s always closed to you.”

Jestiny gave up on pretending not to notice the conversation, setting aside her beer to slam her hands down on the side of the boat. “Well, fuckin’ sell it to me, then!” 

“God, Jessie,” Sherri groaned, leaning down to hold her head in her hands. “Can’t you just fucking leave us alone? Following us, harassing us while we’re trying to fish? We broke up with you. We don’t want you around.” 

“Shit’s sad,” Skylar agreed. “Just stop. Don’t make us get a fuckin’ restraining order or something.” 

Jestiny kicked the side of the boat, hard. “They’re called Orders of Protection, in fucking Montana!” 

“You learn that from your slimebag lawyer boyfriend?” Skylar asked. Jessie frowned. That was hitting below the belt, she thought. “And did he learn it from law school, or ’cause half the fucking County wants to take one out on his creepy ass?”

Sherri brought a hand over her mouth to stifle her laugh at Skylar’s joke. “They really are perfect for each other, huh?” she giggled against Skylar’s shoulder, setting her chin atop it and looking up at her adoringly. 

Jessie felt flames crawl up in her belly. Of all the infuriating insults. 

“Yeah, we fucking are! I finally have someone who can keep up with me behind the rod and on an intellectual fuckin’ level!” she forced herself to flash an adoring smile of her own at the man she shouted over. “And he’s got an actual sense of humor! Just look at his outfit!” 

John turned to shoot Jessie a glare. 

“Yeah,” Skylar laughed, turning to nudge the flyaway hairs clinging to Sherri’s dewy brown skin away with her nose so that she could finally whisper her teasing directly into the brunette’s ear. “Looks like you and I were the only ones that didn’t think to come dressed for the circus.” 

“I fucking heard that!” she leaned over the side of the boat to screech, crumpling the styrofoam of the bait cup in her fist and attempting to fling the trash across the distance to Skylar and Sherri — the bits floating down to scatter impotently along the surface of the water instead. 

“Jesus, Jessie, a fish is gonna fucking choke on that,” Skylar cried, pushing herself up from her lounge chair. 

“And maybe I can’t stop you from driving a boat on public waters, but you can’t litter on my damn property,” Sherri agreed, reaching behind her to pull a net from the pouch on the back of her own chair and toss to Skylar. “That shit drifts to shore.”

Jessie crossed her arms over her chest with a huff, rolling eyes dismissively to duck Skylar and Sherri’s judgmental glares with an earnest wave of shame — she didn’t mean to endanger any poor fish, obviously, she was just angry — instead finding John’s gaze, oddly comforted by the quiet, embarrassed fury she saw simmering back at her, as if the bright blue glitter of his eyes was a temperate pool to reflect her own angry humiliation, unfiltered and undiluted in their vibrant heat. 

Then something in his stare sharpened, an almost imperceptible narrowing of the pinpoints of his pupils into focus, gaining all the ice-cold clarity of a glacial pond as he darted his eyes back to where Skylar reached forward to dip the hoop of her net into the water to scoop up the ripped up bits of styrofoam. 

“Hi,” John hummed pleasantly as he stepped up to Skylar, placing a hand atop the handle of her net. “John Seed. Do you remember me?” 

“The fuck you —” 

He slid his hand down the pole of the net, pulling it closer until his fist was circled just beneath the base of its mesh. “I tried to buy bait from you a few moments ago. You refused to sell to me.” 

“...Yeah?”

“Big mistake,” he barked with a tug of the net to cause Skylar to stumble slightly, barely catching herself to remain upright. “Big. Huge!” He forced a manic laugh, snatching the net from her hands. “Because perhaps had I been occupied with my own fishing, I wouldn’t have time now to ask if you have a proper permit to fish with a net.” 

Sherri stood, moving to stand between John and Skylar, defensively. 

“I do my business selling fishing licenses, dumbass,” Sherri grumbled, pulling two crumpled pieces of paper from her back pocket to flash. “You really think I’d come out here without one?”

“Ah.” John clicked his tongue against his teeth twice, wagging his finger and tapping it against the paper Sherri held out. “But I’d like to see your netting license,” he said in sing-song. “A Class A resident fishing license only allows fishing with a hook and line. Netting requires its own permit.” 

Sherri and Skylar exchanged confused looks. 

“Ha!” Jestiny let out a single, choppy laugh as she hopped over the side of the boat, splashing mud as she landed. “It does.”

It did, when it came to hoop nets. But of course even if he knew the law he wouldn’t know the difference between —

He waved a hand in front of his face, then rested it atop his chest. “Oh, I’m only joking, of course,” he said with a smile, bowing his head. “Montana Code Title 87, Chapter 6, Part 5 Fishing Offenses includes an exception in paragraph (1)(a)(iv) for landing nets.”

Jestiny felt a giddy heat blossom along her cheeks — that was unexpected. He knew the difference between a hoop net and a landing net. He’d actually studied up. 

He cocked an eyebrow, smile widening. “For after the fish has been hooked as specified in subsection (1)(a).”  He nodded down towards their rods. “And your hooks appear to be bare.” 

Skylar placed a hand atop her hip. “We weren’t even fishing with that net,” she said matter-of-factly. “We were just cleaning up the trash your girlfriend threw in the water.”

“That’s not what I saw,” Jessie chirped, throwing her arm around John’s waist and pulling him to her. “And I think the word of two officers of the court is gonna outweigh what y’all say.” Jessie leaned forward, snarling. “I think it certainly gives me probable fucking cause to seize all this shit as fuckin’ evidence of a crime, including the fucking bait,” she snapped. “I think it could mean both y’all forfeiting your fucking fishing licenses as penalty, if this shit gets charged.”

“And I have a feeling it would be,” John purred, turning to the side to beam at Jessie with a thoroughly convincing mimicry of proud adoration as he raked his fingers through her hair. His smile sharpened into a smirk as he turned back to their fellow fishers, hand still stroking up and down the side of Jessie’s neck. “I’m on quite good terms with the County Attorney.” Former prosecutor? Jessie worried in the back of her mind, not letting it distract her from their victory. “I think she’ll be quite concerned with such a flagrant fishing violation committed by a prominent player in the local fishing scene.”

“Good fucking God, Jessie,” Sherri huffed, swiping the can of worms from off the ground and shoving it in Jessie’s hands. “Here. Take the damn bait, since it means that fucking much to you. You win. We’re leaving.”

“Hell yeah you are!” Jessie cheered triumphantly at the pair throwing their tackle boxes into their truck bed. “Don’t let the trout bite you on the way out!” she called after them with a hand cupped at the side of her mouth. “Not that it’s been something you’ve had to worry about so far!” 

John threw his head back to laugh on cue at the jab, and Jessie had to admit as truck doors slammed to drown it out that he had something of a theatrical acumen. 

She turned to the side and clasped his face between her hands tightly as she grinned up at him in spite of herself. 

