#when a fic is so good it rewrites your brain chemistry

[ifearloveisviolence]

I read the bachelorette au dabihawks fic and fucking hell I might be a dabihawks shipper now

#when a fic is so good it rewrites your brain chemistry #the sketch isn't from the fic #I just needed to get something with these two out there #the fic is so good go read it #dabihawks #bnha fanart #dabi #touya todoroki #keigo takami #bnha hawks

[ghaniblue]

HP Recs Fest: Days 8 + 9

@hprecfest prompt: canon-divergent + rare pair

I struggled a lot with canon-divergent because I almost always read EWE, but I avoid canon-rewrites, resorting or what-if fics.

A Soft Spot for Lost Causes (13099 words) by Helenish (Draco/Ron, Explicit)

"Remember at school? Weasel? You’re so poor and dirty?" Ron said encouragingly "You hated me." "I did," Draco said.

I first read this fic in 2004 when canon was still open so it differs wildly from the last books. This is not a pairing I normally go for, but Helenish is so good at writing messy, uncomfortable sexual situations. (The warning on this fic is not for Draco/Ron.)

empire builders (25213 words) by shecrows (James/Sirius, Explicit)

Say, James, he rehearses in his head. Remember that time we were both roaring drunk at the end of term, and you put your cock in my mouth, and I came so hard I still get tingly thinking about it? Was that just a one off, d’you think, or did you want to do it again sometime? He blows out a cloud of smoke, releasing a thready little peal of laughter. “Fuck me,” Sirius mutters, and swallows. “Fuck. Shitting Christ.”   James, Sirius, and a summer in the south of Devon.

I got this story off @ashesandhackles fest recs and devoured it this morning. I am now a Prongsfoot shipper. This fic altered my brain chemistry. James and Sirius in this are both too much and so deeply emotionally entangled. The intensity of feeling is off the charts. It felt like I was getting a second hand high reading this fic.

>> rec fest masterlist <<

#prongsfoot #dron #james x sirius #draco x ron #hp rare pair #hprecfest2023 #acari recs

[seelestia]

hi!! its been a while hehe

FIRST PARAGRAPH i totally agree jsjds

i JUST took a chem test today UGH stoichiometry <<< but my fav is also bio WHAT!! i specifically love genetics, i'd like a job in it someday.

i actually just finished + posted a fic, its a childe fic where childe has to give up the reader for his family. if u find it maybe my identity will be revealed hehe

LOL i hope ur stomach is okay after all that, actually whats your fav drink? mines def water or coffee. AHHHH INFJS THE CINNAMON ROLLS!! how's life as a j? i really wanna be an intj ugh :(

ME TOO!! i mostly do it with mbti BUT WHATS UR ENNEGRAM!! and do u wanna take a shot at guessing mine? if not its okay

i wish i cld add more to this ask but something is demanding my attention very this second n i'm too lazy to rewrite this all.

BUT!! whats ur fav scent? like perfume wise?

have a nice timezone!!

-quill !

quill, hi hiiii! the way i was planning to come online when you sent the ask?? destiny. the fact that we despise chemistry??? also destiny LMAOAOOA. I SHALL PRAY FOR YOUR BRAIN 🙏 and hello??? fellow bio lovers unite! yooo, it's good to know that you'd like a job in genetics because they're super cool 😩 this makes me wanna look back at my notes abt meiosis HELP. tho, i personally love the digestive system! but i think i might just end up taking linguistics or literature courses when i go to uni soon.

(remember me when you get that huge salary, quill. so cash money of you /lh) AND OMG. i think

my fav drink is... iced chocolate. quick, act surprised LMAOAO why is this no different than choco milk 😭 but any types of iced fruit tea are super good imo! water and coffee... quill, you're so self-sufficient and easy to take care of, jfjwkkfkwm. don't be like me, be practical and save money 🚶

CINNAMON ROLLS?? US INFJS?? TY, TY! we are all silly people, i promise. like everything, being a j has its pros and cons: because we make plans and take some time to think for stability + this helps us feel secure knowing how something turns out. but at the same time, it makes us more frigid when it comes to change?? it's not like it'll kill us but most j's can get a little moody/panicky when the plans take a turn — which i do think we can afford to relax a bit more abt 😭 (i talk like a p, but i think it's just the introverted intuition (Ni) in me jfjwjkek) + it takes away our chance to experience how unpredictablity can make things more enjoyable than they seem disorganized!

YEAH! i do more with mbti and cognitive functions too but i recently researched more into enneagram. i personally recc using the sakinorva site if you haven't because they go more in depth >:)

ALSO HI YES. i'm a 9w8! your local and private cheerleader <3 and ofc, i'd want to guess, hehe. hmmm, i think... you might be a type 6?? i got this feeling because of how you said that you wish you could be a j/intj, so i can somewhat theorize that you desire security and stability (which sounds like a 6 to me but again, this is just a silly guess fjjwkdkke.

NO WORRIES! go take care of those things like a boss and a good timezone to ya too, quill <3 thanks for stopping by~ i'll keep a lookout for the childe fic you wrote because ayo, the family vs lover trope??? yes. 👀

#i love how i can feel like a nerd and a student *and* a writer when i talk with you. man ily quill 😭 (/p) #OH AND my fav perfume scent is usually soft floral like ylang ylang! WBU??? #HAVE A NICE TIMEZONE QUILL <3 #ask box! 📬 #visitor: dearest quill anon! ✒️

[festiveferret]

Wipdate!

Okay, it’s been a really long time since the last one, again. I’m always like “no way it’s been that long,” then the list of updates is 4 million fics long. Big womp.

Posted:

Spark(y)s Fly  - Dog trainer Steve and single dad Tony. Black and Blue - Bad BF Brock with Steve as Tony’s PA Comfortable - Post-CAWS, Stony h/c Ex-traordinary Christmas - Getting back together ft. shitty bf Ty Instant Reaction - Steve and Tony meet and have instant chemistry Doorway - Homeless omega!Steve and helpful Alpha!Tony Malware- My first 616 fic! Punch Line - HS AU shitty ex-bf Ty (are you sensing a recent theme?) Breaking the Law of Attraction - Tony loves Steve’s mind, Steve loves Tony’s might. (collab with @ashes0909) Cat's Out of the Bag - Cat sitter!Tony AU, w/ID Porn Can't Write One Song (That's Not About You) - Band AU, so much pining Fresh Water - Stuckony love confessions Hoodie Thief - Steve finds something else when looking for his hoodie Post-It (Winteriron) - Office AU love confessions Part of Your World - Mermaid!Tony, smol!Steve In Recovery - ABO, arranged marriage + PTSD service dog Known - OFMD Episode 8 bed sharing Dalliance - OFMD Fuck buddies to lovers Sugar on Top - Shitty ex-Ty, Baker!Steve, Grad student!Tony Still Fine - OFMD Old scars h/c + first kiss

Updating:

A Good Thing - Comic collab with Askafroa - Alpha!Tony and Omega!Therapist!Steve Yet I Will Try the Last - Truck Stop Hooker AU with hooker!Steve and flashy billionaire, Tony Stark. Up to chapter four! Held Remix - A rewrite of Held with Tony as the sub and Steve as the Dom. Up to chapter twenty-nine. (Planning to dive in again in the new year!)

Beta Queue:

Do Not Reply -  I keep bumping this beta in favour of other things but at some point I’m just going to have to put it next in the queue for @ashes0909 and make it actually happen lol

Wips:

1) You may have noticed that Our Flag Means Death has barnacled onto me in the best way possible. Fear not! I’m still writing Stony (and other MCU ships) but it’s fun being in something new and wild and chaotic and I’m probably going to be posting a fair amount of OFMD in the next little while as well. I have a bunch of ideas and WIPS for the show, so if you’re into that, stick around, there’s more to come!

2) I have been opening and closing an Ults AU where Tony is dying of brain cancer and Steve is a security specialist/bodyguard who ends up living with him for like a billion years and I’ve reopened it once again. Let’s see if I can ever finish it.

3) Still working on my sexy collab!

4) I’m in the WH Big Bang so woohoo! Gotta write that bad boy. I have an idea and like a quarter of it written.

5) I’m in some zines, one of which is due on a really short timeline, so gotta crank something out for that.

6) Backburner includes the Twilight AU and Yet I Will Try, which I really need to update at least once this year 😬

I’ve got a wee break between renovating season and gardening season, so hoping to do a lot of writing in the next two months. I’m co-running the @reforgedzine for Bucky/Tony and there’s still a few days left to apply so if you’re in to Winteriron, please do! 

Thanks as always for reading! <3

#wipdate #wiplist #ferret life

[swiftzeldas]

i was tagged by @incomprehensiblelentils in a ship meme!

1. First ship

unfortunately the first ship i remember, like, actively rooting for them to get together was probably ron/hermione. i started reading HP when i was like 7 or 8 and i remember always hoping they’d be together in the end

2. First OTP

i’m going with megan’s definition of this which is “first ship you felt strongly enough about to engage with fandom for” and hmm that’s actually still a good question. it MIGHT be aragorn/eowyn. that feels right. otherwise, it might just also be ron/hermione lmao. if we were gonna talk about which ship i first wrote fanfic for then it was PROBABLY something from warrior cats which is so funny.

3. Current favorite ship

i have replaced my brain with d&d actual play shows. i apologize. i am currently engaged in absolute insane amounts of brain rot over hardwon/moonshine from not another d&d podcast. (and listening to jake and emily talk about them on their patreon aftershow makes it exponentially worse, because they are fucking unhinged????) hardwon and moonshine are chaotic bisexual idiots who are deeply in love with each other without realizing it. listening to them teeter on the edge of admitting this is enough to make a listener lose their mind. like honestly i can’t remember the last time i felt this feral over a ship. 

secondary shoutout to ricky/esther/sofia from dimension 20′s the unsleeping city, because i just rewatched that and i CANNOT be normal. they are all in love with each other and i cannot be convinced otherwise!!!! further, i am about to rewatch a crown of candy so i expect i will be going feral over the stupid gummy bear/chocolate bunny ship again.

4. Your ship since the first minute

how could it not be marcus keane/tomas ortega from the exorcist? tomas was seeing him in his DREAMS. his first words to marcus were “it is you.” i stood no chance and neither did marcus, try as he might. 

5. Ship(s) you wish had been endgame

olivia benson/rafael barba. but alas, the ship has sailed so far it’s not even on the horizon. svu is gonna go with b*nsler endgame which i think is STUPID but whatever

6. Ship you wish was canon

tara/rosita on the walking dead. they were really MY SHIP when i was still watching it and that would be one ship that would have gotten me to jump back in. tara briefly had a girlfriend (played by the woefully underutilized merritt wever) who got killed off not long after she was introduced. idk, tara and rosita had a great connection and a lot of chemistry, and it’s a shame the show didn’t try to capitalize upon that especially since tara was already canonically a lesbian so they wouldn’t even have had to be perceived as “changing their sexualities”

7. Ship that most of the fandom hates but you love

i feel like it’s way more often that the whole fandom loves a ship i hate lmaoooo. this is hard! i do tend to enjoy some polarizing ships like darklina (from shadow and bone), but there are lots of people who ship darklina WAY harder than i do. 

8. You don’t even watch the show, but you ship it

i don’t really have many of these, so i’m gonna go for an OUAT ship even though i have watched ~some~ of the show, and that is that i ship hook/charming and it’s kind of as a joke but also KIND OF NOT A JOKE. there’s a particular fic i wish existed and i really don’t have the investment in the fandom to do it myself and i also don’t trust that fandom to write it either

9. Ship you wish had a different storyline

uhhh most ships on the office deserved a different storyline. i’d take out the random marital rough patch jim and pam go through in season 9. i’d take out the whole thing about angela and the senator so angela and dwight could have a better, more fitting storyline. i’d also rewrite andy and erin so andy isn’t such a douchebag, i’d probably write him realizing he’s bisexual and if he and erin aren’t going to work out i’d at least do that without erasing all of andy’s character development over the years. .....i love the office but the last couple seasons really did kind of goof up the ships

10. Favorite ship(s) that’s endgame

a lot of my ships aren’t endgame lmaoooo. i really like non-canon stuff a lot of the time. in the interest of not repeating myself i’ll say morwen and telemain from the enchanted forest chronicles! i could ALMOST call them my first otp but i don’t think they quite qualify. regardless, i love them, and they ARE ultimately endgame even though it takes awhile to get there. 

i tag: @ageless-aislynn @cleoselene @emmaswanned

#text post #shoutout to ships i love that i didn't get to mention......jontim i'm thinkin of u always.....

[snowdice]

Sometimes Labels Fail (Bonus Features)

Want to know what I’m blathering on about? Click below!

