#this was part of a meme of four AUs so with this one I finished the meme woohoooo | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

lastweeksshirttonight · 11 months ago

Text

Lee is re-watching Sherlock for some fucking reason - Season One

I'm well aware that the crossover between "currently popular and loved British comedian in the US updates, thirst, and accoutrements" and "BBC show that went so off the rails that people now like to pretend Andrew Scott's breakout role was the Hot Priest in Fleabag" is limited, but weirdly, returning to Sherlock was one of the few things that was keeping my brain somewhat grounded and whirring during Work Hell.

We're in uncharted territory here. You're gonna learn a bit about the things I do when I'm not tracking John Oliver obsessively. I am nervous about this but hey, I'm guessing most of you knew I don't solely live and breathe John Oliver. (I know. I have multitudes. This is a shocking revelation. Please take time to process it.)

Firstly, a content note - there's going to be discussion about queerbaiting and queercoding villains, and the beginning of this goes into some of James Somerton's absolutely disgusting claims about the AIDS crisis. This post will only be focused on Season One, as that's all I've finished at this point.

Let's go.

(above image sourced from Writing Tips and Memes)

My sudden re-emergent hyperfixation started because of the hbomberguy takedown of James Somerton, weirdly. I don't follow many YouTubers - I like Bright Sun Films because he goes urban exploring, something I've always wanted to do but have never managed to make happen, and also Todd in the Shadows, whose Trainwreckords series is very well-done and expertly researched. Seeing that name, you might know where this is going. Todd dropped a video about James Somerton, who I had never fucking heard of and now wish I'd known about before, so I could scream bloody murder about what an absolute fuckwad he is.

(I don't want to get too in the weeds here, but the things James asserted about WWII, Nazis, and the AIDS crisis are so vehemently offensive that I'm still struggling with them. Claiming that only boring gays survived the AIDS crisis in particular is so vile that I have gotten anger flashes thinking about it almost daily since hearing it.)

Todd recommended watching all four hours of the hbomberguy plagiarism video, and I ran that in the background while working about two weeks ago. Eventually I had to stop doing that because the plagiarism revelations were so distracting and shocking. Todd's video was even more of a goddamn mindfuck, and even the smaller, less offensive things have taken up far too much space in my brain. Californians, does anyone at all deify Bob Iger??? Like... what the goddamn fuck??? Bob Iger????

After watching one hbomberguy video, the algorithm did its thing, and gave me a video called "Sherlock is Garbage and Here's Why". Posting it here for posterity:

youtube

Because my brain works in mysterious ways (-cough-ADHD-cough-), watching this... made me want to rewatch Sherlock.

I initially saw Sherlock for the first time thanks to someone I met in my last year of college, 2012. At the time, Michael (a nickname) was my neighbor in the dorms; over the past ten years, she's become one of my closest friends and a true rock in my life. One of the first things we bonded over that I introduced her to was the San Francisco Giants and the ghost I will always be chasing, Tim Lincecum; one of the first things we bonded over that she introduced me to was BBC Sherlock. The show was in the early months of its extended hiatus after Season Two, at the height of its fandom, and we were both completely obsessed. I read all the Doyle stories, took in a truly wild amount of fanfiction, wrote a not-very-popular AU fic, became part of a strange inter-dorm ARG based on Sherlock orchestrated by Michael... it consumed a huge part of our lives.

When Season 3 dropped, I almost stopped watching after "The Empty Hearse". I don't want to get into why it offended me so much before we get to a Season 3 post, but just know my enthusiasm severely dampened there. The rest of Season 3 I think of with blase emotions, especially the ending, which I found just dumb, save one part of it. I recall going to see The Abominable Bride in theatres with my mom (and maybe Michael?), and I think I liked it fine - aside, again, from the ending. But I had no interest in a Season Four, and when it dropped, Michael's long rambling phone calls describing the absolute shitstorm of a plot cemented that I was never going to watch it again.

Until now.

I definitely don't think the hbomberguy video is perfect. His insistence that Doyle canon never had Holmes pull answers to cases out of his ass is... something, lol, as is his opinion that changing the solution to certain puzzles in A Study in Pink disrespects the original canon. (Bro, these stories have been retold a bajillion times, they need to mix it up to keep it interesting.) But he put a finger on something that I'd wrestled with regarding Sherlock for a long time - that the show's writing often teased something big and new and conclusive in the horizon, but almost never delivered. That wasn't an issue in early days when there was less invested in an increasingly convoluted mythic story, or when they weren't fully blowing off the resolutions to cliffhangers, but the flaw in writing a story where you promise something huge on the horizon and never deliver should be obvious.

The first season doesn't trade much in that idea, and going back to it was something I found exceptionally enjoyable!

Before I watched:

I remembered bits and pieces of "A Study in Pink" and the whole plot in summary.

I truly didn't remember anything about "The Blind Banker" except that I found it fairly 'yellow peril'-y when I saw it in 2012.

I mixed up huge chunks of Season Two's "A Scandal in Belgravia" with "The Great Game" in my head and somehow forgot the main plot thrust was Moriarty kidnapping people and strapping bombs to them.

I genuinely forgot Sebastian Moran was a character basically hallucinated into existence by the fandom and didn't appear in the show at all until a brief appearance in Season Three.

In a way, it was like I was watching the show for the first time all over again. My partner also watched the first season with me, and it was interesting to get his thoughts on the show as we watched.

To start, his favorite character is Mycroft. Watching Season One, I had to agree that Mycroft has a depth of character that I'd forgotten about. Mark Gatiss plays him perfectly, aloof and smarter than you but unsure of how to deal with his natural feelings of concern and fear for his oft-spiraling, danger-seeking younger brother - and how those feelings magnify with the influence of extreme danger-seeker (at least in this season) John Watson. The show wants you to believe so badly that he's Moriarty in "A Study in Pink", which I don't think works even if you know he isn't Moriarty - there's a warmth to Gatiss' Mycroft that, even while he's doing incredibly ominous things like shutting off all cameras in a busy intersection, still comes through.

My favorite character is Moriarty. I haven't mentioned this very much here, because why would I, but my favorite character type in media is "theatrical abject shithead". It's why I cosplay Bakugo from My Hero Academia and loved everything about Akechi in Persona 5. Hell when I was a kid, I told teachers that when I grew up, I wanted to join Team Rocket. I love the theatrical shitheads. And boy, is Moriarty some sort of theatrical shithead. I don't DISAGREE with hbomberguy pointing out that, as written, Moriarty is a complete mess of a character, a queer-coded literal terrorist with no motivations besides "I did that because I'M CRAAAAZY!"... but he's my queer-coded literal terrorist, ok? I could write a whole paper on all the harmful stereotypes inhabiting this version of Moriarty... but I can't deny that the flamboyance and violence pulsing just beneath the surface of Andrew Scott's performance was the beating heart of that show for me. Sure, Sherlock and John, at least early on, were a compelling duo, but the show was at its best with Moriarty pulling strings for inexplicable reasons in the background. I love him.

(An aside: watching Sherlock made me remember how hilarious it was to see basically every major actor from the show in one of my favorite movies of all time, 1917, to the point that I actually kinda laughed in the theatre thinking about it.)

The entirety of the first season also is more devoted to actual crime-solving and detective work than I remembered the show being. I think that works strongly in its favor, and as I recall things from later seasons, drifting from that element definitely hampers the show greatly. In particular, while the lazy and uncomfortable Orientalism of "The Blind Banker" is still incredibly glaring, the actual mystery at the core of it is very excitingly tracked and easily followed while watching. The fact that John is treated like an equal (mostly) throughout only enhances my thoughts on that. "The Great Game" is a little more slapdash (and hurt by the fact that the entire Vermeer section would be solvable with a smartphone nowadays), but you can still make connections mentally with most of the cases and deduction/investigation is being shown logically. (hbomberguy cites the Golem as a problematic logical leap akin to some of Season Two's dumbest, and I can't agree. It's a reasonable suspension of disbelief to assume Sherlock knows about assassins and is followed by some more sensible investigation and inspection of the Golem's victim. The sequence of Sherlock fighting the Golem, however, is very, very silly.)

Related to that... the autopsy doctors on this show are fucking AWFUL at their jobs. Like straight-up negligently awful. How in the actual fuck did they not investigate the puncture marks on Connie Price's body? How did they not notice a highly distinctive heel tattoo on three recently-murdered corpses? Is Molly the only vaguely competent person in the mortuary? My partner and I were extremely amused that, while Lestrade and his police force are thankfully shown with much more intelligence than in other Holmes adaptations and BBC!Watson wouldn't think jam is a clue, the writers seem to have shunted the stupidity straight to the invisible autopsy doctors.

The first season also does a good job of making Sherlock seem like an overly intelligent if socially stunted human being, instead of the condescending prickish intellectual Ubermensch he ends up becoming as the show progresses. "A Study in Pink"'s ending being Sherlock throwing aside his deduction of the cabbie's killer when he realizes it's Watson, unconvincingly lying to Lestrade and insisting he's in shock before rejoining the other man and genuinely bonding with him, is remarkably compelling as fulfillment of a promise we get from Lestrade earlier in the episode - "Sherlock Holmes is a great man. One day he may even be a good one." My memory is admittedly faulty, but part of why "The Empty Hearse" turned me off so viscerally was Sherlock's (and to an extent, Mycroft's) insufferable growing smugness, particularly where explaining plans or mysteries to John. We get told often that Watson humanizes Sherlock and that the two have a strong bond throughout the series, but Sherlock gets much more dickish in general as the series progresses. One thing I do remember with stark clarity is that after being utterly chastised at a Christmas party in "A Scandal in Belgravia", Sherlock does visibly treat Molly MUCH better throughout the remainder of the show. So, uh, why did we lose that energy with the show's central pairing?

Speaking of the show's central pairing, the queerbaiting starts SO EARLY on this show. I want to make it clear that obviously the benefit of hindsight and knowledge of how the show ends really colors a lot about the Johnlock relationship now, and as a society, we're more aware of what queerbaiting is and what it looks like, which will obviously alter how I perceive these interactions now. I also want to make it clear that I never really shipped Johnlock outside of just kind of assuming that it would be canon because everyone seemed really convinced of it. (I was an absolute degenerate that shipped John with Moriarty. On top of enjoying theatrical disasters, I enjoy ships with an abundance of chaos and impossibility.) There's some biases at play here.

Even so, we are not far into the episode where John is protesting that obviously he needs a second bed in 221B to Mrs. Hudson, he's not gay! The scene in the restaurant has such an aggressively shippy energy to it (despite Watson's consistent denials) that I actively commented on it to my partner as it was happening, saying "the queerbaiting happens WAY SOONER than I thought!" It's distracting and has aged absolutely terribly. The worst by far is John quipping, after being removed from a bomb vest at a pool in "The Great Game", that people will talk because of Sherlock ripping his clothes off in a darkened swimming pool. Why is Watson's heterosexuality so fragile that he's thinking about gossip rags as he's actively recovering from a near-death experience?!

