#and i KNOW...... that if i just manage to do it once then ill be able to go back by myself. and not be freaked out

[tkomptgoedluv]

revenge.

tear you apart pt.2

pt.1 here | pt.2

grumpycafeworkervampire! joost x f! reader

tags: dead dove do not eat, f! reader, internetcafe & vampire au, reader doesn’t know how to cope very well, joost’s heart is too big for his body, they’re both desperate to be the other one’s peace, so much hurt, possibly even more comfort, plenty of angst, all characters are dutch and speak in dutch but dialogue is written in english for obvious reasons.

word count: 8,490.

warnings: very detailed descriptions of blood and self harm, descriptions of an un-specific mental illness, semi-heavy stalking, breaking and entering, mentions of gore, brief mentions of violence + abuse, rpf.

notes: hello my lovelies <3 thank you so much for being so patient with this one! it’s not only the longest fic that i’ve ever written, but also genuinely my pride and absolute joy. i fear that i might not ever be able to top this one, actually, so please enjoy it! just keep in mind that this fic comes with a MASSIVE TRIGGER WARNING.

also once again, a big big shoutout to my BABY @joosthead for putting up with me constantly asking her to check the doc every time that i added something. please go check out her work if you haven’t already — she’s got some mad shit coming 💋

── ⋆⋅ ♰ ⋅⋆ ──

you never really were too good at knowing when to stop, were you?

it’s always been easy for you to get lost in it, lost in the feeling of your old razor blades carving line after line into your skin. once you started, you just had to keep going until you physically couldn’t. not until you’d get too dizzy to focus, until you just couldn’t quite keep your grip tight enough on the razor anymore.

you never learned how to cope any other way; since you were fifteen, it had been your default. cutting yourself up whenever you started to feel too much, or whenever levi would push you too far. as a kid, it was more of a punishment but with him, it was your way of controlling all the pain that you felt.

that’s why you’d done it again, why it’s been the only thing that you’ve managed to do over the past five days or so. you were trying to control things, trying to come to terms with what you had seen and all the big feelings that came right along with it.

you’d spent so long wishing him away — daydreaming of all the terrible things that could happen so you’d finally be free of him. you never actually thought that it would happen, though. that you’d witness your own boyfriend get ripped apart limb from limb; devoured as if he was nothing more than a piece of meat.

you hated that some sick and twisted part of you deep down, missed him. that you just couldn’t wrap your head around the fact that he was gone now. and you hated that when it came to joost, you weren’t quite sure what you felt. for less than a fucking hour he’d been the closest thing to a friend that you’d had in years, but then he’d gone and done that and —

blood dripped down from your wrists, the tops of your arms, and your thighs, and onto the dirty white tiles of your bathroom floor. you’d never gotten this carried away before, and you had made such a mess of it. all the cleaning up would have to be done tomorrow because right now you doubted that you’d even be able to stand.

at least you weren’t feeling quite so much anymore; only the stinging of each and every single one of the fresh cuts. it all hurt, but it was a better thing to feel than the guilt that had kept you confined inside the walls of your own home for so long. you couldn’t help but wonder if you would die here, alone and bleeding on your bathroom floor, or if the police would find you before you’d get the chance to.

you’ve seen bits and pieces of what his friends had been saying online— knew that they wanted to report levi as a missing person now. you wondered how long it would be before the police would come for you, either looking for him or his killer. then again, you weren’t actually sure if there was even a body left behind for them to find.

finally, after god knows how many, you put the razor blade down. it clattered against the linoleum and laid still in one of the few small pools of your own blood. honestly, you were a little proud of what you had done to yourself, even though it still felt like it wasn’t enough. 

in a daze, you just sat there quietly as the time passed, as the blood slowly began to dry. you weren’t entirely sure of the time but it had to have been late from how dark it was outside. your phone was somewhere in your flat, having died a while ago after you neglected to charge it for a few days, but it’s time probably would’ve read something like one or two o’clock in the morning.

no one had been by to check on you, not that you had expected them to, especially not at a time like this, so you jumped when you heard a knock at your front door. silence rang out as you waited, too afraid to move, until you finally heard another one. only then did you get up.

it was with wobbly legs that you limped your way out of the bathroom and through your hallway, your heart hammering away inside your chest. you tried to peer out through your front room windows as you hobbled over to the door, certain that you’d see flashing blue lights or the silhouette of a police officer waiting for you on your doorstep.

but as you opened your front door just an inch, barely wide enough to peak your head around outside, all you saw was nothing. no cars going past, no people wandering by, nothing.

for just a moment, you could have laughed. because this was it now, surely; your breaking point. all that guilt, all of that paranoia — it was finally driving you mad. 

the old hinges of your door squeaked as you went to close it again, turning on your heels as you did so. you glanced up as one of the floorboard creaked from behind you, the gloss in your eyes only slightly blurring the sight of him standing right there, somehow.

you went to scream, a high pitched, blood-curdling shriek right on the rip of your tongue when his hand came up to cup your mouth shut. he knocked you back into the door, slamming it shut as his entire body weight came down to have you pinned against it. you could feel just how hard he was shaking as he held you there, see how those big, panicked eyes of his were flickering between blue and red.

“no no no, please, please don’t scream. i’m not gonna hurt you.”

joost was frantic as he spoke, almost choking on each of his words, begging for you to keep quiet. no matter how desperately you were trying to fight against him, your nails clawing at his chest through his shirt as you fought to get him off of you, you weren’t going anywhere. the more that you struggled, the harder his grip on you got.

you had no way of knowing it yet, but this was killing him. seeing you so small like this, crying out, sobbing, against his hand as you used what little strength you had left to try and push him away — it was undoubtedly going to haunt him. 

he knew that he shouldn't be here, not really. he shouldn’t know where you live, shouldn’t have followed you home that one night a couple months ago. it was just that there had been an attack in your city that week; some poor girl found dead in an alleyway, all bloody and beaten, barely clothed. he’d already had your routine memorised by then, so he knew that you’d be making your way back from the cafe alone, in the middle of the night.

joost had just wanted to protect you, he’d just wanted to make sure that you weren’t about to become the next headline in the local newspaper. at least, that was what he had told himself as he’d stayed hidden away in the shadows, his head down low and hood pulled up as he’d ‘escorted’ you home without you ever knowing it.

sure, it had definitely crossed some lines, him sneaking out of the cafe’s back door after you’d left that night to follow you, but the alternative was worse, right?

that’s what all this came down to, really. his insatiable need to know that you were safe. because last week, you’d ran from him that night with marks on your arm that your boyfriend hadn’t been the one to put there. and you’d ran from him, no less, scared out of your mind at the mere sight of him as he’d stood there pleading with you to stay.

and joost couldn’t stand that.

everyone else could view him as a monster and treat him as such, but not you.

never you. 

that was the only reason why he’d ended up on your doorstep tonight. he needed to know that you were okay, that you were still alive, and that you understood that what he had done to levi, he would never, ever, do to you. 

it was never his plan to ‘invite’ himself in the way that he had. he was going to knock on your door and wait for you to answer it, and he was prepared to spend the rest of the night out there, reasoning with you to just hear him out if he had to. and if by the end of it all you were to still cast him out with the promise of never wanting to see him again, he’d find a way to live with it. just as long as you’d be okay; he’d live with it.

it was never his plan to get to the top of your street and already be able to smell it. the thick, sweet, iron-heavy smell of your blood already so strong that he was gagging by the time he made it to your doorstep. hunched over and heaving, he’d stumbled up to your front door, forcing himself to take deep, slow breaths through his mouth before finally knocking. it took everything in him, every little last bit of willpower, not to turn right then and there.

