#{it was 3am and I was fucking tired}

[letsventstuff]

How nice it'd be to be taken care of for a while?

[lilredghost]

Been having a bad pain day today and I kept drifting in and out of sleep earlier. At one point I dreamt that I was laying my head in someone's lap and they had their hand in my hair....

(CW angst)

And now I'm thinking about an AU where Anakin, right as he dies, wishes that he'd never existed, so he couldn't fuck anything up. He figures the Jedi will all still be alive, they'll have won against the Separatists and the Sith, etc. The Force grants his wish (mostly)

So then we have post TPM Obi-Wan who has just had his Master die, and this time, there is no Anakin to get him up. No child to feed or clothe or care for. No young boy crawling under his blanket after a nightmare.

Just Obi-Wan, curled up alone in his bed. But every once in a while, he dreams that someone is there with him, his head laid in their lap. He dreams of a gloved hand carding through his hair, and a soft, almost musical voice calling him Master.

(He doesn't know why he wakes up crying)

[bluestjayy]

fck stop begging for comments on here all the damn time. i did like u as a writer but its getting so pathetic and annoying now jus begging constantly. Ur writing isn't that good for getting tonnes of comments anyway half the time Ur dragging plots and characters r so uninteresting probs coz Ur on here begging instead of writing properly. every update feels rushed lately it shows u don't even care anymore. just stop begging and focus on updating instead that's all pppl want

Hey anon, I normally don't respond to rude asks like these because I think what you want is the attention.

I especially don't usually respond to asks that have, in any way, anything to do with begging or demanding I update my fics (and I have seen an uptick in those in recent months) but I'm gonna respond to this one, and by proxy, all the others currently sitting unread in my inbox, and any future asks of this nature that may come my way.

Buckle in, this is a long one.

First, I'm going to assume by 'begging for comments' you mean the few posts I have been reblogging over the past couple of days that encourage readers on AO3 to engage with authors by leaving positive and thoughtful comments, and discouraging them from making unreasonable and impersonal demands. If this is the case then I would like to clarify that I am not 'begging for comments', rather I am supporting a community of writers like myself who are actual human beings who take several hours, days, even weeks, out of our very real lives in order to make something and share it with the world and for some reason are beginning to see a trend of entitlement slowly growing across our comment sections. A trend we wish to nip in the bud because, as I previously pointed out, fanfiction authors are real life human beings, taking time out of their days to make something, not machines on a factory line that churn out content at the behest of someone's demands. We want our fandoms and communities to be safe, supportive spaces where we can have fun. We don't want them to become workloads that begin to feel like full time jobs.

Secondly, to say my writing isn't all that good but in the same message tell me to update? Wild my guy. Truly. But let's keep breaking down AO3 comments/kudos/general feedback (such as this delightful ask you sent my way, I guess hoping it would make me want to update??) from readers and how this can affect an authors updates, this time using one of my favourite metaphors for this type of thing and see if it helps:

AO3 is a potluck. It's a backyard party. There is a veritable buffet at this party. My fic is the cake I baked myself to bring for all my friends to eat. One of my other friends brought potato salad. Another friend brought the punch. Everyone who is at this fun get-together brought something to offer at the buffet table.

Now, I might not like potato salad, but you know what I'm not going to do? Tell my friend to her face that her potato salad sucks and she never should have brought it. I'm going to politely pass on eating it, and be glad that all the people at the party who do like potato salad have something to eat. In the same vein, not everyone is going to like my cake, maybe the flavour is wrong, maybe I used too much icing, maybe they just don't like cake. But that's fine, they don't have to eat my cake. But if you choose to eat my cake, and find you don't like the flavour after taking a bite, then the polite thing to do is quietly stop eating the cake, and go and find something else to eat.

Do not seek me out and tell me to my face everything that was wrong with my cake, and why you don't enjoy it. Do not tell me to my face, that my cake sucks and you wish I'd never brought it.

