Alright, soppy letter about this entire year under the cut ↓
This entire year has been such a wild and delightful ride for me! You guys need to understand that I always loved writing, drawing, and making up stories in my head. But I never shared anything online, or barely, and never quite believed in my skills ever. So I took on a reliable job that I sort of liked, hoping I could keep writing on the side, as a hobby that made me happy. Sadly, the more realistic and burn out side of me took over and as I grew older, my dream was put more and more to the side until it was fully abandoned. And just following the motions of life, never expecting more or having hope made me really depressed, without me even being fully aware of it.
It took me an autistic burnout, loosing my job, being finally diagnosed with autism and AD(H)D to wake up and pick up that dream of making comics again. Realizing that you cannot be happy when you ignore who you are and are only concerned about trying to fit, about being stable and safe.
Shells changed my entire life. It gave me so much hope, and happiness, and I've met so many friends thanks to it, it drives me insane that I might have never knew all those wonderfully kind and loving people if this story that kept me up at night for weeks had stayed inside my brain. I'm so thankful life and my personal situation permitted me to stay unemployed and fully give in to this dream and share my work with all of you. I thought I was sorta good at writing, nothing much to brag, but the incredible response I've received seriously makes me so proud of myself, and pushes me forward with incredible confidence.
When I'm drawing Shells, I sometimes laugh to myself at my silly jokes, get giggly at how cute the boys are being or emotional at certain moments. And it's always wonderful to know now, that when I share it will make so many people also laugh, and giggle, and be emotional.
Thank you all so much for following along, supporting me, believing in my story and telling me so ♥️
More screams from the bleachers, his fist digging into the mud. They don't need much but for this essay to land, and the season is theirs, and that's another year gone by, another time his team is carried in triumph, and he already think of the party awaiting them all, and the usual way he'd throw the winning ball high, higher, loudly thinking 'Did you fucking see this?' down to his father awaiting somewhere in hell.
Oh there wasn't anything tastier than this on this cursed planet.
Broken
Word count: 816
Angst, Injury, Swearing
Its rhythm matches with the crowd. The cheers, the screams, the few words he manages to decipher between the noises. Shane breathes in, breathes out. The clock ticks in his head, and it matches the beeping in the back of his mind he manages to brush off. It's him, his lungs, the grass against his knuckles, and the packed bleachers chanting.
"What are your plans for next year?"
"Dunno." Shane replies, balancing on his chair. "Jus', graduate n' see."
"That would be barely, with grades like this. Can you stand still please?" The councilor flips through Shane's records. "Doing well on the gridball team, I see."
"Hell yeah." Shane grins, four feet of the chair back on the floor. "Next game in our pocket and that's me on easy street through college."
"Shane, you do know you need a back up plan?" He sighs, folding his glasses neatly. How many little 'prodigies' like these he's seen throughout his career. They have a dream, and they will to follow it. It falls through for many of them, obviously.
"I do, but, like, not like there's much for me after that."
"You could always work with your mother." He says, flipping through some paper again. Shane's family conditions were not much of a secret for anyone, especially since they fished out his father from the local river with a record amount of alcohol in his blood. The whispers had made the round of the neighborhood, and the school. And how did they love a good story.
"I'd rather fuckin' die." Shane chortles, leaning back on the chair again. "Are we done?"
"You need to take your studies more seriously. What if anything happens in college that stops you from playing, how will you keep afloat?"
The teen scoffs. "I got two scholarships offers already I think I'm fine."
"Yes, for playing gridball, but you never know wh-"
"That's the whole thing ain't it? Fuck you want me to do, prepare for any possibilities? You said it yourself, with the grades I've got…"
"Language, Shane. I do not want to write you up again for foulness in my office." He says, tapping on his little notebook to the side. "At your age, many people already have a lot of things planned, and-"
"Good for 'em, by Yoba, my plan's just to follow my dream."
More screams from the bleachers, his fist digging into the mud. They don't need much but for this essay to land, and the season is theirs, and that's another year gone by, another time his team is carried in triumph, and he already think of the party awaiting them all, and the usual way he'd throw the winning ball high, higher, loudly thinking 'Did you fucking see this?' down to his father awaiting somewhere in hell.
Oh there wasn't anything tastier than this on this cursed planet.
The rhythm of the cheers get swallowed by the once distant beeping, he's away from the ground. Far, far away from the mud of the field. The lights, the screams, it's nothing but this irritating beep now.