(Aside: I'm aware that last point is not as effective when you think about the fact that I shipped two characters whose sole canonical interaction was one man kidnapping and forcing the other into a bomb vest. In my defense, a) I love mess and b) John never quips about thinking people will talk because he got kidnapped.)

Moriarty's first appearance in "The Great Game" sees him as Molly's fake boyfriend slipping a phone number to Sherlock, which lead to my partner commenting about how distracting it also was, on top of the queerbaiting, that almost every single person on the show has some sort of deep metaphysical attraction to Sherlock. Those people aren't on the lighting and cinematography team for sure; Benedict Cumberbatch is lit ominously and sometimes demonically throughout the first season, highlighting his antihero and brusque nature effectively. But many, many characters in the show - just in season one, Molly, Moriarty, multiple characters of the day, the Cabbie, and John - are all drawn to Sherlock and his very special brain and his very sharp cheekbones. Signs of a big future problem come through in this way, where the show starts sidelining Watson as our central figure and puts Sherlock squarely at the center of everyone's universe and makes lesbians fall in love with him.

(My partner also laughed pretty hard at how obvious Moriarty's pratfalls were as Molly's boyfriend, noting that the show was pretty bad at hiding who Moriarty was every time it came up.)

Some of the seeds of Sherlock's destruction are sown in this first season, obviously. The big one I haven't touched on is the ending cliffhanger itself. Moriarty has John and Sherlock trapped in the pool, tens of sniper sights trained on them, and says that he can't let them escape. Amazing cliffhanger here! It is not fulfilled on at all, but because Andrew Scott can carry anything on his back (including Spectre, which I cannot start talking about because we'll be here all day), the scene doesn't feel like a total waste and makes you want to hang on to find out what happens later.

But there was so much here that was delightful. All the acting is uniformly excellent, and the overt physical tics that come to define Sherlock's mind palace and mental prowess being showcased are barely evident here. The actual detective work, like I said earlier, is really involving! I don't feel like I figured out the solutions for the mysteries I couldn't recall the answers for too easily and thought Sherlock's deductive reason largely followed and wasn't too obscure. I'm still such a sucker for the show's style - that opening credits sequence is so perfectly put together, the text messages that interact with the scene and at the time made this show feel so fresh and modern to me, filming the character's faces in taxis through panes of glass and obscuring material in "A Study in Pink" to give everything an obfuscating sheen... give me all of it.

The music, too, was something I'd forgotten about and truly ended up adoring. Taskmaster (and The Horne Section's score for it) really owes a debt to Michael Price and David Arnold. So much of Sherlock's score could probably be dropped straight into a Taskmaster episode and I would have to think pretty hard to notice a difference in the show's usual musical palette. I've been eyeballing the vinyl on eBay, to give you an idea of how much I love this score. "The Game is On" is a perfect piece of music, clockwork spinning noises emphasizing the jauntiness of Sherlock as he drags Watson on his latest case before sliding into the more subdued, vaguely ominous thrum of its second movement descending into the madness of the third part, violins shrieking as the action reaches its apex.

youtube

Normally, with such a degree of pleasant surprise, I'd be eager to move forward to Season Two. Unfortunately, I know the first episode of Season Two is... a doozy. To say the least. A doozy that may get its own essay because of how doozy-ish it is.

In any case, I ended up really enjoying going back to Season One of Sherlock! Super down to talk further about the show, future write-ups, and my horrible taste in fictional ships and men - shoot me a message, reply to this post, wherever, I'll be here! <3

#not john oliver #bbc sherlock #sherlock bbc #Youtube #too long didn't read - the lee lastweeksshirttonight story #hbomberguy #todd in the shadows #fuck james somerton #3k words on a hyperfixation

21 notes · View notes

thesublimeiseverywhere · 1 year ago

Text

Tvdint meme collection part 3

I made them long time ago, time to share. Manga spoiler for some chapters not animated and characters, sfw and nsfw with different styles. At the end of the post will be the spoiler ones.

Tw: sex, violence, idk it's tvdint we are talking about

First of all, happy anniversary bi banner! You will always be famous! On 8/8/22 (Ronald's bday) season 2 was announced!

Miss them any day.

Never joke about cookies! (Video found here)

He needs to google it at least four times per month. Screen from s1 Heartstopper (I rewatched that before finish s2)

Classic Handa Tou

For my RonaDoraRona friends! (Original meme found on twitter but I lost the tweet lol)

It is so tiring living in tvdint universe, I suppose.

;)

They all know what they was doing with this pose.

And now some spoiler!

Manga chapter not animated

'24 hour surveillance, baby' has nothing straight. (From vol 3, ch 27)

30 years later au

30yl Draluc would mess with anyone don't allow him to malewife in peace fr

Manga character spoiler

Kazusaaaaaaaaa one of my fav!

Manga chapter not animated

This chapter without any context is a lucid dream I swear. And Ronald is definitely in his slut era. (From Vol 18 ch 219)

Tvdint meme collection part 1 | part 2 | part 3 (I almost run out of meme)

#the vampire dies in no time #kyuuketsuki sugu shinu #tvdint #memes

47 notes · View notes

whimsyswastry · 5 months ago

Note

Oooh, ME: Leviathan? I'd love to hear more about that from the wip meme.

This one is my pride and joy!!! It's the WIP I've been working on most over the last couple years and is closest to being complete. I hope to have the whole thing edited and to start posting by Halloween.

I was trying to knock out the ending of another story during NaNo 2022, but it wasn't going anywhere. So I opened up a new document and just started writing the most self-indulgent drivel I could think of... and Leviathan was born.

It's a slight AU on the Leviathan DLC. It's how would the relationship between Shepard and Kaidan have progressed if they hadn't seen one another since Horizon and were then forced to investigate the possibility of a Reaper killer.

It's especially self-indulgent in part because exes to lovers is one of my favorite tropes (I love a happy ending), but also because when they land on Despoina, they don't crash land on a debris field of downed ships, but instead find an ExoGeni underwater research facility harboring a few secrets.

I initially started this fic to try and flex my romance writing skills (which are still pretty lacking), but honestly, Shepard's scenes with her bestie (Joker) steal the show:

She banged around in the cabinets, looking for something to eat to keep her hands and mind busy. She found a cast iron tea kettle and several flavors of tea tucked away in the corner cabinet. No telling how old the leaves were, but it was better than nothing. She chose a spicy-scented mixture and added some creamer that Steve had brought down from The Hastings. She took her time making two cups of tea, walking slowly to not spill any of the precious, warm liquid. "How are you doing?" Shepard prodded Joker gently, extending her second cup of tea to him. "Did you ask anyone else how they were doing?" He snapped but took the steaming mug. Shepard smiled as he cupped it with both hands, savoring the warmth it brought to his fingers. "Not yet." She sat down on the couch, letting his calves fall across her lap. "It was a lot of stairs." She would've let the conversation end there; he'd never been one to complain, much less share about his struggles. But he relaxed against his pillows and sighed, saying, "One hundred and forty-four steps. Not counting the landings. You know what pilots are best known for? Their stair-stepping. We hold an award show every winter. The System's Alliance Stair Stepping for Pilots Who'd Rather Be Sitting on Their Ass Awards." Shepard chuckled and then cursed when the laugh jostled a splash of heat over her lip. "You'll be a shoo-in this year." "I hope so. I was robbed last year." The room was quiet while they finished their tea, only Joker's exaggerated sipping breaking the silence. After he placed the mug on the ground next to the couch, he placed his hands behind his head and asked in a dead-serious tone, "Do I need to hit him?"

#whimsy writes #ask game

5 notes · View notes

sunnydaleherald · 2 months ago

Text

The Sunnydale Herald Newsletter, Wednesday, September 25

Another student hands Buffy another flier. GIRL: Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal savior? BUFFY: Uh, you know I meant to and then I just got really busy.

~~The Freshman~~

[Drabbles & Short Fiction]

BtVS Double Drabble: Overworked by badly_knitted (Buffy, Willow, Xander, PG)

Head over Feet by Rippertish (Buffy/Giles, T)

[Chaptered Fiction]

I'll Get You, My Pretty... - Ch. 1-5 by CheekyKitten (Buffy/Spike, M) COMPLETE!

Hello, Darling - Ch. 9 by Spikelover4ever (Buffy/Spike, M) COMPLETE!

Omission - ch. 16 by toutes_les_routes (Riley/Spike, Buffy/Riley, E)

Book Stew! - ch. 8 by MGAllan (Michael from Gingerbread/Lance from The Pack, G)

You Can Keep All The Rest, Buffy Summers, She's Ours (Eventually) - ch. 3 by Anne_Hathagay (Buffy/Willow, Willow/Tara, Buffy/Tara, E)

Slayer No More - ch. 24 by jsaint34 (Buffy/Oliver Pike, Vamp Willow/Vamp Xander, M)

Infinitely - ch. 71 by Laragh (Willow/Tara, M)

Should I stay or should I go? (Part one) by prose-for-hire (Spike/reader, unrated)

Soul Mate Magic - Chapter Six by emma-m-black (Giles/OC, M)

Unholy Matrimony - ch. 3 by CheekyKitten (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

Out of this World, love... - ch. 11 by Miss Kitty (Buffy/Spike, PG-13) French, COMPLETE!

Heart of Stone by Claire (Buffy/Spike, G)

A Sword in the Man - ch. 5 by Desicat (Buffy/Spike, PG-13)

Champion Of War - ch. 4 by Desicat (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

[Images, Audio & Video]

Meme: [Textposts] (Buffy/Spike, worksafe) by paperpuzzles

Meme: RUPERT GILES + text posts (Giles, worksafe) by clarkgriffon

Cartoon: Paul Gadzikowski's The Hero of Three Faces by paulgadzikowski (Angel, worksafe)

Artwork: She's Finished Now by quartersety-of-a-holsety (Willow, worksafe)

Artwork: Hyper fixated on Spike from btvs awhile ago and finally finished this drawing! by wtv-my-current-hyperfixation (Spike, worksafe)

Artwork: Drew some of my OTPS... by doesimmons (Buffy/Spike, worksafe)

Artwork: [also episode review] Buffy, the vampire slayer: Bewitched, bothered and bewildered by onedrawsoverthecuckoosnest (Cordelia, worksafe)

Artwork: [also fic rec] Burdens to Blessings: by SlayrGrl recced and artwork by o-cm-draw-o (Buffy/Spike, worksafe)

Artwork: Drew our Slayer, Buffy Summers by verytoastyghost (Buffy, worksafe)

Collage: Collage #175 by thedecadentraven (Spike, worksafe)

Gifset: Supernatural 1.11 // Buffy the Vampire Slayer 2.22 by wozardofiz (Buffy, worksafe)

Gifset: Buffy the Vampire Slayer: 2.10 | 9-1-1: 6.12 by sophsun1 (Buffy, Giles, worksafe)

3D artwork: Faith Lehane as a Ghost Angel by jade-frankenstein (Faith, worksafe)

