#i should read more of those actually... if i had the skill id Write one

[russilton]

I'm feeling quite emotional about your Seb POV Gewis fic idea, as someone who's already been following F1 when Brocedes was still a thing and then became what it became. Seb always right there. God, his friendship with Lewis is probably the most special one on the grid, for many, many reasons and I absolutely love the idea of you incorporating it. I never actually shipped them, although they're the obvious and popular Lewis ship - and I absolutely get why, but their friendship means so much to me that it kind of stopped me from touching it in a romantic fanfic sense. I can't explain it, but it's very deeply rooted in my own F1 history, starting back when I didn't even read fanfiction... Idk. I did, however, ship Lewis with Val (still do) just like I enjoy indulging in Gewis and while I can't really see George/Val I am intrigued. You're amazing at writing smut, so I'm sure I'll go crazy and you'll convert me.

And you're contemplating writing for Singapore and Japan? That's amazing, both races felt very special for us Gewis shippers... some very good, memorable content. Do you have any specific ideas you're playing around with?

I’m really glad to hear the concept works for you, writing seb, heck writing ANYONE other than George and Lewis is a new and somewhat tough experience for me. Gewis comes easy because I spend a lot of time thinking about how they think about each other, how they feel when they react to new situations, and just, feeling alongside them. When they’re happy, I’m happy, when they’re sad, I’m sad.

I don’t quite have the same connection to seb, I don’t know as much about him, and while I can bother bads to tell me the technical history, sometimes writing a guy is something you have to figure out personally on your own. Because it’s a short fic idea it should at least move fast when I’m on a roll.

As for sewis or valwis etc, I’ve never shipped them exclusively because I am criminally mono shipper, I literally walked into F1 rpf, saw a gewis fic, and imprinted like a duckling.

I can say with 99% certainly I will never write a fic that doesn’t end with britcedes as the endgame. That doesn’t rule out poly or threesomes though, I’m a big fan of exploring ships of gewis + someone else, and that’s where the couple of Britcedes and Val ideas I’ve had came from. I just profoundly dislike reading things that don’t end with George and Lewis together, it honestly makes me feel sad!

I’ve also got ideas that involve George sleeping around with other people but he still ends with Lewis, because when I write about George I focus on exploring his relationship to his body and how that relates to other people. When I write Lewis I focus on how he is with his friends and family, how his status and skills effect his personal life, so I don’t tend to think about his past relationships, fuck boy au being the one exception because that’s all about him being the paddock top for casual sex and then catching feelings for a guy he won’t let himself have.

My skills with smut will be tested for you because I have a small scene of George/Val post imola 21’ in one of the above fics and while I’ve had trouble figuring out how to get them into bed (or rather, onto a hotel couch…), the smut was really fucking fun hahahah, and the post orgasm banter is one of my faves

(For context, no Lewis doesn’t know they fucked it out lmao, and both Val and George sure as shit ain’t gonna tell him)

As for the Singapore and Japan fic, I haven’t got any concrete ideas yet, because if I do want to write for them I’ll have to finish ZV and Monza first. But I think I want to focus on George needing to be comforted for once? All his races this year were pretty spectacular (not including silverstone, that’s a special case) but both Singapore and Japan just sucked for him, for reasons mostly out of his control. I think id like to focus on how Lewis helps George get through those hard moments, how to handle guilt about wanting more vs accepting and moving on, because that’s where Lewis has experience.

George has experience scoring low at Williams but It’s a different beast to be in a race winning car and score low, there’s more to be conflicted about. He’s allowed to be mad at his team, but also they’ll be beating themselves up worse than him, and it’s moments like that that will define his leadership. Is he going to sulk like Max, or is he going to push them constructively for better. Thats what Lewis wants to guide him towards, not that George instinctively wants to do much different, but it’s helpful to have someone to talk to.

#asks #anonymous #full wets #mark’s fic tag #Mark’s wips

[finagled]

absent but busy

life never seems to slow down to let me catch my breath, so ive been busy trying to keep things going!

this has been a hellish year but also a spectacular one in so many ways. my dad’s death has shattered me tbh, im just not the same person i was before he left and life will never ever be the same with him gone. as somebody who already struggles with identity issues, i had a real hard time knowing how in the world i was supposed to keep going without his input and support. he always saw right through me and could point out things about me i wasnt even aware of yet, but he was always spot on, too. bouncing my ideas off of him is how i learned to human. im coming to realize i loved to succeed and experience so i could tell him and listen to how he loved to hear about it. with him gone, ive felt a sense of emptiness with everything.

im trying to hold on to what he’s taught me. he gave me so many lessons on how to be a person, a good person. he played devils advocate so id learn how to fight for what i knew to be true, and to reevaluate my stance if i couldn’t. he taught me how to treat other people, how every stranger deserves kindness. he taught me that you can be wrong, and that sometimes being wrong is a beautiful thing, because then you learn what’s right. he taught me nothing is worth sacrificing your morals.

the answer to where to find this person now is that now, i have to be this person. the only way for those things about him to live on is if i perpetuate them in my own life. im trying so hard to do this. its not going easy. im told over and over again that im smart, that i work hard, that im good with people, and yet my success has not materialized no matter what i’ve done to secure it. i think, if i just had mental health care and meds, if i could just see a doctor, then id be so great. but i can’t think like that. whether that’s true or not and that’s the only thing in the way between me and living like i feel like im meant to, it doesn’t matter. trying to get government assistance, at least in this state, feels impossible. i dont have the energy to keep hoping they’re going to help. im frustrated to come to the conclusion that i am going to have to metaphorically “pick myself up by the bootstraps” and find a way to push forward in the meantime.

i know im intelligent and have skills that can genuinely and directly help people, because ive done it before. its taken a really long time to have confidence in myself about anything. but i need to start, and then do something with it, because im wasting time waiting for help to arrive.

this is a big ol ramble but it feels good to have the energy to write stuff up. vari and i have been working real hard this past year trying to get the house and our lives set up in a way that will set us both up for success. we’re slowly getting a handle on chores and bills, and our mental health is improving. im slowly pulling all the tangled yarn apart in my brain and getting things sorted.

they took me off adderall and onto strattera, which i actually dont mind. ive heard the medication can precipitate manic episodes in bipolar individuals though, so i wonder if i like it because of that. im depressed so often and its been so long since hypomania, that i really done mind when i wake up with the excess energy and vigor. it doesnt feel extreme like hypomania, more like just having gusto for the day. ill have to keep an eye on it more since its only been about three weeks, but im grateful i havent lost much progress from getting off adderall. the side effects aren’t nearly as powerful either, which is nice.

so im trying. i have too many people i should be getting back to with messages so if youre one of them, im sorry. theres a million things going on and only so much energy each day, but ive drawn up some routines that i hope will encourage me to do more stuff throughout the day other than just chores and sims ;)

thanks to anyone for reading :3

#radcurio

[cherryjuiceblues]

i just wanted to say that i love your work so much. 🫶🏻 i recently started posting my own work, and so far people have mostly liked what i post. i’m getting some traction but i still am feeling a little down, and it’s not that i feel pressured or anything, but i feel like everything i write will never measure up to some other things that people post. and i think im in my own head too much. like i want to keep posting but i feel like im going to burn out too quickly if i keep writing 12k word fics, but i have no idea how to make them shorter. i also feel like people only read for the smut, but i wanna write fluff too :( idk if that even makes sense but id love your input either way if you have the time to even read this 🥺 just feeling a little sad and unmotivated today i guess.

hello lovely! thank you so much! i appreciate having you here <3

i find it super super important to emphasise how normal it is to have off days and to be down about a lack of motivation. take it from someone who has a lot of them !! every single writer will feel that way, either once in a while or more regularly, and i want to reassure you that it's okay. we have to ride that wave and let ourselves struggle, step away from the writing and take a break even though it can make you feel unproductive. the moment you stop enjoying writing is when you know you need a break. there is no rule that states you have to write every day, or even every week. your motivation will come back, and when it does, even if you are inspired to write something new and completely unrelated to your current wips, you should let yourself write them. i know i struggle so much when i force myself to write something i'm simply not in the mood for. but i'll always feel better for creating something, even if it's not what i had originally planned for.

feeling like you'll never compare to other writers is something a lot of us struggle with. which is funny, in a way, considering we're all generally a very supportive bunch and never put people down but that imposter syndrome is a tricky thing !! i know myself and friends suffer with it and, to be transparent, it's not something i've figured out how to deal with. i like to think that i am kind to myself, but i know i'm not really. i put myself, and my writing, down all. the. time. i'd say my biggest advice would just be to remind yourself that you're not alone with this feeling. and numbers NEVER define your skill or your worth. tumblr can be super tricky to feel in control of when reblogs are the only way of getting your stuff seen, and it's impossible to force those interactions. it is the most frustrating thing when you pour your heart and soul into something and it doesn't do as well as you'd hoped, especially when you know a simple reblog could boost it like crazy! but despite that, don't feel discouraged. it can be helpful to have a circle of other writers to turn to. it's lovely to make friends, and reblog each other's work and praise one another, it's one of my favourite parts about having a blog!

when it comes to word counts... i also struggle with writing shorter pieces. i feel unsatisfied with myself if i don't hit an internal goal, or if i don't feel my piece is detailed enough to be perceived as good. but i've actually made it a goal of mine this year to just write what i want, when i want. to not worry whether it is 2k or 20k, or whether it is something completely new or related to a previously written fic. because again, the moment writing stops being fun, is the moment you need to step away. and i am so lucky to have such a supportive bunch of people that are always reassuring me that they'll wait, and that they'll read whatever i want to post. it creates a lovely safe space that i am confident you could have too!!

smut is definitely favoured, it's something all writer's notice. that generally, smutty pieces get more notes. i would always advise that you should write whatever you like and to never let notes be the deciding factor. fluff still has a HUGE audience!! and i know how discouraging a lack of notes can be but i would still always press on. if you're enjoying it, keep writing, keep posting, be patient and you'll cultivate a lovely following. these things do take time but if this is your thing, then it is so worth it <3

and congratulations for putting yourself out there at all! posting can be really scary when you start off. trying to figure out how you want to appear online, how you want to present your writing, and even improving your skills in front an audience, it can all feel very daunting sometimes. so well done for doing it !!

i hope my ramblings are helpful even just a little bit !! my inbox is always open if you want to reach out. sending hugs to you, i hope you feel better. and know you're never alone in how you feel <333

#anon

[herequeerexitentialfear]

i wasn't lying! lol. the roughest roughs Celia n co/ gold & silver animatic<3 before i do a full pass of adding more frames.

loads of info under the cut, bc i needed to write it somewhere. brief mention of drug addiction & ofc the whole cycle of violence bullshit these fuckers are all stuck in

notes on this version, and where i go from here

this is mostly for blocking out the key shapes & movement, seeing how it works in motion, when i have got the frames fleshed out/smooth enough, im going to export them to my usual program of choice, and work on them there [i dont care if im planning simple b&w block colour drawings im not doing them in flipaclip]

the celia section [first one] feels off in comparison, bc i fleshed it out a lot more, compared to say Ramettos section which only has 3 frames of him actually being there. i dont have a version where it has similar frame density bc i completely redid it [and may do so again. the movement of the knife & hand isnt as smooth as id like but limitations of the program means guiding lines aren't doable]

what is happening:

Celia grabs a falling knife, lightly stabbing it into Conficcare's hand, he picks it up, flips it, and it turns into a scalpel, he then opens his hand, dropping it, and as it rotates it turns into a syringe, which Tesoro grabs, holding it in front of his face, pressing the plunger leading to two drops that look like tears bc of positioning falling, the first one catching up with the second one and encircling it, turning into a embedded jewel, which falls onto Ramettos ear, he then turns away and it falls off, falling to the ground, turning and cracking, then rolling back upright as a shine that eventually becomes Cecios over exadurated eye-shine as the jewel turns into Cecios face, the then takes off the police hat he has on, and covers the camera with it

meaning:

Celia takes the knife in front of her and continues the cycle of violence, but it would have hurt her if she hadn't seized it, and the stabbing Conficcare in the finger is a key point in their relationship, and symbolizes hurt done with the intention of teaching.

Conficcare takes the blade and teaching, making it his own, a lighter and more precise blade, a scalpel [it doesn't show well but hes also laughing, showing his tendency to laugh off pain other do unto him, as a survival tool] [also in general, he is symbolized by a scalpel bc of its medial use, as well as potential as a weapon. he wanted to be a nurse and heal people, now he uses those same skills to hurt ]

he then passes it on to Tesoro, where it turns into a syringe, linked to his stand, the ability to alter peoples emotions using injections of stored emotions taken from other people, and in turn his own ability to read and help people manage their emotions. as well as his own struggle with addiction/overuse of drugs [not solely injection based] mainly to help him regulate his own emotions and escape from his understanding of the emotions of those around him. the teardrops represent sadness [duh] the main emotion he struggles with.

those drops merge into Ramettos earring/main symbol, a blue oval gemstone embedded in silver, falling onto him, as oppose to him seizing it, because unlike the rest so far, he did not seize an opportunity given to him, but had it 'fall into his lap'. like gravity, it was inevitable he would follow in his older brothers footsteps, but he turns away from the camera, letting that duty fall away as he distances himself from his family and create a new role, similar but separate from what was expected from him [not of his own volition btw. he did not turn away on purpose but i cant quite fit that in]

The earring falls and cracks, reminiscent of Ramettos stand ability, and who should emerge out of the cracked silver and blue but Cecio! hes in his most used 'mask' but has the threatening eye-shine and his other eye in shadow, lifting a core prop to his mask and covering the camera, obscuring the view of the group, like how he covers up their actions & crimes using said mask.

-

both Cecio and Rametto do not have a choice in being chosen as part of the group, show by their lack of seizing the item [instead having it 'fall' onto them, and come from it respectively] and also end up distanced, shown through their tuning away/obfuscation of the camera.

Celia starts and Cecio end, and while Cecio may not have a choice in his path, he does chose how he uses it, to protect his family and the group.

Tesoro is the last to wield something that can be used as an actual weapon, showing his role in helping break the cycle of violence, at the cost of his mental health. ALSO BC HE IS THE LAST OF THE ORIGINAL TRIO HOW COULD I FORGET [rip Elena but you get a happy ending]

#thebirdarts #im very happy with the scalpel -> needle bit #and also the whole thing with the drops turning into the earrings #but shout out to it merging into Cecio bc that was the one transition i didnt storyboard #gonna add the inbetween frames for the rest of it tomorrow #actualy pretty proud of this so far #it looks like ass but thats bc only the rough motion matters at this stage #the actual drawing is gonna be in a separate program #its why noone has their haircuts or any recognizable features #minus Cecio

[river-bottom-nightmare]

you know what i’m curious about? jason reacting to dick after red hood.

and by “after red hood,” i mean after he’s become a more of an anti-hero, teaming up with the bats when it fits his convenience, looking out for the underprivileged and lower class of gotham specifically, not turning to killing as his first thought but not shying away from it if required either.

and that’s roughly how the bats are pulling him back into their little universe: it’s not their first priority anymore now that jason’s established himself as someone who uses lethal violence but has still managed to gain the trust of gotham’s people, but they aren’t shying away from how they clearly want him back either. so jason isn’t plugged into the bat’s central mainframe, but oracle passes on knowledge whenever it’s deemed important. and tim made jason a couple of fake ids as an olive branch, he returned it with the keys to a safehouse he never uses but tim may find useful. steph doesn’t seem too terrified of him, cass doesn’t seem to hesitate talking to him. and bruce is awkward and fumbling and manages to completely screw up almost every interaction the two of them have, but goddamnit he’s trying, jason can see that bruce is really, really trying. so he backs off bruce’s neck, knowing that he won’t ever be accepted into the family again, knowing that bruce has made it clear he won’t ever see jason as his son again, but maybe he can establish himself as an ally. someone they don’t trust with their hearts, but they trust with their lives. 

