#just for fun writing

[sahmwithwords]

🍂🎃Countdown to Halloween Writing (1/?)🍂🎃

Prompt: A ghost who travels the world.

Summary: Sebastian hasn’t had a reason to resent his afterlife in many, many years. Until he met her, that is. A very short story. 

WC: 4.5k

Sebastian was dead, to begin with as they say. He’d been dead for quite some time now, since the last fighting surge of the Spanish Flu took him in the Autumn of 1920. 

Turns out, when you become a ghost - and not everyone does, mind you - you still go through the stages of grief. Denial, of course, that you couldn’t possibly be a ghost. Ghosts weren’t supposed to be real, just a figment of childish imagination or in works of fiction. There’s the bargaining, yes, what should he do to try and not be a ghost? What could he possibly be capable of, and if he is capable, how does he go about it then? Depression, oh my goodness yes, there is nary a being in existence more depressed than an already dead ghost who’s stuck as such. Anger! Of course, of course - the anger is palpable. Many living souls had been scared out of their wits by the aftermath of Sebastians anger on more than one occasion. Slamming doors, falling vases, eerie sounds that send chills down ones spine - to be quite frank, it was a fun stage sometimes. Then, finally, acceptance. 

Acceptance had thus far been an odd stage, but a welcome one. 

Once Sebastian learned that he only needed to envision a place, any place at all, to appear there his life, er, afterlife that is - got a little more interesting. 

So far Sebastian had been to so many places he could never dream to keep count or remember them all. Sure, perhaps he couldn’t eat the cuisine, perhaps he couldn’t interact with the locals (at least not without being quite a mischievous spirit). However, he could bask in the scenery. The beautiful beaches, hanging cliffs, the amazing architecture, the flowery fields - and sometimes, if he concentrated hard, he could even feel the sun warming his skin. It was pleasant, and over the years he found that he quite enjoyed his travels. 

After nearly one hundred years however, Sebastian has decided that maybe, just maybe, he’s seen enough. So he decides to go home. 

At first he haunts the cemetery, but that gets dreadfully boring very quickly. So he chooses to visit his old house, the house he worked so hard to build. One day he would fill it with a wife, some children, perhaps a pet. That was his intention, anyway, he just never got the chance. The work never seemed to be quite finished, his life never quite ready to settle down, everything had to be perfect before he brought love and family into the equation. He just never quite got there.

Surprisingly his house still stands, even over one hundred years later, though he thinks that it looks now as much like the house he built as a shoe looks like a hat. The bones are there though, under the layers of new paint, exterior, and pipes. The shape is strong, it’s familiar, this is his house. 

As he wades through rooms he finds that the interior isn’t as grotesque as the exterior. Whomever resides here has simple, traditional tastes. In fact, it isn’t so much different than his own preferences, and despite no longer being able to have an opinion on how his home is decorated, he finds himself pleased and relieved. 

The sound of a cat hissing startles Sebastian as he makes his way into the kitchen. 

“Hello,” he greets the small creature. The small black cat growls while making direct eye contact with him. 

“What’s wrong with you now? You grump.” 

A woman, who must have previously been crouched down looking for something in the bottom cupboards, seems to appear out of nowhere. 

Sebastian had avoided close contact with the living during his century of world travels. Prolonged closeness tends to make them uncomfortable, cold, and slightly anxious - none of which Sebastian finds pleasant so he never stayed anywhere long, and certainly nowhere that forced him into close proximity with living people. 

“What are you looking at?” the woman continues questioning the cat as if she expects a response. Sebastian watches as the woman follows the cats gaze to where he stands. For good measure he bows his head a bit and gives a wave, though he knows she can’t see. 

“You freak me out sometimes, you know that?” she scoffs, then goes back to preparing her supper. 

Call it just being curious about who’s living in his house, but Sebastian picks a corner to stand in and watches the woman as she flits around the kitchen. She’s light on her feet, quick but calculated movements. She apparently likes to sing while she cooks, though Sebastian doesn’t know the song, but he wouldn’t. He chuckles as she gets very into her performance for the cat, picking up a wooden spoon as a microphone, and pointing at her feline friend who only licks its paw and side eyes Sebastian in the corner as if to say “do you see what I deal with?” 

