#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.”

[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.

[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.

[artist-rat]

fine dining at the blushing mermaid. with the boogieboys

[hofudlaus]

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

[magnusbae]

To illustrate this post by @mayahawkse I would like to visualize to you the difference:

A post in 2023:

A post in 2014:

A zoom out of the same post:

This is what a community looks like.

See how in 2023 almost all of the reblogs come from the OP, from their few hours/days in the tag search. Meanwhile in 2014 the % of reblogs from OP is insignificant, because most of the reblogs come from the reblogs within the fandom, within the micro-communities formed there. You didn't need to rely on tags, or search, or being featured. Because the community took care of you, made sure to pass the work between themselves and onto their blog and exposed their followers to it. It kept works alive for years.

It's not JUST the reblog/like ratio that causing this issue, it's the type of interaction people have. They're content with scrolling and liking the search engine, instead of actually having a reblogging relationship with other blogs in their community.

Anyways, if you want to see more content you like, the only true way to make it happen is to reblog it. Likes do not forward content in no way but making OP feel nice. Reblogs on the other hand make content eternal. They make it relevant, they make it exist outside of a fickle tumblr search that hardly works on the best of days.

If you want more of something, reblog it.

[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

[kbcypher]

Your name is a curse.

It lingers like a bad taste on the tongues of those who whisper it, heavy with the legacy of your predecessors. The sins of your parents in turn cling to you by virtue of your birth, but you carry no shame for your lineage, nor for its history. You use the reputation of your name to your advantage, wearing it like shining armor. There are those who are drawn to it, eager to take a sliver of the prestige for themselves. You use them to your advantage, too.

I'm shamelessly stealing this from twitter, but writers !! Quick, reblog with the last line or two that you wrote, no cheating.

[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. 🥰

[inkskinned]

we were sitting on the floor and i was cutting out tiny pictures to make a collage for a friend's birthday. you were on your phone and you laughed about something, and i was still in love with you then, so i asked what had you giggling.

"sorry. i was just..." you took a moment and went back to texting. "i was telling someone about how you're afraid of the dark."

i'm afraid of the dark because something bad happened. "oh." i felt a little slinky of shame crawl down my throat.

you glanced up, and maybe it showed on my face, because you rolled your eyes and held the phone to the side casually so i could see the group chat. "what? was it a secret?"

i looked down to the scissors in my hand. "i just..." no, it's not a secret. it just felt like something private, something serious. saying why would you tell someone that just feels like an accusation. it's unfair. i honestly am not even ashamed of it, it's just a fact about my person that i don't usually share.

what a strange experience. is this a human thing or a generational thing? for our grandparents: did they need to worry about how quickly someone can just... share your personal information? again, i didn't even really have a true objection. what could i say? i want any person in my life to feel they can be honest with their friends. it's not like i said don't tell anyone this.

i cut out another letter to complete the rainbow happy birthday, started hunting for the exclamation mark. i heard you sigh dramatically.

"don't make a big deal about this," you said.

this entire conversation was a pattern for us, and this was when we got to my least favorite part of the pattern. i would get my feelings hurt in some oblique not-technically-terrible way, and then it would be making a big deal about something. you'd get frustrated for me for being soft, but i was born soft. you knew i was soft when you pierced me. it's one of the things that made controlling me so easy.

"i'm not," i felt my voice crack. the question came without my wanting. "why are you guys talking about me?" and why are you saying that thing? why not like - i'm telling them how you're generous and kind and pretty.

you let out this low, tragic groan. "oh my god." you tossed the phone away from your body. "there, see? i just won't talk to them if you don't like it."

the rest of the hour went the way it always went, between us: i said i don't actually mind if you talk to your friends but -, you found a way to call my minor expression of discomfort "being dramatic." you got upset that i had been offended. i ended up apologizing, even though i hadn't actually done anything.

afterwards, you picked up the phone again. after texting for a little bit, you snorted. "okay," you said, "but it is kind of funny you're afraid of the dark. i mean, when you think about it."

[fishofthewoods]

I see a lot of people clowning on the people of Pelican Town for not repairing the community center themselves or clowning on Lewis for embezzling and. like. Those criticisms aren't entirely unfair. But I think instead of coming at it from a perspective of "why can't the townspeople do this" we should be asking "why and how can the farmer do this?"

Like. Think about it. The farmer arrives in Stardew Valley on the first day of spring. By the first day they're obviously different. By day five the spirits of the forest who haven't been seen by the townsfolk in years or generations are speaking to them. By the second week they've developed a rapport with the wizard that lives outside town.

In the spring they go foraging and find more than even Linus, who's spent so many years learning the ways of the valley. Maybe he knows, when he sees them walking back home. Maybe he looks at them and understands that they're different, chosen somehow.

In the summer they fish in the lakes and the ocean for hours on end, catching fish that even Willy's only ever heard of, fish that he thought were the stuff of legend. They pull up giants from the deep and mutated monstrosities from the sewers.

In the fall, their crops grow incredibly immense; pumpkins twice as tall as a person, big enough that someone could live inside. The farmer cuts it down with an axe without even batting an eye. Does Lewis wonder, when he checks the collection bin that night and finds it full to the brim with pumpkin flesh? What does he think? Does he even leave the money? Does he have the funds to pay the farmer millions of dollars for the massive amounts of wine they sell? Or is it someone--something--else entirely?

In the winter, the farmer delves into the mines. No one in Pelican Town has been down there in decades. No one in living memory has been to the bottom. The farmer gets there within the season. They return to the surface with stories of dwarven ruins and shadow people, stories they only tell to Vincent and Jas, whose retellings will be dismissed by the adults as flights of fancy. People walking by the entrance to the mines sometimes hear the farmer in there, speaking in a language no one can understand. Something speaks back.

