#which was like 4k words

[signalhill-if]

Signal Hill Word Count - 01/25/2023

With code: 58,875

Without code: 56,030

[quirkle2]

scenes that make me wanna eat drywall dust

[losersroom]

okay. jesus christ. it's finally actually all the way done.

[galvanizedfriend]

I'm about 70% into the next chapter and it's already longer than the other two before, and almost as long as TW3x21. 🫠

[serpercival]

i am going to get this section out tomorrow or so help me

[diazfightclub]

this is part 1 of my catholic guilt eddie/buddie wip! (working title) i've previously posted small snippets here and here, but this one today is the opening scene!

At the end of the night, after Tommy swoops in and saves the day, delivering Chimney to the altar by chopper, after the vows and kisses are exchanged, after people have eaten and danced and drank and celebrated—

At the end of the night, Eddie finds Buck. 

He’s standing alone at the edge of the garden, watching people dance. The party is starting to break up, the crowd thinning out. There’s something wistful and sad in Buck’s expression, and Eddie finds himself walking over to him before he even thinks about it. 

“Where’s Tommy?”

The man had been here earlier. After the heroics, he had stayed for a while. Eddie had watched as he and Buck danced together without meaning to, drawn to the two of them slow dancing to the band Maddie hired. Eddie had caught Buck’s eye over Tommy’s shoulder and lifted his glass in a toast. Buck’s nose had crinkled in disgust. How are you drinking right now? he seemed to ask, which made Eddie’s stomach roll in turn, his hangover roaring back to life. He shook his head and pointed to the gatorade bottle on a nearby table. Eddie watched as Buck’s mouth went crooked like it did when he was trying not to laugh.

Tommy had glanced over his shoulder, then. There was something in his gaze when he made eye contact with Eddie, something calculating that had Eddie looking away. 

He didn’t know what to do with the flush of embarrassment he felt. Like he had been caught doing something he wasn’t supposed to. He left them to it, slinking away to where Marisol was waiting for him inside.

Now, though, he’s standing with Buck alone.

“Tommy left.”

“He had to return the chopper, huh?” Eddie tries to joke, but Buck doesn’t react. 

“He said…” He watches as Buck takes a deep breath. “Tommy and I—It’s not going to work out.”

Eddie doesn’t know what to do with that. “What? I thought you said the second date went well.”

“It did.”

“And then Tommy flew in here, delivering Chimney to save the day. I thought you’d be into all that knight in shining armor schtick.”

“I was. Am.”

“So?”

“It’s just… not going to work.”

“That sucks, I’m sorry man,” he says lamely. “I’d offer you a drink, but.” Buck doesn’t laugh. “Do you want to come over later?”

“I probably shouldn’t,” Buck says, and there’s — something in it that Eddie can’t identify. 

“Maybe this weekend, then.”

“Listen,” Buck runs a hand through his hair. Eddie resists the urge to smooth it back down when it sticks up. “Tommy said something before he left, and I—I think he might be right.” There’s a pinched quirk to his lip. “He said that it wasn’t going to work out between us because it’s obvious I’m caught up in my feelings for someone else.”

There’s a whisper of a thought in the back of Eddie’s mind that fills him with dread; he refuses to think it. “Who, Natalia?”

“No.”

“Taylor, then.” It made the most sense, it had been Buck’s longest relationship. The sting of their breakup had lingered. Her betrayal of Buck’s trust had hurt them all, and even if Eddie never liked her, it’s obvious that Buck loved her. Even though the thought of her coming back into their lives made him want to vomit.

But Buck — Buck looks at him with this look in his eye, and he’s not, not sad but more regretful. He’s anxious. Eddie is suddenly, painfully aware that he doesn’t want to hear what Buck’s next words are.

Because he knows what Buck is going to say. He’s going to say it, he’s going to name the thing Eddie’s been so carefully avoiding. Their relationship has been a minefield for years, and Eddie has gotten extremely good at picking his next move carefully, but Buck is about to throw caution to the wind and take a daring step forward without watching where he places his feet.

He’s filled with so much dread in an instant, but he’s helpless to stop Buck as he’s opening his mouth to say:

“Eddie, I think I’m in love with you.”

Buck says the words, and nothing changes.

Everything changes, really, everything that matters anyway, but — it’s not the explosion of movement Eddie is expecting. It’s like the earth stands still. The party sounds fade to nothing, the twinkling lights frozen in time. Nothing moves. There’s no wind, no insects buzzing, nothing at all. 

It feels monumental, like something should be shifting. Everything should be thundering with the weight of this moment, but. Nothing. It’s like a hush has fallen instead, the world taking a pause to watch them, waiting to see what happens next, and Eddie—

Eddie takes a step back.

He doesn’t know what Buck’s expression does because he very stoutly doesn't look at him. 

“Eddie,” Buck says, but Eddie is already shaking his head and taking another step. 

“I have to, um,” he doesn’t even come up with an excuse before he’s turning his back to Buck and walking away.

