#just really thin and disconnected lines

[edgydadster]

Deciding whether to paint this or not skdjskdjdjdb

[awakenedevildays]

「quarrels and sofas」 Art Donaldson x F!reader

TW: angst, smut (minors DNI), fighting, jealousy, insecurities

you can read the other parts here!

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Art knew it was a terrible idea to properly introduce you to Patrick right away, from the moment he saw how his best friend looked at you up and down he knew he was in for troubles. Even more when Patrick "kindly" offered to teach you how to play tennis while "your boyfriend was busy". 

You agreed happily almost immediately: with Tashi busy with her professional tennis career, and you with yours, you didn't have much time to see each other, and when you did you tried to disconnect from your jobs by doing other things and that resulted in not playing that much anymore, expect with Art sometimes.

"your girlfriend is really cute by the way, how come I didn't realize it when we met her years ago" he teased Art after you excused yourself to go to the bathroom of the restaurant. 

Art knew where the conversation was going, but decided not to respond to his best friend's taunts "you didn't realize she was cute? It's your bad I guess" he replied in a snarky way, his fingers playing with his glass "besides, she's been cute since forever, what are you even talking about?" Art asked.

Patrick snickered a little at Art's response, taking a sip of his glass while he kept his eyes on him.

"Oh don't play dumb with me. She's always been on the cute side, but come on... she's seriously gorgeous now. You're so lucky and you don't even realize it" he replied back, a mischievous grin on his face growing as he continued to tease Art.

Art felt anger rise in his body, why did he always feel like he had to compete against Patrick? 

Patrick could feel the tension between them and continued to push further "You should be glad she's still loyal to you. She could easily leave your ass if she wanted to, bet she has tons of men after her" he kept going with a smug smile, knowing fully well he was pushing Art to his limit.

"Yeah well, unlike you I know how to treat my girlfriend right" he bit back, his smile growing. 

Patrick's smile faded a little at the reference to his past relationship with Tashi, but he quickly regained his composure and a smirk formed on his lips "Oh please, I know how to treat women just fine. Tashi simply just couldn't handle me" he said with a laugh, trying to brush off the topic.

Art's frowned his eyebrows in fake confusion, his smile turning into a thin line "Oh... my bad, I heard it went differently, from what I know.. it was you who couldn't keep up with her". 

Patrick raised an eyebrow at Art's response, his smirk faltering slightly as he tried to keep his cool.

"You've heard wrong then. It was Tashi who couldn't handle my life as a successful businessman." he retorted with a hint of defensiveness in his voice, trying to deflect the truth with arrogance.

Art was going to answer but a voice interrupted him "excuse me, I'll leave you the bill" the waitress said leaving the small receipt holder on the table, both men smiled as she walked away. 

Art took his wallet to pay and Patrick didn't bother to stop the blond as he slid the money inside of the card holder before leaving it on the table for the waitress to take. 

Then, Art takes a sip of his beer, his eyes never leaving Patrick's "stay away from her Patrick, I mean it" he warned. 

Patrick rolled his eyes at Art's warning "Oh, come on Art. I'm just being friendly. What's the harm in that?" he replied with a smirk, clearly not taking him seriously. 

"I know what you're trying to do, I know you". 

Patrick leaned back in his seat, his smirk widening at Art's accusation. "And what exactly do you know, Art?" he asked with feigned innocence, though his eyes gleamed with mischievous intent.

"I know you can't stand seeing me happy while you're not" he replied immediately and Patrick couldn't help but scoff at Art's words. 

"Oh please, I'm perfectly happy in my single life. I don't need a relationship to make me happy" he replied with a dismissive wave of his hand, though there's a hint of bitterness in his tone.

Art leans on his chair "sure you don't, but don't try to ruin mine too" his smile didn't reach his eyes. 

"Ruin your relationship? Who said anything about ruining your relationship?" Patrick asked with a hint of sarcasm, feigning innocence once again. "I'm just being friendly, Art. I don't have any ulterior motives" he added, maintaining his smile but his eyes betrayed his true intentions.

Before Art could answer you are next to him again "sorry, what did I miss?" you asked innocently, Art's arm wrapped around your shoulder while his other hand takes your fingers in his to play with them. 

Patrick's gaze flickered from you to Art, observing the two of you with a subtle feeling of irritation before he plastered a charming smile on his face. "Ah, nothing much. We were just catching up, talking about old times" he replied smoothly, though his gaze lingered on your hand enclosed in Art's, a flicker of envy in his eyes. Art looked at you and smiled, "nothing important" he said, brushing off the conversation to shift his focus back to you. 

"we should go baby, we have to wake up early tomorrow" Art stood up, you mimic his action. 

"Oh yeah, that's right" you said, slightly puzzled but you quickly brushed it off and leaned into Art's side, giving him a soft smile. Patrick watched the two of you raise from your seats, his smile still on his face "alright then, it was nice catching up" he said standing up as well, giving Art a nod before his gaze went back to you. "It was really nice to see you again" he added, his voice carrying a hint of flirtation you didn’t seem to notice, but Art did. 

"It was nice seeing you too Patrick, I'll text you for that tennis lesson, ok?" Patrick briefly looked at Art and smiled "can't wait, good night". 

Art's grip on you tightened momentarily, his expression tense but he quickly regained his composure to give Patrick a curt nod in return. "Good night" he replied shortly before leading you out of the restaurant, his arm remained protectively around your shoulders. 

Now, a few weeks later, Art leans with crossed arms at the doorframe and watches you getting ready for bed. He can't stop thinking how Patrick looked at you during that dinner and he can't imagine what his eyes saw while you played together, how he probably glanced at your legs and checked you out.

"So how was your match with Patrick?" He hopes you don't hear the jealousy out of his voice. 

"it was good, how was your day baby?" you decide to ignore his jealous tone, you kiss his lips when you pass by him to go to the bathroom.

He kisses you back, smiling when your lips touched his but he can't help thinking of Patrick right now. 

"My day was good," he says "what did you and Patrick do after your practice?" He asks while he changes from his jeans to a jogging pants.

"he gave me a ride here" you shrug.

He tries to hold a neutral mimic by hearing that but his jealousy is too much to not say anything about it. 

"I could've picked you up, baby" he tells you while he sits down on your bed waiting for you to finish brushing your teeth.

"I didn't want to bother you, and we were already together" you explain to calm him down but it's not working as you hoped it would.

You can see his knuckles turning white "it's not about bothering me. It's about you and Patrick together, alone. I don't like him". 

You look at him shocked "what do you mean? he is your best friend Art" you exclaim incredulous. 

"he just has a thing for you and it's obvious and I don't like it" It's like you can touch his anger, it's filling the whole room.

He can't stop imagining how Patrick might have touched you when he wasn't there, how he looked at you... just thinking that he might have looked at you the same way he did during the dinner is making him crazy. 

"I don't want you to see him anymore" he states and his arms cross in front of his chest and you scoff. 

"you're being ridiculous Art, he didn't try to do anything" you say and finally look at him from the bathroom. 

He starts to raise his voice and you can see the veins on his forehead throbbing "don't you see he has a thing for you?! You think he's such a good friend helping you play better? He doesn't give a damn about that, and you're just too naive to see that. He's just waiting for a chance to be with you" he snaps and stands from the bed. 

"I'm sorry are you trying to say I'm cheating on you?" you ask and you really hope he's going to deny it. 

 "I'm saying I'm tired of seeing you give attention to every single male that flirts with you, I mean how much attention do you need, are you really that desperate?" he snaps and immediately regrets what he just said, your hurt expression makes him shut his mouth.

He sighs and walks towards you, but just as he arrives in front of  you take a step back, tears swelling in your eyes and Art's heart clenches in his chest.

How can he explain to you that there is a voice in his head that tells him, every time you look at him, that he doesn't deserve you? that you could find someone better than him? that what Patrick had told him had affected him more than he wants to admit and that he is as terrified of losing you as he is terrified of few other things in the world?

"you're being unfair Art, you know I didn't cheat on you" you defend yourself but your voice tremble and it's difficult for Art to hear you. 

"I know, I'm sor-" but you don't listen to him.  

"I never, ever, gave you a reason not to trust me," your voice raises, you feel so hurt by him right now, you thought his trust in you was stronger than this. 

"I know, I'm sorry you're right, it's just that... Patrick told me some thing last time at dinner and insecurities got the best of me! I'm sorry, I really am baby, its just that..." he tries to explain what he is feeling "every time I look at you I always think you are too much for me, that you could find someone better than me and that you could leave me at any given moment, I love you so much it makes me crazy... Please forgive me" he takes your face in his hands but you don't look at him,  you can't bring yourself to feel sorry for him right now, you're way more hurt than he is. 

"but this is not the right way to show me Art, what you are saying it's unfair, I never, ever gave you a reason to doubt my loyalty towards you and our relationship" you take his hands off of your face. 

You are right, he knows you are, but his thoughts just won him over this time. He gently pulls you closer by wrapping his arms around your waist, he starts kissing you on your jawline and down your neck but you don't hug him back. 

"I..am so sorry baby. You have every right to feel hurt by what I just said and did. Please forgive me, I really am sorry, look we're both tired, can we go to sleep? we'll talk about this tomorrow morning, how does that sound?" he gives you a small smile in hope to soothe you but you avoid his gaze and he realizes he had said too much this time, he swallows the lump forming in his throat.

"I'm sorry, I truly mean it" he whispers with a gentle voice. All he wants to do now is to kiss your pain away, but he know you won't let him this time.

"I think I'll sleep on the couch tonight" you say and slip past him out of the bathroom and the bedroom.

 He watches you leave the bathroom and the bedroom with his heart racing like crazy. You are going to sleep on the couch? No. No way. It hurt knowing that he made you feel bad enough that you would sleep on the couch instead of in your bed with him. His legs moves on his own and he follows you out of the bedroom before grabbing your wrists and pulling you close to him. "Baby please, don't sleep on the couch" he pleads and tries to press you against his body.

"Art I don't want to be close to you right now, I really need space to think" you pull your wrist back and Art feels his heart sink at your words as his head starts spinning. 

He tries to blink away the tears that were in the corner of his eyes, but he can't. So his hands slowly lets go of your wrists and he takes a step back. "Okay. If you want space then I will give you the space you need", he says with a cracked voice and looks down at his empty hands.

You smile weakly "thank you, night Art" but before you can turn again he surpasses you to sit on the couch before you can reach it "I'll sleep here baby, you take the bed" he says and lays there, his eyes never leaving your figure and the way he is looking at you makes you feel so damn guilty even though he is the one at fault.

You open your mouth to speak but nothing you think seems appropriate, you reclutantly nod and turn around to go back to the bedroom.

He watches you disappear in the dark bedroom. His thoughts are racing. The guilt that was already so heavy on his soul is getting heavier every second. But he knows that you need space now after what he said to you. The only thing that he can do now is to pray that in the morning everything will go back to being alright. So that's what he did before falling asleep after a long time of just simply staring at the ceiling.

You hand caressing his cheek softly stirs Art awake the next morning.

You can feel the you man’s body tensing up at first at the soft touch of your hand on his cheek, but he quickly melts into it. The warm feeling of your hand on his skin makes his heart flutter and he slowly opens his eyes to look at you. "Baby?" he whispers still sleepy from what you assumed was a bad night on the couch.

"Hi" you murmur and his hand come to rest on yours still on his cheek "I made breakfast, would you like to join me?" if it wasn't for the fact that Art slept on the couch and his burning eyes he would've thought that what happened yesterday was just a bad dream.

Art is confused, he is afraid to speak and ruin this moment, to push you away once and for all and lose you forever "Yeah I would love to".

You gave him a small smile before making your way to the kitchen and Art follows behind you. He still seems exhausted as if he barely got any sleep last night. His heart sinks once his eyes lands on the table. You made his favourite pancakes with maple syrup, but in contrast to all the other days you didn't made coffee this time, only milk.

You sit on your place but Art stands awkwardly at the doorframe as if he needs your permission to approach you. So you give it to him.

The both of you eat the food in silence. Art doesn't dare to say a word the whole time, the only thing that he can't stop doing is stealing a look at you every now and then when he believes that you won't notice it. He can't get over the fact that you were so kind and cooked him his favourite meal after what happened last night. But his heart stops when you suddenly put down your fork and clear your throat. He was so nervous that he can already feel the lump in his throat building up.

"I think we should talk about yesterday Art"

 His heart is beating out of his chest the second he hears that dreaded sentence. The dreaded talk. The talk that would surely decide how everything is going to be between you two from this point. He swallows loudly before nodding his head. "Okay. Baby, listen I-" his voice cracks and he feels pathetic, if only his voice stopped him from speaking yesterday he wouldn't find himself in this position now. 

The second he sees your hand going up to stop his rambling, he immediately shuts up and swallows hard again. The tension in the room is so thick it could be cut trough with a knife. He has no idea what to do or how to start this conversation, so he looks at you with his thoughts racing in his head and fear building up more and more.

"I'll talk first"

He felt the lump in his throat growing thicker, but he nods once to show you that he is listening. "Go ahead," and you nod.

"what happened yesterday was not okay Art, I'm sorry that you feel so insecure of our relationship but you have to talk to me about these things and not accuse me of things I never did and never will"

 Art takes a shaky breath at your words. Everything that you said makes sense and he knows it. He should have talked about his insecurities and doubts, but instead he lashed his pain out on you. He feels so stupid right know.

"You're right. You're right. I'm sorry for what I said and did yesterday", he mumbles while he reaches for your hand to hold it. "I just..I don't know what got into me, but I promise I will never do this ever again".

"I'm not done" you say but take his hands in yours to reassure him. 

He swallows hard as you tell him that you aren't done. So he sits there still, not moving a muscle but also not letting go off your hands while he waits for you to continue. His heart is beating in his chest so fast it feels like it could explode any second.

"If you really think that Patrick is flirting with me, I'll keep him away from me... from us. I don't want to know what he told you that night, I don't care, but I need you to know that I love you, I'll always love you and only you, nothing will change that and I will never cheat on you, and I won't tolerate you behaving or accusing me like you did yesterday". 

