#i don't write stories

[convito]

Blasting Off To The Past: Chapter 1: The Customers Are Used To This By Now

Finished chapter 1 of my fanfic based on @yamujiburo's Jessie/Delia Pokemon comics. The fact that it's just the first chapter is a development that materialized roughly 5 minutes ago when I realized this thing is getting way too long to write all at once. It's just a fun little day-in-the-life story because I wanted an excuse to write these characters.

Here's the AO3 link.

Below is the full chapter text. Enjoy!

“Meowth, I demand to know why you just kicked me!” James yelled dramatically.

“Don’t flatter yourself, I wouldn’t waste my time kicking you!” Meowth

The lunch rush took its toll on everyone in different ways. For Delia, the strain kept her too busy to notice anything outside the restaurant. For Jessie, it meant Delia wasn’t looking at her.

In the case of James and Meowth, it was dealer’s choice. Today, that meant each blaming the other for the table leg they each routinely tripped over. Meowth’s thimble-sized temper had reached a boiling point. James was mad by association.

Delia had been holding down the kitchen until the commotion piqued her attention, prompting a peek around the corner into the dining area. She saw Meowth seething as his serving tray clattered to the ground, trading leers with James whose serving tray remained pristinely perched atop his fingers.

Then time stood still as she saw Jessie burst in with a face that gave her conflicting feelings, making a Beedrill-line for the bickering duo. How she heard the noise from across town would remain a mystery. The love of Delia’s life was a lit fuse heading straight for a flamboyantly colored powder keg. The focus now needed to be heading off the stormfront before it turned the restaurant into a restauNOT (she took a second to chuckle at that).

“Jessie. Babe. Sweetie.”

The red menace continued undeterred. Delia raised her voice.

“Jessie, stop! Jessie! Honey!”

Still nothing. Delia was desperate.

“STOP, DAMMIT!”

Jessie screeched to a halt, bringing the universe with her. She and her two partners in something or other all turned their heads toward Delia, three identical faces of exaggerated shock. Though Jessie’s sported a tinge of crimson.

“I… buh…” she attempted.

“Delia made a swear,” Meowth whispered.

James simply covered his ears.

But whether through shock or sheer force of Delia’s long-bided power, the situation was defused for now. The residual fallout kept things together until the restaurant finally slowed down. James and Meowth lost their abrasion around each other, more or less back to their regular selves give or take the occasional shared look towards Delia. Granted, not unlike their usual behavior.

Jessie, meanwhile, had stuck around to help however she could. At the moment, she was employing her puppy dog eye technique to try and soften Delia’s mood every time her wife looked her way. Despite coming across more like bewildered Magikarp eyes, which had Delia desperately suppressing a snort laugh at every turn, it probably would have worked even if she actually had been angry.

Eventually, closing time arrived. Jessie had finally released Delia from her fishy look and was taking a break from cleaning to watch James and Meowth. The other two former Rockets were Taurosing around with each other as they took the garbage out back. Delia noticed a wistful look in her wife’s eye. It was one she’d been seeing a lot of lately.

“You miss the adventure, don’t you?” Delia asked warmly.

Jessie gave a slight start at this before nodding. They’d grown to know each other well enough that it was no surprise Delia could read her so intimately.

“I know we weren’t the good guys going after the twe- eh, Ash and Pikachu like that,” Jessie seemed just a bit embarrassed, “but getting out there and traveling around really got my juices moving.”

“Even more than our little battling vacations?”

“W-well, I wouldn’t say…” Jessie hesitated, but she knew she never needed to hide anything from Delia, especially after all this time. “Kinda, yeah.”

Jessie’s regular trips out into the region with Delia to explore and battle gym leaders had very quickly begun to rank among the highlights of her life, and she wouldn’t trade them for anything, no matter how shiny. But…

“I just miss the camaraderie with James and Meowth,” she found herself gushing. “I miss the cartoon-level plans we came up with together, I miss the big Meowth balloon, I miss James’ camp cooking and Meowth’s snoring, not to mention-”

“I’m sorry, what was that about Meowth?”

“Oh, right, you never heard his outdoor snoring. Only happens when he’s camping. Real conker of a wavelength he could belch out, which you wouldn’t expect from a little fart like him. I think he developed it as a defense to make predators think a Snorlax is sleeping nearby or someth-”

“What?” Delia had trouble getting a word in edgewise sometimes, a trait of their relationship she oddly treasured. She liked seeing Jessie excited. “No, why would I ask to hear about…? Never mind, I meant the balloon thing.”

“Ok, yeah, that makes more sense,” Jessie admitted. “It was a thing of genuine beauty. A huge hot air balloon in the shape of Meowth. We even used official Team Rocket funds to commission it. They seemed cool with it.”

“I’d like to point out that they did very much fire you.”

“Oh yeah,” Jessie said with a guttural giggle. “Wow, things are definitely starting to make some more sense now that I say them out loud. But anyway, we used to go everywhere in that balloon. It was our own little home where we never had to deal with property tax. We’d sleep up there, have some fun by spitting off the sides, do… other things off the sides…”

“Honey, I love you but oh my god.”

“Hey, if you can think of other ways to handle being up in the air for days at a time…” Jessie’s old smug nature crept in, which she caught before going any further. “Th-the point is I just miss the balloon. It was sort of a symbol of that complete freedom we used to have. Nothing tying us down, literally. No rules. No responsibilities. No bosses or authori-” she paused, her expression that of a system reboot. “How did we not get fired sooner?”

