keyboard and a dream

[keyboarddream]

https://archiveofourown.org/users/KeyboardAndADream

Hi! This is the tumblr account of KeyboardAndADream. I used to have it as my main blog, but didn't want that anymore, so I recently transferred all my posts there to here. Some things may have gotten messed up in the transfer.

[keyboarddream]

https://archiveofourown.org/works/59413285/chapters/151518337

Yagami Light knows the whole shape of his future. And then the Kira murders begin, and Light begins to feel alive.

Part of @whumptober 2024.

#Yagami Light & Yagami Souichirou #Kira & Yagami Light #Yagami Light #Yagami Souichirou #Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence #Alternate Universe - Yagami Light Is Not Kira (Death Note) #Kira still exists though #Whumptober 2024 #Alternate Universe - Role Reversal

[keyboarddream]

https://archiveofourown.org/works/59379955

Ford Pines has a bad time. Part of @whumptober 2024.

Ford Pines & Bill Cipher

#Ford Pines Has Issues #Whumptober 2024 #Panic Attacks #Insomnia #Ford Pines Not Sleeping #Researcher Ford Pines #Autistic Ford Pines #Self-Harm #Dissociation

[polysyndetonaddictsupportgroup]

forever ago you mentioned in an ask post that you have a story in your head about college-aged Matt saving Frank’s kids and in return the Castle family forcibly enfolds him into their tribe. There is literal kidnapping involved, and every word in your little summary was fucking hilarious. I want you to know that that scenario has lived in my head rent free ever since—I am astounded by your brain and that concept makes me want to eat dirt (in the best way)(that is a compliment of the highest degree)

anyways! Please don’t think this is me asking “when will you write that” bc i get it, some plot bunnies are just bunnies, and time/real world is a bitch, BUT—if you ever have any little ramblings about it, I’d love to hear them :) the Castle family is Insane and I love them dearly and I am forever entranced by your characterizations of Matt and Frank

Have a good one!!

Christmas with the Castles my beloved. I love this one so much that I typed out an outline of the fic entirely. It is long. Please, take my ramblings if you want them:

It's Christmas at Columbia, hohoho, peace and goodwill to all mankind. The dorms are closed over winter break to replace the pipes and Matt's out on his ass for the holidays, so get fucked, blind little orphan with no surviving family, and God bless us everyone.

Normally the Nelson clan would have taken him in but Foggy's bitch of a Great Aunt Bertha insists on holding the entire family hostage for the holidays with the will as collateral, and she sucks in many respects but even more in the sense that she doesn't want any blind orphans schlepping around her holiday table. But the Nelson clan will risk it all for Matt, who they think is neat. They'll put the whole fucking will on the line, buddy.

Matt assures them that he's got it all under control and has a place to stay. Yes, with a person. Yes, a real one. An old friend of his dad's. No, he's not going to be homeless. Stop asking questions.

This is a lie.

His plan is to simply be homeless. Peace and goodwill to all mankind.

Except Foggy knows when Matt's on his bullshit and insists on speaking to the guy he's staying with, which means he needs to get Fogwell to lie for him. Except Fogwell knows when Matt's on his bullshit and won't let him off the fucking hook until he knows Matt won't be homeless for the holidays.

Matt unequivocally refuses to come home with him. Stop asking. He'll find someone else to do the phone call.

They compromise with Matt staying in the fucking boiler room of the gym. Peace and goodwill to all mankind.

Except Matt sort of makes Fogwell think that he only needs to crash for a few days, and Foggy's family is going to take him in for the rest. This is also a lie. He is fucking off to be homeless for the rest of the holiday season.

Peace and goodwill to all mankind.

He's swallowing his misgivings and putting up with staying in the boiler room of the gym for a few days so Fogwell won't freak out. Which he now regrets. Because it puts him right in the earshot of an active hostage situation. Are those kids? Those are fucking kids.