"He's coming to."
"Shane? Shane, are you ok?"
He opens his eyes to the blinding white light above him he tries to cover with his arm, lifting tubes and threads and, what the fuck is all this? Then it's the pain, the shooting shock of fire and electricity traveling up and down his leg, the complete half of his body.
"Fuck!"
"He's back alright."
"Shane can you hear me?"
A new light is shoved in his eye, it hurts, it burns, his head hurts, his shoulders, his back, his leg. His legs. Everything aches, everything is nothing but searing pain, and his leg won't move, his foot won't move, his toes won't respond. Something is pinning him against whatever he is lying on, whatever is hooked in his arms, in his veins. And why won't his leg fucking MOVE.
"Shane you need to calm down." The disincarnated voices float in his addled brain. How could he calm down? One minute he was on the field ready to make his team proud, his girlfriend proud, his sponsors proud, his coach proud, everyone on the bleachers proud, and the next his mouth tastes like mud, ether fills the room, blinding lights blast through his brain, and his body is unresponsive. And they want him to calm down?
"Torn ligaments…"
He needs to move his leg. He needs to move everything, stand up, and get out of there.
"Fractured patella… loss of cartilage…"
Those words mean nothing to him.
"Several tears in the anterior cruciate region."
The fuck does that even mean.
"Shane? Shane buddy you good?"
He recognises Callum's voice. Finally. Something familiar. Something he can count on. He's not alone. He's fine. He's good!
"He'll be fine." The other voice says. "But I'm afraid that's the end of the field for him."
Shane wasn’t good at much, but he sure was a good gridball defensive lineman.
It was his build, really. Stocky, bottom heavy, and difficult to knock down. The guys on his high school team called him “the wall,” and he took pride in that.
He tended to lean on the skill, excusing his poor grades with claims that he wouldn’t need them once recruiters started catching onto him, and to an extent that was true. Despite his performance in all of the academic aspects of High School, he was offered a hefty scholarship from a state university to play on their team. From there, Shane hoped to make it pro. He would put his all into his college gridball career, and he often dreamed of the day he would be signing his fan’s jerseys.
That dream lasted for about two months.
It was his first home game when it happened. A night game. Hundreds of screaming students in the stands all adorned with the color of his jersey, artificial spotlights causing a trickle of sweat down his forehead, and the announcers chatter vibrating in his ears. Shane’s mother was in the crowd somewhere, having made the drive to see him play. Mark and Brenda were there too. On that night, he became acutely aware of the eyes on him– the eyes expecting him to do good.
He was all too preoccupied with the situation when the opposing team’s handler came running towards him. Shane stood with his knees slightly bent as he always did, bracing for the inevitable impact as he blocked the man’s path. What Shane didn’t expect was his opponent's sudden cut to the left, too quick for him to react in any meaningful way. The handler made it past him, but still managed a hard check to Shane’s entire right side as he went.
Shane’s entire body twisted with the impact, but his right foot stayed planted on the turf.
He felt a pop.
Maybe he heard a pop.
And the pain in his knee had him collapsing to the ground.
Shane doesn't remember much from that night, but he clearly remembered the sound of the crowd as they realized he had been injured. Despite the ringing in his ears, the burning in his leg, and the tightness of his lungs, he could hear the cheers and chatter die down to an eerie muted murmur.
A torn ACL, and yet the eyes on him remained at the forefront of his mind.
His knee would never fully recover. Something about his mothers poor insurance made it so he got the surgery a bit too late. He was a lot easier to knock down after his injury, so his coach “regretfully” made the decision to let him go.
On that night, gridball became like every other positive thing in Shane’s life. A pleasant dream. A dream that would never come to fruition.
One thing Shane never quite understood about the general population was their obsession with clothing. Well, presentable clothing.
To him, clothes were nothing more than a sort of armor that saved the rest of the world from having to look at your body. They were yet another menial decision he had to make each hungover morning before work, another thing that people judged you by.
Shane looked at the way people dressed in town, and it confused him. Take Elliott, for example. The guy wore layer upon layer of tight clothing to the point where he constantly looked like he was holding in his breath. For Shane, life was uncomfortable enough as is. He couldn’t fathom someone making the conscious decision to make it all worse just for vanities sake.
Because of this, Shane dressed easily. The same rotation of wrinkled t-shirts, old jerseys, khaki shorts, sweatpants, and Jojo-distributed zip-ups adorned his messy closet and made his life just that much less grating.
