#i hurt my own feelings writing this one

[touloserlautrec]

Sentences Tag

Thanks for the tag, @writingamongther0ses! (Their post is here!)

Rules: Share between 6-7 lines from your WIP

This is from a scene I drafted recently for Sunset Vol 3:

"No," he all but shouted. “Don’t come near me. I don’t want your apology. I want you to fucking vomit. I want you to suffer. I want you to choke on your apology and live with it stuck in your goddamn throat like a chicken bone threatening to kill you for the rest of your life.”

No pressure tagging: @mk-writes-stuff @thatndginger @words-after-midnight @revenantlore @pandoras-comment-box and open tag!

#I hurt my own feelings writing this one #sunset a story #sunset arc 3 #writeblr tag games

[hb-writes]

Remember Before?

Summary: It’s 1921 in the Little Lady Blinderverse. Clara is whisked away to London for the weekend to stay with Ada and Freddie while Tommy deals with one of Arthur's unpredictable moods. Unbeknownst to the rest of the family, Clara had witnessed the altercation between Tommy and Arthur that had prompted Tommy to send his sister away. With a bit of time and space set between Clara and what she's seen (and with Ada's prompting) Clara starts to confide in her sister only to realize that perhaps it's better to keep some things to herself. Better for the rest of them, at least.

Request (anon): Parental prompt number 34, please. I will leave it open to you but maybe something with Ada/Polly and Clara :)

Characters: Ada Shelby (Thorne) and Clara Shelby

Content Warnings: Angst, Lots of talk about Arthur and Tommy, Mental Health Issues, Family Dynamics.

Here’s the AO3 link if you prefer to read over there. Tell me what y'all think! Reviews and comments are always appreciated. 😌❤️

Peaky Blinders (Little Lady Blinder) Masterlist

Peaky Blinders (Non-Shelby!Sister) Masterlist

—

Ada chewed on her lip as she studied her younger sister across the room. Clara was quite clearly lost in thought, and painfully so. Not a bit of her appeared to be present to either space or time. 

“Darling, is something wrong?” Ada asked, her curiosity and concern finally winning out after a quarter hour of near-constant observation. 

It was a bit of a rhetorical question seeing as Ada already knew that something was wrong. She even had a feeling of exactly what it might be—Tommy and Polly had told her that Arthur was having one of his moods.

The weekend visit with Ada and Freddie—something Clara often had to bag after—had been presented to the girl as a lucky coincidence. Tommy had a convenient bit of business to address in London on Saturday morning and Ada had already been planning a day trip to Birmingham the following Tuesday so Karl could see his cousins. 

Clara hadn't questioned the particulars when Tommy said he would bring her down on Saturday to stay for the weekend. Well, she had not questioned it aloud, anyway, but Ada could sense that her sister had been acting different. She had been toying with something in her mind for the whole visit. 

She hadn't given Ada and Freddie any trouble, but the truth was she hadn't given them much of anything at all. She'd played with Karl, but Clara hadn't wanted to go out for any walks. She hadn't wanted to play any of the usual card games Freddie indulged her with. In fact, Freddie had barely been able to draw a smile from Clara's lips. 

And though Clara had been insistent that she wanted to do some reading, Ada was nearly certain that the page of Clara’s book hadn’t shifted since she sat down. She’d done far more staring out the window and observing the carpets than she had read. Whatever was so interesting at the end of Clara's gaze, Ada couldn’t seem to locate it herself.

Clara wasn’t necessarily disturbing her sister by acting this way. She was quiet and considerate, but the clear distraction had succeeded in distracting Ada from her own work. The pile of overdue correspondence she’d hoped to get through while Karl was upstairs napping and Freddie was out running errands had gone completely untouched. 

“You’ve been quiet all day,” Ada said, the words coming out nearly as a complaint. 

Clara remained that way—silent, and unresponsive to her sister’s observation. 

Ada pushed her chair back from the small table, allowing the feet of her chair to groan as they slid across the floor. Ada flinched as it sounded through the quiet of the flat, but Clara showed no indication of hearing it. 

Thankfully, Karl hadn’t seemed to hear it from down the hall, either. He was likely too tired, seeing as he had been playing with Clara all morning and still recovering for the bug he'd caught.

Ada sighed as she smoothed her skirts and tried again. “It’s time for some tea, I think. Shall I fetch the biscuits as well?”

Ada’s words elicited no response from her sister—no proper recognition or acknowledgement that Ada had even spoken—just the idle movement of Clara's finger across the edges of her book—back and forth, back and forth. 

Ada’s frustration won out.

“Clara!” Ada hissed.

Clara’s eyes snapped to her sister. She was startled by Ada’s standing so close—just a few steps away with her hands on her hips. Clara could’ve sworn her sister was still sitting at the table sorting her mail. 

“Did you hear me?” 

Clara tried to remember if she'd heard Ada say anything, but as Ada had suspected, Clara had been lost in thought. Her body was in London, sat in the small room Ada and Freddie had outfitted as a sitting room, but her mind was in Birmingham, vacillating between her memories of the past few days and what she suspected was happening at the present. Clara stared back at Ada with wide, vacant eyes. If her sister had been talking to her, Clara realized she hadn’t heard a thing.

Ada shook her head. “I said it’s time for tea. Would you like biscuits or—?”

“Whatever you think is best,” Clara cut Ada off before she could offer anything else. Clara didn’t care and she couldn’t bear making a decision.

Ordinarily, Ada would have relished in Clara relinquishing control over the dominion of sweets at tea time, but just now Ada was left feeling rather concerned by such a statement coming from her younger sister. They'd bought biscuits and cake specifically because Clara had been sent their way. Even though Tommy had made it out like Clara didn’t know why she was out Birmingham, Ada had had a sneaking suspicion that her sister knew more than she let on. Clara often did. 

And it wasn’t like Tommy to forget that about Clara, but Ada supposed he was concerning himself with other things—other siblings. He didn’t have the time or space to be worried about Clara, especially when she wasn’t causing trouble or raising any real concerns herself. Maybe that was another reason why he sent her to Ada, to do the sisterly sifting and soothing via offering sweets and fun and distraction, but Clara wasn’t making it easy to reassure her since she wasn't actually voicing any concerns.

Ada supposed her sister usually didn’t. It was rarely that easy. Clara was a Shelby after all, and surely that meant things couldn’t just be simple. But Ada still held a bit of hope that there was a simple explanation for Clara’s disposition—something she wouldn’t have to drag and scrape out of the girl in the painful way typically required when Clara had something troubling on her mind, clinging to her secrets as if voicing them were to mean certain death. 

“Clara, sweetheart,” Ada said, shifting her weight and crossing her arms over her chest. “Are you ill? Perhaps you’ve caught Karl’s sickness?”

The boy had been laid up for the better part of a week. He was on the mend now—he’d certainly been happy and well enough to demand his aunt play with him at every available moment since her arrival, but just a few days ago, he’d been in the throes of a delirious fever, all confusion and fatigue and flushed cheeks. Ada closed the distance between her and Clara, pressing her hand to Clara’s forehead and feeling for a fever. There was no difference between Clara’s skin and Ada’s own. 

“I’m fine, Ada.” Clara pushed her sister’s hand away.

“You’re not,” Ada answered. “What is it spinning around that head of yours?” 

Clara took a breath, the swell of it lifting her chest and shoulders before she sighed, all of her seeming to deflate as the air left her. She pressed her bookmark between the unread pages before closing the book and setting it aside. Her hand lingered on the cover, almost as if she was regretting putting it away. Clara closed her eyes as she spoke, somehow not seeing Ada's face making it a bit easier to get out.

“Remember how it used to be?” she said. “How Arthur was…before the war? Remember before all the—” Clara stopped herself from describing it. The drink. The drugs. The fighting. There was more. She knew there was more even if she didn't know all of the particulars, and was purposely kept from knowing them. But even for the bits she did know, Clara found that she didn’t want to say the words. She couldn’t. “Well, just back when he used to be happy and…”

Clara stopped herself again. She stopped herself before she revealed too much. Clara could sense she was on the verge of saying something about Arthur that she would never be able to take back, something she wasn't even certain of herself. She just knew that something between her and Arthur had changed. Some part of her opinion and feeling toward him had changed, some nervousness had started creeping up in Clara that she couldn't quite explain, or at least, Clara didn't think she wanted to explain it. She didn’t even think she could explain it without telling on herself. 

Explaining why she felt something different would mean explaining what she'd seen and how she'd seen it. It would mean explaining that she'd seen Arthur and Tommy fighting. It would mean explaining why she had been out on the roof in the early hours of the morning. It would mean explaining why she'd kept it to herself all these days. 

