#matters to me I know these probably aren’t the worst ever but you can’t tell me these are a dumpster fire 💀

[raisedbythetv89]

Two of the worst proposals in the history of modern media followed by the most pathetic cringe fail loser puppy dog eyes when their absolutely abysmal attempts at saying “I love and want only you” fail miserably and unfortunately for me I desire both of them carnally

bonus: they even both hit this pose after being knocked on their ass during said failed proposal attempt

[evanpeterswhoresblog]

Office Secrets

Luke Cooper x f!reader

TW: smut, p in v, unprotected, fingering… lmk if there’s anything else lol

Word count: 1526

Friendly note, I wrote this all in one day so it’s probably not the best but I’ve been so obsessed w Evan lately I just needed to write lol Enjoy!!!

~~~

“So, who wants to bet the two newbies are doing it?” Meredith says as she puts coins into one of the vending machines.

“They so are,�� Kevin says. “Have you seen the way they look at each other it’s like- Pam and Jim.”

“Hey!”

Angela shakes her head. “You people are disgusting… but I wouldn’t doubt it. I’ve seen them flirting on multiple occasions.”

“This is all circumstantial, it doesn’t mean they’re sleeping together,” Oscar argues.

“I would bet they are,” Phillas says with a laugh. “I mean I remember how fun it was being all secret with Bob, it’s so thrilling.”

Pam glances at you in the annex, Luke’s leaning back on your desk, smiling as you two talk. She looks back to the group and shrugs. “It’s possible they are.”

~~~

“Hey y/n, do you think you could make some copies for me?” Pam asks as you’re walking by.

“Yeah of course, double or single sided?” You reply with a smile.

“Double please.” She hands you the original.

You walk to the copier, but as you’re about to open it, Luke slips in front of you.

“Luke I was about to make copies,” you say, annoyed.

“So do I, you aren’t the only person in the office who needs to get stuff done,” he laughs.

“Since when have you ever had things to get done? You’re the laziest person here.”

“That’s hostile,” he replies, turning around to give you a smirk. “I might have to report you to HR.”

“Just please hurry up,” you mumble.

“Anything for you babe.” He winks.

You turn to the camera and stare, almost at your limit with this boy.

~~~

“I just don’t understand men sometimes it’s like, he’s so different when we’re alone yet in public he wants to be the biggest ass ever,” you rant to the camera, you’re in the hallway near the elevator where no one will hear you. “Sometimes I just want to knee him in the balls and get on with my day.”

“If he’s so annoying why do you sleep with him?”

You frown. “He’s really good at that stuff, most assholes are honestly.”

~~~

You’re at the vending machine getting a snack when you feel arms snake around your waist. You quickly turn around and push him away.

“Luke stop it we can’t be doing this here,” you whisper.

He looks out the windows then back at you. “Nobody’s around, come on just one kiss. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you since last night baby.”

You and Luke were hired about three weeks ago now, both just interns to help out with the little things around the office. At first you thought Luke was an idiot slack off, but after a week of him constantly flirting with you, you decided he wasn’t that bad of a guy and of course he’s gorgeous. And, after one night where he gave you a ride home this simple work crush turned into casual sex.

You made Luke promise to keep it a secret, you didn’t want anyone at the office to think your personal life would interfere with you doing your job. So, far you don’t think anyone has figured it out, and your glad.

“Don’t talk like that here,” you say, giving him a slight glare. “We made a deal.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“I’m serious Luke, imagine if Michael found out. He’d make it a whole thing.”

“It probably already is a thing, Jim and Pams was.”

You scoff at him. “Okay, that doesn’t mean this has to be.”

“Whatever,” he says as he begins to walk away. “See you later.”

You give an annoyed look to the camera and shake your head before returning to your previous activity.

~~~

“Listen, y/n is a good girl I guess, I just wish she’d stop acting like the office finding out about our thing is the worst possibility imaginable,” Luke tells the crew outside the break room.

“What do you think would happen if they found out?”

“I don’t know, they’d give us weird looks. It doesn’t really matter it’s not like me and her are gonna be working here forever. At least I know I’m not, not sure what her life plans are.”

~~~

You stare at the clock and sigh, still a whole nother hour left at the office. This whole day has been terrible, mostly due to Luke. You don’t understand why he’s acting so annoying today. Usually he’s decent toward you, probably because of what he wants from you the second work ends. You turn back to your desk and start to organize papers, deciding Luke isn’t important.

A few have passed when Luke appears beside you. He leans back on your desk, one of his hands gripping the edge. You try to ignore him, keeping your attention on the stack of paper you’ve been messing with. Luke doesn’t let you ignore him forever though.

“Can you come with me somewhere where we can speak privately… away from the cameras.”

You look up at him. Is this it? Is he really going to break it off at work? You can’t believe it. You want to give him a piece of your mind, so you slightly nod and get up, following him out of the annex and down the hall to one of the stock rooms. You’re ready to start giving it to him but before you can he smashes his lips on yours.

At first, you’re caught off guard, he’s never kissed you at work before. You don’t hesitate to kiss him back however. He backs you up till the back of your legs hit a spare desk. You let him guide you onto it, your kiss turning into something more.

He bites down on your lip, his hands roaming up and down the sides of your body. You have to admit, you’d been craving this too. Even though you saw each other last night. Luke was the best you’d ever had, how were you supposed to not want him again? Even though he’s been annoying you all day you can’t help but melt into the palm of his hand, he’s just so damn attractive.

“Luke, we can’t do this at work,” you whisper, the sensible part of you taking over.

“Nobody will know, come on baby, I’ve been thinking of you all day. I need you,” he replies.

Your stomach fills with butterflies at his words. He knows exactly how to persuade you. You fall back on the desk as he kisses down your neck, Your legs wrap around his waist, he makes you feel so good. He brings his lips back up to yours as one of his hands starts to slip up your skirt and under your panties.

He starts to rub small circles on your clit; you to moan into his mouth. He smirks against your mouth. You wrap your arms around his neck and pull him closer, you love the feeling of his body against yours. It’s the best you’ve ever felt.

“You’re already so wet baby,” he mumbles on your lips.

“Luke,” you moan.

“Do you want it baby?”

You nod, moving one of your hands down to rub the bulge in his pants. He grins at you and removes his fingers, beginning to undo his belt and fly. In seconds you feel his tip brushing against your entrance. He leans back over you as he begins to slowly thrust inside of you. You bite down on your lip and close your eyes, the familiar feeling of him filling you taking over.

You throw your head back as he starts fucking you. The sound of the desk hitting the wall doesn’t even register in your head. You’re too engulfed in how good Luke’s dick feels inside you, hitting that special spot that makes your legs shake. His head rests in the crook of your neck, he’s moaning and whispering all the dirty things he wants to do to you. It’s all too good to be true.

Eventually though, you feel that tightening in your stomach, your orgasm approching. Luke must realize this because he doesn’t stop his violent thrusts for even a second. You hold on to him tightly, biting down on his clothed shoulder as you finally cum. He finishes with you, pushing himself so far inside you he’s hitting your cervix.

He lays on you for a few seconds before pulling himself up enough to look down at you. His chest is still heaving as he speaks in a soft voice, “I really like you y/n.”

“I really like you too Luke,” you say with a weak smile.

Both of you get yourselves decent fast, you’ve been away for at least fifteen minutes by now. You give Luke one last kiss before exiting the small room alone, he promised to wait a minute or too before following.

As you sit at your desk and resume your previous activities, Luke walks by you, sending a quick wink before disappearing into the main office. You give a small stare into one of the cameras, your face turning bright red. This was only the beginning.

[wiltedreamofbaldursgate]

You, Blinding Like the Sun

characters: Astarion x gender neutral Elf!Tav/reader word count: +1.5k Rating: teen and up. sfw. trigger warning: very loosely implied trauma on both sides. read on ao3

Astarion despises you so very much because you’re everything he isn’t, everything he has never been. Not even alive could he have held a candle to you, because you’re perfect and he is falling, and he hates that he is falling for you.

He despises you.

From the moment Astarion first laid eyes upon you—confident, selfless little elf, blinding like the sun—he has despised you. You with your dazzling golden eyes, the sweet flush on the tip of your pointy ears. Your artfully arranged hair, kissed by the sun to make it shine like fine silk. The cute little freckles sprinkled all over your unmarred skin—skin that has never been touched by undesired hands. You who lived long enough to choose a name for yourself—to make a name for yourself.

How he despises all of it.

The way you win anyone over with nothing but an honest smile; the sheer purpose in your every step. That nasty confidence of yours that isn't some skill you ever needed to acquire because, to you, it comes all-natural, of course—you were born with it. Astarion can tell it's true because he’s spent two centuries mimicking the behaviour of people just like you.

And he despises you for it.

Before you were even born, the gods have bestowed their gifts on you, and here you are, not even knowing what power you hold, how very blessed you are. You wouldn’t even care if you knew, because the fact of the matter is that you have no need for gods nor gifts nor skills. Not when people gravitate towards you as if you have hung the stars. And how dreadfully inviting you always are, so very accommodating.

Come sit by the fire, Astarion; isn’t it cold and lonely over there?

Come feed from me, Astarion; you look so terribly starved.

Come enjoy yourself, Astarion, have all of me, Astarion, I don’t ask for anything in return, Astarion.

Astarion, are you alright? 

Everything you say or do, everything you are—he fucking despises it.

He despises how laughably easy it was to fool you, to fuck you, to make you fall for him; honestly, don’t you know any better, darling? Probably not, because it’s evident that you aren’t all there in the head sometimes.

After all, who in their right mind would let a starved beast feast at the most divinely set table, have it indulge in the sweetest of wines as if it were nothing, as if it weren’t everything to him? And it’s only by luck that you’re still breathing now, that he hasn’t ripped out your throat to drink up every obscenely delicious drop of you.

But of course, you come with an excessive amount of luck—so much of it that it makes up for your lack of brains. Hells, the worst thing that has ever happened to you is the little fiend lingering behind your eye, the very same thing that has set him free after centuries of endless suffering, and he despises you. Astarion despises you so very much because you’re everything he isn’t, everything he has never been. Not even alive could he have held a candle to you, because you’re perfect and he is falling, and he hates that he is falling for you.

You with the soft lilt in your voice, a reminder of a language that weighs like lead on Astarion’s tongue. You with your easy smile that he can’t help but return with an unfamiliar one of his own. You with your blood that tastes like the very sun. Astarion hates that he never even stood a chance against you because you care. Because you either love sincerely or not at all. Because you somehow love him.

And he hates that his gaze keeps following the alluring sway of your hips; that he finds himself instinctively reaching for your hand whenever you hold it out to him, and that he hates it even more when you don’t.

He hates the way you say his name—not because you mock him for that childish name of his, no, but because it makes him want to hear it from your lips over and over and over again.

And most of all, he hates the way you speak of victory. How dare you make it sound so believable—probable, even? He hates how he trusts your words to come true, that real freedom is at his fingertips. If you think it’s possible, it has to be, doesn’t it…?

Yes, Astarion well and truly hates how much he wants you, trusts you, craves you. Your blood. Your smile. Your love. All of you. It makes him feel like an idiot because all you had to do to mess up his perfectly fine plan was to exist next to him. You are the stake hovering right above his heart, and he is so fucking scared of the inevitable impact. Because sooner or later, his love for you will bite him in the ass—it always does. It hasn’t happened yet, but here he is, already hurting.

It hurts Astarion to watch you get injured in battle, and it hurts even more to see your eyes frantically dart over him to make sure he’s alright after. It hurts that he wants to make love to you so badly but doesn’t quite know how. It hurts him to guard over your trances, to watch you struggle through each night, haunted by your very own ghosts—and that he can’t do anything to ease your suffering. It makes him feel weak, and he is tired of feeling this way, tired of being so fucking useless to you. You haven’t realised that he is nothing yet, but you will soon enough, and Astarion is afraid—always afraid that that will be the end of it. The end of him. Around you, he can feel his mask slip all too often, all too easily, and he is afraid of your blindingly loving gaze upon him. What do your golden eyes see?, he wonders, too afraid to ask. Why don’t you look away when you see him laid bare? He’s afraid that there’s something wrong with you, because how could it be any different?

In fact, Astarion is mostly afraid for you, because every day he learns that you’re not perfect at all. There are more knots in your hair than he can count, and you always seem to have a nasty sunburn spread across your shoulders. You sometimes cackle like a goose around the fire, and you’re too gullible, too good for your own good. And you can die so very easily…

Deep inside, Astarion is terrified that one day you will glide through his fingers like sunlight at dusk.

He’s terrified that there won’t be anything he can do to save you.

He’s terrified of what he might be willing to do to try anyway.

You wake from your restless trance with a choked cry. It seems like you always startle into consciousness, unsure of where you are even moments later. It’s not the first time that Astarion wonders what could possibly be haunting your memories, but the way you tremble and make yourself look smaller keeps reinforcing his sickening suspicions.

Forcing down the anger soaring through him, he leans over to where you’re lying next to him. Cooing softly, he brushes a strand of hair from your forehead, cautious to barely touch your sweat-drenched skin. His eyes lock with yours, and together you wait for the tightness in your chest to ease, your hurried breath to slow down. 

You grab his hand to hold it against your racing heart, and Astarion wants to tell you that you’re safe; lying is what he does best, after all. He can’t bring himself to say those false words, though, not to you—never again to you. He has already tainted so much of what you have together and although you’re not perfect, you’re special. This is special and he will do anything to make it last.

When your breath has calmed into a gentle rhythm again, Astarion wraps his arms around your waist, gently pulling your back against his chest. His lips are still warm from your blood circulating underneath his skin as he presses them against your temple.

“Rest,” he whispers. “I got your back, sunshine.” Astarion’s words are hesitant and shaky, even in his own pointy ears. Long years of disuse have perverted the inflection, and he doesn’t trust himself to say any more—not for now, at least.

It takes you a moment to realise that Astarion has spoken in your common mother tongue, but when you do, you tilt your head to find his almost timid gaze again.

“I know you do,” you answer, a lazy smile tugging at your lips, making your perfectly melodic words sound so much lovelier. “Thank you, Astarion.”  

The pale elf brushes his lips against yours. It’s a quick, sloppy kiss, and he doesn’t recall ever kissing someone like this before—rushed and imperfect; real. He takes in your smile one last time before he buries his face in the crook of your neck, taking in your warmth, your scent. Everything that is you. 

Astarion loves to be blinded by the sun.

