#fic post tl

[gaygodlou]

Canny With The Flow

By: thinlines @thinlinez

Rating: Explicit

Pairing: Harry Styles/ Louis Tomlinson

Status: Completed 9k

Dedicated to Tricia and Riri

“Why don’t you ask for his number? Stop wasting our time. I could be home by now.” Niall complained.

“I can’t!” Harry screeched. He knew he was being dramatic, but he couldn’t handle a straight up rejection. He certainly didn’t want to scare the alpha and ruin his chances. “It needs to be natural. Our meeting… He has to fall in love with me naturally.”

“You are so weird.” Liam was shaking his head.

“What do you mean naturally? Asking for his number isn’t natural enough? Jeez!” Niall's grumble was already lost in Harry's ears.

OR Omega Harry brews a plan to bag his crush and executes it. Period.

This fic is a gift and also a part of an ongoing collection

#larry fic rec #hlficlibrary #ficsfor4am #thelarriefics #hlcreators #louis tomlinson #harry styles #larry #fic post tl #weekly update #chaptered fic #abo fic

[pizzaqueen]

This little scene came to me when I was sleep deprived lol some established relationship fluff

"Tell me your deepest, darkest fear," Eddie says.

Steve glances sidelong at him where he's sitting next to Steve on the couch. He doesn't ask what kind of question is that because it's very much an Eddie kind of question. Instead, he says, "Kind of already lived most of them."

"What about the ones you haven't lived?"

"I—" Steve sighs. If he tells Eddie to drop it, he will. Or he could say something about zombies or ghosts or some shit. But he finds himself saying, "Sometimes I think I'm either too much or not enough, you know?" A beat and then: "I mean, in relationships or whatever."

"Even with me?"

And, okay, Steve didn't think that through. He shrugs and says, "Maybe."

"Then your fear is totally unfounded."

Steve looks at Eddie again. "Is it?"

"Yeah, of course. You are just right." Eddie grins. "Not too hot, not too cold," he adds as he gets up on his knees on the couch, then swings one leg over Steve. "Okay, bad analogy, because you are definitely too hot for your own good sometimes." He rests his hands on Steve's shoulders, moves them around to loop behind his neck. "But you're my bowl of porridge.”

"I'm your bowl of porridge?"

"Yeah, you know, goldilocks and the bowls of porridge and—"

"Oh, I got it." Steve smiles, then lets his head rest against Eddie's chest. "Bowl of porridge," he mutters. "You're a dork."

"Hey." Eddie shoves Steve lightly. "I'm being romantic. I think."

"Then you're a romantic dork."

Eddie pokes his tongue out. Steve does it back. Eddie shakes his head and says, "I just... I meant, you're not... You're exactly enough for me. Okay?"

"Okay."

Eddie's eyes narrow. "You believe me, right?"

"I believe you." Steve holds up his hand in a scout salute. "Scout's honor."

"Good." Eddie gently nudges Steve's forehead with his. "Because you're... You're the only one who's right for me."

"So are you," Steve says.

"Yeah?"

"Of course." Steve grins. “You're my bowl of porridge, too."

#steddie #Steddie fic #Steddie fanfic #Steve x eddie #sorry for not being around and then just posting this and running!! #got a lot going on rn and yeah! tl;dr sorry! #pizzaqueenfic #i feel like I’ve really lost their voices #also this might be the contender for the silliest thing I’ve written yet idk

[pippuns]

you know i am absolutely delighted by disciples era au. like, for the liushen potential, obviously, but i also can't stop thinking about a situation where sqq spends all of his free time trying to get evidence on sqh being a traitor, while sqh is frantically wondering wtf he did to piss sqq off so bad, because he certainly didn't write sqq having a huge grudge against the original goods!!

and eventually sqq does get definitive proof of sqh's traitorous behavior, only for sqq to discover that sqh is also a transmigrater. probably through sqh doing a harebrained scheme of trying to buy sqq's silence by offering to tell him his future.

and because sqh is a fellow transmigrator (even if he is annoying), sqq has to do a frantic dash to cover for sqh's misdeeds before sqq outs him even more than he already has. he bitches out sqh the entire time as he does this because he COULD have been reading the new installment of whatever fiction came out of xian shu this entire time but nooooooo, he had to waste all of his time chasing after this stupid author who isn't even a good spy and is APPARENTLY just doing the spy work to get some demon ass!! what kind of plotline is this?? of course it came out of the author who gave him the garbage he's stuck living in.

the funny thing is, this is actually what does convince people that sqh is a traitor. because sqq has been talking about his suspicions regarding sqh to the other future peak lords (chief among them being lqg, who obviously believed sqq immediately and has been his accomplice to this point), the complete 180 sqq does from trying to convince everyone that sqh is a rat, to him -- seemingly out of nowhere -- covering for sqh and spending all this time with him and talking in code (modern slang) with him, when everyone knows that sqq HATES sqh is soooooooooo sus.

in other words, everyone is now convinced that sqh is blackmailing sqq, because sqq actually found something to prove sqh's guilt.

and this results in a frantic quest from his friends (the other future peak lords) to try and find out what sqh is using to blackmail sqq so they can get rid of it. this does not go unnoticed by sqh, who demands that sqq fix the mess he got sqh into, and sqq tells him to fix it himself because he's the one stupid enough to become a spy to get some demon ass (which sqh points out is a gross inaccuracy of the situation, he hasn't gotten one iota of ass, not even a glimpse, do you know how difficult it is to pull that off in demon society which might as well not believe in the existence of clothes).

then system shows up and threatens immense bodily harm to them both if sqh is caught by the sect this early. so what are they supposed to do but begrudgingly work together to save sqh's ass so he can get some demon ass.

#i have sooooo many more thoughts btw but this is getting long so maybe i'll make a post in the future. if i remember to. #the tl;dr of this whole thing is that it's my insane (platonic) cumplane disciples era road trip au. because uh. #system said that they couldnt get caught by cang qiong. not that they couldn't leave it. and sqh is a spy at the end of the day. #and when there are people more competent than sqq looking into it they did find evidence LOL #sqh has not been a spy for very long at this point and it shows #i'd write this as a fic but if i did it'd end up long as fuck with maybe too much world building and i dont think i have the time for that. #disciples era au #svsss #pip speaks #long post

[beesinspades]

colorless expression certainly is A Chapter, but you know what part of it really gets me? it's the kid at the end, on the very last page, who grabs one of the adults throwing rocks at vash as he flees, and pleads "stop it! vash isn't like that!" :') something something hate is learned, not innate, but also god, how much i wish vash had heard that kid

#trigun #trimax #trigunbookclub #wish i was as eloquent as many of you can be but alas mine only manifests in fics #i can't write an analysis or meta post to save my life #anyway crying over vash but what's new! #not actually following the bookclub but saw a post on my tl from someone who does and went to reread it sdfkjbn #bee talks

[musashi]

@catisontheinternet

sorry i was creeping through tags on a post and saw this and.

i actually did the math and i can pretty confidently say that franziska did not sleep during all of 3-5. she says that she spent the whole flight reading over the case files, even with miles chartering a private jet for her with travel time and fuel stops all accounted for it is still 15 hours from germany to california. franziska is very punctual and would likely do everything in her power to show up to court on time, but she's late to the trial by a few minutes, which implies she just barely made it off her flight in time to show up and prosecute. so she likely did not sleep on the flight over, and then went straight to trial which was at LEAST 2 hours, but most definitely more. she stuck around to help investigate that same day--3 hours later. her and phoenix spent the whole rest of the day investigating at hazakura, and then she went straight from his side to the inner temple to mess with the trick locks. miles says in game that "she's been out there all night" the next morning, and in the anime he outright says that she hasn't slept and has been awake the whole time.

accounting for timezones, she would've left germany at about 3 AM to get to LA by 10. and she probably needed some time to pack her things, so it's likely miles called her around 1 or 2, which means she definitely didnt get a full night of sleep beforehand, either. calculating all of this--along with the trial the next day while she was still working on the locks, and the fact that she was there after the trial, this means that franziska von karma was awake for about 43 hours over the course of bridge to the turnabout. possibly more.

oh, you pulled one measly all-nighter to retrain a parrot to cover your own scheming tracks, papa? [smirks lesbionically] watch this.

