#also a couple of these paragraphs really turned into Walls Of Text

[nectardaddy]

falling - inumaki toge

cw: language, drinking, drinking in anxious situations, drunkenness, allusion to bickering/arguing, really cheesy flirting lol

notes: written with fem in mind (no pronouns used though), ex inumaki, non-curse au (we got him speaking lads!!), giving college au vibes, request by @inumakisser I changed a few things up though oof, I also just kinda gave up on editing at the end so if you see mistakes in the last couple of paragraphs no you didn't

"Is that who I think it is?"

Turning your attention towards the feminine voice, you raised a brow to the red head next to you. Rolling her eyes as she saw you look to her instead, she motioned towards the figure adjacent to the doorway. "Yuuji- you didn't," she warned.

"Ah fuck," the man began, groaning as he sat back in his chair further. "I always invite him," he began lowly, earning a sharp smack to his head from the woman next to you. Letting out a yelp, and holding his head, and tried to defend himself. "He's never shown up before! How was I supposed to know this time was different?" Another smack, "ouch! Jesus, Nobara! Okkotsu probably forced him out, not me!"

Tracking their gaze, your heart sank to your stomach to the figure that stood adjacent to the doorway. Platinum hair and stark violet eyes catching your attention, you suddenly felt incredibly small. "I need another drink," you suggested to the pair, desperately trying to shy away from your own emotions.

The red head let a chuckle pass her lips before rising from her seat, offering her hand out to you as she did. "Forget the drink, let's get you a shot!" Smiling at you through her words, "hell, get drunk and find a whole other guy - forget about him." Her words earned a cheer from Yuuji, but you contemplated leaving the party all together.

It was easy to say forget, but once put into motion was incredibly difficult. It had been three months since you had even seen the man, whisking himself away as if it were too easy. Leaving your heart in shambles, a rather nasty break, that Toge seemed all too comfortable with. He never texted, never called; while you yearned on late nights to do only that. It was as if you were a complete stranger again - a stranger that still, after all this time, had feelings for him.

"Fuck it," you shrugged and cast your eyes upward to the woman. "Let's get drunk," you announced with a chuckle, finally deciding to take her hand.

As the night continued on, as did your growing intoxication. The effects of the shots and drinks Nobara, relentlessly, handed you, hit you in your now swimming mind. Your eyes were blurry and your skin felt scorched, the sticky, humid air around you clinging to you. It was, supposedly, a small party; the people that drunkenly lined the walls and danced amongst the living room proved otherwise. It made the room inconceivably warm, too many people in such a small area.

Nobara was no where to be found, gone off with Maki earlier and hadn't yet returned. Yuuji on the otherhand, sustained his presence with you, a cheerful smile the entire time. However, the poor soul hadn't found his tolerance for alcohol, finding himself draped across a couch at his own party, completely out cold. With a sigh, and another sip of the liquid what only further made you woozy, you leaned against the wall.

"I'm surprised you're here. You always hated parties," a lower voice next to you catching your attention. Turning, much to your dismay, you saw the only man you fervently did not wish to speak to. Slender fingers wrapping around a bottle, and violet eyes looking you over. You wished you had felt more anger in the moment; something, anything, other than the void of emotion. Too drunk to care, but too drunk not to say something.

"Says the guy who never went to them," you quipped. "A shut in can't critique a wallflower." You couldn't hide your obvious intoxication, booze hindering your speech to slow, methodical statements rather than sly, quick witted, remarks. Part of you wanted to step away right then and there, the other desperately craving any conversation the man would allow.

"Yikes," he grimaced, now placing himself next to you. A foot of distance between the two of you didn't feel like enough, truly you wanted him as far away as possible. "I'll give you that one," he spoke, tipping the bottle to his lips before sighing. "How have you been?"

"Did you really come over here to ask that, Inumaki?" You asked, taking a small breath and letting out through your mouth. The huff of air, and use of his last name, caused him to recoil subtlety, internally regretting his own decision to come speak to you. The conversation, or lack there of, gave you a sense of panic. Not knowing what he wanted, as it surely had to be something, you took a large sip of the contents in your cup.

He watched as you tipped the cup back, taking down the liquid as if it were your lifeline in the moment. He knew better than to speak to it; he couldn't tease or poke fun anymore, knowing it might very well lead to a slap in the face. So he sucked in a breath through his teeth, swallowed his pride, and faced his reality. Toge wanted nothing more than to talk to you again, craving it so deeply it itched. But he could never find the right words, how could he possibly when things ended so terribly? "I'm regretting it now," he mumbled.

You only managed to let a hum pass your lips, biting the side of your cheek as to not let anything further slip. You wanted to tear into him, rip him piece by piece with your words - just like old times. But now you didn't want to give him the satisfaction of merely pissing you off. Without a second thought you tipped your cup to your lips once more. Sipping the drink, the tangy taste of shitty fruit punch and liquor invaded your senses.

He noticed as you blinked hard from the taste, watching you teeter from foot to foot to keep yourself stable, and knew your words were sluggish and off. "Jeez- you're fucking trashed, aren't you?" He asked, genuinely not meaning for the words to leave so harshly. "You ok?"

"You're caring now?" You proded, your words biting a bit harder than you first imagined. "I didn't know you knew how to do that. Why's it matter anyway?" You shrugged, looking over to him with blurred vision.

"I've always cared," he retorted. "Don't be such a-"

There was a moment of pause between the two of you, a heavy silence hitting you both from the weight of the words, or lack thereof. He desperately wanted to back track the conversation, to take all of his sly remarks back - too late now. He knew it was too late as he heard a laugh pass your lips, a pained chuckle forcing its way out from his words. "Bitch?" You asked rhetorically, "go ahead and say it. Didn't stop you before."

"Alright, alright" he began before taking a small breath. "There's a lot of things I shouldn't have done," he admitted begrudgingly. "But that's a conversation to have when you're not piss drunk." Albeit, he didn't want to have the conversation at all. The feelings that prickled inside from having to admit his wrong doings made him wretch, add alcohol to the mix and he wanted to vomit right then and there.

"I can't believe I actually missed you," a drunken slip of the tongue, the statement so casually leaving your lips. Realizing immediately what you had uttered, you closed your eyes and groaned. You wanted to regret saying it, but the gentle nag at your heart said differently. Completely blitzed, you couldn't find a single care in the world left on what you said. "Seems stupid admitting it out loud," you chuckled, a silly, alcohol induced, smile on your lips.

He felt his shoulders slump at your statement, realizing you didn't feel much different than he. Two idiots still hopelessly attached to each other despite such a murky break; a classic situation of 'right person, incredibly wrong time.' While he wasn't inebrietated, the bottle in his hands warm as he held onto it throughout the night, he felt his mind scatter at the thought. "It's not stupid," speaking as he shook his head. "You always were a sap," he added, a smirk daring to grace his lips. He toed the line gently, testing waters to see if he dared tease you once more.

"What does that make you?" You asked, deciding against your better judgement to play along. But he made it so easy, so comfortable, an aura so warm and inviting he made it hard to stray away from - ex lover or not.

"A god damn moron for letting you go," he spoke with a small chuckle. But he was far from comedic with the sentiment. He missed you whether he liked it or not, an urge so deep down in his soul he simply couldn't ignore it. He often found himself wanting to call, to text, to simply do something; he second guessed himself often. He didn't want to be that guy, more often than not believing he would make matters worse if he were to speak to you.

"Oh-" you snorted, "that was smooth I'll give you that." Your musings made him chuckle in response, leaning against the wall next to you and feeling a bit less on edge. "I still miss you, y'know?" Liquid luck was the only reason you allowed yourself to say such things, sobriety would have you double down and wholeheartedly deny as such. "Dumbass," you added with a small, genuine smile.

"Yeah?" He asked rhetorically, a playful smile pulling at his lips. "This is a first. You compliment my pickup lines and you say you miss me?" His teasing tone returned, one of which he thought he could never have again with you. He would be lying if he said it didn't make his heart swell.

"I can take it back, Toge," you quipped, and to his words you tried to nudge him, but you drunkenly misjudged his distance from you. Although he wasn't far from you, the distance was enough that your body weight started to fall from the lack of contact with him. He quickly grabbed your arm to center you, but couldn't help himself as a loud laugh passed his lips.

"The jokes write themselves!" He spoke between laughs, "looks like you're falling for me again," he noted between giggles. He watched as you shot him a mischievous glare, resulting in him only laughing more. "Oh come on, I never stopped falling for you," he admitted with a smile. "Was only a matter of time before you did it too."

might make a part 2?? idk but I really enjoyed writing this!!

[the-90s-music-colosseum]

Round 2 Group D Match 6

expand for propaganda! (major wall of text warning)

Henry Rollins:

"Honestly, Johnny Mnemonic Henry with the glasses and the lab coat was pretty hot"

"A wonderful physical specimen. Plus he’s really funny and weird….best hot ones interview of all time."

"I want him to run me over with a bus"

Stephen Malkmus:

"i can't even stand stephen malkmus but there's a very special girl out there who needs this win"

"My perpetually stoned, nonsensical girlfriend...if we don't invent the time machine soon I might die. He's like 6 ft tall so unfortunately I'd be like one of those birds that ride on giraffes and eat bugs out of their fur. And then I'd die in a weed accident during the recording of Wowee Zowee? Before that though I'd spend 25 hrs a day in bed with him. Alright thanks"

"Stephen Malkmus chronically addicted to moaning and gasping in Pavement songs like he’s getting the best dicking down of his life in the back of the tour bus while everyone else is asleep"

"This is the indie-label match, right? Then it has to be Malkmus, he *made* the scene. And he's still releasing excellent music today. He's just the most influential rockstar of the 90s."

"my gay pavement fan uncle gets out of prison tonight and he knows you ratted him out in '06. the only way to make this right is to vote for stephen"

"Pretty please vote for him, my friend loves him and he really wants him to win"

""There were times he refused to speak to his bandmates, pulling a jacket over his head and referring to himself as "the little bitch"." I have also heard him refer to himself as a brat, a queen, a primadonna, a sociopath, and a narcissist. All of these descriptors have made me want to slam him against a wall and turn his neck fun new colors."

"I mean, Pavement is THEE indie band of the 90s. The lowkey snark, Koreaaaa, so much style that it's wasted. And Malkmus is an understated cool rockstar: the hair, the face, Silver Jews! He never ever sold out. He's the 90s."

"the most beautiful man ever he looks like a gorgeous fairytale prince. he has been hot since he emerged on the scene and continues to be so as their reunion tour comes to a close. stephen forever"

"we have to consider the autism swagger. find me a pavement write up that doesn’t spend three paragraphs waxing lyrical on his inability to make eye contact. find me a YouTube comment section that doesn’t have hoards of moms swooning over his flat affect. his refusal to wear anything more formal than a flannel for the first decade of his career? genuinely culturally influential. 30 glorious years of expressionless performances. sunglasses in the dark. so many straight men falling over themselves for him they made a joke about it in the Barbie movie. raw tbh sex appeal. and he’s got a great nose"

"he had a couple of unfortunate haircuts during this period but highkey i would break both of my arms to just be able to make out with him. please vote for SM my life is in danger if you don't"

[ladytauria]

1, 7, 19, and 32 for the ask game please! ❤️❤️

aaah i forgot i hadn't answered this! i thought i had, whoops ^^;

i'm pretty sure these are from the weird asks for writers 🤔 so hopefully im right, lmao

1: What font do you write in? Do you actually care or is that just the default setting?

