#sid speaks

[tenderhooked]

some sentences sunday!

from camcorder kidnapping (everyone act surprised sjkdfj) :)

The shape of Payne looms above him, and that’s when River recognizes what a horrifically bad idea it was to sprawl boneless and vulnerable on the floor this way. At least sitting up he had a chance to dodge, to duck. Now he’s entirely under Payne’s body and he can’t gather the strength to pull himself upright, and that’s not good, that’s incredibly not good, and there’s a prickly numb panic swelling in his throat, in his chest— “When he gets here, River?” A boot comes down to the left of River’s shoulder. Not touching. But boxing him in.  “Yeah,” says River, even as that panic balloons to the point of suffocating, “when he gets here. He doesn’t leave his agents behind in the field. I mean, maybe he’d’ve left you behind, but you’re an arsehole—” The second boot slams into the concrete. Its impact sends a dizzying ring through River’s skull. “Lamb isn’t coming for you, you stupid fucking child.”

[posting-for-the-void]

my parents read to me before bedtime when i was a kid and it was supposed to make me smart but instead it made me a whole ass adult who reads fanfic before i go to bed every night as a little routine

[sapphodera]

Going to make this for dinner (but with strawberry jam and pre cooked bacon from the fridge). Will let you know how it goes.

[arttheclown]

john de lancie’s characters whenever they see a stoic nerd

[sapphohod]

I’m bored of sidmare I need new username suggestions

[sideways-hedghog]

Something that always amazes me is that we're somehow taught that we can't customise things. Like sure, sewing takes time to learn and not everyone has access to fancy art materials etc. but all you need is a plain shirt and some safety pins or cheap acrylic paint. It doesn't have to be good. It doesn't have to be drastic. But you'll never learn if you never start.

I didn't magically learn embroidery, or sewing, or even how to draw over night I messed around and let myself mess up, but I never told myself I couldn't do it. And now I've sewn my own prom and ball dresses, I have an almost entirely DIYed or second hand wardrobe, I know I can do whatever I want to my clothes and I'll always look unique because everything I have is an assortment of my love and tears.

Go bleach that shirt, embroider that jacket, paint that hoodie, safety pin that skirt. You've got this.

[tenderhooked]

having a favorite character from a piece of media you haven’t seen but one of your mutuals is unwell about is like. that’s my nepo blorbo from the gifsets,

[tenderhooked]

percy and grover swapping sandwich toppings without having to ask each other is actually something that can be so personal

[tenderhooked]

more than anything this show is making me achieve new heights of grover sympathy. imagine being 24 and forced to herd two feral cat 12 year olds on a cross country road trip for an entire week.

[tenderhooked]

i am now so fully invested in river and lamb’s awkward slow burn journey to being father and son it’s concerning… i just. clenches fist. i love mentor/mentee dynamics that blur the line into You’re My Dad Now, Actually.

[tenderhooked]

some sentences sunday!

from the camcorder kidnapping fic >:)

It happens in what, later, Catherine will remember as fragments: The first: The door swings open. This fragment always stays the same; the door has to open, or nothing else goes wrong.  The second: River offers her a vaguely panicked smile, as though he’s trying to convince her that he truly is fine, and pivots on his heel. Depending on when Catherine thinks back to it, this one warps and shifts; sometimes, she’s near enough to grab his wrist and wrench him backwards, out of harm’s way. Most times, she’s too far and too much of a coward to reach for him. She just lets him go. The third: The butt of a rifle comes down out of nowhere and smashes into River’s face with such force there’s—well, this changes day by day, minute by minute. At night, the sharp cracking snap of bone rattles so loud in Catherine’s mind it might well be a bullet loosed in a canister. In the morning, she might be able to quiet the sound, until a plate slips from her shaking hands and shatters against tile the same way River’s nose did; bright and nauseating and never quite the same again.

[tenderhooked]

... a number of sentences sunday!

from the touch-starved river dissertation i've been working on, ft. him and lamb slowly and painfully realizing they're Literally father and son:

“But—” The absolute jackass that decided to take a bullet meant for our boss. River’s ribs constrict, closing hard around his lungs. He keeps staring out through the windscreen. The pale smudge of blue sky. The sun already half-gone. He can’t look at Lamb. If he looks at Lamb, that’s it, it’s over, he’s done and finished and never coming back. Because if he looks at Lamb, he won’t be able to stop himself from breaking into a sob, and that’s the one thing he knows with absolute certainty that he mustn’t do. “Sir, I don’t understand—” “Don’t fucking sir me,” Lamb spits, and River stiffens. Spine straight. Eyes forward. Perfect little soldier. “Before you turned up on the doorstep, do you know how many agents I had to carpool from hospital, or—or, or, here’s a tricky one, how many of them bled out in the street alone because their colleague couldn’t get it through his thick skull that unless he’s behind a desk the rest of his days he’ll keep getting them killed? Zero, Cartwright. Fucking zero.”

[tenderhooked]

writing friendship is so much fun actually more people should write friendship. u get to do all sorts of insane exciting things like have characters tell other characters that they love each other and want to be in their lives forever and it’s all platonic and everything is beautiful. let’s get more people on this stat.

[tenderhooked]

augusnippets day 8 -- reunion/found family!

“Do you think I have gotten too tall?” Sam asks Jamie abruptly, rounding on him with such intensity that Jamie, unwittingly, takes a half-step backwards, eyes blown wide. “Please tell me that you brought a measuring tape.”

“Why the fuck would I bring a measuring tape to the airport,” says Jamie. “And what’re you on about, you’ve gotten too tall?”