(and jason’s okay with that. he really is.)

the one person that doesn’t sit right with jason is dick.

because the dick that jason remembered from his scattered, ash-blown mind was nothing like the dick he saw parading around the manor.

for one. he was in the manor. jason’s formative years as robin were filled with the most agonizing screams he could ever think of. his father’s drunken yells, the gang boys that busted up far too near jason’s dilapidated little home, the yowls and howls of a thousand voices in gotham city screaming in pain, all of that had nothing on what jason heard. because sure, he’d heard from the people bruce and dick took him to meet that dick was so kindhearted, so good, so passionate. and,,,,passionate certainly seemed to be a word for it. there was nothing more terrifying, thirteen-year-old jason decided, then the harrowing, angry screams of a sober man screaming at someone he loved. because bruce and dick loved each other. loved each other so much that love turned to hate, rolled around until it became black and blue like an ugly bruise, except dick decided to take that black and blue and smear it across his chest so the whole world could see his pain. 

now? now, dick smiled at bruce like a mischievous little boy, corrected his form during spars, pointed out things he missed in the field. and bruce,,,,,acquiesced. he rolled his eyes longsufferingly at dick’s antics when previously, a hint of that humor would have bruce sneering at dick’s childishness that he should have outgrown. bruce corrected his posture on the mat, then struck again calmly. bruce nodded his head at the correction, thanking dick for his insight with a glance and a nod, then carried on with the investigation. that easy trust the two of them fell back on, previously only seen during a combat situation when jason was robin where action was instinctive, was now present in almost every interaction the two of them had. seemingly overnight, bruce had learned to respect dick as an adult, and dick had grown around bruce’s paranoia and obsessiveness instead of rushing straight into it. 

for another thing. he wasn’t joking when he called dick the “golden child.” he’d joked when he was a kid, calling him every iteration of the nickname his team had given him, because in his mind it was ridiculous. over time, dick had warmed to him, though it had taken a while for the man to stop seeing robin every time he looked at jason and started seeing jason. the death and the resurrection and the impromptu swimming lesson in the world’s most dangerous indoor pool had mixed up jason’s memories, but he was slowly getting back flashes of a laugh, a hand on his shoulder. dick teaching him how to train surf, dick taking him out for ethiopian and scoffing at how americanized it was, dick stitching up a nasty gash on his calf. but those incidents were rare, few and far between, and dick knew it. the two of them knew dick wasn’t as perfect as the world made him out to be, and dick shot jason a rueful smile every time he called him “goldie,” because jason seemed to be one of the very few people in the world that got to see how imperfect dick really was. 

when jason was younger, he used to think that made him special.

now, jason couldn’t decide if dick had stopped thinking of him as one of the select few that actually saw dick grayson and not a picture-perfect mask he presented, or if dick had taken a dive in his own personal lazarus pit, only this time instead of anger issues and trauma, he got a fat ass and brilliant big brother skills. the guy managed to connect to cass on a level no one else could, the two of them using their bodies as a language few others could read. he coaxed laughs out of steph even though the two of them didn’t see each other that often. but the biggest change? timothy goddamn drake. his replacement, only you can’t replace a position that never existed in the first place, can you? to dick, jason was only ever a kid he babysat sometimes, someone whose hair he ruffled on occasion and bought hot chocolate for, but nothing more. dick tugged tim into hugs so naturally, jason almost believed they’d been doing it all their lives. dick’s teachings were evident in every fluid line of the kids arms twirling a staff, dick’s influence in his not-as-beautiful-and-smooth yet practiced acrobatics, dick’s mark on the kid showing up even in his ice cream order. tim was dick’s brother, someone that looked up to him with stars in his eyes, someone that dick actively strived to be perfect for. 

the stars in jason’s eyes had burnt up into a supernova of tears the first time he’d met dick, that tiny flame of hope snuffing out immediately as he curled under dick’s harsh gaze and spiteful words.

the thing is, people don’t just change like that. jason liked to convince himself that he’d become someone new, someone different once he came back to gotham, but he knew deep down he was that same scrappy, street-smart kid. jury was still out on whether that little kid had the same inky darkness drenching his soul that jason was covered with now, or if robin’s wholehearted goodness still shone through in the cracks of red hood’s armour. 

dick sure as hell hadn’t been the perfect big brother back then that he was now. he wasn’t the family mediator, translating bruce’s gregorian knot of emotions to something the others would understand. he wasn’t the calm, cool, collected crimefighter with a powerful name stretching out in front of him and the biggest legacy ever created behind him. 

dick was human. he screamed and raged cried and hated and made mistakes and broke like a dying star. this glossy, picture-perfect mask he seemed to have drilled to his face wouldn’t stay on forever. and jason wanted to be there when it cracked.

who even knows what the fuck this was. certainly not me. i was just having some robin!jason feels. 

tag list: @woahjaybird @birdy-bat-writes @anothertimdrakestan @screennamealreadyused @subtleappreciation @pricetagofficial @catxsnow @bikoncon @maplumebleue-blog-blog @sundownridge @iwhumpyou 

#scribbles from the swamp #jason todd #red hood #robin #dick grayson #nightwing #batfam #dc #jason todd headcanon #red hood headcanon #robin headcanon #dick grayson headcanon #nightwing headcanon #batfam headcanon #dc headcanon

[silversatin2105]

Shaman King Fanfic- Night of the red moon (Hao X Fem Itako reader fic)

Hi Writer here, This was written when i suddenly got inspired, No one prompted me for it, I just wanted to write it and i liked it that much that i thought that id share it

Trigger warnings: Bullying, Abuse, Assault (from the hair cutting part)

_____________________________________________________________

Nights seem to pass into day and vice versa, You had been following Hao for three months now, Before that you were always alone and isolated, Your family were killed by the local villagers when you were a young child as you were forcefully placed into a orphanage, Told that the teachings of your family were wrong, Told that your family lived in sin, That they followed the teaching of the false god.

You lived in this perpetual state of fear and loneliness, No one would adopt you for who could love the child of a sinful family, you were tormented by the rhymes the local children made, How they would chant .

“(your name) lives in sin, God knows no forgiveness for them, Last of their kin, Should be discarded and burned for their sin”

It was on the fifteenth cycle of your life that it happened, That day you met an odd fellow he spoke of being the future king, He remarked that you looked nice with long hair and went about his day after offering You and apple.

You were awaiting under a willow tree as earlier that week you received a letter from your crush It read “Meet me under the willow tree on the full moon” You had been waiting for two hours now as you sighed and began to walk away.

“hahaha look She actually came ! She actually thought he would love her !” you hear from an approaching villager, You tried to walk away but you were blocked from escape by a trio of girls around your age.

“Look at this the mongrel is trying to run” the black haired one remarked with a cold smirk.

“Oh we don’t like that do we” The one adorned with jewels retorted, spitting at your feet.

“Let me go, Please leave me alone” you pleaded on deaf ears, The only thing that passed through you mind as your three tormentors stood around you was “Of cores He wouldn’t love me, Who could love a cursed being like me”.

“I say we make her pay” the third girl spoke as she took a pair of kitchen scissors from her pocket nodding to her accomplices to hold you down to which they obliged with a cruel laugh.

You struggled to be free, You were afraid of what was to come and as you struggled you felt the tight grip on your long (insert color) hair, You begged them not to do it, Their was two facets of your image you favored and your long hair was one of them, Your pleas fell though the silence as the horror of what to come had came to fruition.

Snap - Clip- . Snip. Was the next thing you heard as you felt the locks of your hair fall over your shoulders, The laughs of your tormentors filled the air.

Snap - Clip- . Snip., more of your fell to join the rest of your desiccated hair, After they were done you were left with crooked shoulder length hair you held the cut locks of your hair as you began sobbing, it was one of your treasures and it had been destroyed for no good reason, NO GOOD REASON AT ALL, other than the fact that you were born different to others, That you could commune with the spirits of those who had passed on and that sometimes they spoke though you, You learned the hard way about this gift when you were accused of snooping where you weren’t needed by an elderly couple who had lost their child in the war, You meant to convey their sons wishes to them and you were greeted by a shoe to your face for your efforts.

You stood to face your attackers as you aimed to retaliate but someone had beaten you to the punch as red flames engulfed the area around you, your attackers backed off one by one as each of them looked in horror as a figure bearing a peaceful yet cold smile approached.

“Is this the price of being different around here” the figure asked standing next to you as he knelled down to pick up your hair as his smile changed from that to one of cold a murderous intentions.

“You like he-“ One of your attackers spoke out before screaming in pain as red flames engulfed them without mercy, Her screams so loud that they awoke the nearby villagers who joined looking in fear from outside the red ring of fire.

“That wasn’t what I was wanting you to say” The figure spoke out in an elevated tone, Gripping your cut hair whilst strands of it began to ignite and the ring of fire pushed back.

“We were punishing the impure one, She started it by being a sinful girl” The one adorned in jewels spoke out, Being the daughter of a mayor can save you from most things but the wrath of a shaman was not one of them as she began to burn in flames her screams joining the chorus of her accomplice.

Knowing not what to do the last accomplice tried to run but to no avail, She only got twenty steps out of the ring before the flames engulfed her as well the last thing her now charring ears hear is those calling her a coward.

“Well now that is done, What would you like for me to do with these people?” the voice of the figure asks looking down at you coming into view you see person with a kind look in your eyes as he begins to look at the villagers.

“Just the answer I was expecting from one spurned by humanity” Hao spoke engulfing the village in red flames, scattering all into ashes and exacting your vengeance, Almost like he heard your thoughts and acted accordingly with their wishes, Screams filled the air as you stood close to Hao, The flames touched all but you and him and when it was over and the sun began to rise nothing remained, No village, No people, It was as if they were all gone from the face of the earth.

“Thank you “you utter out standing up surveying the damage done as Hao offers you his hand to you with a now calm smile.

“Thank me later, Oh my names Hao, The future king” He greeted himself to you as you responded with your name.

___________________________________________________________

Many years had passed since that event, your hair had re grown and you now used your skills as an Itako to aid Hao in any way you could, All this time you saw yourself as nothing more than his follower, True you had feelings for him but you thought he deserved better than a castaway Itako for his queen.

You look up at the sky and take another sip of your tea as a familiar figure sits by your side, It was Hao as he sat by you you poured him a cup of tea and places a taro bun on a plate for him.

“What a nice night, It was a night like this that I met you, Since then you have served me well as my go to for dragging spirits to my side, I owe you for that” He spoke as you looked up at him.

“It was nothing I was just doing my duty as your Itako” You responded as you stood to walk away, before you could you felt a hand grip your arm gently.

“Please sit with me awhile longer, We have not spoken like this in days, I want to enjoy this moment a while longer and besides you still have tea left” Hao said to you pulling you gently down onto the seat you were sitting at.

Moments of conversation passed as you both drank tea and took in the view of the night, you both talked about old times and what the next move was, you were taken aback when he presented you with a gift, A red hair stick.

“Lord Hao I don’t know what to say, Thank you” you smiled a little mentally as you fixed up your hair with the hair stick.

“It’s no problem…My queen” Hao remarked turning your face red.

“How long have you known my feelings?” You ask him blinking in surprise

Hao smiled his usual calm smile before pulling your face close to his; your eyes looked into his as he kissed your cheek.

“Did you forget I am a mind reader” he joked with a smile

You simply smiled and shook your head, the last words spoken by you as the nights conversation ended.

“I know you are I just wished I was given the chance to tell you, No fair”

End Scene

#shaman king #hao asakura #asakura hao #reader x character #Fan fic #Cured writers block

[atalho-s]

Light Up The Dark

Part 1 | June

pairing: bartender!tom x famous!reader

warnings: some smut +18 (in this particular chapter it’s nothing TOO explicit, but miniors be aware), swear words?, drinking, let me know if anything else!

words: 4.9 k

summary: y/n is a famous horror writer. Her books are on the lips of the people and her face is on all the magazine covers of promising young people.

She has just moved to Los Angeles, the city of celebrities and luxury, when she starts to get a writer's block as she starts writing her newest book. A way to distract herself and seek inspiration leads her to have her destiny mapped out with a simple waiter named Tom who has a delicious british accent.

What happens when her inspiration comes back only after she spends a night with him and she only manages to write after being in the company of that guy she just met? Maybe he'll become her newest addiction.

a/n: english it’s not my first language, so i’m sorry for any mistake! this is a series i started writing a while ago, i hope y’all enjoy :) the reader it’s from brazil here, but you can replace from any country you want lol And obv i’m not from LA and never been there, so if i say something out of reality it’s bc of that 😂

"June arrived at the restaurant, sat down near the bar and looked around vaguely. The strange people's faces made her think better and maybe drink a shot of tequila too.

She opened his folder with the horrifying photos of the mysterious case. She felt sick to her stomach.

People said that by then she should have been used to see this kind of thing, but that was repulsive.

She wish the nightmare she had the night before was a way to solve that puzzle, but believing in the afterlife now wouldn't help her... If...If..."

- Damn it... - Y/n slammed her fist on the table. - Writer's block sucks. - She said and took the last sip of her tea.

It s been a week since she couldn't write anything. She would write maybe two paragraphs, maybe even three if she got lucky, but she always ended up erasing it, because she always turned into something meaningless or too cliche.

Damn the time she had promised to deliver something to her editor by the end of the month. But she hadn't counted on the lack of ideas when she agreed to that.

She got up from her chair in frustration and crossed her arms, pacing, as if her creativity had gone out for a walk and she was waiting impatiently for it to come back.

Why had she agreed to write a new book in the first place? She didn't need money. Their previous four books were already making huge profits, and they were going to make a new television series based on one of them.

So why writing another one? Maybe because, she had been having too many nightmares lately. Many family and friends told her to see a psychologist, see if she didn't have some hidden trauma. But looking for a psychologist? Admitting your weaknesses and personal things to a stranger? Never. That would be horrifying.

Writing helped. Transferring his fears to pages was hers gift. When she wrote she didn't have nightmares, didn't see things, wasn't sad. It was like a drug, a calming medicine.

Maybe fame was also making her restless lately. She hated being the spotlight, being the magazine cover of promising young people. She hated to see her name highlighted. But she loved having readers, yes. She loved when someone felt good reading her books or in the good sense of the word: terrified by her stories.

At the height of her 25 years, he never thought her books would become famous at that point. She had always enjoyed writing since she was a child, but working with it was just an unattainable dream. Until, at age 19, she quit her hideous job as a hotel receptionist and decided to publish her first story.

Obviously there were many rejections, until a publisher agreed to publish their work. From then on, her books became more and more known. They called her the new horror genius, the mystery queen, and sometimes even "Stephen King's lost daughter."

She didn't think it was all that. But she accepted the descriptions gladly. No wonder her books didn't come out of the top spot on the best sellers.

Another thing that motivated her to continue with that story, was a phrase from her own idol mentioned, Stephen King: "good stories are those that stay in the head for a long time". And God only knew how that story had been with her for far too long. She always wanted to put it down on paper, so here she was trying to put into words what her head brought up as random thoughts.

But now she was having one of his first creative blocks. Obviously she had already had it with previous books, but nothing as frustrating as this one. She had been trying hard for days, which was exhausting.

She looked at the clock on the wall: 11pm. Who knows if she took another break before starting writing again? Maybe it would help to come up with more ideas.

She thought about watching a show or movie, but he wasn't in the mood. She looked at her long polka dot pajamas under her favorite warm robe and snorted. Go out? On a Thursday night? On a cold night? No way.

But what if it helped her have more writing material? Watching people on the street really helped. If June, the character in her book, was in a bar, maybe if she went to one too it would help to have something to build on.

Writers did it all the time. Describe places that already existed, situations similar to which they lived. So, it wouldn't be new. Maybe she'd even put the location in her tribute if helped she got out of her creative block.

She took a deep breath and went to take a shower. It was decided, she would go out. She put on her best jeans, a Ramones T-shirt with a leather jacket. It wasn't a fancy outfit, but she didn't intend to go somewhere fancy anyway. Her stylist would have been dying to see her now, but she didn't care one bit.

She went out pressing the bottom of the elevator. Y/n had lived on the top floor of a building for 2 months, right in downtown Los Angeles. Sometimes she didn't even know why she chose to live there, she hated the big city and what came with it: paparazzi, celebrities, crazy people who feel superior, wealth and luxury. She came from a humble family, so she always felt like an outsider.

Y/n arrived downstairs and left the condominium calling a taxi that was passing in the street just in time. She walked in and closed the door, crossing her arms, trying to ward off the cold.

- Good night miss, where are you going? - the driver asked looking at her in the rearview mirror.

- Good night... Actually I don't know, do you have any suggestions for a bar around here?- she asked looking out the window. She didn't even bother to look for suggestions for places nearby.

- Well, it depends on what you're looking for... Something luxurious or something fun? - He said and a smiled played on the corer of her mouth. Luxurious was the opposite of fun indeed.

- Something fun, of course.

- So, I suggest the new Seven Devils bar, it's less than 20 minutes from here... - he said.

- Interesting name... Could be. - She said shrugging.

- The name is kinda creepy, but the place is cozy and welcoming, I went once. - the driver said starting and entering the street that was practically empty for being a weekday.

- Cool... - Y/n said looking at the city lights through the window.

After nearly twenty minutes the taxi stopped in front of what appeared to be a small door with a security guard in front of it. The neon sign indicated the name of the place, it seemed a mysterious place for those who passed by without knowing it.

- Thanks. - Y/n said handing the driver the money.

- You're not the Y/n Y/l/n? I didn't want to say anything, but I'm a fan of you, I love your books, they help me pass the time while I wait for passengers. - the driver asked turning a little with one of the Y/n books in his hand. - Could you sign this for me?

- Sure! - Y/n spoke excitedly taking the book from his hand and leaving a message along with her signature. - Thanks for the tip of the place. Have a good night... - She said opening the door.

- No, thank you, have a good night miss. -he said and she smiled closing the door and the taxi left leaving her alone looking at the door in front of her.

She approached the security guard who wished her good night, giving her room to enter, after she showed her ID. Y/n entered a little afraid of what she would find. The door behind her closed and she looked around. It was really cozy as the taxi driver said, it had a part with several tables, which were a little empty and a bar with stools around. The place had a good atmosphere, one of those that people go there to meet and chat with friends, in the background there was a kind of pop song that she wasn't sure if she knew or not.