“I didn’t realize how much you thought about that time,” Delia started to feel just a touch of guilt. Or was it jealousy?

“Not 'all the time' or anything. Some things just remind me of that past life. Like how James and Meowth have been sniping at each other a lot lately,” Jessie said with a look of dawning realization. “They must be feeling homesick too. Or, I mean ‘homesick’ I guess,” she made some halfhearted quotes with her fingers. A glance over at Delia dropped the fingers immediately as Jessie read her wife’s expression, as subtle as it was.

Jessie wordlessly walked over to Delia, not rushing, not holding back, simply going. She took her hands in her own and clasped them.

“I am happier now than I’ve ever been,” Jessie answered a wordless question. There was no need to explore the topic further. This is the most she’d talked about the old days since, she realized, that awkward time when she, James, and Meowth had shown up on Delia’s doorstep completely out of options. It was enough that she got it out.

Delia just smiled. It was a genuine smile, but one that obscured hidden depths. Depths that ironically flew right over Jessie’s head.

Once they finished closing, Jessie and Delia stepped out of the restaurant hand in hand, following James and Meowth who had apparently regained their passion for griping. Jessie paid little attention as they fired quips back and forth, sounding to her like synthesized speech from a Nintendo 64 game. She was content where she was, blissfully strolling home with the love of her life. No thoughts, just vibes.

If she’d only opened her eyes, she’d have seen the poorly-hidden look of sneaky determination emblazoned on Delia’s face.

-the next morning-

“Ash!” Delia burst into her son’s room. “We’re making a balloon!”

#hanamusa #pokemon #pokémon #delia ketchum #jessie team rocket #fanfic #i don't write stories #i only write banter #if a story materializes then it's by accident i assure you

[veryconfusedviking]

Why is it so hard to write good stories, do I use present or past? first person third person? what about second person???? is he\she not important???????????? HOW DO I MAKE A LOVE STORY WITHOUT PUTTING MYSELF INTO ITTT

#writing #creative writing #writeblr #writers on tumblr #am I allowed to use that? #I don't write stories #I'm just bored

[orcboxer]

those first couple weeks after escaping a time loop have gotta be disorienting as all fuck. all those little cues that used to tell you what's about to happen are now triggers that cause you to brace for something that isn't coming. you have to relearn the permanence of death -- hell, you have reacquaint yourself with the entire concept of finality altogether. everything keeps changing but it never changes back and you keep having to remind yourself that this is normal. "it won't reset anymore," you echo to yourself, over and over and over, like a broken record, like you're still trapped in a loop, like someone who escaped the time loop but was doomed to bring it into the future with them

#orcspeak #edit: this is not about fanfic nor is it about a specific fanfic nor is it about a specific show or movie or book #this post is about the time loop trope itself which occurs in many different stories spanning many different art forms #i don't read or write fanfic and I'm not looking for fanfic recs and whatever character you think this is about there's #an 80 percent chance i don't recognize their name

[descendant-of-truth]

Shipping is fun and all but I swear every single time someone makes a comment, whether as a joke or in a legitimate analysis, about there being "no other explanation" for a pair's interactions, I lose just a bit more of my sanity

Like, no, you guys don't get it. Romance is not about the Amount of devotion, it's about the COLOR. the FLAVOR of it all. a character can be just as devoted to their platonic friend as they are to their romantic partner, and they don't love either of them more, just differently.

But because the majority of people still have it stuck in their minds that romance exists on the highest tier of love, I'm stuck seeing endless takes that boil down to "these two care about each other too much for it to NOT be romantic" as if that's the core determining factor to how literally any of this works

In conclusion: stop telling me that I don't understand the story if I don't interpret the leads as romantic, I am TIRED

#analysis #meta #miscellaneous #fandom #shipping #media discussion #amatonormativity #lgbtq #I feel like tagging any of the fandoms I was thinking of when writing this would be a little mean-spirited potentially #Disclaimer: no one has actually been telling me personally that I don't understand any story in particular #It's just that the way people tend to phrase their analyses feels unnecessarily targeted at the reader and that's just. not great #even if I agree with every other point they make

[erraticprocrastinator]

A reminder to all my lovely fellow writers: progress is progress, even when it isn't. Writing four thousand words in a session is progress. Writing a hundred words in a session is progress. Removing an entire scene because it doesn't flow well is progress. Rethinking your plan for the plot in order to get unstuck is progress. Development looks different for every writer and every story.

#I know it's hard when you don't feel like you're being conventionally “productive” #but every little thing puts you one step closer to finishing your WIP #even when you're actually taking something away #or not touching the actual story at all #writeblr #writing community #writers #writing #writers of tumblr #writing mood #writing advice #friendly reminder #reminder #writers on tumblr #writers community

[xan-from-space]

