#channeled some of my teen angst into her

[mmmairon]

2h practice featuring Shadowheart

[twentyghosts]

Fandom:  Marvel Cinematic Universe, Deadpool, X-Men

Relationships:  Logan/Wade Wilson, Logan & Laura Kinney

Characters: Logan (Worst Wolverine), Wade Wilson, Laura Kinney, Blind Al, Mary Puppins

Chapters: 3/16

Summary: Wade Wilson bought a "fixer upper" house, but never got around to fixing it up. And now that he's been diagnosed with cancer, he's absolutely not going to do any home improvements. And obviously Blind Al isn't going to fix anything around the place, either. So when Laura Kinney, a teen volunteer at the VA hospital, mentions that she and her handyman single dad Logan are being evicted from their rent-controlled apartment, Wade comes up with the perfect solution to (almost) all of their problems.

Tags: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, Angst with a Happy Ending

--

I channeled some post-election stress into putting my paper dolls Wade and Logan into some Situations and making them cuddle.

Big thanks to @withoutaconscienceorafilter for beta reading/hand holding (particularly any time I tried to describe a home improvement project!)

[gloromeien]

Hellooooo I hope your day is good? Have an ask!

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Spread the self-love! <3

Whoo, my first ask! And from the exceptional and lovely @zenaidamacrouras1, whose fic Monoclonius I'm re-reading right now and loving just as much as the first time. An all-time fave, really, with just the best, sexiest, nerdiest Bucky and the sweetest dad Steve. Check it out if you haven't!

But this of course is supposed to be about *my* fics, so let's get started.

Five Favorite Fics That I've Written:

History Repleating (Or the Proper Care and Feeding of One Steven Grant Rogers), Modern AU, Shrunkyclunks, kidfic

Summary: Captain America!Steve receives a letter from Dr. J.B. Barnes, Brooklyn Historical Society. Except not quite that J.B. Barnes. This leads to Steve and Bucky having a meet cute via Bucky's work as a history teacher. Smut, fluff, and a smidge of angst ensue.

Comments: This one is, IMHO, the best fic I've ever written. Which is not to say it's good, exactly--your mileage may vary--but I don't think I'm ever going to get to this place again. It was winter 2022. We were all just re-emerging from lockdown. I was in the process of caring for my sweet little corgi girl at the end of her life, and I just needed some joy, you know? Something fun to look forward to. I feel like I channeled a lot of those emotions, that grief, into the Steve in this fic. Though it's not a sad fic by any means! It's full of bad jokes and sarcasm and sweetness and found family and people just caring for each other beyond reason. Bucky here is a bright light that comes into Steve's life at just the right moment, that allows him to believe that he could have a real future with someone to love. I really needed to hear that right about then, and so, as Alexander Hamilton sings, I wrote my way out. For that reason and many more, this will always have a special place in my heart.

Last Exit to Brooklyn, Modern AU, Shrunkyclunks, SoulMark

Summary: When Steve Rogers emerged from the ice, he wound up not only in a whole new century, but also with a brand-new soul mark. Knowing that the person he was destined to be with might be just around the corner made it easier for him to settle into a future where happily ever after was a sure thing. Until the Romanian drummer of a 'popular in Europe' heavy metal band, and freight car of personal baggage, come crashing into his life...

Comments: This fic is a confluence of so many things I really, really, really love. Soul mark AUs, for one. I looooooooove those. But I only wanted to write one if I felt like I could bring something new to the table. Once I hit on this particular idea, I knew I had to write it. Also, Tommy Lee!Seb kept me up nights, friends. I loved his look in that so much. As a teen, I had a whole hair metal phase. And it was a fun way to pay a little tribute to Seb's Romanian heritage, so... anyway. I particularly adore some of my Romanian OCs in this--two of them being not so veiled versions of Nadja and Laszlo in What We Do in the Shadows, LOL. Feeling kind of weird about tooting my own horn here, being Canadian and all (Sorry. Sorry. Sorry?) But anyway, they were all really fun to write, even if I think the fic ended up being a little too long and more angsty than I expected. A good thing? A bad thing? You can decide for yourself. ;)

Cut Him Out in Little Stars, Medieval AU, kidfic, arranged marriage

Summary:

Two Houses, both alike in dignity In fair Venora, where we lay our scene

Three years after a brutal, bloody war that saw their formerly friendly queendoms at odds for the first time in history, Prince Steven Rogers of House Grant seeks to solidify the peace between Lehigh and Venora through an alliance--marriage with Prince James Barnes of House Buchanan, his childhood friend turned unexpected enemy. But after years as the Fist of Hydra and a long recovery from brainwashing and torture, Bucky isn't in a place to marry anyone, let alone someone he doesn't even remember. Stubborn to the core, afflicted by tragic losses, and still half in love with someone who might only be a memory, Steve and his family journey to Lynbrooke, the capital of Venora, to attempt to end the tension between their queendoms, and perhaps heal his wounded heart.

Comments: My least-viewed fic by a wide margin, but one that I really love. Playing with the big tropes can be so much fun, and arranged marriage is one of the biggest and messiest. I also rewatched Seb in Kings right before writing this, and it started as a crossover between the world of that series and the idea of arranged marriage. But eventually it took its own path. I have a total soft spot for the Bucky in this one. Probably the most broken I've ever written him. I shy away from Winter Soldier recovery fics--love reading them, will never write one myself--and this is the closest I'll probably get to that. One of the reasons it's close to my heart is because I feel like they really earn their happy ending in this one.

A Slaying in Scarlet, a LOTR Mystery

Summary: On the eve of Aragorn’s coronation, Legolas and Elrohir are charged with investigating a brutal murder at the Citadel.

Comments: My AO3 account is split into two eras. From about 2002-2010-ish, I was heavily involved in the LOTR fandom, specifically writing Legolas/Elrohir, but also a few other pairings, including some OOC pairings along the way. After that, I went off to be a romance writer for a little while (and yes, I'm going to shamelessly plug my Stoker & Bash mystery romance series, because I'm fucking proud of them.) Then watching FatWS knocked me for six, and here we are, all Stucky, all the time. All this to say that my early LOTR work, I am certain, is not good. I have not re-read anything in ages, nor will I ever, most likely. But it was in writing those fics that I found a bit of my voice, and they gave me courage as a writer, and so I couldn't leave them off this list completely. This one is a Sherlock Holmes type deal, because I am also obsessed with mysteries. Hopefully it stands up a little bit. Buyer beware.

A Place to Rest and Remember Yourself (In My Arms), Shrunkyclunks

Summary: It's 2015, and Steve is living in a post-publicly coming out world. His every move is scrutinized in the tabloids and on social media, he's still wrestling with life in the 21st century, and the paparazzi never give him any peace. Making friends who aren't co-workers is practically impossible, let along dating. His solution? Have a regular, no-strings 'arrangement' with one of Natasha's honeypots. Bucky is a former spy and adventurer who used to work for S.H.I.E.L.D., but left for *reasons*. Having just gotten his heart ripped to shreds by a traitorous ex, he finds the idea of a discreet, 'with benefits' arrangement with his teenage-years crush very, very appealing. But you know what they say about what happens the minute you stop looking for love...

Comments: I wanted to write something quick and fun and smutty as hell for Stucky Week 2023. Instead... *sighs* You'll note that this ended up being 18 freaking chapters long. Why am I like this? I wish I knew.

One of my fic-writing missions is to give Steve Rogers the ending he deserves. The MCU did not treat him or his PTSD right--this is well-established in both fandom and a ton of metas more insightful than anything I could ever write on the subject. But where I feel like I maybe can address this a little is in fic. My aim here was to just spoil Steve rotten. To give him the literal world back, in the form of a Bucky who has serious wanderlust. It was also so much fun to play with Doctor Strange and the whole Sanctum Sanctorum stuff, Layla and Marc, Darcy of course, Nat and Sam. The 'love shield' Steve throws up in front of the press was inspired by Harry Windsor's PR move from many moons ago. My favorite part, about this fic, about writing fics in general, is when love just kind of happens to two people who aren't really paying attention, and suddenly it's everything, and they have to conform their lives to this new gorgeous reality. Anyway that's what I'm going for in every fic I write.

This was more talking about myself than any Canadian should do in a month, let alone a day. I need to go lie down. I don't love tagging other authors in these things, but if @burberrycanary, @bluesimplicity73, @musette22, @leveragehunters, or @dontcallmebree haven't done this yet and feel like it, I would love to read your thoughts on your incredible fics. And you, readers, please don't miss any of their tremendous work. Take it from me, their amazing stories (and Zenaida's) keep many a monster at bay when the night is dark and full of terrors. Big love to everyone out there sharing their creative endeavors with the world! <3

[sky-neverending]

Wylan looked over at Jesper, bottom lip jutted out as he pleaded with him. “Please, Jes? Just for ten minutes, and then we can get back together.”

Jesper raised an eyebrow. “Let me get this straight. You want me to pretend to break up with you so you can belt Taylor Swift in the shower?”

“Yes,” responded Wylan. Jesper sighed.

“Fine. Just let me get into character. If i’m doing this, I'm going all the way.” He took a deep breath, channeling some buried rage from deep inside his chest, and then he turned towards Wylan. “I can’t believe you! We’re over!” he shouted, and Wylan smiled before turning his grin into a frown.

“What do you mean?” he asked, breath shaky. “Are you really breaking up with me?”

Jesper took a deep breath. “Yes. Now go. I don’t want to see you anymore.” He turned away, listening as Wylan stormed off toward the bathroom.

Satisfied with his work, Jesper walked downstairs, humming to himself. He settled onto the couch and waited one, two, three seconds before the water above him turned on and the speaker started blasting. Wylans melodic voice drifted down, the lyrics filling the room.

“Jesper! What the hell did you do to Wylan?” A voice yelled from the hall, and he turned as Nina stormed into the room. “I swear to the Saints if you broke his heart-”

“Nina! Relax.” Jesper said, kicking his feet up on the table in front of him. “He asked me to break up with him so he could sing the song.”

Nina stood there for a moment, thinking. “Huh. Smart.” she said finally, falling down next to him. “We should do that, Matthias.”

From the hall, Matthias huffed. “I do not get why you cannot just sing it without all the dramatics.” he said as he walked in. “What is the point of breaking up?”

“Oh, Matty.” Jesper patted the empty spot next to him, the one not taken by Nina. “It has to be authentic. You can’t just simply sing it. It has to feel real.”

“I do not understand you people.” Matthias grumbled, sitting on the couch. “Do we just wait until he’s done?”

Nodding, Jesper smiled. “Man. I can’t wait until he’s my boyfriend again. His voice is so pretty.”

A thin figure dressed in all black slid through the window opposite the couch. “Why is Wylan singing All Too Well?” Inej asked, lowering her hood. “Did Jesper fake break up with him?”

“He’s wasting water.” said another voice, this time from one of the many doors that led out of the room. “Tell him to get a more efficient place to wallow.”

“You don’t even pay for this place, Kaz.” Jesper rolled his eyes. “He does. And he is free to spend his asshole fathers money for anything he likes.” He turned back toward Inej. “And yes. That is exactly what happened. It’s so cute, don’t you think?”

Matthias laughed. “I think you are both crazy.” he remarked, and Nina chucked a pillow at him.

“Let them live out their teen angst, Matthias!”

Suddenly, the shower stopped, and the final notes of the song came to a close. Everyone fell silent.

“What happens now?” Inej asked.

Jesper shrugged. “We get back together I guess.” he responded, turning his eyes to the stairs.

It took about a minute for Wylan to come trudging down them, hair wet and dressed in an oversized shirt and sweatpants. “Jes?” he called quietly, peeking his head into the room.

“Hello, Wylan.” Jesper responded, trying and failing to act serious. He could barely contain the smile on his face.

Wylan blushed a deep crimson. “Jesper Fahey. I’d like to get back together, please.” he stated, crossing his arms over his chest.

Jesper grinned so wide his cheeks hurt, rushing toward Wylan as quick as his feet could carry him. He picked him up in a large hug, holding his cold and wet body close. “Of course, Merchling. I love you.”

Wylan smiled into his chest. “I love you too, Jesper. I never want to be apart from you again. Not even for ten minutes.”

From behind them, Kaz spoke. “Idiots,” he muttered. But Jesper could tell he was smiling too.