Your words hit Art in the heart. He squeezes your hand a bit to show his affection and he nods "I know, I know that you love me and only me and that I'm an idiot for ever doubting that. And I love you too. More than anything. I'll try and work on my self doubt and my stupid insecurities. I'm sorry." He can't believe that you are still sitting in the same room with him.

You get up from your chair and sit on his legs, your hands go to his cheeks and you can feel his breath hitch as he hurriedly wraps one arm around you. Slowly he starts to press his cheek into your hand, he loves feeling your touch on him and he lets his eyes slowly close.

"is Patrick really the only thing that is bothering you?".

Art hums softly as he gives your question a real thought. Is it really the only thing that is bothering him?

He slowly opens his eyes and looks at you when he realizes that there is one more thing that made him jealous when he thought about it. "It isn't only Patrick..." he mumbled.

"what is it then?" 

"It's you" he says truthfully "It's you and how many people find you attractive. Everywhere you go there are so many guys checking you out. I know that they're no threat to our relationship, but everytime I see them looking at you I can't help but wish sometimes to have you all for myself".

"it's your fault for choosing a hot girl as your partner" you joke to lighten the mood. 

Art chuckles softly at your joke. He can feel the corner of his lips slowly twitching upwards to a smirk at your words. It's just like you to try and lighten up the mood and he loved that about you. 

"That's not fair" he mumbled against your palm before he leaned in to press a soft kiss onto it.

"you think I don't feel the same about you? everywhere we go there is always some girls making heart eyes at you and it makes me crazy, have you ever noticed them?" he shakes his head, he never sees them, he only has eyes for you, "and in the exact same way I don't see any other guys that is not you." he blushes and you kiss the corner of his mouth "the fact that I am insecure as you are about other people finding you attractive doesn't mean I get insecure of your love for me or of our relationship, and you shouldn't either" you flick his forehead 

At this point he is simply stunned by what you said and you could literally see on his face, so you are jealous of him too?

Art doesn't know what to say at first so the only thing that he does is to tighten his grip on your waist while his cheeks slowly turns red. "I..I thought you didn't feel the same about..you know..." He trails off when he realized that there aren't any words that can express what is on his mind.

"about other girls finding you pretty?"

Art slowly nods his head. "Yeah..I guess so" he mumbles and looks down at his lap, embarrassed that he has those thoughts and doubts. "I just thought that it didn't bother you cause you never said anything. I thought I was being crazy" he mumbled and looked up at you with guilty eyes.

"I should've express my feeling about it sooner, maybe you wouldn't have felt this way about Patrick" 

"Maybe..." he mumbles while he slides his arm from your waist and gently brushes some loose hair behind your ear "I'm sorry for what I said about you and Patrick baby...I'm so sorry"

"I know you are... I'm sorry too" you murmur 

His eyes widens slightly and his head snaps up so that he can look at you. "What are you sorry about, sweetheart. You didn't do anything wrong" his thumb gently brushes over the skin on your cheek.

"about not expressing my insecurity sooner, for making you feel alone in this, we both could have handled this situation better" his heart starts racing in his chest when you lean into his hand and softly press your lips onto it. A small sigh escapes his lips while he keeps his eyes on you "I guess we both have to work on sharing our insecurities baby. Let's not keep anything from each other, alright?"

"sounds like a great deal to me" you whisper and kiss him softly on the lips and he comes alive under you.

He immediately leans into the kiss and presses his lips back onto yours. He feels like all the tension between you is slowly fading out and he cups your face with his hands to pull you closer.

He can't get enough of the taste of your lips. The way you are sitting on his lap kissing him passionately feels so right. It takes all his willpower to slow down the kiss and pull away from you to breath for a moment. His thumb gently caress your cheeks, while he watches you, flushed and looking absolutely wrecked.

You climb off his lap just to straddle him and rejoin your lips together, his hands fly to your hip to pull you closer. The feeling of your body pressed against his makes him groan and his eyes flutters for a moment, before he deepens the kiss again. His tongue licks across your bottom lip and he gently nips on it with his teeth.

you moan and grind your hips on his, the only things keeping your body separate are your short nightgown and his jogging pants. 

A breathy moan escapes his lips at the feeling of your hips grinding on him in such a sweet torture. He pulls you even closer if that's even possible and his fingers digs into the skin on your sides to hold you in place while his hips starts to move on their own. "Baby.." he gasps against your lips at the delicious friction of your bodies, he can't handle how hot you look on his lap.

"I need you Art, please"

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The second those needy words leave your lips something inside him snaps. The way you beg him makes him feel like he could explode in any second. "God, I love you" He gasps and pulls his lips from yours just to shower kisses along your jaw. "I need you too, baby." He moans against your skin and his hips rocks upwards to meet your movements.

you grind your hips on his again and again in circolar motions, his lips goes to your neck and lightly suck on it and his hands on your ass to help your movements. Your hands instead goes to raise his shirt to take it off and Art leans back against the chair to help you before going back to the same position as before.

Art groans in anticipation when you start to pull off his shirt that reveals his pale chest and abs to you. He shivers slightly when your hands roams over his bare skin and he buries his face in the crook of your neck. He leaves wet kisses on your skin while he let his fingers sneak under the hemline of your nightgown to feel your skin. 

you take off your nightgown and throw it on the floor with his shirt before raising your hips to slide off his pants and boxer 

While you take the rest of your clothes off he can't stop himself from watching you. You look so divine and beautiful while undressing in front of him that he has to swallow hard and bite his lips at the sight of your body. After all this time you can still make his mind blank and speechless with your beauty. Slowly his hands roams up your thighs and over the skin on your hips while his eyes looks up at you, completely mesmerised.

"you look so beautiful baby" he says while you slid your panties to the side and sink down on his member, you let out a moan.

He keeps his eyes on you while you slowly let yourself sink down on him, his fingers gently grabbing at your hips to help you, while he feels himself becoming consumed in the feeling of you. "You're the prettiest girl I've ever seen" he manages to gasp before slowly kissing your lips. It felt like his mind was blank as he could only focus on every single sensation that you make him feel.

His breath hitches at the feeling of your insides wrapped around him and a moan escapes his lips in between the kisses. Art can't even concentrate on anything in this moment apart from you. He starts to move his hips in a steady rhythm with you in his lap.

"fuck, you feel so good baby, I love you" he moans and picks you up, a yelp come out of your mouth and your body trembles in his arms as his member slides deeper than before.

He picks up the pace when he hears you moan out loud, his mind completely blissed out at the feeling of himself buried inside of you while he continues to kiss you everywhere he can reach. 

His idea was to take you in your bedroom but you feel too good and his legs tremble from the pleasure, so he has no choice but to sit you on the table, him between your legs as he pick up his pace.

A surprised gasp escapes your mouth at the change of positions. He spreads your thighs further apart and his hips snaps against you and a groan escapes his lips.

You bring his face to yours and kiss him deeply, your tongues intertwined and your hands slide to his shoulders to dig your nails there and Art moans at the pain mixed with pleasure, one of his supports his weight off of you by resting on the table and the other finds your clit to rub it in circular motions to stimulate you further.

He moans into your mouth the second your tongue finds its way to his and his body presses against you while he does so. That action alone causes him to be deeper inside you and his eyes flutters close despite his best efforts to keep them open to look at you.

"Art- fuck" you moan and tremble against him, your chests pressed together before you let yourself lay against the table completely 

He stands back to look at your spread out body, you look so beautiful that it almost physically hurts him, he gets out of you to turn you around, you whine in response but lay against the table again without much struggle, he slips inside of you again

His pace now is slow and he stops your hips as they try to meet his, you whine in protest 

"Art please... go faster" you look back at him, your eyes pleading while your elbows support your weight, he lowers himself until his chest is pressed against your back and his mouth is close to you left ear "tell me you are mine" he orders while he bottoms out inside of you. 

The way he says that in your ear combined with how deep he is inside of you makes you whimper and shiver runs down your back. "I'm yours" you breathe and your eyes flutter by the feeling of him pressed so close against you. You feel like you're being wrapped up in Art and that feeling alone makes you feel so loved "I'm all yours, please..."

"I swear I'm only yours Art" you say again and his right arm goes around your neck while he brings you up with him in a straight position.

His hand tightens around your neck, making sure the pressure is light as his other hand slips around your stomach to hold you up against him. He then starts to move inside you with slow even strokes. "That's right you're mine..." he groans into your ear, "I love you so much..."

The new position makes his cock hit your cervix and you eyes gets watery from tears of pleasure, he picks up his pace "I'm going to cum Art" 

"me too baby" his hands goes to your clit again and your walls spams around his shaft "can I cum inside of you?" you nod furiously and turn your head to kiss him, when you cum your mouths are still joined and he slides as deep as he can as he reaches his climax too, his mouth now on your left shoulder and your hands wraps around both of his wrists. 

You stay still for a moment, your bodies joined together as your mouths lets out shaky laughs and breaths, he slide out of you delicately and turns you to sit you properly on the table again, his Hans on your thighs as they tremble.

Even in this moment you look the perfect combination of beautiful and wrecked to him. "I still can't believe how prefect you look all the time" he mumbles as he brushes some loose hair behind your ears softly.

You smile and pepper his face with sweet kisses that makes Art close his eyes in content, you slide off of the woodened forniture and take his hands in yours, "how about we take this to the bedroom, my love?"

He immediately nods in response and his eyes flutters when he feels your lips on his face. He feels like in this moment he could stand here and let you shower him with kisses forever. "Lead the way my love" he mumbles with a lazy tired smile on his face, his eyes follows you while you make your way to the bedroom.

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do not copy or repost.

[disneyprincemuke]

too young to know it gets better * fem!driver

there has to be someone out there that can snap her out of it, right?

pairings: oscar piastri x fem!driver, logan sargeant x fem!driver

notes: HI AFTER THIS THERE's one left and i promise that's not AS angsty as this one and i'm thinking of adding one or two more bonus chapters?? lolsie but idk we'll see!

(series masterlist) | (📂 2025: fall from grace)

(prev)

rockster has disconnected.

that’s the notification that had brought logan and oscar together some random afternoon. they stand in the confinements of the elevator in silence, not a single word uttered since they’d met one another in the lobby after sending a simple text out.

but they know what they’re here for.

logan hadn’t moved that fast in concern for her, dating back 3 years ago when mick had supposedly texted him about marrying his crush in vegas. he had sprinted 2 blocks from his apartment building to hers in the span of a couple of minutes.

and oscar had been running errands with lily prior to getting the notification. when she’d noticed her boyfriend staring down at his phone with distress all over his face, she’d immediately pushed him towards the exits to attend to the girl. she’s also a close friend, so she notices.

if you asked oscar, he’s been worried for months. but with her tendency to keep rejecting his initiation for small talk, it’s difficult to try and find the words to try and pry a confession out of her. but this disconnection from an application they’ve had for years raises red flags that they didn’t even know were possible.

“we’re not overreacting, right?” oscar mutters as they step out of the elevator at her floor.

logan nods, lips pressed into a thin line as he counts the steps he takes down the familiar hallway. “she dropped kidnapper off at my apartment like a week and a half ago. i haven’t heard from her since.”

oscar turns to him. “you’ve heard from her?”

“barely,” logan grimaces with a shake of his head, eyes trained on the hallway. “i invited her in for snacks but she declined and left immediately.”

“i haven’t seen or heard from her since the summer break began.”

“she hasn’t been picking up my calls either.” he turns to oscar. “that’s weird, right?”

logan almost wants to laugh at their conversation. if he didn’t consider that their best friend was the person at stake, he would have laughed the loudest he’s ever. they simply sounded like they were answering one another for copium in hopes that their best friend hasn’t lost her mind just yet.

when he unlocks the door to her apartment, they’re taken aback by the sight they’re immediately greeted with. and for logan, it’s whiplash — he’s only ever had fond memories of this apartment. to find it absolutely thrashed almost breaks his heart a little bit.

in his mind, he can hear the girl always scolding him for being messy when they were living together.

the curtains, typically letting the sun seep into the room, are drawn in to block the light out. the floor is littered with her things and there’s a chair toppled over on the ground. a picture frame on the entertainment system beneath the tv is faced down against the counter and if logan can recall perfectly, it’s their picture from when they were kids.

“what happened in here?” oscar mutters, stepping around the items of stray pieces of clothing on the ground. “should we call someone? do you think someone broke into her apartment?”

“let me call her and see if she’s alright,” logan sighs, fishing for his phone in his back pocket.

he hadn’t expected the situation to be so concerning. have they really let her run rampant on her own all this time?

he dials her number, just about to press the call button when a lock clicks and a door opens.

the girl, albeit slightly unrecognisable at first, steps out of her bedroom. she’s still in her pyjamas, cheeks wet and eyes puffy with her hair in a messy ponytail talling apart on her shoulder.

“who- rocky?”

she flinches back at the voice, catching her off-guard. she sighs tiredly as she pushes her hair out of her face, wiping her cheeks dry on the sleeve of her pyjamas. “what are you guys doing here”

“what are we- when did you get back?” logan tilts his head in confusion. he gestures towards the mess around them, “and what happened? have you been crying?”

she sighs again, eyes fluttering as she turns to look away from them. “you guys should really go. it’s not a good time right now,” she says softly, gesturing them towards the front door of her apartment.

“we can stay and help you clean everything up,” oscar mutters, mirror logan’s stare at the ground, “we’re just curious. you don’t typically let your apartment get this messy.”

“mate,” another sigh comes with her pinching the bridge of her nose, “it’s really not a good time right now.”

oscar’s head snaps up. “are you avoiding us?”

she stares at him tiredly. “what? no, it’s just-”

“you are, aren’t you?” oscar cuts her off, feeling an overwhelming wave of frustration takes over him. months of what feels like a one-sided friendship finally catches up to him.

every single rejection of plans reminds him how neglected their friendship has been, every time she’s ‘forgotten’ to look for an ice cream parlour makes his blood boil. it is such a one-sided friendship as of late and it feels like she’s no longer honouring the years of friendship they have.