AO3 Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6

Title in my Word Document: The Correct Label is Baby. He’s Baby. (Yes, I label my WIP’s with memes when at all possible. No, I am not taking constructive criticism)

Technical Writing Facts:

This fic appears in three different places in my documents. First it started in my Ideas word document, then it transferred over to a file called TSSS superhero (which has now become where I store things in this universe until they become their own stories or one-shots. Currently I have 13,746 unpublished words in this folder… most of it is piecemeal, but I digress.). Then I decided to rewrite parts of it and put it in the word document mentioned above.

I wrote most of the story during finals week. The last chapter was written while I proctored my student’s exams. Logan’s crack about being asked questions about his class by students at coffee shops was me venting over something that had happened recently. Please, do not come up to me with your laptop open in a public place. I just wanted a cup of tea.

Patton did not originally have a large role in this fic. Then I wrote the first paragraph and thought it was funny to have Logan being absolutely serious as he listed out the way he segmented his life and just input random not as serous things, and Patton convincing him to put jam in cookies came up and then the binder part came in and suddenly it wasn’t a joke and they’d been married for decades.

In part 2, Logan comforts Patton by hugging him, rubbing his back, and laying his cheek on top of his head. In part 3, you see Patton comforting Virgil in the exact same way. This is intentional as Logan observed this behavior from Patton over the years and emulates it.

I wrote the whole story before giving Logan and Virgil superhero names. Instead I just wrote (Logan) and (Virgil) every time so I could “control f” their names with parenthesis when I decided on something.

I couldn’t stop calling Virgil Shadow Crawler and I don’t know why. I kept having to go back and find and replace in my word document for it.

I immediately regretted calling Logan Bluebird. It was fine for his chapter and then I couldn’t stop laughing every time Virgil seriously called him that in his head.

Character Facts:

All of the sides + Emile and Remy exist and are sympathetic in this AU.

Logan:

Logan has a doctorate degree in math and physics. He double majored in both and went straight for a PhD in math after his undergrad. He picked the physics one up later. He also went and got a bachelor’s degree in biology. (No this wasn’t so he could understand Patton’s research papers better. That would be an irrational reason to get a college degree.)

Logan became a superhero out of academic spite because of course he did.

When Logan first became a hero, it was shortly after a scandal that happened where a major superhero’s identity was exposed, and it turned out it was the spouse of an important political figure. It was a very public and messy divorce. Logan swore to himself he’d never get into a relationship with someone who didn’t already know he was a superhero, citing it was a bad foundation for relationships. The catch 22 was that he refused to tell anyone his secret identity. Patton ended up figuring it out on his own. Logan had not accounted for this.

In fact, Logan at the end of this story, had never told anyone his secret identity. At the end of this story only three people knew: Patton, Virgil, and Remy. No one ever told Remy and they never discussed it with him. He just kinda figured it out and didn’t say anything. Logan knows he figured it out and also hasn’t said anything. Remy is a bit salty about this and likes to send subtle jabs at Logan about it. Both Patton and Logan know he knows. He’s known almost as long as Patton. It’s almost an inside joke between them at this point.

Virgil:

Virgil doesn’t know anything about his birth-parents other than his birth mother died in childbirth.

Virgil once stole something that was not money or food and it was completely accidental. He broke into a museum just to look as a 14th birthday present for himself. He got caught by a guard and panicked. For some reason, his panicked brain told him since he was a villain, he had to make it look like there was a villainous reason for him to be there… so he stole a statue. Yeah, he doesn’t understand it either. Yes, he ended up getting it back to them. What was he supposed to do with a statue?

Virgil plays the clarinet and is actually pretty good. He wasn’t able to get into any of the bands you have to audition for (he’s just in the general non-audition band at school) and was never able to really practice. Plus, his clarinet is one of those meh loaners from the school.

Virgil ends up majoring in biology with a minor in chemistry and attends the same college Logan teaches at.

I haven’t quite decided what Virgil’s going to do for his career when he grows up, but I’m leaning toward something in the medical field, though not a surgeon like Patton. Maybe a pediatrician.

Patton:

Patton was the one originally with the name Sanders. Logan took his name when they married.

Patton’s family life wasn’t… great in his youth. He had some unhealthy perceptions of relationships and his place in relationships he had to work through.

The café Virgil and Logan went to in the last chapter is where Patton and Logan first met! Patton almost poured an entire cup of coffee on him because he was exhausted after a shift at the hospital. He didn’t even notice that Logan used his powers to prevent an accident. Logan wasn’t sure if he was acting like he didn’t noticed and was plotting something. He decided to keep an eye on him. (Spoiler alert: he did keep a very good eye on him.

Patton saved the life of the current mayor. She had been the chief of police about a decade before this story. She was majorly injured in the line of duty to the point where basically she was a lost cause. Patton, though, saw her two elementary aged sons and went absolutely not. With the permission of her wife, he took her in for multiple surgeries (many experimental) and by pure force of will stitched her back together. She woke up half a year later. Will she ever walk again? No. Did she get to adamantly insist on carrying boxes on her lap while riding a wheelchair to help her sons move into their college dorm this past fall? Yes.

Because of the above, Patton gets invited to many high-profile events. Patton does not like going to these things alone. Which isn’t a problem until Bluebird is on the guest list.

Remy:

Remy has been working with Patton for basically forever. He’d been working for less than a year before he got swept up for an emergency surgery because he was the closest one around and it was a very high-profile case that needed to be dealt with right that second. That’s when he first met Patton and due to certain events, everyone in that room ended up with a certain tie to each other. He’s basically been Patton’s nurse ever since even when they just worked together in the ER. Everyone knew Remy was Patton’s nurse even though he wasn’t officially. When Patton stopped being an ER surgeon and became more of a specialist, Remy followed him right out the door and now works with him and two other doctors.

Roman:

Roman didn’t appear in this story, but he was mentioned and he’s around. He started going out in a prince costume when he was 17. (He is 3 years older than Virgil). He gets away with it mostly because everyone “knows” Roman’s too dramatic and likes to boast. The boy couldn’t keep a secret like that to save his life. So, what if that guy has superstrength like him? Look he’s sitting right there. Wait that’s Remus? …Nah, still couldn’t be him.

Remus:

Remus is Roman’s twin and has the same powers as him. He is not active during this story, but he will end up as a “villain.” He actually ends up working with a government agency to basically go undercover as a supervillain and helps bring down villains. He’s really good at it. His mothers know, but honestly, they kind of expected something like this. They’re just glad their other son is just a normal actor who has no interest in risking his life…

Deceit:

Deceit was actually mentioned (though not by name) in the first chapter. He is a vigilante and has been since before Logan was on the scene. Logan hates him. He probably would have gotten over being shot that one time, but then he made the mistake of needing medical care and kidnapping a doctor… He didn’t harm Patton at all, and Logan found him in like two hours, but none of that mattered. Logan was super, super pissed. The funny thing is, Deceit was not and still is not aware of Patton’s personal connection to Bluebird. He isn’t quite sure why Bluebird treats him with more disdain than he does most villains, but just figures he’s an asshole.

Emile:

Emile is a pretty well-known psychiatrist. He offered his services free of charge for people affected by the school shooting. He even extended the invitation to Bluebird, letting him wear the mask the whole time. Logan took him up on it because honestly, it was a traumatic situation and he figured he should deal with it now rather than later. Emile is currently dating Remy. He was not 100% sure why the superhero Bluebird seemed to be giving him dating advice at a party, but it worked out. (No, Remy is not aware Logan set him up.)

Feel free to keep sending asks about this story going forward. I love them and I have a lot more about this universe in my head that I didn’t put here either unintentionally or intentionally.

Click here for asks already answered in chronological order.

#sanders sides #logan sanders #patton sanders #virgil sanders #logicality #remy sanders #roman sanders #remus sanders #tw school shooting #tw medical #tw surgery #sometimes labels fail #bonus features #labeled universe #deceit sanders #emile piccani

[ckret2]

Eddie’s like but does he LIKE us like us and Symby’s like he’s got fangs take a chance

Written for @symbruary Day 15, free day. So I decided to write a part 2 to the Venom/Morbius thing I wrote a few days ago, where Morbius is like, secretly into Venom. It was only fair that I demonstrate that Venom is secretly into Morbius too.

Also in canon Eddie always gets crushes on girls and the symbiote either quickly emotionally tags along or slowly emotionally tags along, so I thought it'd be nice if the symbiote got the crush and Eddie is the one who slowly emotionally tags along.

Bouncing wildly back and forth between giving the symbiote a brain-voice and just mixing its thoughts and Eddie’s together all willy-nilly in the narration is fun.

###

You like him, Eddie.

Eddie grumbled in acknowledgment.

Like him too.

Eddie grumbled louder.

They'd just finished having a midnight meal with Morbius, who'd invited them to visit Monster Metropolis—partially to give the symbiote another potential safe haven, but partially to socialize.

And as a consequence, Venom had spent the last hour sitting on the railing of a dark fire escape, pondering over the conversation, trying to figure out what kind of socialization Morbius was asking for.

They had concluded that they couldn't conclude what his exact intentions had been. It had all been rather ambiguous.

The symbiote was of the strong opinion that they should remove the ambiguity posthaste.

Should ask him out. The symbiote was basically vibrating with eagerness. On an emotional level. Not a physical one. A bunch of stretched out goo vibrating between Eddie's organs and atop his semi-dissolved skin would probably gently rattle apart the fire escape.

It was a lot more excited than Eddie would have expected over the thought of a date. "Dear... without checking my memories, what do you think a date that involves two humans would consist of?" He was somewhat concerned that it was picturing what their date nights were like.

The symbiote eagerly pushed over a pile of mental images. A relaxing moonlit walk through New York City's most crime-ridden streets, looking for wrongdoers to thwart. Splitting a romantic dinner for two—Morbius could have the blood and Venom could have the brains, so nobody would have to fight over the good bits. Pressing their mouths together and demonstrating the deadly-dangerous razor-sharpness of their fangs on each other's lips and tongues.

Venom's (admittedly already rather vacant) gaze went totally blank. "Okay. That's actually pretty nice."

And while they were going on the moonlit walk the symbiote could stretch over both of their hands and connect their thoughts. They could feel each other's feelings, wouldn't even have to speak. Very romantic.

"Hmm..."

They could ask if Morbius was interested in doing what Eddie called the Weird Stuff.

Venom almost fell off the railing.

It would be even weirder with a third person!

"Maybe save the Weird Stuff for the second date," Venom mumbled. The symbiote's interest was surprising to Eddie. Typically it more or less jumped on board with Eddie's attraction, even if wasn't always easy to untangle that way. But it liked Morbius itself?

Like him better than Beck or Anne.

Ouch. Well, the memories of both those relationships put a firm stop to Eddie's Weird Stuff thoughts.

Sorry.

Why was the symbiote so interested in Morbius? Not that it shouldn't be—and not that Eddie wasn't, too—but it was unusual for Eddie to be the one following the symbiote's lead. It was typically slower than Eddie to show attraction outside of that-would-make-a-nice-host attraction. (The symbiote was mildly alarmed to discover Eddie recognized when it was doing that. Eddie pointed out that it was hard not to notice when the symbiote was making eyes at someone with a cozy-looking rib cage when it was using Eddie's eyes.) So why was it so interested in Morbius?

Because Venom looked normal to Morbius. Because Morbius understood what it was like to have a hunger he needed to control in order to fit into society and that made other humans fear him. Because Morbius looked at the symbiote—the symbiote, independent from its host, independent from anyone else—as a monster, but to Morbius "monstrosity" didn't mean it needed to be contained and controlled, but sheltered and protected.

"Of course," Venom said quietly. Of course. Not that Eddie hadn't noticed and appreciated those things, but... he hadn't quite realized how rare they were. And they were rare. Weren't they?

Plus his fangs were hot.

A grin stretched across Venom's face. "His teeth aren't quite as impressive as ours," they said, "but they are cute."

Cute. Not a thought Eddie would have expected out of himself, once upon a time. To think, the first time he'd gotten married he'd thought he was straight. It wasn't until the second time he got married that he realized how... how small and arbitrary and meaningless the narrow boundaries he'd once lived in were when it came to love. It had taken falling in love with someone with no shape and no gender before he had gradually been able to look past the shapes and genders humans came in.

He still sometimes wondered whether his other had helped him realize something—something latent, or something suppressed perhaps—within his own psyche; or if its influence had changed him somehow, rewritten something in his mind to view other humans more like the way the symbiote viewed them, the same way it minutely changed his body chemistry.

Didn't rewrite your mind! The symbiote paused. Probably. Not on purpose. Never tried to.

If it had, wanting to kiss a vampire wasn't the strangest urge the symbiote had accidentally given him.