#wendy rambles #pwaa #ace attorney #franziska von karma #bridge to the turnabout #still insane to me that she didn't get sick. that lack of sleep. that freezing mountain. #investigating all day with phoenix while he's teeming with plague #there's a reason i've written TWO post-bridge fics that feature her just getting WRECKED with the worst cold #i have a third coming as well. it makes me insane #anyways tl;dr guten fucking morgen

[wuffgang-ameowdeus-moozart]

1 2 4

(can be read as a standalone)

STEVE LOOKS AT HIS BIG EMPTY HOUSE AND THINKS FUCK IT

(ft. longing for a person that doesn't exist, queer joy, fighting internalized misogyny (and winning!) and bonding with a bitching telepath)

cw: homophobia (including slurs), child neglect

biblically accurate steve playlist

Carol once joked that the first and last time father saw mother without her full beauty routine was when they had Steve, and that that is the reason he is an only child. Steve doesn't think he has ever seen his mother without mascara and perfectly curled hair. Sometimes he wonders if his father ever did - he must have, right? They have been married for over a decade and had a fucking child together (even though it sometimes feels like they forget that last part.) But still, it's weird to imagine.

(Sometimes he has moments like that. He will be having a normal day and then a small insignificant thing will remind him of them and it will feel like one of those demo-monsters-whatever are clawing a hole into his chest. He knows that Nancy notices when he gets like that, but she has given up on asking him by now. He knows she wouldn't understand. Because she only knows Highschool-TommyandCarol, and it isn't those people that he misses. He misses the children that don't exist anymore - aches for the Carol that had a surprisingly dark and crude humor but would always apologize if she went to far, aches for the Tommy that would sneak into his house when both their parents weren't home and his brother and his friends were being too loud.

And the funny thing is that he isn't even sure what exactly it is that he misses so badly. Is it really Tommy, or is it just a warm body laying next to him in bed, holding him tenderly without any expectations? Does he miss Carol's wide smile and crooked teeth or someone who always has the ability to make him laugh, no matter the circumstances? Is it even a different person he is missing, or is it just a younger version of himself? A simpler time when monsters and other dimensions were only real in horror movies and his nightmares. A time when he only had to open his arms and Tommy and Carol would jump on him and they would snuggle together until he was laughing so hard he could barely breathe.

All he knows is that it doesn't matter. None of them are the kids they used to be. Hell, he hadn't felt like himself in their presence for years by the time he finally let them go. It means nothing in the grand scheme of things - but that doesn't stop it from hurting.)

Steve's relationship with beauty changed along with his relationship with his parents. When he was small his mother used to coo about his fluffy hair and big eyes. She would always tell him how lucky he was the he got the good looks from her side of the family, something akin to pride in her voice. Father would grumble and she would laugh but he got the feeling she wasn't kidding. (His mother was remarkably beautiful. His father was remarkably rich. Their marriage had been an unremarkable business deal that, as so many before, had not panned out as either of them had hoped. And then they had Steve.)

He didn't care for beauty when he was small. Or at least, he cared less for it than he did for his mother's smile when she called him her pretty boy. Any enjoyment that could be sparked by the former was extinguished by what felt like hours of hair-pulling and sitting still until everything looked just as she wanted it to - two of little Steve's least favorite pastimes. At first she would tug at his strands in warning whenever he squirmed too much (he still knows that the wall opposite to the sink has 125 tiles, and that the sixth one in the second row has a crack in the right corner). After a while she finally gave up, and he would be allowed to dance to the tune that was currently stuck in his head or mess around in his mother's special drawers.

He knows he was always fascinated by the drawers, even then. His mother would laugh at his interest. "Never grow up, Stephen", she'd say in a mocking tone he would not understand until he got older. But Steve just couldn't help it. He was fascinated by all the different textures and color. He didn't know there existed so many shades and hues of red until he found her lipstick drawer, and he didn't understand why both his parents got mad at him when he wanted to put some of her pretty glitter on his face.

The day before he would be left alone during a school day for the first time, his mother taught him how to properly do his hair. His father didn't want to at first, said that that was "girly shit", that he didn't want to see his one and only son "turn into a fucking queer". But he gave in to his mother, in the end, just like he always does. (Steve used to think that that was what love meant. He never complained when Tommy shoved an innocent freshman against the locker. He never asked Carol to stop when she invented another mean-spirited rumour. He never confessed to Nancy that her way of studying simply didn't work for him, that her flash cards sometimes only served to confuse him more. And when he finally did say no, they all left) (why is it always him that has to agree?)

At first he always woke up extra early to make himself presentable. That was the first time he realized that getting ready could be... fun. He didn't do it because it made his mother happy or because his father insisted he "look presentable", he started doing it because he...enjoyed it. He enjoyed how he could put the music he wanted and sing to himself in the mirror. He enjoyed how he could style his hair like he thought looked cool. He enjoyed how, when he used her Farrah Fawcett hairspray and closed his eyes, it almost felt as if she were in the room with him.

(Did he consider it, then? There was nobody to stop him. Nobody to make fun of him or tell him that it's wrong. He knew that he liked to feel pretty and that he wanted to see what his mother's blue eyeshadow with glitter would look like on his skin. But he also knew that only girls were allowed to do that, and Steve Harrington is not a girl.

He just knew that if he opened his mother's drawers that the others would know. That something horrible and unspeakable would happen. That something fundamental would change in him and that everyone would be able to tell, no matter how thoroughly he scrubbed his face afterwards. (There must be a reason why his father seemed so terrified of it, after all))

--

In psychology they learnt about the five stages of grief.

The first is denial. (They are going because they have no choice. They would stay with me if they could. They are just really really busy. The can't call because they would miss me too much.)

The second is anger.

Steve's second stage started on his second to last year of middle school, and with it came what Carol lovingly dubbed his "punk ass shit"-phase. It was a cold day in the middle of winter. Kenny hugged his mom before he entered into the car, like he did every day. Carol had caught a cold and wasn't at school. Tommy's brother came to pick him up in his new car, but he was already driving some of his friends and Steve didn't fit. So he had to push his bike back home (the snow was too thick to properly ride it) and when he finally arrived he was cold and wet and miserable and mad.