“but why? did we do something? did we say something to upset you?”

she slouches her shoulders. she takes a deep breath to recompose herself. “please just go,” she croaks out, feeling a knot in her throat at the realisation of where this entire conversation might be heading. “not now.”

“but what is it? is it us?” oscar frowns. “at least tell us before you start ignoring us.”

she clenches her jaw as her patience runs thin. and she tries to hold on to the last string of patience she has. all these past months, she’s tried her damnest not to be this way to anyone that’s involved in racing.

just to save some face, to show that she’s not completely lost her mind. apart from the fact that they’re all practically colleagues, they’re also her friends.

but as oscar continues to edge her on for an explanation for her behaviour, it’s increasingly getting more difficult to keep her outbust at bay.

“rocky,” oscar calls out to grab her attention. “what is it? i’m so tired of you beating around the bush; if we did something to upset you, speak up. it’s not fair — what you’re doing. you’re cancelling plans, you’re bailing, you’re leaving us hanging… we’ve known each other half of our lives. you can’t just do this.”

logan shifts uncomfortable where he stands. “do you hate us?”

she tries to stop herself, really. but she should be allowed one outburst in her life.

“yes, yes, i actually do!” she admits, venom lacing her words as she starts to explain herself. “it sucks. i’m so fucking jealous of all of you right now. i’ve tried to feel happy for you guys but honestly?” a dry laugh passes her lips, tears falling out of her eyes. “i resent all of the success you’ve found this year.

because you’re doing great and i’m not. it’s annoying because i should be doing great too. because between every single one of us, no one’s worked as hard as i have to get to where i am today. you’re my best friends but i can’t get myself to be happy for you and i hate myself even more for it.”

oscar blinks blankly at her. her chest heaves as she finishes speaking, fists clenched by her side as she starts to cry a little harder.

she’s swallowed down every single drop of resentment she feels towards her friends, all doing well while she’d sunk deeper into the trenches of her own demise.

speaking ill of them that one time they achieved a podium without her haunted her for weeks on end. she couldn’t get herself to speak to them like she hadn’t spent 20 minutes speaking behind their backs about how much she hates that they’re on podiums without her.

“it was easier to avoid you than say things i can’t say.”

it was truly one of the last times she spend with them; the guilt of speaking on them ate her up. she’s apologise out of the blue and they’d have no idea what she was talking about.

admitting it now feels like their friendship would truly never be the same. like this is the one fight that’s been waiting to happen after their years of friendship and would lead to her eventual loneliness.

but she doesn’t expect oscar to start laughing. “are you fucking stupid?”

“excuse me, what?” she scoffs, throwing her head back slightly.

logan sighs next to socar. “come on, don’t be like that. she’s clearly having a hard time right now,” he mutters, putting a hand on his shoulder to calm him down.

oscar turns to logan, pointing a hand over to where the girl stand by her bedroom door. “really, logan? you don’t think she’s being so mind-numbingly stupid right now?” he glances at her then immediately looks away. “she’s so insensitive right now. the last thing she should have done is isolate herself but she’s gone ahead and done exactly that.”

oscar huffs and turns back to her with a frown. “you would think that she would fall back on the people who understand her the most. and you still don’t believe she’s being stupid?”

logan sighs again. “oscar.”

“you don’t fucking get it!” she screams.

“we’re the ones who don’t get it? out of everyone you know, we’re the 2 people who understand the most!”

he has a point, she starts to think. but it’s not the same — they’re not the same. their predicaments are different.

they never had to go through and be on the receiving end of words that tried to tear her down as she grew up.

“no, you don’t!” she says with slight amusement. “you’re oscar piastri. everyone’s kissed the ground you’ve walked on; you came into the sport and everyone’s been acting like you’re a prodigy changing the course of the sport. you don’t know what it’s like to be this way!”

“and you thought that pushing away every single person who wants to help you is the solution to your problems?” oscar snorts. then it hits him. “is that why i haven’t seen matt around lately? you drove him away? finally cracked, didn’t he?”

“you don’t know the half of it,” she scoffs. there’s no need for oscar to remind her of the cardinal sin she’d acted upon to drive matt away.

she lives with the repercussions of it every single day: coming back to an empty apartment. just an apartment, a shell of what used to feel like home.

“all of this over a bad couple races?” oscar rolls his eyes and another mean scoff passes his lips. he was unaware how bad it had gotten for her. “how immature. there’s more to fucking life than your position in f1.”

she sucks in a deep breath. “you’ll never understand.”

“oh, i do,” oscar points out with a small grin. “i grew up with you, rocky, i know how you operate. you break down the minute you’re not the best at something. you get scared and hide away when you don’t feel like you’re on the top of your game.”

“what do you know about what i feel?” she tilts her head with a small smile. “that’s so fucking pretentious of you to say so, oscar.”

“you’ve already made it to the top.” he picks his feet up and starts to walk over to her, shoving away logan’s hand that tries to stop him from threading any further. “it’s unnecessary that you’re still this hard on yourself. you’ve proved everyone wrong by making it this far. there are people on your side,” he jabs a finger into her shoulder and she stumbles back, “there are people who miss you- we miss you!

“do you even realise how lucky you have it right now? you’ve got sebastian helping to push your narrative because he believes in you. do you think everyone’s got that luxury?” he points back at logan. “do you think he had that luxury fight for his life in this sport? did that even cross your mind or are you just so far into your head?”

“oscar,” logan repeats. oscar glances back at logan who has his lips pressed into a thin line, unamused by the scenario he’s choosing to bring up. “don’t even go there.”

but oscar ignores him. oscar turns back to the younger girl and grabs her shoulders, squeezing them firmly as he draws a soft sob from her.

“i thought that because you weren’t entirely alone, it was okay that we take a step back and stopped meddling with your life. i thought you were going to be fine; i thought you knew ho to handle yourself and continue to keep your feet on the ground.”

she shakes her head, bottom lip pouted out. “you don’t-”

“i don’t understand?” oscar scoffs. “how far into your head have you gone to push yourself into a corner? do you realise that you’re in the trenches because you put yourself in there? have you looked in the mirror and actually,” oscar shakes her, “looked at yourself?”

and it seems that something finally clicked in her head. she stares blankly up at him, tears finally running down her cheeks. her chest heaves with constant sobs as she no longer can find the words in her head to prove her point.

“okay, that’s enough,” logan mutters, yanking oscar away from the girl. he shoves the younger boy towards the kitchen. “go and get some air and drink some water — you’re scaring her.”

oscar sniffles, wiping his eyes and stumbles towards the kitchen. he spares her one last glare before turning his back on her. “whatever.”

logan can only sigh when he looks down her head. she’s got her head in her hands as she sobs. she lifts her eyes to look up at him and scoffs. “what? do you have something to say to me? about how deranged i’ve gotten?”

“i don’t know what got into you to think we wouldn’t understand how you were feeling,” he says softly, tears flooding his eyes.

it’s difficult to watch someone you think is so strong be half the person you watched her grow into. he pulls her into his arms, squeezing her into a tight hug and rests his chin on her head.

“i’m sorry,” she cries in staggered breaths into his chest. “i’m sorry. i didn’t know. i didn’t-”

“it’s okay,” he mutters, squeezing her tighter. “we’re here.” he pulls away slightly and cups her cheeks, wiping her tears away with a small grin. “we’ve got you, okay? we’re here now.”

she nods through her tears, “okay.”

“we’ve got you, i promise,” logan hums, pulling her in again. he sways gently as he feels her sobs slowly dying out. “you’ll be okay.”

logan turns around at the sound of things shuffling about. oscar has a trash bag in his hand, picking up empty bottles on the ground and throwing them into the bag silently. she pulls her head back and watches oscar slowly navigate her littered apartment.

sensing their stares, oscar glances over his shoulder. “are you going to help me or are you just going to let me do this by myself?”

she glances up at logan with eyebrows raised and in return, he shrugs with a small smile.

for the next 2 hours, they clean up her apartment in silence. no music, not an utter of another word, just a heavy silence pushing down on their shoulders as they shift about her apartment like a well-oiled machine.

oscar throws his dirty piece of tissue into the bin right by the coffee table and sighs, leaning back into the couch he’s sat on. he’s in a single seater while logan and her share the bigger couch.

her apartment finally looks the way they all remember it. pristine with all her things neatly slotted into their respective slots.

oscar hasn’t spoken to her much since he’d gotten the bright idea to start helping her clean the apartment for her. he’d briefly asked her if she wanted pizza for dinner, to which she simply shrugged and said okay, then asked which toppings she wanted. then they returned to their silence.

he picks up her can of pepsi, popping it open before extending his hand over to her. she turns stiffly and looks at his offer with a blank stare. “oh, thank you.”

she takes it into her hands and glances over at oscar who turns away from her immediately to grab logan’s drink next. “i’m sorry,” she says first, just barely above a whisper. her head is dropped slightly, eyes trained on the slicer of pizza in her hands.

truthfully, she’s not very sure how to apologise for her behaviour. while she’s broken down over things said about her and her progress is a sport that barely had a spot for her, it’s never gotten this bad.

she hadn’t even realised that they still cared with their own lives now.

“no, i’m sorry,” logan says immediately, turning his head to her. “that we didn’t foster an environment where you felt like you could come to use and be honest about how you’re really feeling. you did it for me all the time when we first started out and i’m sorry i couldn’t do the same for you.”

“it’s not even your fault,” she sighs shakily. “i pushed away everyone who tried to extend their hands out to me to help. oscar’s right.”

oscar sighs audibly, sinking into his seat. he turns his head to look at her and purses is lips. “i’m sorry i called you stupid,” oscar says, “we grew up together… i just thought that if you didn’t feel right, we’d still be the people you know you don’t have to put up a facade with. be brutally, disgustingly and painfully honest with.”

“i really didn’t wanna worry anybody,” she frowns. “you have your own lives now, you know? i thought i could handle it on my own.”

“don’t even say that,” oscar turns to her with furrowed eyebrows, “you’re practically my little sister — i’ve driven you to the hospital after you writhed in pain from dislocating your shoulder playing volleyball. i’ve beaten up guys from school for you so of course you’ll always have a place in our lives.”

“i didn’t want you to know that i was a sore loser,” she shrugs with a small grin. she gestures towards logan. “he took our first 2 years in the sport so gracefully. it was embarrassing that i couldn’t do the same when it was my turn.”

“what?” logan scoffs. “you seriously think i wasn’t jealous seeing you guys being glorified by everyone? i felt like shit watching you guys get accepted in the sport with open arms and make new friends without me.”

he gives her a knowing stare when she turns her head to look at him. “i lvoe you, but i seriously despised you so much for being better than me at everything. i felt like the smallest man who’s ever lived when i was next to you. and dude… we were always together.”

she chews on the inside of her cheek. “i didn’t know that… i’m sorry…”

“but at the end of the day, you were always there for me,” logan frowns, poking her arm gently. “i’m sorry i couldn’t give you the same level of comfort to not spiral this bad. the only reason i hadn’t was because you were there for me all the time.”

“well i’m sorry that i was so mean to you,” oscar sighs. “but you know you needed it, right?”

“i know,” she shrugs, “thanks.”

“i don’t wanna be the one to bring it up, though,” logan hums as he reaches forward for another slice, “but what happened with matt?”

she chuckles with a soft snort. she lifts her head and puffs her cheeks out. “i wasn’t very nice to him when everything was falling apart,” tears flood her eyes, “he called for a break. but honestly, i think he wants to break up with me.”

logan raises an eyebrow. “he asked for a break, didn’t he? that’s not a breakup, mate.”

“you weren’t there. i wouldn’t want to be with me either if i had to endure what he went through with me,” she admits with a sigh. she wipes her tears away from her eyes and smiles slightly. “i think he’s just trying to soften the blow.”

oscar laughs. he laughs the loudest and heartiest he’s ever since he’d bolted from lily while they were running errands together. “do you seriously think that?”

she blinks at oscar. “i thought we were done being mean to me, mate.”

“we are!” oscar beams, forcing himself to falter with his laughter. “i’m sorry, i’m not trying to make you feel worse. but do you seriously think that matt — the guy who’s in your garage every single weekend, literally comes into the paddocks with ice cream for your entire team, texts logan and i to ask about things to surprise you with — wants to seriously break up with you?”

“well, you weren’t there,” she explains with a frown. “well, you were, once when i was crying in the paddocks. but i was so mean to him.”

“but a break isn’t a breakup,” oscar explains as he points at her knowingly. “you were arguably at your worst, i doubt that he wants to leave you when your mental was that bad. it happens, you know?”

“if he didn’t want to be with you, he would have broken up with you instead of asking for a break,” logan sighs, patting her on the shoulder. “just approach him.”

“i don’t know how to,” she admits, sliding down the couch to lie down slightly. “there’s no gesture big enough to makeup for the things i said… the way i treated him…”

“say you’re sorry,” oscar says with a small grin and a nod. “start there and i’m sure you guys can work it out from there, you know?”

“i’ll try.”

“okay, enough with this,” logan throws his head back with a grunt. “let’s go karting!” he stands up and smiles at her widely. “you sound like you need your edge back. i’ll even let you win this time.”

she scoffs, “as if i’d ever lose to you in equal machinery!”

“aw, she’s back! she’s fighting back now!” oscar cheers, hopping up as he claps his hands. “come on! then let’s get ice cream where we always get it! i haven’t been there in forever.”

“okay, okay!” she laughs, watching the 2 of them jump to their feet and start to clear out her table. she feels a warmth in her chest watching them in her living room. “just let me shower, okay? we kinda cleaned a lot tonight. i won’t take less than 15 minutes, i promise!”

there’s a chorus of heavy sighs and arms thrown in the air. “we might as well cancel karting.”