“lieverd, it’s okay. i promise it’s okay; i’m just here to talk. you…you don’t have to fight me.”

even as you were still thrashing, joost leant down to rest his forehead against yours. his eyes bore into yours as they continued to flash between the two different colours, a few tears of his own welling up behind his waterline. the last time that you were up this close, close enough to see the sweat shining on his temples, you were grasping onto his arm in such a feeble attempt to hide yourself from who you thought to be the only monster in the room.

the one whose blood you’d later seen dripping down from in between joost’s fingers, as he’d clutched onto his heart like a trophy.

he should be the real monster to you — a small part of you even wanted him to be. as terrible as levi truly was, he’d never bitten the head off of anyone, never ripped a heart straight out of someone’s chest. he was just…levi. he was your boyfriend and you hated him, but you never wanted him to die.

there was a bigger part inside of you, though, one that twisted up at the thought of joost being anything like one of the ‘bad guys’ from your old bedtime stories. because despite everything that you’d seen, despite how he’d found out where you lived, somehow, and now had you pinned up against your own front door with his hand holding your mouth shut, you knew that he wasn’t. he wasn’t evil, wasn’t dangerous like how your boyfriend had been, and you knew that. you just didn’t quite know it yet.

still, you began to relax. whether it was by choice or because you simply didn’t have any fight left in you anymore, you weren’t entirely sure. your whole body felt as though it was on fire from how several of your cuts had ripped open slightly from your struggle. small spots of blood started to seep through the thin, white cotton of your shorts as you almost went limp against joost; your eye-contact unbreaking. 

there was just something about the way in which he was looking at you. it was the exact same one he gave you that night last week, when he was desperately trying to convince you not to go back home to levi. his hands had been cupping each one of your cheeks, his warm breath fanning across your face as he panted. seeing that same look on him now, it was enough for you.

joost had felt you start to ease, had heard the fast beating of your heart start to slow. his grip on your mouth loosened as he gently wiped away the wet from your face with his free hand, tucking the loose strands of your hair away from your eyes.

“i’m gonna let you go now, okay? then we can talk?”

you nodded, blinking away the tears from your eyes.

as he held back a breath, joost finally moved his hand away from your mouth and took a single step back — allowing you just enough space to stand up on your own. he still hadn’t looked away from your face, his eyes stuck on yours as he searched your features for any signs of fear, any signs that you were about to turn and run. 

but instead you seemed…calm. still very much in shock; your hands still very much trembling as you wrapped your arms around your middle. but you were calm enough to stand your ground and not shrink underneath his gaze. you didn’t flinch when both of his hands came up to cup either side of your jaw, the pads of his thumbs caressing along the skin.

“are-are you okay? i’ve not seen you in…i thought that maybe you had…”

he couldn’t quite find it in him to finish his sentence. it wasn’t like he needed to, you already knew exactly what he was talking about, and now it all started to make sense. 

that look in his eyes, the way his voice kept shaking every time that he spoke. he was here because he was scared, terrified even, that you’d done something to yourself. that night you’d told him, or rather shown him your secret so he knew what you were capable of now, and it had been driving him mad ever since you disappeared.

you hadn’t needed to say anything; the way you suddenly pulled yourself away from him had said enough. in all of the chaos he hadn’t thought to simply look down. if he had, he would have seen all the damage you’ve already done; every single one of the fresh cuts that you’ve given yourself tonight and all of the ones from the nights before. the old vest top and pyjama shorts that you were wearing weren’t hiding anything — from your shoulders down to your shins, he could see everything now that he had finally dropped his gaze.

with his head down, you couldn’t see his face but you could feel the way he tensed up. you could hear him sniff, cough, and swallow down the bile that was rising up in his throat as he stumbled back a few steps.

you were still bleeding. 

it was making his teeth ache.

neither of you said anything for a while. you stood frozen by the door, your arms still wrapped around yourself as he just stared blankly at you with tears running down his cheeks. 

he felt sick; sickened by the very thing he’d been so afraid of now staring at him right back in the face. he couldn’t stand the sight of it but couldn’t bring himself to look away, either — there was just so much red. long, neat lines of red that covered you almost completely from head to toe; no patch of skin left unmarked. it was vile, it was abhorrent, it was breaking his heart.

“why?”

that was all joost could muster. a pathetic, broken question as he tried so desperately to pull himself back together. 

“i…i don’t know.” you paused only to wipe your teary eyes on the back of your hand. “i never know what else to do when i feel like this; it’s just been hard, joost -”

you trailed off, quickly losing your train of thought when you heard him sob all of a sudden. you hadn’t seen him start to crack because you’d been staring down at your feet, suddenly feeling too shy to meet his eyes. except now he was the one trying to hide, his arm coming up to cover his face as he cried hard enough to make his shoulders bounce.

he repeated ‘i’m sorry, i’m so sorry.’ like a mantra in between shallow gasps of breath and hiccups.

he was blaming himself for this because how could he not? all those cuts along your skin; you might have been the one behind the blade but he had been the one to do it. he’d been the one to scar you like this. that one irreversible act of his that he prayed would keep you safe had pushed you to an edge that he feared he wouldn’t be able to pull you back from. 

it wasn’t even his responsibility to, not really. he didn’t know you and you didn’t know him, either. still, he found himself loving you in a way that didn’t make any sense. 

and you loved him too, didn’t you? in a way that you couldn’t quite wrap your head around because of course you did. you proved that to both yourself and to him by how you finally moved from your spot by the door just so you could take his hands and pry his arms away from his face. you let him engulf you, cradling you close to his chest as he cried into your shoulder because you knew that he needed it.

you didn’t know who he was or even what he was, but you knew that he wasn’t something to truly fear. deep down you knew that you loved him in such an awfully twisted way, and you knew that he needed to feel you just to know that you weren’t going anywhere. 

joost was still spilling out his apologies as you tried so hard to soothe him. you felt him shiver under your touch when you let your hands slip underneath the hem of his t-shirt to rub the hot skin of his sides, your soft little whispered assurances filling his ear. 

it wasn’t his fault, nor was it levi’s or anyone else’s. you were like this long before he’d ever set his eyes on you and a part of you had already accepted that you always will be. the very last thing that you wanted was for it to be a burden someone else had to carry, let alone somebody like joost.

“you didn’t do this, okay? it’s alright. i’m gonna be alright.”

maybe it was cruel of you to try and calm him with words that even you didn’t fully believe in. what you had done to yourself only an hour ago, only you would ever be to blame for it, but you didn’t know if you were going to be alright in the end. you were still a witness to what he’d done and you were still doomed to live with the guilt of that.

“you don’t need to apologise for what i’ve done; you know that this is what i do. it’s not your fault.”

“but i fucked up, lieverd.”  joost shuddered as he sucked in a sharp breath, sniffing. “i fucked up and i did this to you; you did it because of me.”

you hushed him, carefully stepping back just enough so that you had the room to cradle either side of his neck in your hands, urging him to look back at you. as soon as he did, you could see that his eyes were back to being just their usual sweet blue, nothing else.