I use Crimson Pro; it's a free font I found on Google Fonts, lmao. However, I tend to cycle through fonts. One will capture my attention for a while and then I'll change it again. I do tend to prefer serif fonts at the moment, but I also had a phase where I wrote in nothing but Calibri!

That said, if I can't use my preferred font for whatever reason, I don't mind using either the default font or the closest one I can find in their offerings. The most important thing to me is generally paragraph spacing; I don't like trying to write with a wall of text, and I also don't like having to hit enter twice because I don't enjoy cleaning that up when I go to paste anywhere dfghjkl

7: What is your deepest joy about writing?

I looove when I come up with a satisfying turn of phrase or metaphor! Or just... playing with words in general; puzzling out how to describe things or how someone would phrase what I want them to say. This is also what I sometimes find the most difficult & exasperating too, though xD

19: Tell me a story about your writing journey. When did you start? Why did you start? Were there bumps along the way? Where are you now and where are you going?

I've been writing since I was small. I remember using construction paper to make a picture book about a dog who---if I remember right?---became a superhero, lol. I also remember using a previous year's calendar to create a picture book as well; trying to find a narrative to string through the pictures they used for each month. (It was a horse calendar, if you're curious.)

I don't have either of those anymore, but.

However, I would say that my writing journey actually started when I was 10-11. My parents had set-up a family/kids computer in the living room, and I basically lived on it dfghjkl I started writing my first book. It wasn't great and the concept was ripped off from the Inheritance Cycle since I was obsessed with it at the time. The second was a little more original xD

Mm... And then a couple years later I was working on something different and decided to look for a place to post it. I found FanFiction.Net, which wasn't really the right place, but it DID get me started writing fic. And THEN after a few years of that I decided to seriously focus on original fiction again, because it's always been my dream to publish, lol.

Where am I now... I'm very happy with my writing voice. I can read over my stuff and only cringe at the occasional typo or wonky phrase, which is really nice. I'm still working toward getting published... in theory. I've been putting off revising/refining/rewriting my first draft, lmao.

32: What is a line from a poem/novel/fanfic that you return to from time and time again? How did you find it? What does it mean to you?

This is a hard one to answer 🤔 While I do tend to find phrases and such that I like, I don't know that I return to them specifically a lot. It's more a whole body of work dfghjk

Hmm...

Oh! Okay. So, I used to read a lot of fanfic for the anime Ghost Hunt. And there's this one fic, Beneath the Lilac Tree, which has a scene in it that I just ADORE. Two brothers, twins, are eating dinner together at a hotel and as they're conversing, they---switch plates? Offer the other food off their plate? It's been a while and I don't remember the specific action BUT it stuck with me? And I think about it all the time. It struck me as just this lovely moment of familiarity and intimacy, and I remember coming back to that fic and rereading it a lot, in part for that scene xD

Thank you so much for asking!!

[pagepainter]

A Little Reflection

I learned that the healthiest relationships not only allow me to let my walls down, but they also allow me to identify, correct and improve on my shortcomings.

I know that in every relationship, be it with your partner or with friends or family (but especially with your partner), consistency, communication, and compromise help to sustain the connection. Everyone says that. But there's more to that; consistency requires both parties to always make an effort to show up in the relationship. Of course, it's an intentional effort; one that comes from the heart. If the effort ever gradients towards the feeling of an obligation, it will feel like it's a chore. Consistency can be as simple as having dinner together after work, or making the trip to the grocery store to check off the weekly to-do list for getting groceries for the week, or taking turns to cook meals for one another, or making plans to hang out and do something fun — something that maintains the spark in the relationship, or just keeping each other accountable; making sure your partner gets enough sleep, care, and attention. Consistency, I learned, is also showing up in tough conversations, showing each other love and understanding, despite either party trying to sabotage the relationship. Of course, that is really not easy, especially when all of us are not perfect human beings, and it's even harder when the person on the receiving end is hurt, but still have to show that consistent love and understanding. It takes great strength to be there for a partner who wants to have a lifetime with you but are healing from their own attachment issues too. Yet, it's an act of love. (But that's not to say that this behavior is supported, there should be evident steps taken to improve on those issues, and be a better, healthier, and secure version for your partner).

The hardest lesson I learned, is communication. I learned that there is nothing to be ashamed of in verbalizing my feelings. After all, it's the only way to allow the person on the receiving end to fully comprehend the inner turmoil that you're going through. But that's not all — the type of words used are the most important in conveying feelings and thoughts. Specificity is so crucial; some words have double meanings; some words have nuanced meanings. And it's not just the words — the structure of the words, the letters strung together to form a sentence, a paragraph, a story, an experience, a thought, it matters. From punctuation to writing in a systematic, chronological order, making sure the sentences flow and makes sense, they all matter. Another thing about communication I learned — it's not called communication when there's room for assumptions. Don't know? Ask. Have a doubt? Ask. Don't ever, ever, make conclusions, assumptions, and answers for the person. It's your thoughts, not theirs. It would be unfair for them when you come up of your own answers for them when you have not even given them a chance to say what's on their mind. Third, I learned that communication doesn't always have to be so effort-filled. When both people come to understand each other, communication becomes natural, and at some point, they learn how to read each other's minds. It's a beautiful and nice feeling. Last but not least, I learned that styles of communication matter too. Both partners have to be understanding of how each partner prefers to communicate. One might take hours to reply, the other takes a couple minutes. Just because one takes hours to reply, does not mean that he/she doesn't want to text. Their social battery plays a huge role in communication. At times, they would text for hours on end, sometimes, they could just only have the energy to reply to a couple messages after hours of not texting. Patience and understanding have to be present at all times. But then again, despite taking hours to reply to a couple messages, keeping the consistency to text every day, proves that there's effort put into the relationship. Just by showing up, means a lot.

Last but not least, then there's compromise. It's not the nicest word, but sometimes things can't be helped. When last minute plans come up, compromises do come in handy. It's a process of give and take, and making each other feel appreciated, heard, seen, and loved. From a paper I read recently (for psychology interests lol, and it's a good paper omg) on developmental relationships between partners, that a relationship is more likely to stay long-term when both partners are willing to sacrifice each other's personal interest for their partner. However, that's not to say that you should always place your partner's interests over yours, but it's good to do it in equity. The best solution (to me) is when both parties reach a common ground and settle on a decision that makes both of them happy. That's a perfectly communicated compromise. This way, the transformation of motivation to keep the relationship going for long-term increases positively.

And then there's others, like keeping promises, a touchy topic but it has such a huge impact on relationships. Actions matter a lot in promises, because it can either build, or shatter the bond of trust between partners. A lesson I also learned. There's also commitment, another really important one. It's only having eyes for them, and only them. It will mean the world to the partner, knowing that their partner only wants them, and no one else.

Loving someone isn't easy, because it's a decision each partner makes to choose to love each other every day, even when things are hard. To commit to loving each other, choosing each other every day, despite the various versions each of them show, is to me, the epitome of love. It reminds me of the saying I saw somewhere, "I will love every version of you, and grow together with you, because I choose to love you."

[alexandramanthey]

You try your best to stay up to greet Namjoon when he comes home. Work-life balance has been a struggle for you both this week. Friday night rolls around, and you’re determined to see your man beyond the early morning hours exchanging good mornings before you both start your days. Starting a new book seems the best way to stay up, but when an old lady at heart’s bedtime is 8pm, and your man doesn’t plan to get home till almost midnight. Does your willpower to stay up win or claim defeat as your bedtime ticks further away?

Warnings: All the fluff possible

*Disclaimer: New writer, but open to feedback!

Thank you @mochilatae​ for beta reading and being inspirations to even do this! Love to both of you!

“I can’t remember a more exciting Gold Rush than we saw today --- congrats, Rosenblum family; you certainly earned your place in history.” Louise gestured to the plaque on the western wall of the ballroom, where winners of the annual obstacle course competition held on the last day of summer merited a spot of honor. “I just wish you hadn’t had to push the Freiedmans into Lake Winetka to clinch your victory.” (Friedland 3)

The words on your page got progressively smaller as your eyes grew heavy, blurred vision making the words hard to distinguish. You’d just started a new book, to keep yourself awake ‘till Joon got home and to get a head start on your yearly reading list. The clock read 10:30 pm, a solid two and half hours past your usual bedtime. You and Namjoon had conflicting schedules over the past week, with your classes starting and his work needing more attention; you both were grateful to at least say good morning to each other. Tonight was a Friday night, and you were determined to see your boyfriend for more than an hour in the morning. Starting a new book was the surefire way to keep your attention till he came home. A text came in around six pm saying he should be home by midnight and to not wait up. Namjoon knew you were an ‘early to bed, early to rise’ woman, in bed by eight and awake by four with a cup of coffee and book in hand. 

You’d started this book just at eight, usually, you were a voracious reader and able to get through at least a quarter of a 300-page book in an hour. However, a couple hours in and you’re just three pages in, trying to keep your eyes open between paragraphs. You felt yourself doze off again, book slumping out of your grasp onto the bed, losing your place. Time lost all of its meaning as sleep took over. So much so that you were just falling deeper into sleep when you could have sworn you heard the sound of the front door opening. Really you should have been more alert to a potential stranger, but a sleep-captured brain was blissfully ignorant of potential dangers. Maybe you were just in the foreground of a dream and didn’t realize it. Regardless, succumbing to sleep was the winner.

________________________________________________________________

The touch of a hand brushing against yours, gently pulling the book away from what was left of your grasp, was just enough to stir your subconscious awake. Enough to sense the real world from the sleep world. Your body just barely stirred, murmuring a noise to let whomever it was known you were aware of them. 

“It’s just me, finally home.” Namjoon’s voice came through as a whisper, close to your ear, his lips pressing to your cheek after he spoke. 

“You worked late…” you mumbled, your face still turning into your pillow, muting and muffling anything close to coherent. “Actually, I got off a little early, it’s only eleven thirty baby. I’m surprised you stayed up this late, way past someone’s bedtime.” you could hear the grin in his voice as he gently chastised your faux elderly lady ways. 

“Also, what have we discussed about you staying up late to read? Am I going to have a cranky kitten on my hands tomorrow?” his soft chuckle following the continued chastising. His hand found its way to your shoulder, rubbing briefly, pressing another kiss to your cheek before pressing himself off to get himself ready for bed. He let your mumbled noises suffice for an answer, for now, you tried to make a no sound but realistically sounded like a feisty kitten. 

You see-sawed between awareness and dozed off, trying to stay present to enjoy your boyfriend's company, but the warmth of sleep kept calling you back like a siren. 

“How was your day?” your sleep-saturated voice just about reached Namjoon in the bathroom, just able to make out your question. 

“Oh you know how it goes, too many cooks in the kitchen, and you over-salt the soup. A lot of ideas, some good, some not, all think they're the right one.” You chuckled to yourself, trying to make out his words through the sounds of a toothbrush and foamy toothpaste.

 A quick run of water and gargling lasting maybe a minute, and he shuffles his way from the bathroom to his side of the bed. You expected him to get right in, but instead, you roll over to hear him chuckle, curious of what could be amusing at eleven thirty at night. Your eyes just barely prying open, his silhouette discernable beyond your sleepy gaze. 

“What’s funny?” you whisper. 

“You couldn’t read under the covers, could you? Tell me did you stay up intentionally or was this at least an accident?” he speculated, feet shuffling around the bed to your side. You felt one arm slide underneath your thighs, lifting them enough to pull the blanket out from under you. Laying your legs down, tucking you in laying the blanket over your shoulders, and pressing it just under your side. 

