#send me an ask about one specifically if you want me to wax poetic about it
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I offer you percabeth (taylor's version) in these trying times
#percabeth#taylor swift#percy jackson#annabeth chase#pjo#pjo series#percy jackson and the olympians#send me an ask about one specifically if you want me to wax poetic about it#percyallels#annabeth pjo#percy and annabeth#pjo tv#heroes of olympus
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Hi, what do you think about the recent rise of tomarry haters who ship bellamort?
I have a feeling this one won’t go over as well as my anti-Tomione post.
However, what the server wants, the server gets. 🐍
If you like Bellamort, if you will be offended by opinions that are anti-Bellamort, do not expand this post.
I am not putting this in the tags; I am not shoving this in anyone’s face. Don't click it. Don't send me pissy anons about it. Unfollow me and move on.
Background context
First of all: a concession. I know every Voldemort-related passage in Harry Potter like the back of my hand. If you don’t think Bellamort can be found in the subtext, you’re either biased or due for another close reading. Unlike Tomione (which almost always depends on a complete fabrication of their personalities) and Tomarry (which requires a significant tone shift from the books), you can easily write Bellamort as an extension of canon.
I don’t hate Bellamort because it’s nonsense. I hate it because it is not nonsense; it feels very real. Voldemort’s and Bellatrix’s relationship, in the canon text, is that of Master and Servant—and for me personally, any such dynamic between a man and a woman is disgusting and I have absolutely no desire to read it.
Here's some specific icks it gives me.
Fanon Bellatrix is bullshit; her real form is repulsive, whiny, and pitiful
There’s this common fanon misconstruction of Bellatrix that portrays her as a thoughtful femme fatale who enjoys a close, intimate relationship to Voldemort on nearly equal terms. I find this tacky at best.
Really, Bellatrix is a pathetic, sniveling wimp who would crawl around on her hands and knees and bark like a dog if Voldemort asked her to do so. She’s not strong; she’s weak-willed and pathetic. She's the kind of pathetic woman who accompanies a man on his killing spree and kills her own kids for said man’s affection.
This passage from Order of the Phoenix pretty concisely captures their dynamic.
Also, Tomarrymort writers love to make her past love of Voldemort and (*pukes*) it makes my tummy ache
Ever find yourself reading a fascinating Tomarry fic only for—midway in—Voldemort to reveal his true love is Bellatrix?* Or wax poetic about how beautiful she is, how special to him she is?
It's 2024. I immediately close the fic when this happens. If I’m reading a Tomarrymort fic, I don’t give a fuck about Voldemort’s past domestic abuse trysts with the most spineless woman in the entire HP series.
And the kicker is . . . for what? Because Bellatrix proved herself to Voldemort by licking his boot and wiping his asshole? Please do not try and convince me she is a sinister spooky gal, she plainly isn’t. She’s an embarrassing blithering pissant who does not foil any of Voldemort’s traits.
And PLEASE do not try and convince me she offers Voldemort something Harry doesn't in terms of being an equal partner or someone he respects, because I cannot fathom how the woman who squeals "MASTER MASTER PLEASE I'M SORRY DON'T HURT ME - I'll wash your anus with my tongue, PLEASE master!" is somehow more respectable than brave, upright, dignified Harry.
*I’m NOT referring to a specific fic. I have been in this fandom since 2011, and I have read it dozens of times, on FF and AO3 alike.
Lastly - they're not a pretty picture
I'm just going to say it... you know those people you kinda knew in high school who now post about their kinky sex life on Facebook? The girl who posts "Daddy 🥺 ?" and the dude responds "Yes, kitten?" in the comments? The chick who has no shame in posting her wolf-tail butt plug or joining a bunch of kinkster groups?
The girl who later ends up getting the shit beaten out of her by said repulsive scrote (no shock) and posting about it on Facebook only to repeat the cycle again and again?
That's literally what Bellamort makes me think about. It's not even like it's deeply upsetting so much as it's disappointing: A reminder of the lowest very promising, very beautiful women can get for men who ought to be curb-stomped and thrown in a ditch.
Tbh the best ending for Bellatrix in canon would've been if she disemboweled and slaughtered Voldemort for ruining her fucking life with his ridiculous tacky cult. He's my baby, but he's a vile scrote first, and I wish Bellatrix had realized what a toxic, life-draining narcissistic psychopathic moron he was. But alas, she too was a pathetic worm.
#anti bellamort#shipping wars#server#asks#i have covid and i'm really mean rn#tw domestic abuse#tw brutally mean#tw anti men hate speech
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Hey I'm the one who sent the ask about Castiel embracing his dark side so he can heal and be co-parented by us. I like anon cause it's mysterious to you lol but I didn't send any real cascrit. I like how your blog is like a link to all corners of this fandom. Can't believe people hate Jack lmao. Casgirls maybe? There are Cas parents and Cas lovers
Oh yeah no worries.
I think I won't post the other anon just because I'd like to get off the babytrapping subject haha but I know you weren't really being serious about it. There were a couple anon messages trying to turn it in a different direction (not from you I think). There was also an anon who was upset and thought it was serious crit with the way we were joking about it and was defending Cas (but didn't want me to post). I think if people really want to discuss this genuinely, it could be a fun discussion for them, but with someone besides me because I don't have the motivation to say a lot to say about it haha. For me personally I don't think it holds up as genuine crit (and I don't think you do either) because that term has a specific meaning and I definitely don't think Cas has ever genuinely intended to babytrap Dean as like... a manipulation tactic to keep them stuck in a relationship. If there's a problem here, I think it looks more like Cas being really oblivious about the hangups Dean has developed about raising kids by the late seasons and just kind of thinking, "Oh! I remember that Dean is good with kids. I'll ask him to do this because I think I'm not good at it and he could help." Maybe someone wants to argue that that's its own problem and speaks to larger issues Cas and Dean have in terms of communication and understanding each other, but it's not babytrapping.
Jack hate is a real thing haha. Jack was actually a somewhat polarizing character while the show was airing. A lot of people really loved him, but there were a few things that created pockets of resentment in fandom:
Fans who loved Jack tended to infantilize him, which didn't sit well with other fans at all and lead to a lot of resentment for Jack, which is sad, because while fans (and occasionally Sam and Cas) infantilized Jack, Jack never infantilized himself. Jack (read: REAL Jack—not Soulless Jack) strongly believed in taking responsibility for his own actions. Jack bares similarities to all three of his "dads", and what he got from Dean imo is that relatively more uncompromising moral framework that's rarely swayed, and... the extra helping of guilt over your own human mistakes that comes with being a bit more uncompromising. (I actually like this about both of them).
Some fans resented Jack because they felt he was designed by the writers to undermine and even erase a lot of established canon about Dean and how he treats kids in order to turn fans against him. Prior to Jack's birth, Dean was pretty consistent in protecting kids and teenagers, whether they were monsters or not (ex: Bobby John, Jesse, Emma). This change in writing about Dean's outlook for many felt OOC or like a deliberate retcon, and there were many fans who did hate Dean over this entire period specifically because of this change and still do. They don't remember what Dean was like before and will wax poetic about how much Dean hates kids or dogmatically wants monsters to die which just... isn't accurate at all.
You have bronlies, who hate anyone who isn't Sam or Dean. Pretty self-explanatory there.
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Walkie Talkie
It’s Wednesday evening, about an hour of sun left, and I’m walking down to the old penthouse in Flatbush to retrieve my new apartment keys. It’s moments like these — walking, doing dishes, a 30 min break between meetings — that I’d call my Dad.
I can hear his excitement picking up the phone: Connor boy! We’d start with the weather. It’s a beautiful day here, I’d say. One of those days where the weather can’t quite decide what it wants to be, flitting between big blue sun and sudden gray with spastic rain.
I’d tell him I’ve been running more and that I think I’m gonna sign up for a marathon near Albany with the goal of qualifying for Boston. It’s a friendly qualifier, according to Google, and we have some friends nearby we could stay with. I’d tell him I saw Chris Hayes on my lunch run — he was walking his dog in his PJs on a work cal. I knew it was a work call because I knew when his editorial team met to discuss the evening lineup. And that’s not all. This was actually my second sighting of Hayes. The first being at a bar in Gowanus before I really worked in media. How rare to encounter the same celeb twice in the New York wilderness?
I’d tell him about bowling, though surely he would’ve called the following day to hear how we did in the playoffs. I’d regret to inform him we lost in the first round to a team of toxic old creepers. But I bowled well -- a 146 in the first game and then a 170 to close the season. I’d promise to send him the article about a Dallas bowler’s near-900 game, an almost unheard of string of three consecutive perfect games. In other words, 36 strikes in a row. A turkey to end all turkeys. The seventh extinction.
He’d probably feed me some essay idea and remind me how much he loves my writing and remind me I got my work ethic from Mom.
I’d tell him I won a hail mary bet, how it was a must-win otherwise I would’ve depleted all my FanDuel dollars, after which I promised to stop betting like I had been every week for the last two months and he’d say Oh yeahhh like the Kool Aid man (kool aid btw was invented in Nebraska). We both bet on Denver to repeat as champions so we’d prematurely discuss their first playoff game and what it portends for June.
I’d tell him no I haven’t spoken to Ethan recently but we both love you deeply.
Dad would hem and haw when asked what’s new with him. There never was much. Life was filtered through TV, current events, books, visitors and his window overlooking the parking lot with an American flag planted center stage. One of the nurses told me he offered up his grandpas flag honoring his WWII service to replace their tattered flag.
He’d surely ask what I was reading. New York 2140. I borrowed it from you. It was perfect you had it, because that’s exactly what I wanted to read after Vinson Cunningham’s debut novel Great Expectations. I read it flying into New York and saw how vulnerable the city was to a rising sea-levels. We landed in LaGuardia, which has its ass hanging out on the water. Tunneling through the East River to Manhattan I saw the ancient screws coated in dust holding the center fast against past and future.
It was a very New York book, too, with some interesting finance elements (liquidity, stoking then shorting the bubble, Ben Bernanke’s heroic levers). One of the main characters was a super, another was a degen finance bro. It indulged in geographic specificity, from street names to developed marshes, making several detours down local cul de sacs into forgotten pockets of history and waxing poetic about that famous New York energy.
It flagged a little 400 pages in, but the animating premise -- a resilient New York that adapted to a 50-foot surge in sea levels after the ice shelf collapsed -- was endlessly fascinating. Downtown was “intertidal” with skyscrapers partly submerged in water at high tide, while sky bridges criss-crossed overhead, and cloud communities circled above superscrapers hundreds of stories high. The author imagineered a SuperVenice and it was a beautiful triumph against the odds. You would like the cloud influencer who shepherded animals at risk in her blimp-ark.
He’d tell me about an interesting book review he read in the Washington Post and the book that would soon be delivered and of course the many others he had his eye on. You have plenty of reading material already. Read what you have! I’d normally say shaking my head. But this time I’d say those all sound great and I promise to take good care of them. I’ll read them all with you.
Inevitably we’d both get quiet. I was always perplexed why Dad got anxious during any conversation lull, but he did and would proceed to wrap things up. I took advantage of this sometime. But not today. Today I’d say don’t go, the words will come, just stay on the line.
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interaction cheat sheet
This post is largely for new mutuals but also just any mutual who wants to start up an interaction with me (maybe we’ve plotted before, or we wrote a thread that ended and haven’t started a new one, or you added a new muse to your multi since we last chatted). I know how daunting things can be when you’re trying to interact with people you’ve never written with before. Doubly so for established blogs, multimuses, etc. Essentially this page is a cheat sheet of sorts on how to best start writing with me, if you’re not the type to be into “come into my askbox and keysmash at me” technique.
GENERAL DISCLAIMER: This is in my rules, but I am slow. I’m not talking few days slow, but more like few weeks-months slow. I’m a working professional with an unpredictable schedule, and I have a chronic illness that can affect my energy and pain levels on a whim. I don’t necessarily have a specific method on how I reply to things, and often just go where the muse takes me. The only certainty I can give here is that I am slow. Because of this, I’m very conscious about other people’s time and energy and will rarely like starter/plotting calls unless the other writer is familiar with my circumstances.
All of that said, I love writing with new people, I love following and getting to know new muses and muns, I scroll my dash like it’s my morning paper to try and enjoy the writing and thoughts of people I haven’t had the chance to interact with. So in order to try and open up for more interactions for people who might have social anxiety, or who are just plain busy like I am, here is this very long-winded spiel.
ASK MEMES - I love memes a lot. I find they’re one of the easiest ways to get the ball rolling on things, and I’m 149% okay with you taking a meme response and turning it into a thread/plot. Do it for one of them, do it for all of them. I don’t care. I love memes because they (generally) throw you right into the middle of the action so feel free to just run with things. Improv! Yay! Literally, you can send me a meme any time, dig back into my tag to find more, slap me in the face with them. You don’t have to wait for me to reblog them. The same mentality applies, in that I am slow to respond to them, but this is often helpful to me to know who wants to engage.
VERSES / PLOTS - My verses page is purposely built to provide a brief background of said verse (or canon if you’re unfamiliar), along with potential plot ideas that could fit in each one. It tells you what fandoms I’m familiar or unfamiliar with, and it is a perpetual work in progress. If you’re worried about not having an idea, feel free to poke through to see if any idea, or even a fraction of an idea, calls to you and we can use that as a jumping off point.
HEADCANON QUESTIONS. I have a soft spot for these because one of my favorite parts about getting into a character is figuring out their little quirks and experiences, and exploring whatever the source material didn’t show. Call me weird but sometimes I have a hard time just writing headcanon posts, but if you ask me specifics, it magically gets about ten times easier for me to write. Why am I the way I am? I’ve been asking myself this question for almost 30 years, and I still don’t know. But still, this is also a good way to get me to start waxing poetic.