[cinnajun]

ᵕ̈ ೫˚∗: nct dream and long distance relationships

a/n: a fun 1 year anniversary of cinnajun special :-) also a celebration of broken melodies

wc | 2.6k

from worst to best at handling it

jaemin

i thought about this for a while, and i don't think jaemin would want to be in a long distance relationship at all

he strikes me as someone who really cherishes time spent with his partner, so having to be far away from them would be really hard

he’s also super aware of what he needs in a relationship and he knows that. so, if jaemin is the one going away, he’s going to break up with you

but if it’s you going away, he won’t force it unless he thinks it’s required/needed

if you end up in an ldr with him it means you’re probably not going to be gone for long, maybe a month or so, or you’re some kind of pillar in his life that he can’t afford to lose

being in a ldr with jaemin means he REALLY loves you, so congrats!!! but it’s also probably going to be agonizing

you probably spend most of your free time on the phone with him, and he’s forced you to fill out your weekly schedule on a google calendar so that he can see what you’re doing in his time zone

if you don’t put in the same energy he’s putting in, he will probably break up with you, and he makes that very clear with you before you leave

this is probably the hardest time of jaemin’s life because missing you all the time is something he really hates, and it’s hard for him to sort out those feelings knowing you’re likely off doing something super meaningful

the only thing that holds him together is the fact that he knows you miss him just as much (at least you say it every single time you talk to him)

he’s also probably going to visit you at least once, no matter where you are, if you’re gone for more than a couple of months

and he’s going to regret it right after because of how hard it’ll be to leave again

he just wants you back where he can shower you with love and make sure you’re happy and safe

it’ll be the trickiest part of your relationship with him, but if you can make it through mostly unscathed, it will strengthen your relationship more than you could ever imagine

chenle

similar to jaemin, chenle also wouldn’t want to be in a long distance relationship if given the option not to be

the only reason i’m putting him above jaemin is because he moved away from his family and his home, so he knows how to healthily communicate with the people he loves and continue relationships with them even if they aren’t constantly around him

but i think chenle values coexistence with his partner and would vastly prefer sitting in the same room as you silently rather than sitting on facetime with you silently

it’s really hard for him when you leave and he finds it hard to talk to you when he knows you’re so far away

but if you’re willing to try, so is he

chenle doesn’t need to be on the phone with you every time you’re both free and he doesn’t need to constantly know your schedule but he’d appreciate it i think

i also think chenle would trust his partner pretty unconditionally so he just wants you to update him frequently, even if you’re not doing anything too interesting

just hearing about your day, what shop you discovered or what cafe you went to, is enough for him to get through without feeling too depressed or sad

and hearing you say that you love him at every moment you possibly can

he’s too much of a loser to admit how much he misses you, but you can tell pretty easily lol

you’ll be on the phone and you won’t have spoken in a while and he’ll suddenly go “daegal really misses you” and you’re like “but you don’t?? okay i see how it is”

but chenle doesn’t want to admit he misses you because that means he’s letting the distance between you two get to him :(

chenle knows what it’s like to pursue your dreams away from home and he wants to support you as unconditionally as possible

so don’t worry about him, because he’s fine and he’s comfortable

but he’s going to worry about you 24/7

double standards 🙄

mark

if mark wasn’t who he was he’d be much more okay with it

but he’s a busy guy and it was already hard enough seeing you with his neverending mess of schedules and practices

and of course, for whatever reason you’re going away, he wants to support you really unconditionally so that you don’t feel like staying behind for him you know

but when you tell him you’re going away, he seriously considers breaking it off then and there

it’s less of an “i need to be near you” and more of an “i feel like i’m not going to give you the energy you’re giving me”

but after talking with his members he decides that he’ll give it a shot

tbh being in an ldr with mark might be harder for you than it is for mark you know

he texts you often but can’t call all the time, and your texts often aren’t replied to for hours (as for his too)

so mark comes up with the idea of sending each other care packages back and forth

surprisingly, this works really well

you still text and call as much as you can, but it receiving his poorly put together packages helps out with the yearning more than you can imagine

he’ll send flash drives with recordings of his studio sessions, polaroids of him and the boys, goodies he finds when he’s out and about, really anything you could think of

sometimes he even sends you receipts from when he eats out or gets groceries lol

all of them come with pages upon pages of “diary entries” where mark spells out his days for you, and he sends you his monthly schedule printed out and written in your time zone so you know when he’ll be out of commission and when you’ll be able to talk more (which is rare)

you do your best to match his energy and even buy a polaroid camera so he can see what you see, too

without these packages, you and mark probably would’ve broken up

but he would’ve done anything to keep you in his life, even if you were in space

mark lee i love u

haechan

haechan is pretty much in the same boat as mark except he’s way better at pestering you

i think he’s more online than mark is generally, so when you shared that you were going away for a while, i don’t think he was too panicked about it

the reason he’s not higher is because i think he’d worry about you a lot

like to the point where it started to impact his day to day life

he just doesn’t like being so far away from you because how is he going to save you if something happens??

he’d never consider breaking up with you unless he felt like you were moving away from him, but you’d have to understand that the distance between you is really impacting him

so you’d make little rules for each other so that you’d feel more comfortable with being so far from one another

like you have to call him when you’re taking an uber, and he has to call you every time he’s in a hotel

i also think you’d send each other letters a lot

they wouldn’t be full on care packages like with mark, but they’re just cute little tidbits of your lives on separate sides of the world

haechan would spray perfume on his letters (what a loser)

he’d also put on obnoxious red lipstick so he could kiss the paper (seriously a loser)

on a special day, like a birthday or holiday, you both get a small cake and celebrate together at a time that works for both of you (usually it’s close to midnight for the birthday person)

and you call a lot like it’s really obnoxious

and he texts you every waking moment of the day with even the most minuscule bits of information

“i just saw a gnat on the wall” like ok?? congrats i guess

and the best part is that the dynamic of your relationship barely changes, so you know you’ll come home and absolutely nothing will be different

so, for now, you’ll let him sing you to sleep over the phone and you’ll let him send you cheesy letters that make you cringe <3

renjun

renjun is kind of the opposite of chenle in a way

he obviously values the time you spend together, but he also knows that he did the same thing so he’s not allowed to be picky lol

renjun is the first of the boys who doesn’t consider breaking up even once, i think

i mean with the number of people who would drop dead for him, he’d like to believe that you, among everyone else, would be the worst off without him you know

and he’d be the worst off without you of course

long distance with renjun is actually kind of fun for the both of you

especially if you’ve been in a relationship for a really long time, i think you’d both find it exciting that you get to explore a world renjun hasn’t gotten to experience yet

so he kinda vicariously lives through you LOL

you often find yourselves facetiming when you’re walking throughout whatever city you ended up in, and you’ll show him fun things you find or tell him about the cafes you like as you walk past

renjun will also probably try to visit you as often as possible

whether or not it’s during breaks or making the group take a detour when they’re touring, renjun WILL be seeing you!!!

and he’s also the only boy who won’t get all sad and loserish when he has to leave again

he’s worried of course but like not in the way haechan is

if something is wrong he WILL be able to tell and so far you haven’t given the impression

nor have you ended up in the hospital

so as long as you’re functioning, he’s happy!

the reason he’s not the best at handling it though is because i think renjun would be an awful texter

he tries to get better at it when you leave and even pins your conversations but he lives on do not disturb and often forgets to reply

renjun is absolutely the type of guy to have like 200 unread messages

but he tries his hardest to change the habit for you!!

he even turned on read receipts for you so you could bully him when he ghosts you accidentally </3 he doesn’t have them on for anyone </3

so, to sum it up, being far from renjun isn’t terrible and can actually be fun for the both of you at times, but you still miss him a lot and can’t wait to go home

jeno

chronically online dreamie no. 1

at first jeno is really not on board i think, but he realizes that you’re both good at communicating when he’s off on tour and stuff so he gets over it quick

essentially nothing changes when you leave

the biggest thing though is that he misses you and uses that to his advantage, i think

while the other boys will stew in their sadness about your leaving jeno takes it as an opportunity to get like 30% worse LOL

as a result, most of the things he does that might be strange is just him saying that he misses you

jeno is like haechan in that he is annoying you at every waking moment of the day

in fact i think he’d be worse than haechan … like he is constantly blowing up your phone

if what you’re doing is for work, he’s definitely interrupted meetings before by calling you even though you told him not to

and then you call him back and scold him (while you hide in the bathroom during your lunch break)

if you’re in a country that has a similar time zone, you’re definitely the sleep-on-the-phone type of ldr couple

if not, you’re the on-the-phone-for-as-long-as-physically-possible couple

like once you took a day off on his day off and literally spent 25 hours on facetime … it was that bad

jeno literally slept for 10 of those 25 hours and you barely spoke to one another, too

i can also see you picking up gaming so you can spend more quasi-time with one another

your shared stardew valley world is really cute and pretty </3 except for the fact that he married one of the npcs instead of you with the excuse that “he’s not ready for real marriage”

jeno will also buy your essentials for you ?? it’s weird

you mention that you’re getting low on shampoo and a couple of days later an amazon box is sitting outside your door with a huge thing of your shampoo in it

he’ll also just send random items without telling you

like he sent a bottle of seasoned salt once with a gift note that read “this is good on avocado toast” and you were like ?? sure i guess

conclusion: long distance with jeno is a little strange but fairly easy

jisung

chronically online dreamie no. 2

the reason jisung is the best at handling rather than jeno is because he’s younger and therefore way more attached to you than say jaemin is

like if he were to break up with you he’s convinced the world will end and the rapture will happen

jisung is a little manic about it when you first leave and you can tell

he texts you “i love you” at 6 specific times throughout the day (times he knows you’ll be awake) and also sends like notes app recaps of literally every single thing he did that day

and you do it too because if you don’t it'll make him sad

but after a while, he calms down and things are actually really nice between you two

no matter your time zone, one of jisung’s favorite activities is to call you at a meal time so you can cook together

(cook together = jisung cuts a carrot for jaemin while you actually make a meal, or he is taking an astronomically long time to put his instant ramen together)

just in general, he’s good at long distance communication

he’s good at texting in the way that he never bombards you and never distracts you during the times you need to be focused on whatever you’re doing

he set a time with you every day to call, and, if he can’t he lets you know well in advance so you don’t feel disappointed later on

you have phone dates, you watch movies together on those like joint streaming apps (netflix party or something??), and you call each other while you do little tasks together

like you’ll mop your respective floors together or you’ll do your respective dishes with your phones propped up to show you doing it

he also doesn’t need to know what you’re doing at all times (and the same for you) because he knows you’re probably just doing what you usually did back home

it’s almost like he was built for an ldr idk

but he does what jeno does and just mails you random shit that you don’t have any use for </3 like jisung who needs a heart shaped sponge!!!

but it’s okay because he’s cute …

overall, when you get back, nothing will be different, which is the ultimate goal!! congrats on your successful ldr!!

thank you for reading!

[piratefishmama]

Crossing the Line | Part 5

The odds of finding one feral little metalhead in such a large city without any starting point to go off of were slim at best. Okay that was being generous, the odds were basically non-existent as Steve had been telling Robin for the past hour as they wandered the streets seemingly without aim.

“Rob, we should just buy the tickets and see his band! What’s the worst that can happen?”

“We lose our hearing to people who can’t play their instruments properly, you get rejected publicly, someone throws up on us, we wind up in the mosh pit and you get your THIRD concussion, someone spills their drink on me, or on you, you get recognised and publicly ridiculed for wearing a goddamn sweater vest to a metal gig because I saw you pack your bag what in god’s name, Steven.”

“It’s comfortable.” Steve grumbled in response, momentarily subdued by all of her good points “at least it’s monotonal.” It was a grey knit number, one of his softest. “And I was gonna put a black shirt under it.”

“Yep, no, we’re not doing that, you’re not wearing that. If we must go to the gig and I do mean if we must, you’re going to need another outfit, so we’re going to spend today shopping for that, then head back to the apartment and strategize. We can divide and conquer, you take one half of the city, I’ll take the other, we meet in the middle for coffee.”

“…One half of a city. Where even is the middle of it? How is that a plan?”

“Not the best first plan but it’s the planning stage of the plan, and the planning stage is AFTER shopping, so don’t judge the plan until the planning stage of the plan.”

“You said plan a lot.”

“Less talk more thrift shop, let’s go.” His hand grabbed and away they went. It didn’t matter how rich he was, Robin loved thrift shopping, and after meeting her and knocking down her walls of distrust and uncertainty until they became practically joined at the hip platonic soulmates, finding out how many little treasures you could actually find in those shops, he kind of loved it too. It was an experience he wouldn’t have ever gotten without her, an experience that only added to the down to earth personality that’d developed as he grew older with her.

He didn’t know who he’d be without Robin… probably the same douchebag everyone kind of expected him to be. The douchebag he’d been in his teen years perhaps, partying, drinking, doing drugs, trying to be something he wasn’t to impress the people around him when all they cared about was the vestiges of fame trickling from his being.

Perhaps she’d saved his life by just being there. So he’d indulge a little tomfoolery for her sake.

Even if it did wind up with his feet hurting and his arms aching carrying bags of things he’d never ever wear but might have to for true love, trudging down some random street while Robin looked for some weird non-chain coffee shop because Starbucks held no soul.

“Robin can we just— look, right there, Starbucks, we can go in Starbucks, it’ll be fine, in and out!”

“I’m not going in Starfucks, there’s always some idiot instagraming the weird spelling of their name on the cup as if it’s not a Starbucks ploy to get them free advertising.”

“Or someone claiming to be Voldemort as if the barista would actually shout “he who must not be named” for the brief moment of twitter fame reporting it would bring them.”

“Or tacky mass-produced merch.”

“Or overpriced desserts that aren’t worth it.”

“Or—Ooh!! Lookie, there’s one!” They probably could have gone on for longer, but Robin spotted the little brown shop with large dark windows at the end of the street with a hanging sign outside similar to one found on old bars only this one had two coffee beans on it with the word The Roast written in cursive around the beans. And up close it looked like every rustic coffee shop ever made.

Simple, lots of browns and warm white lighting.

“Down the road from a Starbucks? That’s a gutsy business move.” Steve hummed with the most basic amount of interest as he entered through the door Robin held open for him.

“Honestly you’re never more than a stones throw away from a Starbucks, pick any direction I bet we’ll find another within two blocks.”

