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kitmon · 1 year

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S'That Metal? | Eddie Munson x Fem!Musician!Reader

Series Masterlist

Summary: A new neighbor just moved in a door down and Eddie can’t reign in his curiosity.

Pairing: Eddie Munson (Stranger Things, 2022) x Fem!Musician!Reader

Chapter: 1/? [wc: 6.3]

Part 01

Tags: swearing, Eddie falls and hurts himself (talk of aching pain and soreness), probably some bad guitar talk because I’ve only been playing for a few months, reader is a bit mean but, I mean, she’s totally justified, Eddie's kinda a creep but he has innocent intentions, vague discussion of a parent with terminal illness

Author’s Note: It's here! Finally a full first chapter of S'that Metal? I know it took me literally forever but I hope that despite the long wait you guys will enjoy it. Thank you to my lovely @queenimmadolla for beta reading as always now please enjoy!

Chapter One: S'that Metal?

The sun is hanging low in the sky, casting a golden glow over the tops of the pine trees that decorate the edge of Forest Hills, indigo darkening the east as day gives way to night. Eddie’s van rumbles along the dirt road as he pulls into the lawn, tapping his fingers over the steering wheel while the sweet licks of Saxon’s Graham Oliver blare through the speakers. He flips the ignition off and steps outside, skipping to the front door with a satisfied smile over his lips as he fumbles with his ring of keys.

Another successful Hellfire session, he thinks to himself as he inserts the right key into the lock. Though the freshman can be rowdy at times, he enjoys their enthusiasm and it makes nights like this, where a devastating blow is dealt to one of his obstacles, all the better, with cheering, celebration, and pats over the shoulder. He couldn’t care less if they destroyed his entire fleet with one critical hit, as long as they were having fun, he was doing his job as Dungeon Master.

Just as he’s about to push the door open with his shoulder, the familiar sound of a whining guitar could be heard nearby. He looks to the trailer situated next to his uncle’s. A moving van has been parked in its lot since yesterday morning and the front lawn, even now, had boxes, empty and full, littering itself. That isn’t what interests him though. It’s the muffled voice of that guitar, piercing the paper thin walls of these shitty trailer homes.

All the more curious, Eddie pulls the key out of its socket and pockets it in his leather jacket. He takes a few wide steps towards his neighboring trailer, attempting stealth but really only achieving looking like a complete dork. His steps are soft and as he moves closer the sound becomes much more clear. He’s pressing his ear against the side of the mobile home and— is that Whiplash?

He’s turning his head to stare at the wall in disbelief, eyebrows furrowed as if it could quench his confusion. He notices a warm light seeping through a window only a foot overhead and he begins whipping his head around to try and find something that could operate as a temporary step stool. With the natural light of the sun nearly gone, the star having hidden behind the tall pine trees to the west, he can hardly see anything too far away but he can make out the outline of a thrown out milk crate, holding a few empty liquor bottles and soda cans. He reaches for it and dumps out all of the contents onto the dirt and he swears that the next morning he’ll collect it and throw it in the trash but as for right now, he just needs to see who or what is playing that song.

As he takes a step onto the crate, the blue plastic of it groaning under his weight, he can barely peek his eyes over the window’s sill but it’s enough to see the makings of a very small kitchen. Just past the small bar he can see into the living room and that’s where the sound’s coming from. He can see your figure cradling the guitar— a sleek cherry red Jackson Pro, he could make out with some difficulty from his position— held up tight against yourself. Your eyes are focused on the lower length of the fretboard as you chew at your lower lip in concentration, your fingers gliding across the strings with a mastered practice and as a particularly intense part of the instrumental kicks in, you start to curl in on yourself, really feeling the music as you shake your head to the sounds of the solo screaming and crying to the will of your fingers.

Eddie watches, spellbound by the way that your picking hand flicks up and down with a practiced precision and as he’s leaning on the tips of his toes to try and get a better look, your eyes fall to the window in passing before doing a double take, your eyes wider as they fall upon half of Eddie’s face. You both share a panicked look, your fingers halting over the strings as you drop your pick, the thin piece of plastic slipping from your fingers and disappearing into the jungle of your shag carpet. In the frenzy of being caught, Eddie’s foot slips and the crate is tipping over, sending him tumbling to the ground.

As the image of his eyes to the top of his head disappears from your sight, almost in a flash, you’re detangling yourself from the guitar strap and setting the instrument so that its propped against the coffee table before you’re jogging into the kitchenette and leaning over the sink to try and see where he went. You climb onto the counter, your knees and shins resting awkwardly with the dip of the sink, and push the window open.

As you poke your head out, you see the mysterious set of eyes and unruly bang-ed figure writhing in the dirt and rubbing at his hip. He looks like the wind has been knocked out of him as he groans and begins to prop himself up on his elbows, lifting his head to catch your eyes.

“Who the fuck are you?” You question, your words strict and serious.

Eddie whines at the embarrassment of it all before giving you an answer.

“Uh, I’m Eddie… Eddie Munson,” he clarifies, before pointing to his trailer, only a bit away. “I’m your neighbor.”

Your eyes flick to his trailer next to yours before scanning over his figure and determining how much of a threat he actually poses.

“Is looking through people’s windows normal in this town or is that just a you thing?”

Eddie chuckles as he lifts himself back up with creaking joints and a pained grunt.

“Uh, no,” he laughs, “I just heard you playing and um…yeah, I don’t have much of an excuse for, uh… peeking through your window.”

“Okay,” you mumble to yourself before speaking, “Well, don’t let it happen again, weirdo.”

You reach for the handle along the window to close it before Eddie interjects.

“Wait, wait, wait!”

Your hand falters as your gaze falls back to him.

“I just— Was that—” He huffs a sigh before asking, “Were you playing metal? Like heavy metal?”

As he asks the question he mimics shredding on the guitar, wiggling his fingers like he’s hammering on a fretboard.

You puff your cheeks up with air and blow out a sigh, rubbing your fingers over your forehead as the absurdity of this situation causes a mild migraine to bloom out from your temples.

“What? Are you gonna file a fucking noise complaint or something—”

“No, no! I love metal! Just— fucking look at me!” He chuckles, dragging his hands over his frame to draw your attention to his Dio t-shirt and ripped jeans adorned with his glinting chain catching the low moon’s glow. He’s lifting his hands to tousle his disheveled head of hair and show off the length and the volume of his curls. “I just didn’t know that anyone in this park cared for it. You just moved in, right?”

You squint your eyes before tossing your attention from left to right, seemingly confused by his curious line of questioning.

“Yeah.”

“Cool, cool. I’m Eddie, by the way,” he says, throwing his hand up in a curt wave.

“You already said that,” you notify him, your voice dull and devoid of any humor, and his hand balls up into a fist before slamming into his thigh as it falls in disappointment.

“Right,” he laughs at himself under his breath before sucking his lips in towards his teeth.

“Ok, well, this really has been a lovely chat but I have work in the morning, so, bye.”

He tries to protest you leaving but his voice catches in his throat as you’re slinking back into your home and slamming the window shut behind you.

“Welp, “ he sighs to himself, “screwed that one up big time.”

He ambles back to his trailer and brings his hands to rub over his tailbone and backside, groaning with each limped step he takes.

Late in the morning, the minutes inching towards midday, Eddie croaks a grumbled hum, tucking his hands and rubbing his face into his pillowcase before arching his lower back in a strained stretch. He flops his stomach back onto the mattress as it shakes with his weight and groggily brings his arms out from where they’re bundled beneath his sleep-flattened cushion to lift him up so he can brush the tangled strands of hair out of his eyes and away from his mouth.

After a bit of dawdling, he’s pried his sweaty limbs away from his sheets and makes himself a bowl of Froot Loops. He takes large spoonfuls into his mouth and drips a bit of milk over his chin before wiping at it with the back of his hand. As he walks back into his room and stalks towards his guitar, hung lovingly over his vanity, he notices the snapped little e string he marred a few days earlier during a night of mindless fiddling, accidentally turning the knob too tight while forgetting what's clockwise and what's not. The string hangs sadly in a loose ringlet and he sighs, reminded by the sight that he needs to go into town and buy a new pack before his next rehearsal.

The bright white glare of the September sun peirce’s Eddie’s retinas and makes his face scrunch up in distaste at the shift in lighting, hand lifting to shade his eyes as he skips down the few rickety, weatherbeaten steps. He fiddles with his keys and twirls the ring around his index finger, making jaunty steps towards his van. As he fingers through the keys and hums a violent tune to himself, he looks over his shoulder and chances a glance at your trailer. In the window, there’s a note; a hastily torn away yellow pad page, the message reading in bold black pen, “USE THE DOOR, WEIRDO.”

His lips curl in on themselves and he bobs his head in silent embarrassment as he takes his key and jams it into the lock.

Eddie swaggers into Marty’s, the bell above the door tinkling with his presence. His head travels from left to right, looking around, hiking the sagging seat of his pants up by the belt loops as he enters. He makes note of the wall adorned with strings of varying purpose, some meant for cellos and violins, others for basses and guitars and as he makes to step towards it, something stops him. His eyes travel to the minimal practice room and, behind the glass, he finds you, a warm, mild smile stretching your cheeks as you sit next to a little girl on the piano bench. You’re speaking to her, instructing her, encouraging her, all of which he fails to hear through the barrier as you point your finger to the keys and demonstrate the proper notes and tempo. There’s a clear joy overcoming your features as you watch her adhere to your advice, surely improving if it incites that reaction but, as your eyes wander and you look over your shoulder, your smile falters at the sight of him.

With your lead-like stare, his muscles contract as if faced with the threatening glare of a starved tiger, shoulders tensing before he tries, as inconspicuous as possible, to turn back to the strings and pretend as if he hadn’t even noticed you, let alone been enthralled by the foreign image of your easy smile.

Your hardened and, frankly, frightening expression shifts as you placate said smile back onto your face and address the child once more.

“Keep practicing your scales, Sweetie. I’ll be right back, okay?”

She nods her head at you dismissively, too focused on biting the tip of her tongue as her untrained fingers do decently well at replicating the D major scale you’d demonstrated to her. You stand up from the bench and push past the door, letting it fall slowly so as to not disturb your pupil. That gentleness dissipates instantly and all that remains is the annoyance that has been irked out of you by this guy’s persistence.

You stalk up to him and see right through his attempt at nonchalance, his fingers stupidly toying with the packaging of the banjo strings. He catches you, in the corner of his eye, standing next to him, arms folded and eyebrows set as you confront him.

“Are you stalking me now or something?” You do little to hide the impatience that laces your voice.