3D artwork: Buffy Summers as a Vampire by jade-frankenstein (Buffy, worksafe)

Fanvid: Stick Season - Xander & Anya (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) by TheOverLookedOne (Xander/Anya)

[done in copics] by Lee Xopher (@leexopher) (Buffy, worksafe)

[Reviews & Recaps]

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Prophecy Girl, S01E12 by ravenya003

The Initiative and Pangs by mothmans-wedding-photographer

PODCAST: Episode 75: A New Man (w/ Katie Kaisershot) by Gym Was Cancelled: A Buffy Podcast

[Recs & In Search Of]

Fic rec: [Buffy/Spike, M] Close to Home by Sigyn recced by flowspuffy

Video recs:Angel/Cordelia vid by Billy Grayson and Buffy/Spike vid by Crista Grym - both recced by apachefirecat

Video recs: Angel/Cordelia videos by Love Bites recced by vampandvisiongirl

Spuffy fic recs: Fic recs in tags and replies: please drop your fav Spuffy fics so I can distract myself. by spuffybot

ISO: Particular-Employ326 seeks fanfic recs for pro Cordelia AU of Angel Season 4

[Community Announcements]

LONELY PROMPTS WEEK :: 25 SEPTEMBER § DAY 3 by comment_fic

LONELY PROMPTS WEEK :: 26 SEPTEMBER § DAY 4 by comment_fic

EVENT: Elysian Fields Anniversary Event Details!!! by elysianfieldsarchive

EVENT: [all fandoms] HALLOWEEn HEXATHLoN 2024 👻 October 26-31th by witchesnet

First Bingo: We have our first full BINGO!! Big congratulations to: Melon by Harlow by Fanged Four Family Bingo 2024

PROMPT: Angel has a human descendant by BuffyverseKinkmeme

PROMPT: Holden Webster, vampire therapist by BuffyverseKinkmeme

PROMPT: Spike/Riley, Surviving by BuffyverseKinkmeme

[Fandom Discussions]

What If: There was no Eve? by nightshade and November

BUFFY FANDOM I WOULD LIKE TO ASK A QUESTION. [S1 new viewer] Giles is hot, right? by valhallavalkyrie9

I just started watching "Angel" (Angel the series), and now I wonder how a soul works. by trealtox

You know, technically, Spike never actually said that he and Angel were intimate only once. by thequeenofsastiel

they [Angel and Lindsey] should've had massive spuffy-style house-destroying... by soupforsoup

buffy is literally the show ever it has schlocky horror and funny looking puppets and ... by pinesorneedles

cordelia telling angel he should smile more by dykemarcille and inquiryminded

From s06E11 Gone XANDER, "Still trying to mack on Buffy? Wake up already. Never gonna happen!" by desicat-writer

I love that when Angel knew Spike was about to be [in ATS S5] by thequeenofsastiel

Honestly for me the most heartbreaking part of Fred and Wesley's story .... by thequeenofsastiel

[can't believe how many details i forgot, doing a ATS rewatch now...] by paarthursass

[Buffy and Faith becoming cops in the comics] by oveliagirlhaditright

i think jane espenson is my favorite writer on buffy... by lesbianmarrow

the only reason anyone would willingly choose to live in sunnydale... by comradesummers

when the hero falls in love with the villain she is falling in love with the darkest parts of herself... by atlasshrugd

POLL: Who is the better whumpee? [Spike or Angel] by just-a-little-whump

POLL: is she autistic? [Anya] by is-your-blorbo-neurodivergent

POLL: AO3 Femslash Top 100: Round 5 [Tara/Willow vs Warrior Nun couple] by ao3femslashtop100-tournament

POLL: AO3 Femslash Top 100: Round 5 [Buffy/Faith vs Killing Eve couple] by ao3femslashtop100-tournament

Faith's turning to evil is just a metaphor for addiction? by debujandobirds

I've just rewatched I Will Remember You and forgot how heartbreaking it is (Angel 4x08 spoilers) by atomic_mermaid

Iyari Limon is gorgeous as Kennedy [and Kennedy talk] by raccoon_smh

[zombie apocalypse team roles] by Historical-Capital43

Omg it took me a second to recognize Emma! [Emma in new show Agatha All Along] by ronsip101

Forever thankful that Buffy wasn't a "not like other girls" type character by New_Mycologist_3002

Dawn stunt double by Far-Pin9382

Angel’s funniest episodes? by entitledtwit

Harmony’s disposition in [ATS] season 5 by DevilManRay

I’m actually a little annoyed about Knox by DevilManRay

Submit a link to be included in the newsletter!

Join the editor team :)

#buffy the vampire slayer #btvs #fan fiction #meta #fan art #ats #angel the series

3 notes · View notes

nostalgia-tblr · 11 months ago

Text

20 Questions For Writers

I got tagged by @thot-son-of-odin for this!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

412 (plus some Anonymous works that aren’t counted in that number)

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

777,634

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Doctor Who (old and new), various Star Treks, the MCU, and a few others including Elementary and M*A*S*H.

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

1. Trust the Devil

2. Four Times the Doctor and Clara Shared a Bed and One Time They Didn't

3. Locks And Revelations

4. Responsibility

5. How To Walk On Eggshells

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I didn’t used to but I try to now. It took me a while to get past “if I thank them for the kind words that means I agree and they can call me big-headed!” but now I think perhaps the commenter and I will become friends, as though this was still the LJ days or whatever.

6. What’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

I am answering these together to say that with 412 works it’s rly hard to come up with an answer because I’m bound to forget something that’s either angstier or happier than the one I pick D:

8. Do you get hate on your fic?

No, despite writing occasionally Problematic stuff. Maybe I’m just lucky with that? I think on AO3 the worst I’ve ever got is a comment or two on Ten/Reinette fic about how it is a TERRIBLE pairing and how dare anyone write it. I think I deleted those, or if I haven’t then I meant to, because fuck it they’re properly tagged so the enraged anons must have deliberately chosen something that would offend them.

This sort of thing is why I still have an automatic flinch reaction when people tell me they like Rose Tyler.

9. Do you write smut?

Of course not! I write very thoughtful and insightful character studies in which the characters being studied fuck, that’s COMPLETELY different!

10. Do you write crossovers?

Not often, I’m more into the idea of crossovers than actually writing (or reading) them.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I don’t think so.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yeah, a few times.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic?

Yes but not for years.

14. What‘s your all-time favourite ship?

I’m going to say Doctor/TARDIS because that’s a safe answer to such questions.

15. What’s the WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Never say never – I’ve had ideas that did finally get written a decade later.

16. What’s your writing strengths?

I think it’s dialogue, which is also usually the easiest part to write. (I am a bit of a Fic Snob about how characters should sound like themselves in fic, including in AU fics where is even more important and also if they go OOC in those then that should be the point that’s being made.)

17. What’s your writing weaknesses?

The bits that aren’t dialogue. Urgh, why must things need to be described! Why must I tell the reader who is speaking!

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

Well I usually see it in the context of “a phrase or word in the language we assume the characters are actually speaking” (mostly pet-names, for some reason) and that just makes me go “So what language are they speaking in the rest of this story? In the rest of this sentence, even?” Not a fan of this, nah.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Star Wars! :O

20. Favourite fic you’ve ever written?

I dunno, there’s too many of them (same problem as before).

I tag anyone what wants to do this meme!

#fic related #20 questions for fic writers

8 notes · View notes

direwolfrules · 2 years ago

Text

My AUs

Literally just two four seven so far but eh, I imagine I'll start another dozen before finishing the first so: have a master post.

3 Mandos and a Baby AU- My pride and joy. Too many time travelers, force ghosts, and an incredible amount of hatred for Pre Vizsla. Y’all there’s fan art now!

Star Wars as Star Trek- Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship Resolute. Its continuing mission, stop Anakin from blowing up the warp core.

Star Trek Voyager But The Ghost Crew Is Also There- Basically what it says. The Caretaker's array also kidnapped ships from A Galaxy Far Far Away, and unfortunately for our favorite Rebels, they were some of his last acquisitions. Also, RIP the Ghost, blown up by the Kazon. Hell of a way to go.

Another Mando Time Travel AU- No name for this one yet, but basically Tarre sends some people back in time to 33 BBY to fix some mistakes. He just wants his people, both of his peoples, to survive.

Save A Rebellion, Ride A Mythosaur- Alternate Heroes of Mandalore where Ezra winds up riding the mythosaur. That's it, that's the post. It winds up being part of the-

-Indiana Sabine AU- Where Sabine finds a ton of Mandalorian artifacts by accident, somehow becomes Mand’alor also by accident, and makes Fenn Rau’s day. Y'all this AU has fanart now!

The Custody Battle AU- Nothing bad happens AU where Ezra builds the Gunsaber and becomes the subject of a three way custody battle between a wizard librarian, a geriatric warrior king, and the young wizard who actually has custody.

Other Stuff

Master Post of memes for The Weirwood Queen series by @redwolf17

Master Post of Bridgerton Memes

#au masterpost #master post #star wars #star wars rebels #star wars the clone wars #3 mandos and a baby au #star wars as star trek au

33 notes · View notes

klaineharmony · 1 year ago

Note

Tell me about something you're writing, a story idea, headcannon for a favorite ship, or thoughts on a show, movie, and/or Broadway show. What's been going through your brain begging to be let out during your very swamped year? Share your joy and/or angst with us. :)

Hello, dear friend! Thank you for this ask. As much as I want to come up with a writing/fandom/reintroduction meme (and I will try), having a question to direct my thoughts helps a lot.

What am I writing? Well, the easy answer is "nothing," as I haven't touched my stories in so long - but I am hoping to change that! Life has not allowed for fandom writing in a long time, but I'm going to try and ease back in, and see if I can get back into my 300x3 habit - 300 words, 3 times a week. It was good for me before and helped me move through a lot of stories, so maybe it will be good for me again.

That said, maybe the better question is "What am I thinking about writing?" And that list is long, but some things are closer to the top of the queue than others.

The first thing is actually part of a series. I started the third installment of my Lucy/Caspian AU (Sea and Stars) for the Narnia After Dark fest this year, and didn't get to finish it (despite the fact that the deadlines were set around pagan holidays, which was delightful!). I really, really want to finish this story and share it with the Narnia folks who love and participate in NAD.

The second thing is another continuation. I wrote a story a while ago called Three Ways Peggy Carter Could Have Come Back from the Dead - and One Way She Did. The original story had four possibilities, and was set up as a series of snapshots. I got pretty invested in each idea, and in February I wrote a second chapter that was a continuation of the first possibility, picking up that story thread and showing some more of how it played out. I'd like to do the second possibility next, and see what happens.

I've also had a couple of nascent story ideas floating around in my head that I haven't started - a new Jo/Laurie story based on a Brahms song (and yes, that Jo and Laurie from Little Women), and a new Jack/Sarah story inspired by Sara Bareilles' song "Poetry of Dead Men." The latter has been in my brain for a long time, and I'd really like to get it down.