“That’s fair.” They made it all the way to the counter where a lone, bored employee leaned heavily against the thick wooden countertop, flicking through a magazine of some kind, the board above him strewn with funnily named coffee drinks and little doodles to match them, Steve found his eyes drawn to that while the Barista released a deep

“Welcome to The Roast, what can I get for you?” Without looking up from his magazine.

“Alright, I’ll have a uhm—ow—Robin, what—ow would you stop elbowing me?”

“Steve.”

“What?” He followed her pointer finger to the man now looking at him with the widest, brownest, most beautiful Bambi eyes he’d ever seen in his goddamn life and all thoughts just kind of drifted away, replaced with the single word… pretty. “Oh…Hello...”

Part 7

[sixpossumsinatrenchcoat]

Natural Satellite [ch 13]

An In Stars and Time AU. In ch 13, Loop deflects. Siffrin spirals. Isabeau tries to keep up. You can start from chapter one here.

Isabeau nearly jumps out of his skin. “W-Woah!!! Sif!!!” “Yes?” “You’re—wow, you’re like, really quiet!!” “Yes.” Sif flops down in the grass, patting around vaguely till they find a thick-ish branch. They snap it in half with a startling crack, eye it thoughtfully, and then halve it again before unsheathing their dagger. ...Huh. They’re whittling again, even though they know their work won’t outlast the loop. Which means they want to talk about something. “What’s up, Sif?” “The canopy.” “Annnd…?” Sif’s blade digs into the wood, scraping off a long, curling shaving. “And I thought we should talk about Wish Craft.”

[isat spoilers / 2 hats spoilers / spoilers thru act 6]

Isabeau has, like, at least a million questions.

If Loop—(Sif???) (No, they chose the name Loop; that has to matter)—is really some alternate version of Siffrin, then… what? What? What??? What would that even mean??? And why would they keep it a secret from Sif? What’s the point in keeping secrets from yourself?

Of course Isa isn’t going to rat them out. It’s not his place. And he’s definitely not gonna confront them about their past. What kind of a crab could look at someone who Changed that much and try to talk to the person they used to be? Loop is Loop now. Isabeau is totally cool with that.

…He’s just a little confused about why there are two of them.

Isabeau knows how it feels to Change. But it’s not like he walked out of the House holding hands with the kid he used to be. One person can’t become two people. That’s not how it works. (That’s not how anything works.)

He needs to talk to Loop. Luckily, he’s in the right place. There should be at least a few minutes before Siffrin catches up. Longer, if Sif stops to talk to Mira. It’s not ideal, but it should be enough to get at least a few answers.

“Loop!” he gasps, when he spots them.

“What do you want,” Loop asks sourly.

“N-Nothing!! I’m just a little confused, is all!”

“Okay.”

“And… I guess I was hoping you could help with that?”

Loop gives him a close-eyed smile. “Optimistic!”

“I’m just, um. I… guess I’m having a hard time getting my head around it?”

Loop’s eyes snap open. “Why? Because I don’t hang on your every word? Because I’m not some cute little puppy, like your Siffrin?”

“What? No! Because why are there two of you???”

He watches Loop draw themself up to snap at him and then just—settle back into their seat. “Oh.”

Yeah, oh. “So. You know. Why are there two of you?”

“Does it matter?”

“And how do you look so different? Body Craft is, I mean, it’s pretty advanced, but I don’t think it’s possible to—I mean—I’m pretty sure you’re made of light?”

Loop examines their hands, the white shining from under their nails. “It certainly seems that way, doesn’t it?”

“And—” This one is embarrassing, but he can’t help it. “W-Why wouldn’t you tell me?”

“…Why would I?”

Yeah, Isabeau probably could’ve seen that coming. “Are you seriously not going to answer any of my questions?”

“I’d have thought that would be obvious.” Loop narrows their eyes at him. “Don’t you have any manners? This is Vaugarde. It’s rude to ask someone about who they used to be.”

Wow, they are really not making this easy! “I’m not— I don’t care that you Changed. Or, I mean, it’s great! If you’re happy, I’m happy! I just… I mean… It kinda seems like you aren’t, though?”

Loop’s face hardens. “I don’t want to talk about this with you.”

“Well, who do you wanna talk to?”

“No one! Ever!!! Till the end of time!!!!”

Isabeau groans. “Look, I didn’t wanna play this card, but you just really don’t seem like you’re doing very well…”

“What impressive powers of perception! Your parents must be proud.”

“…and I guess it seems like you’re cool with that, but I’m not, so I think you probably have to talk to someone, so… i-if you really won’t talk to me, then—” He grimaces, bracing for the worst. “I… think I might have to tell Sif.”

To his surprise, Loop just rolls their eyes. “Knock yourself out. I’m sure he’ll be soooo~ surprised.”

“Wh— Huh???”

“Why are you acting like that?” Loop asks grumpily. “You just said it just last loop. That they guessed who I was, and he thought I was probably him.”

“B-But that’s just a theory!”

“Oh, grow up. How long did it take you to clock me? Three loops? Maybe four? He’s been here for hundreds.”

(“Hund—????”)

“They have all the pieces. He’s just deluding himself because he doesn’t like the implication.”

He almost doesn’t want to ask, but… “What implication?”

Loop smiles nastily. “That—”

“Oh, good,” Siffrin says, from immediately behind him. “You’re already here.”

Isabeau nearly jumps out of his skin. “W-Woah!!! Sif!!!”

“Yes?”

“You’re—wow, you’re like, really quiet!!”

“Yes.” Sif flops down in the grass, patting around vaguely till they find a thick-ish branch. They snap it in half with a startling crack, eye it thoughtfully, and then halve it again before unsheathing their dagger.

Huh. They’re whittling again, even though they know their work won’t outlast the loop. Which means they want to talk about something. “What’s up, Sif?”

“The canopy.”

“Annnd…?”

Sif’s blade digs into the wood, scraping off a long, curling shaving. “And I thought we should talk about Wish Craft.”

“It sounds like you should talk about Wish Craft,” Loop sniffs. “You are the only one who knows the rituals.”

Isabeau gives them a look, but doesn’t argue.

“I don’t think that’s right, though,” Sif mutters. “My wish wasn’t even related. And, I mean… do I know the rituals?”

“You knew the right numbers,” Isa points out. “And the chanting and stuff.”

“Right, but it can’t be that simple. If repeating was all it took, then I’d still have that toilet paper.”

Isabeau stares.

Unexpectedly, Loop stares, too. “Come again?”

“The toilet paper,” Sif says again. “Didn’t you see? In the bathroom on the third floor.”

“I don’t watch you pee, stardust. Gross.”

“Wait,” Isabeau interjects, “I’m sorry, I just… You can do Wish Craft by peeing?”

“Piss Craft,” Sif says, apparently on reflex, and then glares. “I mean, no. Obviously not. Will you just listen?”

Isabeau shuts his mouth obligingly. He’s listening.

* * *

You don’t like that Isabeau is talking to Loop now. You can feel that something’s shifted between them, and you don’t like that, either. But at least Isa still mostly does what you tell him.

“I’m saying I didn’t do Wish Craft,” you explain. “I did the wanting, and the repeating, and it didn’t do anything. I didn’t get what I…”

. . . Wait.

What did you repeat, exactly? It definitely wasn’t “toilet paper, toilet paper, toilet paper.” What were your exact words? You asked it to come with you. No. To loop back with you. And you said—

You said you didn’t want to be alone.

(“S-Sif?” Isa says nervously. “You’re, um. You should probably be careful?”

You follow his gaze toward your hands. You’ve reduced the whole branch to sawdust. You flip your knife shut and brush off your knees in disgust.)

You said you didn’t want to be alone. And you’re not alone anymore, are you? Someone’s looping back with you, but it’s not the blinding toilet paper.

“Oh, Stars,” you mumble. “I did it.”

Loop wheezes. “What, really? Piss Craft?”

“No!! Shut up!! Will you both just shut up and listen? I’m saying that I—” Stars, but it hurts to admit. “It’s— Isa, he’s… It was my fault. I’m the reason he remembers.”

Isabeau’s eyes widen. “Wait, but… are you saying, um. D-Does that mean you wished for me?”

Right. Of course he’d ask that. You squeeze your eyes shut, cringing. “Not… exactly?”

“Toilet paper??????”

“I just wanted something I could hold!!” you say defensively. “I was losing my mind!! I was tired and alone and tired of being alone and I couldn’t make anyone touch me and I was just—so blinding tired of dying that I… yes. Yes. Toilet paper.”

For some reason, Isabeau looks even more confused. “W-Wait, what?”

“I said I wanted something I could hold.”

Loop stops laughing for just long enough to choke out, “Wrong sentence, stardust.”

You frown at them, running over your lines in your mind. It all seems pretty self-explanatory. “What?”

“You—” Isabeau’s face is quickly changing color. “You, um. You… wanted us to touch you?”

Oh. Oh, no.

You can read the rest of ch 13 here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/53412649/chapters/139473697 Or start from the beginning here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/53412649/chapters/135189547

[lizzyscribbles]

Today’s MHA thought is brought to you as I watch the livestream of the Wisdom Saga from Epic the Musical. Go take a listen, I’m sure it’s gonna be great.

Honestly I have no transition into today’s thought so we’re just gonna move along here we go.

Lizzy’s MHA thought of the night: Yoichi and All for One’s relationship and why I think it’s brilliant.

Let it be said, All for One is a fantastic villain. I think he’s well written in the sense that I absolutely, positively, HATE him. He is an absolute asshole and he has very little reason to be. Does he have a tragic past? Ehhh, kind of? But I would argue that he started screwing people over in the womb, so I have a hard time feeling bad for him when it kinda seems like a lot of his issues were his own doing. But that’s why I like him, because he doesn’t have that super sympathetic backstory and he doesn’t have much of a reason to be an asshole other than “I want to win and see people suffer :D”. Now don’t get me wrong, I LOVE a sympathetic villain (see my posts on Touya and Toga) but I also love to see a villain that is just evil for the sake of being evil.

However, I don’t doubt that he probably has some kind of personality disorder, plus he did have to entirely raise himself, and if we pile the theory that quirks influence personality on top of it, you don’t get a pretty picture. It’s an interesting look at the nature vs. nurture debate in a world like this. It was a perfect storm of genetics and circumstances that made All for One, a terrible turn of events to be sure.

And yet, despite being twins, Yoichi doesn’t turn into a psychopathic maniac. It’s honestly wild, and a kind of psychological circumstance that fascinates me. And, let's be honest, it's not out of the realm of possibility that AFO is partially to thank for that. After all, he took care of Yoichi like, straight out of the womb. However, what gets me more is their relationship.

It’s messy, it’s toxic, and it’s a little weird, but it’s so unique because we rarely see it done like this. It’s codependency at its worst, more so on All for One’s side, though he’d never admit that.

It really begs the question, why? Why was All for One SO obsessed with his brother? By all accounts, his brother only ever stood in his way and screwed with his plans. He was a hindrance, even when they were kids, so why keep him around?

To be honest, I’m not entirely sure. I think a part of it is Psychological Reactance (which I talk a bit about in my post on Toga), basically, it’s a common reaction in humans when you tell them they can’t do or have something. It’s often rooted in control, we don’t like to loose control of anything, and so we automatically act out to make sure our control is preserved. It’s emotional and behavioral, and we know All for One LOVES his control just as much as he loves his quirks.

And you know what else he loved? He loved Yoichi, and in a way he could never love anyone else. And maybe Yoichi loved him too, I think he did, but he loved him enough to tell him he was utterly wrong even when his brother wouldn’t listen. So, here’s this one thing he genuinely doesn’t want to loose because it’s the one thing he can never replace and it wants to leave?? Excuse???

Here’s what I think, I think Yoichi was the only thing he ever really lost control of.

Yes, I think his twisted sense of love had a part in him chasing his brother across generations, but I also think All for One could not handle the idea that he lost control of something he actually cared about.

We see in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs that our most basic needs above physical are relational. Family, friends, safety, belonging, those aren’t things that are plentiful when you’re a dictator. Yoichi was there with him from the beginning, he fulfilled that need in some capacity.

We’re all afraid of losing things, especially those we love the most, it’s human nature. No matter how powerful you are, you can’t substantiate real human connection.

The day All for One lost Yoichi was the day he lost the only genuine relationship he had, it’s not surprising he spent the next few centuries trying to get it back.

…

I had fun with that one! Imma do one one Yoichi one of these days, because I love him and he deserves it, but for now I’m gonna go enjoy the Wisdom Saga and plan out a little Yoichi one shot I’ve had bouncing around in my head for a while.

[ratwife77]

well if you're ok with itt

darry and twobit getting into a physical fight (bc greasers), darry realizing he liked taking his anger out on him, and promptly feeling like the worst person alive for like a week and can't even look at twobit even tho he doesnt care and is back joking around like an hour after the fight LOL

Just letting you know my fight scenes aren’t great so it’s gonna start with the aftermath of it, also I’m sorry in advance idk how Dallas got involved here and there is a minor minor oc also this may be put on ao3, this is a sort of rough draft subject to change, I hope you enjoy

What on Earth is the matter with me, I thought, sure I was nuts. Of course I’d fought before, but it was only for pride. I didn’t just like hurting people. But when Two-Bit and I were going at it, I felt angry. Not at him, but I was taking it out on him, there was no doubt about it. Looking over at him, cackling over his own joke, I knew that he was probably just hiding feeling bad. He hid plenty under witty comments and put-on smiles. My gut twisted at that, and I couldn’t look at him anymore, feeling sick with myself as I washed the dishes. Cleaning up gave me plenty of time to think about all I’d done, and I just clenched my fists harder the more I thought about it.

When he eventually left, I was still trying to rationalize it all, but I figured I at least owed him a goodbye. “Bye, Two-Bit.”

He called one back and headed off.

It was messed up, feeling glad that he was gone, but I was. I couldn’t bear facing him. My buddy, who I enjoyed hurting. Ain’t that just awful? But I did have to go to bed and be ready for work in the morning, so I tried to sleep. My mind was racing, though, and sleep just wasn’t coming no matter how hard I tried. Deciding that I may as well be productive while I was awake, I sat at the table and paid the bills that I’d been planning on doing tomorrow. It took me an hour or two longer than usual, though, because I couldn’t focus like I wanted.

When I’d finally finished, I laid back down and shut my eyes, finally passing out, exhausted. Thank the Lord, I got up on time and got to work with no trouble. Robert, a guy from the roofing business, probably five years older than me, said, “You don’t look too good. You okay?”

I cursed myself for being so obvious. “Right as rain, thanks for asking.”

