#and I don’t like writing prose very much

[lunarrosette]

I have learned (I already knew) that domestic shit makes me so emotional. So I humbly ask nark fanfic writers…. Domestic post canon…… OR I’ll probably just do it myself

[blimbo-buddy]

What is it about Warriors writing that feels so clunky and unnatural. Is it how expository it is, there’s for sure something wrong with the prose that makes reading these books a total slog to go through.There’s always something that they need to emphasize that doesn’t need emphasizing at all.

Say we have a scene where one of the characters notices MothWing still mourning HawkFrost a while after his death, with clear acknowledgement from the audience of the time skip: It’s never “MothWing felt a stabbing pain in her heart for HawkFrost” it’s always “MothWing, even after several moons, felt a stabbing pain in her heart for HawkFrost, her brother”

[micamicster]

I do mainly see writing as like a fun hobby i pursue when the impulse strikes me but i really do always want to improve! So because this is a blog im thinking about my writing goals for this current project:

Try to pull back and be more ambiguous when writing metaphors etc try not to state things so directly

Reduce the amount of like, buffer words, like she thinks or she feels. We’re in her pov we already know this is her thinking

Try to make my protagonist interesting without relying on her being funny (why didn’t I just write a funny protagonist?? what was I thinking!)

[juleworm]

this novel my grandma has me reading is so immeasurably difficult to read and comprehend i’m dying

[miraclewoozi]

i don’t think i’ve ever felt this deranged in my entire life

can't get you out of my head

member | fwb!vernon x f reader genre | smut, like a little tiny bit of angst? with a happy ending word count | 2.4k synopsis | so what if calling your fuck buddy every other day is a little excessive? maybe you're just in love with him. smut warnings | descriptions of female anatomy, lots and lots of kissing, some dacryphilia, multiple orgasms, begging warnings | vernon is called hansol - i don't usually do that but just go with it; vernon is kind of a sweetheart tbh this ended up being pretty soft notes | june is back !! i've really been struggling to write these past few months so i'm actually super proud that i was able to sit down and write this as fast as i did. i can't promise another fic anytime soon or any kind of consistent uploads, but i hope you enjoy this meager offering! thanks for the support even while i've been gone :) also this is based on a dream i had about vernon the other day and i could not stop thinking about it it was driving me crazy, so everyone say thank you to my brain or the sandman or whoever put that idea in my dreams because this fic is a result of it. if there are mistakes pls ignore i wrote this at 2am

the thing you remember most about hansol is his lips.

the first time you kissed him was like opening a door to a world you'd never known existed. your past hookups had been terrible kissers, or even worse—hadn't even tried to kiss you at all. you were sick of the boring, underwhelming sex with men who couldn't care less if you got off or not. but some god or being in the universe must've been looking out for you, because finding hansol was nothing short of a miracle.

it was so good, you weren't even that embarrassed when you'd desperately texted him a couple of nights later, practically begging him to come over and fuck you again. he was burned into your brain, the feeling of his mouth locked with yours seared so deep in your memory you couldn't erase him if you tried, but it wasn't exactly like you wanted to. 

he hadn't explicitly said you would only be a one night stand, but you usually didn't hang around the same guy for too long, and he didn't really seem like the commitment type anyway. but when you find something this good, you don't let it go, and somehow you both knew that whatever this was, it was too good to pass up on.

so it wasn't really a surprise when you found yourself on his couch, straddling his lap in the late hours of the night for the third time this week. 

like you remembered, his lips were warm and soft, his cheek brushing against yours as you melted into him. you could kiss him for hours and not notice the time passing at all, so focused on the rhythm of his mouth working you up more than anything you'd done with man you'd slept with before.

the heat of his hands resting on your hips sends shivers up and down your spine, unconsciously arching towards him as his tongue pushes into your mouth.

one gentle hand travels carefully up beneath your shirt, tracing the skin of your stomach before stopping at your breast, your heartbeat racing beneath his palm.

your breath is hot on his cheek as you readjust your position, slipping your knees onto either side of his hips and sinking down to straddle his lap. your clothed cunt throbs as he presses his bulge against the inside of your thigh, and you don't hold back the open-mouthed moan that escapes you as his other hand quickly reaches up to angle your jaw and guide your lips back to his.

you push your hips down a little harder on him and his nails dig into your breast. his grip tightens a little as his hips cant up against you, desperate for more pressure against his strained cock.

your eyelids flutter as his other hand tilts your chin upwards, finally breaking away from your mouth only to reattach his lips at the base of your jaw. his tongue laves over your skin before he starts to suck, and you shiver when he pulls back and cold air hits the wet patch of spit on your neck.

you have to focus hard not to drool when you open your eyes and catch a glimpse of his face, lust-glazed eyes staring up at you through his long, thick lashes, his intense gaze fixed on you.

if you ever get past this weird in-between stage of talking but not talking, maybe you'll tell him how jealous you are of his beautiful, natural eyelashes. if you ever actually get to have a conversation with him outside of calling to hook up, maybe you'll tell him how nice his lips are. you'll tell him how soft his hands are and how he's by far the best person you've ever slept with, leaps and bounds better than all the rest, and—

before you fully realize what's happening, you feel your shirt being pulled over your head and hansol's lips have made their way down to your chest. without a sound his hands roam your body, fingers drawing invisible lines over your bare skin and leaving trails of goosebumps with every touch.

he doesn't talk much during sex, or maybe you just don't know each other well enough yet for him to have much to say. aside from the way he occasionally murmurs about how perfect you are — an oddly intimate thing to say to someone who's just a friend with benefits, but coming from him it sounds so casual — the only words you ever get out of him are curses and whimpered pleas.

the only words he ever gets out of you are shamelessly begging him, please kiss me again, please, hansol; and you're always too far gone to care about how whiny you sound, because you need his lips on you so fucking bad you think you might just die without them. but he always obliges, quickening the speed of his thrusts and wrapping his arms around you tighter so he can kiss you deeper, until your lips are numb and you can still feel the weight of him holding you even hours after he's gone.

so maybe you do have a teeny tiny crush on hansol. anyone in their right mind would, and when he's finished with you tonight you're sure you won't have much mind left to even think about it. certainly this is a problem for another day, a day when you'll inevitably call him again so he can make you lose your mind all over again and you won't have to think about how much you like him, and you'll continue like that for who knows how long. 

maybe he'll get bored of you, or find someone else, or move to another city too far for you to justify travelling for a relationship that isn't even a relationship…

… but then he lets out a little groan and you fall back into reality, the reality where you've been making out with him for the past half hour and he quietly but confidently lets you know if he doesn't get his dick out soon he's definitely going to cum in his pants and not only will it make him look like a loser but he also won't get to fuck you, which is the whole reason you asked him to meet up tonight, right?

well, yeah, you guess, but a part of you knows there's more to it than that. but that's not really a conversation for right now.

you lean down to press another chaste kiss against those lips that you can't stop thinking about, and your fingers pull his t-shirt over his head before finding their way down to the button at the top of his jeans.

you've had his cock inside you more times than you think you deserve, but still your stomach bubbles with excitement as he lifts his hips and shimmies out of his pants, the outline against his briefs more than enough to make your mouth water before he slips those off, too.

for tonight, you're the recipient of his undivided attention. you alone get to have him and his perfect cock all to yourself; maybe not forever, but for right now, and that's all you really need.

he presses his hand against his bulge, eyes squeezed shut in pleasure as you stand up from his lap to kick off your pants and underwear.

you must have been taking too long for his liking, though, because as soon as you're fully nude his hands tug impatiently at your waist and pull you back down onto him. 

he lets out a heavy sigh, the head of his cock pressed deliciously against your clit as you start to rock your hips back and forth.

but before long his hands bring you to a stop and he lets out his usual string of pleas to let him fuck you, and now it's your turn to sigh in relief as he pushes into you, the stretch so natural like he was the only one who was made to sit you on his lap.

he doesn't move right away. he never moves right away, whether to give you a chance to adjust or maybe because he himself can't handle the feeling. either way, you always struggle to take in a shaky breath as your walls flutter around him, perfectly thick and long that you could probably cum untouched like this if you sat there for long enough.

but as badly as you want to never move and let him cockwarm you for hours, he always eventually moves. 

he starts out slow, just a few inches at a time, a gentle in and out that's almost romantic until you feel like you can breathe normally again— right before he knocks the breath out of you, increasing his pace until the room is filled with the loud sounds of skin against skin.

he always fucks you like it's been months since he's came, even though you know for a fact it was last thursday and all over your stomach. all you can do now is hang onto his broad shoulders for dear life, nails scratching helplessly at his muscles as he carries you up and over the edge, pushing you into the first of many orgasms tonight.

sometimes he'll make a comment about how wet you get when he fucks you like this, rough and fast as he pounds into you like there's no tomorrow. and that's when you'll agree, yes you love it so much, yes he's so good, yes you need more and please, please keep going.

if it were anyone else they'd probably smirk at that, satisfied with the momentary boost to their ego. but that's what you love about hansol, is that he's not anyone else: he'll take those words and use them to somehow fuck you even rougher and even faster, so rough and so fast that sometimes tears will start to roll down your cheeks, and that's usually about when you start begging him to kiss you.

you can't help it. the way he bounces you so effortlessly on his cock, his lips parted and beads of sweat trickling down his neck, you need him bad. you want to be closer to him, closer than you know is physically possible but damn if you won't try anyway.

throwing your hands around his neck and falling against his chest, tears still streaming from your eyes as you plead with him, repeating his name over and over and over like you've lost your mind and he's the only thing left. in all honestly, maybe he is.

he quietly shushes you and tilts his chin up to capture your lips in the kiss you so badly crave, and it's everything you need and more and somehow still not enough but you can't think straight anymore when his cock is hitting you just right and his mouth is also just right and each vein, each curve, each ridge, drags perfectly along your walls and he's splitting you open and goddamn you are ruined for anybody else.

you feel like you're skirting in and out of consciousness when you cum again, squeezing around his cock so tight that even his powerful thrusts can't continue at their current pace.

it isn't long before he lets go too, holding you flush against his body as he fills you up, painting your insides white with a breathy moan, and in a weird way it makes you feel kind of proud.

you both sit there for a moment, panting as you start to come down.

without even standing up you already know your legs are jell-o, but you don't really have time to think about that as hansol lifts you off his lap and sets you carefully on the couch, leaving you with another kiss before he stands up and disappears down the hall, returning seconds later with a towel that looks suspiciously new.

you'd asked him about his bathroom towels last time you'd been over at his place. a mismatched collection of white and brown and aquamarine that he'd taken with him when he'd moved out of his parent's house, he said, he'd never really had a reason to buy a set of his own. 

the grey cloth in his hand now that he uses to gently wipe between your legs is one you don't remember seeing.

he finishes and you want him to kiss you again, but you're too shy to ask now so he leaves you again with just a kind smile this time.

you've put most of your wrinkled clothes back on by the time he comes back. he offers to drive you home every time afterwards, but you always insisted you were fine, already feeling like you'd overstayed your welcome.

this time he doesn't offer, though, just quietly sits down next to you to pull on his own clothes until you're both fully dressed.

he speaks before the awkward silence has time to set in.

"have you been seeing anybody else?" he asks, and it's probably the longest sentence he's spoken to you outside of when he's fucking you.

it takes you a couple seconds to say no. god, you sound like a loser, but you couldn't lie to him. since the very first time with hansol the thought of seeing anyone besides him hadn't even crossed your mind. just like you thought; ruined.

it takes him a couple seconds to reply, too. 