“i did it because i was scared, joost. i didn’t know what else to do.”

“what, scared of me?”

his question was more like a punch to the gut than anything else. for just a moment it knocked the air out of you; left you winded and with no idea on how to go about answering it. truthfully, the answer was yes, but also no, because it was never actually him that you were so afraid of.

you were just afraid of what he did; what you know joost is truly capable of now. you were afraid of the part of you that was almost relieved to see levi suffer what he did, knowing that it meant that he wouldn’t be able to hurt you anymore. but again, you never wanted him to die. you never wanted to see him get torn apart, piece by piece.

joost whimpered out your name when you didn’t answer and instead just stood there with your mouth slightly agape. your lack of an actual, verbal answer was an answer in itself, really, and he knew that; knew that you were probably just too scared and too kind to tell him the truth. still he needed to hear you say it though, purely for his own sake, he needed to hear you say that he wasn’t just another monster to you.

but the longer that he waited, the weaker his knees started to feel. he kind of fell into you, in a way, burying his face deeper into the crook of your neck as your arms came up to hold him against you. his hot tears ran down your skin and pooled together in the dip of your collarbone and it was right then that your own eyes started to burn. 

slipping out from his grasp, you wordlessly led him by the hand over to your sofa. you watched him collapse onto it as you took a seat next to him, his elbows rested on his knees as his head hung low in between them. his shoulders were still shaking and you could still hear each of the muffled cries that were spilling from his lips.

“please, please, believe me, lieverd. what i did…i never wanted it to hurt you. i’m so sorry.”

you curled yourself into a tight little ball and let out a long, deep breath, one that you hadn’t even known you’d been holding. you had questions; so, so many questions that had been festering, growing like mould in the back of your head. and joost could almost feel you holding them back as he looked up at you with such watery eyes, the only red in them being the sore, puffy rings around them.

“ask me anything, whatever you wanna know.”

“why did you do it?”

there was no emotion in your voice and you kept your face blank as you spoke — it was only the slight quiver of your bottom lip that gave you away.

“he was going to hurt you, schatje.” 

“but how…how were you even…?”

it had happened decades ago, back when internet cafes were still just your average libraries and when only the rich could afford to have their own mobile phones. 

joost had been young, living off the high of infamy and adoration that came with being in one of the best punk bands in the scene at the time. him and his friends, they’d been something of local legends; for good and for bad, it just depended on who you asked. those that loved them deemed them god-like in their old denim and rusted chains, and those that hated them, simply feared them.

he’s not proud of it, how they spent day after day rotting away in a garage, doing whatever drugs they could get their hands on and writing songs just to spend night after night playing shows at only the worst bars they could find. how they’d get even more off their faces afterwards and start fights, smashing up the venues and spray-painting anarchy symbols anywhere and everywhere that they could. how if the night didn’t end with them running away from the cops then it would end with them in the bed of anything with a pretty face, two legs, and a heartbeat.

and then what was supposed to be the best night of the band’s life, the biggest show they’d ever played to a crowd that already knew all the words to their songs, became nothing more than the beginning of the end. it’d happened after they’d all really outdone themselves, whilst those so-called ‘friends’ of his that only ever brought out the worst of him were all passed out somewhere, and joost had decided to go out for a little wander. 

still to this day, he can’t remember the face of who had jumped him. the alleyway had been too dark and he’d been too drunk to even know where he was, so all that truly stuck with him was the agony of it all. the searing pain of a pair of fangs plunging deep into the side of his neck, the gradual, stinging cold he’d felt as the life was almost all but drained from him. whoever it was, they’d left him there to die afterwards — still to this day, a part of him wishes that he had. 

waking up that next morning something so much worse than human, consumed by an appetite so uncontrollable that he just couldn’t help himself when he came across that lone jogger whilst on his way back to his friends. surely it had to have been worse than death. he’d torn that poor guy to shreds as if it was nothing, as if he was just pulling chicken off the bone. 

but he hadn’t stopped there, had he? he couldn’t, he didn’t know how to. even after he’d shown up on his drummer’s doorstep covered in blood and crying his eyes out, he had to keep going, keep feeding. because joost wasn’t too good at knowing when to stop, either, was he?

it had taken him years to figure it out, actually. years of mindless, reckless slaughter to realise that he actually hated what he was now, and that his ‘friends’ weren’t ever really his friends. from the moment he’d shown up that day, all stained red and babbling about the man he’d just killed, the band played him like a puppet simply because they knew that they could.

regardless of the change, he was still joost. they knew that it really wouldn’t take much to get inside of his head, to spin whatever that had happened to him into something almost profitable for them all. and it hadn’t, because everything they had him do was always ‘for the band’, so really, how could he have said no? 

besides, he would have been lying if he’d said he hadn’t come to enjoy it, after a while. seeing the life drain from their eyes as they’d beg for mercy, pleading with him, promising him that they’d do whatever he wanted if he’d just let them go. he’d always laugh then, before sinking his teeth into their throats. 

and it helped that these people also happened to be nobodies, too. from shitty bar owners that wouldn’t let them play to members of a rival band that had just gotten a little too cocky for their own good. no one ever missed them, most hardly noticed that they were gone.

joost was never a monster to them, to the band, just an over-glamorised attack dog that could do a lot more than just bite.

it had taken him far too many years to realise it.

“that’s how i ended up with the cafe…i wanted to get away; i didn’t want to be like that anymore.” he paused only to gauge your reaction, or more so your lack of one. you hadn’t said a word the entire time, hadn’t flinched or pulled a face; you had barely even blinked. 

“what did you do with the body?…his body?”

the sudden sound of your voice, it made him glance back up at you with a small quiver in his lip. you were still staring blankly at the wall ahead, your expression borderline unreadable, but your words hadn’t cracked and your hands weren’t shaking anymore, either.

“i know some people that are…like me; they handled it.” when you fell quiet again, joost continued, wiping the snot from his nose as he did so. “i’ve done a lot of bad things, lieverd. what i did to levi, fuck, that’s not even the worst of it. you should be scared of me; i’m scared of me.”

“i’m not.” 

“why?”

“because if you were still the monster that you think you are, i wouldn’t have even made it halfway out the door that night.” 

after only another moment or two of silence had passed did you finally look down to meet his eyes again. whilst there was a shine in yours that definitely matched his own, there was something so soft about the way you were gazing at him. it made the muscles beneath his shoulders relax and drop down as he breathed out a quiet sigh of relief.

you didn’t need to elaborate any further, didn’t need to say anything else to prove to him that you knew he wasn’t that person anymore. he could tell simply from the hint of a smile that was tugging at the corners of your mouth. from how it was with careful, delicate movements that you moved to crawl onto his lap and hugged him, nuzzling your face into the curve of his neck.

the large, warm palms of joost’s hands slid underneath the cotton of your tank top and soothed the cool skin of your spine as he rested his head against yours. instead of asking how you were even real, how someone so undeniably good was able to look past each and every single one of his sins, he kept quiet to let the last few tears of his fall.

but if he had in fact asked, then you would’ve told him that truly, you couldn’t hold any of it against him. 

of course it was all awful, from the countless faces he’d torn apart to the people that he terrorised even before the change. your skin had been crawling as joost had spoken and you just couldn’t ignore the fact that anyone else in your position probably would’ve taken off running by now. that, and that they’d have every right to.

except you weren’t just anyone, were you? as far as you were concerned, those old so-called ‘friends’ of his were the real monsters, because you of all people knew what it was like to be hurt by those you trusted most. to have someone so deep inside your mind that you quickly became blind to everything else. you couldn’t hold it against him because in your heart, you got it. you could feel that, that wasn’t who joost was anymore.