“Why is it so damn cold in here?” the woman whispers after the song changes, and walks over to the thermostat that sits on the wall, rubbing her arms. 

She looks down at the cat, who’s still staring at Sebastian and follows its gaze once more. 

“Is there a ghost in here or something?” she laughs, walking back to the stove. 

“Yes,” Sebastian answers with a playful smile. 

Sebastian watches the woman eat, he watches her sit down in the living room and turn on the television - a concept that Sebastian never quite understood the appeal of - but then she picks up a book and curls up.

“Why have the television on if you’re only going to read?” Sebastian wonders out loud with a chuckle. 

The woman doesn’t hear him of course, but his voice seems to lure the cat into the room, and he watches as it hops onto the couch near the woman protectively and sets up post on the arm rest, giving Sebastian a cool glare. 

“Seriously, what has gotten into you tonight?” the woman asks the cat, she sets her book down on the coffee table nearby. She stares, concerned, at the cat who refuses to budge for a few seconds before rubbing her arms again. “The heat is broken, I swear,” she huffs, reaching for a neatly folded blanket that hangs on the back of the sofa. 

The woman looks around the room, then at the unmoving kitty and sighs, “Fine, I’ll play along,” she chuckles dryly at herself then clears her throat, “Is there someone in the room with us?” she looks up at the ceiling expectantly. 

Sebastian wonders what she thinks she’ll find on the ceiling, he chuckles and crosses his arms, “I’m over here, but yes,” he answers. 

At his voice, the cat starts growling, a low long noise, the hair on its tail fanning out to something that resembles a feather duster. 

This seems to scare, or at least unsettle, the woman, Sebastian watches as her fists clutch the blanket around her. 

“Okay…” she squeaks, “Okay. Are you going to hurt me?” she continues. 

“Goodness no,” Sebastian scoffs, “how could I even if I wanted to?” 

“Wait!” she tosses the blanket off and walks over to a nearby bookshelf, plucking a trinket - a bell, “I saw this in a movie once!” 

Sebastian cocks his head to the side as she sets up her little experiment on the coffee table. He should probably disappear at this point. Paris is nice this time of year, or perhaps Tokyo or Sydney? Yet for some reason he doesn’t really want to go, he’s curious about this woman who lives in his house. More curious than he’s ever been toward the living. 

“Okay, so I’ll ask a question, a Yes or No question, and you tap the bell once for yes and twice for no, can you uh…can you do that?” she wonders. 

Sebastian crosses over and sits on the opposite side of the coffee table, he looks at the bell, envisions the sound it will make and concentrates. 

Ting. 

“Oh my god!” she jumps to her feet, “You can! Holy shit my house is haunted!” her hands cover her mouth and Sebastian truly can’t tell whether she’s excited or terrified her face is such a mixture of the two. 

She drops back down to her knees in front of the table. “My name is Juliet,” she says. Juliet, a nice name, Sebastian thinks. “What’s yours? Wait - no - that’s not a Yes or No question, sorry. Um…have you been here the entire time I’ve lived in this house?” she asks. 

Sebastian stares at the bell again. 

Ting. Ting.

Juliet looks relieved, “Why…ugh…that’s not a Yes or No either…Is this your house? I know it’s an old home,” she wonders. 

Ting. 

“It is,” she nods, “I bet I can look up property records then, to figure out who you are…are you a female ghost?” she raises an eyebrow. 

Ting. Ting.

“Ah, well hopefully you’re not a creepy peeper ghost,” she crosses her arms and Sebastian laughs, the cat startles on the sofa. 

Ting. Ting. No. Not a peeper ghost. 

“Good, because I will smudge you right out of here if you try anything funny,” she points out. 

Sebastian chuckles. He likes her. 

“Have you…been dead a long time?” she continues. 

Ting. 

“Then I wonder why you’re here now? Why all of a sudden, sorry, I know that’s not a Yes or No question…I just wonder…” 

“I just felt like coming home,” Sebastian answers, but she doesn’t hear him. He frowns, suddenly this game isn’t as fun as it was a few seconds ago. 

“I need to start getting ready for bed,” Juliet says, looking at the clock, “I have to go to work in the morning. If you stay please just, you know, give me my space and don’t scare me,” she chuckles. 

Ting. Okay. 