Senshi is probably the most fandomized character in Dungeon Meshi, and while I don't exactly mind it, I do think he has more depth than that. I find all his little quirks and idiosyncrasies to be fascinating; he's very stubborn and set in his ways about things that seemingly don't matter, he thinks about things that other people don't, he has a deeply set value system that informs everything he does. He cares A Lot, like, this man cares So Much. That's the kind of person you have to be to drop everything to help a random group of adventurers save one woman. But because he feels so strongly about things, he can also be surprisingly immature at times (although he's also the character most likely to admit he was wrong about something). I think part of that is because he's lived in the dungeon on his own so long that he's not used to working with other people. He will extend empathy and friendship to almost anyone, but he does things his own way, and he doesn’t always feel the need to explain his way of thinking because again, he's usually on his own. He's both incredibly wise and kind of childish in ways that seem contradictory at first, but make more and more sense the more we learn about him. Major kudos to Ryoko Kui's writing and pacing to make that transition so seamless and have all those details from his backstory click into place perfectly. And on a wider thematic level, Senshi is kind of a perfect counterpart to characters like Thistle (or any other dungeon lord). Senshi understands the dungeon in ways that even its creator doesn't. Although everyone is scrambling to take control of the dungeon, Senshi is the one who actually takes care of it. He's the one who thinks about things like nutrition and proper sleep and the ecosystem, all those things that it's easy to ignore when you get swept up by the grandeur of it all. He's the most important character to have present in a story that explores life and death and hunger. His constant, invisible presence holds everything together.

#I'm not finished it yet so I don't want to make any big sweeping claims about what his story means in the greater context of the manga #but. I really like him so. Senshi thought dump #I really thought this was going to be shorter...idk if I really got what I wanted to say across but once I started writing I couldn't stop #dungeon meshi #dunmeshi #delicious in dungeon #senshi #senshi of izganda #edit: yeah I should probably tag this #dungeon meshi spoilers #shouldn't I

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

got a worm nibbling my brain. can someone help me find a piece of obscure media?

webcomic/indie comic from the 2010s. basically a sci-fi short story about a young girl (with red hair?) who was being raised by scientists as part of an experiment. she receives a haircut/has her head shaved, in preparation for her annual brain scan/testing. it is revealed that while her body is human, her "brain" is artificial, made of computer implants throughout her skull and spine. at some point her biological mother (also a scientist on the same campus?) encounters her and is repulsed, viewing her as a machine who has murdered her daughter.

it was very poignant and it bruised my heart and i can NOT find it anywhere

#i thought it was made by the creator of 'O Human Star' for some reason but apparently not? #goddammit goddammit goddammit #'i don't have to write down the title of this piece of media i encountered in my formative years bc i'll always remember it' #*cut to ten years later frantic googling* #fun fact 'a.i.' is now a completely useless search term #google in general is useless #and stuff i read 3+ years ago regularly vanishes from the internet #bookmarks are not enough! if you like indie media--download that shit! buy digital/physical copies while you can #save it to the cloud back it up and organize that shit!!! #keep a list of the stuff you read (organized by date/media type and possibly with keywords if you want it to be useful longterm) #(or a spreadsheet even if you're like me and rabidly consume short stories/comics like a pack of amnesiac piranhas on a feeding frenzy) #(that stuff PILES UP over the years ok. if you wanna make sure you'll be able to find it again a decade later--curation is key) #because art WILL touch your soul and then vanish into the void leaving naught but a 404 Error in its wake #i am an old man shaking my fist at the kids on my lawn but the kids on my lawn are me and my longterm digital planning skills circa 2012

[inkskinned]

you're grabbing lunch with a nice man and he gives you that strange grimace-smile that's popular right now; an almost sardonic "twist" of his mouth while he looks literally down on you. it looks like he practiced the move as he leans back, arms folded. he just finished reciting the details of NFTs to you and explaining Oppenheimer even though he only watched a youtube about it and hasn't actually seen it. you are at the bottom of your wine glass.

you ask the man across from you if he has siblings, desperately looking for a topic. literally anything else.

he says i don't like small talk. and then he smiles again, watching you.

a few years ago, you probably would have said you're above celebrity gossip, but honestly, you've been kind of enjoying the dumb shit of it these days. with the rest of the earth burning, there's something familiar and banal about dragging ariana grande through the mud. you think about jeanette mccurdy, who has often times gently warned the world she's not as nice as she appears. you liked i'm glad my mom died but it made you cry a lot.

he doesn't like small talk, figure out something to say.

you want to talk about responsibility, and how ariana grande is only like 6 days older than you are - which means she just turned 30 and still dresses and acts like a 13 year old, but like sexy. there's something in there about the whole thing - about insecurity, and never growing up, and being sexualized from a young age.

people have been saying that gay people are groomers. like, that's something that's come back into the public. you have even said yourself that it's just ... easier to date men sometimes. you would identify as whatever the opposite of "heteroflexible" is, but here you are again, across from a man. you like every woman, and 3 people on tv. and not this guy. but you're trying. your mother is worried about you. she thinks it's not okay you're single. and honestly this guy was better before you met, back when you were just texting.

wait, shit. are you doing the same thing as ariana grande? are you looking for male validation in order to appease some internalized promise of heteronormativity? do you conform to the idea that your happiness must result in heterosexuality? do you believe that you can resolve your internal loneliness by being accepted into the patriarchy? is there a reason dating men is easier? why are you so scared of fucking it up with women? why don't you reach out to more of them? you have a good sense of humor and a big ol' brain, you could have done a better job at online dating.

also. jesus christ. why can't you just get a drink with somebody without your internal feminism meter pinging. although - in your favor (and judgement aside) in the case of your ariana grande deposition: you have been in enough therapy you probably wouldn't date anyone who had just broken up with their wife of many years (and who has a young child). you'd be like - maybe take some personal time before you begin this journey. like, grande has been on broadway, you'd think she would have heard of the plot of hamlet.

