#they’re not even fix-it fics because canon doesn’t need fixing

[ghostdrinkssoup]

it’s crazy how much hannibal suits canon compliant fics that either change one key detail or diverge in some minor way between seasons and how that deviation radically changes everything while also maintaining echoes of canon scenes, only now they exist within a new context. I’ve seen so many fics like that and they’re all so cool because they honour canon while also using our knowledge of the story to rework certain moments and change whole plot arcs. it’s amazing what people come up with

[millyditty]

I stg

If nobody writes an angsty Nobamaki post canon fic where they start to get close and then Maki

OBVIOUSLY TRAUMATIZED STILL

Suffers from comphet for the first time in her entire ass life because the guilt and shock of the finality of her actions finally kick in now that everything has slowed down so of course she dumps Nobara right there in the gym after engaging in flirting for the last three hours and of course Nobara is lucky enough that she has her boys taking care of her after the really really fucked up breakup because Maki should just go to therapy dude

But Maki, because she’s MAKI, is a stubborn ass for a few years because of course she can make herself care about Yuta, who

By the way

Is the only one she has the right emotional distance from to feel at least semi safe with

And Yuji and Megumi proceed to continue to be the very best friends of a baby lesbian that Nobara could ever possibly need, even help her get better at the dating thing and good at finding girlfriends that WONT dump her ass after three hours of flirting just when she had THOUGHT Maki was finally letting her in but anyway, she does deal with her shit until she’s a whole ass adult helping them raise their freaking adopted ass kids that they refuse to admit they’ve adopted

Even though she’s labeled “auntie Kugisaki” and shit, they’ve adopted another damn kid, annnnddddd

Yep, another one, Jesus, how bad would it be if they could actually breed? Would both of them just be walking around pregnant constantly?

Bottom ass slut that he is (she knows, she’s walked in on them, dear god, there had been dicks and spit and other disgusting stuff everywhere, dear god, they were sluts) Megumi totally has the biggest” put a baby in Itadori” kink of all time, she’s absolutely fucking sure of it

But anyway

Nobara actually deals with her shit but still can’t find The Perfect Girlfriend she’s been looking for for YEARS, not that she’s still upset with how Maki has all but ignored her for YEARS, brushes her off every time they cross paths in the school with her usual dismissive attitude and blank stares from across the room

And meanwhile

During these years

Poor Maki realizes that she’s rocked her own shit and she doesn’t even KNOW how to even BEGIN to reach out to Kugisaki again, and she sure as hell doesn’t just go to therapy because Yuta is totally all the emotional support she needs (right up until he also randomly adopts a child and disappears) and maybe Panda skims a whole bunch of complex PTSD books between missions because she’s just clearly not doing well at all

They would have enlisted Toge to be his assistant but there’s only so much emotional processing that he can help Maki with when trauma terms are definitely not on his sushi safe words list

But anyway

FINALLY shit hits the fan when Maki gets her actual PHYSICAL shit rocked for the first time in years because of course their friends and coworkers force them to go out on this mission together but whoops

Turns out they picked the wrong damn mission to play matchmaker but they’re so SICK of this endless lesbian drama they’ve been watching for TEN FUCKING YEARS HOLY SHIT MAKI GO TO THERAPY

And boom

Maki realizes right then that she can and will fucking DIE without saying what she needs to say because suddenly her control issues matter a whole lot less when her Kugisaki is trying to stop her bleeding and is telling her to please not die and is actually crying the way she hadn’t been that night when they’d been just overwhelmed fucking kids and Maki dumped her, when she’d only smiled bigger and bigger and even made jokes so that it would be easier for Maki to finish the dumping process so that they could both just be done with it and move onto pretending neither of them cared about it anyway obviously

And whoops

All of a sudden Maki is promising her like a lead character from one of Kugisaki’s ridiculous dramas that she won’t die, promising Kugisaki that she’ll fix this, promises that she’s sorry and that she’s spent this entire time hating herself and wishing she could take it back and that she hadn’t meant it when she’d told Nobara that “them” was a phase that they needed to just get over because they were “adults” now

Because she’s not over it, she hasn’t been over it

And she’s convinced, fingers refusing to let go of the other woman’s blouse, passing out with Kugisaki’s mouth against hers so that she can at least give Kugisaki this when she says IT for the first time ever, that she’s never going to get the chance to say it again so it has to be now, so she repeats it until she can’t speak anymore because she’ll never get to say it again

Because she’s dying

Because she’s only twenty nine and she’s dying in Kugisaki’s arms like Kugisaki has already forgiven her for every shitty dismissive comment and every stupid childish glare that she’d used to keep Kugisaki away and it still doesn’t matter because she’s dying

Dying right here in Kugisaki’s lap, the reality of it a bleak reflection of how Kugisaki had always inched into her own lap years ago when they were alone, of how she’d been doing it that evening but Maki had panicked

That night she had panicked

She had stared down at the damaged flesh that Kugisaki’s eye patch couldn’t completely cover and thought about Mai and thought about feeling—

So she hadn’t

So she panicked and didn’t, but it hasn’t saved her from any of the misery of the last ten years

And now she’s dying, and Kugisaki at least isn’t pushing her out of her lap like she had Kugisaki, and it doesn’t matter because she’s dying—

Then she wakes up

Then she wakes up and Shoko is staring down at her like she’s a fucking moron which

Considering Shoko’s shitty and borderline fucking abusive relationship with Utahime before she actually got her shit together finally that last time a few years back is really fucking rich, okay

But then Megumi leans over her too, and looks so fucking gay and judgmental that she really really wants to punch him, and wait— why is he holding another new child as said child rambles on and on about…

Ghost dogs? Sushi? What?

Where the hell did THIS ONE come from, they were supposed to be out doing a super dangerous exorcism, what the hell is wrong with them, why are they trying to adopt children like puppies, why don’t they just get fucking dogs like a normal gay couple?

And then she realizes she’s not dead

That she is very much alive

So she looks past the most annoying lesbian she’s ever met (and she has NOTHING in common with Shoko, thanks) and the most annoying gay cousin she’s ever met (thank god she’ll never be anything like him with a new picture on his phone of Yuji sleeping or smiling or training literally every goddamn day, the man is obsessed) and there’s no sign of Kugisaki anywhere

No, there’s her charging cord and her favorite drink tumbler with ancient stickers sitting right there, so Kugisaki must have fled the room at some point—

Oh no

“You’re an idiot,” Megumi tells her, voice dripping with disdain as he fixes the little kid’s homemade knit dog hat with floppy ears that she knows full well Megumi must have made but will still blame Itadori for because he’s such a stubborn motherfucker even after all these years so Itadori must actually get off on it honestly

“You’re an idiot,” the strange child tells her confidently, huge black glasses taking up the parts of her face not swallowed up by the knit dog hat

And that’s how Maki realizes she can’t take any kind of easy way out this time, that she had in fact

Said

Those things

Out loud

To Kugisaki

Oh no

Oh no

And this is when Itadori bursts in looking worried and shaking his head, tells Megumi in a rush, “she wont let me in but Panda’s going to try to break in there and actually get her talking, I think he’ll have better luck, he’s really good at this stuff—”

Itadori stops when he sees her awake

Maki stares at Itadori

Itadori stares back at her wide eyed, looking cornered

The teenager that rushes in after him, the very first of the children that Megumi and Itadori both insist they have not adopted (despite taking them all to doctors appointments and tucking them in at night and all the pictures that Maki has seen displayed in every single corner of their ridiculously minimalist house that may actually have the best shower that Maki has ever used but she sure as hell will never admit it) looks at Maki

His eyes narrow

Shoko says quietly, “holy fuck, oh my god” and starts shoving nicotine gum into her mouth desperately

The kid jerks his head, dark eyes snapping toward Megumi

“Pleaaaaaaassse let me at least try to beat her up, please let me, please just this once, it’s my only chance I’ll ever have to do it, she can kill me with her pinkie, I know, but I’ve never heard auntie cry this hard ever, pleeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaasssseeeeeee let me fight her—“

Maki gets it then, puts the pieces together

Oh no

Oh no

And so this becomes how Maki has to finally grow up and fix her actual mistakes, which were surprisingly not murdering (almost) her entire biological family in cold blood—

But breaking the heart of the only person she’s ever cared about and has missed every day and thinks about every single night in her shitty bed after she takes her shitty shower in her shitty apartment that she refuses to move out of or spend the money or energy on to improve because none of it seems to matter

But she’s alive

She’s not dead

Her head jerks, finds the nest of fuzzy blankets that Kugisaki had left when she must have fled, the hint of lipstick left on the straw of the pink tumbler, and now she can smell her, the exact same mix of sweet orange and sharp floral that she’d been wearing that evening in the gym when Maki had ruined both their lives

Oh no

… come on, guys I fucking NEED this shit

[qprpbj]

it makes me physically ill to think about months after Johnny and Dally’s deaths, the boys are sitting at the dinner table and Ponyboy makes some offhand comment about Darry hitting him and Daryl just breaks down. all the walls crumble and he’s a mess, because he keeps pushing down the fact that he believes he is a bad person. and then Pony is at a loss for what to do because he’s never seen Darry like this, but Sodapop is getting flashbacks to Throwing In The Towel and seems to know exactly what’s happening. I am so invested in Ponyboy and Darry fix-it fics because I think Darry feels soooo much guilt for hitting him and he keeps bottling it up. like oh my god. just- so sad

i am so invested in THIS can you please write a fic abt it fr. i think he def carries a lot of heavy guilt for a longggg long time like years after canon and never really gets over it even once pony starts coming to peace. therapy isn’t really a thing for them tbf but goddd do these boys need it. BUT also at the same time i think it’s sort of a situation of like. darry’s not perfect either and he’s still darry, he still gets needlessly angry sometimes and takes it out on people even if they don’t deserve it, even if he doesn’t really know why he’s doing this to himself and to others. idk grief and healing and abuse cycles and (intergenerational) trauma. allllll the things play a role it’s not as easy as ppl think it is!!!! he doesn’t want to hurt pony or fight but sometimes he yells and he can’t help it!! its who he is and there’s generations of abuse and trauma working against him and since its the 60s he doesn’t have the verbiage or knowledge of how to break trauma/abuse/etc cycles like we do. like it’s absolutely not as easy as one traumatic event occurring and suddenly they’re perfect siblings again. darry i love you 🙁

[doodlegirl1998]

ngl im a mineta defender until the end, now before you jump me let me explain

his behavior is obvi disgusting (lets also not ignore the fact that hori has said hes his self insert) BUT IT IS EXTREMELY EASY TO FIX!

a lot of kids and teens who have similar behaviors often have parents with the same beliefs. not to say that this is always the case but it’s more common than not

which means that they’re raised not knowing that their behavior is wrong. they see it as acceptable, and not only that, but *expected* of them

it is an extremely easy thing to rectify. of course sometimes it’s harder depending on how much the behavior has been ingrained into them, but at the end of the day it is *fixable*

he was failed by his parents for encouraging his behavior and he was failed by other adults/teachers for letting it continue

also it’s not that much of a stretch to say that he was probably heavily bullied. he has a very prominent lisp, he’s a heteromorph, and he’s extremely short. i’ve seen several ppl who hc that he has dwarfism and i definitely agree with that

aizawa doesn’t seem to give a shit because he never takes any action to try and discipline him for how he acts

also im sick of the shinso replacing mineta fics. the only good thing abt shinso replacing aoyama is that ppl don’t have an excuse to replace him.

like for the love of god it’s not that hard to simply change his character. it annoys me to no end. bc i like mineta a lot! his quirk is interesting and he has a lot of potential as a character but he’s reduced to a creepy pervert bc every shonen anime needs to have at least one 🙄

tl;dr stop bashing mineta and start bashing hori

Hi @the-jello-bowl 👋

Stop bashing Mineta and start bashing Hori... hmm. You know what? That's a sentiment I could get behind.

After all, the ultimate problem with Mineta lies in his writing.

At the start of the series, Hori wrote him too perverted with too little of any other redeeming or sympathetic quality. That impression stuck - so a lot of fans want him out of heroism and out of 1A.

This is fair because Mineta's behaviour is triggering for many people, and he could make a dangerous figure as a hero and an adult if left unchecked and if his perversions worsen.

While I understand why, Shinsou replacing Mineta is a lazy way to do take Mineta out of 1A, since Shinsou canonically hasn't shown he deserves to be in the hero class nor shown to have good interactions with 1A as a collective.

While it doesn't make his behaviour excusable, you are right when you say Mineta was failed by the adults around him. Especially his parents and Aizawa, as you pointed out, they were the ones prime positioned to fix this behaviour, yet they did not. We don't know what his parents are like for certain, but I believe his dad was likely a verbally and emotionally abusive misogynist who Mineta idolised. And we know that Aizawa fluctuates between negligence and using his hero grade weapon on Mineta as discipline... so there is no consistent messaging there. Yikes.

Instead, Hori implied Mina had to clockwork orange Mineta to stop him being a pervert which... took away Mineta's whole agency in his decision to stop being perverted. (Did his character even get better at all by his own freewill really if Mina had to do this? Will that 'brainwashing' break one day? Here is another reason to hate Hori's writing.)

Hori also doesn't expand on the things that could make Mineta sympathetic, the lisp, the possibly being bullied in the past, the likely self-confidence issues. He doesn't expand on Mineta's backstory or expand on why he wants to be a hero, really (if it was just girls, he would have quit by now, let's be real).

It is a failure in Hori's writing that he doesnt give Mineta (as a HERO student) a redemption arc where he realises just how awful he's been to the girls and vows to make up for it. This moment could have even begun because Mineta stops his perversions due to wanting to be more well-liked and like Midoriya (who he looks up to). The building blocks are there - Hori neglects them.

TLDR: Mineta is a character that could have had potential, and his quirk is interesting. He had potential for a character redemption arc, potential for an interesting backstory, too.

The reason why Mineta is hated is because Hori wastes all his potential to have a lazily written creepy pervert throughout the majority of the story.

Good traits such as Mineta's bravery only make a large appearance later, and the perversions disappear too late in the story to really salvage his popularity.

Not only that, but being a hero is a privilege, not a right. Mineta has got to show through the story as a member of 1A why he deserves to be there and why he has the character for Heroism - unfortunately Hori fails to do this for him because of the reasons I mentioned above.

A lazily written cowardly perverted character could have worked in a minor villain character, but this is instead in a member of 1A, who we are meant to root for adding to the cognitive dissonance of his character.

[solangelo]

I was wondering, do you have any recomendations on some long fics? Like, not just one chapter? Sorry if you had already posted something abou that. Anyway, thanks!!! (Really like your blog <<3333)

Absolutely!! I pretty much only read on Ao3 anymore so all of my recommendations are going to be there, but if others want to tack on their own recommendations in the comments they're always welcome to do so :)

A few things,

I tried to put content warnings on the bodies of work as I see fit, but some of these I read over a year ago and haven't looked at since so I apologize if I've missed something!

Additionally speaking, I've marked anything in which contains characters having sex with a red heart emoji ❤️ as it should be viewable on light and dark mode, across multiple forms of devices (ios vs android, etc) and should be readable to screen readers as well; As per previous notes on this blogs, any explicit depictions of characters having sex will also have them being explicitly over 18. Now without further ado-

I'm a huge fan of rabbit_soup's "Healing Takes Two" series, it's 13 pieces in total some of them are oneshots and others are multichapter but they all fit together making it a large body of text. The plot extends from Nico's three days in the infirmary to the early stages of their relationship and still seems to be ongoing with the author taking on rewriting some of their older pieces.

arum scarce by GalwayGirlo [16/20] AU ❤️:

Nico wakes up paralyzed following a motorcycle accident. Maybe Will Solace can help him get some feeling back?