(He'd wanted to redirect his anger, at first, his brain so used to it it did it almost on autopilot. But he couldn't be angry at Tommy because he also would've taken the car if he had the option, and he couldn't be angry at Carol because she was feeling sick and that would be an asshole move, and he couldn't even be mad at Kenny because it wasn't Kenny's mom's fault that the rich neighborhood his parents wanted to live in was so far away from the school. And so all this anger was redirected to the one target he had left.)

Admittedly, his "punk ass shit"-phase only lasted until his parents returned (his mother didn't let him out of the house until his appearance was to her liking), but he remembers feeling very cool. He still chose his outfit the morning before, but he purposely used the same shirt multiple times and sometimes wore it with the back in the front or inside out. He would still mess with his hair, but instead of making it look stylish his goal was to make it look even messier than when he'd woken up.

(Sometimes he stared a bit too long at the drawers before he left).

Those few days were the most fun he'd ever had in the morning. It was also the first time he realized that it was possible to style himself how he wanted, not how his mother had always done it.

--

Steve didn't properly realize that makeup was even an option for people like him (Boys. Men. Harringtons.) until David Bowie. It was 1974 and Diamond Dogs was everywhere. His father didn't want him to listen to it, had said that this was music for degenerates, and Harringtons aren't fucking degenerates. (Steve had decided to keep to himself that he had said a bad word that supposedly only degenerates used, too. He had learnt by then that the same rules that applied to him did not apply to his father.)

It wasn't until he, Carol and Tommy went to the record shop that he understood why his father was so against it. He couldn't explain the low sloop in his stomach or the excitement igniting his heart when he saw the album cover for the first time. Bright red lips that couldn't be natural, shadowed eyes that made the blue seem so much brighter and...oh. Until he suddenly could. A smile spread on his face, a tiny private thing, because of course. It makes so much sense, how did he not figure it out sooner? A feeling of euphoria went through him unlike anything he'd ever felt before. Something clicked into place, he found another piece of the messed up puzzle that was Steve Harrington and for the first time he felt whole. He knew he could never tell anyone, knew he never could let his parents find out (fairy, sissy, degenerate), but...he didn't want to. This was something that belonged to only him. He wouldn't have to bargain it with others so they wouldn't leave, he wouldn't have to twist and change it and force it into a different form. It was something just for himself, something he could just let be, something purely Steve. (He then buried this realization and decided to never think about it again.)

Carol and Tommy moved on without him. He didn't even notice, so lost in his thoughts and the joys of discovery.

A lock of black hair shook him out of his reverie. "You look as if you were Gollum and Bowie here was waving the ring in front of your nose."

Steve needs a second to sort through the turmoil inside of him and remember where he is. He needs another to realize that whatever the other boy just said didn't make any fucking sense.

"...He isn't wearing any rings."

The boy rolls his eyes so hard it's a wonder they don't fall out of his head. He then launches into an overexcited explanation that Steve couldn't understand even if he wanted to. The only thing he can vaguely gleam from it is that he should feel insulted for being called a "Gollum" or something. When the boy pauses to catch his breath (he could be a really good swimmer, a part of him absentmindedly thinks, with these impressive lungs and slim figure) Steve uses the chance to try and redirect the conversation into more familiar territory.

"So, you like David Bowie?" is apparently the wrong thing to say, because he looks as if Steve just murdered his dog in front of him. Then again, the boy offers him a kiss (?!) so maybe he just strongly misread the situation. (Steve ignores the excitement in his gut when the word leaves the other's lips. "KISS", as if a kiss between two boys was the most normal thing in the world.)

By the time the boy grabs his wrist and drags him across the shop, Steve has decided to just go with the flow. He feels a bit disappointed to find out that KISS is just a band the other really enjoys. At seeing his lackluster expression, hr decides that Steve is "already too brainwashed by the masses" and a "hopeless cause", and Tommy and Carol find him again soon after the other leaves.

("What were you doing at the freak corner?", Tommy asks. Steve isn't sure why he changes the subject instead of answering.)

--

Steve tries not to let his disappointment show when he returns back home to find out that his parents returned early. "Surprise!", his mother says, followed by a scolding by his father for not being appropriately ecstatic. Two days later they are leaving again. He hugs his mother and shakes his father's hand and as soon as he hears their car leave the driveway he sprints upstairs to the bathroom.

Why didn't he do it this time?

Maybe it was paranoia: what if his parents decided the surprise visit was actually super awesome and suddenly returned? Maybe it was because David Bowie was a superstar, a god, unattainable and unstoppable; and he was just Steve Harrington, a small boy living in the middle of nowhere in Indiana. Or maybe it all came down to the simple fact that he was a boy, and he liked being a boy, and he wanted to be seen as a boy, and the thought of someone looking at him and thinking "girl" made his skin crawl.

So instead of rummaging through his mother's drawers and searching for the closest shade of lipstick to what Bowie is wearing on the cover of Diamond Dogs, he invented the skull game. It is simple really, all you need is a face and a mirror. You stare into the mirror, and you start noticing. You start noticing how pale your face looks in the blue bathroom light - or does it always look this way? You start noticing how deep your eyebags truly are, how dark and big and round and noticeable. You start noticing how sunken-in your cheeks actually look. And slowly, you stop being a person. Pale becomes white, blue becomes black, sunken-in becomes emaciated. And so you transform yourself into a living skull, into something that doesn't exist. Into something small and odd and also a little bit sad.

He isn't sure why he plays it, it certainly isn't fun and he's a bit scared of how much time can pass by without him noticing, but it is weirdly addicting.

--

The first time he sees a real-life boy wearing makeup in Hawkins, it is in the most surprising place and on the least surprising person.

Steve knows for a fact that he has never met Eddie Munson. Or, he is pretty sure, at least (he was never very good with faces). Eddie is two years older than him, so they never saw each other at middle school, and they decidedly do not run in the same circles. Nobody knows what his first name is (Steve is constantly wavering between thinking it is something boring like Edward, something really old-fashioned like Edwin, or something completely bizarre like Edmordian), and most people only refer to him as "freak".

And yet there is something about him that has Steve seeking him out, even if unconsciously. Steve will let his eyes wander in the cafeteria and only realize that he was searching for Eddie when he sees that messy mass of black hair. He will know that Eddie's locker is in the same corridor as the drama room, even though his is on the other side of the school and he barely has any classes there. He will know that Eddie is surprisingly good at maths and somewhat passable in English but absolutely atrocious in everything else. He will have this embarrassing little list of fun facts about that weird kid in the back of his mind and he only realizes it when some cheerleader one year above him makes a joke about what the freak must do in his freetime, and Steve promptly answers that he is in the drama club.

(Later Tommy will pull him aside and jokingly tells him to "be careful, or the others are going to think that the king is gone for the freak". Steve takes the warning for what it is and makes an active effort not to stare anymore. He is somewhat successful)

It all comes to a head on a Monday. It doesn't even have the decency to be a special Monday. It isn't the week before or after vacations and there are no holidays or birthdays. Eddie Munson once again stands on the designated freak table in the corner and holds an overenthusiastic speech about conformity and shit that everyone in the cafeteria is forced to hear. And Steve can't look away.