All of those feel like they are lower stakes than my massive Newsies love letter, We'll Be There to Defend One Another. I love this story so much, and my brain has been grinding into gear again about it recently, mulling over plot lines and details and how to resolve the many pieces I've put into play. It's just a lot - it's a lot of detail and a lot of research, and as much as I love this story and everything about it, it feels very high stakes because I'm so invested in the finished product living up to what I want it to be. So that may take longer to attempt, just because the stakes of it feel so much higher.

There are other things lingering in my WIP pile that I could finish, too, but I'll stop there! That's a good start. :)

#Klaineharmony writes #Narnia #Lucian #Marvel #Steggy #Newsies #Newsies 1992 #Jarah #Little Women #Chronicles of Narnia #fandom life

15 notes · View notes

abarbaricyalp · 10 months ago

Note

6, 7, 8 for the fic writers ask, por favor 💜

Hi! Thanks for asking! From this ask meme

6: Are there any fics from others you reread all the time?

I'm not a huge rereader, with fics or published works. (Though I do reread as new chapters or parts are published, so I just reread your Ashes and Dreams this morning to get ready for the new one!) I did just re-bookmark humming with the birds by atlanta black. I've read napricot's I Am Easy to Find, flowermasters's beggars and choosers, dynamites's As Above, So Below, Baby! and plorp's Those Who Mourn quite often as well

7: How many ideas for fics do you have right now?

Too many! There are 11 tabs of fic open on my computer right now, which isn't even everything I've started and definitely not everything I've thought about. One of the tabs is full of my Valentine's day fics too, though those'll be shorter. Which is to say ->

8: What are you working on right now?

All of my fills for the Valentine's Day bingo! There's three or four that I think I'll be able to finish before the end of the month. I also just reopened (and got quite a bit of new stuff written on) my Pacific Rim AU after the Captain America Mech/What If Images came out. I am also halfway through the next chapter of Fragile Lives! (I'm not sure why I didn't just finish it last time I was working on it, but you've reminded me that it's on a rising action moment that would be easy enough to plow through)

#i answer things #writing #sambucky #sambucky fic rec

5 notes · View notes

onlygenxhere · 1 year ago

Text

20 questions writer meme!

Tagged by @jmrothwell, Thanks!

1. How many works do you have on AO3? 38

2. What's your total AO3 word count? 382,342

3. What fandoms do you write for? Julie and the Phantoms and one lone Teen Wolf

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Falling Toward the Future – The monster college au that I based a lot on my own college experiences.

The next four (actually 6) are all part of the Found Family Fluff Series. Basically my take on things that might have happened after the Orpheum and the most family friendly of everything I've written.

Burn Baby Burn – The sixth fic in the series. Julie and Luke making out in a hammock

A Bigger Table – The second in the FFF series. Ray buys a bigger dining room table so the guys can join them at meal times even though they can’t eat.

Eat the Chips – My very first Julie and the Phantoms fic and the first in this series. Julie and Luke can touch now but for some reason Luke has been avoiding touching her.

Not Today Satan – My first Willex piece and the third in the series. Alex and Willie hanging out in the studio catching up on music from the last 25 years when Julie comes in and they discover some new ghost powers.

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not? Yes, always. Sometimes it’s just a .gif but I always reply with something.

6. What is a fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? I feel like this should just say what’s your angstiest fic cause like most, I like to end on a happy note, or at least with hope. Even though they both end either happy or hopeful I feel like As Long As We Have Each Other and What if I’m Someone I Don’t Want Around are the most angst filled. Both are pretty depressing.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? They all have a happy ending (technically the smut has the happiest endings) but maybe We’re Having a Baby part 4. Julie and Luke have a baby. (I know you’re shocked from that title)

8. Do you get hate on fics? – Not really. Had a few 'I’m not sure I like what you did there'. But nothing mean. I’m pretty sure I would have a couple years ago based on what I’ve heard.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind? Yes, not sure what this means by what kind. I’m going to assume it means ships. It’s all been Juke until recently when I did my first peterpatterlina. There're four outtakes from Falling Toward the Future that are Explicit as well as Maybe I Could be Yours (Royalty AU) and a series of fics in the Naughty Files.

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written? I have not done a crossover (only AUs) but I’ve had a couple floating around in my head but not enough to actually write down.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? Not to my knowledge

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? No

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? No, but I think it’d be fun.

14. What's your all-time favorite ship? Juke (shocking) But I will actively seek out Rarrie and Peterpatterlina. And I love Willex (Willex Wednesday!) and pretty much all of them to varying degrees.

15. What's a wip you want to finish, but doubt you ever will? Never say never. If I’ve written words on something it’s always possible I’ll finish it.

16. What are your writing strengths? This is a hard question to answer because it’s all a matter of opinion and writers are our own worse critics. Maybe dialogue.

17. What are your writing weaknesses? Sometimes I think I can get too focused on movement. Like making sure the reader knows how everyone is moving as they speak. It’s not always important and I can get bogged down in it sometimes.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic? Just terms of endearment otherwise I try to avoid it.

19. First fandom you wrote for? Technically it would be Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure even though it never went up on the web in any way. I’ve written The Hardy Boyz (wwe) and Buffy, Willow and Oz. All of them many, MANY years ago.

20. Favorite fic you've written? This is like picking a favorite child. Looking through them all though I am very fond of Happy Birthday Ray which was the first sequel one-shot I wrote to Falling Toward the Future. I gave him my own birthday and published it ON my birthday.

Tagging @preoccupied-educator, @missjoolee, @60sec400, and @1mnobodywhoareyou and anyone else that wants to share.

#writer asks #this was fun #who doesn't like to talk about their fics #I didn't mention the wip because it's on going and it's hard to know how it will go

4 notes · View notes

birgittesilverbae · 2 years ago

Note

aaaaaask meme

7, 10, 18, 24, 26, 29

7. What is your deepest joy about writing?

I answered this previously, but 7 when it comes to you specifically is making you yell at me. fills me with warmth

10. Has a piece of writing ever “haunted” you? Has your own writing haunted you? What does that mean to you?

Your star wars au Shannon death makes me want to disappear (and your description of Bea's elbow stuff) asking this question has made me forget everything I've ever read tbh. I've been haunted by stuff I never finished, and I'll stumble over it and just get slapped in the face

18. Choose a passage from your writing. Tell me about the backstory of this moment. How you came up with it, how it changed from start to end. Spicy addition: Questioner provides the passage.

from tmtl ch5, rewatching ep6 for the millionth time I got stuck on the fact that Bea's had to drive out to Ronda alone and then back with Mary and sit in the knowledge that they've lost Lilith too and their family of four has been cut in half in the blink of an eye

outline/v1: The return trip with Mary. Quiet, stilted questions. Not on the same wavelength, interrupting each other and apologising because they don't know how to fill the spaces that have been left for other voices.

v2: "Would you just look at me?" // "I can't. Because I look at you and all I see is her."

v3: "You're all I have left. Shannon's dead. Lilith's dead. Mary, you're all I have left." // "I can't." Mary's voice is hoarse. "Even just sitting here– You still use her soap." It's not a question. "I sit here and I smell her and when I look at you all I can see are the fingerprints she left behind. And I'm sorry, Beatrice, but I can't fucking deal with that right now."

v4: "You're all I have left,” Beatrice continues, unable to hold her tongue now that the first stones in the dam have cracked. “Shannon's dead. Lilith's dead. Mary, you're all I have left. Look at me. Please." // "I can't." Mary's voice is hoarse. "Even just sitting here– You still use her soap." It's not a question. "I sit here and I smell her and when I look at you all I can see are the fingerprints she left behind. And I'm sorry, Beatrice, but I can't fucking deal with that right now."

24. How much prep work do you put into your stories? What does that look like for you? Do you enjoy this part or do you just want to get on with it?

it depends on the story; tmtl for each scene I had a one sentence outline for the exact emotional beats I wanted to hit, and then a paragraph outline with scene beats and callbacks, and then a bulletpoint outline to detail the exact shape of the scene. fic: nature is gonna end up with the same sort of treatment but probably less intense about it. tmau prep work has involved a shit ton of academic papers and spreadsheets. if it's not clear, I really love prep work, I haven't had as much opportunity for research work in my day-to-day lately so I've been really digging in. honestly fic: dads has been such a departure in that it's been an exercise for me in trying to do absolutely no planning

26. How do you get into your character’s head? How do you get out? Do you ever regret going in there in the first place?

I'll typically have a song assigned to a character for a specific fic and listen to that repeatedly if I'm having trouble getting into their mindset. getting out of it usually isn't that difficult, head empty brain go brr etc. but if I'm getting to stuck in something I go watch cooking videos on youtube tbh. there are a couple points I've hit where I've been writing something and had to take a step back and go 'okay, it's not good for me to be here right now I need to walk away' but I don't know that I regret those points so much as they give me more insight into myself

29. Where do you draw your inspiration? What do you do when the inspiration well runs dry?

I usually turn to my sad bangers playlist (which I've been familiarizing you with cas hehe) if I'm in the need for inspiration, and lately when I've been stuck on something I've gone and stared at @princington 's art until I'm Fixed (read: made worse (affectionate))

#ask #ask meme #daisychainsandbowties #fic: tmtl

11 notes · View notes

newcontinent · 2 years ago

Text

ot4

okay so i made this largely ryden/polypanic reclist before i know, but i wanted to make a complete list of all my favourite longer ot4 fics as well as just smut. it’s fair to say this list is extensive and ever-expanding. enjoy!

(note: it’s safe to assume all these fics are nc-17 unless otherwise stated)

***

a sense of touch by liketheroad (16,000, rated PG)

from the very beginning, slowly at first but always steadily growing towards more, they touched. so much and eventually so without thought that they never had to wonder why it felt wrong when they didn’t, because that itself happened so infrequently.

(this is so so lovely it makes me cry tbh. canon compliant and delicate and wonderful)

all in by fictionalaspect (8000)

"last person still in wins the pot," jon says. he finishes with a flourish, folding up his two pieces of paper and dropping them on top of the folded twenty at the bottom of their empty weed jar.

brendon pushes his hair out of his eyes, bites his lip, and stares at his two scraps of paper. he writes the first two things that come to mind.

(well written, well read, well loved. brendon gets rimmed, ryan wears lingerie, we’re all happy)

be(side) the sea by liketheroad (21,000, rated T)

ryan and spencer grow up on a lonely island by the sea, two against the world, and then comes jon walker to make it three.

(and then brendon arrives too! this is so sad in places but exceptionally pretty in others and i just really really like it)

burn up in love love love by dsudis (12,000)

miss you miss you miss you

(who knew jon getting gang banged could be so sweet??)

circus verse by mokuyoubi (38,000 altogether)

spencer and ryan are part of pete's travelling circus. jon and brendon come for the show, but there's something about the place that keeps them coming back for more.