“That was amazing!” she said in a hushed roar. “I mean, I gotta fuckin’ hand it to ya, that was great, you —” 

She bit her lip as she watched him stand taller, a preening lift of his jaw as he basked in the praise. And for some reason she couldn’t summon the appropriate irritation at the vanity.

But as the engine of Skylar’s truck rumbled to life behind her, she nonetheless used the interruption to avoid inflating his ego further whilst keeping up the ruse by pulling him down to press her lips against his and kiss the smug smile away. 

He’s good, she thought as he melted against her obligingly with a swift but tender unwinding that felt shockingly natural, draping an arm over her shoulder to reach a hand around to thread in her short crop of hair as he kissed her back. 

His other hand rested gently atop one of hers still cupping his cheek, stroking along the leathery ridges of her knuckles as he dropped his jaw to deepen the kiss. 

It was so odd, the feeling of kissing him when they were playing at gentleness — the slow drag of the slick underside of his lip shifting up to expose the slight hairline cracks of chapping along its wetted surface, the surprising softness to the tickle of the whiskers of his beard that made her realize how meticulously oiled and groomed it must be, the careful way he mirrored her incremental movements as she finally parted, soft, panting breaths tingling against her skin as he dipped his head to stay leaned into her while allowing her the separation. 

“You, uh —” She drew in a sharp breath as she dragged her fingers through his beard, bringing their tips to rest just above his chin. “You knew the difference between a hoop net and a landing net.” 

He laughed, warm puffs of breath falling against kiss chafed skin. “It’s defined in the Fish and Wildlife Commission Regulations,” he said, his whisper further softened by the airiness of the deflection. “Keeping up with them actually comes quite in handy, in my line of work.” 

Jessie sighed pleasantly, then stiffened just as quickly. 

His line of work? 

She’d already been concerned about him being a bootlicking landlord lackey or overeducated cop of some kind, could the situation be even worse? 

Could he be — 

She gulped, dropping her arms and taking a full step away from him this time. 

Could he be some kind of in-house counsel for one of the commercial fisheries around here? One of the goddamn slimy corporate lobbyists for those corrupt, greedy bastards? 

No, she shook the thought from her mind — she couldn’t entertain such horrible possibilities, and the sudden blare of Skylar laying on the horn as she coasted by would have drowned them out anyways. 

“Jessie,” Skylar poked her head out from the driver’s side window to call out. “Can we have a quick, civil word with you?” she asked, punctuated with a pointed look towards John. “Alone?” 

All her catastrophizing about her pretend boyfriend’s professional life vanished with the giddy soar of accomplishment — this was it. Clearly Skylar and Sherri had talked about it, and after her impressive showing here today they had accepted what a horrible mistake it had been to ever break up with her in the first place, and were about to beg her to come back. 

“Sure.” She drew out the syllable with a nasally whistle, eyebrows raising with expectant understanding. “‘Quick and civil’ is my middle name.” 

Jestiny smacked the man beside her on the rear end to dismiss him, shaping her wince at the harsh impact of his uncushioned tailbone against her palm into a playful wink. “Give us a few minutes for girl talk, would’ya?” 

He pushed out his bottom lip, giving her a flutter of his eyelashes as he turned to head back towards his boat. “Don’t keep me waiting.” 

She wouldn’t — assuming the women were contrite enough, she was sure it would be five minutes flat before she was waving goodbye to him from the back of their truck bed as they all drove away together. 

Since he did know how to gut and clean them, she thought she’d let him keep the fish she caught as compensation for his efforts. 

“So, what’s on your mind?” she asked once John was sufficiently out of earshot, folding her arms along the window frame and resting her chin atop them to poke her head into the truck. “Need fishing tips?” 

“Look, Jessie, I…” Skylar gave her a pained look, drawing in a deep breath. “We talked about it, and… We really don’t want this to be any harder than it has to be, okay?” 

Jessie pursed her lips together, crinkling her nose and tensing her cheeks with a pressure she knew would cause dimples to sink endearingly into their rounds. She tried to not to savor the pained expression on Skylar’s face too much, but it was difficult not to indulge in the satisfaction from their begging with tail between their legs for her to take them back. 

Sherri nodded in agreement, leaning forward in the passenger’s seat to peer through the window. “We want to work this out.” 

Jestiny cocked her head further to the side, cheek resting against her arm. “I’m listening.” 

Perhaps she wouldn’t really make them beg, but at least a tearful apology was in order. 

“So, even though it’s right by my store, we’re willing to make a deal on this fishing spot.” 

Jestiny blinked up at them. 

“You can have it Saturday evenings through noon Sunday, and we agree to not come around,” Sherri explained. “Then we’ll take Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and you get Tuesday and Thursday.” 

“W-What?”

“It’s more than fair, I think,” Skylar tacked on, giving her a stern look. “Most of all, we don’t want it to be a big fight, anymore.”

“We want to handle everything peacefully,” Sherri said, expression pleading. “And we’re glad you found a new fishing partner, even if it is, well…” She shook her head, flashing a forced smile. “We’re just happy to see you moving on.”

Jessie clicked her teeth together, neck stiffening as she raised her head. 

This made no fucking sense. 

“Yeah, I mean…” Skylar shrugged, eyes darting over Jestiny’s shoulder. “For what it’s worth, y’all do seem really good together. Right for each other. Better than we ever were for you.” 

No fucking sense. 

Jessie slapped a hand against the side of the truck, pushing herself off its frame. “Are you fucking kidding me!?” 

“Seriously, Jessie?” Skylar deadpanned in reply. “It’s a really fair deal. We’re being nice, after —”

“Nice!” she croaked in mocking tone at piercing volume, throwing a too stiffly splayed hand up to swing through the air in the arc of a goodbye wave before clenching it back into a fist at her side as she stormed away from the truck. “Real fucking nice!”

The tension locked into her shoulders as she stomped through the mud, pinching tight enough it wrapped around to squeeze the cavern of her chest, push stinging bile up to catch and smolder in her throat in a heavy lump. 

“How was girl talk, my —”

The arm that tried to reach comfortingly towards her was quickly pushed away — fingers curling the soft leather cord of his key chain as she yanked it from his wrist. 

The polite clearing of his throat rumbled in synch with the motor roaring to life as she jabbed the key into the ignition and cranked it to the right. 

“My dear, how was —”

“We’re leaving!” she shouted over the harsh rattle of gas pumping through the motor to spin its blades, shoving the gear shift into reverse as she slammed her foot on the accelerator. 

“H-Hang on, let’s —” 

“We’re leaving now!” 

She jerked the wheel sharply to the left once she’d put space between the bow and the riverbank, leaving John flailing over the side to hurry to hoist the anchor. 

“Very well,” he ground out, loud enough to pierce over the racket. “But I’m driving the —”

She shoved the gearshift forward and stomped down on the gas again, sending them lurching forward with a bounce of the bow towards the sky. 

