#but it's not. deeply angsty

[quaranmine]

My next project after Firewatch AU will be my Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy AU. I've always thought it was a good idea and didn't want to abandon it, so I've been working on its plot and rewriting the first part when I hit a lull on Firewatch AU. Since I'm so far into my daily writing challenge, I'm just going to try and aim for an entire year. At day 278, you might as well go for day 365. But I will certainly finish Firewatch AU before then since I basically only have a chapter and a half left of it.

So, the HGTTG fic will be next. I will try to revisit/make some slower progress on IBW as well, but my pivot to HGTTG is calculated: after a year of relentless writing on a depressing fanfic, it's nice to work on something that is lighthearted. This fic will be a comedy (though I've never tried to write comedy) and is just all around more....relieving? for me to write. IBW is about the same level of emotionally draining to write as Firewatch AU is, since all the characters in IBW are struggling with their post moon big trauma. The HGTTG fic is intentionally wacky and campy, with only the softest bit of angst now and then to keep it grounded. It's fun.

Anyway, its working title is "the moon, and other misbehaving celestial bodies" and it's a S8 Boatem moon big fanfic. It needs some work on the plot but I'm starting it anyway. It is also much more wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey than the actual Hitchiker's books because I added time travel. This fic definitely reads as if it was written by someone whose formative years were spent watching Doctor Who LOL. The fic has a (mostly) different plot than the original books and some reworked worldbuilding to fit the minecraft setting, but I think it will be less standalone than Firewatch AU was since I am borrowing more elements. That said, if you don't have knowledge of the books, it just might read as wacky sci-fi?

[lylikers]

some harrows of varying mental states and hairstyles

[doublxpresso]

『So... This guy's been clingy』

page 59 - 60

beginning << page 57 - 58 < . > page 61 - 62

[sparkles-rule-4eva]

Thought this looked familiar... 😏🥹

[pricetagged]

sacrum

It's not denial, and it's not grief. How can it be when you're not dead? Or: Simon visits your tomb. It wouldn't be the first time he got grave dirt under his fingernails.

2.7k words. GN reader.

Warnings: death; grief; unhealthy coping methods; denial; mild gore and horror; references to ghost's past (being buried alive); implied character death; unhealthy thoughts; grave digging (simon literally tries to dig you up).; unedited.

Look after yourselves please. Read the tags and skip if necessary 💖

_____________

He is overwhelmed with the smell of rot.

That sickly, sweet scent of decay. Vegetation and plant matter transmuting into sticky, pulpy mulch, life rendered into dirt. It's the white lilies that bother him specifically. They're resting there, creamy white petals blooming open and speckled with dustings of heady, brown pollen. It's like looking at his own pale, wan face dusted with pockmarks and freckles, a grotesque mirror image. Beauty and rage. He looks at them and they look back, open and pretty and sweet where he is not.

And they reek. In this place of dirt, in this place of twigs and soil and peaty, earthy humus how did they spray their perfume? An altogether too syrupy, cloying bouquet that stagnates around you, settles at his feat like dense, soupy fog.

He knew that you hated them - funeral flowers, you called them- and he scoffs, toeing at one of the drooping, lurid white petals until it wilts underfoot. Lachrymose, it seems to weep great fat droplets of dew or oil or whatever it is that cries out wet with a wave of pungent redolence. You hated them, and it's so fucking stupid that they're here now because you aren't dead.

He'd nearly bitten Johnny's head off when he asked about your favourite flowers, the sergeant's voice pitched low and thick like he'd half-swallowed the words before they'd even come out. 'Dinnae want to get her something she wouldnae like, but my ma always said that carnations were fittin' for-' the rest of the words seemed to whither, choked like weeds under the weight of his glare. He wasn't quite sure what he said next, only remembering the stricken, glassy look in Soaps eyes and then the weight of his Captain's hand on his shoulder hauling him out for some air. He'd shrugged that off, too. Roughly. Circled around to face him like a dog in a pit. His teeth ached, itched to bite, clamp down and shake and tear, but even mad dogs know not to bite the hand that feeds them. Instead, he'd bristled, hackles raised high as he shoulder-checked Gaz on his way back inside.