He slowly approached the bar and sat down on one of the stools. A woman with several tattoos appeared behind the counter and came to serve her.

- Good night! How can I serve you?- she asked with a smile.

- Good night... Hm... Maybe a martini? - Y/n said taking a look at the drinks on the shelf behind the attendant.

- Okay, I'll be back with your order, anything else?

- That's it for now, thanks. - She replied smiling and the attendant walked away.

Y/n kept looking around, watching people, maybe looking for some inspiration. Something that would turn the key in his mind. Many who were there were in groups of friends and were talking animatedly, laughing. Some young and some older, in suits and ties, perhaps coming out of work.

Until one guy in particular caught her attention. He wore the black uniform with the name of the place, with an apron tied around the waist of the same color, and was picking up some glasses from some empty tables. He had dark brown hair slicked back and eyes the same color, very expressive and large. A boy's face from the outside, but on the inside had a mysterious and confident air.

He balanced a tray full of things with an greatest skill in one hand and smiled at some people, he seemed charming because everytime he left a table he left people whispering and giggling embarrassed behind his back.

He walked over and entered the bar placing the tray behind the counter, came close to the other attendant who already had the Y/n martini ready and she could hear him talking, soon realizing he had a perfect accent.

- Sally, you can leave it to me, go take your break. Whose martini is it?- he asked taking a look around.

- Oh thank you, my feet are killing me. It's the girl over there. -she said indicating Y/n with her head and he looked at her, making Y/n realize that she was staring at him for too long, so she looked away embarrassed.

- Okay. - he said looking at where Y/n was sitting and stopped in front of her with the glass. - Good night miss, here is your order. - He spoke with a british accent. Only at that moment did Y/n realize that his accent was well loaded and God only knows how much she loved that accent.

- Oh yes, thank you very much. - She said raising her eyes to look at him and smiled then he blinked with one of his eyes and gave her one more look, before going to deliver another order to a man who was sitting a few benches away.

Y/n felt a shiver all of a sudden, that boy had made her legs a little weak and she didn't really know why. I mean, he was handsome, very handsome and he had a special charm, but it wasn't that much, was it? Maybe it was because it had been a while since she'd dated anyone. When was the last time? Two months ago? Since she had moved in she hadn't gone out with anyone, she had locked herself in her apartment and was writing like crazy. She didn't have time to go out, not even with her friends when she was working on a new book. Which brought them dissatisfaction from time to time, not just because she didn't hang around with them, but because she didn't even go out on one-night stands.

She never been the one that going out with a guy just for sex, she had to have some good first dates and maybe she would take him to see her apartment or go to his apartment. Friends of hers thought she was too old in her spirit, but what can he do? If she couldn't be bad girl once in a while. For a moment she thought, "For this english guy I would be" but shook her head away from the thoughts. She went back to analyzing him, dammit why did he have to be so fit? She could see that the T-shirt he was wearing highlighted his muscles that were only left to her imagination, she found herself biting her lip a bit and snatching her martini off the counter, taking a big sip.

The attendant approached again, drying some glasses with a towel, and took one more look in her direction where she looked away quickly making him smirk. He stopped in front of her again, bracing her arms on the counter, making her swallow hard. He didn't know why she was so nervous, he was just a guy, no biggie.

- I like the shirt. - He pointed with a smile, which made her think he had a beautiful and endearing smile. She looked down and then looked at him smiling too.

- Thank you... Ramones is everything... - she said and drank the last sip of her drink placing the empty glass in front of her right after. - Can you serve one more?

- Sure...- he said, still smiling, took the bottle and filled his glass again. - Trying to distract yourself on a thursday night?

- Yeah... you could say yes... - she said taking another sip. - Have you worked here for a long time?

- In fact, it's been almost six months since I moved to the United States and I've been working here for four months. -he said putting the towel that was in his hand on his shoulder.

- Hm... You're from London?

- I am, wow how did you find out? - he asked raising an eyebrow playfully and she smiled.

- Yeah, your accent really doesn't give out anything ... - she said and he gave a low laugh making her have more goose bumps.

- You also have a different accent, have you lived here for a long time? - he didn't know who she was, which was good. But it also wasn't like she was recognized all the time, despite her face being on magazine covers, she was still a writer, so she was only recognized by those who liked to read or who vaguely remembered her face.

- I was born in Brazil actually, but I've lived here for years, lived in another city for almost five years and now I've decided to come to Los Angeles two months ago...

- I see ... - he said organizing some drinks that were on the counter. - Do you like it here?

- More or less... It's a busy city, isn't it?

- Yeah, it's not for anyone. - He said shrugging. - I like it, I like the rush, but the glamor part really isn't me. - the attendant said and she smiled.

- You're right... I mean, I don't like the glam too much either... - She looked away at her nails.

- What do you work with? - he asked and she looked at him again.

- I'm a writer...

- Nice! What do you write? - He asked curious looking at her with attention.

- I write horror and thriller books.

- Interesting... I would never read, actually I'm not much of a reader anyway, but I wouldn't, because I'm terrified of those things. - He said crossing his arms and she laughed.

- Oh, it's not that terrifying, it's just stories. - She said leaning her elbows on the counter.

- Still, I prefer to have my good night's sleep intact. - He said and she laughed making him smile looking at her.

When she was about to say something, a customer signaled for him and he excused himself going towards the man who was furthest away.

Y/n sighed. She still didn't have any new ideas about her story, but she was entertained by that conversation. She liked not being recognized, she liked him not being interested in her books, for a moment she felt oblivious to anything, liked feeling disconnected from her world.

He returned shortly after and they started talking again. They talked about bands, movies, superficial celebrities and even politics (an important topic in Y/n's vision, who was very firm with her ideas, thankfully he had passed the test). She found out that he was the same age as her and that he moved to the US to look for something that would give him money or a perspective on life, ended up getting that job and intended to stay until he found a different area. The hours passed and they kept finding subjects to give their opinion or questions to ask each other.

- Did you go to college? - she asked after a while.

- No, I don't think I'm smart enough for that, or have the patience. What about you?

- Everyone is smart enough. I started going to business school, but I dropped out when my books started to pay off...

- Wow, your books should give you a good amount of money to be able to drop out of college and dedicate yourself to them...

- Yeah... You could say that. - She shrugged.

- You know looking at you closer like that...- he said getting a little closer and she held her breath for a moment. - I've seen you somewhere...

- Really? - She said raising her eyebrow and drinking from a straw, now with a different drink.

- I don't know, you're not strange to me... - he said putting his hand on his face thoughtfully.

- Well, I hope it's from somewhere nice. - She smiled and he smiled back looking at her. - Do you have a girlfriend or are you married? - Y/n asked and regretted a little, what was she thinking? He wasn't married, as he didn't have a ring on his finger as she'd noticed. But what was her intention by asking that question? She didn't even know, she just knew it had escaped her.

- Neither darling. - He replied smiling a little mischievously and she felt butterflies with the way he called her by that nickname and with that accent. - How about you?

- Neither ... - She replied avoiding looking at him, those eyes hypnotized her and she didn't like to feel at his mercy of a guy she had just met. She took the cell phone disguising but paid attention to the time. - My God, it's already 2:00 in the morning! I completely missed the time.

- I think the company ended up distracting you. - He said still not taking his eyes off her and she felt her cheeks heat up.

- Yeah, the chat was really good... But I have to go... - she said getting up.

- If you wait I can take you home, I'm already leaving, the bar is already closing. - he said and Y/n looked around seeing that some waiters were already collecting some things from the tables.

She thought for a moment, take a ride home with him? It didn't make sense, she had just met him, but at the same time she had enjoyed talking to him so much. He didn't seem like a bad person, but even so you would never know for sure. At the same time she never took any chances, why not let that pretty boy take her home? Finally, she thought: you know what? Screw this.

-Erm, ok...- She shrugged. - I'll go to the cashier to pay and wait for you outside?

- No need to pay darling, it's on me. - He spoke winking and she smiled.

- Oh no, I'll pay no problem...

- Your company has paid off your debt, it's ok. - He replied and she took a deep breath rolling her eyes.

- If you insist...- she said giving up.

He came out from behind the counter and motioned for her to follow him, arriving at the front door where the security was.

- Tuwaine, you can let her pass, it's on me. - He told the big guy and he looked at the english man, sawing his eyes suspiciously and smiling right away. Making Y/n laugh inside.

- Meet you outside? It will only take a few minutes - the attendant said and she nodded, leaving in the cold night.

She leaned against the door with her thoughts. She had come here just to get inspiration and to have her creative back, but she was coming home with an english guy. She didn't even recognize herself anymore, but to say she wasn't anxious (in a good way) was a lie.

She was lost in her thought, until minutes later he came out wearing a denim jacket, which made him look even more handsome.

- Let's go? - He said and she followed him to an old car parked right in front of the bar.

He opened the door for her to get in and she thanked him by sitting in the passenger seat, pulling on her seat belt as he closed the door. He sat down next to her right away, also putting on his belt.

- Hey, before we go: I didn't ask for your name! If you're going to take me home at least I have to know that- she asked realizing that she didn't even know that yet and he looked towards her smiling.

- Tom Holland. - He said stretching his hand. - Nice to meet you.

- Y/n Y/l/n- she said, squeezing his hand. And you can't deny that she felt butterflies in her stomach as she felt her skin on hers.

- Your name is not strange to me, I must have read it in one of your books in some shop window. - He said starting and leaving with the car.

- Yeah, who knows ... - she said and he turned on the radio leaving the volume low.

They were exchanging a few words until she indicated that they had arrived at the building where she lived. Tom parked and looked up in a daze.

- Wow, you really have money... - he said and she took off her belt turning towards him.

- A little bit...- she replied crossing her arms. - Well, thank you so much for the ride...

- You're welcome darling. - He said turning his eyes to her. Again that nickname that sounded perfect on his lips.

She turned around, but when she was about to open the door, she turned back to Tom, who was leaning with one hand on the steering wheel and watching her with attention. The next words escaped her again and she was afraid she'd regret it.

- Tom, do you want to come in? - She spoke still holding the door and the boy smiled.

- Sure ... - he said taking the key from the ignition and she shook her head slightly leaving.

He followed her and they entered the building. Tom looked at everything admired which made Y/n smile a little to herself. They entered the elevator and she pressed the penthouse button causing him to raise an eyebrow.

- You really must be a great writer. - he said and she laughed.

He leaned his back against the elevator wall, putting his hands in his pocket and looking her up and down, making her shy. He kept looking at her and it was making her nervous.

They were silent until the elevator opened after a while and they got out. Y/n put a password on the door and it swung open with a small click, she took held the latch and motioned for Tom to enter.

After the two of them entered she closed the door again behind her and watched Tom standing further on, looking around.

- Nice apartment...- he finally said.

- Thank you... - She leaned against the table at the entrance. She didn't know what to do next, maybe it had been a bad idea to bring him here. Why was she so impulsive that night? -Tom, I don't know why I invite you in, sorry...-she said a little nervous looking at her feet. He turned towards her, approaching and stopping in front of her.

- Are you sure you don't know? - He asked and she raised her head, seeing those brown eyes. She bit her bottom lip watching him closely. Damn he knew how to hypnotize her. He took another step and placed a hand on either side of her on the table, cornering her - Your body says otherwise, love... - he said softly feeling her breath hitch slowly and approaching his face to hers, alternating the look of your eyes to her lips. Y/n found another nickname that was perfect when he say.

He finally closed the distance by pressing his lips to hers. His lips were soft and warm, as if they were meant to be kissed. She returned the kiss willingly and when she laced her fingers in his neck, he licked her lower lip slowly asking for passage in which she opened them letting his tongue explore her mouth.

His hands gripped her waist and roamed her body greedily. As he kissed her, he caught her from behind her legs and sat her down on the entrance table, biting her bottom lip shortly after, provoking a low moan from her. He smiled against her lips and trailed kisses to her neck, attacking her skin with desire, making her throw her head back a little.

She grabbed his hair and pulled him back so she could kiss him. Which he gladly reciprocate. His kiss was urgent, but without being rude, he tasted like mint, making her want him even more.

His fingers found the button of her pants and he undid them quickly pulling them out, tossing them aside. When he came back he took her calf and kissed her leg up to her thighs, making her sigh. He moved up the kisses until he caught the hem of her shirt and pulled it up a little, kissing her stomach as well. Y/n didn't know what to do but feel goose bumps with every touch he gave. He then hiked up her shirt and she lifted her arms where he pulled her off, tossing along with her pants that were also on the floor.

She was just wearing her underwear in front of him, it made her a little excited and embarrassed at the same time, but the way he looked at her made her feel confident. He went back to kissing her body, this time kissing each covered breast in turn and reaching for the back of her bra and opening it. She helped him out tosiing to the side and he stood between her legs just watching her for a second, making her feel her cheeks heat up.

- Perfect... - he said with a low voice, as it was for himself and bent down to her breasts kissing each one of her nipples and then sucking them deliciously. Y/n moaned and bit her lip to keep her moans from getting louder, tangling her fingers in his hair again. He looked into her eyes for a few seconds and smiled slightly lowering his kisses to where she wanted him most.

He reached the hem of her panties and pulled them out slowly, kneeling between her legs and she looked at him with expectation. He returned the look and gave that smirk again.

- Look at you darling.... - That damn nickname. - Extremely wet and I haven't even touched you yet... - he said approaching and devouring her right away making her throw her head back with pleasure, biting her lips again to not sound so pathetic with her moans that insisted in wanting get out. - Oh, please don't drown out those wonderful sounds you make, I want to hear how good I'm making you feel. - He said in a husky tone, returning to his task after and she parted her lips letting her moans spread through the apartment.

****************************************************************************************

Y/n woke up the other day in her bed. She didn't even know how she got there, she just had flashes of the night before and how good she felt in each moment. She stretched and looked to the side seeing she was alone. She got up and put on a robe who was on the side of the bed.

After going to the bathroom and doing her morning hygiene routine she walked around the apartment looking around to see if Tom was somewhere else in the house, but found nothing. Which was understandable, it wasn't like she expected him to stay there and have breakfast with her and all.

She arrived in the kitchen and made black coffee and lean against the countertop. What that simple waiter had done to her was ridiculous, in a good sense, she felt great and kept remembering that accent that was stuck in her mind. He had consumed her in a way she had never imagined it she could be.

Taking a deep breath she set down turning her notebook on. Then opened her book and started writing.

#tom holland #tom holland smut #tom holland imagine #tom holland fanfic #tom holland fanfiction #tom holland x reader #tom holland x y/n #tom holland x you #bartender!tom #waiter!tom #tom holland x famous!reader #bartender!tom x writer!reader #tom holland series

[parvuls]

fic: kintsugi

summary: The day after brunch at Jerry's, Jack and Shitty have a raw, much-needed conversation over the phone. Some issues need to be addressed before they can head down the road to patching things up.

word count: 6k

tags: year 3, post-comic 3.12, phone calls, friendship, canon compliant, apologies, introspection

notes: based on the prompt ‘providence + family’ by @atlasthemayor.

read on ao3

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Jack’s stomach churns strangely when he sees Shitty’s name flash on his caller ID.

It’s a disconcerting feeling, a slight jolt and twinge in his gut, both reminiscent of when anxiety coils low inside him and distinctive in some way. It makes Jack frown and set his heated dinner aside on the coffee table with the hand not holding the buzzing phone. He’s not sure he ever had this foreign reaction to Shitty calling him before, so after a brief moment of puzzlement he decides to write it off as a side effect of the exhaustion weighing him down.

The phone vibrates once more in his palm before Jack slides his thumb across the screen to accept the call. “Hey, man,” he greets, balancing the phone between his cheek and shoulder so he can pick his food up again. Shitty won’t mind the sound of his chewing, probably. “Staying up late to study?”

It’s coming up to half past eleven on Saturday night. Jack dragged himself through the front door and into the dark apartment at around ten forty-five, his muscles sore and his body beat from over twenty minutes of ice time. He dumped his gear bag in the entryway next to his shoes and headed straight into the kitchen without flicking any of the lights on, shoved one of his frozen meal plan boxes of grilled chicken and brown rice into the microwave without pausing.

The yellow glow of the microwave was the sole source of light in the room as Jack strapped an ice pack to his shoulder, still aching from Ericsson’s high-stick, stuck Bitty’s handwritten PB&J note on the fridge, and waited. The only thing he really wanted to do was fall face-first into his bed, text Bitty that he was home, maybe break down the game over the phone if Bitty wasn’t too busy -- but his regimen had taken precedence. He knew he needed to put in some calories and take care of his pain if he wanted to get up for his six a.m. run. By the time his phone started ringing, Jack was mechanically chewing on his food in the living room. His couch was more comfortable than a dining chair, plush upholstery engulfing his tired limbs, and it only distantly occurred to him that there was something sad about eating dinner alone in the dark.

Shitty’s call, when it came, was unexpected.

“Hate to tell you this, but eleven thirty is not late," Shitty replies, the familiar timbre of his voice tinny due to cell reception. It's an effect Jack is closely acquainted with after months of daily phone calls with Bitty, so he knows that's not all there is to it when he notices something else amiss about Shitty’s voice; like the rhythm of his speech is slightly off. He registers it as abnormal, but before he can figure out if he wants to ask about it Shitty carries on talking. “How’s everything going for ya?”