“Thanks.” 

<3

Several weeks pass by, with Sebastian and Juliet playing their Yes or No bell game. Between sessions Sebastian finds he quite enjoys spending time with her, and she doesn’t seem opposed to spending time with him, despite his whole being dead thing. 

So far he’s decided that he likes the way she laughs, it sounds light and sunny, reminding him of the feeling on a warm Spring afternoon. Refreshing. He also likes her hair, which at first felt like an odd thing to enjoy, but she wears it very long, and he likes how wavy and free it is. He likes to count the strands of honey colored streaks hidden in the darker brown. He likes the way she looks when she reads, her face changing and reacting to the words on the page though she doesn’t seem to notice but he does. He especially likes the way her face scrunches up when she doesn’t like something she sees, tastes or hears - it’s quite adorable. He can’t help but think that if he had met someone like Juliet all those years ago, he would’ve liked to court her. 

One afternoon Sebastian sits on the window seat, staring out at the back garden. Juliets cat, which he has now come to know as Tibs, lays curled up next to him on the cushion. Unbothered now by his presence, he purrs as he naps, and Sebastian finds the sound comforting. 

Juliet barrels through the front door on the other side of the house, “It’s come!” 

Under her arm she carries a large, thick envelope. 

“I requested the property records a few weeks ago and they’ve come, I can finally learn your name!” she says excitedly and Sebastian finds that this too excites him very much, as if the two of them can finally meet, in a way. 

She tears open the envelope and pulls the documents out. 

“These on top are too recent I think, do I need to look at the ones before 1950?” she asks, flipping through the pages. 

Ting. 

“Okay, do I need to look before 1920?” 

Sebastian started construction on the house in 1913.

Ting.

“Were you the original owner?” she guesses, getting near the end of her documents. 

Ting. Sebastian has not felt this excited in over a century, possibly never in his life. 

She drags her fingertips down one of the very last pages. 

“Sebastian?” she smiles.

TING!

The bell tips over and hits the table with a loud clank and she laughs. 

“Sebastian Alexander Elliot,” she says the name and Sebastian, could he actually produce tears, could cry. He doesn’t think he’s ever heard anything as nice as his name coming out of her mouth. To hear someone speak it after all these years is truly something he never anticipated to move him in such a way. 

“All this really tells me is that the property was yours until your death in 1920,” she says sadly, but perks up, “but I have your name now!” 

She runs to her bedroom and grabs her computer, bringing it back to the living room and begins furiously clacking her fingertips against the buttons. 

“Death records…” she whispers under her breath, “Not really a lot of information, but it brings up a couple links about Milton Cemetery, is that where you’re buried?” she asks. 

Ting. 

“Let’s go!” she says, hopping up and grabbing the keys she tossed onto the table. 

After speaking with the groundskeeper Juliet is directed to the part of the Cemetery that houses the older grave sites. 

Sebastian has never seen anyone so concentrated as she walks up and down the rows of graves, he’s waving her over as he stands next to his stone, but of course she can’t see him. It’s terribly frustrating but he can’t help but laugh at the ridiculousness of it all. 

Finally, she stops, the words barely still legible after all these years but it’s there all the same. 

Sebastian Alexander Elliot

September 7th 1890 - October 29th 1920

Beloved Son & Friend 

“Wow,” she says quietly, “You were only thirty years old - that’s how old I am,” she frowns. 

“We didn’t have the medicine and knowledge you have today,” he points out to no avail. 

“It’s kind of weird, I feel like I have so much in common with you, I feel like we’re friends, but yet here I am standing over your grave, standing right on top of whatever’s left of you,” she sighs and shakes her head, “I’m sorry, that feels incredibly insensitive to say.” 

“You couldn’t offend me Juliet, not even if you tried,” he smiles weakly and touches her arm. Her skin breaks out in goosebumps and she shivers. 

She looks at her arm, “It’s really weird, actually. It makes me sad.” 

“I don’t wish to make you sad, Juliet.” 

“I wish I could have known you, I wonder what you looked like?” she smiles. 

“My hair is darker than yours, black - I got my fathers hair. My mother had the brightest green eyes, mine aren’t quite as bright as hers were, but they’re green. I’m a little taller than you,” he says standing on the tips of his toes with a grin, not by much but you don’t need to know that.” 