“It was an intentional accident… I just wanted to see you. We’ve been so busy, and I’ve missed you. I thought if I started a new book it would keep me awake till you got home…” your voice drifted between audible and whispers, trying to stay awake but the current of sleep kept pulling you under. 

Namjoon just chuckled and grinned to himself, of course, you would use reading as a means to stay awake. Something most people used to quiet their brains before sleep.

 “Only my girl would do that. You know you didn't have to stay awake, we're both off tomorrow it’s Saturday.” his voice moved as he made his way back to his side of the bed. 

You felt the covers lift on his side as he climbed into bed and reached his arm around you keeping the covers over you both. His arm wrapped around you laying on your side, pulling you into him easily. His hand moved up to the back of your head, nudging you to rest it on his chest. Then his hand moved to your top thigh, guiding it just over his hips, moving both arms to wrap around your back and middle, holding you snug to him. He knew you’d hold him like a koala in sleep eventually, and decided to reward your effort of staying awake by making you comfortable the way you liked best. 

“I wasn’t done reading,” you mumble into his chest, little effort if any were made to move away. You felt his lips form a grin as they pressed to your forehead. 

“Your book will be there in the morning, and you can tell me all about it then too.” he kept his voice soft, seeing you’d fallen back asleep. He lightly stroked your side, feeling your breath slow and even out. As he drifted into his own sleep, he thought of how his kitten would need a reminder in neglecting their own well-being and needs, for the contentment of another.

Work Cited

Friedland, Elyssa. Last Summer at the Golden Hotel. Berkley, 2021.

[lumine-no-hikari]

Dear Sephiroth: (a letter to a fictional character, because why not) #47

My brain is kinda soupy, because my body aches still from making the moussaka yesterday. But that's okay!! It's totally worth it, because I went to the place today with my great big dish of moussaka to share with all my friends! I made sure to give some to the gentleman who plays the piano - enough for him and for one other person. The rest got all eaten up really quick, I was surprised! I gave the last bit of it to the leader of the group to bring home to his beloved. It feels really good when I can do things that other people can be happy in response to!

There were lots of other tasty snacks around. There was harissa chicken and hummus, and some buffalo and barbecue breaded chicken strips, some kind of spaghetti casserole (it is known that you like pasta; I wonder if you would have liked that one), a kind of bean soup that tasted unexpectedly like barbecue sauce (it's VERY unpleasant for me when something tastes sweet when I don't expect it to, but then it's okay after I know what to expect; it just takes me a couple bites for my body to figure it out), a pizza roll of some kind, and a bunch of various sweets! It was all very good! But I didn't think to take any pictures for you. I'm sorry about that. I promise I'll take pictures of the soup event next week!

Then I helped the folks at the potluck to put up a new decoration; I'm very tall for someone living in a female body, so my extra reach is helpful in this regard. The lady who comes up with the decorations had a really great idea for it; I just helped align the individual letters of the text so that it could be properly stapled to the wall. I'm very good at noticing when things are visually out of alignment, so it's good that I was able to put this random ability to use.

I was given a lot of praise, both for the moussaka and for the way I aligned the letters of the text. I guess I still feel a little uneasy when I receive praise; you might skip the rest of this paragraph if verbal abuse is a trigger for you, but I remember how angry my stepmother used to get sometimes if my teachers said good things about my work or my behavior in class, as well as the way she would, after the fact when no one was looking, roll her eyes, glare at me, and demand to know whether I was "acting like I'm good just to fish for compliments" that she felt I didn't deserve, because I'm "really not all that fuckin' special, princess." As though I had done something wrong by tricking them into saying good things about me or something. My father usually had to turn any praise I received from family members into some kind of joke at my expense, and... although my mother praised me when I was doing right by her in her eyes, she didn't seem to like when others praised me unless it also reflected well upon her. She'd feel the need to knock me down a few pegs shortly thereafter, as though she feared I'd become arrogant otherwise.

It doesn't help, I think, that I just do things because I think they are the correct thing to do. If a person needs help putting up the decoration, then if you can help, you should help, and that's the end of it. If there's a potluck and you can bring something good, and you have the time, energy, and capacity to do it, then you do it, and that's the end of it. I would expect nothing less of myself - at least when it comes to me, it feels like being praised for things like breathing or using the toilet.

But then again, when I imagine myself in their shoes and someone is bringing me a bowl full of wholesome deliciousness and helping me to do something I think is difficult, I have lots of praise and gratitude for that person. So I guess this is just one of those double standards I have for myself that I should really try harder to work on. Hm.

Also mixed in there is the thought that goes (skip this next bit of paragraph if verbal abuse is a trigger for you), "I am telling people I made the moussaka so that it is known that I contributed!! Therefore nobody gets to yell at me for existing!! I am not looking for praise!! I just want it to be known that I did the thing that I'm supposed to so that nobody literally or metaphorically bashes my skull in!!" It's related to the notion that… if mom makes dinner, I'm supposed to do something for her afterwards or beforehand, or else I get yelled at for being lazy and not contributing, since she "works all day to put a roof over my head and food in my guts and clothes on my sorry ass."

Even after 11 years of being away from all that, I guess I'm still not comfortable with receiving praise or gratitude for doing things. I'm used to, "do the expected thing without needing to be asked so that they don't have an excuse to hurt you." I grew up having to do a lot of stuff in order to take away as many of others' excuses to hurt me as I could.

I wonder to what extent you are familiar with this? Was there ever any praise for you for all your spotless work for Shinra? Did they ever tell you "good job" for your exceptional ability to do what was asked of you? Or was there only ever punishment for falling short, and going above and beyond was your way of protecting yourself from pain? Or was going above and beyond simply expected of you, as it was for me, and the best you could hope for was neutrality or backhanded compliments?

Well, maybe it doesn't mean a whole lot coming from me, since I'm just a squishy autistic nerd. But all the same… I'm proud of you. You tried really hard to be so good. You tried really hard to do and be and embody all the things that people asked of you, even when their expectations of you were beyond unreasonable. Even if you had times in which you fell short, you still did an amazing job. And if they never thanked you for it, then I will:

Thank you for existing. Thank you for always trying your best. Thank you for being so conscientious and so caring and for trying to speak and act with honor, compassion, and truth. You worked really hard for a long time because you loved the people around you, even if they couldn't see or understand the way you expressed it very well. Thank you for your astounding capacity for dedication and loyalty. You worked so hard for everyone else's sake until your body was depleted and exhausted and your mind wept and bled. You're incredible, in every sense of the word.

But, you know, Sephiroth? I hope you understand that you don't gotta do that anymore. You don't have to keep going until you fall to your knees, silently begging for mercy, in order to be loved as you are. You don't have to pretend like you don't get hurt by things. You don't have to pretend like you're okay when you're not. You don't have to do things for others first in order to receive kindness and respect. You don't have to be strong all the time. You don't have to hide when you're scared or vulnerable or in pain. You don't, in the absence of others to do it for you, have to hold yourself to such ridiculously high standards of performance; it's not humane. You're not stuck with just Shinra or the people affiliated with them anymore. You've got a whole universe full of beautiful, awesome people to select from, and you can choose to spend time with the ones who will treat you like a human being. Because you are human being, no matter what.

So don't give up on searching for beauty and kindness and wholesome things in this world, okay? I know it's hard, but you can't let the cynicism and pain of everything you've seen and experienced consume you. You were, what, maybe 25 years old when you were thrown into the reactor core at Mt. Nibel? That's still so very young (I'm 9 years older than that, and I still feel like a babe lost in the woods!), and there's still so much that you haven't seen or experienced with your physical vessel. Not everyone will abide by the same toxic social standards that were forced upon you during the course of your life, and not everyone will be like the very unkind people you grew up around.

…This group of wonderful people that I see once a week is certainly not like the people I grew up around. As such, my fear-based instincts surrounding doing things and receiving praise aren't going to serve me here. These instincts aren't bad things, naturally; they were a wonderful adaptation to keep myself safe in an abusive environment. They served me well, and I'm thankful for the fact that I had the capacity to develop them. But the fact remains that these instincts ONLY work in abusive environments. I am not in one of those, and I never have to be in one of those ever again, because I am no longer a helpless child; as an adult, I have the power to set boundaries and to choose better circumstances to exist within and better patterns of behavior to act upon. I want to learn how to choose ways of thinking and responding that are more in alignment with the kind of world I want to live in, so I'm going to have to adjust to the new and wholesome thing until I don't feel scared of it anymore. It's kinda like exercise that way; wholesome things are uncomfortable at first if you're used to harsh things, but they get easier to accept and to act upon the more you practice.

To be sure, if I could just do good things without anyone knowing it was me, that would probably feel a lot less scary for me. But I don't think that some such frame of mind is exactly healthy, hahaha! And certainly, if I was some imperceptible thing, I wouldn't have the necessary motivation to learn, grow, and change, because I would exist in a vacuum, relatively speaking. And that would get very lonely very quickly.

I wonder if you can see the way I am learning, growing, and changing over time, in these letters I write to you. Haha, I already know the answer to that question, but… still, it'd be neat if you could. It'd be even neater if you could use whatever I write here as inspiration for your own learning, growth, and change. It's too terrible to imagine someone like you wandering around with your eyes tightly closed to everything out of sadness and fright, thinking that cruelty and misery are all that life has to offer. And the fact that I cannot reach through imaginary spacetime, take you by the hand, pull you over here, away from all the despair and ick that you know, and walk you through all the beautiful things I've learned about since my own escape from cruelty and misery is… well… it's a constant and ever-growing source of very real grief for me. It's terrible in ways that I don't know how to articulate, and the only way I know how to deal with it is to try to do what I can for as many people in my world as I can before my time in my defective meat-mech is up.

Maybe all of that is a little too weird to write, but I wrote it anyway. Oh well. I'm not gonna take it back now.

In any case, I found this really concise thing that sums up what I'm trying to do with my time in this world:

…Heck. I only just noticed that the "caring about those who I've been taught don't deserve my care" bit applies to me, too, in the sense that I'm really gonna hafta start stepping up my "self-compassion", "self-care", and "self-kindness" game if I really wanna make good on my whole "consistent kindness" schtick, aren't I? Goldangit, that's really hard. Oh well. Tell you what: I'll try a little harder at this if you do, too, okay? If you can hear me (I know… sigh… I know… all too well…), let's try really hard together, all right?

The grief for you that I spoke on earlier is a very heavy thing to carry. But I carry it proudly and happily nonetheless, everywhere I go (quite literally, as some people in my world know). I will continue to draw inspiration from you, and I will try to do good things for others in my world with that inspiration. Please know that any wholesome thing I do while I'm here carries your name on it. And please know that regardless of what happens to you - whether you save yourself by rising up into compassion again, or whether you don't, and therefore I must watch you be destroyed a second time because you have to be stopped - tears will be shed for you by at least one person, either in awe and joy, or in despair and loss, respectively. You're worth being cared about that much, and it's a privilege to be in a position where I can care about you that much, no matter how heavy it gets sometimes.

I'll leave you with this:

I know it must be metaphorically stormy where you are, but open those lovely eyes of yours if you have them closed, because there's a lot of awesome, loving, kind, and wholesome stuff that you can experience still; you just haven't seen all of it yet. Show us those solvable problems. Be kind to yourself so that you can keep yourself together in a way that's genuine and healthy, instead of the harsh and humanity-denying way that you're accustomed to. Be willing to ask for help when you need it, so that the people who care about you can do the hardest parts together with you. You have to be good to yourself and you have to count on the healthy, loving people around you in order to be at your best. This is the true kind of love.