[fountainpenguin]

🍒 Cherry Lane Arc

Fairly OddParents

(June 2018 - Ongoing)

Cosmo and Wanda burst into view with twin poofs beside the tree. “Timmy!” But Timmy ignored them. Keeping his arm outstretched, he looked Jorgen in the eye. His teeth ground together, his buck teeth scraping loudest of all. “Yeah, you heard me right. I’m happy, and I don’t need my fairies anymore!”

- You may also like the Pink Train arc, which precedes this one

- Romance, Angst, & Fluff

- Works related to the main FOP cast and close adjacents in their teen years: Timmy, Chloe, Kevin, Chester, A.J., Vicky, Mark, Tootie, Trixie, Sanjay, Elmer, Dale... and a quietly watching Poof

-> This arc picks up after Pink Train and focuses on humans. If you're looking for pieces centered around Poof and Foop, see Lavender Train

Summary

20 years pass between the end of Season 10 and Timmy raising Tammy and Tommy in his parents' home. Every year brings new developments, and this arc's main multichapter (Along the Cherry Lane) explores each one. Several other works fall under the designation of "main cast in their teen and adult years," so they're here too. The road to adulthood is long and bumpy, but it's about the friendships we make along the way.

☁️ This is a Cloudlands AU arc. It is not compliant with City Lights AU or the "A New Wish" spin-off. However, Dale and Hadley's arcs have been soft reset so they're the same in both AUs.

-> Hazel, Dev, and their schoolmates do not appear in this AU (except in relation to Dale or Hadley's arcs). Works that follow their journey from kidhood to adulthood are in the City Lights arc.

Any Rating - This is the "teenage growth & married lives" arc. Some works are mild while others are more intense. This arc contains flirting, dating, and sexual content.

This arc follows the "Channel Chasers" implication that Timmy had his kids young.

Read on FFN | Read this arc on AO3

130 Sums | Full 130 Prompt Series (AO3) | Other Arcs

Cloudlands AU - Detailed warnings & other AU info

#130 arc guides - More posts like this

More Fairly OddParents 'fics

Highlights of this arc:

- Timmy parts ways with his fairy family early. Chloe doesn't. Poof isn't bitter... Not even a little - Remy hides things from his parents while still living in their mansion... including the orphan child he invited to stay - Teen Dale Dimmadome in recovery (If you can call it that) - Elmer struggles against Bob for control of his body - Tootie wobbles between the lines of morality, fighting to change her life for the better all the while - Trixie garners the courage to show up for D&D night with the boys. Maybe this could work? - The unbearable lightness of raising Tammy and Tommy - Several weddings, some of which go more to plan than others - Vicky and Mark living their best(?) lives - Kevin Crocker makes an unfortunate discovery about his witch genes - Foop runs away from home... and stumbles across familiar faces - Poof watches his godbrother grow up... Very maturely and non-stalker-y, I'm sure

Read on FFN | Read this arc on AO3

"A dragon lives forever, but not so little boys... Painted wings and giant springs make way for other toys..." (x)

[pupsclawz]

Detached I

Part II

Pairing: Tara Carpenter x Reader

Warnings: Violence at the end, Angst, apathy, language, My crappy writing

Word Count: 410

Summary: Tara didn't get stabbed, Wes did, He died. You has had some trouble with apathy in the past and now it comes back to bite you in the ass. You and Tara had a fight which leads you to reflect.

a/n: Uhhhh yeah. Had a breakdown so I thought I'd channel it to writing. I don't even know if this would still be considered angst but you know we deal with it. This one's crappy and sorry Amber fans. Uhhhh No Beta we die like true writers.

Maybe if you tried harder it could’ve turned out better. Maybe if you could’ve tried a little more it wouldn’t turn out as bad as it did. But no, you just had to ruin it all by being an apathetic fuck and not caring. You just had to ruin one of the only good things you have because you didn’t try harder to understand. 

You sat heavily against the sofa staring into the empty space in front of you. Your phone was somewhere on the phone, battered and destroyed. Why? Why you? Why does everything bad always happen to you?! You let out an internal scream of rage and desperation as tears start to form and fall down your face. 

Why does everything from your childhood to your teens feel like it was always meant to bring you to this moment? From not knowing what you want from her to being so uncaring you wouldn’t bat an eye if she died!

Your tears were renewed as you recall her words from earlier. Despite them being via text, the words still hurt regardless. 

The fact that she was right about what your reaction would be just goes to show how apathetic you’ve been, but you can’t help it!

The fact is that even yourself didn’t even know how the fuck you feel. You’ve been so disassociated with yourself and your emotions that you don’t know how the fuck you feel about anything! Anything at all! You don’t know how the fuck you feel about Tara! About Ghostface even! 

You don’t know what the fuck was wrong with you! When you heard that Wes was murdered, what did you do? You sat your fat ass down to watch some Netflix. Now, Tara’s mad at you because you didn’t even bother to check up on anyone! Not one person you tried to contact.

You blinked slowly as a migraine made itself known. You tried to stand up but as soon as you did, your world turned to black. 

A figure lurked in the shadows as it observed its new victim. Oh how it couldn’t wait to sink its sharp blade into Amber’s pale skin, to cut her into pieces, to gut her. 

The figure waited until Tara and her friends left. The figure jumped out from the shadows before sinking its blade into Amber’s shoulder, one of its hands coming up to her mouth to silence her screams. Oh, let the fun begin. 

[twistedbunni]

I'm Sorry It Ends Like This

A/N: contains spoilers from about manga ch. 114 on just to be safe. Reader's death at the hands of Mikey, quite literally. Angst with a little sprinkling of love/affection. Little messed up in the head kinda talk/writing towards the end so ⚠️ (I didn't know if it'd warrant a dead dove warning or not but tagged as such)

Summary: Mikey pays you a final visit before heading off to the ruins, in order to say goodbye and tie up long forgotten loose ends. You both reminisce on the past and the man that once was Shinichiro Sano, your childhood crush.

Your tv was on, set to some random news channel that was currently broadcasting about another murder that had recently occured. You in all honestly were only half listening to the words being spoken by the broadcasters, sitting at your kitchen table on the verge of disassociating with the only thing keeping you tied to reality being the hot mug in your hands and the occasional mention of a familiar name from the television.

One by one all of the original Toman gang was being wiped out, killed off by the man they once devoted their lives to, and you knew before long you'd hear death knocking at your door too.

While you'd never been a member of Toman, you grew up close to the Sano family, studying in the dojo the grandfather ran. You were practically another member of the family back then, spending all your free time hanging out with Emma or watching Shinichiro work on a bike. Admittedly you'd had a crush on the older male, but with you only being a year or so older than Mikey you'd known you'd never stand at having those feelings be returned.

Regardless you'd never given up, always bringing Shinichiro little gifts like chocolates or decals you'd find that you thought would look good on one of his bikes. He'd always made sure to give you a ruffle on your head as thank you for the gifts, sometimes even offering you a ride on the latest bike he'd finished as a way to pay you back. You were in every way possible smitten with him in the way only a young teen would understand. He was your first love, and when he died you took it incredibly hard.

When Emma had told you about his passing you'd fallen to your knees Infront of her, heartbroken and sobbing on the Sano's front steps. For months you were inconsolable, a husk of a person going through the motions of life: Sleep, go to school, train at dojo, do your work, then cry till you fell asleep, repeat. Eventually when you did 'get better' you slowly stopped going to the dojo and hanging around the Sano family in general. Seeing them only reminded you of the love you'd lost and with Mikey starting his own gang you didn't want to be around it all anymore. Though you did occasionally ask mutual friends about how the siblings were doing for a few years after that.

Now here you sat however many year later, you'd lost count honestly, waiting for your old friend to visit. When you heard the knock at the door you moved on autopilot, moving mindlessly to let in the person you'd been expecting to come.

"Come in Manjiro. I've got some Dorayaki prepared for you at the table already." Your unfocused eyes caught his as you opened your door, ushering him in.

"So you've been expecting me then?" His smile was weak, eyes filled with a sadness you knew had been brewing inside him for years.

Sitting down across from him at your little table, you gave a smile filled with your own sadness. "You're old friends have all been killed, I knew you'd come for me too eventually."

"I see... well truthfully I wanted to save you for last." He bit into one of the buns, savoring the flavor for a moment before continuing. "I wanted you to be the last one I kill before I meet my own end."

"Are you planning a murder suicide with me?" Your voice was flat, absent of any emotions you'd expect someone to have when they asked a question as serious as that.

"No, I plan on spending my last night in Tokyo with you. I leave tomorrow to go out to that set of ruins Shini found those engines in. My end will be there at the hands of an old friend." He spoke so casually as if he was telling you about vacation plans instead of plotting his own demise.

"I see..." Taking a long sip from your mug, you thought over his words. "May I ask what makes me so special? Like why am I last?"

He was silent a moment, dark eyes calmly scanning over you. "If I'd taken your life before anyone else's, I would have been disappointing my brother."

"What do you mean by that?"

He finished off the Dorakayi bun he'd been eating and wiped his hands off on his pants before reaching over to gently hold one of your own hands in his. "Shini adored you, not in the same way you adored him though. He always told me how good of a person he thought you were and honestly he hoped you'd find someone that could return your feelings."

Tears prickled in your eyes at hearing that your childhood love had felt some kind of fondess for you. "He did? I guess I let him down then considering I never moved on from him."

Mikey wiped your eyes with the sleeve of his shirt. "I doubt he'd be upset at you for never falling in love. I know I'm somewhat relieved you never moved on from him in that sense."

"It just hurt so much after he died... I never wanted to feel that heartbreak again and I've missed him everyday since." You voice was soft, filled with heartbreak.

"I know the feeling, I also lost the person I loved, basically the same day I lost Shinichiro." There was a familiar sadness in his voice, the same kind you often heard in your own.

"You- you loved someone back then too?" Surprise was evident on your voice and face. Never did you think Mikey would have a crush on someone, especially back then when he seemed to be all about starting his own gang and all that. He always seemed too cool and carefree to ever develop feelings for anyone.

Mikey's smile turned into a more genuine one and he gave a small chuckle. "Yea, I did." He sat back in his seat, grabbing your mug and taking a sip from it as he averted his gaze for a moment. "I loved you back then... I still do actually. I admired that you never let yourself get discouraged from liking my big bro. I know he was not always that great of a person and he'd never be able to return your feelings but you never let that stop you from loving him. I guess I thought it was cool someone else thought my big bro was amazing too and I started feeling the same way for you as you felt for him."

A long silence held in the air for a few minutes as you processed his words and he continued to eat a few more Dorayaki buns.

"I'm sorry I left..." Voice hoarse from all the emotions flowing through you.

"Its fine. I never hated you for it, I knew exactly why you chose to leave." His hand reheld onto yours, comforting you even if only a little. "I think I would have done the same honestly. Seeing you would've also brought memories of Shinichiro, specifically all the times he'd brag about the little gifts you'd given him inorder to make me jealous or when he'd tell me I should man up and act upon my own feelings."

"I regret leaving sometimes, especially after I heard about Emma... I should have returned and been there for you." All the regrets and apologizes you held deep inside began bubbling to your surface now that Mikey was Infront of you cementing your demise with his presence. "You must have felt so alone after everything that's happened to you and I left at just the start of it all because I couldn't handle my own pain. I should have been there for you! If it was possible Shinichiro would have probably scolded me for abandoning you both after his death."

Mikey was beside you in an instant, pulling you into his arms and snapping you out of your internal self destruction. "Stop blaming yourself! Even if you had never left we'd still be in the same spot as we are now. I never blamed you for anything, neither did Emma and I'm sure my big bro wouldn't have either. Fate fucked all of us up, there was no feasible way for anyone to see just how bad things would become for the both of us."

Even after hearing his words you couldn't help from sobbing into his chest. All these years of masking the ache you'd felt was catching up to you and there was no stopping it from flowing out of you now that you've started to release it. You heard of every misfortune in Mikey's life and added it to your own pain everytime, from the struggles of Toman to the deaths of his friends and Emma. Every piece weighed on your heart as if you were the one that had caused them all by leaving after Shinichiro passed.

Not long after your tears stopped flowing and your breathing returned to normal after sobbing so hard, Mikey suggested the pair of you go lay down in your bed. All the exhaustion of letting out years of bottled emotions made you nod your head on agreement almost instantly after he'd suggested resting.