(cw: suicidal ideation, a suicide attempt, adult having a relationship with a minor, "mafia stuff")

When I Get Home to You by 2nd2ndalto [10/10] Canon Compliant, Time Travel ❤️:

Will’s brow furrows."N - Nico?"

It’s impossible, this boy can’t be Nico, but the name falls from his lips without real conscious thought. Nico is 38 years old and probably sitting at home in their living room, hopefully having figured out how to fix the clogged dishwasher line, which is what he’d been planning on doing when Will left early this morning.

(cw: conversations about suicidal ideation and related topics, and young nico is involved so canon compliant trauma of his comes up as well)

talk your talk and go viral (i just need this love spiral) by wrongcaitlyn [34/34] and a part 2 currently at [2/?] chapters, Celebrity AU ft. Trans Nico:

“Keep telling yourself that,” Will says quietly, because even though the door is closed, speaking any louder would seem wrong. “You’re too harsh on yourself. If you wrote songs or something, you’d easily get on the Billboard Hot 100. Dad would help you. I would, too.”

“Promote it to your seven followers?”

“Yes!”

Nico laughs, and then Will is joining him, and they’re closer than before, but it’s nothing unusual. It’s been this way since before stupid feelings and stupid crushes, and Nico would be damned if he let it change just because of that.

(cw: alcoholism, childhood abuse and neglect, character death, car accidents, transphobia/homophobia/generalized queerphobia, gender dysphoria, suicidal ideation and related topics)

peach tea by ghosttotheparty [5/5] AU ft. Latino Will:

Will brushes his thumb over the side of Nico’s hand gently. His skin is soft. Nico’s fingers tighten on Will’s. It kind of feels like neither of them wants to move. Will doesn’t mind.

He sits up after a moment, but Nico doesn’t let go of his fingers, so he lifts the arm that’s awkward between them and sets it behind Nico, leaning back to rest on it. Nico just looks at the tapestry.

or; Will falls in love with the new kid.

(cw: mental health struggles, ptsd, anxiety/panic attacks, depression, grief, and character death)

What Could've Been Lights by athaleablaire [18/18], AU - I can’t remember if they have sex in this, rating is teen and up and all characters are over 18 but enter at your own risk:

In Will's eyes, he really has it all. A job as a surgeon at an amazing hospital, great friends-- what more could he ask for? Everything is going great until a man walks into his emergency room half-dead. In the mission to save his life, Will gets a little more than he bargained for.

(cw: injury and recovery, accusations of substance use)

a shadow in the rising sun by demigodbeautiies [9/13], AU Royalty, Arranged Marriage:

This is a story about the Ghost King.

Will Solace (crown prince in the Seventh Kingdom, politically useless as it may be) does not particularly want to be married to a thing of nightmares. He doesn't really have a choice, though. When does he ever? He allows his father to push him led into this politically advantageous, beauracratically necessary arrangement without too many complaints, and resigns himself to the fact he will be marrying a tyrant out of the tall tales his mother used to tell him when he was a boy.

Except then he meets his husband - a boy, and one younger than he is at that! - and realises that he has absolutely no idea what to expect. All he can hope for is that no one tries to kill him.

(cw: character death, character injury?)

NICO Centric:

Lethe by Eridans [8/8] Canon Compliant with a part 2 at [16/16]:

He's ten and ninety simultaneously, his mother was murdered and his sister is a stranger. He's got a deck of cards that he holds onto like a lifeline and an Italian-English dictionary that's old as hell and crumbling, but it's not as old as he is, and that makes him laugh.

The River Lethe was supposed to take away their memories, but Nico remembers his past, his days at home, the times he spent with his sister and mother at parades Mussolini hosted, where Maria sang the national anthem. The river tried to take away everything Nico cherished, and it could have been pure desperation or grief that made him remember his past.

Nico didn't know.

(cw: I started reading this fic over 8 years ago and haven't read it since it's last update 3 years ago, expect canon compliant events and themes to occur but otherwise proceed at your own risk, exercising caution and compassion for yourself where necessary <3)

WILL Centric:

Solace by solisaureus [11/11], Canon Compliant:

solace (n.) comfort or consolation in a time of distress or sadness.

solis (n.) the Latin word for "sun."

(cw: author includes their own content warnings at the start of each chapter!)

sprinkler splashes to fireplace ashes by whimsicalMedley [13/26] Canon Compliant ft. Trans Will Solace:

Contrary to his general disposition, William Andrew Solace was born in the middle of an October hurricane.

Or, Growing up is hard. It’s even harder when you’re the son of the sun god.

(cw: author includes their own content warnings at the start of each chapter!)

Hopefully this is a good place to get you started, nonnie!

[thestobingirlie]

re: that compromise ask (diff anon but heyyy right there with u) i was literally JUST thinking abt smth similar, about how esp in future/reunion fics, it’s always steve crawling on his knees for forgiveness for how he used to be, and eddie like. heaving a big sigh and “going back on his principles” or whatever to forgive steve. and steve like having to prove he’s better now or whatever which like. fine sure yeah steve was a high school bully. he threw slurs around and he definitely objectified women (although come on it’s high school social strata everyone was objectifying everyone, ain’t none of those babies had enough brain cells yet to see other people as people, that’s just being fucking 16) and he was a bitch, not arguing there.

but like 1) he was fully a child, he was literally a teenager, mike is an asshole too and no one is arguing he can’t possibly grow up or be redeemed, or that he needs to repent to earn love? like it’s one thing in canon era fics where they’re all still growing up, but i haaaaate in future fics when steve is a whole grown ass adult man still expected to grovel for the sins of being 17,

and 2) canonically eddie is the judgmental one??? i mean steve literally apologized and made amends on screen but if that’s not enough look at just purely going off the way the kids interact with them! they’re completely comfortable with steve. yeah he rolls his eyes and huffs and complains about their “nerd shit” but he still drives them to dnd nights! he still does that lame ass handshake with dustin! he still listens to all the stuff they ramble about, and you know he does it every time even when we don’t see it on screen, because they’re totally comfortable doing it! no doubt, no question steve will listen and support them, even when he doesn’t understand. dustin comes to scoops knowing without a doubt that steve will drop everything to listen to him talk about camp, and be excited about it! steve doesn’t give a shit about science camp, but dustin does, and that’s enough for him! yeah dustin is excited to talk about suzie, because girls are common ground with steve, but steve doesn’t know he met suzie when he takes his break, he just wants to hear about how dustin’s nerd stuff was going! he doesn’t have to understand or relate, he just wants them to do the stuff that makes them happy, and they know that. they trust him to listen even if he doesn’t get it

but the way mike and dustin were so nervous to ask eddie to postpone hellfire, even after months of knowing him, shows that they don’t trust him to let them have interests outside of his understanding. and they shouldn’t! he’s proven that he veered so hard into “nonconformity” he just reinforced the same social boundaries he claims to hate. everything with eddie is “us v them,” and like! i get it! i think it’s a complicated dichotomy and makes for an interesting character! i’m an eddie stan first and a person second ok listen i love the man. but if anyone needs to beg on their knees for forgiveness for being a dick in high school, it’s the guy who ruined BOTH of lucas’ favorite activities in one fell swoop by projecting his own insecurities and fake social rivalry onto a literal child. (i’m still so mad he managed to force lucas to miss the campaign finale he’d worked so hard for AND made sure that none of his friends or family were there to watch him play basketball all at once i’m never over it. i’m frothing at the mouth. apologize to lucas or meet my blade)

but there’s this trend where people are like “oh man eddie’s such a good person for looking past king steve and loving steve anyway! he’s rehabbing the jock! he’s fixing him!” fuck you. fix your damn self. the duffers’ childish ass hatred of “non nerds” is sooooo pervasive in this fandom it’s so gross.

oh my god, this is just beautiful. i literally couldn’t put it any better.

i wish we had gotten to see eddie repent for what he did to lucas, because honestly, i still hold it against him.

what’s especially funny to me about it is that steve’s sins (in s4) were over two years ago, eddie’s were last week lmao. like, one of them needs to go around apologising and it’s not steve.

but yeah! the kids have an ease around steve that they don’t around eddie. classic example: all the kids go to steve in s3, not even pretending to be polite or actually ask, and just pound on the bell until he comes to let them through the back of scoops to watch a movie. they don’t worry about his reaction. steve could literally get fired doing this, but they know he’s going to do it, and feel so comfortable that he won’t have a bad reaction, that there isn’t any hesitation.

when asking eddie to postpone a game, mike and dustin are shaking in their little boots. they’re flinching and looking away, and trying not to actually ask. those aren’t kids in the presence of someone comforting!! this isn’t a guy they would think deserves steve begging on his knees. if eddie was being a prick about steve’s past for no reason other than to hold some moral superiority over him, the kids would get pissed off.

if anyone is getting rehabilitated in their relationship, it’s eddie, not steve!! because being a jock isn’t inherently bad, and being a nerd isn’t inherently good, no matter what the duffers may be trying to tell you.

[skreebs]

Thinking about the ableism toward Jouno in the BSD fandom and it genuinely pisses me off so badly I want to hit people. I’ll be perusing the tag and looking at stuff and then I’ll see some random pop ups for AO3 and get shit like this

Now I don’t 100% know the context of this screenshot, for all I know this fic could be about him before he lost his sight, but either way it got me thinking and thinking got me angry and being angry means i need to complain. Jouno is already pretty shit blind rep, I’ll be honest. He’s the basic stereotype of “blind character has super senses because they’re blind” but can we give blind people literally ANYTHING else??? jesus christ. I’m pissed how BSD writes his blindness so as per usual I had to attempt to fix all of that myself, but attempting to fix it and removing it entirely are NOT the same and one is VERY MUCH SO WORSE. Again, not talking about this fic specifically but other ones I’ve seen that do this, or those “Jouno if he could see” edits. Spoiler alert, blind people can open their eyes.

I dont know why BSD and every other piece of media is so adamant on not giving visually impaired and blind characters white canes and just giving them "super senses" to get around it. It’s incredibly stupid and abelist to portray stuff like this. Disabilities are not super powers and thank GOD they didnt make that his ability but they still gave him that aspect and I guess it can be excused with SOME lore stuff like maybe he got really good senses from his surgeries but it just sucks that it happened that way at all? And then they don't even touch on how horrible having incredibly hightened senses to the point you can HEAR blood would be?? can you imagine hearing everyone internal organs around you 24/7 EVERYDAY? No one talks about that at all. That would be so fucking overwhelming its genuinely insane. Jouno is such a dear character to me, but genuinely when I remember him in canon without any of my headcanon explinations it’s just really sad that all I can say about him as representation is "well.. it could be worse".

I know there’s going to be at least one person saying “theres good blind rep in other shows though!!” Yes! I know! I’m super glad about that! But ignoring the bad ones doesn’t help much. You need to point out the issues to get good results. Recently, and by recently I mean about 17 hours ago, I watched/listened to the first episode of Daredevil, once with audio descriptions, and then after I watched without AD and had captions. I’m super glad that things are more commonly getting AD—it’d be a bit pathetic if the show with a blind main character was not accessible to blind people—but even with Daredevil, Matt still falls a bit into this stereotype.

Don’t get me wrong, seeing a character with a white cane has me absolutely elated, but from the single episode I’ve seen and what I’ve heard, he apparently also has some sort of super senses, and I know in the first episode he can hear heartbeats. I think super senses as a power is fine, but it’s just the fact they always give it to the blind characters. I, myself, am not blind, nor am I really visually impaired, I just wear glasses. However, as someone with a special interest in disabilities and also as someone that is disabled in other ways, seeing disabled rep fall into stereotypes over and over just really bums me out sometimes.

I think Daredevil is great so far from this one episode, I’ll probably be looking at more of it, but that is definitely just one gripe I have with it. I think Charlie Cox putting a bunch of effort into the role with the method acting and talking to people in the blind community and just all of that is amazing, I love to see that in anything, it’s just urrghh that it’s so hard to find a blind character that doesn’t have some kind of insane superpower senses with things. It reminds me of when characters with autism are so frequently portrayed as geniuses or their autism is only acceptable if it helps the neurotypical cast with “gadgets” or something. I dunno. Hard to explain, it’s 11 at night and I’m tired. Just don’t be ableist in any fandom or in real life. I shouldn’t have to even point out why this shit is disgraceful.

[jiminjeonging]

hi it’s me again, back by request with more age re mj :) i’m actually already a fic writer myself so i might turn these into a something™️ eventually, but for now i’ll just brain rot in your asks if that’s okay!!!

jm and mj have known each other for so long but at the same time they’re still learning about each other. jm knows mj so well but sometimes when it comes to regressing, she can misread mj’s actions as misbehavior when there was no intention to act out. during a schedule, mj gets restless cuz her head hurts and picks at her fake nails and her dress is itchy so she can’t stay still and her feet hurt in the heels they wore for the pictorial - so overstimulated and frustrated that she talks over her unnies and starts to rip at her clothes, and it’s actually ningning who tells her to calm down before audiz can say anything. but it’s too late. jm already sees her like this and sees a brat who won’t listen. when they wrap and mj is the first in line walking back into their dressing room, jm is in leader mode, whisper yelling at mj that her behavior was unacceptable while the cameras are rolling, but when she finally reaches out to grab mj and turn her around and sees how dejected mj looks, she realizes that mj has dropped. thankfully they’re done for the day now, but mj can’t even speak bc she’s so occupied with trying to take off all the complex makeup and intricate clothing she has on, can’t even process jm apologizing for going into leader mode when what she needed was her unnie to soothe her. jm makes it up to her by helping her undress out of the pictorial outfit, takes down her hair for her, dresses her up in the hoodie that she originally brought for herself to wear, and mj sits on jm’s lap as jm carefully wipes off the makeup from the day- it’s then when mj cries and cries, thinking that she upset her unnie by being frustrated with everything because she couldn’t handle it and she’s so tired that she wants to nap right there in her lap, but jm doesn’t want mj to fall asleep thinking that she’s still upset so she whispers sweet nothings into mj’s ear until she nods off. jm picks her up to lay her down on the couch, but not before giving her a light kiss on the cheek and fixing her hair. the change of clothes that mj was originally going to wear fits a little tight on jm, but when she sees mj laying there in her hoodie, she doesn’t feel too bad about it as long as her baby is comfortable and safe

RAAAHHH THANK YOU!!!! pleaase do brain rot i love these so much! i love mj age regressing and its canon to me. i was lowkey scared to talk about it at first but im so glad other ppl are seeing the vision!! can you give me your username i would love to follow you or just read your work hehe

[quantumripple]

Figured it might be neat to give post-mortems of fics I’ve written (in no particular order)

Gonna call this Quantum’s Post-Moretem Mondays even though I’m almost certain I’m never going to post this again on a Monday (work was just suuuuper slow)

So to start off we’ve got Pen Pals: https://archiveofourown.org/works/51609454

Premise: in early 2010 Taylor and Sveta become pen pals (hence the name).

Very much the definition of a rarepair since there’s only one other Taylor/Sveta fic that I’m aware of and it’s not even tagged.

And honestly hot take: the reason it’s a rarepair is that it lowkey just does not work as a ship. Taylor and Sveta are just not compatible, Taylor is far too… her. Sveta deserves better honestly.