MEME CALLS - I post these periodically but mutuals are always welcome to come to me unprompted and ask me to send them some memes. With my perpetual lurker status, I often miss a lot of ask memes being reblogged, but I’m more than happy to send them. Just give me a sign.
Basically any of the above are a quick and easy way for you to let me know that you want to get the ball rolling with some interactions. Or, if preferred, you can come into my IMs / Discord and keysmash at me. I enjoy that too.
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what are your top ten musicals?
1. if/then
i mean, duh. this is predominantly an if/then blog, after all. one of the main reasons (out of several) i absolutely adore this show is that it puts a woman front and center in its story. as a matter of fact, all of female characters are so wonderfully fleshed out and none of the main female characters are one-dimensional. on the flipside, taking the male characters in consideration, none of them really exhibit the misogyny and the characteristic machismo that men typically exhibit in popular media that i absolutely loathe. i mean, yes, lucas was an asshole to beth after he found out that she aborted the kid. but important thing here, is that (a) lucas was portrayed as the asshole in this scene, and (b) his issue was that "it wasn't fair for [beth] to make that decision without [him]". his main issue wasn't that beth aborted the kid, it's that he saw a chance to start a family with the woman he's been in love with for over twelve years and she took a decision without even involving him. and the argument, while understandable, but still invalid (because it's beth's decision throughout!!!), was just…a product of life. and stephen—while he did kiss beth and push her away (because he was married), he was still overall respectful of her after "what the fuck?". and josh is a himbo and david's also overall pretty respectful in the scenes that he's in.
and i just adore the musical because of the timelines in general. neither liz-verse, more focused on romance, or beth-verse, more focused on career, is treated as more important. liz isn't treated as stupid because she decided to focus on her relationship with josh. the fact that she didn't get the job at the DCP isn't even related to the fact that she decided to pursue a relationship with josh. and beth—beth vaughn, my love, my light. even though she has no time for romance, she does fortify her relationships with her friends—with kate, anne, and elena (and lucas, to a degree. i still feel that liz's and lucas's friendship was stronger, though). and platonic love is often overlooked in media. which if/then doesn't do. (and speaking of friendships, beth and lucas's friendship breakup is treated well too).
and speaking of love, or more specifically the romantic kind. the LGBTQ representation in this show is pretty good as well. ignoring liz's one biphobic comment (i mean, ma'am, your best friend is a whole-ass bisexual right there. you know that. you dated him in college. you just set him up with a guy.), it's pretty damn good! kate and anne? iconic, chef's kiss, you go you funky lesbians. lucas and david? adorable go off. and lucas? absolute (canon, might i say) bicon right there.
and the acting. unparalleled. all of the characters are so well portrayed by their actors it's unreal. and the chemistry that the actors have with each other. it's so fucking incredible i'd imagine it'd have been a pretty great experience to see this live.
in the end, the book is spectacular, the music makes me want to cry, the whole show is incredible, send me an ask if you want me to drop a link to my favorite bootleg(s) and/or the libretto.
2. falsettos/the marvin trilogy
now i'm tired after waxing poetic about if/then for over 500 words. so i'll try and make the rest short.
i guess what i have to say about falsettos is. i have loved this show ever since i watched it over two years ago (fun fact: i forced my friends to watch it with me when they came over for my bday in 2019).
it is an incredible show. full stop. it's funny, it's a tearjerker. all the actors (in the obc, in the revival, etc) are so talented. the staging is so amazing (i mean. the block—or the lack thereof—in the revival. it's genius).
and the character development of marvin (and whizzer, for that matter) is so incredible. and i love all the characters in general. it's just. great.
3. rent
rent was actually the show that really diversified my musical taste.
i love the music. it slaps so fucking hard. i love the characters. they're all assholes, but they're lovable assholes, you know? (except benny he's just an asshole).
there's nothing more i can think of atm but i will wax poetic if i think of anything.
4. the prom
the music's great. (i love "dance with you" and "it's time to dance" so much!!!)
also i love greenelan so so much.
5. she loves me (2016 revival)
it's so funny!!
and the set is really something to behold
and the chemistry between zachary levi and laura benanti as georg and amalia is pretty damn great
and i love ilona in general
love me a good enemies to friends to lovers story
6. hadestown
it's such an incredible musical. and everytime i listen to the soundtrack i get chills. and i've loved it since....since april 2019, actually.
orphydice <3. also eurydice <3.
also persephone <3
also love me some 'fuck capitalism'
7. waitress
love me a funny musical that's centered around women.
i absolutely adore the relationship that jenna, becky, and dawn have. and the soundtrack is so hauntingly beautiful.
8. wicked
love me a musical that's centered around women full stop
i love elphaba, she's so incredible. when i first listened to this musical freshman year, i ended up seeing a lot of myself in her.
and elphaba's relationship with glinda <3 (romantic? platonic? i don't really know. either way, it's pretty great)
good character development?? love me some good character development
anyways i don't really know what's gonna happen with the wicked movie. in the end, hope it doesn't turn out bad and completely detract from the musical's main themes as musicals-to-movies so often do. (and the book. it's so different from the musical it's unreal. i still adore both, though, for differing reasons).
9. legally blonde: the musical
elle woods my love
anyways. incredible funny musical centered around women you get the gist
but it's so good i'm obsessed
elle and vivienne? i'm obsessed. elle and paulette? i'm obsessed. that scene where elle helps paulette get her dog back from her ex? or that scene where paulette and vivienne try to coax elle out of the supply closet before elle reveals that she hasn't actually given up? i'm so fucking obsessed.
it shows that you don't really need to change something about yourself to achieve your goals. and that's such an important message.
and emmett? love that he drinks his respect women juice. and laura bell bundy and christian borle's chemistry is unparalleled
10. something rotten!
if you can't tell, i love funny musicals. it's so self-aware and that's incredible
also, portia brooks.... <3 and bea bottom.... <3
#long post#thanks for the ask anon i spent way too long on the explanations#sorry if the explanations at the end are shorter than my if/then explanation i'm just really really passionate about this musical#the numbering of this list past number 3 is bound to fluctuate but i think this is a pretty good representation#ask#dear friend#if/then#falsettos#rent#rent musical#the prom#she loves me#hadestown#waitress#wicked#wicked musical#legally blonde the musical#something rotten!#musical theatre
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Random Lipstick Headcanons
I like red lipsticks and I like wearing lipstick when I want to feel like a bad bitch. Or when life’s being a badder bitch than me. I can at least struggle pretty ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
This is the bros reactions to you wearing a very complimentary, alluring lip color. Or power lip color. I don’t know what to call it. I guess this is gender neutral? I’m not trying to mention gender specifically.
They TOTALLYYYYY have a crush on you at this point. They just haven’t owned up to it.
May take a crack at writing a second part for the Undateables. I’m at chapter 21/22 and feel like they’re not really mentioned :/. Not enough for me to really know what they’re like.
Lucifer
Is very surprised to see you wearing lipstick. In fact...it’s the first time, isn’t it?
His heart stutters, almost as if the color scares him.
It doesn’t. It excites him. More than he imagines. There’s something about the pop of color that draws his eyes in immediately, like a moth to a flame
Or so he thinks. Lucifer thinks that sounds nicer. In truth, it’s like a magnet trying to drag him closer. Your lips are just suddenly...very enticing. He’s thought about kissing you a few times before now but he certainly doesn’t want to feel his resolve crumble because of some color!
And yet, it is the essence of beauty itself. He feels as if you should be immortalized in a painting. You exude a classic kind of charm that makes his dusty heart squeeze.
He’s a bit behind on human fancies, but is this an attempt at courtship?! You certainly have his attention!
Mammon
WOAH, WHAT’S THIS? WHY YOU BEING ALL FANCY, HUMAN?!
It doesn’t even have to be a glossy lip. No matter how tsundere Mammon acts, he’s INCREDIBLY perceptive when it comes to you. He notices the minutest of changes.
THIS IS A BIG CHANGE! IT’S BASICALLY A BEACON!
Your new lip color makes you a cool, shiny thing and Mammon LOVES shiny things.
He’s gonna be stealing so many glances!
You don’t even have to be trying for a sexy vibe to be sexy in Mammon’s eyes. You take his breath away with this lip color. He just---boy has to turn around and bite his lip.
His heart’s doing stuff it hasn’t done in centuries and oh baby, he wants that lip color all over him!
Will either act like you wearing lipstick is nothing special (like he doesn’t notice) or goes into mild interrogation mode. It’s not for some other demon, right?!
Wants to touch your lips and see what it feels like, but doesn’t.
Might try to drag you along to be a makeup rep for one of his photoshoots. Then you can try on lots of lipsticks and pose with him. They can do a kiss photo for swatches, right? Prove it’s transfer-proof or something?
His attention’s on you AAALLLLL day--especially your lips
If he notices it’s smudged, he’ll try to wipe it away or fix it with his finger. Might almost out himself with how gently he does so.
Levi
He’s no stranger to watching people do makeup--he’s a big fan of cosplay makeup and body paint transformation
There’s just...something different about when you do it. He tries to tell himself it’s because you live with him, but that doesn’t feel quite right
His eyes light up when he sees the way the color compliments your skin. It makes your eyes twinkle but he’s really focused on your lips
It wakes up something ancient and irrational in him; he wants to give you a pretty shell or rock for some reason??
He just gets all excited and wiggly. Even his tail wants to wiggle!
You’re just pretty, okay?! Not that you’re gonna know, dummy!
Subconsciously, he thinks it reminds him of beautiful, vivid scales. Then that sends him down a rabbit hole of how pretty you’d look if you had scales
In general, I headcanon that Levi can see the slightest differences in colors. He and Asmo are basically tied in this, and they far outpace the other brothers.
He’d be extra stoked if the color is from the blue or purple family because those can be hard to pull off but they often make really good looks
Being Levi, he can’t outright compliment you. He’ll just say ‘it’s probably good for a normie human lipstick, but have you seen THESE?!’ and shows you some of the flashier Devildom ones
HE SHOWS YOU A BUNCH AND GOD HE HOPES YOU GET AT LEAST ONE BECAUSE HE WANTS YOU TO WEAR IT! DON’T THINK HE’S WEIRD BECAUSE HE SAVED MAKEUP, OKAY?!
Get one with a slight shimmer or color change. Or better yet, do a gradient!
Levi would absolutely explode if you wore his colors!
If you do a TSL-inspired look, he’s going to die. And have dreams of you saying sweet things to him, the yucky otaku, with your pretty, pretty lips
Satan
Much like Lucifer, he’d want to wax poetic about how the lip color gives you an enchanting aura
Quite stricken, very flustered. He can hardly muster a witty remark.
Satan is basically grasping at straws and hoping his usual cool, toothy grin hides the fact that he’s ready to blush himself straight into a sunburn
Mild teasing, all of it good natured. He’ll pepper in comparisons to Helen of Troy or historical figures that resemble you. It’s mostly to see you blush, but it’s his way of saying it indirectly
He hasn’t quite come to terms with how much he likes you yet but he knows when he sees that lip color, he wants to smear it all over your cheeks and down your chin.
The idea of making a mess of something so pretty and carefully crafted just really gets his blood going. It’s a wicked thing, isn’t it? Symbolism for a demon corrupting a human? You could be his pretty human, yes.
If he wants to think or make a coherent sentence, he can’t look at you when you’re wearing lipstick
Subtly moves one of the books from a nearby stack into his lap because boy has a boner.
If you decide not to hang around or get pulled away by one of his brothers, Satan will disappear to indulge his fantasies of you wrapping those pretty lips around his cock. He’s not even mad about it. Not in the moment; he feels bad a few days later.
Asmo
His darling human is spreading their little beauty wings? Oh be still his beating heart!
He’s the first to compliment you and actually takes an analytical approach before the idea of genuine compliments pop up in his head. It’ll take him an hour or two to start getting a little flustered by you ‘dressing up’ and silently tormenting himself with ‘Is it for me? Is it for someone else?!’
Asmo can’t help but coo over how well you know your color wheel and how you match your undertones
The type to hold your face in his hands and pat your cheeks or squeeze them a little
Teases you about making lipstick swatches on his lips or his arms (”Or, you know, wherever. You can kiss me anywhere you like!”)
Wants to drag you away and see if any of his colors will look good on you
You will soon have a matching lip color! He’ll make sure of it!
BEGS you to let him swatch his lip colors on you, or apply them. He’ll make sure to take care of your lips in between--a lip mask, exfoliation, the works! (”I’ll even kiss them for you!”)
He wants you to try on all his lip colors because he wants to memorize how breath-taking you look in all the colors. Even if it’s platonic with some lusty teasing, Asmo has a genuine love for bringing beauty to people
In some ways, it makes his heart ache. It reminds him of when he was Heaven’s Jewel.
But now he’s here in the Devildom, and he doesn’t really regret it because he met you. You can be his jewel now, and maybe he can be yours. Maybe it all starts with some lipstick, hm?
Beel
He notices it but doesn’t really get the significance of it
Is there a reason? Is it for an event? Is this a dominance thing? An attraction thing?
Demon can see from a great distance, far greater than humans, and there’s a chance he sees you before you see him
In all honesty, he probably thinks you have something on your lips, like a sauce or something
It isn’t until you get closer that he realizes it’s some kind of lip product
If you’re happy, he’s happy
You always look cute but this color seems to make you happy and it gives you this bouncy glow about you. That makes Beel all warm inside, to the point where he wants to purr.
Sometimes when he gets really excited his wings want to buzz. They kind of want to buzz.