She barely even noticed the sudden, heavy pressure of something falling in her lap, the man at her side losing his balance and stumbling to land with chest atop her thighs. 

She rolled eyes that had begun to water from the wind cutting against them as the boat zipped along. 

“Those assholes,” she cursed, tightening the grip of her fingers around the wheel until they grew numb. “How dare they. How —” 

How dare they do what, exactly? her brain struggled to piece together as wind whistled in her ears harsher as the boat quickly gained speed, gliding over waves growing steeper from the force of her wake. “How dare they think they can just buy me off like that! Do they think — think this is just about a fishing spot?”

“Well,” John spat, heel of his hand smashing against her thigh as he tried to push himself up in the brief of lull of the boat’s course evening out as Jestiny weaved them between jutting mudbanks to an open stretch of water, slamming the gas down harder upon clearing them. “Isn’t it?!”

“Oh, fuck you, too!” she shouted down at him, jabbing her elbow at his collarbone to shove him away, off her lap and onto the floor. “This is about the fucking principle of the matter,” she hissed, wagging a finger at him on beat with the forceful up and down bobs of the boat along choppier waters. 

“This is about fuckin’ fairness, and justice, and getting what’s owed to me for the months I put up with their shit!” She briefly glanced up as she continued talking, distant greenish brown blurs of oncoming land fading from her line of sight as quickly as it popped up over the horizon, another jerk of the steering wheel bringing her to a wide expanse of clear, glittering lake. 

Good, she needed to do nothing but sail fast and directionless enough to outrun her thoughts for a while. 

“After all that they’re treating this like a fucking scheduling issue, when they should be —”

Should be what? She choked on a particularly strong gust of wind, stinging her chapped and sunbaked cheeks as it whipped against her face, a matching burn rising in her throat. Apologizing? Begging? Taking it all back?

She gritted her teeth tightly to steel against the wind as she continued. “They have the fuckin’ gall to act like they’re the ones being nice about this, when they can’t even —” She clenched and ground her jaw. “It’s a public shore! Sherri doesn’t own it, just because her store is nearby and it’s fucking convenient for them! They never even had a right to —” 

“You need to slow down!”

She pushed away the arm reaching for the steering wheel. “I’m fucking talkin’ at a perfectly fuckin’ measured and goddamn coherent pace! If you can’t keep up, that’s —”

“The boat!” he screamed, fingers clawing and pulling at her arm without managing to get it to budge. “You need to slow down the —”

Sudden warmth slung itself along the tops of her thighs — a glistening mix of blood and saliva spurting from his mouth as his jaw crashed against the glossy wood of the dash. 

And the air filling her lungs to feed the complaining shout building in her chest was knocked from her just as quickly by the heavy impact of his torso crashing against her as he was flung back — landing in her lap for the briefest heartbeat before they were both sent flying over the captain’s seat and tumbling along the length of the boat as its bow tipped upward and the smooth coast of water along its hull was replaced by a harsh, violent scraping. 

The pressure of his body weight only intensified, now fully pressed against her to pin her down back flat against the backrest of the row of seats at the stern — which now ran almost parallel to the ground from the angle the boat had landed. 

She grunted, trying to wriggle out from under his weight at least enough to free her arms and push him off entirely — the effort proving unsuccessful, his body staying pressed flush against her even as the vast expanse of tangerine marbled sky stretching out above her became blocked by his head, lifted so the scowl twisting onto his face could show. 

She shoved the heel of her hand against his chest, gripping his shirt and pulling when he failed to budge. “Get the fuck off me!”

The angry curl of his upper lip deepened, head jutting forward until their noses were pressed together. A droplet of blood fell from his mouth to land with sudden heat on her chin. “You crashed my boat.”

“No shit!” she spat back, butting her forehead against his. “You shouldn’t have been fucking distracting me!”

His brow twitched, his body tensing further. “You crashed. My. Boat!”

“And did you get some kinda fuckin’ head injury during it or something?!” she barked. “The boat crashed —”

“You crashed —”

“— you have sufficiently fuckin’ established that.” She shoved her hand harder against his collarbone, digging her nails into the mass of his shoulder. “So how about instead of sitting around goin’ off like a broken record you get the fuck off me and help me shove this thing back into the water? I’ll even give you the honor of driving the piece of junk back to the marina, since you have such a minnow up your ass about me doing it.”

“Oh, and wouldn’t I love to,” he hissed out through tightly gritted teeth, lips twisting into a smile leagues removed in its exaggerated pleasantry from the bitterness of his tone and the rage in his eyes. 

His smile dropped — a swift movement of his arm breaking her grip on him as he pulled it towards his chest, then shot the hand forward to bury in short strands of copper and grab a fistful. His palm settled cradling the side of her skull as he jerked her head towards him by the grip on her hair, then slammed it back down against the seat cushion at an angle that caused her neck to twist so her head was turned towards the side and at the edge of the backrest as she landed, forcing her to look over the back side of the boat to the motor. 

“Had you not certainly managed to damage it beyond the point of being able to cross a puddle!” 

She paused only briefly to take in through narrowed eyelids the sight of mangled propeller he’d directed her gaze towards, a sleek black and silver blossom of twisted and dented metal, one of its petals bent so far back by the force it looked plucked clean from the stem. The second outboard was absent from the boat entirely, just barely peeking up past the waterline at the base of the short cliffs they’d landed atop. 

She flicked her glare towards the hand buried in her hair, then back up to his face so she could savor the wince of pain in his eyes as her boot made contact with the side of his stomach to kick him off.

She scrambled to her knees to grab him by the shoulders and slam his back against the ledge of the stern, climbing atop his chest and pushing him back further until his head hung off the side, neck nestled between the shiny metal blades of the propeller. 

She replicated the force he’d exerted against her, pulling gel-stiffened locks from their place plastered against his skull to shove his head back and sideways until the edge of the twisted propeller blade dug into the delicate skin of his neck. “I bet it still runs good enough I could start up the engine and lob your head clean off your fucking body right now!” 

She watched pink crawl up the stretched column of his neck and settle deep into his cheeks, blood rushing to his head from the angle. She felt his chest tense beneath her as his hands reached out to grip her hips, heard the rustling of his adjusting his legs behind her — certain he was readying himself to push her off and retaliate. 

She elbowed away the arm reaching towards her hip before he had the chance, settling for the sufficiency of her threat and hopping up before he could strike. 

She jumped down from the boat to stand atop the rocks and survey the landscape, scanning along the rocky coastline, the peaks of mountains and the sharp points of pine trees standing in backdrop past the vast expanse of sunset sparkling water. Her eyes traced the outline of the suspension bridge running roughly parallel to the shore, which Skylar and Sherri would likely be zipping across on their drive from Can of Worms back to Skylar’s trailer up in the mountains right about now. It was too vast and treacherous a distance of lake to attempt to swim across, especially in the creeping darkness, and the only other land in reach were the smaller, even less likely to be inhabited islands. 

