#i project a *lot* onto the characters i write

[solavelyan]

clearly I'm in the majority* (i know what words mean i swear) of this pool of voters but I picked the last one

My own custom PCs are pretty detailed and specific and often spiced with stuff that isn't canon-compliant, and as a result I have absolutely zero interest in a vague protagonist that I can project onto because it's never going to match up. I love love love to see lots of thought and creativity and specifics in other people's OCs and stories. I want to see cool custom backstories! I want to see specific themes and symbolism and arcs!

I'm a little surprised at how often I see the sentiment that people want to project their own OC into a fic that someone else wrote, but then again, I also don't do stuff like OC swaps or allow anyone but some very very specific people to write my characters anyway, so maybe that's just a section of fandom that isn't for me on principle anyway.

*by "vague" i mean in line with general, in-game personality, no backstory details not included in the canon, etc.

(basically what i'm trying to suss out is if people click on dragon age fic where they can't insert their own PC)

[analysisn3rd]

Sherlock Holmes is autistic. I will tell you why.

Although I feel like this is something that’s talked about a lot in the Sherlock Holmes fandom, I wanted to write about it just because I like talking about it; Sherlock Holmes is autistic. There’s a lot of things, clues, pieces of evidence, whatever you want to call it, present in the ACD canon to prove this and I will present it to you.

Autistic stereotypes and how Holmes fits into them and doesn’t simultaneously

There are many autistic traits that are considered stereotypical, but the one I mean here is the “cold, emotionless, non-empathetic, calculating machine” autistic stereotype, which Holmes does fit into, but he also doesn’t. Despite the use of this very description in several of the short stories, Holmes doesn’t fit this description quite well. It may be what people see on the surface, it may be what people are first faced with when they meet Holmes, but it’s not the truth, or, more accurately, it’s not the complete truth.

As I’ve written before in one of my analyses about Holmes, he doesn’t lack empathy. He’s quite empathetic, and he cares a lot about people (specifically Watson, Mrs Hudson and his clients), but he shows it in a different manner than others normally would. He shows it by listening to people and believing their stories and caring about them, not just for the thrill of the case or the mystery behind it. There have been several cases where everything was mostly resolved, he didn’t need to dig deeper than he had and the answer was not as unclear as it normally is, but Holmes didn’t leave it be until his client got the closure they needed. There have been other cases where he didn’t think that it was going to be an important affair, but, because he understands what his client might be feeling, he heard them out and helped them to the best of his ability. With Watson, there have been several examples of him showing that he cares about him and that he truly values him, and the same goes to Mrs Hudson.

Holmes also isn’t emotionless; he tends to express emotions in different ways than “normal” people would, but that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t possess them. He also reacts differently from “normal” in some situations, like how, during one of the more grim cases, he was able to take his mind completely off of it and talk, rather animatedly, about one of the topics that he was researching (which is probably to do with his research subjects being his special interests, something that’ll be talked about below)

Saying that Holmes is a “calculating deduction machine” isn’t necessarily incorrect, but I think that it takes away from his humanity quite a lot. The reason why he’s so good at deduction (well. It’s not really deduction, it’s induction, but that’s a discussion for another day) is because of his pattern-recognition ability and high attention to detail, both of which are things that are quite common within autistic people due to the way that their brains process information; something that’s called ‘bottom-up’ processing, where the details are processed before the big picture.

I will now talk about certain autistic traits and aspects of being autistic and how this is found within the Holmes canon.

Special Interests

A great portion of autistic people have specific, sometimes called rigid, interests that are also called special interests. Holmes has several of these and they’re mentioned quite a lot within the series.

The most evident one is deduction in of itself and mysteries. As we’ve seen several times within the series, when Holmes doesn’t have a case, or anything that he finds engaging like another special interest of his, he feels awful, to put it in simpler terms, and he experiences what Watson calls his “black moods”. 

Some of his other special interests are chemistry, especially when it involves forensics, which is something that he’s seen doing quite a lot and spending hours upon hours carrying out experiments to see if his hypothesis was correct or not, much like what he was doing when he initially met Watson in ‘Study in Scarlet’. 

Music is another one, which is something that he’s quite knowledgeable about, and he likes to engage with this particular interest by attending concerts with Watson and by playing the violin, where he either plays melodies to reflect his thoughts and feelings or composed symphonies that he and/or Watson enjoy.

Another is bees (and nature to an extent), which is something that he’s very interested in, considering how he took up bee-keeping during his retirement and how he’s written several monographs about it.

Aside from his special interests, he’s also had various hyperfixations throughout the stories, which he’d write monographs about as well.

Social differences

It’s very obvious how Holmes interacts with people differently compared to other characters, and the ways in which his social interactions differ is very similar to that of autistic people. 

One of the ways in which this presents is how blunt Holmes is. He’s very truthful and he doesn’t realise that what he’s saying, which he mostly means in a very literal, very genuine way, could be taken in another way. An example of this is this quote, which is from ‘The Hound of Baskerville’: “It may be that you are not yourself luminous, but you are a conductor of light. Some people without possessing genius have a remarkable power of stimulating it”. This, amongst several other compliments from Holmes, tend to sound backhanded and they’re mostly read as him being snarky or simply mean to whoever he was saying them to, but I think that he just meant it in a very literal way.

