#i went into a fugue state and did this all in one sitting

[lunar-jewels]

HAPPY PRIDE MONTH EVERYBODY!!!!!! 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️

[whatsnewalycat]

Designated Person | 10

Pairing: Francisco “Catfish” Morales x F!Reader

Chapter 10: Flat Tire

Rating: Explicit (18+ only)

Word Count: 6.9k+ (nice)

Tags / Warnings: reader pov, infidelity, past romantic & sexual relationship, angst, food & eating, blackout, movie references, car problems, alcohol & alcoholism, 12-step programs, lying, conflict avoidance, crying crying crying sorry, internal conflict, monologue, toxic relationships but listen we're tryna get better, journal entries, nightmares, ptsd, flashback

Notes: WHAT UP PARTY PEOPLE?? MAKE SOME NOIIIISE (insert dallas buyers club matthew mcconaughey scream crying in his car). Sorry for being a bummer lol sometimes growth hurts but we're gonna get thru this I swear. Ok thank u let me know what you think!!!

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-----

Blackouts work like magic. 

One second you’re perched on a barstool, trying not to sway or slur your words while ordering another drink, and the next you’re jolted awake by the thud of a door closing. 

Heart pounding in your chest, you sit up and look around, breathing a sigh of relief to see you somehow made it to your bedroom last night. 

You grab your phone off the side table, swiping away the missed calls from Frankie and Leah, then discover that you apparently re-downloaded a dating app in your alcohol-induced fugue state. Judging by the number of reply messages in your inbox, you must have hit up every man in the tri-county area who was “looking for a good time.”

Perfect. Of course you did. Why wouldn’t you? Bad decisions and dick has never ever steered you wrong. 

You read one typo-filled exchange between yourself and Russ K, 34, before deactivating the account and uninstalling the app. 

When you set your phone back on the nightstand, you notice a mason jar filled with ice water and frown. Beside it sits a small plastic container holding four neon orange tablets and two white tablets. A sticky note on the table reads ‘Went to a meeting, be back this afternoon’ in Frankie’s handwriting. 

Alarm trickles through your veins and inspires a wave of nausea you can’t ignore. Clasping your hand over your mouth to hold down the rising bile, you jump out of bed and beeline to the bathroom. 

After emptying the sparse contents of your stomach into the toilet, you lean back against the cool tile wall and search the ceiling for answers. How did you get home last night? Did you say anything to Frankie? 

You think about the ice water and over-the-counter pills left on your nightstand, then think about the note Frankie left. However you got home, he must know you were hammered. Which means you definitely interacted with him while blacked out. Do you even want to know what you said to him? 

Mortification twists your stomach when you imagine the possibilities. You could have tried to fuck him or murder him or anything in between. Given how you feel about him right now, it’s impossible to predict. That fact alone makes your mouth start to sweat again. 

So… no, you don’t want to know what you said to him when you were drunk. You don’t want to know how you got home or why the fuck your hair is damp. All you want is to get through this fucking day without hurling again. Maybe greasy food and a NASCAR nap, too. 

With this new clear goal in mind, you pick yourself up off the bathroom floor and set about making your low-stakes dream a reality. 

—

You wake on the couch to the soothing lull of commentators giving a play-by-play of the Rays versus Yankees game. A thick web of fatigue clings to you, fighting against your efforts to open your eyes and sit upright. 

“Hey.” 

Instinctively, you look towards the noise at the other end of the couch, locking eyes with Frankie. His face droops with this wounded expression that gets under your skin. Diverting your gaze to the TV, you cross your arms and try to keep your demeanor aloof despite the deep ache in your chest. 

“How are you feeling?” 

You choke out a humorless laugh and shake your head, keeping your eyes trained on the screen. A few tense seconds go by before he accepts that you will not be answering his ludicrous question, so he takes an alternative approach. 

“I brought home cubanos from that place you like. For, um… for family dinner. If you still wanted to do that.” 

Home, he says, as if the word meant something to him. As if he didn’t match every brick you laid in the foundation of this relationship with paper mache blocks. As if he didn’t take a wrecking ball to whole fucking thing regardless. 

Maybe to him home is just a place he rests his head at night, not where he anchors his heart. A matter of physical location rather than a feeling. You, on the other hand… never felt quite at home in this house until he started living here. 

Are you crazy for having felt like that? Like home was a space you held with him and him alone? 

Your parents were right. You make too much of things. You’re overdramatic. 

Why would he love you? Why would he choose you over his wife? You knew what you were getting into when this started. 

Stupid girl. 

“I understand if you don’t want to, though.” 

His voice brings you back to yourself. You blink hot tears from your eyes, then wipe them from your cheeks, trying to hold yourself together despite the whisper of ‘stupid girl stupid girl stupid girl’ at the back of your head. 

“Can we… can we at least talk about it?” 

You wince as a fresh batch of tears surges up your throat. Rising to your feet, you shake your head and manage to choke out, “Just forget it,” before fleeing to your bedroom. 

—

I slept most of the day yesterday so it took me forever to fall asleep. Also Frankie was walking around the house all night. At 11ish, I heard him talking on the phone, then I think someone picked him up. I texted him to see where he went because I’m unfortunately still his designated person. He said he was with someone from AA and he’d be back soon, just needed to talk. I couldn’t fall asleep until I heard him come in at 1. He wasn’t stumbling around so I’m guessing he was sober??? Hopefully he was. I don’t want this to get in the way of his recovery. Which I sort of hate. I wish I could delete the feelings I have for him. I wish I didn’t care. But I guess I do, so… I don’t know. This fucking sucks. Leah said I should kick him out, but I don’t want to fuck up his program. Maybe I’ll talk to Ralph today and see what he thinks. The thing is… the more people I talk to, the more I just want to talk to Frankie. Nobody makes me feel like he does. More than the lies, this is what bothers me the most. The fact that I can feel this way and he just doesn’t. I don’t understand how he can’t feel it, too. I thought this was real. But I guess I always do. I guess he’s just a really good liar and I am just a stupid girl. 

Tossing the notebook aside, you sit up to grab your mug off the side table. Wisps of steam rise from the coffee and dissolve into the air. The image blurs as a thick, wretched sensation twists up your throat. 

God fucking damnit. 

Every time you think you have no more tears left to cry, you prove yourself wrong. They just keep coming. Yesterday you waded in and out of these sudden fits where crying was all you could do. It reminds you of all the other times he broke your heart, but especially the last time. 

After Angie caught the two of you fucking, part of you hoped that maybe she would leave him. From what you understand, though, he convinced her to stay. Called you a mistake. An ‘isolated incident’ or whatever. Fucking asshole. 

Anyway. 

Seeing each other became logistically and emotionally difficult. Participating in an affair is much easier when it’s still a secret, for obvious reasons. He tried to see you when he could, which wasn’t nearly as frequent as you wanted. When you did see him, he was drunk. You’d pick him up from the bar, or he’d come over after Angie went to bed, but he was always at least five drinks in and counting. 

You bailed him out of jail twice in those six months. Once for drinking and driving, once for getting in a fight over a fucking pool game, of all things. 

He seemed so walled-off from you, too. Like he detached from his emotions when he saw you. Maybe it was because of the liquor, but a million other reasons are just as likely. After sex, he would leave. The sex was… well, it was still good, but… different. Rougher, impersonal. It felt less like making love and more like fucking. 

You still loved him, though. You still had fantasies of having a real, normal relationship with him. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, you still wanted to believe that he was meant to be with you. 

Stupid girl stupid girl stupid girl

And then, well… 

Your phone starts to ring. It’s Ralph. 

You take a few quick sips of your coffee, then set the mug aside to answer. 

“Hello?”

“Hey, kiddo. Do you have a minute?” 

His tone, less jovial than normal, gives you a small burst of anxious energy.

“Sure, what’s up?” 

“I just got off the phone Mr. Morales and he briefed me on the, ahhh… situation over there.” 

Unsure what to say, you fold an arm over your belly and stare down at your lap. 

“I understand that things are a bit tense due to an incident that occurred on Saturday, is that correct?” 

“Yeah,” you nod, voice wavering, “Yeah, I, um… I overheard him talking to Angie, and… well, basically I found out he’s been lying to me.” 

It sounds so pathetic when you say it out loud. 

“Uh-huh. He lied about the nature of his relationship with Mrs. Morales.” 

“Correct.” 

You prepare for Ralph to tell you it’s not a big deal. Brace yourself for the inevitable scoff, or for him to accuse you of overreacting. 

So he lied to you, so what? You knew who he was. You knew he had a family to keep together. You should have known better than to get involved with him. Stupid girl, why would you put yourself in that position in the first place? 

“And this isn’t the first time he lied to you about this particular matter, am I understanding correctly?” 

“Well…” you frown and shake your head, “No, not really. When we were together before, he was pretty explicit that he wouldn’t leave her. I just… I just thought… I don’t know. It’s dumb. I’m fucking dumb.” 

Ralph doesn’t respond right away, so you add, “Sorry. I’m still in my feelings.” 

“Don’t sweat it, I think I’m picking up what you’re putting down,” he pauses here to clear his throat, then recounts, “Before, he told you leaving her wasn’t a possibility. And despite my warning going into this, the two of you re-established your romantic relationship, he told you that kind of relationship was effectively over with his wife. Which wasn’t true.” 

“Correct.” 

“Ok. Got it. Has Mr. Morales exhibited any unusual or suspicious behavior since the incident on Saturday?”

After thinking about it, you tell him, “I wouldn’t call this suspicious exactly, but yesterday he left a note saying he was going to an AA meeting, which isn’t normal. And late last night someone picked him up. I texted him to check in and he said he was with someone from AA, talking.” 

“Do you believe he was being truthful?” 

“Yeah, I do,” you shrug, “I mean, I’m obviously not the best at detecting his bullshit, but I’ve seen him under the influence more times than I can count and he didn’t seem… like that.” 

“Well, that’s good. And it’s good you checked in with him, I take that as a positive. You are still responsible for him while he’s on parole.” He sighs, “Which brings me to my next question. Are you thinking you want to continue serving as his designated person, or should we start looking for alternatives?” 

A lump rises in your throat. You swallow it down, wincing at the tears that burn behind your eyes, “I, um… I’m not sure yet. Can I have a few days to think it over?” 

“Sure. How about this. Why don’t you take some time, maybe go to one of those Al-Anon meetings I told you about, and I can stop by Saturday to have a sit down with you and Mr. Morales. Does that sound agreeable?” 

“Ok,” you nod, “Yeah, that sounds good. We can do that.”

“Alrighty then. I’ll shoot you an email with some details sometime today and we’ll go from there.” 

“Thanks, Ralph.” 

“Call me if anything comes up, ok kiddo?” 

“Will do.” 

After hanging up, you put in a load of laundry and wander around the house, stopping by the fridge to stare at the cubano Frankie brought home for you yesterday. You roll your eyes with annoyance as you grab it, then you return to the couch and put on Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. 

—

By the time Frankie comes home, you’re four feature films deep in your angsty post-breakup movie marathon and feeling indignant enough not to surrender the common space to him. 

His eyebrows do this little surprised jump when your eyes meet his, and he glances at the TV, “Reality Bites?” 

You don’t respond, just curl deeper into the couch and return your attention to Ethan Hawke’s spiteful cover of Add It Up.

He kicks off his work boots and walks into the kitchen, coming back a minute later to ask, “If I make something for dinner, will you eat it?” 

Your stomach rumbles at the thought of food. Without looking at him, you shrug. 

Accepting the non-verbal answer, Frankie returns to the kitchen and starts bumbling around, cussing and grumbling under his breath. Eventually, though, he seems to get the hang of it. 

Just as the end credits of Reality Bites start rolling, he enters the living room holding two plates and sets one on the coffee table for you, then takes a seat at the opposite end of the couch. 

You sit up, crossing your legs as you pull the offering into your lap, and toss the remote control to his side of the dividing cushion. He wordlessly searches for something else to watch while you study the avocado-filled hot dog buns. 

“What is this?” you ask. 

“Completo. Hot dog topped with good shit, basically. Avocado, tomato, onion, condiments.” He selects play on Moulin Rouge, then looks at you and shrugs, “Ma would make it for me when I had a bad day.” 

You stare at him for a moment, then roll your eyes and shake your head as you turn to the TV, “I see what you’re doing.” 

“What’s that?” 

“Kissing my ass.” 

He chuckles, shifting a little, “Yeah, well… yeah.” 

The movie starts to play. You don’t mention that this will be the second time you’ve seen it today because he probably knows that. After taking a bite of the completo, you hum at the mix of flavors and textures as you chew. 

“Good, right?” Frankie says through a mouthful. 

“Mmm,” you nod in agreement. 

He swallows, glancing between you and his food before asking, “Can I ask why you haven’t kicked me out yet?”

When you contemplate how to answer, the reasons all snarl into a tight knot of which you can’t quite make heads or tails. 

“No.” 

“Fair enough,” he murmurs, letting his gaze linger on you, “Do you want me to give you some privacy, or…? Because I can go—” 

“It doesn’t matter, Francisco, just stop talking.” 

“Ok, but—” 

You hold your hand up to him, “Shhhhhh.”

He sighs, but accepts the silence. Tension resides in the air at first, but slowly dissipates as you clear your plates, then settle into the couch. And although your eyes stay trained on the screen, you can’t make yourself pay attention. 

You keep wondering why he lied about being with Angie. He’s never had a problem making that clear in the past, even if it meant breaking your heart. Is it because he lives with you? It’s possible he didn’t want to risk getting kicked out, so he kept it a secret. 

Then why get involved with you again? Did he think this was the best way to stay in your good graces? Has he been manipulating you this whole time? 

It’s possible. It’s also possible you’re another one of his bad habits he can’t kick. A coping mechanism. Disposable, like always. 

You remember the night you asked him to come over so you could talk to him about something important. He promised to be there at eight o’clock, which is when you planted yourself on the front porch swing to wait for him. At nine o’clock, his truck came rumbling down the street and parked in front of the house. 

“What’re you doing out here?” he smirked as he climbed the porch steps. 

“Waiting for you,” you glared at him, observing his fluid movements when he plopped down beside you.

“I went and got a drink, lost track of time.” 

He wrapped an arm around your shoulders and drew your stiff body closer to kiss your cheek.

Something hot flared in your chest, and you distinctly remember wishing he would show up sober for once. This wasn’t the scab you wanted to pick, though. 

He tilted your chin up, pressing his lips to yours, breath heavy with whiskey, then pulled back to frown at your lackluster response. His body swayed a little as he studied you, “What?” 

“I need to talk to you.” 

“Ok,” he leaned away from you with a scoff, “Well, I’m here. Talk to me. Tell me how I fucked up this time.” 

You winced, “Don’t do that.” 

Crossing his arms, he stared at you, all fucking wobbly and drunk, irritation folding his facial features. He shrugged, “Do what?” 

“That! You’re being an asshole.” 

“Oh, I’m being an asshole?” he mocked, “How’s that?” 

Rage simmered beneath your skin. You let out a chuckle of disbelief, shaking your head as tears pooled in your eyes. After taking a moment to gather yourself, you spit out, “Do you love me?” 

“Do I—?” he furrowed his brow like he didn’t understand, shifting in his seat, “Do I love you?” 

“Yes, Frankie. Do you fucking love me or not?” 

His indignation melted. Shoulders slumping, gaze going soft. He swallowed hard and looked out at the street as if searching for an escape hatch. Emergency brake. Make it stop. 

“Because I love you. I’ve been in love with you for so long… and-and I still don’t know what the fuck I am to you.” 