What I like about the fic:

The bits of humour always blindside me when I do a reread. This one definitely leans on the sort of online humour you sometimes get with lesbians. Particularly the meme of two girls commiserating you each other that they “wish they could get a gf frfr”

I also just stole some funny bits from worm and adapted them but idk if I should count those bc they were just yoinked from worm.

I’m pretty proud of the background plot that’s happening in the fic. It’s pretty fun to explore those through only the lens of texts between two people. Things diverge a little bit and we end up with Echidna happening early, but the fight goes a lot differently. Ends up being a much longer fight/conflict but upside is case 53 stuff didn’t get leaked. Taylor eventually ended it by tag-teaming with a few heroes, getting the right power combo. S9 shows up after and a while after they’re there Amy takes Victoria. Taylor, thinking the s9 did it went on the warpath, she broke into the prt hq and stole the Bakuda bombs which she used to take out a few members before she found Amy and Victoria, made Amy fix her, then just fully executed her.

What I don’t like:

Taylor is extremely out of character. She’s too like… it’s hard to explain but she’s too cutesy, or dorky in a way that doesn’t really fit with how she is in canon. Triple especially anytime they’re discussing feelings. Honestly the only parts of her that feels in character is latter on in the fic when it starts getting into the broader hero plot stuff.

Sveta is also pretty ooc but not quite as bad as Taylor. She’s a hard character to write because while yea she’s got a lot going on at the end of the day she’s just a really nice person and that’s hard to write out unless you want something super fluffy.

And speaking of: the fic is just way too fluffy for my tastes these days. Like I had to skim the final scene where they’re being all sappy and confessional bc it made me feel ill lmao.

What I would do if I were to redo/re-explore:

Honestly this might be one of my few fics where I’d just cop it and say that it kinda doesn’t work conceptually. Taylor and Sveta just aren’t really compatible without changing one or the other.

Honestly if I were returning to it I’d probably drop Sveta (sorry) and actually just focus on the Brockton Bay plot stuff. So it’d be Taylor joining the wards, getting frustrated and then leaving and teaming up w Victoria and the focus is more in them becoming friends. And the other changes with Echidna and the s9 could be fun to explore.

Or alternatively I keep Sveta and lean into the doomed nature of the relationship, have it be a much more deep exploration of their characters and how they could interact. Follow Sveta as she makes an online friend but slowly realise that this friend of hers is weirdly violent as a cape. Have that introduce a lot more friction with Sveta judging Taylors methods more and more and Taylor just getting really defensive etc. and like…. It wouldn’t even need to have a bad ending per se. It would just be them realising that they’re really not compatible and that getting this invested in each other was a bad idea. Or the super good ending where Sveta comes around to Taylor’s way of thinking and they wage bloody war against evil, that could also be p fun. And not entirely impossible especially if Taylor is literally Svetas only friend.

Final thoughts:

This is one of those fics that still gets the odd random comment on ao3 which makes me remember it more often than other fics despite the fact that I don’t really have much to say/think about the fic beyond what I’ve already thrown up. It sits in my mind as a firm “basically ok, has its moments”

Curious to know what others think of it because honestly I barely do. I think I just picked it bc it was one of my shorter fics and sfw so I could read it between waiting for stuff to happen at work.

[comfymoth]

We need to permakill and retcon q!Wilbur.

and he was just a collective figment of everyone’s imagination……….. a hologram, like hatsune miku, but like. idk. made by the government or some shit.

sorry i went on a rant so i’m stowing it under the cut, but i’m really just incapable of shutting up about my opinions. the tl;dr is i don’t even hate him but he’s not present in canon! he’s not! so why is he such a massive deal!

and y’know what sucks is i actually do like him existing as this weird empty shape in tallulah and quackity’s lives for a while, i liked the way it let them idolize him and i liked when they had to realize their fantasy wasn’t real, i think that was fun and interesting. but that’s definitely not what i see in fan works!!! and those arcs are pretty much over, too, they’re only one part of those stories. q’s especially. so let them rest!!!

and honestly, i wouldn’t even mind the fanon fix-it fics if they weren’t completely inescapable. it’s just the over-saturation that’s killing me, like— wilbur has about as much character as spreen, or luzu, and i like fan content of those guys! i make fan content of those guys!! but nobody makes roier’s entire character and all his arcs about spreen the way they make quackity’s about wilbur. and i’ve talked about the infantilization of quackity by qtnt fans before. i’ve already gone on that rant. i probably wouldn’t even care this much if it weren’t for the ‘what if wilbur taught him how to read 🥺’ thing, that’s what turned me off in the first place!!!

but like. man. going back to the list there’s just no way quackity & wilbur should be outranking roier & jaiden in the platonic relationships category. that’s not even a little bit proportional, that makes no sense. and on a slightly biased note it’s weird that q has no big platonic tags with anyone else! i just wanna read a good quackity-centric fic about his other relationships, so if anyone has anything like that. please let me know. i’m struggling out here. (and i’m sorry but no quackity & phil doesn’t count because that always just circles back to being about wilbur)

[youhideastar]

Fit for Purpose Deleted Scenes II: Alternate Version, Second Half

Yesterday I posted the first batch of deleted scenes from Fit for Purpose: the first half of a backstory chapter that I ultimately deep-sixed as a distraction. For more explanation, please read that first-half post! Today I'm sharing the second half of that backstory chapter. Again, I'm going to try to keep my commentary on the scenes to a minimum so as not to make this post longer. Other deleted scenes posts are linked in the masterpost. I hope you enjoy!

We pick up during the Sunshot Campaign, with a scene that I've always found perplexing in canon - WWX promising to let LWJ help him with the demonic cultivation. It's not clear in canon whether he ever actually does that. Here, I decided he would.

On another rooftop in the moonlight, eyes dark and urgent, Lan Zhan says, “Wei Ying. You are trying to snatch grain from a roaring fire.”

Because without that grain, I’ll starve, thinks Wei Wuxian. For a moment, he imagines telling Lan Zhan about his core. It’s a wild thought, quickly smothered.

“Wei Ying. Let me help.”

Wei Wuxian knows what he should do: call him “Lan Wangji” again. Smile like a knife. Shove him away.

But the end of the war is coming, and Wei Wuxian knows he’s unlikely to survive it. A few months doesn’t seem like too long a time to pretend that he can be fixed—that what he’s missing is something Lan Zhan can give him.

He says yes. Lets Lan Zhan play pretty songs for him. Spiritually, they do nothing for him.

But the lie makes Lan Zhan feel better.

They’re at war. Lan Zhan could be hurt or killed at any time. Wei Wuxian doesn’t want the last thing he said to him to be cruel. That’s all.

*

In the end, they win. He wins.

The other sects make the omega Meng Yao—Jin Guangyao, now—the hero. What he did, they understand. One short, sharp thrust.

It makes A-Cheng and Lan Zhan angry on Wei Wuxian’s behalf; for his part, Wei Wuxian couldn’t care less. He did what he needed to do. He fulfilled his purpose. He didn’t do it for the glory.

They go back to Lotus Pier.

A-Cheng and Jiejie want everything to go back to the way it used to be. They treat him like Yunmeng Jiang’s head disciple.

So he tries to act like it.

But there’s a hole inside of him. And so, there are things he can’t do. Things he can’t give, because he gave them already, and there’s no getting them back.

He can’t teach sword cultivation—can’t even draw his sword. And no one wants to hear about his talismans; the ones he writes in blood. The ones that draw evil in, rather than repelling it. Any of a half-dozen others would be a better head disciple than he would.

There’s only one part of his job he can really do anymore. And even that is… harder than it used to be. They want to touch and be touched, but his skin still crawls with the touch of the dead. And he doesn’t want to put his mouth on them. He never wants human flesh in his mouth again.

He’d thought he’d be dead for this part.

He was supposed to be dead for this part.

Maybe he is.

A-Cheng lays into him for failing in his duty. For not giving enough. Wei Wuxian places his hand over his incision scar and keeps his silence. He knows it’s true. No matter how much he gives, it could never be enough.

That previous scene is probably the one that hurt the most to cut. I really liked it. But DAMN did it bring down the vibe of the fic. It's so bleak in tone that it really could not coexist with the cute banter in the Jingshi.

Next is my first crack at the Baifeng Mountain scene.

Come to Gusu with me, he says. Let me play for you, let me help you, he says. I am the one who knows you, he says. Better than you know yourself.

For a moment, he imagines it. Going to Gusu with Lan Zhan. Letting Lan Zhan take care of him, letting Lan Zhan imprison him—he can’t tell anymore what it is that Lan Zhan wants to do with him, but he’s not sure he cares. At least he’d be with Lan Zhan. At least Lan Zhan understands that he’s changed. At least Lan Zhan isn’t expecting him to pretend he’s still the laughing boy on the rooftop.

Ah, but it’s a selfish, selfish thought.

Yu-furen saw it in him all along.

For him to cling to Lan Zhan—brilliant, perfect, unparalleled Lan Zhan, who has never needed or wanted anything from Wei Wuxian, not even his body—is just another symptom of his weakness.

No. Wei Wuxian knows what he is. What he is meant for. He is meant to be of use. That is what he was made for. That is why he was saved from starvation on the streets – so he could be of use. To Jiang Cheng, and to Jiejie.

He ignores the voice murmuring in his head, But what use are you to them, really? Except as a mascot, and a whore.

But that didn't really address what I consider the main point of the Baifeng Mountain sequence in this AU, and an incredibly overlooked moment in canon, imo: Jin-furen's assertion that people are starting to believe that WWX and JYL are sexually involved. To me, this is THE turning point of this arc for WWX. The only way he'd ever leave Lotus Pier is if he thought it was better for JC and JYL if he did. I think by this point in canon, he's long ago decided JC would be better off with a different head disciple, but JYL is keeping him hanging on. He doesn't feel like he's failing her. Until this moment, when Jin-furen supplies him with a reason to believe that his presence is hurting JYL, too. At that point, he feels he has to leave. I think if he hadn't found Wen Qing in the street, he might have just wandered out of Lanling and noped out of the whole cultivation world at that point.

None of Yu-furen’s lectures or Jiang-shushu’s stories or A-Cheng’s threats taught him what to do when the very people he’s supposed to live for are better off without him.

He’s a useless head disciple to Yunmeng Jiang Sect. Everything he does makes A-Cheng angry. Whenever Jiejie sees him, she looks worried. Even Lan Zhan—according to Lan Xichen—is working himself to the bone in a futile quest to purify Wei Wuxian’s nonexistent core and bring him back to the sword path.

Then, on Baifeng Mountain, he learns that it’s so much worse than he thought.

“You shouldn’t be alone with him, A-Li,” Jin-furen says firmly.

Jiejie flinches. “A-Xian is my didi. There’s nothing improper—”

“With your mother gone, there is no one who will tell you what you need to hear,” Jin-furen interrupts. When she looks at Jiejie, her face is kind; the look she flicks at Wei Wuxian is like a knife. “But I will. A-Li, didi or no, people are talking. An unmarried omega who turned down an advantageous match to a powerful alpha to stay with her brother…”

“Yes,” Jiejie says, cheeks pale. “My brother, Jin-furen. Will you tell me to stay away from A-Cheng, too?”

Jin-furen waves her fan. “Of course not. That’s different. A-Li.” She barely bothers to drop her voice when she says, “You know what betas do. You know what they’re for.”

Wei Wuxian doesn’t know what Jiejie says to that. He doesn’t stay to find out. And he doesn’t plan to come back.

If he drinks himself to death, it’ll reflect poorly on Yunmeng Jiang. But if he flashes enough gold in the right parts of Lanling City, he thinks he can probably get himself knifed pretty easily, and bleed out fast enough that no one will wonder why his core didn’t save him.

Then A-Cheng can find a better head disciple, and Jiejie’s reputation will be safe.

And Lan Zhan—

Well. Lan Zhan will be fine. He won’t have to try to save Wei Wuxian anymore. Once the first shock is past, it’ll probably be a relief.

*

But in Lanling City, Wei Wuxian doesn’t find a knife in the dark.

He finds a woman in a red cloak, starving and bruised, searching for her beloved brother.

And some part of him that he thought was dead roars back to life, like a new-fed flame.

He remembers standing side-by-side with Lan Zhan, remembers the vows they made. He can’t be a good brother or a good beta. He can’t be head disciple, or cultivate the sword path.

But he can stand with justice. He can defend the weak. He can live with a clear conscience.

For the first time since his body was shattered against the death-soaked earth of the Burial Mounds, Wei Wuxian feels alive.

*

Lan Zhan doesn’t see it that way. Lan Zhan, sheltered under his pretty umbrella, tries to call Wei Wuxian back to the path of orthodoxy.

But Wei Wuxian has just walked away from a valley of corpses. He has seen what the path of orthodoxy is paved with. His hands are shaking. Behind him are those few he managed to save – cold, dirty, half-drowned, frightened, sick. He cannot walk away from them. He cannot believe Lan Zhan would ask him to.

PISSED-OFF AND INCREDULOUS. “We promised we would devote our lives to fighting the wicked and defending the weak!” he shouts, while the thunder rolls. His eyes sting as rain drips down his face. “You tell me, Lan Zhan: who is strong, and who is weak? Who is right, and who is wrong?”

Lan Zhan has no answer.

It rises in Wei Wuxian, then: the same smooth-polished calm that came upon him in the Xuanwu Cave, when he thought the moment had come for him to die for A-Cheng. A quiet but powerful peace.

Yes. He could die here. Now. Not knifed in an alley by some thief, trying to slip unnoticed from a world where he was no longer needed, but in battle against the mighty Hanguang-jun, defending the innocent. That would be worthy. That would be right.

As he raises Chenqing between them, Wei Wuxian can feel himself smiling. His belly churns with joy and sorrow, fear and anticipation.

“If there has to be a fight,” he says, very steady, “then let me fight to the death with you. If I have to die, then let it be at the hands of Hanguang-jun. It would be no injustice.”

But in the end, Lan Zhan steps away.

So Wei Wuxian rides forward. To Yiling, where Jiang-shushu rescued him all those years ago. To Yiling, where he dragged his body back from broken death.

He’s been reborn in Yiling twice. Maybe he can do it one more time. He can only try.

Here is an alternate version of WWX's decision to go with Wen Qing. I'm ultimately not sure which one I like better.

It would be monstrous of him to follow her. To turn his back on his family. His purpose.

You live for them. Die for them, if you have to. Don’t you dare keep anything for yourself that could go to them.

A perversion; a rebellion against nature, from which there could be no return and no redemption.

He thinks about the prisoners shuffled out in chains before the targets. Thinks about the screaming of the women, at Nightless City, as the blood ran from under the doors. Of the old men shot down from behind by golden arrows as they fled on the road, sobbing.

*

Three.

Two.

*

He swore, once, to live with a clean conscience.

He should never have made that vow—his conscience, like the rest of him, belonged to Yunmeng Jiang. It was not his to dispose of.

But he did. He did make that promise.

And even though it makes him ungrateful, and unfilial—even though he knows there will be no coming back from this—he finds he can’t break it.

This one thing, in the end, is his.

Either way, we pick up with this bit covering WWX's second stay in the Burial Mounds. Honestly, this is mostly me getting high on my own worldbuilding.

In the Burial Mounds, every moment reminds him of his time in hell. Resentful energy courses through his veins. His stomach growls with hunger. He wakes every morning with the knowledge that he has turned his back on the whole reason for his existence; that he is an ungrateful, unfilial disgrace.

And still, it is easier to breathe here than it was in Lotus Pier.