“can you stay tonight? for a little while?”

you felt his hands trail down to the side of your hips and squeeze as you pulled away just enough to see his face, your own two hands falling down to rest against his stomach.

“i’ll stay for as long as you want me to, schatje. i’m here.” 

being on the brink of almost giddiness as you nodded, that small smile of yours twisting up into an almost grin, you hadn’t realised how his fingers were starting to roam. that his hands were gently moving around, rubbing up and down the flesh of your waist until they reached the very front of your hips. 

you hadn’t been fast enough, hadn’t been able to take hold of his wrists to stop him before the soft pads of his thumbs could find the aching, bumpy lines of the cuts you’d put there a few days ago. as you froze, you watched his own sweet smile drop and his eyebrows furrow, and felt him slowly lift up the hem of your top just enough to see the true extent of it.

even in the low light of your living room, even if his eyesight wasn’t as unnaturally good as it was, he still wouldn’t have been able to miss it. just like the rest of you was, the tight skin of your stomach and all the way across to your hips were marked with the same harsh, red gashes. most were scabbed over but a couple were sprouting fresh drops of blood from where you’d been moving around so much, pulling them apart at the seams.

you went to stand and then tried to simply twist yourself away when you couldn’t, but even then joost’s hold on you was too strong. his touches were feather-soft as he traced the tips of his fingers along every single one, following them down to the ones on your things and then back up along the ones on your arms. by the time that he reached your eyes again they were already scrunched up closed, hiding from him.

“because of me.”

it was more of a statement than a question, partly because he already knew the answer, and partly because he knew that you’d still deny it if he asked.

“joost -”

“- you have a first aid kid somewhere, right? lemme help.”

you shook your head as you went to tug your vest top back down, only to freeze when you finally caught a glimpse of all the little spots of blood that had seeped through your clothes. you stopped and stared at them for longer than you meant to, your hands trembling as you toyed with the material between your fingers. 

the blood was always your favourite part. how it would slowly peek through the small breaks in your skin before oozing out, running down your body until the drops would fall and hit the floor. it had a way of hypnotising you every single time, making you want to keep going and going just so you could see it happen over again and again. even now, when the tiny red polka dots were nothing more than just a few sticky stains on your top, turning the tips of your fingers a deep pink.

it took joost gently prying your hands away for you to snap out of it. 

“n-no, no, i can’t let you do that. it wouldn’t be fair, not when there’s so much blood and you’re…”

“i’ll be fine, lieverd, i promise.”  you felt him give your hands a soft squeeze as he paused, “let me help you.”

there was no point in trying to change his mind. once you lifted your head back up and saw how those big blue eyes of his were staring back at you, the smudged, dark makeup around them making them seem so might brighter, you no longer had the heart to tell him no again. he could have asked anything of you, and you would’ve said yes.

“it’s in the bathroom.”

without warning, joost moved to grip the backs of each of your thighs and stood up, smiling when you squealed as you wrapped your arms and legs around him. it baffled you for a moment how it seemed as though he already knew where to go, that he already knew that your bathroom was all the way down the hall, last door on the left. you chalked his strong sense of direction up to it just being another one of the many perks that came along with being…well, him.

and whilst that was true, maybe it wasn’t the only reason why he specifically knew the layout of your home already. maybe he’s escorted you home more than just the once, twice, three times. maybe this wasn’t actually his first time walking down your hallway at all. 

the cold of your bathroom counter underneath you made you jump slightly as joost carefully set you down on it. you’d left the light on from when you were in here earlier; your razor still laying discarded on the floor, coated in a drying layer of your own blood. you hadn’t even thought he’d seen it until he was picking it up and tossing it in the bin as if it was just a piece of rubbish that he’d dropped. 

neither of you were saying anything. joost had fallen uncharacteristically quiet, breathing somewhat heavily through his mouth as he dug through your cabinets until he finally found that little green box with the red cross on on the front. his hands were shaking as he opened it, pulling out the countless packets of alcohol wipes and plasters, dropping a few things as he did so.

had you been paying more attention, then you would’ve noticed that actually, this was taking quite the toll on him. but you couldn’t shift your eyes away from the bin, the one that now contained the very last one of your razor blades amongst a small collection of used tissues and tampon wrappers. joost had thrown away your last one, and now you had none.

“okay, i’m sorry if this stings, schat. let me know if you need me to stop, okay?”

it was as you were nodding that you suddenly hissed, your leg jolting from the pain of the alcohol wipe joost had used to clean the first of the cuts on your upper thigh. on instinct you tried to pull away, fighting against the grip that he held on you to keep your leg still against the counter.

you weren’t expecting it to hurt as much as it did. considering how many times that you’ve been here before, cleaning yourself up because you didn’t always have someone around that cared enough to want to do it for you, you thought you would have been used to it by now. you never would have guessed that it would have you in near tears all over again, gripping the edge of the bathroom counter until your knuckles slowly started to turn white. 

maybe this was just the price you had to pay for going a little deeper than you meant to. 

“hey, do you think you could just…i don’t know, talk, for a while? tell me something about yourself?” at the look of confusion on your face joost just smiled, raising his hands a little to show you just how hard they were shaking. “it’ll help me concentrate.”

he was struggling more than he thought he’d be.

except how could he not be? this was a lot for him. all that blood of yours smeared and stained across his fingers aside, simply just being this close to you was enough to somehow make him feel lightheaded. feeling your knees on either side of his thighs as he stood in between your legs, so close to you in fact that he could hear your heartbeat louder than anything else. 

he just needed to hear your voice, needed something else to focus on besides your blood that now laid underneath his fingernails.

“oh shit, uh, okay….um…”

you weren’t sure why you started to chuckle, almost, stumbling over these noises that barely even resembled words. you wanted to come up with something to talk about fast, to help get joost’s mind off of what he was actually doing, but the harder you thought the quicker your mind went blank. nobody’s ever really asked you to talk about yourself before; you had no idea what to say.

there wasn’t a whole lot to say, really. you used to have interests; hobbies that you used to put your heart and soul into, dreams that you were so determined to make a reality for yourself. levi had, had other plans for you, though. either, he would simply take up too much of your time, or he’d be so insistent that those hobbies of yours were ‘pointless’, that eventually you grew to lose interest in them. since day one of the relationship, everything about you had to be about him.

you used to think that it was probably for the best, that maybe he was right and you really were just wasting your time. but now that he’s gone for good, and you’re stuck with someone in front of you that genuinely wants to get to know you, you realise now that there’s nothing for you to tell them. there’s nothing of who you used to be left.

joost gave your knee a quick squeeze before turning his attention onto your arms, having slowly picked up on the fact that once again, your lack of an answer told him far more than you wanted it to. 

“okay, let’s start with the easy stuff — what did you want to be when you were growing up?”

“i wanted to be a painter.”

you hissed again at the burn of one of the alcohol wipes against your skin; smiling softly when he reassured you of just how brave you were being.

“a painter? that’s sick! did that happen?”