He seemed frozen, staring at something a million miles away without sparing a reaction. 

Nine months later, you can still feel the frantic vibration of your bones when you moved closer and cupped his cheeks, forcing him to look at you. When his eyes met yours, they were so cold and vacant that you barely recognized him. You tried to get through anyway. 

“I need you right now, Frankie. But I need all of you. I can’t be on the back burner anymore. I need you to be with me or I need to let you go.” 

“You know I can’t do that. I can’t be with you, not like that.” 

“But you could, though. You could. We could do this, we could make it work, start a life together—”

“I won’t leave her,” he shook his head, “I have a family—goddamnit, you knew what this was when it started.”

You sobbed, letting your hands fall away from his face, and his eyelids fluttered with the ghost of an emotion that you didn’t understand. 

He started, “I don’t—” then paused, tapping his clamped lips. His bloodshot eyes flicked around the porch and settled a million miles away again, “I don’t love you.” 

With this declaration, he took his chisel to you, lined it up in just the right spot, and gave it one firm tap. You crumbled at his feet. Shattered into dust. 

He got up and drove off while you were still bawling on the front porch swing. 

Onscreen, Toulouse-Lautrec shouts, “The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return!” 

It hits you square in the chest. 

With tears brimming your eyelids, you jump up and flee to your bedroom before he can see them. 

—

Terrible nights sleep. Every time I drifted off, I was in the bedroom at my parents house but it wasn’t in my parents house. He was there but he wasn’t there. I don’t know how to explain it. I felt his presence but knew it wasn't him. I kept my eyes closed because I was scared to see, but I could hear him getting closer and closer. When I opened my eyes I woke up. The feeling stuck to me. It took me forever to fall back asleep and when I did it started over. 

Frankie didn’t go to work this morning. I don’t think he slept well either. Heard him walking around all night again. Idk if I should ask him what his deal is. I don’t want to talk to him about it yet and he’ll probably try to do that. Which is weird for him. A year ago I’d give anything for him to open up like he’s been trying to. But it hurts too much right now. It’s so messy. I’m all tangled. I need to straighten myself out before talking about it. 

I think I’m going to an al-anon meeting today and I’m nervous. Not sure what to expect. Keep worrying they’ll tell me I don’t belong there or make me talk about him. I don’t know if I belong there. I don’t know if I belong anywhere. 

Pulling back from your notebook, you stare at the last sentence for a while before closing the cover and setting it on the end table. 

Frankie walks out from his bedroom and rounds the corner to the living room, looking suspiciously formal, wearing slacks and a white dress shirt. His dark curls have been combed into a neat side part. It even looks like he trimmed his facial hair. 

As he peeks through the front window curtains, you blurt, “Are you wearing a fucking tie?” 

He looks surprised to hear you speak, raising his eyebrows as he glances down at himself, then up at you, “Yeah. I have a uhhh… a deposition today.” 

“Is that good or bad?” 

“Not really either. It’s normal, I guess. They’re just asking me questions on the record.” 

Nodding, you study his nervous demeanor, watching him reflexively go to lift his hat, faltering a little before running his fingers through his hair anyway. 

A desire to comfort him trickles through you, extinguishing the glowing embers of contempt inside your chest. 

“How is the case going, do you know?” 

The corner of his mouth pulls back into a kind of grimace. He takes another peek out the window, then steps back and shrugs as he approaches the couch, “The lawyer says they’ll probably offer a plea deal once this is over. We’ll see what that looks like.” He sits down at the other end of the couch, pulling out his phone to keep an eye on the little car on his rideshare app, “He thinks maybe they could agree to a reduced sentence.” 

You pick at your frayed cuticles, holding your tongue for as long as you can before asking, “How are you doing with… everything?” 

When you glance at him, his face is crooked with contemplation. He shifts in his seat and crosses his arms, lips parting with an answer. A notification dings on his phone. 

“My ride’s here,” he murmurs and meets your eyes with an apologetic expression, “We can talk about it later?” 

You give him a non-committal smile, “Good luck at your thing.” 

—

The woman who gave you your new member packet, apparently the leader of the meeting, looks around the room and announces,

“This afternoon, our fearless speaker will be Taylor. Everybody please welcome Taylor.”

From the back row, you sink down in your metal folding chair and glance around at the attendees, joining in when they start to clap for a woman approaching the podium. 

“Hi everyone, my name is Taylor. I’m a member of Al-Anon.” 

The room responds in unison, “Hi Taylor.” 

Taylor smiles and shakes her head, looking down at a small stack of trembling notecards. Her round shoulders raise with a deep breath. She closes her eyes for a moment, exhales, then looks up at the room. 

“If you would’ve told me a year ago I’d be the speaker at an Al-Anon group, there’s no way I’d believe you. But here I am,” she chuckles, “Wow. Thank you everyone for coming in today. I see so many familiar faces and some not so familiar faces and I’m grateful to see all of you. I’m proud of you for coming to this meeting today. 

“One of the biggest preconceived notions I had when I started attending Al-Anon meetings nine months ago is that they would help me support my alcoholic husband. At the time, he was about a month into sobriety and had just started going to AA meetings. He was struggling like hell and a friend of his asked if he wanted to go to an AA meeting with him. So he did. 

“I’ll be honest, when he suggested I go to Al-Anon, I was annoyed. I really was. At that point, we’d been married for five years. He tried quitting, oh, I don’t know… six times in that five years? Three 90-day inpatient rehab stays, two arrests, more sleepless nights than I can count.” 

Taylor pauses and looks down at her notes, then back up at the room as an amused smile spreads across her face. 

“What it always reminded me of was this story my husband told me. Every so often, he goes through these phases where he gets very very interested in a particular subject. It completely takes him over. All he wants to do is read about it and talk about it and… well, you get it. 

“When he was in his Greek mythology era, he told me about Sisyphus, the king of Ephyra. Sisyphus killed people who visited his palace, which angered the gods because they considered it impolite, which is the understatement of the millennium, but that’s neither here nor there. When Sisyphus died, Hades punished him to an eternity rolling a boulder uphill. He would fight his way up this steep hill, pushing the boulder with all his might. The boulder was enchanted, though, and every time the it got near the top, the boulder would roll back down the hill, then he’d have to try again. So he does this over and over and over for eternity. Infinite frustration and exhaustion. 

“Sometimes it felt like that with him. With my alcoholic. Like I was stuck in this loop, fighting like hell to push his dead weight to the top of the hill. Just when I got a scrap of hope, it went tumbling back down. Over and over and over again. I structured my whole life around his relationship to alcohol. Checking in with him constantly, making sure I didn’t say or do anything that might trigger another relapse, putting myself on the back burner to accommodate his needs. So when he suggested I try going to Al-Anon meetings, I expected it to be another chore catering to his sobriety. I thought I would come here and learn all the ways people support the alcoholic in their life the right way. Because I obviously wasn’t doing it the right way. If I was, he would have years of sobriety under his belt. 

“Regardless, I agreed to go, and quickly discovered my preconceived notions about Al-Anon were wrong. Al-Anon doesn’t exist for us to better service the alcoholic or alcoholics in our lives. Sure, we’re all here because of the alcoholic in our lives, but the point is to better service ourselves. I think that distinction is important. 

“When I came home from my first meeting, I went through the new member packet Mario gave me, and found a handout that said: Detachment is neither kind nor unkind,” Taylor nods at the memory and looks around the room, “That struck a chord with me, that phrase. Detachment is neither kind nor unkind. It didn’t make sense to me at first. I thought, how is detachment neither kind nor unkind? It went against my instincts completely. How was I supposed to help my husband if I detached from him? Isn’t love about being attached to someone, sticking together through thick and thin? 

“Attending meetings and working the steps helped me get a better grasp on the concept. I came to understand that, in Al-Anon, detachment can mean two different things. The first is separating the person you love from their alcoholic behaviors. The second is a little harder to define, but it centers around the idea that you are separate from other people, and their actions do not control yours. Let me show you what I mean, though.

“In my relationship with my husband, we were entangled,” Taylor laces her hands together and holds them up for everyone to see. “Wherever he went, I went, too.” She moves her clasped hands back and forth. Spreading her hands apart, she says, “I didn’t want to be apart from him. But what I found with detachment is,” she flattens her hands palm-to-palm, “We can be close without being entangled. That way, if he goes to a dark place,” she moves one hand away from the other and shakes her head, “I don’t have to go with him if I don’t want to.” 

Taylor looks around the room, allowing her words to sink in, then returns her attention to the stack of notecards and flips to the next. 

“When we detach in this way, it both relieves us of our perceived responsibility for their actions and emotions, and grants them autonomy to make their own choices. They deserve dignity and freedom, which is difficult to obtain if we try to manage their lives. 

“So often in our marriage, I thought that loving my alcoholic meant rescuing him from himself. I thought that if I exerted myself hard enough, pushed him up that steep hill long enough, we would get to the top together. But the effort was Sisyphean. It didn’t matter how much time or effort I put into controlling the direction of the boulder. It would always roll downhill, because the boulder was enchanted. Even if I spent an eternity trying, even if I begged and screamed and pleaded with the boulder, it would still be enchanted. And, you know… maybe that’s ok. Maybe he’s not meant to sit at the top of the hill. It’s not his fault, either, and I came to realize that instead of getting frustrated at him for being enchanted, I can meet him where he is and love him anyway. If I don’t like that place, I don’t have to stay there. When I detach with love, I grant myself autonomy as well as him. 

“Putting the metaphor aside, I’ve used this in practice by no longer lying for him. If he’s at an AA meeting and our daughter asks why he’s not home, I tell her the truth. When my family or friends ask how everything is going, I don’t try to make it seem easier than it is so he can save face. I confide in them with sincerity because that is what I need. I’ve stopped giving him advice unless he asks for it, because I’ve learned here that most times people don’t need advice, they just need someone to listen and be present. I’ve stopped trying to take the reins when I think he’s making poor decisions, because he doesn’t need someone to do it for him. He needs to learn to do it himself. Part of learning is making mistakes and growing out from beneath the consequences. 

“Detachment is neither kind nor unkind, it’s a tool we utilize to free ourselves and the alcoholic in our lives. Al-Anon doesn’t exist to teach us how to help the alcoholic in our lives, although the tools it gives us can aid in their recovery as well as ours. This fellowship exists to help us, the families of the alcoholic, so that we may lead more joyful and serene lives. Thank you.” 

Applause erupts from the crowd, and you join in, watching Taylor glow with pride as she steps away from the podium. 

—

Damp, hot air pours in through the rolled-down windows, carrying with it the earthy scent of algae-bloom off East Lake Tohopekaliga. Driving along the slow, steady curve, you pass by sprawling oak trees, their eaves all draped in spanish moss. 

Your hope was that taking the scenic route home would clear your head, but it’s not doing the trick. Something shifted inside you during the meeting. You can’t quite put your finger on exactly what shifted or why it happened, although your circular thoughts give you the sense you’re on the precipice of understanding. 

You keep thinking about the speaker, Taylor, and the lesson she relayed from her podium. Her situation is different from yours, but you know it all the same. You know how it feels to dig your heels into the dirt, struggling like hell to push someone in the direction you think is best. You know how it feels to see him tumble to the bottom time and time again. And for what? It’s not like he’s any better off because of your efforts. It’s not like you are, either. 

How many times have you betrayed yourself for the sake of his favor? How many times have you put your needs aside to tend to his? 

Calm blue-gray water flickers behind the trees you drive past. It looks peaceful. Further up the road, you spot a public access point to the lake and turn into the lot, hitting a bump. When you do, a loud BANG reverberates through the car. The steering wheel shakes as you slow to a jerky, lopsided stop.

“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” you fume, shifting the car into park. Folding forward onto the steering wheel, you pinch your eyes shut and take a deep breath, then exit the vehicle to look at the damage. 

The front driver’s side tire sits flat against the pavement. You stare at it and shake your head, muttering, “God fucking damnit,” before walking to the trunk. 

You open it and pull up the mat to the spare tire well. It’s empty. 

“Fucking of course. Jesus fucking—” 

Cutting yourself off with a furious groan, you pull out your phone and go through your contact list, pointedly scrolling past the F’s to pause at Leah, who’s over an hour away, then Marla, who’s busy enough as it is. You even briefly consider Rory, but the idea makes your stomach lurch. 

You could just do it all yourself. Order a car on one of those rideshare apps. It would take forever, though, and you’ve never changed a tire before. 

Frankie is the logical choice. The first person who came to mind, if you’re being honest. Something hard and stubborn inside your chest throbs when you hover over his name. 

It’s pride, you realize. Maybe a little fear. You don’t want to ask for his help. You don’t want to burden him. You don’t want to be disappointed if he says no. 

All the same, you dial his number. He picks up on the second ring. 

“H—”

“Are you at the house?”  

“I am.” 

“Are you busy?” 

“Nothing I can’t put off ‘til later. Why?” 

“My fucking tire blew out, and my spare is in the garage,” you sigh and throw your head back, propping a hand on your hip, “Is there any way you can bring it out to me?” 

“I, umm… yeah, of course. Where are you?” 

“East Lake Toho.”

He snorts, “Christ, what’re you doing all the way out there?” In the background, you hear the floorboards creaking, mapping his way through the house. Before you can respond, he asks, “Spare tire in the garage, need me to grab anything else?” 

“Uhhhh…” you wrinkle your nose at the trunk, “I don’t know, I have a jack and the tire iron thing.” 

“That should do it. Wanna drop me a pin? I’ll have to get a ride out there.” 

“Yeah. I can pay you back if you need to order a Lyft or whatever.” 

“Just take it off my tab,” he jokes, the back door squeaking open behind his voice, “Hang tight, I’ll be there in a bit.”

You turn around to lean back on the bumper, “Ok, I’ll be here.” 

After hanging up, you share your location with him, then wander down to the dock. It rattles around as you teeter to the end and sit down, letting your feet dangle over the edge. 

Cattails and lily pads have been cleared from the shoreline near the boat landing, giving you a clear view across the lake, broken up here and there by thick swaths of aquatic vegetation. The glassy surface of the water reflects the hazy blue sky, and stagnant air sticks humid to your skin. Insects buzz and birds sing and somewhere far away you hear a boat motor chugging across the lake. 

When you think of serenity, this is what you picture. Stillness and calm. Peace. You inhale the scene, allowing it to stretch out inside you and unfurl your tensed muscles. 

As soon as the unease evaporates from your body, fatigue takes over.  

Lying back on the dock, you stare up at tall, fluffy clouds littering the sky. Your eyelids grow heavy as you watch the slow-moving parade of shifting giants, the warm air lulling you into comfort until you let your eyes drift closed. 

Your awareness fades in and out while you sleep. At one point, a car door shuts, then the car drives off. Vaguely, you know it’s Frankie but can’t lift your limbs, syrupy thick with lethargy. You hear grunts and metallic clattering. Some time later, your trunk slams shut. 

When the dock starts wobbling around beneath you, you blink your eyes open and sit up, scrubbing your hands over your face as a yawn overtakes you. 

“Hey sleepyhead.” 

You glance over your shoulder at Frankie, who comes to sit down beside you with a groan. He’s back to his usual attire, jeans and a t-shirt, baseball cap firmly in place atop his head. 

Still groggy, you yawn, “I couldn’t make myself wake up.” 

“Not sleeping well?” 

“Fucking awful, honestly.” 

“Yeah, I know.” 

You frown at him, searching his face until he gives you a little shrug, at which point you mumble, “Oh. I forgot that I, umm… yeah. Sorry.” 