“We landed at that big ass fucking island that blocks off the lake from the West,” she announced, dragging a knuckle along her chin as she thought, smearing away the droplet of blood she’d forgotten had settled there. “About three-quarters north ways into it, I’d say.” 

She spared a glance to the man still in the upturned boat behind her, fidgeting and pulling down at the hem of his now thoroughly dirtied shirt as he rose to stand. 

She sighed, briefly reaching into her pocket to check with a sense of predetermined defeat the display screen of her cellphone, confirming a thick circle around a diagonal line greeted her positioned at the service strength icon. 

“We can keep hiking north, along the coastline,” she said resolutely. “We’ll hit the main road eventually, and we can hitchhike along it. Worst case scenario if no one picks us up, there’s a little general store on the other side of the water. If we get started now, we might make it before they close up shop.” 

“Hitchhiking?” he repeated, weighed heavy with incredulity. “No, absolutely not. This isn’t exactly the place for —” 

“Jesus,” she interrupted, rolling her eyes. “Look, I know you just lost one of your favorite toys, but we don’t have time for you to be a spoiled fuckin’ brat about how we’re getting out of here, too. It ain’t exactly my favorite pastime neither, but those of us born with mouths empty of silver fucking spoons know that sometimes you gotta do things that are —” 

“If you could stop talking down to me long enough to listen, perhaps you’d understand that I’m not protesting because I think it’s beneath me. I’m… familiar with this island, actually.” 

Jestiny rolled her eyes. Was there a thing on earth he wouldn’t find a way to brag about? 

“And I can tell you, there isn’t going to be enough traffic along the road for hitchhiking to be a reliable bet.” 

“Great!” she barked, pushing past him to reach for her now well dented tackle box. “All the more reason to haul ass towards Old Sun Outfitters before closing time.” 

“They’re closed already,” he deadpanned in reply. “Permanently. The owner and his family of si —” John cleared his throat, with a quick, hard blink, as if needing to abruptly shift his train of thought. “They shut down. I doubt there’s even a working payphone around there, anymore.” 

Jessie paused to study his expression, to scrutinize the strange, sudden dodginess behind the unnaturally soft smile and relaxed eyes. 

He was clearly hiding something. Had Old Sun really shut down? She’d only stopped by there a couple of times to pick up bait, and she couldn’t say she went recently enough to know, or often enough to keep track of their business. 

And how would he know, anyways? Was he — 

Her breath hitched, that same chilling, nauseating prospect bubbling back to the surface. 

Was he a foreclosure attorney? 

“But if we keep going west and cross the main road, there’s actually a —” he paused, the fluid wave of his hand continuing on beat as he stared on silent and searching for words. “...residential area, on the other side of the island. Closer than the rundown general store, and actually occupied. I know a place there we can shelter for the night. And some of my associates will be stopping by anyways tomorrow morning, and can drive us back to the Marina first thing.” 

Knowing the zoning for a place he didn’t live? Having associates in the area? 

Jessie gulped. This did not bode well. 

“No fucking way am I gonna go wandering into the woods at sundown with a fucking creep like you. And I’m sure as hell not joining you for a fucking sleepover.” 

“Oh, please,” he scoffed, throwing arms up into the air. “I could just as easily drown you under the cover of darkness during the little moonlit stroll along the coast you’ve proposed, were homicide my goal.” 

“Yeah?” she goaded with a raise of her brows. “And I could avoid the fuckin’ risk altogether by bashing your head open against these rocks, and selling whatever good samaritan I finally flag down a sob story about how my poor boyfriend just died in a boating accident.”  

“Oh, and how delicious and satisfying it would be to spend my final breaths watching you stumble helplessly lost through the woods, not finding another soul, until you finally collapsed from exhaustion and joined me in death.” 

“I would fuckin’ carve out your eyes and throw them in the lake first, so that the only thing you’d ever see of me again is my fishing hook when I came back here to catch whatever trout had the bad luck of eating you.” 

“Would you?” he gasped, with an unbothered, wild smile and a hand drawn to his chest. He pushed out his bottom lip so that his smile fell, clicking his tongue against his teeth and pinching his brow with feigned pity as he patted his pocket and added in taunting sing-song, “Because I still have your fishing knife.” 

She felt her jaw tense and her eyes bulge angrily, waving her arm as she stomped away to preserve whatever image she could of being unbothered by the revelation. 

“Keep it!” she shouted as she turned on her heels, beginning to stomp her way north in as steady of a march as she could keep atop the uneven rock. “I’ll walk my way back to the mainland alone, and you can fuck off into the woods!” 

“Oh, don’t be foolish!” John called after her. “It’s better that we stick together, you can at least be reasonable enough to see that.” 

“Sure fuckin’ can’t!” she shouted over her shoulder. “I’m following the road, whether you’re with me or not!” 

He huffed, impatient and petulant, stomping forward a few paces without properly committing to following after. “Would you just listen? You’re not going to find anyone to help, it’s —” 

Still, it was enough to let her know it was a bluff, and he’d be following along whatever path she chose. “At least I’ll be alone!” 

“Which is dangerous!” he bellowed after. “Jessie, will you please just follow me into the occupied part of the island? For fuck’s sake, do you even have bear spray?”

“Nope,” she chirped pleasantly, pausing a beat at the word ‘please.’ “I’ll take my chances!” 

“For the love of —” She picked her pace back up. “Wait!” His footsteps thudded more quickly behind her, and the arm swinging back with her upbeat gait was caught at the wrist by his hand. He let out a long, exasperated sigh. 

“There’s a very secluded little stream on this island, out by the abandoned mill,” he explained with a renewed slow, measured calmness. “Not many people know about it, and hardly anyone is ever there. But I have it on good authority it’s an excellent place to catch rainbow trout.” He released his grip on her wrist, as if testing her willingness to stay in place without the force. “I could show you where it is — and see to it the few other people who know about it make themselves scarce from here on, if you’ll follow me to make camp for the night.” 

Jestiny clenched her jaw tightly enough she thought her teeth might crack as she paused there, considering. 

She knew bait when she saw it. 

He was a devious, manipulative, conniving bastard trying to lure her in with cheap tricks she was too smart to fall for. 

Biting now would be yet another huge mistake, and she was above that.  

She drew in a deep breath. 

“Lead the way.” 

[shih-coulda-had-it]

How tall was kid toshi?

Depending on what panel you look at, he is either a full head shorter than Nana (so, less than six feet | 185 cm, because I maintain that Nana was a giant woman) or of equal height. When you look at the most recent manga panel of junior high Toshinori towering over Izuku, he definitely gives off the vibes of the latter.

Look how beefy young Toshinori got between these two chapters!

I’m personally a shrimpy young Toshinori stan, but I’m biased because I have read too many fics about malnourished/uncared-for children being embraced and fed hearty meals. And in art, of course, I am trying to promote my Prime Torino agenda, so Toshinori gets shrunk and softened into babey form in contrast.