(this is ryan/brendon and jon/spencer in the first part, but it’s so good and i love the idea of this au tbh)

clearly aware of the stars by jenish (18,000)

(bby!brendon has a huge crush on jon, so spencer and ryan decide to, ahem, help him out. aka cute tiny gay boys having feelings)

different names for the same thing by liketheroad (24,000, rated PG)

wherein ryan, spencer, brendon and jon live in a house in chicago and go to school and work and make waffles and have misunderstandings and fall in love. also wherein tom conrad is kind of magic.

(i love everything this author writes to be honest, but this and the other 2 fics by them on here are just so cute and awesome and everything i love about polypanic)

discussion of children at prayer (divine in accepting your defeat) by ignite_it (4500)

in which ryan, spencer and brendon died before they could live forever, pete is ruthless and possibly crazy, the world might be ending, and jon walker just wants his family back. (sad and far-fetched, but it made me cry so it belongs on this list)

every turn a surprise by mixtapestar (56,000)

when brendon is 10 years old, weird things start happening. he quickly discovers his ability to read minds, and then he spends several years at the academy, learning how to control it. after he is forced to run away to avoid being drafted for his ability, he gets hired onto a spaceship, where he meets spencer, ryan, and jon. things just get crazier from there, especially when he starts to fall in love with more than one of his coworkers.

(considering the length, the plot is kind of underdeveloped in places, but still - space au ot4!!! with superpowers!!!)

find what you need by lady_deathangel (5000)

(this was written for a bottom!jon meme and it actually has a bit of a plot. what more needs to be said)

four men and a little cabin by gigantic (9000)

unrelated, non-linear scenes from a recording cabin

(i constantly thank god for cabin fic)

from countess to cabin boy by formerlydf (35,000)

to be fair, brendon never truly intends to join the crew of a pirate ship. It just sort of... happens. she's sitting at a table in the corner, sipping her water and trying to figure out where to go next, when a boy about her age sits down at the table with her. "have you ever considered a life of action and adventure on the high seas?" he asks her cheerfully. brendon stares at him. she also stares at his hair — at least, she thinks it's his hair. It could be some sort of weird, hair-like hat gone terribly, terribly wrong. "um. what?"

(pirate au!! is it kind of ridiculous? yes. is the genderswap awkward and/or offensive? surprisingly not! overall p adorable tbh)

high school verse 1 and 2 by softlyforgotten (38,000 altogether, rated T)

(the reigning monarch of high school aus writes more high school au. the first part is mostly vicky/greta, but seriously this entire thing is so good and the polypanic in both parts is so well done i love it a lot)

(i’ll be) the only thing between you and the stars by mokuyoubi (68,000)

pete likes to be the admiral of the fleet in his free time, the cobra is after the academy, the helena is after the cobra, and brendon gets caught in the middle, leaving it up to spencer, jon and ryan to come to his rescue. oh yeah. star trek au.

(*bangs on table* star trek au!! star trek au!!! star! trek!! au!!!! amazing tbh)

the less specific i become by notamagnet (21,000)

brendon was found wandering the desert when he was two and was later adopted by the uries. he’s never felt as though he fits in with them, but he loves them regardless. everywhere he goes he can’t help but wonder if he’s passing someone who knows what happened to him. one day on tour, he meets someone who does.

(brendon is adopted and his real dad is the president???? idek man but there’s just something about this fic that i really, really like)

let each who is worthy by mokuyoubi (86,000)

“it was probably just some shitty band, you know? i mean, how many high school bands ever go anywhere, what are the odds? but i still can’t help wondering how things might have been different, if i’d joined them. like. that was a bad time for me, and what if i had found a place where i fit in? where would i be now?"

brendon has his religious crisis but never meets panic! and goes away on his mission after high school.

(hugely long and ambitious considering, but it still works and it’s kind of amazing. absolutely worth a read)

one more than three by cynthia_arrow (9000)

"i think i want to have sex with ryan ross," jon says as he spills across the threshold.

to his credit, gabe doesn't laugh, doesn't even so much as smirk.

(brendonryanspencer are together, jon is sad and wants in, and gabe is actually a very good friend)

panic! at the discworld by imperfectcircle (+ podfic by reena_jenkins) (5000, rated G)

brendon came from a tiny farm in the ramtop mountains half a cow and two acorns short of being a hovel, and had assumed the city of ankh-morpork would be similar in size and variety to the kingdom of lancre. it might even be smaller, he had supposed, because lancre -- that huddled collection of villages, mountains and goats -- was a kingdom, whereas ankh-morpork was merely a city.

this was much like using height to deduce that a baby made less mess than a hat stand, and tended to have the same effect on one's shoes.

(oh man this fic THIS FIC. 100% as good as it sounds, it captures pterry’s voice perfectly, it features otto!!!, and it is just so fucking great i cry. podfic is a++ as well)

so tonight that we might see by softlyforgotten (32,000)

adventures and reunions of a spacely sort.

(more spaceship aus!!! okay ngl this fic p much broke my heart but i love it very dearly and there’s a happy ending i promise!!)

(songs about fighting for boys who don’t fight) by jae (17,000)

right when jon was joining, william had said to him, “you know, they’re a - tight-knit bunch.

(new beginnings are hard to navigate, and ryan is a little bitch (as per usual). jon centric and wonderful if painful)

spyro! by solarcat (9000)

in which spencer smith is a small, purple dragon, ryan ross makes magical scarves, brendon urie writes songs about lonely manticores, and jon walker is magic!

(okay so part of me can’t even believe i’m even putting this in this list, but i couldn’t not do it. it’s ridiculous, it’s hilarious, but it’s also well written and it’s sure as hell original!)

that’s what he said by cyclogenesis (23,000)

truckstops and statelines and boyfriends, etc.

(okay so this is, to be truthfully honest, mostly just smut, but it is smut that is very important from me. take it from rosie, i never shut up about this fic)

there’s no ‘i’ in ryan ross by jzbell (9500)

jon walker attempts the impossible: to make the gayest band on the planet even gayer.

(group sex as organised by jwalk - what’s not to love?)

triangulation and other games of numbers by redsnake05 (24,000)

spencer doesn't think he should believe mike or tom, at first, but he finds himself wanting to trust them. when he finds out what they've really been doing, he's lucky to also find something else that he actually can trust in. (features various permutations of tom conrad/mike carden/spencer, but ultimately a great polypanic fic about trust and boundaries. and sex. obviously)

the way you make me feel (it knocks me off my feet) by dishonestdreams (9000)

jon doesn't know how he ever got by without this. without them. (i’m not super down for dom!ryan but i am incredibly down for sub!jon so there we have it. also v well written)

***

(side note: because this list was getting kind of ridiculously long, i decided to split it into 2. my other ot4 reclist can be found here, and it contains smaller fics/pure smut fic that i didn’t want to put into this list)a

#reclist #IGNORE THIS

10 notes · View notes

chaotic-plotter · 1 year ago

Note

27, 65, 71! :D

thank you for enabling my procrastination 😌 <3

27. What is your most and least favorite part of writing?

on the technical level, i enjoy description and internality most and dialogue the least. i have such a hard time with dialogue. on a process level, i enjoy editing way more than drafting. the blank page haunts me, but the edit always feels like the place that a thing really comes together. not so much in fic, but in other work, for sure.

65. Tell us about what you’re most looking forward to writing – in your current project, or a future project

i'm looking forward to being DONE with my original project, haha, and looking forward to writing a decently gruesome scene. well, for hannibal viewers idk how gruesome it will be, but for your average reader? probably very!

in fic, i'm looking forward to finally finishing my "the luminous dead" hannigram fic and also doing my secret au project that's been haunting my brain since may.

71. When it comes to more complicated narratives, how do you keep track of outlines, characters, development, timeline, ect.?

i use excel and a fuckload of color-coding. i plot all narrative throughlines separately (i.e. plot, character A arc, character B arc, etc.) and then i braid them together and try to pair events up where they can best fit and inform each other. in the end, i come out with something that looks like this:

this is not for a fic, but i have done it for fic before, especially for cowritten fic.

and you can even see in this one where, as i was working on the book, i had to change things/shift things around. those changes are marked with red text

the only thing i don't keep track of unless it's plot relevant is timeline. if i end up having four tuesdays in a row, i can always catch that in a future edit.

find the original ask meme here

4 notes · View notes

areweevercameraready · 1 year ago

Text

snippet two :>

A/N: me: oh no, AO3 is getting DDoS'ed :( and i just finished a chapter of beliefs so I can post another chapter! damn me: me: wait i can post another human chapter

anyways, please stay off AO3 for the time being and here's a post with more information, but they're facing extreme server overloading and opening AO3 pages makes it harder apparently. i don't know, i'm a communicator, not a programmer, so i'm just passing along what i know.

anywho! here's another snippet of the human au i'd been writing. if you would like to read the first part, here is the first snippet, which also has some more background on the au. check here for descriptions of the human au.

this is likely to be the last of this big story i'll be posting. i might post some of the oneshots i have in this au, as i have a few that are sorta unrelated to the plot that i'm comfortable with posting, but...well. we'll see. i finished chapter 13 of more than beliefs so i've 1) begun writing chapter 14 finally and 2) might post chapter 11 soon :D not having anything to do with my life right now is good for catching up on sleep debt and writing fanfiction! yipee!

i hope you enjoy!

Words: 7,265

WARNINGS: having a panic attack and being sad, not much more i don't think but if there is, let me know and i'll make note of it!

(in lieu of a diving image, please take this human au meme LOL)

“So. Bartender. Your name’s Eric, right? That’s what Marl’ said.”

“Mhm,” Eric hummed.

“Thanks for driving them home. Marlowe would’ve flipped tomorrow if he woke up and realized he’d left the car somewhere else. He’s gonna flip either way, though, since the idiot teaches tomorrow morning,” David snickered a little, leaning against the car door in a casual manner.

At the very least, the flippance was making it more evident that David wasn’t, like. Mad at him. Or something. Eric nodded again before remembering that David was now driving. “Uh. Yeah. Would have been a kinda problem.”

“Mm,” David hummed. After a few beats of silence, he added. “You got anything to do tomorrow?”

Tomorrow? Why was he asking? “I, uh, have work at four. At the bar. Other than that, no,” because truthfully, he was only scheduled five days a week at the restaurant.

He tried to get his shifts at the restaurant and his shifts at the bar to not line up, but five days a week at both jobs meant there wasn’t ever a chance of that happening. When he did need a full day off, though, for parent-teacher conferences especially now that Gavin was going to school, he managed to get the exact days precisely. Which was probably because he was so punctual and dependable. Which was what he tried to be. But sometimes, he worried that wouldn’t be enough, so he always clocked the days he’d need two months in advance.

Tomorrow was just a lucky day though, to just have one job and not both. Often they stacked. Sometimes they didn’t.

“Wanna meet up for lunch?” David’s proposition cut through Eric’s tangential thoughts.

He turned to David again now, a slight frown on his lips, before asking, “For lunch?” as if he hadn’t heard properly.

David nodded. “Yep. My treat, for bringing my boys home safe,” he shot Eric another grin. “Also you like, haven’t at all told me where the fuck to go. I’m assuming it’s closer to downtown but unless you just wanna keep driving in circles….”