Another way that his social differences present is how he doesn’t quite understand other people, especially women, where he tells Watson quite often that he’s the one who understands and appeals to the “fairer sex” from the both of them. His not really understanding people also shows up in how he’s never really having a friend before Watson or Victor Trevor; he’s never really understood anyone aside from them and I don’t think that anyone, aside from them, tried to understand Holmes back. I also think it’s evident that he doesn’t understand social norms by how he chooses not to comply with them. Holmes is a very logical person and if something doesn’t make sense to him, he simply wouldn’t do it and would probably deem it stupid.

Another thing that I don’t think is a social difference as much as it’s a difference in how Holmes sees the world is how he has a really strong sense of justice. His sense of morality is interesting, to say the least and I’ve discussed it before in one of my analyses of him, and his sense of justice kind of ties into it. Regardless of what he views as “right” and “wrong”, he will strongly defend what he believes and he wouldn’t let anything that he thinks is “wrong” slide. As I’ve written earlier, some cases had a fairly clear resolution and he could’ve just let them go, but it’s because he cares about his client and because he absolutely cannot let injustices simply pass without the persecutor getting punished, he solves the case until it’s completely resolved.

Masking

Generally speaking, Holmes doesn’t mask, and I think it’s mainly because he doesn’t really see a point in doing so; he doesn’t do it often, and the only instance of him masking is the beginning of ‘A Study in Scarlet’, when he and Watson hadn’t known one another quite well yet. He would hide parts of himself, he wouldn’t try to talk about any of his interests at all (to the point that Watson didn’t even know what he did for work until months after knowing him) and he made sure to be very neat and organised with everything, which is something that he most likely struggles with. However, once Watson found out about everything, he didn’t really bother masking again. 

Holmes’ struggles in relation to his autism

There are several things that autistic people struggle with (including communication, which I already discussed above) that Holmes also struggles with.

One of which is how he struggles with eating. I think that’s mainly because he doesn’t exactly feel hunger cues as most people would; he doesn’t exactly realise that he’s hungry until his stomach is cramping from the lack of food or he’s on the verge of passing out, which I think is a very believable conclusion considering how often he forgets to eat and Watson has to coax and/or remind him to do so. Another thing that Watson really helped him with is his injuries. I think it’s very likely that he doesn’t feel pain normally, which is something that happens to some autistic people, where they either feel it too much or too little; the latter is what Holmes struggles with. He doesn’t really notice injuries that he gets on cases because he doesn’t really feel the pain. This is most likely why he has several scars and acid burns on his hands when Watson first met him.

Another thing that I think he struggles with is executive dysfunction, especially when it comes to chores like cleaning his space and laundry, which is something that I recall Watson complaining about Holmes not doing in the beginning of one of the short stories. It’s possible that he has his own system when it comes to his organisation, but it was said in ‘Study in Scarlet’ that he was a very neat man, so I think it’s more reasonable to think that it’s just something that he always wants to start but could never really get to doing it due to executive dysfunction.

It’s also possible that Holmes struggles with sensory issues regarding his hair touching his face, which is why he always has it gelled back, and that he has them regarding facial hair, which is why he’s always described as clean-shaven (though I know that both of these could be due to other reasons as well).

I think that cocaine was Holmes’ way of self-medication. He needed something to help him through feelings of overwhelm and under-stimulation from the lack of cases, so he used it. It served as a distraction to him from his overwhelm and scarcity of mental stimulation that’s enough to keep him satisfied.

Similarly, I think that his habit of smoking was a way to keep his hands busy instead of stimming.

Due to all of the aforementioned reasons, I think that Sherlock Holmes is autistic.

[discordiansamba]

probably my biggest nitpick re: atla fics is when they write zuko and azula as being so much kinder to each other than they are in canon without having like. a good reason for that to be happening, because you can always tell that there's this underlying attitude of well. they're siblings. so they have to actually secretly love and care about each other no matter what.

which is just. such an only child/had a good relationship with their siblings thing to think. i promise y'all some siblings just do not get along with each other even without the mess of a golden child/scapegoat dynamic. it's that kind of thinking of that leads people to act like cutting off your family, no matter what the reason, is cruel and wrong and that you're the awful one for doing it, even if you're doing it for the sake of your mental health.

(you see this also happening re: azula and ty lee's friendship a lot too)

and it can be interesting to explore the what-ifs! the universes where they get along better! the universes where they learn to be better together. but it's not a guarantee. and there's always this undercurrent when you do write them closer to their canon portrayal from people who are like... aren't they being a little mean to each other? i don't think they'd actually think that about each other.

i promise y'all. they absolutely would.

(also, why touching canon regularly is just a good idea in general.)

[pastelaspirations]

AAAAAAAAAAACCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKK, CRRYIINGGGGG, WAIT, WAIT, HOLD ON, WAIT

OH MY GOOODDDDDDDDDDDDD, HE'S SO FREAKING CUTTEEEE, MY SHY LIL BABY BOIIIII, AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-

I'M CRYING, MAN, I'M CRYING. O K A Y. FIRST OFF. I can't stress enough how. Freaking shocked I get when people draw my versions, okay.

AND I SHOULDN'T. I SHOULDN'T, OKAY. I SHOULD BE USED TO IT BY NOW.