The things the Wen refugees need from him are things he can actually give: protection, and they don’t care that he uses methods other than the sword; labor, and for the first time since Wen Qing cut him open, he is not the weakest of the group; and money.

Most prostitutes are claimed omegas; safe enough, since a person can only be claimed once, but clients complain about the smell of a foreign claim, vinegary-sharp and off-putting.

A beta, then, can command a high price – even a skinny, dirty one, who can only ply his trade in alleys and teahouses, rather than silk-sheeted brothel beds.

Wei Wuxian doesn’t mind it. After all, it’s not like it’s so different.

This is what he was made for. People have always told him that. It’s just that, now, they give him money when they say it.

Then there's the "LWJ visits Yiling" section, which made it into the finished fic. We pick up with:

After Lan Zhan leaves, Wei Wuxian doesn’t expect to see anyone from his old life ever again, unless it’s at swordpoint.

But he’s always been loved too well – loved more than he deserves.

“Jiejie,” he whispers, eyes full of tears, as she stands before him resplendent in red.

“I wanted you to see me in my wedding clothes,” she says gently. “Do you like them?”

“You look magnificent,” he tells her, throat tight.

It’s almost more than he can bear, to sit around a table with Jiejie and A-Cheng eating pork rib and lotus root soup, being asked—at A-Cheng’s urging, how?—to give a courtesy name to Jiejie’s firstborn. He thought this was gone for good, and now, it’s—

It isn’t like he never left. It doesn’t feel that way. Wen Ning is waiting outside; the rest of the Wens up on the mountain; his stomach is growling despite the soup, because it’s all he’s eaten all day; black curls of resentful energy fill the ugly hole where his core used to be.

But it feels like, maybe, he could find a new way of belonging. Like, maybe, he could have both: be true to his family and his sect and be true to the vow he made with Lan Zhan.

*

He’s so stupid. He never learns.

And every time he falls into the delusion, people die.

*

But when he gets Lan Zhan’s invitation to Jin Rulan’s 100-days celebration, it seems like a sign from the heavens. Confirmation. He can have both, and the proof is right here, in his nephew’s name written in Lan Zhan’s perfect calligraphy.

He works in a frenzy on his gift for the baby. Night and day, applying new protections, refining those that are already there. Every mo, yao, gui and guai he can think of will be repelled. Curses, too – every curse he ever learned about, and some he invented himself.

This is how he’ll make up for it – how he’ll pay the Jiangs back for what he owes them. Every disappointment, every time he wasn’t there for Jiang Cheng or Jiejie when they needed him, will be made right. He pours his time, his ingenuity, his expertise, and his literal blood into these beads.

They’re not fine jade or lustrous gold. Probably a kid raised as the heir to Lanling Jin won’t want to wear it. But Jiejie can make him, when he’s little. And when he’s older, he can carry it with him in a bag or in his sleeve – that will be enough. Wei Wuxian takes care to make the protections strong enough for that. He doesn’t want to overlook anything. It has to be perfect. This is his chance.

You do anything your jie needs, Yu-furen’s voice echoes, every time Wei Wuxian’s eyes start to close under the weight of his exhaustion. And her children, someday.

I will, Yu-furen, he promises silently, rubbing his eyes and returning to his work. I swear it. I will.

*

And then, there is the ambush.

The box falls from his sleeve.

Jin Zixun closes his hand and—

Wei Wuxian doesn’t completely remember what happens after that.

The dust that used to be lotus-seed beads, pouring from Jin Zixun’s fist like sand through an hourglass – he remembers that very well. It replays in his mind, again and again.

But afterward. That’s when he loses the thread. Loses control.

Loses—

*

Jin Zixuan.

Wen Qing and Wen Ning.

A-Yuan.

Wen-popo. Fourth Uncle. All of the Wens he fought so hard and gave so much to save.

Lan Zhan – his enemy now.

Jiejie, widowed and grieving. Jiejie, wounded. Then—

*

“Jiejie!”

*

There’s no point, after that.

Lan Zhan takes his hand, holds on, won’t let go when Wei Wuxian tells him to. He looks at Wei Wuxian like he sees something worth saving.

But then A-Cheng is there; Wei Wuxian smiles. Good. This is how it should be. His life is A-Cheng’s to take. It always has been.

Everything happens very quickly, then.

And then there’s nothing at all.

Okay, that's all very depressing... future deleted scenes posts won't be so bleak, I promise! Stay tuned for tomorrow's installment.

[reinvent-and-believe]

not true if you’re still taking trick or treat requests, but i love your fics too much not to try!!

royjamie, 71!

hello! have some violent pre-canon sexual tension 😅

71. adrenaline

--

Here it is.

Roy’s got him cornered, back against the wall after a particularly vile insult about Richmond, because Jamie Tartt is above being a fucking team player. They’re close, they always end up so fucking close when it’s like this, and maybe this is it, maybe now they finally duke it out proper-like. Jamie looks like he can’t wait, practically shaking with adrenaline, anticipation.

For all his barely suppressed rage and borderline violent tendencies, Roy’s never been much of a brawler. An aggressive headbutt here or there, sure, that’s practically part of the game. But he doesn’t go around getting into fistfights; he’s got plenty of vices, but that’s not one. He’s Richmond’s captain, for fuck’s sake, he’s not going to be the one to throw the first punch at one of his players, matter how much that shit deserves it. If Jamie starts it, though…

Even with the constant threat of violence bubbling between them, it’s surreal to imagine the physical reality of it, how it will feel when Jamie finally takes that swing. How Roy’s fist might feel colliding with the meat of Jamie’s impressive jaw, how Jamie’s fist might feel in his stomach. Jamie’s not particularly sportsmanlike, that’s for fucking sure, Roy’s seen it over and over since the brat’s loan started three months ago. He imagines Jamie looking for every weakness, slapping, scratching, pulling his hair as they grapple together, breathing the same air.

Jamie grabs him by the collar and here it is, this is where they’ve been headed since that arrogant, childish cunt showed up at Nelson Road with his inflated ego and easy sneer. Roy braces himself for the blow, relieved that it’s Jamie who’ll finally start this, Jamie who’ll give into the violence so Roy need only respond.

Jamie crashes into him, kissing him hard, his fist balled in Roy’s shirt.

Roy freezes against him for a split second before he’s pressing Jamie back harder against the wall, crowding him, close, unbearably close, like he wants to fucking devour him. Rage and arousal and relief flood through him. Jamie struck first, Roy tells himself as he brings a rough hand to the back of Jamie’s neck, pulling him closer, kissing him harder. Roy’s just responding.

Jamie shoves him back, pushing away from the wall and fixing Roy with a heated, filthy smirk. “You got off easy this time, granddad,” he says, winking at Roy and blowing him a kiss as he saunters past him to his car.

Roy leans back against the wall and watches him leave.

Fuck.

[love-kurdt]

How to Write a Good Fanfiction: A 5 Step Manual

Hello! My name is @love_kurdt, also known as Eva, and I’m a Wattpad Veteran of the early 2010s, where the genres of Slash Fics, Y/N, and Imagines ran rampant. I spent years of my life as a kid scrolling through my iPod touch, weeding through Wattpad’s plethora of profiles, on a quest to find quality fanfictions. I found a handful, which I added to a specific reading list to come back to when I needed a break from screaming into my pillow because of the sheer audacity of thought-criminals who called themselves writers.

When I’d reached the point of reading the same five works over and over in a never ending cycle, I decided to make the life-altering decision to start publishing my fanfictions online. Granted, I was only thirteen at this point, so my writing wasn’t spectacular by any means, but I came to discover that over time, the mere acts of reading and writing can light a spark of inspiration that can carry you to creative success.

I’ve been writing my own works for over ten years now, and can confidently say that I have cracked the code to writing a good fanfiction that will have your readers captivated instead of cringing. Please don’t get me wrong– if you want to just write fanfic on the internet for fun, and not to write a novel, that’s great, too! That’s what the internet is for; exercising your free will. But this manual is tailored towards those who want to hone in on their craft and gain a substantial following as strictly fanfiction authors. So without further ado, let’s jump into it. Godspeed!

Step 1: Choose Your Fandom

What show, movie, or book has drawn you in and left you feeling like there should be more to the story? When one of those media comes to mind, you’ve chosen your fandom!

Step 2: Do Your Research

When writing fanfiction, it’s kind of an unspoken rule that you need to know the canon of the fandom you’re writing about. The canon is also known as the source material. For example, if someone were to write a Draco Malfoy x OC fanfiction (*cough* a 200+ page Draco Malfoy self insert fic written at 11 years old in a series of notebooks bound together with multiple layers of Gorilla tape *cough*), the canon would be the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling. It’s, in essence, what “really” happened. It’s totally fine if you want to write a non-canon compliant fic, too! In fact, they’re extremely popular, specifically within the “fix-it” genre, which usually involves characters that died in the canon but the author kept alive in their fanfiction. Either way, you should have a general idea of how the canon functions within the context of the fandom, so you can make creative choices that diverge from or stick to the canon.

With the canon comes the fanon, which is basically a compilation of fan theories and headcanons that are often common themes in both canon and non-canon compliant fanfics. A pretty niche example of this is the Byler fandom (the ship between Stranger Things characters Will Byers and Mike Wheeler), where there’s an official list of theories on Tumblr that are used in many, if not most Byler fanfictions. There’s FlickerGate, where the flickering of the garage light in Season 1 is actually Will and Mike in the Upside Down in Season 5. There’s BirthdayGate, where the antagonist, Vecna, manipulates the minds of everyone in Hawkins to forget Will’s birthday, which is a central plot point in a lot of Byler fics since no one seems to remember it, not even his best friend. There’s also LetterGate, where Will confronts Mike in the canon about not sending any letters after he’d moved away, but the theory reveals that Mike wrote plenty of letters– he just never sent them because they ended up turning into love letters, which in turn resulted in internalized homophobia. You get the picture. Most theories reach far into the land of delusion, but it doesn’t stop writers from creating incredible work that could easily be mistaken for a script.

But Eva, what if I just think the characters are hot and I don’t give a shit about the cannonball? I can’t tell you what to do, my friend, but I highly suggest you at least consider the canon so you can avoid all the petty, obnoxious gatekeepers in some fandoms who can be unhinged enough to send death threats if you leave out a significant canonical detail. But you do you!

Step 3: Choose Your Platform

There are three popular platforms to choose from: Archive of Our Own (ao3), Tumblr, and Wattpad. There are also a few other lesser known or dead pages such as fanfiction.net, but I honestly wouldn’t bother with those, since they’re more infiltrated with anons and bots nowadays.

This is where you want to think about 1) where most of the members in the fandom you chose reside, and 2) the demographic of readers you want to reach. For example, I observed a higher number of Nirvana fans on Wattpad than the other two platforms, which is why I chose to post my full length Kurt Cobain fanfiction, “You Know You’re Right,” on there. It also helped that my favorite author of another Kurt Cobain fanfiction on Wattpad, @/ugh-nirvana, had hits in the hundreds of thousands, so I was confident that my book would do well on that specific platform. On the other hand, the Stranger Things fandom is in full swing on Tumblr and ao3, so I chose to post those fanfictions on there rather than on Wattpad. It all just depends on who’s where.

You also have to consider how active you want to be on your platform(s). Tumblr is more of a blog situation, while ao3 and Wattpad are solely for publishing the work. If you want to have a life beyond the realms of the world wide web, choose Wattpad or ao3, as inconsistent updates are a bit more accepted than on Tumblr. But if you want to throw yourself headfirst into a fandom and put your whole author-ussy into your fanfic, then Tumblr is the platform for you.

You should be aware, however, that Tumblr involves a lot of upkeep, as well as constant, strategic, and active participation within your fandom. Visual aesthetic is vital to any functional Tumblr blog. Most profiles have directories, with color coded links to each work’s homepage, which is linked to each individual chapter, which are then distinguished by a unique GIF to capture a prospective reader’s attention while they’re scrolling through copious amounts of content. And there are always new ideas and theories in development in certain fandoms, so it’s crucial to keep up with recent updates in order to stay relevant.

After all is said and done, you don’t have to get married to one platform for the rest of your life. You can choose to be exclusive to one or two platforms, or publish everything on all of them! The decision is ultimately yours!

Step 4: Obey the Writer’s Trifecta of Consistency

Yes, I came up with this term, and yes, it should be a real thing. Because in every piece of writing, whether it be fanfiction, a short story, an actual book, a screenplay, what have you, it is critical to be consistent in your People, your POV, and your Plot. Let me explain.

People

Your people, or your ensemble of characters, consists of three hierarchical levels: your protagonist/antagonist, your side characters, and other background characters. I should emphasize the importance of building character profiles for everyone, including your pre-existing characters from the fandom, but specifically for your original character(s) if you have them. That way, you know who serves as a major plot device, who serves as someone who just helps time move faster, and those who are mentioned by name but have very little significance to the events of the story. I’m going to reference Harry Potter again, since most of the world is familiar with the characters. Harry and Voldemort are the protagonist and antagonist; Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger, Professor Dumbledore, Hagrid and company are side characters; and Peeves, Seamus Finnigan, and Blaise Zabini are background characters. Keep this hierarchy in check; don’t let your main characters fade away, and don’t let your background characters shift to the forefront for no reason. If you do plan to move a character up or down the ladder, make sure to have clear motive as to why you’re bringing this character into or out of play.

2. POV

Your POV is the point of view in which you’re writing from. Assuming you’ve been in a typical middle school English class, you’ve heard of the first, second, and third person points of view. I cannot tell you how many times I have read fanfictions that jump from one POV to another, sometimes within the same sentence. I open the door and see Kurt Cobain standing in the corner of the room. She walked across the floor to meet him there. See what I did there? I jumped from first person present tense to third person past tense. Do not attempt this at home.

The least common of the three points of view is the second person, or what I like to call the Y/N point of view. In fanfiction, second person POV is often used in self-insert fics, where instead of a character’s name, it’s replaced with “you.” That’s why a lot of romantic character x reader fics are so popular. You should feel free to use this one, especially if that’s the kind of vibe you’re going for, but I’m going to elaborate a little bit more on first and third person, as they’re a bit more “literary.”

The first person POV confines the narration to the mind of one character. It can also be done with multiple characters, but be sure to do it so it’s painstakingly obvious to the reader whose POV you’re writing from. Also note that if you plan to write multiple first person POVs, try to keep that number on the lower side, as a large number of POVs can get really complicated really quickly. Third person narration can be done from two angles: limited or omniscient. Limited is more similar to first person, in which you’re confined to one person’s viewpoint, but they aren’t the narrator; you’re just seeing the story through their eyes. Omniscient is my favorite, because you can narrate from a bird’s eye view with the freedom to travel from mind to mind and read their thoughts.

Building character profiles can be really helpful when developing both first or third person POV; if you connect with a particular character more strongly than the rest, that should tell you whose POV you should write in. If you choose to switch POVs, be sure to do it either on an alternating/rotating basis, or if you repeat, it should be apparent as to why that particular character is the “voice” of that scene.

3. Plot

Dare I say that Plot is the most important step of them all, so do not skip this one, whatever you do! The biggest mistake most fanfiction writers make is having a concept but lacking a plot. It’s like biting into an apple just to discover it’s a lemon. Many writers are capable of starting off strong, but once their initial story begins to meander, traveling into uncharted territory, their brainchild can become a monstrosity.