It wasn't as if she'd never seen her brothers yell and fight, but she'd never seen it quite so intense between Arthur and Tommy. She’d never seen Arthur so uncontrollable and yet so determined to hurt himself and then Tommy. She’d never seen it like that. In the end, Tommy had been able to subdue Arthur, to calm him, but Clara had been scared as she watched, holding her breath as Tommy struggled with Arthur's hands around his throat, all of the struggle a bit hard to see clearly in the hazy light of the back courtyard. 

Even though, Clara hadn't technically done anything wrong, she hadn’t told anyone what she’d seen.

That night, she’d stayed quiet and still on the roof, making sure her brother's didn't sense her presence and climbing back through her window only when Tommy had succeeded in calming Arthur and guiding him back towards his own home. Clara had pretended to be asleep by the time Tommy was back and she hadn’t said a word about it since, holding it all on her own. Part of it was Clara was scared by what she’d seen. Part of her was scared of what she figured was happening now. And part of her was scared of the trouble she’d be in if anyone knew she had been out of the house at that time of night, spying on her brothers of all things. She was scared about that growing nervousness she felt towards Arthur, too—questioning what he was capable of and even more so what he wasn’t capable of controlling in himself. That all scared Clara more than anything—the sudden sense of doubt and fear toward someone who she usually thought of with a certain sense of comfort in mind. 

Ada sighed as Clara’s words drifted away. She sighed. Ada held a bit of anguish in her heart for the state of things with Arthur, of course, but Ada felt more so for the sister sitting in front of her now.

“ Oh, love.” 

Clara had learned so much in such a short amount of time. She was clever and observant, but she was still caught somewhere between knowing and understanding and accepting. Ada felt herself a bit more mature than Clara in that area, an assumption made based on the fact that she was over ten years Clara's senior. It was just the sort of misguided assumption adults tended to make in order to preserve their sense of safety and surety in the world. 

Ada didn’t know what else there really was to say. Arthur had been prone to his moods and the drinking and the fighting and the drugs for long before Clara was born. He’d been just as messed up before the war, even back when they were kids, but Clara had been spared much of that knowledge and proof of that for years. She and Finn both had been distanced from it, distracted and shielded from the worst of it by Tommy and Polly and John—and even Ada’s—intervention. 

Tommy was still doing it even now. It was why he’d left Clara in London—to shield her and distract her while he got to the business of bringing Arthur back to himself…or away from himself. Ada wasn’t rightly sure which it was.

Ada had been distanced from it, too, by virtue of being in London while Arthur was still in Birmingham and by holding the assumption that the issue wasn't too serious. Tommy would handle it. And she hated that part of herself was happy for someone else to have that responsibility. Ada loved each of her brothers, she truly did. Growing up, Arthur had always made her laugh and smile. He’d been protective without being so intense as Tommy could be. But in other ways, Arthur had been more intense than any of them. Arthur had it in him to be far scarier than any of them because he could be unpredictable. Relationships with Arthur could be volatile. He could be sweet and gentle—that was the Arthur Ada wanted to believe was the true Arthur—but he could be rather difficult, too. 

And because of that, Ada was happy to be in London. She was happy to leave the fine managing of Arthur to Tommy. Because that was what it was—managing. Arthur was a grown man, the eldest brother, but he couldn’t always manage himself. Or at least, it didn’t seem he could without reaching for a bottle or a vial. Maybe that piece was the impact of the war—the desperate way that men seemed to need those things in order to get through. 

Arthur had always had a touch of trouble, though, and even before the war, he’d been inclined to the bottle.

Clara just hadn’t been privy to it for most of her life. Ada was quite certain that her sister was still only barely privy to it now, but Clara had seen more than Ada knew. She was observant and even if she didn’t quite understand it all, Clara understood enough. 

“Whatever Arthur's going through, it'll be alright," Ada said. "Tommy has it handled."

It was a well-worn explanation, something Ada said almost as a reflex, the family myth that they all clung to as if it kept them all living and breathing—as if Tommy’s influence kept them all that way, kept them safe.

Clara wanted to believe it. She wanted to trust that Tommy could right things as he’d done the morning after Arthur drank himself into unconsciousness or the time they bought the Garrison to bring Arthur out of Flanders Blues. Somehow, Tommy had always managed to pull Arthur through. 

The entire family seemed so sure that Tommy could and would take care of it all. They waved each concern off with surprising casualness. “Tommy will take care of it,” they always said, but Tommy was only a man. He was only their brother. And that seemed even more true now Clara had seen how Arthur could be. She’d seen him nearly hurt Tommy in their struggle out in the back courtyard.

Clara knew now that Arthur's highs were as bad as the lows. She knew the violence could be quick as a switch. He could turn it either in or out. It was destructive either way.

“Polly said he reminds her of our father sometimes,” Clara offered, setting her fears by someone else’s words. It felt safer that way. 

“But our Arthur’s got a softer heart,” she added.

Ada stiffened at the mention of their father. “Polly shouldn’t be saying anything of the sort.” 

Clara was used to being shut down that way when it came to the taboo subjects—anything that made the rest of them uncomfortable or nervous. There was always a quick, almost casual reminder that Tommy would take care of it and some sort of admonishment for whoever had dared to speak about something with Clara. Clara understood the script well enough by now. She also knew when she could push. 

“Is it true?” she asked. 

Polly had closed the conversation when Clara asked what her aunt had meant that Arthur was like their father. She’d been given no more detail and sent away. She’d been told not to worry about it and Clara had the distinct feeling that Polly regretted her words, almost as if her aunt had forgotten who she was talking to when she said it.

Clara pressed again when Ada remained quiet. “Is Arthur like—”

“I don’t know, Clara,” Ada snapped, her words somehow sharp and thoroughly tired at the same time. 

Ada didn’t know much about their father and the ways he was, not really. She’d known about Arthur’s edges—the rough and the smooth one. Ada had been with Arthur for her most of life, but Ada didn’t know her father’s edges. She didn’t know her father much at all. He hadn’t been around often and when he had been, there had always been a brother there ensuring she kept a distance, shielding her and getting her out of the way. Ada barely knew her father any more than the twins did and her mind associated her father’s visits more with strategic games of hide and seek, and walks along the Cut with her brothers than anything to do with the actual man. 

“Maybe,” Ada offered, “But Arthur’s got us and he…” Ada searched for the words she wanted to be true even if there was something—fear, maybe, or just plain uncertainty—nudging her to suggest otherwise. “Arthur is…he’s…Arthur’s different,” Ada said more firmly as she sought out the memories that were easier, the ones that reminded Ada of all the ways Arthur was different from their father—memories of the times he’d made her laugh, memories of how he was with the kids. “Remember when he…”

Clara nodded, staring just above Ada’s shoulder as her sister spoke, her focus on something out the window rather than whatever her sister was saying. Clara remembered the moment Ada was recalling, but she tuned out most of her sister’s words. Only minutes ago, Clara had been ready to share her fears with her sister. She had wanted Ada’s understanding and comfort, but Clara had an alternative strategy now, something she remembered using before, though it hadn't been as deliberate of a decision those other times.

Clara was only thirteen, but she was already considering the merit of keeping things to herself, of agreeing even when she thought someone wasn’t entirely correct, of keeping her pain close in order to spare her loved ones more hurt. Clara decided right then that she was correct to not confide in her sister, just as she’d been right in keeping her thoughts from Tommy and Polly, too. Somewhere in Clara’s mind, it clicked that her true feelings weren’t something any of them were really interested in. Her questions and concerns weren’t congruent with ideas they all had clung to for so long. The platitudes that soothed them, didn't soothe Clara, but she sensed that no good would come from pointing that out. It was easier to simply follow their lead. It was easier to bury her doubts. 

As Ada continued reminiscing, some part of Clara's relationship with her sister closed off a bit. She smiled and nodded along with her sister’s soft recollections, but Clara wasn't fully present to Ada. She couldn't be. She was boxing away her concerns, trying to seal the stubborn package away by shrouding it with the thoughts the others seemed to find comforting—Tommy will fix it. 

She forced herself to ignore the voice that seemed to ask 'but who will fix Tommy?'

“Ada?” Clara asked, immediately stilling her sister’s meandering words. “Remember what I said before?” 

Ada swallowed at her sister’s interruption, the apprehension clear in her features as she tried to determine which part of the conversation they would be revisiting. The tension lingered for mere seconds before Clara confirmed Ada had nothing to fear. Clara wasn’t interested in talking any more about Arthur or their father or what Tommy was capable of fixing. 

Clara had simply changed her mind about the biscuits. Ada let out a soft snort as she smiled at Clara. She was more than happy to oblige her sister in revisiting that particular request. Ada was soothed by it even. Clara smiling and wanting biscuits fit a certain script. It helped Ada believe that all she’d said to soothe Clara's woes had worked. It helped her believe it was true.