But n o. Literally every time. Every single time I see one of my bois, or one of my girls if drawn using the official genderbent versions lmao, without fail. I just stare in astonishment and go "OH MY GOSH, THEY DREW THEM EXACTLY AS HOW I IMAGINED THEM-"

....Can you see why this is stupid.

I have the literal, actual, canon reference sheets on my blog. I draw them more often than I don't. I am literally handing the "how to draw my characters exactly as how I see them" on a silver freaking platter, I should not be surprised-

ANYWAY, ANYWAY, HE IS SO FREAKING CUTE. I LOVE HIM SO MUCH. WE GOT THE FULLY COLORED VERSION WHERE HE LOOK SO SWEET AND SHY AND CUTE. T H E N, T H E N, WE GOT BROOMIE, ALL GLAMMED UP LIKE IT USUALLY IS. THEN WE GOT SHY INK, WE GOT DISSOCIATING, EMOTIONLESS INK, AND THEN ANGY, "ABOUT TO LET YA HAVE IT" INK✧˖°.

Also just. The lil grinning Ink in the corner. I am w h e e z i n g. He looks like such a scrunkly, happy little goofball for once. He looks like he just told the stupidest joke ever and knows it. So he's just sitting there, grinning and snickering at his own freaking joke like a moron.

You know what, you deserve it, Ink. Freaking laugh at your own stupid joke, let's go, that's so incredibly based ngl-

GUYS GUYS GUYS GOOO read ''Perseverance'' by @pastelaspirations !! ABSOLUTELY beautiful story that had me hooked since the start.

I am so obsessed with this fic and can only ever think about it everyday. At work or at home it is STUCK in my head.

If I hyperfixate on an AU of an AU it means it's GOOODD. READ IT !!!!

[thejacketscloset]

Soap gives out small touches like it's Christmas everyday, he's always bumping into to ghost somehow. He never pushes it too far, mindful of ghost's comfort level, but he gives his pats of affection often. From what he can tell, ghost enjoys it too.

Soap loves physical touch as affection, especially casual affection. Unfortunately, ghost doesn't return physical contact very often, though soap never holds that against him. It just means the moments that he does return affection, soap holds it that much closer to his heart.

One of the most common ways Ghost will return the casual touch is as a light hand on Soap's back, lightly pushing him in the direction they need to go. Soap wishes he could sear that feeling into his skin forever, sometimes he hesitates moving just to feel it for a bit longer. He thinks about the warmth and the pressure of that hand on his back, knowing he would trust ghost to lead him if he had lost all his senses but touch.

So yeah, Soap is content to take what he can get, and give out all that he can give. When it comes to Ghost, Soap would do anything.

[sourscratched]

got caught in one of the back wheels of the bandwagon, extended corniverse headcanons be upon ye

my bryce and clark are based on the lovely lovely designs for them made by @gaybearwedding !! (well they at least were initially. things may have gotten away from me)

additional dumb doodling under the cut

(and one for my little team illinois + nebraska ocs ⬇️)

notes, headcanons, etc:

- the Wicked shirt and the blue button down (from the group pic in the first photoset) are both shirts i’ve owned for a long time and are still in my closet right now

- the team illinois and team nebraska captains are named dani (daniela) and miya and pretty much exactly what happened between bryce and clark also happened with them. they also spent a summer road-tripping together; prime grounds for homosexual thoughts to happen

- for anybody who’s watched the off book episode The Kids Are At Night with Mary Sohn (10/10 episode highly recommended), i imagine that most nights after clark gets done helping his sisters* with their homework he’s probably looking up online editions of Boy Boy Magazine. gotta get connected to the culture

* = my headcanon is that he has two sisters, one older one younger

- the Away Team is from the same country as Princess Emily but they’re diehard Nothing Everything Children Glass fans (is there an actual name for the group who made it?? tag with your headcanon for the band name) and there is a rivalry between the two factions

that’s all ive got for now thanks for reading all my weird little ideas!! 💖💖

[doodlejoltik]

my favourite writing device is having an un-Rei-liable narrator

[maester-cressen]

I was going to leave it in the tags, but I reconsidered. This post pretty much summarizes my stance on GRRM's work on Dany's arc. There are definitely orientalist tropes, lack of character development and overall less care dedicated towards making Dothraki, Meereenese and other societies feel more akin to life and less like a prop to Dany herself. These critiques do deserve to be pointed out.

My problem begins when people who have a criticism for the author's words extrapolate that onto the character. They have a problem with George's writing, but instead of addressing that as a fault of the narrative itself, they project it onto the characters as if it's their fault in particular the world around them is like this. I see this happening to Dany most of the times by the hands of their haters, because pointing out asoiaf's faults/weaker points means they need to acknowledge that a lot of things aren't Dany's fault, and they can't bring themselves to realize that she is not the source of all evil.

not to be controversial, but sometimes I wonder when Targ girlies are gonna get a break.

Dany cannot free slaves without being called a white savior nor is allowed to free slaves because she’s running the economy but then you have Rhaenyra who can’t be Queen unless she is starting a feminist uprising but if she does, she should expect no support whatsoever. It’s like one is too much but one is not enough.

it really seems like they want these girls to fail, just so their more ‘feminine’ favs can for… some reason? I just don’t get it.