[lunalikestowriteanddraw]

Okay so yall know the Frostbek oneshot I posted a while back? Yeah, that wasn’t the initial one. That was technically the second one. Which I wrote as a way to avoid writing the first one, because I couldn’t figure out how to write a conversation between Frost and Gricko that sounded real enough from Gricko’s end (why is this fucker so hard to write omfg)

Anyway, I say this bc I just realized that I’m nearly at the point in my rewatch I was at when I initially started writing the oneshot. I mean, I’m nearly done with the oneshot now (thank fuck, this thing is a BEAST), and it’ll either be done sometime tonight or tomorrow if I keep on it. So hopefully I’ll post it sometime on Wednesday :)

[sgt-celestial]

to the person who left critical feedback on my bob dylan study I love you . I do plan to mention that in the discussion following the results section because it was SUCH a blunder that I was kicking myself for midway through collecting results but I didn't want to change horses in midstream so I just left the survey as it was. But there were so many little gender-related caveats I forgot to consider to be honest so I'm just rolling with the punches

[rapha-reads]

Hey, will the Welsh be mad at me if I put Camelot in Cadbury Castle instead of one of the possible places in Wales in my BBC Merthur fic...? No? Cool. 'cuz I work with maps, y'all, we're having knights going on quests and a warlock disappearing into an old forest and a king riding after him, I need to map out everyone's trajectories and honestly I do not have time to get a degree in 100% historically and nationally accurate arthuriana. As much as it does hurt me to not spend the rest of the year brushing up on my folklore-accurate Welsh arthurian canon, sorry. Camelot is in Somerset, Tintagel in Tintagel, Cornwall, the Saxons are invading from old Alba, Londinium is around and making trouble for everyone and Brecon Beacons (wasn't that the place in Torchwood where the team met the cannibals...?) in Wales is covered by an old forest. It's the 5th century AC and it's fantasy, there's dragons and wizards and shit, who's to say there wasn't a magical mystical forest there after all.

[malulurivers]

the air stilled, scented rich with magic. floorboards hard at your back, you shifted up onto your elbows. the ridges dug into your skin as you instantly looked to your side.

Jayce coughed. you snorted. his hair was frazzled, his chest rising and falling slowly as he laid strewn like all of your papers—without a care in the world. if he didn't look like he'd faceplanted a sack of coal you would've believed it was a fair comparison.

dragging your safety goggles over your forehead rife with soot, you discarded them atop his stomach. or you aimed to. being knocked onto your ass clearly messed with your coordination as you accidentally clipped his chin with the buckle. he whined dramatically.

"sorry! that wasn't—"

"beating me while I'm down? what did I do to deserve this!"

you rolled your eyes amusedly. "my bad, Talis. thought you wanting your name plastered all over the research notes meant this was your experiment."

he groaned, head turning away from you.

"seems like you got proportional comeuppance, though."

"what's that supposed to mean?"

you giggled quietly, refraining from giving an answer.

your cloudy eyes waltzed across from him to the explosion of dust and soot that painted his side of the lab. what was left of his desk smoked and crackled with cerulean static. following the crux where the contraption had sat mere moments before, you found runes burnt into the flagstone and wood.

"well, there's some good news for us." you slumped back onto the floor beside him.

"really?" his smile was as bright as it always was, gap-toothed and endearing despite everything.

"the sun rune was definitely activated when that spell happened."

"brilliant! see?" he rapped his knuckles against the ground victoriously. "I told you breakthroughs can come from anywhere! they can take multitudes of forms, even the roughest of experiments can yield results...!"

he was so damn smug when he was right. you wanted to wipe his smirk off his lips, but all you would've gotten was more soot on you. at first it would be on your thumb, but it wouldn't take long for it to be on your lips instead.

"Jayce, it's burnt into the floor."

he was quiet for a moment. his gaze was intently on you, in fact it had barely left since you'd laid back down. you avoided the eye contact. soot tasted unpleasant. even if he was cute, was it truly worth it?

"I'm so glad I get to work with you."

your face crumpled. not even the slightest hint of sarcasm, or ingenuity. he always meant what he said, wholeheartedly.

you pouted at him, acceding. your hand found his discarded on the ground, burnt gloves making tough work of intertwining your fingers but you didn't care. "shush. you're making me sound mean."

"you're just practical. realistic. two entries on an endless list of things I love about you." as you broke his gaze, coming to stare back up at the ceiling with a scoff, he squeezed your hand.

and then you felt him shuffle clumsily closer. before you could snicker and call him a dork, his voice softened in your ear, "it's what makes you a brilliant inventor. and it also means if I do dumb things with you, you have to back me up, otherwise you look dumb, too."

you pursed your lips, playfully struggling to hold a smile back. "you're such a—"

"gorgeous, clever, profoundly amazing and loving boyfriend?" he propped himself up on one elbow effortlessly. "I know, honey, I know."

your head whipped to him in shock, a laugh falling from your open lips. you quipped, "an egotist!"

he simply shrugged, oozing confidence and swagger as if he didn't look like a cartoon struck by lightning. oh right, he didn't know.

the fork in the road settled before you. you could win this battle: snark him right back, and out of the corny consequence of his own miscalculations. or you could lose on purpose.

"you still love me either way, don't y—oh!"

pulling by his untucked tie you yanked him down on top of you, melding your lips to his. you could feel his smile twitch into your kiss as he melted like butter in an instant. freeing your hand from your glove, your callused hand traced along his hot cheeks to the nape of his neck until it settled on his jaw. he tilted into your palm, humming happily. putty in your hands, as always.

you ignored the dry taste of soot, and the traces of it gathering on your clean fingertips. it was without a second thought; he was undoubtedly worth it.

☾ ₊ ˚ ✩ ˚ ｡ ☽

masterlist | buy me a hot chocolate <3

[cmentary-drive]

[yelenadelova]

i am aware Suzanne Collins will likely never write a Finnick Odair novel so I have taken it upon myself to do it myself with fic

*insert thanos "fine, ill do it myself" meme here*

[saetoru]

what is it about smut that makes me literally talk for ages bc like. now this drabble is turning into a whole fic too what the heck do i do now 🧍🏽‍♀️

[maaxverstappen]

i feel really stuck with my fic rn AH i have the big plot points and i know what needs to happen this chapter but it feels boring ?? but i have no inspiration

[raptorrobot]

i'm churning this shit out like butter. eat up

[quaranmine]

.....i think im gonna have to rewrite part of chapter 11