The farmer speaks to the the wizard. They speak to the spirit of a bear inside a centuries-old stone. They speak to the shadow people and the dwarves, ancient enemies, and they try to mend the rift. They speak to the Junimos, ancient spirits of the forest and the river and the mountain. They taste the nectar of the stardrops and speak to the valley itself. They change Pelican Town, and they change the valley. Things are waking up.

And what does Evelyn think? She's the oldest person in the valley; she was here when the farmer's grandfather was young. (How old *is* she, anyway? She never seems to age. She doesn't remember the year she was born.) Does she see the farmer and think of their grandfather? Does she try to remember if he was like this too, strange and wild and given the gifts of the forest?

And does their grandfather haunt the valley? He haunts the farm, still there even after his death; his body died somewhere else, but his spirit could never stay away for long. Does Abigail, using her ouija board on a stormy night, almost drop the planchette when she realizes it's moving on its own? Does Shane, walking to work long before anyone else leaves their house, catch glimpses of a wispy figure floating through the town? Does the farmer know their grandfather came back to the place they both love so much?

Mr. Qi takes interest in the farmer. He's different, too; in a different way, maybe, but the principles are the same. They're both exceptional, and no matter what Qi says about it being hard work and dedication, they both know the truth: the world bends around the both of them, changing to fit their needs. Most people aren't visited by fairies or witches. Most people don't have meteorites crash in their yard. Most people couldn't chop down trees all day without a break or speak to bears and mice and frogs.

The farmer is different. The rules of the world don't work for them the way they work for everyone else. The farmer goes fishing and finds the stuff of fairy tales. The farmer goes mining and fights shadow beasts and flying snakes. The farmer looks at paths the townspeople walk every day and finds buried in the dirt relics of lost civilizations.

The farmer is a violent, irrepressible miracle, chosen by the valley and destined to return to it someday. Even if they'd never received the letter, they would've come home.

They always come home eventually.

[lucabyte]

monologue

[bonesmarinated]

Oh, baby, have you seen Amy tonight? 🔪

[dapper-lil-arts]

You should read The Princess and the Peasant it's really good lol

[foldingfittedsheets]

Before my beloved and I moved in together they were living with roommates in a place that didn't have a bathtub. Now, a reasonable person might conclude from this that baths would be out of the equation in a home with only one standing shower and no tub.

But these people weren't quitters. Naturopathic doctors and acupuncturists they were dedicated to treating their bodies well and one of the ways they liked to do that was hydrotherapy. Most people are familiar with this through things like polar bear plunges. You sit in a hot tub then jump in freezing water.

It's supposedly good for you and they were way into it. But again, no tub. They'd do hydro showers but it just wasn't the same. These people were not quitters, though. (One of them is the boob soap person, so it really isn't a surprise that she goes hard on everything). So they got what looked like two big metal old timey tubs but which were actually animal food troughs and set them up in the garage. They set up a water heater and god knows how they emptied the tub after, I think there was hoses involved? A pump maybe? I honestly can't remember. Anyway! Voila, hydrotherapy on demand.

I was not aware of this. So when I came over after a long day and my beloved said we should take a bath I was extremely puzzled. I only knew about the one shower. They showed me the garage tubs. I did want a bath and I wasn't really sure about the setup, but honestly I'll try anything once if only for the story, so I agreed.

Fun fact about me though. I haaaate being cold. I've been 0% body fat most of my life with skin barely keeping my bones enclosed. I'm always cold. My favorite activity at the time was sitting directly in front of space heaters. My shower temperatures turn me lobster red and make my beloved cringe. Willingly dunking myself into cold water is the antipathy of my entire deal.

On the night in question I happily submerged into the warm tank, pleasantly surprised by the big silly improvised tub. Which again was meant for livestock. My knees bumped companionably against my beloved as we soaked in the hot water. After a while they rose to go into the cold water. "You don't have to," they told me.

But I was haunted. I wouldn't be doing hydro if I just stayed in the warm tub. Maybe hydro was amazing. It has all these health benefits. I desperately didn't want to but I stood up with them. We were having this nice intimate evening in the garage, just us, I felt safe. I was gonna do it.

They stepped easily into the cold tub, dunking matter of factly into the frigid water. I went to step. I did. I really really tried. My foot went in and I started shrieking, my progress arrested by the total state of shock I entered when my warm toasty foot hit that smug arctic water tension. My beloved started laughing as my pitch ascended the deeper my foot went into the cold water.

I started loudly narrating my discomfort as my foot touched the bottom and I willed my other foot up to join it. "THIS IS VERY COLD," I yelled, "IT'S SO COLD I THINK I MIGHT DIE HOW ARE YOU JUST CASUALLY SITTING IN THIS FREEZING COLD WATER?! I'M DYING- I THINK I'M DYING! I'M DYING BUT WE'RE HERE, TOGETHER! I CAN DO THIS! I CAN DO THESE EVEN THOUGH IT'S SO COLD ALL MY MOLECULES HAVE COMPRESSED INTO A SOLID STATE!"

I ended up with both feet planted in the cold tub, water up to my shins, bellowing and panting while my beloved laughed so hard they couldn't breathe. I hunkered over the cold water, squatting like a frozen gargoyle.

My beloved was trying to psyche me up while I willed my body to obey me. In a sudden jerky drop like a puppet whose strings have been cut I plummeted my body into the cold and let out a shriek that I’m sure could have shattered glass and then leapt up out of the water at a speed relative to a rocket achieving space flight. I didn’t like it.

When we got back inside my beloved's roommates were collapsed on the ground with tears in the their eyes from how hard they'd been laughing. They and probably every neighbor down the block had heard my pterodactyl screeching and narration because the garage was not remotely soundproof.

[jamtamart]

the last disco