"good," he says, and you could almost swear his cheeks are pinker than usual as he admits that he hasn't been with anyone, either. "could we keep it that way?"

your breath catches a little. "yeah?"

"yeah," he answers. "whatever… this is, i like it. and i like you."

and just like that, things make sense. 

"maybe, would you, y'know, wanna stay this time?" he asks, and you can't hide the grin on your face as you lean over and kiss him again, your answer evident in the way your hand falls against his warm chest and your fingers weave gently through his hair.

everything is so simple with hansol.

i hope you enjoyed this!! if you did, consider reblogging or leaving a comment or an ask :) it shows me this is something people want to see more of, and knowing people like this makes me want to write more of it! thanks for reading!!

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[physalian]

How to make your writing sound less stiff part 2

Part 1

Again, just suggestions that shouldn’t have to compromise your author voice, as I sit here doing my own edits for a WIP.

1. Crutch words

Specifically when you have your narrator taking an action instead of just… writing that action. Examples:

Character wonders/imagines/thinks/realizes

Character sees/smells/feels

Now not all of these need to be cut. There’s a difference between:

Elias stops. He realizes they’re going in the wrong direction.

And

Elias takes far too long to realize that it’s not horribly dark wherever they are

Crutch words are words that don’t add anything to the sentence and the sentence can carry on with the exact same meaning even if you delete it. Thus:

Elias stops. They’re going in the wrong direction.

I need a word in the second example, whether it’s realizes, understands, or notices, unless I rework the entire sentence. The “realization” is implied by the hard cut to the next sentence in the first example.

2. Creating your own “author voice”

Unless the tone of the scene demands otherwise, my writing style is very conversational. I have a lot of sentence fragments to reflect my characters’ scatterbrained thoughts. I let them be sarcastic and sassy within the narration. I leave in instances of “just” (another crutch word) when I think it helps the sentence. Example:

…but it’s just another cave to Elias.

Deleting the “just” wouldn’t hit as hard or read as dismissive and resigned.

I may be writing in 3rd person limited, but I still let the personalities of my characters flavor everything from the syntax to metaphor choices. It’s up to you how you want to write your “voice”.

I’ll let dialogue cut off narration, like:

Not that he wouldn’t. However, “You can’t expect me to believe that.”

Sure it’s ~grammatically incorrect~ but you get more leeway in fiction. This isn’t an essay written in MLA or APA format. It’s okay to break a few rules, they’re more like guidelines anyway.

3. Metaphor, allegory, and simile

There is a time and a place to abandon this and shoot straight because oftentimes you might not realize you’re using these at all. It’s the difference between:

Blinding sunlight reflects off the window sill

And

Sunlight bounces like high-beams off the window sill

It’s up to you and what best fits the scene.

Sometimes there’s more power in not being poetic, just bluntly explicit. Situations like describing a character’s battle wounds (whatever kind of battle they might be from, whether it be war or abuse) don’t need flowery prose and if your manuscript is metaphor-heavy, suddenly dropping them in a serious situation will help with the mood and tonal shift, even if your readers can’t quite pick up on why immediately.

Whatever the case is, pick a metaphor that fits the narrator. If my narrator is comparing a shade of red to something, pick a comparison that makes sense.

Red like the clouds at sunset might make sense for a character that would appreciate sunsets. It’s romantic but not sensual, it’s warm and comforting.

Red like lipstick stains on a wine glass hints at a very different image and tone.

Metaphor can also either water down the impact of something, or make it so much worse so pay attention to what you want your reader to feel when they read it. Are you trying to shield them from the horror or dig it in deep?

4. Paragraph formatting

Nothing sticks out on a page quite like a line of narrative all by itself. Abusing this tactic will lessen its effect so save single sentence paragraphs for lines you want to hammer your audiences with. Lines like romantic revelations, or shocking twists, or characters giving up, giving in. Or just a badass line that deserves a whole paragraph to itself.

I do it all the time just like this.

Your writing style might not feature a bunch of chunky paragraphs to emphasize smaller lines of text (or if you’re writing a fic on A03, the size of the screen makes many paragraphs one line), but if yours does, slapping a zinger between two beefy paragraphs helps with immersion.

5. Polysyndeton and Asyndeton

Not gibberish! These, like single-sentence paragraphs, mix up the usual flow of the narrative that are lists of concepts with or without conjunctions.

Asyndeton: We came. We saw. We conquered. It was cold, grey, lifeless.

Polysyndeton: And the birds are out and the sun is shining and it might rain later but right now I am going to enjoy the blue sky and the puffy white clouds like cotton balls. They stand and they clap and they sing.

Both are for emphasis. Asyndeton tends to be "colder" and more blunt, because the sentence is blunt. Polysyntedon tends to be more exciting, overwhelming.

We came and we saw and we conquered.

The original is rather grim. This version is almost uplifting, like it's celebrating as opposed to taunting, depending on how you look at it.

—

All of these are highly situational, but if you’re stuck, maybe try some out and see what happens.

*italicized quotes are from ENNS, the rest I made up on the spot save for the Veni Vidi Vici.

[nanaminokanojo]

ACCIDENTALLY IN LOVE | Sukuna X You | CHAPTER INDEX I /PROLOGUE (Part 1-68)

-meet cute? a cheesy musical number? forget it! love makes itself known to you through a minor car accident, a broken arm, and a treacherously charming temporary chauffeur

CHARACTERS: sukuna x you/reader | jjk characters (uraume, gojo, geto, shoko, nanami, choso, maki, nobara, mei-mei, etc.)

GENRE: full-length smau + prose | bad boy x good girl | college au | a lot of firsts | aged-up characters | strangers to lovers | smut | fluff | angst | ooc depictions - soft sukuna ftw

TW/CW: strong/mature language | adult content so mdni on some parts | mentions of alcohol and/or smoking | mentions of injury, promiscuity and bullying | pet names because they're cute with 2D men | toxic behavior | will add more if something arises

AKI’S NOTES: Reblogs and likes are very much appreciated, and I actively respond to comments as well as Asks. Also, if you’re interested, I will include you in the tag list. Just message me through whatever avenue you’re most comfortable with. Happy reading!

MASTERLIST

A/N: Yup. Intrigue and a video right off the bat.

CHAPTERS: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15

16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30

31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45

46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 56 | 57 | 58 | 59 | 60

61 | 62 | 63 | 64 | 65 | 66 | 67 | 68 | CHAPTER INDEX II

ADDITIONAL NOTES: i will be using pics and other media which would fit situations and make the smau-ness of this piece a little more realistic and entertaining when i believe it’s appropriate/fitting to the plot (as i've done with my other smau). having said that, with regard to inclusivity, i just want to put it out there that they will not necessarily be aimed as the exact descriptions to fit a supposedly generic reader nor will they be representative of a specific race or color. it’s all for the simple fact of media availability, for funsies and the fact that i don’t exclusively write in consideration of those aspects when using reader-insert characters unless i specify it. thank you for understanding.

TAG LIST: CLOSED

PLEASE READ: If you wanna be included in the tag list, please make sure that your “Exclude __(tumblr username)__ from Tumblr search and recommendations” setting is OFF so I can actually tag you guys and you'll get notifs when I update. Thank you very much.

Here's a reference for the instructions from domainofmarie. Thank you very much, my friend. This is very helpful.

A/N: I have another version of this story somewhere on the internet with different characters, and I thought, why not make it a Sukuna smau. So excited for this! This'll probably come out this weekend lol or the next if push comes to shove.

© ORIGINAL WORK BY nanaminokanojo. CHARACTERS ARE INSPIRED BY GEGE AKUTAMI’S “JUJUTSU KAISEN”. [20240514]

PHOTOS/IMAGES/GIF/FANART/ANY MEDIA CREDITS GO TO THE RESPECTIVE OWNERS.

[ofbatsandballads]

“like real people do” by hozier is so jason todd coded it has me writing purple prose at 1pm on a friday. i was listening to that masterpiece of a song and couldn’t stop thinking of jay’s childhood first love being there the night he came back. so out came this sort of au based on the ‘superboy punches reality’ version of his resurrection.

tw for depictions of jason’s torture and murder, his being resurrected and escaping his grave, reader’s severe depression and suicidal ideation surrounding her grief, heavy codependency implied between jason and reader, and general resurrection angst.

It was a dark and stormy night. Isn’t that how these things always go? Horrid cliches find unexpected ways of coming back to life. Much like the life that sparks suddenly within the boy in the casket. Black, dark nothingness becomes humid, suffocating air. He tries to sit up and meets silk-covered mahogany that traps him. The boy in the casket does not know where he is. He does not know who he is.

He remembers feelings. Something loud, bright, and hot that made everything go dark. Resignation, the urge to protect, forgiveness. The feeling of his skull cracking, his collarbone shattering under the blunt force of metal. The laughter the laughter the laughter it is driving him mad. The white hot pain of his legs snapping under the weight of the man that laughs. The guttural feeling of betrayal and fear. The smell of cigarettes. He is the sweet boy that wants his mother.

Hope, bright and incandescent. Rebellion and longing. Anger, angst, the horrible need to be understood by the people you love most. Ambition, pride, joy, encouragement; the warmth of family. He is no longer a fatherless son. Hope, wary but resilient. Fear, then relief, at the sight of the Dark Knight.

The boy in the casket remembers. He still does not know who he is. But he knows he has a father. He knows it because he is screaming for his father as he tears through the silk and scrapes the skin from his fingers against the hard mahogany. He screams for his father as he kicks through the wood, as the damp earth fills the enclosed space and steals the little air that remains for him to breathe. He is thinking of his father as he pulls his body through the hole he made. The jagged wood is digging into his side and he feels blood drip hot down his torso. It’s different from the wet cold that surrounds him and he focuses on that to stay cognizant. But the earth presses in and he is tired. He is so very tired.

He remembers something else. He remembers being tired once before, but he was warm then. He remembers being cozy under blankets. Innocent laughter and innocent kisses. The prettiest eyes he’s ever seen and the love that gleamed just for him shining within them. Then a voice. Melodic and beautiful and sweet as honey.

“C’mon, Jay, don’t fall asleep yet.”

You would not want him to fade back into the eternal sleep he just woke from. No. He cannot go back just yet. He tries to dig upward, but his body aches. The earth grows thicker, turns to sludge that drowns him. He shoves one hand over his face to claim a bit of air and is given a mouthful of mud instead. He chokes out one final scream. His head is getting fuzzy, lack of air making his skull feel cotton-filled and staticky. Still he digs up and up and up. But there’s no light. Just more earth. Maybe he does belong here. Maybe someone made a mistake and gave him a few moments that were meant for someone else. He makes one last push, that familiar resignation washing over him again as he closes his eyes. Then a hand wraps tight around his wrist and he’s showered in the cold midnight rain.

You have a secret. It’s personal and it’s abnormal and it’s yours. You’ve been sleeping on Jason Todd’s grave for the past week. No one knows. Well, Bruce Wayne knows. He must. His son’s grave is on his estate, after all, and the Bat’s security measures are the best you’ve ever seen. You don’t know why he’s letting his dead son’s girlfriend sleep on his grave, but you’re thankful he hasn’t kicked you out yet.

It’s been four years since Jason died. Four years and you still can’t accept it. You visit him every day. You bring him flowers and read him books and tell him about your life. You try to pretty it up a bit for him. You tell him about the new sundress you bought; it’s red, his favorite color. You tell him about the amazing bakery that opened up in the Heights and how you think he’d adore their chocolate chip cookies.