Fuck. Eric looked out the window for real now, trying to figure out where they were. It was the highway going into town. “You’re going to want to take the Concord exit,” he said.

“Okay,” David said. “But, yeah. Lunch.”

“Lunch,” Eric repeated, quickly averting his eyes back to the dashboard. “You and me and lunch?”

He didn’t really want to look directly at David, but just in case David like. Grabbed him. Or something. Eric wanted to see him in his peripheral. He saw David shrug.

“I mean, yeah. You ever been to Lucy’s on Main? Such a great diner, I used to go with an old girlfriend every night almost,” David pulled off the exit.

“Right. And then left at the, uh….fourth light.”

“Gotcha. Lunch. At Lucy’s on Main?”

Lucy’s on Main wasn’t the fanciest place, but Eric had only been once, and that was for Gavin’s fourth birthday. He liked their theming, even though it wasn’t an actual children’s diner or anything, and Eric was never one to deny his brother when he asked for something achievable.

If he could, he’d get Gavin the world. Snatch it right out of God’s hand

Going there with a stranger, though….if David wasn’t dating like, at least two other people, Eric would be worried this was a flirt attempt. And he wasn’t really in the mood to be romantic. He kinda wanted therapy first? And he hadn’t thought about romance in a while, not since his boyfriend in high school. Now he was an adult with responsibilities, he couldn’t just ditch school and smoke weed by the train station with Schmidt.

This was just some guy being thankful, though, right? And he wasn’t doing anything tomorrow….and the idea of food, especially free food, was pretty enticing. A guaranteed meal would be nice. And at this point, he didn’t think this was going to be a trap. He knew Lucy’s on Main. He wasn’t...this was awkward, but it wasn’t like he was going to get mugged or anything.

The silence dragged, just a bit, and David sighed. “If you wanna say no, you can. I just know this’ probably way outta your ways, and you seem like you’re not gonna kill me and steal my car, so it’d be nice to hang out once and say thanks.” David sounded tired, too.

Though that explanation was pretty straight forward. Eric nodded slowly in something like understanding. If David was worried Eric was going to be mugging him, and Eric was worried that David was going to be mugging him….well, he could just be saying this to get his guard down. Eric knew he consistently looked like his guard was up, more often willing to fight than he wasn’t, but maybe that was off-putting here. Maybe he was the scary one, here.

Ah, the mom friend override.

“No, I, uh. That’d be cool,” Eric said, then cleared his throat and continued. “Thanks for the offer. Would noon work?”

“Yeah, sure,” David smiled as he took the turn onto Concord Avenue. “Meet you there?”

“Sure,” Eric said. “You can pull over anywhere on this block.”

He gestured out the window. His building was maybe two blocks down, but, well. He didn’t want to take this dude all the way to his apartment.

Did he?

No, no he didn’t. Also, his days of one night stands were like, two years long gone. Eric wasn’t about to bring a whole adult (WITH TWO BOYFRIENDS, MIND YOU, AT LEAST TWO) to his tiny apartment at almost four in the morning with his kid brother sleeping in the same bedroom. Like, sure as fuck that wasn’t happening. Regardless of how pretty David looked in the moonlight.

Yeah, he was tired as fuck if he was just going to start mentally waxing poetic about how pretty these boys were. Eric looked around at the car, out the window, then back at David. Who was watching him with a smile ever so slight, almost knowing, almost cocky.

“What, you want a goodnight’s kiss too?” he joked.

Eric snorted, shaking his head. “Nah, I’m just….” Confused.

This was all so much, in one night.

He had a hundred fuckin’ dollars in his pocket?

And David’s boyfriend’s phone number? This dude just drove him home, too, for nothing, and was going to take him out to lunch tomorrow?

“This’ a lot more social interaction in one day than I get most months,” Eric joked, almost confessed really, and shrugged. “It’s also four in the morning.”

“Huh, would you look at that,” David looked at the clock and pulled a face, as if he’d just noticed the time.

Wouldn’t that be a riot? What the fuck was he doing awake, even? Eric snorted, hiding his eyes behind a hand as he laughed. “Stop no, it’s too-it’s too early for this,” he said between laughs as David began to chuckle a little himself.

“Damn right. You head home, get to bed, and make sure you’re up at at LEAST noon!” David waved at Eric as he got out of the car, into the night air.

It nipped at his nose, much colder than he thought it’d be. Granted, he thought he’d still be warm from the bar, too. Eric turned around, waving at David as he whipped a completely not-legal U-turn in the middle of the road, then headed back where he came. It looked like David was going to wait until Eric got into a building, which was kind of nice of him, but once Eric stood still and waved, he hit the reverse. Which was also fair. And also part of Eric’s plan.

He didn’t exactly….Now okay, tomorrow morning this was all going to register as flirting. Eric was going to take off his shirts and lay down in his bed and watch Gavin sleep for maybe fifteen minutes before passing out himself out of just exhaustion while wearing his bartending slacks and without actually being beneath his pillows. He was going to not think about the implications behind the three men’s actions until tomorrow morning, while making breakfast, and he was going to be quiet enough in thought for Gavin to ask if he’d done something wrong while they were on their drive to school.

“No, Gav, you’re fine. Peachy, actually, sweet pea,” Eric said, while he and Gavin waited at a stop light.

Gavin was supposed to hold the motorcycle’s safety restraints while they drove, but more often than not he ended up holding Eric. He had his own safety jacket and belt buckles, which Eric installed as soon as he found out they were a thing. He’d gotten the bike before he’d gotten Gavin, and he wasn’t giving the bike away.

“What’re you sad about?” the kid asked.

The light was still red, so Eric leaned one arm back and gave Gavin one of their bike hugs. Positioning was always awful, but Gavin knew the drill, so he snuggled his helmeted head beneath Eric’s arm for a moment and hugged him tighter.

Now, though, how to like. Explain this to the four year old.

“A friend asked to go to lunch together today,” was what Eric landed on.

Gavin gasped, excitement filling his voice in a way that almost made Eric feel bad. “A friend?! Yay!”

“Yeah, a friend. I’ve got those,” Eric joked.

“Daddy’s got one friend,” Gavin said with his own snicker, and Eric laughed, too.

“Daddy’s got more than one friend,” he said, and for a moment, thinking about the phone number written on the bill at home, he meant it.

Gavin seemed happy with that explanation and with those jokes, and Eric was as happy as he’d let himself be. He dropped Gavin off and promised to pick him up later, told him to have a good day, that he loved him.

Kid’s school got out at 1:38, which would be a fair reason to leave lunch, if it got like. Unbearably awkward. Which was a real possibility, if you asked Eric. Wasn’t last night awkward enough? This dude really saw Eric at his normal messiest states at four in the morning and decided that the best decision was to spend even more time with him. Granted, he was in his pajamas last night, and he seemed pretty out of it, too. It might be nice to have a real conversation outside of being ground into dust levels of tired.

Also, it wasn’t Eric’s worst, and he thought he’d held it together pretty well considering the outlandish circumstances. In nearly any other case, he would have gone running for the hills at the mention of having lunch alone together with a stranger, or even being handed a bill with a fucking phone number on it. He’d been hit on at the bar before; everyone likes the stoic type bartender, until he starts rejecting advances. Then he gets the drink thrown on him and slurs thrown his way, which like, really? The owner’s queer and they think it’s going to be okay to say slurs? Idiots. Eric knew it was a situation better than that kind of shit, but he didn’t know what made him say yes to these advances. Something about the genuine-ness of it all, maybe.

And these like. Were definitely advances. There were no ifs, ands, or buts. He didn’t process it fully last night, but now that the lunch date was starring him in the face, he could see it for what it was: a date.

Three people, though. That was three extra people to disappoint. And, if he really thought about it, Eric didn’t know if he could, like….handle that. On an emotional level but also on an anxiety level.

Still, to not show up to lunch and flake would be rude, and he may be a coward but he was anything but rude.

Eric took some time between dropping off Gavin and heading to the date to prepare. He had tried while putting his hair up, a looser ponytail rather than the pinned bun he had for either of his jobs. Usually, he’d’ve preferred to keep it down, but. Well. It got everywhere. It was kinda scraggly, probably 90% split ends. Good to have it out of the way.

He threw on a quick t-shirt, a pair of black jeans, and his regular leather jacket. If this was really just lunch, then it was a one and done kind of situation. Not much else for him to do, other than lay down and try to nap for an hour before heading out.

Lucy’s on Main was fairly crowded for lunch on a weekday, in Eric’s opinion. People were waiting outside when he got there. And he didn’t see David waiting amongst them, so he put his own name down for a table and went to go stand outside. There was a couple sitting on the bus stop bench, though. Smoking. It’d been a few years since he managed to kick his nicotine addiction, but he wasn’t exactly fond of the scent of smoke anymore, so after a moment of taking in the wind and hyping himself up to talk to a stranger, a whole ass stranger, he went back in.

And that was when he heard a “YO! ERIC!”

Eric jumped, turning around towards the inside of the diner. Most of the tables were filled, and one had a guy with his arms up, waving him down. Literally. Waving him down.

“HEY!” David called out.

Eric saw him crack a smile as he recognized him, as Eric waved back just a little. They were turning heads a bit. Just a bit.

He told the host that he was with “that guy” and made his way over, sliding into the seat opposite David. And he tried to kind of avoid looking at him, because being yelled at across a public space was never something Eric was too fond of. As soon as he sat down, though, David waved in his face.

“‘Sup, Harley,” David said. “Nice bike.”

“Thanks.” Eric looked up, briefly, then froze. And looked up again.

David’s hair was down, though it’d been brushed and was pinned back with a bobby pin or two. He was wearing a puffy varsity jacket and a t-shirt underneath, the varsity jacket covered in patches that seemed to be hand-sewn on. There was a pin, too, on the jacket’s collar, with the inclusive rainbow. Cute. His glasses were cute, too, framing his face in a way that made his smile look a bit wider as he also looked over eric.

He….Well. In last night’s dark, he hadn’t really caught what David actually looked like. He was smaller than Eric but they had similar styles almost. There was something comforting casual about David’s posture, though, and in the way he leaned back against the booth’s seat.

Surrounded by hot men. Eric turned away as the waitress came over, hoping he wasn’t blushing as much as he thought he was, and ordered himself a plate of fries. Before she left, David interrupted.

“Nah, you can order more, dude. I’m paying,” he reached over and motioned towards the waitress. “Get a milkshake at least, Lucy’s shakes’re the fucking best.”

Now, Eric didn’t really want to be wasting someone else’s money, and the plate of fries was definitely more than he’d been planning on having today. But David was watching him. And Eric couldn’t really say no. Not when he was being watched like this. A burger did sound good, too, but….

God, he didn’t want to make David spend money on him. Eric stuffed his hands into his pockets slowly, playing with the edge of his phone’s case. “Can I, uh. Can I get a chocolate shake, too?” he asked.

“M’kay,” the waitress said with a knowing smile.