Arthur was different.

Tommy would fix it. 

And through a combination of biscuits and sisterly connection, Clara would be fixed, too. 

Ada wasn't right. Nothing had been fixed, but Clara had already decided that her sister needed the comfort of the myth more than Clara needed the comfort of sharing the truth. 

Peaky Blinders (Little Lady Blinder) Masterlist

Peaky Blinders (Non-Shelby!Sister) Masterlist

#peaky blinders fanfiction #peaky blinders fanfic #peaky blinders #peaky blinder fanfic #ada shelby #ada thorne #ada & clara #shelby!sister #shelby sister #clara shelby #little lady blinder #raise a glass to llb #i hurt my own feelings writing this one

[wrathofrats]

Angst promt 15 with Dew being mean to Phantom/Aeon in the beginning :)) either pure angst or hurt/comfort you choose -🌧️

Part 10293839 of dew doesn’t know how to cope with his trauma.

Warnings for: dew being overly cruel, like he’s really mean to phantom to justify his own trauma. Aether is said to be dead here, Detailed descriptions of dealing with grief, morally wrong thoughts, it’s angst.

No I don’t think dew is bad, this is all based in real grief. He’s not right but he’s not a bad ghoul. I want to make that clear. Dew tries to make it right in the end, this is a lot of him working through his own feelings. I didn’t leave it sad forever.

-

Sometimes dew feels like the perfect tragedy.

A fairy tale of love and loss that you tell your kids at night to not make them greedy. To teach them to enjoy what they have, to stop complaining.

A fucked up fable of a being forced into a shell that’s not his by a lover he no longer has and truly his own skin feels like his mates mausoleum.

His self hatred falls upon phantom most of the time. A better target than his own flesh and bones in his head. It’s a silent agreement between the ghouls to never mention it, to make sure phantom and dew don’t stay alone together too long but the only verbal concerns come from late night whispers in low lit rooms of the house.

Dew feels unjustified in his hatred, knows it in fact. Can’t rip away the feeling of phantoms existence being wrong. It punches him in the chest everytime he sees him, when he sees his guitar, when he sees him practice his magic. It’s wrong and gross and dew feels disgusted with him, like a cheap puppet of someone he loves.

He wonders if he could make phantom into a bad dog. If he will lash out when scared. Something tangible to justify his hatred. A bite wound to justify his fear. It’s part of the reason he’s so cold to him. His own civil war of wanting to leave the kid alone, knowing he’s done nothing wrong, and wanting to hurt him so phantom can hurt him back. He wants tangible evidence of phantom being cruel to him back so much he could almost taste it. He’s sick, he’s disgusted with himself but dews never been anything but stubborn. A malicious brain worm that will only feed on seeing his own manipulated proof that the kid can be fucking cruel too.

Dew gets worse with his gross brain parasite. Dropping his obsession with aether to instead obsess over being correct and justified in his feelings. Hes lost this much, he can’t stand being wrong on top of it. He has to bite his tongue every time he sees phantom to not immediately try and cause an issue. The common smiling face makes him want to smack it off of him, the sound of Swiss giggling at phantom antics makes him want to scream in rage that he’s not all that special, aether didn’t deserve what happened to get that thing to replace him

The ghouls notice a clear change in him that never leaves. Dew turning from an inconsolable grieving mess into a vengeful creature who they barely can even talk to anymore. All of his words ooze venom, the looks he gives anyone who even go near phantom have them cringing in their own discomfort.

Phantom gets the worst of strange feelings. Summoned into a pack of those receiving the news of the loss of their friend. He feels immediately outcast, though they’ve all worked to remedy the feelings, it still eats at him more than they’ve told him it should. It probably lingers from dews stares but he can’t help but feel as if he was born with the original sin he can scrub his skin of. Maybe if dew accepted him he wouldn’t feel sick everytime he was in a group setting, or maybe it’s truly always going to be like this, phantom doesn’t know.

It’s not his fault he’s curious, the hint of his name having him tune into different conversations using his quintessence to help. He should’ve known better than to use it on dew though.

Mountain approaches dew first about the problem. Phantom watches him finally chase after him to his room after dew came down to grab water, immediately retreating upon seeing phantom sitting on the couch.

Dew what on earth is your problem?

Mountain speaks quietly, barely enough to hear even with his magic

Are we really doing this? You know my fucking problem mountain!

Dew is a bit louder, doesn’t care if anyone hears, it’s a painful thought.

You’re acting like a child. I know what you’re going through but-

You have no idea what I’m going through

He sounds on the verge of tears

You have to learn to accept it. You can’t keep doing this, you’re tearing the pack apart with your shitty attitude

Fuck you, he’s the one tearing us apart, I didn’t do anything

It’s one thing to assume what’s wrong, but for phantom to hear it? The words hurt physically, but he’s unable to stop himself from ignoring the conversation.

Phantom didn’t do anything and you know that

He’s the reason aethers dead. Aethers gone and we got a shitty fucking child to replace him and you expect me to be ok with that?

I’m done. Fix your attitude. Get help. You know you’re wrong.

The tears flow down phantoms face. Bile burns at his throat and he can’t help but look around for someone, anything to comfort him. Maybe he is some shitty child.

Mountain rests his hands on phantoms shoulder to warn him of his presence before sliding next to him and pulling him into his arms.

“Did you hear any of that?” Mountain asks, worried but knowing the answer.

Phantom nods his head

“He’s wrong. Dew will get over himself, don’t listen to him. He’s going through a lot but you’ve done nothing wrong bug”

Phantom tries not to directly sob into mountains shirt, hiccuping and biting his cheek

“If he didn’t mean it, why would he say something like that?�� His voice cracks through his tears

“Grief makes people do stupid things. He’s looking for someone to blame so he can take it off of himself. I promise it wasn’t your fault though”

They hold each other, mountain squeezing phantom tight enough to release some of his own feelings.

Dew is a direct contrast to the warm embrace happening downstairs. Sitting alone in his room, barely a thought besides his own internal rage and these days it’s all he really does. Sit and stew in his own self pity, praying that maybe if he hopes hard enough everything will go back to normal, though he knows it won’t. A vicious never ending cycle.

His bed is cold, has been for months. He yearns for someone to save him though is utterly convinced he must deserve this. It must be some kind of punishment for something he’s done. It’s fitting for a monster of his kind, to want something so much but to know you’ll never deserve it.

Phantom was gifted with a different kind of quintessence than aether and omega were, less medical and more thoughtful. He was naturally empathetic, to a fault at times. His magic made him feel things others felt deeply, able to control their emotions with just his finger tips.

He decides to confront dew, a peace offering, an apology, he doesn’t know but he can’t stand the situation. He can’t stand having someone he should care about be practically fading away because of his own hurt he’s never been shown how to deal with properly.

“Can we talk?” Phantom knocks on the cracked door, opening it far enough to see dew sitting on his bed, still staring at the wall.

“Nothing to talk about” dew says nonchalantly

“I’m sorry if I did anything to you” phantom starts

“You’re fine”

“I’m sorry that I annoy you”

“It’s ok” dews tone gets more annoyed everytime he speaks

“I’m sorry about what happened”

“What?” Dew finally turns his head to look at him

“You didn’t deserve that. And I’m sorry no one’s ever tried to help you” phantom practically whispers

“They did try”

“They stopped. You’re still hurting and they stopped. They gave up. And I’m sorry”

“Why do you care? I’ve always been mean to you” dew looks like he may cry himself

“I can’t blame you, it’s not fair what you’ve been through. You’re allowed to grieve in your own way since no one ever showed you how” phantom steps into the room. It smells odd, like dew hasn’t showered in a couple days. Old plates of food and bottles of water stack his bedside table, the other looking pristine and untouched with a book sitting on it. Phantom looks at the book for a couple seconds too long before dew speaks again

“It was his. It’s the last thing he read.” Dew almost smiles, “his nightstand still smells like him”

Phantom doesn’t speak, just nodding along. He doesn’t know what to say, but dew takes the silence as a chance to keep going.

“Sometimes I can smell him on you. Quintessence has a scent to it, it’s smoky and sharp, Swiss gets it too when he’s been using magic.” He chuckles “I know he’s been training you. I wish aether could’ve”

“Really?”

“He would’ve loved you bug”

#oof #one day I need to make a post about what happened to aether #but have this for now #I hurt my own feelings as usual #cw angst #the band ghost #ghost #nameless ghouls #ghost bc #fanfic #wrath writes #dewdrop ghoul #phantom ghoul #angst

[raayllum]

Anyway I wanna talk about hands in Finnegrin’s Wake

This is not my last or even my deepest meta dive on the episode by any means but I’m a bitch who appreciates consistent symbolism and the Hand Motif is on fire this episode so like, let’s talk about it.