“but you take forever to get ready!” oscar jokes with a frown. “if you pass 15 minutes, you’re paying for ice cream.”

taglist: @wcnorris @treehouse-mouse @laura-naruto-fan1998 @mindless-rock @vellicora @ironmaiden1313 @angsthology @cherry-piee @christianpulisic10 @elliegrey2803 @33-81 @darleneslane @nikfigueiredo @happy-nico @namgification @localwhoore @c-losur3 @notawc @sadg3 @kazuha-pista-badam @mellowarcadefun @megatrilss1885 @peqch-pie @woozarts @meadhbhcavanagh @2bormaybenot @a-disturbing-self-reflection @mclarengf @xoscar03 @nomie-11 @green-thots @tinyhrry @iwilleatyourgod @inejismywife @love4lando @louvrepool

[yandere-daydreams]

tw - implied non/con, nonconsensual drug use, obsessive behavior, and gn!reader.

It was starting to rain.

When you’d let yourself into Neuvillette’s office, the sky had been clear and blue, the sun shining so brightly that you’d had to squint whenever you were facing the floor-to-ceiling windows that lined the wall behind his desk, but clouds had gathered since then, smothering the light and casting the world in a dull, grey hue – only interrupted by the occasional bolt of webbed lightening or crack of thunder. It hadn’t started to fall yet, but it would. You’d lived in Fontaine long enough to know that storms never stopped at just an overcast sky.

You tried to find a window, to check if you could see the haze of rain in the distance, but your body ached at the thought of moving, a sharp shock of pain running from the pit of your stomach to the back of your throat. With some difficulty, you managed to turn your head, but a gloved hand wrapped around your chin and dragged you back into place before you could so much as hope to check on the storm’s progress. You let your eyes drift back to Neuvillette, a small frown tugging at the corner of your lips, but he seemed unaffected, too busy rutting his hips against yours and groping at your waist to notice your disappointment. He was probably distracted. Even in his best moments, he tended to be more oblivious than his stoic demeanor would let on. You loved your job, treasured the opportunity to tend to such an extensive archive, but your boss could be airheaded, prone to burying himself in his work for days at a time and taking hours to do little more than admire the way the sea broke against the shore. Things like your petty, mortal concerns weren’t really worth his attention.

…it was Neuvillette above you, right? You were still in his office, splayed across one of his velvet-lined love seats, and you could remember sharing a cup of tea with him after you stopped by to drop off the case files he’d requested, but this didn’t feel like something Neuvillette would do, and it didn’t look like Neuvillette above you. You could recognize a few disconnected features – silver hair, fine clothes, porcelain skin – but they were all misplaced, all distorted to the point of complete unrecognizability. His hair was unbound, falling around you in thick curtains and casting the world around you in a bleary haze of ivory, and his clothes were in a similar state of disarray, silk and leather wrinkled and disheveled, his shirt and undercoat torn open to reveal his heaving chest. His skin was worst of all, stained with a dull pink flush and marred with sweat and drool. His lips were bruised, swollen, and you could see a thin line of azure scales creeping up the side of his throat, slowly infecting his—

That pointed, acidic pain ran through you again, but you tried to ignore it, to block it out, to think about other things. Things you could understand. Things like the rain. You could hear it, now – pattering against glass, creating a near-deafening fog of numbing white noise. In the absence of anything else to occupy yourself with, your mind turned backward, first to the strange, bitter taste of the tea he’d served you, then further, to when you started your work with Neuvillette and how comforted you’d been by his steady hand and gentle smile. Eventually, you uncovered a well-buried conversation you’d had with your neighbor when you first came to Fontaine, something about a saying her children liked to repeat to the point of nausea when the rainfall forced them inside. It was about a monster, or... was it a dragon? It was hard to remember. It was hard to think.

You felt something wet fall onto your cheek. A raindrop, you figured, even if you couldn’t imagine the Palais Mermonia ever springing a leak. There was another, then another, raining down freely until you managed to lift a hand, finding Neuvillette’s cheek. “Hydro Dragon, Hydro Dragon,” you mumbled, your voice rough, hoarse, barely above a whisper. “Please don’t cry.”

A hitched sob, a face buried in the dip of your shoulder, Neuvillette’s skin cold as ice against your own. You couldn’t bring yourself to care about the chill, the dampness, the throbbing ache now stitched into the fabric of your being, what little energy you still had waning until you couldn’t bear to keep your eyes open, until you were just some limp item underneath him. It was all you could do to hope that, by the time you woke up, the Neuvillette looking after you would be your own, that you’d be able to do more than blink and dream.

It was all you could do to hope that, by then, the storm will have passed and you’d be able to see the sun again.

[letterful]

❝ “Columbia now nine times the speed of sound.” “Roger that, Dan, I’ve got a solid TACAN locked on, uh, TACAN twenty-three.��� “The, uh, tracking data, map data and pre-planned trajectory are all one line on the block.”

These authentic samples of communication between NASA and astronaut Dan Brandenstein on the space shuttle Columbia place us in orbit around our planet. Kate has said of “Hello Earth,” “…this is the point where she’s so weak that she relives the experience of the storm that took her in the water, almost from a view looking down on the earth up in the heavens, watching the storm start to form - the storm that eventually took her and that has put her in this situation.” Our narrator is having another out-of-body experience but this time it’s not nearby, on terra firma, but literally out of this world, and it seems to be final. She is high up above our earth, looking down, and there is a shocking sense associated with that as so few human beings have ever left our world to look back on it. There is a disconnection from what is common, known. I am reminded of The Overview Effect, the very real psychological and cognitive shift experienced by astronauts and cosmonauts—anyone who has left the planet and gone a sufficient distance to look back and perceive our planet not as a familiar home, but as a tiny, fragile ball, barely protected by a thin membrane of atmosphere. This awed feeling is described as one of ultimate compassion and understanding of the imperative to preserve and safeguard the planet.

After the NASA samples, we join our narrator floating in space like the Star Child in “2001: A Space Odyssey,” of the earth, but no longer attached to it, in fact freed from it. The tether has been cut. She is detached from her life and its meaning: there is an innocent, bemused approach as she plays a little game. She is so far from home, she can hold up one hand and block the planet from her field of vision—the earth is a toy. And we shift place, time, and point of view (as Kate so often does in her music) to our narrator driving home in a car at night, looking up at the sky, her loved one asleep on the seat beside her (a sweet, gentle, highly cinematic image, and all the more moving when we understand where our narrator currently is and the loss ahead), when she sees something bright streak across the sky. As she watches it shoot through the stars, she sings, amazed, “Just look at it go!” And what is “it?” Shooting star? Satellite? Space shuttle? A “little light?” If all time is simultaneous, has she glimpsed her own soul shooting past the planet? It is her own little light, a mind-boggling and heartbreaking idea—the cry in her voice when she sings this line indicates that she understands the meaning of this object, and its finality.

At this point, something very unexpected happens. An ethereal, arresting male choir sing a passage based on a traditional Georgian folk song from the Kakhetian region called “Tsintskaro.” It is a shocking transition, one that makes us hold our breath so as not to disturb this sudden, delicate, transcendent moment. Kate on the men’s chorus: “They really are meant to symbolize the great sense of loss, of weakness, at reaching a point where you can accept, at last, that everything can change.”

Our narrator, in full Overview Effect at this point, watches storms form and move to threaten the lives she sees below. She cries out to them in vain, all of them, the sailors, life-savers, cruisers, fishermen, anyone on or near the sea, to protect themselves. We hear in this section a few of the Irish instruments, bringing in echoes of meaning from the previous song “Jig of Life.” Here I am reminded of the idea of the Asian goddess Kuan-Yin, or the Buddhist idea of a Bodhisattva, a human who has attained ultimate awareness (Buddhahood) but motivated by compassion, refuses to leave this plane of reality for the benefit of all sentient beings. Our narrator, moved by the end of her own life, is now able to perceive the ephemeral nature of all creation. Everyone can be exposed to danger, everyone can suffer, everyone can—and will—die. This truth is universal. But she is unable to prevent or stop this truth. No one can.

She then sings a passage that is full of several meanings. She says she was there at the birth, out of the cloudburst, the head of the tempest. This could be the storm that took her, or it could be, from her newly widened perspective of awareness, the start of life itself, the start of the universe. We were all there, we are all made of the matter from a singularity—we are all star dust. The murderer of calm is this physical reality itself. All that is born must die. Entropy exists. She understands this and cries out, “J’accuse.” Hence the ultimate compassion for this tiny little blue ball.

The piece ends with whale song, sounds of radar, and a very mysterious, arcane passage spoken in German which, when translated into English, means “Deeper, deeper, somewhere in the deep there is a light.” In German, the word “tief” can also mean “profound,” and I am reminded of the Latin phrase at the beginning of the Christian Psalm 130 “De profundis clamavi ad te:” “out of the depths I cry out to you.” In the depths of sorrow, in the endless well of suffering, there is a light. Compassion is the light. ❞

via: (x)

[subsequentibis]

i've had this thing for a little while where i'm like. fuck! a lot of the artists i look up to have really thin, precise lineart. i need to start using thinner lines so i can get the accuracy and detail and realistic, correct anatomy, and it makes you have to get better at colors because the color has to carry the piece more when the lines give them more space between, and it's made me a lot more critical with my work because i instinctively go for big thick linework, and my usual strokes look sloppy and disconnected when i use thin lines.

and then i realized it was also making me miserable and not want to work on anything, which was really getting in the way of doing art in the first place. so i cranked that brush size back up and it just feels good and easy and flowing again, and like. yknow. there's working towards improvement and then there's stalling yourself out because you're too focused on arbitrary measures. i think i'm gonna be happy with my thick lines for a bit.

[chaifootsteps]

During her SVA days and after, her art was really cute especially she’s always been good with expressions and I know her color choices and over shading and thin lines have always been criticized but it makes the art pop and pretty to look at

HH pilot artstyle is very whimsical and stretchy and they used smear frames which the show desperately needed, it’s too stiff and the characters just don’t have any fluidity or bounce when they move. It’s makes action scenes very flat, that’s probably why the camera moves so damn much you’re not getting any movement for the characters to be impactful Glitch X was really something not only is viv so disconnected with the same community she got her success from but also disconnected with other indie creators and animation and only shows interest when they have the same level of success as her, like Goose. She was kissing goose’s ass so hard and acting like goose was her idol when I wouldn’t be surprised if viv cut contact with goose after HH got picked up by a24 and is know pretending to be friends since she saw how successful TADC became.

It was great seeing Tracy and goose get along glitch shouting out every indie creator anmd trying to build hype for their shows, especially Ashly and Dave just solidarity and than there’s viv, who justs so fake and performative it’s honestly embarrassing and sad because she wasn’t like that on the hunicast, she was having fun and laughing like genuinely laughing with the crew it’s hard to doubt any of it and think for a minute she would backstab all these people

I remember those days. I certainly never saw it coming, and from the sounds of it, neither did the Hunicast crew.

It's tragic, but Viv discarded her ties to that indie community, and she's lucky that these people are more professional and courteous to her than she is to them.

[heich0e]

the heart is but a winding road p.2 - shouto todoroki/f!reader (1.8k) fluff, pro-hero shouto todoroki is not good with kids (lying), natsuo is the most big brother that ever big brothered, someone pls give the poor assistant a raise, i truly believe that shouto hyperfixates on random things for a few weeks at a time and you cannot change my mind, also i promise the 𝓇𝑜𝓂𝒶𝓃𝒸𝑒 is coming.. i just need to set the mood first.

p.1 - YOU ARE HERE - p.3 - p.4 (upcoming)

“What was I like when I was five?” 

“Uh, dunno? Guess you were kinda—hey!” Natsuo doesn’t even manage to finish his thought before something (apparently very pressing) on his end of their phone call distracts him. “Aoi! You little—get down from there! Motherf—“

Shouto listens to the chaos unfold with a completely unchanging expression.

“Tou! Talk to your uncle for a second. Your brother's gonna break his neck!”

There’s a scuffle, and before Shouto can so much as protest there’s a little voice greeting him on the other end of the line.

“Hi Oji-chan!” Touma, Natsuo’s 7-year-old, says cheerfully after having evidently been handed the phone.

He hears a little giggle and the sound of his brother squawking incoherently somewhere in the distant background on their side of the call. This is immediately followed by a series of very loud crashes and a panicked string of words which, even in his limited knowledge of childrearing, Shouto's fairly certain kids are not supposed to hear.

“Hello,” he greets his nephew curtly. “If your father’s busy, I can—”

There’s a bit more shuffling, some disgruntled grumbling and laboured panting, and then Natsuo is taking the phone again.

“Sorry, sorry,” the older man says breathlessly, and Shouto stares up at the ceiling over his sofa blankly. “Oh, okay, what were you asking about?”

“Me. When I was five.”

“Oh, yeah!” Shouto’s brother laughs. “Dunno. You were round, I guess? And pretty squishy.”

Shouto rolls his eyes. “That’s not what I meant.”

Natsuo laughs, loud and carefree like he always does. “Well, what did you mean, then?”

“What kind of stuff did I like?”

There’s a thread hanging from Shouto’s sleeve, and he fiddles with it while he speaks with his brother. It’s distracting, but he can’t quite grip the troublesome string to pluck it loose since he’s using his other hand to hold the phone to his ear.

Natuso hems and haws as he mulls Shouto's question over for a bit. “Soba and chewing on things, mostly.”

“I liked chewing on things when I was five?” Shouto’s reply is flat and unamused. He shifts to hold his cellphone between his shoulder and his ear as he lays back against the cushions of his sofa, snapping the string off easily once he has the use of both his hands.

“Yeah, you were always bite-y,” Natsuo replies simply.

The youngest Todoroki sighs. He rolls the thin bit of thread between his fingers for a moment, watching how the ends split and fray, then flicks it away disinterestedly.

“What’s all this about, anyway?”

There’s a significant amount of racket on Natsuo’s end of the call, but Shouto suspects that’s a fairly normal thing for his older brother’s home. What with two kids and more pets that Shouto can keep track of, there’s always pandemonium happening whenever he stops by to visit. He can’t help but think it’s a miracle that Natsuo managed to find anyone who would willingly subject themselves to that, let alone a partner as normal as the one he married.

“Nothing really,” Shouto mumbles. “Just curious.”

