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imfinereallyy · 6 months

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Dinner Date

For STWG daily drabble and, more importantly, for Goldie @steventhusiast. Happy Birthday, you deserve the world. I know you’re asleep right now, but it’s technically still your bday here.

“Dingus, this is a really fancy restaurant.” Robin leans back in her chair, but her hand plays with the fork on her napkin.

Steve sips his wine; some of it tips over the edge onto the tablecloth. “What? Can’t a guy take his best friend out to a fancy dinner?” He tilts his head and takes in his best friend. What was once an awkward teen now had a beautiful, but still awkward, woman in her place.

“Steve, I love our friend dates, but usually they take place in a greasy diner or dollar pizza.” Robin picks the fork up and starts twirling it into her napkin. Steve watches her get mesmerized by the wrinkles that wrapped around the silverware, even though they both know the napkin should be in her lap by now.

Steve smiles softly, moves his napkin from his lap to the table, and begins to mimic Robin. “Okay, maybe I wanted it to be a special occasion.”

Robin giggles at Steve's poor fork-twirling form and leans over the table to fix it for him. “All occasions are special when we are together, so that doesn’t really mean much.” Robin’s nose scrunches in concentration as she gently guides Steve’s hand. She has done this plenty of times before, guiding Steve where he needed to be. Like taking him to the bookstore near her college so he wouldn’t have to go into sex with Eddie blind, or when she taught him how to whisk eggs properly. Both are equally important skills he now uses in his everyday life. “But you seemed nervous. You keep sipping your wine, and I know for a fact that you hate dry wine.”

Steve puts down the glass that was halfway to his mouth, “It’s not my fault Moscato tastes like candy!”

Robin snorts, “Seriously, Dingus. It’s just me. What’s up?”

Steve puts down the fork and his glass and looks Robin in the eye. “I wanted to ask you to be my best man.”

Steve expects a lot of reactions out of her: excitement, an eye roll, hell, even straight-up rejection. Maybe a little speech about how weddings for them aren’t even legal. Instead, a look of betrayal crosses her face. “You asked Eddie to marry you, and you didn’t even tell me you were proposing?”

Immediately, Steve clenches his stomach in outrageous laughter, nearly having to bend over the table. Steve tries to take Robin seriously; he really does. But she is supposed to be the smart one out of the two of them.

Rage takes over Robin completely as she reaches over the table to start slapping Steve’s arm. “Don’t laugh, you asshat! I am actually mad at you!”

“Ow—” Steve laughs. “Ow, Robin!” Another giggle escapes him as he gets her to sit back in her chair. “I’m laughing because, of course, I didn’t propose to Eddie without talking to you first.”

Robin settles a bit at this, “I’m confused.”

Steve reaches for her hand across the table; Robin doesn’t hesitate to wrap her fingers around his. “I’m asking you to be my Best Man first, doofus. Before I even pick out the damn ring. Which I definitely need you to steal one of Eddie’s rings for me so I can get the size; man watches those things like a hawk.”

Robin squeezes his hand, “Wait, why would you ask me that first? Isn’t that kind of backwards.”

“I do everything kind of backwards, babe. Kinda the Steve Harrington special.” Steve rubs a thumb against the back of soulmate's hand. “Of course, I ask you about being my best man first. There would be no wedding without you, so if you say no, there would be no proposing.”

Steve could see tears beginning to fill Robin’s eyes, “What are you saying?”

“Whoever gets stuck with me gets stuck with you. We’re a package deal, babe.”

Robin throws herself across the table, knocking the wine everywhere. Steve laughs and clenches her tightly. “Of course, I’ll be your best man! Someone’s gotta make sure you don’t hurt yourself going down the aisle.” She sobs.

Steve’s throat gets thick, “Pretty sure that’s the father's job, Robs. And you’d have to fight Jim for that role.”

“Fine.” Robin sniffs, leaning back to look him in the eye. “But I get stand by your side as you make a complete fool of yourself with your vows.”