"Just rest now, I promise everything is gonna be okay and that you won't have to feel the burden of heartache for much longer." Mikey held you in his arms with all the affection the pair of you thought you'd never get to feel. "I know I said earlier I saved you for last because of how my brother felt about you but honestly I think I mainly chose to kill you last because of my own feelings. Truthfully Im an asshole who fears feeling the same pain you felt, having to live my life knowing my love is dead. I could handle living without you in my life knowing your living your own life but the thought of me being alive while your dead makes me feel ill."

Your brain was far too tired to respond to his ramblings with words of your own, so you sleepily just gave a hum and let your heavy lids shut over your eyes.

"I'd be lying if I said the thought of us dying together tonight didn't crossing my mind, but I know Id only be tarnishing your death tonight by adding my own. You deserve to be found alone so you can be mourned and not found with my own body bringing in all the attention or gossip of why you're with a wanted man like me. People would think poorly of you if they thought you had anything to do with me." He moved to lie you down beside him as he sat up somewhat over your sleeping frame. "Besides I already plan on going out at the hands of someone else. He actually reminds me alot of my brother funnily enough. I wish you could have met him sometime, and maybe it would have helped you move on from Shini. Regardless it's too late for any of that, and I know he won't be the one to actually kill me in the end but it'll still be nice to see him one last time too before I go."

All was silent now that Mikey had quit rambling to your sleeping form. He sat there watching you sleep for what felt like a blissful eternity to him, a hand of his snaking up to caress your neck. His fingers traced up and down the front of your throat a few times, feeling the steady pulse beneath his touch.

He knew he had to do end this eventually. He'd have to wrap his hands around your delicate neck and squeeze at some point soon before all his resolve left him. He knew strangulation was a more personal ways of killing someone since he'd have to look you in the eyes as he did it and hold longer than he'd think so you'd actually pass away and not just pass out. You deserved something more personal and intimate than just a bullet to the head or heart, sure those would end you quick but they were to heartless in his opinion.

He took a deep breath, mustering all his resolve as his hands circled your neck and began to tighten his grasp till he knew you'd have no room for oxygen to move in and out. You're eyes had opened from the shock, though once you'd realized what was happening you'd shut them again. Mikey hoped from the flash of a smile on your lips that in the haze of these final moments of yours, you'd mistaken him for Shinichiro.

Once it was all said and done, he'd planted a peck on your lips then laid back down beside you. Holding your limp form for this final time as he let his own exhaustion take over him. Tomorrow morning he would get up, say a final goodbye to you before slipping unseen out of your place and anonymously report your death before heading off to his own place of death.

Tonight though he wanted to hold you till he was sure your soul had passed over to the afterlife and hopefully you'd tell his brother and sister that he too would see them soon.

[kyuponstories]

writeblr/artblr intro.

I commissioned this artwork; the character belongs to me. Please do NOT steal nor use in any way! This piece was created by @/teller-of-tragedies.

Hello all!

My name is Kyu. I am a creative writer and traditional artist. I have the ultimate goal of bringing all of my Black (girl) joy-centered stories to life via comics & animation - mainly through fanime (a small community on YouTube of animators making low budget anime series) and stop-motion with dolls. I made this tumblr hoping to make friends with artists & writers of many genres & formats!

*tries to think of a way to bring up social anxiety & adhd w/o sounding weird & fails* 🤠

Current fanime WIPs (all to be animated & possibly made into comics 1st):

Oh, Coffee Boy! (오, 커피 보이!) - An introverted boy shows up to his first day of work at the right restaurant, but the wrong location! Transferred before he could protest, Akachi must learn how to live life with his goofy, cosplaying co-workers. (SOL/Comedy)

• Because I Like You! (好きだから) - A romcom about a socially anxious senior who unexpectedly becomes close friends to her high school's heartthrob - much to the dislike of her childhood friend.

• Eyes of the Beholder - A royal medieval fantasy & action series full of angst involving a girl who has never dreamed. Super excited about this one but can't spoil anything about it sksksskks

• It's Complicated! - A romcom series about two teens that like each other, but have a complicated relationship. Did I mention that they're childhood friends? Apparently childhood friends 2 lovers is a dynamic of mine now lol.

Current Stop-Motion WIPs (all to be animated w/ dolls):

Bangtan Beach Adventures - One by one, the BTS members find themselves on Lilac Beach. When some get held captive by a fierce mermaid underwater, they must work together to find a way to escape her clutches! (Alternative: A silly stop-motion series w/ ten episodes that I add on to as I collect each BTS doll by Mattel lol).

• Lilac Beach - Iris was born on the beautiful Lilac Beach. She loves the place so much that she walks around in her swimsuit all day. The problem? Iris is afraid of water. But it's her responsibility to take care of the beach as well as those who visit & reside there - on and off land. As new faces arrive, old faces return, and love blossoms, will Iris be able to overcome her past and return to her life beyond the shore?

My Tags (if I even remember them lol)

#am writing ~ for all writing updates

#moot project ~ for writing by my mutuals (aka moots)

#word count

#wip: oh coffee boy! || #oh coffee boy! || #wip: OCB

#wip: because I like you! || #wip: BILY || BILY

#wip: sukidara || #sukidakara

#wip: EOTB || #eyes of the beholder

#wip: IC || #it's complicated

#wip: lilac beach || #Lilac Beach

#wip: bangtan beach adventures || #bangtan beach adventures

Will add more as they come!

IG & Youtube art channel are both @kyuponstories as well (nothing on the latter as of March 29th, 2024)!

[bookwormlover10]

So my headcanon backstory for dcau wally west that is baced of Canon evidence from the dcau (and some of my flash comic book knowledge.) Shout out to the watchtower Database YouTube channel. their like the matpat of the Dcau. My headCanons are inspired my the video they did on Barry Allen. ( Expecly my multiple Barry Allen suffer options)

To understand the rest of my headCanon you need to know that my world building headCanons that superhero's weren't wildly accepted ( especially with the police) until Superman was on the seen during Superman the animated series. Before they worked in secret to avoid getting arrested and becoming urban legend. ( Batman is sorta an exception but it's Gotham)

So flash like Jay Garrick and Barry Allen were hated by the police and became urban legend / rumors. ( They're basically like the local cryptid) it was the rouges that knew that they were no rumors. ( Got this by a really good jl flash fanfic. I think it called kid to my flash on a03 )

So now to the flash we are here for

So when Wally was around 10 his parents were getting a divorce. Rudy and Mary not wanting Wally to see it. sent him to live with his aunt iris in Central city while they preced with the divorce.

Wally knew that his parents were divorcing. he thinks that the only reason that they married in the first place was because he was an ancient.

While Wally loves his aunt iris and was having fun with her, he really didn't have friends in Central city out side of her and he was starting to get a little lonely. That was until one rainy day in Central city, Wally was in the park letting out some teen angst. That is were he meet the scarlet speedster in an abandon tool shed. Wally has hard about the rumors about the flash from his aunt but he never expected to meet him. Turns out the flash was hiding from the police after he stop a robbery buy a rogue and he was completely out of juice, so that why he was in the abandoned tool shed.

After hearing what Wally offered the chocolate bar he had in his pocket. The flash tried to decide, cause he felt it wasn't right taking a candy from a kid, but Wally didn't want the first superhero he meet starve. After bantering they ended up splitting the chocolate bar in half.

After silently eating their chocolate bars for a minute. The flash asked Wally what a kid like him was doing out on a rainy day like this. That led to Wally telling/ rant the flash about his situation and how he's having trouble making friends here. The flash tryed to give Wally some advice and if Wally wanted to he could be Wally's friend. Wally said yes. ( Now their friends yay)

Few weeks later iris Meet Barry Allen at the police station he worked at cause she was doing an interview there, then sometime later they started dating.

Wally didn't like Barry at first. he would rant to the flash about him. ( Yes Barry was dyeing inside hearing insults about himself from Wally) but over time Wally started to like him even.

As for the flash. At first he and Wally would meet at the tool shed they meet and eventually the flash gave Wally a special walkie-talkie That would go to his ring, to communicate to him.

Wally tried to help the flash fight crime. But the flash being the logical adult that he his said no. But Wally tried to help against the flash wishes. ( Don't worry he had goggles to hide his identity) It was becoming so much a problem that the flash had to tell his aunt iris what was going on. Iris was angry at first but she did want to separate Wally for his friend cause thank to the flash Wally was making friends. So they make an arrangement. Wally can go on patrol on the weekends with the flash but under no circumstances that would go near fights. But in return the flash would let iris interview him.

You see iris would always write articles for picture news defend the flash. In her opinion with how much he does for central city it wasn't right that he has to run from the police. Which he was happy to do. ( Barry does eventually tell iris that he is the flash) to more flash adventures

Over time Wally sees the flash as a father figure and looked up to him as well as Barry Allen.

As time goes on Barry in Barry Allen fashion never had the guts to tell Wally that he was the flash. So every fathers day he gets two presents from Wally. But in return he knows what to get Wally for his birthday and holiday in both Barry Allen and the flash.

Wally's parents never really came back for him. in the beginning they would both call him to see if he was ok, but evetwely it stopped. years later ( when he's an adult and has gotten his powers ) he finds out that his dad got arrested for one of his monny scheme and he found out his mother remarried and has a new family with out him in francs.

Marrys expiation to Wally is that when she was going to visit him as a surprise and but before she went out of her car, she saw how happy he was with iris and Barry. way more happy then he was when he was with her and Rudy, she thought that Wally was better off with out her. then she left.

she regret that she did it. but she thinks that it was for the best, Wally wouldn't be the young man that he is today if he stated with her. it hurt to hear but he had to agree with her. Wally tells her that he don't think that he could ever forgive her for abandoning him. but he is willing to start over if she is. ( then they some what reconcile )

this is the part one of my headCanons that Barry Allen stops being the flash. But all you need to know that somehow Barry Allen isn't the flash and iris has disappeared (and yes I'm keeping her backstory that she is from the future. I just love it so much cause it comes with angst on so many levels )

Wally got his superspeed when he was around 20. In the same accident Barry had. ( Like his canon origins but with out the flash involved and he didn't become a sidekick afterwards)

Let's pretend that Wally graduated college early or that he was an intern at the police station were he got his power then graduated buy the time of jlu flash and substances ep. Any how Wally became a forensic scientist in Dcau canon but I like to think that he wanted become one because he looks up to Barry so much and wanted to walk in his footsteps

When he got his powers he was extatatc that means he could finally be the hero that he always wanted when he was a kid. So Wally made the superhero costume that he's been tweaking over the years. ( And making his own ring and costume shrinking formula ) he became the hero he wanted to be since he was a kid, Kid flash !

That was until a month later when everyone (mostly the rouges) saying that he should just take the flash as his name since the flash has been gone for years and it was kind of pointless to be calling him kid flash.

Wally hated to admit it but they were right. he wasn't a really a kid anymore and the world need the flash more then they need a kid flash. so with a heavy hart he took up the mantle as the flash (with costume a costume change)

other thing that i couldn't find a place for

he had meet and befriend jay Garrick but that is a headcanon for an other day

he meet Dick Grayson and Roy harper throe the flash ( Barry Allen) but headcanon for an other day

he was really angsty as a teen but got beater over tine

he befriended the pied piper (Hartley Rathaway) as a kid, but ones in while he douse do a crime because he's bored and they offer discounts on drinks at the bar they go to in flash and substances when Roges has robe a place or some capitalist has piss him of.

[gayeddie-saved-me]

Any 911 s7 ideas -things you think might or you would like to have happen- ?

honestly… i’m awful at guessing these sort of things. it’s been like forever since i’ve been watching a show as it’s being released (i lived in a house with someone that was very controlling about what we watched so i missed a solid 5 years or so of tv shows being released) so this is an interesting experience

honestly i get nervous about making predictions because i worry about getting my hopes up. i’m really really hoping that no matter what happens, abc does a good job handling the characters and storylines because sometimes when shows move from one broadcast channel to another it can get dicey.

i’m curious to see where they go with hen and karen and the new baby, and what hen is doing when it comes to medical school. also in general i just want more karen. always. she means so much to me you don’t understand.

i’m curious to see how abc handles the cruise ship situation, and whether it’s going to be a trauma that is thoroughly discussed or if it’s gonna be another tsunami scenario. and i want a good dramatic reunion scene between bobby and athena. i want to cry so much abc please make me cry but don’t kill them

some flashbacks to the tsunami episodes specifically for buck and eddie and christ would be great also but i don’t expect much

I WANT MORE CHRIS!!! i want to see pre-teen/early teen chris. i love him so much and i think it will be really interesting to see where they take his character now that he’s reaching an age where kids start to fully explore who they are. you reach a different level of consciousness and the early roots of your childhood form into deeper roots and personality traits and also just. teenage angst. anyway. chris diaz superiority forever and always

speaking of superior characters please please please please more ravi character development more ravi scenes im begging im on my knees he has become so important to me and i wanna see him and get to know his history more because the little bits we’ve gotten are not enough MORE. RAVI. PLEASE.

i know a lot of people are hoping for canon buddie and obviously i would LOVE to see that!! but i am also nervous that if we do start to get canon buddie, they won’t do them justice. i do however want more buddie content regardless of whether they acknowledge the romantic implications of their relationship. but also….

pls just kiss each other for gods sake. PLEASE.

also what are they gonna do with natalia and marisol because [redacted]

even if they don’t make buddie canon, i would really like to see gay!eddie become official. because that man is so queer coded, buddie or otherwise. good lord.