he leans forward and taps two fingers to the table. "i'm not, like an andrew tate guy," he's saying, "but i do think partnership is about two people knowing their place. i like order."

you knew it was going to be hard. being non-straight in any particular way is like, always hard. these days you kind of like answering the question what's your sexuality? with a shrug and a smile - it's fine - is your most common response. like they asked you how your life is going and not to reveal your identity. you like not being straight. you like kissing girls. some days you know you're into men, and sometimes you're sitting across from a man, and you're thinking about the power of compulsory heterosexuality. are you into men, or are you just into the safety that comes from being seen with them? after all, everyone knows you're failing in life unless you have a husband. it almost feels like a gradebook - people see "straight married" as being "all A's", and anything else even vaguely noncompliant as being ... like you dropped out of the school system. you cannot just ignore years of that kind of conditioning, of course you like attention from men.

"so let's talk boundaries." he orders more wine for you, gesturing with one hand like he's rousing an orchestra. sir, this is a fucking chain restaurant. "I am not gonna date someone who still has male friends. also, i don't care about your little friends, i care about me. whatever stupid girls night things - those are lower priority. if i want you there, you're there."

he wasn't like this over text, right? you wouldn't have been even in the building if he was like this. you squint at him. in another version of yourself, you'd be running. you'd just get up and go. that's what happens on the internet - people get annoyed, and they just leave. you are locked in place, almost frozen. you need to go to the bathroom and text someone to call you so you have an excuse, like it's rude to just-leave. like he already kind of owns you. rudeness implies a power paradigm, though. see, even your social anxiety allows the patriarchy to get to you.

you take a sip of the new glass of wine. maybe this will be a funny story. maybe you can write about it on your blog. maybe you can meet ariana grande and ask her if she just maybe needs to take some time to sit and think about her happiness and how she measures her own success.

is this settling down? is this all that's left in your dating pool? just accepting that someone will eventually love you, and you have to stop being picky about who "makes" you a wife?

you look down to your hand, clutching the knife.

#writeblr #this is a mashup of like 3 dates i accidentally went on lol #by that i mean that i was out with a woman on a date in 2 of these situations #and a man just. joined us. and we were too awkward to say anything while he tried to ''date'' me #& one was a longterm friend that i was like. you what???? #like he's nice he's a doctor and my mom was SO happy she was like raquel think about it #''it's a perfect love story you grew up together and reconnected as adults and like the same things and he's friends with ur brother #and his sister is one of ur close friends!!!'' #yes but alas. he is a boy . she only likes girls. can i make it any more obvious #anyway im tryna write about like the force of male attention being actually incredibly ingrained to women like we are SUPPOSED to like it #it's seen as the only important thing #even if ur gay #and it's a nuanced thing idk #and while rn i i.d. as lesbian #like .... it wouldn't be UNTRUE to say i am probably like ''cusp bisexual'' bc i CAN experience attraction to men bc like . #sexuality is fluid... #don't tell straight ppl tho bc they do not understand the concept that ppl don't necessarily need a solid everlasting label #they're like GET in the BOX #if ur gay & in boston i'm 30 and pretty please come kiss me. #(i usually only date older ppl sorry in advance tho)

[achillean-knight]

#A taste of whats to come for my AU comic.... the same one with mask bot don't worry #I've committed to the mask bot series now lmao #Anyways this is MUCH further in the story bc I am impatient and wanted to draw my other concept for the small series in a different light #now with more developments. #fnaf #fnaf au #my fnaf au art #the puppet #the puppet fnaf #the marionette #charlie emily #cassie fnaf #cassie #fnaf security breach #fnaf ruin #the blob #the blob fnaf #the tangle #my art #oh yeah ignore the writing error if you see it I just realised I made a mistake JKHDSSJSK

[steddiehyperfixation]

don't you forget about me (steddie fic)

saw this post and was inspired to write something angsty <3

The first thing Eddie is aware of when he wakes up, before he even opens his eyes, is the dull, aching pain throbbing through pretty much his entire body. The second thing he’s aware of is that someone is holding his hand. 

“Eddie?” The hand in his tightens its grip as Eddie begins to stir; the voice it presumably belongs to sounds immeasurably relieved, yet only vaguely familiar. 

Eddie groans. His eyelids flutter, blinking awake, and he groggily rolls his head to the side to get a look at whoever had spoken. 

The voice sighs again, “Oh thank god-” 

“Harrington?” Eddie’s eyes fly open wide now as they land on the mystery man sitting beside him on the edge of the bed - a man he most definitely is not close enough with to be holding his hand, and a bed that is most definitely not his own. He snatches his hand away. “What the hell are you doing? Where am I?”

“Ed-” Another man’s voice, this one just as relieved and infinitely more familiar. It fills Eddie with relief too as he looks to his other side to find his uncle Wayne rising from a nearby chair to come up next to him. 

“Wayne, what-?” His surroundings are becoming more clear. “What happened? Why am I in a hospital? And why the fuck is King Steve at my bedside?” Eddie tries to sit up only to gasp and wince in pain as the dull ache in his sides sharpens to near agony at the movement. 

“Take it easy, son.” Wayne’s hand lands on his shoulder, gently but firmly pushing him back down onto the pillows. “You were hurt real bad.” 