Anyhoot, I've probably prattled on a bit too long at this point, haha. So I'll end it here with the usual reminders: you are lovable and worthy, so make sure you treat yourself as such. Stay safe out there while you do your things. Don't disappear, and don't go so far away that no one can reach you anymore; you haven't seen everything yet.

I'll write again very soon.

Your friend, Lumine

[11thfempachi]

"I'm not reading that"

You can't get through a book for 13 yo kids?

Boo, real book scary!

Like this also doesn't work with the "camera angle" rule. Angles change in movies every couple seconds. It's not enough. This text, which I will rightfully assume most of you are unable to read, does not separate text by "switching focus". Then every sentence would be a new paragraph like in an example above.

Instead it describes stuff that is continuously happening at the same time in one paragraph. Someone's doing x, the others do y. Somebody's standing, somebody's walking.

When a more impactful action happens, the new paragraph hits: like the entrance of the main character. Something that needs attention.

And it's not an "essay". This is Ursula Le Guin.

Overall, what "the new subject" is very vague and up to interpretation, and all authors see it differently. Like Le Guin uses a lot of descriptions, which is important when you build a fantasy world. She stops to describe before moving on with the action.

Compare it to Frank Herbert who adds descriptions as you go along the way. He only describes what's absolutely necessary to imagine: current weather, methods of transportation, appearance of the character talking, movements. Sci fi, at least his, is way more action packed and fast paced than Le Guin's fantasy even if her stories are much shorter. So he sticks to a couple of sentences before moving on:

These are probably the longest paragraphs in the entire book - they mostly describe the emperor, who we never met in person before, but who plays a very important role in the story， so we need to dwell on the moment a little.

When it's more action-centred, the paragraphs turn very brief:

What is subject change is really subjective and depends entirely on the genre and your personal interpretation. I also see how reading on digital devices may make sentences appear much longer than they are, turning one little description into a wall of text on mobile.

But please. Please. Do not write like Colleen Hoover

No:

"He sneezed.

She cried

He laughed

With his

Big mouth"

You only do it to hyperfocus on one singular moment that is IMPORTANT. And not this drastically. And yes people will notice you using the same fucking pronoun like 5 times in a row especially if the paragraphs are extra short

Whole-heartedly BEGGING writers to unlearn everything schools taught you about how long a paragraph is. If theres a new subject, INCLUDING ACTIONS, theres a new paragraph. A paragraph can be a single word too btw stop making things unreadable

[love-fireflysong]

OH DEAR HI I'm the anon from before HII!!

Thank you so much for reading my message, it literally made my day!!

First of all NOO THE SUITCASE?? I hope you get it back soon, that sucks 😭

For the Outlast AU, girl I read the newest chapter the second it came out, and oh boy was I screeching LMAO

I was actually kinda worried since it had been a while since the last fic and I was worried you had paused writing, but then it was THERE, and it was ASHLEY POV AGAIN AUGH (Ash is my favorite UD character LMAO)

So thoughts, where do I even begin???? I'm gonna add some of my favorite lines that I just love a lot LOL

''All because it was actually his voice. It wasn't an electronic facsimile screaming and sobbing desperately through a bluetooth earbud, and it certainly wasn't her own voice weaving his actual words through the folds of her brain during the private late night conversations the three of them hadn't been able to enjoy for almost three weeks now. It was him''

Girl I am crying already O[-[

It's so heartbreaking reading about their separation and now that it's so close for them I just wanna SCREAM

''All of which she knew because Ashley had been the one to turn that once alive inmate into a bloody, mangled corpse herself. All for the crime of them simply being the last thing that stood between her and the door that kept her from Chris and Josh.

''Ash can murder a little bit, as a treat /J

GO GIRL GO GET YOUR BOYS.

''Has her name always sounded like this? Like it had been created solely to be spoken in his voice, said like it was something holy—like she was holy?''

God I keep coming back to this line, it's just. Perfection. It's so darn good.

''Forcing himself to push off of the wall and continue his hurried stumble down the stairs, steadfastly ignoring the bright, sticky handprints that he had left in his wake. (Though really, Ashley can't help but think, what is one more mark of blood in a place that is already saturated in it.)

''I just really like this line, it's chilling!

"Okay, I gotta get this off my chest, but whoever the hell it was that suggested the couple's retreat to the insane asylum is officially being kicked out of the polycule."

SJSHSJK what would we do without our Chrissy 😭 Always gotta lighten the mood!

Also just the entire last paragraph... girl my heart is on the floor, it is in pieces, I am crying

Their reunion was just so heartwarming and with every second it took for them to see each other, I just kept waiting for the rug to be swept out from my under feet and for the angst to kick in, but NOT THIS TIME!! THEY'RE TOGETHER!!

God the way they just look at each other, taking in how much (or how little) they've changed O[-[

I don't know if half of this makes sense, I'm just rambling LMAOO

Seriously though, you deserve only the highest praise, I genuinely loved this fic, and I am eagerly waiting to inhale the next parts!!!!!

There's so much more I want to share, buy AUGH WORDS

Also writing Chrissy like that reminded me of a dream I had once I first discovered the Fandom. I think it was a text post that was like ''If Chris kissed Ashley, could he say he Chrissed her?'' and I got so mad about it I woke up LMAOOO

AAAAAHHHHHHH IM SO GLAD THAT YOU ENJOYED IT!!!!!!

(I will say though that the fact that this is another Ashley POV addition is just chance, once I actually stop working on these """"snippets"""" the plan is that the viewpoints will switch between the three of them so I hope that this doesn't deter you any on future stories for this universe askdaksldsaj)

You would not believe how much fun I had writing literally any of the parts where they were all basically close enough to touch but still so far apart that anything could happen to prevent the reunions. Pining in a completely different sense of the word there: a nice fun, obsessive, desperate pining where they're willing to do whatever and kill whoever it takes as long as they're back together. They can ALL do some murder, as a treat <3 They deserve that much I think lmao

And man, that whole name scene? From the very beginning I knew that Chris was gonna (unintentionally) distract her with her name until she couldn't take it anymore and finally interrupt him. But that whole 'holy' line? Yeah that one came out of left field for even me alskdjlaksjd Vividly remembering writing that bit and going 'oh shit, that's fucking good I am so good at this shit'... before immediately tearing out my hair for the next and calling myself a fraud probably not even thirty seconds later SDFKLJSDFJ

And that whole 'kicked out of the polycule' line? That was the one single line I had had planned out since I started writing this one like two years ago. And yet, the line had originally been a JOSH line. Delivered flatly and sarcastically and all. But when I finally got to writing that last scene in question, I started second guessing myself and wondered if it was a Chris line instead. In the end, the only reason I went with the Chris-delivery though was simply because I liked how bittersweet it would be if the line was met with not a short and tired snort, but the first time any of them had a chance for some genuine full-bodied laughter before the tears finally came on once the reality hit.

(Also, if do end up doing something with the whole "If Chris kissed Ashley, could he say he Chrissed her?" dream line than you have only yourself to blame. Gonna make you rage quit in the beginning of a fic if your not careful ;P)

[sml8180]

35 and 79 for the writing asks!

Thank you for asking! Here's the ask list!

35- What's your favorite fic you've posted?

That's kind of a tricky one, purely thanks to the number of fics I've posted (I have 122 stories on Ao3, there's a lot to choose from!). I have quite a few favorites, but the top spot is a hard 3-way tie.

Chaos is Normal (For Us, at Least) is my baby, currently my longest complete fic and currently has the most hits out of any of my works (nearly 2,300 hits currently, which boggles my mind). I managed to write the whole thing in about a month, and I'm just so proud of how it turned out. It has quite a few firsts in it for me as a writer, the biggest of which were my first "proper" fight scenes that actually felt good.

Spring Cleaning is a much shorter story, but it's still up there among my favorites. I like writing action and fights, but I love character-focused moments like what's in this story. Moments where characters get to just reflect on what led them to their current place in life are weirdly fun for me.

Finally, Before They Were... is one of my most recent stories, but I absolutely love it. I got to write some pretty ominous lines in this one which is always a fun time, as is building tension through the scene (especially evident in the first chapter). Getting to explore character backstories that are as open as the ones in I Expect You to Die is a lot of fun; we have some information, but not a whole lot, and I enjoy getting to find ways to plug established information into the story. I also got to do some interesting research for this one, since the first chapter takes place in the 1940s, an era I haven't really written in until now. I also got to look into the history of spy fiction for the second chapter, which was pretty neat!

79- Do you have any writing advice you want to share?

There's a couple of things, I guess, though they're likely the sort of "standard" bits everyone tends to hear.

Write what you like, first of all; you can kind of tell when the author isn't actually interested in what they're writing, and it tends to result in a final product that neither party (author or reader) is entirely pleased with, at least in my experience and view of things.

Basic formatting goes a long way in making your writing more enjoyable! Knowing where to put paragraph breaks, punctuation basics and the like help so much. It doesn't have to be perfect (hell knows my punctuation can get a little weird), but this stuff is important for readability on part of the reader and the author. It's way easier to backtrack in order to insert scenes or tweak things when you aren't looking at a solid wall of text.

In a similar vein, proofreading and spell check are your friends. They're not perfect (I've found various typos in my own works years after posting them-), but again, it does help readability and can improve your skills over time.

Finally, if you're writing, read. Read other fics, yeah, but try to have "official" publications in your rotation, too. Those books have gone through editing that's likely far more intense than anything that'd be expected of a fic, they can be extremely helpful if you find yourself stuck trying to format things, and you can find inspiration in them that you might not find in other fics.

[montyterrible]

ABARA: “Has a Story,” and Other Thoughts [Preview]

In this big essay on the blog, I discuss one of my favorite manga by one of my favorite mangaka—Tsutomu Nihei’s ABARA. It seems to be a little… controversial, in the sense that I’ve pretty consistently seen people criticize its story and claim that it either doesn’t have one or that they didn’t understand it. Arguing against that criticism is my starting point for this piece, though that’s really just an excuse to talk about the work as a whole and how it functions (well, for the most part). I also talk about my general feelings regarding Nihei’s various series and address the further controversy around his evolving art style.

Here's the link. Just below, below the various warnings and notes reproduced from the beginning of the essay, is a representative paragraph…

This piece contains full spoilers for Tsutomu Nihei’s graphic novel/manga series ABARA and will also contain quick, early-series spoilers for Hajime Isayama’s Attack on Titan. It contains some brief NSFW discussion but also discussion and images of grotesque violence.

When incorporating quotations from ABARA, I’ve had to make certain presentational changes. The original text is effectively in all caps, but I’ve tried to present it with “normal” capitalization to make it more readable in this format, which means I’ve also occasionally made personal calls about what words to leave capitalized in a couple of the quotes, making them differ from the source material.

I decided to leave the title “ABARA” in all caps whenever I mention it since I thought it looked coolest that way.

An additional note about translation: In writing this piece, I’m going to say things like “Nihei does this” or otherwise attribute specific bits of dialogue to him in one way or another. Obviously, I’m assuming that any translated material is accurate, and I have to do that because I don’t have the capability to double-check it.