You don’t tell him that you’re so depressed over his absence that there are times when you go weeks existing only in your bed with sparse trips to the bathroom. You don’t tell him that you dropped out of college after your first year, that you failed in your joint promise to go to Gotham City University together. You just couldn’t handle it. The weight of your grief is already an iron chain around your throat, hooked to an eternal anchor. You didn’t need the pressure of perfect grades—an unshakeable requirement of your scholarship as you couldn’t afford to go to school any other way. You certainly don’t tell him that you’ve considered joining him, that sometimes that seems like the only thing you want anymore.

But it’s been getting worse. You miss him. Not in any way that’s healthy. At least that’s what you were told by the grief counselor your mother made you see. You miss him so badly that you’re sleeping on his grave come hell or high water. Tonight it’s high water. The cold rain soaks through your hoodie and sweats, but you don’t care. You’ve stabbed an umbrella into the ground and you’ve got an old blanket under you, so you’re all set. The bone-chilling cold of the water doesn’t matter. The way that it lures you to sleep doesn’t matter. Your body temperature is probably dropping and sleep to the freezing is deadly, but that doesn’t matter either. What matters is that you’re here with the boy you love.

You have another secret. This one’s worse, so terrible that you even scare yourself. You’ve been considering digging up Jason’s grave for the past thirty minutes. It started subconsciously. You didn’t even realize you were clawing into the ground until the grass was uprooted. You’ve made a good dent now, maybe six inches or so. It’s insane. You’re insane. But you ache to be close to him. Jason Todd took half of your soul with him when he was lowered into the ground. The better half; the half of you that was light and joyous and filled with love. You want it back. You want him back. You don’t know what you would do if you dug up his grave, but you know that you’d be closer to him than six feet.

You lie in the rain and contemplate why you’re here. You’ve missed him this fiercely every day for the last four years. It’s just this past week that you’ve been drawn to sleep on the earth above him. Like a moth to flame, like Ariadne’s golden thread leading out of the darkness of the labyrinth. Or maybe you’ve finally lost what’s left of your mind. You think you have when you hear noises from beneath the earth.

“Finally talking to me, Jay?” you ask.

Melancholy sarcasm is made weak by the way your teeth chatter and how your shivering leaks into your tone. But then you hear it again. It’s faint, deep below and muffled but it’s there. Then a thudding noise. Over and over and over. Your heart kicks to life. Adrenaline shoots through you and the cold seeped into your body melts with the heat of it. Jason is dead. He’s been dead for four years. But something is alive in his grave. Your hands sink into the small hole you’ve already made and you shovel the earth out in a manic rush. You dig and dig and dig. Your arms are elbow deep when you feel fingers brush against your own. You should be afraid. You should run. Instead you reach further, grasp hard around the wrist and pull. The ground gives way and your reality shatters in an instant. You’ve just pulled Jason Todd from his grave.

He’s bigger than you remember. His body weight is crushing as he collapses on top of you. (You’re smaller than he remembers. He has a crystal clear image of looking up into those pretty eyes and now he can barely feel you squished underneath him.)

He’s covered in sodden earth from head to toe. There’s blood seeping warmly from his torso into your red hoodie. (Your arms are caked in mud. Why? What were you digging for?)

Even with his difference in size—he must be well over a foot taller and at least one hundred pounds heavier—there is nothing that compares to the pure shock of looking into his eyes. Piercing gunmetal blue that you see every time you close your eyes is now a deep seafoam green. And yet looking into them you still feel like you’re home again. (Those pretty eyes are still the same. They still have that gleam of love when they land on him. But they’re also red and bloodshot like you’ve been crying. Please don’t cry. He doesn’t want you to be sad. He loves you. He doesn’t know your name but he knows that he loves you.)

You’re both as still as the memorial statues of Martha and Thomas that loom protectively beside Jason’s grave. Shock settles in.

“Jason. Oh my God. Jason, you’re—“ your voice breaks before you can say the words you thought would only come in dreams.

“Alive,” he croaks, voice dry and grating from lack of use.

He is alive. He is alive and breathing and with you again. You don’t know what caused this, why a dead boy crawled from his grave in the body of a man, but you’re not going to ask questions. The only answer you need is lying in your arms. Tears stream down your face, only differentiated from the rain by their warmth.

“You’re here, you’re here, you’re here,” you murmur into his mud-soaked hair as you cradle his head in the crook of your neck.

“Here,” he echoes. “Real?”

It doesn’t feel like it. His head is hazy and clouded but he’s starting to recall things. Like a steady trickle of water coalescing into a stream, into a river, into a flood. He remembers your name. He remembers stolen tires and bat ears. He remembers chamomile tea with a butler and stories of old theatre productions. He remembers how all the classic romance novels in his freshman English class looked just like the pretty girl sitting at the desk to his right. He remembers sweet giggles and shaky hands and soft kisses. He remembers. But he can’t speak it. He can’t find the words or the comprehension. He sees these things in flashes, feels them in his bones but he can’t make his mind and body catch up. So he lurches forward, stiff and clumsy, and tries to replicate the warmth of your kisses that have survived death itself.

You kiss Jason Todd for the first time in four years. You taste your tears, the damp earth, and the blood from where he’s bitten his own tongue. You have never tasted anything better because for right now it tastes like him.

“Real. We’re real.”

A sweet surprise and a gentle reminder. The other halves of your souls have been returned, and you are both allowed to exist again.

[tohruies]

a realisation that home was here. home was now. and it had been all along … 🥺💘

— ☆ 𝐇𝐎𝐌𝐄 𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐂𝐇𝐑𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐌𝐀𝐒

alhaitham x ryu. this is obviously a selfship piece for ryuhaitham and it’s in first person. canon au. comfort. fluff. read here if you want more context on us. 0.7k wc

I sat curled on the couch with a blanket drawn tightly around me, staring at the modest decorations I’d strung up days ago when Alhaitham first left for Akademiya business. The lights, the strings of ribbon—they felt out of place here, like foreign embellishments in a world that had no meaning for them.

Christmas. Once upon a time, it had been everywhere—woven into every light, every note of music, every breath of winter air. It wasn’t as though I’d celebrated Christmas extravagantly but the absence of it here made the ache of displacement settle heavy in my chest. Even if I’d only half-participated in the holiday back then, its laughter and warmth had always been a comforting constant.

Teyvat moved without pause. The winds of Mondstadt whipped across snow-buried plains, Sumeru’s ever-shifting leaves played on the breeze and Liyue’s lanterns flickered against a fading sky. It was timeless and unchanging, as if the universe was indifferent to the celebration I longed for. But like the decorations I’d strung up, Christmas had no place here. And in that knowledge, my homesickness deepened, the distance between my old world and this one stretching farther.

Suddenly, the door creaked open, and I startled, my gaze snapped to the figure entering. Alhaitham’s silhouette was outlined against the dim light of Teyvat’s evening and in his hand was a small neatly wrapped package, the paper a rich shade of crimson, tied with thin, silver silk that shimmered softly in the light.

“You’re back,” I mustered, rising slightly from my seat.

“I am,” His gaze swept over me, and a crease formed between his brows. “You look troubled.”

I offered a fragile smile, “Just thinking about… you know.” I trailed off, eyes drifting to the window where whimsy unbeknownst to me twinkled in the inky expanse above.

Without preamble, he extended the gift toward me. “Here.”

I blinked in surprise, looking from his hand to his face. “What’s this for?”

“Isn’t it customary to exchange gifts for… Christmas?”

The word fell from his lips tentatively, as though testing its weight. His eyes searched mine for any sign that he had mispronounced it. Then, a bittersweet ache unfurled in my chest.

“You… remembered?”

He remembered. Even in passing, even if I hadn’t explained it in detail, he had remembered. And more than that, he had acted on it.

“You mentioned it once,” he replied, the faintest hint of awkwardness colouring his tone. “I don’t fully understand the tradition, but it seemed important to you.” He paused, then added softly, “I thought it might remind you of home.”

My fingers brushed the wrapping paper, tracing its edges as a quiet laugh escaped me. “You didn’t have to go to all this trouble.”

“It matters to you. If it makes this place feel less foreign, then it’s no trouble at all.” He spoke as though his sentiment was the simplest truth in the world.

I bit my lip, his words filling the emptiness in my heart like the flickering flame of a candle in the dark. Slowly, I unwrapped the gift, the paper falling away to reveal a delicate glass ornament, its shape a perfect, crystalline star. It caught the lamplight, scattering prisms across the room like a reflection of something celestial—like fragments of a distant sky.

“It’s not much,” he almost sounded apologetic, “but stars seem to hold significance in your world’s imagery for this holiday.”

I stared down at the gift, my vision blurring as the sting of tears welled unexpectedly. The ornament trembled in my grasp, held close to my chest as the first drops slipped free, unstoppable. “Thank you,” I whispered, so softly it felt like the words might dissolve and me with it.

Watching me closely, a shadow of concern crossed his face, as though uncertain whether he had made me uncomfortable. “You’re crying…” His voice wavered, caught somewhere between a statement and a question.

I wiped at my tears, smiling through them. “They’re happy tears,” I told him. “I really needed this.”

Alhaitham sat beside me with the same calmness that defined his every action. The silence now brimmed with a bubbling warmth, deeply felt like a steadfast anchor.

“If you’d like,” he started, “then we’ll celebrate it. Here, every year. However you wish.”

His offer settled gently. “I would like that,” I said, already untethered.

Alhaitham nodded, brushing his hands against mine, the touch so tender it seemed to carry a promise with a three word phrase hanging in the air. As the glass star shimmered between us, the ache of homesickness began to ebb. In its place bloomed a sense of belonging.

A realisation that home was here. Home was now. And it had been all along.

© 2024 grimmweepers — do not repost, copy, translate, modify my work on any platform

divider: @/adornedwithlight

[allbark-no-bite]

don’t write checks you can’t cash.

jake seresin x reader (wc: 3.6k)

summary: jake seresin is under your skin. or maybe you’re under his. either way you’re going to eat each other alive. jake isn’t about to take the fall

warnings: mentioned age gap, heavy sexual tension (the smut is coming i promise)

author’s note: back on my topgun bullshit bitches (respectfully). i’m not usually one for multi part fics but i actually wrote something with plot for once so please just bear with me. loosely inspired by Zach Bryan’s ‘nineball’. please note this fic title is subject to change bc i hate it

(you can read part 2 here!)

————————————————————————

You don't believe in love at first sight. You think the whole concept is some foolish idea that people who have already fallen in love have the liberty of saying they believe in. Then people who have been through failed relationship after failed relationship are convinced that they're never going to fall in love because it just doesn't happen. The whole idea pretty much just sets the rest of the population up for failure from the start.

Even the concept of finding the right person one day and growing to love them is hard for you to grasp. Because how can you love someone that much? How do you know you love them enough?There are some days that you don't enjoy the presence of even your closest friends for very long, friends who you would do anything for. Even family, you only tolerated so much.

Your high school boyfriend hated that about you, the fact that you realistically needed so little of him—or anyone for that matter. You have always been violently independent, able to provide what you require, and therefore having to maintain a simplistic relationship became nothing but a monotonous task. Even most of your closest friendships faded with time.

Eventually, you prosed the question: what can someone else give me that I cannot give myself?

The answer was companionship. Because when you strip away everything from a person and all they have left to offer you is themself, you have to be willing to choose them. And sometimes that's not the most appealing quality.

Something did happen, the first time you made eye contact with Lt. Jake Seresin, but it was far from love. It was something terrible in your chest, like an aching. Like you knew in your gut that he was going to change your life. Good or bad, you didn't know, but it was certain to happen.

You don't even believe that you two were destined to meet — you just happened to, and in that moment, the damage was done, it was your fate to ruin each other.