Do you think telling someone that you hate the way they made a cake is a good and productive way to get them to keep making cakes for you? Or perhaps, is the way to keep an amateur baker wanting to bake, to tell them what you enjoyed about their cake. Even a simple, 'I really liked this cake' goes a long way.

And if you do like my cake, if you love my cake actually, do not then follow me home from the party and start demanding I make you cake all the time. I don't always have time to make cakes.

And just to cover all of my bases, because I am also seeing a trend of folk who think that sharing fanfiction online is the same as submitting manuscripts to publishers and that therefore criticism is allowed. It's not.

To continue to beat this cake metaphor. This is the difference between taking my cake to a party with friends (AO3) and taking my cake onto the Great British Bake off (A professional publishing environment).

If I wanted constructive criticism on my cake, I'd seek it out from expert bakers who know what they're talking about.

No one goes to a friend's party with a cake they made and wants to hear what they're doing wrong. Unless explicitly asked, keep your criticisms to yourself and put the cake down if you don't like it. It's so very easy to not eat a cake if you hate how it tastes.

Finally, a combination of both the points above, really, but I cannot stress this enough. These usernames you're sending anonymous asks to? The handles on AO3 you're writing comments for? They're people. They are human fucking beings that deserve respect and kindness. I am a human being. And sending what you sent up there to another person over fanfiction?? That's just mean, friend. That's just out and out cruelty. I have no other words to describe that.

I could give a flying fuck if you think I'm begging for comments. I could care less you wanna say my writing is terrible. At the end of the day, my writing is mine and I'm going to keep doing it because I find writing fun. It's a hobby that helps me de-stress from the horrors of my real life situations. Frankly, you should be begging me to stop because I have no plans to do anything but keep inflicting my drawn out plots and bad character writing on the world for as long as it keeps making me happy.

But I beg you to take a second off of social media today and think over what makes fandom- something that should be a hobby, a safe place to escape from the world- this serious for you. Because the kicker in all this? My friend, if you think what I post is annoying and my writing is bad, you can not see it. You can block me. You can click away from my stories. Your online space is yours to curate and no one, literally not a single person, is making you engage with things you don't want to engage with. Curate your space, fill it with people who aren't 'begging for comments', fill it with fics you think are really good and deserve to be told how good they are through wonderful comments. Please, I am begging you, because at the end of the day to live in such negativity must be so exhausting for you.

I've no idea if you, the original sender of this message will even read through all of this, but if you did, please, if not me, then any other fandom creators you come across going forward. Please treat them with kindness. Please respect that sometimes fandoms are spaces people hide in when their real lives are scary and frustrating and negative enough and all you do with messages like these is drive people away.

TL;DR: this is not the way you get more updates from fic authors, and further from that, it's not the way you treat anyone. Ever. Do better. Do much better.

[thesketchystar]

Illustrated a scene from Chapter 9 of @binarybitex's fic Cardboard Castles. PLEASE give it a read- it's my personal favorite maxvid fic! ^^

[bbugsy]

need more sissy lore like * checks watch * yesterday

[kerryweaverlesbian]

How do you go from Wanting to Having? I think this transition would be hard on my man Castiel.

I was going to do a cute little nice Cas Returns fic - so convinced, was I, that this would be teeny tiny that I only wrote it out here in a tumblr draft and not on my notes app! Anyway I have no idea how long this is and it is...uh...there's elements of cuteness I'd say, but it's more significantly emotional comfort of mostly Cas, ft selective mutism Dean. (Implied offscreen alcoholism.)

Cas is spat back out at 2am on a Tuesday, staggering hard onto the cold dungeon floor. It's pitch black in there, but with Cas’s angelhood restored (though still patchy) he can see well enough to find the stairs. When he tries the door, it's locked from the outside. As dungeons tend to be.