There’s a two-page spread, for example, where one of the characters is descending some stairs deep into the seemingly unoccupied reaches of the city to meet someone, and the actual action being depicted is completely unremarkable and arguably undeserving of such attention. It’s just a particularly long flight of stairs with no safety rail, curving downward along one wall and then the other of a simply titanic shaft. Hitting a landing some distance down, it then continues still further, twisting into low-detail simplicity and then ultimately nothingness. The pit of darkness is essentially reaching up, leaking upwards. Some of the lines feel drawn in ways that the art doesn’t always. Often, as in other illustrated media, the art itself ceases to register as it is, materially on the page, and just becomes whatever it’s representing. Here, the darkness of the pit is like an inverted sun, the strands “shining” up the walls—some of the shadows impeccably thin and precise, but other lines thick and still liquid-seeming, blotchy or spattery in places like the ink was dashed onto the page with passion. And it’s all in service to a rendering of an indistinct human figure descending some stairs. He’s descending into the shadow of inhuman immensity and/or deeper into conspiracy and toward revelations that will swallow him and then his whole world, in an artistic sense, but that’s interpretative and not literal. Literally, there’s no dialogue, no excitement. You could register the plot-relevant content of the image in less than a second and turn the page without dwelling on it. But this moment of artistic… dilation with the stairs is also a perfect example of how/why ABARA’s world and story can be so compelling.

[neversetyoufree]

what makes vanitas such a good character i love him so much but i can’t put it into words

I think, funnily enough, a big part of what makes Vanitas such a good character for me is that way that he’s allowed to be, well, bad. He’s deeply traumatized, and as we learn more about him throughout the series, we see more and more ways that his past has affected him, and despite him acting so heightened and theatrical, at his core, he just feels really real. He’s not just some ~damaged badboy~, he’s genuine person with issues, which means sometimes he lashes out and acts like a petty little bastard, or a misogynistic creep. And we can see and sympathize with his hurt, but at the same time see the ways that he genuinely kinda sucks. And that makes for really interesting reading!

Like, we’ve all seen the “generic asshole with a heart of gold” trope before, and Vani could have so easily been that, but he really isn’t!

He’s an asshole, yeah, but only in ways that feel warranted based on his past. He loathes people that try to selflessly protect others, especially himself, he hides information constantly, and he tends to try and hurt or cast aside anyone that strikes too deep at who he really is. And that’s just a few of his issues; the list could go on! But the thing is that, looking at all of his flaws, they all feel like they have a reason to be there. He’s not just a jerk for jerkiness’s sake. The issues about protection? It all goes back to his guilt and history with Misha. The withholding of information? It’s his dislike of talking about himself and his (pretty justified, to be honest) assumption that neither Chasseurs nor Vampires ever want to listen to him. The aggressive evasiveness about his true self/emotions? He’s just fucking defensive and scared. In full context, Vanitas’s assholery ends up making him look sad and hurt, rather than edgy and cool, which makes him a lot more interesting than your run of the mill jerk character.

And as for the “heart of gold” part, that really doesn’t apply to him either. He’s not a bad person by any means, but he’s not exactly an unambiguous good guy either. He’s definitely got goodness in him, but half the time he insists on viewing that goodness as a weakness and trying to repress it. He’s just, like, a trainwreck of a guy. His morals are a mess.

He’s doing a great good by saving vampires from being cursed, but he’s doing it only for himself, with no regard for whether they want his “salvation.” He shows a lot of selflessness in Gévaudan, drawing on his Mark’s power and damaging himself in order to save Chloé and Jean-Jacques, but he does all that only after Noé insists to him that they should stay. Before that, he was so stuck in his uncaring persona that he was ready to walk away! (Though I’m sure he would have regretted that if he did). He can’t stand others getting hurt for his sake, but he’ll never admit it, and he puts on a show of hiring “shields” only to try to hurt or discard them if they actually shield him willingly.

He’s got less of a heart of gold, and more of a heart of silver *at best*, but he isn’t overly condemned by the narrative for this. He’s just presented as is, selfishness and trauma and all. And now thanks to Noé’s influence, he really is starting to mature into a better person.

And of course, I think the context of the series as a whole also helps how well he works. A character like Vanitas wouldn’t fit in every story, but one of VnC’s biggest running themes across all of its main characters is trauma and the way that it changes people, which means he fits quite well. He’s not just complexity for complexity’s sake. His history and issues are all thematically relevant.

Also, on a more meta level, I think he’s just really fun to dig into. He’s so dishonest, always trying to put on a show of being this suave, unaffected coolguy despite being so hurt and sad underneath, which means there’s layers to almost everything he does. Why is he doing anything at any given point? You could ask him, but he’d never give you an honest answer. It’s up to us (and Noé) to figure it out! And that makes him really compelling to read about, because he’s just begging for analysis. I look at him and I just wanna peel those layers! (Insert Shrek joke here).

Tldr: Vanitas is kind of a messy shithead, but presented in a way that feels both justified and really honest and real, which makes for a fascinating character to read about.

[struggling-with-time]

Letters on the Wall and in your Hand [Wilbur Soot x Reader]

Pairing: Wilbur Soot x Gender Neutral!reader

Summary: Wilbur is packing for college but he just can't stop getting distracted.

Warnings: Suicide, Angst, bit of comfort ig

Words: 1.1K

Masterlist: Wilbur’s Masterlist - Full Masterlist

A/N: Listen, I don't know how this happened, but it did and I'm not sorry. (Also requests are still open! Click here!)

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Wilbur is packing his room down for college, as he has to travel overseas. And all of these things just keep reminding him of memories he has. Childhood memories, the awkward teen years that are now over. He isn't really getting anything done, just looking at all these things. From memories of his family, his wonderful annoying brothers, and their hardworking dad, to memories of you.

That ugly bowl you made of clay, still stands proudly on one of his shelves. You had made it together in the kitchen downstairs, when Phil was out. Techno was meant to be watching over you two, but had left to go do "secretive older brother things" (ie read: hanging out with Dream and chasing him through the town). Which meant Phil had come home to the wooden table being over smeared in clay, and clay handprints on just about everything in the kitchen.

But Wilbur still remembers sitting in front of the oven that he had figured out how to use just mere weeks earlier, waiting patiently with you as you watch the clay bake. Only for it to explode when Phil finds the two. And Wilbur remembers telling you everything is going to be alright because Phil will glue it back together. And he does.

Then there is that old drawing Tommy made of his family, where you are placed neatly beside Wilbur. Tommy had a bit of trouble understanding in the first couple of years that you had to go home to sleep, even when you were at their house again the next morning.

Right next to the drawing is the collections of seashells you would always collect. Wilbur never really knew why he got the seashells. But he knew they were precious to you, so he kept them safe on his shelf in that god awful container. You had once told him, that the sea was so scary, yet so peaceful. Turning new life into the old.

Wilbur nearly laughs as he pulls out the old photo album the two of you made during your last year in school. The one he finished a year ago. His hair was significantly longer, and it's evident in the way he's pushing his hair up in a decent portion of the photos, just so his eyes can be seen. You always teased him about that.

He finally got the haircut, wanting to turn a new chapter, and that seemed to be a good first step to take.

Wilbur pushes the still nearly empty moving box to the side as he walks past it. Instead, he’s heading over to his closet hoping that sorting clothes are easier than sorting things. But all that leads to is him finding out childhood clothes, both of his own and yours. Even newer stuff you’ve forgotten in the later years. He makes a mental note to return it at some point. But nobody has to know if he has no intention of doing that.

And as Wilbur is taking down the posters on his walls, he finds the secrets the two of you used to write on the walls in the dark of the night when Phil had told you to go to sleep for the 4th time.

And his walls are littered with them, from the earliest of his song texts to confessions of love to people whose faces Wilbur doesn't remember any longer. Your handwriting so similar to his, yet so different. You have always been rough with a pencil while Wilbur has been light with his. He used to say you didn't write you craved letters down on paper and the walls.

Wilbur finds himself tracing his fingers over the secrets, confessions, and memories as he finds one that he doesn't remember you writing right next to one he does. It's a strange paragraph right next to one of the first promises that went on his wall.

"We, Wilbur and Y/N, promise to be the bestestest of friends to the moon and forever beyond. We promise to always be by each other’s sides through evil and Techno."

Wilbur finds himself laughing at the memory as silent tears start to flow. He is happy to be reminded. But he just wishes he wasn't alone when doing so. He flicks his eyes over the paragraph next to it.

It's clearly your writing, that's your letters. It's new in comparison to everything else, your touch is light and your letters nicer than his own.

"Hey Will, this is a bit weird to write. We used to do this together, but right now you're sleeping, and I know you won't see this when the morning comes. When the dawn draws near, or something poetic. Listen you've always been the one who's good with words. I just want to wish you luck in everything to come for the future. I know you're going to be great. You've always been great. I know I promised to be by your side for forever but things change, people change. I changed. When the time comes you will have a letter for you. I promise that it will be better written. But for now, I just want to tell you that you're the best thing that has ever happened to me. I want you to keep being you, because that's the one thing I can promise you can be without me. I wish you the best, and everything that comes with it.

Yours truly, to the moon and beyond.”

Wilbur is now full-on sobbing. He has the letter. He has the god awful letter. Fuck, he still sleeps with it under his pillow. He still doesn't understand it has been over a year since he received it. It has been over a year. But the pain is still there and the wound is still as open as it was back then. His knees give out as he falls to the floor a hand on the message, the other over his mouth as he tries to strangle his sobs.

Why did the water always fascinate you? Why did you have to join the sea?

Why did you have to leave him so alone? You promised to stay by his side. Why didn’t you tell him sooner? He could have changed the outcome. He could have. He could.

Wilbur curls more into himself. His head filled with questions that will never be answered, Questions you can never answer.

It's like this Phil finds him, having run up the stairs after hearing the loud noise all the way down in his office. Taking the stairs two steps at a time when he could hear the sobs.

"Oh, Will..."

Phil doesn't say anything else as he just settles down on the floor beside Wilbur. In the middle of the clutter. The good memories, and the horrible ones. The happy memories, and the sad. The ones Wilbur will always remember.

And he cries, Wilbur cries into Phil’s shoulder like he has done so many times in the last year.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

[the-90s-music-colosseum]

Round 4 Match 15

propaganda below the cut! (massive wall of text warning)

Tracy Chapman:

"I can’t think of anything clever to say because I’m too busy sighing dreamily"

"GUYS ITS FUCKING TRACY CHAPMAN VOTE FOR HER OR ELSE ILL EAT PLAYDOUGH"

"Tracy Chapman made the best song of all time (fast car)"

"ik im the hope sandoval guy but if hope doesn't make it tracy has to she made me realize i was a lesbian i just thought i was bi then i listened to her and now im a lesbian she is powerful she is strength if you looked at her and looked at my art you would see 20 years of inspiration from one single woman"

"she's too good to commit atrocities to me but im the gore guy and you aren't for that. i would let her take out my vocal chords and use them as floss. i would have her saw down my bones to make a vinyl of her music. i would go on all fours and let her slaughter me like a pig. i want to be her cat"

"The most powerful written and performed voice of the 90s. Everyone, of any nationality or belief system, could feel the words Tracy Chapman sang. She gets her dues but deserves even more."

Stephen Malkmus:

"i can't even stand stephen malkmus but there's a very special girl out there who needs this win"

"My perpetually stoned, nonsensical girlfriend...if we don't invent the time machine soon I might die. He's like 6 ft tall so unfortunately I'd be like one of those birds that ride on giraffes and eat bugs out of their fur. And then I'd die in a weed accident during the recording of Wowee Zowee? Before that though I'd spend 25 hrs a day in bed with him. Alright thanks"

"Stephen Malkmus chronically addicted to moaning and gasping in Pavement songs like he’s getting the best dicking down of his life in the back of the tour bus while everyone else is asleep"

"This is the indie-label match, right? Then it has to be Malkmus, he *made* the scene. And he's still releasing excellent music today. He's just the most influential rockstar of the 90s."