The first thing to establish is the (understandable) importance of hands in Callum’s mage arc, given that you draw runes with your hands and hold magical objects, etc. This is in line with primal magic yes

but also with dark magic, highlighted explicitly in S4. 

By being tied to primal / Sky magic, Callum’s hands (and ability to use them to help his friends, do magic, etc) is tied to freedom. This is also linked to chains/bondage with Rayla’s wrist binding and dark magic, metaphorically, for Callum. So it makes sense that 5x08, an episode that is very much about primal and dark magic and subsequent themes of freedom vs control is likewise obsessed with this hand motif.

However, I want to talk about Rayla, and Callum, and how the hand motif, dark magic use, and Callum’s connection to the Ocean arcanum are set up this season. Briefly on the last one (that can be a meta on its own I want to dive into, pun intended, in tandem with adding S4′s development to it) because post for another day, but I think it’s worthwhile to mention.

For starters, there’s Finnegrin having a direct callback to Callum’s line from 5x04 with Rayla (which is also being paralleled to Viren and Claudia’s “I’ll do anything” in 5x03 an episode prior). And with Callum’s hand clasped over his wrist, foreshadowing the ‘anything’ he’ll do will be to literally undo his chains (and to metaphorically take some on) in order to save Rayla by the end of the episode. 

But we see Callum repeat this “wrist rubbing” motion a few times this episode (pin in it for later) in addition to the repeated emphasis in S5 with Callum always being the one to reach for / take Rayla’s hand. Although she and Callum are undoubtedly in a much better place than they were in S4 in repairing their relationship, Rayla still initiates almost zero contact with him across the course of S4 and S5 (grabbing his elbow and wiping his drool away when he’s asleep in 4x03; placing a reassuring hand on his shoulder in 4x09; resting her head on his shoulder in 5x02; touching his face in 5x08 to provide comfort). 

This is a far cry from how touchy-feely she is with him in Arc 1, initiating much more contact than he does, but in S4 and S5 we see this switch around; almost anytime they’re being physically affectionate, Callum is the one initiating.

However, one thing hasn’t changed, and it’s that Callum is almost always the one, across seasons, to initiate handholds (3x01 and the back half of S3 once they’re a couple being the exceptions). And S4 (4x09) and S5 are no exception.

Okay, great, he holds her hand. So what? Well...

In 5x08, Callum does dark magic again outright and connects to the Ocean arcanum primarily out of love for her. As confirmed by the writers on twitter, Callum had to accept exactly what he says in 5x08 about the ocean - that it’s about unfathomable depths, embracing the unknown (even or especially when it scares you) and accepting that there are things you can’t control. And the lack of answers about Rayla’s whereabouts, “I don’t know how to feel about Rayla either,” and “I have to go after him” “I know” helped pave the way for Callum to reach those conclusions in 5x01 and 5x08 alike: “To love is to simply know this: the tides are true as the ocean is deep.” And that realization included accepting that he’d done dark magic (and would do dark magic) to protect her.

So it’s not surprising, therefore, that while connecting to the Ocean arcanum, Callum looks at his hand, and rubs the same wrist as before, almost like he’s mimicking the crushing motion he would’ve done with the slug. 

Or indeed that it’s a gesture Viren does in his dark magic induced dreams, and during Callum’s arcanum speech, either, if inversed. 

Callum is accepting that the depths he can’t see, his “I would do anything for you” promises and inclinations, are a (dark) path he can’t entirely see and understand, but something he knows lives inside him, and has for a long time: “But not everything’s changed.” 

Darkness equals dark magic equals chains, and Callum has enough self awareness (that Viren did not) to know more so of what he’s walking into, and that’s precisely why it scares him. Why, by the end of 5x08, even as it’s revealed how he got his chains off, it’s clear they’re not gone. Not really. Not to him. Especially considering now he knows exactly where dark magic leads in ways he didn’t before in 2x07: Aaravos. (“As long as we protect each other, as long as we love each other, you can never control us” and now Callum knows that isn’t necessarily true, because he gave up the info to Finnegrin, and he willingly took another step down a dangerous path.)

Which is why I love that Rayla is the one to reach for him, to gently touch his shoulder and then his face and pull him into a hug. And I love the way Callum hesitates to place his hands - powerful, ‘tainted,’ chained - around her like another link in said chain, so different and yet so similar from their hug in 2x04 about a lack of magic, and now having arguably too much. And all of it - the dark magic use, the metaphorical and literal chains, the devotional key of the Ocean arcanum, the hands - synonymous with his love for Rayla.

#tdp callum #tdp #rayllum #tdp meta #the dragon prince #hand motif #callum #multi #s5 #5x08 #could do a whole thing on elmer and how he thematically connects to the possession plot line but again #meta for another day <3 #analysis series #tdp spoilers #s5 spoilers #analysis #yes i Did hurt my own feelings writing this one thank you for asking #the fact i stayed so on topic for this one is Truly Incredible i think #i would do anything for you

[athena-theunicorn]

Link sits on Zelda dragon’s head and talks to her. He doesn’t know if she can hear him or not but he doesn’t care. He rides on her head for entire days and just talks. He keeps her company.

“One of your students sits outside of our house and waits for you. They all miss you at the school.”

“Everyone is wondering where you are. I wish they could see you.”

“You’re beautiful, ya’know? You’re beautiful in whatever form you take.”

“I’m sorry about what happened to Sonia. Maybe when you’re back we can try to find her resting place.”

“I’m sorry I had to take some of you horns. They make good weapons, though. I dunno if it hurts you or not. I promise I’ll make up for it when you’re back.”

“Tulin’s grown since we were there last.”

“Sidon and his fiancé are doing great. They moved Mipha’s statue to the top of Ploymus mountain. She has a beautiful garden now.”

"Riju is just as strong as Urbosa once was."

"I miss our friends badly today."

“Are you lonely up here? Do the other dragons make good company? What do dragons talk about?”

“Thank you for taking care of my sword.”

“I brought you some sundelions. Let me braid your mane.”

"What have you seen since the dawn of the kingdom? Have you seen the other heroes and princesses like us?"

"I hung around the school and played tag with the kids today. They all want to know where you are. Symin and all the kids are doing well. They still haven't found a new teacher."

"Do you remember me?"

"Have you heard the sword in all this time?"

"I helped seven koroks find their friends. They're out of sorts without the Deku Tree."

"See all the new settlements? There are new places and roads popping up all over the place. The people are happier than ever. You did that, ya'know."

"Everyone misses you."

"I found a new grove of silent princesses. I brought you some."

"Do dragons get hungry?"

"I'm sorry I couldn't protect you bellow the castle. I'm sorry all of this happened. It could have been avoided."

"Thank you for leaving me clues to find you. At least I'm not completely alone this time."

"I have to go back to the surface."

"Oh, this is my stop."

"I miss you so much."

"I love you, Zelda. I'll find a way to bring you back."

#I hurt my own feelings with this one #this is why I write angst #legend of zelda #zelink #tears of the kingdom #legend of zelda tears of the kingdom #loz totk #loz #totk #zelda x link #the legend of zelda #loz zelda #zelda tears of the kingdom #link #tloz #tears of the kingdom spoilers #tears of the kingdom headcanons #legend of zelda headcanons

[vellichorbindery]

Cover art by the talented, beautiful creature @evyltalks for my newest wip. My friend got me a commission with Evyl as a Christmas gift and I knew instantly I wanted to see her take on the Black brothers from my fic. I literally cried when I first saw this piece. Evyl, you absolutely blew me away with this, my heart is SO full, THANK YOU!! 🫶🏼💖🖤

This story has been running around in my head since this summer and I’m so ready to share it. I’ll be posting one chapter at a time with 10 chapters total.

The Black brothers are so fucking special to me and this fic is me pouring a bit of my soul & relationship with my older sis into it (she’s my best friend) and the Sirius to my Regulus.

Chapter 1 coming 12/23 ✨

#black brothers fic #regulus black #sirius black #black brothers centric #new wip #angst with a happy ending #so much angst and sadness #there’s also an MCD #I’m sorry #I hurt my own feelings writing chapter one #but I love the epilogue so much

[fatehbaz]

.