“What? No! No,” he laughs anxiously through the last word, the slip not helping his plea of innocence as he does his best to school his nerves. “I just— I had no idea you worked here, I just need some new strings.”

Your eyes cut him up like a steel switchblade before you turn to the wall and scan the various gauges, styles, and materials.

“What instrument do you play?” You ask despite already dropping to crouch down, becoming eye level with the guitar strings.

“Uh, guitar, the, um, electric kind,” he informs, leaning over your shoulder, all too intrigued by your process.

“What kind of music?” You’re entirely focused, astoundingly unbothered by Eddie’s childlike nosiness and lack of spatial courtesy as your fingers graze the plastic and the paper packaging, your eyes running over the names and brands printed in wild to mild fonts.

“Metal, mostly.”

“You’ll probably want a thicker gauge.” It’s muttered under your breath and, as quick as a viper, you snatch a fuschia package and shoot up from your place low to the floor, wordlessly stepping towards the register. He stares dumbly after you before scrambling to catch up. You ring him up and pop open the drawer, your hip taking the brunt of the unforeseen force, the mechanism delayed and unreliable as per usual.

“Your total is eight fifty-six.” There's none of that anticipated customer service charm as you deliver the line.

He surges into a disarranged scrabble of hands patting at his vest and front pockets before finding his wallet stashed in the back of his pants, kept close by the glittering chain that strings across his hip. He produces a 20 dollar bill and savors the way your fingers brush the joint of his, cold as they may be, like a kid in middle school, excited by the mere acknowledgement of a crush.

You go through the motions, flipping the bill clips up, placing and exchanging cash while scooping coins into your palm with your fingers. His eyes wander and he feels inclined to speak, to talk to you in hopes of hearing you talk back.

“You know, I’m actually in a band.” He stuffs his hands into his pockets and feigns nerve, the plastic face tested against the unimpressed and blatantly uninterested look you flick to him as you sift through the smaller bills in your hand.

You hum to acknowledge him, looking back to your cash, flicking the clips up in the drawer and laying the extra bills back, “You’d think with that experience you’d know how to pick strings.”

You offer his change out to him and press the dollars into his palm, letting the avalanche of coins spill from your fingers into the divot made by the crumpled paper.

“Hey! I know how to pick strings,” he defends. Your body shifts as you eye him, callous disbelief coating your features. “I do!”

“Mmhm,” you lean over the counter, elbows bracing themselves against the turquoise-speckled laminate, “And how long did your last ones serve you before they gave out and couldn’t stay in tune anymore?”

“I dunno, about three weeks?” You hiss at that number. “What? What’s wrong with that?”

“Just tells me everything I need to know.” You roll your lips in towards your teeth and give a listless shrug as you shut your drawer.

“Well maybe you don’t know as much as you think you do,” he challenges, taking your place over the counter, the leather on his forearms creaking as he adjusts himself. “Come to my show.”

He points over your shoulder at the corkboard hung behind the desk, advertising various events and services. You turn and find the handmade flier stapled to the board, lifting your hand to take the purple paper into your fingers and snatch it down from its place to examine the details. You flip the paper to perhaps find more on the back, noticing the bleeding of the black marker through the page, the ink making up the spiky, tendrilly name of the band, the font making the words hardly legible.

“Corroded Coffin?”

“Mmhm, we’re playing a show Tuesday,” he informs, his dorkish smile wrinkling his cheeks. “You should come, see how much you really know.”

“I’m busy,” you shut him down, leaving him with a dumbstruck expression painted across his face as you start to step towards the practice room, able to hear the faint tinkling of “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” played slow and choppy yet discernable from within.

Eddie’s quick to recover and calls after you, “So, I’ll see you there at eight?” It was phrased as a question but was spoken as an expected reality, entirely delusional yet charismatic in its dog-like hopefulness.

You turn your head over your shoulder, hand ready to twist the knob as you catch his impish grin, all teeth and obnoxiously cocksure.

You begin to correct him, “I said—”

“I’ll save a seat for you.” He’s backing up, heading towards the door, fingers occupying his back pockets.

“Wait! I didn’t—”

“Don’t be late!” He’s already out the door, the bell signaling his exit. You huff a peeved breath before directing your attention back to the flier you still held in your hand. You flip it open from being folded and rub your finger over the date and time highlighted near the bottom of the page. You shake your head in disbelief at yourself and step back into the practice room.

The bar maintains the mellow mixing of drunken grumbling and ice clinking into crystal glass. The floor is spare of any people save for the few slouching elders that nurse their drinks close to their chests and stare blankly into the wood grain of their tables. The atmosphere exists as if through syrup, moving glacially and almost frozen in time while Eddie and his bandmates make the most noise and the most movement as they ready their equipment.

Eddie adjusts the mic stand, fiddling with the knobs, and despite it not being very hard to tell, he lifts his head and lets his eyes scan over the bar, deflating when he realizes you’re nowhere to be found.

Eddie’s pulled from his scrutiny of your absence by Gareth calling. “Eddie, could you help me with this?”

“Uh,” his eyes are weary of leaving the door, afraid you’ll pop in at any moment and then leave before he could approach you, “yeah.”

The flier crinkles in your hold as your thumb makes an ineffective swipe over the material to smooth out the folds. You shift over the prickly cushions of your couch, the spines of feathers stabbing you as you chew at your lip and continue the silent debate you’ve been having. You drop the flier into your lap as you fall back into the cushions and regret it with the wave of tiny stabbings you receive.

This is stupid! You hardly know the guy, and even that is being generous towards the status of your relationship, yet you’re wasting your time wrestling with yourself over whether or not to attend his gig! That doesn’t even take into account the fact that he was peeking through your window less than a week ago. The answer should be no. And it is! The answer is no! You’re not going.

“Baby!” Your head snaps to the right and you stand at attention, ready to bolt towards the end of hall if need be.

“Coming, Mom!” You jog down the corridor and push past the door to find your mother out of bed and crawling along the floor in search of something

“I’m sorry.” She sits back on her calves and directs an apologetic look your way. “I dropped the remote and it fell under the bed.”

You rush to her side and slide your arm under her own, taking her frail, cold hand into your free one as you gently help her stand before guiding her to bed.

“You know you’re not supposed to be out of bed,” you scold with no real malice behind your words as she slips under the covers, “I would have helped you.”

“I know, Babe, but I don’t like to bother you.” Her eyes are glassy and pleading as she stares at you.

“You don’t bother me,” you reassure, kneeling to reach your arm under the bed, fingers running blindly along the carpet until you feel it under your palm. “I don’t mind helping you.”

You reemerge and hand her the remote, her hand shaking as she takes it gratefully. As she flips through the channels, your eyes slip over to her bedside table, finding the glass of water you’ve left out for her untouched.

“Have you taken your meds yet?” You turn to her, eyebrows ruched, and watch as her features go pouty.

“They taste like chalk.” You giggle at her dramatics as you place the flier absentmindedly on the bed and begin organizing her doses for the evening, popping open the orange bottles and pinching out a few pills.

“I know, but they’ll help you feel at least a little bit better,” you persuade as the small tablets slip through your fingers, plopping one or two, sometimes three, into the organizing tray.

The flier catches her eye with its hammy graphic design choices and she reaches out for it, eyes roving over it as she asks, “What’s this?”

You turn and find her with the advertisement, going a bit cagey and sheepish as you dismiss it. “It’s nothing, just a local band playing a gig tonight.” She brightens at that, eyes glowing as a smile threatens the corner of her lips.

“You should go!” She encourages, turning back to the paper, smiling down at the clearly homemade graphics. “You hardly go out anymore.”

You give a lighthearted scoff to her unintentional ribbing as you hand her the tray, “I go out!”

She side eyes you with a deadpan expression, “Work doesn’t count.”

You shake your head, a humorous smile testing your lips as you hand her the glass of water. She remains persistent.

“Baby, please go.” She accepts the drink but holds off on drinking, cradling the dish in her lap. “I want you to have fun, make friends, I don’t want you to have to be cooped up in this stuffy trailer like me.”

You chew at your lip, peeling off the long-dead skin before leaning forward and taking the flier, folding it up and stuffing it in your pocket. “ I just…” A deep sigh. “I like being here with you. I don’t need a party, I don’t need friends, I don’t need to go out. I just want to stay with you.”

Her mouth shifts and her eyes fall to her quilt before she plasters a tender smile on her lips and gazes up at you, reaching for your hand and rubbing her thumb to soothe the tension in your brow away. You tentatively look at her and she concedes, “Alright, then we’ll stay.”

You smile in thanks before dropping your eyes to the floor where your socked-toes burrow into the shag, communicating through the squeeze you give her hand. She squeezes back.

Their set began 20 minutes ago and as Eddie opens a song with his cool voice, fingers playing over the strings to the simple riff, you were still yet to arrive. Despite the obvious naivete of it, Eddie can’t help but let his eyes wander over the room, from wall to wall, stage to entrance, looking for your frame, your stern features. His fingers fly near-mindlessly from chord to chord as he sings, eyelids dipping to where his lashes tempt the height of his cheeks, lips ghosting over the mic.

Their set list is rather tame, consisting of familiar rock tunes and a few of Eddie’s more ballad-like numbers, a far cry from the band’s usual dark magic and cryptid descriptions of witch-like sanctums, with the expected girls, sex, and drugs dabbled in there, all of which is a bluff to the actual experience of any of the band members. But a gig was a gig and money was money, even if the glory of it was cheapened by the sanitary wash over his artistic voice.

At this point, he’s sure you’re not coming. You had said you wouldn’t be so he wasn’t sure why he even convinced himself of your appearance anyway. As he lets his fingers roam over the strings, he supposes he just wanted to know you better; you were someone like him, someone who liked metal and someone who liked disrupting the natural order of things and there were few of those in Hawkins.

His eyes fall to the planks of the stage as his vocals fall away and he puppets the strings of his guitar, playing a languid solo that matches the passionate intensity of the song itself.

As he bends the strings and sustains a note, he lifts his eyes to the door. It remains still, unopened, untouched and it’ll remain that way for the rest of their set. Even when they’re recoiling their cords over their hands and under their elbows and clipping their hardshell covers closed, he can’t help but allow his eyes to flick to the door, tongue darting out over his lips in a nervous tick.

When he slams the door to his van shut and drives far from the bar, as the minutes tick by into hours, despite his better judgment, he lets himself feel disappointed.