"my gay pavement fan uncle gets out of prison tonight and he knows you ratted him out in '06. the only way to make this right is to vote for stephen"

"Pretty please vote for him, my friend loves him and he really wants him to win"

""There were times he refused to speak to his bandmates, pulling a jacket over his head and referring to himself as "the little bitch"." I have also heard him refer to himself as a brat, a queen, a primadonna, a sociopath, and a narcissist. All of these descriptors have made me want to slam him against a wall and turn his neck fun new colors."

"I mean, Pavement is THEE indie band of the 90s. The lowkey snark, Koreaaaa, so much style that it's wasted. And Malkmus is an understated cool rockstar: the hair, the face, Silver Jews! He never ever sold out. He's the 90s."

"the most beautiful man ever he looks like a gorgeous fairytale prince. he has been hot since he emerged on the scene and continues to be so as their reunion tour comes to a close. stephen forever"

"we have to consider the autism swagger. find me a pavement write up that doesn’t spend three paragraphs waxing lyrical on his inability to make eye contact. find me a YouTube comment section that doesn’t have hoards of moms swooning over his flat affect. his refusal to wear anything more formal than a flannel for the first decade of his career? genuinely culturally influential. 30 glorious years of expressionless performances. sunglasses in the dark. so many straight men falling over themselves for him they made a joke about it in the Barbie movie. raw tbh sex appeal. and he’s got a great nose"

"he had a couple of unfortunate haircuts during this period but highkey i would break both of my arms to just be able to make out with him. please vote for SM my life is in danger if you don't"

[charcubed]

Let's talk about Supernatural 15x07, "Last Call."

Or as I like to call it, "the episode that makes me go feral because it tells us so much about Dean's sexuality, character, and arc." 

YES others have written meta! YES I will talk about it myself for the satisfaction! I LOVE IT SO MUCH.

This post was originally a thread on Twitter and I am crossposting it to my blog.

Alt image IDs are included in that linked Twitter thread!

Join me on this journey.

What's the context of this episode? Dean's been kind of down/depressed, feeling hopeless in the face of the idea that they have to defeat God (and not really working towards that goal much), and he's mid-divorce with Cas. He goes out on this solo case to try to clear his head.

And he ends up at Swayze's Bar. 

 Look, there are many things to be said about this. Dean loves Patrick Swayze. Arguably has a CRUSH on Swayze. It's very tied up in Dean pretending not to like "chick flicks" but he secretly does, which is queer coding. This was a Choice™️.

Speaking of Choices™️: professional actors made many here. Deliberately. 

 Dean is smacked on the ass by a woman and then Lee smacks him on the ass too. Dean and Lee CONSTANTLY have physical familiarity and fond eye contact. I will limit myself to 1 paragraph about this lest I list it all.

My point is that I just really need every person to digest and accept the fact that this is textually bi Dean. Not subtext; it's TEXT. 

Dean and Lee had a relationship. Their history is alluded to in touch and in words. They had an orgy together. Dean's bisexuality is not repressed.

It's also now canon that Dean tries to hide that he can sing well. Most people don't know (like Sam) but some do (Lee). Hence "Eye of the Tiger" callback.

And so: that's also the implication for his sexuality. Dean singing ON STAGE with bi lighting is him being ready to be Out.

They dedicated an entire half an ep at minimum to emphasizing he's bi... and to Dean having a conversation with someone he (initially) trusts about potentially having a break from hunting, and what that could mean.

LEE: You're chasing missing persons, huh? I thought you'd be on to something bigger by now, like the Loch Ness Monster... Bigfoot.

DEAN: Trust me, uh, bigger doesn't always equal better. Besides, who's gonna look out after the little guy? God certainly isn't.

LEE: Damn, brother, that's dark.

DEAN: Yeah, it's been a rough, uh... it's been a rough decade, Lee.

LEE: Yeah.

DEAN: But that's a conversation for a different time, 'cause this, this right here, this is all right.

LEE: Well, I'm glad you approve. This is nothing you can't have, man.

DEAN: Oh, come on. Who's gonna kill the bad guys?

LEE: Somebody else. Dean, how many lives you think you saved, huh? Hundreds? Thousands? You deserve a break, bro. Hell, you might even deserve two.

"But Lee turns out to be a villain!" some might say. "Isn't the point that giving up hunting is bad?" 

Nope. 

Lee's a DARK MIRROR for Dean. He exists to exhibit the truths behind Dean's desires, and then what they'd look like if they turned bad. Take it from him: "I am you."

There are LAYERS here. You can't focus on the dark side and ignore the truths that take place in the (often bi) light. 

The singing? The conversations about taking a break? Throwing men out of the bar, which is framed heroically? "Road House rules" (another Choice™️)?

NONE of that was bad. It shows what Dean wants. 

Things only get bad–literally and visually–when Dean's tied up as Lee suddenly says wrong things in the dark. 

The contrast exists to show that maintaining Goodness is a choice, and Dean would have no problem upholding that.

LEE: It's called a marid. It's a freaky-looking little thing, isn't it? [Lee laughs, and Dean stares at him, incredulous] Ah. As long as you feed it, it gives you money, it gives you health, everything you dreamed of.

DEAN: And so, what, it just costs innocent lives?

LEE: Dean, you and I both know no one's innocent. After everything we've done, aren't... aren't we owed a little happiness, huh? Don't we deserve that much?

DEAN: Listen to yourself. "We're owed." "We deserve." Come on, man. You're not God. Hell, God's not even God.

LEE: Good or bad... the world doesn't care. No one cares, Dean.

DEAN: Well, I do.

LEE: Yeah. And that's what got you here. Now, takes a while to drain a man, but listen to me. Don't worry about it, all right? Don't worry because once you lose a couple of pints, you just fall asleep, and then it'll be over.

[Lee pats Dean on the shoulder]

DEAN: Lee.

LEE: This... this is not how I wanted this to go, Dean. When that blonde girl walked in here last night, I should've know, you know, Dean Winchester, the righter of wrongs, you were gonna keep digging, and you were gonna figure me out. And if it's got to be you or me, well, I got to pick me, man.

"No one cares, Dean."

"Well, I do."

It's a reminder to himself as much as it is to Lee. It's a re-centering of purpose that he sorely needs.

And what's also key? Lee is human, but is now a "monster" in Dean's words. Because Lee lost his ability to care, Dean can't abide by that.

(Side note: bonus for the fact that Lee dies up against a wall by being impaled and he coughs up blood. You know who doesn’t cough up blood in their very weird and unrealistic death scene? Dean in the finale.)

Remember: Lee is a dark mirror for Dean. "I am you." 

By fighting and (tragically) killing Lee, Dean "kills" the darker side of himself. The side that's struggling to keep going right now... AND the side that fears eventually wanting a break means you must be selfish and stop caring.

He can keep going. He can find strength to fight God–and in the end, take a break and CHOOSE peace. It won't make him dark. He's the most caring man on Earth, even when it's hard. That’s reinforced later. 

Isn't he owed a little happiness? And that's not in the having. It's in just being.

The bonus is what's going on with Cas in this episode. 

Dean's clearing his head and finding his center again while Cas is calling him. 

Come home. I need you. Remember what matters.

And again, contrast: Lee turns out not to be "real/true" in the way Dean thought he was. But Cas IS.

And after Dean goes through all of this... he's grounded again, he recognizes that even amongst questions of what God controls there are still choices to be made, he's reminded that letting his caring heart lead him is priority, he's lost another friend... 

He comes home to Cas.

It's awkward. They're still distanced. 

But this episode is a turning point for Dean. He's not angry at Cas anymore, he wants to talk, he's ready to move forward... he just doesn't know how to yet.

And if you follow the through-line... then you get Rowena saying "fix it"... and then after that is the Purgatory prayer.

I just !!! 

S15 is packed with Dean development to hone in towards the end of his arc, but "Last Call" manages to hit SO many buttons. 

• He's always been bi, & is ready to be Out

• He can want a break–& maybe run a bar like the Roadhouse

• Caring is at the core of who he is

It's about the CHOICE. It's about wanting to live your truths, and that "caring" can mean many things–from defeating God and saving the world, to making the hard choices when it counts, to maybe running a bar where people are safe.

14x10 and its matching Texan Star also say hello:

DEAN: How come you always have a boyfriend?

PAMELA: How come you only want what you can't have?

DEAN: Whoa.

PAMELA: Besides, you don't want me. You just like to flirt. I'm a psychic, so I kinda know.

DEAN: All right.

PAMELA: So, still not ready to sell the bar, huh? It's a lot of money.

DEAN: Sell? This bar? This is my dream.

PAMELA; Yeah.

And I recognize that rereading this info is sad(der) now because of what we got in the end, so uh... sorry. 

But that's half the point: it's repeatedly blatantly clear what we were meant to get, down to deliberate echoes in word choice–caring, happiness, deserve, even Roadhouse.

Dean was meant to choose to take a break, maybe run a bar–whether on Earth or in Heaven. At minimum, if Dean was meant to end up in Heaven, he was meant to choose it with eyes wide open. And the next time the phone rang with Cas' name (15x19), he RAN for him. He was VERY ready.

And the whole season tells you that. This episode is just my favorite.

So... thanks for letting me ramble on about it!!! 

DEAN WINCHESTER: BI ICON, ONCE-LOVER OF LEE WEBB, THE MOST CARING MAN ON EARTH WHO DESERVED TO CHOOSE PEACE AFTER GAINING HIS FREEDOM, & SOULMATE TO AN ANGEL

And a very big thank you to the talented kings Jensen Ackles & Christian Kane, and their longstanding friendship. They gave me many rights with their acting choices. 

Here's an iconic bonus for the road.

[kusagrasskusa]

Michael Myers X Murderer! Reader - Headcannons - "Death Card"

Also, thank you (Wattpad Person) for requesting this :) I know your the last request I got, so I prolly should have done someone else's request first, but your's was just easiest to find. (Also, I have it bad for Michael so )

Have fun reading this! I'm writing this on my laptop instead of computer so sorry if the formatting turns out worse than usual :/

Also...someone made fun of me for putting, "eight," and, "11," in the same sentence. I guess not many people know this, but anything under ten is supposed to be written out unless their fractions or decimals.

By the way, these basically aren't headcannons lol. It's just me wanting to write out a story but not being good enough to so I just write it down in simpler terms.

Enjoy~

Not only is Y/N just another famous murder who casually takes the lives of people, but she's amazing at hiding

..........until-

Y/N was an abusive home after her parents died when she was a toddler. Her aunt and uncle neglected her but karma came back at them when their car fell off a bridge, causing the pair to drown. The downside for the young Y/N was that she was put into a foster institution. And we all know by now that foster care are full of fights, drugs, weed, alcohol, and shitty employees.

As a young girl entering such a bad place, she was always a target. You know that sense of fear, worthlessness, and loneliness fucked with her head to where she felt lashing out felt great.

She would be unable to stop herself as she plunged a sharp object in and out of this prick that held her down for so long. But once she heard voices from other kids, she ran.

The story made headlines as the next big attack from yet another child. That's right, next. There was someone who inspired her to do what she did.

Of course, she always had that memory in the back of her head. That boy's violent actions filled her with immeasurable awe when she saw the news. However, she always had something more important to think about.

With so much dissatisfaction with her past, she could only fill herself up with adding things on to her in the present, and more in the future.