In order to write a solid plot, it’s pretty common knowledge that you need to have a beginning, middle, and end in place. It doesn’t need to be overly specific or down to the last detail, you just need to figure out how your characters make it from point A to point Z (the larger scale), and how points B through Y factor into the plot (the smaller scale). There are a few routes that you can take in order to do this: you can write the entire thing ahead of time without any input, you can write the entire thing with the feedback of a beta reader or proofreader to help you work out any kinks or mistakes before you publish it for the entire platform to see, or you can publish it gradually and take feedback from your readers as you go. Should you go with the last option, though, you should be made aware that if you aren’t already an established author, it may feel like you’re talking to a wall, and you will likely feel discouraged from writing the story altogether.

I find it helpful to outline the whole thing. I have a closet door in my house dedicated to a Dave Grohl true crime fanfiction I’m working on. I’ve written the entire story from beginning to end on index cards, split into four different parts with each card representing a chapter. What’s good about outlining is that I can edit my story as I go along. If I decide to change something, I can add or remove an index card, then replace or rearrange the other index cards to work around the change I made, and that way, I don’t have to start over from scratch. It’s helpful to see everything laid out in front of me, so I’m not left at the end of a completely improvised plot with a slew of loose ends that I’ll need to go back and edit. It’s also better than publishing each part individually then having to redo everything after your readers have already seen it. And I don’t know about you, but I enjoy it when I’m able to save some time, energy, and lengthy explanations to random people online. That is, unless you enjoy constant feedback from readers, in which case you can change the plot on a chapter by chapter basis based on their feedback.

Consistency in all of these respects is key. I cannot emphasize this enough. Keeping all of these elements in check will help you create a sort of cohesiveness that will neatly wrap the story up with a little bow on top. 

Step 5: Use Relevant Tags and Content Warnings

Repeat after me: tags matter! Again: tags matter! When you’re about to publish your fanfiction, you’re going to be given the option to add tags to your work. For my first few years spent on Wattpad, I had no idea what tags were, so I didn’t use them. Thankfully, the platform was still pretty small, so people still found my work pretty easily. Nowadays, though, it’s nearly impossible to find what you’re looking for without searching excessively specific tags and using a million filters. It’s unfortunate, but look at it this way: there are so many people contributing to so many fandoms that the content is seemingly endless!

What you’re going to want to do is add as many tags as you can but keep it as simple as possible. I know that sounds kind of oxymoronic, but I mean it in a way that all of your tags relate directly to your story, and not just to the fandom itself. A lot of readers feel misled when they’re scrolling through their filtered search page for, let’s just say, a Byler fanfic, and end up neck deep in a Mileven fanfic in disguise. That’s not a fun experience.

Lastly, please remember that you are publishing your work on the internet, and you don’t know who may encounter your work! Listen, we live in a world where everything needs to be overexplained, everything needs trigger warnings, and everything needs to be neutral or else someone is going to hate you. I get it. I’ve been writing fanfiction for a long time. It might be annoying to add content warnings, especially if one of those warnings spoils a major plotline, but if I’m being honest, I’d rather be safe and add the damn warning than not add the warning and be responsible for someone’s worsened emotional or mental state. Bottom line, it’s just fanfiction! Let’s do our due diligence to create a community full of love and understanding for everyone!

After that, you should be all set to publish! Let’s review one more time for the road:

Choose Your Fandom

Do Your Research

Choose Your Platform

Obey the Writer’s Trifecta of Consistency

Use Relevant Tags and Content Warnings

If you’ve stuck around for this long, thank you so much!

I hope this manual helps you along your fanfiction writing journey, wherever it takes you <3

[loveandthings11]

How Deep My Love Goes, Chapter 13

Read on AO3 Ch 1 Ch 2 Ch 3 Ch 4 Ch 5 Ch 6 Ch 7 Ch 8 Ch 9 Ch 10 Ch 11 Ch 12

Very Tall Somethings

Fic Summary: A Kenrava-focused fix-it alongside canon 💗

Chapter Summary: Hunting and Safe Room, redone. Or, the story of Kendall and Rava's chaotic Christmas week. Kendall tries different tactics to get Logan to agree to save Vaulter while trying to stay apprised of goings-on within the company from afar. Rava is terrified when an active shooter situation hits Waystar with Kendall inside. The incident causes Kendall to struggle with his past demons and to try to reconnect with Shiv. Kendall and Rava exchange Christmas gifts and see how much they mean to each other.

On December twentieth, Kendall lies on the couch in the great room and stares up at the ceiling.

“I-I mean, he didn’t mean that, right?” he asks for the fourth time since his call with Logan yesterday. “That was nothing? He wasn’t really offering it to me when I turned it down. Was he?”

“Mind games…” Rava says absentmindedly as she turns the page of her book in a nearby chair.

“Yes, mind games! Fucking- manipulation, yeah? He’s always done shit like that. What- what do I even do with that?”

She can feel his chaotic energy.

“Have you considered calling HR?” Rava says drily.

“Uh-huh. Okay. They’re all at the fucking corporate retreat in Hungary doing God-knows-what with the company-“ he looks at her eyes running across the page. He’s more stressed by the day not to be able to attend any management meetings right now and it couldn’t be clearer that she doesn’t want to hear about it anymore. “Whatever. I need sunflower seeds.” He gets up and goes to pace in the kitchen as he pours the bag into his mouth.

She tries not to look at him while he’s doing it because she knows what that means. He walks back and forth and looks around.

“You know what? I’m gonna be in the gym,” he says as he walks down the hall toward it.

“Twice in one morning?” Rava asks.

“That was floor stuff, weights. Now it’s cardio. Why, you don’t want me too ripped?” She lets him turn the substitute addictions into a joke. Whatever works.

“No,” she laughs. “Go get ripped. That’s…. great.”

“You laugh now,” he says. “You’re not gonna be ready.”

“Oh, I’ll be ready,” she nods sarcastically. “You should go back to drawing, or music. You used to do more art.”

“Uh- yeah. I did. I should. Just- yeah, I’m going to work out right now.”

He flashes her a smile and walks away. When he comes back in the room she looks over his ever-so-slightly mussed hair. He locks eyes with her.

“Yeah?”

She raises her eyebrows and tilts her head to the side as she chuckles. It doesn’t look like he was going too crazy with the workout, but she does like what she’s seeing. She notices a grey smudge on his hand and nods at it.

"What is that?" she asks. He looks down at it.

"Oh, it's nothing. From the treadmill I guess."

“Okay... well, you are looking good.”

“Feeling good,” he says. But he sounds like he’s trying to reassure himself. “I haven’t heard from Roman in a couple days,” he says.

“Well, there’s probably not much privacy in jail- I’m sorry, the retreat. I always get those mixed up,” she returns.

“Right.” He heads to the shower and, after fifteen minutes, enters the room and starts pacing again. She looks up from her book.

“You’re making me nervous. Come sit down!” He goes to sit down next to her and she watches his foot bounce.

“I’m gonna text him again,” Kendall says with worry in his voice. He types out a message.

Rome. You gotta give me something, man.

He taps his fingers on Rava’s thigh as he looks at the screen. After a couple of minutes, Roman sends a text with a news screenshot and accompanying message.

Preview of an article Karolina sent us. Merry fucking whatever. You’d better not forget this.

Kendall looks at the screenshotted headline and gives a little smile at his screen.

Waystar Royco subsidiary Vaulter lives to fight another day; President Lawrence Yee stays in role under embattled Waystar CEO Logan Roy’s leadership.

“Roman saved Vaulter,” he says out loud in disbelief. “I’ve seen this kind of thing, though. It’s just a temporary extension for now, but it’s a start.”

Rava smiles.

“Good Christmas present,” she replies. “Speaking of which, it’s about time to do the finishing touches on the tree now that you can breathe again. Only a few days til Christmas! You know the kids are going to be ready for holiday stuff.”

“Yeah, for sure.” He pauses a second. “I feel kinda fuckin’… bad that we’re not going to my mom’s. She always wants us to go and Shiv would never do it, but Roman wanted to too. Maybe next year? Or can we- could we go see her next month or something? I just- you know, things were actually good with us at the wedding. It was kind of weird. But, yeah, good.”

“Yeah. Sure, we can go see your mom. Whenever you want.”

Kendall nods and gets up to go to the kids’ rooms to coax them out with promises of hot chocolate and ornaments as Rava looks through the boxes of decorations the staff had been taking out earlier to find the last bits of tree decor. Kendall and Rava have always done this part themselves.

Rava shows Kendall a ceramic ornament they’d bought at a Christmas market in Belgium in one of their first holiday seasons together. The little red frame says Merry Christmas in green and features a sweet picture of 24-year old Kendall and Rava with big smiles on their pink faces pressed together. Kendall’s first Christmas free of his family had been one for the books.

Kendall looks at it and wordlessly returns her look of love. He takes his phone from the glass coffee table and walks the few steps over to her, bending down to her and putting his cheek on hers before taking a quick picture of them smiling once more. Rava nods at the picture and gives him a grin.

“We’ll get a new one made to match,” he says.

“Love that,” she says.

…..

On December twenty-first, Roman calls Kendall.

“Hey, fuckface,” Roman starts. “I’m so hungover I might kill myself.”

Kendall doesn’t know if this is about to be an alcoholic joke or if Roman really just called because he would understand.

“Uh, okay. Well, I’d go throw up and pour yourself an Irish coffee, always worked for me,” he says sardonically to head him off at the pass.

“No. Jesus. I’m not drinking at least until this afternoon.”

“Solid restraint.” Kendall wonders for the millionth time why he’s the only sibling who got the addiction gene. “How was last night? Little bit of corporate trauma bonding?” he asks, stretching out on the couch and enjoying the fact that he spent last night sipping hot chocolate by the Christmas tree while the kids watched Elf.

“You missed a fantastic round of Boar on the Floor. De-licious. Got it all on film, I’m gonna watch it and jerk off later.”

Kendall massages his forehead.

“Jesus. First of all, delete that immediately- or, actually, send it to me and then delete it.”

“I don’t share my porn stash,” Roman says.

“Bro. Seriously. That kind of abuse of power could help our case.”

“Your case. I’m not fucking over Dad. Why do you want it, are you giving it to the biographer? Because Dad will know it’s you.”

Kendall sighs.

“No. I- I mean I got a call, but I didn’t return. Didn’t you get a call?” he asks.

Roman’s quiet before he responds.

“Yyyyeah, of course I did. I’m the most important one.” He changes tone. “But seriously, Dad’s fucking paranoid right now. Someone talked. He doesn’t trust anyone. He’s being… you know. Scary.” He switches back to being cavalier. “He’s gonna find out who it is and it’s gonna be sweet punishment time.”

“Well. It’s not me. But if he wants to know who’s got motivation to talk shit about him, he should look to literally anyone else he’s talked to in the last twenty years.” Roman makes a hurt face and Kendall can practically see it through the phone. “Dude, it’s- it probably won’t even go anywhere. Don’t worry about it. But- yeah. Try to stop people from talking if you can.”

“Why would you want to stop them? You hate Dad,” Roman mumbles.

“I- I don’t- come on, bro. You know that’s not true. It’s tough with us, though.”

“Whatever. This isn’t your ridiculous therapy time where we talk all about how you want to fuck and/or kill our parents and possibly our sister, although you should know she’s mine.”

Kendall rolls his eyes.

“Did he make you play Boar on the Floor?” he asks. The protective older brother in him comes out no matter how annoying Roman is to him.

“Of course not, Dad loves me, Ken. Not something you would understand, but-“

“He never made me play either.” It’s true, but there was always a present threat to both of them at retreats. “Well- good,” Kendall finishes.

“Frank’s here,” Roman says angrily. Kendall feels a momentary pang.

“Yeah? How is he?”

“Being a corporate cock-suck like always. My fucking babysitter.”

“Frank knows what’s doing,” Kendall says. He’s glad Frank is back on at the company, but he misses his guidance. He’s a little envious that Roman is getting the advice he wants. He wonders if he could get Frank on board with his side.

“Ugh. This godfatherly love thing is annoying. Dad’s only bringing him back so he can suck up to the Pierces.”

“The Pierces?” Kendall asks in disbelief.

“Oh, fuck,” Roman laughs. “You didn’t know about that? Man, you are out of the loop.” Kendall squirms at his brother’s glee.

“What do you- Dad’s going after them again? This is his solution. Old tech again.” His mind starts running and he makes a note to text Sandy and Stewy right after this call ends.

“I didn’t tell you that!” Roman exclaims, partially regretting having the shared the information. Kendall can tell how he’s feeling.

“I would’ve found out anyway,” he informs him.

“I guess.”

Kendall decides to change the subject.

“You, uh, see Connor’s video?” he asks.

“Giving away all our secrets to never paying any taxes. Idiot. I mean- love him and his desperate ploys for attention- obviously- but, like, perhaps he shouldn’t be making a joke of our last name?”

“Yeah, thought that was your job.” Kendall sends the rare jab his way.

“Fuck you,” Roman spits back. But he has another thing to discuss. “Um… hey, what do you think of Gerri?” he asks.

“What- Gerri?” Kendall asks. “You mean, like, is she trustworthy? I mean, yeah. She’s all in for Waystar.”

Roman scrunches his face and runs his hand through his hair.

“No, I know, I mean, uh… like as a… human woman? Did she and Dad ever…”

“Fuck?” Kendall chuckles. “I dunno. Maybe. She seems like she’d tell him to go to hell though. Not exactly a warm and fuzzy, fuckin’… take you to bed type.”

“Well, you don’t know. You don’t know her.”

Kendall’s confused by Roman’s sudden defensiveness.

“Why are you asking me this?”

“I don’t- nothing. No reason, I just want to know if she’s trustworthy.”

“Okay.” Did I not just say that? Kendall thinks. “Well, yeah.” His interest is piqued by the questioning. “Why’d you think of that, her and Dad?”

“I don’t know, nothing. She’s just… you know, she was probably hot, once. I should’ve hit on her when I was, like twelve. That would’ve been saucy.” He swirls his finger in the bowl of grapes next to him and doesn’t eat any.

“Dude, what the fuck,” Kendall half-laughs.

“I don’t know. Whatever.” He sounds defensive again and Kendall is more amused by the second.

“Are you trying to fuck Gerri, bro?”

“No, gross, fuck you. She’s, like, efficient. And old. Fuck off. And text me what pills Dad’s supposed to be on.”

“Uh- okay. He- he said I would know?” Kendall’s surprise is evident in his voice. He feels a brief warmth in his chest followed by anxiety that he might never get to experience the closeness he craves with his dad in person again. But he reminds himself that this is a good sign for the future.

“Yeah, don’t get excited. He won’t trust anyone he hires. Thinks they’re all gonna send the list of meds to Michelle Pantsil for the book.”

“Wow. Sure, I’ll- I’ll send you the list.”

“Ugh, just do it, don’t make it a big deal. See you whenever.”

Roman hangs up and Kendall is left with a moment of mixed emotions before refocusing and sending a text to Sandy and Stewy.

Dad’s going after Pierce. Good news. He has no real option if his only plan to get the company even more bloated. Just wants an excuse to chase the old dream. No chance Nan Pierce lets this happen.

Rava pokes her head into the office.

“Are you working?” she asks.

“No- that was Roman, but I think he just called to catch up, actually.” Kendall surprises himself as he realizes that is exactly what just happened.

“Oh?” He’s not the only one who’s surprised.

“Yeah, I think, uh, I guess Dad wanted him to ask me about his pills.” Kendall can’t help but smile a little bit.

“Really?” Rava asks hesitantly. “And that’s- a good thing…?”