Heard them whisper, too, as he passed, hushed and soft like they were all too aware of his pricked ears and quivering, hungry jaw. Mandated compassionate leave, numbers for bereavement counsellors. Denial. Grief. It's a load of shit.

Holding back the words feels like throwing grit on the fire; it's a battle, suppressing the heat and the rage but feeling it pop and spark and simmer beneath the surface. It's not denial and it's not grief. How can it be when you're not dead? He'd crumpled the order of service program, all crisp white parchment and serif-fonted verses. He'd held it so tightly in his shaking hand that it tore and cracked, card-type rendered to clay under his heavy fingerprints. He held it like that, thought about ripping or tossing it but your face looked back at him from the front page.

Smiling. Beautiful. Flat.

True, it wasn't you, but how could he ever damage something made in your image?

It was that pamphlet that led him here, now. He hadn't attended the service, hadn't wanted anything to do with that absolute farce. Had ignored the phone calls, the knocks on the door. You were not dead, and he was not alive. True to his callsign, he existed in some hazy, temporal space. Sustained on rollie cigarettes and tepid tea. It gave his hands something to do, thumbing at filters and glossy, thin paper in lieu of something worse. In lieu of his darker vices. In lieu of disappearing altogether into The Ghost. Faceless form. Nameless, too. But even smoke and shadows move, and he found himself turned Orpheus, drifting past the souls and shades of the departed until-

Until he's face-to-face with those lilies and that little patch of moss on the corner of your grave. Just a little speck of green against black marble. Typical of you, to bring life into desolate spaces. For you to furnish something soft and verdant where others see only hard, cold, dark. You'd burrowed deep into his driftwood body, a little seed that cared not for his splinters and hollowness. He'd been shaped, fractured, by salt and pressure. Twisted into some gnarled, dead branch but maybe that was the beauty of it. Maybe that was a portent, a sign, that he could be useful to you. That you could climb on, cling on and let him pull you up. That you were nestled inside, marrow deep in the mulchy, spongey hollows of his bones. Not hard enough or weathered enough by yourself. No sun-bleached, ossein outer shell of your own.

No matter.

The soil was strangely warm, piled high, and packed tight above where you lay. He dug his hands in, scarred, meaty paws chasing the warmth that surely was coming from you. It was wrong, actually, to say that it was strange. Anywhere that housed you would be warm. He was. His lungs were burning, squeezing at him, oxygen burning like bourbon as it whistled down his throat and smouldered in his belly. His face was cold, though, mouth and nose numb and something wet leaking and pooling down at his chin where he's tugged down his mask. Confusion titled his head, eyes closed towards the sky, neck arched in the closest he'd come to prayer in years. It wasn't raining, but something was dripping down his face.

He'd knelt like this before, put loved ones into the earth and stood stoic under the pitiful gazes and awkward, pinched smiles of acquaintances and strangers. Unbidden, the words from Tommy's - god, Tommy, Joseph, Beth - funeral echoed through his mind. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable.

He'd done it.

Walked in shadow steps across the Mexican border leaking blood and viscera, yes, but undead. It is raised in glory, it is sown in weakness. He'd clawed his way out once. Dragged his weak, struggling body to the surface to draw gasping, ash-tainted breaths and haunt the earth again. He'd help you do the same. You need him to.

Soft thing. You needed him to help you claw at the rich, grave dirt above your body, great scooping handfuls until his hands were stained with it. It was keeping you down there all compressed and boxed in, and he just knows you'd hate it. Hate being from him, hate being alone and in the dark listening only to the writhing of worms and the footfalls from above. You'd always cry a little when he was deployed, resigned and beautiful as you sniffled your farewells. Not goodbyes, superstition or hope preventing you from ever uttering words so final. So severe.

It's not goodbye if I'll see you later!

He swatted hard at his ear, his temples, fingers puppeted by paroxysm as the rich, peaty marl below him turned to dust and loam. Just for a second. Just for a whisper, the air he was breathing was thin and acrid and tasted like sand. He squeezed his eyes shut, screwed so tight that phosphenes danced behind the lids. One breath. Another. He could feel the soil caking and cracking on his skin, smell the heady, peaty turf and he was back.