“Okay,” Jack answers plainly, piling rice onto his fork. He doesn't have the energy to think of anything more gripping than the truth. “Eating post-game dinner.”

Shitty pauses on the other side of the line, makes the creases in Jack’s forehead deepen. Something feels weird, but Jack doesn’t want to make a big deal out of it if nothing is really wrong. Sometimes people act in ways that confuse him for any number of reasons, and he’s not always good at telling them apart.

“Yeah, yeah, I saw,” Shitty says, clearing his throat quietly. “The Red Wings. Great game, brah. Your shoulder doin’ okay?”

Jack’s mouth slows down his chewing on instinct, and he swallows the rice with difficulty. Shitty never just tells Jack great game. Shitty talks about hockey like he’s the narrator in a porn film, with an enthusiasm unmatched by anyone Jack has ever met. Shitty once sang Jack’s praises for half an hour after a game against UND in which Samwell lost 2-0. That, combined with his tone -- something isn’t quite right, Jack thinks. He's more confident in that observation now, but his brain feels slower than usual and he’s too tired to connect any dots.

“Euh, yeah. I’ll be alright. Really have to shake it off and make sure I’m all there on Monday night, eh? We’ve had a good streak, but it’s always about how we play the next game. We’re getting better as a group.”

Jack’s tongue slips into hockey speak naturally before he can do anything to stop it, but instead of chirp him, Shitty makes a vague, throaty noise and doesn’t comment. “Yeah, I get what you mean. You and Mashkov really seem to hit it off out there, heh. Uh, listen -- I know you had to drive back for your practice, but. We didn’t really get the chance to talk much yesterday, and I guess…” Shitty pauses again, and Jack lowers the box to rest against his knee, apprehensive. “Well. D’ya have a moment? Because I’d really fuckin’ like to apologize for some shit.”

Jack’s hand clenches convulsively around his fork, a piece of chicken breast sliding off the tines and falling back into the box with a dull noise.

The early morning and then noon hours of Friday were an emotional blur. From the anxiety spike when Jack stepped off the plane to the car ride on the flooded highway; from the sleep-deprived, tearful conversation in Bitty's narrow bed to the cathartic brunch at Jerry’s with their friends. Jack drove straight home after his nap and stepped out of the car back in Providence to find his phone overflowing with chirping text messages. The chirps haven’t really died down over the weekend, but Jack doesn’t mind them, and he doesn’t think Bitty does either; it feels good to have a subject that’s been burdening them both treated lightheartedly. Trusting their friends with this secret isn't as heavy on Jack's shoulder as he feared it might be.

Shitty is the only one who hasn’t written much in the group chat. He and Jack talked briefly on the lawn outside the Haus after the six of them had returned from brunch, and then they resorted to roughhousing when the mood got too somber. Jack hoped that it’d be enough to put everything behind them, but if he pushes himself to think it through, a part of him has known that this conversation was coming. It wasn’t like Shitty to let things go so easily.

Jack's glad that Shitty can't see his face right now, because he can feel himself grimacing. He hopes his brief silence hasn’t been too revealing. “Shits -- it’s cool, yeah? We’re cool.”

“I don’t think we are, actually,” Shitty argues. His voice is growing strained. “You don’t have to talk, even --”

“C’mon, man, there’s really not much to say. Everything is good now --”

“Jack,” Shitty cuts him off, and the tone of his voice shuts Jack right up. Shitty can get wrapped up in things, can lose himself in long tirades about rights and wrongs and justice, but this tone sounds different than it has through the hundreds of rants Jack has been witness to. Shitty sounds dead serious. Jack blinks, and realizes: this isn’t Shitty being his normal self. He’s genuinely torn up about this. “Just -- will ya let me…? Please.”

“I…” Jack starts, but he doesn’t really know what he wants to say. He’s never been skilled at these kinds of conversations, and the odd feeling he got when he saw Shitty’s name on his screen squeezes even tighter than before, making him feel slightly nauseated.

“It’s -- I --. Jack, what I said in front of everyone during the home opening kegster… and all the other times I... That was some fucked up shit. I fucked up real bad, and I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Jack tries again, but this time the words feel so wrong in his mouth that he has difficulty shaping his tongue around them. It tastes like an outright lie, although he wasn’t aware he was even lying at all.

Jack hadn’t recognized the churning in his gut until now, but Shitty’s steadfast apology intensifies the feeling and dredges up what Jack has clearly failed to notice. He wants to tell Shitty that there’s no need to apologize, but apparently that’s just not true; it’s only now that he realizes the sharp response he had to Shitty’s call is bitterness. Jack’s feelings actually were hurt by Shitty. Maybe he should be startled by discovering wounded feelings he wasn’t cognizant of for over a month, but if this past summer has taught Jack anything, it’s that sometimes he manages to overlook the most substantial of things.

“-- and it’s not enough to be chill about it now,” Jack blinks out of his thoughts and tunes back into Shitty’s distressed train of words, coming chopped and fast through the ear speaker. “I should’ve -- before, too, I should’ve created a safe enough fuckin’ environment --”

“You were always talking to us about creating safe environments, Shitty,” Jack interrupts him. His voice sounds hollow to his own ears, and he puts his fork in the box and the box back on the coffee table to free his hands. He’s still making sense of his own mental state, and he knows that whatever is going to come stumbling out of his mouth will be barely coherent at best. “It’s not -- it was just that -- you’re always saying it’s important, and then, câlice… It was hard enough, hiding, and then with you as well --.”

Everyone was allowed to be queer, for Shitty. Jack remembers how in sophomore year Shitty marched into the Haus, ecstatic about the five different people who had come out to him that same week, babbling about how great it was and how different Samwell was to Andover. He mentioned sexuality labels Jack had never even heard of, had accepted so effortlessly those borderline strangers who had trusted him with their identities. Shitty has always been the most open-minded person Jack knows, the one to talk endlessly about the inherent toxicity of heteronormativity and to lecture the team about never labeling others without their consent.

Jack’s not always good at pinpointing the root of his own feelings, but the moment he thinks of that thrilled look on Shitty’s face almost three years before, he knows, like a lightbulb going off, why he was hurt. Because it seemed like everyone was allowed to be queer, for Shitty -- except Jack. Like Jack wasn’t queer enough to warrant the same respectful treatment. Like he wasn’t really allowed to be queer at all. Jack had never felt particularly close to his sexuality, but when even Shitty assumed so assuredly that he couldn’t be anything but straight, it stung. He just hasn’t registered it until now.

There’s a split second of tense silence, and then Shitty says, “I didn’t even know you were having a hard time, brah,” the pace of his speech slowed down.

Jack’s eyebrows draw together. His right hand, absentmindedly, pinches the fabric of his suit pants and rubs the smooth texture between his thumb and forefinger. “I don’t -- what does that mean? It’s not like you asked.”

Shitty’s breath comes out in a harsh exhale, crackles in Jack’s ears. Jack can hear springs squeaking and sheets ruffling, the sounds of Shitty dropping heavily onto his bed. “Brah. How was I supposed to ask? You never pick up the damn phone anymore. Shit, man, I know fuck all about your life lately."

The fabric of Jack’s pants stretches in the tight grip of his fingers as he blinks, takes in Shitty’s accusation, and realizes he’s right all in the space of two and a half seconds. He can recall a few missed calls that he never got around to returning, but it didn’t seem so important at the time. He was, and still is, in the midst of his first NHL season, trying so hard not to get so lost in hockey and his own worries that he drowns in it and forgets to be a good boyfriend to Bitty.

It never occurred to him that he was investing so much effort into being a good boyfriend to Bitty that he wound up forgetting to be a good friend to everyone else. He knew Shitty and he weren’t talking as often, that things between them haven’t been great lately, but the truth is he had so many other things to worry about that he let it drift to the margins of his mind.

Jack lets go of his pants, rubs his palm down his thigh to smooth the creases away. His momentary bout of anger deserts him with the release of a slow, purposeful exhale. "You’re right. I’m sorry."

"No, no, shit,” Shitty says immediately, switching back from resigned to guilt-ridden in the matter of nanoseconds. “Don’t -- damn it, don’t apologize, oh shit, I’m victim blaming aren’t I, I totally didn’t mean to put this on you --"

"Shitty --"

There’s the sound of bed springs creaking again and then loud footsteps hitting a floor, which Jack assumes are the background sounds of Shitty rushing up from his bed to pace the length of his room. He’s seen Shitty do it across his small room in the Haus countless times, and it feels strange now, having it happen forty miles away. "It’s just, you know, I tried and you didn’t pick up and I get it, fuck do I get it, remember how in freshman year you forgot to talk to anyone for like a week during the preseason stress?"

Jack cracks a tiny, shaky smile that he knows won’t make it into his voice. His first few months at Samwell were a horrible time, fraught with loneliness and frequent panic attacks, too absorbed in thoughts of the path he was supposed to take to function in the path he ended up taking. His therapist helped with that, later, but before that there was Shitty. Determined to be Jack’s friend for no good reason at all. "Yeah. And you broke into my dorm room to make sure I wasn’t dead."

"So it wasn’t like I was offended you didn’t pick up or some bull,” Shitty hurries to finish, “I know you, I get it --"

But that’s wrong, Jack thinks, frowning deeply. Surely, Shitty must know that. "Shitty."

"What? No, seriously. It’s not the first time it happened, and with the pressure of playing in the league and all, I totally get it -- it’s just --"

"You’re allowed to be offended, Shits." Jack says quietly. His hand reaches up to curl around the phone and tug it away from the crook of his shoulder, but his muscles remain tense even when his shoulder drops down. His other hand is still fisted on top of his thigh and the purple shadows cast by the faint stars outside the windows heighten the grooves of his veins. "I know I -- I know it can get difficult -- with me --"

"No," Shitty interrupts, sounding even more emotional than before, a penitent snowball that keeps on rolling down the hill. Shitty’s capable of rolling on forever, if he thinks something is truly wrong. "No no no, Jack, I didn’t mean --"

"Shut up, Shitty." Jack says firmly. He preserves, reminding himself forcefully that the sentiment he wants to establish is too important to be derailed by Shitty’s atonement. His hands have begun to shake slightly, but he needs to get it out. "I know I’m worthy of love and friendship and all the crap you were about to say. I’m just saying --. You’re allowed to be hurt even if it isn’t new behavior. Just because I -- my anxiety -- y’know. If it hurts you, you’re allowed to be hurt."

The other side of the line goes quiet for a long moment, not even the sound of breathing coming through. Jack closes his eyes, counts to ten, tells himself that it’s Shitty and that the two of them are going to figure it out. Fighting with Shitty has always been mentally hard on Jack, has always felt like shaking the only foundation Jack had to stand on. It didn’t happen often, but Jack tries to remind himself that whenever it did they always came out intact on the other side. Arguing was a healthy way to understand your needs and the needs of the other person, his therapist told him.

When Shitty speaks, he sounds awed. "Christ on a cracker, man. That was fuckin’ wise. That Bits’ influence on you?"

Jack pauses to consider it seriously, taking time to recompose his brain. Being with Bitty -- it has taught him so much, about his own feelings and others' and how to put them into words, the importance of open communication. He told Shitty that the previous day after Jerry's -- feelings could easily not occur to him, even if he felt them very strongly. He coexisted with them without acknowledging their existence a lot of the time, and this phone call is only one example of it. Being with Bitty, having to be aware and give name and give value to his own feelings to make things work between them, has changed the way he interacted with his emotions. Made him understand himself better. He’s not at all sure he would’ve been capable of articulating himself in a conversation like this if not for the progress Bitty and he have made together.

But being aware of his worth as a person, and learning that his disorder didn’t define him but shouldn’t be brushed aside either, that wasn’t Bitty. “No, Shits. That’s your influence on me.”

This silence is even longer than the one before it, and then it’s broken by muffled sniffles on the other side. Jack's heart leaps, panic building in his chest -- but then Shitty says, throat choked up, “I thought -- fuck, Jack, this is gonna sound so motherfucking stupid. But I thought you didn’t, y’know. Need me anymore. I know this is on me too, I’m barely keeping my head above water here and the whole -- fuckin’ Harvard situation, it’s not… but each day we didn't talk and I saw your game scores, or I would see those Falcs vids… it looks like you have this spankin’ fuckin’ brand new life that I know shit about. And you’ve got Mashkov, and St. Martin, and…”

Jack can’t find adequate words for a long moment, and once he opens his mouth he’s surprised to hear his voice is thick, surprised to feel hot tears pooling at the corners of his eyes. “Shitty. Tater is great. And Marty is great, and -- Thirdy, and all of them. But.”

None of them are you, he wants to say, but that sounds too dumb to utter out loud. That’s not how Shitty and he talk to each other, or at least, it’s not how Jack talks to Shitty. Shitty is good at phrasing his feelings in ways Jack can handle, but Jack can’t ever make the right words come out of his mouth.

There’s another pause, his mind blanking, and then he says, “Tater didn’t make me sign a friendship contract.”

Shitty snorts, but it isn’t a happy sound. “Jacko --”

“No. Shits --. Tater didn’t make the effort to be my friend even when I was doing everything I could to push him away. He didn’t drag my ass to the Haus my freshman year after I hadn't talked to anyone but faculty in two weeks. He didn’t argue with Bergey until we were banked together on every roadie and was heartbroken when no one spread rumors about us hooking up.”

That shot goes wide. “Oh fuckity fuck, Jack, I’m a fucking dickhead --”

“Bordel de merde, Shitty, will you fucking listen?” Jack rubs his fingers over the bridge of his nose, feels his skin crease between his brows. “Tater didn’t make me go to Gender in Warfare in Early 20th Century America because he knew it’d end up one of my favorite classes, or learnt my story about the fire extinguisher and the football team by heart, or -- or have been defending me behind my back since the first week he knew me. Tater’s great. I’m -- you know, uh, thankful, for having people on the Falcs. I didn’t think it could be -- after the guys at Samwell, no team would ever be the same.”

“Yeah,” Shitty says, sadly, in the tone of someone who knows exactly what Jack means.

Jack’s throat bobs when he swallows, chest aching. “And they’re great. But Tater -- or Marty, or any of them -- they’re not...”

None of them are you, Jack wants Shitty to hear, gripping his pants in his hand again to balance himself. He doesn’t know how to say it in a way that would make Shitty hear him. None of them could ever be you.

There’s once again silence between them, only interrupted by Shitty’s quiet sniffles and the erratic beating of Jack’s heart. His phone is too warm on his ear, clammy from sweat smearing over the screen, but he can’t bring himself to put Shitty on speaker. It feels like they’re too far apart to have this conversation already, like Shitty should be sitting here on the couch next to Jack in flimsy underwear like he was every time they needed to talk like this over the past four years.

After a long moment, Shitty makes an ambiguous rasping noise and admits, “I was jealous.”

Jack winces. “I’m sorry.”

“No. Yeah, I mean, apology accepted, whatever, just. I was jealous they got to be there for you every day, really be there in the moments I used to live through with you that I now know zilch about. I was used to that being me.” He then adds, much more grimly, “Except apparently I sucked ass at being there for you at all when it counted.”

Jack sighs. They veered off topic to talk about something Jack considers more important, but now they were back to that and he knows in the pit of his stomach that they, both of them, won’t be able to move on until they talk this through. This is a conversation they need to have, even if it would be easier for Jack to not have it at all. “Shitty. I need to tell you something.”

The thing about Shitty is that he has faults like the rest of them, but Jack has always known that he’d drop anything if Jack needed him. He knows because it goes unconditionally both ways. Shitty’s voice goes immediately even and he wastes no time before saying, “I'm listening.”

Jack swallows. It feels -- heavy, on his breastbones. It didn’t before, it didn’t at Jerry's. He doesn’t remember this weight from years ago, when he first talked about it with his parents, and then -- later, too much later -- with his therapist. His chest was so laden with other concerns then that there was no room for anything more, and this burden was only ever an afterthought. At Jerry's he was thinking of Bitty, of Bitty’s happiness and Jack's own happiness with him, and the necessity of the action for their joint happiness. It didn’t leave any space for this weight.

Now he can feel the weight. It’s stupid. Shitty already knows, and besides, it’s Shitty. Jack knows Shitty so well that he can practically predict the exact words he will use, and even if he couldn’t, he knows Shitty would never turn him away. Yet his chest feels tight, like he’s holding in all of his air, and his fingers are again shaking against his thigh. “Shitty, I'm dating Bittle.”

Shitty makes a baffled sound, clearly not expecting this choice of confession. “I -- yeah, dude, I know.”

“I’m dating Bittle,” Jack reiterates determinedly, eager to get it over with. “He’s a guy.”

Shitty goes quiet for a moment, and then he says, voice low, “Okay.”

Jack wasn’t sure he was going to say it, but now that they’re here, this is something he wants Shitty to know. “He’s not the first guy I’ve been with.”