Some small part of Eddie still saw those separate categories of humans that were arbitrary to the symbiote; women still caught his attention more frequently than men. Maybe that was another reason why, this one time, his own interest had developed more slowly than the symbiote's.

But it had developed?

"Yes," Venom said. "We both like him."

So ask him out!

"We don't know if he likes us."

We'll find out when we ask him!

"But if he doesn't—"

"Buddy," said a man leaning out a window onto the fire escape, "you've been talking yourself in circles over this guy for an hour. Either go ask him out or go brood somewhere else so I can sleep, will ya?"

Venom started, getting off the railing to stand on the fire escape properly. "Uh. Sure."

"This neighborhood, I swear..." The man slammed his window shut.

Venom shot a web line across the street and swung away. Okay. They'd ask him. At some point. Once they thought up an appropriate approach.

But first, they'd see how this visit to Monster Metropolis went.

###

Crossposted to AO3, link in my description. (If you're on mobile, you've gotta go down to the ask/submit/etc links and scroll sideways to reach it.) If you enjoyed the fic, I'd appreciate a reblog or comment!

#venom #symbiote #venom symbiote #eddie brock #morbius #symbruary #fanfic #my writing

[eatsockss]

Irondad and SteveTony Fic Recs!!

I decided to do a fic rec list bc i always see them and am So Grateful for them, esp rn bc everybody’s quarantined so what else is there to do but read fanfic. these are some of my favorite fics/some of the fics I read recently and just have open in safari rn. they’re mostly angst or whump ngl bc that’s my favorite but,,,, enjoy!

Irondad

ever in your favor by @iron--spider

Summary: Peter startles awake when someone shakes him. “Sorry, honey,” May says. Peter blinks a couple times and she comes into focus, her hair pulled back from her face. She’s trying not to look a certain way, but he can see it in her eyes anyway. She clears her throat, keeps talking. “But it’s…” She glances away, wets her lips. “You gotta get ready.” He remembers what day it is, and his heart beats like a drum at someone’s execution. But he tries to put on a mask, make it all seem normal. It’s everything but, despite the fact that he’s been dealing with reaping day since he was born, between himself, Ben and May. That fear that one of them could be taken away. Sent to surefire slaughter. But now Ben is gone, taken despite never having his name drawn from a bowl, and May’s finally safe. Now Peter’s name is in there alone. The last Parker sitting on the chopping block. He doesn’t know how to be. He doesn’t know what normal is, when the Hunger Games are looming on the horizon.

Note: this is probably my favorite ever irondad fic so like ,,, ummm ,,, Please read this

lay your weary head to rest by @the-great-escapism

Summary: “Please.” He means to say it loudly, with confidence, but it comes out as nothing more than a raspy whisper. His ears are ringing painfully, and his head feels like it’s going to explode. It hurts and hurts and hurts. “M-May,” Peter cries out to no one, feeling like a child. “Tony. Please, ‘m so tired.” He inhales and chokes on his tears. He can’t tell if it’s his imagination or not, but he’s pretty sure he hears a laugh. In which Peter gets kidnapped, and that's not even the worst part. The worst part is he's not allowed to sleep.

Priorities by JLMonroe1234

Summary: Tony had been in the cave for a month. Waiting. Planning. Healing. Biding his time until his creation would be ready and durable enough to get him home. With Yinsen's help and Tony's expertise, he would save them both. But when an injured teenager is brought into the mix, Tony must reevaluate his priorities and decide what's more important; a speedy escape, or rescuing the boy with the spider tattoo?

Return to Normal by Singing_Sirens

Summary: On his first day back, he didn’t expect the stares. Well, he expected some stares, but he didn’t think the entire hallway would just… stop. But that’s what they did. They froze, jaws hanging open, eyes wide, as he lowered his head and curled in on himself. He pushed through the attention. He set his jaw and marched forward, because he had been through worse in the last year.

Patient by alifetime

Summary: Just because Tony has retired as an Avenger, does not mean he still doesn’t have a business to run with Pepper. Since both his oldest children cannot always babysit for Morgan, he hires a babysitter. Harley didn’t really know what to think of the babysitter, and always kept a protective eye on Morgan. But she had told him that Skip was nice. She always seems to be smiling and happy whenever Skip comes to stay. It didn’t filter his concern. So when he goes college, he demands that Peter keeps an eye on him. Peter liked Skip. Until he didn’t. However, he will do anything to keep his brother and sister safe.

Identity Theft by KitCat992

Summary: It's been months since the events of Civil War, and the Avengers are doing their best to remain a team, having promised to forgive and forget. Unfortunately for them, Tony Stark's latest invention has been stolen and recovering it causes tension to reappear. Meanwhile, in Queens, Peter Parker has two main priorities on his plate — complete his midterm finals, and track down a fishbowl wearing criminal that may or may not lead him right into the hands of the Avengers. Somehow between all of this, Spider-man's identity is revealed to the Avengers, Steve and Tony's friendship may permanently be damaged due to continued hidden secrets, and Happy struggles to buy a youth-sized casket for Peter's funeral. Things were a lot easier when they were fighting over Bucky Barnes. (Or: The Avengers welcome Peter into their crazy superhero family and will do anything to protect him.) Shameless Peter whump and Protective Tony Stark.

the second law of thermodynamics by fourleafchloe

Summary: It happens the same way it always does. (It's just discipline. It's not that bad. It's fine, Peter is fine, he'll be fine--) Except he really isn't fine, and Tony knows something's up, and Peter's house of cards is falling apart, and so the story goes. — separate from other fics in the series. a recovery story full of soft irondad, found families, and (eventually) tons of fluff.

Note: this is part of a series of separate irondad fics, each one of them is incredible, so go check out this entire series.

how can the body die? (you tell me, everything) by @madasthesea

Summary: Tony felt panic creep up his spine. Something was occurring to him, slowly percolating in the back of his mind. “You said the stinger got you. Is Scorpion’s stinger venomous?” “I don’t—” Peter cut off as he groaned, the muscles in his jaw tight. “I don’t know. He upgraded—he was faster. Bigger. I—I thought I could beat him.”

oh, darling. by luna_e_stelle

Summary: "Peter?" Tony’s voice wavered with an urgency that cut through the thick haze in Peter’s mind. There was so much emotion in that one word that Peter wondered how he had ever doubted that Tony loved him. They had never said it out loud, just showed it in a way that spoke louder than words ever could. — Peter is taken, and he tries to find his way back home.

whumptober series by @iron--spider

Summary: 10 fics that fulfill whumptober prompts (i could many choose one so just go read the whole series)

Pieces of Echoes by @geekymoviemom

Summary: this is like a rewrite of the MCU integrating most of the storylines So Seamlessly with SuperFamily. Amazing series.

uneasy lies the head by @tnyystark

Summary: Two thoughts come to Peter, both at a breakneck speed he can barely handle. One: the world now thinks he is responsible for the attack in London. And Prague. And Venice. And the murder - murder; as if the man is really dead; as if the universe is kind enough to let that happen - of Mysterio. And two: the world now knows who he is.

Long Shadows by Black_Briar

Summary: Peter comes into contact with a foreign substance on a mission, and things only get worse from there.

I’ll Be Your Home (Forever and Always) by ScarletPotter

Summary: Peter didn't plan on being kidnapped, it all just sorta, maybe, happened? Peter was on his way to meet Ned when suddenly everything goes dark. When he wakes up he's restrained to a table and a man introduces himself to be Quentin Beck, and that he's going to kill him.

god did not craft us as alters, but as dying gods by helloitisafellowgay

Summary: Peter Parker is not immune to trauma. Far from it, in fact. (With great power comes great responsibility, Peter.) So when the building collapses, when the dilapidated remains of metal and concrete, and later searing scraps of plane, fall around him? Well, this is practically nothing. Practically. He’s fine, really. It just gets a little hard to breathe sometimes. Like, when he follows Happy into Stark Tower through the parking garage. Or when he turns on the news while doing homework and sees reports of a plane crash. And sure, the small fire that broke out in the chemistry lab had sent his heart racing and caused sweat to bead on the back of his neck until even Ned asked if he was okay, but it’s nothing to worry about. Regardless, he knows where those come from. But this? In which Skip Westcott is a repressed memory, until he returns.

Note: favorite fic title!

Stony

my heart is driftwood, floating down your coast by @kapteniron

Summary: Tonight, there’s a stranger in his backseat. That’s not unusual. He’s also sad. That’s not unusual either. What is unusual is that the stranger is silent. (One night, a stranger enters Steve's taxi. Nothing is the same again.)

Forever Linked by ashes0909 and athletiger

Summary: Before the door even clicked shut, he opened his mouth to let the pink petals flutter to the ground. In the center of all this mess was a single rose, not yet bloomed, but Tony knew, deep down, what this meant. But they were only teammates for sure; nothing else will go further. — “You have Hanahaki?” she asked, barely more than a whisper. He fisted out the petal from his pocket and held it out to her. “If that’s what would cause this to come out of my throat.”

Steve Rogers’ Guide to Wooing Tony Stark by Tonks22

Summary: Steve tries to woo Tony. Steve is not very good at it. Tony is oblivious.

Blue Lips, Blue Veins by @romanoff

Summary: Tony Stark is Iron Man. Before that, he was an man with bigger heart than brain. Before that, he was an asshole with a bigger mouth than sense. And before that, he was was a scared little boy. Not that it matters. Stark's always have had iron in their backbone.

Note: this is more of a character study of Tony Stark but it’s Incredible. Cannot recommend this enough.

The Butterfly Effect by @itsallavengers

Summary: While fighting with Loki, Steve Rogers from 2012 hears the two simple words: "Bucky's alive." And the whole universe ripples with the aftershocks.

Going Steady by @itsallavengers

Summary: Steve has a soft spot for the sound of Tony's heart

Hide A Heart Of War by RayShippouUchiha

Summary: “You’ve got war in your heart boy,” Howard sneers, “don’t ever try and pretend to be anything but what you are.” Tony feels the familiar burn of a flower mark being etched into his skin but he doesn’t look, doesn’t try and check to see what it is. Instead he keeps his eyes on Howard and his hands cupped around his bleeding mouth and nose.

Note: this is technically Stuckony but,,, it’s rly good so it’s going on the list.

Assorted

a primer for the small weird loves by babyloveparkner

Summary: “What are you—?” “Hold on,” Peter says, tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth in concentration as the pen moves across the page. He rips out another page, then seems to grow frustrated and just opens up his notebook to start writing in it rather than stealing pages out of it. Harley feels stuck, flabbergasted and frozen, and he doesn’t know how long he sits there and watches before Peter lets out a huff and finally leans back, satisfaction in his eyes as he hands it all to Harley, all the scribbled writing and torn pages. “Read these.” Harley blinks once, slow, as he takes the offered notebook with the ripped out papers on top. “What…?” And Peter just smiles and shrugs. “They’re poems,” he says. “I looked some up, wrote down the good parts. Maybe those’ll give you that hopeful feeling that you were looking for.” or: harley runs from a homophobic town and finds solace in poetry and peter parker

the spider-man conspiracy by @tempestaurora

Summary: WHO IS SPIDER-MAN? The screen showed Peter Parker, sixteen years old and determined to prove the identity of Spider-Man over the course of the three-part documentary he was making, unknowing that it would become viral within days of the first part being released. Behind the camera, way off screen, was Harley Keener, Tony Stark’s other prodigy child, grinning like crazy as Peter started the documentary. Only a few people knew what was to come, and those few people were about to have a great few weeks. “My name is Peter Parker, and with the help of my friends, Ned Leeds, Harley Keener, and my Aunt, May Parker, who provided me with a lot of red yarn for this project, we’re going to uncover the identity of Spider-Man.” OR "what if peter just decided to fuck with everyone who didn’t know he was spider man and make a documentary about him trying to uncover the Truth."

5 times Tony kissed Rhodey and the one time Rhodey kissed back by lomku

Summary: Exactly what it says in the title.

Note: I wish I had more Ironhusband fics to rec bc i love them but they aren’t as abundant as Stony fics and the ones i’ve read most recently are Stony.

#fic rec #fic rec list #irondad fics #spiderman fics #stevetony fic #spiderman #spiderman whump #peter parker #iron dad angst #tony stark #iron man #iron husbands #stuckony #stony #stony fic #marvel #mcu fic #mcu

[swannsoftheseas]

Update on the Fic

Hey! Sorry for the lengthy post coming, but I just wanted to keep you all posted on what’s going on with Swanns of the Seas and what’s going on in my own personal life.