“No need to apologize,” he tells you, squinting up at the sky before dropping his eyes to his hands as he fiddles with his wedding band, “Same here. The—the sleep part, not the nightmares.” 

“Yeah, I know. I hear you pacing around at night.” 

“Oh… sorry, I didn’t realize—”

You push yourself up straighter to watch his legs dangle next to yours, “It’s fine.” 

Quiet settles comfortably between you. Near the dock, you see a cluster of bubbles rise to the surface of the lake and burst. The ripples flatten out and calm returns. 

A question swells in your ribcage. Just a small pocket of air at first, maybe the size of a pebble. The longer you sit and stare at the water, though, it expands. It works its way up your throat, taking up more and more space with each passing second until you can’t contain it any more. 

“So you were lying to me, right? About not being with her?” 

He meets your gaze, dark eyes all remorseful and gooey, then he nods, “Yeah. I was lying. To both of you.” 

Folding your legs up onto the dock, you look away in the hope that he won’t notice the tears starting to come. When he speaks, his voice comes out hoarse and quiet. 

“How much do you want me to tell you?” 

The question replaces the air in your lungs with a vibrating sensation. Another cluster of bubbles dissolve on the surface of the lake. You manage to croak, “I don’t know.” 

He doesn’t respond. You sense that he’s waiting for you to make the next move. 

Your mind wanders to the front porch swing that night you forced him to choose. He felt so far away. Until he told you differently, you were so certain he was in love with you. 

“I don’t know how to trust your words as truth, Frankie. All the way back to the start, I don’t know what was real and what was bullshit and I am fucking—” your voice cracks from the emotion burning up your throat. 

He goes to comfort you, but pulls back before making contact. 

Every cell inside you aches for him to bridge the gap. You follow the instinct, grabbing his shirt to curl into his shoulder. As soon as you do, he wraps his arms tight around you, bringing you in closer. 

A wave of moth-eaten hurt wells up your chest. 

“Why?” you sob, “Why did you do this to me? I don’t understand—”

He starts to rock you in a slow, soothing motion, burying his face in your hair as you cry into the collar of his shirt. In the background, behind your racing thoughts and shattered breaths, you hear him whisper on repeat: I’m sorry, baby… I’m so sorry.

[thestarfilledsea]

Quiet day

it’s my birthday! wooooooooo i’m ancient now.

Have a self indulgent “Wukong struggles with the passage of time” fic because i can and this has been sitting in my drafts for a month.

AO3

words: ehhh like 1k

—

Have you ever noticed that you’ve gotten used to the quiet?

The warm light of the lantern hanging from above flooded through Wukong’s cracked eyelids. Throwing an arm over his face, a sigh escaped his lips. His fingers drummed against his skull in an old rhythm of a dance he couldn’t quite remember the steps to. It had to be at least two millennia ago. Where’d that even happen anyway? Who was he with?

Echoes of disjointed sensations were all the sage could recall, which was not unusual for a being as old as he. The brush of cloth on his skin, his feet hitting the floor until they ached, spinning on and on and onwards. A festival perhaps? He recalls the smell of the food-rich air, a wild excitement crackling like lightning in his veins, and…oh. Wine. a lot of wine.

A chuckle fell from his lips.

That was a long time ago.

Gods, he’s getting old. Why so nostalgic all of a sudden?

Dragging his arm back and peering upwards through his loosening fingers, Wukong couldn’t help but stare at the rays of light pouring through his lax grip. It wasn’t unlike laying under the thick branches of flowerfruit mountain.

Wukong never considered himself old…mentally, that is. As the years went by though, he could feel himself becoming more and more complacent. Content to sit and watch the world go by. To watch it bloom, wither and die only to sprout from its own remains again.

He felt disconnected from it. An observer watching a never-ending cycle repeat until time itself runs out. His memories meld together into an indistinguishable blur, only solidified by the stories scholars tell and ghosts of sensations the king recalls. In a way, he was perfectly fine to let those memories fade and die as the rest of his past did. Maybe there was some reason for mortals' demise. I mean, he could barely recall some of the things he’s done in his life until someone asks him to recount the tale.

Wukong shifts, adjusting himself more comfortably into his couch. his ears twitching towards the timeless sound of the monkey's play.

Some things never left him though. Like the weight of the circle upon his head, the scars that still ache when it rains, and the dreams he has almost every time he sleeps. The dreams are disjointed and chaotic, blurry images paired with unintelligible voices painted with an urgency he didn’t understand. A language he no longer spoke.

He’d drag himself out of bed, still burdened by the weight of the long restless nights. His body felt more like a vessel than actually him these days, with aching scars and calloused hands serving as a constant reminder of his age. His eyes, once full of the curiosity and excitement of youth, were now weary and dull, stained by smoke.

No matter how desperately he tried, he could never truly rid himself of the ghosts of his past. The faces of those that stood before him remained as their names faded. But he could feel their presence. Looming over him—lingering.

The feeling of nothing shook him to his core at times. The realization that another year had passed without so much a blink of an eye rattled him. Seemingly going in and out of some sort of fugue state. One moment it was spring, the next thing he knew snow had fallen.

The lights between his fingers danced timelessly before his eyes. Sighing, he rubbed his eyes, not quite sure if he’d be able to summon the strength to roll off the couch. You’d think he’d be better at this by now, but he wasn’t.

The faint murmur of someone lecturing echoed in his mind, ever so faintly, teasingly just out of earshot. As if they were standing just outside the door. He couldn't quite make out the words, but it was a voice he knew all too well - one of reprimanding before a punishment.

The voice seemed to grow closer, as if the person was getting impatient. Frustrated, he strained his ears, desperate to understand what was being said. Yet it still stayed just out of reach, frustrating him even more.

“Monkey King!”

The sound of his successor's voice made the sage jump, snapping him out of whatever masochistic reverie he had been swimming in. MK had a knack for doing that. Always seeming to know when to come knocking. Like a ray of the sun leaking through the fog, shedding light on the world around him.

“I brought some noodles cause Pigsy said you were more mopey than usual.” MK casually swung open the creaky door of the cottage and waltzed inside.

“I don’t mope, I brood. There’s a difference.” Wukong mumbled, defeatedly sitting upright. The inviting aroma of fresh food wafting through the cottage for the first time in weeks.

“Yeah yeah I’m sure there is in your world, now eat up before I have to call in your entire army to cheer you up.” MK says, pulling out a chair and sitting in front of the sage.

Wukong chuckled, unwrapping the bag and peering inside at the warm food that awaited him. MK looked on expectantly, while pulling out his own smaller serving.

“Dig in.” MK encouraged, as he continued struggling with the packaging on his own serving. Wukong was not daft, quite the opposite. He understood perfectly well that his apprentice was concerned about him, watching him like a hawk to ensure that he was eating.

Sometimes he forgets how observant his student could be. Beneath the happy go lucky demeanor, MK was sharp as a tack. Wukong, after all, took pride in his ability to act like there was absolutely nothing wrong even during his... episodes.

Yet, despite all these measures and precautions, MK saw right through him and never failed to show his concern.

With an ancient mischievous twinkle in his eye, Wukong tilted the container of noodles back and devoured the entire thing in one single fluid motion. The sound of MK’s snort was the prize he had won, as he raised the empty container in a mock victory, as if displaying an achievement for all to see.

“All gone!” He set the remains of his massacre to the side, settling comfortably into the couch. The tension and unknowing of earlier dissipated with the laughter of another.

“You are one crazy old man.” MK snorted, bringing his own noodles to his mouth.

“I prefer the term eccentric, actually.” Wukong replied in an exaggerated tone before unleashing a loud belch the likes of which gods would fear.

“See, If you had burped like that in the Lady Bone Demon’s direction you could’ve one-shot her” MK mumbled, his mouth full of noodles as he leaned back in the chair.

“You know, in all my years of living, I’ve never had someone bring such a good point to my attention.”

“That’s what I’m here for, remember? To challenge an old man’s ideas.” MK teased, fishing around the bottom of his own noodle container for the scraps of a meal now eaten.

“Yeah yeah, now hand over the remote.” Wukong dismissed with the wave of his hand. MK expertly tossed it over, eyes casting themselves towards the television.

“Quiet day?”

“Quiet day.”

MK nodded knowingly, shifting himself into a more comfortable position.

“I was thinking you’d show me that series that you always talk about. That uh…what’s it called?” Wukong struggled to recall the name of the show he was referring to. It was on the tip of his tongue.

MK's face instantly lit up with excitement, clearly knowing exactly what his teacher had been trying to remember.

"I know! You mean the show about the superhero team," he interjected excitedly, finishing his master's sentence for him with a smile. "I think you'll love it! It's all about this group of crime fighters who use their powers to protect the city and take down villains—“ MK rattled on about the plot as Wukong pulled it up, adjusting himself as to be facing both the screen and his student.

Sometimes, a new kind of quiet can shake things up. The quiet doesn’t have to be spent alone

[goodluckclove]

I have a project that I started for Nanorimo. I won Nano but after it was over I lost the motivation to write the last of the first draft. I think it’s a combination of not knowing exactly how to end it, not a lot of people to share it with, and being worried that I’m gonna re-read what I have and just find it bad.

Hello, Friend! Please, sit down. Take a deep breath. I'm going to say a variation of a form of writing advice that I'm sure you've heard a lot, but I'll hopefully elaborate it to the point where it clicks. I actually started writing through NaNoWriMo, it was a really great way to build up the muscle of consistent practice. Did my first six or so novels like that. Fun!

But I have good news and bad new about your first draft. The bad news is that it probably isn't perfect. The good news is that that's a great place to be in.

For one thing, NaNo specifically is not a traditional way to write a very stable first draft. People will spend years on what you've done in 30 days. To compare them is comparing your blanket fort with someone else's McMansion and thinking "dang what if my blanket fort never has faux-Roman arches".

Some people say their first drafts are perfect. This confuses me but I accept it and believe them when they say it. I do think that these people are not talking about drafts they carved out of word-flesh in a month or less. That's an entirely different game to play. When you hear people talk about how you're supposed to have a shitty first draft it could be hard to swallow. We don't want to feel like we put in all this hard work to make something shitty. So maybe I can say it a different way:

Your first draft is the skeletal structure of the story as a whole. It is the frame to what you're trying to achieve.

And I can say from experience that not liking your first draft doesn't feel the way you might think it will if you go at it the right way. I've written twelve books and there's only maybe two that I read fragments from and genuinely cringe. And even then there's still stuff I like about it.

Maybe you went into some kind of fugue state for a month and wrote a bunch of stuff that you hate every part of. You're a big high fantasy fan and you wrote a gritty detective novel. You love Dark Academia romance and when you read your NaNo you find it is just a list of every slur you could think of and new ones that could be added to the lexicon. If this happens to you then yes, your first draft is objectively terrible and you should probably take yourself to the hospital.

More likely your thoughts will look like this:

Maybe I should cut this. It's not really needed.

Oh I forgot the protagonist has this specific trait, I should remember that and incorporate more in the rest of the book

Hah yeah I see where I was going with this.

I should add more details about this concept, considering I now know about this other concept.

Hah man that's a lot of typos. (Assuming you're like me)

These are the types of things I have thought when I looked over literally every first draft I've ever edited since the dawn of my time as a writer. You are not likely to rend your clothes in shame and burrow underground. Even if you find some weird shift that happens in NaNo novels, like the genre or tone changing midway through the document - professional writers do that too. It can be a more efficient way to explore the space you're working it.

It can be a really interesting challenge! It helps too that you took some time off - I try and take at least a week between draft edits, even though it can be painful. You'll be able to see it with fresher eyes.

My usual strategy for editing my own drafts is to read from the top with curiosity and excitement and treat it like a puzzle. Is this what I want? Can it be better? Was there something I missed? Incidentally, when I'm stuck at a point in the novel I use the same trick and it helps every time. It's how Chuck Palahinuik did Fight Club!

So yeah you already did a huge thing by finishing a NaNo. Why not take a look back, if not just to enjoy the crazy and chaotic fruits of your effort?

Also - in regards to people not reading your work. Out of 12 novels I've probably had 3 read all the way through. It can suck, but it's okay and it doesn't mean they aren't good. Validate yourself and enjoy your own writing and start putting shit online/self-publishing/querying to take a chance!

[vixnovacoda]

How The Pine Trees Fall || Chapter 2

Ford Pines x OC (Post-finale)

Word count: 4k

[CH1]

[AO3 version here]

Transcript of recorded statement 1.36: > The town of Gravity Falls is small, but the inhabitants it claimed as denizens were not. They are larger than life. Each and every one of them. > Trying to butter me up, already, sweetheart? > [CHUCKLE] Maybe I am...   For the record, that was the voice of one— > Stan, Stanford Pines! Mr. Mystery and proprietor of the infamous Mystery Shack, home to all life's greatest mysteries and spooks and stuff!

———

There was that face again. The one with the stubble and that jaw. That inhuman jaw. Burnt like a brand across her mind. It had been decades since she last thought about him, and now, now, he was stuck in her head. Never did she intend to see or dare dream of it again.

    Like a bunch of rocks had been thrown into a blender, that was how Lorelai’s brain felt upon waking up from her fugue state. She groaned and rubbed her head as the cold light of night nibbled along her skin, which was a full tone darker than she remembered. Had she truly been out for an entire afternoon? Fully prepared to blame the bizarre fantasy of falling into a hole and being saved by a familiar face she never expected to see again on a night of drinking or the result of being awake for twenty-four hours. That was, until her usual walls were instead wooden with triangular windows, and her bed a sofa instead. The pain that shot from her ankle as she went to stand further solidified the truth that the other day had really occurred. 

    With a yelp, she flopped back down. She couldn’t believe any of it had happened; the stepping on the butterfly, the scattered giant holes in the ground, the hole she fell in, and then Stan. Frankly, it was very strange – which she should have seen coming, as was the nature of Gravity Falls to be strange, after all. “Good, you’re awake.” There was that voice from the hole again, though it sounded a lot less swallowed-a-bunch-of-gravel-like and… just smooth, smoother than the scribbling he made on some paper anyway. Not at all how she remembered Stan sounding. It was easier on the ears and almost made her want to fall asleep – if not for the circumstance of being in a room she didn’t recognise. In fact, there were these minor differences she could just barely make out as she noticed him sitting in the corner of the room by a desk; the definition in his chin, the lack of five o’clock shadow, the glasses frame being rounder, the still waiting to grey out hair, and the trench coat - since when was he a trench coat guy? – it was as if he had stopped ageing and got an entire personality shift, and why was he coming over, and getting closer, and why was her heart pounding, and why was he shining a penlight into her eyes? “Tell me, does your head hurt at all?” prodded ‘Stan’.

    “Jesus, Stan! Take a girl to dinner first before you shove something in her face,” exclaimed Lorelai, lurching back against the sofa as she shielded her eyes. “And I’d feel a whole lot better if I could see.”

    “Stan?” He squinted, confused.

    “Wait, I mean, it’s almost hard to tell, but you’re really not Stanford?” she queried.

    That stumped him. Stumped him harder than she expected.

    He stepped back, scratched his head with the end of the pen and mumbled something about a ‘memory gun’, whatever that was. “I… Well, yes. I am. But I don’t know you. Do you know me?”

    She blinked and her stomach sunk. “You really don’t know me, huh.”

    “Should I?” He pulled his face back into a weird expression.