Carefully, I made myself at least look right, though I couldn’t get myself to stop thinking about the mess with Two. Damn it, I thought, I’m the worst person in Tulsa.

I went on thinking like that for a good week or so, but one night, Dally came to our house, looking for a place to lay over for the night. Letting him in, I asked if he was hungry, telling him we had leftovers. He gave me a real funny look. “I’m starving.” Slowly, he looked over me, looking like he was about to say something. I grabbed a plate from the counter, then pulled out the leftovers, fixing him some. For a moment, I was distracted, focusing on helping him.

“Darry, you look like you’ve been through the mill.” Blunt as ever, he had his eyebrows scrunched together and I felt bare. Usually, I held it together, but nothing weighed me down more than worry and guilt. At least Pony hadn’t noticed, I guess. But now, I’m not sure if he just wasn’t sure about asking. Soda had asked, and he looked worried, but I brushed him off.

I hadn’t answered quick enough, accidentally giving myself away. “You haven’t looked right since we were all over last week.. Ain’t ya been eatin’ and sleepin’?”

“Sure I have, Dally.”

“What is it, then? You’re Superman, you can’t be like this over nothin’.”

Eventually, he wore me down enough to tell him. I think he thought I was being ridiculous.

But he insisted, “Shoot, it’s a good way to blow off steam. Me and Tim do it all the time.” As if he could see my hesitation, he continued, “You ought to calm down. It ain’t a big deal. Buddies fight sometimes, keeps us sane.”

I realized that I’d taken it too seriously, and I’d been too hard on myself. Slowly, it became easier to look at Two-Bit and to roughhouse.

——————————————————————————

Also I would’ve done Tim instead of Dally but honestly it would have been wayyyy out of character so I think this is better quality

[hopefully-nightly-doodles]

I don’t really post vent art here but I decided I o post this one cuz well… Honestly it’s mostly cuz I can’t sleep and have a lot of thoughts circling my head right now…

Vent hidden just incase people don’t wanna get depressed reading my wall of text sndbdj

I used to talk a lot in my twitter and I do have a priv that I had posted this vent art on weeks ago but idk- Twitter has become such a toxic space its hard to be active there even in my private account. Well actually its hard to be active anywhere for me, but if you’re a long time follower you probably already know that. I’m a hermit, and very much an introvert with a weird social battery. Every time someone tells me they think I was an extrovert I always get so confused by it-

I don’t even know where I’m going with this or if it will ever see the light of day, but it can’t hurt to try and process feelings right?

Im not going to go into detail on to what made me draw this or the full extent of what’s been happening cuz its complicated as fuck- But I can try and dissect how I’ve been feeling or at least try to. For the past month or maybe more I’ve been tipping back and forth on my mental health, and at the end of May the scales finally tipped over for the worst and I did something so fukin stupid. It was a snap instant regret kinda moment and I knew I fucked up big time. While yes, there were outside things that happened and build up turmoil months prior that got me to that point of mental deterioration before the snap, its on me to have let myself get that bad in the first place.

I should have taken more breaks when I knew I was pushing myself constantly, draining myself constantly. I should have been more firm with my boundaries whenever I mentioned them and should have been better at communicating the hurt and stress and pressure thats been building up before it all came crashing down.

People always say “love yourself before you love others”, and on a logical and fundamental level I always understand why. At least I think I do… But to deeply understand what it actually meant I knew I only had, at best, a foggy grasp of it. And since what’s happened recently I kinda get a little why now. People who are hurt will always end up hurting other people when that hurt is ignored or not properly processed.

And thats what happened to me. I hurt someone I really cared about and I feel gross and unbelievably disappointed in myself for it.

It doesn’t matter how hard you try to be better for others or to be there for people and be kind and supportive to them. Those acts of service and kindness, tho genuine, isn’t going to fill the hole in your heart that you aren’t giving that kind of support to yourself. It’s so self destructive and will leave you to grow bitter from the inside out. And thats why it was so hard to see, and why I didn’t notice till it was too late. Cuz on the outside I look and acted fine, but inside i was deteriorating so much that I got to a point I couldn’t not see it anymore. And in a desperate cry for help I tried to open about it and explain int the worst way possible up but snapped, crossed a boundary I shouldn’t have then ran away.

And I don’t mean snap like get angry, I meant like snap as in I had a mental break that led to the worst tunnel visioned, impulsive fueled action afterwards. Its so hard for me to get genuine angry at people and when I do I walk away to cool down. I at least have some comfort knowing I didn’t unleash burning hot fury on someone cuz I think I might actually puke if I get to that point. That I have become that kind of person. But anger isn’t the only way you can hurt someone and I feel like what I did was kinda worse then plain anger.

Since that happened I just been away from almost everything. I mean I know isolation isn’t the solution so I kept a couple of friends close to have a support system to help me through this. But I did it to think and process everything that happened and has happened before hand that led to that point. And I haven’t just been overthinking and sulking and mopping in the mess I made because honestly who does that help really? I guess that’s what lead me here, to making a tumblr post on my dump account at 7am in the morning. To pick apart my feelings and toss it into the void.

Well that and 2 other reasons… That part where I was talking about being disgusted by myself? Yeh well thoughts of me “erasing myself form the equation” and just snipping connections left and right had pop up in my head more times that in has ever been recently. Cuz you know if ***I’m*** the problem then haha I probably wouldn’t be missed then!

But then two people check up on me and like I shit you not I started crying on the spot. Actually sobbing (but not too loud cuz I can’t cry in this house hold) because oh wow not everyone hates me. Like yes I had my support system and they are doing gods work, they are lovely beautiful human beings and love and adore them! but it’s different when someone you weren’t expecting checks up on you, to know you occupy a space in their head and to hear and see that they cared enough about you to check.

One of them was a friend from a new more recent friend group I had been in when I joined a new fandom. Me and that person hadn’t been particularly close nor talked too much but I loved their company whenever we did get the chance. I wish I talked more to them but time zones and my own social anxiety kinda prevented that so that is something to work on. And the 2nd one was from an old friend I kinda drifted away from a lil, cuz again I moved fandoms, but was very close with. They have absolutely no clue about my current situation but actually checked up on me cuz of uh… The territorial tension between China and the Philippines hdkdbsjsb. It was so out of nowhere and unexpected like they didn’t even have my alt discord to message me but they found a way so I was kinda just super touched-

And those two interactions plus my awesome friends who have been a great support system, that keep me centered and grounded. Im reminded that people do care and that one mistake doesn’t make me scum of the world no matter how loud my toxic thoughts screams it at me. Especially not when I am trying to be better and recognize the mistakes I made and even apologized before taking my break from most my contacts. No one has even called me that but myself cuz Im so quick to be hard on myself for any mistakes.

All I can do now is keep myself centered, allow myself to feel my complicated feelings and process them in a healthy manner, do my best to be better moving forward, and to be patient with myself and move at my own pace.

Hey if you got this far into reading, wow you must have a lot of free time! /lh jdkdjdhdjdhd-

That or you’re just really interested in how I’ve been. I’ve been called mysterious, aloof and hard to read before so maybe you wanted to know what actually goes on upstairs lol.

But either way here’s a little something for reading I guess. The words in the vent art is actually lyrics and this was the song I was listening too when I was making it. Additionally if you’re feeling sad and need a song to listen to try this, it helps me process emotions. Either way if you happen to stumble on this, I hope you get something form this and that you have a nice day.

[fandomficsnstuff]

Full Boat

(Warnings: Angst, more angst… you guys can probably tell that this isn’t a happy chapter just based on the title but it’s not the worst, that’ll be the next chapter, sorry my lovelies!<3)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Daisy sprinted to the gate at the first mention of a car approaching, making it in time to see Rick step out, managing to get a few words in with Abraham before she reached them “where are they? Where’s everyone? Did you find Carol? What about Glenn and Michonne? Where’s Morgan? Where’s my uncle?” her rapid fire questions barely stopped, her lungs aching for air as she panted “well? Where are they? Are they okay? Where’s my uncle?” she asked rapidly, Rick glancing at Abraham, it was brief, but the old soldier scoffed and shook his head “I’m not doin’ that, I kinda like livin’” he muttered, making Daisy frown and Rick sighed, placing a hand on her shoulder, guiding her away from the gate before turning to face her. “Daisy-”

“Is she dead…?... Are they dead?” she asked in a weak voice and Rick halted, looking up from the ground to look at her, studying her. Her eyes had the start of tears in them, her jaw clenched as she tried to stay strong, her chest rising and falling a little more heavily, indicating that she was breathing harder, just a little bit. “No, no they’re not dead” he quickly stated, Daisy letting out a shaky breath of relief as she nodded “okay… okay, so what now? Do we get more people? I’m ready. I can track, uncle Daryl taught me to track, I can find her-”

“Daisy-”

“I can!... And my uncle, he-... he knows what he’s doing and I’m SO mad at him right now but he knows what he’s doing, whatever it is, but we only have a few hours of daylight left and I know that I can find her-”

“Morgan is already looking for her, Daisy-”

“But I can help-”

“Please-”

“Don’t make me sit with my thumb up my ass while my family is scattered!” she snapped, a single tear running down her cheek and Rick realized something. She wasn’t afraid of dying, she wasn’t afraid of killing, she wasn’t scared of the walkers. She was scared to be alone. That her family would be alone. That any of them would be standing alone through the night, having to watch their own back, having to look out for themselves without anyone there to comfort them, to hold them, to make them smile and laugh and make them feel safe, make them feel like they weren’t alone in this new, brutal world. That’s what she was afraid of. Not death, not killing, but her family being scattered and alone. “It’s okay-”

“Last time we were scattered like this we almost got eaten! Dr. S died, Hershel died, everyone died and we were alone and scattered! Glenn was sick, Tara was hurt, we weren’t together and that’s why we all almost died, one way or another. We’re a family. Families aren’t meant to split up and go whatever way they want! Not like this! Families are meant to stick together! To be there for each other, tell each other to not be stupid and tell them that everything will be okay, and that can’t happen if we’re all across the map! How are we meant to keep each other safe when we’re not around?! So don’t tell me to not worry, uncle Rick, because I should be worried. So should you. Running off in whatever direction leaves us scattered and weak and vulnerable and we’re not safe.”

“What are you talking about? Of course we are-”

“Nowhere is safe, Rick!” she echoed the words he’d told Carl at the church, before Alexandria, and Rick’s entire expression softened with regret “I shouldn’t have said that… I didn’t know this place existed, a place where we could be safe… I know it’s hard-”

“You don’t-”

“No, I do, Daisy” Rick stated, making her look up at him and he sighed “it’s okay to be scared, it’s okay to be mad at the world. All you gotta do is trust us to come back to you, alright? No matter what, we’ll come back home again, I promise” Rick stated softly and Daisy studied him before nodding ever so slightly, Rick pulling her into a tight hug, giving the top of her head a peck “go on, it’s getting late, it’ll be dark in a few hours. Go home” he stated softly, Daisy smiling ever so slightly at the word. ‘Home’. She had a home. She nodded and parted from him, Rick smirking at her as he saw that she was in a slightly better mood. “Say hi to Maggie for me” he called after her and she nodded and smiled before jogging back to the house.

She arrived just in time to see Enid behind Maggie with scissors, her hair much shorter and she lifted up a mirror, both of them not having noticed her. “I like it” Enid said softly, Daisy feeling a pang of jealousy in her gut but she smiled “me too” she stated, the two of them looking at her and Daisy walked over, Maggie smiling at her before looking back in the mirror. “Why?” Daisy asked, Maggie smiling up at her “because we have to keep going. And I don’t want anything gettin’ in my way, or yours” she stated softly, reaching for Daisy’s hand who welcomed the gesture, giving her hand a squeeze. Suddenly Maggie put the mirror down, crouching over a little where she was sitting. “Man, did I cut it too short?” Enid asked with panic and Daisy shook her head, looking from Maggie to Enid “I don’t think-” Daisy was cut off as Maggie moaned in pain, Daisy’s eyes widening “get someone!”

“Who?”

“Anyone! Please, Enid, get someone!” Daisy yelled as Maggie fell to the floor in pain, Enid bolting out the door as Daisy sat with Maggie who whimpered and groaned in pain.

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

Everyone was so transfixed by the man hanging from the bridge, being forced to watch him choke to death, that they flinched when an arrow pierced the man’s head from the other side, all of them turning to look at the RV where Daisy stood, lowering her bow with a frown, still staring up at the man as they approached “why did-”

“I can make new arrows” she replied softly, looking between them before looking back up at the man “besides, doing that? Making sure that man wouldn’t suffer when he’s done nothing to us, it’s still who we are” she muttered, turning around to walk back into the RV when the logs blocking the road began to burn, a frown on her brows as she felt her heart race.

“You’re treating your people good, right? Like it was your last day on earth? Or maybe one of theirs?” a voice called out from behind the burning logs, Daisy quietly nocking an arrow, about to move to the woods where she’d get some cover to climb up and see them when Carl stopped her, catching her by her elbow and when she turned to look at him, he placed his hand on hers, the one holding her arrow on the bowstring, and instantly she relaxed, the arrow back in it’s quiver, leaving her hand free to interlock with his as they both looked back at the burning logs.

“You better go, it’s gonna get hot. You go get where you’re going” the voice called out again, Daisy squeezing Carl’s hand in an attempt to hold herself back, and Carl squeezed it right in return, grounding her, which they both were keenly aware of. “Go… go” Rick ordered and Daisy hesitated before allowing Carl to drag her by her hand towards the RV, only letting go once they were there and Daisy was getting up into the RV before him.

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

Daisy approached Eugene as he talked with Rick, her heart still racing a little as she approached, Rick noticing her lingering, hesitating, and he turned to her “Daisy?”

“Sorry, I just-... could I-?” she asked, gesturing to Eugene and Rick nodded, although rather surprised. He finished up with Eugene before leaving, Daisy walking over hesitantly, fiddling with her hands in the dark “listen, uhm… just-... be safe, or-... something” she muttered awkwardly, Eugene nodding “I will, thank you. I promise I will keep them thinking we’re playing their game.”

“What did you give Rick?”