Shitty’s sharp intake of breath at this is audible even over the phone, but other than that he doesn’t react outwardly. Jack's shaking hand lifts up to rub over his chest while he waits for Shitty to say something, and Shitty doesn’t keep him waiting long. “Okay. Thank you for telling me.”

That’s almost exactly the reaction Jack expected to hear, but for some reason he doesn’t feel settled. “It never came up before.”

“That’s okay, buddy,” Shitty reassures him. Jack’s not sure what Shitty is thinking, if he’s thinking anything at all. This probably isn’t as big a deal to him as it feels like to Jack.

Jack frowns down at the shadows of his socked feet in the dark, thinks it over, and then corrects, “No, actually -- no. It never came up with anyone else. But I did think of telling you. More than once. You were the only one… but I had reasons not to. Or, I thought I did.”

“That’s still cool, brah,” Shitty hurries to interrupt. “You don’t have to --”

“No, because,” Jack sighs, trails off midsentence. He doesn’t want Shitty to make this easy for him, to allow Jack to take the exit he’s being offered. He knows they could stop the discussion right there and Shitty would never say a thing, but he doesn’t want this to hang over their friendship for the rest of time, and he knows that it could if he doesn’t force himself to dig deeper. “Because when you assumed that if I had someone it must’ve been a girlfriend, it hurt. I didn’t realize before -- I thought I was upset because Bitty was hurt, and I hurt him even more with my reaction, and it mattered more at the time. But it hurt. And that’s not entirely fair to you, because you had no reason to think otherwise. Because I didn’t tell you.”

There’s more rustling in the background, and Shitty talks over him before the last word is out of his mouth. “Jack, no, you’re under no obligation to disclose your identity to anyone and it doesn’t give them any right to assume -- I assumed and it was so fucking wrong --”

“Yeah,” Jack agrees, because it was. He’s not trying to argue that it wasn’t. Shitty was wrong, but that’s not the point Jack is trying to make.

“I’m sorry, Jack,” Shitty sounds contrite, and Jack can almost imagine the look on his face now. The small wrinkle in his forehead, the downward slope of his mustache, the sharp angle of his jaw. Shitty always looks older when he feels guilty about something. “So fuckin’ sorry.”

“That’s okay, man. Eh. Well, it's not, but it's forgiven.” And it is, Jack knows. He’s already forgiven Shitty, would have to try so hard not to forgive Shitty. They’ve hurt each other in the past and they’ll most likely hurt each other again in the future, but it’s never done intentionally. Shitty’s friendship is worth all of this crap and always has.

“I guess I just... “ Shitty lowers his voice, and Jack has to press the phone harder into his ear to hear him. “Fuck, I don’t want to excuse my actions, this does not in any way justify the shit I said. But I guess, in my mind, even though I know you should never assume about anyone, I did think that because it’s you… that you’d tell me. If there was ever anything to tell.”

“I’m sorry,” Jack says this time. He’s not sure Shitty knows this, but this is what he was trying to get to before. What Shitty is saying is reasonable even if it isn’t ideal.

“Fuck no. What the fucking fuck are you apologizing for, you idiot --”

“I’m not apologizing for not telling you, Shits,” Jack stops him before it becomes another rant. He’s growing tired of using so many words at once, feeling the toll of the unexpected emotional turmoil he’s dragging his overworked body through. “I know what you said was wrong, and I know I didn’t have to tell you. I’m saying I’m sorry if you were hurt by it. And I'm apologizing if it made you feel like I didn't trust you, or. Or some shit.”

Another pause follows Jack’s words, and he has to stifle the urge to collapse sideways into the couch and shove his face into a cushion until everything goes away. This conversation, as necessary as it is, doesn’t come naturally to either of them. They’ve been talking about their feelings for too long now and it’s starting to get awkward and overwhelming.

“I’m not saying I wasn’t super touched by your previous comment,” Shitty says, suddenly. “Because stereotypical masculinity is complete bullshit and I’m not ashamed to admit I teared the fuck up. But Jack -- Bitty has done some serious work on you. Or, like, you know, healthy relationships and all, you two worked on yourselves with each other to be better and all that, but. Man, I don’t think that’s a distinction you would’ve made six months ago.”

Jack considers it. The idea of someone’s hurt being valid even if the reason for it didn’t make sense probably isn’t a concept he would’ve been able to grasp, or at least would not have paid much thought to. Looking back, he was probably hurt dozens of times by little comments in the Haus, or things he heard around campus, or moments of feeling left out by his team; but when the reason for his hurt wasn’t completely logical it was harder for him to allow himself that pain. He would usually distract himself from it, instead. “Yeah. You’re probably right.”

“But can I just say again -- I'm so fucking sorry for being a heteronormative jackass. I’m sorry for hurting you, I’m sorry for hurting Bits, I’m sorry for --”

Esti de câlice de tabarnak. Jack drops his face into his palm and sighs over the string of Shitty’s rapidly escalating apologies. Jack is fully aware that Shitty is just going to apologize until they’re both old and gray if Jack doesn’t stop him. “Shitty, can you knock it?”

Shitty hesitates, but the flood of his words stops. “I miss you,” is what he says eventually.

Jack drops his hand down, leans his weight on his elbows and blinks at the dark room. Shitty used to tell him that all of the time. When they were apart on school breaks; when they were separated on roadies; when Jack had two lectures and a senior workshop on Wednesday nights and Shitty wouldn’t see him for several consecutive hours. Shitty’s affection was always abundant and inescapable, and Jack didn't know it was something he was lacking until he finally hears it. “I miss you, too, man.”

Shitty lets the gravity of it, the seriousness in Jack's voice settle between them, the earnestness he wouldn’t usually hand over easily when they were back at school. And then he says, “It’s hard as fuck, man. It’s hard to admit that it’s hard, too. It’s hard to see Lards’ pics from kegsters I can’t attend anymore, and it’s hard to find friends in this pretentious shithole full of pretensions dicks, and -- Harvard is fucking hard, Jack. And I hate being away from you guys, but I don’t wanna bring you down with my sad. You assholes are my goddamn family, there’s nothing that’s ever gonna replace that. It sucks knowing that I'm stuck here. I miss you so much it drives me fuckin’ insane.”

Jack knows, instantly and wholeheartedly, what Shitty is talking about. He’s living his dream and he loves the Falcs and he’s sincerely grateful for all of it even on his worst days. But sometimes stepping off the ice after a grueling practice and getting pictures of Bitty, laughing with Holster and Ransom on the ice at Faber -- it aches somewhere deep inside him. Sometimes he lies awake in foreign hotel rooms in foreign cities, and while most nights he longs for nothing more than Bitty’s presence, others he closes his eyes and wishes Shitty was there to crawl into his bed again. Sometimes he puts on his jersey before games and imagines the blue and yellow are red and white. His team from Samwell is his family, too, and sometimes missing them feels like missing an amputated limb.

“I wish we got to see each other more,” Jack squeezes out. His windpipe feels strangled, and for a moment he thinks that if he blinks too hard tears might well up again. He doesn’t know if it’s because he’s so tired his body is shutting down, or because he’s been holding on to more emotions than he previously thought. “I didn’t know --. I feel the same way, Shitty, but I didn’t know you felt like that. I’m sorry we didn’t really talk much lately.”

It wasn’t something Jack was consciously aware of, but he more or less assumed that if Shitty was ever struggling he would just reach out for help. Shitty was always the better one of the two of them at communicating his feelings, at saying when he needed something or was going through a rough time. It never occurred to Jack to reach out and ask because he always figured that Shitty would come to him first. It's a startling realization. He really isn’t as good a friend as Shitty deserves.

“‘S not your fault,” Shitty objects, even though in some ways it really is. But Shitty means it, Jack knows, despite the lingering hints of anxiety. Shitty wouldn’t say it if he didn’t honestly believe it wasn’t Jack’s fault.

“Maybe, but you should make time for the things that matter to you, right? I’ll try to be better about that. I wanna be there for you, too.”

Shitty sighs, and the tails of it turn into a breathy, weary laugh. “Fuck, Jacko, this is a fuckin’ sobfest. Shit, man. Yeah. I’ll try, too. We could Skype, even. You know I miss that mug of yours.”

Jack finally pulls the phone away from his ear, wipes the sweat tracks away and switches the call to speakerphone. His calendar app is full of cute little reminders Bitty leaves anonymously, like 06:30 work hard and have fun! or 11:11 someone is thinking of you. He’s developed a habit of checking his calendar often these past six months, counting down the days until he gets to see Bitty next. He’s sure it won’t be easy, especially with the progression of the Falconers’ season, but from now on he’ll have to make every effort to fit more people into his schedule. Bitty makes him happy, but he’s not the only one who does.

Jack scrolls through the events logged into his upcoming week. He’s got a game on Monday and one at home on Wednesday, and then Thursday is American Thanksgiving. Bitty is throwing together a whole meal for the Samwell team. He told Jack that he’s under no obligation to come if practice time doesn’t allow it, but... “Are you going to Hausgiving on Thursday?”

Shitty curses loudly. “Fuck, I fuckin’ wish, but I don’t know if that’s smart. I’ve got this fuckin’ test coming up. But I promised Lar-- uh --”

Jack smirks, even if it’s only to himself in an empty apartment. Lardo texted him after Jerry’s to let him know that the two of them will exchange deets privately like civilized bros, but Shitty still seems to be under the illusion that he’s fooling someone. Like his heart-eyes haven’t been obvious from space -- and Jack is painfully aware that if he noticed, that really says something. “Lardo, eh? Not getting out of that one.”

He can almost see Shitty’s answering furious blush from all those miles away. “Fuck you, Zimmermann, don’t make this about me. What I was sayin’ is, I wanna be there super freakin’ bad -- we all know I will gladly sell my right leg for Bitty’s cooking --”

“And for Lardo’s company,” Jack chirps, incredibly satisfied with this turn of conversation.

“I will fuck you right up, don’t you think I won’t!” Shitty threatens emptily, even though Jack takes him down every single time. “Seriously. Your bro becomes a pro athlete and suddenly he thinks he’s a goddamn comedian. Anyway. For Bitty’s cooking, I will make an effort. You got team stuff?”

“No,” Jack says with finality, swiping his calendar closed. He always feels better when things are put into action. “I think I’m going.”

“For Bitty?” Shitty asks, most likely trying to chirp Jack back.

“Well. Yes,” Jack says, perfectly honest. He’s not in any way ashamed of how much he wants to be near Bitty all of the time. He doesn’t think he can remember ever being less ashamed of anything in his life. “But also for you. Think you can meet me there?”

Shitty’s quiet. And then he says, “For my best friend? I’ll meet you halfway across the universe, Jackabelle.”

After the two of them hang up the call, Jack doesn’t move, his eyes fixed blindly in the direction of the windows across the room. His food is growing cold on the coffee table, but Jack thinks that at this point he might genuinely be too tired to eat. Whatever little energy he had left after the game was spent on this conversation with Shitty. He doesn’t regret it; they needed to say all of those things. Jack needed to hear all of those things, both so he could forgive Shitty for something he didn’t know he was holding onto, and so he could work on being a more considerate friend.

The game plan is solid, though, Jack decides. Thanksgiving dinner at the Haus will bring the opportunity to be completely honest with his friends after months of hiding a big aspect of his life from them. And it’d be fun, too. Ransom would put together actual charts for the seating arrangement, and Holster would draw everyone into a betting pool on the football game results, and Bitty would inevitably prepare insane amounts of food using the frogs as his sous chefs. He would probably insist that they’d hold hands around the table and say one thing each of them wants to give thanks for, as well.

Jack doesn’t mind American Thanksgiving, but he’s never really seen the point of that ritual. He’s known for a long time now what he's truly grateful for.

#omgcp #jackshitty #jackshitty fic #omgcheckplease #pavfics #i decided not to wait for friendship day because i'm not sure i'll be around to post then #but i hope you'll enjoy this anyway? #i wanted to write something about their friendship in early y3 in forever

[barbasbodaciousbeard]

The One with the Engagement Picture

Ayy, using this to try new ones. Another for @thatesqcrush​’s FRIENDS challenge.

Peter Stone hadn’t always been as much of a partier as he’d become, and he would certainly reject the term womanizer. Anyone he dated or slept with knew that he just wasn’t ready to settle down anymore. Maybe it was because he’d tried to do that once and ruined it. When he tore his ulnar collateral ligament, he’d accepted he wouldn’t be pitching anymore, and slowly an ocean seemed to settle between himself and his teammates. He was bitter, and they were busy. As the partying stopped for him to heal and return to school, there was one woman he found himself content to spend nights with on the couch with. It was the first time since he’d been an adult that Peter was in a serious, monogamous relationship, and he thought it suited him.

Dahlia had moved to Chicago for graduate school, and she was thoroughly unimpressed with his baseball background. Did she think it was cool? Sure. Was she understanding they’d be going to games? Yes. But, he had to teach her how the game worked and let her know which of his friends even played when she met them. She was more interested in dragging him antique shopping or to old bookshops where he’d have to keep her from falling off of a ladder. While she learned his world, Peter got far more comfortable than he ever expected to with pin curls, vintage compacts, and inspecting dresses for sweat stains or cigarette burns. It made her happy to invest time in it, so if she’d wear his old jersey tucked into her high waisted jeans and go to a game with him, he’d take pictures of his pin up at the rockabilly festival they drove out to.

When he proposed, he was nauseatingly proud to find a mid century ring at the vintage jewelry store she loved. The owner knew him from each time he had followed her through, shopping bags in hand as she purused. That meant he had help from a woman who knew Dahlia’s ring size and which cut she’d like the most; he picked correctly anyway, she’d said. He’d been careful to plan an outing to the park, packing a picnic and red and white checked blanket. He had a friend hiding to capture pictures, and it felt like the timing was perfect. Soon enough, he had a picture of her, hand over her mouth as he asked her to marry him sitting on his desk at home, and one with her showing off the ring as she pressed a kiss to his cheek, his arms slung around her waist, sitting on his office desk.

Things were easier then, when he was working and she was in school. Their schedules still aligned, so they could see each other in the evenings.  Then, she finished her MFA and taught night classes in order to make ends meet while she worked on her next novel. They’d met not long before the first was published, and he’d read a preview copy the first weekend he knew her and dug up poetry she’d published in volumes stored at the university. His brain didn’t work like that and he liked that about her. He was more about practicality and comfort. She was creative and artistic, comfort be damned.

The change in schedules made things hard. Peter wasn’t good when things got hard. The transition to not seeing each other much during the week, even though they lived together, quickly coupled with wedding planning stress to create arguments they hadn’t had before. Instead of quiet togetherness, they’d bicker. He got home late, so they didn’t see each other before she left to teach. She had to pick something up after work, so he was asleep when she got home. Dahlia wanted to plan the wedding, and Peter was getting nervous because he hadn’t watched many marriages stay happy. He pushed off decisions, avoided picking a venue. After a while, she got an offer to teach creative writing in New York. 

“I could have normal hours, Peter. We could see each other. You know you’d get a job in New York.”

“I’m not going back there, Dahl.”

“It’s a big city. You wouldn’t even have to see him. We wouldn’t even have to tell Ben, would we?”

“No.”

“So we just keep not planning a wedding and not seeing each other? Do you even want to marry me?”

“You know I do.”

“No I don’t!” 

“Then maybe you should take the fucking job without me.”

The minute he said it, he regretted it. The way Dahlia’s face fell and tears came made him feel stupid. She’d spent her weekends helping him with physical therapy. She’d taken the shitty adjuncting job to stay in Chicago until he was a little more established. She was patient about maneuvering the strained dynamic between Ben and Peter Stone. Hell, she wasn’t even asking him to go back to New York forever. It was a year and then the university would evaluate if they’d offer her a permanent position. They could be back in Chicago after a year. And now she was crying. He hadn’t made her do that before, not because she was sad.

“Fine,” she managed, jaw shifting as she tried to get the tears to stop. “I’ll go then. I can’t keep doing this. You won’t plan the wedding. We fight all the time. And now you want me to go? Here’s your fucking ring.”

If Peter had been used to having a girlfriend or wanting her to stay, Peter might have developed the skills required to do more than stare as Dahlia shoved her clothes into a suitcase and clutch the ring in his outstretched hand. He might have thought to fly to the city when he realized she’d actually gone ahead and moved and show up at her apartment unemployed and ready to go to the courthouse to prove he needed her there. 

Instead, he steeled his jaw over the next few weeks. His arm had healed the first year of law school, so he simply returned to his circle of friends that went out and dated whoever and covered for each other. He always ignored the ones in a vintage dress or with dark curled hair. Those were the ones who could hurt him. Who let him pretend afterwards that it was Dahlia beside him, and they were married and happy. 

When he moved out the apartment they’d shared-it was too much there now- he picked a painfully modern place and filled it with sleek modern furniture, The antiques she hadn’t taken were sold, and he finally felt that maybe he’d scrubbed his life of Dahlia, save the engagement pictures he kept in the top drawer of his desk. She had probably responded to the break up like an actual adult and moved on. Had a husband and career. Maybe even a baby. He hated the thought, so when he thought it, he’d pour another drink. And it was fine, because he’d just distanced himself from everything that could make him think of her. And that was fine, really it was. Peter had been a playboy before. He was a partier. He was an ex-baseball player. And he was fine.