    Under the dim overhead light, she squinted as more things came to the light, such as what others may not notice at first; a curious sixth finger. Curious for a man she knew to have only five. It seemed the Stanford she had known was most definitely not the man before her now and, yet, they seemed so similar upon a glance. Two men with distinct similarities and slight differences and both seem to reside within Gravity Falls, too many coincidences to call it anything other than the obvious or maybe Lorelai just hit her head too hard on the fall and this was all some part of her imagination. But coincidences were unlikely to be anything other than connected in a place like Gravity Falls. But she couldn’t honestly be right. That would mean…

    “Geez, Ford, buy the lady some dinner first before you interrogate her,” came another man from the doorway on their side. Lorelai didn’t see him at first, but it was that gruff voice, that deep, bottomless-pit-ness she’d recognise anywhere.

    “Stanley, what an absurd insinuation,” bit back the other with a huff. 

    The second shrugged in response and made an undiscerning noise, which led to an endless back and forth between the two doubles as they used unsharpened words that Lorelai chose to tune out. She rubbed her head at the commotion. It was a lot to take in – and a sight for single child Lorelai to behold; watching them bicker, and push, and tease, but never in a way where they actually meant the things they said. Harmless, really. Ford was more blunt and defensive. Stanley was the sarcastic, joking one. Which was to be expected of the gold chain, white shirt, and denim-wearing man she knew as Stan.

    He had aged. Nonetheless, it was still him and not some double figment of her imagination or lookalike. It was him . And her earlier hunch was right. “Twins. You are twins,” blurted out Lorelai with a frown etched into her forehead, and her old southern drawl poking through. 

    At the drop of a hat they stopped. Sense switching in as they remembered why they were bickering in the first place. Stan turned to face Lorelai first, pivoting half-way on the ball of his foot like some awkward buffoon and looked her way. “Hey ya, toots,” broke Stan, the man who hadn’t changed a bit. Not truly. For she could swear she saw all those harsh features soften the second their eyes met. Suddenly, it felt real.

    She swallowed, her heart dropping.

    Twenty years.

    It wasn’t enough.

    “So, you two are… acquainted?” interjected Ford, gesturing between them.

    “… You can say that, yes,” answered Lorelai, plain and on the verge of pulling herself back together.

    “Yeah,” echoed Stan in a similar vein as he rubbed the back of his neck. “Urm… Where are my manners? Lorelai. My brother, the real Stanford Pines. He’s the one whose hole you fell in. Ford. Lorelai Summers. She’s—”

    “Farhaven. It’s Lorelai Farhaven now. I married… Was. I was married,” corrected Lorelai.

    He stared.

    She stared back. Unblinking, the pair of them.

    It took a while for it all to register in Stan’s mind. Though, the moment it did, Lorelai noted the whites of his eyes burn pink ever so slightly and gave her a look that said, really? And she looked back like she meant it because she had moved on (had she?). It was the final nail in the coffin. Unexpected, yet, bound to happen. He wasn’t really sure how to react.

    None of them did.

    Neither spoke – and Ford, respectfully, dared not intrude on what was a personal moment. For those next few moments there was nothing. Nothing except for the slow funeral march of her heart dragging along the awkward silence in its wake – ‘from the cold depths of her chest,’ imaginary Stan would add. That’s what she could once imagine him saying. To him, it might have been cruel, but he had left her unforgettable scars along the groves in her heart. That was cruel. They were both cruel to each other in the end.

    In an effort to lessen the addition of any more hurt, Lorelai broke first, opting to look elsewhere, anywhere that wasn’t him, which included Stanford who stuck out like an odd daydream with his idle stance of hiding beneath a maroon book as he kept to the sidelines. But no matter how hard she tried, she kept looking at him. The window, then Ford. The wooden architecture that suggested she was in a cabin of sorts, then Ford. The door she’d never seen, yet recognised the similar shapes from the others in the building, then Ford again. They were in the Mystery Shack, they were in a house so full of memories, and she couldn’t stop looking at him. Him. Him, him, him , Stan. Every which way she looked there was him. Even in this very room where she had never been before, there was him more than once. It wasn’t until she took a deep breath and actually closed her eyes that her thoughts returned to an ounce of normalcy as the reason why she was out here in the first place rose to the surface.

    She found it instantly on the sofa not far from her, like it had been calling, screaming to her this whole time. Moonlight shone along the broken fractures and cracks of the plastic that once held the machine and cassette tape together in its rectangular shape. The tape’s guts spewn forth from the compartment as the magnetic tape ran long spirals which pooled into a pitch black mess. A couple buttons destroyed, ‘record’ being stuck in place. Her tape recorder. Supposedly broken by her act of heroism.

    Hours of research, gone. Ruined.

    “This isn’t about some kid I don’t know about, right? Cause I’m not paying child support,” spoke up Stanley with that regular old mask back on again, playing serious this time.

    “Stanley,” chastised Ford, breaking his writing streak to glare lasers at his brother.

    “What? I’m not. They’d be a full blown adult now.” He threw up his arms.

    “No,” answered Lorelai, interrupting their second round of bickering before it could even start. “No, I came here for research purposes.” She cradled and bundled the broken tape recorder within her lap, careful not to disturb it further lest it be irreversible. “Though, I wish I could say it was to collect some money you owe for a few books.”

    “Ha, I, I don’t know what you mean.”

    “Library. Library books, you fool. I’m the new librarian.”

    Stan hummed in amazement. “Ah. You always were the smart one with your tapes and stuff.”

    She whipped her head up at him. “And buttering me up don’t work no more, hun ,” hissed Lorelai, an ancient venom bleeding atop her tongue meant to hurt him, and she watched as he shrunk in on himself like some turtle hiding in its shell. “I’m not going to gloss over all this so easily, not when it cost me so much of my work and years of you lying to me.” To which she eased her attention towards the man caught in their crossfire and clearly wanted no part in their feud. “Look, far be it for me to know why I never knew about you… Ford, personally, I do not care. This whole name, identity, whatever that was is a private matter for later on. However, can someone please explain what you’re doing digging massive holes in the middle of nowhere for people to just fall into?” she asked, still ever so irritated.

    “I, well,” started Ford, looking over at Stan as if for help.

    “She’s a born native, Ford, you can trust her,” chimed Stan out of a sort of reluctance.

    “Can I?”

    “I did. Do. I still do.”

    Ford sighed, also reluctant, putting away his book and adjusting his glasses. “Well, coincidentally, I was conducting a bit of my own research as well, searching for something as a matter of fact.”

    Well, she’d be damned. Could it have been the same thing she was looking for?

    Lorelai leant forward along the edge of the sofa as she peered over the rim of her triangular framed glasses and muttered beneath her breath while Ford began to delve into a lecture-worthy explanation of all that happened. “Fascinating…”

———

Transcript of recorded statement 1.40:

> Fascinating . . . Out of all the creatures in Gravity Falls, these little ones have been the most elusive of all, and yet we have happened to a gathering of them that won’t seem to leave us alone. What another strange anomaly. > I’d say what’s strange is the fact they’re all staring at us. They’re not poisonous or nothin’, right Lore? > Naturally a pattern such as theirs on their coat would be a warning to wannabe predators, mostly indicative of venomous animal species. > Wait, what?! > Shh... You’ll frighten them off, Stan. Here. [PLASTIC RUSTLING] > Why am I holding bread? > Testing a theory.  > You really are a strange one, toots. > I know, comes with the territory of dating a native Gravity Falls dweller, hun. Now, shush. [LONG PAUSE] > It’s as I predicted. They appear to be hungry. > ... I think one of them just licked their lips. That wasn’t just me, was it? > Note, despite the average diet of their non-cryptid relatives, it seems the plaidypus has a fondness for that of wheat, specifically, bread— > [HUSHED] Lore. > It makes one wonder how far they might go on an empty stomach for that which is their favourite? > Lore! [SILENCE. SOON FOLLOWED BY THE SNAPPING OF BILLS AND THE SURPRISED YELLING OF A MAN THAT CARRIES INTO THE DISTANCE AND LAUGHTER, BEFORE THE LAUGHTER SLOWLY HALTS] > Well, hi there lil’ fella, get separated did ya? [A SHORT SOFT SQUEAK] > You’re just like me then. [GROANS]. Heavier though. Softer too. I’d be damned, those lumberjacks were right. [CONCERNED SNIFFLES] > Don’t worry, I won’t harvest you like those heartless folk. Us strange ones gotta stick together. > [DISTANT] Lorelai, a little help! > They’re harmless, Stan! Just give them the bread! > [DISTANT] What? But you said they were venomous! Ah!— [SPLASHING OF SHALLOW WATER] > Hmm...  A coat, I think. A coat for a group of plaidypi.

———

Gravity Falls was freezing. 

    No one told her how much more frigid the world had grown when night killed day hours ago. Lorelai shivered, burying herself into the smokey scent of her jacket as she cursed with each step that sent pain through her nerves (she couldn’t believe that she was actually missing being back in the Mystery Shack, stupid sprained ankle). Ford, however, did explain the purpose of the holes she had fallen victim to. In that he spotted some sort of creature while following a plaidypus one morning before falling victim to a labyrinth of winding trees at every twist and turn – turned out there was some strange event surrounding that part of the woods where it would send you around in circles at every bend, no matter which direction you went and time was fleeting. That the holes were a measure to capture what might have been the cause of such an anomaly. That he and his great niece and nephew, Mabel and Dipper, were out that morning to see if anything sprung one of the traps.

    The whole thing was, admittedly, strange. There were a million things waiting to burst from the seams of her mouth to just say, and ask, and discuss, and she would have stayed, dining upon his morsels of knowledge that she had gaps of, had she not been so burdened by overstaying her welcome at her ex’s abode after his proposal to drive her home. When she had left, she wanted to tell Ford that he was right, but her proof was poor and was nothing in comparison to how he may have genuinely stumbled upon the very thing she’d been searching for all this time. Him, some random scientific genius. All Lorelai had was a gut feeling.

    Then there it was again.

    Tug.

    She stopped dead in her tracks. Five feet from the Mystery Shack and that sensation returned as if it had been waiting like some loyal pup all this time for her to return to the wilderness, and it called. Almost imperceptible. A tug… tug… tug. A tug at her head, moonlight blinding her vision on the horizon. A tug at the feet. A tug at the hands. At her body. Desperate and pleading. A tug that was a whisper in the wind for her to follow. It sounded so familiar, So much like her own echo.

    Suddenly the cold wasn’t a bother any longer. Nothing was. Lorelai entertained the idea of rushing back inside and confessing to Ford. For a moment. Truth was, she couldn’t. Deep down, some part of herself wanted this discovery to be hers . She just had to move—

    “Ground control to Lore? You alright?” came Stan’s voice all garbled and scratching at the edges of her mind, slowly pulling her back to reality. She blinked. The world changed. It was actively changing before her eyes, the outdoors existing separated from her, rolling past in a haze from the window of a car, Stan’s car. Lorelai knew instantly from the first squeak of the passenger’s seat that she was inside his car, leather seats and all. While everything else changed, this had not. “I…” she wasn’t too sure what really happened, but she shook it off. “Yeah, I’m fine,” she told him. A yawn escaped her throat. She didn’t realise how tired she’d been this whole time. Probably just shock. Yeah, shock, or adrenaline.

    Stanley tapped the tip of his finger idly on the over-worn steering wheel. “So, married, huh?” attempted Stanley with what she assumed was the best opener he could come up with.

    “Yeah.” But she refused to play nice and forget.

    “Was it… uh, was it a good one?”

    Lorelai occupied herself with the side-view mirror, her reflection harsh and languid. “It was a marriage,” she replied, monotone.

    He chuckled. “Ha. Don’t I know it. Was married for a short while myself.”

    Thump . Went the car over a bump in the road.

    “When did you?—”

    “Why did you do it?” she demanded, her head hung and her words sharp.

    “Huh? What, get married? I could ask the same for you. Didn’t think you’d move on so easily.”

    “No. Why’d you lie to me for years?” She glowered at him from the mirror.

    Thumb . Another bump.

    He stalled as he refused to meet her intense, white-hot gaze. “Ah, that.”

    “Yes. That .” The plastic of the tape recorder dented under her increasing grip.

    “Well,” he started, running a hand through his hair and sighing deeply, “it wasn’t my intention. I wanted to tell you about everything. You gotta believe me.”

    “Then tell me now. Explain everything, right here, right now.”

    “I. I can’t.”

    “Why not?”

    “Because it’s complicated.”

    Red beaded droplets ran from her fingertips. By the time she noticed the stinging ache of the cuts, a few drops had already taken to staining a patch on the denim of her jeans. Lorelai bit back the pain as she withdrew plastic from flesh, releasing her tight grip on the tape recorder – in her hands it was small, something someone could properly grip entirely with one hand like a heart, her heart that now poured out blood from an old wound. But she brought it upon herself; shouldn’t have asked, shouldn’t have gripped the broken case so hard; she should have known better than to expect any other answer. It was always complicated .

    How foolish of her.

    Stan – Stanley – Pines was a liar through and through. If it’s trust he wanted, then he wasn’t getting it. Lorelai would not give him an inch, even if it cost her life. After all, had he learnt nothing from the last time? The pain, the suffering, all back within an instant like a bonfire eating away at rotten coffin wood where the smoke made white eyes red. Excuses after excuses. She had hoped the fire would eventually burn down to the truth after two decades of being lit, but all she got was the searing of her own skin. Enough was enough.

    Grimacing and mustering every fibre of her being, Lorelai commanded, “stop the car.”

    “But—”

    “I said, stop.the.car.”

    Stan tried to refute her, but the look she gave him was enough to cause him to gulp, put his foot on the brake and turn his skin inside out. Lorelai didn’t care about where they were, or how far she’d have to walk, nor the amount of pain she would be in. Sitting in that car with Stanley Pines was a far worse pain than any sprained ankle. Stepping out, boot against concrete, back turned and out of the car, Lorelai shut the door with a slam as she went to walk off in whatever direction would get her as far away as possible from Stan within the streets of Gravity Falls.

    But it wouldn’t be enough. More stubborn than a mule and going after her, Stan shouted out to her, “Lorelai, wait!”

    “What? What is it this time?” She stopped, her face still red from the neck up.

    “I. The tape recorder.” For the first time in a long time, his voice softened against the still and dreaded, chill air. Softer than she could imagine it going. “I broke it once before, let me try again. I owe that much to you,” he implored.

    “It’s a bit hard to trust you when all you’ve ever done is break things, Stan,” she argued, a frown upon her lips.

    “Well, I’m trying to change that.”

    “I don’t believe you.”

    “For crying out loud, it’s been twenty years. People change, haven’t you?”

    Lorelai fell silent. He had a point. By god, he had a stupid point.

    She turned on her heel before reluctantly crossing the distance wedged between them. “One chance. That’s all I’m giving you, Stanley Pines,” she told him and handed over the recorder, and he just smiled like some proud idiot, teeth and all. 

    “I like my odds,” said he, as if he had tricked her all over again into giving him her heart. But, she wasn’t the same woman he had fooled years prior, and he wasn’t the man she once knew. Then again, he never was. Doesn’t mean she’d forgive him for the past.

    She gave him a few days.