It’s tricky because I do think GRRM’s writing can be orientalist, and the “white savior” criticism isn’t without merit, but I think the Slaver’s Bay storyline is doing some interesting things as well—for example what with the fighting pits, Ghiscari nobility wearing togas, and the echoes of Old Valyria, there’s an obvious comparison to be made between Dany and Spartacus. And yeah there are certain arguments I can’t entertain at all, like the handwringing over the fact that the transition away from a slave-based economy wasn’t neat and bloodless…Omg. Grow up

That’s a good point in regard to the impossible standards some people impose on Rhaenyra and Dany. GRRM has stated outright that ruling is difficult and he wants asoiaf to reflect that, and I think some fans prefer more of a straightforward wish-fulfillment power fantasy which is whatever but these books aren’t really the right place to look

[decisions-at-3am]

Do you ever think of me As I have thought of you?

I saw the scribblings of Muddled lines from your life. Day-to-day inspirations, All carefully collected.

I wanted to know how it felt. So I wrote, day and night. But I may have been mistaken, You, the subject of what I write.

It's increasingly clear that, I do not have varied interests. Everything loops back to you, You are my forever muse.

[commsroom]

eiffel's problem is that he sees every injustice as an interpersonal issue. he doesn't understand how his flippancy or apparent leniency towards hilbert might look to hera; in his mind, it doesn't contradict his support for her. to eiffel, it seems obvious - he is also one of hilbert's victims, hera is his friend, of course he's completely on her side - but he fails to fully grasp how the stakes are different for her.

ep 19: "you need to stop treating this like a joke, officer eiffel." / "hey, i'm the person for whom the joke tolls." / "i get you're scared he put something inside you. but i hope you haven't forgotten emergency code alpha victor. he put that in me." and ep 51: "they're just jokes! they don't really mean anything." / "see, eiffel, you get to have that. they can be 'just jokes' for you because you're... well, you. but we don't get that."

the issue in shut up and listen is eiffel's repeated, if unintentional, microaggressions, but it's also his general use of dark humor as a coping mechanism - jokes he feels justified in making because of how the subjects of those jokes have impacted him. eiffel sincerely believes in treating people equally, but his idea of 'equal treatment' can be idealistic and naive. he has an awareness of interpersonal harm, but he's lived most of his life without ever being confronted with the reality of structural harm - being pre-judged and othered and having his life devalued on the basis of outside categorization.

but the thing about that is that it has happened to him, too. eiffel is an addict, and a convict, and marked as from a lower socioeconomic class than minkowski or lovelace, and those things are the reasons goddard futuristics was able to buy him as prison labor and - without his consent - consider him expendable for medical experimentation. none of that is a coincidence, but he doesn't see the systems at work, only his own actions and regrets. which he then equivocates to the worst actions of people who don't share his sense of morality or guilt.

eiffel's ability to recognize and bring out the humanity in the people around him is one of his best qualities, but... on the basis of his identity, he's been able to live a life where he conceptualizes himself as the default person, and that's been reinforced by the pop culture he loves so much. that's a massive blind spot. he assumes everyone navigates the world in a similar way, and so, on some level, he sees everyone around him as an extension of or a reflection of himself. if evil is always personal, then it can always be reasoned with.

[daboyau]

Here’s a little No. 6 fic I’ve been working on off and on for years. It is Shion focused and a little emotionally angsty, I guess? Enjoy, or don’t. :)

.

Hamlet dies when Shion is nineteen. It does not come as a surprise; he had read that the lifespan of a rat was two years, on average. All things considered, Hamlet lived a remarkably long time. 

Still, it feels like a slap in the face for Shion; a wakeup call he wishes he could ignore. He had always thought that when that promised reunion came at last, all three of the rats would be there for it, and that it would be like nothing had changed at all. Now, he has lost another part of Nezumi with the death of his little friend, and it hurts more than he could have imagined. 

He buries Hamlet in the little plot of land behind his mother’s bakery, beneath the cover of the flowers she had planted just the year before. He kneels in the grass and stares at the freshly turned dirt for a long moment, eyes glazed and thoughts distant. The morning sun shines brightly, breaking through the rise of buildings all around him. The dew soaks into the knees of his pants and even finds its way into his shoes, somehow. The flowers look beautiful.

Shion does not notice any of it.

Hamlet has been a constant at his side for three years. He has been with him through too many lonely nights and forced-cheerful days. He has been a much-needed reminder of what had happened, because despite the city changing for the better all around him, there are dark days when Shion finds it hard to believe that the time he spent with Nezumi was real.

And if Nezumi, who was possibly the most vivid thing to have ever happened to him, was not real, then what did that mean for everything else?

Slowly, Shion pushes himself to his feet. There is something growing in his chest, an emptiness that he does not know how to fill. Maybe it’s always been there. After all, he had felt it before, during those years between 12 and 16, before Nezumi swept in like a storm for the second time and undid his world yet again. 

It hurts, like something visceral and real. Like a knife to his throat or gunpowder burning his hand. Unlike those things, though, there is no physical evidence to show for the horrible pain. He finds himself wishing that there was.

He lets himself linger for one moment more before he pushes the thought away and turns his back on the fresh grave. He ignores the void inside his chest, changes his pants, kisses his mother goodbye, and goes to work. It is just another day.