Plugging in my 'Toshinori got One for All at thirteen years old' headcanon as well, because Izuku has not been singled out as 'the youngest user to ever inherit One for All,' and also because it adds to babey Toshi.

[wyverewings]

@kirbyoctournament

Hey, you know how I said I had a comic in the last Artemeta drawing I did? Well, that turned out to be way too difficult, so I just am posting the beginning and ending.

Yep, Artemeta is Meta Knight's older sister! I can't put Artemeta in either Kirby fic I'm working in, so I decided to reveal it quicker. It's actually the origin of the suffix of her name (the prefix is based on Artemis, Greek goddess of the moon and hunt), and I think Meta might have drawn his own title from her in universe...

Also, Meta has horns because I like Astrals with horns, and he doesn't have wings because I hc that Astrals have retractable wings. Dedede's also my own design. And yes, that drawing Arte is holding is by babey Meta... Also forgot to mention, but I'm kinda imagining that the OC tournament is being broadcasted on the news in the Kirby universe(s).

(feat: @ceragolor's Naos, @rosepetalmoon's Rosie, and @startistdoodles's Prisma... who I chose since they've all had interactions with Arte)

Also another thing under the cut, cw for some blood

This was part of the comic, a little flashback of teenage Arte protecting babey Meta from the guy who killed their parents. I wanted to post it because I do think it's cool even if I scrapped it.

[lumiereandcogsworth]

okay I have some questions about the birthday boy 💛 did he still celebrate his birthday after his mother died, or rather, was he forced to celebrate because he's the Prince™️ or did his father kinda just not give a shit ? also what was his favorite birthday from his childhood (if he has one)

OKAYYYY IT’S ANGST TIME BABEY LET’S GET INTO IT!!

so, as i mentioned to you and as you saw, i DO touch on this a bit in his birthday fic today :’) but i am sooo happy to elaborate on all the utter sadness of it all :)

adam’s mother died in march when he was nine. that august, when he turned ten, i think everyone TRIED to celebrate him in little ways. lumi & plum still attempted to get him a gift, mrs potts still made him his favorite treat (macarons), and even cogsworth and cuisinier tried to coordinate a special dinner with all adam’s favorite foods… but adam really wasn’t himself. life had just been hell for him since her passing. he’d been struggling with nightmares, struggling to eat, struggling to be a person. he wasn’t even ten years old yet and he already felt so cast adrift.

i don’t think his father ever cared about adam’s birthday or even remembered. he’d be going over scheduling with his secretary and he’d be like “there’s nothing going on the week of the 26th, i’ll go then.” and the secretary would say “well. that’s the prince’s birthday…” and louis was just like “and? he’ll still age whether i’m here or not. and hopefully he’ll be more of a man by the time i return.” so that’s nice.

adam entirely just stopped caring about his birthday though. like at first he’d still appreciate the servants’ attention. but his father got stricter about them interacting with him and he equally started getting brainwashed into mistreating them too.

also oh man. okay so this is BAD. there WAS a birthday that louis DID do something for him. and uhhhhhhhhh. Bad. bad bad bad. i’ll try to say it quickly and simply.

for adam’s 13th birthday louis hired a prostitute to uhm. make him a man. she was twice his age.

okay i’ll let you work out the details there! sorry!!!!!

anyway. FUCK. after that, adam just suuuuuppperrr did not give a shit about his birthday. like genuinely despite how self-centered and arrogant he grew up to be, he literally did not make a big deal about his birthday. everyone else did though! his “friends” would always throw INSANE parties for him, and he’d go of course (if only to intoxicate the absolute hell out of himself and forget about everything) but he never ever told anyone that it was his birthday, and he always told people to shut the fuck up if they tried to sing or cheer for him in any way. and it DID confuse his people because they KNEW how much he loved attention. it just couldn’t be birthday-themed attention :/

okay sorry backtracking just a tad:

his fourteenth birthday he actually did slightly enjoy. it was his first birthday with “friends” from university. other shitty little delinquents, of course. and they STILL bullied adam. he was always the butt of the jokes in the group. he was the awkward loser boy that they kept around because he was the prince and was actually fun once you got some alcohol into him. so they celebrated his 14th birthday right when he got back to school after the summer, and, at the time, adam felt like he was actually accepted by people. (even if it was truly all a façade.)

his sixteenth birthday happened like a month after his father died. so obviously nothing happened on that day. pretty much everyone forgot because they were dealing with funeral plans and lowkey freaking out about the idea of adam inheriting the throne. the day came and went without any fanfare regarding it, and he wasn’t mad about it at all. (deeply depressed about it. but ya know.)

anyway yeah so he became an older teen, a young adult, and each year was the same shit. more parties and debauchery and exuberance. he hated his birthday but there was always a party and he was always the most wasted at it. i definitely think, on some birthdays, when he was all drunk and depressed, he’d sometimes escape the party to just be alone. wander to the portraits hall and throw glass at his father’s portrait. stand under his mother’s portrait and feel like shit. feel like he’d let her down. feel ashamed to be her son. drink more drink more drink more. things were bad :(

BUT ALRIGHT SO heyyyyyyyy let’s turn this around. end on a positive note? yeah? PLEASE?🥲 his favorite birthday from childhood was maybe his fifth. that was the year his mother gifted him his first horse, etienne. adam actually got to SEE this horse’s birth (which is a very precious fic of mine !! ) before he turned 5, but then i think on his birthday the precious foal officially became his. the queen asked her son what he wanted to name him, and adam wasn’t sure, but he loved the white diamond-shaped spot on his forehead, (he’s like dark grey otherwise) so she suggested the name etienne because it means crown :”) adam couldn’t ride him for a few years, of course, but he LOVED going to the stables with his mother to visit him and brush his hair and feed him carrots and watch him run around around with his mama 😭😭 (i also !!!!!! have another fic set when adam is ? i wanna say 12? but etienne is in it for a little bit, just to highlight their bond 🥺 ) anyway yeah adam loves that horse. i think all the horses got turned into statues during the curse and adam didn’t even realize how much he missed him until he saw him like that :(( he had definitely been neglecting him in recent years but ya know how it goes. he was definitely happy to start going on rides with him and belle with philippe 🥹🥹🥹🥹

anyway yay what a happy thought!! adam and his horsie!! don’t worry about anything else i said in this post!!! 💙💙💙💙

[toppamplemousse]

fic writer interview (ty @formulaocean for the tag!)

taken literally forever to get around to this but can never resist the opportunity to yap. below the cut <3

How many works do you have on ao3?

10 public and 6 anonymous hehe

What’s your total word count?

201,602 -- an INSANE amount. also considering that 1 fic makes up 100k of that, and all the other 15 are the other 100k. lol.