“Deal.”

Robin leans forward, placing her forehead against Steve’s. “You and me against the world, babe.”

Steve hugs her tight, “You and me against the world.”

#stobin #steddie #steve and robin both call eachother babe #its canon #i dont make the rules #happy birthday gold!!!!#i asked them what they like in stranger things fic #and they said stobin with a side of steddie #so bet say less you got it hon #steven harrington #robin buckley #platonic soulmates stobin #my writing #platonic stobin

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alexis-royce · 6 months

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WIP game, (aka proof that I certainly don't finish everything that I start!)

I was tagged by: @the-dye-stained-socialite

RULES: post the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them, and then post a little snippet or tell them something about it! and then tag as many people as you have WIPs.

Please don't get too attached to any of these. Each one is equally likely to languish in draft purgatory or get made into a fully-fledged-whatever-it-is.

Grounds for Termination (Chrome and Prism)

Mostly text below the cut:

No Spoilers (Fallen London)

The third member of the book club had been uncharacteristically quiet. His pencil had been scribbling away for weeks now. Occasionally, Pages would demand to see what the man had been writing, wary of some kind of treacherous spy notation. But each time, his notebook was spun around, revealing a veritable sportsman’s notation of the conversation, complete with tally marks, denoting points. The Jovial Contrarian would flash an expression charitably known as “punchable,” before returning to his note-taking. Great rhetorical zugzwang did not come without effort and study, and if a man wanted to keep his edge, it was frightfully important to find and study such excellent examples. Cards, at a glance, found themself exceptionally leery of the notation system employed by the contrarian, but before they were ever quite able to question it, some little spark of conversational fluff would waft by, reigniting their squabble with Pages, and more pressing matters would take prescience.

Mastery and the Marvellous (Fallen London)

“Stop that. Why are you rubbing your eye?” “I’m. Rubbing my eye?” She stammered. “I suppose-“ “Hypothetical. I know why you are doing this. Your hand. It vexes you.” “If my hand hurt, why would I rub-“ “Your hand of CARDS, Human.” “That hand’s fine, too-“ The movement was sudden, but there was no harshness in its tone. It stole the cards from The Disgraced Academic’s grip, and spread them out on the table. “Oi!” The Academic reached for them, but Pages shooed her away. “Do you want an afternoon’s amustraction, or do you want victory?”

Hiding an injury / betrayal / lying (Fallen London)

There was a long-running argument as to the exact shade violant most resembled. As a light, it was redder than blood. As a pigment, it was nearly indigo. But everyone who saw it agreed that the effect was much the same as spotting a running rivulet of blood from the stomach of a loved one. It commanded attention, to the distraction of all other things. The Ex-Disgraced Academic’s fingers trembled as they scraped violant eyeshadow from their compact, dragging it across their upper eyelid, and into the creek behind the bridge of their nose. They fanned it out, under their brow, nearly to their temple. It was a daring use of rouge, and frankly scandalous. But it was exactly the sort of hue that would distract from the blossoming crimson stain oozing from their abdomen.

Dissociation (Deadly Premonition, HUGE spoilers)

First off, Zach could come to the front whenever he wanted, so it wasn’t a problem or anything. The white room was only a room in their dreams. When they were awake, it was more of the feeling of white, then anything else. A pull at the back of his skull, as though gravity shifted at the edge of his brain. But he didn’t have to stay back there or anything. When nobody was talking to them, he liked to strum on their base, or stitch new patches onto their jacket. He liked to get fancy with the stitches, and York was pretty encouraging about it. But the other guys made one crack about embroidery, and it took Zach four months to even pick up a needle again. Sure, he sometimes bumped into things while walking. But Zach was fine. He wasn’t trapped at all.