.

There are not many who are invited to attend his birthday party, but that does not stop his mother from having cheerful conversations with all of them, or from laughing like this is the happiest day of her life as she brings out a cake. There are 21 candles on the top, and Shion’s name written in her careful scrawl. It is easy to tell how much love went into the creation of it.

Shion thanks her with a tight hug, the sensation of her arms wound tightly around him and her familiar smell comforting. He laughs at something Rikiga says and waves off compliments and well-wishes from the few coworkers he has invited to join them. Everyone cheers as they sing happy birthday to him.

He feels nothing but exhaustion as he blows out the candles. He watches the flames flicker and die and, suddenly, 21 years feels like a horribly long time to be alive. 

He feels a hand come to rest on his shoulder, a gentle pressure meant to sooth, and he very carefully does not flinch at the contact. He smiles up at his mother, who wears such a fond expression it almost makes him feel bad. Inukashi stands to the side, little Shionn practically glued to their leg. They are both smiling at him, expressions so close to identical in the same way Shion and his own mother tend to wear similar expressions without realizing it. Shion has known Inukashi for far too long to miss the sharpness in the way they narrow their eyes once the happy moment has passed, or the worry hidden in the tight stretch of their lips. 

He hopes they won’t say anything to his mom. She worries too much as it is.

After the party is done, Inukashi will try to corner him. They will try to get him to talk, and just like every time before, Shion will smile and say that he is fine. He will promise that nothing has changed.

It will, of course, be a lie.

Ever since the day that Hamlet had died (or maybe earlier, when he watched Nezumi leave him alone to pick up the pieces of something too heavy for him to bear by himself — or earlier still, when he was a child and the stifling sense of being trapped and helpless and angry enough to want to tear it all down around him but knowing he couldn’t was too much to bear) something within him had begun to change. It was a buried something, and it had been growing bigger, more and more each day until he could feel it broiling just beneath his skin. He is drowning beneath the weight on his shoulders and the roiling sea of emotions within his mind.

There are people counting on him, though, so he bears it with a smile and keeps pushing forward.

.

The piles of papers on his desk have been steadily growing. Even eight years in, the plans for the city have not slowed in the slightest. As head of the restructural committee, it is up to Shion to keep the reformation of No. 6 moving forward at a steady pace. He is the only person in the whole city who truly understands what is at stake. It is up to him to keep their promise to Elyurias, to make sure that every step the city takes is in the right direction. The burden of responsibility feels like shackles around his neck. A collar heavy on his neck. It is something he had borne gladly before. He’s not sure what’s changed; only knows that he has to keep pushing onwards.

He shifts through the documents, processing and filing and highlighting, approving or denying, making changes and proposing entirely new ideas. It is exhausting work, and he has fallen asleep at his desk more times than he cares to remember since he started this project at the tender age of sixteen. If he can ensure that the city and all its inhabitants stay safe and happy, though, it will be worth it. 

It has to be worth it.

.

“You need a break,” his mother says. The sun is filtering in through the window over the sink, slanting golden shafts of morning light over the table. The dark liquid in his coffee mug glows amber for a moment and he squints down at it before shifting the mug an inch to the left and out of the sun. 

It’s too early to admire the beauty in something so simple. He has a budget meeting in two days and he still hasn’t finalized his proposal. His mother is still talking, but he can’t focus on her gentle words. His eyes are heavy and burning. He wonders idly if Nezumi would prefer his coffee black or sweetened with cream and sugar. Maybe he’d hate coffee, preferring hot chocolate even well into their adulthood. The fact he doesn’t know hurts more than he cares to admit. He hopes he’ll get the chance to find out. 

He offers his mother a smile, bland but genuine, and kisses her forehead as he stands from the table. He had gained several inches in the last few years of puberty and he towers over her, but she still finds a way to glare him down. There is no anger in her eyes, only concern, but it still makes him want to cringe away from her gaze. 

“I’ll take a break next week,” he lies. “I just have to get through this meeting. It’s important.”

She sighs but concedes, hugging him tightly. He allows himself just a moment to melt into her warm embrace and enjoy the feeling of being loved. There had been a time when he did not know if he would ever see her again, so even years down the road, he makes a point of enjoying these moments with his mother whenever he can. He hates how hard it is sometimes, how much effort he has to put into reminding himself to smile and hug her back, but it is worth it. This is all for her and he wants to be strong, but sometimes it feels like an insurmountable task, and they can both see him struggling to keep up.

“Have a good day, Shion. Don’t work too hard. I’ll be making stew tonight, so come home for dinner.”

Shion laughs and says he will. Maybe he’ll be able to keep that promise today.

.

The typhoon is roaring outside his home, wild and free and dangerous. He can feel it calling to him, singing in his blood and roaring in his throat. It feels like fire and acid and gunpowder burning him away from the inside. He wants to wander out into the storm just to soothe the pain. It would wash away all the filth and all the anguish that’s built up inside his soul over the years and lighten the burden of the chains that grow heavier year after year. He knows it. 

His chest is tight, his throat is stinging. He yearns to escape the confines of his bedroom and lean out into the storm. He wants to open his mouth and let all the sorrow and exhaustion and that strange deep ache be pulled from his core. 

