#in the meantime have this

[trashcanwithsprinkles]

yeah i don’t think any of you should be surprised by this point

have the yashiro commission

[ghostlychokko]

See how it hurts when the sound begins to ring…

[nancyqueerler]

Ronancetober Day 1 2: Ghost

I've been compelled to come back for a minute to write for ronancetober, so here's day 1/2 because I wanted to write for the ghost prompt.

Enjoy! And warning, this is kinda long and pretty angsty. Also it's set in an AU so no upside down (mentioning this in case some stuff don't make sense).

-----

The equipment was for show. Although it was an expensive sacrifice, Robin would not be able to make a living in Hawkins, Indiana, simply by claiming to be able to see ghosts. If anything, it would get her locked up at Pennhurst before she'd even get a paycheck. So, when she got the call from the library, she showed up with the EMF meter, digital thermometers, night vision goggles, and audio recorders instead of just her more comfortable patch-plastered denim jacket and jeans.

The numbers alone were enough to get her down there by sunset, but the witness reports had her shoveling her dinner into her mouth like a dog who sniffed a buried bone.

Robin mostly got calls for homes and abandoned buildings, but she hadn't gotten the library before—she was excited when they told her it was down in the archives. She had been there before in high school doing research for projects and always got chills, but she'd never seen anything. That made her curious, but it wouldn't be the first time that a ghost had hid themselves from her.

Walking into the archives, shutting and locking the door behind her with the key lent to her by the librarian, Robin was pulled four years into the past. When she put her hand on the railing that led down into the dust-filled room, it was ice cold. It was part of the report: after five p.m. and well past midnight, the room appeared to be insulated with blocks of ice. Robin turned off all her equipment and dove into the dark room.

At first she couldn't see anything, much less the wispy presence of a lonely ghost. She stuck one hand in her pocket and scrolled her fingers down the unchanged cupboards cramped with decades-old prints from local newspapers to the Weekly Watcher, which was notorious for endorsing crazy conspiracies. She would have smiled at the memory of discovering an article about Elvis being cloned by aliens if her nerves hadn't been jolted into action when she touched the cupboard marked "W.". It was cold—much colder than the rest of the otherwise identical sprawl of drawers.

Robin opened it and knew she wouldn't find the Weekly Watcher tucked between the other cassettes. She pushed it closed, stuck her other hand into her other pocket to warm it up, and walked to the microfilm readers.

The small room, filled with desks with banker lamps and book-swollen shelves that evidently hadn't been dusted in the past two decades, housed two readers. The sole distinction between the two readers in the center was the presence of a COMCAT black-and-white acrostic poster on the left reader's side, along with the presence of a ghost hunched over the screen.

Robin froze beside the entrance. Anyone else would have screamed bloody murder, but Robin felt relief. A girl sat on the stool, her finger depressing the scroll button while her other hand gripped the side of the reader, seemingly ready to explode it with her mind. Besides her relief, Robin was surprised at the sheer brightness of the girl ghost's body—she was practically corporeal.

It took Robin a second to recognize her as Nancy Wheeler, Hawkins High's ex-princess. The realization nearly knocked her off her feet, but her heart beat her to it and plunged straight through the floor like an anvil.

Nancy hadn't seen her yet, and Robin was really hoping she wouldn't. Robin hoped her legs would unfreeze before Nancy turned her head and saw her too. It was a sudden and horrible drowning of panic, gut-wrenching sorrow, and shattered memories that mended back together in striking speed.

Nancy Wheeler had died a year ago, a year before she graduated from Emerson, a year after the last time they had seen each other. Robin had gotten a call from Jonathan Byers on some lazy June afternoon when she'd been relaxing with the windows open, a cool breeze freshening her hot room. After the call, she didn't leave or eat or shower well beyond December. She never opened her windows again, but her room never stopped being cold.

Robin was about to turn around; she really was. She had willed something out of herself, something strong enough to lift her left foot from the ground. But then Nancy closed her eyes, took her finger off the button, slumped into her hands, and suddenly Robin couldn't help herself and fell to her knees.

Nancy did look at her then. Funny enough, she was the one frightened in the end. Her face jumped out of her hands, her whole body got shocked into a curl. She looked at Robin up and down, knees to eyes, and got dim enough that Robin could read the titles of the books on the shelf behind her. Robin hung her head.

"Robin?"

Robin fell onto her hands, a numb feeling rising all the way from her toes to her cheeks. Nancy's voice was still the same, albeit distant, as though hearing it coming from deep inside a cave just like every other ghost, but it wrecked Robin in every way it could. She shook her head, but she didn't know why. She couldn't look up at Nancy; she didn't want to, either. She didn't want to be there.