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

there you'll stand (next to me) -- duh. this has 3x the amount of kudos as the next one LOL

bottle episode

temp get to you

La Rentrée

and then this one oop

i usually have them sorted by hits, but this is NO surprise. bottle ep and temp get to you were almost tied for kudos

Do you respond to comments? Why/ why not?

we try to all the time -- but its harder on the older fics. i genuinely try to respond to as many as possible but it just isn't feasible. but we are so so so so grateful for all of them

What's the fic you've written with the angstiest ending?

OBVIOUSLY my beloved neither do you. its the only unhappy ending and BOY is it unhappy

What's the fic you've written with the happiest ending?

hmmm they all really have "happy endings" i suppose. some of the smut is less happy i guess LOL. probably there you'll stand because its happy AND you get to read about it. i usually love to end once they get together so you never get to see them actually like, in love etc.

Do you write crossovers?

not really!! its either canon or just. normal au

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

no :( obviously i dont want hate but i did think stepdad sebchal might have elicited SOME haters.....alas. just means i need to make it worse.

Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

HELL YEA!!!!!! any kind. the more rancid the better

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

i hope not (re: the plagiarism scandal -- id be honored that someone felt a fic was worth stealing. and then id kill them with hammers)

Have you ever had a fic translated?

no lol. not crazy abt it sorry - too protective.

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

THESIS OF THE ACCT. all of the fics are written by the two of us running this account. some more than others but there's always always been input for every single fic from both of us. except the anonymous ones. thats just me (charlie). sorry.

What's your all-time favourite ship?

we are first and foremost larry stylinson girls. always. but for f1 its lestappen DUH and then sebchal.

What's a WIP that you want to finish but don't think you ever will?

sigh....... i'd love to think all the wips will get finished. but there's a landoscar spinoff of tys(ntm) that i doubt will ever get finished because we are now more anti-lando lol than we were when we started. so its hard to continue. also because i'm too interested in writing new things, not wanting to go back to that universe.

What are your writing strengths?

hmmm. tricky. i think we do angst quite well - it's much easier for me to make them Suffer than it is to write them happy and in love i think. like the emotions and torment just come a lot more natural. and i do think sometimes our smut does eat. personally.

What are your writing weaknesses?

DIALOGUEEEEEE. this is charlie speaking saying em basically wrote all dialogue for TYS(NTM). and genuienly like. most of the KILLER lines were not me. i just can never think about what someone would say or how they would communicate if not blunt honesty. you can tell if i wrote the majority of a fic because it's just descriptions.

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

occasional words -- fine. anything else, i don't necessarily agree with. there's usually errors and/or it just doesnt make sense for the intended audience.

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

f1 babey!!!!

What's a fandom/ship you haven't written for yet but want to?

like lets be fr, we are only writing f1. ship..... there's a maxiel/chestappen wip in the brain. i am not writing for the ship though. i am writing because the idea plagues me. but its always gonna be lestappen or sebchal. wait also. 4433 in the works.

What's your favourite fic you've written?

it always always has to be tys <3 but la rentree was the most fun to write for sure. and bottle episode. those 3 i think. but tys ... i cannot describe what it was like to spend 3 months writing this and editing and so many facetime calls and google doc comments and etc etc

tagging @gayferrari @bumblewyn @charleslelurk and (shooting my shot here) @chubbydino <3 and anyone else!!!!! MWAH

[after-nine-at-the-oasis]

AAAAHHHHHH my babeys :DDD!!!

OH CRAP THEY'RE IN COUPLES COUNSELING

OHHHHH NO

I mean I'm glad they are but THIS IS GOING TO KILL ME

UAAAAAAGHHHH NOT THE DIFFERENT ANSWERS O.O

"We're doing great" "We've been better" AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH- 😭😭😭😭💔❤️

I mean. You have also been worse xD 👀

Not the point I know but xD

Y'all I'm STRESSED. I'm TENSE. My CHEST Y'ALL 😭 XD

UH OHHHH

Carlos's face :(((

There it is, the word obsessed 😬😬

Ohhh gosh guys

This is not good xd

Somebody will have to stop me from writing a Carlos obsession fic based on my experiences of intrusive thoughts lol

Y'alllll 😭😭😭 I'm so not okay over them

Again chest literally hurts xd

OH GOSH this poor lady o.o

That's the last of my last thoughts! Now it's time for the. . .

REVIEW

I really enjoyed this episode! I LOVED the focus on Paul, seeing him struggle with accepting parts of his role but ultimately slaying :). Also I'm so glad that everything worked out with the ex wife, that he wasn't actually trying to poison anyone xD, but that ended was rough :'(((. Poor Tommy and Trevor 😭. And Melody, too :(. Anyway, the calls were super fun (and I'm so glad that lady survived 😭🥺❤️), and it was a great time all around :).

Now it's time for the individual parts!

Wyatt! We didn't see too much of him but he was great :D. I love his response and the way he talked to the robot/auto call lol. He was great at his job, as always (and thank goodness - we need that from 911 operators and we luckily get that with the 911 shows <3). I love him ❤️ <3.

Carlos! We only got to see him in the nightmare, but I'm glad we saw him at all :). I miss him ty <33. I'm sure he was doing great at his job somewhere in the real world lol. I love him ❤️.

Mateo and Marjan! The sillies your honor <33. They did great at their jobs today, and I'm so glad they were so supportive of Paul 🥰. Also congrats to Mateo once again on not being the probie anymore 🥳. I know he hasn't been for a while but he was still the most junior/most recent one xD. I love them <3.

Judd! It's rough that he has to be a probie instead of going back to where he was (not a lieutenant necessarily but a full firefighter), but it is a cool layer :)). It's great to see that he's doing well with it, though (though Judd you need to take care of yourself!! Not always just canned beans please <33), and is humble and knows his place :). Like, not in a mean way, or that he shouldn't be respected, but he's not getting uppity about it and even specifically trying to do those jobs so I appreciate it <3. I love him so much 🥰❤️.

Nancy and TK! They're so SILLYYY!! These gossips are too crazy for their own (or anyone else's, specifically Tommy's here lol) good xD. But I love them so much lol <3 ❤️. I'm glad they assured Tommy that she wasn't crazy, but they were pretty immediately jumping to the conclusion(s) of crime lol. Maybe don't do that as much in the future xD. Nonetheless, they were being icons, and they were also great at their jobs this episode :D (as they always are, of course). They were being a little silly sometimes but I vibe with it lol, I love them <3.

Owen! I really appreciated him trusting Paul and letting him figure it out, but also giving him advice. Also of course he was a lieutenant early lol 🙄 xD. He's so silly sldkdjs. Also his fist pump into the air after the compliment sandwich thing xD icon. Anyway, I'm glad he gave Paul a chance to explain and didn't just totally go off at him <3. I know he knows Paul's got this but I'm just so glad he gave him a push and a chance, because Paul really does have this, and I believe in him so much <3. Also, the whole coffee thing at the beginning was hilarious xD. Poor Owen and Judd lol. I love him <3.