If only he could let the wild of the storm sweep him out into the night, the wind to carry him somewhere far far away, and the rain to fill his lungs until he can’t breathe anymore. The thunder crashes and lightning flashes, and he feels a smile grow so wide his cheeks hurt. This is the most alive he has felt in years. He can feel the scream bubbling in his chest, begging for escape.

It is agony to deny it. 

But. 

His neighbors’ homes are pressed close to his own. They’re probably asleep, unaware of the storm promising release as it rattles their windows and pounds upon their roofs. Who knows what they would think if he woke them by screaming into the night.

He sits in silence by the window and watches the storm rage outside, wishing he was one of the storm clouds high above the city. It aches.

.

Shion wakes one day to find that he is 26. It has been a decade since the walls fell. Since Nezumi left him to clean up the mess. 

Nothing has changed, so Shion goes through the motions and ignores the ache inside his chest, same as always.

He files his paperwork and smiles at the woman who is kind enough to bring him coffee and a pastry once in a while. She smiles back and asks him about his day, brushing long brown hair away from her eyes and listening earnestly to his every word. He invites her to come to his mom’s house that evening for birthday cake and she accepts, a blush dusting her round cheeks. Shion smiles politely and excuses himself from the conversation after just a few moments. He has work to do before the evening comes.

His coworker brings him a gift that evening, which surprises him for some reason. Most of the reconstruction committee have worked together so long that the little things like birthday gifts get lost in the shuffle of day to day life. It stopped mattering to him a long time ago, but somehow, he still finds himself touched by the woman’s kindness. 

She smiles at him, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose. Her dark eyes sparkle as she hands him the wrapped package and her teeth are white as pearls and straight as tombstones when they flash at him from between painted lips. Shion thanks her earnestly before tearing the paper away. 

A pale purple scarf sits in the remnants. He stares at it for a long moment, taking in the heavy yarn and the single missed stitch. It is handmade. Not something she could have done in a single afternoon, which means she has been working on this knitting project for a while. 

He looks at her and is reminded of another girl, young and smart and deserving of the world. His coworker stares back, anxious and shy and not at all like Safu except in the way her feelings and intelligence shine from behind her dark dark eyes.

The moment passes, and Shion smiles. His coworker slumps in relief and smiles back. 

“Thank you. Did you make this yourself? It’s lovely.” 

He sets the scarf aside as they chat, already knowing that he will never be able to bring himself to wear it.

.

Inukashi finds him huddled in the bathtub, naked and shivering as the water runs cold. They watch him for a long moment, silent and calculating, sharp mind unchanged despite the softness that parenthood has brought to their life. Shion buries his face in his knees, too tired to even feel ashamed.

“You’re ridiculous,” Inukashi grumbles, sweeping forward and taking charge like the pack leader they have always been. 

Despite their slight size, they are able to lift Shion easily, hauling him to his feet like he doesn’t have more than a foot on them. They wrap him in a towel and turn on the heater, not at all thrown by his nudity or the way his eyes stare blankly into some distant memory that only he can see. His scar twinges when their warm fingers brush it. He flinches away from their touch and Inukashi freezes, dark eyes watching his face with an intensity that no one born and raised in No. 6 could ever hope to have. 

“I don’t know how you stand it,” Shion tells them, a smile trembling at the corner of his lips. Inukashi scoffs. They don’t need any explanation to know exactly what is on Shion’s mind.

“Me? I’ve got more food than I know what to do with and a house big enough to keep my whole pack warm and comfortable. You should be more concerned with yourself.”

Shion tilts his head, uncomprehending, and Inukashi looks like they’re debating whether to slit his throat now or wait until he’s asleep. They pinch the bridge of their nose and heave a put upon sigh. 

“You’re an idiot. You always have been.” Inukashi leans in close, lips curled into a snarl, an accusatory finger hovering just an inch from Shion’s face. “You’re not happy Shion.” 

“...what?”

“You heard me. It’s been ten years and I’ve watched you get more miserable and complacent every year.”

“Nezumi—“

“It has nothing to do with that rat bastard!”

Shion stares, wide eyed, as Inukashi seethes. His sleep deprived brain turns the words over slowly, almost reverently, until they click into place. 

“Huh,” Shion says. 

“Yeah,” says Inukashi. “Now get dressed and come downstairs for dinner. Your mom and little Shionn have been worried about you for months. Maybe even years. You owe them an apology.”

They won’t meet his eye, and their hands are clenched into shaking fists at their side. For the first time in a long time, Shion smiles. It is sad and bashful and real, and Inukashi stares back with wide brown eyes. Shion reaches out and pulls them into a tight hug.

Inukashi stiffens at first, cheek smushed against the scar on Shion’s chest. Then, all at once, they melt into the embrace. He hears them sniffle, feels the way they tremble. 

“I’m sorry,” Shion murmurs, and Inukashi presses themself tighter against him. 

“Idiot,” they say, but it comes out wet and muffled as they bring their arms up to return his hug. 

.

Shion lays awake that night, mind reeling. He already knows he will need at least three cups of coffee before he even leaves the house for work. It’s just that kind of night, and every day is that kind of day. As he often does on these troublesome nights, he prays. 