It is not because he is screaming and jumping on the table - that already lost it's novelty after the first month. It definitely isn't because his speech is especially riveting - Eddie references so much nerdy shit Steve has no idea about that most of the time he doesn't even understand what the whole thing is about. His hair does not look particularly silky and his rings don't look particularly shiny. But his eyes. Oh God, his eyes.

Eddie Munson is wearing eyeliner.

And suddenly he remembers the record shop. He remembers how the little boy had wild black hair and loved nerdy shit just like Eddie. He remembers how the little boy was so enthusiastic about everything and talked with his whole body just like Eddie. He remembers how that little boy - how Eddie - had been the only witness to his silent realization that he wanted to wear makeup and really really liked boys.

He thinks of deep burgundy lips and bright blue eyes in shadow and sharp black eyeliner.

(The knowledge comes to him all too willingly, as if it had been waiting for the chance to return to the forefront of his mind. It doesn't feel especially painful or surprising. He doesn't feel disgust because the thought of kissing another boy excites him just as much as the thought of kissing one of the girls sitting next to him. It's more like suddenly finding the plushy you used to sleep with as a baby without having even been looking for it. A bit unexpected, but also weirdly comforting. That day in the record shop he had simply made the decision that it would be easier if he only liked girls, and so he stopped thinking about it. He had carefully folded this knowledge like he would one of his polos and kept it safely hidden in his heart, waiting for the day he would deem the world ready to look at it again.

He knows that the world isn't ready, that his father can never find out, that boys who like boys are dropping like flies. But he also knows that Eddie is a normal boy like him who just wore eyeliner to school. He also knows that this part of him - this part of him that wants to kiss boys and wear glitter and bright red lipstick - is so intrinsically him that it would be a disservice not only to himself but to the world to simply not acknowledge it.

Steve Harrington is not like Eddie Munson. He is not brave. He does not go to school in eyeliner or even dares to secretly do it at home. But he doesn't bury the knowledge this time. He tucks it close to his chest and embraces it, something that belongs to only him and him alone.)

--

He always used to think that makeup had to be bold and flashy. Karen Wheeler's bright turquoise eyeshadow. Diana's over the top blush. The bands in the freak corner of the record shop he could now confidently say were not his thing. Cindy Lauper's... well, everything.

The thought that he could've died thinking that if his parents had been just a little less neglectful makes his little MUA-heart shrivel in despair.

It went like this: his parents were fighting once again, but this time it was bad enough that his mother came back early without warning. After the third time his parents had left, Steve realized that it didn't make sense for him to lock the bathroom door if there wasn't anyone else there who could enter, so he didn't bother anymore. Those seemingly arbitrary facts are very important.

It went like this: Steve is sitting on the toilet and has just finished doing number two. Steve's mom, who does not know that her son doesn't bother locking the door when they aren't home, enters this very same bathroom. Steve's mother has tears in her eyes and thus does not see how her suddenly throwing open the door almost gives her son a heart attack. Steve's panicked brain does not fight or flee but freeze. His mother is wiping her tears away and washing her face and thankfully doesn't notice. And then it happens: she takes a tube out of what tiny Steve had dubbed "mama's less interesting secret drawer" and starts dabbing it on her face. And if baby Steve had had his mind blown at seeing a shopping list for the first time, current Steve's mind explodes when he sees her taking the skin-colored creme - and he means exactly her skin color - and starts doing magic. Suddenly he understands why girls seem to have much less acne than boys. Everything that isn't perfectly smooth skin disappears beneath a thin layer of product. Even her puffy eyes and flushed cheeks (so that is where he gets it from) are gone without a trace. The only hint that something was wrong is the redness in her eyes. He half expects her to have a product against that, too, but instead she raises her gaze and immediately spots Steve.

"What are you doing here?!", she asks. Steve looks down to his current seat and isn't sure how to answer.

It is kind of funny. The first big mark in his beauty journey was when he was angry at his parents. The second is a rare moment of vulnerability with the very same. Mother and son, standing together in front of the bathroom mirror. Her fingers were gentle as she showed him how to hide red spots and eyebags without it looking like he was wearing anything at all.

They never speak of this day again. When he remembers it, everything almost has a dreamlike quality to it. Her fingers seem softer and her eyes brighter and it doesn't seem real. (It hurts, a bit).

"Mama's less interesting secret drawer" becomes "Mama's and Steve's secret drawer". His mother says that what they do doesn't count as makeup - that they are just "correcting imperfections which shouldn't be there in the first place" - but it sounds like she is trying to convince herself. The important part is that it becomes a fixed part of his beauty routine in the morning. He knows the girls are envious of his clear skin and the guys keep not-so-jokingly asking how he can be keg king on the weekend and not even look tired on Monday. His nickname in school becomes "the hair" (he still religiously uses Farrah Fawcett)

Sometimes he amuses himself with the thought of his "ultra-masculine" bros finding out that his secret is makeup. That they could appear just as unaffected if only they got over their dumb prejudices.

--

(The thing Steve is most ashamed of is how he doesn't fight back. He doesn't fight back when the people he surrounds himself with - his friends, he has to remind himself - call others a fag or a fairy or a queer and mean it as an insult.

(The worst is when he slips up and accidentally uses it himself.)

No, Steve is not ashamed of who he is. He is ashamed of the world, and he is ashamed of being a part of it.

He starts playing the skull game almost every day.)

--

It is about a year later that he finds out that the biggest difference between covering a bruise and eyebags is the pain level. (He doesn't know it yet, but that is a lesson he will have the pleasure of rediscovering again and again and again)

--

The third big mark in his beauty journey has nothing to do with his parents, for once.

Nancy Wheeler is a beautiful girl and when he first sees her he swears it is love at first sight. He does not change his mind when her best friend dies in his pool. He does not change his mind when Carol and Tommy refuse to speak to him in the hallways. He does not change his mind when he sees the monster that turns his life upside down.

Nancy is his girlfriend, even if things are sometimes awkward between them and she starts blowing him off more and more. Tommy and Carol and whoever else he used to sit with abandoned him without a second thought. His parents aren't home either, but that last part is barely noteworthy.

It is when he is awkwardly sitting in the library while Jonathan quizzes Nancy for the test she has next period that he realizes that he cannot fall any further in the social ladder. (It is another unremarkable Monday.)

Funnily, the thought doesn't fill him with dread or grief or disgust. Instead, he finally feels at peace. Everything he had always feared has come to pass, and he is (mostly) fine. It is an oddly freeing sentiment. And as soon as he arrives home he finally tries on the blue eyeshadow with glitter he has had an eye on since he was a little boy. (It looks even better than he had imagined.)

--

Getting his ass beat by Jonathan Byers has nothing on being almost punched to death by Billy Hargrove.

Everything is black and then he is in a car and Max is decidedly not driving them to his house or to the nearest hospital and he decides that it is easier to worry about his plants instead of the very real danger of being eaten by monsters of another dimension or the by now familiar symptoms of a concussion he is already feeling.

--

When Steve looks into a mirror for the first time after everything, he looks exactly as bad as he thought it would. Which is not a good thing, because he had been actively trying to lower his expectations so he could feel relief when he was confronted with his face. Seems like this plan, just like all his others, didn't pan out like he had expected. Must be in the family.