———

Transcript of recorded statement 2.36:

> Toots, do we have to do this? > You’re the one who wanted to stay with the times, hun! [CLOTHES BEING THROWN HIT THE FLOOR] > Christ almighty, you barely have anything salvageable in here...    Aha! This will work great. Here, put this on. > I’m not sure about this one, Lore. > Look, I know Mr Mystery is attached to the whole Mystery Question Mark symbol, hun, but a plain black suit will look amazing. Trust the vision. [A SIGH, FOLLOWED SHORTLY BY THE RUSTLING OF CLOTHES BEING REMOVED AND PUT ON] > Can’t believe you’ve been keeping this one from me this whole time, Stan. > Honestly, I kind of forgot about it. Probably because it’s the only one that’s not mine. > Suits you well though. > Really? I feel strange...   Was my fathers, think he meant for it to be some sort of wedding attire or something. > You’re just missing a few pieces, that’s all. Let me. [FOOTSTEPS ECHO AWAY FROM THE TAPE RECORDER AND MORE RUSTLING] > Lore? > Hm, yes? > Do you— Have you ever thought if marriage suited you? > Have you? [SILENCE] > Anyways, there, done! One eyepatch, the fez and a Kentucky bow tie, courtesy of my father, Jake Summers. > You sure I should have this, won't he miss it? > He won't even notice.   Besides, now it’s a lil’ bit of both of us. [SILENCE] > Hey, big guy, talk to me. Whatcha you feelin’? > A bit awkward, I guess. > It always fits eventually, Stan. Don’t force it. > Yeah. Say, be a doll and grab something from that drawer over there for me, will you? > Sure thing. [FOOTSTEPS APPROACH. A DRAWER OPENS. OBJECTS CLANK AS PAPER RUSTLES] > Wait, wait, wait— > ... What the hell, Stanford. What in the actual hell? > I can explain, just— > Stay awa— [A CRASH. TAPE RECORDER HITS THE FLOOR. STATIC] Statement ends. Transcript over.

[virtualcarrot]

[KKIR] Information up to date

(Posted on AO3)

The effervescence of Naruto's wedding buoys Iruka for all of three days, tops, and then he goes into a fugue state of flash cards and checklist items he plows through all the way into the Vice President exam. After which he retires to his apartment and locks himself in for twenty four hours, fourteen of which he spends sleeping.

When he emerges to resume his duties, it’s with an unnerving shiver vibrating right under his skin. Idleness doesn’t suit him. He misses the frenzy of the previous week. His days leave his thoughts alarmingly free to roam in comparison, with nothing to distract him from the Dread of Waiting for the Sentence.

He can feel himself becoming quite insufferable.

"Iruka for the love of the Sage, give it a rest."

"Leave him be, Kaede, he needs this," Hiro argues with too much mirth to be believable.

She laughs and pitches her voice louder. "Yo Iruka, it's a nice day today, isn't it?"

"Yes", Iruka replies absently, too busy sketching horrifying diagrams to pay any mind to the drizzle outside.

He’s taken it upon himself to think up an improved sorting system for the reports. It’s dreadful and dull work, not the least of which because it’s also entirely unnecessary, but it’s just the right amount of mind-numbing to keep him from crawling up the walls during lulls in the walk-ins.

He hears more laughter and ignores it.

He's not going to get the job, is the thing, he just knows that, and then he'll never be able to look Kakashi in the eye. Eyes.

That one's still taking some getting used to.

"How would you feel about a walk on the beach, Iruka?"

"Stop making fun of my name," he can’t help but instinctively retort at the mention of anything sea related.

"Onsen, then?"

"Yes, sure, I like onsen."

He can't believe they changed the date of the exam just so he could apply. All those other candidates inconvenienced so Iruka might go to a wedding, even though he’s going to fail everyone miserably anyway. He already can't bear to think of the look of disappointment on Kakashi's face, not after the man went through so much trouble to accommodate him.

Maybe the reports could be sorted by date first instead of rank? He scribbles something down.

"So, Iruka. Would you rather have some ice cream? dango? Or takoyaki, like the one two streets over."

"Stop bothering him, Kaede. He's obviously a ramen guy."

Iruka hums in absent-minded assent without looking up and draws a nonsensical arrow from a cluster of brainstormed words to another.

Kakashi will be kind about his failure, Iruka knows, but maybe that's what makes it even worse. Ebisu’s hundreds of 'I told you so,' will be upsetting, sure, but Iruka can endure gloating when it's deserved. At least it grounds him in reality.

But Kakashi? Kakashi makes him hope for things he can't have, and it's terrible to realize that just when he gives Iruka a chance, Iruka is going to mess it up so miserably.

''Favorite color?"

"Oh I know this one, it's definitely blue,'' Hiro answers for him.

It’s a relief sometimes, being known. Saves him from contributing to conversations he’s too distracted to have.

''How do you even know that?" Kaede’s voice asks, sounding curious.

"He said it was annoying, what's with his name and all.''

Why did Iruka ever think he was in any way qualified to be Vice Principal, anyway? Truthfully, a waste of everybody's time…

But he can't ignore the laughter anymore, not when it turns into full blown cackling.

''Alright, what gives?!" he snaps, looking up with a scowl.

Fist shoved halfway up his mouth in a meager attempt at some self-control, Hiro looks away. For her part, Kaede grins back triumphantly and folds back the magazine they had been bent over. There's a pen in her hand.

She shoves the magazine towards Iruka and points at a corner of the page where a cut out picture of none other than Hatake Kakashi sits atop of a paragraph of text.

The top of the page reads '*which of Konoha's legends would be your perfect date - results*'.

''Congratulations, Iruka,'' Hiro manages in a choked voice while Iruka tries to get his head around the whole thing.

It doesn't help that his coworkers are supposed to be responsible adults. Idleness truly is a poison to the mind.

Kaede gleefully pulls the magazine back to herself.

''If you like them reliable and steadfast,” she reads, “look no further! A man of mystery and dedication, the sixth Hokage of Konoha is the one for you. Whether relaxing with you at an onsen or sharing a warm meal at the Ichiraku Ramen restaurant of Konoha, this is a man that'll remain faithfully at your side. And, who knows, allow you into his heart, and maybe even past his mask!"

Iruka's eyebrows have a hard time figuring out what angle to frown at.

"That's not--" he starts arguing, but Kaede jostles him with her free hand and a mocking pout.

"Iruka and Kakashi-san,” she sings, shoving him to the beat, “sitting on a tree, k-i-s-s-i--Ohshit! Rokudaimesama!"

Kaede pulls back with a convulsive startle that almost topples her chair. The magazine crumples in her hand. Hiro reaches out in half-hearted, belated support. It's the thought that counts.

Kakashi takes it all in with lazy amusement. And total silence.

"Rokudaime-sama, we were just--"

"It was a joke--"

"We didn't mean--"

"It doesn't--"

In the back of his mind, the part of Iruka that hasn't been eroded by worry over his professional fate watches with vicious vindication as his coworkers flounder.

It fades to ash when Kakashi's eyes turn on him.

"Iruka-sensei. Might I have a word?"

With ice running in his veins, Iruka pushes to his feet. "Ah, of course."

Kaede mutters one last ohshit while he follows Kakashi out.

"They didn't mean anything by it, it was all said in jest..." Iruka can't help but say once they've slowed in the privacy of an empty corridor.

Kakashi turns to face him with a careless shrug, pulling something out of a hidden pocket in his vest.

He hands the crisp envelope to Iruka who takes it with renewed confusion.

"What's that?"

"Your results."

And with those words, the thawing ice in Iruka’s blood freezes right over and spreads to his whole body.

The brand-new paper bends in the too harsh squeeze of his fingers.

Kakashi tilts his head, expectant. "Aren't you gonna open it?"

"Kakashi-sama, I--"

A handwave cuts him off. "That, still?!" Kakashi asks somewhat irritably.

Iruka has to swallow before he tries speaking again. "I just want to say... I appreciate the chance you've given me, even if I don't--Well, I appreciate it."

Kakashi holds his gaze wordlessly for a beat, then nods.

"Sure. Now go on," he says more softly, "open it. I want to know what it says."

"As if you don't already," Iruka finds it in himself to mutter while pulling out a kunai in lieu of letter opener.

"But I... don't?"

Iruka pauses mid cut. "What do you mean, you don't. You're the Hokage. The Academy is under your direct purview."

Entirely unbothered, Kakashi shrugs. ''I recused myself.''

Iruka suddenly sympathizes with Kaede's death grip on the magazine before. ''You what?!"

"Well, I couldn't exactly be impartial, you know,'' Kakashi retorts with something petulant to his voice, like his integrity is what Iruka's doubting, of all things.

Iruka gapes at him for a while but when no more explanation's forthcoming, he gets back to the task at hand. When in doubt, compartmentalize. Cutting the envelope. Check. Pulling out the letter. Check. Unfolding the letter in perfectly steady hands. Eh, half ain't bad, we'll check it.

Reading the contents.

''I got the job,'' he says faintly, disbelieving, voice small in the empty corridor.

He stares at the paper some more, but the words remain the same.

He feels his face break into a smile.

 ''Kakashi, I got it," he says again, this time stronger.

A jitter of delight overcomes him and he jumps in relief, punching the air. He feels like a sixteen year old freshly made chuunin again.

His ''Yes!" echoes up the hallway.

At the sound, one of the doors down the hall clatters open.

''Did you get in?!" Kaede's voice shouts at him.

''Hell yeah!" he hollers back.

The reports room can be heard exploding in cheers.

Iruka turns back to Kakashi, finds him standing calmly to the side with a soft smile on his face.

''Thank you. So much,'' Iruka tells him fervently, suddenly so overcome with gratitude he can only say it in a whisper.

Kakashi scratches his cheekbone, right over a dawning flush of embarrassment. ''Aah, I didn't do anything.''

''Yes, you did. So thank you for the opportunity. And thank you for believing in me.''

Kakashi shuffles his feet. ''You're the only one that didn't, Iruka-sensei,'' he says, not unkindly.

There's nothing unkind about him at that moment.

In the reports room, the hoots of joy have been joined by the characteristic drumming of chairs and desks.

Kakashi casts an amused glance in the direction of the noise. ''I should leave you to celebrate,'' he says mildly, making no move to walk away.

Iruka rubs the back of his neck and chuckles. Truly, he can't picture Kakashi in that riotous crowd.

''Ichiraku this evening? Then I can tell you all about my revolutionary plans for the filing system," he asks with a grin.

Kakashi smiles back.

''Wouldn't miss it for the world,'' he replies, pulling out his book as they walk back to the reports room.

Iruka almost laughs at it, that way of not-so-subtly keeping him company while acknowledging the end of the conversation.

Something makes him pause at the doorstep of his office. The rioters calm at his sight, expectant, but he doesn't pay them any mind.

Feeling strangely vulnerable, he turns to Kakashi with his hand on the doorframe.

''See you tonight, then?"

Kakashi clasps him on the shoulder. ''It's a date.''

And then he disappears in a whirlwind of leaves.

The fucking--

The uproar that follows is deafening.

[jdetan]

Zeldaelmo's Follower Prompt- "Just After Midnight"

@zeldaelmo hit a follower milestone, and provided the wonderful prompt Just After Midnight. I saw that, went into the writing fugue state, and two hours later I had two thousand words and a lot of cuteness! Please enjoy. PLEASE.

One Month After the End of the Upheaval

Zelda rolled over in bed, barely able to doze, much less really, properly sleep– her mind was too active, and the summer heat in Akala wasn’t helping things at all. Argh! This is useless! She sat up in a huff, intent on going over to her study, when she realized something: Link wasn’t next to her. That’s odd. When did he slip away? She hopped out of bed, pulling on Link’s old Champion’s Tunic– by far, her favorite ‘nightgown’. Listening closely, Zelda could hear the occasional grunt of exertion and soft battle cry from outside. Ah. He’s doing training drills. Again. She smiled softly and shook her head. Link had been more than a little obsessive about training ever since the Upheaval, and Zelda, sadly, understood why– the Upheaval, and Zelda’s fate during it, had shaken him so badly. Zelda quietly stepped outside, sitting on the stoop as she watched Link training. He was shirtless, and his form flowed elegantly from slashes to stabs to blocking imaginary strikes, all without breaking his stride or taking his eyes off of the training dummy. Zelda found it very difficult to tear her eyes from him, drinking in his figure. After a few more minutes, he visibly relaxed and let his sword drop. “You know, sleep is an important part of training, too.” Zelda said lightly, chuckling lightly over how he hadn’t noticed her presence. “Zelda? You should be in bed.” Link replied, dumping a bucket of water over his head and toweling off. “It’s past midnight.” “Hello pot. This is the kettle speaking.” Zelda snarked, leaning her face on her hands. “I couldn’t sleep, and then I noticed that you weren’t beside me. How’d you sneak out, anyway?” Link grinned, holding up the Purah Pad. “Teleported.” “Only you would do that.” Zelda giggled. “You could have just scooted past me, you know.” “You were sleeping when I snuck out. I didn’t want to wake you up.” Link replied, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world for a husband to sneak away from his wife in the middle of the night to practice swordsmanship.

Read the rest on AO3!

[loquaciousquark]

4-Sided Dive Highlights - Critical Role C3 up to E52 (Mar. 22, 2023)

I will catch up with these if it kills me. No fluff tonight, only hard-hitting facts! Tonight's guests: Liam, Marisha, Taliesin, and Ashley. We open with a recap from the previous episode where the broom was murdered while the lights were out. A montage shows us all the times we featured Broomy on the show. Rest in peace, bristles. The rest of the opening is an in media res discussion about pickles and a Kentucky vodka/Koolaid/pickle juice horror. Ashley wins host and the script lampshades the irregular show schedule along with the chaos of the show at this point. Broomy gets a moment of silence and we are introduced to his replacement, Moppo.

What the Fuck is Up With That? We start with a discussion of creating Nana Morri. Ashley reminds us that the birdhouse her mom made (which looked like a hag hut) was a big inspiration for the character. The double-face situation and the ET neck were all Matt. Ashley did know she had two heads before everyone else; she sent him a whole doc of ideas at the start (tree house, creepy Swiss Family Robinson, Fearne's menagerie, beauty from a distance but creepy up close), and Matt came back and extrapolated upon it. Ashley loves the idea of all Fearne's wildshape animals being misfit idiots all the way down.

How did everyone feel about the Fey Realm? Orym was sad they had to leave so soon. Ashton loved the rule of chaos. Laudna loved Grandma and how creepy everyone was; Marisha loved the idea of having two heads to take over the work. (I haven't fully caught up in my show watch and I miss Laudna so much!)

Everyone thinks the break-in with the portable hole usage was fantastic. Everyone wants to know about the Fey creature riding the dragon.

Dani sometimes sends them lore updates during games: "y'all, that item is literally sitting on the table in front of you, that just happened an hour ago." Neat!

How did the Apogee Solstice go? Marisha: "medium." Matt said they went right down the middle, could have gone better and could have gone way worse. Ashley felt completely paralyzed by indecision; Marisha was proud she stuck to destroying the power sources. They wish they could have done more with their previous campaign characters.

Marisha felt like she was in a fugue state when Beau showed up; Liam was devastated he couldn't roll better. Ashley was really struggling against her personal desire to get them out of chains ASAP. Liam loved the "sweet sweet irony of Caleb being collared y Aeor tech." He was really excited about the idea of destroying Otohan's backback, frustrated in the moment with his rolls, and then on review still felt like he'd made the right decision pursuing that for his character.

Marisha was convinced she was going to watch at least one of her characters die. Liam short-circuited and couldn't talk for half an hour after the episode, and almost everyone (except Sam & Travis) couldn't sleep that night.

Liam had completely closed the door on Vax in his head. He never expected to see him again after the wedding. To have him show up now both flabbergasted Liam and blew him away with the recontextualized attack on Keyleth in Orym's backstory. Both Marisha & Liam kept looking back and seeing seeds that Vax might show up later having been planted very early in the story. "It's not the first time Keyleth's been attacked. Fuck!"

Would they be okay if either of their characters are dead? Yes, they trust Matt. Marisha would prefer Keyleth to die over Beau; Beau has more to do, and Keyleth's biggest fear was always "being the last leaf on the tree."