(also bi!buck but we know how television is with bisexual representation 😬)

and can i just say:

what the fuck is going on with the basketball shit

i have zero idea what is happening there

also i want to see madney wedding stuff obviously, specifically would love to see buck helping with decorations and planning and being a little asshole.

and more jee cuz i love her so much. i work with toddlers so i get really really excited when we get scenes of her. i really hope we get more uncle buck content but we’ve only got 10 episodes to work with so i don’t have high hopes.

this is such a long answer sorry 😅

[dimpledpran]

8 Shows to Get to Know Me

I was tagged by the lovely @talays-portkey and @i-got-the-feels​ !

1. Ghost Whisperer (2005-2010) I think this was the first show that i actually tried to watch as it was airing. I still remember waiting for 10pm every Friday, whether everyone else was awake or not. I think I watched all the way from Season 1-4, until it stopped airing on our local channel. 

2. Glee (2009-2015)  Honestly this was my introduction to the English music scene. I did not grow up listening to English songs, so my initial playlist was basically Disney Channel artists and Glee covers. As a music lover, I just enjoyed listening to their takes of the songs. I think I stopped watching somewhere during Season 3, and only did the Cory tribute episode after that.

3. Teen Wolf (2011-2017)  This was the first show that I started reading fanfics for. Well I started reading before I watched it, but Sterek stole my heart. I was very into the series, to the point that I watched Season 3B in one night because I had to find out what happened. Dumb me thought it was a good idea to start a new season at 8pm at night. I stayed up through the night, and texted my friend at 6am to yell about the whole thing. And they replied that it is too early to be awake to scream about it. “What do you mean wake up and watch it. I haven’t slept yet” So yeah. Stiles is my baby, and I will protect him with my life.

4. The Untamed (2019)  My friend recommended this to a few of us during covid lockdown, and I am very glad she did. It really opened me up to a whole new world. This show had such a grip on me. To the point that I started a new side blog for it, and learnt how to make edits for it. I got to know so many incredible people through the network cos of this show. It was such a brilliant show! The plot is so intricate! It has angst and heartache and amazing costumes and stunning sets and a cast who honestly killed it. Definitely a show that I would recommend to everyone. 

5. Bad Buddy (2021-2022)  Obviously I can’t go without talking about BB here. Have you seen my blog URL? Till BB, I never watched a show as it was airing. I usually wait for it to end and then binge, or start watching it just in time for the finale. But I kept seeing gifs on tumblr and it made me want to check it out. And boy am I glad I did it. It was such a fun experience to watch it live and scream on a weekly basis. For some reason the hold that this show has on me seems to be lifelong? I have no complaints though. I am still enjoying all the BB brainrot. Pran is my baby. I have never related to a character as much as I relate to him. He is so precious to me. And this show just blends angst with humour and a touch of reality so well. I am making it my personal mission to read through every Patpran fic on AO3. This show made me want to try writing. I cannot explain how much this show means to me. A definite must-watch as well!

6. Arivaan (2019-2020)  So my sister told me that this is my kind of show and made me watch it. I started it while she was halfway through, and finished it way before her. It was right up my alley. The whole premise is about trying to identify a serial killer who has been murdering women, and leaves an origami paper crane behind. There is a police officer who manages to find these clues and tries to identify him, but the killer disappears and due to personal issues he end up leaving the force. Years later the killer is back and he somehow gets roped into it again, but his partner is now leading the case, and is finding out things that he doesn’t really want to. And I really enjoyed the way it was taken, and the I am really hoping that there will be a Season 2 for this. 

7. Paava Kadhaigal (2020)  Honestly no show has made me as mad as this has, and that is totally the point. (Although I am totally gonna be ignoring the second episode. That does not exist to me) It is an anthrological series, with 4 3 episodes touching on different hard topics/issues prevalent in society. The way it was taken , the music, THE CAST, EVERYTHING WAS BRILLIANT!! I had to pause it and just scream on twitter to release all the frustration that this brought up. Which means it really did its job well. I have not watched this series  since the first time, but trust me when I say I remember every detail because it has such a lasting impact. Especially the first and the last. I was bawling.  NOTE: This can be very highly triggering, so please do check out the synopsis before you watch it. Or feel free to hit me up with any questions, or just scream about it if you do check it out. 

8. 3 Will Be Free (2019)  Insane plot with amazing characters with so much depth. Loved that each character was so complex. There is no character that is purely good or bad, like it was so real, and you feel for them all equally. This really set a standard that no other show has reached so far. I need another series like this. And of course anyone who put Tay Tawan in funky suits gets a plus from me. Also more female characters need to have guns!!

Honorary Mentions: Mindhunter: This would have been number 8, if it wasnt cancelled!! The casting directors for this deserve all the bonuses for how creepily identical the actors look to the actual serial killers! It was so interesting to try and get into the head of the serial killers and understand why they did what they did. LOVED IT!!! Until We Meet Again: This used to be my favourite BL series until Bad Buddy took over. I loved Fluke’s effortless acting. He is brilliant. And I love the whole concept of reincarnation and finding you soulmate. And this did it so well with the angst and touch of humour and romance. And of course TeamWin stole my heart. 

Theory Of Love: Honestly, wasn’t that much of a fan the first time I watched it. But the redemption arc is so goood, that I felt so much for Khai the second time I watched it. That train station scene just lives in my head. So for rewatch factor, this deserves a honorary mention.

The Good Place, Word Of Honor, We Best Love, Stranger Things, RE:Mind

Tagging: @highwarlockkareena , @eohachu , @markpakin , @fangrui , @fuujiikaze , @gege @seawherethesunsets @gaiamochi (no pressure)

[vauxxy]

songs i think the marauders era characters would EAT THE FUCK UP!!

james potter

‘say yes’ by elliott smith

i feel like james doesn’t really listen to music that much, more so just pick out a few songs that sirius and remus like and just go with it. remus loves elliott smith (despite his more ‘grunge’ music taste) so he would play a lot of his songs when he’s alone or just chilling out.

james would hear this song and be like “UMMM THIS IS SO ME CORE” and he’d listen to it on repeat for WEEKS.

remus lupin

‘my iron lung’ by radiohead

this mother fucker is a radiohead stan. remus is the radiohead bf sirius is his blur gf.

he loves a little guitar riff and then absolutely nonsensical breakdowns in the middle of the chorus 👍

also i feel like he just relates to the teen angst vibe of it. he listens to it when he’s upset that he’s a queer werewolf from care home. so HIS ‘iron lung’ in that sense would be he queerness and his upbringing, or maybe even sirius at some points.

sirius black

‘beetlebum’ by blur

one thing abt sirius is that he only listens to brit-rock or 2000’s pop punk bangers with explicit sexual innuendos. they just hit!

he’s an early p!atd stan btw. soz.

and a deftones boy. cringe!

but he really likes blur!! he listens to it for hours at a time. he just LOVES the chorus soooo much. it’s a bit basic but he likes it.

lily evans

‘velvet ring’ by big thief

i feel like lily is a folk fan above all other genres of music. obviously she loves fleetwood mac, taylor swift, etc… but her loyalties lie with the cluttered, wordy and intimate lyricism of artists like big thief, clario and sidney gish.

lily listens to this specific song whenever she feel nostalgic or when she’s got growing pains. it kinda grounds her. she’s the type of person who gets so fixated on the past or what her futures gonna look like, so she channels those feelings into reflection instead. she finds a lot big thief’s songs do just that :)

marlene mckinnon

‘debris’ by lowertown

marlene loves indie girl music!! she loves messy vocals and melancholic chord progressions, so she lovesss lowertown.

this song is basically the verbalisation of how she feels other people would treat her if she finally opened up. she feels deeply attacked by the lyrics lol xx

mary mcdonald

‘this is what makes us girls’ by lana del rey

this mf loves lana del rey more than anything. she is a dark feminine born to die giant falsies dark pink french tips and ices mocha latte typa girlie.

this song just makes her feel so powerful and so connected to her friends!! she thinks it’s just so her. she also feels like her attractiveness is one of her best qualities (which isn’t true she’s literally the funniest and kindest girl at hogwarts) and one of her only strengths and she HATES FEELING THAT WAY… so when she listens to lana she’s like ‘mmm she’s so mother! she gets me!!!’

she knows she’s a pretty girl with a group of pretty girl friends and she loves it!!!!

regulus black

‘you’re on your own kid’ by taylor swift

ok regulus is not a tswizzle fan by any means.

but pandora likes her and forced him to listen to a few of her favourite songs. when this song came on he was like “… ok wtf 😧 she’s so me”

all of the lyrics just ATE in his mind. he relates to every lyric PAINFULLY SO.

pandora

‘whatever’ by elliott smith

pandora listens to literally every type of music ever.

she likes phoebe bridgers and found out about elliott smith though her, and heard this song and was like “elliott smith wrote this song about reggie and i xx”

they’re best friends! they are literally the bestest of friends. such a pure friendship.

all of them :)

‘spring’ by angel olsen

bro you’ve gotta listen to this song. it’s like evil crack.

[autisticandroids]

directors commentary for goldfish

[the goal here is to provide a director’s commentary, a la the one i did for i fold in half so easily, though obviously less comprehensive. this commentary is for goldfish.]

ohohohoho this one will be fun. the thing about this fic is i was like... stretching my creative writing muscles more than i usually do, because normally i write within, i guess, really narrow parameters? like i have extremely limiting constraints on things like how characters react to situations, and in fact, what situations arrive because a lot of my conflict is character driven, because i need stuff to work in tandem with my interpretations. like, to me, ficwriting is less about creative writing and more just an extension of interpretation, you know? obviously this isn't always true, i've written a number of fanfictions which ask important creative questions like "what if this gross thing happened" and "what if horny," but like. on the balance, when i write it's mostly about interpretation. it's like, deductive reasoning as opposed to the inductive reasoning someone who might write a longer, plottier fic might use. like, i'm trying to work out fanfiction from first principles.

this is honestly mostly because creative writing is hard for me. it's not really one of my talents and it's not something that comes easily. i'm an interpreter at heart. i love to pull themes and meanings out of other things and show my work and such. i love pulling on a single thread and watching things unravel. i hate weaving the original tapestry to unravel because that's, like, hard.

anyway goldfish was an opportunity for me to indulge in character creation. the thing about lisa is that she does have some characterization in the show, but it's not a lot, and much more importantly, there's good reason for her to be different in goldfish. in the show she's got a ten year old son. parents, especially primary parents, really structure their lives around their kids, especially when they're that young. but goldfish is set like a decade later when ben would literally be off in college. lisa would have spent ben's more independent teen years unfurling a little, and would now be unfurling a lot. also importantly, lisa has experienced potentially personality altering trauma/brain damage from having her brain wiped, and the lingering memories cas didn't manage to get. i would expect that to change her at least some.

it was also fun to really write some cas and jack. like i haven't done a ton of that because a lot of the really solid cas and jack angst opportunities involve one of them being dead or absent. but in this case they can be together and still miserable <3. also the biggest motivation behind this fic in general was actually like. how bad it sucks that chuck kills jack instead of moriah getting any meaningful resolution. also stream the river by @davidfosterwallaceandgromit but that's kind of tangential.

The house is empty enough to make a woman stir crazy. Ben’s off at college, and the last few years Lisa has been making most of her money from her Youtube channel like a twenty first century Jane Fonda, so she only has students in her home studio once a week. She’s been going to the flea market every Saturday just to talk to people, and she finds herself actually looking forward to getting emails.

important to me that lisa makes gen x references. she's a gen xer.