Anyway he tries to call the police anonymously like ten times but this just tips off the hostage takers, who apparently have a mole in the police, surprising no one. Now they're going to kill the fucking kids.

Matt can't listen to this.

Peace and fucking goodwill to all mankind.

Okay. Fuck. He's doing this now.

Fuck.

THE CASTLE'S HOLIDAY SEASON, THUS FAR:

The kids got kidnapped.

like

fuck.

that happened.

The thing is that some random NSA guy got into contact with Frank and in this AU he actually blew the whistle on the the CIA's bullshit. His family was in protective custody, until his best friend and pseudo brother stabbed him in the fucking back and sold them out. Now they have his kids.

He then kills a lot of people.

Like a lot.

But he can't find his kids. They have his kids.

They're going to kill his kids.

MATT'S NIGHT, THUS FAR:

He's an asshole in sweatpants with a t-shirt wrapped around the top part of his face and no fucking plan, and there are so many assholes with guns in there. Like. So many.

But fuck it. He's doing this now.

fuck.

He fights a lot of guys. He gets super shot. Some guy tries to shoot him with arrows. Like, what the fuck even is this, Robin Hood? Honestly, fuck this night.

Anyway, he saves the kids. Wheee.

It's sort of nice? They bond, when the crying stops. The kids like him a lot. He calls their parents. Sets up a place for them to get picked up. The boy gives him the sweatshirt he's wearing under his jacket, which is kind of him, because it's fuck-off cold and Matt's about ten minutes from going into shock. Anyway, he drops them off at the spot and fucks off into the night before their oddly bloodstained dad can stop him like the world's shittiest off-brand batman.

He then goes to exercise the right of any God-fearing American citizen, which is to bleed out in the basement of his childhood church.

Fogwell's never gonna be okay again if he finds Matt's blood-soaked body in the gym. Matt figures he can just break into that basement no one uses, steal a med kit, make a solid confession about breaking into and stealing from a church if he lives long enough, and hopefully no one will even notice he was there.

This does not pan out.

A really angry nun finds him and narcs him out to Father Lanthom and they bitch him out for "dying" and "not seeking life-saving medical attention" and drag his ass to to the hospital.

NOW THE CASTLE FAMILY, REUNITED AT LAST:

The kids' will be in therapy forever but the danger is gone, because frank killed them all very dead.

He then received a presidential pardon for All The Murder.

Peace and goodwill to all mankind.

Anyway he's testified about the CIA corruption, the government is occupying itself with the coverup to end all coverups, and his only remaining concerns is (1) taking care of his family and (2) making sure the bleeding dipshit who saved his kids lives doesn't die in the streets. He's gotta find that dumb asshole.

Then he gets a phone call from a very concerned nurse at Metro General about the bleeding dipshit that got brought in with his kid's sweatshirt. They're calling because he keeps trying to goddamn leave while very fucking shot and he had a jacket with Frankie's information written on it in magic marker. Do they know him? Can they please come pick him up? They think he's going to die in the streets if someone does not pick him up.

And Yeah. Yeah, Frank Can Do That.

Matt.

Yeah.

The magic marker, he didn't.

Didn't

Didn't see that part.

Fuck.

Anyway, Matt's On His Way Out To Be Homeless For The Holiday Season, Peace And Goodwill To All Mankind, As Soon As The Goddamn Nurses Stop Hiding The Leave Against Medical Advice Forms. He lied and said he got jumped by a lot of guys, no, he didn't see who did it, because, you know. Blind. Just a regular ol' blind guy here. Poor fucking blind orphan alone and shot for the holiday season. Just give him the goddamn form.

And then that fucking guy shows up in his hospital room. The suspiciously bloody father of the kids he just got shot over. He's here, he's insisting that Matt's one of his family's closest friends and they're paying all of Matt's medical bills, and he's not commenting on the blind bit, but Matt can literally smell his curiosity. Matt's insisting that some random guy gave him the jacket, no, he didn't see his face, because, you know. Blind. He's not the guy Frank thinks he is. Nope. Please fuck off now.