As I mentioned before, I had a lot of really bad mental health issues during this past summer. I got off the habit of taking my anxiety and depression medication which definitely messed up a lot of my brain chemistry. On top of that, I had a lot of relationship issues with my ex-boyfriend in June. It wasn’t just one thing, it was a huge culmination of things. Part of what majorly tanked my mental health was the fact that he started to criticize things about my personality, my physical appearance, and my sexuality near the end of that relationship. All of this made me feel like I was so much less of a person and my depression majorly relapsed. After we broke up and I pretty much realized I was a rebound, I started having suicidal thoughts for the first time since high school. I would get up in the late afternoon, cry constantly, lay on my couch and watch Netflix, and then go back to bed early just to repeat this toxic and mentally damaging cycle over and over again. I wasn’t motivated to eat, much less write. I was isolating myself in my apartment and not really talking to anyone or doing anything to help myself, if that makes sense. Finally my mom came down and dragged my ass back home so I’d be around other people and get the mental health support that I needed.

If you read my last update for Swanns of the Seas from August, you can kind of tell it didn’t have the usual spark in it that past chapters (even my POS ones from Curse of the Black Pearl that I’m DEFINITELY going to rewrite) had. I pretty much wrote an update because I kind of had to. Which sucks, because that particular scene at the end was one I’d been looking forward to writing so much. I just felt like I totally lost my connection to this fic as I was writing and it honestly felt like a chore more than the stress relief and labor of love that it used to be.

Then everything in my life got hectic in preparation for graduate school applications. I had pieces to learn and perfect, prescreening auditions to record, and essays to write. And of course, the last thing you want to do after right after writing shitloads of essays is do more writing.

The in October, I got a very, very, VERY lengthy review both praising my writing and also kind of harshly criticizing it. Don’t get me wrong; I always appreciate and listen to constructive criticism. But my mental health wasn’t quite back to where it was before summer happened so my brain just couldn’t handle it as well as I wanted it to. I already know I struggle with keeping Jack Sparrow in character, but now I feel myself wanting to delete every single line of dialogue for him that I create. I just can’t connect with that character as much as I used to be able to. Honestly, part of that has to do with the entire scenario surrounding Johnny Depp and how I’ve kind of stopped being a fan of his for both that and the repetitiveness he’s now bringing to roles when he used to have innovation. It makes it harder than it already was to write the character of Jack Sparrow.

I’m going to be honest; this last semester that I just finished has been the roughest one of my life from a mental health and an academic standpoint. This semester’s GPA was the lowest semester GPA I’ve ever had in my entire life. And trying to write a fic that now has so much hype and praise is kind of rough when you barely feel adequate enough to even have a future. But now that I finally have a break, and I mean an actual break, I can try to write again and regain that passion for writing that I used to have before things went to shit this year. This is the first time in three years that I’m not taking courses during all of my breaks and I honestly have no idea what to do with myself besides practice for grad auditions and write fic.

I guess I’m ending this sobfest of a post by saying that I do have the next chapter in the works. I feel like 90% of what I’m writing in this chapter is complete shit to be honest, but I’m still going to put it out there because I feel like I owe it to you all to at least finish out At World’s End. After I finish that, I’m going to rewrite Curse of the Black Pearl to a) fix a lot of stuff that my dumbass self thought was good back when I was in high school, and b) hopefully reintroduce myself to these characters and learn how to love them again. The next chapter should be up within the week and then I have 2-5 more chapters planned out to wrap up At World’s End.

I sincerely want to thank every single person who’s read, favorited, subscribed to, and commented on Swanns of the Seas. You readers truly make me feel like I’m actually creating something worthwhile and you make me feel like I can do something right with my life, even if it is just a crappy Pirates of the Caribbean fanfiction. Each and every one of you helped make this fic the story it is today and I truly couldn’t have gotten this far in for this long without all of your support. Thank you all, so, so much.

#swanns of the seas #pirates of the caribbean fanfiction #mental health #tw: depression #tw: sucide mention #pirates fanfiction #pirates fic #pirates of the caribbean fanfic #insanecoloratuba

[ninawritesastory]

You seem to have your heart set on creek and as a fellow fan I totally understand but let's not forget that matt and trey have no problems with putting characters or ships on the bus or worse if they're not interested in them anymore. I don't know if my heart could take a break up which is stupid because they're ten but so much was invested in this relationship it'd be hard not to feel a little disappointed.

Look, my dude, I shipped Creek way back when their primary interaction was them beating the fucking shit out of each other and I’ll still ship them even if Matt and Trey decide to break them up. Will I be sad? Of course I will be. Sure, things are slowly starting to change, but it will still be fairly painful to lose one of the healthiest gay couples in media, and one of the few in general. (But if Stan and Wendy can still be a popular couple despite their increasingly bad chemistry on-again-off-again relationship, then goddamnit I can still have my Creek over here in my little corner.)

HOWEVER. Considering Matt and Trey’s history? They’re either going to let Creek continue on, but a bit more in the background since their function as a foil to Heiman has pretty much run it’s course (kind of like Big Gay Al and Mr. Slave: still very much together, but they aren’t in the spotlight); or, they’re gonna find a Good Way to end the relationship. How, I don’t know. They might do an episode or a B plot of one where the break up is addressed. But it’s going to be done well. Matt and Trey don’t fuck with that shit, if their track record is anything to go by.

And yeah, they’re ten. A lot of relationships from that don’t last to begin with. Hell, even a good share of friendships from that age don’t make it through middle school. But sometimes? Sometimes they do. They may go through a few bumps along the way, but sometimes they end up working out and being healthy and happy relationships even decades later. Heck, even if Matt and Trey decide to break Creek up, it’s possible Tweek and Craig could run into each other later on in their lives, maybe during or after college, and end reconnecting and getting back together. Who knows? That’s why we’ve got fanfics and our imaginations.

And don’t doubt my power, my friend. I’ve spent my entire life living with queerbaiting and the occasional scrap tossed vaguely in my direction. I lived through the years where Joss Whedon was a god and now he’s aged as well as Bill Cosby. I suffered through the majority of Ryan Reynolds’ acting career and now we’ve been blessed with a gorgeously accurate Deadpool. I’ve lived to see Amazon warriors fighting in accurate, functional armor and I’ve lived to see the glory that is the Dora Milaje. I’ve gotten to see more and more characters written as bi, lesbian, transgender, asexual, gay, and so on as the years go on. And when canon fails me? I can very easily ignore it and rewrite it if I please. And if I can’t, I know there’s someone out there who can and who will. Because this is something fans have been doing since stories first began.

Even if Matt and Trey decide to break up Creek, that’s not gonna change a single goddamned thing for me. Canon can make all the stupid-ass decisions it wants, it’s still our choice to elect to ignore it and go about our fanficing business. Until they pry Ao3 and Microsoft Word from my cold, dead hands, I’m gonna do whatever the hell I want with canon.

My best advice? Don’t worry so much about canon. (Kind of weird coming from me, since I like using canon to build up my headcanons, but still!) If Craig and Tweek break up, who really gives a shit? You can still go on the tag and read those 50+K fics with intricate plots, or the shorter fics where they’re just screwing each other’s brains out, or both. You can still write your stories, draw your art, and all of the stuff we’re doing now, and have always been doing. The Creek fandom was irrationally strong prior to Tweek x Craig, and we’ll still be strong if they break up.

I mean, Kyman is still fucking huge and those two have literally tried to murder each other at multiple points in the show. Kenny’s still a much beloved character even though we’re lucky to even see him once a season anymore. Most of the fandom seems to hate Randy with some degree of passion, yet we keep getting more and more of him. If canon makes a decision you don’t like, feel free to ignore it. It’s a story. They’re meant to be messed with.

#nina answers asks #anon #sp creek #if it ends #accept it with all the dignity of jack sparrow in this gif #you step off on the dock and you continue on your merrying shipping way

[terresdebrumestories]

Chapter 2/4: Rock bottom

✗ TECHNICAL DETAILS

FANDOM: Digimon Adventure 01/02/Tri RATING: Mature. WORDCOUNT: 10 685 PAIRING(S): Endgame Taito, though the fic is primarily Taichi-centric. Side pairings include Takeru/Hikari and discussion of past Sorato. CHARACTER(S): Taichi Kamiya, Yamato Ishida, Hikari Kamiya, Takeru Takashi, Daisuke Motomiya, Agumon, Veemon, Gabumon, Sora Takenoushi, and mention of the rest of the gang. GENRE: Reaching a breaking point. Also future!fic. TRIGGER WARNING(S): Depression and discussion thereof, including one briefly mentioned suicide attempt in this chapter. SUMMARY: In which Taichi as a questionable way to handle his issues, everyone tries to be nice, and Yamato yells at him a lot. Same old, same old, except for the part where they end up kissing.

OTHER CHAPTERS: [I. Epic Fail] [II. Rock Bottom] [III. Get up] [IV. Start over]

Daisuke leaves for an improvised holiday at his sister’s without saying when he’ll be back, and Taichi buries himself in work, studying textbooks and prospective bills until he can’t see straight and Agumon has to drag him away from his desk and into bed. It’s not the healthiest solution by a long short, but it works, and that’s all Taichi has any right to ask for.

If he hadn’t been so stupid, so stubborn, if he’d listened to everyone’s warning, he wouldn’t have to sit alone in an apartment meant for two and wonder how his maybe-no-t-for-that-much-longer roommate is doing okay. He wouldn’t have to watch Agumon grow concerned and confused in turns, and he definitely wouldn’t have to deal with Yamato calling every day to grill him on his activities.

“I worked,” Taichi half-sighs, half-snaps after a week of that little game, “it’ll be the same tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that—can you please stop stalking my every move?”

“You’re the one who told Ken if I wanted to know how you were doing I should ask you.”

Taichi groans into his cereal bowl at that, and then again when a glance at the clock above the door tells him this is only the start of Yamato’s day. Wonderful, really, that’s exactly what he needed.

“I said it so he’d leave me alone,” he mutters, without any hope of Yamato taking the hint, “I thought that was obvious.”

“It was,” Yamato agrees, “I just don’t think it’s a good idea to leave you alone these days.”

“You’re still convinced I’m depressed,” Taichi snorts without humor, “aren’t you?”

“You still haven’t shown me anything that hints at the contrary.”

“How would you know about that,” Taichi replies, voice intentionally sharp, “you’re on the other side of the planet!”

Yamato, on the other end of the line, falls silent. Taichi’s left hand abandons his spoon to rub at his face, something heavy settling on his shoulders in the blink of an eye. There’s wetness under his fingers, but he ignores it and swallows past the tightness of his throat instead, forcing his back to relax a little while he bends down to rest his forehead on his knees:

“Sorry,” he mumbles after a beat—Yamato doesn’t respond, and Taichi almost curses under his breath. Yet another stunning exploit from the worlds-renowned diplomat. “I know you want to help. It’s just—I’m tired, okay? And the thing with Daisuke put me under the weather. But I’m not sick.”

“I’d believe you,” Yamato replies, “except I also know you wouldn’t tell us if you were.”

“I always tell you when I’m under.”

“Not since the Reboot,” Yamato counters, and Taichi closes his eyes.

It’s not a topic that comes up often between them—as in Yamato and him, of course, but also where the rest of the group is concerned. There are too many things there they haven’t completely digested yet, too many wounds not all of them share, too many bridges none of them has the energy to build.

Too many conversations that, to this day, still hurt too much to be had.

“I know,” Taichi admits, eyes still closed—the darkness, somehow, makes it easier to keep talking, to pretend whatever he says will be gone when he opens his eyes again. “I really flunked out, back then, didn’t I?”

“That’s not what I meant, Taichi.”

“It’s okay,” Taichi promises, and means it—wants to mean it with every inch of his soul—“I know I did. But I’m not doing that this time. I’m not depressed.”

Taichi listens to Yamato sigh after that, splutter for a bit as if considering what to start with. In the background, Gabumon’s voice asks what’s wrong, and Taichi winces because, really, this is the exact opposite of what he wanted.

“What’s wrong is my best friend is being a self-sacrificial idiot,” Yamato replies with more vehemence than Taichi would have expected, “depression is not ‘flunking out’ anymore than a broken leg or a cancer is, you dumbass! Or if it is, you’ve got about ten years worth of yelling to catch up with!”

“That’s different!” Taichi protests, eyes snapping open in surprise, “I’m not going to yell at you for that!”

He’s done a lot of yelling at Yamato over the year—in surprise, in fear, in anger, in reproach, even in encouragement sometimes, but never for failing their friends. Sure, there were times his help was needed and he couldn’t give it, but that wasn’t his fault—you can’t just rewrite your brain chemistry through sheer force of will, not even when you’re the stubbornest butt ever created.

“Then why do you assume I—or any of us, really—would yell at you for the exact same thing?”

“It—I don’t think you’d yell at me,” Taichi replies, scrambling for words in a way that leaves him breathless before he’s even started, “I’m just not—I can’t, okay? I can’t be depressed.”