Tommy (and Trevor)! The whole thing with the possible poisoning was craazyyy o.o. Again, I'm glad it wasn't actually the ex wife (although she was absolutely being shady, and she shouldn't have so obviously - or at all - blamed Tommy, but whatever 😑 xD), but it sucks that it was Melody :((. And poor girl 😭😭🥺. I feel so bad :(. Obviously I wish she wasn't poisoning people, and I wish she could/wanted to stay for everyone's sake, but this is what's best for her :(. And of course, I'm glad Trevor would go with her - she deserves that. But that scene at the end :(( 😭😭😭💔. It sucks that Tommy and Trevor have to break up for that <333 💔💔. Neither of them deserve that, but I'm glad they're putting their kids first :'(. I did definitely think it was a possibility for Tommy to go at the end of the season, especially since it's the last season (easier to split people up, because no repercussions lol), but I'm glad she's staying <3. It just sucks :((( D: 😭. And that scene at the end 😭😭😭 GOSH, I don't deserve this guys <33. They loved each other so much, and they deserved each other and to be happy <3. But sometimes that just doesn't work out :((. I'm glad they could be civil about their breakup though, that it wasn't for a crazy reason. I love them <33 </33 💔❤️❤️.

Paul! He was so awesome this episode :D. I was TERRIFIED with the nightmare and the knowledge that he'd probably be hurt in some way from the promo, that his heart condition would be causing issues, but thankfully that wasn't it 😭😭❤️. At least not now xdd. I do think it would be more interesting (and who knows if it's this or not) if him having a nightmare was specifically because of his condition, just a symptom despite treatment (and less common now). Anyway! That nightmare sucks 😭. And is also so real to how nightmares be xD. I'm just so glad he was able to talk it out, and get his back fixed by Owen lol!! That was hilarious, and so fair xD. It would be Owen who could do that lol. Also, I'm so happy that lady and her baby were okay <33 😭❤️. I don't think I or Paul could've lived with it if she died because of him hiding his injury xdd. Also the rats thing was crazy o.o. But yeah - I really appreciate that Paul is trying to be reasonable and not abuse his rank (not that he ever would for serious reasons, maybe not even joking - unless someone ate his pudding cup lol), and now also starting to find balance with being able to be in charge and get people to do things as well :). It's really cool to see, and I totally get it personally - it's a hard line to walk sometimes, but if they're really your friends, it'll work out in the end <3. Also, Paul pretending to be fine, and especially doubling down and ignoring people's comments when he was injured - I just felt that so hard. I never want to give up or admit I can't do something, especially when people point it out. Even if I can't. As a disabled person, that just hit really hard (especially since Paul has a disability, even if it hasn't been brought up or seemed to have been affecting him recently). I love how it was portrayed <3. Brian was absolutely perfect at that, and everything this episode. Anyway, I'm also just so glad that at the end they were all like hey :) I love you :) you're still absolutely invited to game night, you're our family <3 and good job at being lieutenant ;). Love that for them, and Paul absolutely needed to hear it - so glad he got to <3 😭🥺. I love him so much <333 ❤️🥰🥰.

Overall, I really liked this episode! I had a great time with the calls and the various storylines, even if they were stressful, and I'm glad everything worked out in the end (except for Tommy - sorry, Tommy xd). Also, I just love my little fire family so much :). They're perfect <3. I know they aren't, and it was shown this episode (and every episode) and seems to be shown again next episode lol, but I don't care xD <3. I just really loved everyone supporting each other this episode, even if it was in kinda gossipy or sometimes harsher ways (as was called for). I love them all so much <3.

So, yeah! I really enjoyed this episode, I thought it was amazing. Stressful, but amazing. I'm so excited for the next one! This has been my review of. . .

9-1-1: Lone Star, Season 4, Episode 4: My Way

It was great! I'm really excited for the next episode, but I'm also so stressed. It's gonna be a wild one. I'll be back next week with my review of. . .

9-1-1: Lone Star, Season 4, Episode 5: Thunderstruck

See you then!

[soleilnomoon]

Kaia my darling!!!!! Congrats on your milestone!!!

Can I get strawberries with a mai tai, and songs 8 bubblegum, 16 bonfire, and 44. “I’m sorry have we met?” for either sanji, law, or rayleigh?

Please and thank you! 💕

hiiiiii bb 🤩 okay so i picked rayleigh bc hello i love that man obsessively 🤭 this was my first time writing a full fic for him so i was v excited, ty ty 💙 and even tho fluff tries to claim my life every time i write it, i persevered (for u, this is me proposing obvy~) anyway i had fun!! 🥰️

1.3k words (i tried, i tried to keep it under 1k, i failed so bad), gn reader, sfw (just slightly suggestive yk the vibes babey), 18+ mdni; fluff!!!!!!! and maybe, maybe, a tiny tiny bit of angst maybe. just maybe. feat. reader wanting to be a lone wolf, rayleigh who is just v social when alcohol is involved, denial (of feelings and attraction, sort of), it's not cheating bc... well it's not. no real warnings, there's alcohol and a beach and a bonfire. the moon is a paid actress, the ocean is a special guest <3 i, too, would be flustered like crazy around rayleigh, he's got bde 💛 (if u see spelling/grammar errors no u didn't bb)

solitude haunts you without remorse — heavy, daunting, an eerie melody that saturates your world. gray and unending, with a curtain so thick that it obscures your vision most days. it nestles itself in the grooves of the footprints you leave behind in the wet sand along the shore, the ocean water kissing the bottom of your feet as the tide ebbs and flows with practiced ease. you pause in your slow gait and allow the water to wash over your feet over and over before moving forward.

you don’t have a particular destination in mind, you simply wanted to be away from the noise of the sea-faring town you decided to visit. and while you don’t actively seek out solitude, it still follows you around, blending into your shadow, but there’s a comfort in its presence.

because, then, you’re never truly alone, are you?

partially obscured, a waning crescent moon illuminates the ocean, glowing brightly; another comfort that pushes aside that empty, aching feeling in your chest. the ripples in the water are mesmerizing and hypnotic, but you don’t fall prey to its machinations — you don’t let the barely audible melodies of the lurking sirens tempt you into walking closer.

if anything, you give yourself some distance.

there’s a small gathering nearby, the partygoers beckoning you with their promises of drinks and good food. if your traitorous stomach didn’t gurgle so loudly, you would have been able to refuse without issue.

still, it doesn’t hurt to eat, especially when everything smells rich and enticing, strong enough to make your mouth water. you watch the crowd around you, their infectious laughter seeps into your skin, a small flicker of warmth igniting to jumpstart your heart.

this is nice, you tell yourself before taking out a piece of bubblegum from your bag and chewing on it. you don’t particularly like this brand or flavor — much too sweet and a little thick — but you need something to do, and chewing gum helps calm you, surprisingly enough.