——

You like the way he says your name. You like that he says your name on purpose, like he is intentionally seeking out reasons to say it. It's not as harsh sounding coming from his mouth.

"You from around here, [L/n]?"

You're wiping down the glass hatch of your F/A-18 when he approaches you from behind. You swivel your head to catch sight of him behind your back but he's already making a wide circle around you, his chin tipping up then down as he inspects your plane from behind his tinted aviators.

As you watch him scrutinize your aircraft, you regard him with a certain level of apprehension. Jake Seresin was nothing short of gorgeous. He was six feet of bronze skin and lean muscle, withbright green eyes, and a movie star smile. Not to mention the southern accent that had girls drooling over him.

"Austin," you correct him. "Austin, Texas."

You'd been transferred over to Miramar a little over a month ago, becoming the newest addition to the Dagger squad. California was a nice change of scenery, and everyone you had met so far had welcomed you with open arms. That is, everyone but Lt. Seresin— Hangman as they called him. You were still trying to find your footing with him.

You genuinely don't know what his problem is with you. The guy had hardly even given you a glance since the moment you'd arrived. Your first guess would have been that he was one of those dickheads who didn't like women working in the field, but his relationship with Phoenix disproved that theory.

Your answer seems to warrant his attention, and he looks up. His expression twitches at the correction but he doesn't say anything in response. For the first time since you arrived at Miramar, still, unsmiling green eyes catch yours from across the aircraft.

You hold his gaze. After a moment, your stomach twists in an unsettling way, like even it doesn't know what to do with itself. Your first instinct is to look away. Your brain is telling you that if you do, you can avoid any sort of confrontation that may happen as a result. But it's like you can't.

This is the first time he's looked at you, and now you don't dare to look away.

Even from behind the tint of his perfectly polished aviators, you can make out the distinct color of his green eyes. They're so distracting that you have to remind yourself to breathe.

After what feels like eons of uncomfortable staring, he breaks your gaze —surely it couldn't have been longer than a few seconds. Flustered, you glance around to see if anyone else has picked up on the affair. Fortunately, or unfortunately, you're not quite sure which, it's nearing 6pm and the base is on the better side of empty. It's a Friday evening and everyone is eager to head out for the weekend.

Someone clears their throat. Hangman is still standing there, hands shoved in his pockets like he doesn't have anywhere better to be. You want to say something but your gut is telling you that there's some sort of game going on here and you're not sure of the rules.

Finally, he faintly nods his head, as if to excuse himself, and turns to walk away. You watch his retreating back and relax a little, breathing a bit easier.

As you're turning back to your plane, relieved that the interaction is over, you hear him call back over his shoulder.

“The team is heading to the Hard Deck at nine. Don't be late."

And then he's gone, disappeared between one of the hangars.

——

For nine thirty on a Friday evening, the bar isn't nearly as busy as you'd expected it to be. You don't have to fight for a parking spot out front and there's not even a line at the bar. Other than a rowdy looking gaggle accumulating at the pool table, the atmosphere is pretty laid back. Looking around as you walk further in, there is a handful of people in civilians, but the majority of the crowd is composed of off duty aviators in their summer khakis.

You're about to head over to the bar top, where you were sure you had spotted Captain Mitchell, when someone shouts your name.

"Hawk!"

Your head swivels at the sound of your callsign, and you catch sight of Rooster beckoning to you over at the pool table. Immediately you recognize the familiar faces of the Dagger squad around him. You acknowledge him with a smile and head over to join them.

“And here we thought you were going to be a no-show," the brunette pilot chirps, his arm wrapping around your shoulder as soon as you're close enough. You lean into his embrace while touching his chest with a friendly pat of your hand. Bradley is by no means close to drunk but most definitely more than a little buzzed if you're going off of the smell of beer and lime on his breath and the occasional involuntary twitch of his mustache.

"I thought about it, but I can't keep letting you guys have all the fun," you laugh, holding out your other arm so that you can greet Natasha with a hug as Rooster releases you.

After hugging you, she presses a sweating bottle of beer into your hand. "Coyote bought everyone a round so I figured I'd save you one before the boys wiped them out. Sorry if it's a bit warm, you did show up fashionably late."

You playfully roll your eyes at her, taking the beer anyhow. "Thanks, Phe."

Payback places a large palm on the top of your head, diverting your attention towards him as he returns from the bar. "Don't let her fool you, we're just getting started over here. Rooster isn't even drunk enough to get on the piano yet."

Laughing, you glance over at the brunette aviator. "Now that I've been waiting to see. I hear you're quite the show, Bradshaw."

Since you transferred over to Miramar, you had been hounded nonstop to go out drinking with the team for weeks, and Rooster's infamous performance had been one of their key selling points. That and the fact that the owner, Penny, often gave them free drinks. Apparently she had a thing for Captain Mitchell.

Rooster grins, leaning against the pool stick in his hand as he waits for Fanboy to take his shot. "Let me get a couple more beers deep and I promise you won't be disappointed."

As you go about making your rounds to greet everyone else, you can't help but notice that there's someone missing. After you take a seat beside Bob to watch Rooster and Fanboy play, you glance around the bar a few times, convinced that you've somehow overlooked him despite the fact that the place isn't busy enough for that.

An almost disappointed feeling pulls at you despite how ridiculous the realization makes you feel.

After spending the better part of an half hour trying to push the feeling away, you finally spot a familiar head of blonde hair over at the dartboard. He's by himself, about three darts in and half a bottle of beer down. So much for the personal invitation, you think.

You watch as he throws a dart, practically without so much as aiming whilst contemplating whether or not you even have it in you to muster up the courage to face those green eyes again.

Without giving yourself the chance to back down, you swallow back the rest of your now warm beer and head over.

He tosses another dart just as you reach him, and it finds itself dead center with the previous three.

"With a hand like that, you should be kicking Rooster's ass over there in pool," you say as you come to a stop behind him.

Walking away from the dartboard, Jake turns to grab his bottle of beer from the table beside you.

"I'm not much of a betting man," he huffs, leaning back against the table. The muscles of his biceps bugle distractingly against the sleeves of his uniform.

You look back over your shoulder, watching from a distance as Fanboy's cue clips the eight ball and sends it ricocheting off the sidewall. He groans, and Rooster whoops triumphantly from behind him.

"It wouldn't be much of a bet. Even with his winning streak, I think you'd give him a run for his money."

Hangman takes a sip from his bottle, mouth lingering on the rim before he sets it back down and crosses his arms. "Rooster's all luck and no skill. The table's got a lean."

You raise your eyebrows at the confession, half laughing at his lax confidence. "Oh? And you would know this how?"

"C'mon, son. Fuckin' hit it in."

Body tense, his arm quivers ever so slightly and the pool stick bobs shakily in his hand. He closes his eyes and takes a breath in.

"I haven't got all day, kid."

He breathes out and breathes back in. The smell of cigar smoke and cheap beer swims in his head.

"What're you doin'?! Quit wastin' time."

He exhales, opens his eyes, and hits the pool stick forward. The white cue ball shoots out to the left, bounces against the eight ball, and sends it hurdling towards the side pocket. At the very last moment, it veers off to the left and falls into  the back corner pocket instead.

The man standing on the other side of the table curses, his pool stick dropping to the ground, but Jake pays little mind to him. He straightens, looking around eagerly for the only set of eyes that matter. The grin falls from his face when he realizes the old man isn't even watching, too busy counting out his prize money and yanking out a ten to hand to the bartender.

Jake looks up at the clock on the wall over his shoulder.

12:57 am

"Dad, I wanna go home."

"Not yet, son. I've already got fifty put down on another round."

"Want me to show you?"

His offer makes you pause, and you can't help but cock your head a bit as you try to weigh out just where this is heading. For weeks he has acted as though you barely even existed and now you're engaged in the longest conversion the two of you have had since your arrival.

Jake finishes his drink and sets the bottle down whilst walking over to you. "Final offer. Take it or leave it."

You laugh a little before stepping back so that he can make his way to the pool table. "Lead the way then." But before you can make it too far, his palm finds the flat of your back, pressing you forward so that you're in front of him. You're glad he can't see you because your face flashes hot at the unexpected contact.

"I'm not the one playing, kid. I'm just going to show you the ropes."

"Oh, I didn't-"

Any objections you have about the situation are ignored as he pushes you firmly in the direction of the pool table and asks Payback for his cue. "Look alive, Bradshaw. Hawk is about to show you how this thing is done."

Straightening his wide shoulders, Bradley grins, smug and easy as you and Hangman approach the opposite side of the table. "And here I thought you were here to reclaim your throne now that I'm intoxicated."

Jake grins back. "You don't need to be drunk for me to do that."

Bradley's mustache twitches, but he's still smiling. "Sure."

Jake turns back to you, placing the pool stick in your hand. You can't help but think that his expression is all too confident for someone who has never even seen you play pool.

"Nervous?" he asks as you take the stick from him.

"Should I be?" you ask back, turning your head to watch as Rooster takes the liberty of breaking the rack.

He shakes his head, his green eyes glowing with a warmth that you've yet to see from him. "Not as long as you don't totally suck."

Seeing that it's your turn, you brush past him to stand at the table. "I guess I'll let you be the judge of that."

Thankfully you've played your fair share of pool and so you're able to hold your own for most of the game. Jake remains criminally silent as you play, arms once again crossed as he leans against a nearby stool, but you can feel his gaze burning into your back the entire time. It isn't until the end of the game and you've missed the same ball multiple times that he steps in.

"Shift left," he directs you. When you glance over at him, he nods his head as if to insinuate where you should move but doesn't move from where he's planted himself since the beginning of the game.

Hesitantly, you shuffle over a half step and take the shot. The ball comes closer than you have been but still hits the sidewall just short of the pocket. You huff in frustration, and Rooster steps forward to take his turn, sinking his second to last ball in the same pocket.

"I hope you're ready to buy the next round, Seresin. Looks like Hawk is losing her nerve," Bradley goads, unable to keep himself from boasting a little at your expense. When it comes to Hangman, he can't resist the chance to taunt him.

You roll your eyes at his comment, not bothered so much by it as compared to the fact that you're losing. When it's your turn again, you line up the ball and lean down to assume your position when Jake stops you.

All the sudden he's right beside you, palm pressing into your hip to scoot you to the side. "Move over." When you look at him like he's crazy, he huffs. "C'mon, do you want my help or not?"

It isn't so much of a question as it is a statement and the press of his hand against your side doesn't leave you much of an option and so you shuffle over to the far right side of the pool table.

Before you can even comprehend what's going on, he's leant over you, his impossibly tall frame pressed to your back so that he can reach around you and guide your hands. One wraps around your hand on the stick and the other cups your opposite elbow.

It takes everything in you not to jerk away, overwhelmed by his sudden proximity. Instead you try to focus on controlling your hammering heart and pray he can't tell how clammy your palms suddenly are.

"Hey, that's not allowed," Rooster complains. "Is that allowed?"

Coyote shrugs. "It's not not allowed."

Distracted by their bickering, his voice in your ear nearly makes you jump. "Hit the cue ball. Hard."

The lean press of his body is almost enough to distract you from the fact that he's done a god awful job of lining up the shot. There's not one alternate reality where you make this shot.

"You can't be serious."

He's so close that you feel him smile beside your ear. "Dead."

"Any day now," Rooster prompts, as if you aren't aware that Jake Seresin has been pressed against you for an uncomfortably long amount of time. And if Hangman has noticed the fact that your heart is fluttering erratically inside your chest or that your skin is flushed hot to the touch, he doesn't let on. 

"I'm waiting," he reminds you, his voice placid in your ear.

Against your better judgement, you take the shot.