“Yeah. That’s a good thing.” He looks at her and gets up to hug her. “Let’s go sit by the tree before the kids go to bed.”

Rava already has had Christmas music playing for the kids, who are inspecting every wrapped present under the beautiful, towering tree.

Kendall notices Sophie subtly peeling back the wrapping paper on the corner of a present addressed to her.

“Uh-uh, Soph. Santa can see that,” he scolds. She looks shocked to have been caught and stares up at him.

“Tell him I didn’t do it! You know the president!”

Rava puts her hand over her face for a moment.

“Santa is more powerful than the president,” Kendall says seriously. “Up, away from the tree. You’ll unwrap it in a few days.”

Iverson looks concerned and Rava goes to smooth his hair.

“Don’t worry,” she reassures him. “Santa knows you’ve both been good this year. That’s what really matters. It’s time for bed now.” The kids groan. “Up, up, up,” Rava continues. “The faster you go to sleep the faster you get to Christmas!”

They stand up and Sophie runs ahead of Iverson, who looks over his shoulder at the festively lighted tree and the many perfectly wrapped boxes underneath it.

Kendall and Rava savor the moment of wonder and innocence and she sits next to him on the couch and leans into him. He kisses her head and they gaze at the glowing tree together.

…..

On December twenty-second, Kendall is at Waystar. He’s here to save Vaulter and he can’t do that without talking to his dad. But he won’t answer the phone and his assistants are denying Kendall at every turn. So here he is. The only way was to come in person. He sits nervously at his desk waiting for any sign that Logan is back on the floor so he can make sure his acquisition isn’t going anywhere. It’s proof he deserves to be here. He glances over to Logan’s office. In there. Heads turn at the sight of him looking out at the floor. He feels self-conscious but strangely proud. They all look away once they've been caught. They've been staring all morning. He bites a nail.

Jess walks into his office. “Hey, Ken?”

He's startled out of his nervous haze and looks up. “Yeah?”

“It’s Rava.”

They exchange the briefest of moments. She hasn’t said that in years. Even though it’s been a few months now, he still gets the rush of remembering she’s calling because she wants to talk to him, not because she’s mad or just to coordinate the kids’ schedules. For a while, it had sent shots of anxiety through him to talk to her- another opportunity to fuck up. But not anymore. He smiles.

“Oh. Yeah, of course put her through.” She turns to go. “Jess- can you just- always put her through.”

She nods with a tiny smile.

“Yeah.”

He picks up the office phone.

“Hey.”

Her voice is honey sweet.

“You didn’t text me back.”

“Oh. Right. Yeah, hang on.” He picks up his phone and reads her latest message. He thought nothing could scandalize him but he’s been proven wrong.

“Wow. Uh… are you going to act that out later, or-?”

“Maybe. How’s everything going? What are the guys saying?”

He’s still looking at the text and now he really doesn’t want to admit that he might have a colossal failure on his hands.

“I- I don’t remember, I’m a little distracted.” She laughs.

“Tell me!”

“It, uh, it- it’s not… great. But I’m figuring it out. I’ll have it by tonight. I will.”

“I’m sure you will.”

“I will.”

It’s like he doesn’t know anyone he doesn’t have to convince.

“I know, Ken. You don’t have to prove it.”

He takes a breath.

“Right, yeah. Okay. I have to go but, yeah, I’ll text you back.”

“Okay.” She knows when work’s not going well, nothing is right in his world. She sounds disappointed and he can’t let that happen either.

“Hey- it’s- it’s five hours til I’m home.”

She can hear him trying and she sighs dramatically.

“Suuuure it is. See you at midnight.”

“I’m coming home at 7:00.” Knowing he’s going home to her makes him feel like he can do this.

“You’ll at least come home before you have to go to some other thing tomorrow, right? I mean, you have to change?”

“Okay. Yeah. See you at 5:00 AM,” he deadpans.

“Ken!”

“I’ll see you at 7:00. Seriously. Maybe we’ll go out.”

“For breakfast? When you get home in the morning?”

He shakes his head.

“Yes. For breakfast. Okay. I have to go save this company now.”

“God, I love how important you are.” He rolls his eyes at the sarcasm but he can hear her smiling and he loves it.

“Bye.”

There’s a tentative knock on the glass and Kendall looks up to see Greg nervously standing at his office door. His voice is muffled as he calls through the glass.

“Uh- hey- hey Ken. Can I come in and talk to you?” He smiles awkwardly. “For a just a- a min? A sec of fam time?”

Kendall’s feeling generous.

“Sure, Greg. Come in,” he calls back. Greg swings the door open.

“H-hey, cuz! What’s up on the anti-corruption, you know, the anti-Roy train?” he attempts.

Kendall gives him a small smile.

“Just anti-corruption. And anti-dictator behavior. What’s up, Greg?”

“Uh, well, you know, just… hangin’ with the fam on the private- private planes and livin’ that high life. I mean, not, like, high. Like not drugs. Not that- uh, I didn’t mean-“

Kendall shakes his head.

“What’s going on?” he asks.

“Um, so, you know the biography of your dad? Michelle Pantsil?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Um, well, I didn’t exactly meet with her, but I did, like, a pre-meet? And-“

Kendall sighs.

“So it was you. And you said some things you can’t take back now?”

“I mean, kind of?” Greg starts. “It wasn’t anything terrible, but maybe things that shouldn’t be in a book? You know? And Tom said Ratfucker Sam is, like, doing research, and apparently he’s not the best guy?”

“Uh, yeah, I mean, Dad’s not gonna love it, man.”

Greg looks panicked.

“Well- well, isn’t there something you can do, or, like-“ he takes in a short breath, “-protect me, maybe? Because I am gonna be able to help you if you win. Or, actually, I can help you win.”

Kendall looks at him.

“Well… I’m not sure what I can do,” Kendall begins.

“I, well, I think you should give me a job if I lose this one?”

Kendall raises his eyebrows.

“No. Dude, come on. If you lose this one? Second choice?”

“I mean, I’m just saying? I have some very, potentially, extremely useful information that I think you could use.”

They look at each other. Kendall thinks about whether he should believe him. He considers the consequences of turning him down and letting the mysterious information stay hidden and the positives of letting it go and staying a small team. He already has one person who’s straddling two sides of the line. But then he considers his dad’s tendency to play as dirty as possible and wonders if he has anything planned to destroy his reputation again. It would be good to have something to stop him this time.

“Okay, Greg. You got it. I think you should leave this side sooner rather than later if you’re going to do it.”

Greg nods.

“Uh, yeah, totally. I- I’m kind of, like, moving up here, though? But also I agree so yeah, yeah.”

The most wishy-washy person alive is on his team, Kendall thinks.

“Uh-huh. Yeah. Okay, well… gotta finish this stuff,” Kendall gestures at the stack of papers on the desk in front of him.

“Right! Yeah! Gotta get to work, for sure.” Greg smiles a nervous smile and backs out of the room. “See ya!”

….

On the afternoon of the same day, a news headline flashes across the PGN screen and Rava’s heart stops for what feels like minutes.

“ACTIVE SHOOTER AT WAYSTAR ROYCO: BUILDING BARRICADED WITH SHOOTER INSIDE”

“What?” Her hands shake as she grabs instantly for her phone and there are tears in her eyes before she can even process it. The most terrifying images and future rip through her mind and she fights as hard as she can to make them stop. The one day Kendall goes back. Was it someone looking for him?? Is he hurt? Hiding? Worse?! She can’t breathe right. The phone rings and rings as she dials his number. He doesn’t answer and she starts hyperventilating as she runs for the car. She calls her driver and manages to choke out “Waystar building, right away, please.”

Her coat half on in the freezing air, she jumps into the waiting SUV and calls him again. When she hears his voice on his voicemail, she starts feeling truly terrified. Why would he not answer his phone in the middle of this?? She doubles over and tries to breathe as heavy rain starts to pound on the car.

Her driver glances back at her but she’s too scared to even try to explain. She dials again, still no answer. Just the voicemail message. She frantically pushes away the thought that that’s how she’ll hear his voice now. She waits to hear the beep.

“Kendall!” She practically yells. “Call me! Call me, please call me and tell me you’re okay. Call me. Ken. Call me. Please.”

The drive seems to take hours. The rain makes the traffic even worse than usual and she curses her lack of recollection of the subway system. She dials Jess and is relieved that she answers on the first ring.

“Hi, Rava,” Jess answers through panting and panic.

“Is Kendall okay?” Rava asks helplessly. "Are you okay?"

“Um-“ Jess sounds like she’s running. “I don’t- I don’t know, I’m being taken to a room somewhere but I don’t see him- but that doesn’t mean anything. Everyone’s running around. I’m sorry!”

“Oh, my god,” she lets out a yelp of true terror. “How is this possible- is anyone- you know?”

“I don’t know, I just heard a shot and some people said maybe more than one? But I haven’t seen anything- um, okay, they’re making everyone hang up so we can hear safety procedures? I’ll call you back as soon as I know anything or if he shows up. When he’s here, I mean.”

Rava covers her mouth. She can hear the blood pounding in her ears.

“Stay safe, Jess! Please call me! I’m coming.”

The beeps to end the call seem louder than normal. Rava panics and dials Roman.

“Oh, good, a connection to what almost passes for civilization,” he answers. She drops her head back for a second and realizes she forgot that Kendall told her he’s been out of the office at management training all week.

“Roman,” Rava starts tearfully. “You don’t know? There’s a shooter at Waystar.”

“Oh, holy fuck, what? Are you fucking with me?”

“No! Kendall’s not answering his phone, Jess is being hidden somewhere and he’s not there. I have to call Shiv.”

“What the f-“ Rava hangs up and dials Shiv. Straight to voicemail like it’s off. She begins to really cry and falls toward the seat. He said he was coming home at 7:00.

The car pulls up and she practically falls out of it trying to get out as fast as she can. Armed guards stand outside and look suspiciously at everyone in sight. Police cars line the street, scattered protesters stare up at the building, news crews are everywhere.

“Excuse me! Is Kendall Roy in there? Is he okay? Where is he?” she calls desperately to the nearest security guard.

“Please stand clear, ma’am. Police orders. This is a crime scene.”

“NO! My husband is in this building and I need to know if he is safe! Kendall Roy.” The guard appears unmoved. “As in Royco?!” She has never talked to anyone like that in her life, but she will do whatever it takes.

“We’ll update everyone when we have more information.”

She practically screams in frustration and calls Kendall again. The rings end early and his live voice sends waves of relief like she couldn’t even imagine over her.

“Hey! Fuck, sorry, I just heard your message and I was going to-“

“Oh, what the fuck,” she sobs into the phone. “Ken! Are you okay? Are you safe? Where are you?”

He sounds like Jess had, being hustled through hallways.

“I’m- yeah, I’m fine, I was making a call on the roof til it started raining and I didn’t even know about this until about a minute ago when these guys came and found me.” He covers the mic. “Excuse me! Where are we going?” he asks the security guards. Rava can hear heavy breathing and yelps and alarms and hurried footsteps in the background.

“Safe room,” Rava hears a guard’s muffled voice through the noise. “With Logan.”

“With- uh- what, no, is there a different-“

“Kendall! Go to the safe room!” Rava yells into the phone. He looks at the phone in surprise and then it really hits him what she must have thought.

“I’m going. Hey, I’m sorry, I’m fine. Really. I mean, it’s possible this was all orchestrated by Dad to get me alone and threaten me.“

Neither of them knows if he’s joking. Rava puts her hand on her face.

“Please. Are you almost to the room? Have they caught the- whoever was-“

“Uh, I don’t know. Not sure, we’re almost there, though.”

“Do not hang up on me,” Rava says sternly, but he can feel where it’s coming from through the phone.

“I won’t. It’s okay. I promise.”

He can’t promise that and she knows it, but hearing it in his voice makes her feel a little bit better. She doesn’t want to be too dramatic.

“Can they just let you out of there? I-“ her breath catches. “-it would be really good to see you right now,” she tries, knowing there’s no way they’re just letting one person out.

“I agree, but they’re not letting anyone out. These guys have the kind of guns Ravenhead loves to talk about.” The door opens in front of him.

“We’re here, head inside, please,” the guard orders.

“Okay, I’m here at the safe room,” he reports to Rava. She’s suddenly beyond exhausted and plops down onto a bench in the wide courtyard in front of the Waystar building.

Kendall steps inside, dreading what Logan’s reaction will be, whether he’ll even let him in. But Logan’s up and striding over as fast as Kendall has ever seen him.

“Kendall!” Rava hears Logan’s voice through the phone. “Are you all right, son? Where were you?”

Kendall can’t believe the embrace he’s getting. He hesitantly hugs his dad back and finds himself wishing against his will that it could last longer.

“Uh- yeah, I’m fine, Dad. I was fine.”

Logan nods and pats his arm before going to sit back down. Kendall takes half a second to remember that he’s still his father’s son, regardless of what’s going on with the company.

“You’re in? You’re okay?” Rava asks nervously.

“Yeah. I’m good.”

“Thank God. Fuck. I don’t-“ she shakes her head. “I don’t think I’ve ever been that scared in my life.” The adrenaline has kept her warm so far but now the cold is getting to her and she zips her coat, gazing up at the building and willing him to come walking out the doors. She longs to feel him against her, to squeeze him and feel his heartbeat.

“I really am sorry, I- I should’ve answered, I was on a call and thought I’d just call you right back and then they came up-“ he begins.

Gerri hangs up her phone and interrupts the moment.

“It was an ATN employee… a suicide,” she tells the room delicately. Kendall glances down and he’s suddenly pulled away from his conversation, from the present moment. He has uncomfortable flashbacks to wondering if anyone would notice. If anyone would care. Logan looks at him for a second and Kendall feels a disturbing connection to know it’s in his head too. The only other person who knew how he used to feel. It’s a wake-up call to see how worried his dad was just now. To hear Rava’s panicked crying at the mere thought. He thinks maybe he’ll never tell her what he used to think about when he was left alone for too long.

“Uh-“ he clears his throat as he and Logan break eye contact and he turns his attention back to the call. “I’m not sure if you heard that… someone- killed himself… at his desk. It’s- it’s him only. No one else.” He wonders what they would have said about him.

“Oh,” she breathes out. “That’s sad… Does that- um, are you coming outside now?” she asks, knowing that’s much too hopeful.

“No, I think we have to be in here a little while longer?” But his head is elsewhere. “Hang on a sec.” He taps one of the guards near the door a bit nervously. “Um. Do you know who it was?”

The guard shakes his head.

“Okay.” He takes a step toward Gerri. “Who was it, do we know?” he asks her.

“A- Mark Johnson?” she says, scrolling through an email from Karolina about the incident. Kendall knew there was a small chance he’d know the name, but he still feels guilty that he doesn’t.

“Oh. Okay.” He wonders if there’s anything that could have been done. The therapists told him there was always something to live for.

“Did you know him?” Rava asks.

“No,” he answers.

But it’s still more upsetting than he’d like to admit. He looks around the room and thinks he should go to talk to Shiv. It’s been a while and he wants to know what’s going on. Maybe she can distract him. Or maybe she can talk. He glances at Gerri and Logan talking to Rhea and wants to make an appearance in that conversation too. If Logan’s going after Pierce, Kendall needs to make it clear that he won’t.

“Uh, I’m going to go make sure everyone else is okay,” he says into the phone. “Yeah? I’ll call you as soon as we get the go-ahead.”

“Oh, okay. I’m right outside for you,” she says. He likes the sound of that. “I’ll see you soon.” She doesn’t like this situation but she knows it could be hours.