silvers rayleigh has never been fond of rooting himself in one, singular place; the desire to roam, to investigate the wonders of the world, to meet and experience life through people — it overwhelms him constantly. to combat that impulse, he sticks to roaming nearby islands, accidentally stumbling upon the same coastal town you find yourself in.

and again it’s pure coincidence that leads him to take the empty chair closest to you. he doesn’t bother with the flask he has, opting to graciously accept the free drinks from the revelers nearby. the brandy is sweet, but crisp — something he’s not too accustomed to, but it puts him at ease all the same. it’s when you pucker your lips and exhale to blow your bubblegum into a decent sized bubble, that he takes notice of you.

well, no—that’s a lie.

he already did notice you, in town earlier. you still have that same, dazed look in your eyes, the same melancholy that inadvertently acts as a small shield to protect you from others draped along your shoulders. you’re not a case study, he knows that, but that doesn’t keep him from observing you all the same.

it’s something stronger than morbid curiosity, and the more he drinks, the closer he comes to discovering the truth in that.

the bubble pops unceremoniously, the saccharine scent is much stronger than he thought it’d be; even as he steadies his breathing, it’s almost as the wind is working against him, keeping him rooted in the chair as he’s bombarded with the playful, artificial smell of strawberry and cherry all in one.

it’s much more pleasant than he thought it would be.

you’re not the best at observing your surroundings, but you’re not completely helpless — especially not when the man next to you is so boldly looking at you without remorse or shame. you chew on the fruity bubblegum thoughtfully and turn towards him unprompted.

a coy smile hangs onto his lips, the corners of his mouth curling upward as thinly veiled amusement flits about on his face.

“i’m sorry,” you say softly, in between chews, “have we met?”

the question is valid, and he should probably answer you, but he finishes his drink instead and waves someone down to pour him another.

with furrowed brows, you watch him quietly, taking in the sharp angle of his jaw and admiring the way he savors each sip of his drink. a peculiar silence surrounds both of you, and when he looks your way again, his eyes sweep over you once — almost like an intimate touch between lovers — and you suddenly remember that you’ve been holding your breath, waiting for him to answer you.

he takes his time, though, the tip of his tongue briefly gliding onto his lip —because wasting even a single drop of brandy is irresponsible, in his opinion. it’s with clarity and certainty that he tells you, “no.”

the answer isn’t surprising, and you’re not sure what you expected him to say. his voice is deep and rich, with a huskiness that completely suits his rugged demeanor. you don’t know what to do with that feeling, because for some reason, you feel as though you should know him. one after another, thoughts infiltrate the darkest parts of your mind, reviving you with a startling reminder that your heart — as pitiful and naïve as it is — still works perfectly fine.

in fact, it’s working a little too hard right now, beating louder with each passing second. you almost rub at your chest, but refrain from doing so, and blow another bubble to take your mind off it all.

“but,” he continues, as if he didn’t leave you in limbo for the longest sixty seconds of your life, “does that matter?”

he’s playing a dangerous game, he knows that, but rayleigh loves the high that comes with the risk of gambling. it’s invigorating and fresh, much more interesting than coating ships on the sabaody archipelagos.

it’s alluring, the confidence he exudes. his attractiveness is offensive and wholly unavoidable, which annoys you. it’s irrational, you know, you know but the longer you look at him, the more you yearn to get out of your chair and—

you cut yourself off completely from that thought and chew, chew, chew. maybe if you fill your senses with the taste of the bubblegum, you’ll distract yourself from his presence. he’s completely certain you’ll continue to allow him the pleasure of conversation, much to your inevitable dismay.

solitude is safer, you tell yourself. it’s what you’ve always known, but an unnecessary flush stains your cheeks and the heat makes it impossible to look at him for much longer.

“i suppose it really doesn’t matter,” you manage to say, and with great difficulty you force yourself to look at him again and find that he’s never once took his eyes off you.

the intensity behind his gaze is unnerving, but welcomed; a contradictory feeling, but there’s something overtly calming about his presence. so you let yourself step out of your comfort zone and allow him into your space, to pick your brain on various topics without restraint.

he’s normally not this chatty, preferring to drink and fool around — as talking requires a level of vulnerability that he’s not interested in giving. but with you, he finds it incredibly easy to do so — even allowing you to ask him questions about himself and the adventures he’s had on the sea. you get more animated as the night goes on, the bonfire still burning fierce and keeping you warm.

rayleigh’s voice drizzles onto your skin, his words smooth and suggestive without even trying. normally you wouldn’t entertain a man like this, but you’re trapped in his orbit, his aura prompting you to scoot your chair closer, so you can talk to him more privately. he’s completely enchanted by you — with your animated expressions, with the way you talk with your hands a lot, with how you keep leaning closer and closer to him. if you knew just how cute and charming you were, he might be in trouble.

thankfully, you don’t.

and while he already has someone that occupies the majority of his heart, he’s starting to think that he wouldn’t mind making space for someone like you.

[july-19th-club]

i don't write so no need to send one back but one of each for the ask game?

ok this post was in my queue for so long i genuinely forgot about it alkjlaksjdf but ok let's do it babey we'll play it for wishes were horses (spn postcanon fixit fic) since that's the story i worked on most recently

SPECIAL FEATURE (post a fun fact): this story directly contradicts the first spn postcanon fixit i wrote, Grace, which really really rubs me the wrong way bc i'm a stickler for consistency, but i wrote the first one feverishly eleven hours after the final episode. so i still think it's pretty good under the circumstances. however i can do better

MOVIE SCRIPT (post most recently written line): "He wonders why he’s so nervous to have this conversation, when apparently they eat dinner together all the time. His mom told him that, and he even remembers the dinners. And yet."

DVD PLAYER (post dialogue): i had CONSIDERED putting something from the few end-of-story scenes i have sketched out, but avoided the temptation so here's a little domestic scene.

For all his criticizing, Sam polishes off his breakfast in about ten seconds flat, then leans back and says, “What is it with you and the eggs, man? It’s always eggs with you.”  “Easy, filling, cheap. Nature’s perfect food.”  “Cause growing up, all I remember you ever making was canned soup.”  “Well.” Eggs aren’t easy to take on the road. They’re house food. “Yeah, that was in motels. We ate eggs when we stayed at Bobby’s.”  “I remember him making pancakes.”  Dean remembers too. God, those were good. He’s pretty sure it was just Bisquick, but Bobby always had the real maple syrup, none of that Mrs. Butterworth shit. “He did his pancakes, I did the eggs. He taught me how to do an over easy, but I couldn’t get it for years. Kept smashing the yolks.”  “Ohhhh, yeah, okay, now I do remember that. Cause I remember one time you got so upset you almost cried.”  Dean doesn’t remember this at all. “Nothing worse than a smashed egg.”  Eileen puts her coffee mug down. “I like them smashed,” she says, “easier to put in sandwich.”  That’s Eileen’s easygoing compromise. Something for everybody.