When Steve finally arrives back home he just wants to lay down and never wake up again. Unfortunately, he knows that he can't allow himself to do that - the doctors were very clear on that front. So he goes tend to his kids (taking a second to thank god that his parents didn't come home when they got the call from the hospital.) After everyone was appropriately fussed over (especially the bonsais, needy little shits), he goes to the bathroom, opens "Mama's and Steve's secret drawer" and tries to figure out the best and most efficient way to hide all the marks on his face. (Call him petty, but he doesn't want fucking Hargrove to have the satisfaction of seeing what exactly he did to Steve's face.)

It hurts like a bitch and he gives up in the end, but at least he doesn't fall asleep. The doctor would be proud of him.

--

It feels somewhat odd - wrong, even - to panic about something so trivial, so normal, after all the shit they've been through.

And yet here they are. Kids who willingly drive into underground tunnels infested with flesh-eating monsters like it is nothing, but as soon as they have to slow dance? Suddenly they are all wetting their pants.

His first stop is at Dustin's. In all of his mother's wisdom, she unfortunately forgot to mention that there is a big fucking difference between straight and curly hair. He gets a weird sense of deja-vu as he stands behind the kid, desperately trying to pull his hair in a resemblance of his own go-to hairstyle (the idea of doing anything more fancy went out the window about five minutes after this torture started. He reminds himself that he willingly chose to do this. It doesn't help much.) Farrah Fawcett is in the air and Henderson is wiggling around like his ass is on fire and Steve is feeling oddly...paternal.

To be completely honest, he has no idea what he is doing. He is starting to suspect that the "for all hair types" advertised on the tin is a fucking lie. If it were anyone else he probably would've given up by now, but he and the little Henderson have somewhat bonded and the shithead has been freaking out about this stupid ball for-fucking-ever and he really couldn't do this to the poor dude.

After this foretaste of actual purgatory, his masterpiece looks questionable at best. Although he puts in a valiant effort in convincing both himself and Dustin of the opposite.

(Now he can almost understand why his parents avoided him as much as possible. (That is a lie. Even the thought of missing this makes him shiver.))

Mrs. Henderson wants to take an album worth of prom photos, but Steve catches a glimpse of the clock and just barely stops himself from cursing as he runs to his beloved Beemer (he doesn't give a shit about the little ones, but only the actual devil would have the audacity to swear in front of Mrs. Henderson.)

When he arrives at his house he would be fearing for his life if the person currently in possession of a loaded gun wasn't also depending on him to make his daughter's makeup for the ball. (You know the saying, never bring a bat full of nails to a gunfight. Although El would have both of them beat without breaking a sweat.)

He already lost way too much time on Henderson's hair, but Max insists that she needs to see Red Cactusfield first thing and that she also has to make sure that Non-Concussed Steve remains Non-Concussed. So he gestures vaguely to where said plants are currently residing and ushers El up to the bathroom before Hopper can change his mind and actually shoot him. (Dustin would never forgive Steve.)

As soon as Steve opens "Mama's cool secret drawer", El is fascinated by the blacks. Hopper takes one look at what she is so enamored by and immediately shakes his head. For a moment El and Hopper just glare at each other, and Steve is sure his mother's entire makeup collection is about to start floating. The image of his mother finding out that he somehow managed to break her precious hoard is more horrifying than Hopper's worst glare, so he swears up and down that she won't be going out of this door looking like "one of those damn punks" and throws him out.

When he looks back, she has found an eyeshadow palette that looks way more "damn punk" than anything his mother should logically own, and her finger - filled with so much black he can feel the smears just by looking at it - are halfway to her eye.

"Wait! No no no no no no no stop!" He manages to grab her arm before she actually manages to rub the finger all over her face and he isn't sure wether it's luck or the sheer desperation in his eyes that stop her from throwing him off without even lifting a finger.

She looks at him with the saddest fucking eyes he's ever seen and says in an absolutely devastated tone "But I want to look bitching." (Steve doesn't know how he manages to hold in his laughter. He didn't even know that she knew what a curse word was)

The poor girl looks absolutely heartbroken but he is sure that Hopper will make his life actual hell if she comes out of this room with bold black eyes. The only way he sees out of this dilemma is to tell the innocent creature in front of him the most bold-faced lie he's ever invented.

"Look, I see that black is a very cool color", he says, slowly kneeling down and taking the pallet from her hands. "Bitching", she replies, and he thinks he can allow a few swearwords if she can't wear the look she actually wants. "Yeah, bitching", he nods, "but black doesn't go well with your dress." (He feels like the worst person in the world when she nods as if he's just revealed her the secrets of the universe. Everyone knows black goes with every color.)

"But don't worry!" he screams before she can think about it for point five seconds and realize what absolute garbage just came out of his mouth. "We have lots of other colors!"

He almost sobs in relief when her second choice is a nice light pink. He wants to start applying it, but a shake of her head stops him. "Did you change your mind?", he asks, stomach sinking, but thankfully she shakes her head again. Instead, she points to herself. "Me."

"You...you want to apply it yourself?"

She nods excited. "Yes! Just like the girls on TV before they- before they go on a...a"

"A date?". She blushes and nods again. Steve needs to hold himself back from squeezing her to death. He hands her the eyeshadow, and she takes it as if it was the most precious treasure in the world. And then she stares. And stares. And stares.

"Do you want help?" He tries his best not to let any impatience show in his voice, but they are already running late and he still has to do Max (and that's without counting the time it will take to convince her to put anything beauty-related even near her face)

She shakes her head, seems to think on it for a second and then nods. "I'm nervous."

"That's okay. You know, the first time I used makeup I was super nervous, too."

"You use makeup?"

He freezes. He'd been so preoccupied with reassuring her that he hadn't even thought about the words coming out of his mouth. He considers running away. Hell, he considers jumping out of the window.

But he thinks of Eddie Munson and David Bowie. He thinks of the person he'd been before he was "dethroned". He thinks of chapped lips and of cherry red surrounded by blond stubbles. He thinks "I want to be better".

Steve looks at the girl before him - really looks at her. At her innocent eyes even after all the shit she went through. Thinks, fuck, this poor kid was literally raised in a lab, if there is anyone who won't judge him for enjoying making himself look pretty it will be her.

He nods. She smiles. It is as simple as that.

"What did you do to not be nervous anymore?" He doesn't need to look at the clock to know that they definitely don't have enough time for that entire conversation. So he sighs, and tells her the only thing he can come up with on the fly. He sighs a second time when he sees her reaching for the black eyeshadow again, but gives her the go-ahead when she looks at him questioningly. "You're going to look bitching", she declares. "Absolutely bitching", he agrees.

As soon as they are done he collects Max and Hopper where they are silently admiring his Bonsai collection (he can't believe these spoiled ladies are actually his favorite, not that the kids can ever know). Now that he thinks about it, he doesn't think he has ever seen the two of them just....talk.

Max is so distracted by his new look he manages to spread some blush on her cheeks before she can notice, and even somehow convinces her to put on a colored chapstick and a bit of white on her lower waterline as an apology for laughing at him. (He and El make a great team. Nobody is allowed to call their looks anything less than bitching)

Unexpected talent #3: Make Up

#i wanted to post this b4 i go tl sleep so i will tag properly later #steve harrington #el hopper #eleven #max mayfield #eddie munson #steddie #stranger things fic #stranger things #stranger things fanfiction #fuck it saga

[hrokkall]

What are some ships or concepts you wished more people in the Inscryption fandom would explore?