“Okay, thanks, Rav. I love you.”

“I love you.”

They hang up and Kendall cautiously makes his way over to the corner where Gerri and Logan and Rhea are talking. He wouldn’t have normally attempted it, but Logan’s concern prompts him to think he might be allowed in.

Gerri’s talking in a low voice about Mark Johnson.

“Apparently he emailed a close friend last week, talking of a ‘culture of bullying.’”

“It’s a newsroom, not a kindergarten,” says Logan as he rolls his eyes. Gerri hesitates.

“Tragically, he also had a history of incidences of – well, not really, mental illness, which he was medicated for through our health plan?”

“Well, let’s hope that doesn’t get out and muddy the waters,” Logan replies darkly.

Kendall feels like someone’s punched him in the stomach and changes his mind about being a part of this. He walks over to Shiv. He wants out of this room and into Rava’s arms.

“Hey,” he starts.

Shiv’s scrolling on her phone and glances up at him, pressing her lips together for a second as she decides on a tone.

“Hey,” she says carefully, with just enough attitude to make it clear that she’s on Dad’s side.

“Can we talk? Like…” he gauges her weirded out reaction. “Actually talk?”

“Um… I guess?” she says as she glances toward Logan.

They move around the corner and she looks at him expectantly.

“So you’re working here now?” he asks.

Her expression turns suspicious.

“Just observing. Why? You know, that’s company information, not for outsiders,” she smiles. He nods and raises his eyebrows.

“Right. But you’re not an outsider?” he challenges.

“Oh! No, I am,” Shiv says with a sarcastic nonchalance.

“So, Rhea,” Logan says smoothly from the other side of the wall. Kendall and Shiv both turn their heads at the sound of his voice moving back into business mode. “Let’s get into it. There’s a price. Let’s cut the bullshit.”

The siblings look at each other warily as they both lean in Logan’s direction to hear better.

“Well, I’m a mere conduit, so feel free to give some numbers, but it’s a hard no from the Pierces.”

“Twenty-one billion.” Shiv looks alarmed and her eyes dart to Kendall. She’s dismayed to see his lack of surprise.

“Why aren’t you more shocked by this?” she asks. “Oh, fuck. You’ve been in contact. This is all an act? Is this why you’re here today?”

“No, Shiv. I’m here because I need to keep up with what’s going on here and I’m not shocked because I’m taking over the company I’ve worked at for seventeen years. I know what Dad wanted to bid.”

“Fuck off, I don’t believe you,” she whispers as they both quiet down to listen to Rhea’s low-key reaction to the staggering number.

“It’s like Shiv said, the cultures just aren’t compatible,” Rhea answers. Shiv gives Kendall a smug look. “It’s an emotional matter for the Pierces. Money is not irrelevant, but how can I put it-?”

Kendall knows Rhea is really here to shut it all down. He makes a split-second decision to call her bluff. Maybe there is no number big enough. Before Shiv or Logan can stop him, he steps back out into the main part of the room.

“-Relevant?” he finishes. Logan and Rhea look up at him and he feels his heart hammering in his chest. “I mean, let’s be honest here. What is it- twenty-one five?”

Shiv runs up behind him.

“Excuse me?” she looks at Logan. His expression is complicated. “Dad! He can’t just say numbers. Can he?” Kendall holds strong and hopes his dad won’t shut him down.

They’re both glued to Logan’s face and Rhea seems reluctantly enthralled by the family drama. Logan’s anger at the move is simmering under the surface, but Kendall can see that he’s grappling. He wants Rhea’s yes more than he wants to shut Kendall down. The moment feels like it lasts a week but finally, Logan nods. Authority approved.

“Bidding against yourself,” Rhea smiles. Kendall’s emboldened.

“Twenty-two,” he says without breaking eye contact with Rhea.

“Jesus, Ken.” Shiv stares at him.

Rhea’s grin continues.

“That doesn’t sound like a real offer.”

“It’s real,” Kendall confirms more confidently. Rhea raises her eyebrows.

“I’ll really have to take this to the Pierces,” she demurs.

“Uh-huh,” Logan says. “Thank you, kids. Rhea, I’m sure I’ll be hearing from you.” His phone rings and he steps away to answer it. “Marcia. Yeah, yeah, fine. Just some ‘mental illness’ fuck…”

Shiv walks over to a couch and calls Tom, leaving Kendall standing with Rhea. He tries to read her face.

“This isn’t what the Pierces want,” he says, as both a statement and a question. Rhea smiles.

“No,” she confirms. He was right. If she’s saying no to twenty-two, there’s no way this is happening.

“Well, frankly, I think you deserve complete transparency. I don’t think my dad should start something he can’t finish. His tenure, as storied as it is, is going to come to an end when I take over. And I agree with you. It’s just not the direction we want to take the company, Sandy and Stewy and I.”

“Mmhmm. Yeah. I understand that. I have a feeling your dad won’t give up until he gets a solid answer from Nan Pierce though.”

“Right,” Kendall says. “Well. I think we can be confident what that answer will be.”

Rhea gives him an enigmatic look. She can communicate with just her eyes and he knows she sees the same future he does.

“It is going to be you, isn’t it?” she says, more as a statement than a question.

He takes a breath.

“Yes. It is.”

She nods subtly. He nods back and she goes to sit down.

Kendall takes a second to collect himself before sliding back down into the current reality of what has happened today. He looks over at Shiv hanging up the phone and thinks he’d really like to try again to connect to her. He cautiously makes his way over to the corner she’s standing in behind the side wall, hidden from the rest of the room. He can’t help himself and lowers his voice.

“Hey. Did Dad promise you… something?”

Shiv tucks her hair behind her ear.

“Nope. No��� did he promise you something?” she asks, concern bleeding through her façade of calm.

Kendall decides to keep it vague. The sadness starts creeping up again and sucking away his adrenaline.

“Well. He’s promised me a lot of things.”

“Old news, Ken.”

“I mean, it’s not. Turn on the literal news and they’ve been talking about it.”

“Mmhmm.” Shiv returns to her phone before flitting her eyes back up when she feels that he’s still looking at her. “…What?” she asks.

“Did you know the guy?”

“Who- the guy who- with the gun? No. Why, did you?”

He shakes his head.

“No. Fucking… terrible, though.”

“Yeah,” Shiv shrugs. “Sad,” she adds in an obligatory tone. He’s too quiet. “What’s wrong with you?” she asks.

“I mean, no one knows him, or- cares? Dad was over there talking about publishing his mental illness, like…” She looks at him expectantly. “You know.” She gives him a blank look. “It’s what they would say, Shiv. About me.”

“Well, they’re speculating with him. But everybody knows for sure how fucked up you are,” she jokes. He doesn’t laugh and his eyes stay on the table next to him.

She gives him an uncertain look. The news is really sinking in now and making him more upset by the minute. The fact that an employee brought a gun in the office, the fact that someone in his company killed himself because of policies Kendall could have improved. The idea that more than one person thought he might have been dead today. The things Logan and Gerri would’ve said if he’d gone through with it years ago. The distance between him and his siblings now. It’s too much. He just wants it all to go away for a minute. She sees his face and doesn’t really know what to do.

“Come here. Give me a hug,” he says quietly.

“Wha-?” she starts. He pulls her in and stays there for longer than she’d expect.

“Ken. Hey. That’s not you.” She rubs his back for a second and pulls back to look at him. “Wait, you’re not, like.. thinking of-? Because, you know, Dad would be pissed. Who would he talk shit about to the lackeys?” Kendall has to restrain himself from asking if she’s kidding. She looks at him like he’s crazy. “It is just a company.” He looks at her like she should know it’s not. “It is. Not really worth…” She gestures at him. “…this, you know.” He shakes his head.

“Not the company. Not really. I just… I don’t know. Someone should have noticed something with this guy. They just- should’ve noticed.”

She gives him a long look.

“You wanna talk some more?”

He looks at her and hates that he feels like he can’t trust her to keep it all to herself. He flashes back to holding her as a baby and wants to cry at the thought that he can’t tell her anything. It’s so quiet for a second that they can hear the rain dripping down the windows outside.

“I- I really can’t.”

….

After what feels like an eternity, Kendall finally trudges out of the Waystar doors into the drizzle. Rava’s head snaps up at the sight of him and slides out of the SUV to run across the courtyard and throw her arms around him in her puffy coat.

“Oh,” she whispers. “You’re here.” He lays his head on her shoulder and just lets the news photographers snap their shots. He’s so relieved and lets his shoulders drop. He hadn’t even realized they’d been practically around his ears. She doesn’t let him go for a whole minute and she’s teary again when they separate just enough to walk over and get in the backseat. She’s a little surprised that he’s teary, too. She opens her arms again when they’re inside and the door is shut, enclosing them in the safe, heated interior with tinted windows. He leans into her and stays in her arms the whole way home. He tells her the whole story and she tries to stay even-keeled while telling him her side. When they’re home, she takes him inside, and even though he has to email Stewy to tell him about Rhea and figure out how he’s going to get Roman to tell him the whole truth about PGM as things develop, he’s just feeling emotionally exhausted. So he lets Rava lead him to their room and slowly pull on some pajamas before she guides him into bed and holds him to her. She takes the remote from the bedside table and starts the fire in the fireplace. While the flame shadows dance on the walls, she nestles into him and slowly kisses his cheek, once, twice, three times. He closes his eyes.

Her lips touch his and he needs them to feel like one. He pulls the comforter over them both and rolls her on top of him for a deep and slow connection that they both need after everything they’ve been through since this morning. He needs comfort, needs to give comfort, and she wants to be taken care of after such a dangerous day. He holds her close and they share each other’s air. They’d rather have less oxygen than be more than an inch apart.

They end the day lying still in the light of the fire, wrapped up in each other with no plan to move. They don’t need words to express themselves and he’s grateful just to have time to exist where there’s nothing to prove. She just wants him to lie there with her. Deep tiredness hits him hard after such a taxing day. Even though he has no idea what time it is and is pretty sure it’s still early evening, he lets himself slip into sleep. His even breathing and the way he cuddles up to her in his sleep make Rava feel like utter mush and she kisses his head before she follows after him and floats into sleep.

….

On December twenty-third, Rava wakes up still on her side facing Kendall as he lies on his back. She glances at his phone screen as he scrolls. An Instagram profile full of professional photos, galas, upscale restaurants and bars… she squints a little in her morning haze and sees the username clearly. MarkJohnson.

She blinks and he realizes she’s awake.

“Hey,” he says, closing the app. He looks haunted.

“It’s okay, you don’t have to close it,” she says. “I thought you didn’t know him.”

“Uh, yeah, I didn’t.” He pauses. “Probably should have. I dunno. I wish I had.”

She runs her fingers over his forearm. She’s still getting used to his newfound enlightenment and desire to be the one to help post-rehab.

“Oh, Ken, you couldn’t have done anything.”

He doesn’t love that attitude but he reminds himself it’s coming from not wanting him to feel guilty. He looks at the comforter.

“He sent an email to his friend saying it was a culture of bullying. My company. I could have done something.”

“You can’t control everyone at the company,” Rava sounds too indifferent and it makes him kind of upset. He doesn’t want to say anything. She glances at him. “I mean, you couldn’t have known, his Instagram looks like a lot of fun,” she prompts. He nods.

“Yeah.” They’re quiet for a moment. “I might start a foundation.”

“For this guy-?”

“Yeah, I mean, you know, for people who are struggling. Like… it doesn’t have to end like that.” He considers how differently he would’ve felt if he’d known that in the future he would be lying next to Rava and on his way to taking over Waystar.

Rava’s a little touched.

“Well, that would be nice,” she affirms as she sits up in bed and reaches for his sweater to pull over her tank top.

“Or- something for addicts, maybe. Maybe both. There’s kind of a lot of crossover. You know? Maybe he had a problem. He had a lot of party pictures? I- I was at some of those galas.”

Rava looks back and realizes his voice was wobbling.

“Hey,” she says, laying back down and giving him a hug. “You don’t know what caused it. It was probably complicated.” She pats his back.

Everyone’s so quick to dismiss and he tries not to spill a tear onto the sweater she’s wearing. But she notices.

“Oh, Ken, what’s-“

“Nothing. It’s just- fucking… sad.” He sniffles and sits up. “Yeah, it’s fine.”

She looks at him with concern.

“You sure?”

He shrugs.

“Uh- yeah. I’m gonna get some breakfast… yeah? You want something?”

“Yeah. I’ll be in in a minute,” she says.

He nods slowly and gets up and walks toward their bathroom. She thinks he looks like he has a hundred pounds on his shoulders. She follows him into the bathroom after a minute and finds him leaning against the wall by the sink with the water running and a silent tear on his face.

“Oh,” she pulls him close and he lets her. She turns the water off.

“Uh…” he wipes the tear from his face. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

“Nothing’s wrong with you. It’s sweet that you care. It is sad!” She keeps one arm around his waist and touches his face with her free hand.

“It could’ve been- anyone. You know?” He finds himself wishing she did know.

“Sure,” she says.

“Dad’s gonna publish that he was insane because he was on some prescription through the company. You- you know he’d do that to me. He basically already did.”

Logan’s shaming for being a human being never seems to stop, Rava thinks.

“Well,” she says, “that would pale in comparison to the headlines I’d get printed about his Viagra use. And of course his death by daughter-in-law.” Kendall laughs a little through the tears and she squeezes him. “He’s such a…. fuck him,” she says. He nods and tries to get it together.

“It’s okay to fall apart,” she tells him.

He shakes his head.

“Not doing that.” He takes a deep breath and she nods and takes his hand as they walk out to the breakfast table. He sits down and looks at her across the round edge of the breakfast table. “So, tell me what’s going on,” he says. “Something else. It’s- it’s not good for me to think about this anymore.” She gives him a worried look but obliges. She sighs as she forces herself to talk about her situation.

“Well, I called that firm Robert knows to take the case,” she says a little regretfully. Her face is pained. “I- couldn’t handle it on my own I guess.” She smiles a forced smile of embarrassment. “I’m still the attorney of record,” she adds, feeling like she must sound lame, “but they’re mostly handling the day to day now.” She shrugs. “It’s… disappointing. But I’m staying up on it as much as I can. They’re already making more progress with getting documentation.”

He nods and holds her hand. He knows the feeling of failure.

“Well, it’s good for those guys. Tony, yeah? And the other guy?”

“Yeah,” she says reluctantly. “Yes it is.”

“I don’t mean you weren’t good. I mean- you know. If they can solve it. If they can find the guy who disappeared. What’s the resort company called?”

“Um, Triangle Properties.” Kendall thinks for a second about whether he recognizes it. No.

“Uh-huh.”

They look at each other and it sinks in that they have nothing good to talk about at this moment. They pick at breakfast for a few minutes.

“You want to watch tv?” she asks.

“Yeah. That would be good.”

They take their coffees and head into the family room for some low-key zone-out time. She flips on the set and spreads one of the blankets over them both.

“The kids are out?” Kendall asks.

“With Malaya, at the new science museum exhibit. Iverson wanted to go.” Kendall nods. He kind of wishes they were going, too. He could use a distraction and he thinks Rava could, too.

“I’m supposed to have lunch with a couple of the girls today,” Rava says, more like it’s a question than a statement.

“Oh.” Kendall tries not to make his disappointment obvious. “Uh… yeah. Okay."

"I just promised them because it's been so long."

“Right. Sure,” he pushes a smile onto his face. She should have a distraction.

After the show has ended and Rava has gotten ready, she walks over to kiss Kendall, still in his robe in his armchair.