“You can’t decide that, Taichi,” Yamato says and the softness in his voice reminds Taichi of the way he talked to Takeru sometimes, when the kid was down. “’It’s not like you can rewrite your brain chemistry through sheer force of will’, remember?”

Taichi closes his eyes again, pressing the heel of his palm against burning eyelids, and gritting his teeth when he finds them wet again.

“I can’t,” he repeats, voice pitched high with the despair flooding his veins, “I’m the leader! People count on me—I can’t just—give up!”

“Oh please, like you even know how to give up!” Yamato retorts, hotly enough for Taichi to picture his furious expression as if he were here, “You didn’t give up when we File Island exploded, did you? You were just a kid, and you got us all back together. You didn’t give up then, and you didn’t give up later on, ever, because that’s just not what you do.”

“I gave up after the Reboot,” Taichi points out, ears burning with shame at the memory, “if you hadn’t kicked my butt into action—”

“If you’d really given up,” Yamato counters without waiting for Taichi to finish his sentence, “it wouldn’t have made a damn difference. You’re the bravest person I know, alright? Sometimes you just need to be reminded, but that doesn’t mean you’re failing—do you want me to count all the times you had to kick my ass back into action?”

Taichi chuckles despite himself, and wipes a hint of snot on his wrist before he manages a feeble:

“It’s not a contest,Yamato.”

“No, it’s a demonstration,” Yamato replies, the smile audible in his voice. “You say you’re failing us if you’re depressed but you’re not. You’re just sick, that’s all.”

“Okay, but—”

“I know, I know,” Yamato cuts in, “you’re the leader—believe me, I spent enough time resenting you for it back then to remember. You’re good at it too—better than good, even, you’ve gotten us out of more shit than I can count, and we all know that. There’s a reason we’re so comfortable with relying on you, okay? But a team goes both way. If we’re not capable of picking up the slack when you’re too sick to do your job, we’re the ones failing you.”

Taichi doesn’t have enough words to figure out what the sudden, tight warmth in his chest—his stomach, his hands, hi neck—means, let alone express it, so he scrambles for an excuse to end the conversation before he can embarrass himself.

{ooo}

The second week of January turns into the third, and doesn’t bring any sign of respite on the work front. Taichi is called in to sit as a witness in two different prosecutions—in one case, a man’s dog has been attacking a Tokomon. In the other, a Betamon stands accused of setting a kid on fire. Both of them suck and leave Taichi too drained to give the situation proper thought, condemned to turn the facts in his head over and over and over again without managing to figure out a convincing way to present his arguments which, as he’s come to discover while on the job, pretty much means useless.

“Tell them to ask for a specialist at the stand,” Yamato tells him one night, after Taichi has ranted about the case to hell and back, “Betamons don’t even have fingers, there’s no way any of them could use a match, let alone a flame thrower.”

“I guess,” Taichi says, staring at the the mess of paper sprawled in front of him—maybe Hikari had a point about the whole cleaning up thing—“I still don’t know how to convince them Digimon are good, you know?”

“You don’t,” Yamato replies in short breaths, over the noise of a car engine—he must be jogging then, which means it’s actually earlier than Taichi thought—“we’re trying to convince the world they’re people. It means some of them will suck.”

Taichi grunts at that, unwilling to agree despite the truth of Yamato’s statement. So many things in his life—in all of his friends’ lives, really—would have gone horribly wrong if not for the help of Digimon. Yes, sure, they’re people, and statistically that means one day there will be Digimons on trial for theft, murders, and any number of horrific things the lot of them will shiver about.

That doesn’t mean Taichi has to like the idea though—doesn’t mean he’s ready to just...throw the entire species into an arena they have no way to master, even after seven years of continuous contact between the human and digital world. Every time he thinks of it, he’s reminded of the many things Agumon still fails to grasp, the political and social subtleties he still struggles with after eight years of exposure...and the two of them have an actual, battle-hardened bond. What about the Digimons who don’t have that, or whose families don’t accept or care for them?

“This is such a mess,” Taichi sighs, failing to chase the fatigue away when he rubs a hand over his face, “I don’t even know what good I’m doing—I should just quit.”

“Don’t you dare!” Yamato replies immediately—there’s a pained exclamation then, followed by some form of apology in French, and then he repeats: “don’t you dare resign now, Taichi.”

“I fail to see the difference it’d make, honestly. I mean, I did an okay job back at the beginning, but it’s not like I have that much impact over it.”

“Right,” Yamato replies with undisguised sarcasm, “it’s not like you’re the guy who single-handedly create the Department of Digital Affairs, staffed it, organized it, made sure Digimon got legally treated like people—”

“On surface,” Taichi replies with a sigh, “but they still have almost 90% chances of losing any trial they’re involved in regardless of the case, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg—they can’t even get proper insurance yet!”

“Yeah, there’s still work to do,” Yamato agrees, “but at least if I get a job with the JSA, Gabumon will get on the payroll. The ESA barely acknowledges Digimons exist—did you know they extended the recruitment age last so they could hire a guy who didn’t have a partner instead of someone who did?”

“No,” Taichi admits, “I didn’t.”

“Well now you do. Look, I know you’re tired and you feel like nothing you do makes a difference, but that’s not true. It’s just the depression talking.”

“How many times will I have to tell you I’m not depressed before you believe me?”

“Don’t know,” Yamato retorts, “how long did it take you to believe me after I split up with Sora?”

Snorting really is the only possible response to that,because they both know Taichi never did. Well, he did, eventually, but not until Yamato went through his third round of therapy, put almost five kilos back on, and Taichi nearly hit him in the face twice. The whole thing was a mess, really, and that’s just the part Taichi was actually privy to.

Honestly, even if he is depressed—he still maintains he isn’t, but he might as well indulge the theory if it serves to make a point—he’s nowhere near where Yamato went back then, and the comparison is frankly exaggerated.

It nags at Taichi’s mind though, nudging at his brain and heart until his pulse quickens in his veins and his blood runs cold with the idea. He’s feeling tired now—goes through the motions more than anything else, and it’s easy to tell someone more passionate would do a better job of it. If it’s just a rough patch, well—he’ll just have to grit his teeth and stick it out.

What if it’s more than that though? Suppose, for a moment, that Yamato is right, that things don’t get better, and this is how he feels about his job for the rest of his days, what then? The Digiworld needs somebody who actually cares, not just a guy who’s never bothered to learn to how to do anything else.

Besides, if Taichi keeps pretending he really is depressed and follows the logic, it begs the question of what happens if he doesn’t get better. Does he let things deteriorate until he makes one mistake too many and finally manages to ruin everything? Does he get number and number about everything and accepts things he should fight tooth and nails?

Because if then—if that’s what’s going to happen, then Digimons are definitely better off without him in command.

“I don’t want to be a burden,” he tells Yamato after silence has stretched between them for far too long, “it’s one thing to be a lazy slacker who can’t be bothered to clean his own flat, it’s another to turn incompetent.”

“You won’t turn incompetent,” Yamato dismisses like it’s he’s telling Taichi the Earth isn’t suddenly going to start turning the other way around, “you’re not the kind of guy who’d let himself do that.”

“Was,” Taichi corrects before he thinks better of it.

He remembers being the guy Yamato talks about—for the most part, at least. Sometimes his friends see things he never quite catches in the mirror, but that guy might as well be light years away now, for all the good he does.

“Depression isn’t who you are, Taichi. It’s just something that goes on in your brain.”

“Some people would say that’s what makes it who you are,” Taichi points out, and he’s not surprised to hear Yamato snort.

“People who say that haven’t been depressed. That kind of bullshit only makes it harder to get out of the gutter.”

Taichi has to smile at that—it’s a little stretched, maybe, but it’s sincere, which as far as he’s concerned is another sign he’s clearly not depressed. He knows depressed people can still smile—he’s seen it, after all—but the difference is he means it.

Clearly, things can’t be that bad.

“I guess,” he concedes nonetheless. Then, because it kind of has to be said: “Don’t worry though. I’m not actually thinking of resigning. I can’t do that to Meiko, anyway.”

“Good,” Yamato answers—Taichi thinks he hears something not unlike relief in his voice when he says: “I wouldn’t let you anyway.”

“Right,” Taichi retorts, adding a flippant eye-roll for good measure, even if Yamato can’t see it through the phone, “like you could stop me if I really wanted to.”

“Not directly,” Yamato replies, frightfully matter-of-fact about it, “but I did tell Agumon how bad an idea that would be.”

Taichi’s pen drops out of his hand, and he finds himself actually taking his phone away from his ear just so he can stare at it in disbelief.

What?

“You did not seriously give Agumon instructions on how I should be allowed to give my life.”

“No,” Yamato agrees without the faintest trace of embarrassment, “just a solid explanation on why you quitting would be not only be stupid—because you’re good at what you do—but also extremely damaging to your well being.”

“How dare you—” Taichi starts, only for Yamato to cut him off:

“Look, I didn’t tell him to actually stop you—no one’s going to tie you to a chair until the urge to ruin your life passes. I’m just making sure there’ll be at least one person you listen to that’ll be willing to talk some sense into you.”

“How dare you?” Taichi repeats, not placated in the least by the explanation, “how dare you presume you know better than me how to live my life?”

“Same as you did when I talked about giving up on being an astronaut,” Yamato replies, and Taichi gives up on controlling his volume right then and there to yell:

“You don’t get to direct my life!”

“No, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to let you ruin it because you’re too scared to admit you need help!”

“How would you even know what’s going to ruin my life?” Taichi all but screams, “You’re the one who decided to freaking exit it!”

He hangs up before Yamato can respond to that and throws his phone at the wall hard enough to crack the screen open. Fury batters at his temple, makes his head boil and colors the world red until even the rain outside becomes intolerable and, in a brief flash of concern for his neighbors, Taichi finds himself seizing his Digivice from where it’s resting at the foot of the coffee table, pointing it at his laptop, and transferring himself to the Digiworld without even bothering to check the destination coordinates.

He’s kicking at bushes before he knows it, pouring all the strength of his sudden but seemingly unending rage in the gestures until all that remains is a small mound of vaguely green and blue-ish pieces of smashed leaves.

He swallows against the urge to scream so hard it almost feels like he’s going to choke on it.

{ooo}

He must have dozed off at some point during his improvised relaxation exercises—remembers stomping aimlessly through the forest for a while before the prickling of anger under his skin grew too strong and he had to stop, lie down, and make himself go through every breathing trick he knows of—because when he opens his eyes the sky is definitely darker than it was when he got here. His body aches in all sorts of new and creative ways, including an awkward bruise on his butt from some unidentified object digging into the flesh for too long.

Taichi rubs at his eyes as he sits up, yawning and stretching until it doesn’t feel like he’ll tear a muscle if he tried to get to his feet. It’s still a hassle, but it’s a manageable one, and at least there’s no one to see him wince like an old man. Then, once he stops swaying on his feet, he takes a bleary look around, walks a couple yards farther in the forest...and groans when he realized he’s reached Tramway Lake.

Like he freaking needed that right now.

He sighs, running a hand over his face, and he’s about to turn around when a handful of iridescent butterflies reaches him, fluttering around him until he has to squint to see anything beyond them. He swats at them a couple of time, unsurprised when they don’t back down, and finally resigns to following them to the stupid tramway car.

Taichi hasn’t been there in years—not since he followed the others to retrieve their partners after the Reboot—and the signs of decays are impossible to miss. The tramway itself is covered in flora, for once, vines and grass and flowers growing around, on and inside the old hunk of meta, as if trying to hide it from view, erase it from memory. How did it survive that long, it’s a mystery.

It’s been fifteen years since they came here for the first time—fifteen years full of fighting, erosion, spontaneous data evolution, and one poorly though-out reboot. By all means, the lake—the beach, the tramway, all of it—should have vanished like an old wound scabbing over, and yet here it remains, ugly and sore as an old scar.

Taichi stares at it for a long time—tries to remember what it felt like, to see it the first time, a pristine imitation of the safer, better known world of humans in the middle of a place filled to the brim with creatures that wanted him and his friends gone—or better yet: dead. The wonder—the relief, the childish hope—has faded, washed away by years of more and more hardships thrown at his face, and although Taichi searches his own heart for a fraction of the things he felt, he can’t find anything but emptiness.

“Why do you all keep staring at random things?”

Taichi jumps and turns around fast enough to tear a hole in the grass, only to end up face to face with a very confused-looking Agumon. He doesn’t move as his partner trots up to him, standing by his side to look at the battered, rusty tramway car and its faded yellow paint.

“Hi,” Taichi manages after a beat, unable to prevent awkwardness from leaking in his meek little wave, “Weren’t you supposed to help out at the Tokomon village today?”