“A recipe on how to build bullets” Eugene answered plainly, Daisy’s brows lifting in shock as she nodded “wow, okay… thanks… just, you know… you’re like the one who knows how and it’s not like we can’t read but-... you know, just… don’t die” she muttered, about to walk off when Eugene nodded “I will do my utmost not to do so, Delilah-”

“Daisy. You can-... you can call me Daisy, if you want” she stated awkwardly before catching up with the others before he could reply, Eugene feeling a strange sense of… belonging. She was the only one to not accept him with them, the only one who still held his previous lies against him, refusing to let him call her what everyone else did. Until now. She passed right by Abraham who walked up to Eugene next, Daisy walking over to stand next to Carl who was smirking “are you feeling okay?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Because I think you were just being nice to Eugene” he teased and she rolled her eyes, shoving his shoulder playfully as he grinned, Daisy trying to hide her own grin, Rick watching the two of them with a soft smile as he carried out Maggie while Carl and Daisy kept watch. “They’re good for each other” Maggie managed to croak out, Rick looking down at her as he chuckled quietly, nodding “yeah, they are…”

“They’re the reason for all of this, all that we’ve done, all we wanted to do, all the things we plan to do, the things we want for them” she added weakly, Rick smirking at her, nodding towards her stomach “so is that baby you’re carrying” he stated softly and she smiled faintly at him before closing her eyes to try and rest some. “I’ll take the rear, you take the front” Daisy whispered softly to Carl, Carl nodding, about to walk up ahead when he halted, looking over at his dad before looking back at Daisy who frowned at him with a hint of worry as to why he was still standing there. “What-”

“Enid’s not my girlfriend, you know” he stated as though he’d been wanting to shout that for years now, Daisy’s back straightened a little and she looked… wounded… “okay…”

“I don’t like her. I mean-... I don’t like her that way.”

“I think she does…”

“But I don’t like her like that.”

“Carl, why are you-”

“I don’t like her like that because-... because I think I like you like that” he stated, somehow a little breathlessly and Daisy stared at him with wide eyes, tightening her grip on her bow as she just stared at him through the darkness “just-... thought you should know” he was about to turn around when she grabbed him by the collar of his shirt, yanking him closer and the second he was close enough, she carefully placed a kiss on the corner of his mouth, lingering there hesitantly before stepping back and letting go of him, looking around as though nothing had ever happened, as though she hadn’t just semi-kissed him. Her cheeks felt as though they were going to melt from how hot they were and she gestured ahead “you take the front. I’ll take the rear” she stated, avoiding his gaze while Carl was grinning like an idiot, making her blush even more “go! Maggie is sick!” she snapped with feigned annoyance, Carl nodding to himself, still with a very pleased smile on his lips, and walked ahead, Daisy wiping at her cheeks as though it’d wipe off the heat from them.

She listened in only partially to Carl’s conversation with his father, eventually tuning out as she walked beside Abraham, an arrow nocked and ready on her bowstring. “That thing’s startin’ to look a little raggedy, ain’t it?” Abraham asked jokingly and she frowned, looking down at her bow before shrugging lightly “uncle Daryl hasn’t taught me how to make one yet.”

“There hasn’t been time, has there?” he asked rhetorically, Daisy smiling a little “how are things with you and Sasha?”

“Oh, you askin’ ‘bout us now so I won’t ask about your little romantic spur-of-the-moment stunt back there?”

“Yes” Abraham chuckled quietly at her quick and assertive answer, nodding to himself “alright then. They’re-... good. I ain’t good at words, sweetheart” he stated with a hint of awkwardness and Daisy chuckled lightly “and you think I’m a word person?” she asked jokingly, Abraham was about to laugh a little when they all heard distant whistling, Daisy’s heart sinking and she quietly jogged up to Carl and Rick’s side, looking at them and Rick looked a little panicked. “Go. Go!” he urged, Daisy looking over at Maggie before doing as told, the arrow on her bowstring more ready than ever to be fired, the string drawn back with the arrow still on it, all she had to do was let go of it after she found her target, which wasn’t the problem, there were plenty of targets judging by how many people were whistling and the ones she could see in the treeline. The problem was which one would be the wisest one to take down. The whistling grew closer and closer until eventually they ended up past the woods, headlights making them halt and stop, whistling surrounded them, canceling out pretty much all other noise while the headlights blinded them. As they all looked around, trying to look for a way out, she spotted him, her eyes wide and she pulled back on the bowstring, about to let the arrow fly when a gun was held to Eugene’s head, making her stop. “Good! You made it. Welcome to where you’re going” a man stepped forward and Daisy knew that voice. She backed up to stand by Rick and Carl, her arrow turned to face the man instead of Eugene’s guards. “We’ll take your weapons,” Daisy pulled the string further back at the sound of this, ready to let it fire when she heard a quiet voice “Delilah” she turned her head to look at Sasha, holding eye contact with her before reluctantly lowering her bow, Daisy’s grip on it growing tighter and tighter with every inch that it was lowered.

“Delilah?” she spun around at the sound of her voice, her eyes wide in shock at the person she saw. Her heart felt like stopping, a mix of rage and relief clashing inside of her and she felt like it’d tear her apart before she could find out which one won. “Delilah, baby?? Oh my god…” the woman nearly sobbed, Daisy staring at her in utter shock.

“Momma?” Daisy’s voice was broken and fragile as she stared at the woman. “Awww, ain’t that sweet?? It’s a family reunion!” the leader said loudly with a grin, clapping his hands together as the woman approached Daisy, weapons down as she moved to embrace her but Daisy lifted her bow again, aiming the arrow at her as tears formed in her eyes. “Baby… it’s me-”

“I know who you are” Daisy muttered quietly, turning to look at the leader before lowering her bow and arrow, throwing it at his feet before looking back at the woman “I know exactly who you are” she added quietly as Rick pleaded with the leader. As their weapons were being taken from her, she raised her hands, letting them take her weapons before stepping back to stand next to Carl, a look of anger and hurt on her face and she kept her gaze locked on the woman until the leader began to taunt Carl. “Is this yours?... Yeah, it’s yours” he mocked, Daisy glaring at him but when he poked Carl’s hat was when she tried to do something, Carl grabbing her hand the second she flinched, both of them squeezing each other’s hands tightly, rage coursing through their veins. As Rick kneeled, so did Sasha and Aaron, Daisy turning to look at Carl who looked at her, their hands still interlocked. “Come on, Romeo and Juliet” the leader rushed, Carl having to squeeze her hand even tighter to ground her, to keep her from trying to tear the man’s throat out with her teeth. Slowly, she sank to her knees beside Carl, her heart racing, body shaking with a mix of fear and anger and she turned her gaze to the woman who was still staring at her, her eyes filled with… if Daisy’s didn’t know any better, she’d call it worry on Daisy’s behalf. But she did know better. As the doors to a van were opened, her eyes widened at what she saw and Carl had to wrap his arms around her to keep her in place when she saw the people who were forced out of the van, especially since one of them was wounded. Carl could almost feel her heart racing against his arm as he held her back, her eyes wide, body shaking even more as it was obvious that she tried to hold back her sobs. 

As soon as Daryl saw her, his eyes widened and he was about to get up when Daisy lifted her hands “no! Stay, stay! I’m okay, I’m okay” she sobbed, leaning into Carl’s side when she saw all the blood, Carl holding her close as she bit her lip to not sob, the taste of iron filling her mouth. “Alright! We got a full boat! Let’s meet the man” the man speaking knocked on the RV door, Daisy’s heart in her throat as she held on to Carl tightly, her hand coming up to scratch furiously behind her ear and when Carl managed to get her hand to stop, he saw blood under her nails when he pulled her hand back, it seemed she was not even aware of it herself.

[muse-write]

Here’s a little scene I wrote about my Jedi Knight and Imperial Agent characters in SWTOR. No knowledge of the game necessary as long as you basically understand Star Wars.

Kaadja sighed and let her lightsaber retract back into its hilt. She slumped against the largest stone nearby, no longer afraid or suspicious. Her shoulders ached. “Why do we keep meeting like this, Jan?”

He kept a hand on his gun, the nice one she had complimented once, but his grip was as lifeless as hers. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance of us working together now, is there?” His voice wasn’t as confident as usual. It broke, like glass shattering under too much pressure. Like a mirror vibrating in the force of an atomic blast.

She shook her head, too weary to answer.

He paced restlessly for a moment, like a hunter searching for prey and finding none weak enough to spend precious time running down, and then he stalked over to her to lean beside her against the rock. His shoulder brushed hers. She didn’t pull away, ashamed at the comfort his presence brought her even now. “You know,” he sighed, “I have orders to kill you.”

She nudged his shoulder. “And yet you keep saving my life. Great job fulfilling the whims of the Dark Side, Cipher.” The attempt at playfulness worked for a second; he gave her a weak smile. It faded a moment later. Silence hung around them; soon they would have to decide what to do, who was going to get off this planet, but for now Kaadja let herself breathe in the familiar scent of grass and sand and sun-warmed stone and let the Force strengthen her. A question gradually came to her, so obvious she wondered why she hadn’t bothered asking it before. “Why do you keep me alive?”

She felt him turn and look at her. “It’s not a complicated answer,” he said, just a little disbelievingly. “Why do you keep me alive?”

“Jedi aren’t supposed to kill.”

“But you could. You could do it easily, Jedi Knight Lenare. If you had to.” He sighed and turned back to the vista set out before them, the stars and galaxies swirling in the sky. “And so could I, for that matter, and perhaps with less guilt.”

She almost wanted to laugh; his guilt was there in the Force always, stuffed deep and compartmentalized neatly and covered up with justification and duty, but it was there all the same. “There are no words to describe how little I believe that. Okay, so…so you don’t kill me for guilt, and I don’t kill you for guilt. That can’t be it. Like you said,” she added, feeling weak and nauseous at the very thought of it, but the worst part was that it was true, “we could both do it if we needed to.”

She heard him choke on a laugh and he turned fully away from the sky to look her in the eye. His own were clear and piercing again. “You Jedi are meant to be so wise, but you’re really so oblivious to emotions, aren’t you? I don’t kill you because there’s something between us. Some understanding. I don’t know what it is, exactly, but it’s there. I’m not even Force-sensitive and I can tell that much.”

And it was embarrassing, wholly humiliating, but as soon as he said the words Kaadja knew what he was talking about. Despite Jan’s being imperial, despite his loyalty to an organization Kaadja could only ever see as corrupt, from the moment she had saved his life on Dromund Kaas, there had been an understanding between them. She had recognized something in him that spoke to her, something that had nothing to do with the Force and everything to do with how they would both do whatever it took to protect innocent people. That they were working on opposite sides to do so sometimes seemed to be far less important. Yes, Jan was a high-ranking intelligence officer and she was a Jedi Knight; yes, he had killed people, probably unjustly, and she had naively let a Sith go and lied to the entire Council because he had promised aid in her achieving greatness; yes, Jan was slippery and cunning and would do whatever he could to remove himself from the clutches of the Sith lords using him as pawns and the handlers gripping him tight, and she was desperate to achieve great and noble things without the Council telling her to go here and there cleaning up the messes they could not handle from their table in the Jedi Temple.

Yes, there was a shadow in her that touched the shadow in him, a desperation in her that reached out and recognized a similar desperation in him: the desire to be free.

All of these realizations shot through her in a split second, fast enough that it took her a minute to untangle and comprehend them individually. Jan kept silent beside her. “Alright,” she began, tentatively, “say that there is an…an understanding. Where do we go from here?”

He tilted his head. “Go? We go toward our destinies, the same as always. I have my life and you have yours, and maybe sometimes they can intersect and we can have these quiet moments together, but ultimately it doesn’t change a thing.” He leaned toward her. “We simply have one person we don’t aim at when we’re on opposite sides of a battlefield.”

She met his eyes; this close, she didn’t need the Force to pick up on the unease tightening the corners of his eyes. He was a pragmatist, but not so much of one that he wanted to be saying what he was saying. “I think you’re wrong,” she said simply. “I think this changes a lot of things. I like you, Jan, and I’d like to know you better, and don’t you dare try to say that you don’t think we get along a little too well for a Jedi and an imperial agent. And we can’t figure any of this out in these little moments caught between battles.”

He clenched his jaw. But, importantly, he didn’t refute anything she said. “What’s your solution?”

“I don’t know.” She had a few ideas, but knew he wouldn’t like them any more than she did. “Maybe for now it’ll just have to be this way. Looking for each other on a battlefield and aiming our weapons the opposite direction.” She perked up as another thought came to her. “My droid can set up a secure frequency for our comms. We can talk to each other whenever we’re in a range of proximity.”

His face was expressionless as he thought it over, but she saw a light enter his eyes. “I think,” he said slowly, “I would like that.”

[abeautifulblog]

okie, time to talk about The Witcher season 3 part 1

To be honest, I've been having trouble figuring out what to even say about S3, because it takes longer to unpack what they're doing wrong than it takes them to do it. 

How do you formulate a coherent critique of something that's not? How do you isolate the mistakes so you can discuss them when everything is a mistake? "This plot point was executedly badly, but it was also a misbegotten idea that they shouldn’t have done in the first place"?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

--

So I tend to conceptualize writing as operating on two levels -- the macro/story/structural level, and the line/dialogue level.

On a macro level, are events linked by cause and effect instead of just Happening? Is there a point to the things that happen? Do characters behave in alignment with their personality and motivations? Is it clear what the stakes are?

(In fairness, S2 was far worse on that front than S3 -- the crowning example being the time they moved Yennefer from one setpiece to the next by having her literally fall down a manhole. Cue some pasted-on drama where an extra gets eaten by a sewer monster and then never mentioned again, and what the helllllll was the point of that detour? o_O)

On a line level, does the dialogue flow naturally, one person's line following from what was said before? Does the dialogue successfully evoke the audience-reaction that it's supposed to, is it funny when it's supposed to be funny, profound when it's supposed to be profound? Does it sound like something that would actually come out of a human being's mouth?

Shadowhunters was probably the worst show I ever watched in terms of writing that failed on both fronts, but TWN is a close second.

--

If this were a fic I was beta-reading, I would ask the writer, What's the story you're trying to tell? 

Because this happens to all of us sometimes -- we get too bogged down in the nuts-n-bolts of the story action, what’s happening from scene to scene, and lose sight of the forest for the trees. A good editor (or beta reader) can help you keep an eye on the big picture, and make sure that all the story elements are working in service to your goal, that you're not wandering off track into something irrelevant, or worse, accidentally undermining your own message.

I don't think the writers at TWN know what their story is. Sure, they know the events that happen, but there's no sense of why, neither within the story world, nor why this is a story worth telling in the first place. It feels like an adaptation in the worst sense of the word, hitting predetermined story beats simply because they’re obliged to, because that’s what’s in the source material, not out of any natural plot progression.