A rainfall of clutter trickles onto your carpeted floor; old concert tickets, jewelry, long-lost guitar picks, and other useless trinkets fall in a frenzied and disorganized flurry from your vanity drawer. You scrounge like a starved raccoon, pushing through what feels like a bottomless pit of stuff that isn’t what you’re looking for. You crawl to your bedside table and give the cabinets the same treatment and still no luck. Even in the lone sock you keep in your underwear drawer there’s nothing, not even a single crumb.

Your last blunt’s long gone and your stash from Michigan has been all used up; no bud left in sight. You huff and fall against your dresser, back leaning against the varnished wood as the metal adornments dig uncomfortably into the flesh of your back. You’d have to leave for your shift in 20 minutes and you dread the work day with no herbal relief. You sigh towards the ceiling and help yourself stand, tiptoeing over the piles of clothes and mountains of miscellaneous junk to steal a five minute shower.

It’s a slow day. Nobody ever comes in on a Wednesday and the shop is filled with the dull tap and scribble of your ballpoint pen scratching against the yellow pad paper, broken intermittently with the various noises that accompany your restocking of product. Marty does the same as you, making notes on his clipboarded printer pages before taking the item and slipping it onto the wall to hang.

Marty’s nice, father-like in the way he cares for your well being yet friendly as he jokes and talks of irresponsible endeavors, encouraging adventure and dismissal of the status quo. He’s understanding and frequently nonjudgmental and he’s lived in this town from the time you moved away to now so you figure your question isn’t entirely a long shot.

“Marty?” He grunts down at you, not distracting himself from writing and then placing, writing, placing. “Do you know any suppliers?” Your behavior is rather nonchalant for the nature of the question; voice subdued, eye glued to your notepad as it exits your mouth and rests out in the open. The noise that your simultaneous work makes comes to a stop and forces you to cringe as you fear you’ve made the mistake of asking an older person to allocate you weed. Your eyes twitch over to his shoes and you wait for his inevitable response; a clearing of the throat, a “you’re fired,” anything. But he surprises you.

He does clear his throat and continues making the mechanistic chatter of his chores before he speaks.

“Depends, what needs supplying?” The lilt in his voice seems to incline towards your cause and you follow in his lead, continuing your restocking.

“Relief…” You swallow but elaborate, “of the plant variety.” You look from the corner of your eyes from your crouched position at his legs.

“I may know a guy, I could call him up for you if you need.”

You have to restrain yourself from squealing like a little girl but make your ease known either way.

“Oh my god,” you sigh, pressing your forehead to an empty expanse of wall, “you’re a lifesaver, Marty, you have no idea.”

“It’s no problem, here.” His hand offers you a scrap piece of paper with a few directions scrawled onto it. “Meet him there and he can hook you up with whatever you need.”

Your eyes scrutinize the street names and the directional instructions until you come to a suspicious realization.

“The middle of the woods?” You ask as your eyes flit up to him a bit in disbelief.

“The guy likes to be safe,” he shrugs.

“I like to be safe too, Marty,” you assert.

“He is, kid, I promise.”

You sigh and forfeit your guard, “Okay.”

Mourning doves coo from the branches of the ash trees above, the smell of wet earth radiating up with each step you take as you trudge over the littered foliage carpeting the forest floor, not entirely sure of the exactness of your whereabouts or if you were marching straight to your deathmaker. But you press on, the twigs and graying leaves snapping and crumpling under your shoes as you notice the trees beginning to thin a bit, the light of a semi-open clearing appearing like a holy beacon that you find yourself gravitating towards. Through the cipher-ish lining of trees you make out the silhouette of a person standing idly by with their back turned to you, form tucked close, hands under armpits, as they hope to ward off the autumn chill that bites at unwrapped skin.

Your unhoned crunching alerts the stranger to your entrance, head perking up from where he’d been making trenches into the dirt with the toe of his sneaker, turning his whole body to meet you. You still as your eyes meet honeyed brown, irked as you watch that stupid, lordy smirk consume his face, his demeanor shifting into that arrogant slouch he displayed to you at the music store.

“You have got to be kidding me,” you mumble under your breath.

“Who’s stalking who now?” He haughtily inquires, chin raised and arms crossed over his chest.

“I am not stalking you,” you growl, already fed up with his antics. “I’m here to make a deal.”

You step towards the table and slip your legs over the bench to sit. He watches, studying you as you rub your hands together between your thighs, shivering under your light coat and burrowing your running nose into the mohair of your scarf. He swaggers towards the table, taking heavy confident steps before seating himself and saying, feigning aloofness, “Missed you at the show last night.”

“I told you I was busy.” Your voice is curt and serrated.

He pulls his lunchbox from its place next to him and places it on the table, beginning to pop the latches as he continues to stoke the fire.

“When I came home the lights were off in your trailer,” he relays his observation, rummaging around in his container of contraband.

“Jesus,” you laugh, all humor drained from the sound. “What is with you and spying on me!”

“I wasn’t spying!” He throws his hands up as he tries to defend himself, a clear plastic baggy with a few pinches of weed piched between his fingers. “I’m just curious! You pop up out of nowhere, you don’t talk to anyone! You know, us misfits, we need to stick together.”

“I am not a misfit,” you differentiate through a clenched jaw.

“Then why don’t you ever talk to anyone else?” He pushes as if it’s just built into his nature to be this maddening. Your eyes follow the eighth of an ounce that hangs between his index and middle finger, dangling it so close, almost taunting you with it.

“God, you see me intermittently for about a week and suddenly you think you know me! Look, I only came here for the weed and if you’re not gonna deliver, I’ll find someone else.” You begin extracting yourself from the bench, ready to leave this whole mess of a transaction behind.

“Okay! Okay, I’ll stop asking questions!” He yields, calling out for you. You eye him warily, unsure if you can endure much more of him before he emphasizes his words by dramatically zipping his lips shut and flicking away the key, wiping his hands free of any invisible evidence.

You sit back down and he tosses the baggy in front of you and you smile to yourself, things falling back in order. You pull your wallet from your coat pocket and flip it open to examine the bills inside. “How much?”

“Free of charge.” Your face falls and you halt your sifting.

You lift your face, features once again filled with scorn. “Listen, I don’t know what you hope to get out of this but I’m not flashing you for free weed or giving you a weak handjob, okay?”

His eyes go wide and he makes to argue your assumption.

“No! No, can you ever just accept that maybe people want to be nice to you?” He huffs. “It’s an apology, for looking through your window and assuming shit about you.”

Your eyes dart from the bag back to his gaze, unwilling to fall into whatever trap he may possibly be laying out for you.

“Would you just take it? Look, I’ll even throw in a free palm reading,” he wagers with a cheeky tilt of his head.

“You can’t read palms,” you scoff, narrowing your eyes at him as you shake your head.

He shrugs and juts his lip, “Who’s to say.”

You still don’t take the baggy and maintain your chary, distrusting enamel.

“Watch,” he begins as he slowly reaches for your hand, giving you enough time to pull away if you wanted to as if he hasn’t given you enough reason already, but you don’t. You let his inhumanly warm fingers draw your frozen ones towards the center of the table despite your instincts warning you of the ramifications of allowing him any closer.

He unfurls your hand, takes the bag of weed, and places it into your palm before curling your fingers over it and pushing it back towards you.

“In that hand, I can see peace and relaxation in your future.” He looks up at you through those wispy lashes of his, his flirty smile twisting your stomach as you avert your eyes and focus on the loose thread in your sweater, coiling and uncoiling it around your middle finger to distract yourself.

He reaches out for your dominant hand, the heel of your palm resting against the edge of the table before he leads you by your fingers to where the other had rested and unwinds it just the same. He rubs his own furnace of a palm over yours to untense the muscles and have your fingers rest in an unmanipulated state before drawing his fingers over the lines of your hand.

“Here, I can see a stubborn tendency, but the line bleeds into something soft and gentle.” You hold off on your scoff and settle for rolling your eyes as the trail of his fingers running along the streams of your palm tickles you.

“And here, I can sense a heavy burden and a looming fear.” His eyes peek up at you and as much as you know that all that he’s spouting is unfiltered rubbish, you feel your heartbeat quicken and your breath hitch as you have to restrain yourself from snatching your hand away and running as far as you could.

He draws the tips of his fingers towards yours and squeezes the appendages, rubbing his thumb along the joints, somehow sensing your unease and attempting to soothe that ache.

“And here, I can tell that you have terrible blood circulation,” he jokes as a dorkish smile dimples his cheeks.

Your body softens, slipping away from that state of panic as it shifts back into your unimpressed detachment, dragging your hand away as you call an end to the games. “Okay, that's enough.”

With the reason for attending this appointment held safe in the confines of your pocket, you figure it’s time to take your leave. You stand and turn towards where you came from, taking a step and hoping it leads you back to where your car is parked. You don’t get very far before he’s calling after you.

“That’s the wrong direction!”

You roll your lips into each other before turning and heading more South, miffed about his being correct.

He chuckles after you, the deep, throaty sound rattling his chest before he packs up his box and mingles for a second, sliding his foot over the trench he’d made, making the ground flat again before he walks in the opposite direction as you, shaking his head as he replays the softened, bashful tinge you’d spared him, over and over, all the way home.

Taglist:

@dadsbongos

@maraschinocherry3

@idkidknemore

#eddie munson #eddie munson fanfiction #eddie x reader #eddie munson x you #eddie munson fanfic #eddie munson x reader #stranger things #joseph quinn #eddie munson x musician!reader #eddie munson drabble #eddie munson x fem!reader #stranger things fanfic #stranger things fanfiction #S'that Metal?

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pithyorangecurd · 2 years

Note

oh i am looking directly at those tags. i am rotating your martin in my brain like a rotisserie chicken. low empathy martin who’s had to struggle to figure out the behaviors it takes to appear compassionate was already very close to my heart, but yours comes with all these arbitrary rules in place, this set value of himself - is it that he values himself so little that he would have a hard time respecting people who actually fall for his song and dance? or what is it?

Something about an inherited hatred.

Martin has to be the one who takes care of people because he always has. He had to take care of his terminally ill mother who hated him. Had to give up everything he could have dreamt of to take care of her; dropped out of school in his final year, got a job too early, dead end into dead end, lied his way into a position where he worked library for the next five years.

A careful mix of victims of the lonely loving the loneliness and Martin's own misconceptions and personal form of seclusion. They [victims of the lonely] hate being with other people, and they can meld into society in a way where you almost don't notice how they hate it but you can't fully get rid of it. Its an awkward discomfort that they just cant erase. And the only way Martin learned to love was through taking care of people by force.

His mother never explained things to him and it infuriated him, broke his heart. Everything would be so simple if people just talked about it. Except.