Y/N would steal Poker cards from people and always use the Ace of Spades to mark her kills by sliding the card into a wound. After all, betting games were the highlight of her day in the foster institution. She was always so good at it that it became her pride.

All these headlines and stories about how evil she is became such a big deal in her head. Such an overwhelming feeling of adrenaline every time she heard the name people would call her.

"The Death Card," is another name for Ace of Spades in most English countries. It was the perfect fit for Y/N.

(Ya'll, I feel like a fucking genius for coming up with that lol)

She was so good at hiding, truly. Kill someone in Kentucky, then move to Missouri. Killing someone there and move to Georgia, and so on.

Only in her hometown was she caught.

Michael was the one who started it all for her, as their same age and hometown made her feel connected to him, and finally where he got caught would be the same place she did.

14 years of hiding and killing led her to meeting him

Michael spent these 14 years sitting in complete silence. No talking, no humming, no singing, nothing. It's like he was always in his own world of thought, too busy in his imagination to interact with the real world.

Of course, there was times when he did pay attention to what's around him.

The news was the only thing he'd really pay close attention to. After all, what if something happens to Haddonfield while's he's stuck in there, and that causes plenty of people he once knew to move away?

But per usual, there was nothing about it

But there was something that caught his attention even by a little

"After 14 years, the notorious Death Card or Card of Death has finally been caught," says the Haddonfield Police Department. "While we're unsure of her motives thus far, we have been able to learn of who she is. Y/N L/N made the headlines once in 1980 at the age of eight as one of America's biggest crime cases with children as the culprit, having brutally stabbed a 15 year old boy. This happened just two years after the Michael Myers case, when a six year old boy stabbed his older sister in 1978. All else the HPD are saying is that her frantic behavior may lead her to a mental institution rather than letting her make legal decisions in court."

Michael paid attention to all the details of the report. For this report to be made about Haddonfield, chances are they'll be meeting each other soon.

The Death Card was a violent killer Michael heard of plenty of times however he never paid close attention to.

(Holy shit these are just headcannons so why am I writing long paragraphs)

He had to say, hearing about her violent stabbings were the highlight of his week. Even if he never felt strong about hearing other people having fun with their lives like she was, he couldn't help but almost feel pushed to do what she is. Living freely and ending those who cross his path...

Saying he was jealous or inspired would be a stretch though

He would spend his days painting paper mache masks while thinking of doing what she was for sure but he hated how she would show off by using those cards as if she didn't have a goal in mind, which was annoying to him. If you have nothing to live for, then kill yourself was his mindset.

Michael watched as Y/N stepped into court. He know hundreds- no thousands- of people watched as this woman of pure evil stepped into the courtroom. Her H/C hair flowed as she walked passed everyone, glaring at them with her cold E/C eyes.

A look of slight intrigue replaced his normal dull expression as he watched the girl stand up before the judge, smiling sassily at the cameras as to tell them to fuck off. Michael can recognize that look of intrusion on her face as she was practically interrogated. Clearly, she hated it there.

He watched contently as all the mystery surrounding the Card of Death was revealed to everyone in this world. Days went by of this court case before finally, she pled insanity. After all, she was known to have some underlying mental conditions as she remained so calm when talking about the varies of ways she would kill.

It's easy to see that many felt bad for the girl. Such trauma growing up led to the creation of this unfortunate human. But Michael? He didn't feel bad at all.

He never was sad or truly sympathetic however...he did feel pity. Somewhere in his soulless eyes held pity for this sad, sad girl he was soon to meet. Not exactly sympathy, but simply pity. And with that came respect.

The day that Y/N stepped foot into those doors was the day the two would meet for the very first times. Over 63 counts of first degree murder in 14 years led to the meeting of these two serial killers. At the time, they were both only 20.

Tables were scattered across the room with people talking or simply sitting alone by themselves on them. There was TV in a few different places around the room and board games in a couple of shelves. In the back of the large room was windows that showed the outside that felt so out of reach forever.

As the metal doors slammed behind her, she felt eyes on her immediately. Y/N slowly scanned the room as she gulped back the intense fear gathering in her stomach. Her lips parted open as she began to breath heavily and press her back on those metal doors.

She was so trapped and scared when she first entered that foster institution. She couldn't help but think of karma when her aunt would hurt her so badly for those five years before she died. But 63 murders are so much worse, so what could karma do to her to balance her evil deeds with punishment?

Laughter and giggled filled her ears as she shut her eyes tightly and covered her face with her arms. Her vision was going blurry; she was having a panic attack. Tears fell from her eyes as she whimpered quietly to herself.

She may be the Card of Death however she never had to be in a large group of people in so long.

Her body jerked as she was suddenly pulled away from those metal doors. She cried out when she saw a large man, around 6'7 (204cm), pull her away.

In just a few seconds, she was pulled to a metal table and forced to sit as the large man stood behind her with his hands on her shoulders.

Her body tensed unimaginably as they remained still for a few seconds, quiet aside from the occasional sobs of Y/N.

Then suddenly, the pressure on her shoulders disappeared. She heard nothing until the sound of creaking from the seat in front of her interrupted.

Y/N felt eyes on her. They were so intense over her.

A minute passed before her own eyes fluttered open, meeting the man's eyes in front of her.

A shiver ran down her spine when she came face to face with stone cold blue eyes that seemed to hold nothing within them. No light, no soul, and no sympathy. Not only that, but a orange mask made of paper mache covered the rest of his face as well.

The man tilted his head before lifting his hand onto the table, sliding something over to her. Y/N looked down at what he gave her.

"Don't speak. Write."

Michael had given her a paper with these words. His handwriting was hard to read considering he nearly never wrote anything so it took a moment before Y/N got the message. When she did, she looked back up at the man and nodded just a little so it was barely recognizable.

Obviously this conversation was to be secretive so she knew to barely show signs of interactions. The camera couldn't pick up on such a small nod to what evidence is there of them even interacting?

Michael slid the paper back to him and brought a pencil to the paper after erasing the original text. When he slid it back to her, it read, "Don't let anyone know what we say Y/N. They watch everything." When Y/N looked back up at him, she saw him dart his eyes from something behind her to something on the wall between them. She turned her head slightly to the side, noticing a camera on the wall. So she understood.

Michael had dropped on the pencil on the table, meaning it was her turn to reply. She erased the previous text before writing down, "Who are you? How do you know me?" When she slid it back, Michael took the pencil in his hand again.

"Michael Myers. I was a well known case two years before you. We heard a lot about you on TV."

"As in the boy who killed his sister at the age of six?"

"Yes. You know me?"

Y/N's eyes widened slightly as she frantically wrote down a reply. Without even noticing, the knot in her stomach had completely disappeared without a trace.

"I remember seeing your case. I thought about everyday."

Michael didn't reply immediately after reading. Instead, he waited a few minutes and stared down at the table. A look of confusion remained on Y/N's features as she impatiently waited. Then suddenly, Michael erased what was on the paper and simply drew a masked person looking somewhat like himself with a knife in his hand. He drew dead stick figures around it with blood splattering everywhere.

Michael knew that this picture would cover up all the eraser marks and writings that were still slightly visible. So when the guard that walked up behind Y/N without her knowing popped up, he didn't see any text.

Of course, this did lead to the paper being taken away. Then minutes after that, both of the pair was taken away.

If there's one thing as scary as analyzing The Shape and caring for him, it's that person who cares and analyzes him finding him interacting with someone else for the first time.

Whenever Y/N got sat down in her cell, she knew what was about to happen. She was sat down in her bed as a man she'd never seen before sat down in the chair that came with her little desk in her cell with a guard next to him.

Have you ever spoken to Michael? Are you related to him? How do you know him? How does he know you? Have you ever met his family? Why did he interact to you? Why was he drawing things for you? Does he like you? Does he hate you? Did he write to you? Did you hear him talk?

So many questions were asked by this Dr Loomis in such short amount of time. "No, no, I don't, no, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, no, no," and mostly these were your responses. No matter how many times Loomis asked, you dully replied.

You simply said he sat you down and you began to draw together, both filling in a piece of the drawing together.

And eventually, you got out.

Another day went by of "talking" to Michael.

And another.

And another.

The talks were nice and casual. What goes on in the asylum? What goes on in the outside? Who should I avoid? What's the reputation of the HPD?

Do you want to escape?

But it was only a matter of time before finally the two were friends.

Y/N was kinda just in her cell one night in bed. Then she just gasped and widened her eyes. Wait, are we friends? We're friends, right!

Michael already knew of their friendship like two weeks before she did. It felt so...wrong for him. He had always been alone and silent. How could someone like her even be so likeable to him? He didn't really understand it but he knew he hated it.

One day, the two were writing to each other per usual. Michael unintentionally added a pun in one of his comments, causing Y/N to giggle. Michael cocked his head to the side in confusion, strangely feeling heat rise his face and his heart speed up. It was air conditioned so he suspected he may have gotten sick.

Whenever the two had to go back to their cells, that feeling suddenly disappeared. Then it hit him. Oh fuck-

Hell, only a week later did Y/N feel herself experiencing the same symptoms. Michael notices that Y/N would shake and fidget a lot when they interacted, making him wonder of she was cold. As a friend, it was only right for him to sit next to her and hold her close to keep her warm, right? Y/N's face went red and damn that was embarrassing. But of course, that didn't mean Y/N wouldn't hug him back.

Eventually the two were basically cuddling. The two hugging each other warmly as Y/N rested her head on his chest, struggling to stay awake as they got more comfortable by the second.

But of course, Dr Loomis caught eye of that.

The doctor had been looking deep into al the interactions these two evil beings have had. They act so casual, so normal with each other, surely more than just drawing is happening between them, right?

The doctor had pulled them into his office separately to interrogate them. While Y/N bluntly answered his questions to make him just shut up as quickly as possible, she couldn't help but think to herself. She knows that she and Michael are mentally ill, but he should definitely be fixed by now. He's smart and creative and can casually talk to people, so it's like the only thing keeping him here is that the doctors are so ill-equipped that they can't make the necessary breakthrough to save him.

Of course, just a month later, another incident happened like this. Y/N was having a bad migraine so Michael got her to just sit down and wait for him during lunch. He brought over two trays of food for them and was sure to trade with Y/N so she can eat the things she likes and he could have the things she dislikes.

Another time, a bipolar guy ran into Michael and shoved him as if it was his fault. Michael shoved him back instinctively, causing a fight to disperse between the two. As security guards took notice, Y/N was quick to push Michael away softly and ball a fist to punch the fuck out of that guy- like a, "YO WHATCHU SAY ABOUT MY MAN?" type shit. Y/N did this to seem like she was hitting back and that Michael hadn't done anything wrong.

And when each other's birthday's rolled around, they had their own celebration. Y/N was given her own paper mache mask as a gift and a small cupcake from the cafe. Michael was given stolen art supplies that were taken from other guests and also a cupcake.

Y/N slowly stopped having panic attacks, but she definitely had her moments. Of course, Michael sat with her through it.

Dr Loomis recorded all this shit so he can gather data on Michael. Then the question hit him: How would Michael react if Y/N was gone for a few days? Does he truly care about her or is he just using her?

If you think Michael hated Loomis before, wait til he pieced together the disappearance of girlfriend and the extensive eyesight on him from security guards. For the hell he raised about it, he had to get sterilized and put into a cell without being able to get out for a few days.

Y/N remained bored in her cell for days. So what better could she do than annoy the guard watching her? She would just talk nonstop for what felt like hours and hours. The dude watching her was just getting more pissed off by the second.