With S3, they clearly wanted it to be a high political drama, a web of intrigue!! full of shifting alliances and backstabbing and clever people playing four-dimentional chess, etc, but it was done without any understanding of what politics actually is -- ie, people with conflicting goals attempting to gain and leverage power to achieve those goals. So there's spies and ~scheming~ and assassinations, but no sense of what these people hope to get from it all. You can't create conflicts of interest if you don't know what anyone's interests are.

(And to be blunt, these writers aren't clever enough to write clever characters.)

--

The one instance of motivation & conflict done well in S3 -- and hands-down the most compelling part to me -- was Jaskier promising Phillippa et al that he would deliver Ciri to them, if they could kill Rience.

Yessssssss.

Was he lying? No idea, doesn't matter. It's a delicious conflict of interest for him either way.

Because Jaskier's friends are, quite frankly, failing him at that point -- Geralt and Yennefer are preoccupied with the threat that Rience poses to Ciri, which is understandable, but they show a breathtaking lack of concern for the threat Rience poses to Jaskier. Y'know. The guy that actually got tortured by him last season.

(Jesus wept, they make him be bait for Rience, and brush off his anxieties like they're not even listening. They treat Jaskier like he's acceptable collateral damage for Ciri's sake; like her safety matters, but his doesn't.)

(I'm not sure whether the writers meant to make Geralt and Yennefer come off as bad friends? o_O But if they didn't, then playing bait needed to have been Jaskier's idea. Not something they forced him into -- his idea, even though he's terrified out of his mind by Rience, but he's brave enough to stand up and offer it anyway, because it's the only way to protect the people he cares about, and he's the only one who can do it.)

So yeah -- I don't fucking blame him for taking the initiative to look out for his own interests, since it's clear that no one else is going to.

And why shouldn't Ciri go to Redania? If Dijkstra & company can kill Rience, does that not demonstrate both their ability and willingness to protect her? Sure, Geralt's not going to like the idea, and he'll be mad at Jaskier, but what else is new, right? And wouldn't Ciri be so much safer in a fortified castle with an army between her and Nilfgaard, instead of constantly on the run, with mercenaries never more than a step behind them? There's enough logic to the idea that Jaskier could talk himself around to it, while still believing that he's doing what's best for everyone.

It's a potential betrayal, or something that Geralt might view as one, but there are very good reasons for Jaskier to feel and act as he does, even as it puts them at cross-purposes. And that is what well-rooted conflict looks like -- it emerges organically from characters wanting something specific, and wanting it strongly.

But what does Dijkstra want? What does Phillippa want? "Power"? What does that mean, in this context? What do they want to accomplish with said power? When the Brotherhood comes into conflict with the Lodge of Sorceresses, what are they actually fighting over?

Writing a political drama requires understanding both the personal and the political stakes for everyone involved, and the writers just didn't -- didn't appear to even know that that was something missing from their story.

In trying to mimic the political intrigues they'd seen in other fantasies, they transplanted the stems and leaves, all the visible trappings of cloak-and-dagger, but didn't realize that they were leaving the roots behind, and that the roots are what makes the whole thing HAPPEN.

(Awkward metaphor, but you get what I mean.)

--

So yeah.

Like I said, it's hard to figure out where to even begin an analysis of this show, because it's such an incompetent mess on every level. (How do you say where it went wrong, when it’s never gone right?) I'd be fine with judging the show on its own terms, not on a rubric of fidelity to the source material, but I swear to god, half the time I can't assess how it's doing because I can't tell what it's trying to do.

Are Yen and Geralt supposed to be bad friends to Jaskier, and frankly embarrassing role models to Ciri with their juvenile silent treatment of each other even when they're living in the same house?

Is Dijkstra supposed to be a brilliant Machiavellian chessmaster, or is he supposed to be unhinged and delusional?

Is Radovid supposed to be a weirdo who perpetually looks like he's about to burst into tears? (Why are his eyes so MOIST???) Is it supposed to be a red flag when Jaskier says he’s not in the mood to perform for Radovid’s salon and Radovid makes him do it anyway? Or is that what the writers think cutesy romcom behavior is?

idk, man! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Anyway, I'm going to wrap it up there, even though I've got a lot still kicking around in my head. But y’all should like, send me asks n stuff, because it’s a lot easier to write a response to specific questions/prompts than to try to cover everything in one post.

[sannylity]

HELLO ITS ME AGAIN the anon of fire and fics

this time i am here to ask about the assassin au!!!!!! yippie confetti!!!!!!!!!!

in particular im curious about how the two different sides (mariana & charlie) would try and be finding each other. charlie can probably just pay someone to track down mariana or do it himself but he also probably doesnt want to scare mariana or make him uncomfortable. meanwhile marianas just like "man...... that guys probably dead........... this is the worst.........................." and roier is tryna cheer him up

i had the thought that there's a cash handoff at a cafe/bar/restaurant where mariana works and he notices the very familiar guy sitting in a booth with another figure

Oh hello again!!

It’s honestly so nice for anyone to find interest in my prompts and AU’s :D But I honestly didn’t think of how they’d meet again after the party.

Though, I really do like the idea of Mariana thinking that Charlie died in it because the news doesn’t really cover everyone who died and Charlie especially doesn’t leave evidence or trace of himself on the scene so even when Mariana looked up what happened and dug around, he found nothing and assumed he died.

I also like the idea of them accidentally bumping across each other during a transaction. Charlie still not being in control of how things go and not on his terms is fascinating for his character because he is always prepared and in charge, so when he meets Mariana during a transaction no less would be interesting!

Maybe Mariana walks up to him in disbelief and Charlie’s contractor is just lost, asking if he knows him and Charlie had to separate Mariana from his work and it goes without saying that things aren’t going according to plan.

Charlie makes him wait for him to finish his transaction then Mariana just explodes on him, saying he saw the news and thought he was dead. Charlie tries to explain himself and say he was going to meet him again after the deal and Mariana is confused how he’ll do that because Charlie never asked for his number.

But you know, just assassin things. Charlie knows how to track down people, so it wouldn’t be hard, especially a civilian.

Charlie, obviously doesn’t tell him he’s an assassin. At least not yet. He comes up an excuse on how he left and survived the party, Mariana reluctantly lets it go because at least Charlie is safe and he really looks so good right now and he wants to kiss him.

So, he did.

They spend time together.

Maybe for a while, Mariana finds himself in cloud nine and in love with Charlie. Everything was going well and he’s been gushing about this guy to his friends until one day, in the middle of the night, Charlie comes over to his apartment, bleeding and gravely injured.

Charlie had nowhere else to go. He can’t go to clinics and hospitals because it would compromise his identity and that’s how Mariana finds out that he is dating a hardened killer and assassin.

Obviously, Charlie thinks the worse. That Mariana would have to leave him for his safety and it’d be crazy to keep seeing each other.

Yet, as Mariana tended to his wounds, he wanted nothing but for them to stay together. Call him crazy, but he likes having a vigilant and protective boyfriend. Also, probably not the best time, but he finds his assassin gear very hot.

Charlie laughs in shock and in pain because of the stitches and Mariana scolds him because it might tear.

Whatever happens, it doesn’t matter whether Charlie is in control of a situation or not anymore, nothing could ever stop the force of the man that is Mariana.

[morganski-19]

I Don’t Know Which Way’s Home

Chapter 4: Running Away

ao3 link, Part 1, Part 3

Cw: domestic abuse and mentions of child abuse

April 1983

“How many times have I told you that tips go to me,” David yells from the other room. 

It's just another one of the many screaming matches between him and Julie’s mom. The third boyfriend in Julie’s lifetime to escalate yelling at her mom for various things, and the second to demand her tips. 

“Those tips aren’t for you. You didn’t earn them, I did,” her mom screams back. “Julie needs new clothes soon; I need those tips.”

She doesn’t know where her mom finds them to be honest. Every time she brings a new guy over, they reek of booze and cigarettes, and they have an unmaintained, greasy mullet to make them look like every bad guy in a sitcom. They’re happy for a month before things get sour. Her mom ends up hurt, emotionally and physically, until her breaking point is hit, and they’re tossed to the curb. Metaphorically as there is never enough room for the boyfriends to move into the trailer. She’s thankful for that.

“That bitch doesn’t need anything, she’s already a spoiled brat.”

But no matter what her mom never seems to find someone who will actually treat her right. Julie pleads with her after each one, tries to tell her that she doesn’t have to be treated like this. Ever since she was old enough to understand that this was wrong, it’s all she would repeat. But her mom never believed that anyone would actually want a single mom who could barely get by on her own. So, she kept bringing home dirtbags time and time again. 

“Do not call my daughter a bitch.”

“Why not, you raised her. No wonder she’s a bitch.”

As much as Julie tries, she can’t ignore the screaming match anymore. She shuts her textbook as loudly as she can without them hearing it through the walls, but she doubts that they would over themselves. Grabbing her jacket from the closet and her latest notebook, she carefully opens her window and climbs out. 

This isn’t the first time she’s done this, and it probably won’t be the last. The first time she underestimated the height of the window and ended up spraining her ankle. So, she learned and placed a few old milk crates underneath so she could step out more easily. It got better when she got taller too, spiking up to one of the tallest girls in her class. 

When her feet hit the solid ground, she took a moment to make sure that they didn’t hear her. But the screaming has only escalated, so she takes her chance. 

Turning on her heel and facing the woods, she runs into them, going to the only spot that makes her feel safe at times like these. 

. . . 

Present Day

“You did what,” Robin asks, standing frozen across the room from him. 

“I kissed Eddie,” he admits.

“Just kissed him?” she asks giving him a look that already tells him that she knows. 

Steve’s eyes look everywhere except at hers. “We might have also slept together.”

“And you didn’t immediately tell me afterward,” she exclaims, waving her arms around in the air. “We,” motioning between her and Steve, “are platonic soulmates, who are supposed to tell each other everything. And you neglected to tell me, for literal days, that you not only kissed but slept with, the guy that you’ve been pining after for months.”

He rolls his eyes. “I have been not pining for him for months-.”

“You absolutely have,” she interrupts, “and the tension between you two have been insufferable to sit through. Every single movie night has been you two stealing glances, casually touching each other far too many times for it to be considered normal or platonic, and essentially undressing each other with your eyes. With your eyes, Steven.” She puts her hands on her hips and glares at him again, fully exhausted from this bullshit. 

Worst part is that she has part of a point. Yes, Steve has liked Eddie for a while and yes, he did realize that he is attracted to guys a long time ago. But the other guys he was attracted to were surface-level stuff, nothing like this. The feelings he has for Eddie are a lot deeper than anything he’s had in the past few years. And with all of the dug-up feelings about his dad, he didn’t think he was going to do anything about it soon. 

Going over to Eddie’s that day wasn’t thought out all that well. He was stuck in all of the thoughts that he would get in high school. How nothing he ever did was enough to get his dad to notice him. Nothing would get his mom to come home. So, he decided that they shouldn’t be the reason to have this. Because as much as he wanted to pretend, their voices were still in the back of his mind telling what to do that would make him, and them, look good in the eyes of the public. 

It wasn’t until his lips finally locked with Eddie’s that those thoughts finally started to dissipate. But is he ready for whatever he has, will have, with Eddie. That he’s still not so sure of. 

“Ok, ok you’re right. I should have told you.”

“Well, that was obvious,” she walks up closer to him and gives him a knowing look. “Now can you tell me what’s actually going on up there? Cause sleeping with him was one thing, the way you’re looking like a kicked puppy is another.”

Steve takes a deep breath. “What if I’m not ready for this?”

“Being with a guy is different than being with a girl. So, depending on what you did, I’m sure that he’d be careful with you going forward so you don’t just jump into it and-.”

“That’s not it,” he cuts her off. “I-. The last time I felt like this about someone, I got my heart broken. And with everything that’s coming back up with my dad, with Julie. What if it was a mistake sleeping with him now was the wrong thing to do?”

Robin’s face softens. “If you think that everything else that’s going on in your life right now is too much and adding a new relationship on top of that will only add to that, I think he would understand. Just talk to him about it.”

“I know,” he presses the heels of his hands against his eyes. “I know you’re right. But I feel so stupid for giving him hope for something I’m not ready for yet.”

The walkie on his counter crackles. “Hey Steve, it’s Julie. Is it ok if I come over?”

Steve picks up the walkie and hits the call button. “Yeah, you can come over.”

“Ok, thanks.”

“When did you give her a walkie?”

“The last time she was over here, thought it’d be a good idea. We’ve been talking on it a lot, actually.”

Robin smiles. “You two are getting closer then?”

“I’d say so. It’s still kinda weird knowing that I’ve had a sibling this whole time, but it’s nice.”

“That’s good, I’m glad this is working out.”

“Me too.”

Steve hears a knock at the door and goes to answer it, Julie standing on the other side. “Is it ok if I leave my bike on the lawn?”

“Yeah sure, that was fast.”

“I might have been most of the way here already before I checked to see if it was ok.”

He moves out of the way to let her through the door, closing it after her. “Everything ok?”

“Yeah, it’s just,” she sighs. “School and everything, didn’t want to go to that house after.”

“Wanna talk about it?” He asks, walking back to the living room where Robin is.

“Hey, Julie,” she says. 

“Hey,” Julie plops onto the end of the couch. “Maybe, I don’t know. It’s just. So, I’m sixteen right, and the oldest kid in that house so they treat me like the babysitter, all the time. And they’re drunks that can barely look after themselves and now add three kids to that mix, so I’m pretty much doing everything. And like, I don’t mind doing the dishes or making my own dinner or doing the laundry. But they shouldn’t get to treat me like their maid just because they’re too drunk to get off their ass.”

Steve and Robin shared a worried look. “That sucks,” he says, not quite sure what else to.

“Yeah,” she says while picking at the skin around her nails. “It does.”

“Is there anyone you can talk to about getting you and the other kids out of that house?” Robin asks. 

Julie nods. “I mentioned it to my case worker at our last meeting, said she would look into it. Don’t know how long that’s going to take though.”

“We can talk to Hopper to see if he can do anything about it if you want.”

“I don’t want to bother you too much with it, it’s fine. Just frustrating.”

He wants to push more but doesn’t. She looks like she doesn’t want to talk about it, and they just started really getting along. So, he changes the topic, and they talk until Julie says she wants to get some homework done. He lets her stay and do it in the kitchen, him and Robin being left in the living room by themselves.

“Are you going to do anything about that?” Robin whispers, leaning forward to keep it private between them.

“I want to, but what do I do? I don’t want to make it worse for her by saying something.”