The white cue ball hurtles into the black eight ball with a hard clack and sends it flying across the table. It smashes against the sidewall, exactly as you had expected it to, and you release a breath of defeat. And then something unexpected happens. The ball slows, but instead of bouncing to a stop, it continues to roll left across the table. You all watch as it rolls directly into back corner pocket of the table.

"Well I'll be damned," Payback mutters aloud.

"Hell yeah, [L/n]!" Phoenix shouts, her loud and robust voice ringing out across the bar. "Shots are on Bradshaw!"

"Thanks buddy," Coyote laughs, teasingly grabbing the back of the brunette aviator's shoulders as he heads off for the bar.

Bradley waves them off, looking a bit miffed but still good naturedly accepting his defeat.

"How about it? You're a cold blooded killer."

Like a bucket of ice water being dumped over your head, the sound of Hangman's voice coming from behind you jerks you back to reality. You haven't even noticed that he'd stepped away. Something inside you twinges at the loss of his body pressed against yours.

You turn around to face him, your brain still trying to comprehend what just happened.

"How'd you do that?" you ask incredulously, your tone almost accusing. A deeper part of you wants to ask 'why did you do that' but the smile on his face stops you.

His top row of pearly white teeth that you glimpse is pristine, however brief, before his pink lips come back together in a more subdued smile. It's an expression that is so very genuine and carefree that it sends a spark straight through to your heart. You've never seen him actually smile before, and especially not at you.

"You're smiling," you accuse before you can stop the words from coming out of your mouth, half giddy at the discovery yourself.

Jake looks slightly away, turning his head briefly in order to suppress his smile before looking back to you. “Yeah? So?” His green eyes are twinkling as he says it, like he knows he’s been caught.

You jab the short end of the pool stick into the center of his chest, but he’s quick to grab it before it can find home.

“Up until yesterday, you could barely stand to even look at me,” you say.

He bites the inside of his cheek. “That’s not true.”

“So you’re saying that I’m seeing things.” You try to tug back on the pool stick but Hangman doesn’t release it.

“I’m saying you shouldn’t be seeing things.”

With that, a larger portion of the previous smile is gone from his face, a more sober look replacing it.

Just like that the spark fades. Even though you want to shut down, turn your back to his face and just walk away. You force yourself to keep talking, holding your voice steady. “I don’t think I’m following you.”

Inside you know exactly what he means.

His eyes flicker up over your shoulder but the Dagger squad has already moved on to crowd around Rooster at the piano.

You clamp your jaw together as he releases the pool cue and crosses his arms in front of his chest. It makes him look more relaxed than he is.

"Look, whatever this is—whatever you think I am, I'm not." He says this with the realistic conviction of someone who knows that even if it is, you can't. He says it like he’s trying to convince himself.

You’re not quite sure how old he is—barely thirty if you had to guess— but he’s older. Too old. Not to mention fraternization is deeply frowned upon.

"I know," you answer firmly. Because you do. Because even if it isn't, you want it, whatever it is.

He stares down at you with those green eyes, his pupils pinpoint sharp. After a moment he heaves a sigh and releases it, nodding his head. “So we’re in agreement?”

“Yeah,” you answer. “We’re in agreement.”

“Good.”

“Good.”

[pearynice]

5+1 Things

5 times Steve Harrington asks for a light and 1 time he doesn't need to

For @sidekick-hero for her BIRTHDAY 🥰 (I hope it's a fantastic one!)

Or read here on Ao3

1.

It’s been six months since Eddie’s had a cigarette. 

It’s the longest time he’s gone without one since he was 14, when he tried it thinking: this is what musicians do. Thinking he’ll write songs with nicotine stained fingers and smoke outside of music venues looking mysterious and unattainable. He also thought it would help him get that scratchy note to his voice that didn’t come naturally to a kid whose voice hadn’t even dropped.

It didn’t do that, of course. All it really got him, in the end, was a hacking cough and the inability to walk up a flight of stairs without wheezing. It got him yellow nails and brittle hair and cravings so bad they made him fucking itch—so he quit. 

It’s the goddamn hardest thing he’s ever done. Nicotine is a bitch, apparently, and this might be the fifth time he’s promised himself he’s done, but it’s also the longest he’s managed to stick to it.

He hopes this time will stick. 

He still carries his lighter around in his pocket, the thing hanging on like a vestigial limb, hard metal that he can never seem to separate himself from. 

At least the lighter can’t kill him, and he likes the weight of it, even though it can’t be more than a couple of ounces. He feels off balance without it, a mental barricade more than anything else, sure, but to go without it makes him anxious. It makes him itch for what he’s denied himself for months, now—so he keeps it. 

He likes to fidget with it. He likes to run his thumb along the trigger and hear the catch and the ignition, likes to feel the heat of the flame before extinguishing it again. It’s why he still takes his lunch breaks outside, because the sprinklers in the break room probably wouldn’t appreciate his habit too much. 

The sun and sky, though, don’t give a shit. 

He’s finished his sandwich, the peel of his eaten orange weighing down the empty bag of it, and he continues parsing through the Silmarillion. The prose is unfortunately completely fucking eye-watering, especially compared to the Hobbit, and despite his love for Middle Earth he still barely graduated high school, and he still doesn’t understand the blue wizards—

“Can I borrow a light?”

Eddie jerks from his reverie of Morgoth and Númenor and the Silmarils to find himself back on earth, with the new guy from sales looking quite pleadingly at Eddie’s lighter. 

“Oh,” he jerks a little, like after a whole three seconds of processing he’s just realized the thing the guy is asking him for is, in fact, in his hand. “Sure.” He hands it over, and their fingers brush, and Eddie tries very hard not to let his hand linger.

“Thanks.” New-guy’s lips quirk, a small thing, barely there and yet Eddie feels it zing right down to his toes, the moles on his cheeks scrunching under just that twitch of his lips.

Eddie watches as new-guy shakes out a cigarette, holding it between his lips as he lights it. 

Eddie tries not to stare. 

He does anyway. 

New-guy’s lips curl around the end, his cheeks hollowing around his inhale, and Eddie can’t take his eyes away from the two moles on the side of his neck, the way they move over flexing muscles before they disappear under a lungful of smoke. 

“I think I might’ve lost mine in the parking lot,” new-guy explains, “didn’t realize until just now.” He says it like an apology, his face tilted down like he’s sorry for the inconvenience, and flicks the tiny bit of ash that’s already accumulated off the end. 

“S’alright,” Eddie rushes, “anytime.”

New-guy’s smile grows, lines around his eyes appearing like the force of his grin is too much for his lips to bear all on their own, like his whole face has no choice but to express with them. 

Eddie feels warm all the way down to the ends of his toes. 

“Steve,” new-guy says, extending his hand. “I’m in sales.”

Eddie does not tell Steve he already knows this, having cornered Chrissy in the break room just last week to demand everything she knew about the new guy, which, admittedly, wasn’t even his name.

“Eddie.” He grabs Steve’s hand. Shakes it. “I’m in IT.”

This time, before he drops Steve’s hand, he lets it linger.

2.

Eddie doesn’t really expect it to happen again.

He’s not trying to be dramatic when he says that good things don’t happen to him, but—

Good things don’t really happen to him. Not as good as very cute guys with very pretty laughs talking to him being anything more than a fluke. 

But then, a week later, Steve shows up again.

He looks just as sheepish as before. He blinks up at Eddie through heavy lashes and asks to borrow a light, saying he’s sorry after he uses it too, and Eddie, just like before, promises anytime. 

And maybe Eddie nudges the chair next to him a little, just to know if he’s reading things wrong, but Steve sits down. He sits and he stays and he smiles when Eddie talks and being next to Steve feels comfortable in a way Eddie doesn’t have much experience with, in that Steve’s presence feels like a reprieve. It feels like a bubble away from work and worries and every time he gets Steve to laugh it feels like a victory and every time Steve leans forward to hear him better Eddie feels warm all the way through his chest and every time Eddie goes outside to take his lunch he hopes against hope that Steve will be out there too.

They quickly become his favorite days.

They quickly become more and more frequent.

Sometimes Steve sits and talks and dozens of minutes will go by without even asking for a light and try as Eddie might to not to read into it, it feels like it means something. 

Eddie’s never really given a shit about sports but he finds himself googling the Hoosiers and the Colts just so he can know what Steve’s talking about. He finds himself checking the scores to know what kind of day Steve’s going to have, finds himself packing an extra pudding cup when the Hoosiers had a particularly rough night.

He finds that Steve starts doing the same.

“I know what that means.” Steve says it smug, a self-satisfied little smile on his face like knowing what Eddie’s pin is referring to is a gotcha. 

It makes Eddie want to run around in circles. 

He looks down at his chest, at the jacket that’s adorned with pins and patches like he’s 18 and not 27. “Which one?”

Steve points, his finger brushing Eddie’s jacket.

It’s not the one Eddie expected. It’s one of the only ones that doesn’t have a band name emblazoned across it.

“Mercyful Fate,” Steve says, like he’s proud, and then, his brows furrowing, adds, “they’re horrible.”

Eddie laughs, a bright bark of laughter that travels easily across the patio, loud against the relative stillness. “They’re trash metal,” he explains, “they’re supposed to sound like that.”

Steve wrinkles his nose, and Eddie laughs harder, giddy, somehow, over someone telling him his music taste is garbage.

“Okay,” Eddie huffs, still smiling, “then who do you listen to?”

Steve tilts his nose into the air. “Sabrina Carpenter.”

That about sends Eddie out of his chair. He’s laughing so hard he feels tears well in his eyes and Steve starts kicking him, these playful little nudges that make Eddie scoot his legs closer.

“Shut up,” Steve keeps bemoaning, but he’s smiling, he knows exactly what he’s doing, and Eddie wants to watch Steve curl his lip at all of his music, wants to know the lyrics to every Sabrina Carpenter song without ever knowing their names.

“I’m taking your pudding cup,” Steve says, and Eddie can’t do anything about it because his eyes are still welling tears, and he’s regaining composure as Steve peels off the lid, “for making fun of me.”

And then Steve runs his tongue along the aluminum. 

He does it slow. Eddie can see the pink of his mouth for a whole wonderful few seconds before it’s gone, again, before Steve’s licking his lips and Eddie remembers that he needs to pretend to be annoyed. 

He lets Steve have the whole thing.

3.

“I’ve never seen you smoke.”

It’s getting colder. Steve’s in a dark blue sweater that’s pilling on the sleeves and Eddie can see a sliver of an extremely fuzzy sock between the ends of his pants and the tops of his shoes. His nose is pink under the late fall breeze and Eddie’s itching to pull him closer.

He doesn’t. He swallows around nothing, instead, and runs his thumb around the worn metal of his lighter. “I quit a couple’a months ago,” he says, “I think all my friends’ nagging finally caught up with me.” He grins, and knocks his foot against Steve’s. “It fucking sucks, by the way. Don’t listen to any of them.”

Steve laughs, bubbly and warm, a sound that always makes Eddie feel like his blood is carbonizing. “I know I should,” Steve admits, and he’s looking at his cigarette, now, watching the end burn, “I just always have an excuse not to.” He takes another drag, and Eddie tries, once again, to be normal about the way Steve’s mouth wraps around the end, his lips pink and chapped. 

Eddie wonders if he wears tinted balm. He wonders whether or not it would rub off on him if they kissed.

He wonders if Steve would let him.

“Might get easier soon,” Eddie says, “who wants to take smoke breaks in the winter?”

Steve’s grin falters. His lips drop for a fraction of a second before they quirk again, tighter this time. “Yeah,” Steve says, but he sounds different. His voice is no longer the slow, easy timbre Eddie’s grown so accustomed to and he feels suddenly unmoored without it. “Who wants to sit outside when it snows?”