Experimentation / Muzzle / transformation (Jekyll & Hyde)

Pain hurts worse the more damage it does to you. For Henry John Albert Jekyll, transformation was excruciating. There simply wasn’t a way to reframe it as beneficial. Alchemy followed a process, and one of the first steps was the stripping of vice. This position wasn’t meant to be anything beyond a simple Nigredo stage. The sloughing and burning of vice. It would have hurt, but it would have been a pain of catharsis. The bitter medicine fed to him in bed by a nurse. A scalding bath. The screaming voice of his father, correcting a shameful behavior. The mortification of flesh. But what was good and noble was being ripped from him. His patience, above all other things. Everything was louder as Hyde, everything was loud and impossible to abide, beer was richer and gin sweeter, the thighs of a woman were soft and the moans of men buttery.

The Outside, Chapter 4 (The Stanley Parable)

He went instead to the encyclopedias, pulled one down from the shelf, and then three more. Volumes 23-26. He opened two of them to random pages and left them open on the ground, then opened the other two, quickly turning pages one at a time. Lots of text, lots of images… THERE. Two of the volumes were displaying identical page layouts. Two sets of articles on mangroves, not a single difference between the words and images. Volumes 24 and 26 had repeated content. But when he flipped the books closed, both covers listed “Volume 25.” No…he’d been certain that he’d pulled four differently numbered books off the shelf. He checked the row again, and there, plain as day, was the untouched copy of Volume 26. If Stanley had attempted to relay this fact to another person, they’d likely tell him that he’d made a mistake. The library simply happened to have two copies of Volume 25. It was odd, sure, and bad luck that he’d managed to grab the one book that would trip him up. But those coincidences were more likely than…what? He was dreaming? His senses were handling input incorrectly ? The world around him was a poorly designed fabrication, scrambling to patch itself with limited content and memory allocation? Stanley’s fingers twitched.

Ash and Herbert Comic (Evil Dead, Re-Animator)

Panel 1 Ash, taking his pants off Ash: Hey short stuff I gotta thank you for doin’ me this solid Panel 2 Slumps down in a chair, boxers and hairy legs, kicks his feet up: Ash: I ran outta pharmacies after the S-Mart in Kalamazoo refused me service. Panel 3 Foreground, a syringe flicks bubbles, Ash prattles on in bg, full of a staggeringly self-assured confidence They say it was “because a horde of giggling demons ate the receptionist,” but I know transphobia when I see it.”

Charles Augustus Milverton Adaptation (Sherlock Holmes)

Watson later apologizes. “The very minute which my own blood cooled, I realized that I had committed upon you the same crime of which I had accused you. I was the cold one, not you. And I fear that it was not the young lady’s feelings which I’d been attempting to protect.”

Otto's Mind Design Docs (Psychonauts 2 Spoilers)

Lead Into Gold Roughs (Serialized Killer Spoilers)

Harold “Weird…is this some kind of accountability that isn’t based off fear?” — Maggie: Arrrrrgh Harry’s buzzing around in here telling me what to do.{w} Shut up I don’t take orders from ANYONE! Maggie: GRRAAAAAAHHHH! with vpunch Maggie: huff huff pause Maggie: Hawley, tell me what to do. — Harry "Well, DeLus was ACTUALLY locked in her basement by her father. There wasn't a lock on MY basement door. Show hawley sarcastic Hawley "Yeah, that's completely different." #Harry does not pick up on the sarcasm Harry "I've led a very fortunate and privileged life."