“Yeah, I got that,” Eddie grumbles out. He sucks in a deep, intentional breath and exhales slowly, the pain beginning to dull again now that he’s settled. His questions are still largely unanswered, though. Blank mind reaching desperately for any logical piece to this bizarre puzzle, he turns an accusing glare to Harrington. “Did you land me in here? Is that why you’re here, some sort of weird guilt thing?” 

Harrington’s looking at him like a kicked puppy. “What? No, I-” he falters, takes a shaky breath and swallows painfully like he’s trying not to cry. “You don’t remember?” 

“I don’t remember what? Will someone just tell me what happened?” Eddie’s confusion is rising more and more into agitation with every second he remains without an explanation. 

“What’s the last thing you remember?” Harrington asks quietly.

“I was driving home from school, just found out I wasn’t gonna graduate again.” Eddie frowns as he thinks back, still trying to put pieces together. “Did I crash my car? Is that it? I was emotional and not paying attention and got into an accident?” 

Yet again, he receives no answers. 

“Eddie, what month is it?” Wayne asks instead, his tone dangerously measured and serious. “What year?” 

“May…” Eddie says warily, “1985.”

His words hold a weight he doesn’t understand, landing heavy on the others in the room and thickening the air. It sends a chill of dread down his spine, the way his answer etches concern deep into the lines of Wayne’s face, the way Steve Harrington seems to take it like a blow to the chest. 

Harrington exhales sharply as if he’s been punched, standing abruptly and taking a few stumbling steps back. Wayne says, “It’s April of ‘86, Ed.”

Eddie’s blood runs cold. “No. No, it can’t be.” 

“I’m gonna go tell the nurse you’re awake,” Harrington mumbles, his voice strained and his eyes glassy with barely held-back tears. 

“I’ll go,” Wayne offers, pushing himself away from Eddie’s bed. He gives Harrington a meaningful look, though what that meaning is, Eddie can’t decipher. 

Harrington turns his devastated gaze to the older man. “But, Wayne, he doesn’t-” 

“I know, kid.” Wayne gives a sad smile and places a sympathetic hand on Harrington’s shoulder as he passes by. “Just talk to him.” 

Eddie is thrown off by this familiarity between them. Since when were those two close? He feels like he’s entered some sort of parallel universe where everything is just ever so slightly wrong. It leaves an itch beneath his skin, uncomfortable and out of place, like he no longer quite fits in his own body, in his own life. He’s lost 11 months, apparently, and this world is no longer his; he doesn’t know where he fits into it anymore. 

Wayne leaves the room, and Eddie wants to protest: Don’t leave me here with this guy I don’t know in this time I don’t know, please, you’re the only thing that feels safe and familiar! Anxiety is crawling through him like a thousand tiny bugs in his veins. He wants to scream, he wants to cry, he wants to run. Anything to shake this feeling loose. But he’s confined to this bed, trapped both by his pain and by all these machines he’s hooked up to, and he sure as shit isn’t going to have a breakdown in front of Steve goddamn Harrington. 

Instead, Eddie resigns himself to this situation and casts a sideways glance at Harrington who very much looks like he’s also trying not to have a breakdown. “I’m freaking out, man,” Eddie says finally, hating how shaky and pathetic his voice sounds. “I swear to god, Harrington, if you don’t tell me what the hell is going on…” 

Harrington worries his lip between his teeth as he hesitates. “It’s a lot to explain.” 

“Yeah, I bet,” Eddie scoffs out a humorless laugh. “I’m missing nearly an entire year, of course it’s a lot to fill in. Unless I’ve been here this whole time?” 

“No.” Harrington shakes his head. “No, you’ve only been here about a week. I- I don’t know why you’re missing so much time, the whole Vecna thing only started like a week before that-” 

“Vecna?” Eddie interrupts to question. “What does any of this have to do with the D&D campaign I was planning? And, also, how the fuck do you know about that?” 

Harrington closes his eyes for a second and takes a breath, like having this conversation is the most painful thing he’s ever had to do. “I’m not talking about D&D, Ed. Vecna was a real-life monster from a real-life alternate dimension we called the Upside-Down. The kids only called him Vecna because we didn’t know who he was at the time and he, like, cursed people before he killed them, but he was actually Henry Creel, which is a whole other fucked up story.”

“Okay…” Eddie doesn’t know who ‘the kids’ are and he’s skeptical of the way Harrington talks so factually about monsters and dimensions and curses existing in the real world, but he does remember his uncle telling him stories about the demonic tragedy of the Creel family, which is the only thing that makes any of this even halfway believable. It still doesn’t explain how Eddie wound up in the hospital with his entire body feeling like it’d been run through a blender, though, or why the former king of Hawkin’s High was hovering over his sickbed. He gestures for Harrington to continue. 

“I never wanted you to get involved in all this Upside-Down shit,” Harrington’s voice breaks. He steps closer to Eddie’s bed again, and he looks so so sad as he stares down at him that it makes Eddie’s own heart ache, just a little bit. Harrington’s hand twitches at his side as if he means to reach out for Eddie but then thinks better of it, running the hand through his hair instead as he continues, “I tried to keep you from it for so long, I really did, but then Vecna killed Chrissy in your trailer and the whole town blamed you and you were just a part of things then, there was no getting around it. You helped us fight him - Vecna. You kept his army of bats off our ass while we weakened his body and El weakened his mind. If it weren’t for you we never would’ve defeated him and we certainly wouldn’t have all made it out alive.” Harrington’s gaze softens, as does his voice, his next words almost a whisper, “You were a hero, Eddie.” 