Steve’s still smiling tightly, his shoulders tense, and takes another drag. He’s almost down to the filter, and it takes Eddie until Steve exhales again to realize that he’s an idiot. 

“I’ve always liked the cold.” He tries to say it firm, tries to say it so it leaves no shadow of a doubt.

Steve looks to him, and his eyebrows twitch. He narrows his eyes like he’s trying to figure Eddie out, like his admittance could mean anything other than an all-out confession that he would brave any element to keep his lunchtimes with Steve, until his features relax again. 

Steve leans back over the table, closer this time. He rests his chin against his palm and it makes Eddie warm all over again, like at this point he should really be a damn puddle on the floor instead of fully corporeal, and Steve ashes what’s left of his cigarette.

He pulls out another from an extremely crumpled pack, and really, Eddie’s told him more than once to buy hard packs and yet every time Eddie sees him Steve’s showed up with his soft pack shoved in his pocket like he doesn’t mind the fact they’re getting crushed.

“Light it for me?” Steve asks. He’s already bringing a new cigarette to his mouth. His lips are already around the filter and Eddie feels slow and stupid as he stares, as it takes him long seconds to understand that yes Steve is really asking him to do what he thinks he is.

The flame flickers against the wind and Eddie has to curl his palm around his light to prevent it from going out, the tiny flame finally steady as he brings it up to Steve’s face.

Steve watches him as he does. He’s still leaned forward. His cheek is still resting against his palm and his other hand is holding the cigarette, staring at Eddie as he brings the light to his lips.

They’ve never been this close before. Eddie can feel the heat of his cheeks. The weight of his stare and the breath through his nose and Eddie can hear his inhale as the end ignites.

Steve’s eyes glimmer gold against the glow of the flame and suddenly Eddie wants to see the way Steve’s eyes change colors under a thousand different lights, he wants to see what Steve’s eyes look like against the rising and setting sun and against the dark of the sky and alight with the glow of Eddie’s bedside table.

Eddie flicks the lighter closed, the cigarette lit, dimming the gold of Steve’s eyes. 

He brings his hands away. He stays close. He rests his palm against his cheek, and asks Steve about his weekend.

4.

Eddie didn’t see Steve at lunch.

He thinks maybe he’s sick. He thinks maybe he had an appointment or maybe he’s working from home, but Eddie spots him coming out of the restroom, his head low.

Which is fine. Maybe Steve had wanted to be alone, today. Maybe Steve hadn’t felt like talking.

Eddie tries to let it go. He does, but concern gnaws at his chest and it’s all he can do not to march over to the sales department and find out exactly what’s wrong.

It’s a good thing, then, when he looks out his window he sees Steve a story below, sat on one of the patio chairs, an unlit cigarette between his fingers.

Eddie brings his extra scarf with him. He nearly forgets his lighter.

The door hasn’t even completely closed behind him when Eddie can see the glistening of tears on Steve’s cheeks, his eyes red-rimmed and his eyelashes clumped, and Eddie wraps both of his scarves around him before either of them can say anything. 

Eddie takes a seat. Pulls himself close, this time, doesn’t even think twice about it, and when Steve’s head drops against his shoulder it feels like love.

He lights Steve’s cigarette for him when he asks for it. His hair catches the light of it in a way Eddie knows he’d never notice until the flame is gone, again, until Steve is half in Eddie’s lap and Eddie is holding his hand.

“What’s wrong?” Eddie murmurs.

Steve inhales. His cigarette is crumpled. He presses himself closer. “Nothing,” he exhales, his lungful of smoke dissipating into the air in front of them.

His breathing is heavy. Every few seconds he sniffles, and Eddie squeezes his hand a little harder when he does.

Eddie doesn’t say anything else. Neither does Steve. Eddie doesn’t think about how angry his boss is going to be when she asks where he’s been. He doesn’t think about how cold it is outside or how he’s letting his afternoon tea grow cold on the second floor.

He thinks about how Steve’s tears are dripping down his cheeks to land on Eddie’s coat and Eddie runs his thumb along the back of Steve’s hand in a way he hopes feels like love in return.

The sky is cloudy. The sun is barely peeking through the clouds and he can feel Steve shivering against him, and Eddie thinks he’d be okay with being cold every day for the rest of his life if it meant Steve was warm.

He takes off his coat.

5.

It gets colder. 

Eddie’s had to start wearing his coat that’s all utility and zero aesthetic, and Steve grins big and dopey when he first sees it, plucking at Eddie’s front like it’s the most ridiculous thing he’s ever seen.

“I wear this for you, you know,” Eddie says, because he does, because if all Eddie had to do was go in and out of the building his jean jacket would be enough, but he’s still taking his lunch breaks outside, and doesn’t regret a second of it. 

Steve blushes when he says it too, further than the flush of the cold goes, across his cheeks and down his neck and Steve stares at him like he’s waiting for something else, for something that Eddie can’t see, until the moment passes, and Steve looks away.

It’s different, after that. 

Subtle, but there, until one day Steve’s smile doesn’t reach his eyes and Eddie thinks, for a bit, that maybe it’s another day like the one two weeks ago. That maybe he’ll look over and see the tears again welling in Steve’s eyes, but he doesn’t. 

He doesn’t and when Steve asks him for a light he takes the lighter from Eddie’s hand like Eddie hasn’t been the one to light it for him for the past weeks. He lights it and there’s a tension to his mouth that feels distancing in a way that Eddie’s not sure he can reach across.

He’s wearing his blue sweater again. Eddie can see the collar of it peeking out from under his coat. His ears are bright pink, must be freezing but Steve had told him, under no uncertain terms, that he does not wear hats. 

It’d made Eddie laugh, when he’d said it. Made him want to see what Steve’s bathroom counter looks like. Made him want to see what Steve’s hair looks like before he styles it. What it looks like when he wakes up and what it looks like when he gets out of the shower, made Eddie want to know what it looks like after he’s dragged his fingers through. 

Steve sets the lighter on the table. “I should probably buy a new one on my way home,” he says. He doesn’t look Eddie in the eyes. He slides Eddie’s lighter back across the table. “I think I might need to stop borrowing yours.” He says it sadly. Says it like it hurts him, too, and Eddie stares at his lighter as it glints against the winter sun.

“Oh,” Eddie breathes, and it feels like a piece of him escapes with it, floats off without the tether of Steve to keep it in place. 

He doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t know what he did wrong. 

Steve draws up his leg to wrap his arms around. “I think I’ve been hoping to borrow the wrong thing all this time.” 

He still won’t look at him. He’s gazing out past the small courtyard to the street, his eyes following a passing car and—

Suddenly Eddie wonders what the hell he’s been waiting for. 

“Steve?” He can feel his heartbeat in his throat. His palms are already sweating and when Steve turns to him again he has to lick his lips because his mouth has gone dry. “Would you let me take you out sometime?” It comes out far more timid than he’d meant and he follows it up quickly with, “tonight?”

He hopes it’s the right thing to say. He hopes he isn’t too late. He hopes Steve still wants this, after weeks of Eddie not picking up what Steve was throwing at his feet. In his face. 

Steve’s smile starts small. His rueful grin morphs into something real until he’s biting down on his bottom lip to try and contain the force of it, like Eddie could ever want anything besides the full force of Steve Harrington’s smile.

“Depends,” he says, his tone betraying the fact it doesn’t depend on anything else at all, “where are you taking me?”

Eddie leans in a little closer. He can see that Steve didn’t shave this morning. There’s a stubble on his cheeks and on his upper lip that Eddie wants to feel against his mouth. 

“How about dinner?” He asks, even though the best restaurant in town has a whopping 3.7 stars on Google. “Or the zoo lights?” He amends, and Steve’s lip pops away from his teeth, his eyes sparkling.

“The zoo lights?” He repeats, a little teasing, a little giddy, and Eddie doubles down. 

“I’ll buy you a pretzel,” he says, “I’ll even spring for that plastic they call cheese.”

They go to the zoo lights. Steve lets him hold his hand and buy him a pretzel and they share a hot chocolate that still has powdery clumps floating on the top and Eddie learns what Steve’s eyes look like against the brilliant colors of the string lights and under the glow of the moon and every one of them is more beautiful than the last, and Eddie thinks that just might happen in perpetuity, that every light Steve is under is the next most beautiful one because Steve is the one who’s under it.

And at the end of the night, when Steve lets Eddie kiss him, he wonders, again:

What the hell was he waiting for?

+1

He can’t stop staring.

He can’t stop staring because he’s allowed, now, under no uncertain terms, and when they’d stumbled through Eddie’s front door he was a whole lot more preoccupied with touching than looking, and now, well—

Eddie can look.

He’s perfect, is the thing. Eddie always thought it was corny bullshitting when couples called their partners perfect because just looking at them Eddie knew, objectively, they were not, but—

But he’s the one who’s right. Because Steve is perfect, and he’s his. He’s in Eddie’s bed. He’s in Eddie’s bed, naked and perfect and still breathing hard.

Eddie promises himself that he’s going to count every mole on Steve’s skin. He’s going to kiss every single one as he goes. He’s going to memorize the maps of his muscles under his skin and memorize the feel of his heartbeat against Eddie’s palm and he hopes the sound of Steve’s breaths become his new lullaby.

“I can’t believe I let you come in me,” Steve breathes, “what the fuck was I thinking?”

Eddie laughs, and pulls Steve closer, presses his smile into the curve of Steve’s neck. “I seem to remember you begging for it.”

Steve hmphs, but the weight of his arms wraps around Eddie’s middle, holding him close. Steve’s hmph turns quickly into a content hum, and Eddie curls closer into him, kissing the column of his throat.

He’s hairier than Eddie thought he’d be. Sort of thought Steve was the type of guy to keep it trimmed, even waxed, a thought that Eddie now shudders in the face of.

He will never let Steve wax.

“Should we shower?” Steve murmurs, his lips so close to Eddie’s temple the words kiss him as he speaks. “Or do you use three-in-one?”

“I only use the little sample bottles hotels give you,” Eddie hums, snuggling closer, trying to push every one of Steve’s buttons, “I just add water when they get low.”

Steve makes a strangled sort of noise and Eddie’s kiss goes up his jaw. Up to Steve’s cheeks. The tip of his nose. “I have shampoo and conditioner, sweetheart,” he assures, “I even have that body scrub that smells like gingerbread.”

They shower. Steve washes his hair, scrubs the suds into Eddie’s scalp and pulls conditioner through the ends and Eddie’s never had someone wash his hair before, not in adulthood, at least, and as Steve massages his fingers into Eddie’s temples, the crown of his head, behind his ears, he feels himself free falling into in love. 

Steve doesn’t let Eddie wash his hair. Bats his hands away when he tries, an eyebrow raised like he’s asking if Eddie’s serious, and so Eddie has to settle for rubbing the body scrub into his skin, which really isn’t settling at all. 

Eddie gets to wrap Steve up in his clothes after, gets to see Steve in black sweats and his Slayer shirt that he’s had since high school, and, wordless, Steve grabs his pack, and Eddie grabs his lighter. 

They lean out Eddie’s kitchen window. It’s started to snow, a light dusting that’ll be gone come morning but for now the flakes melt against his skin as he lights Steve’s cigarette, his hands curled close to his face. 

The light in the kitchen is dim. Steve’s eyes are dark against the reflection of the moon and Eddie curls close, rests his head on Steve’s shoulder and tucks himself into his side.