Thats not true.

It just feels like it.

How could she admit that she didn't hate Martin for anything he did, but for his face. How could she look her husband in the face and tell him how much power he still had over her after the dust settled, and the burden was left in her already sick hands. How would that explanation ever help anything, and do anything except hurt him more.

So Martin's got it in his head that the way he can make himself lovable is through being useful. Doting, past the point of discomfort. That the problem in everything is that nobody will just talk about their issues. Nevermind that the issue could very well be just that they just don't like you. If he looks in the mirror he can see the ghost of why it would be his fault they don't like him. He can understand it. It's his face. He doesn't.... smile right.

Martin who feels like if he's earnest enough the hate will break and everyone will forgive him for an imagined sin and if everyone talks it out all of their problems will work... somehow. It's how it's supposed to work. That's the rule. Thats how things are supposed to work. It infuriates him to no end that they won't do the simple work it takes to fix things when it's just words away.

But at the end of the day Martin doesn't want a conversation, there are plenty of conversations had. Martin wants this imaginary conversation where everyone has a reasonable answer that he can smile and offer a cup of tea away. And life doesn't work like that. And if it did he wouldn't like it. Wouldn't know how to react if someone gave him open affection.

The person Martin falls for is Jon.

Not kind and funny Sasha, not flirty sort of skanky Tim, not any of the people he worked with for five years before. He fell for his boss, an unattainable position, who Hates him, who goes on record to shit talk him so one can only assume how much worse Jon is to him in person. We hear him talk to Martin to recordings and he's just as unpleasant then, and full of under the breath bitchings about mistakes and insults and hints of lies hes caught Martin in. Martin chose the unattainable position that hates him that doesn't have time to get to know him and doesn't have the patience to care about his struggle. Martin found his mother in those archives.

It's very telling to Martin's character that he's the lonely because he hates people for it. He hates people, and his facade to pretend he doesn't so nobody thinks he's weird is to be the nice chipper sort of motherly a bit naggy coworker. Hard working and earnest but just messes up.

Some nice little peeks in is that Martin opens this line of dialogue, intending to fix the s2 era of jontim hatred. He's on the record as trying several times beforehand but he's never succeeded. But it's not a conversation Martin's willing to have, because it's not what he wants to hear. He's heard it before, Jon's being sketchy again, jons "stalking them" jons "acusing them of murder" jons doing this He's doing that. So what that he is. God forbid men do anything. That's no reason to have him fired.

And Tim brings up in season two that this is supernatural and Martin dismisses that as far fetched. While in the distortion.

While in season one he has this exchange with Jon.

And right after he says this to Tim he follows into THIS handsome little lead.

Martin just looking for a reason to call Tim paranoid, and that he's being ridiculous. I don't have time to find it rn but somewhere in s5 Martin and Jon try to discuss jons monster side and he digs his heels in and refuses to listen to him changing at all. If he ignores it it isn't happening. All throughout s5 Martin is doing that when he refuses to listen to the stories, refuses to listen to jons explanation of things calling him cryptic and annoying for it when that's. The real literal explanation.

Granted its the end of the world and he feels like he's losing Jon.

But MARTIN'S the one who always always always demands an explanation, a dialogue, to explain what's happening why this is happening what Jon feels about this. And hes always the one who gets mad when it's not what he wants to hear.

Martin and Jon work because Jon can't love Martin, and when he can Martin is literally the only person left for him. Just like his mother. And he still doesn't trust him. Knows Jon will lie to him, and run away to leave him behind. And hes right.

Mmm I have work in a little bit. So I don't really have time to fix this into something that makes sense. But tldr Martin is lonely coded and the way he was raised made his evasionary tactic into a love language that has never once worked and he hides behind that.

#i dont think this will make sense bc im jumping thoughts but i haven't slept and i have work #good luck. my love.

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toranekooo · 11 months

Note

hello it is i i come to clog ur inbox again hope its no issue... THANK U FOR TELLIN ME ABOUT HANIWA IT WASN'T LENGHTY AT ALL it actually left me wanting to know more !!! could u tell me about the idol series......

HIII WELCOME BACK !! im always happy to talk abt haniwa i vibrate ever time i talk abt it yahay!! LETS GET DOWN TO IT THEN !!

the idol series is a branch of honeyworks' confession executive committee, which as opposed to the large majority of their songs that centered on familiar shoujo manga struggles such as love, crushes, terminal illness, talking flowers, and of course, what happens when your crush moves to USA bc he was too stupid to confess — ANYWAY. idol series deals with the struggles and sufferings of idols in the entertainment industry, as well as the relationships they form in and out of their jobs !

idol series primarily centers on lipxlip ! which if you have ever seen me or spoke to me you must be fully aware im not very normal about them and just Talking abt them is one whole post itself so lets just jump over that. pyon~~!

lipxlip are the introductory characters into idol series, with one of its members, aizo, having a branch in the love series through his brother, ken. this shows that both serie are inherently connected and are simply separated by heteronormativity super silly things!

idol series also includes hiyori, lipxlip's manager and classmate who has since earned her own spot as a main character in love series with her own love story with shiranami nagisa — as well as other idols !!

mona is an angel-themed idol who is also the sister of sena narumi, a love series character and partner of midori takamine AND an in-universe media personality !

minami started as a collaboration character with y!mobile where he was introduced as the love interest of nakuru in bae love, and they have since canonized their relationship in ren'ai thru kareshi no shikaku !

another pair of idols are asuka kaido and kanata ichigoya, otherwise known as ASCANA! theyre part of the virtual johnny's project and asuka was a temporary potential love interest for hiyori up until his rejection of her in heroine ikusei keikaku (heroine development plan) . unfortunately, ascana has probably been discontinued bc their seiyuus are part of a much bigger musical group !

last and very expansive idol group (ish) in idol series is full throttle4 ! sometimes abbreviated as ft4, their members go by stage names in english characters. unlike the others, theyre not actually idols ! theyre a music and dance group with their manager as their DJ and leader, IV! rio and yui serve as the vocals while megu and dai are dancers!

note abt ft4 is that their songs tend to deal with heavy subject matter and their theme in itself is much darker than mona's angels or lipxlip's princes, but they have some incredibly interesting stories ^_^

idol series has various other characters from different media and stories: an example is chizuru nakamura or chuutan, the infamous main character of kawaikute gomen and a diehard lipxlip fan ! there's also asuna, mona's rival idol who has done some... cruel things to mona in the watashi idol sengen manga. additionally, various characters voiced by amatsuki often play the role of mona fans, like kobayashi from getsuyoubi no yuutsu! there are more and more but at this point this ask is. Too long already. IM SORRY

i hope this helps!! its 2 am and i needed this out of my system so im answering a bit fast i hope u dont mind 😭

#8.28 | ask

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jyndor · 2 years

Text

just want to share a bit of my wip lol it’s still rough but oh well, and I’m probably not going to publish the full thing until at least the end of the season but anyway lol

She’s sleeping where she sat down hours ago. The asset, Galen Erso’s daughter, the girl with the smothered need and the fire in her green eyes. Jyn Erso. I’ve never had the luxury of political opinions, and she lied about that. Cassian would have known that from her history with Saw Gerrera alone (and he does the math again, just to be sure - six months at most, a six-month margin, a near miss) but… her eyes, twin truth-tellers. Her eyelids twitch; she must be dreaming. He’s just not sure how no one else noticed.

There’s a flash of cropped purple hair and blue eyes (easily faked, and he can’t remember how she looked, could have sworn she was taller) and the sharp memory of a crooked smile in a breathless bar fight two years ago-

The ship reverting to realspace over Jedha shakes Erso out of her sleep. The old pendant under his shirt seems to freeze against his sternum. He stills by the terminal and swallows his anticipation. Waits for the other shoe to drop.

Over the years he’s come to find some level of comfort, of focus, in its presence. Cool, sharp and ever present; if he were the sort of man to attribute moods to rocks and things, to believe in the Force, he’d say the icy sting against his heart is a warning.

Jyn pulls something clear and bright out from beneath her collar. Light from beyond NaJedha’s little moon catches in her hand - and refracts.

In her fingers (the dust of Wobani still underneath her fingernails, even after a long anxious wait for her to finish up in the blasted sonic) is a crystal. Kyber, he’s certain. She must have had it for a while. Fifteen years at least. What sort is irrelevant, and that she has one is not terribly surprising given her father’s work. But it sets him ill at ease, like the trembling suppressed need he saw in her eyes, in the very set of her frown, back on Yavin IV. Dread (or anticipation, he’s not in the habit of deluding himself. Not anymore.)

He blinks as Erso tucks the crystal away, and drags himself away from his hiding spot behind her. He’s got a job to do.

There’s no time for familiar stones and dead religions.

#fanfic #rebelcaptain #its a rough rough rough wip rough draft #lmfao some of the scenes are literally just in my doc as [... okay this happens here...]#cassian andor #andor spoilers #star wars andor #luthen can't have the crystal back #jyn erso #jyncassian #rogue one #lmk your thoughts and critiques and everything

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eviligo · 6 months

Note

I need to hear about your complicated feelings on z I am so curious i know next to nothing about this woman

ok.

so like, first off: i am disgustingly, parasocially, insanely jealous of her. let me just get that out of the way. it is an irrational jealousy because i have zero chance of having any relationship with matt and i have no delusions otherwise. i’m 29 years old with a full time job and extensive therapy under my belt and i am FULLY aware that my infatuation with matt is at its worst borderline unhealthy. so let me just say all that up front, i am extremely self aware and if anyone reads this and wants to send me hate just know you’re not going to be telling me anything i don’t know

i do not HATE zeph, but i do not like her. my first exposure to her was the noob dude video like many other people but i know she had a career before matt. but i’m not kidding when i say that the SECOND i saw her in that video i knew they’d end up dating. call it a gut feeling. then the twitter interactions followed and i was convinced if not in denial. to be fair their interactions, and their platonic friendship, was cute. they’re both a little annoying and mentally ill and terminally online

plus, their interactions gifted me with this, which i will cherish forever

and she gave me this

which, again, i hold so near and dear to my heart. but i won’t get into why, i’m sure you can interpret it

but before they ever got together i would get recommended zeph’s tweets CONSTANTLY. all the time. and each one made me roll my eyes. i muted her long before we found out they were dating. she just annoyed the absolute shit out of me. she tried too hard to appeal to a certain crowd, you know what i mean, the twitter-brained depressed queer 20-something women/enbies. the type that make their entire personality a mitski song. but that’s ok, it’s just not for me but there’s an audience for it, whatever, she wasn’t hurting anybody. i phased her out of my timeline and got to pretend she didn’t exist for a while. it was fine.

that was really where it started. i found her really fucking annoying, and she was quickly becoming close with matt, and i was jealous.

when we found out they were dating, officially, through a stream matt did with jim and luke where he let it slip that he had a girlfriend (and we were pretty sure he and annabel had broken up at that point) of course it bothered me. i already didn’t like her. and i just kind of sat in that for a while. they weren’t exactly public with their relationship but she alluded to him constantly on her social media, both positively (talked about his big dick) and negatively

and then she posted an…instagram story? on her priv? i think. that or her one of her twitters. about how he wasn’t paying her enough attention while he was on tour, talking about how she texted him she missed him and he didn’t respond immediately but when he did he was short with her. and on another occasion she compared her bpd to owning a dog.