“I was on my way home,” Agumon says with a smile and a shrug, “it’s shorter to go through the woods than follow the road.

‘The road’ is actually more of a dirt trail, meant to ease the way for Digimons unfamiliar to the area on their way to File Island. Taichi never quite learned how the pilgrimage started—some kind of legend, from what he heard, sprouting out from heaven-knows-where after they finally managed to get rid of that freaking virus back in 2005.

It’s only Digimons for now—possibly a handful of Chosen Children as well, though considering a bunch of them have refused contact with the Odaiba team since the Reboot, it’s hard to tell—since Digivices are the only way to open a gate to the Digiworld. Taichi has hear talks, though, of what a mane this place could be if one could only get their hands on it. He keeps his association with the people who think like that to a minimum, and thanks whatever deities exist for each year the portal remains closed, but that doesn’t prevent him from hoping the Digimons will hurry up and put proper touristic structures in place, just in case.

If somebody’s going to make money off the Digiworld, it might as well be the people who live in it, and there’s no better way to ensure that than make sure the place is already well occupied when someone barges in with colonization projects.

“Are you going to answer my question?” Agumon asks, and Taichi realizes he got lost in thoughts again.

“What?”

“That thing has been here forever,” Agumon explains with a shrug that tightens around Taichi’s heart, “but every time we walk past it with one of you, you stop and stare.”

“It’s...close to where we met,” Taichi answers, gut constricting as he clasps his hands together, “and easier to find.”

Pregnant silence slips between them, until Agumon’s eyes widen and he comes up to hug Taichi’s waist, child-like spontaneity always bubbling under the surface of his Rookie form. Slowly, a little heavily, Taichi raises a hand to scratch Agumon’s head behind his ears—a soft spot he made good use of after the reboot forced them all to rediscover one another.

“It’s okay,” Agumon mutters somewhere into Taichi’s belly, his head bobbing with a nod, “I’m glad you remember all of me.”

Taichi nods, and turns his gaze back to the damaged tramway car. One day, enough time will have passed for it to fall out of existence altogether, the metal finally succumbing to the red spots already flourishing on its flanks. The thought presses at Taichi’s throat, and he can’t get rid of it no matter how hard he swallows.

One day, no one will remember this anymore—there won’t be any fading paint left, no wheels, not even a pile of rubble to remind passing Digimons that there was something there, once. Time will do its job, and it’ll be like nothing ever happened, like the lake—a third smaller already—was never there, and the seven kids who sought refuge on its bank never even existed.

In a way, it’s already stated.

No one looks at this thing the way he and the others do after all, not even their partners, why would complete strangers be any different? They’ll see a clearing, a cave, something that was once a lake, and they’ll never know how hard it was to pull a little boy and a little girl out of them. They’ll never know seven children could have died there, and in a hundred other places besides.

They’ll never look at the horizon and think ‘one of our friends died on top of this mountain, and then twice afterward’. They’ll never know what it was like to be called here and then leave, come back, leave again, and then lose everything on the third try like some kind of big, cruel cosmic joke. They’ll never know, never imagine—never care—about the day a lost little boy listened to another lost little boy playing harmonica and they somehow started a friendship that took fourteen years and several thousands of miles to start fraying.

Taichi thinks about all that—lets it all churn around in his chest, his guts, his the softest parts of his heart before he clenches his fist, greets his teeth, and starts tearing at the leaves. He pulls at them with all his weight, tears entire chunks of them off the metal, flakes of paint coming along and landing in his hair even as Agumon tries to stop him—Taichi doesn’t listen. He pulls and pulls and tears until he’s soaked with sweat, almost melting in his winter clothes even as he braces himself against a rust-red wheel to pull at a thicker root.

He’s panting—overheated and gross—by the time he’s done, surrounded by the cold silence of a winter night, and he almost doesn’t notice when Agumon sets a clawed paw on his elbow.

“Taichi,” Agumon says in a gentle tone when Taichi fails to react, “you’re crying.”

“Yeah,” Taichi manages as he folds into himself on the sand, “I know.”

It doesn’t stop for quite a while.

{ooo}

It’s long past dinner time when Taichi and Agumon finally make it back to their flat and find Veemon and Daisuke watching TV in the living room, almost as if nothing happened. Two full bowls of noodles wait on the table next to two empty ones, and Taichi’s stomach drops like a stone when he realizes Daisuke and his partner must have been waiting on Agumon and him for a while before they ate.

“Gone for a walk?” Daisuke asks, more concern than awkwardness in his expression.

Taichi nods.

“I needed a break from work,” he says, which isn’t entirely a lie, even if the causes were more complex than that.

He watches Agumon gather the bowls and carry them over to the microwave as he braces himself to ask:

“I didn’t think you’d be back from Jun’s so soon.”

“Neither did I,” Daisuke replies, managing a little smile to go with his shrug, “but we got on each other’s nerves faster than I thought. Do you want us to turn the volume down so you can work?”

Taichi frowns—almost asks what Daisuke is talking about—before he notices the way Veemon nods at the neat stack of paper sitting next to the TV, carefully ordered according to Taichi’s color-coding system. The pile of dust has been swept out from behind the apartment door, and when Taichi glances at the kitchen, the pile of dishes he kept meaning to wash is gone.

“Thank you,” he mutters, ears heating up faster than he thought possible, “but I think just the image would be enough to distract me.”

He bows a little—in thanks and apology both—and hurries to his bedroom before Daisuke’s worried expression and Veemon’s innocent question—‘Why are his eyes so red?’—turn the weird wobbling of his knees into something even more pathetic.

{ooo}

Dinner is a predictably bleak affair, despite a full five minutes spent trying to work the enthusiasm for it. Trues, Taichi hasn’t been enjoying food to its fullest these past few weeks, but then he was living off instant ramen and other junk food items all through Daisuke’s absence, so there’s nothing suspicious about that. Daisuke’s noodles failing to cheer him, on the other hand, is a bit of a different picnic. There’s a reason Taichi volunteered for every round of recipe-testing, and contrary to what Yamato said it most definitely wasn’t a bottomless stomach.

Tonight though, the dish seems to have lost its deliciousness in profit of the bitter tang of knowing he doesn’t deserve his friends.

(Taichi manages a smile when Agumon polishes off the last of the meal, though. At least one of them is properly appreciative of Daisuke’s talent.)

Taichi pulls his textbooks out as soon as he’s done with dinner, shoulders drooping with the gesture, even as his head fills with cotton. He pushes through it, though: if he stopped studying every time it felt beyond his strength, he wouldn’t have gotten anything done for at least a month.

He doesn’t have time to get fully into it though, because he’s barely cracked the first one open when Agumon asks in a pensive voice:

“Do you think you should see a sychatris?”

“Psychiatrist,” Taichi corrects, before he registers the question and turns around with a frown: “where did you even hear that word?”

“I asked Gabumon how Yamato got better,” Agumon replies with infuriating candor, “after he broke up with Sora and got sick in the head. Gabumon said that’s what that type of doctors was called.”

Taichi stays silent—can’t muster the energy for a shrug even as he looks around his room and notices the pieces of his phone lying next to the door. The screen, clearly damaged beyond repair, nicks at his thumb when he tries to slot the parts back in place, and Taichi hisses.

“So,” Agumon asks again after a moment, “do you think you should see a psychiatrist?”

“No,” Taichi replies around his thumb, “because I’m not sick.”

“But you haven’t been very well for a while now,” Agumon protests, more puzzlement than insistence in his tone, “and Yamato said—”

“Yeah, yeah,” Taichi cuts in, “’Taichi’s going to do something stupid again, blah blah blah’—don’t worry, he told me.”

“That’s not what he said,” Agumon starts, but Taichi’s head buzzes too hard for him to register the words before he says:

“I’m not like him—I’m not sick. I don’t need a psychiatrist.”

“I’m just saying,” Agumon, tries again, but Taichi’s patience is coming apart fast and he cuts his partner off again:

“You’re just saying I should do what Yamato said, or what he did, or what he thinks—or whatever,  really.”

“But—”

“He’s all I hear about these days!” Taichi continues, anger burning at his temples, “When he’s not calling me you guys keep telling me I should live my life according to him, well guess what—I’m a freaking adult, and I don’t need anyone to babysit me, let alone a guy who stormed off to the other side of the world!”

“But Taichi, he’s trying to help! You’re not—”

“Not what? Mature enough?” Taichi spits, going from anger to rage, to fury, “Adult enough? Brave enough? I’m not enough of a leader? The war’s over, Agumon! Nobody needs me to be these things anymore!”

“Taichi!”

Taichi pushes Agumon’s paws away from him in a brusque gesture that earns him a long scratch on the forearm, blood boiling a fever into his skin as he all but shouts:

“Don’t ‘Taichi’ me! I don’t care what everybody says, I’m fine! And if you think Yamato knows better than me about this then you can fucking go to him instead of bothering me about it!”

Taichi turns away from Agumon with a strangled exclamation of anger, heart racing with it until it feels like he’s about to faint and he has to scream into his pillow before the whole thing becomes too much. He stays like that for a long while, face shoved into the fabric of his bed until his breathing goes back to something vaguely normal and he finally registers the thirst that’s been clawing at his mouth for who knows how long.

With a grunt, he peels himself off the bed—groans again when he realizes it’s almost eight PM—and half-stumbles to his bedroom door. He almost knocks into Daisuke and Veemon when he opens it, and barely has time to wonder how long they’ve been standing there before Daisuke frowns and asks:

“Is everything okay? Agumon left in a hurry. He wouldn’t tell us why.”

Taichi snorts at that, pretty sure he was loud enough for half the building to hear what went on, but he doesn’t have time to speak before Veemon says:

“He looked kind of sick! Kind of like that weekend after Oikawa—”

“He’ll be fine,” Taichi snaps while Veemon slaps a hand over his mouth, “can I go get some water now, or is the interrogation not over yet?”

“Woah,” Daisuke says, face souring, “calm down, we’re just trying to help here!”

“Right,” Taichi replies, “like you’ve got any reason to want to be nice to me right now.”

He pushes past a gobsmacked Daisuke and, instead of the kitchen, head for the bathroom, where he dives under the hot spray as fast as humanly possible. He finds the living room empty and Daisuke’s door firmly shut when he comes out, heart and gut sinking at the sight, and retreats to his room without a sound.

He’s not sure hows he falls asleep despite the biles burning at his stomach.

{ooo}

Loud banging on the door wakes him up some time later, fast enough that he doesn’t even think of checking the time before he grunts into his pillow—most likely manages to make it sound like ‘go away’—but all it does is make the banging louder and closer to the ground, like whoever is on the other side of the door switched from fists to feet.

“Go away,” he yells, stubbornly keeping his eyes closed even as he angles his mouth away from the pillow so there won’t be any mistaking him this time.

“No!” Yamato yells back through the door.

Taichi’s eyes snap open, and he straightens up fast enough to make his head spin with sudden loss of blood, Yamato’s foot still pounding at the door.

“I’m warning you,” Yamato shouts without a pause in his kicking, “I’m not going away until you open the fucking door or it falls down!”

Taichi knows Yamato well enough to realize he’s perfectly capable of putting his threat to execution, and once his head stops spinning he doesn’t waste time in getting to his feet and padding to the door to the dull rhythm of his bedroom walls’ shivers.

He finds Yamato standing there in a gray shirt and and blue boxer briefs, crazy bed hair framing the redness of his face where pillow creases are only just fading. Taichi watches him grip the door, wedge his foot in the threshold, and glare like he’s daring Taichi to try and break his toes to get out of that argument.

“Picture this,” Yamato says, voice tight and knuckles white around the door frame, “It’s one in the morning, I’m finally asleep after the shittiest fucking day I’ve had in a while, and then my grandfather starts hollering about finding a potato-shaped worm with antennae in the kitchen.”

Taichi’s blood freezes in his veins, and he tries to push the door closed but Yamato won’t have it: he pushes back hard enough to send Taichi reeling back, slips into the room, and pushes the door shut before he continues:

“So I make sure my granddad isn’t having a heart attack there and then, get Gabumon to help him back to bed, and when I finally try to get to the so-called rat who do I find?”

“I—“

“Koromon,” Yamato says before Taichi can even really start his sentence, “crying his heart out on the tiles.”

“Of course he rant to y—”

“And then,” Yamato continues, his glare promising fierce retribution should Taichi try to interrupt again, “when I finally get him to calm down and get here, I find Daisuke all but sulking on the couch because apparently being an ass to one person wasn’t enough to fill your daily quota!”

“All I did was tell him to leave me alone!” Taichi protests at that, “he was being intrusive, and Veemon started talking about—”

“What? How terrible you’re acting?”