There was a very small selection of pieces in Shane’s clothing collection that had any actual value to him, one of those being his pair of lime-green crocs.
They were ugly as shit and Shane was fully aware of that, but they had been a birthday gift from Marnie and Jas. When Shane unwrapped them, Jas had squealed in delight and began musing about how silly they were because they looked like cheese. Marnie on the other hand shot Shane a look that he translated to her idea, not mine.
The shoes sat in the bottom of the closet for a while, until Jas’ “when are you going to wear your cheese shoes?” became persistent enough to have Shane slipping them on to join her during her weekly jumproping session outside. And with the way she smiled and laughed when he wore them, he couldn’t help but smile back.
So yeah, Shane dressed for comfort. He wore his hoodie because it was warm, his pants because they were loose, and his lime-green crocs because he knew he would get a smile out of Jas that day. And hell, that would get a smile out of him.
Two very different times in Shane’s life where he’s offered a beer
Prompt: Beer
Wc: 806
Tw: Alcohol Abuse/ Alcoholism referenced
“C’mon, just try a little bit! I didn’t steal it from the fridge for nothing!”
Shane stared hesitantly at his best friend's outstretched arm, hand clutching a blue Joja-branded can of beer. The same kind his dad used to drink before his “absence,” as his mother called it. It was open already, with Mark having taken a sip just a moment ago. Shane knew him well enough to know he was pretending to like it.
“I don’t know, if your parents see it we’re gonna get in trouble.” He continued staring at the can, envisioning the look on his mothers face if she had found out he had been drinking “the shit that ruined her marriage” (again, her words).
Mark continued holding the can up towards him.. “My parents are totally asleep. Besides, we’re thirteen. Teenagers– like– get drunk at sleepovers.”
Shane would be lying if he said he wasn’t the least bit curious. It was just one sip, right?
So he sighed, grabbing the can and expecting cold but feeling lukewarm from the time it had been hiding in Mark’s pillowcase.
“Yes!” Mark pumped his fist enthusiastically.
Shane shook his head. “I just wanna taste it.” He put the metal to his lips, the slightly sour smell wafting unpleasantly through his nose. As Mark watched eagerly, Shane tipped his head back and allowed the unfavorably temperate liquid to trickle onto his tongue.
It was bitter, slightly sour, and the taste of it all shot straight to the back of his throat in a manner that made a shiver run down his body and a hacking cough escape his throat. Quite frankly, it was disgusting. At least to 13 year old Joja-Cola addicted Shane.
Mark began to laugh at his reaction, and Shane put the can down, wiping his mouth with his sleeve. “That was gross,” He remarked.
“I liked it, guess that makes me more of a man than you.” Mark shrugged, smirking at him.
Shane balled his fist and gave him a light punch on the shoulder. “You’re such a liar!”
Mark’s smirk broke into a more sheepish grin. “Yeah– fine– it was gross.”
The two boys then broke into a fit of laughter, mocking the others’ reaction to the beer. When it died down, Mark dumped the rest of the liquid into the toilet, flushed it, and buried the can in the trash bin.
“I’ll probably never have beer again” Shane thought to himself as he watched the liquid disappear down the drain.
…
“Seriously, you’re not gonna have any? You said last year that it was the only thing that made these parties bearable.”
Shane regarded the beer in Sam’s hand with a scowl. “No.”
The truth was that Shane wanted one. Desperately. It was the oh-so-voluntary JojaCo. Winter Star party that he had come to dread with every year he had worked there, and he had kicked a certain habit barely a month prior. The situations didn’t quite mesh well, as Shane came to realize.
Alcohol was everywhere. In the hands of every person he was forced to have a grating conversation with. In every half-empty cup carelessly left on the plastic-lined tables. In bowls, in glasses, in cans, and in bottles. It was all Shane seemed to see.
Most importantly, alcohol was in Sam's hand, and it was being offered to Shane. And he wanted one.
Sam cocked his head at him. “Really? You know it’s free, right?”
Of course Shane knew it was free (not that any cost had stopped him before). He knew he could just take it, drink the damn thing and scratch the itch in his brain and just be done with this whole facade of betterness.
But he didn’t. Despite every synapse in his body begging him otherwise, he didn’t.
“Fuck, Sam. I’m gonna tell you something, and you’re not gonna make a big deal about it. ‘Kay?” Shane spoke quietly, teeth gritted and hand balled in a fist.