“Imagine you were about to get a dog, but then the dog was like "STOP: I have a million health problems and I will cost a lot at the vet. And I'll tear up all your furniture. And I'll still love you and be cute but I'll be really hard to take care of.” And then the person ignores all that and is like, "I got it," because the dog's just cute. So what I'm saying is that if I warn you from the beginning and you STILL hurt my feelings, I don't think that's a me problem anymore.”

this was within the first couple months of her relationship. and it is so, so manipulative. i can’t help but draw parallels to leighton with his bpd and lex with her mental health, and refusing to take accountability. plus, knowing what we know now, with the cheating, it really recontextualizes things. sheds some light.

like i said before, i don’t think a relationship built on a wobbly foundation of cheating and emotional manipulation will last. but on the other hand she stuck with him through the last three months, while she caught some strays too. you can’t undervalue the sort of bond that can forge. plus she gets 24/7 unrestricted access to him now, which satisfies her insecurities.

there’s other, more personal gripes. i have a problem when men trade in their girlfriends for a younger, slimmer model. i think matt falls too hard, too fast, and mistakes strong affection for love. he is not without his faults here. they both have their own shit and i think they could be a powder keg. i hate how she does her makeup and think she looks so much better without it, but i have an issue with makeup culture in general. again—this is more personal stuff.

i want to stress that i DO NOT advocate sending zeph hate, or prying into her personal life that she does not share online. she’s just a mentally ill 20-something living in california. whatever happens will happen

#i’m sure i forgot some stuff in here. and idk if i’ll leave this up.

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duesprocess · 2 years

Text

* & . 〔 kim heeseon, agender, ze / zem 〕 jiwon seo is a forty - five year old superhuman known to be efficient and professional, yet callous and acerbic at the same time. rumor has it they’re a vigilante who has metal manipulation abilities — you’d never guess it when you see them working at new york police department as a deputy police commissioner. apparently they’re always listening to higher by btob, which makes sense since they kind of also remind me of the metallic tang of blood on your tongue, a dimly - lit corner in an otherwise innocuous room , and a silent promise made at the side of a sickbed.

한　.　statistics

full name : jiwon seo

nickname/s : n/a

age : forty-five

date of birth : october twenty-third , 1976

place of birth : houston

gender : n/a

pronouns : ze / zem

current residence : manhattan , new york

occupation : deputy police commissioner

둘　.　biography

jiwon often wonders why zir parents accepted the offer from cain industries. they never seemed fond of the company, nor of its superheroes, and were overjoyed when the keene act was passed. ze suspects that they wanted the money more than anything, and that losing their child to the liberty league at age eighteen was a steep but acceptable price for a comfortable life. yet they never made jiwon feel unwanted or abnormal, treating zem like every other kid zir age, even after ze developed the power to manipulate metal at the age of ten.

ze was nervous when the keene act was passed — suddenly, instead of the inevitable future ze had been facing from the moment ze was born, ze had the ability to choose zir own path. despite zir nerves, jiwon took the opportunity by both hands and began dedicating zirself to school fully, daring to imagine all sorts of different futures. ze graduated at the top of zir class and went to college in new york, studying criminal law with eyes on becoming a police officer post-graduation.

naturally, ze succeeded, six years in and still riding on the thrill of having choice. ze reached the position of police officer with barely a sweat — but suddenly achieving zir dream left jiwon hollow, wondering where to reach for next. of course ze could climb the ranks, and ze did — how else does one get to the rank of deputy commissioner, after all — but ze found zirself longing for something more.

so jiwon turned to vigilantism in zir spare time, using zir command over metal to move through the city unseen and deal with the criminals ze had no ability to deal with in zir day job.

when jiwon was thirty, ze met a woman who swept zem off zir feet. amelie was impossibly clever and beautiful, a wondrous, precious thing, and jiwon fell in love quickly. they had a flourishing relationship for ten years, marrying five years in after gay marriage was legalised in new york; but this bright spot could not last. amelie became ill, terminally so, and no cure could be found for her illness. jiwon promised zir wife that ze would not allow the grief to consume zem, no matter how hard it got, that ze would always remember the bright spark that she was in zir life.

despite everything — the conflict between zir vigilantism and zir day job, the jaded attitude inevitable when dealing with both the police and the dark underbelly of the city — ze like to think ze's kept zir promise.

셋　.　connections

f the police — is it surprising that a vigilante and the deputy police commissioner don't get along? not really, but the level of vitriol on both sides is somewhat surprising. imagine how pissed they'd be if they knew ze’s a vigilante too?

miss you — a friend from childhood or university that jiwon grew apart from over time. ze misses this friend dearly, but doesn't have the courage to get back in touch — not after ze accidentally ghosted the friend by forgetting to reply to their messages for a week straight.

open to any and all general connections !

#dhq:intro

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octowussabi · 2 years

Text

Splatoon 2 Muse Pages

Once again, before I completely gut the profiles to make way for Splat 3 content, here’s an archive for the old stuff:

Wussabi “Sabi / Spice Meister" Tak'ko

xx [Link to full Reference Picture] xx

33 years old / 6'8" / Nervously disposed

General:

Going by the names Sabi and Wuss, this timid recluse has risen the Inkopolis charts under the pseudonym Spice Meister. Nobody who listens to the Meister’s music knows what he really looks like, but this attributes to its success.

In truth, Sabi is a ‘failed’ outcome of an attempt to clone a perfect successor to Emperor Octavio. It was a strict and complicated procedure, designed to make the subjects think they really were the original, and involved disposing of any clones that didn’t meet standard (so nearly all of them). Ten years ago, Sabi was rescued from his termination by Pansy. He feels indebted to her family for helping him integrate into life on the surface.

That said, while he lives above the underground, his home isn’t quite ‘on the surface’, and is more of a roomy bunker. Wuss spends most of his time here making music, but has to leave occasionally for supplies (and if he’s feeling brave, turf war).

Recently he’s been making trips underground to speak with the new emperor, as his royal roots are catching up to him. Even if it’s not his job, Sabi can’t help feeling responsible for the wellbeing of the Octarian people, so he’s trying to help clean up the mess his father left behind.

While he mostly focuses on the creation of music itself, Wussabi has an excellent singing voice. … And stage fright.

Appearance:

Sabi (naturally) bears a striking resemblance to Octavio, which is the main reason he avoids showing his face in public. Nobody’s supposed to know his ‘true’ identity – though his social awkwardness doesn’t help much either.

Sabi has a stoop, making him seem shorter than he actually is, though he’s still notably tall.

Because of the tell-tale scar that was cut onto his left arm, Wuss uses bandages to cover both. He seems to think having two makes it less conspicuous, though since he’s self-conscious anyway, he often wears long sleeves (and long trousers). When out in public, he covers his face with a bandanna to avoid potential ‘recognition’.

His wardrobe prioritizes comfort and modesty over style, though he owns some tidy collared shirts for more formal and/or brave occasions.

Relationships:

Wussabi doesn’t get out often and has difficulty socialising, but he doesn’t mind solitude all that much.

Pansy is Sabi’s best friend – it tends to happen, with people who saved your life – and many of his other friends are extensions of her own. He knows her ex-coworker Charles, her niece Ribbon, Brine, and a few others. Ever-so-slowly he’s beginning to branch out and forge his own friendships, but with some difficulty.

Meeting the emperor wasn’t quite as big of a shock to Sabi as it was for Tay, but his immediate reaction was concern. He’d already gone through the seven stages of grief accepting he was a clone, and so is keeping a close eye on Tay as he comes to terms with the truth. As the older brother, Sabi feels like he needs to act the part.

—

Octavio “Tay / DJ Takowasa” Tak'ko

xx [Link to Full Reference Picture] xx

24 years old / 5'6" / Charismatic, witty, extremely immodest

General:

It’s Octavio! Or … well, he thought he was.

Tay is a clone of the original Octavio, and he’s the current emperor of the entire underground. He’s the one that stole the Great Zapfish a second time, though this went about as well as the first attempt.

For two years, Tay thought he was his predecessor, having memories implanted during his time in the cloning facility. He was told by his council that any physical changes and inability to remember several major lifetime events were due to recovering from a terrible, life-threatening illness. These anomalies are ultimately what led to the truth: He wasn’t who he thought.

This discovery has been quite a blow to his confidence and self-worth, so while Tay is usually quite spirited, sarcastic and mischievous, he’s presently a bit more reserved and lethargic. He’s started to recover, though.

As an additional note, his onstage persona is considerably more informal than how he presents himself in person.

Appearance:

Octavio Jr. looks much younger (and shorter) than the general public would expect, as they’re currently unaware that their emperor has been replaced. While he isn’t frequently permitted outside the palace, his new look has sparked endless gossip … though they talk more of plastic surgery than genetic experiments.

Tay’s octopus form, however, is a near-perfect copy of his father’s, the only difference being their size. This similarity is what netted him permission from the council to perform his collaborative concert with Callie Cuttlefish, as fewer Octarians would realise something had changed. If he were in Octoling form, for example, somebody might notice his tail! That was something the old emperor never had, and until recently it was in Octavio’s best interest to keep it covered.

When not wearing his onstage getup, Tay can be found lounging around in nightgowns, promotional t-shirts, yukata and kimono, which happens to be the majority of the time. These might not always be befitting of his status, but since he doesn’t often get visitors, this has never been an issue. Some time ago he purchased Inkopolis gear as a ‘disguise’, and none of his staff seem to mind him wearing that either.

Like Sabi’s, the scar on his left arm was created in a controlled environment.

Relationships:

Tay doesn’t have a lot of friends, and so is desperate for attention (though he’s too proud to admit this). The people he thought of as friends were friends of his father’s, and they’d been lying to him the whole time.