“That doesn’t sound like me,” Eddie says, like that’s the least plausible part of Harrington’s story. And, really, it is. He can wrap his mind around a lot of things: a murder in his trailer - sure, Forest Hills always was a shady place; the whole town accusing him of being a killer - yeah, of course, that tracks; even an evil wizard from another dimension with an army of bats - fine, okay, why the hell not. But Eddie Munson is no hero, and he’s definitely not any sort of fighter either.

“No, you never did think so, did you?” Harrington mutters with a sad sort of fondness and the barest trace of a wistful smile. “But it’s true. Dustin was in danger and you didn’t even think twice. You ran right into the fray without a second thought, sacrificed yourself so that the rest of us might survive. Those bats nearly killed you, b-” he breaks, choking on whatever word he was going to say. His eyes swim with yet more unshed tears. “I almost thought they had killed you, you know. I thought you were dead when I carried you out of the Upside-Down,” he admits shakily, choked up and barely managed, “and even when I brought you here and you were stable, I was still so scared you wouldn’t wake up…” 

Eddie doesn’t know how to react to any of that information or to such a display of emotion. His own hands twitch now with the urge to reach out and comfort him, but he too denies that instinct. He tries for humor instead, something lighter, cracking a grin and teasing, “Aw, Stevie, I didn’t know you cared.” 

Harrington makes a sound halfway between a sob and a laugh. “Oh, Ed, you have no idea.” 

“We were friends then, weren’t we?” Eddie guesses now, carefully. It’s rapidly becoming the only possible explanation for the guy’s behavior around him. “Before all the Vecna stuff?”

“Yeah,” Harrington manages, forcing a small, sad smile as his eyes finally overflow and streak his cheeks with tears. “Yeah, we were good friends.” 

~

Wayne reenters the room then with a nurse in tow, and Steve quickly turns away and rubs his hands over his face. He needs to pull himself together; he can’t break down right now, not yet, not here. 

He listens, distantly, as the nurse asks Eddie a bunch of questions and then tells the rest of them that she needs to take him in for some tests to determine the cause and prognosis of Eddie’s amnesia. He watches, numbly, as she wheels Eddie’s entire bed out of the room. 

Steve can barely hear, barely see, his emotion clouding his eyes and roaring in his ears. He stares blankly through the open doorway and struggles to swallow down the ever-rising lump in his throat. 

Wayne’s voice rumbles from somewhere beside him, but he can’t quite make out the words. “What?” 

“I’ll take that as a no, then,” Wayne says, the sound reaching Steve’s ears a little clearer now. “I asked if you were alright.” 

Steve shakes his head. His voice comes out coarse and raw, “‘Course I’m not alright.” 

“Right, ‘course you’re not,” Wayne echoes. He follows Steve’s mournful gaze to the door Eddie had disappeared through. “What did you tell him?” 

“Told him he was a hero,” Steve croaks, “...and that we were good friends.”

“Ah…” Steve’s vision is so blurred behind a thick layer of tears he can’t see the sympathetic frown on the old man’s face, but he knows it’s there. “At least he’s alive, kid,” Wayne tries to be comforting. “You can always start over.” 

“Yeah, I know, but I don’t- I don’t want to start over, I just want-” Steve chokes back a sob. He just wants Eddie.

It’s a horrible thought, but Steve almost thinks that this just might be worse than if Eddie really had died… Because how is Steve supposed to handle the fact that his boyfriend of 9 months no longer knows him? How is he supposed to cope now that the love of his life looks right at him and no longer sees him?

He closes his eyes, presses the heels of his palms into his eyelids, inhaling a shaky breath and exhaling an even shakier sigh. Steve whispers, “It feels like I’m losing him all over again.” 

(part two is here!)

#i have plans to fix it don't worry. eventually. maybe #i'm really really bad at writing longer multi-part fics but i've got a lot of ideas spinning around my head for this one so #hopefully i will continue it if any of y'all are interested in more of this #steddie #steddie angst #steddie fic #steddie ficlet #eddie munson #steve harrington #stranger things #ficlet #fanfic #mine #1k #dyfamsteddiefic #<- tag to follow for this story

[bixels]

A color variant of The Grand Galloping 20's cover from the cheaper paperback edition issued in 1931.

Included is a scan of one of the paperback's pages.

#mlp #twilight sparkle #fluttershy #applejack #pinkie pie #rarity #rainbow dash #my art #fanart #1920s au #the grand galloping 20s #illustration #also enjoy my writing lol i don't think ive posted any creative writing here before #tried channeling roald dahl who while was a racist asshole did write some banger stories

[roach-works]

hey i just wanted to say thanks for still expressing positive sentiments towards homestuck even after all this time. most BNFs aren't creating fanworks as much anymore (no one could maintain that intensity forever tbh!) but when they completely divorce themselves from that part of their life it's just... those creations brought a lot of joy, and it's extra sad when they feel the need to go scorched earth. i'm happy your works are still around and i really do wish you all the best going forward!

i think a lot of us abandoned homestuck because of two factors: the first was the collapse of the proudly sex-positive fandom space that let us be weird and creative without fear or shame, and the second was the fact that homestuck ended, then launched several epilogues, in a way that seemed specifically designed to mock fans for caring.

like, some very dark, sad, awful things seemed to happen to hussie, and he certainly did not have a good time with his own fandom. but from the perspective of someone in the audience, if a show i love turns on me and starts directly insulting me for loving it, caring for it, and hoping for the best, i get up and leave the theater.