“almost. i went to school for it, got a degree and everything, but uh, levi always said that it’s not a ‘real job’ so…”

joost’s frown was immediate. he was shaking his head, the lines in his forehead already so prominent. “did you really give it all up because of that? that’s bullshit.” 

“i didn’t really have much of a choice, joostie.”

you both fell quiet again after that.

he felt horrible for reacting like that, fearing that you mistook all of his anger towards levi and each of the silly little ideas that the guy had planted in your head to be aimed at you. you’d sounded so defeated as your shoulders slumped, your voice falling to a near-whisper as you moved your gaze onto the floor. of course you didn’t have a choice; that much should’ve already been obvious. 

and it was the look on your face now that was hurting him the most. a look of mourning as you pondered the life that you almost had, had it not been for that asshole and the hold that he’d once had over you. as joost wiped another cut clean, he regretted for just a moment not going back for seconds that night — it would’ve been the least that levi deserved.

“what kind of art did you do?”

that brought something of a smile back to your face as your mind drifted back to all of the scrapbooks you had hidden underneath your bed. old, dust-covered notebooks filled to the brim with page after page of everything from doodles to full-fledged paintings. your bottom lip wobbled when you thought of all the canvases though, the same ones you once watched levi destroy one night just because he’d wanted to see you cry after a fight.

“everything — oil paint, acrylics, watercolour. i really loved chalk, though. seeing all the stains it would leave behind made it feel like it meant something more, you know? like i was really creating something.”

a gentle grin curled the corners of your mouth up as you spoke, beginning to ramble so passionately about what you loved that joost really did almost forget what he was doing. he had to stop for a second just so that he could witness that smile of yours, see that gleam in your eyes that he’d once had himself back when he was just kid writing songs in his bedroom. in a blink of an eye, you had suddenly become so alive and it had him floored.

it had him captivated, actually; irrevocably wrapped around your finger.

his hands weren’t shaking so much anymore.

“i have a friend that’s a painter; he mainly does the oil stuff, i think, but maybe i could introduce the two of you one day? he’ll probably have some chalk laying around somewhere.”

“is he…?”

“no, he’s not like me. can i lift your shirt up a little bit? we’re almost done, i’ve just got to get the last ones.”

you nodded, wondering how it was that his skin felt so warm against yours, all things considered.

“it wouldn’t have mattered to me if he was.”

joost knew that you were telling the truth, could hear it in the way that your heartbeat kept its rhythm. 

and the conversation continued to flow as joost patched up the last few cuts of yours, sticking little hello kitty plasters delicately across your hip bones. he told you all about this oil-painter friend of his, ‘daan’ — how he’d been the first genuine friend that joost had made after the change, how he never would’ve been able to get away from the band if it wasn’t for him.

joost even opened up to you about his family, his parents. even after so many years, you still had to help him breathe through it as he told you their story with tears all in his eyes. it was only fair that you did the same after that; he almost couldn’t believe it when you’d said you'd lost your parents when you were younger too, spent some time in the system just as he had. after all, that was how you met levi. 

and he told you all about another friend of his, ‘lenny’, how it’s because of her that he likes foreign graphic novels so much. whenever he’s not reading those porn mags that he swears he only picks up for the articles, he’s reading and then re-reading her old japanese comic books. you were never much of a comic book kid yourself, having always preferred to lose yourself inside the pages of a stephen king or a neil gaiman instead, so you promised to read ‘death note’ if joost read ‘the shining’.

by the time that he was pulling your shirt back down and chucking away all of the used, bloodied wipes that had accumulated, you were fighting to keep your eyes open. joost could tell that he was losing you just from the way that you kept swaying from side to side and nodding your head slightly even when he hadn’t asked you a question. it made his heart ache, knowing that you were so, so exhausted but still so unwilling to sleep because you wanted to keep the conversation going.

he hadn’t told you his favourite colour yet.

“cmon you, i think it's bedtime.”

you were yawning before you could argue, letting your head fall back against the cabinet behind you. the thought of your bed was undeniably heavenly; the feeling of your mattress dipping below your weight as you curl yourself into a ball beneath your blankets. the only problem was that you were just as comfy here as you would be over there, though, perched on the edge of your bathroom countertop with joost still standing in between your legs, his hands resting on each of your thighs.

this bubble you had created with him — it wasn’t one you were ready to leave quite just yet. there was still that fear of waking up alone again lurking in the back of your mind.

and it was before you could argue that joost was also scooping you up again, holding you up by the backs of your thighs as he began to carry you back down the hall. you let your head fall to rest against his shoulder, your arms draped loosely around his neck. if it wasn’t for that fear of yours twisting your insides and rotting your brain from the inside out, you could have fallen asleep right there. 

you probably would have.

“you’re gonna stay with me, right?”

joost glanced down at the top of your head with a crease in his eyebrows, carefully nudging your bedroom door open with his foot. “i already told you, lieverd, i’m not going anywhere. i promise.”

“no, i know that. i just mean -” you paused when he gently set you down just beside your bed, only stepping away to turn on the light until you made a sudden, desperate reach for his wrist. 

when the warm glow of the lamp flooded the room, you could see that he wasn’t smiling anymore. instead there was worry in his eyes as he took that step back closer to you again, his hands coming up to tuck loose strands of hair behind your ears.

“what’s wrong?”

“- i meant that you’re not gonna exile yourself to the sofa or anything, right? you’ll stay with me?”

it finally clicked in his head what you were asking. 

and it definitely felt like a lot to be asking of him, again all things considered. you just couldn’t do it though, you couldn’t handle the idea of being by yourself anymore. it was why you always stayed in the end, with levi, why a part of you couldn’t help but miss him. his presence would be chilling but his side of the bed would always be warm when you would wake up in the mornings. 

you didn’t want to start crying when you felt as though it was taking joost too long to answer. you didn’t want to guilt trip him like that, make him feel as though he had to even if he didn’t want to. but it was just another thing that you couldn’t help, because you were so tired and so afraid that you just didn’t know what else to do besides sit down and cry.

he copied you by sinking down into a squat, placing both of his hands onto each one of your knees. since you kept your eyes focused on the ceiling, trying and failing at trying to blink away your tears as you hiccuped, it was from the corners of your sight that you saw joost reach up to wipe them away himself. the pads of his thumbs stroked along the skin of your cheekbone and lingered there for a moment or two before he spoke.

“can you look at me, schatje?”

you did so almost reluctantly.

“i’m not going anywhere, alright? i’m not gonna leave you.”

nodding as you sniffled, you kept your eyes locked with his as you crawled back onto your bed and pulled back the covers. neither of you said anything nor dared to look away from the other as joost kicked off his shoes and undid the clasp of his watch, slipping it off of his wrist to leave it on your bedside table. 

that was all he did before he climbed into bed with you, still dressed in the same hoodie and sweatpants that he’s had on all night. you let his arms wrap around you and tug you up into his chest as you grabbed onto fistfalls of his sweatshirt, trusting that he meant it when he said he’d stay with you but still feeling too afraid to let go. 

more tears began to fall from your eyes, your shoulders wracking against him as you cried. soft, gentle circles were drawn anywhere on your skin that he could reach; your shoulders, your hips, your sides, and he murmured sweet little assurances into your ear.

“i mean it, okay? i’ve got you. i’m right here.”

it was with your whole heart that you believed him. with your tears slowly soaking through the cotton of his jumper, you believed that he’ll still be here when you wake up, all curled up with you with his hand still rubbing up and down your back. 