One of the few people Tay confides in is the universe-hopping Lulu. As a granddaughter of another world’s Octavio, he saw her as his only family until Sabi came into the picture. Despite this, he’s not sure if he should consider alternate-Octavios ‘relatives’, though having them around might help normalise the idea of being a ‘copy’. The ones he’s met seem okay.

Sabi and Tay hardly know eachother, but since they’re both clones of the same person created in the same facility, they had a near-immediate sense of kinship. It was Tay’s idea to refer to Sabi as his brother, and though the two have opposing personalities, a familial bond has begun to develop.

While Tay wouldn’t say Callie was ‘squidnapped’ – she was summoned to the palace and came of her own volition – he’s aware using hypnoshades to partly erase her memory was foul play, and he did apologise. Eventually. He did it in letter format, however, and has avoided her ever since, so he isn’t sure where they stand.

Regardless, he and Marie share a mutual loathing for each other, and as for Cuttlefish … well, the hatred for him is still pretty deeply ingrained. ---------------

Changes

Perhaps you’re wondering, ‘what exactly is canon divergent about this blog?’ Well, this tab was created to try and explain that, as well as a few other things.

On Hypnoshades and Mind Control

ALL OCTARIANS HAVE FREE WILL, the Calamari Inkantation just reminds them of an era of peace and some think ‘hey that’d be cool again actually’.

The hypnoshades do work this verse, but their only function was to make Callie forget about her family. After this, Octavio told his side of the story, and she agreed to help him put on his publicity-stunt concert.

Once Tay had time to think about his actions, he regretted ever using such underhanded tactics, vowing to never to use the shades again. Stealing Zapfish is totally justified though.

(If you’re a Callie blog uncomfortable with the hypnoshades in general, I’m fine with discarding this plot thread in interactions.)

On Cloning

Tay and Sabi are clones of the original Octavio, raised to believe they were him. The original is the one seen in Splatoon (UK translation specifically), Tay is the (replacement) Octavio seen in Splatoon 2, and Sabi escaped, so he’s completely out of the vaguely-canon scene.

Due to memcakes created, consumed, and created again during their time in development, Sabi and Tay share several memories with Octavio. They’re patchworked together, so some recollections are different to others, and some are completely absent.

The old Octavio is dead, supposedly. His passing was kept secret from the public by the Royal Octarian Council (ROC) in light of his own wishes.

The cloning project was never satisfactory to the old emperor. While ‘tentaclones’ can be created far more easily, he wanted an exact copy that could continue his legacy. His methods resulted in confused Octolings at best and horrific mutations at worst. The majority were euthanized.

On Tay and his (lack of) Influence

Tay was a hasty replacement for the original Octavio when he unexpectedly passed away, and he’s now Emperor of the Underground. There’s no Shogun, so he’s adopted that title too - though he’ll accept any royal recognition thrown his way.

Titles aside, Tay has minimal input into what his royal council decide to do with politics in Octopolis, Deepsea and Wetside. After recognising his position as a stand-in, it seems they have a lot more control than he first thought.

You’ve probably noticed, but this Octavio prefers his Octoling form, only usually using his Octopus form to perform (and be trapped in snowglobes). He claims it’s because he likes having hands.

Tay is not who the general public expects him to be. He’d like to tell them that he’s a successor and not his father, but he wasn’t aware himself until recently, and right now that could put him in a dangerous position.

On Sabi

Sabi looks even more like a younger Octavio than Tay does. Physically he’s a better copy, but his meek and wimpish personality is what put him on the chopping block.

After he was rescued, Sabi started living in Inkopolis. He’s been keeping his identity a secret ever since, but to his knowledge nobody ever tried to track him down.

Having been his own person for 10+ years, Sabi has managed to distance himself from the identity of his father, though it’s the only history he has. It still manages to cause the occasional identity crisis, however.

#OOC #Octwovio #Wussabi #that wasn't tay's old profile picture but also they've both been used before so lik--

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chorusgirls · 1 year

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an alley off a queens apartment complex, somewhere in the farthest reaches of the blue hour. ╱ @slimodd

the rain doesn’t fall, it plummets. crashes. collapses. fucking nosedives, throwing itself off the edge of the sky with all the despondency of a long time new yorker finding out his terminal illness has actually, in the end, received a cure. if there was anything holy left to find in the city, you could have called the sudden downpour biblical — but there isn’t, so you can’t. instead it’s just another unhappy thing throwing itself down onto the pavement and hoping for relief. to prove its point the sky glows blue, prevented from dropping to a full, blanketed dark by the echo of whatever the angels have gone inside to watch on tv, casting a miserable bruise of a colour through their windows and onto the world below. nobody’s watching new york tonight but remora, whose steps on the fire escape pace out the rhythm god might have had when he was young and arrogant: quick and smooth on the balls of her feet with too much hip, tugging on the leather gloves made a little tighter by the newly swelling knuckles underneath. the expansion is everywhere else in her body too, an involuntary and violently pleasurable growth. that’s how it feels to have another job done, the knife made unclean: too immense to be confined.

that’s how she sees him, full-up on adrenaline and tightening leather. there’s only a fragment of his body visible between dim light and the cover of an awning, but she knows who it is all the same: they’ve been playing connect the dots for some time now, a game built painstakingly with shell casings and a finger shoved into each others wounds for the pigment. she could find his silhouette in the dark. rem feels the irritation merge with something headier ⸺ he’s so fucking insistent on ruining her day.

“hey baby,”

she calls his attention to him with all the openness of an invitation, shoulders back, chin jutting upward. looking for me?

“you keep inviting yourself to my party —

— and i’m starting to get real fuckin’ tired of kicking you out.”

#RC. ALL #suicide ideation tw #rem vc: i have the high ground anakin #illness tw #RC. SLOAN #C. SLOAN

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star-ver · 1 year

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im coming down from a weak and lame high and my period started so im all emotional and i just gotta get all my emotion out while i can feel it at all.

TW VENT

i am so lonely. my boyfriend and i dont communicate well at all but we just got together and i shouldnt have accepted but i did so i feel too bad to break up with him. i dont love him. i like him as a friend, but nothing more. the only reason i really hung out with him anyway was a mutual friend and the fact that i felt skinnier around him. my best friend at school spends tons of time talking with him and theyre each others best friends. i want romance so bad. i want the feeling that not allowed makes me feel. i want to be understood and loved and i want to cry into someones shoulder and have them stroke my hair and tell me its not my fault my life is falling apart and that its okay to need a break. i cant be vulnerable to either of my parents and im not close enough with any of my friends to be open about my life with them. even my art teacher, the person i would probably be most comfortable talking about this with, is a mandatory reporter so i cant tell him about half of my problems. maybe i should just have him ask my parents to admit me. i might fare better in the loonhouse, honestly. i have nobody.

half of my life is crumbling, my and my mom's housemate who we depend on for half of rent has terminal cancer. in 2-3 months we're going to have to find a room mate or we wont be able to make rent for the last 6 months of the lease. after those 6 months well almost certainly have to move somewhere. i stay with my mom half time. i really want to live with my dad full time but i cant exactly tell my mother who is already convinced everyone wants to leave her that i want to leave her too. she has hurt me so much. she deadnames me every time i see her. she gave me this disorder and probably more im too numb to realize im losing to.

i get high so often just to cope with all this that im almost out and i barely get high at all anymore. i genuinely dont know what ill do. i wont make it through a month long t-break. i need to get more or find a different coping mechanism. i cant quit. i wont be open about my age here but i am definitely too young to be smoking pot and far far too young to be dependent on it. god i wish i could be a normal teenager. my memory is completely fried and i cant even remember what i was doing 2 hours ago 90% of the time. its my reputation at school, laid back forgetful stoner kid. its a cry for help is what it is, that i cant get through even 4 days without having to drown my problems in drugs. i wish my friends would notice instead of thinking im funny. im really fucking struggling. i tried alc a few days ago and i know its only a matter of time before i get addicted to that too.

both my households are broke. my dad has a good job and hes still more broke than normal. my mom put all our money into govt bonds, then our housemate got injured at work and had to stay home. he never healed because shocker, he has cancer. he probably wont live past february.

im so fucking bad at being ano. i binge almost every time i smoke from munchies and impaired decision making. i barely lose any weight because of it. ill restrict all day then i smoke to settle down and i eat everything and then wake up with my progress ruined feeling gross. the worst part is that i forced myself into this as punishment for being fat. i didnt develop it. something in my crazy ass brain decided to indulge in my self hatred and just opt for dying over self love and healthy weight loss. worst yet is that i forced myself into it and i cant even stick to it. im a fucking failure. i cant love myself and i cant fix myself. im just doomed to hate my current form that i cant shake because i cant restrict low enough for change. i want to sew my lips shut and live in my room living off of vape and black coffee like the good obedient people in thinspi. they have discipline. theyre skinny. theyre loved. theyre worshipped. they have everything i want. i try so hard to be good. i try so hard. most of my day is spent thinking about my weight and calories and how much i burn walking around vs sitting down. im gonna be home for 2 weeks in a few days and i am not going to lose any weight the whole time because i have no discipline and ill be home all day.

a few days ago in math class i got so fed up i took a pencil and scratched my skin until it was a bright red scrape. i was clean for like 6 months. and now i want to do it more, as a punishment. i want to be visually sick. i want people to look at me and want to help me, ask me if im doing okay, offer me a granola bar because i look faint. i want to look as sick as i feel. i feel pressured to sh because its the only way to show how fucked up i am on the inside. its another cry for help. its just another example of me wanting to sit in between recovery and death.

and lastly, i forgot my phone at my dads house and we never went to get it. this is how i felt all of 2020 when my phone got taken away because i was too tired and depressed to get any work done. its fucking terrible. now its almost 6 in the morning and i have to be up by 10am to get it, fuck fuck fuck. whatever. im about to fall asleep. thats enough girlblogging. goodnight/morning tumblr.

#tw vent #vent #tw sh #tw cancer #tw ed

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jahfinancialservices · 2 years

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newstfionline · 2 years

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Wednesday, August 17, 2022

Rent’s the new gas: Surging rental prices become a top inflation worry (USA Today) Rent is the new gas. Surging rent prices—instead of gas—are now hitting consumers hard, according to data from Bank of America Institute. Median rent payments for Bank of America customers increased by 7.4% year over year in July, a slight pickup from 7.2% in June. Increases were seen across all income groups, but middle-income and younger Americans saw the largest increases, the report said. “With roughly 34% of U.S. households being renters, a sizable increase in rental prices have squeezed consumer wallets,” the institute said. June’s CPI report showed rent increased from a year ago by 5.8%, the fastest pace since 1986, and upward pressure is expected to continue. Comprising about a third of the CPI weighting, rent inflation will likely keep CPI inflated this year. Goldman Sachs forecasts rents to increase by 0.6% to 0.7% from month to month for the next several months and peak around 7% year-over-year later this year.