But then she saw Nancy's heels in the edges of her vision, and all it took was for her to blink for the tears to spot the floor.

"No," Robin whispered desperately. She shook her head again, the flood of two summers ago like electric eels unleashing into her nervous system. A spark of Nancy in her denim jacket; a spark of her in Robin's arms; a spark of what their first and last kiss felt like; a spark of Nancy in the rain carrying a bouquet turned to mulch.

It was enough for her to turn, cover her eyes, and run in the other direction. She didn't turn around even when she heard her name, loud and resonant enough to shake the ground. But when she reached the stairs, she couldn't get past the first step.

"Robin!" she heard again, and it was the worst feeling in the whole world to hear her name come from Nancy's lips after all this time. It didn't feel real, and it didn't make sense, like her mind was playing a horrible trick on her. The whole of her back turned ice cold, and she knew that meant that Nancy was right behind her.

Robin took in the coldest breath her lungs ever held and turned around.

Seeing Nancy head on took a blow to her chest harder than she had expected. The breath flew right out of her, but not a hair on Nancy's head moved out of place. Nancy's ghost was there in all her glory, hands curled into a steel fist, the dent between her furrowed eyebrows the same as it was always. She looked as beautiful as she did the last time Robin had seen her, and that twisted the knife in her heart until it erupted against her ribs.

Nancy spoke first. "Hi" was all she said for a while, probably because she expected Robin to say something in return. But Robin had become a coward who lost her heart and couldn't come up with anything worth what she was feeling.

Eventually, cutting through the thick cold tension, Nancy's features smoothed out as she said, "I've missed you."

Robin wished to be smite right then and there. She prayed for it, but the prayer turned into, "I've missed you too," half-way through. The watery smile it pulled out of Nancy was greater than anything a god could have ever given her.

Nancy tentatively raised her hand and drew it down Robin's jaw, feeling a biting chill that made her grind her teeth. She then pressed her palm over Robin's heart. It was the second greatest sorrow in all of Robin's life that she couldn't feel any of it but the cold pressure on her skin, but she figured she was the luckiest person ever to have had the luck to be graced by Nancy Wheeler after having been taken like a breath. I've you missed too was not enough to describe Robin's ache; she had missed Nancy like one might miss a misplaced lung.

She didn't leave the archives until sunrise, when the librarian lady had to have the door busted open. They found her curled up against the right microfilm reader, dried tears down her cheeks, and the ghost of a smile under her sleep-worn eyes.

[jihef03]

Little Harry

[princedest1ny]

Im standing here being like yes a fully automated max power steam engine is totally a normal thing to spend an afternoon on

No it is not. Like, why did I do this.

[hazelcallahan]

who else cheered

[cremanata]

brazilian miku ♡

twitter | ig | patreon

[phantomrose96]

I think we should have a turn of phrase for "I'm not in the right, but I AM annoyed with this situation, so I just need to go bitch to a friend about this before I suck it up and go do the right thing" because more and more I'm finding this is a critical element of functional adulthood.

[clxssclxwn]

VERSES

You're Gonna Go Far, Kid.

Default verse for anything that takes place in the canon AoT universe. If you're here, it's probably safe to assume you already know the story so I won't bore you with the details. Connie will range in age from 15-19 depending on context.

Modern Verse TBA.

Default verse for threads set in the present day, most likely featuring a college age Connie (19-23). He's in a fraternity with Reiner and a few of our other favorite boys. Spends a lot of his time partying and the rest of his time slacking off. No one quite understands how he got accepted to university, or how he hasn't been kicked out yet.

[valtsv]

my main advice for writing an enemies to lovers relationship is to resist the urge to make the characters' loathing and attraction mutually exclusive opposing forces. it's okay if they're getting weirdly into it and having Thoughts whilst also sincerely wanting to kill each other with hammers.

[welcomeleon]

just saying that i think leon deserves to get to lay beside his partner on a lazy sleepy morning and gently touch their cheek while he looks at them like they're his world

[blorbosinmyheadcentral]

This came to me in a vision

[egophiliac]

should've just let Vil be the one to fly, it would've gone SO much easier. 😔

also HEY how are everyone else's pulls going, because I have had the most RIDICULOUS luck, seriously, halloween magic is 100% real

[canisalbus]

[kimmkitsuragi]

oh my fucking god i don't have any clothesssss

[nelsaqift]

you’ll never guess what i watched recently