Then his father died. 

Peter felt the solitude then. There hadn’t been anything new and hard to process since Dahlia left. He wandered New York and wondered if she was still there somewhere or if she’d gotten another teaching job somewhere. When McCoy convinced him to take the ADA position after Baba’s trial, he couldn’t say no, and one of the engagement photos found a new home in the top drawer of his new desk. SVU was harder, and it found its way out more. He’d hold it in his free hand, sipping a drink as he tried to channel the advice she’d have given him. 

“Ben liked her,” Jack said softly one day. “He had a copy of that picture until the engagement ended.”

“I was an idiot.”

“Aren’t we all at some point? Learn from it.”

Peter left it out after that. It faced him from the corner, and he remembered feeling grounded. That was what he really missed. Dahlia had given him a place to land. His dad had always felt unstable, and he wasn’t close with his mom. He wasn’t even always at home, staying with his aunt periodically.  And then he’d made a happy stable home with Dahlia and ruined it. 

When Pamela died, he stopped partying for fun and started using it to numb himself, but one night, he met a woman with dark brown pin curls and fair skin. She’d left when Dahlia’s name fell from his lips. That’s when he knew he had to reach out. He had to know if there was a family or a set of kids or a job in another city. He needed closure.

“Hello?” She sounded confused when she answered, and he suddenly remembered it was nearly midnight. He also remembered she never checked caller ID. Oh God, or she’d deleted his number.

“Dahlia?” Papers stopped shuffling and he could hear her sharp intake of breath. He could almost picture her, perched in an armchair, probably a yellow velvet one, with wide eyes and hair pinned up for the night and tied in a silk scarf as she graded or proofed her own manuscript. Maybe it was a friend’s manuscript.

Oh God, what if it was a husband’s manuscript. Another writer. She’d like that.

The cool metal of the picture he kept at home was pressed into the skin of his palm before he whispered, “Dahl, it’s Peter.”

“I know,” she said softly. “You don’t sound okay.”

“I’m not.”

“What happened?”

“Pamela.”

“What happened to Pamela? I can be on a plane to Chicago if you need someone. Or if you need help in the city, I can arrange things. Check on her.”

“How do you know I don’t have someone?” 

“Would you be calling if you did?”

“I’m in New York. Where did you end up?”

“They offered me a permanent position. How long have you been in the city?” He could tell she was trying to mask hurt that he hadn’t called before now. But what was he supposed to say? Dad’s dead so I live here now.

“Since January. Dad died. I prosecuted an ADA. Then I took his job.”

“Ben’s gone?”

“So is Pam.”

“Pam’s gone?” He let out a shaky breath, chest tight. “Send me your address.”

“You don’t have to--”

“Address or I start calling your baseball buddies.”

“I’ll text it.”

“I’m not hanging up until I’m there.”

“Is it creepy I keep the engagement photo on my desk?”

“We’re not touching that right now Peter. You’re drunk and not okay.”

She was true to her word, not hanging up the phone until she arrived at his apartment. When he opened the door, he saw her just as he’d imagined her. Her hair was pinned in the silk scarf and a silk robe was tied over her pajamas. She had thrown it on over the same babydoll top and short sets she’d always been hunting down patterns for so she could make them herself and she’d slid on flats. 

The sight of her made him feel tethered again, though he had had enough more to drink between the initial call and her arrival that he had gone from tipsy to unsteady. He went to hug her, and Dahlia carefully kicked the door close, locked it, and maneuvered him to his big leather couch that she looked terribly out of place on. 

“Let it out, Peter,” she whispered, and he buried his face into the crook of her neck like she might float away or vanish. The cry wasn’t like anything he’d let her see before. He’d been careful and controlled anytime something hurt, glossing over details that could make it worse to give her a pig picture. But now, he cried like he was alone, heaving sobs with snot and tears and drool as he clutched her. 

She settled into the couch enough he was basically curled in her lap. That’s how he woke the next morning too, curled against her torso with his head on her shoulder. She’d fallen asleep with her cheek pressed against the top of his head, and he was both embarrassed and relieved she was still there. Carefully he untangled himself from her, wanting to clean up before he had to face her. Face the fact it was his own fault he’d had to deal with it all alone.  

He came out to find her having obviously used the guest bathroom to rinse her face, though she was clad in his boxers and henley now. She was too averse to pants for his sweats. And like the angel she was, Dahlia was cooking. He was, however, mortified to see what she was holding as whatever she’d put in the oven cooked was the engagement photo he’d been clinging to when he called. But he could also see she seemed to be looking at it fondly. 

“Your interior design is terrible,” she teased gently, setting the frame aside. “I left you so much of the good stuff.”

“I couldn’t bring it from Chicago.”

“Peter, you forget I brought it from Chicago.”

“When I looked at furniture we found together, it made me miss you, so I got rid of it.”

“I kept mine because it made me remember you.”

“I’m the one that was an absolute moron.”

“It was easier then, huh?” she said softly, picking the picture up again. Their smiles were wider. There were fewer lines on their faces. Ben and Pam were in New York alive, and Dahlia and Peter had forever in front of them. Peter didn’t need to talk to her about something he didn’t want to remember.

“Yeah,” he whispered, leaning against the kitchen counter. “I’m sorry I let you go.”

“I’m sorry I let you. I shouldn’t have left the first time we fought. I knew how you were.”

“You were right to. I went for what I knew would hurt.”

“We can address all of that later. For right now, do you want to start talking or eat and then talk?”

“It’s my fault Pam’s dead.”

“You need to elaborate on that one, Peter. Because I’m sure there is more happening than you’re saying.”

“I didn’t drop a case. A victim tortured her attacker. We didn’t know for sure at first. A cartel was involved and they threatened to hurt Pam if I didn’t drop the case. We had guards, but they massacred Pam’s facility and took her. Diaz killed her in the gunfire. Dahl, she recognized me. She called for me, and he killed her. It’s been months, and I just, I feel so lost.”

“Peter,” she whispered, pulling him close. 

He stiffened at first. He’d expected disgust, not sympathy. This was his fault. That’s what he’d been telling himself for weeks, distracting himself with booze and bars and women like he had done when he wanted to pretend his family was fine, that Pam wasn’t sick, that he was close with his dad. This time though, the hurt was bigger.  

He was crying into her shoulder again, and he suddenly wished he’d been smart enough to call the minute he’d arrived. That she’d been there at dad’s funeral and for the trial of Rafael Barba. Maybe then he wouldn’t have even taken the job. He’d have recognized something bad was brewing. Instead he’d gotten his sister killed and was clinging to Dahlia in the early morning light of his kitchen. 

“It happened in May.”

“Why didn’t you call sooner?”

“I didn’t mean to call now.”

“How have you been coping?” He was quiet, shifting awkwardly. “Baseball methods?”

“Yeah.” He was ashamed to tell her, and she squeezed him gently. 

“I went with baseball methods after we split. You’re a single man. I don’t like the thought and it’s not healthy, but it’s better than other things you could’ve done.” They didn’t speak much as they ate. Neither one knew what to say to the other any more, but she didn’t want to leave him alone and he shouldn’t be left alone. When he did speak again, his voice was gentler than it had been in a while.

“Can we go antiquing?” 

“You want to go?”

“I want to carry your bags and think about sweat stains.”

“How does that help you?”

“Is it manipulative if I say that’s the last time I was really happy? Because if you say no I won’t be mad. It’s just true.”

“It could be. But I believe you. I think it’s the last time I was really happy too.”

“Really?” 

“Depends? Did I pretend to understand baseball between our last antiquing trip and moving?”

“No. You moved in the off season.”

“Then really. Don’t get me wrong. I’ve been fine. I love work. I love writing. I love the city. But I like everything more with you. Even if you’re a jock.”

“I thought I was happy before you. But I wasn’t.”

“You have to take me home first so I can get ready.”

“Deal.” And that’s what found him in her living room while she got dressed. He wasn’t stupid; Dahlia was the same as she’d always been, so he was waiting patiently as she brushed out her set curls and did her make up. She came back out in a pretty shirtdress, one he felt sure he’d found for her a long time ago, and keds, and Peter knew he’d do anything to get this back. The feeling of groundedness, that maybe they could be a team again, awe she was even agreeing to comfort him on any level. 

She led him through new vintage shops now. They were in a whole new state after all. He decided that maybe baseball methods didn’t work, and he talked to Dahlia. This time he really talked though. He’d brushed over stories about his father and Pam. He didn’t like the bad ones or the feelings they could bring up. Besides, Ben Stone was a saint, didn’t you know? Peter hadn’t ever been talk about his father, so he kept that habit up with Dahlia the first time. He also told her the truth. He’d panicked over marrying her because she was his first real girlfriend and the prospect of settling down and having her grow to hate him like his mother had his father scared him. That one was a revelation to her. 

He’d basically moved in with her a month after their outing to go antiquing. She preferred their old furniture and her vintage collection. Besides, Peter, I have a built in vanity here! The engagement photo in the park was replaced on his desk a year later. It showed them now in a different park in a different city with different lives to the ones so long ago. They also had different methods of communication, meaning they’d weathered fights as they adjusted to things again. The same ring was on display, however, and the same smile was plastered on Peter’s face as Dahlia pressed a kiss to his cheek.

#thatesqcrushFriends #peter stone x reader #peter stone #peter stonex oc #law and order #law and order svu #law and order special victims unit

[thesarcasticside]

Anything-$00000DDD

Summary

He could have been anything. When he looked inside his own mind, he dug through darkness. Memories like ashes, the particles filling his lungs were all that were familiar to him—and those only felt like nothing. No fragments, just a fine powder.

Janus is a cyborg who works for the Dragon Witch, a criminal mastermind who runs a company that designs cybernetics.

He meets Remus, a self-taught biomedical engineer, and a variety of other robotic and alien characters, all of whom are trying to convince him that he is more than just a cybernetic puppet.

But who is “Dee” if not an empty husk created only to be controlled?

General warnings

Psychological horror, body horror, cybernetics, missing limbs, artificial limbs, Non-consensual forced medical treatment, physical abuse, blood, violence, guns, mind control, permanent amnesia, manipulation, emotional abuse, gaslighting, nightmares, streams of consciousness, unreliable narration. Content that resembles depersonalization, derealization, or dissociation

More notes, links, and chapter text under the cut

AO3 Anything, AO3 series, Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10, Chapter 11, Chapter 12, Chapter 13, Chapter 14, Chapter 15, Chapter 16, Chapter 17, Chapter 18

This is my story for the 2021 Storytime! Big Bang! @ts-storytime Thank you to @ben-phantomhive-trash, who is the artist I was partnered with for the event! They created this fantastic art!!!! I love it so much I can't even.

Thank you to PunkRock for helping me figure out the shorts characters and other plot things. Also thank you to AryaSkywalker, Thembo, and Carrotflowerking17 and the Big Bang 2021 discord for additional help!!!!

This fic is an alternative entry point to my (In Other Worlds) Series. This fic happens at the same time roughly as Millennia, a companion novel. You can read this fic and then check out the rest of the series, or check out the series and then read this.

Also, I don't use Janus's actual name throughout the fic for thematic and narrative reasons. You'll see. I hope that does not put you off too much. Consider it part of the angst.

Clarification of general warnings and pairings, minor spoilers

I added the tag unreliable narrator, but I will clarify that the narrator is not actively lying to the audience. This tag relates to Janus's memory issues and the uncertainty resulting from that. tbh I would not worry too much about the events being untrue, and more be concerned about these being Janus's imperfect recollection of events.

I think this fic is a bit more violent than Millennia at times, hence I added the archive warning for violence. I still feel like a teen would be fine reading this, so I am keeping the rating Teen and Up. This fic focuses the most on what I dub psychological horror (angst, mind control, memory issues, consciousness, nightmares, etc.). I also tagged this story with disassociation, and content in this fic may resemble derealization and depersonalization.

If you think I should warn/rate this fic differently, I am happy to hear feedback and reconsider.

I tagged this as Remus/Janus, but like, ya gotta squint. Mostly banter and being soft. I love romance, but I have a hard time writing it. Could be seen as platonic too.

HINT 1: KEY.

HINT 2: "kind of" not "kinda"

CHAPTER START

NAME J. D. Dedrick ID 25:35--25:44 / 51:09 ALIENRACE Dūcesnaca OCCUPATION Robotics Researcher

Chapter Warnings cybernetics, missing/artificial limbs (eye, legs), forced medical treatment/experimentation, amnesia, depersonalization/derealization/dissociation, unreliable narration, psychological horror, swearing Chapter Characters Janus, the Dragon Witch, Virgil (not by name)

He could have been anything. When he looked inside his own mind, he dug through darkness. Memories like ashes, the particles filling his lungs were all that were familiar to him—and those only felt like nothing. No fragments, just a fine powder.

He woke up to yellow in his eyes, stinging and unfocused. Lights beyond the veil flickered. He saw a figure move; he looked small. After a brief glance into the world, he began to drown. He threw everything into the yellow encasement, and after an agonizing struggle, the rush of acceleration threw him to the ground.

When the air touched his face, black fireworks exploded in his hazy vision, and the first memory he had was gone.

He woke up again, like a corpse left in the stale air for vultures: beaks plucking out his skin piece by piece. His vision blurry and halved, he stared up at the birds breaking his body into bits.

Reports say he was involved in a huge space crash. DRACANA has generously sponsored his artificiality.

That sounded like a lie. That sort of blatant untruth where there was no connection to reality tied to it. Everything his senses told him felt unreal, everything except the pain that grounded him like a shot duck.

Whispers like gossip broke into his mind between droughts of consciousness. His senses were pieced together and broken apart, like pieces of clay in a kiln shattering. Memories of vultures and lab coats glued together by agony floated through space until eventually he was awake.

Probably just one of her business rivals

Dei’dra—he knew her name—loomed over him, to his right. He could see nothing to his left. The light stung, he squinted and blinked his eye. He could feel nothing on the left side of his face. Dei’dra smiled at him.

“Wake up, dollface. Didn’t think you’d make it, but you pulled through.”

He did not know where he was. He did not know who he was. All he knew was that this woman was Dei’dra, the Dragon Witch, and he hated her.

“Well, he seems to be doing well. Might as well put him under and move onto the next stage.”

He lived out his days creating sand sculptures in his mind. He saw himself running in place, downloading skills and targets and concepts. The sand would blow away each day, leaving him with nothing to remember them by.

Between bouts of black unconsciousness, he saw grey, and white, and pale pink, brown, and blue. Abstract shapes morphing into creatures that prodded at him. Cold metal seething, machines twisting his body together like crochet. He gave nonsense names for some, not even names consisting of words, just pure thoughts.

Slowly, he lost sight of the sand in his brain, yet the grains still dripped from his ears when he shook his head. He became a part of reality. Or perhaps he became part of a hellish dream.

Darkness huddled in the damp sides of his eyes, danger snapping at his bruised joints and soles. Deep inside his chest, his heart damned, words mixed with intuitive instincts, daring his body to live beyond the yellow veil.

Stage One of Project $DEE has been completed.

$DEE was not his name. It was what he was called. One of the words that would echo in his brain. Dee. Dee. Dee. Like a rhythm, like the beeping machines. Like the ringing of the heart monitor. It was embedded in his ears. Baby words jumping around, forming pictures, babbling him into nothing.

Dee, his brain still a desert, started to make better sense of this reality he lived in. He could control his body sometimes. He could move his arms. Or what was left of his limbs. Or what they had lent him.

The second picture in his brain, the one after the yellow veil: it was the artificial lights on Lab C’s ceiling. Grey illuminated by white, he stared up at the square tiles and textured glass, like undulating waves of melted sand.

With how long he was locked in place staring up at this picture, he memorized it. He could close his eyes at any moment and picture it in its exact detail again.

“Time to get up, Doll-face. It’s time for your first mission.”

He saw Dei’dra’s face again. He felt his restraints loosen and break away.

His first mission was not all that glorious. He was lanky, unused to moving in his body. He was a wall of meat. Disposable. He followed a trail like a zombie. He barely spoke to the team he was placed in. He remembered their orders regarding him.

“He’s still pretty out of it. Give him some good experience, but we’d like to keep working on him so bring him back in one piece.”

Dee felt like a puppet, simply put. Some machine inside him aimed his cannons and lasers. He stood in place, shooting at targets. He was guided by an invisible leash by the team he was assigned to. He saw sepia shapes. Blurs of bodies. All he could feel was the emotions in his gut telling him, repeatedly:

Youaregoingtodieyouaregoingtodieyouaregoingtodieagainyouaregoingtodiestoppleasestoppleaseyouaregoingtodiestopstopstopstopstop.

He was kept suspended in place while his body completed the mission. And then he was back in Lab C, mind clearer.

He was thinking in sentences now. He could monologue, like any great villain. That is what he had become, hadn’t he? Why a villain? Where had he learned that word? The more he sifted through the sand, the more words he could find he no longer remembered learning. They were just there, connected to nothing. No memory. No past life.

He kept thinking these words. And then he decided that since his jaw was not glued shut, he would give speaking a try. Garbled and slurred at first, he kept talking as much as they let him.