So when the doorbell rings at eleven AM on a Tuesday in May, she’s not just curious, she’s thrilled.

oh another reason why i needed to reinvent lisa a little is that i needed her to be the kind of person who would let two strange men into her house even if they had weird vibes. and then she needed to not completely lose it when the vibes went from weird to rancid, or, at least, to not lose it so bad that the situation becomes unrecoverable. i needed her to be impulsive and open-minded, basically. so i wrote her that way.

In the distorted fisheye of her peephole, she sees two men. Maybe a man and a boy, she can’t get a good look at the second one because he’s behind the left shoulder of the first, his face in the most distorted part of the fisheye. But his forehead is baby-smooth, and his posture, the way he relates to the other one, suggests a certain skirt-clinging shyness. Neither of them appear to be carrying anything (or, the first one doesn’t; she can’t see the second one’s hands), and they’re not neighbors, as far as she knows. She can’t see any reason why they’d be at her door, but even if they’re Mormons or something, they’ll pass the time. 

the thing about me is i'm not immune to jack hiding behind cas a little bit <3.

(They look a bit like Mormons, actually, or the first one does. He’s all dressed up like an accountant, with a big raincoat on. She’d call it a flasher coat if it was buttoned, but it isn’t, so it just makes him look like he’s following an office dress code. But it’s out of place in the seventy five degree spring sunshine, and besides, if this guy works a nine-to-five, what’s he doing here in the middle of his shift?)

i spent a lot of time thinking about like... how a normie would actually perceive cas and jack, in this fic. it's important to me to try and capture a truly outsider perspective - no insider knowledge leaking in and coloring things.

She opens the door and her mouth in the same motion, but finds she’s forgotten how to greet another person in a reasonable manner. Fortunately, she doesn’t have to - the man (and she can see now that his companion is a boy, maybe a few years younger than her Ben) speaks first.

“Lisa Braeden?” he asks, and his voice is odd. Gravelly. Something about it strikes her. Gives her goosebumps, actually. Maybe just because it’s weird, but… She shakes her head. If the voice reminds her of something, it’ll come to her eventually. 

so she never actually MET cas but she WOULD have heard him and dean conspiring to wipe her brain while she was unconscious. chilling!

Much more unsettling is the fact that he knows her name. One of her girlfriends knocked doors for Hillary a few years back and said they’ve got these new apps that tell you the name of Democratic Party donors in each household, so probably it’s something like that, some kind of canvassing thing. At this point she’s hoping he’s a Mormon, actually. Because the other option is, well, you can’t upload videos of yourself to the internet wearing skintight clothes and doing yoga poses without acquiring a few of the less savory variety of fan. She’s never really had an incident, (she’s always thanked her advancing age for that - forty isn’t exactly over the hill but it’s definitely older in Youtube terms), but she knows girls who have, and it’s kept her on the lookout. But if he’s some kind of stalker, why would he bring his - son? Yeah, the kid has to be his son; looking at the two of them she can see it in their faces: the nose and lips and forehead, all identical, as well as the jawline and something about the eyes.

so i used to knock doors for bernie and they do in fact have a little app that tells you people's names. also it was very fun to use the straight woman definition of "girlfriend." anyway it's important to me that she perceive cas as a potential threat because again, he's a stranger. i know we know cas is a sugarplum, but she has no reason to see him as anything other than a random dude. a random dude who came to her house and knows her name.

“That’s me.” Her voice is flat. She leaves the barred screen door closed and locked, for the moment. 

“May I come in?” The man looks… almost sad. Or maybe that’s just his face; his eyes are downturned at the corners in a way that makes her imagine he would look on the verge of tears even at a comedy show.

the thing about misha collins is he has tareme eyes in real life.

“How do you know my name?” She blurts, still not moving to open the barred screen.

“We- we have a mutual friend.” He looks down, now. Maybe he’s lying. His probability of being a stalker is rising by the minute, or so something hysterical in her is saying, but he doesn’t look threatening. Which is probably how a stalker would look, actually. But he looks… contrite. He’s not trying to charm her. Which is a good sign, probably. “We’ve never met, but… he asked me to do something terrible to you, once. And I did. You never found out, but I’ve… I’ve come to make amends.”

Well. Whatever that is, she’s pretty sure it’s not a stalker opener. She hears the click of the latch before she realizes she’s opening the screen. It swings open, and she and the man just sort of stand there, looking at each other. He steps back to avoid getting clipped by the door, and brushes against the kid behind him. The kid also steps back. She inclines her head, a wordless invitation to both of them, and watches him trail the man inside. He’s taller than his dad by a full inch and a half, but he’s such a bean pole that it only emphasizes how small he looks. Especially with the way he’s dressed: skinny jeans give his legs a rather baby deer look, and his windbreaker is a faux-letterman, navy blue with white stripes on the sleeves and collar, and like a letterman it’s cut to be baggy, so even though it clearly fits him like it’s meant to it makes him look swamped when paired with the jeans. Throw in his carefully combed mama’s boy hairdo and he’s got the seventeen going on seven thing down pat.

MORIAH OUTFIT MORIAH OUTFIT. anyway this is what we call tall jack agenda. alcal may be like an inch shorter than misha but To Me jack is the second tallest member of the household. i am not immune to doing stuff just 'cause it's cute. and again this is why lisa needed to be impulsive: why the fuck would you open the door for these dudes? or rather, i would, personally, i'm not a person who has a lot of fear of strangers and i'm extroverted and gregarious, but i'm also twenty five and have spent my life engaged with the kind of progressive politics where we deconstruct shit like stranger danger. lisa is a forty year old suburban mom who would have literally been in kindergarten during the satanic panic, and probably spent her whole childhood being told about pedophiles with candy vans, not to mention her whole adulthood being blasted with local news segments from stations with an "if it bleeds it leads" mindset genetically engineered to make well-off suburban white women like her feel hemmed in by danger. demographically, lisa is the kind of person who would probably call the cops in this situation, so figuring out why she doesn't is character building.

The two sit primly on her couch, mirror images of each other. The kid seems to watch his father, mimicking whatever he does, and what the father is doing is sitting knees together on her couch, hands folded in his lap, shoulders slightly hunched. She offers them water and both decline with the same polite no, thank you, but she bustles off to the kitchen anyway because her mouth is, as of seeing two strange men sitting on her nice burgundy leather couch, bone dry.

two of them. also lisa is channelling bilbo baggins here. there's guys in her house and it is ABSOLUTELY outside her parameters of normal and she's panicking a little, not really because they're a threat but because the whole situation is a little stressful.

While she’s in the kitchen, she notices the bottle of Merlot she’d left out when she’d decided to hit the mommy juice this morning. Can she even call it that anymore? She’s still technically a mother, but her kid doesn’t even live at home except in the summer these days. At this point it’s probably more honest to just call the habit “day drinking.” Or “functional alcoholism.” She snaps a reusable cork, the one with the little frog and lily pad sculpted on it, into the bottle, and stashes it under the counter.

the thing about lisa is that she's very lonely. and also she has brain damage that fucks her up in ways she is incapable of even noticing because of the brain damage.

Then she slides a hand into her purse and tries not to rattle her keyring as she retrieves it. There’s a lot of dangly bits on it: a set of cat shaped charms Ben had bought her when he was fifteen, a miniature flashlight which she still hadn’t removed despite the ubiquitous nature of the mobile phone light rendering it obsolete, and of course thirteen different keys of varying degrees of usefulness, but what she wants is the tiny canister of mace attached to the ring by a two inch chain. 

Just in case.

fun fact i got into a long discussion with my feminist methodology professor like two years ago where we talked about how frequently she used to ask her female students and her male students to talk about their experiences of walking alone outside at night and the male students would be like "idk i just do it" and the female students would be like listing off the ten steps of their security routine that they would go through just to walk the hundred yards to their car. and then she (my professor) read more statistics and was like wait a minute. actually men and women experience stranger attacks at approximately equal rates. maybe i shouldn't use this as an example of structural misogyny anymore. anyway that security-conscious culture is part of a bigger ball of things that contribute to patriarchy AND white supremacy AND carceralism and and and. and actually, tangent but also not really, it has impacted lisa's life in specific ways because like. so there's the myth that women are extra vulnerable to attacks by outsiders. so therefore they need men to protect them. and anything those men do in the name of that protection, either to other people, or to the women they protect, becomes justifiable. which is what happened to lisa when she was with dean. like dean feels the need to protect lisa from monsters and the supernatural and in the course of that protection violence against lisa (and as an extension, ben) (insert dean hitting ben compilation here) becomes eminently justifiable. which is why the mindwipe happened. like obviously the mindwipe is ridiculous because it wouldn't be effective, but also even if it was, this ideology is still backing it up. (obviously dean is also using lisa and people like her to justify killing monsters as well, but that doesn't really touch her, personally).

She slips the whole rat’s nest into her back pocket, and tries to remember why she came into the kitchen in the first place. She finds herself staring at the back door. The real estate agent said it was good fire safety, having a door in the kitchen. It means you can get out if something goes wrong with the stove. Means you can run. She could just run, let the strangers take over the house and leave. 

representation for girls with rat's nest keys <3. anyway again i think that lisa's sort of... frenetic flightiness is a result of the brain damage. like i think she experienced a blow to her executive functioning capacity when cas wiped her brain. but also she's like. a little tipsy right now. so.

When she returns to the living room, her guests appear to have quite literally not moved a muscle. She keeps trying to look at them out of the corner of her eye, to see if they still breathe when she can’t see them.

She takes a sip of her water.

“So, uh…” she starts. The man stares. His gaze isn’t hostile, but it is persistent, and she finds it makes her nervous. “What should I… call you?”

“My name is Castiel. This is my son, Jack.” So she’d been right. A small moment of self-congratulation distracts her from nervousness.

“Jack Kline.” The kid’s voice is expressionless. He extends a hand without getting up. It’s an awkward motion, clearly practiced and not quite understood. Fits with the rest of his behavior, the way he imitates his father. Maybe he’s got some kind of disorder. She shakes his hand.

my dad once referred to my obviously autistic chemistry teacher as having "some kind of social disorder" which is a way of normies (i say normies because my dad is Not neurotypical he just thinks of himself as normal) discussing and vaguely dehumanizing autistics that i was quite charmed by.

“You have a beautiful home.” The father seems to be staring at her cut glass chandelier. It had been quarter-price at Home Depot; the thing had a manufacturing error and one of the little chains had been shorter than the others. But it was fine. She’d just cracked out the set of needle nose pliers (padded and sold as “comfortable for smaller hands”) she’d bought herself after she’d dumped her last boyfriend six years ago and basically given up the whole “dating” thing, and used the built in wire cutters to trim the others down to match.

i'm very interested in lisa's independence and her drive for it. like obviously part of the reason she gave up dating was unremembered but still impactful trauma from 1) dean 2) matt's death and 3) having her brain wiped of All That. like i think that would kinda wreck a person's relationship with dating. and like, lisa's been a single mom for two decades at this point, she's gotte have a pretty impressive independent streak.

“Thank you.” The hard shapes of her keys dig into her behind as she sits, but the crackly, sticky sounds of the white leather armchair (it’s mainly for guests and doesn’t get a ton of traffic; her and Ben tend to sit on the couch, which is butter-soft from years of use) cover any jangling. He nods absently.

suburban moms will say the word "behind." also. cas and jack sitting where lisa and ben usually sit :3 :3 :3.

“Is it just you and your son here these days?” he asks, head tilted.

“Well, actually, it’s really just me these days, Ben’s off…” she realizes, too late, what she’s saying to a strange man in her living room. “Ben’s off at work so much,” she lies, and it isn’t smooth, but maybe it’s convincing to someone who isn’t her, “it barely feels like he lives here anymore. Today’s the only day of the week he’s home before eight pm. He- he comes early so we can have family dinner with my new boyfriend… Don.”

The father nods.

“And what does Ben do for a living?” He sounds like he’s reading off a script. Maybe the kid got it from his dad.

“He works construction,” she says, and it’s easy. She has the picture so clearly in her head, even though Ben’s in school for screenwriting. “He puts up siding on houses, mostly. What about Jack? Is he in high school?”

the construction job and naming the fake boyfriend don are both obviously about dean. like obviously she has all these memories of dean that are blocked from her conscious mind but they impact stuff like her imagination. so even though she can't Remember the image of dean putting siding on houses, she still remembers it.