Doesn’t mean to, but can’t stop staring at your lips. It’s a color he’s not used to seeing on you and his brain recognizes that change
Wouldn’t be against you kissing him. What? It might transfer? He gets food and crumbs all over his face on the regular so it’s not a big deal.
You might be shy about it? Don’t want him to get teased? Well...you can always practice. You know, somewhere he can hide it. Just to test it, that is.
KISS HIS STOMACH! He’d be so damn close to a nut Beel would have to bite his own tongue or shove something in his mouth before you do it
Would wear your little kiss marks like a badge of pride so slap ‘em on wherever you want!
“Do they have orange lipsticks?” he asks. Blushes deeply immediately, not realizing he actually said it out loud. You should try one of those, he thinks. You know, because that’s his color and it’ll match his nails. He thinks that’d be neat.
Just wants you to kiss all over his chest and stomach.
Belphegor
Wary of the lipstick. Doesn’t trust it
Looks like a nightmare for his pillows. Paranoid about you getting it on his sheets
If he’s half asleep and notices it, the color change will jolt him awake long enough to really observe it
“For me?” he teases as he rolls over or pull himself from under covers and pillows to really look at you
It’s pretty, for sure, but you’re not coming anywhere near his bed unless you can prove it’s not coming off on fabric!
What’s that? You can?
Belphie probably says something sarcastic and mildly asshole-ish but you defend your precious lip product, talking about human reviews and tests and things. “People have kissed their boyfriends and girlfriends on camera! It works!”
He makes you kiss your arm (he’s a fucking idiot, should’ve asked you to kiss HIS arm) to prove it won’t rub off before he lets you rest on his bed with him
Snuggles into you like he always does, playing with your hair just the tiniest bit.
Belphie hopes it’s subtle but he’s slowing twining and inching his fingers closer to your face. Your lip color is almost mythical and he kind of wants to touch it after all the fuss he made.
Does it make your lips feel different? They look different. Would it react differently to demon skin?
Will tell you it looks nice and that you look pretty but if you ask him about it later, he totally denies it. Insists he must’ve been talking in his sleep
He dreams of you kissing him awake or kissing him to sleep with gentle cuddles and pretty lips
#Obey me!#Obey me! x reader#Lucifer x reader#Mammon x reader#Beelzebub x Reader#Beel x Reader#Levi x reader#Leviathan x reader#Asmo x reader#Asmodeus x reader#Satan x Reader#Belphegor x reader
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i saw your june 1st post and im just gonna ask.. do you even like darren as your bio states?
Since I have no idea what specific post you are referring to, I am going to answer with a general yes. Yes, I do. I adore him. HIM. The goofy swears like a sailor sex on a stick and sings like a dream brimming with intelligence and overflowing with talent fanboy who loves music and Broadway and Star Wars and his parents. The guy who appreciates his fans and once stood outside after Hedwig in the pouring rain to happily sign "soggy Playbills." The guy who made that heartfelt Instagram post a few months back talking about violence against Asian Americans. Having said all that: just because I support him and want all the good things for him doesn't mean that I have to unilaterally like all the things he says and does. He's a person with faults just like all of us are. If he says or does something that I personally don't agree with, I am under no obligation to support it. My fandom is not unconditional and I am allowed to be critical of things within reason. You don't want to live at either end of the fandom spectrum: blindly supporting every word said and treating it as gospel or flying off the deep end over the tiniest of things as you spend all your time posting nothing but negative comments and judging others who choose to remain a fan. This isn't a hate blog. If I didn't like him, I wouldn't care what he does or who he does it with. I would have washed my hands of him after glee ended and moved on. I wouldn't buy his music or have gone to see him in Hedwig and on the LMDC tour. I wouldn't have been over the moon excited for ACS and then sat here and dissected his amazing performance each and every week and been thrilled and so proud when he deservedly won all the awards for it.
What I don't like is the circus that surrounds him. You mention June 1 so I assume that the post you're speaking of has something to do with Pride? I feel like we have this same conversation every June. His supporting Pride and going to Pride events is not the issue. No one's annoyed that he's showing support for the LGBTQ community. Its the way its done that leaves a lot to be desired. For 5 seasons, he played one half of one of the most ground breaking, influential, and beloved tv couples ever to exist. A couple that just happened to be 2 boys. And as long as glee is airing somewhere on some platform, people will be reminded of them or discover them for the first time. He will always be connected to Klaine and that's not a bad thing or something to hide or be ashamed of. We know Blaine is a fictional character, no one needs clarification on that. What we also don't need are the constant reminders that while Blaine is gay, D is straight. Like super super duper straight, as his press has endlessly reminded us for the past couple of years. What annoys people - myself included - is that it looks like his support of Pride is conditional upon that straight image pushed forward with either an appearance in person of the wifey or a tactile reminder of her overbearing presence in his life. It looks awful and sends a terrible message: its ok for him to drape himself in rainbows at a Pride event and been seen as an ally as long as his lovely lady of many moon is right there next to him to reinforce his straightness. Because that is more important than anything else. Like that workout video from last June: there she was next to him all decked out in her rainbow warrior finest as heaven forbid he promote something without her. And you'll see plenty of people who called him out on it in the comments because it looks like he's cool with making money off of a community he says he's not a part of but still wants to dip his toe into as long as his ball and chain can be there. Who is a woman in case you didn't know.
Authentic D is eminently likable and that's who I stay for. I have oodles of posts where I wax poetically over him and all his many qualities. I tolerate all the rest of the bullshit but that doesn't mean I have to stay silent when it ticks me off.
#you can be a fan of someone and also be like dude wtf are you doing#there's a middle ground and its ok to live there#and I'm allowed to post about things that annoy me on my own blog#I'm not tagging him or sending it to him#critical thinking is a good thing
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I'm genuinely curious and don't want to start something! Just wanted to ask what you make of the 'Old Fritz might've been asexual' take, I don't know much about him and I feel you're one of the best people to ask esp since you lean towards 'he was probably queer in some way' too
Hey there! So, first off, don’t ever worry about me interpreting you asking me a question as starting something. As much as I love making dumb jokes about the guy, I love nothing more than doing this kind of stuff and defending or explaining my points. There’s two degrees I want to get over the next decade: first my JD and then my MA in Prussian history. I live for this stuff! Always have! Second off, I’m very sorry for not getting to this sooner. Things have been incredibly stressful for me for a variety of different reasons which have made answering your question, until now, rather difficult. Putting this under a cut because, holy shit, it got long!
My personal reasoning for why I think he’s bi (which, correct me if I’m wrong, I’m assuming is what you meant instead of ace and could be a different post entirely since some historians have tried to argue that) stems more to do with some of my lingering questions about the nature of his relationships with certain woman, rather than that of his relationships with men. To me and my modern, queer eye, Fritz’s relationships with men like Hans Hermann von Katte, Francisco Algarotti, Michael Gabriel Fredersdorf, and (much to my personal vexation) one Monsieur Voltaire are either outright homosexual/homoerotic in nature or very, very easily lend themselves to that interpretation rather than strictly romantic friendships (which Wikipedia does a fairly good overview of and, if you’re coming to me from AmRev perspective, uses Hamilton and Laurens’ relationship as a familiar example). While I’m avoiding those relationships in this ask, I’d be more than happy to elaborate upon one/all of them in a different one.
Before I go into the big pauses that Fritz’s relationships with Madame von Wreech and Countess Orzelska give me, I want to deny the use of Fritz’s wife as an example of Fritz’s attraction to woman. While this, admittedly, may sound odd, we have ample evidence of how turned off and repulsed Fritz found Elisabeth Christine. Before he had even met her, Fritz was complaining about how she was ‘not very pretty, speaks but little, and acts like a blockhead’ (Asprey, 87) and, later, admitted to Grumbkow his plan to ‘keep my word,...get married, but afterwards it will be a case of that is that, and goodbye, Madame, and fare thee well’ (Jones, 52). For Christ’s sake, the man pitied her knowing how his treatment would leave her as ‘one more unhappy princess in the world’! Which is little consolation when you remember he also referred to her with such romantic terms as ‘this unpleasant creature,’ ‘the abominable object of my desires,’ ‘the person,’ and claimed to have preferred to marry ‘the biggest whore in Berlin’ (Asprey, 87). And while we (fortunately? unfortunately?) know quite a bit about their sex life, Fritz largely regarded it as just another duty - to quote him, ‘I will only have the duty to fuck’ (Ibid, 87). And while Seckendorf heard - first, presumably from Count von der Schulenburg and, later on, Count Friedrich von Wartensleben, a close and intimate friend of the then-crown prince - that Fritz would ‘fuck and refuck’ Elisabeth Christine and that said act occurred in the afternoon, it still was out of a sense of obligation (Bely, 481-2). When reminded that if he wanted more money for frivolities, he’d need to produce an heir, Fritz bemoaned that he ‘cannot sleep with my wife out of desire, and when I do sleep with her, I do it out of duty rather than inclination’ (Clark, 50). All this in accumulation, as well as the myriad of other quotes and incidents I’ve left out, makes one wonder why his relationship with Elisabeth Christine is sometimes used by historians to prove any sort of heterosexual impulse in the man when she’s the woman with the weakest supports for that argument.
That being said, now we get to the women with a more muddled places in his romantic escapades, if you will. What exactly happened between Orzelska and Fritz during his trip with his father to Dresden in 1728? The main source for everything that occurred during this trip is Wilhelmina, who didn’t attend and without anything about this specific incident coming from Fritz or Friedrich Wilhelm I, make it rather hard to use as concrete, irrefutable proof. Now, if her recollections were contemporaneous - like coming from a diary or journal she kept at the time - that would be one thing. But it comes from her memoirs which, while a delightful read 10/10 recommend, are written decades after this trip took place and, memory being a finicky thing, can’t be taken to the bank. All those disclaimers, here’s the story as told by her:
‘One evening...,the King of Poland [note: Augustus II] insensibly led the King of Prussia to a very richly decorated room...The King of Prussia, delighted with what he saw, stopped to contemplate all its beauties, when [all of] a sudden a tapestry was rolled up, which procured him a very novel sight. It was a lovely female in a state of nudity [note: Countess Orzelska, the Polish king’s daughter], carelessly reclined on a couch. Her beauty excelled that of the finest pictures of Venus and the Graces; her body seemed of ivory, whiter than snow, and better shaped than that of the Venus de Medicis at Florence.
...Scarcely had the King cast his eyes on the fair one, than he turned about with indignation; and seeing my brother behind him, he rudely pushed him out of the room, and left it immediately after in a violent irritation against the trickery they had attempted to practice on him. ...In spite of the King’s vigilance, [Frederick] had had time to contemplate the Venus of the closet, who did not cause him so much horror as she had done to his father. (Wilhelmina’s Memoirs, vol. 1, 107-6)
Wilhelmina then goes on to claim Fritz had fallen ‘passionately in love’ with Orzelska and that the illness Fritz experienced upon returning home was simply being lovesick. Pinning the accuracy of this story is incredibly difficult because, again, we have only one source relayed decades after the fact and from two volumes of memoirs known to have inaccuracies. While I, personally, would love if he had had a tryst with Orzelska (who is such a badass in her own right and deserves more recognition than as a footnote in this guy’s story), there’s no one way to say with more than 30% confidence. I am inclined to believe something along these lines happened because if someone told me a story like this, lord knows I wouldn’t forget it for the rest of my life. And, with Wilhelmina being so close with her brother, it lends a bit more credence but as to the actual emotional or physical response Fritz had to it, well, without my time machine, I can’t and don’t want to say.
With Madame Eleonore-Louise von Wreech, things are a little more concrete. For starters, Fritz actually talked about her! In written correspondence that survived! We even have seven letters between the two of them that survived, which is a bigger win! As Blanning says, they’re ‘ardent but light in tone, ironic, almost flippant, and highly stylized’ (Blanning, 58). Their relationship was known to those close with Fritz at the time that Schulenberg felt compelled to visit and warn the crown prince against devoting himself to women because ‘the slight pleasures gained cause a million displeasures.’ Fritz’s response? To tell the poor guy that he may have ‘the gift of continence, but I assure you that I do not’ (Asprey, 83-4). Firtz even went so far as to send a letter to her mother, waxing poetic about Louise’s ‘beauty, her majestic air, her bearing, and her entire department.’ It’s worth noting that Louise eventually broke off the affair due to being bored by how he ‘loved [her] too much and often annoyed [her] with his clumsy love’ (Ibid, 84). Contemporaries, including Friedrich Wilhelm, believed Fritz had impregnated her with a daughter who her ‘cuckolded husband would refuse to recognize’ (Blanning, 58). Blanning is the only source I’ve seen dispute this due to this news coming from Seckendorf, who didn’t reveal how he came about this information; that Fritz and Madame von Wreech’s correspondence doesn’t indicate a physical relationship; and on the fact that she was not pregnant. I haven’t been able to find the birth dates or any sort of records for Louise’s two daughters to figure out where their conception could’ve been in the timeline and if it matches with the likely dates for the affair, but I also don’t have the resources Cambridge would afford Blanning. Either way, while the physical nature of the affair is in dispute, the emotional aspect certainly was there. Especially when taking into consideration the fact that she’s the woman Fritz was likely referring to in the 16 August 1737 letter to Voltaire where he claimed she had taught him how to love (and also inspired him to write poetry, which we shouldn’t be thankful for). Specifically, all these years later, he stated how ‘this little miracle of nature possessed every possible charm, together with good taste and delicacy. She sought to transfer these qualities to me. I succeeded well in love but poorly in poetry. Since that time I have very often been in love and have always been a poet’ (Fritz’s Oeuvres, vol. 21, 96).