The last enemy that will be destroyed is death. There was no Vernon here. No Manuel Roba, no Zaragoza Cartel. Just you, the dirt, and the foolish reaper that thought it could keep you from him.

After all those years grave dirt lingered beneath his fingers. It slotted in, filled in the groves of his knuckles and nailbeds like the tide returning to rockpools and crags along the shore. His body was made for this, forged by this, hewn from rock and dirt and left to shamble in the shape of a man. It's why he was numb to it, why stones crumbled to pumice dust as he clawed ever deeper. It was easy to ignore the jagged little pits of sediment that dug under his nails, stabbing until he dripped red from the quick. Watering your grave, he gave an offering of blood, sweat, and tears. You must have accepted this tribute, been satisfied in this champion for your soul because he felt something tugging at his chest. Deep, behind muscle and fat and gristle his heart sped up. Pounding so hard it nearly hit his ribs. He could feel it, see it when he closed his eyes. His red string connected to yours, all twisted and threadbare and fraying where it bored down into the earth, but still there. Still vibrant and raw and red.

And so close.

It was different digging down. When he'd first been reborn, he'd had company. There was him, and a lump of festering meat. A sack of bones moldering beside him in the casket. Dead and useless. Until it wasn't. Until he'd nearly passed out twice, arm shaking and stomach seizing as he raised his broken fingers to what used to be its face. There was no air, just lungs heavy with copper and carbon. He'd been hysterically lucid, thankful that that sick fucks had at least broken his nose before they tossed him in the pit. Probably severed his olfactory nerves but it was a blessing, really, not to smell the putrid, festering thing that was oozing over his fingers as he scratched and gouged until he hit bone. He had enough of his senses to kick at the boards above him, contorting around the hollow spots in the hope that the pressure of the dirt wouldn't do him in. Not killed by fucking soil, not when the bastards who wanted him dead had already tried and failed with greater means.

Digging up was like drowning. Like being dragged away by a current, water pressing and squeezing at your head until your ears popped and your eyes bulged.

It was fighting the urge to breathe, body struggling and kicking so hard against a nature that didn't care. Cruelty from indifference. Lactic acid burning and cramping through muscles that you couldn’t stop moving. Stop moving and you're dead for real. Digging up was rage and hope, something fiery and heavy pulsing under the skin. He remembered some poem he had to memorise back at the state comprehensive. Hope is the thing with feathers. He was shit at English, never cared for it. But he remembered that because it was so bloody trite. He'd told the teacher, first time he'd ever volunteered an answer in her class, and she screwed her nose up at him. Sent him out for cheek. Only it wasn’t cheek. Hope was the worm wriggling around in his guts. The stupid parasite that fed off his fear and made him wonder if he could be purged of it. Those same maggots writhed in his guts, wriggling and squirming as he kicked and pulled up. And up. And up.

Digging down, though. Digging down was harder. He wasn't getting dragged down by the current; no, he was sloshing great bucketfuls of water behind him, wondering why the ocean wasn't yet drained. It was frustrating, endless. Some kind of wank Greek tragedy where he'd been cursed to repeat the same task, over and over again. To have what he wanted, just out of reach, the finishing line set and reset at someone else's whim. Tantalus, Orpheus, Prometheus. He knew what they'd done to offend the Gods, but what about him? What bargain had Shepard and Price struck to have him back? To have him stalk and hunt under their flags, their causes. Would you disappear forever, trapped in the caves of the underworld if he tried to look at you one last time?

His body wasn’t his anymore, hadn't been for a while. Not since Mexico, and maybe even before that. He was more ghoul than man then. Some kind of shambling hellhound they set loose and tasked to kill. But his body wasn't theirs either, not anymore. He'd folded you inside himself so carefully. Made a home for his heart and yours in the cradle of his ribs until he wasn't sure where yours began and his ended. He gave his body in service to you. His heart, his mind, the gristle of his ugly mug - all those chunks of meat were yours. What use was he, then, if he couldn't protect you?

Six-foot-something and 200lbs of weapon rendered flesh, and you're damned bloody right he'd use it to reach you.

Except, something was broken. Salt stung at his eyes; whether perspiration or tears he wasn't entirely sure. Because there were tears, he could admit that now. He could admit that to the magpies watching him from the cracked, weather-worn tombstones littered around. He could admit that in the thick silence - heh, quiet as the grave - settling eerily as dusk fell like a blanket.