Liam always felt that VM was a complete, closed story, while M9 was more a chapter in those characters' lives. He feels they're often going to come together over the years.

Ashley felt she was too timid in the Apogee attack. She wishes she could take a second shot at it. Marisha was mentally tracking Keyleth's HP for the whole fight and panicked when she realized how close she was to death.

Liam loves the challenge of taking the straight man role (similar to Keyleth in C1), except EVERYONE is Grog. Everyone thinks Deanna and FRIDA will be a calming influence.

Ashley loves Aabria's range and ability to jump from comedic to serious on a dime. Christian is incredible and brings energy to the table.

Liam is jealous he doesn't get to play with them. Marisha laughs that every time she sits back and just watches the show, she's like, "damn, this is good." She never realized how much Travis has been emoting this season since she sits next to them. Ashley loves watching people perform and be at the top of their game.

The Tower of Inquiry! What has been your favorite scene not involving your character? Ash: Laudna & Imogen & the breaking rock. Tal: Chetney getting dark with the shopkeeper. Liam: Fearne & Chet sexual tension scene. Marisha: Chetney calling bullshit on Delilah, Fearne as a quokka.

Liam pulls again: What surprises have you discovered about your character? Tal: what punk in Exandria means for Ashton: "life's not fair, and you either believe that it's not fair because life is chaos or you believe life's not fair because there's a bunch of interventionist assholes above you who have decided that you don't get to be a winner. Is is it a world where there are winners and losers, or is it in a world where there are interventionist gods?"

Both Ashley & Marisha love Laudna's relationship with Ashton. Ashton brings up parallels Laudna wants to deny: "she really wanted to be past this." "Right! It's--how fucking dare you be past this? How dare you!" "Exactly!" Ashton chooses not to believe Laudna is past it, because otherwise that means it's a thing you can get past, which means Ashton is wrong, which is impossible. "It's amazing the way [Ashton] is obviously projecting."

Liam goes to Zephra a lot in his mind palace. He never expected how much he was going to think about Orym's dead family and wondering if they would meet again. He has synthetic memories of interactions of Orym and Will, Orym's mother...

Tal has enormous portions of Whitestone fastidiously mapped out in his head: he knows the library, the gardens, the clock tower, and the ruins to the east. He can walk there and back in his mind's eye.

Ashley has learned that she really enjoys making everyone else cringe, ahaha. She loves when she can feel Laura looking over in concern. Everyone LOVED her stealing Ira's spyglass. Everyone lists off Travis's tics that tell Ashley she's on the verge of going too far.

Character's daily routines? Every night, Laudna gets out her little house and tucks in the dolls and puts them to bed properly. "Pate has to die every night." Everyone adores Pate peeling his ribs open. Ashton's routine is medicinal chronic pain management and deciding every night whether he's going to get drunker or get angry tonight. Both Dani & Tal talk a little about their personal struggles with chronic pain and enjoying seeing Ashton learn to deal with it.

Favorite spell or class feature? Laudna: Form of Dread. Fearne: Sleight of Hand.

The Deep Dive! Orym feels completely played as regards Keyleth & the Apogee. Everyone agrees there were lots of failsafes to make sure Keyleth showed up even if he hadn't reached out.

Ashley is very curious to see how magic has been affected by the solstice, but she's more panicking that Orym is gone and she's off the leash (ha!).

Laudna will always be there to validate Imogen's feelings; it's okay to have these thoughts and questions about what if the Ruby Vanguard is right, examining whether the relationship with the gods is healthy or cyclical abuse. However, "we can all sit here and do a nice big thought experiment about what the world would be like without gods, but that thought experiment doesn't necessarily include all of the consequences of the Ruby Vanguard's plan...which is a world without gods, not necessarily a bad thing. Unleashing a god-eating-elder-old-one-type being, maybe a bad idea. Worse." Liam talks about how these people killed a bunch of people precious to him. Dani reminds us that the god haters killed Laudna and a god-lover (Pike) brought her back. "You can't deny the existence of the gods. All you can do is be really resentful of them." They're manipulative if you choose to take the cynical point of view; Caduceus, for example, takes the complete opposite viewpoint. Taliesin had to sit down and build a discrete theology for Clay.

Whenever Marisha and Taliesin's characters have conversations in game, she always thinks of things she wishes she'd said or phrased differently. Ashton really struggled with watching Laudna go through what he did, except with the support of so many friends. "Oh, fuck you!" It's an unhealthy, jealous anger. Liam loves the jealousies, the petty faults. Ashton probably does know abandonment more than anyone else in the party, but both Marisha & Laudna were affronted at his claim that he knew loneliness better than her.

Orym is worried about Dorian & everything going on in Tal'Dorei.

Fearne is terrified of Ludinus. Seeing what he did to Sumal put a lot of fear into her, which was a new experience for her.

For about five minutes, both Liam & Marisha had all three characters sharing a map. Laura had said something about how Marisha's characters keep showing up: "Well, I habitually keep making characters that have an issue not working and just won't retire, so they just keep doing things, and maybe that speaks more about me than it does anybody else! Everyone else lets their characters rest and go to sleep, and I don't! I don't know why I'm like this!" It felt personal, but also representative of eight years of work building up the company and the world and the family. It hit everyone very hard and made them emotional.

Ashton is conscious that their abilities are a metaphor. Ashton does not know how his abilities work, but if he doesn't understand them, then neither does your enemy. He counts on being unpredictable. He's scared to death that he cares about Laudna.

Liam: "the three strange witches, their three bodyguards, and a robot." Orym would killed the halfling who surrendered but would have regretted it. Ashton took the locket because he believed this was not a dad who had something to lose; this was a dad who had lost something. "This was not an orphan being made." Ashton does not feel good about it, but there's no second guessing.

Ira is a regular old schmo to Fearne, which is a word I've never written in my life. Laudna is very taken by his confidence.

Laudna HATES not knowing where Laudna is. She loves having Pate with her all the time. If Imogen had been there during the dreams, she would have just held her hands.

Tal: FCG thinks he's dangerous because he's going to turn on everyone. Actually, FCG is dangerous because he's going to keep running headfirst into danger and everyone else is going to try to save them. "It's a monstrously selfish robot." How will FCG deal with someone eventually getting hurt in their defense? That they keep volunteering themselves for dangerous/painful tasks is a selfish sort of martyrdom.

One day with your character? Orym: gym, ballet. Ashton: concert. Laudna: taxidermy class. Fearne: Disneyland.

What would your room in Caleb's tower look like? Fearne's room would just be her own room but more expanded. Ashton: a mid 90s 16-yo kid's room. Caleb would have everyone's rooms connected. Marisha: Children's Museum in St. Louis.

What moments made you really feel you were in Exandria? Tal: the trudge through the snow with Lucien. That was the most he ever felt like Clay. Liam: going to Rexxentrum with the rain and griffin riders and arriving at the church and shattering the stained glass windows. Marisha: the jungle backstory conversation with Liam with the lighting cues and projections and the fireflies and the rain; having everything green and lush in her head really cemented the moment. Ash: descending on Aeor and realizing how old everything was. Liam: the Matron arriving on the steps at the end of C1. Taliesin: "I can't remember what I had for breakfast yesterday and I remember every fucking moment of that day."

Favorite movie genre? Laudna: regency romance. Orym: Crouching Tiger, Errol Flynn. Fearne: soap operas. Ash: documentaries.

Post-Break Shenanigans: "Moving Out" on the Switch. I love silly little games like this and yet this one doesn't scratch the itch at all!

Orym understands Imogen's waffling about the Ruby Vanguard; he knows she wants a relationship with her mother. "It's a simple solution to a pretty complicated problem, though."

Ashton thinks Jiana Hexum is what he deserves. "I know a supervillain" is what he has to offer the group.

Fearne loved that Nana Morri came to her rescue, but just doesn't want her to get hurt.

Laudna loved the Fey Realm. She wishes they could have spent more time there. Liam wants the beating-heart topiary collection. Tal wants a mug.

Tal will drip out what happened with the kenku over the next five years. Ha! There's so much crosstalk; even with captions, this is awful, haha.

Fearne knows her position with the Ruidusborn means she might have been used as part of this plot. She's not excited about it, but it's such a complex problem that she's going to wait and see what happens. Fearne would be the least helpful in a move.

Laudna both misses Pate and his ability to heal her to full hit points. Everyone marvels at Matt's ability to rhyme off the cuff.

Orym is marvelling that the Wildmother finds him important enough to give him a sword. "I'm a real boy!"

The post-credits scene has an evil voiceover telling Ashley that she has no idea what's coming. Ominous!

ONE DOWN, TWO TO GO. Let's ride this train until the wheels come off!

[lamarckianenterprises]

Sucks to be Me But I'm built Different Now

My work got accepted in a Litmag (technically a Zine, CoinOperated Press to be precise) for the first time today, and outside of being thoroughly excited to announce that my humble flier will be included in their next Zine, Dungeons and Dragons Part 2. (Learn more about it on the following link)

I just want to say that looking back, I think a lot of my opinions about my own creative work is based off of like, no one really praising me for my writing. Like I didn't keep writing because people said that I was doing great or good or was talented or whatever, I kept writing because I wanted to get to that point, in spite of the lack of praise not because of it.

Hell, my mother was basically radio silent on my writing after noting that my very first work, the weird fugue state nanowrimo novel that's lost to the sands of time was, and I'm quoting here, "At least he has good grammar." Admittedly I kinda avoided showing her stuff after that, but still.

Outside of her and my even less present father there was my brother who was barely present in my teenage years, and so I basically had jack all for validation outside of an RPing community I immediately antagonized by being an attention seeking edgy teenager who fired out a self insert the GM immediately recognized somehow.

So while it gave me an easy way to keep writing and a sense of community which genuinely helped me practice and learn the craft among other things, it also meant that I didn't really get praise? Or when I did it was from someone close enough to me personally that my brain could immediately dismiss them and their opinions as being invalid as they are tainted by other people's impressions of me as a person.

I think the one bit of praise I registered as genuine was when people said they had fun in the complete mess of a Shadowrun world plot I ran in that RP which is really just a high I've been chasing ever since with every tabletop game I have ever run.

And I couldn't rely on internal validation either because I spent literal years thinking that I was somehow getting worse over time because for some fucking reason I measured that shit based off of output as in the amount of words and paragraphs written down on (virtual) paper as opposed to like, actual quality.

And how hard it was to write, which uhhh, honestly writing has never really gotten easier for me, like I am far more aware of what constitutes 'good' writing now, but it's not like the actual process has gotten much easier, and honestly as the years went on I ended up constraining my own creativity more in vague pursuit of 'better, more respectable and praiseworthy writing'.

Which meant that on top of the tyranny of time eating away at my ability to remember how difficult it was to write in the first place, I had a growing list of hangups and fears that meant that I could always refer back to some past paragraphs I think are real zingers and go, "Damn, where did I go wrong? How am I worse than I use to be?" while ignoring the veritable sea of word vomit, every little thing I did to piss other people off, and the fact that I unironically just naturally obtained more responsibilities as I grew up and obtained a job that slowly crushed my will to live that just made it harder to sit down and write LMAO.

Now I'd love to say that I've thrown of all of my chains, learned to write the proper way, and focused my life entirely towards mastering the craft without interruptions, or that this one acceptance has fulfilled my lifelong desire for validation from a complete stranger once and for all.

Really all I have to say about all this is what you read at the top, "man it sucks to be me but I'm built different," I am in more ways than one no longer the same man who started writing just to have something to do in November, nor am I the man who sat down and chose to make himself when told to make absolutely anything he could want to be.

But then again I am the woman who started whooping and whollering and going, "OLE OLE OLE" and praising God after reading this so like, maybe I'm not that different after all.

[jaywalkers]

twenty questions for fic authors

i was tagged by @decaflondonfog! thank you, i loved reading all of your thoughts on your own writing so i'm vv excited to do this.

How many works do you have on AO3? 21 revealed, and then my super secret fic for the @aftgthenandnow fest (which people should totally go and check out if they haven't already)

What's your total AO3 word count? 443,022 words, which is horrifying and likely to hit 500,000 by the end of this year. lord have mercy

What fandoms do you write for? i'm currently very happy in my tfc shaped hole and have been for the last while but i do have some wips floating around for the likes of teen wolf (long live cringe) and mdzs still!

What are your top 5 fics by kudos? these bad boys! total pick'n'mix of fandoms here a made thing [10k, sangcheng, T] sunset, like survival [86k, kandreil, E] postcard mouth [7k, matchablossom, G] the post-impact stage [3k, andreil, G] work song, crawl home [3k, sangcheng, G]

Do you respond to comments? Why/why not? in all honesty once i've written a fic it's out there in the world and i am absent from anything going forward of it. i dearly, dearly appreciate everyone who puts time into commenting because it truly is the thing i stick around fandom for, but i don't have the time or energy a lot of the time to reply effectively and to not just keep repeating thank you's!

What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? considering it uses the 'Bad Ending' tag, it'll have to be a room full of knives! it is canon-compliant though, so is the angst really my fault?

What is the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? i feel like most of my fics have a somewhat happy ending, if not just a simple open-ended one, but i might say sunbreak for this because the ending of it is very joyful and there isn't much else left to say to hide the happiness.

Do you get hate on any fics? not really! i did get the worlds most insane comment on NOSTOS a couple years ago that was kind of horrible to read but it was anger at a character and not my fic lmao.

Do you write smut? If so, what kind? i'd never written it until this year because it was on my writing goals list for the year! i can't really say what kind because i've only written a couple of scenes so i'm not sure where they sit in the grand scheme of things but i have written some!

Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've ever written? not really! i am a big AU fan — the kandreil teen wolf au i wrote this year with the beloved and highly esteemed @dayurno is probably the craziest, but i have a kandrew 'gideon the ninth' au planned too! if we're talking actual crossovers, there was a hilarious in-joke au partially written in a group chat a couple of years ago that was a WOH and MDZS law firm au. xue yang owned jby's soul. wei wuxian had bitcoin. i have a customised t-shirt for it.

Have you ever had a fic stolen? yup! and it's the reason i put writing away for about four years when i was in high school because i was so demotivated to share my stuff.

Have you ever had a fic translated? i think there's two or three of my fics that i've given permission for russian translations! i don't think they've been finished though so it would be cool if that ever ends up happening!

Have you ever co-written a fic before? as stated earlier, i spent eight months in an echo-chamber with @dayurno in which we went into a mutual fugue state and came out with wet-eyed banshee kevin and his high school boyfriends. maybe one day we'll get to the twinyards sequel of it i do also have to shoutout @picturedframes who was half of the mastermind behind sunset, like survival, and has contributed an insane amount to other works like diachronic and all that looking down.

What's your all time favourite ship? don't ask me this,,,, it chops and changes from year to year! i think in favour of being nice to myself i'm going to just say percabeth — they're the OGs from day one and they still hold up in my heart

What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? either my 'the old guard' wenzhou au, or the other installments of the nostos 'verse! i loved them dearly at the time and i do think they would be well worth writing still, but my interests have moved on fandom-wise slightly! maybe one day i'll revist them, but not any time soon i don't think.

What are your writing strengths? ohh. digging my teeth into a character, i think. i use fic as a way to kind of just write thesis' and loveletters and stories all at the same time, and i think i'm good at holding up a character and writing out what makes them tick! and maybe a weird one but fleshing out the wider world? i'm very proud of like, my background characters. describing people who take coffee orders and who are studying in the library too and who are one-line classmates.