It isn’t to any god he learned about from theology books. There are no churches constructed for her. Instead, he prays to Safu, asking her for strength and guidance. The more he thinks about it, the more he realizes he knows exactly what she would say if she had lived to see the way he is now. He can almost picture the way her forehead would crease, and how her mouth would turn. He knows she would be worried and disappointed in turn, would know exactly what chemical imbalances have him off kilter and wrongfooted, have him distant and hollow inside despite his best efforts. She has haunted him for so long, and he is grateful for it.  

He wonders if Elyurias is out there somewhere, and whether she would care enough to listen. Maybe this is a punishment. Maybe being shoved back into a cage after tasting freedom is worse than never knowing what you’re missing at all. He probably deserves it.

When he gets up in the morning and looks into the mirror, he sees a wrinkle beginning to appear between his eyebrows. He frowns and watches it deepen. He wonders what Nezumi would think, and how the other man’s face has changed with the years. It’s hard to imagine that beautiful, youthful face ever changing, but he hopes he gets to see it. The honor to trace fingertips over new wrinkles and morning stubble is something he fantasizes about sometimes, when he dares to allow himself to imagine the future he once thought they’d have together. The signs of a life lived would only make Nezumi’s face more beautiful. He yearns to see it for himself.

He doesn’t know if he’ll ever get the chance.

.

He goes to work and goes through the motions. 

He can feel an itching beneath his skin and thinks of parasitic wasps. The fine line between his brows and the bags beneath his eyes continue to deepen and grow, becoming valleys and walls and reminders that time continues to pass and neither Safu nor Nezumi are coming back.

.

On the evening of his 29th birthday, Shion walks out of the office, waving goodbye to his coworkers. He has no intention of ever going back. 

After 13 years, they had finally created a system that would sustain itself for the foreseeable future. The plants would continue to grow in tandem with the buildings, the soil outside the borders of their city had finally healed enough to support life, and trees were standing proud and strong all around and within the city. There was no more caste system, and Shion and Inukashi and Rikiga and Karan had personally waded through every government record and chased down every rumor and lead until he was absolutely certain that there was no more corruption.

He has done everything he could, and the city he had sworn to protect and reform is finally at peace. He feels a lightness in his chest, a melodic buzzing inside his head, the quiet curl of satisfaction that is not quite his own, and he knows that Elyurias is pleased. Maybe, at last, it means that he can also be free. 

Free to rest. Free to roam. Free to learn more about himself in a way he hadn’t been allowed to explore when he was a child, and hadn’t allowed himself to dream of after the walls came down and he took the burden of ensuring the continued survival of so many humans upon his trembling shoulders.

As Shion walks through the familiar streets, he watches the people all around him. He smiles at the familiar faces and stops to make friendly conversation when they wave him down. He realizes with a strange jolt of grief that he doesn’t know any of their names. The smile he offers is the same for each and every one of them. They all greet him with the familiarity of old friends, while he is left speaking with strangers.

.

He packs his bags that night, after the guests leave. His mother watches him, and her eyes are soft and sad, but there’s pride in the way she smiles as she reminds him to pack an extra sweater. The lump in his throat threatens to choke him, but Shion smiles back and does as she says. 

In the morning, she wraps him up in a tight hug, face buried in his shoulder, and he can feel each shaking exhale. She doesn’t hold on like she’s afraid to lose him, though. When Inukashi steps close, she lifts one arm to let them join, and little Shionn is close behind. The four of them huddle together, and Shion smiles as he presses his cheek to the top of his mother’s hair.

“You’re so tall,” she says with a breathless laugh, pulling back to gaze up into his face. Her eyes are red rimmed and glistening, but there’s a happy glow to her that has him catching his breath, realizing for the first time that she’s happier now, preparing to say goodbye, than she has been in years. “My baby boy.”

His smiles through tears, and the bubbling brightness inside his chest threatens to overwhelm him. Laughter rises to meet hers, and it’s like a weight off his shoulders, because he feels the same and it feels so good to know that she’s going to be okay without him there.

“You might be big, but you’re still as airheaded as ever,” Inukashi scoffs, mouth twisted in a scowl but eyes suspiciously swollen and cheeks all flushed. “Watch yourself out there.”

“Of course,” Shion promises, reaching out to tuck an errant strand of long hair behind their ear. He doesn’t duck away from the punch he knows is coming, well aware that his dear friend’s default when trying to hold back tears is violence. 

He laughs even though his arm stings from the blow, and is startled to realize that he means it. A final kiss pressed to his mom’s cheek, one to the top of little Shionn’s messy hair, and a final tight hug for Inukashi. Then, he hoists his pack a little higher on his shoulder and turns to face the path out of the city. The sunlight is bright and dazzling as it glitters off the rocks that line the path and the early morning dew.

“I’ll be back soon,” Shion promises, but it doesn’t feel like a tether or a burden. The world is laid out before him, bright and beautiful and exciting, and for the first time in thirteen years, he greets the morning with excitement for a new day, finally free to forge a path towards the future he wants.

.

(And the next time a storm blows through, Shion won’t hesitate to spread his arms wide and scream his feelings towards the sky, smiling all the while.)