On pushing it open regardless, he finds that a cabinet had been pushed in front of it too. He's certain a human would have a hard time with it, but he shifts it aside with ease. He maneuvers it softly, aware of the time. Angels are always aware of the time. He felt the 40 years of battle through Hell for Dean's soul, he'd known the year-and-change of fight-and-flight through Purgatory, he'd counted every precious second of Jack's beloved company. The only place time didn't exist was the Empty. Or it didn't, until Cas broke it further.

He hopes, briefly, that those he woke up for aid had made it out as smoothly as him. Meg had, as ever, proved invaluable, and it had been a (tempered) joy to find Anna again. He sends silent thanks to Billie, for Their part in his return; They had been as angry as the role of Death allows that They'd been forced into Chuck's narrative once again, furious enough to value sabotaging his ending over Their objections to letting people back. Castiel had sworn that this would be the last time and Billie had said "Yes. It will." though he's sure they both know it's unlikely to be.

It's been 3 weeks and 5 days since he'd sacrificed himself to save Dean. It's strange; he'd thought since making the deal that if he was stolen away at his moment of happiness, he would fall into despair himself. To be ripped away at the time he found what he so deeply wanted, that would surely have broken him, and left him ready to be subsumed. Instead it had galvanised him. The Empty had made a fatal error; it had forgotten that stored within happiness there is always, always hope. Hope is intrinsic to happiness.

He follows that hope to the cracked open door of Jack's room: he's in there, sleeping, curled around his pillow affectionately. Castiel knows there's a knife under his pillow, but he still sleeps with his back to the door. Cas lets him be. He isn't quite ready to explain his absence in a way that would be kind to his son. He has someone else to talk to first.

Cas stops outside of Dean's bedroom. Light shines out from the cracks around the door, but he can tell through reaching out through the ether that Dean is sleeping. With a touch to the handle the door opens silently, and Cas closes it behind him, equally quiet. Every light in the room is on.

There are significantly more lights than there had been when Cas had last seen it. A cluster of floorlamps clutter the footspace, and every flat surface bares as many of the Men-of-Letters flat-roofed table lamps as it can fit. Even some of Dean's guns had been excised in favor of wiring to attach extra overheads that hang somewhat precariously above Dean's supine body.

Though Dean sleeps, a deep frown mars his brow. He's on his side too, facing the centre of the bed, though his arms cradle a bottle of scotch - opened and hours since spilled on the bedspread. To see him again in such bright light is a privilege. He finds, as he does every time that he has been reuinted with Dean, that he is indeed just as beautiful and vulnerable as he had remembered. Sometimes, near the beginning, he had made himself almost convinced that his feeling was exaggerated, his devotion practical and their connection shallow. Every time he found himself in the same room as Dean, he found himself proven wrong.

Privilege though it might be to see him like this, Castiel also wants to see his frown alliviated. Without regret, he turns his hand in the air, dimming every light to a soft glow. He spreads his hand on the mattress and wills away the wet spot that's crawled under Dean's face. Balancing one knee on the mattress Cas maneuvers the bottle out of Dean's hands, gentle and smooth, then stretches back to put it on the floor since the lights crowd the bedside.

Turning his gaze back to Dean, he finds his efforts were for naught. Without the bottle, Dean's hand has balled into a tight fist, squeezing so strongly that it shakes, and his frown has, if anything, deepened. He must be having a nightmare, though its the quietest Cas has ever seen him in one. Typically he thrashes, shouts, fights against fear even in his sleep. Now he's so still with it he seems almost dead, rigor mortised in his own bed.

Castiel remembers a time, less than a decade ago, when he would watch Dean's nightmares run their course. It wasn't impassivity that stayed his hand, but inertia. It had been an as yet uncured habit to stay out of the affairs of the Earthly, to restrict himself to speech-when-spoken-to. In short; he didn't know he could. Now, he has no such reluctance.

He curls his hand over Dean's left shoulder, a mimic of his print on his right, and slides a tender calmness into him, which finally relaxes Dean's posture. His brow smooths over, his jaw goes slack, and his breathing deepens. He's beautiful.