“Well, Yumi would remember that stuff better than I do anyway,” Natsuo chirps. “You could always ask her!” 

“Yeah, thanks,” Shouto nods even though he knows his brother can’t see the gesture. 

They end the call with vague plans to meet up for dinner the following week, though these plans often end up getting rescheduled or completely forgotten about in the stir of their busy adult lives. Once the line disconnects, Shouto is once more left staring up at the boring beige ceiling of his living room.

His apartment is always just a bit too cold. It’s been that way since the day he moved in. His hope in choosing such an upscale domicile had been that he wouldn’t run into issues like this one; it was newly constructed after all, and cost enough that things as simple as climate control shouldn’t be a problem. But no matter how much he fiddles with the thermostat, no matter the time of year, there’s always a chill that seems to linger in his quiet home.

He blinks up at the ceiling and listens to the pitter patter of rain outside.

It’s been raining for days now, with only the occasional break in the downpour that never lasts more than a few hours. His last four patrols have ended with him towelling off in the changing room at his agency, using his quirk to warm the terrycloth before he ruffles it through his drenched hair. His costume is fairly well-insulated, and repels the rain, but he still always feels so soggy by the time he gets home.

Suddenly, he thinks about a little yellow raincoat, and the thump of rubber boots.

Truthfully, Shouto’s not sure why he hasn’t been able to stop thinking about that strange encounter from a few days prior. The little boy in the yellow raincoat and the ill-fated, crumpled receipt.

Maybe it’s because he can’t remember the last time a kid was less excited to meet him. 

Maybe it’s something else.

Shouto’s expensive sofa creaks as he pitches himself upwards, reaching out towards the tablet he’d left resting on the edge of his coffee table. He unlocks the device, and realizes he’d left it open to a news article about the Recycling Hero he'd been reading earlier in the day.

He’s been reading a lot about Reductro lately—just about any resource he can find. News articles online, press releases, pamphlets that environmental activists are handing out on street corners. Hell, half the hits on the the guy's Heropedia page from the past week were probably thanks to Shouto.

Just earlier that very day he’d even placed an order online for a copy of the Recycling Hero's newest book.

Reductro, Shouto recently learned, has dedicated his life’s work to inspiring meaningful environmental changes around Japan; he uses his quirk that is capable of breaking down plastics and other complex carbon compounds (as well as his doctorate in Ecology and Environmental Science) to make significant improvements to the climate and the country. The man has a way of speaking that’s neither overly sanitized nor pedantic and inaccessible; kids love him for his exciting way of talking about the environment and why they should care about it, but he's equally capable of putting on a suit and addressing a crowd of adults. Above all else, he seems to be truly passionate about the work that he’s doing–a conclusion Shouto has inarguably come to through his extensive research, and by watching just about every video he's managed to track down online.

He hates to admit it, but the guy is kind of… really cool.

He gets why Naoyuki was so obsessed with him.

Shouto taps around the surface of the tablet for a moment, pulling up an article about a documentary that Reductro is in the process of producing about microplastics. He scans through the article—making a mental note to look up when it will be coming out and see if his secretary can get him an early cut of it—when an image at the bottom of the article makes him pause. It��s a recent photograph that, according to the caption underneath, was taken only a few weeks prior when Reductro was giving a presentation at a local elementary school.

A little voice rings in the back of Shouto's mind, from a rainy day not unlike this one.

“He came to my school last week and he helps to get plastic outta the ocean!”

Naoyuki may have been a bit of a menace, but he was well-intended. And ultimately Shouto has him to thank for opening his eyes to the prestige of the Recycling Hero.

He stares at the image lighting up the screen in his hands for a moment, his eyes scanning over the name of the elementary school a few times as an idea begins to take shape.

He reaches instinctively for his cellphone.

“Good evening, Shouto-sama,” Shoto’s assistant and secretary, Takahashi, answers on the second ring—just like he always does. “Are you well?”

“Hi,” Shouto greets the man in a relatively abrupt manner, brushing off pleasantries for the sake of saving time. “How hard is it to find a kid?” 

There’s a few beats of silence as Shouto’s question lingers over the line.

“Such as a missing person’s case?” Takahashi-san finally responds, though the usually proper and eloquent man sounds uncharacteristically baffled. 

“No,” Shouto shakes his head. He thinks about his next words carefully. “If i know where a kid goes to school and his first name, could you track him down?”

“Track… him down?”

For all the hard-fought takedowns Shouto has made in his career as a hero, he sure is losing this battle.

“He’s not a criminal or anything,” Shouto explains, and Takahashi hums understandingly, but it sounds sort of like when an adult is placating a child. “I met him in the street the other day."

"I see."

Shouto knows he still doesn't get it, and he wracks his brain for a way to make this whole situation make sense, even though it doesn't.

"He’s… a fan.”

Lying is bad. Shouto knows this. He happens to pride himself on knowing the difference between good and bad, as a matter of professionalism. But Naoyuki is a fan, for all intents and purposes.

Just not his.

“Oh,” Takahashi-san sounds more at ease now with this half-truthful revelation, “very well. I don’t suppose it would be all too difficult to find the child’s information. I'm sure the school would be willing to forward contact information for a legal guardian if your office were to reach out on official business.”

“His mother," Shouto replies immediately.

“Pardon?”

“He, uh..."—Shouto fiddles with the tablet in his left hand—"The little boy. He was with his mother when I met him. She’ll remember me.”

“I see. Please forward me the name of the institution and I’ll reach out to the school administration first thing in the morning.” Takahashi has always been exceedingly competent, since the first day Shouto hired him. He’s a bit stuffy, and Shouto’s pretty sure he’s never seen him smile, but the young hero strangely admires the man's no-nonsense sort of antiquated way of doing things. “I assume you’re looking to send some sort of gift. Perhaps a signed poster? Some merchandise?” 

“Yes,” Shouto says, nodding. Then he pauses. “But not mine.”

“Oh?” the man on the other end of the line—who Shouto now realizes is likely at home during his off-hours that he rudely interrupted—sounds puzzled again. 

“Takahashi-san…” Shouto stares down at the tablet in his hands, still open to the article he’d been reading before he picked up his phone to make this call. “Have you ever heard of the Recycling Hero?”

[sugarpsalms]

Made-up fic title:

To hold a god is to make him pray.

Hung onto this one for a bit because I wanted to think on it, and I've decided this has mildly uncomfy trust exercise vibes. It's another one of my favorite team building devices, pretty much tied with 'reluctant buddy mission'. Since I did Law & Doffy for that, let's do Rosi & Doffy for this.

I've been thinking about how fun it'd be to revisit the idea of Rosi being wired ever since the first installment of No Loyalty. Not in a 'for real' way, but in a 'testing Doffy's faith' way. This is kind of the perfect vibe for it, so! Let's go under a cut!

—

The timeline is vague, but it'd have to be far enough along in Rosi's mission that Doffy no longer really suspects anything. He's got to be comfortable enough that the idea of Rosi spying is out of mind, because that makes it feasible that Rosi could get away with it if he wanted.

So, Rosi shows up. Doffy knows he's coming and plans to meet him at the dock bar, which Rosi agrees to—provided Doffy waits for Rosi to approach him. This sounds like an odd request, but whatever. Doflamingo isn't all that worried about who does what.

He heads out around when Rosi should be debarking, taking his time on the walk. When he gets there, Rosi is already inside. Only, he's not alone. He's having a drink with someone else in Marine uniform, and suddenly it makes sense, why Doffy needs to wait.

He goes to the bar, gets his own drink, and nurses it by himself, listening in as best he can. He can't make out what they're saying, but the chat sounds friendly. They seem to get along, and Doffy can't help but wonder what the nature of their relationship is.

Eventually, the meeting ends. Rosi and the other Marine get up, say goodbye, and the stranger leaves. Rosi comes to Doffy, who spins his stool around and goes to say something, but Rosi stops him, clapping a hand over his mouth.

Confused, Doflamingo tries mumbling through his fingers, but Rosi shakes his head and shushes him. Before Doflamingo can get annoyed, Rosi uses his free hand to gesture to his chest. He draws a line from his collar to his hip and mouths that he's wired.

Doflamingo goes stiff. He hadn't had so much as a passing thought about Rosi being wired in over a year. What was he wearing one now for? Was he recording the person who just left? Why? Who authorized it? Did Rosi do this often?

Before he can spiral too deeply, Rosi mouths 'follow me', leaving the bar and making for the hall. Doflamingo goes after him, feeling uneasy when Rosi slips into the bathroom. Still, he follows and locks the door behind them.

Then, as if this is routine, Rosi takes his coat and shirt off. And Doflamingo sees it: the thin wire coiled all around him, the mic nestled in the hollow of his collar bone, and the tiny transponder it's attached to snug against his hip.

Rosi lets him take it in, then waves for his attention. When he has it, he mouths 'I'm disconnecting it.' Which he does, methodically; rather more, Doflamingo thinks, than he probably would've if he was alone.

Rosi makes a show of popping the mic off and crushing it; stripping out of the wire; snapping the wire off of the transponder at the base. He even slips the snail out of his wasitband and passes it to Doffy.

"I'll need it back," Rosi says as Doflamingo rolls the thing in his hand, checking to see if it's really dozing. "It's evidence."

Doflamingo hesitates. "Of what?"

"Nothing you need to worry about. Give it back, please."

Doflamingo holds onto the snail a bit longer, unsure if he should. The accessories are broken, yes, but it could still record. Even if the quality would be poor...

He looks from the sleepy snail to Rosi's bare chest, to the broken mic and wire.

He's being ridiculous.

Rosi didn't have to do this, he reassures himself. Doflamingo wouldn't have suspected—no, best not to think of it like that.

Doffy didn't have to suspect him. That was better; that felt nicer. Rosi is open. Rosi can be trusted.

He gives the snail back.

[maxwell-grant]

Reverse Unpopular Opinion: Noriaki Kakyoin

I really like that he's a bastard, might actually be my favorite thing about him. He's designed to be "the thin and sensitive one", he's made to be pretty and attractive to an extent the others aren't, and of course he's given a very sympathetic and tragic backstory and death, but a lot of the time the spotlight's on him, he's kind of a mean jerk but in a really understated fashion that makes it funny. There is a line of succession among Araki's pointedly villainous heroes that starts with B.T and is embodied in the current protagonist Jodio, and I think Kakyoin is in there, predating the likes of Rohan and Giorno. It's not for nothing that he is our first villain Stand user, and why they make a point of contrasting his charming honor student personality with his horrible gross tentacle puppet power.

I also like that this ties into his prideful personality, and the reasons why he's tagging along to defeat DIO. He's a guy who's grown used to being disconnected from people and ostracized and self-reliant (much of what I love about Death 13 retroactively is that it's hitting Kakyoin hard with this before we understand why this is a personal button for him, and it's not a beat that would work with the other Crusaders), having maybe the closest bond with his Stand that we see among the Crusaders, and his dynamic with DIO is interesting to me because he blames himself for falling victim to DIO more so than he blames DIO for it. It comes up more prominently in the D'Arby fight and the finale that he's pushing through not just a deep fear, but also a form of self-hatred whenever he thinks about what DIO did to him. He feels ashamed and humiliated and even abused, even knowing about DIO's power and the flesh buds and having seen others in his situation, seeing what happened to Polnareff and Enya, and it doesn't really dissuade him from this thinking.

It's that whole speech he gives to Jotaro in his debut about how evil is determined by who wins and who loses: people tend to forget it because he's being brainwashed, but the flesh bud doesn't alter personalities like that, Polnareff refutes this in his first encounter. That wasn't the fleshbud, that was Kakyoin talking, and he'd come back to that sentiment later. He lost to DIO, nothing else mattered, he was the loser and thus the evil one. And so he wants to make up for it, to stand up to DIO again and not give in, to be freed from him. He's constantly putting his friends first during the journey but at his most personal, when he's steeling himself, he thinks back to that and swears to overcome it. People talk a lot about how Kakyoin was a mega hit with the female demographic because he's pretty and charming in a way the sweaty buff men aren't and because he makes a good pair with Jotaro, and okay sure that's part of it, but I think the fact that his arc being that intimate, that tragic, and panning out into a story about overcoming abuse and standing strong in the face of your abuser, even if all you can do is save others from him, that was the secret ingredient. Intentionally or not, that stings pretty deep.

But mostly I like him because he is a bastard, and he's the character who's not supposed to look or act like one, so the fact that he is makes it better. "Tricking your friends into feeding a baby his own shit" is not a beat that would work with the others, or even something you could land, no matter how evil the baby was, if the guy doing it wasn't capable of selling it as a cool and funny and karmically satisfying thing to be doing.

[egberts]

i hope you take this as the genuine question it is and not someone trolling or trying to be obtuse. i think i just spent about an hour writing this! 😅 i am fat, i first learned about and “became a part of” so to speak the body positive/fat liberation community my senior year in high school (8 years ago now). i cannot stress enough how much this question is coming from a well meaning place i just am curious your thoughts on it.

(re:girl dinner)

when we talk about body positivity, it’s understood your health is not determined by your size, no one can look at you and determine how healthy you are. your health, as well as the amount of food you eat, also has no bearing on your moral character. eating a conventially unhealthy amount of food doesn’t give anyone the right to try and shame or silence you, no matter their personal feelings or discomfort for various reasons (“you’re glorifying an unhealthy lifestyle!!” etc).

these principles are not even a question, so why do they not apply to people eating smaller quantities of food? why is the knee jerk reaction to call out how unhealthy it is and how they’re glorifying an unhealthy lifestyle and encouraging others to do the same, especially when that’s what fat people have been accused of forever? it seems so, so disconnected from and counter productive to the entire point of liberation from societal body/diet standards.

if it’s purely concern for the possible encouraging or egging on of harmful eating behaviors, even that could be said to go both ways. i struggle with binge eating disorder and have horrendous troubles with impulse control. to the point that concepts like intuitive eating would leave somebody like me lying in pain on the floor after a triggered binge. i know i personally have to be careful with what i eat because trigger foods could end with me sick. yet how downright inappropriate would it be to make that the problem of someone just enjoying a larger meal? someone who goes about their diet in a different way and has different limits than me? or god forbid even just also struggling with binging!? i mean, underlying eating disorder or not, whether they eat that way frequently or not, none of these things really make it okay regardless to comment on how much someone’s eating or propose that showing the amount of food they eat is not okay.

something i personally have had struggles with in my journey of self acceptance and navigating life in a marginalized body is having to unpack the aspects, and what i believed to be values, of my body positivity that i clung to for reasons that weren’t truly in line with fat liberation. so much of my activism was just me serving my insecurities because i hadn’t truly worked through them yet. just remember to check in on yourself sometimes and really dig into the root of some of the values you hold and make sure they’re coming from a place that’s beneficial.

tldr; someone showing off their small meal is fundamentally and healthwise no different from someone showing off their large meal. neither is inherently bad nor good, it just is. so why do we show double standards(on an across the board principle)?