All this to say, there’s a bit too much evidence of some degree of opposite-gender attraction in Fritz to completely write off the possibility that he could’ve been bisexual. While it’s undeniable he held a preference for men and that’s whose company he typically enjoyed, I still do find it interesting the two exceptions (one potential and the other with a fair degree of certainty) to this. And, while I would never want his attraction to men be minimized in favor of that to women, it still remains important to note to get the most comprehensive picture of the man.
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Loid opened the door.
“You’re married!?” A female voice screeched.
Loid closed the door. Holding it closed as the person on the other side banged against it frantically.
“Loid?” Yor’s voice was high and concerned. Butter knife clenched in her hand. “Who’s that?”
Anya’s eyes went wide. Loid pressed his forehead against the door as it pounded.
“That.” He lamented. “Is my sister.”
“Stop yelling. The neighbors are staring.” He scolded when he finally opened the door.
She shoved past him. Taking in the apartment. Surveying their domain before her eyes settled on them.
She was all blue eyes and wild blond curls.
His sister.
Yor’s hand stayed tight around the butter knife. Half afraid she attack.
The hand not holding the knife was firmly clasped between both of Loid’s sister’s. Blue eyes drilling into her as she opened her mouth – undoubtedly to comment on how quick it must have been or how she wasn’t good enough or how she didn’t approve- and said,
“You deserve better.”
The door clicked closed behind Loid as he sighed. “Olivia –don’t.” He plead.
“No you seriously do. I once listened to him wax poetic about bumblebees for eight hours straight and I once watched him dive into an empty swimming pool and-“
“Yor, Anya, meet Olivia Stahl. She’s been working abroad the last few years. She was an intern I helped train during residency.”
“You helped train me?” She turned on him. “I’m sorry which one of us drank that spiked cocktail just to prove a point about how strong his liver was? Because I specifically remember telling you not to drink it and then you downing it in one go because-”
He did not make eye contact with her. Eyes train well above her head as he continued on ignoring her. “I didn’t realize she’d come home. Lovely to see you again Olivia but I only made enough for three so you’ll have to be going now-“
“Auntie!” Anya jumped out of her chair and hugged her leg. Halting his shoving her back out the door. “I missed you!”
There existed gratitude and irritation in equal measure in his heart. Gratitude that Anya had decided to play along with the situation. Irritation that her ploy would slow his removal of Olivia.
Olivia smacked his stomach with the back of her hand. “Well your daughter has decided I’m staying so I’m staying! It’s fine I’ll just eat your portion.” She settled herself down in his seat with a smirk. Anya stared up at her expectantly. Olivia smacked her forehead and dug around her bag pulling out a small figurine. “Sorry I didn’t bring your official present Anya. I heard he’d tricked some poor woman into marrying him and I forgot your gift at home.”
She’ll just pick something up later and pretend she got it abroad.
“But maybe you can keep an eye on this little fellow for your Dad until then?”
It was a small figurine of a bumblebee. Incredibly lifelike. Its eyes tiny ordered hexagons. She frowned and shook her head.
He plucked it from her palm and set it on the counter. “A Bombus Fernaldae. Will you drop this joke? It was one time.”
“It was not just one time! And the fact you could identify what kind of bee it is says plenty about how much you secretly like it.” She turned her focus to Yor. Ignoring Loid’s put upon sigh. “So tell me how he managed to trick you into marrying him.”
“I- well I actually asked him?”
Her lips curled with revulsion as she stretched the word “Why?” into an eight syllable groan.
Loid sat down with a new plate serving himself a new meal while Olivia ate the remains of his old one. “Eden requires children who apply to have two married parents. She was helping us out.”
You’re telling her that? I thought we were keeping it quiet.
“Oh I gathered what you got out of it but I was asking what she got out of it.”
“She doesn’t owe you an explanation Olivia.” He scowled. Olivia yipped in pain drawing her legs up onto the chair.
“Don’t kick me!”
“Don’t interrogate my wife.”
“Is it blackmail? If you need me to get rid of him for you I can-“
“I’m not blackmailing her!”
The conversation rapidly dissolved into bickering. Full of stories and inside jokes that were thrown and discarded far too quickly to unravel.
Loid ran his hand through his hair for the fifth time in as many minutes. The floof levels rising higher and higher. His locks growing more and more bedraggled as they continued.
Anya’s wide eyes snapped between the two of them like a riveting tennis match.
“Actually,” She started, interrupting the flow of their verbal sparring. Loid froze mid stab of the steak on Olivia’s plate. Suddenly remembering they weren’t alone. “Loid helped me out. Being single at my age can attract the wrong kind of attention.” Screams of the people the secret police dragged away filled the space between words. “And my brother was worried. I was very lucky to meet Loid when I did.”
Olivia side eyed Loid. “Lucky. Right.” She smiled brightly at Yor. “You have a brother?”
Loid settled back into his chair, the impish grin falling away as the conversation drifted to calmer waters.
“Walk me out?” She requested after the last of the dishes were put away.
He nodded. Anya’s eyes followed them out the door.
“Anya you have to finish this if you don’t want to miss spy wars.”
Her focus turned back to the homework with a groan.
She offered a cigarettes to him.
“I quit.”
“For your fake family up there?”
He shrugged. “We’ve both read the studies. Seemed as good a reason as any.”
She blew out a smoke cloud. “Sure but it’s not like cancer’s going to get a chance to kill us.”
“Was there a point or did you just want to make my laundry more difficult?”
She hummed. “Can’t it be both?” Elbowed him.
He settled against the brick wall with a sigh. “What’s the job?”
“Get a solid night’s sleep? How’s that for a mission.”
His head tapped against the wall. Eyes closed and face turned upward to the hazy sky. It did nothing to hide the lines of deep seated exhaustion. “They send you to do a psych eval?”
“Should I?”
“I’m fine.”
“Fine like I’m just overworked but am actually fine or fine like you’d get your makeup perfect before going in for an eval?”
“My makeup is always perfect. Yours however-“ He tilted his head to peer down at her. Tossing a cheeky grin her way.
“Is impeccable.”
“Just like I taught you.”
“You did not!” Shoving him. He bobbed to the side dramatically before returning to his position. “They seem nice.”
“They are.” His eyes found the carton in her hand longingly. He tore his eyes away. “Bombus Fernaldae huh.”
“Going to pull a cuckcoo bee on them when the mission is over?”
“The mission comes first.”
“Not going to turn you in for wanting more asshole.”
His eyes dragged up to their window as she took a drag of the cigarette.
“We can’t be more than we are.”
“Did you just make a bee pun? Cause I will tell the entire department. I’ll report you for that. Assault on a coworker.”
“I rented a castle and they barely batted an eye. No one will believe you Nite Lite.”
“I have an actual title these days you know.”
“And I promise I will never use it.” He assured like that was the problem. Which it wasn’t. He pat her head. She considered biting it off. “Just overworked. This has been. Good for me I think.”
“Aside from the potential cleanup?”
“I try not to think about that.”
She snorted. “She deserves better.”
“Of course.”
“Don’t agree with me. It doesn’t make you less of an asshole.”
“She knows it’s fake. It’s not like I’m lying to her about that.”
“Oh so she knows that. Great and I’m sure your brat totally got the memo about how-“
“Stop.” His voice heavy and dark. “I didn’t design the mission.”
The smoke curled in the air. “Yeah I know.”
Cold threaded its ways slowly into their jackets.
“Did she actually propose?”
“She did. I was so shocked I fell flat on my face.”
“Ugh! Don’t tell me shit like that! Literally no one ever believes me when I tell them what a mess you are! It’s Agony! Agony you hear me?”
“So sorry my lying is more effective than your honesty.” He leaned over her. “It’s this handsome face of mine. People instinctively think I’m put together.”
She gripped his smug face. Shoving it away as he pushed against her. “I will break your handsome face and then we’ll see if anyone can put you back together!”
He laughed as she shoved him away. She stopped.
It sounded genuine.
It had been so long since she’d heard him laugh like that. Not since his last partner had been –
Twilight cocked his head at her questioningly.
“She still deserves better than you and your knockoff curries.” She told him one last time. Stamping out the cigarette butt with her shoe.
But it seems like she might be good for you.
#Spy x Family#Loid Forger#anya forger#Yor Forger#this is literally for the discord#and the oc they made
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Improbable Multiversal Transcending Temporal Spacetime Event
Pairing: Metacrisis Tenth Doctor/Rose Tyler
Rated: T
Word Count: 7,101
Summary: The best way to show someone you care is to blow up their job ... right?
Notes: I'm back!
And it's not a Tangled Timelines update (sorry!)
But it is something? I've had this in my WIPs for awHILE now, and when I was cleaning my studio the other night I found a planning page for it in a random tote bag and was like ... oh yeah. And the ending just came to me and I love it when that happens.
Hopefully there will be another chapter up for Tangled Timelines soon, though!
As always, infinite thanks to my wonderful beta, @hey-there-juliet who is fine with me randomly sending her fics at all hours and with no warning XP
All mistakes are mine, as always.
<<READ IT ON AO3>>
If the other him in the other universe had taken the time to imagine their human life together in a parallel universe, the Doctor doubted he would have pictured this. His imagination, when it came to Rose Tyler, was always quite whimsical. Happiness had made him impractical, really. Because despite all of the drawbacks, all of the reasons he currently loathed himself, the Doctor knew every single reason why the other truly felt like this was the best possible option.
But maybe it wasn’t.
Sometimes, despite it not occurring too often, he was wrong.
They had spent five and a half hours on the beach at Bad Wolf Bay.
(I create myself.)
She had been so upset; said that after everything they’d went through, everything she did to get back, the other him owed her a proper goodbye. She had stopped speaking to him when he told her that, actually, he would never give her a proper goodbye.
And she didn’t let him explain why. Now that he finally could.
Now it had been 57 days since she’d last spoken to him. Since he’d gotten more than a brief glimpse of her with his own eyes. That he’d spent piecing together a picture of what her life had been like here, without him. Such a short time, really, now that it was over (almost over), but yet also some of the worst moments of his entire existence.
It seemed fair that the multiverse would demand just that extra sequence of pain, considering everything he could potentially get in return. What another version of himself could only hope for, bitterly gambling eternities, following their timeline through all of it’s complicated swirls and turns, names weaving around each other, stamping themselves on the structure of creation.
Forever isn’t something that ends.
(How long are you going to stay with me?)
Quite the opposite, actually. And he knew, eventually, she would remember that. Knew it, but didn’t feel it.
The Doctor finally understood what all of the human writers meant about falling in love. Not just the terrifying sensation of the unstoppable freefall, but also the immense pain of crashing into the immovable object at the end of the journey.
They had sat on opposite ends of a Zeppelin. He had gone back to the Tyler Manor with Jackie, and Rose had gone back to her flat. Hoping to see her, talk to her, he had immediately joined Torchwood (once they agreed to his very detailed, highly specific, entirely ironclad contract). Their paths rarely crossed, and when they did it was just tiny, insubstantial moments.
A flash of her at the far end of a hall. Her name in a report (a lot of reports). Snatches of her voice, there one moment and gone the next.
It all made everything hurt so much more, somehow, having her so close but yet further than he could have possibly imagined.
But yet …
His imagination, when it came to Rose Tyler, was still quite whimsical. So when he tried to think of the bigger picture, waxing poetic, alone on his office couch, the Doctor tried to look at the last few years as the impact, and this as the aftershock. Still, philosophical jaunts weren’t exactly a solution to his problem. A temporary solution was moving his office even further away, so that’s what he did.
Plus, he found it kind of fitting, commandeering the inside of Big Ben. UNIT may have it in the prime universe, but in this universe he had the fancy landmark office. Well, office-slash-home (without Rose Tyler, a proper house with doors and things was absolutely unthinkable). Not that it was just about having a private laugh. The gears soothed him, the sound of ticking helped the gnawing emptiness that had filled his mind ever since the TARDIS dematerialized without him in it. The Doctor had thought it was kind of fitting - the closest he could possibly be right now to time.
Not that he wasn’t spending every possible spare moment working on the baby TARDIS, just a tiny piece of coral still, currently sitting in the extended electro-percussive environment chamber. He wondered if, in three years (his best-possible projected timetable), when the new TARDIS would be ready for flight, she would still not be speaking to him.
Incidentally, the emergence of that thought and the start of his supposed ‘self-isolation’ coincided to an alarming degree for how coincidental the two really were. The fact of the matter was, he was busy. Tons of experiments to run, alien equipment to identify, classify (and more often than not remove from Torchwood entirely), a baby TARDIS to tend to, and a backlog of Rose’s mission reports to hack into made spending slightly over three weeks in his tower easy.
The problem was the fact that during that time the Doctor avoided sleeping, barely remembered to eat, and existed on overly sugared tea alone. Not sleeping didn’t put the demons at bay, but at least when he was awake he wasn’t forced to confront the man he never wanted to remember being.
It had been 57 days since Rose Tyler had last spoken to him, and the Doctor detonated a bomb in the abandoned annex Torchwood had scheduled to be demolished and rebuilt.
Then the counter reset to zero.
“What do you think you’re doing?!” she yelled, barging into the top floor lab where he had been checking the readings on the EEPEC.
Everything that he wanted to say to her, and the Doctor was struck mute.
“Whatever plans you think you have, however good of an idea it is, for the good of the planet or, or the galaxy or what, you don’t just go blowing up buildings without a word to anyone! Do you know that everyone else was too scared to come up here and have a word with you, because that highly confidential ridiculous contract you drew up made its way through the gossips and isn’t so classified anymore. Now no one wants to go toe to toe with the man who ‘speaks for the planet’,” Rose growled through the air quotes. “So tell me, Doctor, what genius reason you’ve got for blowing up the Records Annex?”
A slow smile spread across his face.
“It worked.”
“What?”
“Remember ‘run’?” he asked, bouncing away from the baby TARDIS and circling her, picking up his new sonic screwdriver as he did and deadlock sealing the only door off the floor.