“Ma’am?” the groundskeeper calls and both Sebastian and Juliet spin around, startled. 

“Find what you were lookin’ for?” he calls. 

“I did, yes, thank you,” she calls back. 

“Well, I’m glad - but, it’s time to lock the gates up, so unless you want to spend the night with me you’re going to have to go on your way,” he laughs crassly and Sebastian glares at him. 

“A most inappropriate thing to say to a lady, disgusting,” he scoffs and is proud that Juliets face twists into a look of irritation. 

“Then I guess I better hurry,” she mutters and begins walking back to her car. 

Sebastians stays where he is and watches the groundskeeper with a smug look on his face, arms crossed. He waits until Juliet is moving before he stirs. 

“You know I didn’t mean anything by what I said to her,” the groundskeeper calls out and Sebastian looks around but the groundskeeper seems to be looking straight at him. 

“Are you speaking to…me?” he asks warily. In all the time he’d been a ghost no one had ever looked at him, no one had ever spoken to him as if they could see him. 

“Yeah! You’re the only one here, right now anyway,” the man starts walking towards Sebastian. 

“You can see me?” Sebastian is practically shaking at this point. 

“Yeah, yeah,” the man grumbles, “I can see ya. I see all of ya, all the time, that’s why I finally broke down and started working here, it’s the only job I can do where people don’t think I’m a freak. I thought maybe that woman you was with could see ya too, but I guess she can’t?” 

“No. She can’t,” Sebastian says, wishing that she could. 

“Yeah, that makes sense, not a lot of us out there, Hell I’ve only ever met one other besides me and he’s long been dead now,” the man explains. 

“I don’t know what to say,” Sebastian struggles, “I’ve not had a conversation with anyone in so long…” 

The man squints and looks down at the headstone, he whistles, “Damn boy, you been gone a long time, why ain’t ya moved on yet?” 

“Moved on?” Sebastian shakes his head. 

“Oh come on,” the man rolls his eyes, “What in the world have you been doin’ all this time? Surely you don’t think you still belong here?” 

“I…I’ve been traveling,” he answers, feeling sheepish. 

“Traveling?” the man laughs heartily, “You never wanted to move on?” 

“You keep saying that, move on, but I don’t know what that means,” Sebastian feels embarrassed, like he ought to know what this man is speaking of but also that he should have moved on by now, whatever that means. 

“Oh man,” the groundskeeper drags his fingers over his face in frustration, “Well I’ll tell you this, the longer you been hangin’ around the harder it is to do. You gotta figure out what you’ve been missin’ and you also gotta let go of whatever it is you been holding on to, it’ll be harder,” he looks in the direction Juliets car drove off in, “Especially since you seem to have grown attachments to this world.” 

“What if I don’t want to move on anywhere?” Sebastian points out, because why not? He’s been fine for nearly 105 years. He enjoys spending time with Juliet and Tibs. Why does he need anything more? 

“You really wanna stay and watch your girl that was here a minute ago move forward without you? Get married, have kids maybe, grow old and happy and then die and go on to where she ought to be while you just…stay, in the background, not mattering to anyone?” 

Sebastian thinks about this for a moment. The thought of Juliet outgrowing him like he’s some silly imaginary friend from childhood feels painful. At first he thinks Juliet would never do that to him, but of course she would, eventually. A woman as beautiful and smart and funny as she is? Of course she’ll find someone alive to laugh with and talk to - after all the only way Sebastian can talk to her now is through a damned bell. 

“Look kid,” the groundskeeper sounds sympathetic, “the longer you’ve been dead the more you start forgetting about what you had or didn’t have when you were alive, but once you figure it out, the best thing to do is go on to where you’re supposed to be.” 

“What happens?” Sebastian wonders, “What happens when a ghost moves on?” 

“Hell if I know,” the man shrugs, “but I’m not supposed to know, not yet.” 

“What if it’s bad?” Sebastian worries. 

“Nah,” the man says with a dismissive wave, “It ain’t bad. I’ve watched enough of you walk into the light that I do know that much. The look on your faces, when you finally see what’s waiting for ya? I’ll tell you this, I look forward to whatever it is, never seen anything like it, the relief, the happiness - trust me boy, you want whatever’s waiting for ya.” 