Yamato still looks ready to chew Taichi’s head off—or, failing that, tear him a new one—at the slightest hint of a dissatisfying answer, and the thought of it—of having to stay polite and calm when Mister Yamato portaled his righteous butt over to Japan just so he could have a good yelling—turns Taichi’s fear to anger, heat flaring all through his head tay polite and calm and deferent just because mister Yamato has decided to get his gracious ass back to Japan solely in order to yell at him—turns his fear to anger, flares up in painful heat between his ears as he explodes:

“You know what? Screw you! It’s none of your business what goes on in my life—”

“It is when your Digimon comes crying into my kitchen at ass o’clock in the morning!”

“And what are you gonna do about it, punch me in the face?”

“Trust me,” Yamato replies, low and utterly serious, “if I thought it’d help I would!”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Taichi hisses, rigid with fury, voice hoarse from how much he still wants to scream, and Yamato sneers:

“Yeah, sure, nothing in life gives me more pleasure!”

“Well you can go be judgmental somewhere else,” Taichi tells him, crossing his arms over his chest—Yamato’s hands tighten into fists, and he grows at least two shades redder—but doesn’t move—as Taichi steps into his personal space: “All I hear these days is ‘Yamato this’ and ‘Yamato that’, even my own freaking Digimon—”

“Is that why you kicked him out?” Yamato cuts off, face going slack with disbelief, “because he dared to remember someone had a similar problem and tried to use the same techniques to help you?”

“No,” Taichi hisses, heart beating impossibly faster when he steps forward again and Yamato still doesn’t give an inch, “it’s because I’m tired of people always shoving you in my face when you fucking left eight years ago!”

Taichi watches Yamato deflate at that—blink a little—and then something seems to click in his demeanor: he straightens up to his full height, towering over Taichi with all the rigidity of a five inches gap, and suddenly Taichi finds himself stepping back and thinking ‘oh shit’.

“Taichi, did you seriously do this to Agumon because you’re pissed at me for leaving?”

“I’m not!” Taichi insists, voice climbing and cracking on the last word, “but it’s high time people understood I can live my life without you!”

“And what are you gonna do next time Hikari offers advice?” Yamato asks, voice still dangerously low, “slap her in the face because she’s got her own life and you can’t stand it?”

“That’s not—”

“They’re trying to help, you moron!” Yamato screams—Taichi hears something falls to the ground in the general direction of the kitchen, but he’s too caught up in the argument to be embarrassed that Daisuke might hear—“Because you’ve been acting like a fucking depressed mess for the past two months now, and you won’t fucking listen to reason, and we’ve all got enough collective experience to know therapy is an important part of the healing process!”

“Then why not talk about Sora?” Taichi replies in the same volume, hands aching with how tight his fists are, voice grating at his throat until it almost feels like it’s about to start bleeding, “Why not talk about Ken, or Iori, or Takeru—”

“Because I’m your best friend! Because you’re being an ass, and because apparently I’m the only one who’s willing to actually try and knock your head out of your fucking ass!”

Yamato takes a step forward in anger, and when Taichi tries to step back he stumbles on his futon falls head over heels on the ground, knocking his head against the floorboard in the process—it doesn’t stop Yamato though, but Taichi refuses to look at him even as he keeps shouting:

“Because when Daisuke came back, he found you living in a fucking mountain of instant ramen and chips bags and Hikari told him you hung up on her the last time she tried to talk about it, because you haven’t called your mother in three weeks—which you’ve never forgotten to do before—and because Koromon was convinced you hated him and never wanted to see him again!”

Taichi screwed his eyes shut at some point of Yamato’s tirade, and he presses a hand against his eyelids now, clammy skin unable to stop the burning there—unable to do anything against the sharp stone lodged in his throat, shattering his breath in some pitiful, fragmented thing he barely gets any oxygen out of.

“I don’t hate him,” he manages eventually, and flinches when the futon dips under Yamato’s weight, “I don’t—I never meant—I’m the leader!”

His voice turns into a whine, and he swallows hard around it, painful and shallow—Yamato’s hand come to rest on his shoulder, fingers pressing into the flesh there, and Taichi has to make an effort not to lean into the touch. Instead, he forces out some kind of pitiful squeak and:

“I can’t just expect you guys to solve my problems for me! I’ve got to deal with it my own way!”

“Aside from the fact that we’ve already established this very idea is bullshit,” Yamato says, voice soft through the hoarseness of too much shouting, “so far your own way includes pushing everyone away from you, saying hurtful things you don’t really mean and—correct me if I’m wrong about that one—hating yourself for doing it.”

Taichi shrugs, but he doesn’t move his hands away from his face as he gulps painful breaths between his wrists. Sometimes, having someone who knows you that well is a real pain in the butt.

“You wanna know who that reminds me of?” Yamato asks after a stretch of silence, and this time Taichi snorts.

“Not really.”

“Too bad, I’m sure you’d know the guy.”

Taichi reaches back to swat at Yamato—ends up knocking against his friend’s knee, hissing in pain and, somehow, laughing about it into his palm.

He wipes at his eyes then, cool wetness collecting on his hands as he does. His backbone pops when he straightens up and sits properly on the futon, staring down at his hands—they’re pale, shining with tears in the thin stripes of city lines that filter in, and Taichi flexes the fingers just to make sure they’re really his.

Outside the room, Veemon’s voice says something, too muffled to hear—either that, or Taichi doesn’t have the brain power required to process the words just now—and then there’s a shush, and silence.

His ears burn.

“Anyway,” Yamato continues without turning, leaning back on his hands, “this guy—let’s say his name is Tamato—”

Taichi snorts again, and gets a light slap on the shoulder for it.

“He did the same thing, and then his best friend punched him in the face—”

“Kicked him in the shin,” Taichi corrects, and Yamato frowns:

“Wasn’t that the second time around? I’m talking about the third. The big one.”

“Whatever,” Taichi shrugs, and while he’s not completely relaxed, he at least manages to unfold his legs from under him, “it doesn’t really matter.”

“It does though,” Yamato replies without missing a beat, “’cause if it wasn’t for the punch Tamato wouldn’t have realized he could—and should—ask for help.”

“You haven’t punched me in the face,” Taichi mumbles for the sake of argument, and Yamato rolls his eyes:

“That can be arranged.”

Taichi turns to stare at Yamato with a shocked look that should, frankly, not be there. It’s not like either of them has ever hesitated to start punching when they felt it was warranted, but the casualty of Yamato’s offer it’s...new. Not bad—nor particularly good—just new. Taichi had forgotten their friendship could still surprise him.

“Seriously though,” Yamato says after a while, “I’m not yelling at you ‘cause I like it. I do it ‘cause—”

“Cause I deserve it,” Taichi admits, gaze shifting from Yamato’s decidedly more awake face to his own knees, “I’ve been a complete asshole these past few months. Especially today.”

“Yeah,” Yamato admits, shifting to sit cross-legged on the futon, “but it’s also because you’re capable of being better than that.”

“Ha. I’m not sure everyone would agree right now.”

Yamato snorts at that, and it takes effort for Taichi not to squirm.

“Yeah,” Yamato says, dripping with sarcasm, “they all hate you. That’s why Daisuke pretty much begged me not to be too hard on you, and Koromon barely even admitted you treated him like crap.”

“I think you got just as hard as I needed,” Taichi mutters.

It takes him a few seconds to catch up when Yamato snorts, and then they’re both laughing at the terrible double entendre, fresh tears flooding Taichi’s face—they don’t burn this time around, though, which is honestly a relief in and of itself.

“Look”, Yamato says a few minutes later, wiping tears of laughter off his cheeks, “people like you enough to forgive your crap. Deal with it.”

Taichi snorts again—it doesn’t devolve into laughter this time, his nerves settled enough not to need the pressure relief anymore—then sighs before he asks:

“What do I do now?”

He’d probably deserve for Daisuke to yell at him for thirty minutes straight, but then he can’t exactly walk up to the guy and ask that favor of him. Sighing again, Taichi brings his knees up to his chest and winds his arms around his legs, while Yamato turns to squint at him:

“You do realize the irony of asking me that just now, right?”

“Shut up,” Taichi mutters at Yamato’s gentle mocking, shrugging the concern off.

As Yamato himself stated, he hasn’t exactly been stellar in the decision-making these days, he might as well take the advice now that he’s finally ready to ask for it.

“I’m still annoyed,” he admits, guts tight with too many things he needs to make amend for, “but clearly you guys were right. I am incapable of dealing with this on my own.”

“Yeah, because depression is a bigger deal than your average cold,” Yamato points out.

“You did it,” Taichi counters, “you were on your own—”

“If you discount the phone calls,” Yamato counters, ticking items off on his fingers, “the emails, the visits, Gabumon’s headbutts, your yelling, my granddad...do I need to keep going?”

“Nah,” Taichi says—it turns into a yawn halfway through, and Yamato answers with one of his own before Taichi finishes: “I think I get it. Gotta be more like you,” he finishes in, only half-joking.

Yamato swears under his breath, closing his eyes and sweeping both hands over his face as if trying to push some patience into himself. To be fair, Taichi definitely had the same reaction to him at various point, so it’s not like this is a shock.

“Let’s go over this one last time,” Yamato groans after a bit, “people aren’t trying to turn you into me, they’re trying to help you with the solutions they know worked for the most similar case we’ve had, which happens to be the way I failed to deal with depression. If you wanted them to take you on beach holidays and jogging trips, you should have done like Sora and gone catatonic.”

“Hey!”

Taichi punches Yamato’s shoulder for that, less than gently, because there are ways to discuss this that don’t make it sound like Sora was just trying to be interesting, dammit!

It doesn’t change the fact that Yamato has a point, though—learning ikebana may have been a life saver for Sora, but it probably wouldn’t have worked as well for Taichi. Certainly, even.

God, but he’s been so stupid.

“Seriously,” he asks, ears burning in shame again, fresh heat prickling at the corner of his eyes when he blinks, “what do I do now?”

“Get some sleep, for starters,” Yamato yawns, “and not just ‘cause I’m tired. You’ll think better once you’ve rested a little. Then, you’re gonna do what you do best: screw your courage to the sticking place and do the right thing, even if it sucks.”

“Will you do the thing where you stay close an pretend you’re not listening in?” Taichi asks, and he’s relieved to see Yamato roll his eyes, as if anything but that was completely unthinkable.

Taichi may be a bone-head, but at least he’s got great friends.

“I missed you,” he admits, the words tumbling from his mouth just as he thinks them, and when Yamato bumps their shoulders together he adds: “I’m sorry I got upset with you. You’ve got a right to live your dream, even if it’s on the other side of the world.”

It’s not even like they haven’t been in contact either, really, it’s just—France is terribly far away, and phoning is just not the same thing as a real sleepover.

“I missed you too,” Yamato says, fondness chasing some of the obvious fatigue out of his features. “You know I didn’t mean you had to start on things tonight, right?”

“Yeah,” Taichi says with an awkward little smile, “but I don’t think Daisuke is asleep, and I’m not going to get any rest until I do this anyway.”

“Okay,” Yamato says with a nods, getting to his feet when Taichi does, “but maybe you should let Koromon sleep on this as well before you talk to him?”

His words are soft, careful, and Taichi nods. He doesn’t like the idea of waiting—was never really good at leaving problems alone, especially when he’s got a solution, or even just the beginning of one. He wants to do this right, however, and right now Yamato is probably in a better position to judge than him.

“I really screwed up,” he sighs, carding a hand through his hair, “didn’t I?”

“Oh, you should have seen me at my lowest,” Yamato says with an easy shrug, “you’re not even close.”

“What did you do?” Taichi asks without bothering to hide his disbelief, “Slap Gabumon in the face?”

“I sent him out so I could lock myself in the bathroom and slice my wrists open in peace.”

Taichi turns back around to face Yamato so fast he almost topples right into the guy. He doesn’t, though, and they stand like that for a long time, Taichi’s hand hanging limply at his side while Yamato shifts from foot to foot, hands moving to his hips like he’s trying to hook his fingers into the belt of his boxers.

When, at last, it appears Yamato isn’t going to provide more detail on his own, Taichi breathes:

“When?”

“Winter after Sora and I broke up, not long after I met Guillaume.”

Taichi has heard the name before—Yamato’s first boyfriend. He didn’t know about the history that came with it, though.

“I...wasn’t ready,” Yamato adds, looking like he’d rather be saying anything else, “things with Sora got—ugly. We got really nasty with each other and then the whole gay thing I—I don’t know. It made sense at the time, but I—”

“Couldn’t explain it if you tried?”

Yamato shrugs at that, and Taichi nods in understanding. He hasn’t given his ‘conversation’ with Agumon proper thought yet, but the motives for it—the things that made him tick and essentially go berserk—seem fuzzy already, like some kind of weird spell came over him and changed him into something he can’t quite recognize.