I cannot stress enough just how flawed your comparison of fat people existing to people promoting two almonds and some water as "girl" dinner is not the same thing. yes, fat people are ACCUSED of glorifying disordered eating, but they are not actually doing that. people who use the term "girl" dinner are actively linking the act of eating small amounts of food or no food at all with being a girl, that's the major takeaway from this discussion. this isn't about shaming big meals vs small meals, either. this is about calling out actually actively advocating for eating nothing for dinner and going to bed. nobody is looking at the thin people promoting girl dinner and calling them out for being unhealthily skinny, we're calling them out for promoting not eating, which is something your body needs to do to function or your brain will shrivel up and you'll die. "girl dinner" is a depression meal, it's food when you can't afford groceries, it's a snack between something more substantial. also, how can you actually come to me and think that defending the slippery slope into eating disorders is a logical thing to do? tiktok is full of teenagers, dude, somebody needs to tell them that it's not fucking healthy to eat a slice of cheese and nothing else for dinner. this also isn't about shaming people at home living their personal lives and eating what they can to get by, this is about people actively posting to thousands of young impressionable followers that it's cool and fun to eat nothing, and in some cases it's literally being used to justify weight loss and being skinny. I would legitimately be just as critical about this if it was fat people eating piles of donuts and calling it lard dinner. but ultimately none of this even matters to either of us, I'm not going on tiktok and telling the teenagers that they're learning dumb shit, I'm not going and personally calling out the women responsible for corrupting a harmless trend, I'm just here sitting on my couch giving my opinion on my blog, and while you might not be on your couch you are certainly here giving your opinion in my ask box, at the end of the day we are just two clowns honking around 🤡

[cosmonavo]

Synopsis: There are things that darkness can't hide, like blushing eyes and beating, burning hearts. Genres: Horror, drama, suspense, romance

Prologue; dreams that aren't mine

The lofty window reminded her of a guillotine, although she hadn't lived to see one, she had heard enough frightening stories of the beautifully nicknamed 'fairy killer'. She was looking at the landscape through a large glass window, a landscape that mixed green and grey while a thick fog filled the garden to the point of hiding the trunks of the trees, yet, not far away, the girl could see the gardener pruning them one by one, a short old man, with pointed ears curved downwards and a few red hairs on his almost entirely exposed scalp.

" I think… " The muddled thoughts crossed her mind, causing dizziness, something bearable, but which almost distorted her line of reasoning, something she was unaccustomed to, after all, the landlady was not known for her poor formulation of sentences.

" Go on " The man she was talking to meditated softly, seeing that she lacked the words to continue speaking, as if, in a disconnection between her mind and her body, she had lost the gift of sweet speech, as if she were in absolute torpor.

The man, not so kind, but not atrocious by nature either, smiled under the smoke of the red hot liquid in the cup, his smile like an affectionate memory had come to mind, she hoped he would share the reason behind his smiling demeanor, but he didn't, and without further ceremony, he sipped to check the taste.

" I think I've been dreaming a lot, a lot, maybe… " The girl, who had been standing up until then, turned to the man with a low frown, not that she had many other expressions, but this time it was one of concern. " I've been having dreams that aren't even mine ".

" Do you mean that literally or figuratively? I didn't fully understand your confession, dear sister," he replied somewhat calmly, his thoughts still wandering through his mind, and for a moment she wondered what he was thinking.

Sighing, the girl approached the banquet table, her chair, which had long since been pulled out for her to sit down, finally being occupied. Now she had her eyes on her older brother, who with some unhealthy amusement had arched eyebrows and a curved smile.

He was a really handsome man, the kind of charmer who has his characteristic behavior far ahead of his appearance, the girl believes that even if he were a gnome, he would still be highly coveted.

'I've been walking through other people's dreams " she crossed her fingers on the table, fiddling with them nervously, like a sinner in a confessional, and whose priest was a tremendously deceitful charlatan.

"And isn't that good? " he asked distractedly, pouring more of the hot liquid into his own cup. " It's been a long ages since we've seen such a… fun talent".

"It's not fun at all! " She huffed, slamming her hands on the table, something that caught the attention of the boy in the seat in front of her, who looked up from his little aperitif to appraise her curiously, his yellowish eyes catching little spasms of embarrassment on her part, which she quickly contained - I'm sorry, I'm just worried.

"That's understandable, darling, I mean…" He nodded, getting up from his chair to walk around the table, his words conveying a comfort that she was willing to hear, but which didn't seem genuine either.

His hand landed on the shoulder of the unsuspecting girl, who jumped in surprise, raising her face to look at him as he gently stroked her shoulder.

His thin, animalistic tail swayed in agitation behind him, a warning of his restlessness. It was long and had a tuft of hair at the end, and apparently moved on its own.

"But… " he continued, making her regain consciousness, "imagine what we won't be able to do if we perfect this ability of yours. I myself wouldn't be surprised if you were able to discover even the darkest secrets of the people around you."

He dreams aloud, a hum escaping his lips as he imagines, then a satisfied sigh

"can you imagine, dear sister? If we had something like that, Malleus Draconia would certainly be in trouble…" he smiled gruffly.

His handshake felt a little strengthened.

"That sounds crazy," she admitted.

"Dear sister, everyone is willing to do crazy things for those they love, and for those they hate too," he replied, loosening his grip, making her muscles relax.

"Remember that, darling," he finally said, like a lunatic, satisfied with the brief dialogue.

[jerzwriter]

Falling for You

Book: Open Heart (Book 3 Timeline) Pairing: Tobias Carrick x F!MC (Casey) Rating: Teen Words: 1,100 Summary: Ice skating has always been a big part of Casey's life, and for the eight months they had been together, she kept saying how much she was looking forward to doing it with Tobias. He tried to put it off as long as he could, but the day of reckoning was upon him... and panic set in. Could a quick call to his best friend, Kerry, calm his nerves? Or is Tobias about to fall flat. A/N: First and foremost, thank you to @weetlebeetle for this adorable commission of my little lovebirds. This is so precious, and I just adore it! Those of you familiar with some of my older fics may remember Kerry, Tobias's lifelong friend. Information about her and other OCs in my Tobias x Casey HC can be found here. She was instrumental in helping him and Casey get together, and she thought her work was done. Well... maybe not. lol

His fingers tapped against the coffee table, the dull thud echoing throughout his empty home. But it wasn't enough to release the nervous energy he was feeling, and before long, he was on his feet, pacing the length of the room.    

“Come on, come on! I know you’re off... answer!”

To the shock of many, Tobias Carrick had proven he could be a patient man, and it had paid off dearly, playing a big part in how he was happily coupled with the love of his life today. Casey. The mere thought of her usually brought a smile, but right now, it only amplified the fear coursing through his veins. He needed someone to help him through, and his best friend was the only one he trusted with the job. But his patience was wearing thin as he tried to reach her. About to disconnect the call, he finally heard her voice.

“T?” Kerry answered breathlessly. “What’s going on? You OK?”

“Thank God!” He exclaimed. “Where have you been?”

“At Brenda’s soccer game. I told you she was playing today.”

“Ah! That’s right,” he said, smacking his head. “I forgot; why don’t you get back to her.”

“Because after ten missed calls and as many texts saying ‘CALL ME,’ I assume you have something important going on. So, spill.”

Tobias fell back onto the couch with a sigh.  

“I have a big problem... I... I have a date tonight.”

“A date?” Kerry asked quizzically. “What’s so terrible about...” her face fell as she went silent, fearing the worst. “Tobias Charles Carrick... please tell me your date isn’t with someone other than Casey, because if it is, I swear to God I’m going to drive to Boston and kick your ass.”  

“What!” He gasped. “No! Don’t be ridiculous! Of course my date’s with Casey.”

“Good!” she said with relief. “But then what’s the drama? You have a date with your girlfriend, so?”

“Yeah, well... it’s an ice skating date.”

The line went silent again, then Kerry burst into a full belly laugh... not exactly the support or sympathy Tobias was seeking.

“That’s nice! Laugh it up! You won’t be laughing when I make a total ass out of myself, and she dumps me. I’m not stupid. I know you like her better than me.”

“Well, that goes without saying,” Kerry teased while wiping a tear from her eye. “She’s far more likable than you. But what the hell possessed you to go on a skating date?”

He ran his hand down his face with another weary sigh. “Obviously, it wasn’t my idea. But Casey loves skating, and she’s good, really good. Like almost did it competitively when she was younger, good. And I’m....”

“Far more suited for a basketball court. Not gonna lie, T, you suck at ice skating.”

“Thank you.”

“What? I’m just stating facts. The time we went skating on Mr. Belmont’s pond remains one of my most horrifying childhood memories. I thought for sure we were going to lose you that day; little did I know you’d end up sending your brother to the emergency room instead.”

“Hey! In my defense, if that idiot hadn’t been trying to make me fall, he wouldn’t have ended up with my skate blade in his thigh.”

“Jordan can’t help being obnoxious," Kerry laughed. "It’s a Carrick family trait.”

“All well and good, but the last thing I want to do is impale Casey tonight."

"Really?" Kerry chided. "And here I thought that was usually your goal?"

"Very funny, Ker. I'm being serious here! I don’t want her realizing the error of her ways and kicking me to the curb.”

“For the love of God, Tobias... do you hear yourself? Do you think you may be exaggerating just a little? It’s ice skating. Take a deep breath, and just go and have fun.”

“But what if I fall on my face?”

“So what if you do? That’s part of what makes it fun. Just relax and enjoy the time together. Knowing Casey, she’d probably find you falling all over the ice endearing.”

“You think so?”

“YES! As hard as it is to believe, she loves you for you... not your ability to qualify for the 2026 Winter Olympics.”

“You’re right,” he surrendered, his heart feeling lighter.

“I usually am. Now, just go and have fun. Let me know how it went later.”

Buoyed by Kerry’s words, Tobias set off for his date, and just hours later, they sat at the side of a beautiful rink just outside of Boston. Casey grinned from ear to ear as she laced up her skates, oblivious to her boyfriend’s inner turmoil.

“I’m so excited,” she beamed. “I’ve been waiting to do this with you since we started dating! I love sharing the things I love with you."

“Yeah,” he chuckled nervously. “I do, too.”   He pulled the laces tightly around his ankle, hoping against hope that a skate malfunction would spare him, but when he realized that wasn’t to be, he took her hand to confess. “Case... I’ve gotta tell you something.”

“Sure,” she smiled. “What’s up?”

“I... I kind of suck at this. I haven’t gone skating since I was twelve years old, and that time, I sent Jordan to the ER.”

Casey’s eyes widened, "You did?" she asked, her melodious laugh filled the air. She placed her gloved hands on his frigid cheeks and pulled him in for a tender kiss.

“Tobias, skating skills really aren’t high up on my list of traits I find desirable in my partner. Let’s just go and have fun, baby. That’s all I want to do.”

They took to the ice hand-in-hand, and while Tobias stumbled and fell throughout the afternoon, he wasn’t embarrassed. Instead, they laughed, teased, and shared a whole lot of kisses. He felt foolish for worrying so much, and the date served as a reminder that the best memories are those made when we let go of fears and enjoy time with the ones we love.

Hours later, they were toasty warm in his car as they headed back to Boston. Smiling as she recalled the day, Casey rested her head on his shoulder.

“That wasn’t so bad after all, was it?” she smiled.

“No, it wasn’t.”

“Still, I don’t think it’s something you’ll want to do too often,” she grinned.

“But you love skating,” he replied. “And if you love it, then I’ll love going with you.”

“You don’t have to,” she assured. “There are plenty of other things I love doing with you. I got you on skates once; that's all that matters.”