Hojojutsu (Lupin III)

Page 1 Zenigata is walking past a line of recruits, who are saluting. Narration: Inspector Zenigata Koichi is diligent, Zenigata continues to walk by, the word balloons follow him Narration: and hardworking, Zenigata continues to walk past the line of recruits Narration: And Tireless, One of the recruits, under his salute, grins. It’s Lupin. Narration: And A FOOL. Jigen Curse Comic Page Le Salle is a room that dwarfs the Mona Lisa, and how small it is in real life frequently disappoints people. Similarly, the man removing it is dwarfed by the space he fails to magnificently occupy. Rolling up the painting is Jigen Daisuke. Zenigata keeps his gun leveled. Balloon: Jeez, Pops, put that away before you hurt someone! The room is big, and there are only two men in it. Zenigata: Lupin? Come on out, and I’ll swap the gun for cuffs! Jigen, Mona Lisa in hand, brushes back his jacket, reaching for his gun. Jigen: You want me to take care of this? Page Zenigata’s confusion is making him upset. Balloon: Are you nuts? I’m already very mad you capped one guy, don’t push your luck! Under the brim of his hat, Jigen grins. He abandons his draw. Jigen: Whatever you say, Boss. Zenigata finally loses it. Balloon: Hmph, you only call me “Boss” when you’re upset- Zenigata: What the HELL’S goin’ on, here?! His grip is tight on the gun. Zenigata: Where the hell is Lupin? He bellows, in quite the action shot. Zenigata: Because that voice… ...ain’t him! Page Jigen stops for a moment, putting the Mona Lisa into a canvas tube. He slings it over his shoulder. Jigen: Well, that’s rude. Jigen begins to walk away. This conversation is built of linked speech bubbles. It’ll be a little confusing to read, but that’s okay. Zenigata is also confused. Jigen: You’d think he’d be happy to see his reason for living! I know, it’s been what, six months? Six months without a good chase! Must’ve been goin’ stir-crazy. Page The brim of Jigen’s hat tilts up, and a ray of moonlight passes over his face. He’s not doing well. The smile on his face is very Lupin-esque, wide eyed and energetic. But it sits poorly on this gunman. It doesn’t suit him, and with good reason. Jigen: That’s okay! I was itching for a heist, too!

High Protocol (NonPlatonic Forms)

“I can’t believe I shaved for this.” “Shut up, Liam.” Lee found it exceptionally rude that, almost as soon as he’d been able to speak again, he wasn’t allowed to use his voice anymore. “Yes, yes,” Niles worried at the cuffs of his jacket, and straightened his lapels, “an utter shame that the world won’t be graced with your croaky voice. However, the point is for you to be perceived as little as possible. If you draw attention to yourself, it will soundly defeat the point. Lee didn’t think that he was dressed to blend in. The suitjacket was immaculately tailored, and cut from a black-on-black brocade. He’d managed to slick his hair back into place, and he could see his face in his shoes. There was something satisfying about being dressed so elegantly. If you could pull off a look, it made you into a walking piece of art. Neat! But the collar was tight, the layers had already made him begin to sweat, and the shoes pinched at his toes and heels. Lee looked great, but it was a trade-off he wasn’t sure he’d be able to make for long. Niles began to fuss with Lee’s tie, now. Initially, he held tie after tie up to his neck, debating between endless shades of black, wrapping them around his collar in half and full Windsors. As his fingers brushed against Lee’s neck and chest, the sensation was more than enough to distract Lee from the pain in his heels. But the analogue method was too cumbersome for Niles, who quickly reverted to cheating. A snap of his fingers, and a new tie sprang about Lee’s collar. Another snap, another tie. Snap, snap, snap.

Gray Jacket Chapter 20 (Lupin III, and I do actually plan on finishing this one)

It wasn’t unheard of for them to bump into the same opponent once or twice, but over the past couple years, a young swordsman had kept popping up. A genuine, 20th-century samurai, hakama and katana in tow. Lupin had squarely beat him on all fronts, of course. Nobody was ever really any match for his own dazzling brilliance. But the Samurai had survived both encounters, and after a particularly lengthy little job plundering a pair of scrolls the samurai had been ordered to guard, the samurai had tried a new tactic. He’d shown up, barging straight into Lupin’s hideout, shoulders piled high with all his worldly possessions, determined to study, with Lupin as his new master. After all, Lupin had bested the samurai and his master, multiple times over. If he wanted to learn from ‘The Best,’ then it would be Lupin, and nobody else. At that moment, however, ‘The Best’ was plowing straight [OH NO THIS PART IS EXPLICIT], and the samurai’s declaration of intent to dedicate himself to Lupin’s tutelage was drowned out by an overcome moan of [YEAH YOU CAN'T SAY THAT IN CHURCH] and Lupin wasn’t in the habit of making artisan, single-sourced love if he had a looky-loo breathing down his neck. Across the room, Jigen turned the page of his newspaper. “The boss is busy. Come back later.”