Then he snaps awake. A hand clamps hard over Cas’s wrist, holding him firmly and frightened eyes catch his in the dimness.

"Cas?" Dean's voice is hushed and croaked, as if he'd been sleeping for a long time.

A gentle irony strikes Cas, that Dean was resting while he was fighting his way home. It makes him smile, and that seems answer enough to Dean. He's grabbed fiercely and pulled into a thick hug, one that would render him breathless if he were a human. He holds Dean right back, deliberately softer. It feels important to be careful with him right now.

"I'm here, Dean. I'm sorry that I-"

Dean shoves Cas back and claps a hand over his mouth. Cas is caught in his serious, troubled gaze, and it takes a moment to interpret the slow shake of Dean's head.

Cas nods, and Dean draws his hand back. "I understand. I won't apologise."

Contrary, Dean huffs and rolls his eyes, as if to say, when do you ever? He doesn't speak. It's more than a little worrying. Not one to go unheard, though, Dean takes one of Cas’s hands in his and laces their fingers together, giving Cas a defiant expression. Cas’s heart catches.

"You don't have to," he makes himself say, "It's alright, Dean. What I said doesn't have to change anything between us. I love you, and that's..."

He was going to say, that's all you need to know, but Dean had rolled his eyes again and pressed a kiss to the back of Cas’s hand. At Cas's trailing off, he smirks, which slides away quickly into indecision. Dean tilts their joined hands back and forth together for a while, clearly thinking something through, and Cas lets him, trying not to squeeze too hard from his mounting, perilous hope. His hope in the Empty had been merely to live. To exist in a world where Dean knew the truth; that he is both lovable and loved. Now he is hurtling towards - something else.

It's funny (in the human, unfunny sense): he'd spent so long tamping down his possible happiness in fear of the Empty that now that it can be accessed freely, the idea of great happiness is a little frightening. What does a world look like where he gets what he wants? It's unimaginable.

He tries to untangle their fingers, at that thought, but Dean holds him fast, both with his grip and with a raised, unimpressed, eyebrow. It seems his attempt at absconding has made Dean's mind up. He reaches past Cas and opens the top drawer of his bedside cabinet, and drops a notebook into Cas’s lap.

The notebook is spiral bound and cheap-looking, its cover merely denoting the word 'Notebook' and its A5 size. The plastic of the cover is rough under Cas’s thumb. It's a far cry from Dean's leather bound hunting journals.

Correctly interpreting Cas’s tactile investigation as cowardliness, Dean impatiently flips it open with one hand to a random page.

You can have it.

That's what it says, all the way across the double page spread. Written over and over again in ball point pen, uncaring for or deliberately defeat of the evenly spaced blue lines meant to corral the written word.

You can have it, and variations thereupon: You can have it, damn it; could have fucking taken me, asshole; what do you think is supposed to make me happy now, you arrogant, stupid son of a bitch?

The me of the last is underlined so harshly that the paper is ripped. This outpouring is repeated on every page but the first, which instead says only, Come back. Those two words have been traced over enough that the message is engraved over the next three pages.

"Dean, I..." Cas begins, then has to stop, overwhelmed.

The magnitude of Dean sharing this work of grief is not lost on him. Perpetually making themselves vulnerable; is that not the story of their relationship? He follows the lines of Come back with his finger until Dean taps his chin up. He's leaned in close, the ends of his hair tickling Castiel's forehead.

He opens his mouth, but this time only manages a click in his throat that Cas thinks is supposed to be the start of his name.

"I understand," Cas says again, because he does. He brings a faintly trembling hand to the back of Dean's neck to keep him from pulling away - and, more, to keep himself from doing the same. "Dean, I never anticipated this. This is frightening to me. My heart is-"

Cas presses Dean's hand, still linked with his, to his chest, showing him the dizzying speed of its beating. Then he laughs, faintly, at having dropped another sentence:

"I think I left all my words in the dungeon."