Steve’s arm wraps around him. “I think I’m gonna quit.” He says it quiet, like it’s just for them, and Eddie doesn’t move from his spot against Steve’s chest but he hums his question, and Steve kisses the top of his head.

“I think you were my last excuse.”

🚬🚬🚬

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BUDDY 🥳🎉 Thank you for being such an amazing person!

[di-42]

So, I was criminally tight on time in January and really couldn’t read much at all, but fear not: as a demon friend of ours once said, I’m back. True, most of the moots on my corner of Tumblr would have already read most of these fics and poems, but if I can earn one of these wonderful works even just one more reader, that’s my job done. As always, I'm begging you, please don’t judge a fic you haven’t read by the number of kudos. And, as always, I’ll tag the tumblr usernames I know; if you are an author and want your fic taken off this list, please let me know and I’ll remove it. The rest of you, I hope you enjoy these stories and poems as much as I did.

These are the things I loved about

Winter’s Wondrous Fictions

WIPs:

That Isn't Supposed To Happen by @addledmongoose, rated T, chapters 19/22.

Aaahhh, give me Addled’s stories every day for the rest of my life, please and thank you. This is a reverse omens AU. You don't really care for reverse omens, I hear you say? Yep, neither did I, and yet here I am, daydreaming about Azira the demon and Crowley (short for Crowliel) the angel as much as I daydream about our canon Aziraphale and Crowley. This is not something new that happens to me with this great author’s stories, by the way. When writing my own fics, I have to stop and think if I'm referring to something that actually happened in canon or something that happened in Addled’s stories, they're that good. But back to this fic, Azira is just so perfect as a demon, it feels like he was born to be one. Their banter, dynamics, subtle humour and characterisation are, as always, spot on and, oh! The pining! The pining is just so, so good. Oh, and did I mention plot and mystery? I'm loving this story way more than I thought I could love a reverse omens AU, and am sad it's going to be over soon. 

Scorn And The Saint-Maker by beardo @e-rated-beardo, rated E, chapters 33/?

This story is a mystery within a mystery. I've only recently started it and am still catching up, but I am hooked. Human university lecturers AU, or is it? (That's not a spoiler if you read the summary). The plot is compelling, the narration and humour delightful, and the prose at times so touching. And, goodness me, it’s hot (all the explicit scenes are skippable). I feel like I’ve stepped into one of those universes that I would never want to leave. There is also some beautiful art by the author that I sadly can appreciate very seldom as it doesn't upload when I'm not on wi-fi, but hopefully you'll be able to enjoy it!

Wavelengths & Frequencies by @shadesofecclescakes and imposterssyndrome @maaikeatthefullmoon rated E, chapters 18/?

This story is such a warm, cozy, comfort blanket. Human enemies-to-lovers where Aziraphale and Crowley work as DJ for the same media corporation. They have a history, but, while we know they do from the beginning, we don't know what it is. Great story, great humour, great characterisation, great fuzzies.

Complete Stories: 

You're The Bad Guys by Nebz_AlphaCentauri @alphacentaurinebula rated E, 91k.

Fantastic human, cold war AU. Aziraphale is an MI6 agent, Crowley a KGB agent and they're both tasked to steal scientific plans by their respective sides. It's Armageddon all over again, but with hot scenes. I loved it. 

The Last Angel by @bellisima-writes, rated E, 162k.

I don't think there is anything about this epic story that I haven't said before. The author builds an incredible plot and you wonder excitedly where this is all going. You can't stop reading because you want to know what happens and because the prose is so beautiful. Like I've said several times before, this is the most Good Omens-y fic I've read. Let yourself be captured and join Bellisima for this wonderful ride!

The Greater Tadfield Friends Of Music Autumn Concert by CopperBeech @copperplatebeech, rated E, 27k.

I love how this story communicates all sorts of feelings through a fast, concise, no-nonsense  style. Crowley moves to Tadfield and joins the local orchestra. The rest is fiction. 

As always, I'm particularly partial to The Them and Warlock making appearances. And I LOVE Zingarelli!

One Shots:

Aziraphale Gets A Clue by Serenity Stargazer, rated T, 3k.

It's Christmas. Aziraphale is in heaven as Supreme Archangel and Crowley wants to get his attention. He succeeds.

A Nice And Accurate Teen Magazine Quiz by @fellshish, rated T, 2.7k.

Fellshish strikes again with this adorable and extremely funny piece in which Crowley takes credit for teen magazines in hell. Then he browses one of the magazines and takes the soulmate quiz. Then Crowley will be Crowley. I'm sure everyone this side of Tumblr has already read it, but if for some reason you haven't yet you're in for a treat!

Poems: 

PJs, Optional by FuzzyGoblin and koala2all, rated E.

This hilarious poem is made up of a series of limericks all relating to pyjamas that might or might not be worn by our favourite angel and demon. It manages to be funny, sweet and hot, all in the space of 50 lines. I love it!

(Un)Holy Palmers by @on1occasionfork, rated G.

An incredibly beautiful and moving poem about what is like to express love for one another while hiding it from the powers that be. 

Do That Again (And Again) by AlwaysBeMyBaby @alwaysbemybae and OneDapperCat, rated G.

A beautiful through the ages poem about all the ineffable kisses that could have been.

The Demon And The Angel by Hopeless_old_romantic_67, rated G.

Gorgeous poem inspired by The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes. Little warning, it is sad. But so beautiful and deep. 

A Most Peculiar Spa by AlwaysBeMyBaby and OneDapperCat, rated G.

Lovely and funny poem in which Aziraphale tells Crowley about his latest bubble bath! Be sure to read the notes!

@goodomensafterdark

December 24's list here.

March 25's list here.

[m1ckeyb3rry]

fic authors self rec! when you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five of your other fave writers. spread the self-love!

thank you for tagging me @suguwu sorry this took me a sec to get to!! i have been cooking it up in my mind though !! hehe

Threefold | Honkai Star Rail — Mydei

When the husband you’ve never met returns from the war you’ve never understood, he comes bearing a strange and inexplicable gift — a prince in chains who he refuses to kill.

notes: this is my most recent project ergo i am the happiest with it atm HAHA i think my prose is at its strongest here!! honestly the idea for the plot really came to me in a vision…the image of mydeimos as the reluctant prisoner appeared so clearly to me that i had no choice but to build entire world to make it a reality!! (although in terms of world building i have done the bare minimum i feel LMAO very fast and loose fs) even though i haven’t met him in-game yet hehe he’s just very handsome yk haunts my waking hours and whatnot

Seabird | Blue Lock — Sae Itoshi

Thanks to a chance encounter on the beach, you spend your vacation trying to apologize to the famous soccer player you inadvertently offended. Unfortunately, Sae Itoshi has other plans.

notes: i feel like i would be remiss if i didn’t mention seabird!! this one was so much fun to write if only because reader and sae had the funniest dynamic i think i’ve ever written. they are so hater4hater and all of their conversations (plus the little brother’s snarky asides) had me giggling as i came up with them. i think in terms of prose it’s definitely a lot more functional compared to like threefold but that kind of lends it that silliness and charm?? so i still love it HAHA

Hierophant | Honkai Star Rail — Sunday

Sunday is your mirror, as you are his — or, how meeting him spells your doom, just like losing you spells his.

notes: did i know anything about sunday when i wrote this?? debatable (it was a birthday gift). forget about robin LMAOO this is definitely THE most ooc oak siblings you will ever see but i enjoyed it making it regardless!! it’s a 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓴𝓭𝓪𝔂 fic more than anything and very speculative/open to interpretation in its entirety which is what i was hoping to get across hehe like i have my ideas for what i think happened but truly it’s not clear at all and it was fun withholding everything LFKDJD if that makes sense…coming up with the differences between halovians and humans as well as writing sunday’s slow deterioration and eventual breakdown was very fun for me!! i also loved switching between past tense and present tense for the different povs hehe it was a fun exercise writing-wise as well!!

The Instrument | Blue Lock — Michael Kaiser

Michael Kaiser is like a rose, and you are the songbird he cannot bear to lose.

notes: yes my opp michael kaiser is making an appearance here because unfortunately i actually do really love this piece LMAO i am not as much a fan of the part two because i only wrote it upon popular demand (i prefer leaving things open-ended) but part one i do by and large enjoy!! this was my first time ever writing in the present tense and i loveddd it HAHA it really unlocks a different style and vibe of writing for me so although i don’t always use it i def do like pulling it out every now and again which i wouldn’t have learned i can do without the instrument!!

Polar | Blue Lock — Nagi-Centric Genfic

This time, when Seishiro Nagi’s talent at soccer is discovered, it’s by a boy named Oliver Aiku — which goes about as well as you’d expect it to.

notes: this one is definitely a crazy one to put on here given that this is a genfic and i am a reader insert author but. i LOVE polar LMAOAOAO it was born of a silly conversation i had with one of my friends (jei if you’re seeing this hi) but it ended up being over 20k words of nagi character study in an au where he’s found by oliver instead of reo!! i love writing it hehe i think this is the proof nagi is my fav because like writing a genfic from a character’s pov is smth i’ve never done before and probs never will do again. but it was a blast at the time!!

no-pressure tagging: @luvether @loverducky @mewnbuns @kazucee @veraties (if any of you were tagged already i am sorry 🥹 i tried switching up who i tag too so i hope you all are okay with it please lmk if not so ik for next time 💖)

[causeimcrayzeebee]

MAJOR TETRO PINK SPOILERS (for the whole thing basically)!!

wow. this was such a heartbreaking ending. i can’t help but be overwhelmed and emotional about everything that happened today,,,, i have so much to talk about but i just really can’t cover it all so I’m just gonna talk about my main takeaways from today!

i was so convinced it was gonna be tamba and was in hysterics cause i didn’t want it to be her… i am actually shocked hasegawa was the culprit— well, for the most part, save for during the camera discussion where i was yelling at my phone that hasegawa knew they were there (and somehow i was still not convinced he was the killer till the actual reveal), but in all honestly, this was a perfect end for his character. 

it really highlighted the decay of hasegawa ken. pre killing game, hasegawa lived a somewhat simple but comfortable life, with a loving family and a successful career. but of course, it seems he was without friends, coming home from school every day to continue studying in his room. then he entered the killing game, surrounded with 15 of his peers, and only 1 of them really became his friend. kamimura kazutoshi. hasegawa became attached to him, connected with him; he felt a love he hadn’t before. and then kamimura was taken away. the remaining students he was surrounded by were who he believed to be terrible people. now, hasegawa was truly alone. 

in hindsight it’s obvious it had to be him…. he couldn’t escape being suspicious for every damn trial n still survive lmaoo,,, of course he would come up with a convoluted, difficult plan that would’ve gone through just fine if it weren’t for monomoko intercepting.

speaking of monomoko, i was thinking about how tetro is so interesting in the aspect that it has supernatural elements like monomoko. she’s not a real bunny and is some kind of dimensional extraterrestrial being (im not caught up with staffside yet bear with me), but somehow, she’s far from the the scariest and most horrifying part about tetro. the things that are the most realistic and plausible to happen are the most fucked up, horrifying parts. in the words of hasegawa ken, real horror is knowing. knowing that it’s possible, knowing the evils of real people.

endings are difficult. even the best stories can have mediocre or horrible endings. but i have to shout out pink because while this technically isn’t the fully ending, it was such a fantastic end to a long journey. red had me tearing up. i did not expect a whole ass animation at all but it was so very moving. the colors and the shots were just amazing! but mostly what hit was the writing. the prose for that took my breath away, the little red riding hood theme was perfect. hearing sasaki one more time, narrating what could only be something from her journal, was a perfect way to wrap up sasaki’s life, and tetro pink as a whole. 

maybe hasegawa is right— maybe the pink cast are all terrible people. but maybe they’re also just human. maybe that’s the human response to their circumstances. and maybe humans just make human mistakes when pushed to the edge. 

looking at the remaining people was a knife to the chest, realizing it was only 5. and those exit interviews. oh my GOD the exit interviews. they’re both so similar yet so different to who the were before. wada…. oh my goodness wada…. “I’d have killed myself so sasaki could go to sleep” was so raw and filled with pain, i don’t think I’ll stop thinking about that answer. ojima and yanagi were both pissed at the people who took away what little childhood they had left, at the loved ones they took. i also found seki commenting on ojima not losing anyone particularly close interesting, because i think many of us acknowledge the absolute devastation of people like hasegawa losing kamimura or wada losing Isono and Tsuno, but we often forget how this would be for everyone else. ojima was close with everyone; everyone was closer than the average group of people because they were put into hell together. even if a student wasn’t super close to someone who died, that was someone they knew who was murdered. EVERYONE lost the deceased 11 people. tamba and hiroaki are both so much more shaken up, more quiet and more defeated. they went into the game as people who took every opportunity to get the upper hand and be better, but now they’ve been beaten to a shell of who they once were.

so with this, our surviving cast is going home. but did they really even survive? yeah, we have survivors technically, but really we’ve witnessed the brutal killing of 16 students; 16 people; 16 KIDS. and there will be more.

thank you von, the vas, and the editors for working so hard on such a beautiful project. im beyond excited (and terrified) for blue!