They do not fuck off. Maria Castle blows through the hospital room like a hurricane, hugs him very genuinely, cries a little, and tells him that the Castle family pays their debts, and they've never had a greater one. Then the kids show up, and they fucking recognize him. Fuck.

Matt: imindanger.exe

Matt keeps feigning ignorance. Then, he waits until they leave the room and he fucking books it.

Anyway the Castle family minivan catches up to him when he's legging it a block away. They keep pace with him, and ask to just take him where he's going, and they swear they're not going to hurt him. They just want to help him out. He saved their kids.

And he can hear that they're telling the truth.

And it's so goddamn cold.

And he can hear his own internal bleeding.

And he's so, so tired.

So he tells them that no one would ever believe them. And he gets in the car. and he gives them Fogwell's address. And he tells himself he'll crash there for a day or two and fuck off to be homeless in the streets, peace and good-fucking-will to all mankind.

WHAT THE CASTLE FAMILY DID NOT SCHEDULE FOR THE DAY:

A kidnapping.

WHAT THE CASTLE FAMILY DOES:

It's. It's a kidnapping. They do a kidnapping.

Look. Look. they pay their debts. They pay their fucking debts. It's what they do. And they get to Fogwell's boiler room and rapidly fucking realize that the guy who they owe their everything to is a terminally stupid 20-something and living in the rundown boiler room of an empty gym. And they simply cannot have that.

Frank? Frank, show Matthew back to the car, will he? Maria's going to pack up his things for him.

Matt: what.exe

WHAT MATT DID NOT SCHEDULE FOR THE DAY:

it's.

It's the kidnapping.

it's that.

This fic is fundamentally founded in my premise that the entire Castle family is simply fucking insane. They're just all like that. Frank is not an outlier.

For the Castles, they're being perfectly reasonable. It's obvious that no one's taking care of this lovely young man who saved their kids, so no one will mind if they do it instead. He definitely needs it. So they sit their kids down and explain that sometimes Stockholm Syndrome is for someone's own good, which sounds perfectly reasonable to them. They then proceed to treat this like when you somewhat impulsively get a sick puppy from a Home Depot parking lot, and, well, he's a bit poorly behaved, and he keeps trying to run away, but the kids had wanted it so badly and eventually he's going to settle into his new home and then maybe you can stick felt reindeer antlers on him for the Christmas card, so you keep shoving his meds in peanut butter and forcing them down his throat and keeping the door blocked so the puppy can't slip out into the freezing new york night.

Matt treats this for what it is, which is a fucking kidnapping.

He is now fucking handcuffed to these crazy assholes' guest bed in their suburban home. It's by definition a kidnapping. they're acting like he's the unreasonable one for pointing this out. Except every time he wriggles out of his handcuffs, Frank just lugs his ass back to bed and chains him back up while they scold him. As if he's the unreasonable one for trying to escape his own kidnapping. They make him take his meds and eat three meals a day and the kids watch fucking Christmas movies with him while narrating the screen, as if this wasn't a kidnapping. This is insane. They're all insane.

Which is what he eventually tells them, out loud and to their faces.

And then Maria cries.

Stop.

Stop that.

That thing she's doing with her face. Stop that thing.

And Maria's like. Maybe they were over enthusiastic. But, being a mother, she just wants to take care of the nice young man who saved her little angels. And if that makes her a criminal, then she guesses she's a criminal. Because she cares.

Matt: shoving me into a van and handcuffing me to a bed against my will makes you by definition a criminal

maria: *cries harder*

Matt: stop

And Matt's like. Fine. Fine. He'll give into their crazy fucking kidnapping. Saves him the trouble of being homeless. Just. It's only until Christmas, and then he's gone.

maria, tearfully: and new years too?

Matt: don't push your luck

So fuck it. He's doing this now. But he's not going to like it. And he gets to come and go when he wants.