It’s still him, though, and he’ll have to deal with that soon, but not just now. There’s a more pressing topic, just now.

“No wonder you panicked when I missed that call,” Taichi mutters, the memory of Ken’s anxious face floating at the edge of his mind. Then, barely above a whisper, he asks: “What stopped you?”

“It hurt,” Yamato answers with a grimace that seems to say ‘dumb, uh?’, “and there was a lot of blood. It scared the crap out of me, so I called my granddad. He came home like a freaking hurricane, closed the whole thing up—turns out the cut was too shallow to even work—and then he slapped me in the face so hard I got a headache.”

Yamato half-chuckles, half-snorts at the memory, and Taichi has to bite the inside of his cheek not to scold him for it.

“He made me swear I’d tell my therapist about it—I did, and she referred me to a psychiatrist so I could get some medication. Gabumon refused to talk to me for three weeks straight.”

“Alright,” Taichi manages to say, trying—and failing—to make it sound like a light comment, “clearly, you win.”

“Yeah. Don’t tell Takeru.”

Taichi nods—then, on impulse, he pulls Yamato into a lopsided hug. His friend stiffens a bit at first, but he relaxes quickly enough, and Taichi sighs with relief he didn’t even know he should have felt.

“I’m glad you’re still alive,” he says, the words far too late but important anyway, “and I’m glad you’re enough of a friend to yell at me when I need it.”

“Yeah,” Yamato sighs, head bent to rest on Taichi’s shoulder, “me too. I’m glad I haven’t managed to ruin our friendship yet.”

Taichi snorts, and flicks Yamato’s ear.

{ooo}

Once Yamato has left though the DigiPortal, Taichi takes a look at the golden light slipping out from under Daisuke’s bedroom door, and decides he’s going to need some props.

He ends up standing in front of the door several minutes later, two steamy mugs of hot cocoa in hands, and wondering how he’s going to knock without toppling the frankly obscene amount of whipped cream and mini-marshmallows he managed to stack on top when the door opens, revealing a sleepy Veemon in the middle of a yawn while his free hand scratches idly at his butt.

“Oh,” the Digimon says when he realizes Taichi is there, “hi, Taichi.”

“Hi,” Taichi replies, resisting the urge to squirm or wave, for fear of spilling whipped cream on the floor, “I thought I’d—may I come in?”

Taichi carefully holds the cup out with what he hopes is an appropriately contrite and embarrassed expression, and tries not to look too obviously relieved when Veemon nods. On the bed, Daisuke groans when Veemon shakes him back to awareness, and turns around in the slowest, most sluggish way Taichi has ever witnessed. He doesn’t allow himself to be impatient about it. Veemon waits for Daisuke to blinks at Taichi—for his eyes to widen when he notices the mugs—and hurries out of the room, claws clicking on the floor as he makes his way to the bathroom.

Taichi waits for Daisuke to awaken properly, and hopes the whipped cream doesn’t end up melting on his fingers.

“Hi, Taichi,” Daisuke manages after some more bleary blinking and a lot of squinting, “is that for me?”

“And Veemon,” Taichi confirms, handing one of the mugs over.

Taichi glances at the alarm clock while Daisuke bites half the cream off his drink in one large gulp—nearly nine PM. Hopefully, the neighbors will forgive the noise.

He turns back to Daisuke just in time to see his nose emerge from the ceramic cup, a spot of whipped cream clinging to his nose when he gives Taichi a grin:

“Thanks,” he says, “it’s awesome.”

“It’s the least I can do,” Taichi says, a little too low, while his stomach twists and the distant flush of the toilets punctuates his sentence, “after....”

“It’s forgotten,” Daisuke says, hand swiping at some imaginary speck in the air, “right Veemon?”

“It is if you say it is,” Veemon replies, all but pulling his mug out of Taichi’s hand, “there’s not much I wouldn’t forgive for a treat like that!”

Taichi watches Veemon sit down on the floor and dive into his cocoa with a happy wiggle of his stubby tail, fishing marshmallows out of the drink with delicate swipes of his claws. It makes Taichi smiles, and when he looks back at Daisuke, the latter mouths ‘Tail!’ at him with a fondly mocking expression on his face.

“Seriously,” Veemon says after a bit, “Wormmon explained—it’s like when Ken was the Digimon Emperor. It’s not really you. So it’s okay.”

“It’s more complicated,” Taichi starts, but Daisuke cuts him off:

“You’re sick is what he means. What you did wasn’t nice, but it also wasn’t really your fault, in a way, you know?”

“I pretty much insulted you for trying to help me,” Taichi points out, frustration mounting when Daisuke doesn’t seem to get it, “I called you a bad friend!”

“Yeah, like I said, rude,” Daisuke replies with a shrug,”but also not as bad as you seem to think it is.”

There’s a pause when Taichi tries to figure out how to answer that. If he’d said the same thing to Yamato—when he said the same thing to Yamato, several years ago—he’d have gotten punched in the face. He did, too, once.

Daisuke, on the other hand, seems to have taken it far better than Taichi had any right to expect.

“I treated you like crap,” Taichi manages at last, “even if I’m sick, that doesn’t make it alright!”

“It doesn’t,” Daisuke agrees, “and if you keep acting like I’m not your friend I might think of taking Yamato’s advice and slapping you in the face. But right now, we’re okay.”

“But,” Taichi splutters, unsure why he’s even pressing his luck so far, “I don’t deserve it! Being sick—”

“But Taichi,” Veemon pipes up from his place on the floor, “forgiveness isn’t about what you deserve.”

It takes a long time—and Daisuke’s increasingly amused expression—before Taichi manages to close his mouth after he hears that.

He may or may not have to wipe his eyes again when he leaves the room.

{ooo}

Taichi’s heart beats fast when he follows Yamato into the kitchen of his French apartment the next day. He barely pays attention to the uneven floorboards, the moldings on top of the walls, the authentic baguette discarded on the table. All he’s got eyes for is the way Koromon freezes, and Gabumon waits until the smaller Digimon nods before he exits the room with Yamato.

“Hey,” Taichi tries, mostly because it seemed to work with Veemon last night.

He’s not prepared for the wet note in Koromon’s voice when he says:

“Hey.”

“I’m sorry,” Taichi says, words rushing out of him with the urgency of something absolutely vital, even as he goes to his knees, “I shouldn’t have treated you like that—you were trying to help. It wasn’t right of me to blow up at you, even if I’m not feeling well.”

“I thought you hated me,” Koromon says with a glance at the corridor next to the kitchen.

Evidently, he’s been prepared for the conversation. It doesn’t bother Taichi as much as he would have thought.

“I thought you’d never want to see me again. You swore at me!”

“I’m sorry,” Taichi repeats, “I don’t know why I said the things I said, I never—I’m not even really that upset about being compared to Yamato it’s just—everyone’s leaving. They’re all—I don’t know. Nothing is ever going to be the same again, nothing is, and no one remembers and—and—it doesn’t matter, actually. It doesn’t matter. I shouldn’t have taken it out on you. I was cruel, and mean, and wrong. I’m sorry. I don’t want to lose you.”

“I don’t want to lose you either,” Koromon says, “but you can’t do that again. I want to help you, but I can’t do it if you won’t talk to me—or let me ask other people to understand what’s going on.”

“I know,” Taichi says, pulling his head even lower, “I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry I said something wrong,” Koromon continues, but this time Taichi doesn’t let him finish:

“You didn’t. It’s me. I got—I’m not sure what got over me. But I shouldn’t have let it hurt you. I promise I’ll do my best to answer your questions from now on.”

Koromon gives Taichi a long, quizzical look—Taichi tries not to squirm too much even as he steals a glance up—and then he digivolves to Agumon with a whistling pop, and pulls at Taichi’s shoulders until their eyes are at the same level.

“Good,” Agumon says, and then Taichi is engulfed into a hug.

He hugs back with all the strength he has, breathes the smell of Agumon’s scales as deep as he can as relief floods every inch of him, dragging tears out of him he doesn’t even attempt to wipe off.

“You were right to leave,” he half-whispers, half-whines, tightening the hug when Agumon tries to pull away at the words, “not because I don’t want you around, but because you deserve better. I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want you to let me hurt you. And I don’t want to lose you a second time.”

“Yamato said I was right, too,” Agumon mutters after a brief, tense pause that ends with him melting into the hug again, “and Papy, too. It didn’t feel good.”

“I know,” Taichi tells him, “but you were still right. Sometimes doing the right thing hurts.”

“That fucking sucks.”

Taichi pulls away from Agumon to stare at him in surprise and, before they know it, they’re laughing themselves silly, nerves seeping out of Taichi with every tears leaking on his cheeks. He hugs Agumon again, tears of laughter turning into tears of exhaustion as easy as flipping a switch, and it’s a relief when Agumon pats his back through it all.

“So,” Agumon asks when Taichi is done drying his eyes and blowing his nose several minutes later, “what are you going to do now?”

“First,” Taichi says with a glance at the mechanical clock hanging above the door, “if you’re okay with it, I’d like to go home and get breakfast.”

“Sure!” Agumon says, usual grin back in place over his lips, “I don’t think anyone here will mind.”

“We won’t,” Yamato pipes up from...wherever he is, really, Taichi doesn’t actually care.

“Okay,” he calls back instead, smiling despite himself, “thanks for the input, eavesdropper!”

Agumon hides his laughter behind his paws, and Taichi smiles at the gesture, before he continues:

“Then, I’m going to book an appointment with a therapist—it’s a bit like a psychiatrist,” he explains when Agumon’s face turns interrogative, “and we’ll see how it goes from there. Deal?”

“Of course,” Agumon says.

Taichi hugs him again.

#Digimon #Taichi Kamiya #Yamato Ishida #Taiyama #Digimon Fic #Agumon #Gabumon #Fanfiction #Once more with kissing #Done with wooden queues #omwk #20n

[huggableduck]

Not sure if this is the right place to send this ask but it is your Pokemon blog, so... what are you planning for the "Incomplete" rewrite? I'm curious!

O FUCK I’m bout to go off!!!!!!!!!!!! granted this is a fairly low priority project of mine so I’m going to take the plot slowly & as it comes to me , but I still have plenty of ideas I’d LOVE to blab about .. idk who you are but I so appreciate ur interest :,,)

The biggest thing I want to revise is my portrayal of ghetsis & colress and their relationship obviously. I’ve recently been exposed to some fanworks that portrayed them in ways I REALLY LOVED & never considered before. I want them to be genuinely friends at the beginning, instead of colress just staying for the free coffee and tolerating ghetsis’ bullshit I’m not about that life anymore. ghetsis & colress have real chemistry up in this bitch

autistic colress is a headcanon I really identify with personally & southern ghetsis is so fucking funny to me but they do NOT mix with the dark tone of that fic lmfaooo. so those are benched. colress being autistic might still be implied by his behavior or thought process but I’m not gonna have ghetsis insult him for it in the rewrite. it was a cheap tactic to make ghetsis more hatable & it put a bad taste in my mouth considering how that hc is literally .. me projecting .. 

I also want to make it significantly longer & less .. edgy-poetic? I focused way too heavily on describing how the characters where under stress & losing their minds when like. there was no buildup to that. there where no scenes at the beginning where the characters acted normally in order to compare that to. a few extra chapters or even just .. longer chapters would benefit this fic a lot in terms of buildup

I want to have ghetsis talk with kyurem for a much longer period, like over multiple chapters. it would make his bond w kyurem make more sense, and his growing distrust for colress at the end could be because kyurem tells him the tea about how colress keeps torturing him with the shitty frigate battery or something like that.

Slightly related to this, I also saw some fanwork a long time ago that was about ghetsis awakening a latent ability to talk to pokemon like N can, and I thought that was a really cool concept (idk when and how that could come into play but I’ll figure it out). that could be a good element to build his paranoia as well, the stress of being able to hear every pokemon around him & what they talk about when they think humans can’t understand them would be So Much for his controlling sensibilities to take

I’m also toying w the idea of having it end completely differently bc like .. I’m not opposed to tragedy with no resolution, but this particular fic didn’t really have any meaning to it . colress having regrets right before he dies was purely for shock value and I can do so much better than that looooll ...... I might have colress unfuse the two and realize where he went wrong after that because I feel like it’s wasted potential to just have him Die. im about bitches learning out here. its all still tumbling around in my brain ill settle on something good eventually

I funna add more to this list & be much more liberal when it comes to revisions and cutting out filler when I get to the final drafts of this monster. I’m definitely determined to have more fun than I did last time & make a more engaging version of my original concept.

#this is so scary 2 think abt how there are ppl who .. know me on here AND on ao3 watch me have a stroke in real time #ask #Anonymous