“Run?” she frowned as he circled back.
“Run,” he whispered in her ear as he passed, running up a small set of stairs to flip a giant switch that activated the clock-lights outside of their automated timer. Likely no one noticed outside with the sun still out, but it lit up the lab. “Henrik’s basement, Nestene Consciousness, shop window dummies, you and me. How did that night end?” he asked, with a manic grin as he skidded to a stop in front of her.
“Oh, that ‘run’,” Rose breathed, trying to fight back a smile. “You blew up my job.”
“I blew up your job.”
She huffed, blowing her bangs out of her eyes, and crossed her arms. His shoulders fell, exhaustion pressing down onto each and every bone of his new, much more fragile body.
“I just want to talk,” he told her, only a moment away from begging.
“Alright then. Talk.”
Everything he wanted to say to her, and all of it felt disjointed in his overtired mind. Yet she was here now, and if she left he didn’t have a new idea for getting her back again. So he talked.
“I’m sorry. That I made this choice for you, even if it was technically a different me who did it. I’m sorry that this is the best option, the safest option. I’m sorry I never got the chance to explain everything to you before. But I am never going to say goodbye to you, Rose. Never. And I know that the power of words doesn’t translate as well for you, the science of psycho-kinetic-telepathic influence on the elements of creation. But there are some things I can never risk saying aloud. There are some beings that exist, at least in our original universe, that could easily- … still, no matter what universe we’re in, I’m never going to say it. Forever, Rose Tyler. It’s longer than you can comprehend. An eternal silence stretching infinitely ahead, timelines swirling in every direction. This one is ours, if you’ll- if you could just- if you could see in twenty-odd dimensions and focused on individual temporal waveforms, the quantum reality of specific-”
“Doctor!” she shouted when his legs gave out, immediately grabbing hold of him, joining him on the floor.
“I’m fine,” he insisted, but when he moved to get back up she easily held him down. Rose gently manipulated his face, giving him a basic medical check. He couldn’t help but smile a little at how much she had learned while they were away, only to then frown at how hard he imagined it all must have been for her. Floundering, he tried to make a joke. “So, I’m still the Doctor?”
Which went ignored.
“You look like a wreck,” she told him, and it wasn’t new information. The Doctor now made much more frequent trips to the restroom and was well aware of how pale he was, of the dark circles under his bloodshot eyes. He had at least been making a disjointed effort to shave, which was another activity that had increased with his meta crisis, and admittedly it had slipped his mind for a couple days.
“It’s not easy, doing this without you,” he admitted. “But if you need more time, I want you to take it. I really am alright. There’s just so much I need to tell you, now that I can.”
“What do you mean, ‘now that you can’?”
“Different universe, firm walls in between. I don’t have to worry about using the wrong words at the wrong time and having cosmic consequences … for a lot of things, not all things. With our timeline in a different dimension and reality back as it should be, at least for the moment, I can tell you all sorts of things. Though the most important one, the one I’m never going to miss an opportunity to say, is that I love you, Rose Tyler. Forever.”
“I love you, too,” she sighed, caressing his cheek for a moment before helping him up. “But I’m still mad at you. Now you need sleep.”
“But I’m not done talking,” the Doctor complained, dragging his feet as she led him over to the sofa in the corner.
“We’ll talk more after you’ve gotten some rest, okay? I promise.”
“Thank you,” he sighed, more horizontal than he remembered being just a moment ago. Something soft and warm ensconced his body. He hadn’t realized how cold he had been until just then.
Another breath and black oblivion overtook him. Peaceful until it suddenly very much wasn’t.
A shockwave. A rift in time and space. A breached void. A crack in reality. A big red button. No more. Howling, howling, howling.
“Wake up!”
His eyes snapped open.
He didn’t know where he was. Nothing felt right; not the air, not time, not even his own body. The Doctor tried to do a quick systems check, and the results were all wrong. His hand flew to his chest, where only one heart was beating.
A choking scream echoed through the space, which seemed to be tick tick ticking, and he didn’t realize that it was him who shouted until soothing hands were brushing through his hair. Vision focusing, he saw Rose Tyler kneeling next to him, or at least it was something that looked like Rose Tyler. She felt too cool. Or maybe he was too warm.
“Are you real?” he asked, hoping that she wouldn’t lie to him.
Just one heart working, and it was beating too fast, refusing to slow down. The air was too thick, he couldn’t breathe.
“Yeah.” A sad smile. “I’m real.”
The Doctor didn’t know if he believed her, closing his eyes so that he wouldn’t have to see the moment she inevitably vanished. “I’m dying,” he told the being-who-might-be-Rose as he shuddered and collapsed back onto some sort of sofa.
“You’re fine,” she lied, but it was a lie she seemed to believe.
“Only got one heart beating,” he admitted, trying to get his breathing under control as his malfunctioning body began to sweat. The room ticked away, and he wondered if all of this was about to explode, if he should be running, if he even could run. His legs felt like lead. So did his arms. The air was too thick, dragging him down.
“That’s-”
The Doctor shut his eyes tighter, tears escaping that he hadn’t even realized were there. She must have vanished, just like he knew she would. And if she was never real to begin with, why did it have to hurt so much for her to go?
A weight rested on top of him, and he would never forget the feel of her. He vaguely wondered what it meant for him, to be having tactile hallucinations. Olfactory hallucinations. Even the buzz of time that had never left her skin after she took in the vortex was present.
“You’ve still got two beating,” Rose whispered as his arms wrapped around her in a tight hold that didn’t feel nearly strong enough to keep her. He wasn’t strong enough to keep her.
Her heart beat steadily over where his right heart had failed.
“I’m scared,” the Doctor admitted, eyes still closed though it was oddly easier to breathe.
“I’ve got you.”
“Please be real,” he whimpered, even as his mind grew foggier.
She said something, but he didn’t know what. Everything was fading away, darkness becoming darker, becoming void.
Nothing.
The Doctor awoke alone on the couch in his office. According to his time sense, he had slept for eighteen hours and twenty-one minutes. He felt better than he had in weeks, but also so much worse. He grabbed his pillow and screamed into it.
“What’s wrong now?”
The pillow dropped from his hands and his eyes locked with Rose’s as she raced up the slight stair onto the platform that separated his primary workspace from the rest of the top floor.
“What?” His voice cracked.
Rose Tyler sat next to him on the couch, hand immediately resting on his forehead, primitively gauging his temperature. The Doctor cleared his throat before trying again.
“Rose, what are you doing here? Not that I’m not glad, I’m so very, very glad you’ve come.” Her hand dropped away and he was able to get a good look at her, dressed in a pair of his boxers and one of his shirts (Jackie had bought him a ridiculous amount of clothes before he left the manor, all of which he sent out to be cleaned). He swallowed audibly. “W-why are you wearing my clothes?”
“‘M locked in here. Door’s deadlock sealed.”
Flashes of memories began to speed through him. Attaching a re-calibrated Tziklian implosion grenade to a newly-repaired retroreflective Clishtahrr drone. Obsessively trying to circumvent his vision in order to peer at his own timeline, making himself sick. A contained rift event in the lower levels of the tower that made him feel like he had looked into the untempered schism again.
(Run, run, run!)
“I’m sorry. I don’t … I’ll just …”
He pushed himself up onto unsteady legs, found his sonic screwdriver and unsealed the door. And he wished he hadn’t trapped her with him, even if he was starting to remember why (inky black terror crawling up his spine, wrong universe, wrong universe, wrong universe).
“Do you remember what happened yesterday?” she asked, following him as he went to check the TARDIS on autopilot, looking as if she was worried he would collapse (again).
“It’s coming back to me,” the Doctor admitted. Still had a good four hours to go before the shatterfry process would be complete. He straightened his shoulders, trying to stand tall as he turned to face her. “Things got a little, uhm, unpleasant. I’ll do better.”
“Unpleasant,” Rose scoffed. “I’m pretty sure you had a bleedin’ breakdown!”
“It’s been a difficult regeneration,” he deflected, turning away, leaving the platform and making a beeline to the tiny kitchenette tucked off to the side. Tea. He just needed more tea.
“So, this how it’s gonna be, then? All that stuff about wanting to talk, but now you’re just done?”
He nearly spilled the kettle with the speed of his turn, brows furrowed and mouth falling open. “What? Of course I want to talk!” the Doctor exclaimed. “Just, er, what did I say? Before?”
Memory was still a bit of a blur. Successful energy funnel for the TARDIS’ growth tank. Vodka tasting different in a universe without potatoes. Reports saying: Correct universe. Wrong time - past. No contact.
“You don’t remember?”
“I said it was coming back to me, it’s just not coming in the right order.” he sighed, refocusing on the tea.
“Well, what’s the last thing that you vividly remember?” Rose asked, moving around him, easily finding mugs and sugar and milk.
“Thirteen days ago, creating a temporal disruption chrono-field manipulator. Needed to siphon rift energy for our TARDIS. She needs a very specific growth environment.”
“Thirteen days?! Wait, siphoning the-” She leaned against the tiny countertop and covered her face with her hands. The only sound for a few moments was of the electric kettle quickly boiling the water. “Our TARDIS?”
“If you want,” the Doctor muttered, lifting a hand, wanting to touch her, but then thinking better of it. He clenched his fist as it dropped to his side.
Rose groaned as she turned back to him. “Of course I want that, you daft alien git! But you don’t exactly make things easy, do ya? I spent years getting back to you, and then suddenly there’s two of you and one of you abandons me just like I was always afraid of, but one of you stays and I’m expected to be able to process any of it? And then for weeks it’s an effort just to give myself space, knowing that wherever I go you’re so close, part of me wondering why I’m even trying to stay away when all I wanted for ages was to be back with you. Then suddenly you’re gone! I still know where you are, but there isn’t a chance that I’d actually run into you. And I still don’t know what to feel, but coming here yesterday, seeing you … I don’t think I’ve ever seen you look so broken.” There were tears in her eyes. His nails dug into his palms with the effort it took not to wrap his arms around her, to wipe them away. “I can’t help but feel like it’s my fault.”
“It’s not. It’s my own fault. You haven’t done a single thing wrong,” he assured her.
“That’s not true and you know it,” she tried to laugh, but it came out watery. “I’ve been an absolute cow. And I still haven’t answered your question. You’d said some things about words being a type of science, and that you could say things here that you couldn’t in the other universe. Like you were paranoid, under surveillance or something? I think you tried to describe how your time sense stuff works, but you almost fainted.”
“Fifty-seven days without you and that’s what I was talking about?” The Doctor grimaced.
The kettle clicked off.
“If it makes you feel better, it was kinda romantic. The stuff about not saying goodbye and forever and blowing up my job.”
“Blowing up your what?!”
“That’s why I had to come here. You blew up the old Records Annex.”
“Riiiiight. That explains the drone bomb. It’s not like they weren’t going to blow it up anyway. Didn’t I help?”
Rose rolled her eyes before moving to fix both their teas. “We’ll get into that later. Right now I don’t even want to talk about us. I wanna know about you, what you’ve been doing these past two months. Because I didn’t even stop to think what this all must be like for you.”
Cuppa in hand, the Doctor led her back to the couch as he tried to think of how best to explain something that he barely understood himself.
“I was created in a two-way human-Time Lord instant biological meta crisis. Hundreds of years as one being, then suddenly two. Exact same mind, almost the exact same body, but different enough that I can barely comprehend existing in it. If you remember, the first forty-eight hours of the regeneration cycle are complicated and dangerous. Barely a few hours into mine I was dropped outside of the prime universe that all Gallifreyans are meant to exist in, cut off from all telepathic contact as the walls of reality continued to sway, slowly falling back into place. It’s been … an adjustment. Sometimes things don’t feel real, even when they are. Sometimes things feel incredibly real, even when they aren’t.”
“You had a nightmare,” Rose told him, placing a hand on his shoulder, thumb rubbing soothing circles through his layers. “I woke you up, tried to help. You didn’t think I was real. You thought you were dying, because you only had one heart.”
He tried to smile, and the action felt painful. “Sounds about right.”
“I’m sorry. If I hadn’t been so selfish-”
“There’s nothing for you to apologize for. I want you to put yourself first.”
“But I can’t stand seeing you in pain like this. What can I do to help?” she asked, a desperation in her eyes that he couldn’t bear.
“You’re already helping,” the Doctor sighed, finally giving in and leaning into her touch, lying his head on her shoulder. It was the closest he’d felt to time since they’d been left on that bloody beach.
Memories were still racing through his head. Energy coils radiating artron energy into a centrifuge. The smell of burnt flesh against the remains of a Bverni navigational system. Reports saying: Correct universe. Wrong time - future. No contact.
“The other Doctor said that you needed me.”
He laughed, but there was no humor in it.
“Yes, because he needs you. He also said that I was dangerous. I am. He is. We are. But you already knew that. It’s easy, you know, to yell at yourself. Not often that there’s actually a separate you there to yell at. I destroyed the Daleks, but we’d already done that before we met. In fact, so did you. The other me was lashing out, knowing what he would have to do but not wanting to do it.”
“That’s another thing,” Rose said, moving to face him, dislodging his head, “you said that us being here, in this universe, was the best, safest option. What was that about?”
“Something’s coming. Has come. Ended and began. There’s a massive paradox surrounding me in the other universe. Incredibly dangerous, potentially catastrophic. All I know is that it has something to do with a woman named River Song who claims to be my wife.”
“Your wife?!”
“I said claims. And she did seem to be telling the truth, besides the fact that what she was saying was entirely preposterous. My soul is entirely bound to yours.” The Doctor took her hand and squeezed it. “So I think I have an idea of the kind of man I’ll have to become in order to keep the universe intact.”