'isn't it horrible to be the hero? aren't stories just prisons? isn't love ultimately meaningless? isn't hope the main driver of tragedy?' sure, fine. yeah. you're not the first man to ask these questions. they're big damn questions!

'aren't you stupid for sitting there and watching me ask these questions? because the answer is that i'm an idiot for asking them and you're twice an idiot for thinking that the answers might be worth the wait.' now you're just being an asshole to yourself, your story, and your audience. im taking my toys and going home.

homestuck was a brilliant, fascinating, unprecedented monument to storycraft... and it ended like a sandcastle getting kicked over by a toddler. that, to me, is the central tragedy of the piece.

#homestuck #on writing #i learned a LOT from homestuck #like 'sooner or later the bill for monsterfucking will come due' #'a huge mob of teenagers are several bombs waiting for someone to happen' #'don't write to spite your fans everything will suck immediately' #'what you love is as important as how you love it' #'do not end a story so badly it makes everyone who loved it hate you' #'“fuck” is an excellent intensifier'

[the-modern-typewriter]

Would you be willing to do more enemies to lover tropes in hero x villain?

"You have a date?"

"If you don't want me to date other people, screw me yourself."

There was a beat of absolute silence. The hero abruptly realized what they'd said. They whirled to face the villain, eyes wide. "I didn't mean - that is - I don't know why I just said that."

Everyone around the room was gaping at the two of them.

The villain's head tilted, oh so slowly, to the side. Their gaze burned into the hero.

"I was being flippant," the hero said.

"Mm."

"You know, because you're possessive."

"Am I?" The villain's voice was silken.

"So I was just getting in there before you said something snippy."

"Oh? Is that what you were doing?"

The hero glared at them, face hot, stomach fluttering.

"Leave us," the villain said.

Everyone around them scattered.

The hero cleared their throat, not speaking until the last door had fallen closed. They wrenched their gaze away to anything, anywhere, except them. "It's not a serious date. I mean - they're not you."

The thing, whatever they were calling it, that they had with the villain was infinitely complex. Consuming. They were the most important person to the villain, and vice versa, and they both knew it but...

But they'd never kissed. They'd certainly never slept together.

Sure, the hero would probably get antsy if they thought the villain was going out with someone who might become first priority. But it wasn't - they weren't - the hero hadn't even been the one to bring up the bloody date!

The villain rose to their feet.

"You're walking dangerously close to one of our lines, hero mine," they warned softly. They sauntered closer, seemingly lazy, except that was the one thing that they never were. "You look startled enough that I can believe it was an accident. We could forget about it."

The hero watched them, a little mesmerized, heart pounding. The villain stopped in front of them.

The hero opened their mouth.

The villain tapped their lip. "Ah, ah. You're not getting away with another flippant comment after that. Think."

The hero closed their mouth. They swallowed.

It was a truth universally acknowledged that when the air between them began to crackle, the hero would say something snarky or careless to diffuse the tension. Nine times out of ten, the villain went along with it. Eight times out of ten, the hero didn't say something quite so dumb in a room full of witnesses.

It wasn't fear. It was terrifying, but it wasn't fear. It would have been so much easier if they were simply scared.

The villain set their hands on either side of the armchair the hero sat in. The hero let themselves be bracketed in with the same slow deliberation as the villain had approached them.

The hero exhaled a breath.

"Good," the villain murmured, studying them. "Now. Would you like to take that back?"

The hero said a lot of crap to the villain that they never took back. They were the only one who did. They watched the villain for a beat, every atom wondering what it would be like if the villain's hands slipped from their careful placement on furniture onto flesh.

The dates weren't like that. The dates were never like this.

But, lord, it would be such a stupid thing to do to cross that line.

The hero tipped their chin up, holding the villain's gaze again. "Do you want me to take it back?"

"If you don't, I'm definitely taking what you said as a challenge."

"Ah, yeah. That's fair." The hero wet their dry lips. "Fair warning."

"So?"

It had happened before. A threshold moment. A teetering. The villain's eyes would go dark, like they currently were, tracking everything. They'd let it go, though. If the hero asked. They always did. For all of their obvious possessiveness, the villain was never the one who brought it up.

"So," the hero dared, before they could stop themselves.

The villain's eyes notched another inch darker, more molten. Their nails dug into the upholstery.

The hero shivered; delicious and awful all at once. Intoxicating.

"So you were being flippant?" the villain prompted.

"So flippant. Unforgivably reckless. I mean, we're a terrible idea."

"The worst," the villain agreed. "Your dates are much sweeter."

"You can be sweet. When you want to be."

The villain clicked their tongue, warning.

The hero grinned back at them. Wild. Drunk, perhaps, on the vertigo of such reckless possibility, such foolish wanting.

They were at the line again. The hero was boldly brushing it with their toe, smudging at it, taunting.

The villain waited.

"You're sweet to me," the hero said. "Despite yourself." They leaned in, and up. "Tell me to stop."

"Do you want to stop?"

"No."

"No," the villain echoed. Then they grabbed the hero by the hair and kissed them.