What are your writing weaknesses? this time last year i would have said dialouge but i think i've gotten better at it this year! probably being too verbose. i think i have a tendency to get carried away with thoughts and descriptions and i think sometimes that means they lose their potency when i really need them! it's a goal for next year i think; learning how to pare back my writing and make it more effective.

Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? ahhhhhh aha ha ha aha . you're talking to the bitch who's current fic is all about kevin relearning gaeilge/irish so you bet there's a lot of dialogue in other languages in it! also diachronic and sunset, like survival both have a substantial amount of other languages: diachronic uses french, gaeilge, and japanese, while sls throws german into the mix!

First fandom you wrote for? the bible just kidding lmao though i did write stories when i was in catholic school with biblical characters. i think it was fairy tail!

Favourite fic you've written? noooooo don't make me answer this one. there's many different questions inside of that one question (what one i'm most proud of, what one i feel the most for, what one i had the most fun with), and i don't think there's one that works for them all. i think i'll say diachronic, maybe, for now. my first forway into the head of my beloved kevin day and certainly not the last.

i don't know who has/hasn't been tagged in this so it's an open invite, but i am going to tag @dayurno @sunriseinorbit @moondal514 @kamyska

[but-onlyforyou]

(Is Kat from The-Kittens-Of-Vol-Tron Gotta do this on my main)

You can answer them all here or break them down how you like :3

- How did these two idiots get together?

- Who realized they had feelings first? Who said 'I love you' first?

- Who is the big spoon and who is the little spoon?

- is Keith more likely to steal Lance's clothes or is Lance more likely to steal Keith's clothes?

- Fav AU for klance (or top three)

- Fav Klance headcanon (or top three)

- Would they get matching tattoos or stick with matching jewelry

- Who would propose first? Or same time?

- Fav klance fanfic (if you have one)

I may send u more if I think of some, hope your flight goes well <3

KAT TY FOR ASKING ILY!!! my flights went pretty well, but dear god am i stiffer than a fucking plank of wood. aside from that, i could honestly talk for hours about these two for hours. days. weeks. i can't shut up about them. it's a curse that will be gleefully shared with everyone now 💖

1. i don't have one specific point in their timeline where i think they get together, but i am SUCH a sucker for it starting with a spur-of-the-moment kiss, messy but impossibly honest! a product of an overflowing heart and thoughts that always orbit frustratingly and undeniably around the other!! i'm sitting here sighing dreamily over the thought of wide eyes and tingling lips, the clumsy confessions that tumble out afterward and the rush of realizing the feeling is mutual. they're SO in love! (they always have been!!)

2. okay. OKAY THE ANSWER IS TECHNICALLY BOTH BC I LIKE READING BOTH SIDES OF THIS, BUT. for today, my answer is: keith realizes his feelings first bc lance's middle name is comphet. he only dreamt of kissing keith, his RIVAL, because sickman-what's-his-name-freud cursed his dick for making that one joke about eating oedi-pussy (pidge proceeds to threaten to clobber him for not even remembering the scientist's name if he was gonna blame him for something as stupid and scientifically impossible as dick-cursing). but once lance realizes his feelings and they get together, he'd absolutely say "i love you" first. he would say it so often that he jokes about wearing it out, but keith would softly smile at him every time. he could never get tired of hearing lance say it.

3. hehehe. >:3c kosmo is the biggest spoon, they draw straws to see who gets to wake up with all that wolf fur on their back-- (jk, i'm weak for lance simply being Held. i don't care if i headcanon him taller, he deserves to be embraced.)

4. see, lance STEALS the clothes. it is a vicious, premeditated act of flagrant theft. he shows NO remorse and thinks the irritated growl keith uses to (fruitlessly) hide his furious blush is the sexiest thing known to man. keith, on the other hand, is prone to dressing in a fugue state. if he just happens to ACCIDENTALLY acquire articles of his boyfriend's clothing? well, that's lance's problem! if keith just so happens to reap the (completely unintentional) rewards, good for him!

5. i've never read a good one but i like roleswaps or personality swaps!! (the personality swap rewrite of the pilot sitting 90% complete in my google drive doesn't count because it is, according to my expert opinion, not very good either!) bodyswaps are pretty fun too, and ngl i'm weak for whatever the hell that lovebug au stuff i see on ao3 is.

6. my favourite headcanon (BESIDES the fact that they've been mutually pining since, like, season one) is that a part of the other just lives absolutely rent free in their heads. not in an especially romantic sense or anything, they just think of each other often, and it's as common and unextraordinary as breathing. for keith, he can't see rain without thinking of lance and how he mentioned he missed splashing in puddles. childlike joy and simple wonder are LANCE things, and whenever keith feels them for himself, he feels closer to lance because of it. for lance, keith really does just live in his head. he starts off as an envious idol for his own success during their garrison days, but he later grows into something like a guiding light: after all, how could lance ever lose himself if he's managed to better himself enough to stay at keith's side? (also lance is taller and keith is either half galra or half vietnamese, depending on the au. i make the rules!)

7. (trying SO hard not to say matching jewelry bc, ffxiv tangent warning, my wolship has a matched set of not-quite-promise rings as their Thing) klance with matching tattoos just feels right to me. like yes, they absolutely do the thing where they wear their wedding rings on chains around their necks at least once and yes, the rings are technically matching jewelry, but. tattoos. they're THERE, in each other's skin, etched there and reverently kept despite the all pain it took to make it that far. they're a part of each other!!! intrinsic and inseparable!!!!

8. LOCAL IDIOT BOYFRIENDS END UP WITH TWO PAIRS OF ENGAGEMENT RINGS AT THE SAME TIME BC THEY BOTH THOUGHT THEY HAD THE SMART AND ORIGINAL IDEA TO PROPOSE FIRST (NOT CLICKBAIT)

9. absolutely exposing myself on main here but who cares, stan unacceptable behaviour by wyverning (also not to be vain but my ao3 bookmarks are a work of art. like yeah, i'm unhinged in the comments, but i am also incredibly hilarious, actually)

wow....kinda cringe how much i had to say.....anyway stan klance 💙❤️

[firstelevens]

2022 Year End Fic Review

I was thinking of doing one of those ask memes for the year in fic and then my beloved @monroesimons tagged me in this, so fate clearly wanted me to wax poetic about myself.

1. What is your AO3 account?

It’s CrimsonPetrichor, because 17 year old Zainab had recently binged the entirety of Matt Smith’s first season as The Doctor and she needed everyone to know it.

2. How many words did you write total in 2022?

46,316 words! Full on absurd for me, particularly given the three years of writing drought that preceded all of this.

3. How many fics did you publish in 2022? How many multichapters vs oneshots?

Seven fics on AO3, plus a handful of small prompt fills that stayed on Tumblr. Only one fic was a multi-chapter, because I am too cowardly and not disciplined enough to commit to them regularly.

4. What was your longest fic? Your shortest fic?

Longest: by land, by sea, by dirigible, which clocked in at 18376 words

Shortest: of the ones published on AO3, it’s the way you sound in the morning (828 words), but overall it’s a Ty/Tandy prompt fill that was just 218 words

5. What was your most popular fic? Your least popular fic?

Purely using kudos as a metric, a friend of any sort (the craigslist fake dating AU) was my most popular, and by land, by sea was least popular.

6. What fic didn’t perform as well as you thought it would?

Listen. I rolled up to a fandom one year late and people still saw fit to read and enjoy my work. Things are grand.

7. What fic performed way better than you thought it would?

Two answers for this one: when I published love on rewind (everything is so throwback-ish), it was my first fic on AO3 in more than three years and it had been about a year since the show aired and I had no idea if anyone would read it and then they did! And they enjoyed it! And that was wild.

Also, I can’t answer this without mentioning if you got the notion (i second that emotion), which I basically wrote in a fugue state and then published at like, 1 AM, and then??? People really, really dug it and I’m still surprised by how well it was received. What I’ve learned is that all of us as a community want to see Sam and Bucky in Hallmark movie situations and I love that for us.

8. What was your favorite fic you wrote from 2022?

Specifically chapter 5 of by land, by sea is one of my favorite things I’ve written in years, I think.

It gave me so much trouble and I went through so many variations and then I woke up at 6 AM on the morning of my birthday and wrote nearly all 4500 words of it in one sitting. It’s atmospheric and emotional and I got to throw around some historical references and play with magic and it’s a piece that I know exists in its best possible form, which is a nice feeling.

9. What was your favorite fic that somebody else wrote in 2022?

Emma (birdhapley) wrote a professors AU for The Bedlam Stacks, i know it's just a number, but you're the eighth wonder, that might be one of my favorite fics I’ve ever read. The world is so perfectly translated and the characters are so clearly themselves and everything down to the excerpted reviews for all the professors and the characters’ texting styles feel right and make perfect sense. A masterclass in writing in general and AU-building in particular.

I also really adored Mak’s (bisamwilson) angel/demon AU, i slithered here from eden (just to sit outside your door), which has just So Much Pining and fun historical moments and allegory and millennia of devotion and like! Truly! What more could you want!

Everyone should read them both immediately regardless of your familiarity level with either fandom.

10. Tag your friends to do this year-end fic review as well!

With full permission to completely skip out on this if you wish, I’m tagging @birdhapley @bisamwilson @philtstone @ankahikoibaat @avocadomooon @urlbending

[spirituallyyellow]

8/5/24

Reasons to Continue

Recently I seriously considered ending my life.

It was the closest I think I've ever come to actually going through with it. I planned ahead, left a note, took identification, and spent the day in a different city, thinking about how I could do it.

I was in a weird fugue state all day. I'd woken up knowing something was wrong. I picked a fight with my husband, and as he left the house, rightfully irritated with me, I remember sitting on the edge of my bed and I suddenly felt extremely calm, and almost out of body. I remember thinking, What should I wear on the last day of my life?

I wore all black. You never really stop being a theatre kid, it turns out.

I wrote a note in Scrivener and left the app open on my laptop before I shut the lid. I sent short "I love you" texts to the kids. Casual, so they wouldn't know. I think I hoped that people would tell the kids there had been an accident.

And then I went to the train station, got on the next train to Manchester, and went.

It was never my intention to jump in front of a train - there were too many people on the platform, for one thing, but also I didn't want to die in Stoke.

A few days before, I had commented to my husband that I thought I would probably move back to America in my retirement, or if he died before me. "I don't know if I want to live there, but I'd rather die there, I think. I'd prefer to be buried at home." (By which I meant Tennessee, not my literal childhood home. My family is pretty southern gothic, but not that southern gothic.) He'd glanced at me and said, "I'm worried about you."

"Why?"

"You've been talking about death a lot lately."

"I'm fine, don't worry."

I got to Manchester and felt almost dizzy with the possibility of death. Everything is going to end today, I thought. What should I do on the last day of my life? What would I want to do before I was going to die? 

Some part of me that remained rational had prompted me to put in my bag my journal, a pen and pencil, my watercolour notebook, and my paints. As if some quiet voice was whispering into my heart, you might just want to sit and write all of this out, all of the feelings. you should at least try that before you decide.

The main thing, though, was that after walking aimlessly around Manchester city centre for about an hour, mostly just noticing traffic and bridges and sharp bits of broken glass in graffittied alleyways , I distantly realised I was hungry. I should definitely not make a decision this important while I'm hungry, I remember thinking. I want to make sure this is what I really want, and not some choice I'm making just because I haven't eaten and it's making my brain go weird. I don't want to regret it right away. I had read that most people who survive suicide attempts regretted trying basically immediately.

I went to a cafe and ordered the strangest thing on the menu. Turkish eggs with garlic yoghurt. If today is my last day alive, I think I'd like to try something I've never had before. I even took a picture of it, more out of habit than anything. And I thought, well, it'll be an interesting thing for the coroner to find.

I picked at it, mostly. The garlic yoghurt was such a weird taste that it did sort of shock me into the present moment briefly, but mostly I didn't really process it. I mostly remember staring out the window and hearing snatches of conversations. 

I heard two Americans talking, and my ear naturally attuned to them, particularly when they started talking about church ministry outreach things they were doing. Part of me wondered if God would nudge one of them to approach me, but I didn't really want them to. 

They did not approach me - whether they ignored the prompt or whether God respected my wish for privacy at that time, I'm not sure.

I got my notebook out and started drawing. I'm not an artist, and I'm not very good at drawing, but I used to do a lot of webcomic-style journalling. I started doing it again that day, and I sketched and wrote, and then put my pencil down to begin painting and then saw I didn't have a paintbrush in my kit. It must have fallen out at home at some point.

I remember being so angry and frustrated and I thought, I am not going to spend a bunch of money and time finding a stupid paintbrush for my shitty drawings. 

So instead, I got out my journal and I wrote and wrote and wrote. I felt like I was losing my mind.

I kept thinking that I wanted to call Pam, my best friend from high school. 

We hadn't talked much recently, but we usually don't stay in close contact when I'm not in Tennessee. When we're together in person, though, it's the same comfortable friendship it's always been. I wrote in my journal that I didn't know what I wanted but I felt like I was supposed to talk to somebody, and the only person in the entire world that I could think of that I wanted to talk to was Pam, and as soon as I wrote it down, I missed her so intensely I almost cried.

I started to text her three or four times, but kept deleting it, tugged between "it's 6am her time - she's pregnant and tired - she'll be getting ready for work - she'd want me to call if she knew what I was thinking - I can't call and upset her like this, it might hurt the baby - she'll be upset anyway when she finds out I've died" and I got overwhelmed and started hyperventilating. I forced myself to slow my breathing down.

I went back to my phone, and I typed out a message, asking if she could talk. I ended it, of course, with No worries if not. Love you. Just in case.

The waitress came over and took away my dishes and I stumbled over some kind of apology, shoved my notebooks into my bag like they were something between a danger to others and a shameful secret, and left, walking vaguely toward Afflecks, the huge goth/alt indoor marketplace. I don't know Manchester very well, but I had been to Afflecks before.

Pam texted back, and I knew, at a gut level, that I had to call her right then or else - or else. So I called her, and she asked how I was doing, and I said, "not too great actually" and then I burst into tears in the middle of a very busy pavement in Manchester city centre.

I barely remember most of what I said, I mostly remember the kind of deep, heaving, dry sobs wracking their way through my body as I poured out everything I had been thinking for weeks and weeks.

I do remember saying, "I don't know what to do anymore. I've prayed and prayed for God to either heal me or kill me, and make these feelings and all of this just stop, and it just doesn't." I leaned my head against the cool stone of some random building and I didn't breathe so much as I gasped for air. "It doesn't stop, and I just thought it would be better by now," I sobbed. "It's been so long, and I thought I would be healed by now. I'm trying so hard all the time to do the right things. I'm trying so hard and I’m so tired.”

I could hear her take a quiet breath down the phone and she said, so gently, "I know. I know you are. I don't know why God hasn't healed this yet. But I love you, and I know Jesus does, too." Distantly, I thought, this is an overwhelming phone call to get at six in the morning. I shouldn't have called. 

"I'm too much, I'm too much. I know I'm too intense, and I'm trying so hard not to be," I croaked. "I really, really am trying so hard, Pam. I know I'm too much."

"I don't think you're too much, Lauren. I think you care a lot and you're passionate. I've never felt like you were too intense." She continued to talk and tell me how important I’d been to her, but all I could do was cry and gasp for air.

My breath and my heart caught in my throat, and it felt like I was coming apart at the seams. It was such a relief to hear that someone didn't think I was too intense.

Pam prayed for me, and I promised not to do anything. She’d been so calm up to then but at the end of her prayer I could tell she was crying and I hated myself. I said I would go find a coffee shop or something and get a drink and sit down for awhile. We hung up and I walked shakily around the neighbourhood I was in until I spotted a coffee shop. I went inside and noticed a birthday card for sale. I stared at it blankly for a few seconds, then picked up a soda, bought it, and sat down.