Frank: no.

matt: seriously fuck you

Except Matt's got shit they didn't pack at Fogwells. Shit they didn't realize belonged to him. His dad's shit. And he's absolutely desperate to get his dad's shit before some well-meaning janitor tosses it. So he very reluctantly agrees to let Frank go in his stead. Just. Just don't talk to people. And don't tell anyone he kidnapped matt. matt does not want to deal with that fucking court case.

Fogwell, immediately catching Frank gathering Matt's stuff for him, when he finds out that Matt sent him: are you a Nelson?

Frank, not a Nelson: Guilty.

And Fogs is just. Thrilled. So fucking thrilled that Matt has the Nelsons. Matt needs people like that, you know? People that'll welcome him home.

He's a good kid. And he hasn't had a home in a good long time. And Fogs--he's so fucking sorry that he couldn't give Matt that. And he. He.

Just tell him Merry Christmas from him? He understands why Matt didn't want to spend it with him.

Just tell him ol' Fogs was thinking of him. Tell him he really, really cares and hopes his holidays are good.

Fuck. Tell him he loves him. Just. Just tell him that. Fogs should have done it a long time ago.

What follows from there is a lot of wholesome, family-friendly Christmas activities, like:

making gingerbread houses

ice-skating

having a total mental breakdown when you get the message passed along from your pseudo-grandfather that he wishes he could have given him a home.

drinking cocoa

getting shit-faced drunk out on the town with the somewhat insane mother of those kids you saved, only to both be lugged home by a very exasperated Frank Castle.

watching Christmas movies

Visiting the grave of your dead father whose loss you've never recovered from

drinking eggnog

Confessing about your superpowers to the crazy fuckers who may or may not have given you stockholm syndrome, as well as your lasting trauma around the fact that you were child-soldierified and your soul-crushing terror that it will happen again

Making paper snowflakes

(Matt may not have meant to do all those things.)

I really like having backstories in communication with each other across my fics taking place in the same fandom? And Fogs is a great example of that. He tends to show up in all of my Daredevil fics, and he usually does something that brings Matt in from the cold in his backstory.

But in this world, that Fogs didn't do it.

In this one, he had the chance, and he failed.

Matt came to him. He ran away from the foster care system when he was a teen, and he went to Fogs as a desperate, last ditch effort. He begged Fogs to still love him the way he did when he was a kid. He begged Fogs to take him in the way he once took in Jack Murdock. He'd help Fogs around the gym. He'd do anything Fogs asked. He just wants to go home.

All he's wanted for years was to just go home.

And Fogs hugged him. He held him. He let him sleep on the couch.

And he called the police.

He wanted to do it the right away around, this time. He didn't want Matt to be hiding from the system for the rest of his youth the way his daddy once did. He wanted him to still get to go to school. He wanted him to be a kid. He wanted to adopt him proper, and didn't think of the fact that no one was gonna let him do it.

And he didn't account for how Matt would never trust him again.

He didn't account for Matt ending up on the streets, and he didn't account for matt refusing to come for him for help again, and he didn't account for Matt refusing to have anything to do with him until he hit law school and barely tolerated hanging around the gym at night again, and he didn't account for Matt not being able to stand the idea of spending the holidays with him.

There's a lot Fogs won't ever forgive himself for.

Anyway, Matt's stockholm syndrome was a great success. They fucking did it. They now have a crazy motherfucker with superpowers who's occupying this space as a the kid's new pseudo uncle. Unmitigated success. God, what an addition to the family. He's just as crazy as them.

Except Matt gets a call. From a very upset Foggy Nelson. Who says that they decided to burn the defunct bridge that was their relationship with their torrid bitch of a great aunt after she said something homophobic to Foggy's sister, and they went to go surprise Matt for the holidays, only to find out that he was already supposed to be with them. Matthew.