I'm honestly not a big ship guy unless it's either really compelling or really funny. But as for concepts, I really wish people would just get a little weirder with stuff. I know that's a vast generalization—Inscryption as a game is already weird as hell by merit of existing—but I want to see more headcanons/writing quirks that are like "Leshy has parts of every animal, not just cervids—so he has leg spurs like a cricket and gets pin feathers in his fur like a bird" or "Video game logic applies ever so slightly in that characters can learn to reach into the code and pull out the assets allotted to them from hammerspace" or just... whatever the hell is going on with Magnificus in general. I love it when the universe the characters are in is already So Damn Weird that anything goes/the quirks of the world itself impacts those living in it and they hardly even notice because that's just Everyday Life.

Also just generally blue and orange morality stuff. Too much "the Scrybes are evil in a way that can be easily understood" and not enough "the Scrybes aren't evil in a clear-cut way but obviously SOMETHING is wrong here in a way that is So Much Worse than I originally preconceived." Fun stuff

#Re: Inbox #naturallydark #This post is near-incomprehensible TL;DR I just like when people have fun with it #Having said that if you have wild ass headcanons always feel free to share I might not answer/answer privately but I LOVE hearing them #I made a shitpost about Magnificus having tube eyes a while ago and that was genuinely such a fun conversation. Loved hearing everyone's- #-weird biology Magnificus headcanons it was awesome #I'd write a bunch of weird shit myself but unfortunately I write at the pace of either a coyote desperately chewing off its snared leg or- #-with all the fervor of a snail caught in a glue trap #But hey who knows. Might do it anyway #It'll just take a while; like I still have Scrybruary fics in my WIPs and it's been Months. Whoops

[jayswing101]

#guardian #guardian novel #i made my friends a hand written glossary for the seven seas translation of guardian #bc some things are v different from both the drama and the og novel translations #and im wondering. would it also be helpful for people reading the novel for the first time to clean up that little glossary and post it her #that way if new fans go read any fics or things they'll be able to see what the common terms are in the fandom already and be as confused #bc like 'reincarnation dial' is obvious right. that's the sundial of reincarnation #but 'ghost faced figure' is only obvious if a fic uses ghost face - new fans wouldn't know that's gui mian #and 'soul-executing emissary' also might not obviously be zhan hun shi / the ghost slayer #so. would a glossary of the new seven seas terms vs corresponding established fandom terms for novel verse and drama verse be helpful??? #idk #(just it might be confusing bc readers of the online fan tls have different vocab from seven seas tl readers you know?)

[jamietxrtt]

should i post more snippets

#I’ve realized that I’m never going to finish a fic ever again I think lmao #at least probably not a TL fic #however I am continuing to write snippets!! #should I post them would anyone be interested #it’s like basically the same interaction over and over again but 2 inches slightly to the left #but #idk #two cakes?

[gaygodlou]

Lethal Loveache

By: thinlines @thinlinez

Rating: Explicit

Pairing: Harry Styles/ Louis Tomlinson

Status: Completed 2/2, 21k

Louis made sure to dose himself in blockers every time he stepped out of his flat. He used them so often that sometimes he would forget the undertones of his own scent.

Never had he thought the day would come when his wolf would blink open its eyes, ears perked and alert at an omega’s presence.

OR Alpha Louis is dangerously close to breaking his own promise.

This fic dedicated to @littleohs as Part of Round 4 @1daboficfest

#larry fic rec #new fic #hlficlibrary #ficsfor4am #thelarriefics #hlcreators #abo fic #1daboficfest #LOADS OF PINING #louis tomlinson #harry styles #larry #fic post tl

[juicezone]

you should send me an enote + a character (rory cooper or ward) and ill write a little blurb ✨

#tl posts #chance these end up as starters/plots for bigger fics

[moregraceful]

bound my first little fic zine with my own seminal dumbass gay hockey rpf fanfiction top to the bottom, just cool!! i followed these perfect and thorough instructions on binding a fic zine from @eat0crow and typesetting the text block was done according to these incredible instructions by @armoredsuperheavy. i really would have had no idea where to start without their instructions. i started with a fic zine bc all my favorite fics are under like 25k and i'm not sure i want to invest in all the tools necessary for larger works when i'll be binding such short fics generally.

musing on process and future plants and mistakes i made under the cut - not due to the instructions but simply bc i am a moron 😌

this took about an hour and a half to make (not including typesetting), so it was pretty quick. (it might help that my first job in college was doing book conservation for an academic library, so i sort of have the skills in my toolbox, they're just hella rusty.) this is a 6.5k fic on 28 pages so it was a thin and manageable first work. i made several mistakes but it was good to try a first one and i'm pretty proud overall! i made a little zine of my fic!!!

mistakes...so first i printed it on the long edge despite eat0crow specifically calling out to pay attention to how you print it. i simply. have zero reading comprehension lol. so now i have a tidy 14 pages of paper that i will be cutting up into squares make paper cranes with! we love to reduce, reuse, and recycle in this house.

my next mistake was buying this beautiful decorative paper from two hands paperie for a cover, then receiving it and realizing that it was much too thin for a cover, and then buying OTHER colored paper that was also too thin and deciding i would split the difference and simply glue the decorative paper on the colored paper. i didn't glue it onto the paper before i bound it! it ended up okay. i'm honestly not entirely sure if it would have worked out for me to glue it on before binding it? it might not have had enough give when i bound it? so that's something to continue playing with future bindings. i bought more decorative paper specifically for other projects, but i'm going to keep playing around with it on my own fics until i figure out the best way to do it.

i also fully dropped into 20yo kasper being fussed at by his boss to NOT take shortcuts. DO everything slowly, she said. DON'T try to do too much at once! so i tried to cut down page creep page by page but i wasn't satisfied so i took my exacto knife and hacked it down all at once and then it looked worse lol. could hear my boss sighing from across the country. i don't know if i will keep trying that one honestly, i might be too lazy to do it when a book has more than on signature. this was only 28 pages so it was manageable but i typeset a work that was 72 pages last week and having done 28 pages and being unsatisfied, i really don't think i have the energy to do 72 pages and still be frustrated with the results.

which brings me to my next thing! this was a manageable 28 pages and i think that was a good length! but the next one i want to try binding is the second fic in the series brother let me be your shelter. i've been struggling in the salt mines for literal days trying to typeset it into sensible signatures and currently it's 48 pages long in signatures of 16 so i could bind them with french binding but i think 16 pages on 20lb paper might be too thin for french binding! so i'm going to have to keep messing with it. i had to make the font 10.5 pt to get it to fit to 48 pages. 10.5pt i think is fairly standard for a fic zine but i kind of think that if i am going to have to/want to bind multiple signatures anyway, i should just suck it up and make it bigger and play around with sizing. i really want to try french binding (here is a demo video from the preservation lab).

my final and probably biggest mistake is that i was using a rubber ruler i've had since freshman year of college, so it's completely warped and made cutting in a straight line a complete pain in the ass. might be why when i was cutting down page creep they looked like complete ass. so i gotta buy a metal ruler lmao.

the next fic after brother that i want to try (or maybe i should try it first if i am so determined to do french binding lol) is the baby sharks fic, which is only 10k, but the spacing is odd due to the format of the fic, which is why it is 72 pages (signatures of 24 pages). that will be a french binding project, but i'm still trying to decide how to do a cover if i do only french binding, since i foolishly bought paper before my first project and now have a shit ton of gorgeous but very thin paper - french binding doesn't have a cover so i gotta do some research. and after THAT i got permission from ash to bind two thousand miles away, but i can see you a fic that i love so much and which has similar framing (short scenes, social media posts, texts threads). it contains chapters which is a different challenge. also the anxiety starts to kick in when i'm working on other people's fic, so i want to have done the baby sharks fic first so i can see at least what that kind of spacing will look like and how to work with it. this is why i do not do podfic lol i have so much anxiety about honoring people's creative works appropriately and respectfully.