"Would you shut up? Crazy bitch," he hissed, hitting the cell door. Y/N giggled cockily, shaking her head. Even if she deserved to be yelled at for continuing to talk, the Card of Death refused to back down. But when the guard went inside her cell and locked the door behind him, she got a bit worried.

Y/N got off her bed and threatened him cockily, to which he responded with physical force.

Of course, Smith's Groove is ill-equipped so even with proof of being hit and tazed, Y/N couldn't do anything to get the guard fired. But Michael?

A full month without seeing each other was like a slow suicide. But when they finally got to see each other again, the two was sure to write so much about their time alone as if they were teenage friends discussing their fun weekends. However, things turned dark whenever Y/N brought up the guard.

Michael didn't show any emotions at all, no matter what happens. But Y/N learned to guess how he's feeling depending on how long he takes to respond. Slowed blinking as if he was in thought, and slower reading as got analyze her writing closer were typically bad signs.

About a year had passed since they met at this time. A year to plan to escape. By now, the two were both 21 and fully prepared to leave once and for all.

Whenever that security guard had walked passed Michael's cell one night, Michael had knocked on the door to signal him. Michael slipped a paper through the doorslot, as he was given paper since he doesn't talk, saying he found a dead mouse in his cell. The guard just huffed and let himself inside. Michael pointed to where the mouse supposedly was; and that was a mistake for the guard.

Right as that guard went to look, Michael got behind and covered his mouth before stabbing him in the neck with a paint brush that's but carved into a small blade. Within moments, the guard dropped dead onto the floor.

Taking the keys from the guard, Michael was able to let out nearly every single prisoner to this hell out of their cells. Including Y/N.

The world sister was the only thing left of the pair as it was engraved into the door of Michael's cell. And just like that, the two were gone.

How they got there so fast doesn't matter but eventually Y/N and Michael found an abandoned house to station at until the search around the area disappeared and they could move around quicker.

"I can't fucking believe it," Y/N cheered as she felt tears run down her face from happiness. She swayed across the room, taking in the smell of dust and air. Even something dirty felt so new to her that couldn't help but love it at the moment.

Michael would watch her as he sat down in an old wooden chair, cocking his head. His body was in complete shock as the realization of all that's happened in the past years came crashing down on him. This was the real world? This is what dust smells like? This is what shattered glass and broken wood looks like? This is what trees look like up close? This is what things look like without glass tinting the color?

This is what it feels like to celebrate with someone you love? Michael reminded himself that the girl in front of him changed his life so much. His urge to harm all around him was always so strong, but the thought of her being hurt felt a bad taste in his mouth.

He stood up from the chair, walking towards the ecstatic girl as she cried happily to herself and picked up random things to remind herself of what they feel like and all she takes for granted. She turned her head to him, smiling, "Michael, look, I found a-"

Y/N gasped as Michael gripped his mask and slowly moved it. Y/N watched in awe as for the first time, she saw her only friend in this world's real face. That pale skin and soulless eyes that she grew familiar with became so new to her again.

"Michael..." she whispered, stepping closer to him. Her face heated up as she felt the weight his eyes staring down at her. She lightly bit her lip, a shiver going down her spine.

He took a few steps closer as well, making the two remain inches away from each other. Now at this point, Y/N is questioning if Michael is gonna kill her or is gonna kiss her as he awkwardly put his hand to her cheek, brushing her hair away. She leaned her head into his hand, keeping eye contact with him the whole time.

In just a matter of moments, the two came together in a soft kiss. The moment was quiet as the two did their best to remain calm and together as this moment that was little way's overdue continued.

When the two pulled away, Y/N was quick to wrap her arms around him. Now she wasn't going to cry about it, but damn was that contact she needed so badly. The Death Card and The Shape were basically Yin and Yang with how one is emotional and the other in emotionless but their need for pain and each other is what kept it healthy.

Just imagine how much suffering families went through since the two got out.

[aceofshitposts]

Happy Valentines Day everyone!!! This wasnt actually what I initially planned and it technically... isn’t v-day themed but it DOES feature idiots in love so that’s good enough, right? No beta we die like robins okay hope you enjoy! (will probably throw this up on ao3 tomorrow too)

ALSO a reminder that you can totally send me prompts for little drabbles/ficlets!! a sentence or dialogue or just an au you think might be cool (i adore aus) or if you just wanna say hi!

-

Jason's not stupid. It's just that. Things can sneak up on you sometimes, okay? They all have that habit of getting lost in the details or not looking for what isn’t expected. And boy, is this not expected.

"Please," Tim is imploring in the same tone a child asks their parent for a candy bar at the grocery store checkout, "Bruce isn't even going to be there so you don't have to worry about him."

That's. Really not the problem. The problem is Jason has no idea why Tim is asking him, of all people. Not that he doesn't like hanging out with Tim, as a matter of fact he probably likes it too much. Seeking Tim out had become a bad habit, if he’s honest, that has escalated from working on cases together to eating meals after patrol and even occasionally meeting up during the day to whisk Tim away from the office for a proper lunch.

They're friends, right? But that doesn't explain why Tim is inviting him to an important social gathering and not, say, one of the Titans if he needs a second that badly. Hell, Dick or Stephanie are better choices than Jason is. Asking Jason is. Is. It’s-

It feels a little like Tim’s asking him on a date. Which is absurd for all kinds of reasons, least of which is that Tim doesn’t like Jason like that.

"Why are you asking me?"

Jason winces. That sounded harsh even to him and the way Tim’s expression goes from distinctly hurt to completely closed off has Jason cringing even more.

“Okay,” Tim says, turning towards the open window.

“Okay?” Jason repeats, already forgetting that Tim hasn’t answered his question.

“Mhmm, don’t worry about it,” he says in a tone that suggests Jason should absolutely worry about it.

With that Tim slips out the window and into the early Gotham morning, leaving Jason with an extra breakfast burrito that they’d never even got around to eating before Tim had… whatever the hell that had been. Jason stares at the open window for a moment more, the wind blowing a napkin into his face, and decides he’ll deal with it after sleeping.

-

“What the hell did you do??”

If the sound of Jason’s bedroom door violently hitting the wall didn’t wake Jason up then Stephanie’s indigent yelling would have done the job just fine.

“What the hell do you want?” Jason asks, then shoves a pillow over his head in the vain hopes she will go away.

“Get up!”

The covers are pulled from his body which wouldn’t be so bad if this didn’t also give Stephanie better access to punch him squarely in the stomach. Jason snarls, leaping out of bed to tackle Stephanie to the floor. They grapple around on the floor for a while, Stephanie succeeding in nailing Jason in the throat with an elbow and pinning him to the floor.

“What,” she says pointedly, “did you do to Tim??”

Jason wheezes, only half due to the pressure still on his throat. Stephanie stares down at him furiously.

“I have no idea what you mean,” Jason says hoarsely. 

Stephanie’s eyes narrow.

“Well, you better figure it out because he showed up at my apartment and has spent the entire morning moping under my blankets and obsessively redesigning Redbird on his tablet.”

Stephanie gets up in one smooth motion then offers a hand to help pull Jason up from the floor. Jason rubs at his sore throat giving Stephanie an incredulous look.

“I dunno what his problem is; he asked me to some fancy dinner and I just asked why he wasn’t asking you or whatever-”

“You what?”

“What! What did I do?”

“What did you do??” Stephanie shrieks in lieu of answering the question. “You have to be joking.”

When Jason just stares at her for a good minute Stephanie’s expression breaks and she starts laughing.

“Oh my god, please tell me you got dosed with something from Ivy or took a blow to the head recently,” she wheezes through her laughter. “Oh, noo, this is too stupid.”

“If you’ve figured out whatever is going on, could you clue me in?” Jason implores which only makes Stephanie laugh harder.

“Nope!” she says, popping the P, “this is too fucking funny. You’re on your own, bro.”

Before Stephanie leaves she makes sure to steal some of Jason’s leftovers and laugh at him some more, giving a two fingered salute as she leaves through the same window Tim had earlier that morning.

Over the course of the day Jason tries to busy himself cleaning his weapons and kitchen but he just end up stewing in the echoes of Stephanie’s laughter. He’s slumped on the couch rereading the same paragraph of a random paperback he’d grabbed when around four in the afternoon he receives a text from Cass that’s just a smiley face. It’s the only warning he gets before Tim comes stumbling through his window, laptop tucked under his arm.

“Okay, so, I’m still mad at you,” Tim starts, which is great, “but I want you to watch this.”

He sets his laptop down on Jason’s coffee table and maybe Jason can finally find out what this is all about.

On Tim’s laptop screen he opens what looks like a power-point presentation, and isn’t that just incredibly Tim, with the title: “Reasons We Make A Good Couple and Shouldn’t Break Up”.

Wait-

Back up.

“Break up??” Jason asks incredulously.

Tim’s head whips around to look at Jason, the slide on the screen changing to a picture of the two of them in uniform at the local 24 hour diner, probably taken by the waitress and posted on some social media platform, Tim reaching across the table to snag a piece of Jason’s bacon. It’s got several heart emojis all over it.

“You- yes? Isn’t that?” Tim sputters suddenly turning a bright shade of red.

“To break up don’t we have to date first?” Jason asks in a rush before his brain has really caught up with the situation.

Tim gets impossibly more red, muttering, “oh my fucking god,” while slamming the laptop shut. He runs a hand through his hair, looking as nervous and off kilter as Jason currently feels.

“I’m. I’m so sorry, Jay, I thought-” Tim starts rambling, words flowing together into an incoherent string while Jason’s brain tries desperately to parse what’s happening.

Like a lightbulb finally turning on in the middle of the night, Jason understands.

“Tim. Are we dating?”

Tim stops, jaw audibly snapping shut. He looks at Jason for all of two seconds before his gaze darts away miserably, looking at the floor.

“Yes?” he ventures, sounding unsure. “I just. I assumed you wanted to take it slow.”

Jason can’t help the bark of laughter that escapes his throat.

“Do I look like I do anything slow, Babybird?”

Tim growls in frustration, throwing his hands in the air and then pointing an accusing finger at Jason.

“We go out all the time! I hang out in your apartment! But whenever I’d try to initiate something more, you’d back off! I was trying to be considerate!”

Oh holy shit. Stephanie is right, this is stupid. Jason had thought he’d been projecting his own desires onto Tim, that there was no way Tim would want to be close to him like that. Even after all this time, Tim still finds ways to surprise Jason.

“Well, this explains why Stephanie punched and then started laughing at me this morning,” Jason laughs while draping an arm over his eyes. They really were Batman’s kids if their complete inability to communicate like normal people was anything to go by.

“God, Jason, I am so sorry,” Tim says, dropping down beside Jason on the couch with an oof. “I never should have assumed anything.”

“Hey, Babybird?” Jason shuffles over so he can throw his arm over Tim’s shoulders.

Tim startles, looking at Jason with wide blue eyes.

“Shut up and let me kiss you.”

Yeah, okay, maybe sometimes Jason is stupid. But he can at least find solace in the knowledge that sometimes Tim is also. Besides that, Jason tells himself, what really matters is that they got their shit together in the end. Even if that realization is undoubtedly going to come with a large amount of their family all pointing and laughing at them for being idiots.

“So,” Tim ventures after they’ve spent half an hour making out on Jason’s couch, “does this mean you’ll come with me to the dinner?”

Jason muffles a laugh against Tim’s collarbone and says, “yeah, sure I’ll come.”

“Okay, cool, cool. We’ve got to be there in an hour then.”