This does sound awfully appealing to Sebastian. Yet Juliets face flashes in his mind, and in this moment he’d rather go home to her. 

“I’ll think about it,” he says. 

“Alright then, if you ever want to talk about it you can find me here every night from 5pm to 5am, name’s Jake, good to meet ya,” he says, then starts walking off. 

“Yes, good to meet you,” Sebastian responds quietly. 

<3

Sebastian wanders the cemetery for a long time. He visits his parents grave, as he’s done so many times, hoping to see them. He never has though. He wonders what they had that he didn’t, what did they possess in this world that allowed them to go straight to whatever awaited them on the other side? He feels like he’s back to the bargaining stage again and sighs. 

Juliet is asleep when he appears in the house. Tibs, who seems to have become accustomed to Sebastians presence, wakes up from where he’s curled at the foot of her bed, but only yawns and then lays his head back down, instantly falling asleep again. 

Normally, Sebastian leaves Juliet alone when she sleeps. Just like he leaves her alone when she’s in the bathroom, or getting dressed for her job in the mornings. Tonight he decides to break his rule and lays down next to her on the bed. 

“I’ve grown attached to you I think,” he tells her sleeping form, watches as her chest rises and falls rhythmically in sleep. 

“I’ve only known you for a few weeks, maybe a month, and look at me. I’m hopelessly enamored with you, what must that say about me? Probably that I need to move on,” he sighs. 

“You and I can never be together Juliet, not as friends, or as…more. The only tangible parts of me are buried six feet under my grave at Milton Cemetery. Bones, and whatever scraps of clothes I was buried in that may have made it over a century. How bleak is that?” he grimaces. 

He rolls onto his side so he’s face to face with her. He tries to brush a piece of hair out of her face, like he sees in the romantic shows she likes to watch, but nothing happens, the hair stays in her face and she doesn’t even stir at the chill. 

“I wish we could have met when I was alive,” he whispers, “Sort of. I suppose that would mean you’d be dead by now too. I guess I just wish you and I could have existed at the same time somehow.” 

“I wish we could have met, and that we could have maybe fallen in love. I wish you could hear me now, so that you know how much you mean to me. How much knowing you just this short time has meant to me. I think the man from the cemetery is right, though, I’ve been here long enough.” 

Tibs lifts his head again and stares at Sebastian as if to say “shut up! I’m trying to sleep!” so Sebastian kisses Juliet softly on the head and stands from the bed, heading to the window seat he stays in while he waits for her each day. 

“Sebastian.” 

Sebastian stops and whips back around toward Juliets bedroom. He knows without any doubt that he just heard her say his name. He stares at her sleeping body, thinking maybe she’s called his name out in her sleep, but all he hears are her soft breaths. 

“Sebastian.” 

Again, he hears her calling his name but the sound is not coming from her bed. He turns around and around, unsure of where this voice is originating from or who could possibly be calling him with Juliets voice if not Juliet. 

Tibs awakens, then stretches and hops down off the bed. He stops in front of Sebastian and looks at him, then begins walking towards the kitchen. Sebastian follows. 

“Sebastian.” 

Sebastian freezes again, this time it’s his mothers voice calling to him, his chest feels heavy with emotion, he hadn’t realized how much he missed the sound of his mothers voice. 

“Sebastian.” 

His father this time. Sebastian begins moving faster to catch up with Tibs who has disappeared into the hallway off the kitchen. 

The entire house is dark, as it always is at night, so Sebastian is surprised to see such a bright blue light illuminating from the doorway Tibs sits in front of. 

“Sebastian.” Juliets voice has returned, louder now, and coming from the blue light. 

Sebastian stops, could this be what Jake was talking about? The light? Moving on? He turns back towards Juliets bedroom, he hasn’t said goodbye to her. 

“Sebastian. It’s okay,” her voice calls from the light. “Come home to me.” 

Tibs is sitting, licking his paw in front of the kitchen doorway, he looks at Sebastian and blinks. 

“Is…am I supposed to go in there?” he asks the cat, as if he expects Tibs to respond. 

Tibs only continues licking his paw. 

“Sebastian, come home,” Juliets voice, soft and welcoming beckons from the kitchen again. 