“Don’t go,” he says, only half-serious.

“Ohh, I’ll be home before you know it. But you could have a friend over, too.” She smiles, “or don’t you have any of those?” she teases.

“I have friends,” he insists.

“Outside of business acquaintances?”

“Well, Stewy’s not a business acquaintance.”

“Business partner,” she says as if that distinction is not the point.

He feels regretful for having given up so many of his party friends from the old days, but he’d known he had to do it.

“It was part of rehab to end those other friendships,” he says, trying not to sound annoyed that she would forget that. “You know that.”

“Ken, I’m messing with you. You’re fine.”

“Ivey will build the Lego skyline with me when he gets back.”

“Adult friends, Ken,” she smiles.

“Uh, well, you’re my adult friend,” he says as he purposely looks her up and down.

She smiles a little sadly and glances down at herself.

“Not exactly looking my best these days,” she sighs.

“What? You look good every day.”

She looks at him for half a second and looks away. He can tell her confidence is shaken by the loss of control over the case.

“Come here!” he says lightly.

She walks over and he gently pulls her down to kiss him.

“What are you going to do while I’m out?” she asks him.

“Uh, just work out, and… yeah, I have to call Sandy.”

“Okay. I should probably join you in the gym. Gonna go eat instead,” she’s says in a regretful yet amused voice.

“Hey, stop that. Seriously. I have to work out,” he says seriously. “You know. Every day it has to happen. But that’s my shit.” She nods. “You look hot.” He means it but she laughs it off.

“Okay. Thanks. I’ll see you when I’m back,” she says without a lot of feeling.

….

On December twenty-fourth, the Waystar Christmas party is in full swing. The cocktails are flowing, the festive attire is sparkling, the band is playing, and Rava is grimacing. Kendall looks over and doesn’t miss the expression.

“I know, last place you want to be right now,” he sighs. “It’s only 4:00. We’ll be out of here in no time. I just have to talk to Dad.”

She nods because she gets it and she sighs because she doesn’t want to get it.

Logan’s across the room and she hopes he’s feeling as un-grinch-like as possible. She watches Kendall eyeing him cautiously.

“This is the last chance I have to save Vaulter,” he says nervously. “Next time I see him- I don’t even know. A month? Argestes? It’ll be too late.”

“Oh yeah,” Rava says. “I forgot about that trip.” She always liked it out there, minus all the networking. “Well, go do it. You can get this taken care of and we can go home?”

“Yeah,” he confirms. “You know, it’s kind of fucked up that there’s this party when Mark Johnson…” his eyes fall to the floor for a moment. She squeezes his hand.

“I know. But you’re here to fix the Vaulter situation for all those people. They need you,” she reminds him.

He nods and takes a deep breath and summons the strength to walk to where Logan is standing with Colin not far behind.

She watches from across the room as Kendall approaches his dad. He starts off nice, and she can see his harder business persona come out as she’s sure they’re getting into the nitty-gritty. After a surprisingly brief conversation, Kendall bounds back over to Rava.

“It’s done. I convinced him. He’s keeping it.”

“Just like that?”

“This- this is a new level, I think. I’m playing him, Rav. We’re playing chess. Like equals. He fucking listened to me.”

“He’s listened to you plenty of times before!”

“Yeah- yeah, but this was another level. This was real shit, like- there was respect there. I showed him I did the work, I had the full answer for everything he asked. He said Roman agreed with me.”

Rava pats his arm.

“Honestly, that’s great, Ken.”

He’s basking in the glory of being heard as Rava glances around at the attendees. Her eyes stop when she sees a tall, thin blonde with fake cleavage spilling out of her tight dress walking by and smiling at Kendall.

“Hi, Kendall,” she says in a breathy voice as she passes them.

Rava turns her head and swings it back around to stare at him. He’s looking at his watch.

“Um, who was that?” she asks, eyes a little wider than necessary. He shrugs.

“Nobody, just, uh, some girl I went on a date with last year.” She keeps staring at him. “It was nothing.”

Rava looks down at her corporate-appropriate dress and takes in a bit of a sharp breath.

“Oh. You… went out with her?”

“One time.”

“Oh. Okay.” She raises her eyebrows and wishes for a mirror. He saw her, he asked her out.

“What?” he asks.

“Oh, nothing, you know, just that she can’t be more than twenty-five.”

He shakes his head and tries to brush it off.

“I don’t know how old she is. It doesn’t matter, it was nothing.”

She reaches behind her head to fix her hair.

“Mmhmm. Okay.”

He half-smiles at her. She can’t seriously be worried about this.

“Nothing even happened.”

She grimaces at the idea of anything happening, of him comparing her to that girl. Nothing happened. She wonders if they kissed at the end of the date. The idea makes her sick.

“Nothing?”

“Nothing, I promise.”

She tries to seem casual, like she’s making a joke.

“But you wanted it to, though.”

He looks right at her.

“Actually, I didn’t. She’s really not my type.”

“Right, yes, I’m sure you hate perfect, beautiful, young-”

He smiles.

“Stop. You are perfect, beautiful, and young.”

She rolls her eyes dramatically.

“Oh, right,” she says, walking ahead of him a step. He reaches for her hand and grabs it.

“Where are you going?”

“I don’t know, the dermatologist?”

He shakes his head and laughs.

“Don’t say that.”

She looks back at him.

“Stop smiling!” she insists.

“I’m smiling because this is ridiculous.”

“Oh, you were so miserable without me,” she says in a mocking tone.

He looks at her seriously.

“I was.”

She shifts uncomfortably and he slips his arms around her waist, looking into her eyes. She squirms a little and avoids looking at him.

“Yeah, it’s fine.” She starts moving away and he keeps her there.

“Hey. I mean it, I was.”

She wrinkles her nose.

“Please, I didn’t even look like that when I was twenty-two.”

“I don’t want you to look like that.”

“You asked her out.”

He doesn’t know whether the truth is better or worse.

“Actually-“ He drops his head down and looks up at her. He tells himself not to mention that Rava had a whole pseudo-relationship and tries not to smirk or gloat.  “She asked me out.”

She sucks in one cheek.

“Oh, good. A slutty model,” she says semi-seriously.

“I wouldn’t know. One date, Rav.” He gazes at her and she avoids eye contact. “I-I wished she was you. I fucking wished everyone I talked to was you.”

She sighs and finally looks at him.

“Really?”

“Of course, really. Fuck, don’t get all… fake at the doctor.” He shakes his head. “You’re perfect. Come here.” He pulls her in and she leans against him. She’s briefly amused that he’s blissfully unaware of her expertly-done skin treatments.

“Does she know you’re married again now?” she asks in that fake-joking voice again as she squeezes him to her.

“If she reads Page Six.” He still can’t believe she would care about this. “Can we go home now?”

She looks up at him with a small smile and imitates the girl’s voice sarcastically.

“Yes, Kendall.”

He shakes his head again.

“Stop. Let’s go.” He puts his arm around her and they walk out.

….

On December twenty-fifth, Rava hands Kendall a wrapped present after the kids have gone to take post-unwrapping naps. He takes a look at the gift tag.

I thought about sneakers, but this seemed somehow even better. Something for the man who has everything.

The phrase used to be a dark joke to him. He'd thought he had nothing for the longest time and it had always been impossible to explain to anyone but her. He opens the wrapping paper and beholds a well-loved journal.

“It’s my diary,” she smiles. “From the first years we first started dating. I thought you’d like to read what I- well, how I saw you, versus how you saw yourself.”

“I didn’t even know you kept this!” he says with wonder. He opens it up and starts flipping through it, catching snippets on different pages.

If he could take a month away from the Roys, he’d start to see how brilliant he actually is.

I wish I knew how many colors are in Ken’s eyes. I tried to count them once but he blinked. I could honestly look into those eyes forever.

I didn’t know it was even possible to think about someone so much. All I want to do is lie in bed with him every minute. It’s like I physically need him. I don’t know how I’m going to focus on classes when I have to go back to law school next week. I can’t be away from him anymore!

He’s speechless when he looks up at her again. She’s blushing but she’s happy it’s having the intended effect. He glances back down and flips the page one more time.

If Kendall doesn’t propose to me this year I might actually die!!

He chuckles and points to that line, holding it up for her to see.

“Wow,” he laughs. “Good thing I did.”

“Yeah,” she smiles and they gaze at each other. “It is a good thing.”

“This- this is amazing,” he says. “I don’t even- wow.” He looks at her again. “Can’t believe this is real.” He looks down at the book and smiles again. “So, uh, I guess you’re kind of into me.”

“Mmm,” she says as she kisses him. “I guess so.”

He pauses.

“Did you really count the colors in my eyes?”

She smiles.

“Four,” she whispers in his ear.

“Four? No, three.”

“You’re missing the darker green,” she says.

It’s his turn to feel a little hot in his face.

“Okay. So, you’re actually obsessed with me,” he smiles.

“And look how happy you are about it!” she replies.

“You just took out all the bad stuff,” he insists.

She shrugs. “No missing pages!” He flips through the whole thing again. She’s right.

“Okay, I’m absolutely reading every word of this today. But first, I’ll get your gift.”

He pulls out a wrapped gift that’s clearly a frame.

“I don’t know if this is- yeah, this is probably not, you know, great, but- you said you missed when I did art, so…”

She pulls the paper off of a close-up sketch of her smiling in bed, sheets wrapped below her bare shoulders and slightly messy hair framing her face. Sunlight streams through the window behind her.

“How I see you,” he says. “Versus how you see yourself,” he adds.

“I can’t believe you drew this,” she whispers. “It’s so beautiful, I love it. When- when did you even have time to do this?”

He shrugs.

“You know. I made it work. Got the idea at the wedding, the way you woke up,” he smiles. “I just think you should know…” they look at each other. “You know.” She nods. “Come here,” he says quietly.

She cuddles up to him and they wrap their arms around each other. Today, they do have everything.

Chapter 14 💗

[brownsplodge]

An over the top and in depth analysis on the rottmnt Family medic candidates, and in what order I’d place them to be in as the most suitable medics(real: Splodge sucks at writing short titles)

I’m not usually one for making hcs outside of the known canon, but there are lots of hcs in rottmnt that i love/absolutely agree with. I’m not sure about this one, i don’t feel there is a fixed medic in the family, but it does make sense ngl.

I’m gonna analyse each family member to tell which ones would be the best to fit the role of medic(or replacement Medic).

Raph: Raph would be very likely to become stressed even if someone skinned a knee slightly, or go over the top if one of his family members were injured(not really a bad thing, but it could make them uncomfortable). He wouldn’t be a great medic, not only because of his obviously larger and therefore more clumsy hands, but also because you have to stay calm, or at least be able to keep a cool head when you treat wounds, especially if they’re bad. Raph is in my opinion probably the worst candidate for a medic in most situations, though he could be good if he stays calm and is careful, as he is very motherly and he would probably be good at looking after someone while helping them.

Leo: Leo is as far as I’m aware the most popular candidate for medic in the fandom, and I do see why. He is smart enough to learn something if he wanted to or felt the need to, and he is the best at manipulating others into thinking he’s calm or laid back even in the worst situations. He’s pretty neat in his own way and would probably be able to make whoever he’s treating be so annoyed they don’t even care about being wounded(/pos/j). He’s likely to do it correctly, unlike his other family members, all more likely to go over the top or not know what to do.

Donnie: Donnie was at first my most logical option, but I realised the flaw in this quite fast. Though he’s very smart and no doubt has excellent knowledge in lots of Things, his interests are mostly in technology(that can be useful in certain medical situations, to be fair), and even though it’s likely he knows in theory how to treat wounds, he easily gets nauseous(as seen, especially in the film, a couple times when he feels sick at seeing certain slimy gooey stuff(unspecified to avoid spoilers). Also, agin like with Raph, he might go over the top, and not just because he cares about his brothers but also because he seems like exactly the kind of guy to be a bit of a hypochondriac.

Mikey: Mikey might be a good medic ngl. At first I thought obviously not, but I realised he might not be that bad. He could probably learn medical knowledge(with a bit of difficulty probably), even if his attention span seems a bit short, and other than knowledge, he might be quite a nice caretaker to have. He’s cheerful so you are likely to feel less stressed, and I bet he has a ton of colourful plasters. If the injuries aren’t very bad, Mikey would be a great medic, and the main reason I’m saying if they’re not bad is because he’s pretty young(to be fair not a lot younger than his brothers, but still young), and learning medical knowledge takes time and a good concentration is definitely a plus(which Mikey doesn’t really have). He’d probably be a pretty bangin’ therapist though.

Splinter: Oof. I’m not sure actually. I know that splinter at least at the beginning is pretty neglectful, but he would definitely try to help his family if they needed it, we all know that. The problems I see are that firstly, similar to Raph, he doesn’t seem to handle stress all that well. And secondly, the boys are likely to injure themselves doing something they weren’t supposed to, so they wouldn’t go to ask him for help.

April: I’m a little surprised that April doesn’t really appear as a medic in any fics/hcs. She would, in my opinion, be a pretty good one. She’s a little impulsive, but that’s mainly when it comes to battle, and she would probably be the smartest if it weren’t for Donnie. As far as I’m aware she doesn’t get nauseous as easily, and she can definitely act fast and smart even in dangerous/stressful situations. She probably won’t go over the top or … under the top I guess, and she’s a great improviser, probably would be able to patch someone up on the spot if needed.

In conclusion, I think that even though Medic Leo isn’t a bad hc, I think medic April makes more sense. The order I would put them in would be:

April

Leo

Donnie

Mikey

And Raph and splinter tied.

I hope you had fun watching me rambling without proof or rewatches and I bid you farewell and good luck on your turtly adventures

[rhonda-hurley-appreciation-bang]

Title: Can’t Fight the Moonlight

Author name: DoctorProfessorSong

Artist Name: Solstheim

WC: 34,373

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: N/A

Tags: Idiots to Boyfriends to Lovers, Dean and Cas are platonic partners attached at the everything, But also they are in love love, They just think the other is maybe straight, Platonic Cuddling, Bedsharing, Post-Canon Fix-It, lovers to idiots to partners, f/f/f threesome (off screen), Sex Toys, inconveniently timed boners, Masturbation, Alcohol, including consumption to excess, Canon-Typical Violence, reference to past smoking, Everyone needs to use their words, homophobia (but with quick recourse), references to mythology, Case Fic, Crack Taken Seriously, Dean Winchester psychological torture chamber (in a fun way), alternating pov

Summary: It feels like some sort of cosmic joke. A man, his would-be lover/platonicish life partner, and two of his ex-hook-ups walk into a bar. Only Dean is struggling to find the punchline. When Claire’s car breaks down, Dean and Cas interrupt their semi-retired life to meet up with a local hunter in need of back-up. Unfortunately for Dean, they’re meeting up in a dive bar that just happens to be the local haunt of his ex, Rhonda Hurley. Even worse, Cas and Claire neglected to mention the hunter they’re meeting is Annie Hawkins, one time lover to Dean (not to mention Sam and Bobby).

But that’s okay, because Dean figures they’ll get the details of the case and head out. What he doesn’t know is the monster is targeting women, and may be specifically going after women who are into, well, women. So they need Annie AND she needs a girlfriend for this to work. Enter Rhonda Hurley, looking to get out of town and willing to play fake girlfriend for awhile to help her old friend. And it isn’t like Dean can send a civilian and a hunter he had to bury once into a dangerous situation alone. 

So it looks like they’re all headed on an awkward family vacation.

Link to Fic | Link to Art