“And make his fries the bigger size! I’ll steal some,” David grinned at the waitress, who chuckled at his antics but wrote down the change.

And then she left.

Eric leaned back in the seat, and he didn’t really know what to feel. In a weird way, it was good that David just started to converse, then and there.

“Like I said, cool bike. What kind is it?” he said, as if he knew of it.

“Uh,” oh, jeez, the bike. “It’s a 2005 Night Train.”

“Sheesh, a Night Train! And she’s still running? Do you do your own maintenance?”

“I, uh. Yeah. Yeah, I do. Maintenance and modifications.”

And that got him talking. Which, like. Was hard. On standard, getting him to converse was hard. But then David mentioned his old bike, how he used to have a 2002 Softail Deuce, how he always found it hard to maintain. Well, ‘course it’s hard to maintain if you don’t keep checking on it, especially after not riding it for a bit. Eric installed the second seat and had to buy her new brakes, just in case and to help with smoother rides.

He talked about how he kept his parts and mechanical tools in a case in his apartment. Usually he’d keep it stuffed under the coffee table, better than leaving it out in the garage.

David said it was cool, that he knew enough to maintain the bike himself. Yeah, Eric just liked keeping up with it and making sure he knew enough about it. He didn’t know any mechanics in the area well enough to trust them to actually take care of it as well as he could. Plus, if anything went wrong, he’d know what the situation was. He liked knowing that.

It was nice, to talk to someone about these things. Eric didn’t notice his tension easing up with David. It was almost natural.

David mentioned having a bike. What did he do with it? He had to get rid of it, he didn’t take good enough care of it. Sold it to someone before he moved out here. He’s originally from Michigan but relocated for work, since it’s better to be near a lot of galleries. Selling the bike helped pay for life after college.

What did he work in? Art. He worked most in oils, something like a modern impressionist kind of painting. The big one was sculpting. He liked to chisel, but marble was kind of hard to come by. He’d gotten into wood carving, though, since the house was nearby a forest. He’d take down a tree somewhere on their property, replant a few saplings, then bring it in pieces into his workshop to carve. It was in the basement, but they’d set up a ventilation system well enough. He did like painting realism sometimes, as a hobby, though.

Eric didn’t know anything about art. He would love to see his works, one day.

Well you could swing by. I don’t think anyone’d be home to mind. If you wanna hang out some more.

“Who’s home?” Eric asked then, almost confused.

David blinked at him a few times, trying to process what was confusing, before realization entered his face and he snapped his fingers. “Shit, yeah. I’m supposed to….yeah. So, uh. Me and the boys wanted to get to know you more. ‘S why Princey and Marl’ were at your bar.”

“Oh.” What? Who the fuck are the boys? “Who’re the boys?”

“You’re gay, right? Just want to clear that up, ‘cause this is about to be so fuckin’ awkward if you’re straight.” David sipped his milkshake expectantly while Eric made a face, and before Eric even answered, David snickered. “Sorry, dumb question, you don’t need to be gay to like, get this. I dunno if anyone told you directly, but Phillip and Marlowe and I, and Cadence, and another dude you haven’t met named Draco, we’re all in a relationship. Poly, gay, all that. We’re all in a relationship.

“And like, we aren’t gonna reel you into a relationship with all of us. Cadence just said you were nice, so’d Marlowe and Phillip,” David put his hands up—Eric’s face must have been some kind of slack jawed, but he was more trying to decipher what David was saying than paying attention to himself. “We thought it’d be cool to meet you. Well. I thought it’d be cool. Like, as friends and stuff. And like, we move like a pack. I don’t wanna speak for the others on what they’re thinking, but I just wanted to make sure you knew like, this isn’t a date, not for me. But like, I dunno. You’ve got everyone’s interest now.

“So if you’re like, wondering why a bunch of randos’re meeting up with you out of nowhere, it’s because you seem cool and we all share one braincell that befriends people at the same time. We all wanna meet you. I dunno what everyone’s specific desires are past that, I just kinda wanna get to know you, but I think we could be friends. That’d be cool.” David leaned back, indicating the end of his explanation, and picked up his almost empty milkshake to sip from as Eric digested all of that new information.

“Oh. Okay,” Eric’s voice sounded hollow, even to himself.

Was that like getting stalked? Was he just getting stalked now, but a frat house of gay dudes? Was that what was happening? He didn’t know. His ears were kind of ringing a little as he tried to process that.

So he’d run into a gaggle of dudes who wanted to be his friend. All of them? They’d talked about him—of course they’d talked about him.

One of them was fucking famous? Eric didn’t know what being friends with a famous person was like, but he didn’t want cameras in his face all the time if that’s what it meant.

Was he even good enough for that? Eric wouldn’t have considered himself friendship material for any regular person, not to mention multiple people at once, one of whom was famous.

He had a lot of concerns, off the bat.

“It’s kinda a lot to explain. Mostly, we’re just gonna be annoying, since you seem cool and we wanna be friends. If that’s okay,” David said. “That okay?”

What would they want out of him? He didn’t have money. He barely had a personality, if you asked him. There wasn’t anything really to gain from being his friend.

Why the fuck were these people interested in him?

Eric barely heard him. He just. Starred. For a moment.

That was when Eric became acutely aware of where they were. Of who he was talking to. That this was...well, it was a casual conversation, but a proposition to come home. He had to—he checked his phone, it was 1:10, holy fuck. He had to pick up Gavin soon. Like, now even. He had to go.

He had to go.

He just had to.

“Okay. I,” what was he doing here, what did they want out of him? There was no way— “I need to go.”

David raised his eyebrows but said nothing of it. His smile faded. “Okay. Go ahead, I’m handling the bill,” his voice was a lot more gentle now, as if the fervor he’d spoken with earlier had been sapped out of his bones.

Eric almost missed it.

He’d been lulled into a false sense of security, out of talking about fucking motorcycles and art. He stood, one fast motion that is more abrupt than he should be, and turned down the hall. He could apologize. David seemed nice. So did Phillip. Marlowe. Cadence maybe even. It might be nice, to talk to some more people, to get to know them.

Gavin had said earlier that he had a friend. He could stick his neck out there. Reach out to people. He had a phone number. He could turn around and talk to David right now.

David had looked real sad when Eric left.

Instead, he walked down the hall and out the door. He tried his best to breathe evenly, because panic driving the bike was never smart, and in doing so he just. Swallowed. His feelings.

Eric took a big gulp of air, actually, and grabbed his bike’s helmet. Already, he was just zoning out. He was going to go pick up Gavin! Then, he was gonna make sure the kid was doing his homework. And then he had a shift at the bar.

What would they even say about Gavin?

He revved the bike’s engine and pulled out of the parking lot without looking back.

His brain was static empty by the time he pulled into the parking lot at Gavin’s school, a whole ten minutes early. He didn’t have to leave that fast. But he couldn’t just stay there. What would he do? Go back and talk to David? Face that kind of unknown? He...he couldn’t. He’d stormed out like something was wrong, and wouldn’t David be mad for that? He didn’t know him much anyways. He didn’t owe him anything, either.

If only he could convince the guilt weighing in his stomach the same thing.

When the school bell rang, Eric perked up, taking Gavin’s helmet out from where it gets hooked and clipped onto the back seat. He drummed his fingers against the top.

His kid came bursting out from around the portables, running around to where Eric usually parked. Gavin threw his arms up in the air when he saw Eric, so Eric threw his arms up as well. He climbed off the bike and squatted down, holding his arms open enough for Gavin to launch himself into a hug.

They did this just about every day and Eric didn’t see himself ever getting tired of it. Gavin snuggled his face against Eric’s shoulder and shouted “HI THIEF!”

“Hey, kiddo,” Eric said with a sigh. The nickname was a dour one, but it was hard to train Gavin out of it. He’d gotten upset about enough things, today, and he was waiting until they got home to do something about the rising panic he was literally just barely tamping down.

He helped Gavin onto the motorcycle’s seat, strapping him in while he asked how school had gone. It was a Thursday. Gavin had math tests on Thursday, which he loved. They were doing fifty in a minute with addition, which the teacher said Gavin was really good at. Better than reading time, since he was bad at focusing. The teacher suggested he get Gavin checked for reading disorders or attention disorders. But Eric didn’t have the money for something like that.

Still, it was nice hearing Gavin talk about how happy he was to finish the fifty. He was the first one done. “You’re such a smarty pants,” Eric joked, patting his hand on Gavin’s helmet once he got it strapped on.

“Mm,” Gavin frowned at that one, then shrugged. “Not really. I just like the numbers.”

“You’re good at the numbers, too,” Eric reminded him as he sat himself back down, too. “What homework do you have tonight?”

“Wait wait, but I wanted to know,” Gavin grabbed Eric’s sides, balling his hands up around him. “How did lunch go?”

Lunch.

Gavin was asking about. About how lunch went. Eric was really glad he wasn’t looking at him, because there’s no way he could have hidden how much his face fucking fell at the question.

“It, uh. Went alright.” Eric put his own helmet on, not turning around to see Gavin. “I’ve got work tonight, so I’m going to cook dinner when we get home, and you’ve gotta do your homework. Okay?”

He didn’t want to talk to his four year old brother, of all people, about that travesty of a date. It wasn’t even a date. It fucking felt like a date.

He didn’t want to hang out with anyone. He didn’t even want to have to talk to any of them, not if they were going to all pile up on him and what if anyone ever started taking offense to him? He didn’t want to join their group. And he probably wasn’t even good enough for it.

He didn’t want to think about how he’d walked out on David.

Shut the fuck up about it, Eric. You’ve gotta go for a bit of a drive. Then you get to panic about this.

“Okay,” Gavin’s voice was quiet, a little sad. Probably because Eric wasn’t answering his question. Usually Eric gave him an explanation before a nonanswer. But he didn’t need to. And Gavin wouldn’t understand. Eric could think of a thousand reasons why not to talk to Gavin about that.

“It’s fine,” Eric said, as if he could comfort Gavin with that harsh statement. And he revved his engine before he could hear Gavin’s response, if any.

The drive was quick. Some kinda force must have been on Eric’s side because every light was coming up green. He parked the bike in his unit’s garage and Gavin hopped off fast, beating Eric to the door, and disappeared inside.

Usually that was a surefire sign the kid was upset, but at the moment, Eric couldn’t really find it in himself to care. Nor fault him, really. Eric was on edge, was being pretty unreasonable.

On the flip side, he had to make dinner. It was 2 p.m. and he had to be at work at 4, so he had to leave at 3:30, and he had to make sure Gavin was doing homework. A conversation like this could take hours. He didn’t have that kind of time. And he’d have to understand himself why this was all happening. Why he was doing this. What was so terrifying.

Eric didn’t have the time nor the energy to confront that. So he wasn’t going to.