Robin presses her lips together. “Yeah, that wouldn’t be good.”

“I think I’m just going to tell her to come over as often as she wants. I mean I wouldn’t mind, and I trust her to be alone in the house if I’m not here.”

“But that’s not going to make it any better for when she goes back.”

“There’s nothing I can do right now that would let her stay past curfew, or even for a night. That would only end up in another missing kid report and her being brought back by Hopper.”

“Steve,” she looks at him with a soft gaze. “What do you really want to do? Cause I think I know, you just haven’t said it.”

Steve sighs, running a hand through his hair. He has thought about it, pretty much since that first night he met her. But considering this house isn’t his and the fear that his dad would come home any minute and find her here, it never seemed like a real option. And what government official would let a twenty-year-old without a full-time job, getting by living off his parent’s money take custody of a kid.

He thought that maybe after some time, some effort on his part, he could maybe get it together enough to do it. If they got a long and both wanted to. But that house is treating her and those other kids horribly. He wants to do something to help all of them, get the other kids in a better home and maybe take Julie in.

It all didn’t seem possible, but maybe it was time to try.

“I don’t know if she wants that. And even if she did, I have no idea where to start.”

“Well, even though it probably didn’t go through all the right channels, we do know someone who adopted a kid. Talk to him, he might be able to help.”

He takes a deep breath. “I’ll think about it.”

Robin reaches to cover his hand with hers. “And while you’re at it. Think about what you want to do with Eddie too. You’re not giving him false hope, I promise that. You still want this, you just have some other things you want to take care of before starting a relationship.”

“You’re right,” he nods. “I’ll talk to him soon, promise.”

Julie knocks on the doorway. “Hey, I’m going to head out. Curfew is earlier for school days.”

“I can drive you back if you want,” Steve says, already standing up.

“No, it’s ok. I’d rather go myself. Thanks though.” She turns to head to the door, Steve following her.

“Just so you know,” he says before she opens the door. “You’re welcome over here after school anytime, if you want to get your work done without being in the house. If I’m not home, I leave the back door open most of the time, so you can come in through that way.”

“You’re ok with me breaking into your house when you’re not here,” she asks.

He shrugs. “Yeah, I know you enough to trust you. It’s no pressure or anything, but if you like it here more than there, I’d rather you be where you’re safe instead of going somewhere else.”

She looks at him with a confused glare, processing what he said. “Ok, thank you. I might stop by again tomorrow then, I have a paper due.”

“You’re welcome here, Julie, any time. You don’t have to feel like you’re bothering me because you’re not. Promise.”

Julie just nods, closing the door behind her. Steve takes a deep breath, heading back to Robin and trying not to think about what he knows he’s going to do.

. . .

Julie looks like a mess. Leaves are stuck in her hair and her clothes are all rumpled. And there is an ache in her back from sleeping on a hard surface. But what else did she expect from sleeping on a park bench. It beats going back to that house then, so she’ll suffer until third period when she can use the gym showers to get the park off her.

Shivering, she combs out her hair with her fingers, pulling it back into a short braid. She goes to the bike rack she parked at and unlocks her bike, mounting it and heading toward the school.

When she gets there, she rushes to the bathroom to change her clothes, hoping no one notices the difference. She makes it through her first two periods, trying to keep her eyes open and pay attention. Her grades have already slipped, she can’t afford to miss another lecture.

Third period rolls around, and she gets changed for gym, thanking the teacher for giving them an easy day of just doing exercises with a partner.

Jane, the girl Max was talking to, approaches her. “The teacher said I cannot keep skipping class and sitting with Max on the bleachers. Can I partner with you?”

“Sure,” Julie shrugs. They travel around the circle that the teacher made, tossing basketballs to each other meaningless activities. Jane is shy, but Julie doesn’t blame her. She is too most of the time.

After class she takes a quick shower, rubbing the last two nights of sleeping on park benches off of her and getting the rest of the leaves out of her hair. The rest of the day is monotonous and all she wants it to go home. But home isn’t home anymore and no where she goes even compares to the comfort she once felt in her own room.

Well everywhere except for Steve’s. But she knows that comfort is different. It still isn’t the same as walking through her trailer door and seeing her mom’s things scattered around, smelling the dinner she made before going to work or hearing the music she’s playing from the radio. The conversations aren’t as effortless, and the life just isn’t there. It’s not her home, nowhere is.

It’s cruel to try and compare anything to her old house. It’s cruel to try and chase the feeling of comfort that her mom gave her in anyone. She knows that nothing will ever compare to her mom. But she can’t help but keep searching to find something else that is close to it.

Steve is an interesting addition to her life. For the past month she’s had to grapple with the fact of her who her dad was, and that she had a sibling across town who didn’t even know she existed. From what she’s heard about her dad, she never expected his son to be like Steve. From what she can imagine, Steve is nothing like his father, and Julie’s happy that is true.

If Steve was like his father, he wouldn’t have left the back door open for her so she could come into his house while he was at work. He wouldn’t have left a note telling her that there is a sandwich in the fridge if she’s hungry, or that she’s welcome to anything in the pantry. She wouldn’t have even been able near the house at all.

Their relationship is still new, still uncertain. Sure, they get along, but there is so much of their lives and experiences that are different that they haven’t even touched on. There is so much more to Julie that she has even yet to share. She’s trying to open up, trying to create some sort of bond with him. There’s this want inside of her to have a family again, to come home to a house through the front door and not immediately be yelled at to clean up a spill. To come home and feel like it’s a home.

She can recognize that Steve is trying to do that with her, trying to create someplace that she wants to be. To get to know her because they are one in the same. Two kids from the same dad who never stayed long enough to get to know them, she can at least assume. Both trying so hard to fill something they’ve always wanted, but never had.

Julie stays for as long as she’s supposed to, heading out the way she came in and picking up her bike from where she left it in the woods. She’s out of clothes so she can’t just go to the park afterward like she did yesterday. So, she prepares for what will happen if her presence is known when she gets home.

Honestly, she’s surprised that they didn’t notice that she was gone for two whole days. It’s probably because the other kids were in school and doing work, so they were quieter. The time they sent the cops after her was a Saturday, so they realized their babysitter was missing. It just meant she had to be smart with what days she doesn’t go back.

When she parks her bike on the lawn of her foster home, she’s ready for the verbal onslaught that she’s sure to happen.

“Where’ve you been?” Janice mutters over her cigarette, lounging on the couch.

“At a friend’s,” Julie responds quickly.

“Lucky, we don’t call the cops on you again. Bathroom needs cleaning.”

Julie mentally rolls her eyes. “I’m not your maid,” she mutters under her breath.

Going to the room she shares with Molly she takes out her dirty clothes and exchanges them out with new ones. Then heads to the bathroom, so it doesn’t turn ugly. Better she complies now so they don’t notice her missing tomorrow.

“You didn’t come home last night,” Molly says quietly. “Or the night before.”

“No, I didn’t,” Julie says while scrubbing the toilet.

“They noticed, I lied for you.”

Julie sits back, looking at the girl she barely knows. Molly isn’t much younger than her, but she shouldn’t have to cover for Julie’s choices. Especially when Mark’s temper is as short as a stubbed-out cigarette.

“Don’t do that again, I don’t want you getting hurt for me.”

“I won’t. Me and Oliver got adopted a week ago we’re leaving on Saturday.”

As much as that will only put more attention on her, she can’t help from smiling. At least their getting out and going to someone who will care for them a hell of a lot more that Janice and Mark would. “I’m happy for you.”

“Are you going to be ok here by yourself?”

“I’ll be fine, Molly.”

Molly walks away, leaving Julie to clean the bathroom alone. She just hopes that when the two of them leave it will be the last kids that come through this house, leaving her to deal with it alone.

A small part of her hopes that she won’t be here that much longer either, but she can’t be sure. So, she shoves the hope down and just goes back to scrubbing.

. . .

Steve didn’t exactly plan for this to happen when he invited Eddie over. What he did plan was to tell him that things needed to slow down between them because he was in no place to start a relationship with him. Not after all the old baggage that he has with his dad, and definitely not with the information Julie told him earlier.

Because in his mind, he’s going to do whatever he can to get Julie out of that house. And if he’s lucky, maybe get her to live with him.

So that means a lot of outside work from him with protocols that he has no knowledge of, but he knows it’s too much. So, he was going to invite Eddie over and explain it to him gently. Until he didn’t.

Instead, he’s here with Eddie’s tongue down his mouth and his hands all over Steve, making his mind hazy in the way he likes. So hazy that he can’t bring himself to stop Eddie, and instead just folds and kisses him back as hard as he can.

It’s a stupid, reckless decision that will probably just hurt both of them in the end. But he can’t seem to stop it.

That is until there’s a banging on his door that’s hard enough to knock it down.

“The hell,” Eddie says as he pulls away from Steve. “Was anyone supposed to come over?”

“No,” Steve answers, untangling his fingers from Eddie’s hair.

Eddie slips his hands out from underneath Steve’s shirt as another round of pounding comes from the door. “Should you go get that?”

“Probably, stay here ok.”

Steve goes to the front door, running a hand through his hair and fixing himself to make him look presentable. He opens the door to two people he’s never seen before, both extremely angry.

“Can I help you,” he asks confused.

“Where is she?” the man spits out, fists clenched.

“Who? I know a lot of people.”

The man gives him a cold stare that makes him want to strengthen his stance. “Julie, the bitch ran away again. Thought she’d be here.”

Steve raises his eyebrows at the name he called her, appalled. “Don’t know who you’re talking about,” he feigns innocence.

“We know about you two,” the women slurs. “We know that she was here the first time, she has to be here again.”

“Look,” Steve says, making himself look bigger. “I haven’t seen her in a few days. I’m sure she’s just out somewhere and will be back soon.”

“Well, we haven’t seen her since Thursday. It’s Saturday,” the man growls, eyes full of anger.

Fear shoots through Steve at the thought of Julie roaming around town finding empty benches to sleep on. He thinks back to the past few days and not once did he ever give her a ride home. She always refused, riding away on her bike before he could convince her. Because she knew he would wait to watch her go inside the house, like he always does. And she didn’t want that.

“I have no clue where she it,” Steve asserts, enunciating every word clearly. “She’s not here, so I can’t help you.”

He has to get to her before they do. Has to call Hopper and get a search party out there before they do. Because there is no way he is letting Julie go back to a house that is dangerous.

“Fine, we’ll just have to go around looking for her then.” The man stomps off, the women following close behind.

Steve shuts the door as gently as he can, adrenaline rushing through him. As soon as it shuts, he quickly runs to put his shoes on, rummaging around to find his keys.

“Hey, you ok?” Eddie asks, coming into the front room concerned.

“No,” Steve asks, patting down his pockets to see if his keys are there. “That was Julie’s foster parents, they haven’t seen her since Thursday. I haven’t either. Where are my keys.”

“Fuck, hold on.” Eddie runs to the kitchen and comes back holding Steve’s keys. “Here. Take a breath ok, we’ll find her.”

Steve takes the keys, breathing heavy at this point, heart rate slowly increasing more and more. “They were so angry, Eds. Like terrifying. The guy looked like he was about to beat me up if she was here, what is he going to do to her?”

“Nothing,” Eddie cups Steve’s face in his hands, forcing him to look at his eyes. “They are going to do nothing to her because we are going to find her first. We’ll take my van and look around, ok.”

“Yeah ok,” Steve says, the panic slowly fading with Eddie’s touch.

They go to Eddie’s van, him speeding out of the drive and to the nearest park. The benches are all empty to they check the next, which is also empty. Steve tries to think of places she would go, the library, video store, diner. Anywhere where she might be. Each place coming up empty.

“Where could she be?” he says after the last failed attempt, panic rising again.

“Wait, hold on. I remember something,” Eddie pulls out of the parking spot and starts to head toward the trailer part. “I would see her run into the woods behind the trailer park sometimes when her mom was fighting with one of her boyfriends. I never said anything at the time, but it’s the only place I can think of.”

. . .

Julie sits on a fallen log in the woods behind her old trailer. The familiarity of coming out here covering her like a hug, even if those moments weren’t the best. They were hers. Ones she shared before her life was irreversibly changed. Back when everything was normal.

Here she was always safe, away from the chaos and in her own little world. She would sit on this log and write her latest story, do some homework, or just sit and listen. It was her place, and she missed it.

She knows what day it is, knows that Janice and Mark noticed that she was missing. Molly and Oliver were adopted today, which means that a case worker went to the house to pick them up, and hopefully went inside. She wasn’t there to pick anything up, and she was sure that no one else did. With all of the beer bottles and junk that made a constant mess around the house, there was no way that the two of them passed.

At least she hoped.

But with that, Julie knows that nothing would be done instantly except for make Janice and Mark angry. An official investigation and a few more surprise visits would have to happen before they got blacklisted from fostering. Her case worker explained it all to her when she made the initial complaint. That was weeks ago, and nothing has changed, so she forced it to. Even at her own safety.

Her head picks at rustling leaves as someone approaches. Fear shoots through her and she debates running, scared that she was finally found by the people she was running from. But as Steve emerges from the trees, relief visibly going through his mind, she stays.

He doesn’t say anything, just walks over to her and sits down. The sit there for a moment in silence before he finally says something.

“I had the pleasure of meeting your foster parents today. If I didn’t get why you hated them before, I definitely do now.”

She sighs. “I didn’t know they would go to you.”

“I wouldn’t of either,” he says with a shake of his head. “How long have you been lying to me about going back there?”

He says it in a way that reminds her of her mom. Not anger, just concern with the want to understand why. “About a week.”

“Any reason that they suddenly noticed it now?”

Julie picks at her thumb, the skin so broken up it could start to bleed. “The other two kids that were there got adopted and picked up today. So, I made sure I was gone so the mess would still be there when the case worker got there. And if I wasn’t there and they didn’t know where I was, something might actually get done about it.”

Steve huffs. “That’s bravely stupid. You and I might be more similar than you think.”

She lightly laughs, finally looking at him and seeing the worry still painted on his face. He worries for her, he cares. It’s been a while since anyone did.

“Look,” he sighs. “I know there’s probably nothing I can say to get you to stop running away. But I don’t want you out on the street every night. This town might seem safe, but it can be real dangerous, I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“I can’t go back there,” she says shakier than she wants. “I hate it there.”