“i’m here.”

[carlyraejepsans]

until recently i was a "havent even touched the game in 8 years, i barely remember the characters" type of ut fan, but i just finished it again and my brain is active again, but im really rusty. i could only think of you to ask, please feel free to ignore if youve answered before or for any reason at all. ill send them by separating, first one is this: since flowey says he "could never get past Asgore if it werent for you" does that tie to the quality of his determination, stats, or gameplay? like is he simply stuck on the "playing" part, no matter what he has equiped or his LV, is he simply unable to manage the turns? im a shitty gamer myself, i can bet sans fight would succeed to stop me from finishing a NoMercy, so is the asgore fight equivalent of that for flowey? so he never got Any "ending" at all, just went around doing what he could, until only thing left was asgore, and reseted? if so, wouldnt that make it basically canon he'd tried a NoMercy and got stumped worse with sans? please tell me your thoughts on floweys time with the power to save and reset

Hi, and welcome back to the game! I was in your exact same position a couple of years ago, so I'm super flattered you're looking at me for information.

Flowey's final kill count before the events of the game is... debatable. More under the cut because this got long.

Of course, like you said, you have lines like the ones after you deal with Asgore for him:

Howdy! It's me, FLOWEY. FLOWEY the FLOWER! I owe you a HUGE thanks. You really did a number on that old fool. Without you, I NEVER could have gotten past him. But now, with YOUR help… He's DEAD. And I'VE got the human SOULS!

There's a pretty straightforward interpretation of this line, and it's the one you brought up: Flowey tried to defeat Asgore but couldn't, and he needed us to weaken him first to achieve his goal. The phrasing doesn't leave much to be contested. However! There's another Flowey line--this time in the geno route, I don't know if you've already gotten to it in your replay--that i feel can offer a slightly different perspective.

You understand, I've done everything this world has to offer. I've read every book. I've burned every book. I've won every game. I've lost every game. I've appeased everyone. I've killed everyone. Sets of numbers… Lines of dialogue… I've seen them all.

If you go with the previous interpretation, you can read this line as Flowey being hyperbolic, or taking some poetic liberty for the sake of rhetorical parallelism. But considering his larger metanarrative role as a mirror and reflection of the completionist player experience, I think it is also completely fair to assume that Flowey HAS, in fact, killed Asgore before. Just like he's killed Sans. Just like he's killed literally everyone who can be killed in the game, either directly or indirectly (see, in our case, Alphys).

This does require a re-framing of the post Asgore fight dialogue, however. Which is... actually not as much of a stretch as you'd expect!

"but now, with your help... he's dead. and i've got the human SOULs." -> i needed your help to kill him.

"but now with your help... he's dead. and i've got the human SOULs." -> i needed your help to get the SOULs, specifically.

It's a subtle difference, but one that gets corroborated, once again, in Flowey's NEW HOME monologue in the geno route.

We don't even need to leave to get them this time. The king has six of them locked away. I've tried hundreds of ways to get him to show me them… But he just won't. I know he'll do it for YOU.

Remember how the SOUL containers are hidden under the floor in front of the Barrier until the moment you and Asgore initiate the battle? There would be no way for Flowey to know where they were stored unless Asgore chose to show them to him.

If you want my personal favorite interpretation, I think it's pretty clear that I lean towards the second option. All while not discarding the idea that Flowey is just a bit of a shit gamer as unrealistic (for all he may trap us in unavoidable attacks over and over, he does get thwarted every single time). He certainly seems more apt in plotting schemes and manipulation than sheer fighting prowess. My preference also remains because, while Flowey IS softlocked out of the ability to "finish the game" until we (the true protagonist) start playing, that is because Undertale doesn't end when we kill Asgore: it ends when we get to the Surface. THAT'S the final objective Flowey wants, and can never achieve on his own in the state of the game before it begins. Whether Asgore is alive or dead is irrelevant.

My preference also comes from Asgore and Flowey's characterizations. We know that Flowey has spent a significant amount of time stalking and resenting and mocking and enjoying Toriel's suffering in the RUINs. He is extremely good at pushing buttons and digging wounds back open. And well, Asgore himself is actively suicidal by the time we get to him, and has been for a while. Think only of the ending where Flowey doesn't kill him, so he kills himself instead. Furthermore, if you look at Undyne's reminiscing during our date in pacifist...

Once, to prove I was the strongest, I tried to fight ASGORE. Emphasis on TRIED. I couldn't land a single blow on him!

...it's clear Asgore is not only a very strong opponent, but also capable of blocking/dodging attacks. Something he doesn't do during our battle with him, in order to give us a fair fighting chance. Which is also clear suicidal ideation. Now, once again you could use this dialogue to support the opposite thesis that Flowey never managed to kill him. Asgore clearly has past experience in fending off rabid 13yos who want to beat his ass. But he is also in a very fraught mental state as is. Flowey's... well, everything--his mere existence as a concept would be enough to make him want to die. You can't tell me Flowey never drove his father to suicide during his resets (think of Asgore and Alphys' parallels), OR his mother--though I don't think he would be successful in her case (which only makes him hate Toriel more.)

But I would say both options are very good and can both be used to explore their characterization, on their own and in relation to one another.

So while I don't disagree with your comment about the Asgore fight being Flowey's personal Sans fight, I do think Flowey's Sans fight WAS also just... the sans fight lmao. Possibly with easier requirements to face it than us, if you only consider this dialogue of his after several neutral endings in a row

You know. Smiley Trashbag. Say. If I have ONE piece of advice for you... DON'T. Let his brother. Find out ANYTHING about you. He'll... well… Let's just say. He's caused me more than my fair share of resets. Stay away from that guy.

Though it's true that that could both refer to his fight and other shenanigans Sans could have pulled to cause problems on purpose for a time traveler, if he really saw them as a threat that needed dealing with.

does that tie to the quality of his determination, stats, or gameplay? like is he simply stuck on the "playing" part, no matter what he has equiped or his LV, is he simply unable to manage the turns?

I'll leave that to your discretion, actually! Like I already mentioned, it does seem to me that Flowey's specific strengths lie in his ability to manipulate and plot from the shadows, but whether he's naturally good at battles or not, I think the core of what makes him dangerous is the same thing that made us dangerous too. The fact that his mistakes, at the end of the day, do not matter. Flowey can fail and die and try again every single time he wants.

Every other character only needs to mess up once.

When the bored time bending kid with a violent complex has the wheel, it's not a matter of "if" he beats you. It's a matter of when.

Hope that made some kind of sense!

[puppppppppy]

id fumble him so bad

[seiwas]

sellllllll it's meeeeee. hehehehehehehehehhehe

so for ur writing exercises.... deku + light? please? pretty please?