'Fuck.'

Regret punched him in the liver, bent and stooped him under his face was buried in the upturned earth below his hands. The first word he'd said to you since his last mission and it was 'fuck'. He didn't even say it properly, just gasped it out as he crumpled in on himself like wet tissue. Voice all damp and cracking like even that one word didn't want to come out. Soul of a poet, him.

You knew he wasn't a man of many words, though. You'd forgive him.

He was tired now. Exertion drank from him, stripped him down to his crypt-cold bones. He didn't think ghosts got tired, but here he was shaking and kneeling in the hollow of your grave like a starving mutt. Pawing and pawing at you until his nails cracked and his fingers bled. It was sapping out of him, now, candle in his chest flickering lower as he got closer and closer to where you were waiting for him. His face was wet, the wind stinging at bitter trails that swelled over his pallid cheeks. Blinking sluggishly, he licked at his cracked lips. Apprehension lingered there, danced along the seam for a second.

Whatever he finds down there, whatever state you are in he will join. You will rise together or rot together, there is no other way this can go.

His breaths catch in his ribs, jumping too quickly past his diaphragm but not quite strong enough to breach. Instead, they flutter downwards. Or something does, something sets his fingers to shake as they brush against polished wood slick with condensation. It's so cold, you must be so fucking cold in there. It sounds hollow, too, knock reverberating like a church bell from where his clumsy, swollen knuckles bump across the lid.

A person cannot enter the realm of the dead more than once. Not while they're alive. So this is it.

And he's so tired, thoughts turning sluggish and foggy as he folds his body over yours. There's just that panel of wood separating you now. The closest you've been to each other in weeks. Christ, he's given so much of himself already. So much, from such a young age. He's not sure he could even go on without giving, without a mission. But he swore to you, swore just before he left that this was the last one. Told you that he'd speak to Price, ask for family leave or an active service break or something so that you and he -

so that -

so-

Fuck, he couldn't quite catch the thought before it slipped away. Couldn't quite get his eyes to open, either. Just feathery lashes fluttering against his cheekbones until he gave in. Until he let them drift shut.

Maybe it wouldn't be so bad to fall asleep here. Just you and him, together. He could picture it; your head must be somewhere just below his. You'd probably tucked a hand under your cheek, angled slightly to the right so that he could reach out and touch you from his left. His hand slid across the slick, dirt speckled board, tapping out the syllables of your name with his fingertips. Curled around each other, forever, in the cold, dark earth.

________________

Sorry, I hurt our boy 😢 Not really confident in doing Simon's PoV - I always write from reader's perspective but, uhh, not really possible here. Just had to get the idea out bc it's been rolling around in here, gathering dust. Maybe it's been done before? Idk.

Some biblical, wuthering heights, and Greek myth references. And no shade to emily dickinson; that's ghost's opinion, not mine!

Knight ghost part ii will be out this week (finally lol, yay). Then some of the other stuff I've banged on about.

[sapphic-terror]

See what if I just -

Erik has always had a complicated relationship with God, and Charles.

[where-them-kinomiya-at]

Ray and Tyson in a nutshell

[olasketches]

me and like two other sukuna stans making posts about how miserable he is

[stevie-petey]

don't be shy, give us a blurb of season 1 where joyce berates jon after his & bug's fight :D

ooooh this is basically a deleted scene in my mind so thank you <3

enjoy !

"i'll go make some breakfast." jonathan needs to leave wills room. he isnt sure how long his mom has been in there staring at the lights, but he hadnt slept last night and hes exhausted and wills room has become a shadow of what it once was.

he misses wills laughter that once filled the room.

now he talks his mom down from panic attacks in wills room after spending a sleepless night wrecked with guilt for what hes said to you.

"jonathan, wait." joyce pulls gently at his arm to stop him from leaving. she wipes her eyes, sniffles. "sweetie, i-i dont want to overstep, but... i heard you last night."

"heard what?" jonathan doesnt understand what his mom is trying to say. is she still manic? is she really losing her mind like the cops all say?

joyce takes a deep breath. "i heard you and y/n last night. i... i heard what you said to her."

jonathans heart stops. he tenses, his body suddenly becomes cold. deep, bone crushing guilt settles harshly upon him.