“Okay?” Sam finally lowered the can, and Shane felt just a bit more breath come into his lungs.
“I’m sober now.” He found it almost difficult to say out loud, trying to formulate the words as matter-of-factly as he could.
Shane saw how Sam’s eyes lit up, how he smiled and opened his mouth wide to say something, and how he paused for a moment to correct the look of overexcitement on his face. “That’s great, man!” His eyes then darted to the beer in his hand, his face dropping. “Shit, sorry for that. I didn’t know.”
Shane shook his head. “S’fine. I get it.”
“Here, Lemme grab you a JojaCola to make up for it!” Shane didn’t particularly want that, but Sam was already rushing away before he could protest.
“I’ll never drink beer again.” Shane thought to himself as his head finally began to settle.
Happy dry Shanuary! I’ve written a couple bits and bobs following glazedsnail’s prompt list!
Some are angsty, some are silly, some are just fun. Not many of them include a farmer but if they do they’re unnamed and ungendered. I love writing about our chicken man!
Prompt: Pot of gold
Wc: 386
Shane often disappointed people. He just did.
It was a long running thread throughout his life, starting somewhere with his mother seeing his father in his eyes and ending sometime last week when Marnie found him passed on the floor of his bedroom, too drunk to make it into his bed the previous night.
He didn’t like doing it, it wasn’t like he reveled in the way people would look at him when he once again failed to reach their expectations, but something in him just couldn’t muster up the strength to care.
Shane found his remedy to his constant perceived failures somewhere between losing his best friends and moving to Pelican Town; if people didn’t have high standards for him, how could he disappoint them? Hell, it wasn’t the strangers around him that shook their heads when he spent the day in his room completely unresponsive, it was only the people who knew he could do better.
So why let people know he could do better?
Pelican town was a fresh start for him. Nobody knew him there aside from his aunt, and it was perfect. Sure, a single guy in his thirties with a child in tow drew some attention, but it was so easy for Shane to just brush it all off. A rude word here, a dirty look there, and suddenly nobody bothered with him and he was free to exist in those suffocating walls he put up for himself. Free to exist unchained, floating wherever his sadistically impulsive brain took him with no consequence. Free to just be
And then came the farmer.
Shane had never seen someone so inexplicably indifferent to his attempts at pushing them away. Angry glances and rude remarks did nothing for them. He could tell them to fuck right off and they’d still be running up to him the next morning with a pepper in hand and a greeting just as enthusiastic as the day before.
It was like they could see his walls, or rather see right through them. All they saw was his soft underbelly, the one that Shane could feel them getting closer and closer to. All Shane could think about was how he would one day disappoint them too.
Yoba, he would give them a pot of gold to leave him alone.
The Modern Leper by @lamplighteyes has been bouncing around my brain like the dvd screen for about a year, and I decided to finally do something about it. Heavy cw for suicide, but it’s a phenomenal fic that you should go read if you haven’t already.
I'm being so good and patient not asking for 🌶️, so give me ✈️ please!
ohoho am I glad you asked about this one
here goes (under the cut that is):
Harvey never wanted to leave home for college. He was comfortable in his childhood bedroom, where his model plane collection flew over his head, he could play his jazz music as loud as he wanted, and his parents were just steps away to tell him what a good job he was doing. He didn’t want a new space, new surroundings, new people to look at him the way they always did for just being himself. But when his father insisted that Zuzu City University was the best place to be for future doctors, Harvey soon found himself on a train, arms filled with bags containing whatever comforts he could manage from home (as well as his lexapro).
My buddy @glazedsnail tagged me in this game, so let’s give it a whirl! Drop an ask with the emoji of a fic you’re interested in, and I’ll give you a couple of lines from it.
🍷A Night Between Friends: A Shane/Harvey/Fem reader smutty one shot. That’s about it.
🌶️Dry Shanuary Prompts: A collection of Shane-related drabbles and ficlets from Snail’s list!
✈️ Fear And Loathing in Zuzu City: My attempt at a Harvey backstory one-shot, centered around one of the worst days of his life during his undergrad years.
✍️ The Farmer’s Mistake: My beloved son of a fic in which the reader cheats on her husband Elliott with Shane, and must deal with the turmoil that comes with it.
Of course zero pressure tags: @visionofthebees @mongoosingisme @frienduccine or anyone else who wants to play
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