Quietly, he trudged into the kitchen, jumping when the door to the bedroom slams closed. Gavin, most likely. He usually did his homework in the kitchen, but, well…

Eric slung his jacket over one of the kitchen chairs and went to work cooking. It was always a tossup, leaving Gavin home alone. He was a smart kid. Eric told him not to touch the stove or the oven or touch any of the knives on their stand, and Gavin had never done anything like that. Eric also would punch in his phone number on the landline phone and colored in the “call” button with green sharpie. If anything happened, Gavin knew to just hit the green button. That’d call Eric, and he could always get home within ten minutes. If anything super bad happened, Gavin knew to hide in the closet. All of the neighbors on their floor had been asked, please, to call him if something happened to the building or his unit.

That was the best he could do, really. He didn’t have the money nor knew anyone well enough to let them watch Gavin. Once, he tried to leave Gavin with the neighbors, but he’d somehow escaped their apartment and gone back to Eric’s. The kid was attached, the neighbor had explained. And Eric didn’t really want anyone watching him in their apartment, when he wouldn’t be there.

Sometimes, the kid will do the dishes for him. Once, Eric was pretty sure Gavin cut his hand while trying to wash a knife, but Gavin said a bully got his arm caught on a door hinge in a fight. That was a specific enough lie that worried Eric that maybe both had happened. Poor kid had to deal with living with him, bullies on top of that?

He made pasta with some marinara sauce. It was a solid batch, and if Gavin didn’t finish it, then Eric would have some. He’d already eaten more than enough at lunch, though. And he was used to being hungry by now.

He stared at the cooking pasta with a blank expression.

Once dinner was ready, Eric checked the clock. Twenty minutes before he had to leave. Which was pretty standard for him, save for how he now had to go into the room where Gavin was hiding so he could change. He wasn’t about to go out in what he’d consider his nice clothes, to a bar where he could get thrown up on.

He stopped in front of the door. And took a breath.

“Dinner’s ready whenever you want it, Gav,” Eric said, voice soft as he also knocked on the door. “Can I come in? I’ve gotta get changed to go to work.”

“Sure,” came the soft reply.

Eric braced himself internally, pursing his lips a bit as he pushed open the door and peeked in. Gavin was curled up in his bed, backpack and shoes kicked off on the ground besides it. The blanket was pulled over his head, probably curled up into a ball under the sheets.

He could just throw off his clothes and change real fast. But Eric only got his shirt off before Gavin’s head popped out.

“Did your lunch make you sad?” he asked.

The question made Eric freeze. Part of him wanted to turn around, growl at the child to shut the fuck up and stop asking. It would be easier, to be cruel. But he could never...he didn’t want to be his parents, and when the kid was worried about him? That kind of idiot’d do that.

“A little,” Eric responded, trying to swallow the guilt that arose when he was reminded of how sad David had looked, how his smile had disappeared in the instant Eric stood up.

“Does Thief not have any more friends?”

Eric put on a black t-shirt and started taking off his jeans. “My name isn’t Thief, baby,” he tried to keep his tone level.

Gavin wilted a little. He hated it when Eric reminded him, but Eric hated that name, and it was going to be better to train Gavin out of it now rather than later. “Sorry, Daddy. But did your friend make you sad?”

He sighed. Persistent fucking kid.

Too good for Eric, always worried about him. Sometimes, Eric wondered if Gavin got that from him, too. Always just a little too worried for it to be healthy.

He heard Gavin flinch back into the sheets, so he turned back around. Gently, Eric scooped Gavin up, blankets and sheets and all, and kissed his forehead. “A little,” he answered. “He was a new friend. I don’t think he meant to make me sad.”

“Okay.” Gavin snuggled a little more into Eric’s arms, and he felt Gavin hold onto his shirt. “Did you make him sad?”

Heh. “A little. We were both a little sad,” Eric gave him a squeeze, rocking slowly. “It’s okay, though. Sometimes you make yourself sad. Sometimes other people get sad. Being sad is okay. It’s—”

“It’s about what you do after you’re sad,” Gavin finished. Probably excited he remembered it. Kid’s always been bad at focusing, anyway.

It’s something Eric’s told him before, quite a few times. He wished he could hide his panic and depression and honest despair from Gavin, but in a two room apartment? He didn’t want to leave the kid alone in the apartment, too. As little as he could. Gavin had seen him panic and Eric had pulled himself together to stop Gavin from worrying too much. The three year old kid had too big of a heart in him for Eric to keep making him sad, too. And now he was four.

“Yep, you’ve got it. Smart baby.” Eric lifted him as Gavin reached his arms up, giving him a tight hug around his neck and shoulders.

Gavin’s arm went around his head at that weird angle, where it was the only place where his arms could feasibly wrap around. “Are you gonna make it better?”

“I’m gonna try.”

That seemed to be good enough for Gavin, because he gave Eric a kiss on the forehead, too, and then made a motion to go down. So Eric set him back down on the bed, ruffled his hair, and went back to changing his pants.

“I set up dinner on the table, it’s noodles.” He always tried to get the ones that looked like sea shells, because Gavin thought they were fun. “After dinner, you can leave your plate on the kitchen counter and do homework at the table. I’ll be back before bed time, okay?”

Shift was supposed to be shorter today; he’d be off at 9, and it wasn’t like it was that long of a walk.

“Okay!” Gavin waved his hands. “Have fun! I love you!”

Eric, clothes changed and keys in hand, waved back. “I love you too!”

He closed the door to the apartment, locked it from the outside, and hurried down the stairs. “I’m gonna try,” he mumbled again, quiet to himself.

The phone number.

Eric still had the bill in his other pants’ pocket. He never took it out.

It’d been a while since he, like. Had friends. And had to socialize.

David likely told all of them that Eric had just walked out on him. He didn’t know what they thought of him.

But he had to try. Right?

At the very least, Phillip had seemed nice. Phillip had seemed like he knew what Eric’s anxiety looked like. And maybe that’d be….

Eric could try. There wasn’t a harm in that.

Work went smoothly, both works. No one went too crazy at the bar and Eric left when the next shift lead came, just in time to catch Gavin brushing his teeth before bed. He’d managed to tuck the kid in, clean the kitchen, and even managed to fall asleep at a reasonable time. When he woke up, he took Gavin to school, then immediately went to his second job. Things were going well and, when he dropped off Gavin, the kid had wished him good luck in calling his friend.

Eric held onto that until his lunch break at his other job. During lunch break, he went across the street to a coffee shop, ordered a dirty chai, and took his phone out. He’d taken a photo of the bill’s phone number, wasn’t about to wave a hundred dollar bill around in public, but the picture was good enough.

Here goes...well. Nothing, really. Everything. And nothing.

Just call the damn number.

His finger hit the call button before he could think any more about it, and he waited.

It took two rings for Phillip to pick up.

“Hello?” he asked.

“Hi.”

That was when Eric realized he had no fucking idea what he was going to say. What, was he calling to say sorry? This was Phillip’s number, not David’s. Did he want to hang out with Phillip? What do adults do when they quote hang out unquote. He didn’t want to do anything that’d involve money too much, he wasn’t able to pay for a dinner or something. Did he even want to meet up with him, in person? And he had so many questions about the arrangement, of the what, five men in a relationship thing. Did all of them want to talk to him? Why?

“Oh, Eric. Hello! I ha-I hadn’t expected you to call,” Phillip laughed a little, a sound that eased the tension off his shoulders. “Are you...What did you want to ta-to talk about?”

His voice sounded light. That was good. He didn’t sound mad.

“I, uh. I just wanted to….”

There was a pause. So Eric just took another sip of his coffee and said, quickly, “Did you want to go to a museum? Or hang out or something?”

A museum.

Eric hadn’t been to a single museum in the whole fucking city.

What the fuck was he thinking.

Phillip must have either pitied him or was picking up what he was trying to suggest, because that was when he responded, “Oh! If you want to-to walk around and ta-talk, we could go to the-the university’s botanical gardens.”

Botanical gardens? And walking around might be nice. Eric’s never been to the gardens. To be honest, he didn’t know they existed, and also didn’t go to the city’s university. It was a little farther away from the downtown and it wasn’t like he got an education past high school level anyway.

He’d always wanted to go into mechanics, what with working on the bike and all. It just never worked out.

Flowers seemed nice.

“Sure! That, uh, I’ve never been but that sounds nice,” he said.

“They are qui-quite pleasant,” Phillip hummed quietly, then added. “If you don’t mind, would it be alright if I exte-ex-ex-if I invited Cadence as well?”

Cadence. Cadence, the famous one?

“Is he, uh….is he allowed to like….” Eric, frankly, had no idea what protocol was around famous people. “Sure?”

Phillip chuckled quietly, just quiet enough for the phone to pick it up, and said, “He’s definitely allowed to be in publi-public, if that’s your worry. Being famous doesn’t make it illegal to be in places. He’d wanted to see you again, but, well. Bars are cro-cro-crowded. If you want, I won’t.”

“No, no, it’s okay. Sure. I’d, uh. That’s cool.”

Why did he sound like an awkward teen? Why did this sound like asking someone out to prom? Eric was going to lose his mind.

Thankfully and graciously, Phillip seemed to understand his plight. David must have spread the word of him being an anxious mess because, to some extent, Phillip was planning this date for him.

Not a date. Just hanging out. Still weird for him, but markedly less weird.

“When’s the next weekday you’re free?” Phillip asked.

It wasn’t that hard of a question. “Monday,” Eric responded.

He didn’t have either job. Well, that was a lie, but he was picking up another late shift at the bar. He didn’t have to be there until eleven.

“Great. Monday at ten?”

“Works for me,” Eric said.

Phillip hummed in approval.

Eric almost wanted to ask about David. If Phillip heard. Things had been going well, for the most part, until David explained the polycule situation. And something about that had just made Eric’s chest seize.

That was so many people to disappoint. They’d discussed him. Eric never liked being the point of discussion, for any people. So the idea that this group of people who were all dating had talked about him to the point that the others wanted to meet him was surreal.

Plus, he couldn’t help but be wary of the insinuation that they just wanted to be friends with him. Phillip was very regal, pretty and polished. Cadence was so fucking handsome it was unfair. David had been handsome as well, beautiful in a casual way. Eric was too fucking gay for this. He hadn’t seen Marlowe in much other than lowlight, and while the dude was drunk, but even then Eric could tell the dude was adorable. It was un-fucking-fair.

There was a….worry, deeper down. That while they might not want him in a romantic way, he’s just going to be a nervous gay wreck the whole time.

“See you then, then, Eric,” Phillip’s voice held something of a smirk, and then he hung up.

Eric lowered the phone, starred at the call screen for a moment or two before things began to click on his head. He was going to hang out with Phillip. And Cadence.

They didn’t hate him.

That was a good start.

#human au #eric #david #gavin #phillip #the story #i love these so much gkjgksjgkjldkjgkjlgkjgh #right now im working on a story like this one but for macbeth joining since he's the last one to #and i kinda wanna design or draw the secondary characters in the human world #maybe ill make a comic series of it #if i do ill keep it on this blog since this is much more an OC blog #thats what i made it for after all #i wanna draw a new icon tho because that gavin is kinda old lmaoooooo #but i have a special timing when i wanna do that #:) excited for more beliefs

2 notes · View notes