“What’s that?”
“A liar. If she is going to believe that I could possibly join myself to someone else, someone who isn’t you, I’m going to have to lie. I’m going to have to forget. I’m going to have to lie so well and for so long that even I believe the fiction I’ve created for myself.”
He wondered what the other him in the other universe would think, then, whenever he caught a rare glimpse at their timeline surrounded in gold, bound with Rose’s for all eternity. What kind of explanation he would craft. The Doctor shuddered.
“But that sounds horrible!” she cried.
“It’s the sacrifice he’s making for the sake of the universe. My timeline is dangerous and someone, something is tampering with it. You and I made one tiny little paradox and it almost destroyed everything. This one is circular, might be able to be maintained, but the scale of it, Rose. And who knows if it will even work. River seems great and all, at least I hope so, but I don’t think she has much of a handle on time travel. That, or she’s a manipulative psychopath. Suppose that’s a surprise for the other me to find out.”
Rose sniffled and he pulled her into a hug.
“He’s going to be all alone.” The words were muffled into his shoulder, his shirt growing damp with her tears. He cringed and tried to think rationally, that of course she would feel this way, that it had nothing to do with how she felt about him him. But then again, maybe it did.
“He won’t be alone. He’ll find someone. I always do, eventually.”
“B-but I-”
“We’ll figure it out. How to get you back there, once it’s safe,” he whispered into the top of her head. Maybe that would be it- what she needed this him for. And if so, it would be enough. It would have to be enough.
“Really?”
The Doctor nodded, not trusting himself to speak.
“So it’s not- you really weren’t abandoning me here?” Rose lifted her head, eyes brimming with a hope that had been missing before.
“Never.” The word felt as if it was torn out of his very being.
She cupped his cheek, stubble beginning to smooth out into the beginnings of a beard. He really needed to shave.
“I thought you said to never say never ever?”
“That was before.”
It occurred to him that he had tea, so he took a sip - it had gone cold.
“Oh, right, all the, uhm, psychic-kinetic-telepathy science stuff.”
He opened his mouth to correct her - she was very close, though - but was interrupted by the ringing of the giant clock. It was heavily muffled by the sound proofing adjustments he had made while setting up the office, but still audible enough.
“It’s eight now, yeah?” Rose asked, even as she moved away.
“Yes.”
She walked over to his desk, where the Doctor now noticed a pile of her folded clothes sat. He frowned when she brought them over to him.
“Do you think you could sonic these clean for me? I’m gonna quick hop into your decontamination shower.”
“Th- there’s a proper shower, it’s two floors down. First left, third right, door marked ‘Security Level Alpha’.”
“What, really?”
“Didn’t want random lab techs using it. Has a retina scan. It’ll let you in.”
Rose laughed, ruffled his hair, and gave him a kiss on the cheek before disappearing to get ready for work. The whole thing left him confused. He went through his list again, checking and double checking to make sure that this all was real . It was, just as it had been all morning.
More memories. Recalibrating the tower’s new sub-basement weapon’s vault. Burnt toast and no more jam left. Reports saying: Correct universe. Wrong time - future. Contact made.
It wasn’t fair that she had spent almost an entire day with him yet he had missed most of it. Still, he sonicked her clothes, as well as his tea. Finished his cuppa, and then had a second before Rose came back from her shower.
“Why’s there no one around?”
“Dangerous radiation leak,” the Doctor shrugged. “I fixed it almost as soon as it happened, but apparently there’s ‘procedures’. How’d you get in?”
She bit her lip, fighting a smile. “Mighta shot a few of your doors,” Rose admitted, picking up an electro-pulse blaster off of a nearby cart. Non-lethal on organic matter. Very effective on fancy doors. “Nobody told me anything about a radiation leak, though.”
“Classified radiation leak.”
“And why’s that?” she scowled, hands on her hips.
“Everything to do with time travel is classified to this office. Bethany is not being very cooperative about putting you down as a liaison-whatever. Please believe me, I wasn’t trying to keep anything a secret.”
“Oh.” Rose glanced over at the EEPEC, absently biting her thumbnail.
The Doctor didn’t know what she was thinking, didn’t know if he should ask. After a moment she disappeared into the loo to change, promising to be back in a tick.
It was a funny multiverse, really, that his reunion with Rose Tyler would be such a stilted thing. That it would be about him and her, but not this him. Acknowledged with a few questions after his health, sure, but that was just polite. She’d always been compassionate, caring for others. Rose didn’t see him as the Doctor. Not the proper one. Sure, she used his name, but it would be easier for her to do that this time around.
He looked just like him.
He was him.
But he wasn’t.
Memories were still coming. Adjustments to Torchwood’s alien tech retrieval protocols. Nutrition shots. Reports reading: Correct universe. Wrong time - past. Contact made.
He went through the list again. Still real.
Unless it wasn’t.
Unless he wasn’t.
What would have stopped the other Doctor from knocking him out and uploading him into a matrix? Giving him a half-life with a programmed Rose Tyler?
The air here felt wrong.
(Wrong universe. Wrong universe. Wrong universe.)
“Doctor!”
(Daleks exploding. “What have you done?!”)
Pressure against his hands. Why was it so dark?
The Doctor opened his eyes to see Rose in front of him, pulling his fingers away from his palms. Oh. He was bleeding. Hadn’t even noticed.
“Sorry, sorry.” He spun away from her in order to grab the first aid kit from his desk.
“What happened?” she asked, vibrating with barely contained panic.
“Nothing, nothing. Things just got jumbled for a second,” he assured her, efficiently cleaning his palms and wrapping them in gauze in a practiced motion.
“How often do you-”
“Hard to say. I’ve been graphing them. Seems to be stress contingent, but generally decreasing. My senses are gradually acclimating to this universe, so I have to hope that once they do, I’ll be fine. Perfect. Molto bene. No inconvenient lapses.”
“Stress? What h- oh.”
He didn’t like the sound of that ‘oh’. The Doctor clenched his jaw before facing her.
“We still haven’t talked about us,” Rose pointed out, approaching him slowly. Like he was a wild animal. Like he would hurt her. “And you … you don’t really remember yesterday still, do you?”
“Not really.”
His hands hurt. His body ached. One heart, and it was beating so quickly that he was sure it would give out.
Rose wrapped her arms around him and he automatically returned the embrace.
“Maybe I should just call in,” she suggested as she pulled away. “We can just take the day?”
“Or don’t and stay anyway,” the Doctor couldn’t help pointing out. “Some bits have come back, and didn’t they send you here?”
She burst into laughter. “Oh my god, they did!”
And it was beyond words, how great it was to hear her laughing again. To see her smiling.
But …
That was wrong.
Rose was upset with him.
Time didn’t feel right.
The air tasted off.
Wrong Universe. Wrong Universe. Wrong Universe.
The Doctor staggered backwards.
His respiratory bypass was malfunctioning. It was like it wasn’t even there. He couldn’t get air into his lungs.
Everything went black.
There was a shot of gold, and then a different kind of black.
“Doctor,” said a whisper in the dark. “The timer went off for the TARDIS. ‘M I supposed to take her out of that thing?”
A TARDIS timer?
TARDIS … timer …
The timer for the extended electro-percussive environment chamber!!!
The Doctor shot up from where he had apparently been lying on the couch and ran over to the EEPEC, swiftly shut it off, removed the tank housing their baby TARDIS, and then poured in the pre-prepared aqueous nutrient solution before inserting the tank into the quasi-dimensional artron chamber (currently set to it’s highest opacity setting).
“Hah!” he exclaimed, punching his fist in the air and itching to switch the chamber’s outside view settings to transparent. He turned to Rose, opened his mouth to ask her, and then paused.
It all came back to him, all of it, not just the jumbled recollections he had been getting earlier. Apparently he had fallen into a healing coma, and it seems to have been just what he needed … but it all truly hadn’t been fair to Rose. Though, to be fair, she was currently smiling like it was Christmas, so-
Christmas. Healing comas.
Huh.
“Shall we switch it to transparent?” the Doctor asked, unable to reign himself in any longer. “It was clear when Benny - quite the coincidence, right? - helped me set it up. This is a quasi-dimensional artron chamber. It’s funnelling in rift energy and centrifuging artron particles, and the end result in that chamber is the specific environment needed to properly grow a TARDIS. Well, along with the chrono-nutritio aqueous habitat. Benny describes looking into it as being similar to taking DMT, which, by the way, is completely inaccurate. It’s exactly like looking into an Eye of Harmony. If it’s malfunctioning, it’s like looking into the untempered schism, which I don’t recommend. But everything’s stable now, we could-”
“I thought I wasn’t supposed to look into the vortex?” Rose interrupted, and …
“Right … erm, well ,” he hedged, scratching the back of his neck, “I mean, it isn’t actually the vortex, but you’re probably not completely wrong. Best not risk it.”
Excitement abating, the Doctor slumped against the chamber and at that moment realized that he had been changed into jim jams.
Jim jams. Healing comas.
Huh.
At least these were his own pajamas, and not some ‘friend’ of Jackie’s, though how strange was it that he owned his own pajamas in the first place?
“C’mere,” Rose said, beckoning him back toward the couch, which she was sitting next to, but not on. Not your typical decision, but he had likely taken up all of the space earlier. “I made you some tea.”
It really wasn’t worth it, cataloguing the similarities between this and when he had first regenerated into this body … even though the list did seem to be growing.
“Perfect! Just what I need!” the Doctor smiled as he walked over, taking a seat next to Rose on the floor.
Silence fell as he sipped his tea, and he found himself unsure of what to do or say next. There was too much to say, and he’d certainly done a piss poor job of organizing his thoughts earlier.
“Feeling better?” she asked, after another moment.
Small talk. He could definitely do small talk.
“Mmm yes, very much so.”
“Better enough to talk?”
The Doctor coughed, having swallowed his tea incorrectly (bloody hybrid body, still acting up), before nodding. Rose moved onto the couch and he scrambled to join her.
“So,” she began and paused, face scrunching up in concentration (it was nice to know that he wasn’t the only one who found this whole business incredibly awkward), “I guess … what is it that you actually want? Aside from a working TARDIS, that is.”
His brows furrowed.
Sure, there were plenty of ways he could answer that question and have all of them be true, but he had a feeling that she was looking for a specific type of ‘want’.
Problem was, the Doctor wasn’t quite sure what that was .
“What?” he asked, in lieu of any better things to say (as the runner up response was to ask for some jam, or maybe a banana, or some of the takeaway from the shop down the corner and blimey, he was hungry).
“This whole time, all of it, since you c- since you were- since you stopped just bein’ a hand- ” the Doctor had a list of complaints and corrections that he barely held in “- nobody’s asked what you wanted. The D- the other Doctor chose for both of us, really, and I hadn’t really looked at it that way before. An’ I wanna know. What do you want?”
Removed from the actual experience itself (and therefore not feeling incredibly, deathly ill), visions of the slight peek he’d gotten four days ago of his own timeline played in his head.
The Doctor grabbed Rose’s hand, weaving their fingers together.
“I want this.”
She smiled and gave his hand a squeeze.
“Care to elaborate?” she asked with a slight laugh.
“Nope,” he replied, popping the ‘p’. “Because as long as you’re happy, everything else is just- just semantics. I mean, obviously it’s going to be a bit dull until the TARDIS has grown enough for proper travel, but I think we can make do?” At least, he really hoped so. It hadn’t been going swimmingly so far, but the Doctor sincerely hoped that he could chalk all that up to the initial side effects of the meta crisis, compounded by all of the, er … technical difficulties he had run into while constructing the TARDIS’ growth tank. Also, his new hybrid body needed much more maintenance than he was used to, including sleep. Really was rubbish without regular sleep. Such a waste of time.
“So, if I were to suggest you moving into the flat?”
He opened his mouth, intending to immediately agree, but then frowned. The TARDIS was here, after all. And he absolutely could not move her. Not at this stage. Not until she could connect to other dimensions on her own. The Doctor looked over at the quasi-dimensional artron chamber, once again wishing that he could switch it to transparent and watch the process unfold.
“How moved in is moved in?” he asked once he forced himself to turn back toward Rose.
“You’d sleep there, shower there, eat some of your meals. Most of your clothes an’ stuff would be there. Y’know. It’d be where you live. With me. If you want.”
“And that’s what you want?” he double checked, trying not to telegraph his surprise - he must have missed a lot while in a coma, as last he knew they were teetering on the edge of a row.
Rose rolled her eyes, and that was much more in line with where he thought they were at, er, relationship-wise.
“Well, I don’t fancy living in a clocktower office. When I’m done working, I’d like to not still be at work, ta.”
She did make some excellent points … but still, it all implied that they would be staying together. And that was what he wanted, of course it was, but the Doctor still couldn’t help but feel he had missed something crucial despite the fact that he could now remember everything clearly.
“You blew up my job. ”
“I love you, too. But I’m still mad at you.”
“You’ve still got two beating.”
Maybe there wasn’t something to have missed. Human emotions were relatively complex, after all, and there was no rule requiring them to happen in isolation.
“Are you still mad at me?” he asked, realizing as he did that to Rose it was coming from seemingly out of nowhere.
This was confirmed as she blinked, brows furrowing.
“I don’t know. Maybe a little, but …”
“But?” the Doctor repeated, unable to stand the suspense.
“It’s hardly the first time we’ve had a fight, yeah?”
He nodded, unsure of where she was planning on going with this and hoping that he wouldn’t need to begin apologizing for every insensitive thing he’d said or done since they first met. It would take ages.
“Well, we always end up workin’ it out. And we did live together, travelin’ on the TARDIS, whether we had a row or not, so …” Rose shrugged, now examining her fingernails.