We see you (NYT) In the back and forth over workplace power, American employers have been getting the better of employees for the past few decades. The latest trend is employee monitoring, which often has a Big Brother quality, tracking workers’ keystrokes and more. In lower-paying jobs, the monitoring is already ubiquitous: not just at Amazon, where the second-by-second measurements became notorious, but also for Kroger cashiers, UPS drivers and millions of others. Now digital productivity monitoring is also spreading among white-collar jobs and roles that require graduate degrees. Many employees, whether working remotely or in person, are subject to trackers, scores, “idle” buttons, or just quiet, constantly accumulating records. Employees at UnitedHealth Group can lose out on raises or bonuses if they have low keyboard activity. Some radiologists have scoreboards on their computer screens that compare their “inactivity” time with that of colleagues. In New York, the transit system has told some employees that they can work remotely one day a week if they agree to full-time monitoring. Even many in-person jobs now include productivity tabulations. One section of the story describes the frustration of hospice chaplains who receive “productivity points” based partly on how many terminally ill patients they saw in a day. “This is going to sound terrible,” one chaplain said, “but every now and again I would do what I thought of as ‘spiritual care drive-bys’” to rack up points. If a patient was sleeping, “I could just talk to the nurse and say, ‘Are there any concerns?’ It counted as a visit because I laid eyes.”

Explosions refocus Ukraine war on Russian-annexed Crimea (NYT/AP) A week after blasts destroyed several fighter jets at a Russian base in Crimea, huge explosions rocked an ammunition depot on the occupied peninsula, injuring two people and causing the evacuation of 2,000. It marked another embarrassing blow on what President Vladimir Putin has called Russia’s “sacred place” and “holy land.” A senior Ukrainian official said that an elite Ukrainian military unit operating behind enemy lines was responsible for the explosions, and Russia’s defense ministry called it an “act of sabotage.” Now the question is how Russia will respond to this latest, brazen attack. In April, Russia’s defense ministry warned that if Ukraine struck Russian territory, it would retaliate by targeting its “decision-making centers” in Kyiv. Dmitri Medvedev, the vice chairman of Russia’s Security Council and former Russian president, vowed last month that “Judgment Day will come for all of them over there at the same time” in the event of a Ukrainian attack on Crimea.

Poland’s army of volunteers flags as Ukraine ‘refugee fatigue’ sets in (Financial Times) When millions of refugees flooded across its border in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Poland was hailed as a role model. Almost overnight its citizens formed a grassroots volunteer army to help the displaced, donated money and welcome Ukrainians into their homes. There has been a slowdown in arrivals since the February 24 invasion but the need remains acute—and the flow of assistance is drying up, with aid activists saying “refugee fatigue” has taken hold. In the immediate weeks after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, 51 per cent of Polish adults purchased items for refugees, according to a survey published in July by the Polish Economic Institute, a state-funded think-tank. But within two months the proportion doing so dropped to 39 per cent. Nonetheless, Poles donated almost 10bn zlotys ($2bn) to help Ukrainians between the end of February and the end of June, surpassing their charitable contributions for the whole of 2021, the survey found. It attributed the more recent decline to factors ranging from “moral exhaustion” to the feeling that, as refugees settled in, they needed less help. The decline in support comes as Polish households are themselves running into economic headwinds. The country has one of Europe’s highest inflation rates—15.6 per cent in July—caused in part by the Ukraine war.

Far-right Italian leader Meloni rides popular wave in polls (AP) With a message that blends Christianity, motherhood and patriotism, Giorgia Meloni is riding a wave of popularity that next month could see her become Italy’s first female prime minister and its first far-right leader since World War II. Even though her Brothers of Italy party has neo-fascist roots, Meloni has sought to dispel concerns about its legacy, saying voters have grown tired of such discussions. For most Italian voters, questions about anti-fascism and neo-fascism aren’t “a key driver of whom to vote for,” said Lorenzo Pregliasco, head of the YouTrend polling company. “They don’t see that as part of the present. They see that as part of the past.” Meloni prefers the term conservative instead of far right to describe her party. Only five years ago, Brothers of Italy was viewed as a fringe force, winning 4.4% of the vote. Now, opinion polls indicate it could come in first place in September and capture as much as 24% support, just ahead of the center-left Democrat Party led by former Premier Enrico Letta.

One Year Later, Life Under Taliban Rule (Politico) One year after the US withdrawal, what is life like for the Afghan people? It’s clear that existence under Taliban rule has deteriorated across a range of measures—from the economy and security situation to human rights and governance. To the surprise of few, the Taliban has been unable to stabilize Afghanistan’s economy and the nature of the Taliban’s draconian rule has scared off both foreign aid and potential investors. Taliban leaders remain under sanctions and, while they have experience commanding an insurgency, know little about financial markets or the trappings of managing a modern economy. Afghanistan’s nearly 40 million people are at risk of falling below the poverty line. Related to the economic collapse, half of Afghanistan’s population is facing critical food shortages and acute hunger. Over the winter, there were credible reports about Afghan families selling their children in order to get money to survive. Meanwhile, the one area where the Taliban actually has experience and skill—fighting and armed conflict—has not been enough to keep an aggressive insurgency at bay. Islamic State Khorasan (ISK), the Islamic State’s Afghan branch, has wreaked havoc throughout Afghanistan, waging a guerrilla campaign of bombings, assassinations and suicide attacks that the Taliban has been unable to combat.

Shanghai Covid: Ikea shoppers flee attempt to lock down store (BBC) There were chaotic scenes at an Ikea store in Shanghai on Saturday, with shoppers trying to escape as authorities tried to quarantine them. Health officials were attempting to lock the store in Xuhui district down as a customer had been in close contact with a positive Covid case. Videos show the guards closing the doors at one point, but a crowd forced them open and made their escape. Shanghai endured a severe two-month lockdown earlier this year. Since then, in line with the country’s strict “zero-Covid” strategy, the city of 20 million people has ordered flash lockdowns of areas where positive cases or their close contacts have been detected. Many have been locked down in unusual locations—including hot pot restaurants, gyms and offices. Shanghai’s citywide lockdown earlier this year saw widespread reports of food shortages and poor living conditions in quarantine centres. Frustrated residents were filmed engaging in heated arguments with pandemic staff and screaming from windows in protest against the restrictions during this time.

Oil prices and profits (London Times) Saudi Aramco may have lost its crown as the world’s biggest company to Apple, but yesterday it reported the biggest-ever quarterly profit by any company, on the back of soaring oil prices. The state-controlled company reported net income in the second quarter of $48.4 billion, beating its record of $39.5 billion in the first quarter and topping forecasts of $46.2 billion. The profit, a 90 per cent increase on the second quarter of last year, was driven by a rise in demand, higher oil prices resulting from Russia’s war in Ukraine and hefty refining margins. Apple’s highest-ever quarterly profit was $34.6 billion in the final quarter of last year.

Kenya Declares New President, but Battle May Not Be Over (NYT) On a continent where military coups and rubber stamp elections have proliferated in recent years, Kenya stands out. But Kenya has just hit a speed bump. On Monday, a winner was declared in its latest presidential election, ending an unpredictable battle that had millions of Kenyans glued to their televisions and smartphones as the results rolled in. William Ruto, the president-elect, beamed as he addressed a hall filled with roaring supporters, lauding the “very historic, democratic occasion.” But the losing candidate, Raila Odinga, rejected the result even before it was announced. A fracas erupted in the hall where Mr. Ruto had been speaking, and where the votes had been counted, sending chairs and fists flying. And four electoral commissioners stormed out, casting doubt on a result that is almost certain to end up in court. And so the election hangs in the balance, scrutinized not just at home but across a continent where Kenya’s rambunctious democracy is among those that are viewed as indicators of progress.

Africa and the Promise of Refrigeration (The New Yorker) The International Institute of Refrigeration estimates that, globally, 1.6 billion tons of food are wasted every year, and that thirty per cent of this could be saved by refrigeration—a lost harvest of sufficient abundance to feed nine hundred and fifty million people annually. In a country like Rwanda, where fewer than one in five infants and toddlers eat what the World Health Organization classifies as the minimum acceptable diet, such wastage is a matter of life and death. Rwanda is one of the poorest countries in the world: the gross per-capita income is currently $2.28 a day, and more than a third of children under five are stunted from malnutrition.

Although it is difficult to calculate the precise contribution of unrefrigerated bacterial reproduction to rates of food-borne illness, according to the most recent data diarrhea alone is estimated to have reduced Rwanda’s G.D.P. by between two and a half and five per cent. Nonetheless, President Paul Kagame’s government has pledged to transform Rwanda into a high-income country by 2050; recently, it has come to realize that this goal cannot be achieved without refrigeration. In the developed world, the domestic refrigerator is only the final link in the “cold chain”—a series of thermally controlled spaces through which your food moves from farm to table. The cold chain is the invisible backbone of our food system, a perpetual mechanical winter. In the United States, a green bean grown in, say, Wisconsin will likely have spent no more than two hours, and often much less, at temperatures above forty-five degrees on its way to your fork. Things are different in Rwanda, and in Africa as a whole. In Rwanda there is only one forced-air chiller. It’s at a government export facility near the airport in Kigali and is almost never used, because it costs too much to run.

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oatbugs · 2 years

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if anyone else tries 2 argue w me abt AI and meanwhile know nothing abt philosophy or AI i will literally scream

#like where do u think this leads !!#i get that u feel like you are having a productive and cool debate abt what i have for years now considered to b (hopefully) my future #profession but what do u gain but telling me hurr durr what if AI evil . do u think i havent heard that or considered it . what makes u #hear philpsych student who does a lot of CS and AI and makes u go . surely they have no idea why are they doing this .#also to clarify ppl who ASK me abt it?? angels wonderful . idc if u haven't touched a computer in ur life ily .#let me talk abt my special interest to u ilysm. its wonderful ! i love it when ppl enquire ! but if you try to start a full on debate w me #on the VALIDITY OF WORK IVE BEEN DOING FOR A LONG TIME . OF THE DIRECTION I WANT MY LIFE TO HEAD . like that is not ok !! and its esp less #ok when u think you know so much more abt it !!!! fucking hell ! literally its not fun like if someone was like i want to do brain surgery #as a job would you walk up to them and be like yeah but on a biological and philosophical level what is the Point of it ? i dont think its #very useful at all actually . i read an elon musk tweet and watched terminator lets argue abt why ur job is evil . THAT WOULD BE ABSURD #and yet !!!!!#sorry had to get that out back to lectures . im fine #anyway ask abt stuff im doing ill love u for it #do not argue w me unless u are confident you can begin to somehow change my mind abt the whole direction my life is headed skjd #personal

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fiadhaisteach · 2 years

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‘Tis Impressed Reader Touting Works - 2022.02.12

Hamilton x Dragon Age series by @buttsonthebeach - Solas/F!Lavellan, OFC(e)/OMC(h), other pairings listed w/each story - 515,688 words (combined) - all Primary Story Line Works complete

"Despite the name, only "The World Turned Upside Down" has "Hamilton" lyrics in it as a major feature. The odd lyric shows up here and there in the others!"