[what-even-is-thiss]

Part of the reason I stopped writing fanfic was because my audience expected sanders sides from me and I was sort of petering out on that series already. There was more to it than that though. I could’ve moved on to other fandoms. Maybe gotten an ao3 account and just been someone that writes for a lot of fandoms. But there’s other things about it I don’t really find fulfilling anymore.

Fanfiction is by its nature really limiting. You’ve gotta stick to certain characters, certain archetypes, certain specific tropes if you want to get back a lot of positive feedback. Or feedback in general.

And constructive criticism doesn’t really exist in fandom space either. People are either really positive about your work or huge dicks to the point of easy dismissal. And that’s partially because of all the unspoken rules. Only say nice things or don’t say anything at all. Which I don’t necessarily disagree with because fanfic is free brain candy made for you by a person who’s just passionate about what they’re doing. It’s nearly cruel to try and offer unsolicited criticism in that kind of situation.

But people just want certain things from fanfiction. Fantasy fulfillment, love, very specific types of catharsis, 14 year old goth kid levels of dark and edgy. And there was a point in my life I was fine with that but I can’t anymore.

My ideas got too different. People stopped reading. I stopped wanting to finish things. My prose style is often abrupt and short and poetic. I enjoy being experimental. Experimentation isn’t generally appreciated in fanfiction. Not as much as it is in published fiction in my opinion.

Yes published fiction has its own issues. Its readers are also creatures of habit. But not quite as much as fanfiction readers. And at the end of the day, I realized I want to be a writer. Like a professional writer. Even if that just ends up being a side thing for me. And fanfiction doesn’t really get you there most of the time. For some select few it has, but those folks are often in the romance or smut marketplace. I am not.

Fanfiction has its place. It had its place in my past. I got a lot of practice. I met some good people. But I don’t really read or write it anymore.

I guess what I’m saying is that if fanfiction isn’t fulfilling for you anymore, you’re under no obligation to keep writing it or reading it. I’ve got a perfectly happy online life these days hopping from one fandom to another on a whim without any fanfiction at all. I feel a lot better getting feedback on my writing by talking with other writers and my friends and family about it. I no longer feel like I’m just sending something out into the world to be met with silence. I’m no longer embarrassed to show people I know in my personal life my writing because they haven’t seen the source material the work is based on. My work is just my work, unconnected to the baggage of a source material. I get more ideas from reading, I’m reading a larger variety of things, I’m meeting people who like reading and writing published fiction.

Fanfiction can be great, it can be for some people the kind of writing they want to do forever. But there’s a whole world outside of it. And depending on who you are, it might be holding you back. Just something worth thinking about.

[steddieunderdogfics]

This week’s writer spotlight feature is:  @cuips-not-cute! cuips_not_cute has six fics in the Stranger Things fandom on AO3 and all of them are in the Steddie tag!

Our anonymous nominator recommends the following works by @cuips-not-cute:

he could be brave

blood is an aphrodisiac

honeyed affection

blinking red light

cyclical

"cuips is a master of taking the reader on an emotional roller coaster ride. The amount of times I've laughed and cried at the same time reading his fics have been too numerous to count. Especially the depth of the sex scenes and the character beats and growth they portray are gorgeous to read - and also very titillating. I love Steve and Eddie in every one of cuips stories, adore the little mannerisms they are given and the way they interact with each other and other characters. Besides the inspiring prose cuips can pull off a plot like few other people I've found so far - since blinking red light is still ongoing, I'll just point to cyclical for that. I'm very thankful to cuips for writing and posting these stories and for being a very active part of this lovely fandom." -- anonymous

Below the cut, @cuips-not-cute answered some questions about their writing process and some of their recommended work!

Why do you write Steddie?

i don’t even know. i was happily in the ofmd fandom when i watched season 4 almost three years ago now (oh god) and then the characters… they got me. i fear they’ll never leave.

What’s your favorite trope to READ?

god, so many. they’re all kinda the same flavor though so i’ll list out what i’m always filtering for to find a new fic: bottom/sub eddie, creature/monster eddie, post s4, canon compliant, soft dom steve, sex pollen, spit kink, rimming (perhaps my FAVORITE ever thing to read), switch eddie/switch steve… the list goes on.

What’s your favorite trope to WRITE?

probably also rimming. there’s just something so romantic about eating ass. and i really love to stick with post s4 canon compliant aus, too, i don’t think i’ve written an actual for real au yet, though i do have an idea for one after brl.

What’s your favorite Steddie fic?

i don’t know if i can pick!! my ao3 bookmarks host my many all-time faves, but if you wanna go by the fic i’ve reread the most it’s probably the affliction of the feeling. it’s so fucking good.

Is there a trope you’re excited to explore in a future work but haven’t yet?

YES!!! i have never written omegaverse!!! which is crazy, ‘cause i like it a LOT. i have a post-s4 omegaverse au kicking around in my head currently, and i cannot wait to sink my teeth into all the messy biology and politics that come with the omegaverse.

What is your writing process like?

chaotic, in a word. usually, i’ll get a fic idea while i’m balls-deep in writing another fic so i’ll shove it to the side and let it simmer while i finish that first one, then i’ll spend a good long while planning it out in ridiculous detail, and THEN i’ll start actually drafting. i like to have a fully fleshed out outline and a couple chapters written and edited before i start posting, and once posting begins i tend to deviate quite a bit from my outline but it’s all good fun.

Do you have any writing quirks?

definitely. i don’t like pointing them out for fear of other folks seeing them in everything i do, but they’re there. one that i don’t mind so much is my absolute abuse of the word “little.” everything is “a little” of this, “a little” of that, but i try to cut my usage down significantly while i’m editing.

Do you prefer posting when you’ve finished writing or on a schedule?

i always TRY to keep a schedule but… yeah. it never works. i’m far too busy for one, but attempts are made. i’d like to one day write a fic in full before posting it, because i think it’d be a whole lot better if i let it sit for that long but lord, i sure do like getting ao3 comments on every chapter. they make the writing motivation go WAY up.

Which fic are you most proud of?

brl, definitely. that fucker is LONG and i’m barely halfway through it. i think i’ve done a lot of cool things with it and i’m going to do some more cool things and i’ve made a lot of really awesome friends in the process of writing it so it’s got some pretty insane sentimental value to me. it’s definitely going to be a fic i’ll miss writing once i finish it, but that’s what the epilogue series is for!!!

How did you get the idea for blinking red light?

from another fic!!! @racketghost is the author of one of my favorite things i’ve ever read, which is the good omens zach and miri au, closed set (https://archiveofourown.org/works/23320960/chapters/55862155 <- hyperlinked), wherein crowley has been lying about the existence of some angelic sex tapes to all of hell, and then he and aziraphale have to actually make the tapes. it’s awesome. it’s gorgeous. brl is one big giant love letter to this fic, because it means so fucking much to me and i think about it ALL the time. 

When writing honeyed affection, what was something you didn’t expect?

hmm, i don’t know? ha is, i think, a pretty easygoing fic with lots and lots of porn stuffed inside it, and that was all i intended it to be so i cannot think of anything i was surprised by!!

What inspired blood is an aphrodisiac?

i just wanted to write vampire eddie. it was july ‘22, kas theories were everywhere, i had to try it. these days i think i would change a LOT about it because my ideas and hcs surrounding the characters have evolved significantly, but i’ll write vampire eddie again and “fix” everything i no longer like about biaa.

What was your favorite part to write from he could be brave?

…the fisting. i genuinely think some of my best writing is in that scene, and while i feel the same way about this fic as i do biaa, the fisting scene will always hold a special place in my heart. i’m very, very excited to write the fisting chapter in brl because of this scene. fisting rules.

How do/did you feel writing cyclical?

i wrote cyclical during a very weird few months of my life, so writing it was sort of my way of dealing with all the insane shit going on around me, and i think it shows. in a good way, though, because cyclical is a timeloop fic so it needed to be a little angsty and insane. i’m stupidly proud of that fic. @ryeallytired actually BOUND it into a PHYSICAL BOOK and SENT IT TO ME and when i tell you that is the singular most precious object i own, i mean it.

What was the most difficult part of writing blinking red light?

PLOTTING THAT BITCH. GOD. i’m so happy to be actually WRITING it now, the planning was genuinely so brutal. my issue was that i was sticking too close to the plot of closed set (<3) which just… did not work for steddie. closed set’s premise centers around crowley lying about making sex tapes, yes, but he lied about them to PROTECT aziraphale, which is the messiest, kindest, riskiest fucking thing ever. and it’s awesome. in the early planning stages of brl, i was trying to put eddie in the crowley role of lying about having made sex tapes with steve, but it reallyyy didn’t work. there was an oc and i absolutely hated him, plus i didn’t like what that premise was doing to eddie’s character… ugh. it was a MESS. it took several rubber duck-ing conversations with my brilliant friend @lollaika and a rewatch of zach and miri to finally realize that it had to be STEVE who brings up the idea of sex tapes so that he could protect eddie, rather than eddie bringing it up to save his own hide (yikes).

Do you have a favorite scene and/or line from any of your fics?

oooh, lots. reallyyyy loved chapter 8 of cyclical with all of the pov shifts, that was super fun to write. i also really enjoyed writing the dry humping/sex tape convo in the first chapter of brl, and i’m stupidly excited to write chapters 12, 13, 15, and 17, because of specific scenes that will happen in each.

Do you have any upcoming projects or fics you’d like to share/promote?

i do!! after brl is completed i’ll have to choose from two story ideas (because i cannot have two wips at once or i’ll get SO stressed), one being a semi-realistic steddie cowboy au based off my own experiences with growing up on a farm and featuring messy, earnest cowboys and not-fully-human eddie, and the other being the omegaverse au i want to write, which will have a very fun mix of vampire eddie, dubcon bitching, and accidental mating bites!!!

Outside of these questions, Is there anything YOU would like to add?

i cannot think of anything!! this was super fun :D

Thank you to our author, @cuips-not-cute, and our anonymous nominator! See more of cuips_not_cute's works featured on our page throughout the day!

Writer’s Spotlight is every Wednesday! Want to nominate an author? You can nominate them here!