#thinking of dinosaurs and troodontids were my favorite dinosaurs as a child #when younger i had a real full troodontid tooth fossil that meant a lot to me #for a time we lived within a few kilometers of hadrosaur sites and troodontid sites #while wider general area had many sites of recovery for the big celebrities like tyrannosaur and multiple dromaeosaurs #at that time troodontids were kinda infamous for i think the depiction in some childrens field guides and dino books #which depicted like a fantasy speculative humanoid troodontid based on 1980s model at Canadian Museum of Nature in ottawa #anyway would visit a small local paleo center a lot and woman in her 70s or 80s ran the counter of their center and rock shop #one day she asked me what my fave dino was and i said troodon so she pulled out the tooth and just gifted it to me #in little black case size of ring box with padding and transparent plastic viewing cover kinda like laminate for displaying a trading card #tooth got stolen from out my vehicle while giving some people a ride while at university before i got too poor for tuition #later during first year of pandemic owner of my storage unit died and new property owners threw away everything i ever owned #i was homeless anyway lost job due to early pandemic closures and had to allocate any money to insulin and other prescrip meds #but wouldve found a way to save my things if the new owners had contacted me #they threw out photoalbums y backpacking gear y books y musical instruments y clothes y artwork y camera y all family keepsakes #and all childhood treasures like souvenirs and gifts and school awards and writing portfolios and all the little memories #which i was always sentimental about as child #from earliest age my room looked like a natural history museum with plants and maps and library of field guides #and rocks and field trip keepsakes and all kinds of little animal figurines and mother had painted room in forest greens and browns #to feel like a forest and among the succulent plants and a globe sat the troodon tooth #parents passed when i was a child #never near any family and were always moving never got to settle into proper stable place then father passed after long sad illness #and mother put in so much effort but she passed few years later and i could not take care of myself or my remaining material possessions #and so im still quite hurt having nothing whatsoever remaining of my childhood or school friends or mother or life generally #and when trying to process grief my thoughts often come back to the troodontid tooth as a focal point a distillation of what was lost #even when young i knew it was advised not to become too connected to material physical possessions #but still there are some small little trinkets in our lives that seem to hold so much meaning and i tortured myself for losing that tooth #thinking about troodon reminds me of childhood

[feyreswaterybowels]

⭒The Silent One⭒

Azriel x Fem!OC mood board

Read Here!

#this story is so heartbreakingly beautiful #I’ve been hurting my own feeling since I started writing it #PLEASE TREAD WARNING BEFORE READING THIS FIC #acotar #azriel #azriel fanfic #acotar fanfiction #slow burn #The silent one

[swordheld]

how did u choose your username?

oh, this is a fun one!! i think i considered being swordtold at first, for that very ancient myth vibe of the sword being this narrative tool for adventure and structure and physical time, the parable being passed down through the centuries until it meddles into modern day rhetoric and ideology – a kind of fantastical tool, a spark of magic, of possibility.

i like the arc of the story of a place being physical / having it be held by time and hand alike, wearing with the years and having it become something different to each holder, each reader, each experience fantastical and individual.

having that kind of physicality to it; swordheld is the action of taking up and holding the sword yourself, choosing your own narrative, leading your own story. self-identity has always been something i struggle with (a novel concept i know, i know), so it felt right for this blog, since most of my older blogs before this one have been just me silently reblogging and never really posting anything myself, and i wanted this to be the change to that.

i've always had trouble wranging my social anxiety, esp. on the internet, and previously thought that keeping my words to myself helped keep the timeline cleaner, in a way, no messy thoughts for others to sort through, especially ones i believed no one would want to read anyway? but it never felt right, keeping myself apart from it all, esp. not in the way i so avidly enjoyed reading others' posts and additions, keeping their words close to my heart.

i wanted it to reflect that this was a space i was holding for myself? and i'm a little slow on the uptake sometimes, but this - this i think i got right. i love being here, on this blog, and the joy that it brings me. everyone else enjoying it too has been a wild ride that i never expected, and still surprises me, one that brings a little extra thrill to my heart whenever i think about it.

i had other urls that i liked, but i didn't want this blog to be tied directly to any of my fandom/story interests, since i wanted it to really just be a sort of archive of artistic inspiration and resource, like a little library or museum. i use them now as lil sideblogs of more niche interests now, which is rather lovely.

it hasn't always felt like it fit perfectly, the way that i'd like, but for some reason i can't think of really wanting to change it anytime soon. it feels mythic yet modern in a way that feels like puzzle pieces finally slotting into their place, something my own and inspirational to me, like a lantern i'm holding to make my way by. my own kind of light, if that makes sense – a star i know by name.

#q&a. #birdsong. #all of this is truly just a way to say: it's your blog! it's your party! do what you like if it makes you happy!! (and doesn't hurt anyone! #live your dreams!!!!!! do your own thing truly it is worth it. which feels silly and cheesy inspirational talk vibes but u kno. it's right #thank u for ur question tho !!! it's been so long that i don't really remember exactly what the beginning of it all was? #it wasn't always my url for this blog esp. in the beginning but i've forgotten what that was ghjk so sorry dear anon ! #like little flashes of a story in my memory i have to make out / like steam or fog on a window pane. blurry and unclear? #but now it feels more intentional / almost like watercolor! something that mixes itself into a new thing; bright and bursting w/ it all. #i hope this answers ur question nicely all the same tho <3 #i always on habit write out lantern as lanturn so this is an unintentional shout out to one of my fav pokemon love u lanturn !! #some of these things i truly do just write out bc i know it'll make me laugh later if i ever come back to it. lil joys for ur future self ! #and that IS a reference to the dickinson poem ' i am out with lanterns looking for myself ' it is in my brain always ! ! thank u ! !

[loveshotzz]

We’re reaching the first 10k mark of I Guess It’s Never Really Over, and the night is still young ♥️

#i’m hoping the scene I want to tease is ready for you guys by tomorrow #although i hurt my own damn feelings writing one of these flash backs man

[raccoonhearteyes]

Part I  | Part II  | Part III | Part IV  | Part V | Part VI | Part VII | Part VIII | Part IX | Part X | Part XI | Part XII | Part XIII | Part XIV

Read on AO3

Epilogue 

March 11th, 2019

“So you’re the girl Clarke has been hiding all these months. It’s great to finally meet you!” Octavia sweeps Lexa into a hug, welcoming her into their home. 

It’s not the first time they’ve met. They’ve actually met several times since Clarke came knocking on her door back in January. But each time, Octavia forgets. Each time, she’s greeted anew. 

Clarke squeezes her thigh under the table, a soft apology for the repetition. They haven’t quite navigated how they’ll deal with this as more and more time passes. Not meeting the new girlfriend when it’s only been a handful of months is reasonable. What happens when it’s years? A decade?

June 12th, 2020

Clarke has a second exhibit of Lexa portraits. 

Lexa grabs a glass from a nearby tray, and sits back to watch her girlfriend work. She loves watching Clarke talk about a piece, the way her eyes light up, the way she moves her hands to show what she was talking about. 

She watches the one person who remembers her listen to and answer questions from some buyer on the other side of the gallery. She looks good, all business focused. This is the same girl who sprinkles cinnamon in her tea, koalas around a warm body in bed, paints Lexa and only Lexa. She’s suddenly struck by just how much she loves this girl. How much happier she has been since watching her stuff appetizers into her purse at some event two years ago. 

By the time Lexa makes it to Clarke, the evening is winding down. 

“How did you like it?” 

“Looking at a room full of my own nudes? It’s a real ego boost,” Lexa jokes, “But seriously. I love it. Even better than the last one. I’m so proud of you, Clarke.”

“Is it weird for you? Coming in on my arm and having no one remember meeting you before?” 

“It is, but I like seeing you work. I like being able to come support you. It’s worth it.” She brushes a lock of hair behind Clarke’s ear and kisses her cheek. 

They’re walking home in the dark, fingers tangled, still buzzing from the excitement of the evening, when a shadow appears from an alleyway. They both think they’re about to be mugged, before they realize they recognize the shadowy figure. 

Lexa steps protectively in front of Clarke.

“You shouldn’t be able to do this,” he sneers, “Your art was mine in our deal.”

“I asked for her in every capacity. That included my art, apparently,” Clarke flaunts, “Careful with your wording next time, dearie,” she parrots the words he used against Lexa so many times back to him.

His eyes glow red again, fuming with anger. He steps closer to Lexa, staring her down, then snaps his fingers, and disappears. 

They both check themselves over again to make sure they’re not hurt. He’s just as bound to his contracts as they are, but he did something, they’re just not sure what. 

Later that evening, Lexa finds her first gray hair, and smiles. He restarted her aging. He’s going to be so angry when he realizes that makes things easier for her.

October 8th, 2020

Clarke has a ring box in her sock drawer. She’s had it for months, but she cannot fathom leaving it there any longer or she’s going to explode. Sometimes she looks at Lexa and her heart feels like it is about to pound out of her chest. She thought you were supposed to grow out of that after dating for so long. Apparently not. 

Being in love used to mystify her. She used to worry about the other shoe dropping. Too afraid to give someone else so much of her heart and trust them not to break it. But she looks at Lexa and all of those worries disappear. She looks at Lexa and sees the woman she’ll grow old with. The fact that that doesn’t terrify her terrifies her. 