Off the Cuff 2 (It's in the title)

"Ahhhhhh, {i}Christ.{/i}" "It’s my ex." "You ever been in one of those relationships that just consumes you from the inside?{w} You really, really know it’s a terrible idea, but that hardly helps.{w} You draw a line super early: clear, definite boundaries." "And then you realize that you’re both insanely fucked up, and neither of you has the same definition for what you’ve defined." "Why do I always find myself in these sorts of scenarios?{w} All I can do is sigh." "Nobody tells you that a 5\’2\" spitfire is going to be utterly irresistible to so many people. Hey, I try to warn them." "Too many folks out there touch-starved, I guess.{w} You pat them on the head once, and they think you’ve got an immortal, irreplaceable bond,{w} and then they drag you away to their laboratory where they just can't stop raising the dead, and you’ve got a whole 'nother issue to deal with." "Oh, well.{w} It do be like that sometimes."

Mecha Pilot Lee AU (NonPlatonic Forms)

The screen illuminated Lee's face. “Huh. That’s weird.” “What’s weird?” If she hadn't been a 15-meter mech, she could’ve been arching an eyebrow, for all her timbre implied. “Diagnostics were checking to see if you’d suffered data loss in the attack, but it’s the opposite. There’s new data in here.” Lee preemptively logged the finding analog-style, pulling out a notebook and copying down the file name. “Oh, uh. Don’t open that.” She coughed. “That’s private.” Lee smirked. “Julia is not supposed to be saving personal files to your hardware, Channery. It’s a security issue.” “Where else is she supposed to save them? Come on, Lee! The enemy built me with barely any memory as it was! I know that I’m not supposed to be developing a history or memories, but you know better than I that I can’t accurately cross-reference them against any moral codes besides treasuring Julia!” “Oh. So it’s. Uh. Personal?” “Extremely.” Channery glowered. She couldn’t really fire her pulse charges at an ally, but her tone didn’t exactly encourage Lee to test it. “Channery, you know that I’m going to have to double-check this, right? I have to extract this and run it on a limited server. If it’s malicious…” “It’s not malicious! But it is, you know…” she hissed through her not-teeth, “…off-book pilot/apparatus bonding techniques.” “Any events that take place inside a cockpit are subject to government surveillance,” but Lee groaned as he said it. Julia and Channery weren’t the first pair to commit ‘off-book activities,’ and they wouldn’t be the last. It wasn’t even an illegal activity, so long as you were the only pilot assigned to the mech in question. But some pilots looked at the memory reserves in the mech’s hard drive, and figured that, so long as the AI was going to be adding the occasional movie, song or mission footage to its memory banks, there was space in there for their own precious memories of hanky-panky. Fucking the mech wasn’t illegal. But saving your own unapproved files to the hard drive was.

And last but not least, from the 51k nanowrimo version of Lead Into Gold:

20th of Mid-Autumn, 1905 My one and only, You are quite right. I meant to write you a love letter, but instead, wound myself up in fears and concerns for myself. This next letter must scoop you up into my arms, and submerge us both into the warm comfort of my adoration. I miss you dreadfully; during the days there is my research to keep me company, but it is a cruel friend that runs me ragged and leaves me empty. I’ve grown accustomed to welcoming you to dinner every night, and have been considering hiring a cook, if research continues to go well. It is not fashionable to have servants, as the aristos in other cities do, but the hiring of a weekly maid is quite normal, and has worked well for me. I have kept her from touching the guest room- which is quickly taking place in my mind as ‘Hawley’s Room’- but I cannot say the same for myself. I have slept in there twice already, and worn your sweater while I slept and while I but these hints of you are not the same as your presence and words. You know, as much as I may consider the opinions of others, their presence is extraordinarily draining. I have had three dinners since you left, all of them supposedly university functions, but all also including a number of businessmen. I knew that this was a common occurrence in the chemical and engineering departments; the end goal for most research is to patent and sell to the highest bidder. But as you mentioned, I am quite well off enough that to sell would be quite unethical of me. So it is obnoxious to continually wish for a dinner discussing university business, and to get this other sort of business, instead. Were you here, I wonder what you might have said. And yes, I am sure that that must be an odd thing to hear from me, who is constantly tutting and pooh-poohing you for your lack of manners. But what seems irksome in abundance can be precious in absentia. And your forthrightness is a blast of cool air in these stuffy meetings. The lot of us stuffed-shorts spend hours and hours carefully twisting our words around, into pretty shapes, hoping to avoid offense. But all that that really seems to accomplish is to raise the standard. And thus, words that are not pretty enough become an offense. A missed complement becomes a slight. It is enough to make me long for you to insult me. I am no masochist, but the sense of security one gets by being insulted in good faith? It is endless. To know that one’s faults are perceived, and still accepted, is more flattering than a hundred compliments. That is part of the charm of you, one that is not easily seen by those deluded enough to expect empty flattery. You do not insult out of some desire to exercise power, or to harm the person with whom you speak. You do so out of the simple, innocent desire to speak what is true, or to assist another in correcting a flaw. And thus, when you speak praise, it holds a value to me which is deeply precious. And all the moreso because your opinions and insight are excellent! When we differ in perspective, it is not long before you are able to sway me to your side of the matter, and I feel all the richer for it. I miss them deeply, and remain, Ever Yours, Harry P.S. I am enclosing some additional notes on the new detection device, and I hope that they are of value.

25th of Mid-Autumn, 1905 My Failing Wordsmith, It confuses me to no end, how a man who spins the most poetic words of love in person, cannot manage to do the same on paper. I do not feel submerged in affection yet, you must open the tap further. I apologize, I am in a lackluster mood. I’ve seen neither hair nor hide of the demon, though the readings are exceptionally strong. I end each day in mounting frustration. One of Rakove’s damndable wasps escaped from its carrier the other day, and when I swung at it, the horrible things was impertinent enough to sting me. That was, in effect, the end to my entire day. Unlike you, I do not handle pain well, and the swelling in my arms was enough to command my thoughts, and I took to bed. I tried writing to you, but it was as though the blinding light at sea, searing my eyes, were all concentrated on that one spot on my arm. All I accomplished was to ruin two sheets of paper with curses, and they are illegibly mediocre ones. Professor Rakove did his best to assist, but his research in the matter is still lacking, and the salve which he applied to the sting only made the situation worse. He asked me questions, attempting to ascertain my status, but, delirious with pain, I cannot tell if I was any help. He stayed by my side for the rest of the day and night, and I appreciate his diligence, giving up valuable research time to care for me. I am still weak, and he supposes that I might have been allergic to the sting. I have told him that while I may grumble about it, he is forgiven in my heart, so long as he fixes the latch on his bee carrier. I shall continue to convalesce, but I won’t improve without affection. Yours. I demand it, so that I may remain, Ever Yours, Hawley

#That being said if you'd like to encourage me to make more of any of these #Then go ahead and comment or send an ask #I am committed to NPF and Lead Into Gold and Gentlemens Club at the moment #But enthusiasm and support can steer my brain in the Actually Making Stuff direction #WIPs #Fics #The Stanley Parable #Psychonauts 2 #Deadly Premonition #Exit #NonPlatonic Forms #Scribbles #I know that there's more rattling around but I'm not going looking for them

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