That gets a blank look for a moment, but it passes quickly.

“Yes, Jack is- Jack’s in high school. He gets, uh, very good grades.” Yeah this guy is definitely just kind of stiff and awkward. She glances at the kid. He hasn’t said a word. She realizes he actually hasn’t spoken unless prompted this entire time.

oh soulless jack.... it's important to me that he's just kind of empty. a doll of his former self.

“Okay, Mr. Kline,” she turns back to the father. His eyes widen slightly when she says it, and he flinches back almost imperceptibly. But he shakes his head and recovers, smiling slightly. She guesses he doesn't like the formality, or just isn't used to it. Another tick against him actually having an office job. “Would you mind, um, telling me why it is that you’re here? And who our mutual friend is?” 

i really enjoyed like. writing lisa making assumptions (like calling cas mr. kline) which are reasonable with the information she has, but incorrect. also, real time footage of cas Processing being called that.

Mr. Kline opens his mouth, then closes it. He blinks.

“It may be easier if I simply…” He leans forward, looming over her, approaching quickly enough that she can’t do anything but lean back and squeeze her eyes shut. 

She doesn’t even feel his fingers touch her forehead.

-

Lisa must have fallen asleep over her computer. She’s uncomfortable, all twisted up and a little cold and definitely not in bed. Her teeth feel unbrushed, and she has the tell-tale headache that says she didn’t drink enough water last night. She groans and brings her hands to her eyes, instinctively shielding them from what she knows is going to be too-bright light. She rubs at her eyes, and blinks them open.

She shrieks.

There’s a man- she somehow fell asleep in the armchair and there’s a man standing over her and-

Mr. Kline. 

She remembers exactly what happened today, even if she’s not totally sure how she ended up asleep, and instinct kicks in. She whips the keyring out of her back pocket so fast that she hears a tearing sound. The keys must have caught on the seat of her sweatpants, but it doesn’t matter, she already had the little canister of mace in hand and is letting loose on Kline.

god i spent so long trying to pad out the time between the setup and payoff of the mace cannister (for example, that was my ulterior motive for the paragraph about the pliers), but i'm still not happy with it really.

And he’s just standing there. Pepper spray is dripping from his chin, and she’s still pumping at the nozzle, and he’s just sort of squinting at her in seeming confusion. He hasn’t even closed his eyes. 

man i had a lot of fun with this joke. personally it still gets a sensible chuckle whenever i think about it. polite angel immune to pepperspray what will he do.

“Ms. Braeden, what are you doing?”

At this point, there’s enough mace in the air that she coughs. And somehow, the coughs change and shift, and then she’s laughing, and she knows it’s hysterical, but she can’t stop, and even if she could she keeps coughing, too. And every time she looks up he’s still just sort of staring at her.

asthma experiencer voice what would it mean to laugh without coughing. i have never done this. they're the same thing to me.

“Well,” her voice is hoarse, “I was trying to pepper spray you, because you’re some kind of stalker or a rapist or something, but I guess that didn’t work, and now my living room is full of pepper spray and you’re still here.”

“I see. I’ve made you uncomfortable.” He gives her a polite nod, and then takes a couple steps backwards until the backs of his shins are against her sofa, as if everything is normal, as if he isn’t dripping mace onto her white carpet. It’s probably gonna leave orange stains. The kid’s still on the sofa, he looks like he hasn’t even moved. 

i think pepper spray is slightly orange in large enough quantities? don't quote me on that

She gives another half-crazed giggle. Her knees just sort of buckle of their own volition, and she ends up back in the armchair with a sticky crunch of stiff leather. 

Seeming to take a cue from this, he sits down as well, which draws a fresh bubble of laughter from somewhere down in her gut.

“You know, actually, it’s fine,” she says. It’s breathless, and she doesn’t know why she’s saying it. She waves a hand. “It’s all fine. I don’t mind.” She’s not sure what she’s giving him permission to do, but he seems reassured. There are a few beats of silence, broken up only by a slight rustling sound. She realizes the kid is tugging on the edge of his dad’s coat, or, no, he’s just holding it, crumpling and uncrumpling the fabric in his hand.

he is stimming.

“How are you… feeling?” Kline says, and stares at her with knit brows.

“Me? I’m fine. There’s a strange man in my living room who is immune to pepper spray, but I’m fine.” She closes her eyes for a moment.

“But… are you dizzy? Are you confused? Do you feel that your mind is as it should be?” He sounds so earnest and concerned it’s really kind of hard to stay freaked out, but she does her best.

“What the hell kind of question- what did you do?” Her voice should be rising with panic, probably, but it’s just resigned.

“Do you know who Dean Winchester is?” and suddenly Kline’s stare is piercing.

“Dean? My ex? We broke up more than a decade ago. What does he have to do with anything? I haven’t seen or even thought about him since- since-”

She can’t breathe again, and this time it isn’t the mace in the air. Something’s wrong. She can’t- she can’t reconcile Dean- it’s all- something’s wrong. Because he was- he was a hunter . He killed demons. He saved the world. She used to keep a shotgun loaded with rock salt in the kitchen cabinet in case she needed to defend herself, but then- then when she had moved out of that house she had found it and she hadn’t known where it came from. She had taken it to the pawn shop because she didn’t want Ben to grow up around guns, she knew they were dangerous to have with a growing boy in the house, and she’d sold it, and the owner had asked what was the deal with those weird rounds, and she’d said I don’t know. Because she didn’t. She used to know. And then she didn’t. And she can’t- why hadn’t she put up warding sigils around this house when she’d moved in? Dean had shown her how. Told her she needed protection. From things that go bump in the night. But she just hadn’t put them up. It hadn’t occurred to her. No Devil’s Trap under the welcome mat. No holy water by the door. No inlaid silver on the handle. Why didn’t she-

Kline’s hand is on her shoulder. It’s stiff, and strange, but she’s thankful for it. It forces her into the present. He’s staring into her eyes.

“You remember.” There’s a gravity to his tone, like what he's saying should make sense to her.

“I-” she searches for the right verb, the right concept for what’s happened to her, but she doesn’t know. Maybe there isn’t a right word. Maybe it’s not something knowable.

She focuses on Kline’s face. It’s lined, with deep eye-bags. She can see the pores on his nose. The skin of his eyelids is slightly shiny, a sleep-deprived greasiness. There’s a small drop of liquid just below his cheekbone. Pepper spray.

She stills.

“You’re a demon.” She’s not scared, or rather, she is, but at this point there is nothing she can do. If this man is here to kill her, there is nothing she can do to stop him. Not really even anything she could do to make it harder. “Or a vampire. Or something.”

Kline pulls back. Grimaces a little. 

“Or something. I’m a fr- I knew him. Dean.”

oooooh yes babygirl update your relationship status in real time.

“Why am I- do you know why I- why the- why?” She hopes desperately that he knows what she’s asking, because if- if an or something showed up at her house the same day as- as this, then surely he has to at least know. It happened after he touched her and collapsed. That’s- that can’t be a coincidence.

Kline’s grimace deepens, and he looks away from her.

“Your memory has been tampered with.” He takes a breath. Glances at the kid. “I tampered with it, years ago. Because Dean asked me to.” He stops, sighs, looks her in the eye. “I came here to undo it. Because it was wrong.”

cas is doing a lot of things here. like, he is forcing himself to apologize for himself, and as a symbol of his new policy of applying critical thinking to the things dean has asked him to do, and as a way of going against dean symbolically to prove himself to jack because it's partly his fault that jack was in a situation to be in danger from dean in the first place. but he is also trying to set an example for jack.

“Oh,” she says, because there doesn’t seem anything else to say.

“And I want to tell you that I am sorry. I’m sorry for what I did. To you and- and to others. There’s nothing I can do to truly reverse the effects of my actions. But I can reverse the memory removal. I have reversed it. This is the one thing I can do.” Kline is staring at her, but his hand is wandering. She can see it reach behind him to squeeze his son’s shoulder. The kid doesn’t seem to be paying attention. He’s still holding the hem of Kline’s coat. Like Ben used to hang onto her when he was-

the thing about the mindwipe is it's literally like the only awful thing dean ever had cas do that's fixable.

Ben. 

Dean. Dean and Ben. Dean had been so good with Ben. Ben had known Dean.

“My son.” Her voice is cold, and she’s glad it came out that way, because there was maybe a 50/50 chance of it coming out shaky instead. Kline flinches. He catches the kid’s hand in his own.

cas voice my son too <3.

“Yes. I took his memories as well.” 

She finds herself standing. Taking a wobbly step.

“How dare you. You come into my house after- Give them back. Fix him.”

Kline grimaces.

“I am not… sure that ‘fixing’ is the right term. The damage has already been done, and cannot be undone. I removed your memories as an adult, and processing their return was still… difficult. Returning your child’s memories may have deleterious effects.”

Her blood runs cold. She knows he can see it on her face, and he winces.

“If you want me to return his memories, I will. You may also be able to simply… jog them, by discussing Dean. He’s your child.” His hand find’s the kid’s hair, making a fist in the long, sandy-brown locks. “It’s your choice.”

“I’ll… I’ll wait.” She needs to think. “What kind of ‘deleterious effects’?”

“I’m not sure,” says Kline. “None of my kind had ever removed the memories of a human on this scale before I took yours.” He’s looking away.

“None- what? I mean, why not?” It was the first question that popped into her mind, but she feels immediately ridiculous for letting it pop out of her mouth.

“There was no reason. None of us had ever… involved ourselves so heavily in human affairs. We were meant to serve G- a higher cause, not man.”

cas is really trying not to have the angel talk right now, not least because losing his faith in dean has really made the near extinction of angels, and the fact that cas has participated in the destruction of a lot of his siblings, a fresh new pain for him. like cas and jack are really truly all alone without the winchesters, and part of that is because cas bought into dean for so long.

“But you…” She catches herself before she says it, but Kline grimaces.

“Serve man?” The words hang in the air uncomfortably for a moment, and she can’t stop herself from wincing. Kline’s eyes are closed. “I did. I used to- to serve Dean. I thought it was righteous. I thought even when- even when I didn’t agree I thought he knew better. But Dean- Jack… lost something. And then he- Dean- there came a moment when I realized…” Kline trails off. He’s looking down at the kid, now. Finger-combing his hair with both hands. 

A single tear rolls down Kline’s cheek as the kid stares off into space.

crucial to me for cas and jack to do the lal and data i will feel it for both of us thing. as i've said. jack can't experience the hurt of what dean did (yet) so cas will process it for him.

Lisa feels a shiver pass over her body.

Ben wasn’t even able to talk about it after, when Dean shoved him. Lisa doesn’t think she’s ever been that angry before or since. She wasn’t generally a breakup kind of gal, most of her relationships had just sort of coolly fizzled away. But with Dean…

She sees it, in Kline’s face. In the way he touches Jack, half grounding, half possessive. Like Jack has survived some calamity. Like Kline can’t believe he’s really there. Like he might not be, if things had gone differently.

The first sentence that pops into her head when she finishes up with her dot-connecting is You know, I’m actually not surprised that Dean was gay the whole time, but she manages by the grace of God not to let it come out of her mouth. She doesn’t want Kline to think she’s homophobic or anything.

gay dean truthing NEVER sleeps. if anybody noticed it would've been lisa. anyway i like to break up a solemn moment with a bit of levity. i love that lisa is afraid of being homophobic <3.

Instead, she stays silent a moment.

“I see.”

He nods, and his face crumples.

She realizes that he must have taken it as a statement of judgment. She would have, in his place. 

the thing about cas is that he did fail where lisa succeeded. like, in the end, lisa was not willing to let dean harm her son. cas was.

“No, no.” She shakes her head to emphasize the point, aggressively enough to send her hair flying everywhere. “I mean, you- you and I- we are-” she leans forward. Takes his hand.

His eyes widen.

“I don’t understand,” he says, and the tone of conviction he uses makes the phrase slightly ridiculous.

We’re the same, she wants to say. We could have been. Instead, she glances at the kid. At Jack, with his quiet obedience and empty stare.

“Don’t fix Ben. Don’t- don’t bring his memories back. He doesn’t need to remember. And I don’t-” I don’t want him to know. To know that someone who loved him could do that to him. She isn’t sure whether she means laying a hand on him or taking his memories. I don't want it to break him.

this is a little dramatic but the thing about lisa is she is CURRENTLY LOOKING AT another kid dean traumatized. who is (seemingly) about ben's age. who dean was a stepdad two. cut the woman some slack.