She probably should have hidden it somewhere less cliche. She doesn’t even think about it when she tells Lexa to grab a pair of her fuzzy socks from her drawer when she complains of chilly feet. 

When Lexa emerges from the bedroom clutching that not-so-well-hidden box moments later, Clarke’s brain kicks into overdrive. 

“Clarke, what’s this?” Lexa asks.

“Shit, you weren’t supposed to find it like this,” Clarke decides now is as good a time as any. She really should have rehearsed this, written something down maybe. She scrambles to take the box from Lexa’s hands, “Lexa, I have loved you since before I could remember. Literally. We met dozens of times, and each time was new, and each time I fell for you. Even though I couldn’t remember you, I had this gut feeling, this wrenching feeling that I was missing something because I was. I was missing you. You complete me. You make me a better artist. A better person, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Will you marry me?” 

If comes out as a jumble of words, all tripping out of Clarke’s mouth at once, but she bends down on one knee, looks up earnestly at Lexa, and opens the box. 

Lexa’s eyes look watery, and then she says the last thing Clarke expected, “Clarke, I can’t,” and Clarke feels like all of the air was sucked out of her lungs. Oh god. Has she misread this the whole time? Clarke stumbles and she snaps the box closed and moves to stand, when Lexa’s words seem to catch up to her own brain. 

“Wait, that didn’t come out right. I would love to, but I can’t.” 

Clarke’s lip wobbles, “That really doesn’t sound any different.” 

“Clarke, my name can’t be on a marriage license. You literally can’t marry me. Your friends and family don’t remember meeting me. How would that even work?”

“It’s not for them. Or the state. It’s for me. And you. It’s for us. Of course I know your name can’t go on a license. I know I reintroduce people to you regularly. The point is that I love you, and I want to be able to call you my wife, even if we do a ceremony of just us in our pajamas at home.” 

“Oh,” Lexa softens, she blushes a beet red and shuffles a bit in her borrowed fuzzy socks, “Is it too late to change my answer then?” 

Clarke slips the ring out of the box and places it on Lexa’s finger. Her eyes are misty and her smile is so bright she can’t help but taste it, but not before whispering, “so stupid” in the space between them first. 

They wear dresses and buy rings and a cake the next month. Saying vows in front of Clarke’s childhood stuffed animal that sits on the shelf in the living room.

September 5th, 2034

By Clarke’s fourth show, she’s earned herself quite the reputation. She’s famous for her portraits, all of the same woman. Only of this same woman. Art critics call her Clarke’s “Secret Muse.” They write essays about how no one has ever met her. There’s speculation of if she’s real or just a figment of Clarke’s creativity. 

“Listen to this one,” Lexa calls from the couch, "As I stand under the largest piece of Ms. Griffin's latest tantalizing exhibition, aptly named, Stranger in Plain Sight, it is hard not to feel as though I should know this woman beyond the void of mere charcoal and bristle. Beyond the beauty and whimsy of such an elusive muse; an ethereal kind of elegance painted in what can only be described as liminal glimpses into her soul. Each canvas serves as a piece of the greater puzzle, an obscure abstraction dangling on Ms. Griffin's ever elusive string, one that makes this particular viewer yearn for the surely sublime knowledge of even knowing this subject's name," Lexa reads with a snort while sitting in a ripped pair of boxers and a T-shirt with a coffee stain. "But, dear reader, I can say with confidence such a void remains between artist and ardent viewer. Where Ms. Griffin has seemingly left no stone unturned with her muse, alas, we woeful patrons are condemned to collect her only in brushstrokes, and the most verdant hues of green."

Clarke giggles from the kitchen table, “It’ll never get old that you have met half of these people and they’re still completely unaware. You shook her hand last year at the Met for god’s sake!” 

“They haven’t made deals with the devil, don’t judge them!” Lexa sassing back. 

There are rumors about why Clarke wears a wedding ring. If the mystery spouse has been the muse all along. Interviewers frequently ask why they aren’t present, and Clarke just answers with a knowing smirk, usually with Lexa on her arm, or at the very least making eye-contact with her across the room.

The mystery adds to the value. 

May 5th 2088 

By the time they’re old and gray, there are hundreds of portraits of Lexa. Her life is captured in glimpses and pieces on canvas. It is the only mark she is able to leave in the world. Lexa feels like every bit of her soul has truly been seen by the world, whether they know it or not. Clarke leaves a big enough mark on the world for both of them.  

In her old age, Clarke begins to forget things. She’ll forget where she is, if she’s taken her pills, the directions to the drugstore. But she never forgets Lexa. Sometimes she’s confused in time, lost back somewhere in her twenties when she sees a painting of Lexa done in their youth.

“That’s my wife, you know,” Clarke says. 

Lexa answers with a fond smile, “Yes, love, I know.” She kisses a wrinkled hand. 

When Clarke passes at 88 years old, Lexa knows for certain that Clarke was the best part of her life, and with her mark in the world irrevocably there, she lets the darkness take her soul. 

#lexa #clexa #the invisible life of addie larue #clarke griffin #clexa au #if you want the angst ending let me know #because i had one #but decided to spare us all because i hurt my own feelings #shoutout to butmakeitgay for helping through this whole thing #and writing the pretentious art critique

[infinitelystrangemachinex]

Come on, you know you want to, give us the character bingo for Viktor.

don't mind if i doooo

#ask me #okay there's a lot going on here but first things first #viktor has transcended the favorite character tier where I want to protect him or whatever #like yeah he did that shit! I support him but I also don't! the more trouble he gets himself into the happier I'll be! #do you feel me #like one of the things I love most about Viktor is that I feel so much sympathy for the circumstances he's in that are out of his control #but he has so much agency in his own story that everything he's gained and accomplished are because he makes choices #and GETS HIMSELF places #and now the same thing is happening with his BAD choices and I find that just as delightful if not moreso #he is the agent of his own salvation and his own destruction and I will be in the front row seat with popcorn for both or either #so writing him is mostly me studying him under the microscope poking him until he does something untoward it's very fun #I only hesitantly say that Viktor is like me but the Balkan ties and the grumpy-but-kind and obsessive personality #and the strong opinions about a chosen STEM field #are inescapable okay #mommy issues is not circled because I have mommy issues but bc I have convinced myself that Viktor WILL have them #if Nikola Tesla is anything to go by #the jayce-mel-viktor trifecta is ruled by mommy issues and i will stand by that claim #also viktor is more interesting with no therapy - with as little therapy as possible would be my preference #WITH THE EXCEPTION of the lonely genius shit that Singed planted in his head #that is absolutely the lie that Viktor believes that he MUST discard in order to progress as a character and I am excited for it #I genuinely think that Viktor will be happier and more eccentric as [REDACTED] but it won't last #he will hit a VERY LITERAL -if thy right hand offend thee cut it off- situation and then he'll have peace but he won't call it happiness #I can't say that I'd hate anyone who hurt him because that is half of why I'm excited for s2 #but I will probably lose it at any scene where he loses to [REDACTED] for rivalry reasons #I genuinely do want to see Mel completely own his ass as [REDACTED] though like can you imagine the banter #and both of them secretly having fun with it

[apuckishwit]

Steddie- “I don’t think I like where this is going.”

*stares at the Word doc this is on*

Ummmm....oops?

I...I am very sorry for this. No one dies, that's all I'm saying. Also, this will be continued in like three parts I think because this bunny grew TEETH.

It ends when they close the Upside Down for good.

Of course it does. It was always going to end here, wasn’t it? Somehow, some way, it was always going to end here…from the very moment Will was first pulled down into this hellscape, they’ve all just been slowly making their way towards this very moment. There was never any other choice. He’s known that, deep down inside, for longer than he wants to admit.

The plan seems to be working, is the thing. No major surprises, no hiccups, no sudden changes, no need to scramble and improvise. Perhaps he should be nervous, but all he can think is that they might actually pull it off. They might actually put Vecna/Henry Creel/One/Whatever in the ground for good, might be able to close the gates once and for all and finally get their lives back.

He and Eddie are part of the diversion team—them, Robin and Nancy, Jonathan and his friend Argyle, Joyce Byers and Murray Bauman, along with someone named Agent Stinson and a small group of government spooks sent by some doctor that Hopper seems to more or less trust. They’ve split up along the gates that burst up into Hawkins all those months ago, causing general mayhem with government-issued firebombs and guns that had made Nancy smile in grim satisfaction. They’re not trying to cause any real damage—just enough to split Vecna’s focus, make him concentrate on shoring up his boundaries. Anything to give Eleven an advantage while she and Will (the only ones of the kids that are allowed anywhere near this fight and only because there’s no other choice…Steve was ready to die on that hill, but fortunately so were Hopper and Joyce) make their final stand with Hopper and the rest of the mysterious Dr. Owens’s soldiers backing them up.