#i don't know if this is a trope but I THINK IT SHOULD BE #enemies to lovers #hero x villain #villain x hero #romance #writing #story #short story #heroes and villains #villains and heroes

[roboticchibitan]

Once again thinking about the ATLA post series (not in continuity with the comics) fanfic I'll never write that follows Azula going to work in Iroh's tea shop in Ba Sing Se and her ensuing struggle with psychosis and realizing she was in the wrong and is just as much the victim of an abusive parent as Zuko was.

In this story Iroh tries to help her and at first she HATES it. She hates his kindness, she hates the sadness on his face when he sees her struggling, she hates all of it. At one point she snaps at Iroh to stop pitying her and he says, "Don't you know the difference between compassion and pity?" And she snaps back that they're the same thing and he replies, "You're wrong, Azula. Pity is simply feeling sad for someone's circumstances. Compassion is the desire for their circumstances to get better." And it hits her like a ton of bricks that this man, unlike her father, wants what's best for her. He's only ever treated her with kindness and she's disrespected him and called him weak for it and it's the most actual love she's ever received from a father figure in her fifteen years of life. And she wants nothing more than to cry in his arms but she can't yet because she doesn't know how to show weakness in front of anyone because of what her father did to her.

I see a post floating around sometimes where someone said that as a child, Azula is the scariest character, but as an adult, she's the saddest and I agree. She was 15. She deserves a redemption arc.

#maybe someday I'll write it #I know the struggle of having a cruel parent teach you to be cruel #and having to realize that your own cruelty is hurting you and you need to learn to be better #and struggling with psychosis while this realization is happening #I think I'm uniquely suited to tell this story but I don't have enough to start writing yet #atla #avatar the last airbender #azula

[toastedpopsicle]

hey. i'm disabled and marginalized and suffering. kick me a couple bucks about it. or kick me a couple bucks cause @shodansbabygirl is my disabled and marginalized and suffering wife and I support her.

p@yp@l is @JackAParkins

v3nm0 is @jack-parkins

#sorry I don't have the energy to write a big long sob story I've written a hundred times before. #poor. suffering. pay me. etc. #i also need a generic dono post to replace my specific birthday dono post as my pinned post

[ignitesthestxrs]

there's something about the way people talk about john gaius (incl the way the author writes him) that is like. so absent of any connection to te ao māori that it's really discomforting. like even in posts that acknowledge him as not being white, they still talk about him like a white, american leftist guy in a way that makes it clear people just AREN'T perceiving him as a māori man from aotearoa.

and it's just really serves to hammer home how powerful and pervasive whiteness and american hegemony is. because TLT is probably the single most Kiwi series in years to explode on the global stage, and all the things i find fraught about it as a pākehā woman reading a series by a pākehā author are illegible to a greater fandom of americans discoursing about whether or not memes are a valid way of portraying queer love.

idk the part of my brain that lights up every time i see a capital Z printed somewhere because of the New Zealand Mentioned??? instinct will always be proud of these books and muir. but i find myself caught in this midpoint of excitement and validation over my culture finding a place on the global stage, frustration at how kiwi humour and means of conveying emotion is misinterpreted or declared facile by an international audience, frustrated also by how that international audience runs the characters in this book through a filter of american whiteness before it bothers to interpret them, and ESPECIALLY frustrated by how muir has done a pretty middling job of portraying te ao māori and the māoriness of her characters, but tht conversation doesn't circulate in the same way* because a big part of the audience doesn't even realise the conversation is there to be had.

which is not to say that muir has done a huge glaring racism that non-kiwis haven't noticed or anything, but rather that there are very definitely things that she has done well, things that she has done poorly, things that she didn't think about in the first book that she has tacked on or expanded upon in the later books, that are all worthy of discussion and critique that can't happen when the popular posts that float past my dash are about how this indigenous man is 'guy who won't shut up about having gone to oxford'

*to be clear here, i'm not saying these conversations have never happened, just that in terms of like, ambient posts that float round my very dykey dash, the discussions and meta that circulate on this the lesbian social media, are overwhelmingly stripped of any connection to aotearoa in general, let alone te ao māori in specific. and because of the nature of american internet hegemony this just,,,isn't noticed, because how does a fish know it's in the ocean u know? i have seen discussions along these lines come up, and it's there if i specifically go looking for it, but it's not present in the bulk of tlt content that has its own circulatory life and i jut find that grim and a part of why the fandom is difficult to engage with.

#tlt #the locked tomb #i don't really have an answer lmao this is more #an expression of frustration and discomfort #over the way posts about john gaius seem to have very little connection to the background muir actually gave him #like you cant describe him as an educated leftist bisexual man #without INCLUDING that he is māori #that has an impact! that has weight and importance! #that is a background to every decision he makes #from the meat wall to the nuke to his relationship with the earth #and it also has weight and importance in the decisions that muir makes in writing him #it is not a neutral decision that he's known as john gaius lmao #it's not a neutral decision that the empire is explicitly of roman/latin extraction #it's not even neutral that this is a book about necromancy #it's certainly not a neutral fucking decision that john was at one point a māori man living in the bush #when the nz govt decided to send cops in #like that is a thing that happens here! that is a reference to nz cultural and political events that informs john's character and actions #and with the nature of who john is in the story #informs the narrative as a whole #and i think the tiresome part of this experience is that #in general #americans are not well positioned to understand that something might be being written from outside their experience as a default #like obviously many many americans in online leftist & queer spaces are willing to learn and take on new information #but so much of the conversation starts from a place of having to explain that forests exist to fish