“Alright,” Kline says, snapping back to himself, “but if you change your mind-”

“I’ll contact you,” she says, but she already knows she won’t. She makes up her mind to lose his number, if he even gives it to her. If he even has one to give.

She doesn’t ever want that for Ben.

that being jack's current state.

[victim9d]

@contradictivs: i thought you had a key.

she should, she really should. it is her own home after all, having a key is the most logical thing in the world. but it's never that simple in the michaels household, and punishment is always hanging over their heads. "i did." spoken almost defensively, a slight whine in her voice as if she's trying to prove she hadn't lied. breaking into their home isn't the hardest thing in the world, years of work put into learning how to sneak out. they don't do it often, it's too much of a risk, the consequences of being caught were undoubtedly dire. but she had it up her sleeve for emergencies, and this clearly fit that bill. she'd been told if she was back within curfew that the door would be unlocked, but clearly that wasn't the case - she still had a whole two minutes until seven, technically she was on time. but with her mother it was never enough - on time was late, early was on time, and late was something so mortifying that cassie never wanted to find out what it meant. "my mom took my key 'cause she saw a picture of me with cake at marvel's party last week, which is so stupid 'cause, like, i didn't even eat any! she just thinks it's "bad for my brand" to be seen with cake as if that's, like, the most reputation destroying thing you can do." ranted like some typical teen angst tirade, oblivious to just how awful the implications of it all were. "and she said the door would be unlocked if i was home before curfew, which I AM!" pointed out with great emphasis as she stops what she's doing to shove her phone in ryder's face, making a point of being home with just moments to spare. with a dramatic sigh she goes back to positioning the trellis in just the right way, shifting it so it can reach up to her window.

"follow my lead but, like... you gotta be kinda careful 'cause i don't know how much weight this holds." not intentionally rude, more of a commentary on the fact that he's taller and more muscular than she is, and she's never tried this with two people at a time. she's pretty sure it would hold casper, and knows for a fact that cassius has used it, so she's hopeful that it'll work out. "if it breaks try not to scream 'cause then mom will find out about it and, like, i think if i land just right i won't even get hurt that bad, 'cause it's only, like, the second floor so it's not even that big of a fall." flawed thinking without a doubt, but something she's entirely confident in. she climbs the frail trellis with a practiced ease, her entirely unpractical outfit barely seeming to slow her down. it's only as she finally reaches the top that she reaches the worst case scenario: "okay, uh, so, the window is locked." not her doing, clearly. turns out her super cool secret sneaking out method may not be as secret as she thought. "okay, well, that's fine. that's okay." there's an edge to her voice now, a fear. she wouldn't admit as much, but it's obviously there. it doesn't matter that she technically wasn't late, it doesn't matter how hard she tried to be on time. chances are the door and window were both locked as soon as she left the house, further punishment for percieved misbehavior. "no, this is so fine. it's totally cool, actually, 'cause we can, like, totally stargaze." it isn't even dark yet. "and we can sit on the beach, and we can hang out, and it's not even a big deal at all!" she hasn't even begun to climb down again, hands gripping to the thin wood slats with all the might she can muster, paranoia and anxiety channeled in through her hands. "don't even freak, ryder, everything is so totally fine."

[more-than-a-princess]

@dcviated asked: 3 and 29

Shipping Questions for the Mun - Accepting!

do you have a pet peeve when it comes to shipping?

I have plenty of these, but I also have plenty of RP pet peeves in general. For shipping specifically: one of the things I absolutely hate are when muns assume that after a thread or two, or even the knowledge my muse has an interest in theirs, that I'll want to write a sex scene immediately. Of course, I've written a variety of muses in my lifetime as a roleplayer, some of whom are very sexually active and others who aren't.

For Sonia specifically, she's a muse that even when she finds someone attractive and is interested in dating them, that doesn't mean she's going to immediately jump into bed with them (or even a relationship, for that matter!). I've run into issues with muns who have complained that I wasn't sending them smut memes, or at least very suggestive romantic memes, and I had to explain that my muse wasn't ready for that, or just wasn't interested in that side of a romantic relationship yet.

Seriously though: letting things unfold is fun.

would you play as a cheater, or with someone cheating on your muse?

In general, yes. If just for the fact that plenty of muses I've written in the past, or am considering writing elsewhere (Discord, etc.) aren't exactly the most faithful. Fujiko Mine from Lupin III is committed to herself first and foremost, followed by luxury and the thrill of stealing valuables and manipulating others. Even when she might admit that the only other person she's ever loved has been Lupin, she's still not faithful to him romantically, or the gang in general. Fujiko's most important relationship is with herself and everyone else can and will get fucked over (in more ways than one).

Julia from Cowboy Bebop is another, less extreme example: she has cheated, but she's done it once but with lasting repercussions, if we're going by canon.

Where Sonia's concerned, it's actually been alluded to in some storylines that she has emotionally cheated on her significant other, if not physically cheated, particularly with @cantillat's Shirou. When I'm writing in our canon Danganronpa/Fate crossover verse, Sonia's immense guilt for falling in love with Shirou while still dating Gundham helps Junko significantly in manipulating her/brainwashing her to become a Remnant of Despair. Because she's become the exact thing she said she never wanted to be.

Even some of her combined canon and Non-Despair backstory has some messy relationship issues, which bleed into various storylines at times. A lot of ships on this blog just haven't made it to the point or touched upon the fact of

As far as being cheated on, that's perhaps the most effective way to hurt Sonia in a relationship. It's a challenging thing for her to really let someone into her life, especially the older she gets and the more invasive her royal life becomes. That having that trust be betrayed? That she's made to look foolish and like she isn't enough and her feelings don't matter at all? And most importantly, repeat her parents' mistakes? That's a great way to bring on the angst, broken hearts, and self-destructive behavior. It would be a long road ahead for her to even attempt to trust her lover again after that.

I'd be up for writing it if someone wants to write that much angst, but it would need to be plotted. And depending on the situation and her age, I'm not even sure how many ways Sonia would retaliate. I'd still expect her to retain some restraint when addressing it, even though I'd love to see her absolutely lose her cool and let her lover and the other person have it. As much as I wish she could, I don't think she could channel some Maddy Perez from Euphoria energy.

Above video is NSFW for foul language and messy teen drama unfolding in front of an audience

[discoknack]

Creature Cravings WIP

I'm posting this looking for criticism. My writing is v rusty, but I need it torn apart so I can make it better. I initially wanted to limit reblogs for this WIP, but then remembered comments have a character limit.

Rating: Teen and Up

Category: Gen

Relationships: Knack & Lucas

Characters: Knack (KNACK), Lucas (KNACK, Original Female Character - Dianne Garner

Additional tags: Knack and Lucas are adoptive siblings, Knack started from scratch, Knack had a childhood, sort of, Knack is the sci-fi equivalent of a sorcerer, Knack is prey-driven, Lucas is well-acquainted with the effects of puberty, Lucas has subliminal pattern recognition, Heart-to-Heart, Angst and Humor, Embarrassment, Atheneum, Swearing, mention of libido, played for laughs, Not Canon Compliant, POV Lucas (KNACK), POV Third Person Limited, My First AO3 Post

Summary: One day, the boys were playing at a public park in Atheneum when Knack became too excited and made an embarrassing mistake. He ran off to hide, ashamed. Lucas had to find him, make sure he's alright, and talk about what happened.

Notes: I personally don't consider this canon, and definitely not to Heavy Handed, mainly because Knack having a prey drive conflicts with the themes. I just thought it was funny and put to words some things I was thinking when helping my grandma.

The text:

Somewhere over yonder, the clock tower, well, towered, over the city. Its crystal spires shone brightly with the midday sun, posing a challenge for those here to see the sights. But if one stole a glance or two, they could estimate that it was 12:15.

Between the clock tower and the museum sat a park: a big patch of struggling watered green, cut up by sidewalk and footpaths, and dotted with a few large trees for shade. In the direction of the museum was a bridge. It zipped straight across the man-made channel as part of the road, but left plenty of space under its archways for small boats. The water was mostly clear, save for the mud at the bottom. Running alongside the channel were paved walkways, so that people could stroll near the water and under the bridge. Not many people hung around here today, though. Standing in the grass of the park, a person could count the number of passerby on one hand.

Lucas paused under the shade of a tree, panting hard. He was burning up, but enjoyed some reprieve from the heat while he watched the flying disc touch down, skid, and roll.

Knack walked up a few feet behind him and teased Lucas by saying, as if mock-offended, "You're not even trying to catch it, now!"

Knack was about seven feet tall, and Lucas knew this, as well as a sense of proximity, because Knack had thrown the disc in the first place. But Lucas was tired, and jumped at the sudden sound of his voice, chuckling reflexively as he started to run after it.

The exhaustion grew worse, and by the time Lucas plucked the disc from the ground, he was ready for a nap. When he turned around, Knack was waving at him.

Knack's voice, inexplicably, could travel with excellent volume and clarity over long distances. "Good afternoon!"

It would be odd to send a greeting like that to someone you've been playing all day with. So he wasn't waving at Lucas, but at someone else. Lucas didn't have time to turn around again before he heard a metallic jingle and wet paws bounded against his legs.

Lucas grunted in surprise and twisted his upper half to look at the dog. It was medium-sized and had a muscular frame, white with black patches. Its head was black, too, as if it wore a permanent luchador mask. Lucas stumbled as it rounded to his front, and it was so enthusiastic that it could leap up and touch its tongue to his chin. And that it did. Lucas sputtered and turned his head this way and that to avoid getting licked. Nonetheless, he found himself giggling breathlessly at the situation.

A woman's voice scolded, "Frankie, no! Heel!" and so Frankie's erect ears turned in her direction as it paused on the ground, panting, before the dog dashed to its owner.

The owner addressed Lucas with a "Sorry," and she laughed nervously, almost barking, with her voice having the slightest creak. "Frankie never got the hang of, uh, people." The woman had a large nose, though most people did. Lucas wasn't familiar with makeup, but could tell she wore a tame lipstick, brown-pink. In her right earlobe shone a small silver earring. Her brown hair was wavy and tied into a ponytail with a bright green scrunchie, and went gray at the temples, producing large streaks. Silver strands decorated her hairline. Short, loose locks of hair curled slightly behind her ears and stuck up over her forehead, having broken from the tightness of her ponytail. Her eyes crinkled at the corners, especially against the sun.

Lucas nodded, intending to say 'no worries!' but still breathing hard, so it came out like a mumble. He felt a heavy tap on his shoulder, as Knack entered the conversation and held out a hand for the disc. Lucas absently placed it over his palm.

As Lucas did so, Knack asked the woman, "mind if I play with him?" and once he had the disc, gestured to Frankie with it.

The woman smiled at him. "Oh, sure! I bet he'll keep up with you!"

So Knack walked off with a "here, pup!" and Frankie hot on his heels.

Lucas was slowly recovering, trying to think of something to say to the woman, and he noticed she noticed the state he was in, now that she was no longer distracted by Frankie's antics.

"You look so tired! Just a minute, I have something for you..." and of the large white bag strapped to her shoulder, she removed it from its resting place against her hip and rifled through it. She also wore a baby blue shawl that was beginning to come undone over her turquoise blouse. Humming a tune to herself, she grew closer to finding whatever it was she wanted.

Lucas held up his hands, "Oh, you don't have to-"

But imitating a triumphant horn, the woman pulled a small water bottle from her bag and tried handing it to Lucas with a "here you go!"

When Lucas hesitated, she pressed it into one of his hands and held it there, furrowing her thin eyebrows and saying, "Hydration is very important."

Lucas therefore couldn't refuse, and so he took the water bottle, even though he already had one with his stuff. "Thank you," he bowed his head graciously. He slowly uncapped the lid, suddenly unable to speak as his heart squeezed. Charlotte had always been very serious about his health and well-being like that.

"Oh!" The woman thumped her palm against her forehead. "Where are my manners!" And she laughed good-heartedly. "My name is Dianne. Would you tell me your name, young man?"

Having lowered the bottle from his lips, he said simply, "It's Lucas."

Dianne repeated his name back to him, looking thoughtful and tapping her chin. Tilting her head from side to side, she muttered aloud with chanting cadence, "have I heard that name before...?"

Lucas went back to drinking water, when he heard the sharp, frightened yelping of a dog.