:3c

heheh heheh hehe niku. this will be the death of me. me writing izuku for the first time 🥲 i will only do this for you </3

contains: established relationship, spoilers for the end of the manga, aged up deku but sometime in between the final outcome (he doesn't get the h*** s*** from bakugo yet), mentions of sex and scars

deku + light

izuku only sleeps with the lights off.

it isn't uncommon; many people you know can't sleep with even just a sliver of light turned on somewhere in the room. but the difference with izuku, you learn, is not that he's unable to stand the light―it's that he refuses to.

you quickly pick up on it the first few times he sleeps over.

he fidgets in bed, pretty badly, actually. the nightlight you sleep with glows a warm yellow, illuminating the side of your face and coating him in its afterglow. you chalk it up to nerves, how he pulls at his sleeves and adjusts his position constantly; he is, after all, one of the most anxious people you know.

and this relationship―it's new. heck, even you feel a little jittery with his arm wrapped around you.

the rhythmic tapping on your hip only increases pace. you don't think he realizes it, so your hand gently reaches for his, intertwining your fingers as you turn around in his arms.

he's close, nearly touching you nose-to-nose; the proximity leaves you fuzzy, a little ticklish, so you giggle, a soft "oops," as the freckles dusting his face almost glisten under the warm light.

"hi," you whisper, meeting his eyes; they stare back at you wide in surprise, "can't sleep?"

he looks almost guilty at your question, as if you’ve caught him with the one thing he's been trying to keep from you.

"just—" his voice comes out louder than intended, prompting him to chuckle nervously as he readjusts his volume, "just winding down, sorry."

you inch closer, nuzzling his nose lightly, "it's okay."

"did i wake you?" he asks, cheeks flushing pink as his eyebrows furrow in immediate concern. his expression is something caught between stifling a grin and feeling sorry.

you shake your head against the pillow you share, strands of your hair tangling with his. "just winding down," you tease, watching as his gaze turns softer, eyelids drooping heavier.

sometimes, you think, izuku holds the world in his eyes―a deep, dark green, the color of life. most times, they look at you with wonderment, bright and alive; photos from inko tell you they're the eyes of his inner child.

on nights like this one, however, they hide a depth in them weighted by what you can only assume is time, and all that has happened to him in such a short span of it.

you try your best to understand what lies beneath them, knowing full well he'll never tell you outright what truly bothers him.

"is it the light?" you bring up, some time after laying in silence.

"hm?" he clarifies.

"do you have a hard time sleeping with the nightlight?"

his eyes widen briefly once more, as if shocked that you've caught him again. these split second reactions are ones you've learned to be attentive to when it comes to izuku.

"no," he tries to lie, but you know better as you turn to your nightstand and reach for its switch, "you don't–"

"it was hurting my eyes," you quickly make up an excuse, tucking yourself closer under his chin as you cut off his attempt to deny it again.

finding out that the light was the problem was the easy part—

you'd begun to notice much earlier on that izuku was barely rested on the nights he'd spend at your place. it was only when your old nightlight broke that you began to notice him waking up much later than you did, groggily rousing from a deep sleep.

—what was hard, was figuring out why.

at first, you suspected it was his scars.

"s-sorry, it's not—" he'd warned you, right as your hands gripped the hem of his shirt the first time you were about to have sex, "—it's not nice."

you didn't care though; you still don't care, and you've made that abundantly clear to him since. you love izuku and all his parts―all the nicks and jaggedy pieces of skin that make up who he is.

when you eventually ask him about it, with a request that he be honest with you for once, he tells you that it is and it isn't―the reason why he exclusively sleeps with the lights off, that is.

it's an odd, comforting relationship he has with his body—that he is simultaneously grateful and sorry for how its become a canvas, both painted and marred to symbolize japan’s historic last stand.

you find out the real reason when you catch him staring at his hands.

he does it often, when he thinks you aren't looking—his fists bunched up in the same way he used to watch the power of one for all course through his fingertips; the same way he used to prepare them in battle.

there’s a faraway look in his eyes that lingers, you notice—a little wistful if anything.

“do you miss it?” you finally ask. he gives you the same shocked look he does every time, as if he’s been caught with a secret he’s been trying to hide.

he’s learned a fair bit about you now, too, though—lying to you is futile when you’ve perfected reading his truth. he stares at his fists again as you take a seat beside him, moving to give you space. you rest your head on his shoulder gently, waiting.

“sometimes,” he admits, but you know it’s an understatement.

“i think about the vestiges a lot. i miss them the most, i think,” he continues, clenching his fists tightly, “i always try to reach out to them, but i guess it doesn’t work that way.”

“i… i try to replicate the right conditions every night, but…” then he lets go, stretching his fingers out wide. the scars on the surface ripple through his skin, telling its own story.

you hum, acknowledging what he means. silence sits with the two of you as you take his hand in yours, slowly unfurling his fingers until his palm reveals itself to you. it’s rough to the touch, seasoned with hard work and all that he’s been through.

“is that why you prefer the dark?” you ask softly, after some time.

it's not often that you stay up later than izuku does. when you do though, you catch him shifting in bed, moving from side-to-side. you pretend you aren't awake, but you hear him mumble their names, dwindling in volume as he dozes off to sleep.

he stares at his palm for a moment before he admits quietly, "yeah." his brows furrow as if contemplating whether to say more, but he shakes his head, dark green strands swaying to the beat of his embarrassed chuckle, "nevermind, it's silly."

"it's not."

you intertwine your fingers, sandwiching his hand between yours. a slight sheen glosses over his eyes as he tilts his head up to look at you. he draws in a breath, before it spills over.

"it's..." he finds the words, and you squeeze his hand in comfort, "it's easier to believe it was all real when the lights are out, and that maybe it can happen again."

[sparklecarehospital]

Sometimes I wonder how I'm ever gonna be able to work on the other Spinch stories I have, I have so many ideas for things but only so much fixation power

[eebie]

the underwater episode of bojack horseman makes me so SAD ..

[lime-exister]

Finished Rivulet's campaign the other day so here's a doodle of them!! I'll prolly end up finishing Saint or Gourmand next

[donnyclaws]

I was gonan make a post apologizing for lack of regular art but I feel like jts already clear im sporadic and in and out of it bc chronic pain and circumstances. So for now I'm gonna hibernate, get my health steady again, deal with money issues, and art will happen when it happens.

[ryuseitai]

just rmbred today this old man regular customer said smtg like im 'moving up on [his] list' ok well. you are genuinely one o fmy least favorite customers. I DONT WANNA BE ON YOUR LIST

[epicdogymoment]

walked in -> looked at the cabinets -> got even more stressed out and scared -> wandered around the place (trying to find where to get????? something??????? how?????????) -> got sick of it and left. anyway so i DID do a scary thing

[aria0fgold]

Got distracted and I ended up working on my drawing But then I realized a major mistake on it when I thought I was done with the star veil (yes, again. I changed up the stars at the tips of it, this veil is kicking my ass) and I was erasing stuff already so when I realized I'm like: FUCK-- undo undo undo undo und o un do u n d o. And now I gotta... move All those new lil designs at the tip, Again, so I'm like: Okay... alright... I'll do that Later. I'll write now cuz god Forbid I do anything in that design, it's all mistakes!

[not-poignant]

11 & 15 :)

11. Do you believe in the old advice to “kill your darlings?” Are you a ruthless darling assassin? What happens to the darlings you murder? Do you have a darling graveyard? Do you grieve?

(Note: This one has several unpopular opinions re: authors rewriting fics in particular, so please just...do not keep reading if you've ever rewritten a story you've released on AO3 or rewritten a serial or something, because like, slakdfjas how I feel about what I do has nothing to do with how other people do their stuff, lol).

Hmm.

Okay, yes, I do have a darling graveyard. In total, since I started writing as a kid, I've shelved about 5-6 completed novels. Maybe more. I didn't do it while actively writing them, I finished them, really believed in them, and one day reread them and realised they would stay on my hard-drive. That's fine. I don't really grieve them. Some I feel nothing for. In fact not having many feelings about the story was one of the reasons I shelved it.