"you were... awful to her."

he cant breathe air into his lungs. his head pounds. his hands shake.

"jonathan, honey-i know that things are-are difficult right now and i know maybe, i dont know... i know i havent been there for you but y/n has." joyce rubs the palm of her hands on her pants. "you cant push her away. not now."

jonathan needed his mom the day will disappeared. he needed her when the cops showed up at their door with his bike. he needed his mom when he made missing posters for his little brother.

among the guilt crawls the anger. the resentment. why is she doing this?

"im not pushing y/n away-"

"you told her she wasnt family."

"mom, i-can we please, just drop it. okay? lets-lets focus on will and i'll make breakfast and-"

joyce grabs his hand. its the first time shes comforted him since will went missing. he shudders at her touch. her hands are warm, soft, worn from years of taking care of him and his brother all alone. "apologize to her. she'll understand."

"but what if she doesnt?" and there, underneath the guilt and anger and resentment, lies jonathans fear that hes lost his best friend.

"she will, sweetheart. y/n... shes too good. for both of us." jonathan manages a weak laugh, and joyce smiles softly. "ive never seen a friendship like yours."

jonathan knows his mom is right. hes ashamed of himself. the words he said to you last night paint his skin in heavy hues of embarrassment and remorse. you didnt deserve them. he had been lost in his own shame for the photos of nancy.

he doesnt like who hes becoming, with all this anger in him.

"the two of you will figure it out." joyce kisses the top of jonathans head. "you always do."

but things have changed. jonathan now knows what failure feels like. he knows that he cant protect the ones he loves. it burns his skin.

and burns always fester.

[valerileygreen]

I like to think that Arthur and Eames came to lean and then grew into their respective fields of expertise in dreamsharing through their past experiences.

Arthur grew as the eldest child in a big family, and at some point when he was in his early teens his mother fell chornically ill, something that wasn't lethal but quite debilitating. The family had to do many sacrifices and his father had to work a lot to provide for all of them, and so it fell on Arthur to make sure everyone had eaten, brushed their teeth and done all their homework. Additionally I think he may have learned to handle needles because he needed to give his mother her medicine. That's primarily where he learned to become so organized, and also to think on his feet to solve ever new problems that sprung randomly and suddenly on him. He learned to be responsible and reliable but it also became something that defined him so deeply it's what gives him purpose, and he's so used to be the one for others to lean on that he struggles to accept help himself.

Eames on the other hand came from money, but that meant his parents had great expectations for their children. Expectations he never managed to meet. His mother, who preferred his younger sister, always thought he was too much to handle with his rambunctious and enthusiastic demeanor; his father thought he wasn't enough, especially compared to his older brother, no matter how much he tried. And so he started making himself smaller at home, so to not incur into their wrath and disappointment, started to act and hide his true self and his true interests. And slowly he started to observe everyone around him, so that he could present himself in the way they preferred or expected of him, and that's how he survived high school almost unscathed (for a given value of the term). The only person he felt he could be himself with because she accepted and loved hikm unconditionally was his grandmother,and that gave him many trust issues and a mentality of putting himself first and others later, because if you don't take care of yourself who will?

And in the end they both found what they needed and craved for in each other. Thanks to Arthur's unwavering loyalty and dependability Eames learns to trust and care for others (or just one other), and in turns teaches Arthur it's okay to need someone too sometimes, to let someone else help with your burdens, by his sheer stubbornness and affection.

[peaches2217]

Hey there, my friend! For the drabble game, how about 89 - "You're holding back"? I think it fits Mario and Peach perfectly! 💖

89. “You’re holding back.”

"'Holding back'?" Mario feigns offense, pressing a hand to his heart with a huff. "Principessa, you know I always give my all in a competition."

"Yes, I know." Peach releases her hair from its elastic before setting her helmet onto the practice track's asphalt, restyling her ponytail as she straightens back out. "You even give it your all when you're trying to lose. It's honestly quite impressive."

"I would never! You won fair and square."

"Did I? Then why didn't you use that blue shell you picked up on the last lap?"