“What if he doesn’t recognize me?” Sam says, bringing the corner of his thumb to his mouth only for Jamie to tap it away before he can gnaw. “If I’ve gotten too tall, what if he doesn’t recognize me and he leaves without us and he’s lost out in the city for weeks—”

Oh. Oh. “Mate,” Jamie says, fond, “that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.” Sam bristles, so Jamie clasps him by the shoulders; presses his thumbs to the hollows of his friend’s collarbone hard enough that he hopes the warmth of his body, the steadiness of it, will seep into Sam’s and allow him to settle. “Your dad would still recognize you if you grew ten eyes and dyed your hair bleach blond. Swear down, he’d probably love you even more.”

“I just don’t think that can possibly be true,” says Sam.

“No, no, ’cause he’d have to love you more to make up for all the self-esteem issues you gained on account of having ten eyes.”

Sam searches Jamie’s face as though he can’t quite believe that was an actual sentence spoken into being, and Jamie takes it as a massive win because if Sam is stuck on the whole ‘ten-eyes-bleach-blond-hair’ of it all, then he’s not stuck on the whole ‘it’s-been-a-year-since-I-saw-my-dad-and-I’m-scared-I’ve-changed-more-than-either-of-us-are-ready-for’ of it all. Finally, Sam’s expression softens, the mountain-peak crease between his brows eases into a vague hill, and he smiles, tremulous and then brighter, brighter, brighter.

“That,” he says, “might now be the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.” He returns Jamie’s hold, hands to shoulders, and then draws them together for an embrace that Jamie melts into, every fiber of his being aching for the simple press of Sam’s brow to his neck, for the soft scratchiness of his palm to the crown of Sam’s head. “Thank you. I know I’m being—”

“Shut up,” Jamie whispers. “You ain’t being stupid.”

Sam shifts; huffs a little laugh that tickles at Jamie’s skin. “I was going to say that I’m being silly, actually, thank you very much.”

“Oh. But you were being a bit stupid, to be fair.”

“Excuse me—!”

“I must say, I am incredibly glad to see my boys getting along, but I am feeling rather left out of all this hugging.”

The voice that interrupts Sam is deep, and rumbling, and spilling over with the sort of hearth-warmth that makes Jamie think of thick, hand-knit sweaters in the winter, a proper nice pair of socks resting in front of the fireplace, hot chocolate steaming in painted mugs. He nearly cries from it, which really is stupid, and he lifts his head from where it’s buried against Sam to find Mr. Obisanya standing there with his suitcases and a blistering smile splitting across his face like it could crack him in two from the sheer force of it.

“Daddy!” Sam cries, joyful, and lunges into Mr. Obisanya’s chest. Mr. Obisanya catches him and holds him tight, cradles him close as though life never happened and Sam is still a baby. “Daddy, I’ve missed you so much.”

“I’ve missed you,” says Mr. Obisanya fiercely, and presses a kiss to his son’s forehead. Then, before Jamie can bolt or bury a hole in the ground to die in or hide, he glances up and says, “Jamie! Do you not wish to say hello?”

“Oh, no, I—hello, Mr. Obisanya,” Jamie says, awkward. “I just—”

“Come here,” says Mr. Obisanya. “Join us. And, please, call me Ola. You have more than earned it.”

And when Mr. Obisanya—Ola—catches Jamie by the wrist and drags him to the hug, Jamie doesn’t resist; he brings his arms up and allows himself to melt, slow and sure as sunlight through the window, into this family that—maybe, possibly, yes—he can call his own.

[tenderhooked]

anyways i believe with the entirety of my body and soul that niko and charles should have been allowed to interact at least ONCE in a significant way. water my crops clear my skin heal the earth of all ills etc etc. they would have been so POWERFUL together.

[tenderhooked]

Very curious about your de-aged River fic 👁️👁️ Very much looking forward to read about River going through the horrors

ME TOO. BESTIE. I AM HOLDING YOU BY THE SHOULDERS. MEEEEE TOO. river going through the horrors is catnip to me. i am so more than happy to provide :)

and WAHH i'm very :') to hear you're curious about the de-aged river fic it is. incredibly beloved to me even though i've only been working on it for about two days now JSKLDJFK. baby river is so.... He Is So. he goes through a bad time, then he gets to be safe at slough house, and then he gets taken by the dogs and has an EVEN WORSE TIME. and then he gets hugged about it. of course. of course!!!

anyhoo, here's a small snip:

“I don’t—nobody, ma’am, I don’t—I don’t have anybody else to contact. Please, can I please just talk to my Granddad, he needs to know that I’m okay and then I promise I’ll answer whatever other questions you have, I promise—” “I can assure you, Mr. Cartwright, that your grandfather does not give a fig about whether or not you are okay. As far as he is aware, you are a fully-functioning adult with a day job who clocked into the office two and a half hours ago, and he is likely pruning his overgrown weeds without a single care in the world.” And with that, Diana leaned back in her chair and laced her fingers in her lap, arching a brow at the boy across from her. He did possess River Cartwright’s wide-eyed expression of wounded confusion, the same way a dog takes to a hard hand at its flank for the first time, as well as that swoop of blond hair. It did not take a fool to find the resemblance, and she had accepted it from the moment he’d been guided into her office by Duffy’s grip around his neck: He was River Cartwright. And at this moment, he was staring at her as though she had just yanked his entire world out from underneath him and then informed him it was only the tiling. In a manner of speaking, she supposed that she had.