I texted a picture to Pam, as proof of continued life more than anything, said thank you, and then pulled out my journal again. My nose ran and tears dripped as I wrote, too fast to think, page after page until I finished my drink. I packed up my bag and walked to the train station to go home.

[campmurderparty]

sonny & dottie.

Did he feel his heart skip a beat when she smiled? No, that was stupid and cheesy. He should have slapped himself for thinking such a thing, no self-respecting man would think that, but it didn’t stop the warmth in his stomach from seeing dottie. Not just warmth, but excitement. Sonny had hung around bj’s like one of the bucking horses’ most loyal barflies, just waiting for her to return. No, he wasn’t a barfly, he was a dog. He had been Katie's dog for years, and probably would’ve been Kim's if she hadn’t inexplicably dumped him in high school. All the women that he liked in his whole life saw his desperation on his face, a longing to be loved, and used it for their own amusement. Twisted him and pulled him. Did dottie see it? Did she take one look at him and know he was willing to do anything for her, just for a moment of her attention? He made himself sick.

Their inside joke was bare bones, but it was one nonetheless. Sonny felt himself relax a bit at the comfortable rhythm of flirting with a pretty girl. “Well, once an outlaw…” Sonny trailed off, smirking with familiarity. It felt like they were criminals in a way, meeting only at night. Was she a night owl? Sonny had the pleasure of being a second shift worker, but he wasn’t aware if dottie snagged herself a boot hill job yet. Somehow, mostly without anyone ever noticing, newcomers went from travelers on the way to somewhere better to another shopper in the amen grocery market or diner at the florita cantina; they went from guests of the copper cactus motel to becoming a new neighbor on laguna street or the new tenant at the silver spurs apartment complex. Eventually, it was like they were never new at all, as if they had always been there.

“I do, yeah.” Sonny felt around his pockets for a lighter. Like any boot hill boy, he had been smoking cigarettes since he was twelve, at first stealing them from fearghas’ stash and then having brian buy a pack for him as long as sonny was willing to pay at a jacked up price. Once he was old enough, it was his turn to buy them for cian. Pulling a neon green one from his jeans, he proffered it with an open palm. “...as long as you give one to me.” He had his own pack somewhere in his truck, but that was parked across the street behind the saloon. Plus, he was curious as to what brand she smoked—hopefully not virginia slims, like his mother. The mention of midol made his thoughts blank out for a second. He had grown up in a family of men; the macclean women didn’t fare very well, evident in his mother’s catatonia and eileen’s mysterious disappearance. Everyone feared what fate had in mind for the youngest girl, isla. Though her candor surprised him, he didn’t make any sort of verbal or visual reaction to it. Luckily, dottie quickly moved on. “The moonlite closed about an hour ago, but they’ll let you in if you don’t have a car. You just have to sit in folding chairs by the snack hut.” sonny had a truck, though…

If the mention of midol stole his thoughts, the offer to join her for waffles at the diner arrested his heart. “Oh, just my kid brother.” the only one he had that was younger than him, so that gave cian special reverence in his heart. Cian and isla, the only maccleans below him in the family line, were the forgotten kids, so their care fell to sonny growing up. His mother, Bedelia, had practically been in a fugue state since eileen disappeared, and his father was always drunk. There was no one else around to take care of cian and isla, as their older brothers had their own families or were wrapped up in their own bullshit. So even though Sonny moved out from the family home years ago, it had been Sonny who woke them up for school and packed their lunch boxes. Now, isla was the only one still in school, and cian was a minimum wage slacker just like sonny. They didn’t need him anymore, which was a relief and a regret, but he still gave them rides when needed. It wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility for him to pick his brother up after work, it was a suitable excuse. Forget that now, though. Even if he did promise to give his brother a ride, dottie’s offer would’ve trumped those plans. “Cian can walk.” sonny said all too quickly, nodding fervently. 

“The turquoise star doesn’t open for two more hours, I think.” He knew, but he didn’t want to seem too eager to profess he knew the operating hours of the businesses in boot hill. “Neither does may’s, but i’ve been ‘temporarily banned from the premises pending review’ for, like, three years now.” sonny rolled his eyes. Kim refused to serve him, but bev, her hated coworker, was always willing to let him have a seat at the counter. It just took a certain mood for him to be able to withstand seeing kimimela and dealing with her endless coldness—as if she wasn’t the one to dump him! Most of the time, he haunted the turquoise star where the waitressing duo, Joey and Margie, were always happy to see him. “I’m willing to wait, though.” shit, that was too eager. “I mean, I'll be awake anyway.”

[reachingforaspark]

hello, just wanted to drop in and tell you that i just read graded exposure! so so in love w the way you write eddie (how he's so obviously moments away from breaking, putting himself together through sheer force of will bc the idea that he's allowed to be any other way is unthinkable) and his perpetual tension w Everything esp w buck, so incredibly enamoured by the way you portray chris and buck's relationship as independent from where they stand w eddie. i just [clenches fist] they love each other so damn much. divorced parents coded i'm obsessed

Oh my goodness!! Thank you so much, you've totally made my day💕

I loved writing Eddie in this story, at the point he was at the end of 5A, I think I entered a bit of a fugue state and wrote this chapter in 24hrs because I just had this urgency to express some of that overwhelming tension and weight he was experiencing. It is so hard to believe where he was at this time last season to this season. Seeing him free himself from some of that expectation, acknowledge his trauma to first to himself and then more freely to his friends and family, it makes me want to cry all the time!!

And the divorced dad's era was definitely a central vibe of this story! I loved the way the show went in 5b, but gosh I had fun planning out and working through Eddie and Buck negotiating their situation.

Thank you so much for reading it, even though it is incomplete and has remained that way for a long time.

I do have some ~10,000 words from the next two chapters, so if you're interested here's a scene from later on in the story below the cut!

“Yeah, Dad, go have some fun!” Chris, ever Carla’s little mimic, pipes in. “Carla and I need to get my homework done.”

“In my own home!” Eddie says, but goes to change his shirt.

He shoots Buck a quick text, asking if he’s free to grab a drink. It’s fine, it’s fine. They’ve never had a problem before that couldn’t be worked out over a beer or two.

“Go,” Carla shoos at him again, “say hi to Buck for me.”

He’s in the car already when Buck replies.

Sorry, on a 24.

Eddie’s not sure what is more telling, the use of punctuation or lack of emojis, or the fact that Buck hasn’t even suggested an alternative evening, like tomorrow when he’s off shift. Well, it’s not that Eddie can go back inside now. Too many questions, or a knowing look from Carla. He contemplates for a moment. If Buck was on shift, Bobby was probably on shift, Hen too. He starts the car, resolved to go… somewhere, and pulls onto the street and starts driving.

Eddie hadn’t even known Buck was working today.

Eddie finds himself sitting in a room with a tray of glass beads in front of him. One of the more bewildering turns of his life in recent months, and there have been a few more curveballs lately for sure.

There’s a woman in the corner braiding cloth into a rug, another knitting a pot holder. There’s some wool thing happening at the end of the table he can’t even guess at, fluff spread about the place. The woman sitting beside Pepa has a scrap booking toolbox packed so tightly and efficiently it puts his old med kit to shame.

Unfortunately for Eddie, Pepa’s community craft group are as serious about their gossip as they are their crafts.

“Eddie,” A woman whose name he possibly was given earlier asks, “how is your new job going?”

He gives Pepa the side eye as he responds. She raises an eyebrow back, like, you crashed my evening, remember?

“And Christopher, any new pictures?”

He does, in fact, have pictures. Buck sent through some from when he took Chris to the library yesterday, Chris sitting in a beanbag, Chris scanning the mountain of books to be brought home, Chris in the back of the Jeep, new book already cracked open in his lap. They got out far too many for him to get through in the next month, not that Buck ever says no.

“Did Buck take him to the library?” Pepa asks.

“Ah, Buck.” The ladies around the table say Buck’s name in unison and cross themselves.

It’s a little creepy. Pepa clocks his reaction to that too. He concentrates on shifting the little beads into little groups, bluer ones here, greener ones there.

“Eddie, he saved your life on that street.” Pepa pats his hand on her way to picking up needle nose pliers. “I’m grateful for him everyday.”

“Yeah.” Eddie says.

He gestures at the wires in front of him. “Pepa, I don’t know what this is supposed to look like.”

“It can look however you want, Eddie. It doesn’t matter, as long as you like it.”

Eddie has to squint one eye closed to thread the tiny beads onto the wiring, one after the other, as the chatter settles around him. It’s mostly harmonious. There’s the occasional mutter of discontent.

“Did I get that right?” He whispers over to Pepa, his Spanish not quite up to the rapid exchange Rita and Paloma are engaged with at the end of the table. “Her son’s first wife’s brother?”

“Hush, Eddie, don’t be rude.” Pepa hisses back, as though her ear isn’t tilted in that direction too.

Eddie makes a pair of earrings. The dangling kind, with loops of tiny seed beading in a deep blue. They remind him of the kind of thing Shannon would wear when they were twenty, loose floral dresses and earrings that made gently clicking noises when she walked, and got tangled up in her hair by the end of the day.

Eddie’s version are crooked though, and that makes him think about the pinched little look Ana would get when Chris would make her a drawing and she’d coo a suggestion that he write a story to go along with it. And the one time Eddie had thought that maybe she preferred stories because she could get away with putting them away into a drawer, not keeping them pinned up on her very neat fridge.

It’s probably unkind, but he knows Ana would never wear these earrings.

He feels strangely proud of them.

[liz-allyn]

📸📸📸

CELEBRATE WITH ME!

Thank you so much, @utterly-in-like! I can’t wait to dive into your fics soon— I’m on my tasm!peter kick but I saw that you write Tony Stark, and Psych (your xover with white collar)??? Man it’s been a hot minute since I read any Psychfic.

Fun fact that’s one of the fandoms I used to write the most for back in the day. The fic I’m most proud of from that era was an insane Final Destination-themed crossover fic feat Shawn Spencer, Johnny Smith from The Dead Zone, Adrian Monk from Monk, and Xander Harris from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Yeah, it was a whole thing.

BUT enough about that - you ordered a pic of Andrew Garfield and I present to you, a GIF

This one is special. See, this one is yoga instructor!Peter Parker.

tw health/body issues, post COVID illness, sexy innuendo under the cut

You really hate your sister for this, despite her good intentions.

Instead of being a sympathetic ear to your complaints about your ping-ponging energy and your slow cardio recovery post-COVID, she went and actually tried to help you. Goddamn it—all she had to do was sit there and listen to you be miserable, with the occasional wheeze and cough as you try to do something physically taxing. Like taking out the trash. Or standing up too fast.

But no. Instead, she bought you one of those gift certificates for a package of weekly yoga classes. 12 weeks seems extravagant, and you told her so with a sour, sarcastic, “Oh. You shouldn’t have.” But then you realized it was a biweekly vinyasa in the middle of Central Park at the magic hour of 5:00am.

What a bitch.

“We can go together!” she said. “We’ll make it a thing!”

The “thing” was you showing up in the middle of a dewy field at the ass crack of dawn to greet 6 other strangers—your sister nowhere to be found—as she cancelled her membership the night before and neglected to tell you.

What a bitch.

You hate running. You have no time to go to a gym. And you haven’t ridden a bike since you were 9. But here you are, rolling out the cheapest mat you can find and an old bath towel, next to an array of all walks of life and all number of age.

Great. You’re going to wheeze with your jiggly ass in the air next to a 67-year-old Herculean, bald guy who brought nothing but too-short shorts, a beat up Neoprene bottle, and his own sweat to his practice.

You rolled your eyes, and that’s when you saw him.

The Adonis. The face of an angel. The sculpted build of a Michelangelo. This was way worse. It’s one thing to embarrass yourself in front of random strangers, but another thing to embarrass yourself in front of the most beautiful man you’ve ever seen.

He wore a tight black tank and board shorts (fuck, was he also a surfer?) as he greeted the class, biceps bulging from the mat tucked underneath his arm.

“Morning! How’s everyone doing?” he smiled brightly.

With devastatingly dark eyes and a saccharine sweetness to his expression, his gaze landed on you and you felt your face heat up. It’s mid-50s temperature in New York this morning, and you didn’t dress warm enough, but suddenly you’re on fire and have the urge to take off more clothes.

The slightest twinkle sparked in his eyes as they landed on you. He bit his lip, taking you in. (Fuck, did he really just do that? Is there something on my face? Do I have a tit showing?)

“Are you my new student?” he grinned, something seductive and—excited?—trapped in his throat.

Your mouth was dry, nodding in a fugue state.

Student? Like he’s the teacher? You’re going to need to bring an apple to him next time. Why is your crotch already sweating?

“My name’s Peter, it’s good to have you join us,” he says, his deep voice pouring over you like honey.

Why is he staring at you like that?

“Today’s a great day to start, we’re going to take each position very slow,” he added.

Is he serious right now?

“Just try to relax,” he says with a smirk. “I’ll take good care of you.”

You’re breathing heavy again, you notice.

And Peter keeps his promise, guiding the class through gentle stretches and poses. You keep your eyes glued to his form. For science.

Muscles flexing and a light sheen sweat forming on his face.

His eyes find you more than anyone else in the group. He starts traveling through the group when he’s convinced they’ve got the sequence down. He’s a great teacher.

At some point, midway through your 3rd downward dog, you notice that he’s glided to your side. You hadn’t even seen him coming, your eyes fixed on the blades of grass in front of your face, when you feel two large hands gently press around your pelvic crest.

Your heart stutters the second he touches you, and the butterflies in your stomach carry the wind from your lungs.

“Just like this,” Peter whispers, only loud enough for you to hear, as he guides your hips back into a more pointed position. “You’re doing so well.” You notice him line up your hips with his, and you swear he could lift you up by your pelvis with just the strength of his fingers.

You love downward dog. You love anything with dogs. Doggy style, all the way. Every time.

And with his help, goddamn it, the stretch is satisfying. You feel your spine start to decompress. Air fills your lungs in short measured breaths. His hands remain on you, encompassing your hips and the small of your back, pulling you into a delicious pose.

“Right there. Does that feel good?” he coos.

This mother Hubbard.

You moan. And then clear your throat. “Yeah,” you cough, trying to recover.

You can’t see his face but you can feel the body heat reverberating from him. And you can hear that cocky grin in his voice as he whispers back. “Good girl.”

Somehow, you survived. It was at the end of the class, when everyone else bolted and you were struggling to roll up your mat and ignore just how SWEATY your crotch was, when Peter kneeled down in front of you to help you. You gaped at his long fingers, curling the rubber into a neat cylinder.

“So how was it? I hope we didn’t go too hard on you.” His voice was like warm syrup. His eyes were dark chocolate pools. His lips looked like sugar-coated cherries.

He was bad for your health, without a doubt.

“No, um, it-it was g-good,” you shyly replied. “I’m just a little rusty.”

“Well, we can work on that,” he gazed at you with a lazy half smile. It was clear he found your timidness amusing. Appetizing, even. “See you next week?”

“Yes,” you blurted out, without hesitation. “Thank you. Thank you, Master.”

Your eyes went wide, locked on his. The word drifted into the atmosphere, a balloon swept away, never to return. He quirked a brow upward.

Your face turned crimson. “Teacher,” you stuttered “Teach— Guru? I… I don’t know why I said that.”

He licked his lips as he stared at yours, unabashed and unafraid.

“We can work on that, too.”

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