“Okay…okay I’m coming…” 

Sebastian shuts his eyes as he steps across the blinding threshold into the kitchen. When he opens them he’s surprised to find that he is in fact standing in his kitchen, the kitchen it looked like when he first built the house. 

“Where have you been?” 

Sebastian whips around towards her voice and there stands Juliet, she wears her same bright smile, her hair is down and just as wild and free as ever as she slices a cake and sets the pieces on plates. 

“What?” he says in barely a whisper. 

“Your parents are over, we’ve been waiting for you, they’re outside on the patio,” she smiles and licks some frosting off her finger before pointing toward the backyard. 

“How?” he can feel the warm wetness sliding down his cheeks, he touches the tears and looks at his fingers, they’re real, and he looks back at Juliet, “How are you here? You weren’t…you’re not…” 

She stops slicing cake and walks around the counter toward Sebastian, wrapping her arms around his neck and pressing a gentle kiss to his lips, a sob escapes as he buries his head into her neck, holding her so tight that he fears he may be hurting her but, oh God, he’s actually holding her. 

“You silly stubborn man,” she chuckles, “We’re always supposed to find each other, in every lifetime, the last one just got fudged up a little, it happens sometimes,” she scrunches her nose in that adorable way he loves, “but we ended up finding each other anyway, didn’t we?” she guesses. 

He pulls away and nods, tears streaming, “I couldn’t hold you.” 

“Well now you can,” she smiles and wipes his tears away. “Don’t cry love, we’re together now, as it should be.”

[beyourghost]

and obviously you find yourself thinking oh i do wish i could get severed to do this one thing. would you actually maybe not. but you do wish you didn't have to undergo medical procedures you do wish you didn't have to do the things that give you anxiety you do wish you didn't have to do tedious tasks that barely even require you to be present for them. it's tempting. that's why the premise works. but the premise is also that somebody has to do it. somebody has to go to the dentist and somebody has to get on that plane and somebody has to write those thank you notes. just like somebody has to clean the house and somebody has to harvest the food you eat and somebody has to make the clothes you wear. you can't eliminate inconvenience you can only delegate it. you can't eliminate suffering you can only delegate it. and always the easiest way to live with this is to see that somebody as less than. less than you less than people. and if that somebody has to wear your body to do it well maybe it's not all that different. they're not a person. you are. it's capitalism all the way down baby

[geezmarty]

(bellara/taash) nerd/jocks lovers rise up

[daisywords]

One of my biggest nitpicks in fiction concerns the feeding of babies. Mothers dying during/shortly after childbirth or the baby being separated form the mother shortly after birth is pretty common in fiction. It is/was also common enough in real life, which is why I think a lot of writers/readers don't think too hard about this. however. Historically, the only reason the vast majority of babies survived being separated from their mother was because there was at least one other woman around to breastfeed them. Before modern formula, yes, people did use other substitutes, but they were rarely, if ever, nutritionally sufficient.

Newborns can't eat adult food. They can't really survive on animal milk. If your story takes place in a world before/without formula, a baby separated from its mother is going to either be nursed by someone else, or starve.

It doesn't have to be a huge plot point, but idk at least don't explicitly describe the situation as excluding the possibility of a wetnurse. "The father or the great grandmother or the neighbor man or the older sibling took and raised the baby completely alone in a cave for a year." Nope. That baby is dead I'm sorry. "The baby was kidnapped shortly after birth by a wizard and hidden away in a secret tower" um quick question was the wizard lactating? "The mother refused to see or touch her child after birth so the baby was left to the care of the ailing grandfather" the grandfather who made the necessary arrangements with women in the neighborhood, right? right? OR THAT GREAT OFFENDER "A newborn baby was left on the doorstep and they brought it in and took care of it no issues" What Are You Going to Feed That Baby. Hello?

Like. It's not impossible, but arrangements are going to have to be made. There are some logistics.