Dean answers with a swift smile, his gaze radiating pure affection. He brings their hands to his own chest, where his heart beats just as fast. Dean kisses him, then, on his left eyebrow, then the cheek when Cas looks back at him.

"Dean," Cas says, half-warning, half-encouragement when Dean ducks around to kiss the ridge of his ear, and then "Dean..." in a half-moan when his teeth catch his throat.

Undeterred, Dean kisses whatever point of Cas’s face that strikes his fancy, rendering Cas a trembling mess before their lips even connect (which they do only when Cas holds Dean still and kisses him himself. The noise Dean makes is almost a laugh, and Cas will remember it for the rest of his life).

It's only a few minutes, though, before Cas has to stop. He's progressed from trembling to shaking, and the pleasant tingling across his limbs had turned sharply into pins-and-needles.

"I'm sorry," Cas says on an inhale, pulling away from Dean, and clarifies quickly, "I don't think I'm ready for this. It makes me too happy. I'm afraid. I can't lose you again."

Dean is tender with him, brushing Cas’s cheek soothingly with his thumb. His mouth and jaw work, and this time he gets out a "Ss", and then a "Shh".

He keeps on shushing as he wraps Cas back up in a hug, tight enough that all the rattling parts of Cas feel like they're slowly compressed back into his body. Dean breathes deeply and deliberately, and Cas copies him, noticing for the first time the room's stale-sweat-stink, and the familiar scent of second-hand gasoline in Dean's hair. It takes time, but eventually Cas is able to clutch at Dean too, which earns him an extra squeeze around his ribs.

"I love you," Cas says, and it feels too loud for the room, so he whispers it instead, "I love you, Dean."

Dean buries his face into Cas’s shoulder, in what could be charitably imagined as a nod. Neither of them says another word for the whole night.

They're both terrified of what they want to give - terrified of happiness. But in that awful, devestating, harrowing joy is the glimmer of what is going to get them through it: always, always hope.

[whyamiawakes]

The fact that Colin and Nate are such narrative foils for eachother. The amount of psychological damage they’ve done to eachother because of their own insecurities that they were projecting on the other.

Colin bullying Nate because Nate was perceived as “weak” and not fitting in with the traditionally masculine environment of football (while he himself did that to fit in with the very toxic environment that was the team at the beginning with Jamie leading the charge - and I could write an essay on the insecurities of Jamie Tartt) vs. Nate bullying Colin because he is not as skilled as other players on the team, he is not the name people recognize when talking about Richmond, he is not the star (while Nate feels like the least important member of the coaching team, he is constantly told by his dad that he will never amount to nothing even tho he is having a successful career at the club, he feels put aside by Ted after the arrival of Roy in the coaching staff to the point he snaps and goes to the dark side, joins Rupert at west ham, not seeing he is just the newest toy for Rupert to manipulate and eventually discard, falling into the trap of a narcissist just to feel valued, not realizing that Rupert does not value him, just the amount of damage he can do to Richmond by taking him away from there).

Both of their arcs so far have been about how their insecurities are influencing their lives, so I really hope we can see it evolve into them learning to manage them, learning to not be consumed by them, and to really grow away from them, with Colin fully being comfortable in his sexuality and Nate learning to see the worth in himself and coming back to the “light side” aka getting away from Rupert’s influence (and back to an healthy environment)

Basically I just want them both to have a happy ending (and to apologize to eachother about the nasty shit they have done)

[tea-cat-arts]

Disclaimer: this is 3am rambling. Whether or not this rant ends up being a cohesive thought is between me and God. Also, I'll be switching around what pronouns I use for Shi Qingxuan and He Xuan every paragraph

"Shi Qingxuan should've chosen He Xuan! Shi Qingxuan would never chose anyone other than his brother-" man, if choosing He Xuan was one of the options he was given, I honestly do think Shi Qingxuan would've taken it.