AND THEN. i feel like i shouldn't even say this so as not to spoil the surprise, but i'm already deep into the post and i don't know who is still reading. i know i would have refreshed tumblr to close the cut tag and gone to look at something else by now. anyway i want to try to bind all of lorna's witch verse, which i initially chose because eat0crow said their instructions worked best for fic that is 5k-20k and i thought well it's 27k so i'll just split it in half and treat every fic as a chapter. but now that i've seen how it goes with a 6.5k fic and also experienced HOW MUCH OF A PAIN IN THE ASS word is, i think i might try coptic binding to get it all done at once! (here is a video example.) i was rly reluctant to do any kind of hardcover binding as i didn't want to store davy board and all the tools necessary for davy board, but i'm in love with lorna and ella (who asked for a copy when she found out i am making one for lorna!) so now i'm like ok i better go for broke on this one lol.

anyway great to have a new hobby. my friends are always fussing at me to engage my brain other than writing fic or watching sports, and it's good to stretch muscles that have been dormant for a decade. excited to try new things, as you can see by the amount of paragraphs in this post. i always wanted my own bone folder in college and now i have one!!!!! sorry to my boss who spent so long and so much effort teaching me book conservation, i know you wanted me to be an academic conservation librarian and i feel bad every day that i threw your hard work down the drain and now work in a public library and decided to use the skills you taught me so carefully and gently thirteen years ago to bind gay fanfiction about hockey players.

#birdbindin' #fresno oilers.txt #the tl;dr of this post is simply: i love to try new things #i went to the most inconsistently booked multi-choir choral concert tonight instead of the cuda game and a lot of it was just not pleasant #so i needed to unwind by writing the world's longest post about a single fic zine lol

[egg-emperor]

another one of the fics I've decided to add to the list to write is the extra self indulgent one of Eggman and I at the Interstellar Park that I was contemplating even though the only person in the world it'll appeal to (unless anyone ships us??? 🥺👉👈) is myself lol but Idc it's like one of my go to happy concepts and place that I love to travel to in my mind and I wanna finally turn all that dreaming into a fic and post it 🥰💜

I already have it mapped out in drafts and some concepts and dialogue compiled to build off in full writing form hehe

#I have done and posted two of him and I already they're out there somewhere #but they were f*tish related and I can't reveal to everyone cus they judge a lot :P #I mean there may still be subtle elements in this fic too but just barely so it won't give it away ;P #but I feel you should by now I make it sooo obvious it's not even funny XD #but it's not gonna be the main focus of this one there's gonna be lots of fun stuff #dr eggman #eggman #dr robotnik #dr. eggman #my post #theme park #tl

[metaldeads]

i wheely like you.

#ronance; complete; 12k

tags: making out in the back of a car; pov robin; getting together; mutual pining; background will/mike; will & robin friendship.

“No,” Nancy says, immediately. “Not unless you want that?”

“The only thing I want right now is you,” Robin says, which holy fuck, Harrington Charm who? Watch out Stevie, Buckley’s giving you some competition. 

Robin comes out. So does Will. This leads to a snowball effect of revelations so major that Robin has no choice but to take matters into her own hands. Someone’s going to have to show Will how to romance a Wheeler, and it sure as shit won’t be Steve.

╰┈➤READ HERE

#oaseaswrites #ronance #ronance fic #i think ive posted 5 of my 11 fics now which is good enough for today #i will return to clogging ur TLs tmrw

[bosspigeon]

did you get what you were asking for?

haven't been able to write much lately, but i've been playing D&D pretty regularly, and i like thinking about my boy <3 Raike's first "patron" in the Feywilds, though not the one who gave him his magic. a snippet of memories he lost in Barovia coming back to haunt him now that he's returned to where it all started...

He finds it almost funny that he doesn't remember the name of the man who taught him the importance of names in this realm. He doesn't remember his face either, but after Barovia, there are far more important things he's forgotten.

Some of it he's gotten back, but not all, not enough. He's far more concerned with remembering his mother's face than that of some shitty ex–

Ex? Ex-something. Something… something important, truly, but something he's not sure he wants to have back.

The more he recalls, the more he wishes he could pick and choose what he keeps, and what he forgets.

But that's not how it works. That's not how anything has ever worked, no matter much he pretends to believe it does.

Raike used to think of himself as something of a romantic, but much like the boy he was before the Wilds, that part of him died long ago.

He hoped that after he escaped Barovia (though he's still not sure how it happened, and regrets that, once again, he's left his family behind without so much as a goodbye) his memories would return, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

He gets fragments, sometimes. Snippets and shreds, shards of his life before that bleak, murky hellhole. They come to him in wispy half-memories, flashes of sensation, the dry heat of the sun on red sand, the hazy violet of the sky after sunset, the constant thrum of nighttime insects that echoes in the chest.

The memories that come to him in dreams tend to be the clearest, and the worst.

"Slit his throat, pet."

The voice is soft, silky-smooth. Dangerous.

The man at his feet looks up at him, eyes wide and fearful in his ashen face. He's a young man, human–perhaps Raike's age, or maybe a little older.

(How old is he again? How long has he been here?)

Raike wonders what crime the human has committed. It's impossible to guess. He's learned the hard way how easily the Fair Folk are offended. His master is no different.

(Master? Yes, that sounds right. Raike might have called him lover once, when he was newer. Stupider.)

Whatever the crime, it's unlikely it calls for execution. It's even less likely his master is incapable of doing himself, and doing it much less… messily.

Raike hesitates too long.

"I made a request of you, my pet."

A request. He almost laughs.

Instead, he looks down at the human at his feet. He's never seen him before. Poor thing must have stumbled upon the Courts recently. There are still twigs in his hair.

"Raike," his master coos. Sickly sweet. Oily. Like poison dripping from a blade.

That name doesn't belong to him anymore. It's a noose around his neck now, and he feels it pull taut, not-quite choking him–not yet.

He already has so many things to apologize for, if he ever sees his father again.

His master places the knife in his trembling hand, curls his fingers around it, and squeezes. It's a gentle touch, meant to ground him, but the hands around his are corpse-cold.

Raike looks at the human again, sees the panic in his eyes, feels it in the tightness of his own throat, his heart stuttering in his chest.

He's slaughtered animals before. It was a necessity of the humble life he lived before the forest, before the fight, before the Wilds. This can't be much different, can it?

(Raike's always been a good liar, especially to himself, but not this time. Not about this.)

"Please," the human sobs.

"Please," Raike echoes, but his voice is strangled to nothing by the snare his name has become.