As she said that, a little lightbulb went off Tobias’s head, and a tiny grin came to his lips. “Yeah.  At least we got to do it once.”

~~~~~

A/N 2: Tobias recalls that he knows someone else who skates really well... and right now, his wheels are spinning. More to come! :)

@choicesficwriterscreations @openheartfanfics @choicesholidays (solely because it's winter-themed! :)

[hattafan2593]

Buggy x Reader Fic Part 3

Part 1 Part 2

--------------------------------------

A month had passed, and Crocodile and Mihawk kept true to their word. Outside of insults and cold remarks, they left their "leader" unscathed.

And it was driving Buggy absolutely bonkers.

He was so certain that they were planning something, that they were plotting his assassination.

It admittedly wasn't outside the realm of possibility, but you found it unlikely. While they were certainly more powerful, Buggy had more clout, and his followers were in the hundreds if not thousands. Killing him now would only result in a riot that would no doubt set whatever plans they had back considerably.

This combined with your leverage over the two made you certain that your paranoid boyfriend had nothing to fear.

Buggy was, unfortunately, not convinced.

Currently, he was pacing up and down your shared tent. His feet were disconnected from his body and they frantically shuffled after him as he floated in mid-air.

"I'm dead! I'm done for! They're planning something I just know it!"

"Buggy."

"Did you see the way that guy was looking at me?! He's working for them, I know he is! They somehow got one of my crew to spy on me!"

"Buggy."

"Gasp! What if they're spying on us right now?! They could've planted bugs all over this tent! Quick, help me look!"

"Red nose."

"WHAT DID YOU JUST SA-"

You grabbed Buggy by the nose and pulled him towards you, so he was looking you in the eye.

"You finished?"

"Uh-huh." came his nasally reply.

You let go of his nose and cupped his cheeks. "Buggy. Mihawk and Crocodile aren't trying to kill you."

"But how do you know that?!"

You smirked. "Trust me. They wouldn't dare. Not if they know what's good for them."

Buggy blinked in confusion.

You placed your hands on your hips. "Let's just say that those two underestimated just how loyal one your followers could be, and they were given an offer they couldn't refuse."

"R-really?"

"Really."

Buggy stared for a couple of minutes, then burst out into laughter.

"Gyahahahahaha! Serves you right, ya bastards! That's what you get for messing with the great and powerful Buggy-sama!"

He suddenly stopped, his eyes darting back and forth. "But uh, don't tell them I said that, ok?"

"Mum's the word, dear heart."

Buggy let out a great sigh, then plopped on the bed next to you. "Ya know, I really owe that guy a huge one. I outta pay'im back somehow. A feast? A bigger cut of treasure? Whatta you think?"

Your smirk turned into a sly grin. "Oh, I can think of one thing they'd appreciate."

"Yeah? What iMMMPH!"

Buggy's question was smothered by the sudden kiss. You wrapped your arms around his neck, and you both fell backwards onto the bed.

And so, Cross Guild was flourishing.

Mihawk and Crocodile still ran things for the most part, but publicly, they kowtowed to Buggy. Well, as much as their pride would allow at any rate.

Buggy, for his part, was content to let them do as they pleased so long as they kept up appearances and didn't try to hurt him. Which you thought was wise - provoking them unnecessarily might cause them to throw caution to the wind and lash out.

Interestingly, Buggy's crew had begun sucking up to him again. They obviously saw a shift in dynamics between the three company heads and were trying to get back in his good graces.

You knew deep down that Buggy would forgive them...after he watched them squirm for a little bit first.

You, on the other hand, made it abundantly clear that they were all on very thin ice, Galdino especially. You told him, in no uncertain terms, that if he ever pulled a stunt like that again, he would be serving Crocodile, all right...as lunchmeat for his bananawani.

Overall, though, things were going well. Buggy had decided to pull you out of the field and keep you close to base. You suspected it was to keep Mihawk and Crocodile in line, though he claimed otherwise.

You didn't mind; this just meant you had more time to spend with your boyfriend. It had been a while since your last date, and you were looking forward to it.

You would occasionally cross paths with Buggy's "partners". They would glare at you with deadly intent, and you would sweetly smile back, knowing that you had their balls in a vice and there wasn't a damn thing they could do about it.

Honestly, they had no one to blame but themselves. After all, it was only natural for a pirate to try and protect their most precious treasure.

The end.

[eccentric-nucleus]

so, i finally finished (posting) my huge, novel-length teenage mutant ninja turtles fanfic. i just posted the final epilogue over on ao3!

here is my director's commentary on it, if you want to read even more about it. this contains spoilers for the whole thing. maybe read the epilogue first and sit with that for a minute. also this will probably be pretty incoherent if you haven't read the whole thing. it's just a disconnected series of thoughts i have about the story, really

man, this story. this is maybe the longest thing i've ever written? like 'the new hive' and 'hell game' had more words (i think) but they were mostly a disconnected series of sex scenes with thin connective tissue between them. this is ~200k words of a single, linear, mostly-plot narrative. i'm writing scenes that aren't just about getting the two leads to fuck!! that's weird. it's definitely the most ambitious thing i've written. kind of weird that it's tmnt fanfic. that's just how it worked out, i guess.

so back in 2022 i watched the rise of the tmnt movie because people kept talking about the animation quality of the fights and that got me into a spiral of actually paying attention to the ninja turtles. i had never been into them & genuinely i think a huge part of getting into tmnt stuff was that rise actually varied the design of the turtles so that they weren't all basically identical save for color-coding. turns out visual design was the missing mystery ingredient.

also in 2022 i was burning out on writing 'goblin cave', when what i had intended to be a fun little writing exercise ended up getting algorithmically surfaced and getting me hundreds of comments on each chapter. that got a little stressful and i wasn't really enjoying that, so i stopped. but i was like, hmm you know i mostly just write weird porn but maybe i should write something a little more ambitious. with a plot, and everything. 'goblin cave' was (in my mind) all about a character who was created for violence deciding art was a much more worthwhile pursuit. but the main character of that doesn't know what art is. because it's a magical dungeon core. and i was still thinking a lot about dead zones of the imagination, by david graeber. so i was like, okay, let's do this again but in a slightly more self-authentic way and make it weird gay porn with weird animal dicks. let's give michelangelo ninjaturtle a monologue about how the powerful are utterly insulated from any consequence.

(also early on, after watching most of rottmnt, i stumbled across this blog post about the tmnt comics and the end of the world. that ended up being deeply influential on the fic too. i've been kinda in a state for the past few years and this fic is absolutely a part of me working through a lot of complicated feelings about the world and the future. lol people talk so much about people writing dark fic 'to cope' but this was pretty much the first time i've outsourced my emotional processing by having bad things happen to fictional characters.)

so uhhh where to start here. the setting of the fic is this complicated messy mashup of a half-dozen tmnt continuities. it's very rise-heavy, since... that was the only series i had watched(/read) when i had determined the major plot points, but there's a lot of bits and pieces from all over.

to roughly outline the characters here, a huge influence on mikey's personality in this is... mikey's 'dr delicate touch' persona in rottmnt. in the sense that... okay yes yes that is a kid's show and all of his dr delicate touch lines are, you know, setups and punchlines. you think he's going to be nice but actually he's mean! etc. but in-universe it's like, wait hold on a second. mikey is like the most emotionally-intelligent of the four. he absolutely knows when people are on the edge of flipping out and need a calming out to a stressful situation. and instead he freaks them out more! mikey's hobby is: being mean to his friends & family, for fun! what a fun character trait.

i was thinking about this tweet a lot, too. i read some writing advice once that people tend to make characters who are supposed to be likable too squeaky-clean. nothing but positive character traits for them! but actually every 'positive' character trait is exactly the same as a 'negative' one; it's just a matter of focus and degree. a character is light-hearted and comedic? they can never take things seriously, even when they really should. a character is willing to do anything to protect the people they love? so they're violent and threatening and scary if they happen to decide you're something that they need to protect against. etc. i was really dedicated in this to bringing out the worst characteristics of everybody's personalities.

mikey was also very deeply inspired by: all the garbage progression fantasy stuff i've been reading. i've complained about this several times on this very blog, but a constant theme in most progression fantasy is 1. the main character will constantly get more and more powerful and 2. the main character will never really have their relationship with the rest of the world changed via that power. it's just stat-ups. they just have higher stats so they're more powerful. mikey is the most powerful person on the planet and it's fucking ruining his life. he knows that there's nobody capable of actually checking his behavior, & he's in this constant state of thinking he's maybe a few bad days away from murdering half the planet and incredibly aware there's not really anything he can do about that aside from constantly worry. he's kind of an anxious mess.

mikey absolutely thinks it's more ethical to murder somebody out of the sheer glee of seeing people crushed before you than murdering somebody for something as tedious as mob orders. you're satisfying a deep, raw desire felt from the heart! that's good!

what he'd like to do, in some sense, is just hang out in his studio and chill with other artists, but he knows the world is not gonna let him do that. things will come up. a lot of his being a creepy bystander thing while people get murdered is b/c he's very much formulated his morality to be like... it is not his responsibility to fix other people's problems. other people will do what they want and that has no bearing on him. is that a pretty cowardly and self-serving morality? sure! but he was kinda designed to rule the world & his flinch away from that pretty much defines him as a character in this. that's kinda the morality he needed to end up on to convince himself not to be a genocide machine.

he's incredibly aware he could basically be a superhero, & all it would take is... giving up on all his hopes and dreams and constantly engage with his abilities. and being a superhero isn't that many steps removed from living up to his full design spec and just taking over the world and ruling as god-emperror. idk how well i hit all those notes in the actual fic, but, that's what i was going for. mikey as the narrator clearly doesn't want to talk or think about it so it's never really directly confronted.

raph is... okay so i guess a fairly common piece of fanon, for rise especially, is to characterise raph as having multiple personalities? whether that's him just having alters or him having full-blown MPD depends on the fic. my fun little nod to that is that he's kind of a disassociative mess. he has kind of failed to reconcile the disparate aspects of his personality and he switches between one of several different facades depending on the situation. also, you know. the trauma.

(i didn't really mean for it to be as such, but there is this theme in the story about names? despite everything else mikey has a crystal-clear self-conception of himself and has one name, which he gave himself. raph, who has kinda failed to build his own personality, has a collection of name other people have given him, none of which he feels actually fits him. donnie has a more fluid self-identity and also has roughly a million aliases and false identities & constantly slips in and out of character when it's convenient. leatherhead still going by the name mikey gave him goes hand-in-hand with that bit where mikey meanly thinks about how maybe leatherhead's entire self-conception is hung up on something mikey said to him once, etc. this is one of those things that i'd go back and make more present if i did go back and clean up the rough draft, b/c as it is it's there, but it doesn't really do a whole lot.)

--

this fic was inspired by... i had read a few big aus that were just like, taking the characters and loose bits of setting and going off in completely different directions. some of NeiNing's aus were a definite influence, plus like, this one au where raph is an ex-con mechanic, etc, etc. just like "i am going to play out a completely unrelated drama using turtles as the dolls". maybe most directly influential was Of Knights and Thieves, where donnie & mikey are corporate espionage hacker/thief types and raph & leo are do-gooder vigilantes. the original concept for this was much more heavily focused on the art forgery. in a very early draft the idea was leo would get involved much more actively in trying to track down the creator of the false takenobus. then i was like, "i am going to crash a completely separate story concept about the dark armor into the side of this art-forgery story". the filename for the story is still 'lol grindr hookup art thief'. that is not really where the story went.

oh man, the art stuff. i made some posts about this at the time! that are now several years old. here's one! i did end up getting a traditional woodcut printing of Tokaido 53 stations, no. 11, Hokone. in a lot of ways doing all the art research was more satisfying and fun than writing the extensive downward spiral that was the latter half of the fic. but, hey, that's life too i guess.

also raph in this is... okay, so, i don't mean this in a mean way. i really liked the fics! but cndrow has written several raph/donnie fics where raph is just like... like a repeated theme in them is raph confessing eternal love & talking about how he's like, mentally planning on them being together forever. on the first date. and sure sure everybody has different tastes; i'm absolutely sure that my interest in guys who are mean leads to some stories that are extremely offputting to some people, etc. but it's like, oh man, raph, please slow your roll a little. if somebody said they were planning our future wedding all of ten minutes into talking to me i would flee the room. & the raph in blinded by the summer sun is very much inspired by that. sadly, i never fully committed to that. originally i even had a line in chapter 9 where slash was like 'please tell me you didn't drop the 'i love you forever' on this guy already' to imply that that was, you know, a theme for raph, but i chickened out and cut it. raph as a kind of rolling series of bad relationships characterized by him falling forever in love w/ his latest crush until the relationship detonates and leaves him not really understanding how things went wrong. but i don't think that's expressed well like, at all. but that ideally should characterize a large part of why he keeps chasing after mikey even well after the point where it would be reasonable to disengage. also to convey some of the downsides of a character believing in true love. it's rough out there in the world.

also thank you tumblr user averyterrible for writing this goncharov post. that was the point in the story where i was like, actually i have been writing raph as way too much of a sad boy. if i want to play in the space of crime drama, there needs to be some crime! he's a yakuza assassin. he needs to chop off somebody's fingers with bolt cutters.

--

to me, the central question in the fic isn't really 'will the mikey/raph relationship work out' or 'will mikey succeed in his plans', it's 'why is mikey doing these things'. & i think the leatherhead chunks in chapter 23 finally give enough context to what's going on with mikey to let people answer that? like oh, mikey is a mess.

(lol the initial setup for the early chapters are supposed to give an audience response of like, "oh no, raph has some dangerous secrets" "oh no, raph is a violent yakuza murderer! i hope mikey is going to be okay interacting with raph" "...oh no, i hope raph is going to be okay interacting with mikey")

a lot of the story really is about how... mikey & raph's relationship is in a lot of ways very adolescent? they have not had a lot of prior experience with healthy relationships, and they're trying, but, uhhhhhhh. mikey likes to act like he's so cool and above-it-all and unaffected by things happening, but that's actually just b/c he doesn't really care about most things. when something happens that he genuinely doesn't like he immediately snaps and has a giant meltdown. (we see this once with raph, when mikey has a panic attack and throws up when raph blows him off wrt warning him of bishop, and once with donny about the armor, where mike immediately starts tantruming and threatening to kill himself. mikey is very bad at resolving conflict. he's kind of a brat, actually.)