Cuz here's the thing: Shi Qingxuan was thoroughly sick of their brothers bs. They wanted to go their own way, they wanted to break out of the house, they wanted to handle their demons on their own, they wanted to choose their own gender expression without getting told to "put that thing away", they disagreed with their brothers actions and what he did to turn them into a god... they wanted to get away from their brother, but they never got the chance to unpack or deal with any of that because both of their lives were constantly being put in danger (so they were kinda distracted).

And I don't even know where to start with how Shi Wudu had been breaking down their self esteem, getting them to second guess all their wants/desires/choices, and pulling the "big brother knows best" card on them for god knows how long. I know it came from a place of love, but it still had to have done something to Shi Qingxuan's brain chemistry

Shi Qingxuan options were never "He Xuan or her Brother," it was "chose to abandon your luck for both your lives, or chose yourself and become a murderer" so ya, of course she's gonna go with the first option because she's not a terrible person. Shi Qingxuan probably would’ve chosen He Xuan (who was her best friend, who'd been going along with her antics for centuries, who remembered which resturant she wanted to go to even after the breakup), but that wasn't a card they put in her hands, and even if it was, its not a real card if she had to kill her brother to get it. At that point, giving up revenge and finding love again wasn't an option He Xuan had even considered yet, and it'd be unreasonable to suggest Shi Qingxuan should've come up with a secret third option off the top of her head given she only knew the full story for like what? A minute before she was forced to make a choice? And even though she tried choosing the option that would hurt the least amount of people, Shi Wudu could not for the life of him respect her choices. Kinda makes me think Shi Qingxuan never really was given any choices to make in the first place 😒

Anyways, I'm choosing to believe at some point, He Xuan realizes this, spends the rest of her life trying to make amends, they get some time being a ghost couple together, and then they eventually find peace and disappear into the afterlife

[acasualentitty]

balls are good in boba tea

[sundial-bee-scribbles]

l♡vely p♡is♡n

bonus

[letsventstuff]

And to think that, I thought that maybe we'll work things out and make it all better.

[suddencolds]

. not snz

on healing and on fear (tags)

[greengoddesssmoothie]

Summary: “Spock has spent most of his life ostracized for being “other.” Amongst Vulcans, he’s the most human. Amongst humans, he’s the most Vulcan. The Enterprise has provided him with a unique environment, and he finally feels safe enough to experiment with showing his authentic self. That is, until an accident on an away-mission damages his emotional control.

His closest friends rally to help him, but he starts to suspect the rest of his crewmates, and his human mother, prefer this damaged version of himself. There’s also the issue of keeping certain feelings hidden from his captain…”

This chapter contains: Spock and Bones banter, Jim's dynamic mind, fucked up family dynamics (I'm so sorry), the power of friendship the power of love, crippling self-doubt.

[iamanartichoke]

There’s not enough discourse in the paranormal fandom about those of us who are such space cases that we could walk into the kitchen and find all the chairs stacked on top of the table in a manner that defies physics and either a) not notice, or b) notice and think, huh, I don’t remember doing that - maybe it was the cat?

[running-in-the-dark]

my niece is staying with us for the whole weekend for the first time. until now it's always been one night only, not two.

it's the second night now and I have already decided this is not happening again anytime soon. I'm so fucking exhausted. it'd be less exhausting if it was my nephew, I think - he's older and also doesn't need as much help (even when he was her age).

I love my niece but she just asks so many questions. like when we're watching a show or a movie, even if it's one she has seen before (even multiple times), she doesn't understand what's going on and constantly asks me to explain everything. I don't mind it, really, but it does take a lot of energy. plus tonight it took over two hours for her to fall asleep because she was scared by the noises of the house and the nearby road. I get it, but damn I'm so fucking tired, I just want to sleep 😭

[synthshenanigans]

I have not slept so shitty doodles have once again been created feat. baptism and 3am cereal