Speaking of the TARDIS, though …
“First things first,” the Doctor began, rubbing the back of his neck as he stood up and began pacing, “I want it on record that I would absolutely love to live in a flat with you, with carpets and doors and things. Assuming we’d spend much of our time traveling about, that is.” He turned back toward her, having paced his way back over to the TARDIS’ QDA chamber. “The thing is, it’s … I don’t want you to think that- the TARDIS. She needs me here. This is a critical development period. For the next three to six months, the TARDIS will be growing in the chamber, learning how to connect to and create dimensions. Until she can manage it, I can’t move her and she requires near-constant monitoring. Every hour or two.”
“She’s like a newborn baby,” Rose commented, getting up and joining him at the chamber, where she stroked the side.
“Exactly.”
“Well, I suppose this’ll have to do then,” she reluctantly … agreed? “As long as we’re living in the flat as soon as she’s moveable, mind. The bathroom here is two floors away.”
“It’s a clocktower, Rose! There’s only so much space.” The Doctor scrunched up his face as he said the word.
“Then why’d you pick this place? I know because of the Rift, but doesn’t it stretch further than just the tower?”
“Nope,” he shrugged.
It’s not as though he hadn’t checked.
“Really?”
“Small rift.”
“Yeah,” Rose laughed, “a small rift right under Big Ben.”
The Doctor laughed with her, amazed that he finally could.
Then he frowned.
It was all a little too good to be true.
Was this real?
“Hey.”
He refocused. Rose was right in front of him, their eyes locked.
“You were getting that look in your eyes,” she informed him.
“Look? What look?” the Doctor asked, though he was pretty sure he already knew. Some sort of dazed tell, some sort of glaringly obvious indicator that his grasp on reality was failing him.
“This look you get when you start thinkin’ you’re in the wrong universe.”
Wrong universe, wrong universe, wrong universe.
“Well, I am in the wrong universe,” he couldn’t help but point out.
“Yeah, I know. Me too. But y’know what?”
Rose wrapped her arms around him, and it was almost as if she were his tether, grounding him to this new reality they’d found themselves in.
“It’s better with two.”
#TenToo x Rose#doctor x rose#pairing: rose x doctor#timepetals#fic: improbable multiversal transcending spacetime event#fandom: doctor who#my fic
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7, 14, 15, 18
7 - do you prefer poems or love letters?
this is a tough one....ok, i am assuming that since this is valentines-related, this is asked with the tacit presumption that both are, in some way, aimed towards me. would i be more smitten by a poem or a letter...so on.
i think both would be very flattering, and i feel bad choosing one over the other in the sense that it implies one is inferior, in a way. waxing poetic is endearing but a love letter betrays a deep willingness to be honest and sincere. so....i suppose the latter? that's a noncommittal answer. grr... pacing in a circle.
14 - what is your favorite candle scent?
would you believe me if i said that i do not buy many candles! it's a shame - but it is true. i suppose i'm going to have to DIY guerilla this question...er...okay. let me look up some candles and say which sound appealing.
lavendar, palo santo, coffee...stuff like that are, you know, the classics in a sense. there's no one who really hates or dislikes those scents to much of a degree, they're safe and nice. but they're also somewhat boring, i would think. but when you decide to start descending that pit of scents, you start to experience aromatic phantasmagorias. i don't know if 'phantasmagoria' works in that sentence, but, it is a nice word and i like using it.
i feel like "lily of the valley", "cedar" and "black currant" would all really get me going. they have that schmeck of simplicity while still being interesting &, ah, dare i say, 'cool'. or out there in a sense.
hmmm. ok. i'm gonna put down the answer for this one as a tentative "Black Currant", yeah. and take that as you will.
15 - what's your ideal first date?
despite ranting and raving so much about love and how nice it would be to love and be loved, i've never really thought about this. the, physicality of it, the perfect conditions. "it doesn't really matter" isn't a particularly satisfactory answer. let me try to think of some broad statements that still narrow down what i like.
i think i would like for it to be lazy. "close the blinds and turn off the lights" lazy, "turn on the AC and i can play us some music" lazy, "maybe we can just chill in my living room and watch seinfeld" lazy. i would like for it to be self-contained, in a bubble of sorts, i want it to be isolated and untouched by anything outside - hence the lights, the blinds... i want it to feel very lethargic. being lethargic in a comfy space together. that would be nice! i also just don't like being in public spaces...
though, i suppose this approach would necessitate a level of familiarity beforehand - which could be seen as a flaw. but i'm going into it with the forethought that i'm very skeptical of dating someone i'm not already very close with. something something...
ok, i suppose that's actually quite specific and not at all broad. but - any private affair with not a lot of excitement and copious amounts of chilling. i have the sensibilities of an 80 year old.
though if i'm truly infatuated with someone, i'll do and go basically whatever and wherever they want. i'm a little bit of a lackey in that regard. or maybe like a purse dog.
18 - chocolate, vanilla, or red velvet?
i will be honest here, and admit that i have never in my life tried red velvet. and i don't imagine i'm particularly missing out on anything...it sounds, likeee...just okay, right? it's not anything to get all hot and bothered over. i imagine if i tried it i would place it at the bottom of all 3. so i guess i'm disqualifying it in this question.
chocolate or vanilla...hmmm! that is a tough cookie. both are very basic flavors, known by everyone, ever-present, it's like picking between water and air.
but...i will bite the bullet and say that i like vanilla a lot more. vanilla is a preferable flavor in almost every situation - save, maybe, milk. vanilla milk sounds much less of an enticing prospect than chocolate milk.
and that's all she wrote, i think. thank you for sending an ask :] love you
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i don't have a specific prompt number in mind but...... first kisses with blupcretia? :O
Lup’s felt it for about a week now. If she’s being honest with herself, it’s been deep inside her for longer, but she really only addressed it and properly defined it last week.
She has a crush on two of her best friends. When she told Taako during a Twin Sleepover™, he wasn’t surprised; actually, he was, but only at how long it took her to realize.
He listened to her wax poetic about the both of them and lament about how she doesn’t know what to do. After she was finished he told her that the Lup he knows doesn’t let things like anxiety stop her. But Lup knows it’s more than that.
There’s a lot to consider. What if neither of them like her back? What if they’re uncomfortable with polyamory? What if only one of them likes her back? That’d be just as bad, because she can’t imagine Lucretia without Barry, or Barry without Lucretia. It’s not her wanting to date both of them separately, she wants them both together. She feels whole when all three of them are together, and one person being missing from that would feel like if Lup was missing a vital organ.
She feels that desire, that crush, right now. The three of them are alone on the Starblster’s deck; nothing but them and the stars. They’re supposed to be looking to see if the Light falls, but they’ve ended up stargazing instead.
“That one! Right there,” Lup says, pointing. “It looks like a pineapple, can’t you see it?”
She looks to her left, seeing Lucretia adjust her glasses and squint into the sky, neck craning back. “Kiiind of? I dunno, still looks like a rabbit to me.”
Lup whips her head to the right. “What about you Barry?”
Barry shrugs, also staring at the constellation in question. “It’s a bouquet of flowers.”
“What?” both girls say, turning on him with confusion (Lucretia) and mortification (Lup).
Barry puts his hands up. “That’s just what I see! I— I guess I can see a rabbit or pineapple, but my first impression was bouquet.”
“You’re insane,” Lup says to him, then turns to Lucretia. “Both of you. Your human eyes are weak and inferior. Speaking of! How can you even see in this lighting?”
All lights are off, the purple nebulae washing them in a violet glow. Lup can make out the details of their faces, but she knows for a fact they can’t.
“I can see shapes,” Lucretia says, and Lup can see her eyes darting from Lup to Barry, but not locking onto anything specific.
“It’s kinda hard to tell you two apart,” Barry adds, “I just know Lup’s the one with the ponytail.”
Subconsciously, Lup reaches up to tighten the hair tie. “Well, how about this?” She turns to Lucretia and slowly starts walking closer to her on her knees. “Tell me when you can make me out.”
Lucretia hums an affirmative, watching Lup’s form as she comes near. Lup’s eyes turn to Barry, who’s watching this unfold with a curious expression. It must be like watching shadow puppets to him.
She turns back to Lucretia. She’s about two feet away now, and she lets herself fall forward so she lands on her hands in a crawl. She inches closer and closer, and she sees the moment Lucretia’s eyes focus on hers.
“Right there,” Lucretia mumbles. Her face is so impossibly close to Lup’s. She’s smiling, amused with Lup’s shenanigans, and Lup smiles too.
She licks her lips and Lucretia’s eyes are drawn to the movement. Her smile falls, eyes specifically focused on Lup’s lips. Lup, unable to help herself, looks to Lucretia’s; they shine with the lipgloss she always wears, the gloss she’s always wanted to taste.
Before she can rationalize it, Lup’s leaning forward the last few inches to brush her lips against Lucretia’s. It’s quick and feather-light but she starts to pull away almost immediately, mind already filling with regret and apologies.
But that one point of contact is like a dam breaking; Lucretia’s hands grab Lup’s face and pulls her back in for a more passionate kiss. Her lips move messily and hungrily, but Lup slows her down with hands on her wrists, making the pace calm and pleasant.
They break apart and Lup sits back on her heels, having gone back to sitting on her shins during the kiss. Lucretia looks dazed and her glasses are askew. Lup reaches out to readjust them, noting the blush she can just barely make out on her cheeks.
Lucretia’s eyes dart to Barry; he might not have seen it in detail, but he definitely heard it. Unlike Lucretia’s, his blush is very apparent, even from here.
Lup smirks, silently sending it Lucretia’s way with a wink. She gently removes Lucretia’s hands from her cheeks and turns to Barry.
“And what about you, babe?” she asks, crawling his way. “Tell me when you can see me.”
He starts to stutter out a response, but he goes quiet when he can start to make out the details of her face. She doesn’t slow down, only stopping when her lips are practically against his.
“Can you see me now?” she asks, voice low and quiet.
He swallows thickly. “Yes.”
“Good.” She reaches up with one hand to take off his glasses. She goes to put them on the floor, but they’re taken out of her hand by Lucretia, who’s stood up and walked closer to them in the interim. She sits down beside them, watching the show with clear amusement.
Lup smirks at her again, then turns the full force of it to Barry; the poor guy looks way out of his depth, but she can make him nice and comfortable.
She kisses him, and he kisses back, a hand coming up to the back of her neck. She doesn’t move off her hands and knees, kissing him without touching him. She makes sure to be gentle with him too, and he sighs into it.
Lup pulls away when she’s out of breath. She looks at Barry with the same smug grin, and he smiles back, almost giddy. He starts giggling and Lup can’t help but join in. She leans back in to press quicker kisses to his lips between laughs, until Lucretia clears her throat.
Lup, still giggly and smiling, turns to see Lucretia’s taken off her own glasses as well, tucking them and Barry’s into the collar of her shirt. She moves closer, into the little bubble Barry and Lup have made, and puts a few fingers on Barry’s jaw to turn his face towards hers.
When they kiss, Lup sees heaven. Up close, she watches their lips move against each other, the way she cradles his face, the way he leans into it and chases her when she pulls away. She looks through her lashes at him and he looks awestruck; Lup is too.
Lucretia turns that gaze to Lup; it’s so powerful and commanding, where did it come from? She holds out her hand to invite Lup in again, and she takes it. She sits back on her heels again so her hands are free, and she shuffles closer and closer until her knees touch their legs.
It becomes not actions, but a moment of touch and emotion; a moment of feelings. Even with her eyes closed, Lup can feel who she’s kissing. She feels Barry’s stubble or Lucretia’s box braids and she feels when they both reach for each other.
She doesn’t know if she could feel this way outside of this moment; if she can consider herself lucky to have their lips on hers in any other setting. She doesn’t know if she wants to. She wants to define their lips on hers with the soft purple glow of the deck and the shooting stars skating across the sky.
#taz#taz balance#taz fic#the adventure zone#blupcretia#*blows the dust off this ask* coming right up#balance#lup#lucretia#barry#writing#ask#anon#can you tell i listened to take me to church while writing most of this?#anyway i’m working on the last request in my inbox (which seems like it’ll be ~5k words)#and i kept feeling bad for leaving this unanswered. so here! taking a break from my multiple responsibilities by writing 3 lovebirds kissing
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Can I get uh... 3,5, and 6 for my main main Deacon? I know I'm predictable.
Hey, you won’t see me complaining for the chance to wax poetic about my fave! Thanks for the ask!
3. Scars or painful spots
I’ve sort of hinted around at him having bad knees. I think a lifetime of walking long distances has to take its toll, especially as I tend to headcanon him on the rough side of his 30′s. I also think he has some very subtle facial surgery scars that you’d probably have to be looking close to find. And in general I can’t imagine he doesn’t have scars from a few nasty fights, especially from shock batons or laser guns. Specific to my stories, he has a scar on his right side just below his ribs from a fight that knocked him into some broken furniture, a burn scar on his back from laser fire during an Institute raid, and some scarring on his right calf from a super mutant close encounter. The broken rib he got during ALITS still aches now and again as well.
5. Guilty pleasures
Ooh this is a good one! So, I kind of headcanon him as the type that, if he ever finds a home he gets comfortable in, he tends to collect interesting Old World tchotchkes. I definitely incorporated this into my writing, but I based it off of ambient comments he makes about loving Old World widgets. I think it’s a guilty pleasure in the sense that he knows better than to weigh himself down with possessions he doesn’t need, given how often he has to abandon wherever the RR’s currently squatting to run for his life. But he can’t help being kind of fascinated by weirdly-shaped salt and pepper shakers or novelty ashtrays or other odds and ends that seem to find their way into his pack. This is probably less of a guilty pleasure and more of just a pleasure, but in a related vein I think he collects and loves comics, too.