He looks away from her, letting out a deep breath. “You know, there’s this shed in my backyard I don’t go in that much anymore. Has the heater and tools for the pool and that’s been closed for a month know. But I also use it for storage, so there’s a bunch of blankets and maybe even a cot on the one side away from all of the chemicals. I don’t think I would notice if someone would slip in there at night. And you know, if I left one of the windows open, or even the back door, if someone were to slip in after I went to sleep and left before I got up, I’m not sure I would know.”

She smiles at him, a real smile this time. “Thank you,” she says, bumping her arm with his.

“I didn’t do anything, just told you some basic facts.” He smiles back, keeping the true meaning of what he meant unsaid. “I know you don’t want me to, but I am going to call Hopper to go talk to your foster parents and make sure they don’t do anything. I can’t ensure that it would be permanent, but at least for the night.”

“That’s probably for the best. Maybe have me drop him off too, that way they don’t know that you found me.”

Steve nods, standing up. “Come on, I’ll take you back to my place while I call him.”

Julie stands, grabbing her bag from where it rested on the log and follows him. They meet back up with Eddie who is leaning idly on his van, smiling when he sees Julie them. He doesn’t say anything, just enters his van and waits for them to do so too. The drive back is filled by Steve trying to mess with Eddie’s radio stations while Eddie swats his hands away, claiming to already calming the music down for him. Steve eventually gives him, staying silent for the rest of the ride.

When they get to Steve’s house, Julie goes to the kitchen to wait for the inevitable, Steve stopping in the hall to call Hopper. It isn’t much longer until the chief arrives, taking Julie back to her foster house with a promise that they aren’t going to do anything to her if he has a say in it.

She doesn’t quite know what he says, her retreating to her now empty room before he talks to Mark and Janice. But when she comes down to try and get some food and sees Mark almost flinching as she walks by, it must have been good.

. . .

“She’s ok, kid. I put the fear of god in them, but if they as so much as hurt a hair on her head, you tell me and I’ll make sure that they’re locked up.”

Relief fills Steve as he leans against the wall, thankful that this situation is over. “Thank you, Hop. It means a lot to me.”

“It’s no problem. And as far as I’m concerned, if she’s at your house, she won’t be reported as missing. As long as they don’t get the case worker involved, but she wasn’t too happy with them when I called her up either.”

“That’s something.”

“I gotta go but call me if anything happens. And if you need anything, Steve, you let me know, ok?”

“Yeah, ok.”

Steve hangs up the phone, already making a plan for what he wants to do in his head.

“You’re going to try and get custody of her, aren’t you,” Eddie asks, walking up to him.

He turns to look at him, crossing his arms. “Yeah, I am.”

Eddie huffs. “Thought as much. You could talk to Wayne if you wanted, ask him how it was getting custody of me.”

“I might take you up on that.” Steve takes a deep breath, preparing himself for what he has to say next. “There was actually something that I needed to talk to you about.”

Eddie nods. “I was expecting that.”

Steve walks up to Eddie, getting close to him and wanting to reach out and touch him, but he knows the moment he does what he needs to say won’t happen. “Look, Eddie, I really like you. More than I have anyone in a long time, and I really want to have something with you sometime.”

“But,” Eddie cuts in, sounding resigned.

“But, with all the stuff that’s been dragged up from my past with my dad that I have to deal with all over again, and now with Julie. It’s too much for me to be in a relationship right now. I can’t be worried about her and how things are going between us at the same time. There’s still a lot of things that I have to work through when it comes to being in relationships still, and I can’t do everything at once. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Eddie reaches out to touch his arm, stuttering before realizing that it’s ok. “I want this, whatever it is with you. And I get needing to wait before everything calms down again. It’s a not right now, not a not ever. I can deal with that.”

Steve looks at him, feeling the urge to just say fuck it and lean in to kiss him again. Take back everything he said and just jump right in headfirst. But Steve knows that this is for the best. “Are you sure?”

“Positive. You have no idea how much I like you, have wanted a night like a week ago to happen. I can wait a little bit longer if that means that this might actually have a chance.”

“Thank you.”

“No problem, Steve.”

Eddie leans forward and gives him a chaste kiss, this time being the last for right now. A goodbye to the small romance they had, if they could even call it that, as they go back to being friends. For just now, Steve promises.

Part 5

Tag list(let me know if you want to be added or removed): @homoerotictangerine, @mugloversonly, @thesuninyaface, @imyelenasexual, @anaibis, @ilovecupcakesandtea, @brainsteddielyrotted, @jackiemonroe5512, @eddie-munsons-missing-nipple, @goodolefashionedloverboi, @cinnamon-mushroomabomination, @lolawonsstuff, @writingandmushroomdragons, @stevesbipanic, @sierra-violet, @steddie-as-they-go, @dauntlessdiva, @mousedetective, @the-daydreamer-in-the-corner, @zombiethingy, @connected-dots-st-reblogger, @that-agender-from-pluto, @allyricas, @cheddartreets, @devondespresso, @crypticcorvidinacottage, @queenie-ofthe-void @chronicpainstevetruther, @cheddartreets, @theupsidedownrealestateagent, @acidbubblegummie, @sirsnacksalot, @l0st-strawberry, @helpimstuckposting, @strawberry-starss, @freddykicksasses, @italianwhore1, @i-threw-my-name-out-the-window, @rageagainsttheapathy, @nuggies4life, @ape31, @whimsicalwitchm, @chrissycunninghamfanblog, @michellegilligan, @hippielittlemetalhead, @bridget-malfoy-stilinski-hale, @jaytriesstuff, @confused-stripes, @faeb1tch42069, @marklee-blackmore, @hel-spawn, @genderless-spoon, @mamafaithful, @estrellami-1, @starryeyedpoet17 @i-amthepizzaman, @lilpomelito @melonmochi

[quietwingsinthesky]

i hope this is ok to send because we don't interact, but i have a prompt for you: instead of sam trapping himself and lucifer in the cage, it was dean who said yes to michael and jumped

It’s always okay. Always got to start interacting somewhere, right?

Also, I really hope this doesn’t give a bad impression of my writing lol. For some reason, it demanded to come out in first person Dean Winchester monologue form and in no other, which is. Not at all the way I usually write. But here we are. Real sorry if that’s not at all what you were hoping for, but there it is.

You know what the worst part of it was? Looking Sam in the face and telling him I trusted him to see it through. No, that doesn’t really cover it. He’s my brother, I know him, every face he’s ever made. It’s all stored away, just in case I need it, if he’s mad enough for the silent treatment or worse, keeping a secret that’ll get him hurt. He was always stubborn. You could see when you’d lose an argument or… or a fight. You could read the outcome by the set of his jaw, the sharp slant of his mouth, before the first punch was thrown. There was never any other way it was going to go. He knew he was right, and he knew I saw it, too. He wanted me to put the world on his shoulders and let it crush him, so the rest of us could live on doing…

You don’t give a shit what humans do when they’re alive. They all burn the same, don’t they?

We. We all-

We all float down here. Ha. See, that’s why I couldn’t let Sam throw himself into the pit. Did you know there’s clowns down here? Demon clowns. Nasty sons of bitches. I couldn’t let Sam ride out eternity locked up somewhere he’d be terrified. Though he probably wouldn’t be that scared by the end. You adapt. However you can. It’s about survival.

There’s an end, right? There’s got to be. The sun goes kaboom in a few hundred thousand years, and that’s got to wipe everyone’s slates clean. You, me… Maybe even that sulking douchebag in the corner over there.

Don’t tell me if that was the really how it was supposed to end, if you know. I don’t want to.

He looks like shit from here. Probably worse up close. At least he’s used to it. You’re not. I can tell. It’s wearing on you.

You could talk back. It won’t kill you.

God, I’m off-

Huh.

Don’t want me invoking your Dad’s name?

Buddy, I think we’re damned for a lot worse than a little blasphemy. Attempted fratricide’s higher on the list, no matter how pre-ordained you call it.

Insult me to my face. And get more creative with it. I already know I disappointed my Dad. I’ve got a lot of experience. New to the club?

You aren’t, are you? No, because I know what someone sounds like when they’ve been calling for days and Dad’s not picking up. I know what it feels like when you might die because he won’t come to the phone. This is a two-way street. Can’t lie to the guy whose head you’re inside any more than I can to you.

If your Dad was anything like mine, he probably listened to you begging for help and still thought you’d be better off on your own.

Good job with that. Who’s worse, the guy who lied to his dad about even finishing high school or the archangel who got his ass whooped by the drop-out?

Yeah, fuck you. I’d keep talking even if you weren’t forced to listen.

But you are. And we don’t have shit else to do.

I told Sam I’d trust him with this. I think I just didn’t want to spend my last days alive-

Hold on, am I still alive? What’s the call on that? Heart’s still pumping, nerves still scream at me, so what gives? Can you die in Hell?

I don’t know why I ask you anything.

I didn’t want his last memories of me to be a fight. I think I was even ready to go through with it until I was looking at those empty jugs. There were people in those demons- Fucking- Demons. In those people. Good people. We’d already killed enough of those, and sure as hell never added any more to the world.

Maybe Sam will now. Who knows.

He better not name that kid after me. Can you imagine? The world’s had enough of Dean Winchester. So much it spat me into the devil’s asshole.

Jesus Christ.

Hey, if you’ve got any power in you at all, you make sure he never laughs again. I think my soul just got sliced open by that sound.

So, I’m standing there, staring at the trunk, all those empty jugs and bad blood dragging Sam down and I couldn’t take it. Not one more. I wasn’t killing them, and I wasn’t going to let Sam take that blood on his hands either. So, I packed up. I left.

Cas was… probably still is out of juice, so I wasn’t scared of being caught this time.

I hope he’s doing okay. Glad he didn’t see me like this. Glad none of them did.

I couldn’t look Sam in the face like this. He’d think I didn’t believe in him.

Maybe I don’t. That’s not on him, damnit. That’s on your brother- Yeah, you! Stop eavesdropping! No, I didn’t think Sam could wrestle with you and win! I shot you in the head, and you didn’t go down. I wasn’t going to let my brother be the next wasted bullet.

Talk to me like you know Sam better. Screw you, douchebag. You didn’t know anything about him.

Now, you, on the other hand… I had no chance, no plan, nothing except the fact that you already thought I was ready to roll over. Your big mistake? You underestimated me. If you want to talk about pride, you’ve got your brother beat. One yes, and you came charging in. Felt like swallowing the sun. While it’s exploding. You got in my head and I got in yours. That’s the deal.

Second mistake was pissing me off.

Look at him. Goddamnit, look at him, Michael!

Shut up!

He’s your little brother! I don’t care how far off the beaten path he goes, you don’t ever hurt him! Maybe the rest of the world has got a devil to deal with, but you only ever have a brother! That’s what’s supposed to matter to you!

You held him when he was a baby, and you took care of him, and you were his first word and the first thing he walked towards and the first one he trusted when he started thinking this life didn’t fit right. And you fucked up! Do you hear me? You fucked up, and the last thing you ever did was cut him down when he tried to end this fight!

Because- because you could have walked away. I wouldn’t have done this if you’d walked away.

I wanted you to. I hate him more than any evil son of a bitch I’ve ever hunted, and I still wanted you to walk across that cemetery and-

Never trusted our little brothers when we should have. Maybe there was a way out of this mess a long time ago, too, but we weren’t any smarter back then. Just had more people around us to lose.

He’s gonna be okay. Sam, I mean.

He has to be.

I don’t think I could live with myself if he’s not. Not that I get the choice anymore.

Your brother’s right there. He might look bad, but you’re doing worse. Ask him how he stands it.

It won’t kill you to say something.

[screaming--agony]

You bring out the worst in me. I’ve been pretty quiet on a lot, I don’t really like drama but I’m wholeheartedly tired of hearing you play the victim when you won’t take any accountability for anything you said or did. You speak so highly of yourself during a period of time and talk so low and disrespectful to the other person. You twist the truth to fit your narrative and self-sabotage. You keep saying other people cheated and used you. I believe you have a guilty conscience. I was there for you during your dark times, but you gaslit me into mine. I came to you sobbing and all you said was to go cut myself. You never bothered to talk to me or read anything I said, you made jokes and belittled me. I tried so hard to be enough for you but you strayed off to someone else and cheated. I didn’t know about it until recently. Or I wouldn’t have stayed in contact, to be there for you, to give you advice on your relationship that you sucked me into. I wouldn’t have continued to listen. I wouldn’t have let you play me like a fiddle. You act like a Saint and as if you did nothing wrong. But you don’t share the other side, the side where you were toxic. People tried to open doors for you but you didn’t walk through them, you just lit fires at the entrance. You can’t disrespect and belittle your partner and wonder why they closed your door. I’m sure there’s someone out there for you. But things for you aren’t going to change unless you take accountability for your words and actions. Healing is accepting and you don’t accept. You don’t move on. You would probably have a positive mindset if you stopped self-sabotaging. You made me realize a lot in our fallout. I deserve to be heard. I deserve to be understood. I deserve loyalty. You weren’t cheated on. No matter how much you try to spin the facts, you had a loyal partner. Who is now happy in their life, trying to move on. You sucked me into your relationship for so long, I saw everything. Every misunderstanding, every word shared, every heated argument. All of it. I witnessed everything. I could have been your couples therapist. And you try to spin it all even when there’s facts “receipts” to counter your lies and false beliefs. You aren’t a victim. Everything you portray others to be, is what you are. It’s who you are. It isn’t okay to treat a human like they are less than dirt. It’s never okay to tell someone to cut themselves or go die. It’s never okay to call someone hateful names during an argument or take low blow jabs with information you were told in private to use it against them. I always hoped that you would be the positive person I thought you could be but you keep showing me that you won’t ever change. You won’t ever have self-reflection or healing unless you accept it all. I’m not saying you are a bad person, you do have good qualities and there’s moments where there is positivity. But your lies. Your victim act of being cheated on and used and lied to. You did it all, willingly and repeatedly. You never admit your wrongs. I never cheated on you. I loved you unconditionally. I put your wants first and put mine on the back burner. I never tried so hard to make things work. No relationship is perfect. But I deserve better. And I found a better influence. No cheating involved. Time passed and simple communication happened. I found a person who is understanding and wants to understand when things aren’t clear. I found a person who doesn’t make me feel like I want to die. I found a person who doesn’t make me feel like a burden when my anxiety is high, they are there for me and reminding me to breathe. I know all the stories you spin are lies because you threw me into your relationship when things were rocky. I know if you took accountability for yourself, maybe you could finally heal instead of dwelling and entertaining thoughts that aren’t real. You said to stay out of your life which I would love nothing more but you keep popping into mine. So maybe stay out of my life? Respectively fuck off.