🔸 This series is epic in scope & intensity, matching its length, while staying character focused. 🔹 A "Fix-It" series featuring a badass rogue Ellana Lavellan, who succeeds in capturing the Dread Wolf, then creates a life with Solas. 🔸 The canon characters grow, without losing their voices & her original characters are just as complicated, vibrant, and loveable as the ones we know from the game. 🔹 Very importantly, this is the series that introduced me to Dev Patel. I mean, the last two full works both heavily feature Solas & Ellana's child, Ashara, who's romantic partner looks like Dev. I haven't been the same since. 😄

To read the series in perfect order, follow below: 1. Like You're Running Out of Time (Companion Story) 2. Chapters 1-7 of Who Tells Your Story (Companion Story) 3. Chapters 1-11 of The World Turned Upside Down 4. Chapter 8 of Who Tells Your Story (Companion Story) 5. Domestic Life 6. She Moved Through the Fair 7. Chapters 12-13 of The World Turned Upside Down 8. Body of Knowledge 9. Awakened 10. Reckoning What Did I Miss? features missing scenes and AUs scattered throughout these! (Companion Story)

This gets long, so have a cut.

Primary Story Line

⚜️The World Turned Upside Down, ⚜️Domestic Life, ⚜️She Moved Through the Fair, ⚜️Body of Knowledge, ⚜️Awakened, ⚜️Reckoning, ⚜️What Did I Miss? (Ch. 1-15) - Solas/F!Lavellan, OFC(e)/OMC(h) - 453,440 combined - complete

Chapters: 78/78 (plus Ch. 1-15 of WDIM) Fandom: Dragon Age: Inquisition Rating: Explicit (except Domestic Life's 'Teen') Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Primary Relationship: Female Lavellan/Solas Other Relationships: Original Female Character/Original Male Character, background Iron Bull/Dorian Pavus Characters: Female Lavellan, Solas, Vivienne (Dragon Age), Varric Tethras, Iron Bull, Dorian Pavus, Cassandra Pentaghast, Blackwall | Thom Rainier, Original Lavellan-Solas Child(ren), Original Female Character(s), Original Male Character(s), Sera (Dragon Age), Dagna (Dragon Age), Ashara Lavellan, Briala, Cole, Cullen Rutherford Additional Tags: Trespasser DLC, Song Lyrics, Fluff and Smut, Spoilers, Explicit Language, Oral Sex, Smut, Vaginal Fingering, Angst, Minor Iron Bull/Dorian Pavus, Masturbation, Alcohol, Post-Canon, Angst and Humor, POV Solas, Arlathan, Dreams vs. Reality, Explicit Sexual Content, Porn With Plot, Established Relationship, Weddings, Mutual Masturbation, Dirty Talk, POV Alternating, Fade Sex, 69 (Sex Position), Vaginal Sex, Semi-Public Sex, Very Brief Non-Con Reference, Hand Jobs, Unplanned Pregnancy, Pregnant Sex, Childbirth, Intimacy, Inner Circle Cameos, Magic, Action/Adventure, Canon-Typical Violence, Mirror Sex, implied Sera/Dagna, Latin as Tevene, Very Brief Torture, Family, Coming of Age, sub!solas, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Loss of Virginity, First Love, racial politics of Thedas, Character-Driven Plot, clearly marked and easily skipped Depression, chapters dealing with that are also clearly tagged, First Time Together, One-Shots, AUs, Magic used in sex, Parenthood, Male Solo, Pre-Relationship, Sisters, Terminal Illnesses, Blow Jobs, Morning Sex, VERY light bondage, one-shots and missing scenes from my main fics [Additional tags combined & truncated]

Summary: A retelling of the Solavellan romance in DA:I (tWTUD chapters 1-9), Trespasser (tWTUD chapter 10-11) and beyond (tWTUD chapters 12-13 & the rest of the Primary Story Line) - using lyrics from the musical "Hamilton" as inspiration. Come be in the room where it happens!

Even if Solas did change his mind and come back to Lavellan post-Trespasser, how would they reconnect with each other after everything that happened?

(BoK Ch. 1-5: Initial reconciliation, BoK Ch. 6-13 & rest of Primary Story Line: How their lives unfold afterwards. [Summaries combined (w/clarifications) & truncated]

Companion Stories

⚜️Like You're Running Out of Time - Morrigan/M!Cousland - 13,589 words - HSE WIP (2019-06-26)

Chapters: 4/5 Fandom: Dragon Age: Origins Rating: Explicit Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Morrigan/Male Cousland Characters: Male Cousland (Dragon Age), Morrigan, Ellana Lavellan, Kieran (Dragon Age) Additional Tags: Vignettes, Character studies, Morrigan POV, Canon-Typical Violence, Smut, Sexual Content

Summary: "The statue is so still. The artisan put in no sense of motion. They make Zakir seem like - a bulwark against a tide. Resolute. Still. That is not how he lived - how he lives his life."

"Then how does he live his life?"

Morrigan could see him - feel him - so clearly in her mind's eye. So clearly it made her ache. She wasn't picturing him the way she’d seen him last, when he left her to search for a cure to the poison in his blood - or to die in the attempt. She could see him as he was ten years before, when they met. Nineteen, reckless, cocky, angry, grieving - and, yes, handsome as the day was long.

"He lives his life like he is running out of time."

***

10 years after the Blight, Morrigan reflects on the man she loves, and hopes she has not lost. A story chronicling the Fifth Blight through her eyes, and the troubled life of Zakir Cousland, Warden-Commander.

Zakir is my canon Warden, and my Inquisitor appears in the prologue, but this can be read without reading anything else in the series. More to come soon!

⚜️Who Tells Your Story - F!Hawke/Merrill - 16,806 words - complete

Chapters: 8/8 Fandom: Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition Rating: Mature Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Female Hawke/Merrill Characters: Female Hawke, Merrill (Dragon Age), Female Lavellan Additional Tags: Romance, Pining, Smut, Angst, Grieving, Canonical Character Death, spoilers for inquisition, Spoilers for Trespasser, Past Solas/Lavellan, One-Shots, Vignettes, Sexual content in chapters marked with an asterisk

Summary: A place for my Dragon Age II one-shots. Connected to the rest of my series, but can be read on its own. 1. "Who Tells Your Story" - Rated M for non-explicit smut. Merrill pined for Marian Hawke for years before telling her the truth. A retelling of DA2 from Merrill's eyes, focusing on her romance with Hawke. 2. "Immigrants - We Get the Job Done" - Rated T. Marian's Fereldan roots grow deep, and she struggles to find her place in Kirkwall at first. 3. "Cards and Letters and Stationary" - Rated E for smut. The morning after her first night with Merrill, Marian reflects. 4. "Dreams" - Rated E for smut. Merrill has dreamed of Marian for so long. 5. "Cold Hands, No Gloves" - Rated G. Merrill thinks nothing of using magic to warm her hands at the docks; a nervous Marian disagrees. 6. "Adjusting" - Rated G. Merill fusses over Marian on the morning of her departure for Skyhold. 7. "Legacy" - Rated T. Throughout the events of Inquisition, Marian reflects on her life and those she's lost. 8. "Tomorrow There'll Be More of Us" - Rated T. Heartbroken Inquisitor Lavellan goes to Kirkwall to see Merrill following the events of Trespasser. Spoilers.

⚜️What Did I Miss? - Solas/F!Lavellan - 67,481 words - Ch. 1-15, main story / Ch. 16-20, sad AU w/ OFC(e)/OFC(e) - HSE WIP (2017-11-12)

Chapters: 20/? Fandom: Dragon Age: Inquisition Rating: Explicit Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Female Lavellan/Solas Characters: Female Rogue Lavellan, Solas, Original Lavellan-Solas Child(ren), Cullen Rutherford, Dorian Pavus Additional Tags: First Time Together, One-Shots, AUs, Magic used in sex, Oral Sex, Pregnancy, Childbirth, Fluff, Parenthood, Masturbation, Male Solo, Pre-Relationship, Sisters, Terminal Illnesses, Angst, Blow Jobs, Morning Sex, Minor Adoribull, Several originally appeared on Tumblr, sub!solas, Orgasm Delay/Denial, VERY light bondage, All three of those tags are only in Chapter 10, All of these are one-shots and missing scenes from my main fics, But you can read most with no knowledge of them

Summary: 1. Ruin - E; Solas tries to deny his growing admiration for Ellana 2. Say Yes to This - E; Ellana's POV on their first time 3. Impress Me - E; their second time together 4. Magic - E; their third time together 5. Intimacies - E; Solas knows he needs to save up every memory 6. Unsaid - E; Ellana awakens to Solas's unexpected need 7. Unbent - E; Solas goes to Ellana at Adamant 8. Congratulations - T; a slight AU of "Body of Knowledge;" Dorian chews out Solas. 9. Ancient and New - G; Ellana feels inadequate as a new mother 10. New Again - E; Ellana learns that she likes to take control 11. The Story of an Hour - G; Cullen reflects on how fatherhood has changed Solas 12. River - T; Solas and Ellana reflect on the woman Ashara has become 13. Dreams - M; an AU of "Body of Knowledge;" Solas and Ellana have a second child 14. Blow Us All Away - G; Solas and his daughters grapple with the family legacy 15. Helpless (Reprise) - G; Saeris has her first crush 16-20. The Awakened AU - G-T; two sisters try to save their mother's life.

(previous TIRTWs & TIRTW Key/Legend)

#spotlight Saturday #fic recommendation #writer recommendation #tirtw #'tis impressed reader touting works #aisteach reads #aisteach recommends #solas/lavellan #solas x lavellan #ofc / omc #ofc x omc #buttsonthebeach #hamilton x dragon age series #long post

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