like every character in this is in some way their worst self. they're all pretty awful people. but they're all also trying to... grapple with their place in the world and try to be better people. to even figure out what 'better' means. this is a story about how 'being a good person' is a constant struggle, not to 'do the right thing', but to even figure out what's 'right'. it's about picking yourself up again after a bad period and going, well, let's keep going. like mikey has a lot of traits but one that i, the author, actually think is fairly admirable is his ability to get back up and keep going after a really bad period. which is funny b/c characterwise that goes hand-in-hand with his callousness. just shrug off all the misery you caused other people, i guess! see above about positive/negative character traits.

(also uh there's another tmnt fic author whose work has a lot of... a Bad Guy is constructed/identified. then helpless children (or teens!) are rescued from him. then the bad guy is ruthlessly & violently murdered. sometimes onscreen, sometimes offscreen. and then it's nothing but chapter after chapter of people being happy and cutesy to each other. and like, i get it. but the, like, recurring theme there of the Bad Guy having done something fundamentally unforgivable that separates from all understanding & mercy, to which the only justice is a violent death, just strikes me as... simplistic. sometimes people do really awful things and part of grappling with that as an adult with an adult moral conceptualization is realizing that you gotta look past your initial reflex to punishment.

or like, mikey's whole childhood in this really fucked him up but a huge part of his identity is him having to form an identity from that. having to make the determination of which parts of him are 'him' and which parts were done to him. lol @ him aggressively and extensively rejecting everything about what draxum made him to do & then blithely being like 'we were engineered to eat humans anyway' as a defense for all the corpse-eating. mikey you just like eating people & have decided that part does align with your self-identity. mikey would really not appreciate anybody being like 'i'm sorry nobody saved you from that' b/c that (to him) would basically be the same as them saying they thought he was fundamentally, irreparably damaged & was going to be forever incapable of being anything other than what draxum made him to be. he wouldn't take it well.)

uhhh what else. i mean there's a lot. fun fact pretty much every time mikey gets mad at somebody else he's hugely projecting. even his pacifism is like... hmm maybe he should have killed draxum. a lot of his talk @ raph about splinter is secretly mikey relitigating his feelings about draxum. oh what's that mikey you think that splinter is only playing happy family b/c he's immortal and he has infinite time to spend humoring somebody's illusions but that when push comes to shove he'll drop all that? gee i wonder if that might apply to any dynamics in mikey's own life. lol at mikey being like "wow red your life is kind of a fucked-up nightmare of weird psychopaths playing like they're happy family" and then two chapters is like "hey come meet my family. we live in my genocidal dad's bombed-out lab and we're treating him like a weird racist grandpa". i kinda wanted something that would complicate mikey just being like "i am a pacifist now and i don't kill anybody"; mikey that's all well and good but like half his inner tension comes from not being sure if he should've left draxum alive. that's kinda the mirror to him debating whether or not actually killing leatherhead would've been better. (in a few years shelldon is gonna go through a period of not wanting to talk to any of them. mikey & donnie are better parents than draxum but that's such a low bar.)

(likewise at the end when mikey is like "this is raph's healthiest relationship so far!" to leo, like, this is more mikey projecting. really the raph/casey relationship was probably better for raph & casey, idk, who can say. but is mikey's relationship with raph the healthiest romantic interaction he's ever had? yes, absolutely. we don't get to see the mikey/leatherhead relationship really up-close and personal but it should be pretty clear that it was pretty awful for everybody involved. compared to that, the mikey/raph is absolutely mikey's healthiest relationship so far. just. low bars.)

lol i am a little concerned that mikey's tendency to monologue, & especially his whole political monologue near the end, will get people to think he's just acting as an author's soapbox. i mean, okay, the little author's note where i'm like "as always, mikey is a perfect role model and everybody should do what he does" was a fun little joke. but, oof, the number of fics i've read where the authors feel the need to loudly and repeatedly disclaim that This Story Contains Things The Author Does Not Condone In Real Life is pretty disheartening. way to have absolutely no faith in your audience. but likie, the part where mikey is pretty much flat-out like, "actually i think my moral framework is whatever is necessary to justify my actions" is meant to be pretty damning. maybe not of mikey specifically as a character, just of, you know. the whole world where that's a pretty common outlook among people with power.

--

lets talk about the rape. part of it is that it felt like it would be inauthentic to go through the entire story without mikey seriously violating one of raph's boundaries. part of it is that mikey here kinda has the trifecta of ASPD, ADHD, & bipolar, and the thing with that is it's very easy to just say that but a little more difficult to convey the personality traits involved. this isn't really something ever stated as such in the fic, aside from various people calling mikey crazy + raph calls him a sociopath once. it's kind of too didactic to just flatly state "and this is what's wrong with mikey!" imo. but. this is a story about violent people. imo you can't just gesture to a character with the background level of callousness for the genre and go "okay this is a clinical sign"; you kinda gotta do something more direct. 'wow mikey sure is CRAZY and WEIRD good thing it only shows itself as him being slightly mean to people'. no. mikey has done some pretty horrible things in the past and clearly isn't fully done with that.

(i did pretty much go straight down the list of symptoms there. impulsive, suicidal, aggressive, violent, risky sex, arrogant, limited empathy, no regard for other people or social norms, difficulty with relationships, arson, etc, etc, etc. but it's not like he's a 'realistic' portrayal here, since... i mean, he is a super-powered ninja. there's a level of 'superficial charm' here but we do get enough of mikey's interiority to be able to tell he's a total mess in a way that's not particularly constructed.)

also it's like. raph graphically tortures several people to death & i didn't really feel the need to disclaim that here. murder is usually seen as a lesser crime in fiction than rape. people love their violent blorbos but the second there's the implication of sexual violence people freak out. the usual line people say is that the threat of murder is a little more removed for most people than the threat of rape, which idk if i fully agree with. but part of it is also to draw a line between raph's violence and mikey's boundary violation. like mikey says, well, raph tried to non-consensually murder him a few times too.

anyway i don't think i really stuck the landing with that either, in part b/c raph's response to it. he's a little too pathetically accepting of things at the end instead of being angry + violent. that could use a rewrite or two.

--

honestly i'm kinda sick of this story now? which sucks a little, since i kept realizing things about the story all the way up to the very last moment of editing. if i had waited to post any of this until i was done with the first draft... well, it'd be a very different story if i went back and turned this rough draft into something more complete. i never really did manage to hit the character beats with raph i was hoping to. oh well. like, i still like it. but i can definitely see all of its weak points. i guess that's just part of the process of writing. it'd be worse if you wrote a giant novel and came out on the other side not more aware of your failings as an author.

i feel like raph isn't super well-realized in terms of character motivations. or... his relationships aren't shaded in as well as they could be. if i were redoing this whole thing i'd definitely include some chunks of raph pov just to lay out more concretely what he's doing & what his life is like when he's not in the same scene as mikey. i kinda included that raph+donny conversation at the very end just for jokes, but actually ending every chapter with a little section of non-mikey pov would've helped ground a lot of the characters. raph isn't super well-developed and leo is pretty much incoherent absent external familiarity with his character's deal. they're not conveyed super well, in part because, well, any time mikey is onscreen everybody is having to deal with mikey. it's a problem.

but something that absolutely could have worked as a secondary narrative to the story is the whole thing with raph working w/ the oroku. that was a bit of a late addition to the story. it's meant as a reference to, you know, all the times raphael ends up being compared to/assuming the mantle of the shredder in the comics. but as it is since we don't get any real looks into exactly what's going on in yakuza town when mikey's not around none of that got developed very well, imo.

--

it was very important to me that mikey not learn any lesson here. where things are at in the end are pretty much the exact same as where they were in the beginning. the bit in the pizza scene where he's like 'you guys get to live and i get a boyfriend' is very accurate. literally the only change in mikey's life through this entire thing is that at the end he is in a relationship w/ a guy who he can tell some of what his life is like to. not that it's a super healthy relationship, but it is there.

well, that, and also now he's maybe out of time. (uh, so the laughter at the very end of the epilogue is mikey realizing he's out of time. the whole epilogue really is about how he's got all these conflicting tensions of who-knows-what in his life, & then right in the middle of the tension it's like, whoops, the utrom aren't coming in 10 years or 20 years, they're coming now. and in a week you're gonna be getting some really pointed questions about how you know the utrom envoy. and in a few years, well, there's gonna be some planetary evacuation) like the whole story is about... anxiety. mikey feeling the weight of the future on him in every moment. actually seeing things collapse would be a relief; you'd get the release of all the potentiality collapsing into an actual problem. the moral of the story is you get what you get and in the end all mikey's actions, good or bad or otherwise, have bought him is nine more months of ignoring his problems.

anyway sorry to all the tmnt fans who were expecting a happy cheerful mikey/raph story. this is actually about the fundamental injustice of existence. whoops!

[goldenfreddys]

september '04, cont.— a little identity never hurt nobody!

Jeremy’s cellphone was ringing in his pocket— a sort of tense, shrill melody he chose from a long menu of ringtone options because ‘tense’ and ‘shrill’ is how calls felt when they weren’t from his mom. It just felt right.

It was daytime, but the pizzeria was oddly empty. The band was lined up neat and still on the show stage.

He pressed the answer button and mumbled out a ‘hello?’

For a moment, there was nothing. In the static, Jeremy heard what could’ve been a sniffle. The rustle of fabric, a quiet whimper.

Finally, a small boy on the other end of the line asked, “... Is- is Mike there?”

“I don’t… think so. Whats wrong, bud?”

“I’m scared. It’s dark a-and I wanna go home, now.”

“Where are you? Do- um, do you know where you are?”

The kid let out a muffled sob. Jeremy started walking towards the office, glancing in the party rooms as he went. The walls were covered in construction paper portraits of a pale, round head with wide eyes and thick bars of faded blue tears streaming off to the bottom of the page.

“I guess not. That’s okay… Can you tell me who you are, big guy?”

The child’s voice wobbled, “My- my name…”

Suddenly, the call dropped. Quick, rhythmic beeps erupted from the speaker to reassure him it had been disconnected.

In the office, the old landline’s handset had been left hanging off the edge of the desk. It swung like a body from the gallows.

Sometimes, Jeremy would fight to escape the spider’s web of sleep. He’d think, I really need to get up, now and then sooner or later it would happen. Today, he didn’t feel any particular urge to wake up. He spent a long time edging in and out of consciousness- someone was humming and frying up bacon across the room. He nestled further into the couch to escape the growing light and pulled his thin blanket higher around his shoulders.

“Morning, babydoll. I made coffee.”

Jeremy opened his eyes cautiously. That wasn’t right. He was nobody’s baby, let alone someone’s babydoll.

He heard two people kissing some distance away and untensed. They seemed to be really going at it.

“And breakfast.”

The other person responded in a deep, warm voice, “Now that’s just suspicious. What did you do?”

The first man let out a prolonged, flabbergasted series of sounds expressing disbelief, shock and offence.

“Do I need to I re-open the nightguard posting?”

“No, no- believe it or not, he’s alive! Hey, just look and see for yourself!”

It was Mike, he realized. Jeremy remained perfectly still, even holding his breath for a moment.

“You brought this poor baby angel’s dead body into our beautiful house-”

“He’s sleeping.”

“See, you said that about Elizabeth's hamster, too.”

Mike leaned closer, “You’re sleeping, right?”

“Fuck off,” Jeremy responded.

The gig was up. Now he had to figure out what Mike wanted, and why he felt it was important enough to warrant kidnapping his coworker. Jeremy sat up and rubbed his eyes.

“I just need to figure out what’s going on, okay? What’s your relationship to ‘Dave Miller’?” Mike made exaggerated air-quotes around the name.

“... Who? The- the doctor?”

Jeremy looked around the living room. He was still in his work clothes, and his shoes were on the floor by the couch. Faintly remembering the night before, he realized he didn’t have his wallet, keys or cellphone. Shit.

“Mikey, he’s obviously not in cahoots. Look at him.” The other person–Eugene, he recalled–crossed his arms doubtfully.

Again, the two started bickering like he wasn’t there. Jeremy raised his hand, as though flagging the attention of a teacher halfway through class.

“What is it, sweetie?”

“Can I use the bathroom?”

Eugene motioned to the hall, “Last door on the right.”

“Thanks.”

As Jeremy washed his hands, he studied the space around the bathroom sink. At one edge of the counter, some various amenities were neatly organized in a bin- shaving cream, toothpaste, styling combs and cologne. At the other, there was a can of aerosolized body spray titled Tropical Breeze with some crusty build up around the nozzle.

He dried his hands. The room was tastefully decorated, though currently disheveled— an interior designer had clearly been involved. He glanced at the closed door. 

Nadia had a bad habit of idly snooping through drawers and cupboards; she liked knowing where things were, she said, “like, what if there was an emergency and we needed a flathead screwdriver, but didn't know where to find one?” spoken with unfettered confidence that an emergency that required a flathead screwdriver was tangible and imminent.

Jeremy nodded in agreement with the recollection of his best friend he pictured in his mind, then opened a cabinet above the sink. It had pills, gauze and various medical instruments. He leaned in to get a closer look. There were a couple over-the-counter painkillers, viagra, pepto bismol and petroleum jelly. Wrapped in a clear cellophane package labeled STERILE was what looked to be a thin, threaded hook. His brow furrowed a bit as he mulled over the intended application of the hook. Clearly not fishing, because the curve was too slight– and with fishing out of the equation, his relevant wisdom had run dry.

It was either medical or sexual, he figured. Maybe both.

Satisfied with his findings, Jeremy closed the cabinet and wandered back to the living room.

“Then who died?!” Mike asked in a tone that was either pissed off or distraught.

“Secret triplet?” Eugene offered.

“No!”

“It's not more unlikely.”

Jeremy grimaced, “Can y'all take this from the top for me?”

Mike sat down at the table and buried his face in his hands. Jeremy looked to Eugene, then back at Mike as he waited for a response.

After a pause long enough to make one doubt if he would continue at all, Mike said, “You're Sammy Emily.”

“Sammy Fitzgerald.” He corrected, pointedly, “... But I haven't gone by that since I was little.”

“Sammy died.”

“Sammy moved to Vermont, actually. Similar, sure, but not totally the same. Again, you're thinking of my sister.”

“Well, clearly not-”

“Unless there's another one!” Eugene interjected, triumphantly.

Jeremy pressed his lips together and stared at the floor. The topic sort of stung on a good day, and that morning had been shaping up to be the worst day in months. Frustration buzzed through him, nerve endings like frayed livewires in a damp, mildew filled supply closet. It was a miserable anger with nowhere to go.

“Are you good, hon?”

“I want my fucking mom. Or to go home and sleep… I want Nads to key your stupid mustang, too. And a smoke,” he mumbled.

“That's completely fair! Mike, fetch him a siga.” Eugene snapped his fingers for emphasis, “That's Yoruban for fag, which is British for…”

Mike groaned and waved him off before digging around in the pockets of a leather jacket hanging by the door.

He held out a battered carton of cigarettes to Jeremy, then jerked them out of reach with a stern glare, “... But if you touch my car, I'm gonna end up on the news.”