[lnkedmyheart]

I mean I am one of the few people who genuinely did not care for Keith Allura endgame at some point past season 2. As cute as I found them in the pod escape moment I don't really see the chemistry or any kind of grounds to truly connect on for them past the tangential ones and Keith is too fixated on Shiro for the first couple of seasons. I genuinely loved the Allura Lance development in later seasons with Lance growing into a better person and genuinely falling in love with her. I also feel like historically Allura and Keith have had a very slapped together relationship in 2 of the 3 previous iterations (I greatly prefered Lance and Allura in the og one because i genuinely dislike the celibate hero who never shows interest in the girl vs the girl loves the guy but they still end up together trope).

I did however enjoy the shallura and sheith dynamic as well and I feel shallura could have been a decent path to go down at some point but hey, I'm not gonna complain about my baby boy being queer rep. It's time we get non stereotypical rep for gay men.

I agree the whiney Keith part of the fandom is odd but I have arguably not seen enough of that in fanfics in general. I think I learnt to avoid those kind of fics early on since a lot of people who write those are generally younger people who project onto specific characters and you can usually tell within a couple paragraphs if it's that kind of fic. Most of the content I have read has been pretty in character for the most part. I also moved in Shiro lover circles so...

I would argue that Keith suggesting leaving Allura behind is harsh but also not...wrong. Not in the sense that they should have left her but Keith is capable of making difficult choices unless he himself is compromised (aka struggling with Shiro's loss). Even Allura agreed that they should have left her behind. Shiro is for all his groundedness, an idealist. He wants to protect everyone, even at the risk of making things worse for himself. Shiro the hero is right, he is your main heroic archetype, always save the people, always fight for justice, against all odds. Keith leans more realistic in that you make hard morally ambiguous choices in war and it's not like Keith has much of an understanding of war/this specific conflict like Shiro and Allura do. But yes, Keith is single minded and prone to rash decisions, he's definitely not as bad as that. For one Pidge absolutely deserved a chewing out for trying to ditch the crew in the middle of a war and Keith was right, everyone barring Lance and Hunk was dealing with some kind of loss. Mind you, at this point they did not know that the Lions would even pick another Paladin. Shiro imo was being way too lenient and probably still dealing with the guilt of having left the Holts behind and being saved instead. I do dislike the fact that Keith stopped being pragmatic and became Shiro the Hero point dos. It would have been a good comparison of how both are genuine ways of being in the middle of a war. But oh well.

I'm not really in the Keith defence squad. Lord knows I have issues with some of the Gary Stu crap that came later. But i do think sometimes we tend to expect too much from an isolated, socially inept, orphan with life long abandonment issues as he is navigating through a war in the early seasons.

I want to talk, for just minute, about the amount of self-disparagement in Shiro's statement, here. He's grievously injured, ailing, and trapped in a tiny cave with creatures lurking outside, waiting for their next opportunity to attack him.

Despite this, he's been repeatedly assuring Keith that he's "all right", and inquiring after Keith's well-being whenever he hears Keith struggling over the comms. Then, Keith expresses his belief that Shiro's presence and influence changed his life, and Shiro agrees. On the grounds that he's actively made Keith's life worse.

Keith's response to this extremely concerning assertion?

Nothing. He hears Shiro cough, tells him, "Stay with me, Shiro," and that's it.

This is an example of exactly what I mean when I say that Shiro has no support system. His best and closest friend hears him say something seriously disconcerting while in a state of utmost vulnerability, placing all of the blame for Keith's current predicament on himself, which is objectively not true, and does nothing to refute him. No, "Hey. Stop beating yourself up. We're gonna be just fine". Or, "How could this possibly be on you? Did you purposely eject us from the Castle?". Or even, "When we get out of here, we need to talk about why you feel like you don't matter and something completely out of your control is your fault. It's not like you asked to be here, either."

Maybe I'm expecting too much from a young adult with his own trauma whose interpersonal skills have already been shown to be lacking. I know I expected too much from a team of showrunners who believed that dark content automatically equals mature content, and insisted on shoving as much disturbing subject matter and questionable to outright deplorable messaging as they could manage to get away with into a series aimed at children. Shiro was never meant to heal from his trauma. The intention was to kill him to pave the way for Keith to take his place as The Chosen One.

But, in this fandom's determination to woobify their favorites to the extreme based on said favorites' moments of insecurity, they seem to have forgotten that the most blatantly traumatized member of the cast is the most blatantly traumatized member of the cast. Self-loathing and passive suicidal ideation are every bit as much a part of that as Shiro's flashbacks and the fear-induced paralysis that seizes him when a repressed memory resurfaces from the dark corners of his mind to drag him under. And, he, too, deserved all of the sensitivity, care, and love that they believe their favorites do, which makes it all the more abhorrent that he was repeatedly denied it in this show's canon.

[throughpatchesofviolet]

I'll have these moments where I am calm, collected, and feel like I can, in fact, complete all of the tasks I've set out for myself, and then I'll get home and completely lose all that motivation.

[xenonsdoodles]

POV you are a high achieving high school girl with nothing weird going on brainwise and you're writing a story for class that has no particular personal significance. you write about these guys. what will your future self say when he remembers it

[artemis-in-space]

I literally don't care what you ship in One Piece as long as you get the dynamic right

[icewindandboringhorror]

Apparently I can meet my goal of roughly 400,000 words in 6 months if I just somehow write at least 2,200 words a day ghbjh... Almost 2,500 today... huzzah...