"I knew it wouldn't make a difference." Once her hands are free, Mario takes them in his own, his eyes glinting playfully. "Mario knows when he's been beat. If he plays dirty anyway, then he's a loser in two senses of the word."

Peach can't resist giggling as he plants a kiss to each of her knuckles; she can't feel his lips or his mustache through the thick leather of her gloves, but she finds her face heating all the same. "Best two out of three, perhaps?"

That glint is still there when Mario looks back up at her, shining ever brighter in the afternoon sun. "Careful, Princess. I might just sneak up from behind."

"I can live with that. As long as you swear you won't hold back this time."

Mario doesn't even try to deny his guilt this time. He simply squeezes her hands one last time before dropping them so he can stoop and retrieve her helmet from the ground. His smile as he tosses it to her is devilish, determined, and the flame of competition reignites within Peach right away.

He pulls his cap down as she catches her helmet. "Let's-a go."

[hephaestuscrew]

I'm still thinking about that scene in Victoriocity S3E7 where Fleet runs back towards the Beast so as to lure it into the path of the train...

Clara's exclamation of 'Teamwork, Fleet!' after Fleet says he's got a plan reflects her conviction that any plan that Fleet has will be a shared plan, something they do together.

This conviction is a kind of trust, and that trust is part of the reason Clara takes a moment to realise Fleet has headed back towards the Beast. She trusts that he's following behind her. She keeps talking to him, her words full of optimism.

When she realises Fleet isn't there, she immediately realises what that must mean he's done, and her voice sounds more small and scared than I think we've ever heard it before.

Fleet's attempt at self-sacrifice is a kind of betrayal of Clara's trust, but when he echoes her celebration of their teamwork in a more somber tone, I think it suggests that he understands the weight of that betrayal.

If Fleet's plan is that Clara won't realise he's gone until it's already too late, then he thinks "Teamwork, Clara" will be the last words he'll ever speak to her. In what he imagines will be their final conversation, Fleet affirms Clara's understanding of them as a team who work well together, even as he is making a choice that rejects the possibility of their teamwork in this scenario. It's a recognition of what their dynamic has meant. It's a goodbye and an apology, even if Clara doesn't understand it as such at first.

I don't think Fleet sounds scared as he initially faces down the train. When he shouts "Yeah, this way, you stupid machine! Come on then!", he sounds defiant and grimly determined.

In fact, I don't think he sounds afraid until Clara appears, until she might be at risk of being in the path of the Beast or the train as well. It's when he shouts "Clara, stay back for God's sake!" and "Please, get back!" that there's real fear and desperation in his voice. He can confront the idea of giving his own life, but not the idea that doing so might put Clara in danger.

Another thing about these lines is that the move from 'stay back' to 'get back' suggests that Clara didn't obey his first instruction but got closer to him (and therefore to the path of the Beast and the train) between those two lines.

Then Fleet gives what might be another attempt at his last words: "I'm sorry! I'm sorry."  A repeated apology before an attempted self-sacrifice is an implicit acknowledgement of how much losing him would hurt Clara. He regrets causing her pain.

Even so, he's accepted that he is about to die and that it'd be worth it to destroy the Beast. But Clara very much hasn't accepted either those things. She's still trying to yell over the noise of the train; she's pulling off her ring to throw at him.

I think it's a good illustration of how Clara's optimism is a kind of strength. She always believes that they can "make a new plan" and that it'll be one in which no one has to die. I think Archibald Fleet needs someone like that, someone who'll tell him to drop to the ground when his death advances from both sides, someone who - even in a dark tunnel with an murderous metal monster and a speeding train - won't stop shouting that there's hope.

[antiphrastic]

I made something important

[astronomodome]

On occasion I’ll see some sickass arcane art and then as soon as I look at like. The character names. I remember this shit (NOT NEG THE ART IS LOVELY) is league of legends and I can’t take it seriously anymore

[meijohana]

My emotional support gender-noncomforming revenge consumed talented biracial assassin with a blue theme and complicated family trauma

I couldn't decide if I wanted it to be snowing or not so Tumblr gets both versions

[chapinii]

I can't take a hideduo/fitpac fic seriously whenever the author very seriously (and albeit very accurately) calls qfit 'the bald man', it just throws me out of immersion into a fit of giggles every single time