[obsesssedblerd]

Smau: "I want you back." ☹️❤️‍🩹

The guys getting you back after a breakup. ♥️

(nanami, geto, choso, toji, sukuna, and gojo)

contains: angst w/ happy ending, fluff, a bit of crack

a/n: thank you all so much for 100 followers! here's a little treat. 🥰

[artist-rat]

fine dining at the blushing mermaid. with the boogieboys

[all-my-ocs-are-evil]

[insert poetic title here]

fun fact: this did not start out as isat fanart

(rambling in tags)

[lgbtlunaverse]

Nothing will dispell the "the curtains were just blue" myth faster than writing something yourself, because the amount of pretentious symbolism i am putting in my silly little fanfics is ridiculous. I mean SO much with these words, literally every single one of them. This fic has twenty five typos and zero correct uses of punctuation but if there's curtains you bet your ass I put thought into what colour they were.

[tide-locked]

i feel like people forget that sometimes characters in fic are written like that because it's a reflection of real life.

people have sex without setting boundaries. people have unprotected sex without talking about their sexual histories or producing recent sti tests. people play with kink without discussing it ahead of time or establishing a safeword. they have anal without 'enough' prep or lube—they may even prefer it like that.

and none of this is really a fantasy. it's all pretty normal. you can feel that it's inappropriately normalised, and you'd probably be right! but it is normalised: one study found that 58% of female undergraduate students on the campus studied had been choked during sex. 20% of those students said that they'd never been asked if it was ok; another 30% said they'd only sometimes been asked if they consented. fully half! (non-paywalled journal article on choking during sex here, including these numbers.) despite a rise in stis of all sorts, condom use is declining. (pdf link to the full text of this study about declining condom use in the us; aidsmap article about an australian study with similar results.)

even when people do talk about things—sex or anything else—they communicate imperfectly. 'yeah, but don't go too far' is consenting and setting a boundary, and also relying that the person you're talking to has the same metric for 'too far' that you do. for some people, 'the trash needs to go out' is a neutral, factual observation; for others, it's a request that the person they're speaking to take out the trash.

even when people understand each other perfectly, people react unpredictably to things sometimes! we behave irrationally! people laugh uncontrollably at funerals, or get angry at the straw that broke their back rather than the enormous load they were already carrying. they get scared and lash out at people trying to help them. when hurt, most people do not instinctively reach for therapy-approved grounding exercises and 'i feel' statements.

pretty much any bad choice that characters could conceivably make is a choice that people make in real life, on purpose, all the time. people do things that can have catastrophic, life-changing effects because it felt like a good idea at the time, or they're leaning into the vibe, or they just didn't think about it all that much, or an infinite number of other reasons.

fiction isn't intended as a guide on the best, safest, and most responsible ways to live your life, and fanfic isn't any different. it's not a narrative flaw to let characters do things that are messy or harmful or downright stupid—it's a reflection of what people are actually like, and not something that authors should feel they have to apologise for.

[hofudlaus]

also posting these two on their own :-) based on This post by @outpastthemoat

[raynewolferune]

DC x DP Prompt: Bruce is bad at emoting but at least ghosts are empathic (too bad bat kids are not)

Was reading Twincognito on AO3 when I stumbled across this gem again:

~

" “Danny, Tim. I was just…checking in. Is everything alright?” Curse his inability to make meaningful conversation when it wasn’t a life or death situation.

They glanced at each other and shrugged.

Then Danny hauled himself out of the bed and walked over to Bruce.

Bruce tried not to let too much excitement show on his face. "

~

Now I really want to read a story where Bruce adopts Danny post Meta trafficking and is being his usual emotionally constipated self. His kids keep getting mad at him because he's treating their new meta brother who was trafficked poorly (generally being stilted in conversation with him, walking away hurriedly mid-conversation, avoiding Danny when he's feeling really awkward, etc). They think Bruce is discriminating against Danny for being a civilian, meta, dealer's pick, but really it's just Bruce being horribly socially awkward. Danny knows this because of ghost empathy and find the whole thing hilarious. The whole thing comes to a head with the Bat Kids staging an intervention in the Bat Cave.

[stump-not-found]

au fanfic art dump yaaaay

i'm almost at 30k words who knows when i'm gonna start posting it lol

[bonesmarinated]

Oh, baby, have you seen Amy tonight? 🔪

[ear-motif]

fanfic is so good bc the premise of some genres of fic are just inherently funny. I want these two grizzled crime drama protagonists to have some fucking fun for once, so they go to a water park. I dont care how i have to logic my way into them going there i dont care who has to drag them Theyre Going

[vaugely10]

maybe an eternity isn't so bad with you