He and Eddie are back-to-back at the edge of the Upside Down version of the trailer park, a circle of destruction around them. Neither of them had liked the idea of coming back here—where Eddie had almost lost his life, where Steve had almost lost his goddamn mind trying to stem the bleeding while Dustin sobbed and screamed and begged him to do something, Steve, please you gotta save him!. But they needed distractions at as many of the gates as possible, and he and Eddie know the area best. They had the best chance of escaping somewhere else if things went south. So. The trailer park it is.

“How much longer you think?” Eddie gasps, one hand leaving the barbed wire-wrapped club he’s got clutched in his hands to scrabble back against Steve’s hip. Steve grabs his wrist, intertwines their fingers. They’re both breathing hard, both bruised and dirty…but no major wounds. No blood.

He glances down at the watch still gamely wrapped around his wrist. “Ten minutes ‘til evac.” He glances up into the sky, watching for clouds of bats in the brief bursts of red lightning. The dogs came for them earlier—a whole pack of them, and Steve had breathed thanks to whoever was listening for the way Nancy pulled him and Eddie into the woods days before the final assault and drilled them on the weapons the government provided, made them shoot at target after target until she was satisfied that they could hold their own. They’d managed to take out the largest part of the pack before the things were on them before resorting to the club and Steve’s trusty nailbat.

The dogs were the worst of it. They haven’t seen any Demogorgons, haven’t seen any of the bats (they’d both agreed, at the first sight of the bats, they were retreating—Steve had made Eddie promise over and over that he wasn’t going to try and be a hero this time). They’ve done their part. Now it’s just a waiting game.

They feel it when El and Will succeed.

A tremendous crack, like thunder but a thousand times louder, splits the air. The ground trembles under their feet, and the vines choking the trailers and yards around them start writhing and shaking. Distant shrieks like dying animals sound, an eerie echo in the air. Forks of red lightning lance across the sky like strobe lights. The ground heaves again and Steve loses his balance, tipping back over into Eddie, who winds his arms around his waist and steadies him.

“Easy there! Think that’s our cue, baby,” he says, not letting go until Steve has his feet back under him. Even then, he doesn’t let go of his hand. Steve squeezes back. The ground shudders again, and Steve just nods.

“Yeah, time to go.” As if in agreement, the radio clipped to the front of his jacket crackles to life, Hopper’s voice ordering everyone to get to their pre-arranged evac points.

“Hop! The kids?” Joyce’s voice comes over the line, and Steve holds his breath until Hopper answers.

“They’re fine! It’s over…it’s all over as soon as we get out of here.”

Eddie lets out a huff of air that might be laughter, presses his forehead against Steve’s shoulder before darting up to kiss him soundly. “We did it,” he breathes. “We fuckin’ did it!”

Still hand in hand, they turn and race for the shell of Eddie’s trailer, and the gate that will take them home.

And that is where it all goes wrong.

*

It starts after the Russians.

His bruises fade, the damn near permanent ringing in his right ear—that he’s been dealing with since Hargrove caved his face in—settles back to a manageable level, and his ribs stop screaming at him when he twists too far to one side. He just…keeps getting headaches. Not quite full-blown migraines—they don’t take him out completely—but frequent, chronic headaches.

Frequent enough that he starts keeping a bottle of Tylenol and a pair of sunglasses in his glovebox. Frequent enough that he learns to recognize the very earliest symptoms of “a headache day.” Frequent enough that Robin, when she notices (and really, she notices scarily quickly, he’s not used to being seen the way Robin sees him), drags him to the library and spends almost three hours looking up possible side effects of frequent concussions, cross-referencing them with Steve’s experiences.

Then they spend a whole shift at Family Video making up a list of possible headache triggers for him to experiment with.

He doesn’t drink anything with caffeine in it anymore, Robin has been making him keep a damn food journal so they can start figuring out if anything in his diet is a trigger (it’s actually been really helpful, but it feels too much like homework for him not grumble about it), and he’s been trying to unfuck his sleep schedule.

The last is the problem—his sleep schedule has been fucked up since the night he got it in his head to go apologize to Jonathan Byers and walked into a horror movie.

He tries everything—he sets a rigid bedtime schedule, he works out in the evenings to tire himself out, he drinks the tea Robin steals from her kitchen for him (that turns out to be pretty nice…it doesn’t really help him sleep, but he finds it soothing anyway and keeps drinking it at night), but nothing really keeps the nightmares at bay except hard liquor or the little blue pills he finds left in his mother’s medicine cabinet from the last time his parents were in town.

And Steve knows the road both of those solutions lead down. Has two perfect examples. He has no desire to live his life swinging between sloshed and hungover like his father, nor does he want to drift around in a haze of Vicodin and “nerve pills” like his mother. Besides.

After the Russians, after that godawful shit they injected him and Robin with, he can’t stand the thought of being that out of control, that incapacitated again. But Robin really thinks getting more uninterrupted rest will help his headaches. And apparently popping Tylenol like candy can lead to stomach problems even if he is very careful not to take more than the recommended daily dose, so there’s that. There’s plenty else in his life trying to give him ulcers without adding fuel to the fire.

In desperation, he finally takes one of his few days off from Family Video (his father started putting money in his account every month again after Starcourt burned, but he doesn’t trust dear old Dad’s generosity anymore…that money goes directly into a separate savings account he opened and he funds his day to day expenses with his own paycheck) to drive the familiar route to the high school. He parks at the far end of the student lot, and tramps his way around the baseball field towards the wooded area that butts up against the school’s property.

He's never been to the little clearing with its old picnic table himself—Munson was discreet, but he’d still never cared to find out what his dad would do to him if Steve actually got caught buying from the local drug dealer. Usually he just passed a wad of bills to Tommy or one of the other members of the basketball team and let them handle buying the favors for his parties. Everyone knows where it is, though, and roughly what times Munson can be counted on to be there. Seniors have study hall the last period of the day, and only like ten percent of the population actually sits in the library and studies.

He sits himself down at the picnic table, closing his eyes and tipping his head back to enjoy the late September sun. He’s only been there for about ten minutes when he hears heavy, careless footsteps entering the clearing from the same direction he came. Instantly, his eyes fly open and he clocks the approach—the footsteps sound perfectly human, but this summer taught them that’s not necessarily a guarantee of safety.

It's just Munson, though, chains dangling from the belt loops of his ripped jeans and a logo of a band Steve has never even heard of decorating his long-sleeved t-shirt. A plain metal lunchbox dangles from one hand. He falters when his eyes land on Steve, his eyes widening sightly.

“Harrington?” he asks, surprise plain in his voice.

He tilts his head, suspicion replacing the surprise pretty quickly. Steve tries not to be offended. He and his old crew had mostly left Munson alone—not exactly a good idea to piss off the guy supplying you with illegal substances after all—but ‘mostly’ is not ‘totally.’ Steve’s pretty sure he never did anything personally to Munson…but he was probably friends with someone who did, and it’s not like Steve had ever tried to stop any of his buddies when they started in on someone.

“Hey,” he says, a touch awkwardly. Munson looks him up and down again, his eyes hard and wary, before cautiously sitting down across from him.

“To what do I owe the pleasure of such illustrious company?” Munson says, and Steve has no idea what illustrious means, but judging by the tone he doesn’t think it’s meant to be flattering. Munson doesn’t look like he’s going to turn around and leave, though, so he ignores the (probably) insult.

“You still sell?” he asks, and then kind of wants to smack his own forehead. Of course Munson still sells, that’s the entire point of this.

Munson lets out a little snort of laughter, and his shoulders relax a little. He laces his fingers together and rests his chin on them. “Well, I don’t hang out here for the ambiance, Harrington.” Munson smirks at him, and Steve resists the urge to roll his eyes.

Don’t piss off the guy supplying you illegal substances. It’s, like, rule one.

“I need weed,” he says, getting right to the point.

He doesn’t…he doesn’t really want to use anything. Not anymore. But Robin’s been right about the caffeine and the food journal and everything, and if she says finding a way to unfuck his sleeping will help, he’s willing to give it a shot. He doesn’t want to use alcohol, he doesn’t want to use his mom’s pills, and he sure as shit is not going to draw his parents’ attention back to him by going to a doctor for something more legitimate. Weed is the best compromise he can come up with. Just enough to mellow him out a little, without feeling out of control the way he did with the Russian shit.

Munson perks up a little. “Ooh, King Steve finally throwing another rager? Not gonna lie, man, my profit margin took a pretty big hit when you stopped those.”

Steve frowns. God, he hates that name. “What? No…uh, no. This is just for me.”