I am not, otherwise, a very brutal 'kill your darlings' person. I'm a big believer in restorative methods and problem solving. For anyone who is familiar with Clifton Strengths, Restorative is in my top 10. I would rather fix or mend something, than shelve it or give up on it, and that part of my personality is a perfect match with writing an ongoing serial.

Here's the thing, I write most of my serials in an ongoing way with no plan. If I abandon the serial, I abandon my readers who are invested in the serial. That's a very different process to writing a novel that no one else except maybe an editor or beta is seeing.

I have to be - imho - from an integrity perspective, accountable to the process. And the process demands that I not pull a serial halfway through and then replace it with something new or not replace it at all. Firstly, there will be readers who always prefer the first version, and that shafts them. And secondly, it is almost always possible to mend a story, or write yourself out of a cul de sac. I enjoy the problem solving, I enjoy thinking on my feet, and the moments of being blocked because I broke something in the story are vastly outweighed by the times I unblocked and let the river flow again.

This is also why when I edit Game Theory, I'll always leave the original on AO3. It's also why I haven't deleted fanfic I'm actually pretty ashamed of and couldn't reread again. Like I have het Glee fanfiction on my not_poignant account and I never want to read it again. I'm not deleting it. I'm not going to shelve it. People gave it kudos, they bookmarked it, and I don't know those people and I know they can read something better, but once it's up, I am accountable to that visibility. I know what it feels like to go back and read that one special fic that for some reason you just really love, only to find out it's been deleted. And yes, we can always download stories, but I can also just choose not to be a dickhead to my readers in that fashion, so I won't.

Putting the rest under a cut because well there's more but also I might be very Unpopular Opinion about this and I feel pretty strongly about it.

(There are of course valid reasons people delete their stories, like, 'this username is connected to my legal name and I'll get fired if these stories are found' (though they can always be orphaned / made anonymous), but 'I hate this story' to me is just... /thinks/ I don't really want to let my mental illness win or be more important than the folks who might really love that one story and find something important in it. That's just.... how I think about it - if I can make sure another reader never feels that kneejerk broken-hearted feeling of having a favourite fic deleted, even just a dumb little Glee fic that's terrible, then like, yeah I won't make them feel that way just because I feel something like shame or disappointment in something. Because I have the power to also not think about those stories and then it doesn't affect me lmao).

I always have very mixed feelings when authors remove or completely rewrite a fanfic for example on AO3 - it is obviously completely their right, I feel really sad on behalf of every reader who will forever miss that original version. And as a reader, I've had this happen to me. An author has removed or rewritten a story, and I just loved the original more. I've never loved a rewritten version of a fic more than the original version. Not once. Not ever. Some of us preferred the more raw and ugly version, that was less like a generic novel and felt less like 'I've learned how to publish books now so I'm going to polish this up even though that's not why almost any of my readers are here.' And I'm painfully conscious of that re: Game Theory lol.

I guess I have really strong opinions about this. I don't know how to explain it. I feel like once I put something in public, I have pledged a certain amount of loyalty to a story, and a certain amount of respect and dignity to the reader. My loyalty to the story is that I will make it the best it can be in my capacity at the time. My respect and dignity re: the reader is that I will respect their love of the thing, even at the expense of indulging the intrusive thoughts of a mental illness, even if I don't understand how anyone could love the thing.

Shelving a serial isn't really something I want to do, and that's the closest I think I come to 'killing your darlings.' These days, therefore, I'm just a lot more discerning about what long-term projects I commit to before I commit to them. Because once I'm in, I'm all in. I'd rather quit writing entirely than leave a big serial unfinished, delete it, and start something else instead. Like, how bad am I at writing if I can't mend what I broke?

(Again, this isn't how I feel about other people's writing, it's just very important to my process that I be accountable to the story and the characters once I get started. I suspect other authors instead are more accountable to the quality of the writing and in giving their readers the most 'perfect' version of a story ever, or maybe they're just more accountable to that niggling 'I could have done that better' feeling. It manifests in many different ways! My method works best for me, but it is very much tied in with my personal sense of ethics and values that I impose on myself and try and live by.)

As to grieving... There's one novel I really regret shelving the most, but that's because I shelved it for reasons partially outside of my control - it needs an Australian Aboriginal sensitivity reader who is comfortable reading m/m romance with explicit sex. After months and months of searching, I found someone, gave them an upfront $150 USD deposit (about 6 years ago now), with the rest to come later, and they disappeared with my money and never spoke to me again. Ever since then, I have looked occasionally for a sensitivity reader in that area, but I've kind of suspected it's too niche of a thing to need, and I also can't lose that much money again. I've never spent that much on a single marketing budget for Perth Shifters, for example.

That's a standalone Fae Tales novel set in the southern hemisphere, with an entirely new cast, called Tradewinds and I'd really love for y'all to read it, but I sadly don't see it ever happening.

That one I'm really sad about. And I guess I could rewrite it to have zero Aboriginal Australian representation even though it's set in Australia, but like... :/ Y'know? Not ideal. But maybe that's the only way this story can exist, or maybe it just shouldn't exist in the first place. So it's shelved. A very few select people have read it, and everyone who's read it has enjoyed it, but none of those people have been Aboriginal Australian, and you know, I don't want to make some kind of horrendously awful fuck-up so we just... quietly leave that one in its folder and forget it exists most of the time.

15. Do you write in the margins of your books? Dog-ear your pages? Read in the bath? Why or why not? Do you judge people who do these things? Can we still be friends?

Mmm, I only write in the margins of some books, and only if they're mine.

I dog-ear my pages, I don't care how expensive or special edition the book is. If it's mine, I can do what I want with it. I see no point in being precious about physical objects, when what matters are the words inside, and not whether the page has a crease in it.

I don't read in the bath because I don't have baths. But also because I want to empty my head in the bath, so I just want to not think about anything at all.

I don't judge people who do any of these things to their own property. I get mad if they do it to my property (basic respect bruh), and I do judge the people who judge me for what I do with my own property. They're in the same category as grammar pedants, imho.

--

From the Weird Writer Asks meme!

[girltakovic]

i NEED my mother to get medicated because she does NOT understand how this stuff works

[opens-up-4-nobody]

...

[depresseddepot]

this is a very unique fear but I'm worried they're going to take my full time position away and try to make me part time again

[clonerightsagenda]

Everyone needs to hold me to this in case I weaken later but I am quitting the HOA either when I have my surgery or at the end of our fiscal year (late September) in anticipation of my surgery, whichever comes first. I have decided I am not actually that morally obligated to stick with something that is making me mildly suicidal with stress when I am getting my skull sawed apart/teeth wired shut/anti-bone-destroying and pain-dampening meds taken away followed by months of follow up appointments, physical therapy, and trying to regain whatever large percentage of my body weight I lose. I did specifically tell everyone I couldn't hold this position because of my upcoming surgery and then they left me to do it anyway. Them's the breaks! I chose somewhere with maintenance included because I'm sick and I didn't want to deal with it myself, and now I am dealing with everyone's maintenance and getting sicker. Phase 1 is quitting; Phase 2 is moving somewhere where I can just take care of myself for a change. God help everyone if the old president starts setting decks on fire again though.