They made him run between ceilings of grey. They made him speak between illuminated square tiles. He practiced lines of a script. Subterfuge settled in his brain like a mirage in the distance between the settled sand.

He could walk on the unsteady ground once again. He could see. He could hear. He could experience the world around him. He gazed up at the ceiling but was interrupted by a splotch of dark violet.

Another blot. Another vulture. He stood there out of the corner of his artificial eye.

“What are you waiting for? Get on with the tests.” His voice sharp, cutting through his tongue.

This was an unusual time of day for tests. To say it was a time of day was generous. It was more like he would be experimented on for hours upon hours and then suddenly they would stop. Nothing to do but bask in the nothingness it brought.

At this point, Dee thought that he was done with most of the tests. He had his limbs. He had an eye, which he opened wider to get a better look at the violet blotch. Something about the blotch was connected to something else in his brain, but he could not quite place it.

“Well, whatever it is, get on with it, it certainly could not have waited until morning.”

It shuffled closer to him. Less of a blotch now. He could make out shapes. He could recognize his face now if he saw him again.

Air escaped his lungs, and then he said again, asking, “Whatever might you need from me today, doctor?”

The blotch was shaking. “If you are just here to sight-see, I am going back to sleep.” His eyes weighed heavily on his face, eyelids falling through his willpower.

“Are you… okay?”

No, I am not ‘okay’. I am ‘$DEE.’

“Do I LOOK okay? Yeah sure, I am right as rain, having a grand old time—feeling peachy, even.” At this point, the words just spiraled off his tongue and through his teeth. The blotch made a sound, and Dee’s frustration grew, the pain of today’s tests ricocheting in his body.

“If you aren’t here to run another one of your little tests, then just get out. Go tell your superior, or better yet, go tell Dei’dra to go fuck herself and leave me alone.”

And he left him alone. He wondered vaguely what that was all about. He then fell asleep.

#ts (In Other Worlds) #ts (INW) #ts Janus #ts deceit #ts the dragon witch #ts storytime #ts storytime 2021 #ts big bang #ts Virgil #sarcasm writes #sarcasm ts fic #thomas sanders #sander sides #sander sides fic #ts Anything

[oikirstein]

𝐭𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐢𝐭 𝐛𝐚𝐜𝐤 | 𝐤.𝐭𝐬𝐮𝐤𝐢𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐦𝐚

PAIRING: tsukishima x fem!reader

SYNOPSIS: You’re in your third year at Karasuno High, and have liked Tsukki for all of them, but after finally being in a relationship with him for the past six months, you realize his cold, careless demeanor, which you once fell in love with, was the same reason you were falling out.

CONTAINS: Angst (?)

WORD COUNT: 2,610

A/N: Anyway, this is my first time writing a char x reader one shot, so hopefully it isn't too dreadful to read. I wanted this one to be about Mr. Kei Tsukishima because the phrase “take it back” sounded angsty, and I have a burning hate towards him, so I thought it would be fitting.

Part two here.

Prompt from here.

Six months.

That’s how long you’ve been in a relationship with Kei Tsukishima, but is that how long you’ve practically been in love with him? Of course not. You’ve liked the blonde boy since your first year orientation, when you noticed how much he soared over the other students. Obviously his height wasn’t the only thing you liked about him. You adored the way he cared about his best friend, Yamaguchi. You found it hilarious when he picked on the other first years (and occasionally the upperclassmen as well). You were in awe of how he almost glowed at the end of a long game. You grew to love his stone cold face, which he wore so effortlessly and so undeniably well. You were fond of the way he’d get annoyed of his short golden curls tickling his forehead. You were desperately in love with every little thing about him. Who would’ve thought that over these past six months, those things that you found so much comfort in, would’ve also become the exact reason you were in the position you’re in now?

You had the grades, you had the looks, but most importantly, you had the boy. What more could you ask for?

It was January when Tsukki had seemed to have forgotten to walk you home—which you thought was strange since he’s walked home with you everyday for the past year and a half—but you made the excuse nonetheless. 

Maybe he’s just running a bit late. Maybe practice was taking longer than expected. Maybe he just lost track of time. Maybe—

Excuse upon excuse was running through your head as you sat outside the gym waiting for him, like you did every day you were together. You always asked him why you couldn’t just wait for him inside so you weren’t vulnerable to the elements (and so you could watch him practice).

“You’d only be a distraction,” is what he always said before walking away and leaving you all alone beyond the gym doors.

A forced smile spread across your face as you shrugged your shoulders and turned on your heels to sit on the bench near the vending machines. You wondered why he was so distant with you—no—you longed for a real answer. Was he trying to hide something within those concrete walls? You knew Tsukki had secrets that he kept from you, hell he hardly ever talked about the things that weren’t secrets, but to say you were shocked when you found out the secret he was keeping was you, was an understatement. Because that day, that special winter day, was the day the sky decided cry.

Your legs moved before your brain could think, and suddenly you were running towards the gym’s entrance, seeking refuge from the rain. The sounds of sneakers squeaking against the laminated hardwood floors, the echoes of volleyballs ricocheting off of walls and hands, the murmurs of huffing and puffing coming from the athlete’s chests—they all came to a halt as they stared at the girl who just interrupted their practice.

“Can we help you?” their captain, Yamaguchi, said with a smile and both hands resting on his hips.

“Oh um sorry. I was waiting for Tsukki outside and it started raining so I kind of just ran in here without thinking,” you giggled to hide your nervousness, but your shaky tone was still apparent.

“Tsukki?” Yamaguchi questioned.

“Yeah...” you trailed off thinking of what to possibly say. Tsukki wouldn't be very happy if he found out that you actually came into the gym and showed yourself in front of his teammates, but then again it’s not like he ever got upset about anything, “it’s just that me and my boyfriend usually walk home together and he still hasn’t come out.”

If according to routine, Tsukki typically would’ve been done with practice about two hours ago. At this time, It would usually be just Yamaguchi left alone with the first years, as he liked to spend extra time working with them and their skills.

“B-boyfriend?” the green haired boy almost couldn’t contain his laughter in his reply.

“Yes...” you tried to laugh with him, but the awkward tension in the air kept getting thicker and thicker.

“I’m sorry,” he chuckled, “it’s just that Tsukki’s never told us he had a girlfriend, or even liked anyone before.”

Oh. So that’s why he wanted to keep you out of the gym.

“Say, how long have you two been dating now?”

“A little over six months.”

His expression went a complete 180. What was once the look of light, friendly banter, was now riddled with fear, shock and a jaw nearly touching the floor.

“Oh my god,” Yamaguchi looked as if an apology was on the tip of his tongue, but before he could get the chance, you opened your mouth.

“Uh well since Tsukishima obviously isn’t here, I’ll just walk home myself. Thanks for the help Yamaguchi,” you hurriedly replied, one foot already out the door.

Step after step, the time it took between your strides became shorter and shorter, as you broke into a run, making your way towards home. Why would he keep you a secret from them? Why is he always so cold? Why does he always push you away? Why does he always tease you with that same monotone voice? Why did he not love you? 

You stopped mid-step as you took in your surroundings. You knew exactly where you were. This was the intersection where you and Tsukki would part ways. You debated: left or right? My house or his? Where should I go? 

You took a minute to think about which direction to take, when suddenly your phone rang. Pins and needles ran through your skin and a chill went down your spine as you read the caller ID.

“Tsukki”

You stared at the phone in shock, eyes wide, mouth agape, and skin turning paler by the second. He never called you first, so why start now? Ah. That’s right. Yamaguchi probably told him what happened.

“Hello?” you practically almost whispered.

“You went inside the gym today?”

“Uhm yes?”

“Why do you sound like you’re not sure,” his words said one thing, but his tone said another. Like he was trapped trying to scream in a place where the volume was muffled.

“Yes,” you said, more stern this time. Today was the day you were going to get answers.

“Why?”

“Take a fucking guess, Tsukki.”

Silence.

“I was waiting for you. Outside the gym. For four fucking hours,” you all but yelled into the phone.

“You could’ve just stayed outside.”

“Are you blind, four-eyes? Did you forget your glasses or something? Its raining!”

“Y/n,” he didn’t say your name often, maybe that's why it always had you so weak in the knees, “where are you right now?”

“Why?”

“Well you sound upset and it seems noisy in the background,” maybe he actually did care about you?

“The intersection.”

“Theres thousands of intersections in Miyagi, Y/N, try being a little more specific,” there it was, the passive aggressiveness he was so good at using.

“I know that, dumbass,” annoyance dripping from your lips, you tried getting across to him that you were fed up with his attitude, “the one where we always split up.”

“K,” was the only thing he uttered before you heard the dial tone.

Could he be on his way here? Did he want to talk to you? Did he want to see you?

One ounce of you. All it took was one ounce, one sliver of hope, for you to be waiting out here in the rain, not entirely sure if Tsukki was going to show up or not. You made a deal with yourself: if he wasn't here in the next fifteen minutes, you were leaving, and the two of you would be over. Right then and there, you hadn't realized that one of those things would have been inevitable anyway.

Five. Ten. Fourteen.

You cautiously watched the clock on your phone as your anxiety grew more and more intense with every passing minute.

There it was. Fifteen.

Some part of you must have known he wasn’t coming, because when the clock struck exactly fifteen minutes, you did not hesitate to get up and take the right to finally go home.

As you turned the corner, you heard the faint tap, splash, tap, splash, tap, splash, coming from behind, growing louder and louder the closer it got. You thought it was just a dog, or maybe some sweet, innocent child playing in the rain. Then you heard the volume of a voice you never thought you'd hear.

“Y/N!” Tsukki cried while running towards you, “Wait!”

You did not stop. You did not wait. Your steps did not waiver the way your breath hitched at the sound of your name. You continued on as if nothing was said at all.

Though this plan of yours didn’t work as you had forgotten one important factor: Tsukishima was an athlete. You forgot how fast he could run if he really wanted to...but maybe you wanted him to run after you? This was all you wished for after all. For once you wanted him to understand how it felt to chase after someone with no requiting in sight.

You didn't stop walking until you felt a heavy hand on your shoulder and an audible exhale against the nape of your neck.

“Why are you running away from me? I know you heard me,” he said, his monotone tone of voice almost slipping...was he...pleading?

You hadn’t turned around yet when you spoke, “You have some nerve asking me that,” you all but spat.

“W-what?” Oh so now he was stuttering? Was this even the same Tsukishima you fell in love with all those months ago?

You turned around so fast, you could have sworn he winced when his arm was violently whipped to the side.

“Isn’t that all you’ve been doing for the past six months?” You raised your voice—something you’ve never done in front of him before—but little did you know that this day was going to be full of firsts for you two, “Just look at today. You forgot about me. You didn’t tell your team about me. You barely even talk to me.”

“Wait, that’s not true—”

“Is it not? Your best friend didn't even know that you had a girlfriend,” you cut him off.

“Well if you would just shut the fuck up and let me explain you would know why I did all of that!” 

What a terribly heartbreaking sight: to see two young lovers yelling at each other in the rain. Tsukishima grabbed your wrist and turned around, making an effort to start walking in the opposite direction.

“Just follow me,” he sighed, putting his headphones on and dragging you along behind him.

You were tired—exhausted really. It was draining to be the only one putting in effort to stay together. You genuinely believed that if you stopped initiating, the two of you would fall apart. That’s probably the reason why only a mere whisper could be heard from your lips.

“Do you even like me?”

With the sound of the rain’s relentless smacking of the puddles on the floor and the music coming from Tsukki’s headphones, he wasn’t entirely sure if he heard you correctly, or if you had really said anything at all. Still, although his pace never faltered, he still felt a pang in his heart from your supposed words.

You used your free hand to ever so lightly tug on the hem of his shirt, and that’s when he realized you truly did utter those broken hearted words. It was like he nearly came undone at your touch.

“What?” he said as he slowly lowered his headphones to rest on his shoulders.

“I know you heard what I said,” suddenly the sky wasn’t the only thing crying that day, but unlike the heavens above, your tears were warm, livid, and came slowly down your face—inaudible to the human ear.

“Y/N—”

“It’s a simple yes or no answer, Tsukishima,” you said this despite already knowing the answer. He was either going to tell the truth or lie.

“Yes.”

He lied.

It was true: you had the grades and you had the looks, but life could not grant you the boy.

“Let’s,” your voice almost broke at the thought, but you kept yourself together for just a little longer, “break up.”

Tsukki swore his heart stopped beating for a second. Surely you weren’t serious.

“W-what? Why?” His voice was shaky and panicky—two things you wouldn’t dare associate with him.

“You’re smart! Do you need me to spell it out for you?” You looked up at him, eyes glossy from oceans spilling out of your lash line, and the sound of defeat flowing out of your throat. “I’m so tired of this whole relationship being one sided! Do you want me to start coughing up rose petals for you until I can’t breathe? Because surely I’m getting there.”

“Do you seriously think I don’t like you? I wouldn’t be standing here if I didn't care for you,” he half-screamed. Tsukki was offended that you’d doubt him, but he was the one who gave you every reason to.

“For the first time in six months—six fucking months—you came for me. Where was this attitude yesterday? Or the week before? Or months ago? The fact of the matter is,” you took a deep breath as to not unravel right then and there, “your heart is the one thing that will never be mine.”

You turned away from him and whispered, “So let’s just end this here, before any of us—before I—get hurt,” and you walked away. It wasn’t until you were out of earshot when Tsukki’s heart wrenching three words slipped from his mouth.

“Take it back,” he held his hand out for you, watching as your petite frame got smaller and smaller with every stride.

When you disappeared from view, he slowly turned around and slumped in his step. He went back home and dropped to his knees when he opened the door to the reminder of your absent presence. 

Why had he left early?

He planned a special surprise for you at his house for your six month anniversary. A banner, chocolates, roses, teddy bears, and all of your favorite movies. It took him all of six months to build up the courage to do something as heart warming as this—but unfortunately, he was six months too late.

Why was he so cold?

He knew that’s why you caught feelings for him. You told him all about how you fell in love with his distant demeanor. How you thought it was cute when he cringed at people trying to make conversation with him. He never changed because he thought that's what you wanted. After all, that is the reason you liked him, wasn’t it? Maybe he was just too inexperienced to recognized what you truly wanted—no—what you truly needed.

You see, Tsukishima was the type to love in silence, the way you did all those years ago. He left you love letters in your shoe locker, the ones you assumed to be from random secret admirers. He’d leave practice thirty minutes early so you wouldn’t have to wait for him too long. He’d make sure to shut anyone up who dared speak a single negative thing about you, because he too, was in awe of every single aspect you had to give.

Neither of you could have predicted that that unassuming day six months ago was truly the beginning of the end.

© all content [unless stated otherwise] belongs to oikirstein 2020. do not modify or repost.

reblogs are greatly appreciated :)

#ik i don't like tsukki but writing this kinda made me sad #hopefully its angsty enough #keitsukishima #tsukki #tsukishima x reader #reader x tsukishima #tsukki x reader #reader x tsukki #haikyuu #haikyuu one shot #haha fuck tsukki #gel scribbles

[critical-thinking-is-mandatory]

[Image ID: An anonymous ask to myself stating:

You didn't write the post but you reblogged and endorsed it. Sorry I don't think teens should be forced to read rape apologism and racist garbage for their high school education lmao End ID]

Look, I'm not going to dignify you by responding to your actual ask.

From your first ask and this one too it's already immensely clear that you didn't fucking read the post.

The post is about how reading books that you may be uncomfortable with, and then analysing it, is a skill that's not considered valuable in tumblr circles because obvs it's more important to have all your books be like Peter Rabbit or Supernatural and never have your pov character be a total piece of shit in order to prompt greater thought and reflection. 🙄🙄🙄 It's about how people want to fandomise everything and reject anything that can't be fandomised ie. works that are designed to make you think.

By reading books like the Great Gatsby and 1984 and Animal Farm and Wuthering Heights and The Importance of Being Ernest and The Hunger Games and the Handmaid's Tail and Huckleberry Finn, and then being asked to break down the themes and messages and the ways those are presented it actually, Shocker! Prepares you to be able to better analyse and recognise messages and themes and ideas that you come across later in life.

Yes, a great deal of literature we consider classics was written by white men, and there are a great number of conversations being had about that. BUT I HAVE NOT INVITED YOU TO HAVE THIS CONVERSATION ON MY BLOG.

This is a blog about a shitty french cartoon, and sometimes I reblog unrelated stuff.

If you wanted to have a conversation with me about how we glorify the works of deceased white men you could have approached me civilly, off anon, not declaring shit about rape apologia just because you've failed to recognise that some books are made to make you THINK instead of tell a happy story and hold your hand to the right answer.