6. Their vices (physical or emotional)
Well, I think his most obvious emotional vice would be not letting anyone close. He puts on a friendly face that makes him seem casual and approachable and carefree, but it’s a very carefully curated personality. We see that just with how he interacts with the Sole Survivor. Not that there’s not grains of truth in it, and not that he isn’t genuinely friendly, but I think he has extremely tight control over how he presents himself and how he wants to come across. I’d also consider his disguises/face-changes an emotional vice as well. It may help his job, but I think it’s also a crutch he uses to escape his guilt and pain. Slipping into other characters, becoming other people, it’s a way for him to escape himself. As far as physical vices, he owns up to being a former chem addict in some of his ambient dialogue. While this could be a lie, the way he says it, I tend to take it as true. Also, smoking and drinking are pretty universal vices in the Commonwealth, and I don’t think Deacon’s an exception.
[Send me a number and a character to learn my headcanons!]
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for the ask meme: 9, 32 & 49 please!
It’s only been 10 days... It’s only a guess which ask game you sent this for...! ^^; (I am basing it on the fact I read the questions and mused about them for this whole time so I am probably right about the game.) @nossbean
9. What are your favorite fanfics?
Oh no. Oh no. I could and should write POSTS upon POSTS about this.
But I haven’t, because I don’t have the energy to. So you get a cheat version of some of my random favorites from my last pages of my AO3 history. And few special shout outs.
@angel-deux-writes Worth is a wholeass gem and I haven’t commented yet, but I binged it basically today (with exception of first chapter) and I can’t stop yelling about it internally, because the way she says things!! She always has some of my favorite Brienne characterization I get so envious over. There is strength and pride in it, and vulnerability and fear and the acknowledgment that her self-loathing is unfounded yet how hard it is to defend yourself, even knowing all that. I could write essays about it and Angel’s stories in general. Anything by her is a treasure trove, truly.
@samirant Rush Me All Night Long is a fascinating concept, so very well executed and absolutely captivating. Makes me go slack-jawed with awe with how seamless it is. And beyond the craftsmanship of the story form itself, the contents are absolutely epic, too. Intrigue, growth of relationship, dash of humor that is right up my alley, lot of good other characters with their wonderful insights... Nothing to add or take away. Just great. And you KNOW you should check rest of her writing out, too. You won’t regret it.
@ajoblotofjunk is back with another subtly, but powerfully in-depth world story with Baby I Will. How many professions has she gotten degree in already? Because the way she weaves art of playing in bars is so organic. And oh, the connection between Jaime and Brienne... Electrifying, a storm that starts as static sparks as they brush past each other. And I can’t wait to watch it grow. (Also shout out to her absolutely beyond epic gift to me, Petrichor. Which is mindblowingly great and written at haste I cannot comprehend. It couldn’t be more tailored to me and I tear up just thinking about it.)
LadyRhiyana’s Stray Sparks II is the perfect example why I tell someone at least once a week “I wish I could LadyRhiyana this”. Her absolutely amazing skill to capture a whole setting, a whole world of emotions in sometimes as few as 5 to 10 sentences (and not the 30 word sort!) is just... Mesmerizing. I admire it so much and am typically absolutely enamored by her stories. Crossover is also in my history and I am absolutely head-over-heels for it.
@kurikaesu-haru Thirsty is the most endearing, captivating way to combine the two meanings of the word and I adore it to pieces. It’s fun and emotional and hot, and everything it could possibly need to be and then some, in best way possible. And her works contain more and more of gold mines, truly.
@firesign23 is a treasure, to this fandom and to me in particular, for many reasons. But her skill to devastate me with short stories is truly something else. Odd Socks (link to one of my favorite of the lot, but do give them all a read if you haven’t!) is what I have in my history, but I rec her as a writer 1000%. Her prompt fills are always poignant and not shy of ache and I can only marvel at them all. But also how could I miss out on mentioning her two breathtaking recent stories for fic exchange? Hold Steady is a Journey without ever leaving Winterfell, but the miles traveled by weary, worried, longing hearts in it... Oof. And, of course, I have to mention by hearts and hands made fast because it’s for me and it made me cry real tears more than once (!) and actually yell in real life, like no other story. Real and complicated as the characters deserve to be told, painful and comforting, absolutely breathtaking in the prose... I could rant for days, truly. And truly, wherever you look at her work, you’ll find more of it.
@aviss Skin Deep is just gem, gem, gem. Am I biased because she wrote for me, in a sense? Maybe. But she ACED it in ways I can barely comprehend. Everything I could wish for in the concept is there and more. Sweet pining, absolute besottery and realistic realizations and then hot, earnest resolutions... What a gem. As is rest of her works, really!
32. Past or present tense?
I used to be such a past tense snob. Nothing else for me, no sir. But now I write almost exclusively in present tense. I can’t tell when the shift happened, I think when I was 20 or few years older than that, and I don’t know why, I think I read a good fic, like really good one, and also was trying to bypass my writer’s block by switching it up. And I found a certain freedom in it. A sense that it makes sense for me to go deeper, to be in present turmoil and wax poetics about it for few paragraphs. Because it’s currently happening, instead of retelling if something that has been. It freed me more in past tense, too, though.
It’s odd I don’t remember how and why the shift happened, almost makes me feel sad.
Nowadays I mostly write in past tense because I get too caught up in flashback sort of sequences and can’t make it grammatically correct anymore so I switch everything to past tense. Tomorrow (with you) is prime example.
49. Where do you draw inspiration from?
Anything. The other day, I was bitterly laughing with a friend I could write a piece about stain on floor, create whole 1-3k word story about someone thinking about the stain, etc. Doesn’t matter if it has funny shape or not, known origin or not.
Most often, though, it’s prompts, it’s song lyrics, it’s some kind of thought/belief I have for character that I want to express/see them through some kind of event in way I think they would. Sometimes, it’s specific setting or watching something. Like, there was one (1) almost head-kiss in a kdrama with secret identities and I created a whole 10k word worth story idea off of it... Sometimes, it’s honestly even just a dumb, dumb post. But yes, music/feelings/prompts, I’d say are the main thing.
And as for inspiration drawn for writing itself... That’s a difficult question for me, right now. In kindest, non-rambly way I’d probably say what other people have lived and written.
Send me fanfic question?<3
#braime#braime ff rec#ask games answered#trying to remember what my rec tag was and failing...#nossbean#sent on a cloud
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Holsom, J?
so i can’t find the original prompt list but i’m 80% sure this is “we can’t do this kiss” so that’s what i went with
i know i already did a thing for this prompt but i had to do something again and i’ve been sad lately so here’s a sad thing for y’all
When it happens, it happens slowly. Golden honey dripping down the side of the jar, dragged down by its own weight in a steady path to pool on a pristine tablecloth.
Holster doesn't know everything. He's not like Johnson. He's not sending future tadpoles red pills and blue pills or waxing poetic about what to call Kent Parson's cat over a joint at a kegster. Holster doesn't know everything, but he's the only one who remembers the questions they used to answer online (he's still not entirely sure if he was being chirped but after a few years of thinking about it, it seems likely). He composed the Hockey Shit jingle Shitty still sometimes hums under his breath. Jack asked question after question when they taught Bitty about dibs but he never brought it up again. Holster and Ransom got their scrips, but Ransom never asked where they came from.
I'll pour you out like a milk bag, Ransom's trying and failing to look menacing. Their opponent skates away, unfazed by the attempted chirp. Holster sighs holds up the thick stack of papers that materialized as suddenly as the rink they're skating on.
Just stick to the script, Rans. Holster said. For all Ransom's virtues, he's not an improviser. His hands are soft and his mind is sharp and his kindness wraps around Holster like a weighted blanket and brings him back down to earth when he's toeing the line between raucous joy and being Too Much.
Don't you feel it? Ransom asked on a night so black Holster couldn't even make out the top bunk above him. Ransom was curled up by his side; the ghosts always acted up around the new moon. His breath was warm against Holster's neck, his knees pressed against Holster's thigh, his hands wrapped around Holster's arm. Ransom was always clingy when they shared a bunk. Holster would be annoyed if it was anyone else. But it was Ransom's head on Holster's shoulder, Ransom's whispered question that crawled under their mess of blankets and limbs to burrow deep in Holster's chest.
We have to stick to the - Holster began, but the burst of cool air that swept into his warm blanket cocoon when Ransom pulled away silenced him.
That's not what I asked. It was too dark to see Ransom's face, but Holster could hear his exact expression in his voice. That happens, when you know someone as well as Holster knows Ransom, when part of you is a part of them, too. Holster wanted to make a joke, but nothing about their situation was funny.
I feel it. Holster murmured after his silenced had draped over them in a heavy pall, pulling the darkness down around them. Ransom tilted his head, leaned in to brush his lips against the corner of Holster's mouth; a half-kiss, a compromise. Then he settled back down and rolled over. Then, I feel it was enough.
Adam Birkholtz, Jack announces, and Holster's heart leaps into his throat. His name hangs in the air, suspended in the silence, and all Holster can think is wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong -
And Justin Oluransi - Jack finishes, and Holster's world snaps back into place like a dislocated joint finally pressed back where it belongs.
It feels like hope. It feels like the universe is telling them they're made to be together, to lead together. It feels like it's only a matter of time.
Ransom rests his head on Holster's shoulder on a roadie. Holster takes Ransom's hand in the middle of a kegster and pulls him close so they can dance. It feels like something is building, and it's not the tub juice in their veins or the steady tattoo of the bass pulsing like a heartbeat. There's something electric in the air, something big is going to happen, and for the first time in years, Holster thinks they might happen. He gets bolder. He flings himself into Ransom's arms during cellys. He watches Ransom dance in the locker room, drops of water steadily dripping down his neck and chest and abs and hips and -. He pulls back his blankets on cold nights so Ransom can crawl in the bottom bunk with him.
Then, one morning, Holster finds himself crowded into a booth at Jerry's as Jack and Bitty confirm what everyone's already known for weeks and he realizes, suddenly, that this is it. This is the moment that was building. Everything he felt, the energy swirling through the Haus, brought them to this specific moment.
Jerry's coffee turns to ashes in his mouth. His carefully constructed hopes come crashing down around him but before the dust can settle the debris begins to shake under his feet. The rubble grumbles as it shifts and stacks and builds itself up into three solid pillars that loom over him:
First: Jack and Bitty are in love, and it's wonderful.
Second: This is not his story.
Third: Now, I feel it is not enough.
When it happens, it happens slowly, so Holster's heart breaks slowly, too.
He always thought that when hearts broke, they shattered. Holster pictured broken glass, bleeding hands, tiny shards that burrow under the skin. Lingering glances and wide smiles and joyous cellys and the brush of Ransom's cool fingertips on his wrist when they're both squeezed into the bottom bunk - it would make sense for them to dig into his palms and fingers and ache whenever he reaches out for Ransom's hand.
But when Holster's heart breaks it doesn't shatter - it crumbles. But it's for the best. He knows himself, he knows he'd gather up the shards, hands bleeding, and hold them against his chest as if drawing the pieces near to their old home would knit them together again.
Ransom tries to take his hand as they walk back from Jerry's. Holster lets their palms brush together, but he twists his fingers out of Ransom's grip and lengthens his stride to catch up with Lardo, who somehow walks twice as fast as him with legs half the size. Ransom lets him go. He slows down, matches Jack's speed, and chirps him all the way back to the Haus.
Ransom says, "Why wouldn't I want to hang out with my best friend in Boston for another year."
Ransom says, "Like? We're bros, bro. You're my brother!"
Ransom says, "Ransom and Holster! Holster and Ransom!"
Ransom says a lot of things.
They rush back to Jack's apartment after The Kiss Heard 'Round the World to prepare for the kegster. Holster's got a stack of flyers with Jack's baby picture on them under his arm and Jack's keys in his other hand. He barely registers the sound of the metal clinking as it hits the floorboards when he drops everything he's holding. The flyers slip from his fingers and spread across the foyer, a 52-pickup that leaves baby Jack Zimmermann staring up at them from the sprawl of papers that slide over their shoes. Holster doesn't give a fuck, though, because Ransom is kissing him. He's pressed against the door, Ransom's hands on his face and neck, Ransom's body holding him in place, Ransom's full lips firm and desperate against his, Ransom, Ransom, Ransom. Rans - Holy fuck, is Holster's first thought. Haha, tonsil hockey, is the second. I could do this forever, is the third.
But Holster knows it isn't The Kiss, even if it is for him. The earth moves under his feet, the heatwave burns through him, the key changes as the music swells, and everything changes.
We can't do this. The script -
It's not enough
It has to be enough, Rans. We have to make it be enough.
I'm going to forget again.
I know.
It's going to hurt you.
I know.
I'm sorry.
Me too.
Everything changes, but only for them.
They move into separate rooms in Haus 2.0. There are six inches of cheap drywall between them. Sometimes, late at night, Holster digs his fingers into the hollow space between his ribs. His heart spills out all over his sheets, the tiny pieces slipping through his fingers like sand. He gathers it up, handful by handful, and sweeps as much of the excess away as he can. The pieces grind down, crumbling away until a fine layer of dust settles over his room, his clothes, his hands, his face. He tracks it through the halls and leaves handprints on Ransom's clothes when he slaps his back or pulls him in for a quick bro-hug.
Just stick to the script.
When Holster's heart breaks, it screams you were made to love him in a thundering waterfall, roaring white water tumbling over a sheer cliff.
Yes, Holster replies, the words cool and soft as the mist that drifts across the observation decks at Niagara. His cheeks are wet. But this isn't my story.
#noel writes#long post#holsom#omgcp fanfic#check please fanfic#check please#omgcp#adam holster birkholtz#justin oluransi
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