With wide eyes, he whipped his head in the direction Knack had gone with Frankie. Knack was charging away from Frankie and away from everyone, his arms going at his sides and his head tucked low, barreling across the park like a train. Lucas couldn't see his face, but Knack's ears were pinned to his head. Meanwhile, Frankie stood wide-stanced in the grass, its figure cowering. The disc laid forgotten.

Glancing at Dianne, who in turn glanced at him with wide eyes and pursed lips, Lucas decided that they would go check on Frankie, first.

"Frankie~!" Dianne crooned, strolling toward the dog.

Frankie slunk in her direction, low to the ground, quick and furtive. Its ears were also pricked back.

Lucas approached casually. Dianne crouched down when Frankie reached her, and she cooed at it, stroking its head and chin and ears. Frankie licked her hands a lot and whined.

Lucas checked Frankie over: petting its head, tilting its face to get a better look under the chin; rubbing down its chest, back, and belly; checking paws without much success - every time Lucas tried to grab one of Frankie's paws, it would pull away from him as if annoyed, but at least not hurt; rubbing down legs; and finally giving its tail a once-over. All the while, Lucas tried to ignore the feeling of dog slobber accumulating on his hands and forearms.

"Nothing broken or bleeding," Lucas declared. Then he stood up and addressed Dianne. "Bruises are harder to check. Do you know what happened?

Dianne shrugged with her face, lifting her eyebrows and dimpling her chin. "Nothing I'm aware of!" She patted Frankie again, who by this point had calmed down enough to wag its tail. "He's in good health; I wouldn't worry about it too much, dear."

Lucas sighed in relief, then registered the fact that he had been worried if he and Knack were in trouble with this woman. "Thanks, Dianne."

Dianne didn't immediately respond beyond a slight nod, her expression hard to read but carrying some tension. Then she blinked and reached out to squeeze Lucas's shoulder. "You should go find your friend. I'm not sure what happened," and she briefly held her mouth open while choosing her words, "but, he seemed to be in quite a hurry."

Lucas looked around. Knack was nowhere to be seen.

He didn't know what to say for several moments, before finally stammering, "Thank you for telling me. I gotta go!"

But then he just stood there, scanning the periphery of the park. He knew vaguely the direction Knack had gone, or so he thought, but he had been distracted by Frankie. Knack could have gone any number of directions upon reaching the end of the park.

"No problem, dear," Dianne chuckled.

There was no need to panic. Knack couldn't have gotten far. Except that at seven feet tall, though they were proportionally short compared to the rest of him, his legs were at least as long as those of Lucas and he had incredible stamina.

And it wasn't likely that he would get into trouble. Or at least, not soon? But Lucas couldn't be so sure. Just what exactly happened to Frankie?

Lucas wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand, then noticed the device on his wrist. Duh! Lucas could just call him!

And so he did. Just put in the ID and wait. Wouldn't be too long and... contact denied.

"Huh!"

"Is everything okay?" Dianne asked. She had previously been pretending Lucas wasn't there, for social reasons. But concern marked her features now.

"Uh, yeah!" Lucas said politely. "Well, no," and he threw his hands down a bit and clapped his communicator shut, "but I'll figure it out, don't worry." He opened it again decided to send a message instead of a call. Knack, where are you? Are you okay?

"Okayyy~!" Dianne said nervously. "Fig bar?" She held it out.

"Sure!"

Stuffing the treat into his pocket, Lucas looked around again. There was the disc in the grass. No one else picked it up yet, so Lucas started running to get it. After having taken a break, Lucas felt his energy come back to him, though his limbs began to ache. Frankie apparently thought Lucas might be playing, because Lucas could hear the jingle of its collar grow louder as it drew closer.

Dianne called it back to her with a "Frankie, heel!"

Lucas chuckled as the jingling faded.

After scooping up the disc, he spun it in his hands a few times before he spotted something: lightly obscured by sparse, struggling grass, and stamped into the moistened earth with indeterminate pressure, was a very recognizeable footprint.

It was not a heavy footprint, but it corresponded to Knack's form at the height he had been nearly all day. Lucas knew Knack long enough to know that how hard his feet hit the ground didn't correspond with his actual weight most of the time. Sounds odd, right? The doctor had his ideas about the underlying mechanics of it, and obviously, Knack knew how to do it, but Lucas hadn't fully put his finger on the pulse behind that decision. He'd found footprints of all kinds in the garden, in heavy clarity or the tactile equivalent of a whisper; small or big, it didn't seem to matter. Knack was full of mysteries like that.

While the footprint overall was, not light per se, but definitely not much heavier than Lucas's own shoe prints, it was very front-heavy. Rather than a casual plodding or marching that resulted in even steps, or the bouncing jog of a happy homunculus that dug his thumb-toe into the mud and spread out the rest of his claws widely, these prints had his front claws digging into the dirt and the rest light. Knack definitely wanted to get out of there A-S-A-P.

Lucas raised his arms and clasped his hands behind his head. He had all day to find Knack, and it's not like he had anything better to do; he could afford a little wild goose chase.

Simple enough, he started following the footprints to their end. He checked his communicator, and Knack still hadn't responded.

"Dang it, Knack!" He said aloud, almost startling himself. He briefly considered sending another message with just that, but decided against it. It would probably just make things worse. He didn't want to think about what might happen if Knack stayed missing.

"Y'know I bet he just went off to sulk." He continued. Yeah, that was a comforting thought. Knack just needed some time to himself and then he'd come back. No biggie.

Knack could be a sensitive soul sometimes. Like that time he got his hands on a furby. Knack and Lucas were both very young at the time: Lucas was ten years old, and Knack was as fresh as a daisy and had just learned to speak fluently. No one would fess up to having given Knack the furby, even as - within three days! - interrogations ramped up among scientist and their children.

Knack loved that horrible thing. Well, Lucas didn't mind it so much. That model had a couple games on it and, at least while it was charged, a few noises were sometimes nice to listen to when he rubbed its tummy. At first, Knack played with it like that, too. But he loved it because he got reactions out of people.

A lot of people thought it was creepy, and Knack could startle them easy enough by hiding behind doors. As soon as someone opened it, they would jump at the sudden sound of babbling or laughing in response to Knack tickling the furby's tummy. Sometimes the furby's appearance creeped kids out; he could just be holding it out at them and they'd bristle and squeal. A couple kids yelled at him over it, but he would just giggle and run off. It was worth mentioning that Knack could be over five feet tall while doing this.

He was scaring anybody he could with that thing. That is, until he scared someone who was a little too small, and they cried and cried. Or, that was how the rumor went. No one knew the full details, and all the kid could do was sob until they passed out in the comfort of their parents and then forgot about it.

Lucas found the furby that day in one of the hallway trash cans of the dormitory. Its chassis was partly crushed, and it looked like someone had slammed a chisel into it a couple places. Lucas barged into Knack's room out of curiosity and nearly stepped on one of the relics scattered all over the room.

Lucas crouched down and saw more relics under the bed, arranged into a button-eyed face. Knack growled at him and scooted back further.

It took some time to coax him out, but after he finally crawled from beneath the bed and stood up on his feet, the first thing the little guy wanted was a hug. And Lucas had gladly provided it.

Now Lucas was out of footprints and on the road. He didn't imagine Knack would make any sudden turns and so continued straight on, to the bridge.

He was only a few feet across, walking alongside the guard rail, when he stopped. It was as if something in his mind went bloop! Something to do with water. He looked around, not sure exactly what had tripped him up. He felt the prickle of sweat on the back of his neck, and a mounting sensation of - what Lucas could only describe as - destiny.

He grew more sure of his suspicions, and they were all but confirmed when he heard another bloop! and could recognize it as the sound of a stone plunging into the water.

Knack was under the bridge.

He was curled up in the shade of it, at his smallest. Lucas let out a sigh of relief to have found him. But then he frowned when Knack grabbed another relic from the pile and threw it in the drink, adding to the growing collection of bronze and brass at the bottom of the channel. The flowing water rippled, causing reflected light to dance against the arches of the bridge.

"Hey! Cut that out!" Lucas scolded, approaching. "What are you doing that for?"

Knack didn't immediately respond, instead watching the water. He wrapped his chest and little legs with the length of his arms and seemed to sigh.

Lucas approached a little more, stepping between him and the pile of relics. "Knack? Are you okay?"

Knack again didn't respond in an appreciable way, except for a very slight tilt of the head.

"Hey," Lucas softly urged. He crouched down and planted the disc beside him, then held his other hand outstretched. "Talk to me, buddy. Metaphorically, I mean."

This time Knack tilted his head more, and slowly increased the pace of it until it became a shake. Then he looked up at Lucas with a very clear expression of misery, his ears drooping.

"Oh, Knack," Lucas drew out the name, "You didn't do anything wrong. Or nothing really bad. The pup is fine, you just scared it is all."

Knack looked back down at himself, brows furrowed and lower jaw set in a pout.

Lucas lowered his hand, rubbing his fingers together in thought. It didn't make Knack feel any better to know he hadn't hurt anyone, but why? Had he been younger, Lucas would have thrown his arms around Knack on a loving impulse. And had Knack been younger, it might also have been well-received. But nowadays, Lucas thought it was important to respect Knack's personal space.

"Oh I get it," Lucas said, almost playfully, "You're ashamed of it, huh?" He laid his forearm over a knee. "You had an outburst, and you couldn't help it, and it's embarrassing."

Knack's droopy ears twitched back defensively at his tone, but after a moment, he nodded.

Lucas hummed, also nodding. He had to choose his words carefully. "You know," he inched closer, "I don't know much about goblins. But when it comes to humans?" and he gestured vaguely, "we can't live on this planet without shitting our pants at least once."

Knack threw a glance at Lucas, his brows furrowed in consternation and ears alert. But his jaw tilted into a goofy smile.

Lucas took a moment to suppress a giggle, because he was trying to be at least a little serious. He took a breath and then continued, "We get hungry, thirsty, sometimes horny," and he had to look away from Knack at this part, furrowing his own brow, "so freaking horny..."

He heard the clap of stone against stone and looked over to see Knack covering his face and violently shaking his head, nearly falling over. Lucas almost worried he said too much, but then Knack let slip a giggle.

Lucas let himself giggle, too. When Knack righted himself, Lucas tapped his paw to get him to look. Then he held up a finger and said, "I refuse to be ashamed of it. And you should, too!" Then he lowered his hand. "But about your thing."

Knack watched him intently.

Lucas brought a hand down against the pavement and kind of swung himself to sit right next to Knack, leaving the disc behind and putting his hands on his knees. "We don't know a lot about you, still. We don't always know how to take care of your needs. But we love you, and if you need something, you can tell us. Me, Charlotte, the Doctor, even Ryder. We love you, and I love you," he briefly leaned in Knack's direction to emphasize that. "We can figure something out."

After Lucas finished speaking, Knack hopped up onto his feet. He turned to face Lucas and spread out his arms, his eyebrows seeming heavy, but he smiled.

Lucas worked himself into a position where he crouched on one knee and held the other away. He held his arms out, too.

Knack closed the distance, reaching under Lucas's arms for the hug.

Lucas was suddenly overwhelmed with the sound of clattering relics and reflexively shut his eyes. The relics washed over and around him, filling the space between his arms and widening it; rushing into place under his fingers, under his arms, around his back and over his shoulders; surging partly out of his grasp as Knack expanded.

When all was said and done, Knack had resolved into a kneeling position himself, his arms wrapping around Lucas's torso and coming back up to clasp his shoulders with enormous hands. Knack's chin rested atop Lucas's head. Then he lifted it off and brought his head back down over one of Lucas's shoulders, getting a little more comfortable. All over, Lucas could feel that subtle sense of pulsing energy from Knack's chest, which brought great comfort.

Lucas could finally open his eyes and maybe appreciate the level of Knack's control. He lifted his arms some, bringing them higher up in the hug, and noticed the red spikes shifting into their proper place, having been postponed. Knack chuckled, low and content. All of Lucas's prior concerns about how Knack was doing evaporated.

Knack let go first. He kinda had to, since he was gripping Lucas's shoulders like that. And Lucas was starting to grow uncomfortable in that kneeling position. They both stood up, Lucas grabbing the disc just before doing so, and Knack pretended to yawn and stretch. Lucas dusted off the back of his pants. Knack reached up to grab Lucas's shoulder, getting his full attention.

"Thank you," he said seriously.

"Anything!" Lucas replied with a grin. "Now, let's get out from under this bridge. Neither of us are trolls!"