#not mlb #jesus fucking christ #caps tw #swearing tw #rape apologia mention #rape tw #ffs #like i'm sorry you've never sat down and thought about *why* someone wrote what they wrote? #like orwell is renowned for writing works that make you question the state of society and many of the things that come with that ie. the #*so-called rape apologia #it's not my fault that you took everything as it was said and didn't actually bother to think about i #*it #like idk how to tell you this but you can portray the hero of your story doing fucked up shit without advocating for it yknow #it's called nuance #i'm tired man #if you're gonna keep at my inbox you're just getting blocked

[sheron-c]

XiSang Fic Recs

I haven’t seen any rec lists floating about, so for the XiSang Week 2020 challenge - Day 7 - Free choice, I wanted to create a rec list of my personal favourites for Nie Huaisang/Lan Xichen ship. There’s actually a lot of stories that are great and I don’t want to duplicate the entire ship tag, so these are just the top 10 that I found super enjoyable: 1.  My Heart is a Saber by peskyjellyfish (~11k)

Summary: Huaisang is on his way to Xinglu Ridge when he gets sidetracked. Rec: This is the fic that gave me everything I wanted to read about them post-canon. Nie Huaisang is angry and damaged, Lan Xichen is hurt and curious, and they find the kind of hope in despair that can only be found together. 2.  come and find me (lying in the bed i made) by ImaginationCake  @demonic-cultivar​ (~22k)

Summary: After Jin Guangyao dies, Nie Huaisang is ready to enjoy his life free from the burden of revenge plots and subterfuge. But his decisions have resulted in a deep guilt that he can't shake, and he struggles to stay afloat with no one left to support him. To top it off, he finds himself tangled up in politics that he really couldn't care less about.What he does care about is Lan Xichen's opinion of him, but Lan Xichen won't even look at him anymore. Nie Huaisang can only hope that his life doesn't get any worse. Rec: The fic that got me into this ship! ♡ I did of course come to AO3 looking for more NHS & LXC content immediately after watching the Untamed. After seeing that ending scene with their conversation on the Temple’s steps I wanted more, but I wasn’t sure it was a romantic ship for me until I read this story. It’s got everything, a kidnapping, a rescue and a bad case of feelings :D 3.  A Skilled Tactician is the Jewel of a Kingdom by Hypatia3 (~50k, WIP) Summary: During the Sunshot Campaign, Nie Huaisang wants to help despite his terrible sword skills. But there are other things he's good at, and nobody can say his mind is weak. But nobody has to know.After all, he wants to go back to his life of general uselessness after the war is over, and Nie Mingjue would never allow it if he saw a single sign of competence from him.But this has consequences that he didn't expect. Rec: One of the absolute best stories in this fandom when it comes to Nie Huaisang’s characterization -- he’s clever and yet so very Huaisang, in such a believable way that *hands* I can’t explain how much satisfaction I get out of reading and rereading this story. Honourable mention:  A Decisive Victory by Hypatia3 (~24k, WIP) Summary: When Jin Guangyao acts against the Nie Sect a little earlier, Nie Huaisang ends up in over his head as acting sect leader. But he has a responsibility and a duty to his sect. His brother is counting on him until he recovers.Or Nie Huaisang loses his temper, starts a war, and impresses a lot of people along the way. Rec: This is not marked XiSang, and is a divergence from the earlier Tactician story (around chapter 7) but it’s such fun to read and Huaisang’s interactions with Lan Xichen are top notch, so I can’t help mentioning it here.

4.  from tomb to tomb by @the-pretzel​  (~16k)

Summary: It's a lot easier to get truth out of someone, even one with a very good reason to lie, when they're drunk. Or, five times Nie Huaisang was drunk and once it was Lan Xichen's turn instead. Rec: Written to capture moments over the years during the course of the show, as Lan Xichen and Nie Huaisang dance around each other, this story is absolutely beautiful and vivid. I can still see the scenes of the story pop up in my head like drawings, of Lan Xichen walking in on semi-hungover Nie Huaisang and the sheer tension between them enough to keep you breathlessly reading.

Honourable mention:  when i'm reborn by @the-pretzel (~1.1k)

Summary:  Nie Huaisang's daemon settles the day he finds out what Jin Guangyao has done. (His Dark Materials fusion) Rec: A very short, very lovely daemon AU, which I’m definitely reading as XiSang :)

5.  What I had to do by @ibijau​ (~20k) Summary:  After three years in seclusion, Lan Xichen gets an unexpected guest he would rather have avoided. Yet when he learns that Nie Huaisang is dying from a curse, he is forced to confront his guilt toward Jin Guangyao's fate and the people his sworn brother hurt. Rec: I’d say this is a fandom classic, so you’ve probably read it already :D But, one of my favourite things about this story is the way it captures Nie Huaisang running away from emotions, and Lan Xichen being selfless when it comes to those he cares about. 6.  gather jewels from graveyards by LuckyDiceKirby (~15k) Summary: Nie Huaisang stole happiness from Lan Xichen. He stole peace. If he could just see him, and see for himself exactly what he’s done, and know—that will be enough. Then he’ll be able to paint again, and his hands won’t shake as he does it, and he’ll remember why he ever in his life bothered to put brush to ink to paper. After all, a man should have to live with his mistakes. There is no other way to learn from them. His brother believed that. Rec: One of the first stories I read for this ship and so well done! This is one where Nie Huaisang feels very guilty, and who doesn’t enjoy reading that? Nie Huaisang comes to the Hanshi to make amends, and doesn’t go away when Lan Xichen won’t see him.

7.  When the world is cold (I will feel a glow) by @marsdiogenes (~3k)

Summary: Xichen is trying very hard to get his crush to notice him, but gallery curator Nie Huaisang has a job to do and would appreciate it if Lan Xichen's beautiful face would stop for a moment so he can focus. Mingjue just wants to have a nice, quiet family dinner and for everyone to respect his efforts.

Rec: I don’t normally go for Modern AUs for this ship, but this was so fun and sexy! Also Nie Mingjue’s knowing reaction is :3 8.  to embrace doubt by fensandmarshes, Fleetling, idendreams, medievalfantasyqueen, space_enjolras, sxnshot (blasphemyincarnate)

Summary: Five times people thought they understood Nie Huaisang + one time someone admitted they didn’t - a collaborative, semi-chronological character study of Nie Huaisang through other characters’ eyes. Rec: Okay, it’s technically not marked shippy, but you tell me that someone who thinks about Nie Huaisang the way Lan Xichen does in this story, in the chapter that’s from his pov can possibly not love him, and I won’t believe it. The lyrical prose is the best description in a paragraph I’ve ever read of Nie Huaisang.

9.  Love of my life, I hate you by Ibijau (~126k) Summary:  With Qishan Wen growing ever more powerful and menacing, QInghe Nie and Gusu Lan decide to cement a firm alliance between their sects through a marriage between their children. Lan Xichen and Nie Huaisang are less than thrilled to learn this, but nobody is asking for their opinion anyway Rec: At first, I wasn’t sold on Lan Xichen being so thoughtless in his treatment of Nie Huaisang as a child and mostly wanted to smack him, but damn if the later events don’t make up for it, make him grow up, and turn the tables around. :D This story is utterly satisfying to read, like one of those novels that give your Id everything you want, eventually. I love slow burn and this is that in spades! So much fun, I’ve re-read parts of it multiple times already.

Honourable mention: Ibijau has so many interesting XiSang stories, like the one where Jin Rusong survives and Nie Huaisang ends up raising him (Second Chances For First Time Villains), and the one where Lan Wangji and Nie Huaisang, both in love with someone else, make a marriage match and solve crimes together ( We can light a match and burn it down), the god!LXC AU, and many others. Check them out! And finally,

10.  Chapter 95: LXC finds out about JGY and tells NHS,  from MDZS short fics by nirejseki ( @robininthelabyrinth) (~1k) Summary:  In that AU where LXC pretends to be LWJ and discovers NMJ's head, what if he went on a quest to put the body of his old friend together and along the way accidentally ran into NHS who's on the same mission. And they realize the other knows! Rec: Nirejseki writes a lot of great Nie brothers content, and this is one short story that can arguably turn into XiSang in the future. The possibilities of this AU make it so exciting, I had to include it on the list even though NHS and LXC only talk and nothing else happens.  ...Okay, that was more than ten fics here, but can you blame me? 😍 I love these two together. And with the XiSang week running we have so much new stuff!

#xisangweek2020 #xisang #nie huaisang #lan xichen #the untamed #mdzs #fic recs #favourite xisang fic recs #watch tumblr eat this post because external links lol #¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[luna-tormenta]

Lúthiena & The Fam Book Review: Urban Faery Magick by Tara Sanchez

This is my first witchy book review, please bare with me. It may not be the best review but, I wanted to share my thoughts and experiences, as well as some of my spirit family's opinions on it! Hope you all enjoy it! Thanks for reading💀🌙🌻

Lúthiena's Review

This book challenges the reader to "stretch their understanding of the world around them" (pg 7), and after reading, I believe it truly lived up to these words. Urban Faery Magick is dedicated to techniques, experiences, encounters, and everything in-between of working with and learning about the Fae in modern times!

Firstly, I would like to say, the title of this book should be "Modern Faery Magick" or "Faery Magick of Today", because it has a TON of information on working with the Fair Folk. Not just working with them in an "Urban" sense. Yes I know it says "Connecting to the Fae in the Modern World" underneath the title, but I just think it should have been named differently🤔🤷‍♀️

The first portion of this book, is all about techniques of meditation, protection, and how to build up necessary skills for communicating and working with the Fae. Such as working with your imagination to build up your Sight, practicing Pareidolia (the ability to see faces and shapes in objects), and dowsing for Fae activity. There are a bunch of techniques, that I will describe in a later paragraph! It also contains information on the Courts, names, and folklore surrounding these amazing spirits. Tara does an amazing, in-depth job with writing about the Fae, especially when in the case of working with them.

Chapter 3 contains detailed descriptions of basic techniques to aid the reader in their exploration of Faeries. It covers breathing techniques, rhythmic breathing and walking, and a meditation called "The Silence Between" (pg 42).

This involves listening to your heart beat and feeling your pulse to meditate (your heartbeat and pulse don't line up and there's a small pause between each.) While using this technique, it allows you to enter into the Otherworld through the slight pause, it's a neutral ground between our realm and theirs, it's "the silence between" both worlds.

Next in line comes a cleansing/grounding technique, called the Verdant Breath, which uses the aid of an Ivy plant spirit. In chapter 4, Tara uses this breathing technique to go a little further and work with this spirit to protect yourself. I really enjoyed learning the different techniques throughout this chapter, it was really cool to see new components I've never learned before. I have tried the Verdant Breath and have seen a difference in my ability to meditate. Next, I will be trying the Silence Between.

Teachings in chapters 3 and 4 are there to help you build up skills for further exercises and meditations that are placed throughout the entire book. Tara also uses these chapters to explain why it is important to build up your abilities before interacting with the Fae, and why it's highly recommended to protect yourself. Amongst these pages are different charms and amulets to use, as well.

Next we further our understanding of the Fae through chapters 5-7, and look into further techniques used in folklore and history. I really like Tara's use of history and folktales because she touches on bits and pieces of EVERYTHING, and knows when to stay in her lane.

The second half of Urban Faery Magick is my favorite. Tara introduces an elemental system known as Wu Xing, because not all Faeries "fit neatly into the boxes" of the five elemental system we know as witches, and I highly agree with her! (Pg 101) In ways this system is alike the five elemental system we know and frequently use, but is a bit different. I highly recommend looking into Wu Xing a bit further after reading Tara's book.

Leaving out Spirit of the western elemental system, Tara combines the Wu Xing elements with the 4 elements of our normal system, to create more categories for identifying and labeling species of Fae. I have included a quote of page #104 for a better understanding of how Tara classifies and combines the elements.

"Note: ...The manner in which my system combines the Eastern and Western systems follows a very similar process, with each of the Eastern elements combing to make aspects of the Western (or vice versa), as can be seen in the table below.

[Picture ID: Columns of the Eastern and Western elementals systems. Across the top are five boxes containing the words Wood, Fire, Metal, Water and Earth, each box contains a element. On the left side of the graph contains four boxes, from top to bottom, with the words Earth, Air, Fire and Water. The different element columns are combined. Top to bottom, under the "Wood" category, we have "Earth of Wood, Air of Wood, Fire of Wood, Water of Wood". To the right of "Wood", under the "Fire" category there is "Earth of Fire, Air of Fire, Fire of Fire, Water of Fire". To the right of "Fire" is "Metal". This category starts with "Earth of Metal" then "Air of Metal, Fire of Metal, Water of Metal". Next in line is "Water". Underneath we have "Earth of Water, Air of Water, Fire of Water, Water of Water". The last category is "Earth". Underneath is "Earth of Earth, Air of Earth, Fire of Earth, Water of Earth". END ID]

This was also my first ID description. Please let me know if I need to make any changes to it! Thank you!

Therefore a being who is traditionally considered a water elemental may well actually be earth of water. Or, as with one of the entities I have worked with, fire of water. Another being may be air of metal rather than entirely air. Yet another, earth of wood, and so on.

...For each element, we will follow a case study for a particular Fae, getting to know them within environments where you may have not have thought to find them." (Page 104)

The case studies are a mix of Tara's personal experiences as well as experiences of mutuals of hers, and range across a few generations.

Each element has its own chapter, and contains a lot of information about each element. Tara does "modern sightings" for the elements, as well as two case studies. There are paragraphs dedicated to aligning yourself with each element, which I wish were a little bit longer. She also gives lovely guided meditations to visit and learn about each element's realm. At the end of each element chapter, Tara concludes with "Finding Other Fae" which includes names of Fae species to be on the lookout for!

The only bad thing I'd have to say about this book is the paragraph on giving thanks to Faeries. It states not to directly say "thank you" or acknowledge them for helping you. I, and I state again, I believe in giving thanks to my Faerie friends. Plus, Tara kind of contradicts herself by dedicating a paragraph to "not thanking the Fae" then tells you, in a later chapter, to "thank the Fae you work with". But, I digress.

I'm super grateful to have come across this book! I highly recommend it to anyone who works with the Fae, as well as beginners, because like Tara says in the beginning, everyone can learn at least one new thing! I give this book 5 out of 5 stars!⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Spirit Family's Reviews:

Dawn, the Selkie:

"I really enjoyed the classification of the elemental systems combined. It adds a deeper perspective and understanding of Fae for humans to learn about us. This allows them to form a better viewpoint on our aspects as Faeries."

L, a Lunar Moth Faerie:

"I enjoyed the element system like Dawn, but got a bit confused on how to categorize Fae, like myself, who have planetary aspects. I wonder if Lúthiena will write to the author for me!! Other than that I agree the info gives aspiring AND experienced Fae workers a ton of info to starting and maintaining relationships with spirits of our kind. I also believe it is in our nature to urbanize and I like Tara's view on it. She should write another book!!"

Ly, High Lord Fae of the Night Court:

"The information provided in Urban Faery Magick is simply put and highly informative. As a High Fae Lord, it is my duty to join together with different types of Faeries, meaning I have met quite a few species. Tara adds great descriptions to each element she provides, and elegantly designed ways the reader can interact with each element. This is a must-read for anyone wishing to add a little magic to their lives, or is wanting to find a path into our world."

Tar, High Lord Fae of the Summer Court:

"Continuing off my friend's review, I would wish to add that Tara magnificently wrote Urban Faery Magick. You can clearly see the dedication she has towards working with Faeries throughout the pages. She must have a higher purpose of working with the Fae. I especially enjoy knowing she is teaching others about things like the Thorn Gates, since a lot of portals have been destroyed. Hopefully, thanks to Tara's book, they may gain the respect they once had."

Bo, a Boggart:

"Let's just say I did NOT like the stuff said towards boggarts. We are not house faeries gone wild. Yes, sometimes we have slightly irritating tendencies. But we always mean well to you humans. Other than that the book was great."

Hank, an Eyeball Demon:

"Even though I am no where near a classification of Fae, I have had many encounters with them over my many years. Tara has an interesting take on the modernization of the Fae species that is very true and real. I agree the titled works, Urban Faery Magick, should be on every spirit worker's shelf."

Dara, a Toddler Fae*:

"I really liked the story of Rumpleskillson. (Rumpelstiltskin). It was like so cool he could turn that stuff to gold. Maybe I can do that someday. Also, there's like so many stories of us in that book! El Cadejo was another cool one! If you like stories about us you should read that book"

*For those who are not aware, Dara is an experimental hybrid Faery. He was rescued from a Spirit Hoarder who enjoyed experimenting on faeries.

Ra, a Rose Demon:

"I didn't enjoy being called a plant diva, no matter how true the statement is.

The Earth class was slightly misunderstood as we are still here, thriving ever beautifully on. Some of us just choose to hide in your plants more carefully.

Like Hank said, I don't technically fall under the Faery thing either, but I am a plant spirit and Tara mostly depicted us perfectly. I mean she did write some pretty neat stuff." **brushes hair off shoulder**

Aaron, a Hellhound:

"This was a very knowledge filled book."

LA, a Dandelion Angel:

"Firstly, we're not ALL plant divas. We just really like things to go certain ways. Other than being called a diva, the pages of Urban Faery Magick contained useful information for Fae workers. I especially liked reading the Cairn exercise and how it instructed to build it at home, NOT in nature. I also agree Tara should create another magical read like this."

We hope you enjoyed our reviews!

For more information on Urban Faery Magick please visit:

Search "Urban Faery Magick" on Amazon

Www.TaraSanchez.com

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