His body is moving on its own. He can't fight it. He's tried.

"Don't be so dramatic, pet," his master scoffs. "Just do it."

Raike obeys, as if he has any other choice. He grabs the poor bastard's hair. He tries to keep his grip gentle, but his body refuses–it's not his body anymore, not now–as it jerks his head back to expose his throat. The man gasps, sniveling pleas and prayers to a god Raike's never heard of.

Forgive me, Raike thinks desperately as he brings the knife to the human's throat and across it with one quick, practiced slash.

As it turns out, cutting a human's throat is not the same as cutting that of a goat or a rabbit. The cut is not as clean as he hoped it would be.

Though the rites are screaming through his head with the clarity of years of rote memorization and practice, Raike is not praying to the God of his bitter adolescence.

The face he pictures is lined and austere, gentle black eyes and greying hair.

Forgive me, he pleads a man he hasn't seen in so long, will probably never see alive again. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.

"Good pet," his master purrs, running cold white fingers through Raike's hair. There are tears on his cheeks. The human's pleas are drowned in pathetic gurgles, choked for breath. His blood is burning hot and slick on Raike's hands, soaking into his shirt and plastering the fine fabric to his skin.

He feels sick. He feels empty.

His master leaves him to his theatrics, scoffing something about bards. Raike stands there, still as stone, as a man dies miserably at his feet, by his hand.

He murmurs the rites like his father taught him. He closes the man's eyes, tries to wipe the blood from his chin with an unsullied piece of his shirt.

There will be no funeral at the water's edge for this man. There will be no honor, no remembrance, no closure for his kin. This stranger dies another nameless mortal in the wilds, a plaything to be toyed with until it breaks, to be tossed away and forgotten in favor of the next curiosity.

Raike stands there, staring numbly at the body until it is carried off by his master's courtiers.

He watches the procession, and he sees his own funeral.

#d&d #d&d character #warlock #pidge writes #unprompted #oc: raike reedfellow #i've rambled about him a lot but tl;dr raike is the errant half-orc son of a priest from a tiny fishing village in the middle of nowhere #who ran away as a teenager and got lost in the feywilds #and met his father again after ??? years when they both wound up in barovia #now he's in the feywilds again #hither to be specific #we're playing the wild beyond the witchlight :) #its not v good im rusty af lmao #hey did you know you can link in post titles? #bc i didnt yeehaw #i am forever a basic ass 'lowercase song lyrics as fic titles' bitch #ONLY ONE PERSON HERE IS NOT ALLOWED TO READ THIS YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE

[advestager]

I feel like saying Josuke doesn't have any daddy issues whatsoever isn't entirely fair (I've seen some fic and comics go further into how he and his mom might have been treated due to the circumstances of his birth that were pretty compelling) but people who act like he grew up without any father figure are definitely off base imo. Every single adaptation and extra material have always had a focus on his close relationship with his grandpa for a reason!

see, that's precisely the thing. it is literally impossible to be a grown up human without having internalised some sort of illogical Feeling about oneself or the world – but fandom as a whole tends to just assign arbitrary ones to characters based on stereotypes rather than what they actually are like.

i do think josuke feels some sort of way about his lack of a father growing up, but that's as inevitable as joseph himself (or giorno, or jolyne, or even jonathan) having feelings about his own dad, and yet somehow jorge's absence does not get brought up despite joseph and josuke's fairly similar upbringings. the fact is that most of western fandom tends to view the JJBA characters through a (white, usa-centric) lens that simply does not lend itself to a fair or accurate reading when most of the cast is either POC or from an entirely different cultural background. that's why i'm so resistant to label josuke as having 'daddy issues'; the term means something entirely different to me than it seems to do to most of the fandom, based on all the fic, comics, and discussions i've seen (and had) about the topic. it's not exactly like the organised crime aspect of VA, but it fills me with a similar kind of frustration. i don't think one needs a degree in cultural studies or history or whatnot to enjoy a silly series about people punching each other with slutty soul-ghosts, but it's exhausting to see the same thoughtless, very specifically westernised takes being regurgitated over and over as Absolute Truth until the characters are so flanderised they seem nothing as much as a caricature of their original versions. i love transformative works as much as any other fan creator, but i also happen to like the source material. it is infinitely more interesting to me to think about what kind of relationship josuke might have to his heritage as a mixed-race person, or his identity as the son of a single mother or the obviously cherished and spoilt child of a family such as his own (especially in a place and period like canon's late-90s/early 00's japan), than to hear yet another iteration of 'haha, josuke has daddy issues' where the person saying it has no intention of analysing that premise beyond the puddle-depth obvious.

at barely sixteen years old, even as interested in high-end fashion (and as very much part of a working class family who could definitely use the nest egg) as he is, josuke's immediate reaction to being told his missing father is incredibly rich and wants to take care of him is to say that it's not necessary, and he's fine as he is. sixteen. i worked as a teacher with kids as young as a year old and people as old as mid-seventies; that kind of ease of mind is one-in-a-million and not something you'll find on someone who fits fandom's definition of 'daddy issues'. he's not angry at joseph, he's not grasping for money, he hardly even wants to find out more about the missing part of his origins. his only thought is to wish he wouldn't be the reason other people were hurt, and to protect his mother once there is a risk she might find out and be distressed about it. his entire morality system is (from what i remember of canon) mostly based around the question What Would Grandpa Do?, with some leeway allowed for the temper he clearly got from tomoko and for the fact that he is, again, a big and slightly spoilt sixteen year old.

so yeah. it might not sound fair to say he doesn't have daddy issues, but i don't think the terms fandom's operating under are fair to start with, so i'd rather recuse myself (and my interpretation of the character) from it all til we're playing the same game. the sandbox's wide and wild, and the block and mute buttons are there for a reason, so i'll just stay in my corner writing about higashikatas wielding their feelings like sledgehammers til my mum says it's time to go home.

#tl;dr: everyone's absolutely entitled to their opinion! i just happen to find the most common one the equivalent of soap-flavoured cilantro #i definitely agree with the part about his rship with his grandfather! it's a whole thing in my own writing for them #it's just 'daddy issues' has become shorthand for a combination of takes i quite dislike the past few years #so yeah. i'll just... Not. if y'all don't mind #(i do think Other characters have daddy issues in the traditional sense. and even in the popular modern sense. but not josuke particularly) #anyway i hope this doesn't read as confrontational as i fear it sounds bc that was. so not my intention orz #ty for the ask!!!! i really love discussing character analysis i'm just rly tired rn so i probably sound super Debate Team Mode haha #ps ryohei was 100000% josuke's favourite person in the world growing up and he's still tomoko's special baby gremlin at age 50 pass it on #josuke higashikata #jojo #the funny thing abt my fic is i'm really at ease abt posting my shippy stuff bc it's just like. treating myself to sth nice #and then sharing with everyone as a bonus #but the stuff where i actually talk abt familial and platonic rships for my faves lives in eternal development hell bc i just LOVE it #and never feel like it's perfect enough to share. it's never complete because it's always evolving #which is why i once wrote a novel allegedly about detectives in love but in reality about 100kish of family/friendship character analysis #meaning there was no way this ask could've ever been answered succinctly lol #ask tag #joji.txt #joosk #anonymous