Munson tips backwards a little, placing his hands down on the picnic table to drum his fingers against the weathered wood. “Really now? Not that I’m not flattered you came to little ole’ me after all this time…but why after all this time? Whoever else you’ve been getting your stuff from get picked up?” He sounds like he’s teasing, now, but there’s something genuinely curious in his voice.

Already exasperated, and feeling the beginnings of another headache creeping around the edges of his brain, Steve sails straight past all the bitchy replies he could fire off. “Look, dude, everyone knows you don’t run your mouth to the wrong people and you don’t cut your stuff with anything dangerous and I need…” He stops, not having meant to be quite that truthful. “You want to make some money or what?” he snaps, not liking how still Munson has gone, not liking the way Munson’s dark eyes are boring into his.

“Someone give you a bad trip?” Munson asks quietly and fuck if he doesn’t actually sound a little concerned.

Steve can’t help the bitter laugh that bubbles up. Bad trip. He thinks of fists crashing against his face, ropes cutting into his wrists, the sickening fear of thinking he and Robin were both going to die in that bunker. If only it had just been a bad trip. “Something like that,” he mutters.

“Well shit,” Munson says, drumming his fingers on the tabletop again, the truly absurd number of rings he’s wearing flashing in the early fall sunlight. After a moment, he nods to himself. “All right, Harrington, how much you want?”

Steve tries not to sag in relief. Judging by the way Munson’s eyes sharpen again, he doesn’t quite succeed. “I dunno…I’d just like to smoke a joint before bed. Pretty, uh pretty regularly?”

Munson pins him with another sharp look, but then he relaxes, a slightly manic grin settling on his face. “Regular supply, huh? Oh, I think I like where this is going.” He plunks the lunchbox down on the picnic table.

#stranger things #stranger things fic #steddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #fic prompt #my writing #I'm so sorry #I hurt my own feelings with this one #steddie fic

[daydadahlias]

some of y'all make it really fucking hard to keep creating in this fandom im just gonna be honest.

#like it's one of those things where #i know it's not that deep and maybe im just really sensitive to the matter in general #because ive had my work plagiarized verbatim multiple times now. #where people have taken my words and claimed they're theirs #so im already really on edge to the subject. #but then like. taking my ideas ?? and pretending they're ur own and like it's. fanfic i know that. #but im sharing my work with you??? im writing things that are Mine and giving them to you for free. #and to have people copy it. or make tumblr accounts just to drop links to my fics and talk about them without ever talking to me?? #or to talk about them on twitter and never interact with me?? #or copy it or take inspiration and never credit me... #i mean it makes me feel like shit. #i love writing for this fandom but sharing stuff is really hard lately #and this kind of stuff makes me want to take down all my works and just have them for me. like they aren't *yours* they're mine. #so yeah i just feel really really bad right now. and that really hurt my feelings. #and it makes me never want to share things again.

[angorwhosebabyisthis]

i think one of the things that upsets me the most about velma and shaggy's relationship in sdmi--and boy there is a lot--is that not only is her constantly ''correcting'' him for minor, harmless, and usually completely reasonable things with physical and emotional abuse, well. abusive by itself. but so many of the things he does that she treats him that way over are very autistic things, and what she subjects him to is textbook abuse aimed at autistics in particular. (including the part where she gets more and more pissed whenever attempts at said emotional abuse fly over his head, because he's too bad at picking up cues for them to land fully.)

[cws: anti-autistic ableism, ABA, self-harm, physical and emotional IPV, victim-blaming, and abuse apologism. it's a lot and it's really fucking bad lmao]

-

like. there's a lot of examples there; shaggy's behavior coming across as autistic is worth a whole post of its own, and a lot of media depicts abuse targeted at autistic traits because ✨️hooray ableism.✨️but she straight up tries to Fix Him (read: force him to perform a Presentable Personality) by forcing him to wear clothes that are sensory hell, and trying to condition him to self-harm every time he does some small harmless, reflexive thing she thinks is Poor Socialization until he stops. and to catch himself doing it, and punish himself, without being prompted. i cannot fucking overstate how fucked up that is.

they even got down the fun little aspect of ABA where the methods of conditioning-through-pain are presented as toys and kiddish things: she gives him a rubber band to wear on his wrist, and tells him to snap it as hard as he can every time he says 'like.' 🙃🙃🙃🙃

like. this does not begin to scratch the surface of the abuse she puts him through in general. and again, characters being abused for autistic traits with the approval of the narrative is a common thing in media, which sucks. but holy fucking shit! they really took the 'violent ableism that is done to autistics irl' to the next fucking level here!

.......and it's portrayed as kind of cringey, immature teen drama on both sides. the self-harm, his dread over how much he knows it'll hurt, and the extreme pain it causes him to the point of screaming are all supposed to be funny. and her arc is all about learning to accept that she deserves better, because she was repressed and had low self-esteem and therefore putting him through fucking DIY ABA didn't make her happy.

🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃

anyway if you couldn't tell i can't fucking stand sdmi velma and i have a lot of words in me about it. when one of your main heroes would have made a way more compelling villain as they are, on a more mundane level compared to all the wild fantastical shit they go up against, holy shit go back to the drawing board you have fucked up. she could have been genuinely good representation of a marginalized person dealing with the trauma of her experiences in some shitty ways she has to grow past, and an interesting flawed character, without being absolutely despicable--hell, she'd have made a great foil to pericles if they'd handled him decently too. they have a lot of parallels, which only gain more depth when you add their respective parallels with cassidy into the mix. and it really fucking sucks that we got this instead.

#sdmi #scooby doo mystery incorporated #velma dinkley #shaggy rogers #SDMItag #cws in post #sdmi velma lies at the intersection of A Lot of Hard Feelings for me; in ways both inherent and personal #so she is viscerally upsetting to me in a lot of ways mostly re: framing; and that makes it difficult to analyze her in a sympathetic light #even though i recognize she is very much a depiction of a hurting; traumatized person lashing out in nasty and interesting ways #but the older i get and the more perspective i gain; and the more i unpack and understand about my own experiences #the more important it feels to me to talk about this stuff #i still want to try writing fic sometime about newniverse velma and how she ends up being a non-abusive; less shitty person #without just *being* a completely different person who's All Nice Sweet Sunshine with No Hard Feelings About What She's Been Through #and about the confusion and grief newniverse marcie goes through when one day her loving girlfriend is gone #and in her place is someone who is so much like her and has clearly been through a lot; but is Different in ways that hurt more and more #that marcie keeps trying to justify and make excuses for; and sits in the pot and slowly boils #until she finally has to face that this isn't the girl she fell in love with; that that girl will never come back; that this is velma now #i'm totally not working through anything here lmao #and a nasty; pretentious; controlling; insecure young adult who's up their own ass about Being Super Intellectual and Telling It Like Is #abusing a teenager to make them stop saying 'like' because it's Annoying and What Stupid People Say and Not Gramatically Correct(tm)(tm)(tm #definitely does not hit dead on some very specific 'hi that scarred me for life and i don't think it's particularly fucking funny' buttons! #anyway. protect shaggy and marcie and daphne while we're at it #SDMIcrit tag #the crit files

[soomanymoths]

CrinklyTinfoil bs

Just a collection of receipts since krys decided to go ahead and spew such backwards bs im no longer willing to keep this to myself - i only did in the first place because crinkles spouse (nightjarteeth) asked me to keep it tucked away for a while (Night is aware of the events and supports me in the situation last i checked). Crinkle really hates the idea of their behavior backfiring & someone they hurt speaking about the experience. They will do anything to discredit people, doesnt matter if they caused the sitch in the 1st place. Its all about appearances, distorting events and grasping at straws for them. If you're their reader and you choose to believe them - remember they were comfortable pulling wool over the eyes of their spouse and someone they called a "dear friend". Ask yourself why anyone else would be exempt from this. I might update this when i have more time on my hands.

#crinklytinfoil #among us #not posting from main but hey hi i am nika / nikadilly #if you like their writing etc thats great but as someone who knew them for a few years now i feel p sure i can say #Crinkle is not a trustworthy person #i trusted them and it it only got me hurt #how they present themself is nothing but a facade and when you get close enough the cracks start to show #FYI a medical professional stated they are gaslighting people so that's that #if u want to see what i vented the tag on my personal is iykyk im not exactly interested in hiding it lol #my venting is v much true to their behavior #massive copium on these guys' side all around #unlike them i have no reason to bend anything to suit some shaky narrative / if im being a d/ck im being one for a very good reason #im not doing this for notes or whatever its just for my peace of mind & if anyone is interested to know what happened #bcs they will never own up to hurting ppl in any way that counts / they have to play a kicked puppy in front anyone who will listen #nicadilly #cw: sa mentions