The thing is, foggy knows who Matt is as a person. He knows who Matt is as a person. There is such a very real chance that his blind best friend has been living under an overpass in subzero weather for the past few weeks and not telling him. He's having a heart attack and needs to come pick him up immediately before Matt starts selling his body or something.

And like, good news is that Matt was kidnapped by a lovely suburban family who have been keeping him warm and fed and dry, and they're going to be baking gingerbread today. The bad news is that Matt will literally have a heart attack if he has to explain to foggy how he got here so he just. Panics.

And hangs up the phone.

And matts panicking about how he hung up the phone, because foggy will absolutely call the police and report him as a missing person, holy shit will he call the police on him, Matt was literally kidnapped but he likes his kidnappers now and doesn't want them to be arrested, they're making gingerbread you see and that would be inconvenient to the gingerbread making. So Maria and Frank and the kids are watching this weird feral law student they forcibly adopted go through every single stage of grief in a two minute span, wonder how he made it through life so far on his own, and Maria wrangles the phone from him and calls Foggy back and politely tells him that this is Maria Castle, matts basically a part of their family and has been staying with them through the holidays, they've heard so much about foggy, won't he come visit? How about tomorrow at two? They're making gingerbread today.

Matt: MARIA

Matt is panicking. Foggy knows he doesn't have a family. Foggy is his family. Foggy has unlocked his tragic backstory. Foggy is going to wonder how he acquired a family in like a two and a half week span.

Foggy is panicking. He knows Matt doesn't have a family. He has unlocked matts tragic backstory. Matt was in their fucking Christmas cards because he has no family's Christmas cards to be in.

Maria is not panicking. They're taking a step back and making gingerbread now. Take deep breaths, Matthew.

FOGGY NELSON'S THEORIES ABOUT WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON WITH HIS BEST FRIEND (ABRIDGED):

Matt has started a polycule with a suburban couple and is raising their children with them now.

Matt was switched at birth and that's his newly discovered real family and he just never told Foggy.

Matt has been kidnapped by a family in the suburbs and they've enslaved him to make gingerbread with their children.

Which is true, weirdly enough.

Matt is having a spiraling panic attack because while he's like, not on deaths door anymore, he's still healing and clearly beat to shit and foggys going to think the castles did it and freak out and he doesn't have a lie for this prepped. And the castles are like "okay okay but, quick point, you've even prattling on about this kid for like, a minimum of four hours per day, you are more likely than not in love with him, have you considered the truth"

And Matt doesn't know what to do with that, is the thing.

Foggy comes by. He is four hours early. He arrived immediately after he got the address. Maria is lovely and kind and welcoming. Frank pumps his arm firmly and is built like a brickshit house and sort of intimidating.

Matt is absolutely beat to shit.

Matt is absolutely beat to shit.

Foggy: AHAHAHA HEY BUDDY IMMA GIVE YOU A HUG BECAUSE I MISSED YOU AND LOVE YOU SO MUCH IN THIS THE SEASON OF GOODWILL AMONG MEN. did they do this to you cough twice for yes

Matt: oh for the love of god.

And the problem is. For a family that commits felonies. They're weirdly open about that fact.

Foggy: how did Matt end up staying with you

Lisa: oh we gave him Stockholm syndrome after kidnapping him

matt: ahahaha kids say the darndest things

Frankie: no really dad kept having to drag him off the windowsill when he tried to climb out and we had to be extra welcoming to him so he'd stop trying to escape

Matt: AHAHAHA KIDS SAY THE DARNDEST THINGS

Foggy told his cop friend Brett to be on standby before he came here and now he's rapidly wondering if he needs to actualize that.

There's a good deal bit more after that, but this is getting long. There's emotional honesty. There's homosexuality. There's confessions about superpowers that Matt may or may not have. There's discussing trauma.

There's the fucking shadow government showing up to recruit Matt.

The thing is that Frank Castle is one of the best military operatives, like. Ever. And SHIELD was interested in recruiting that. And they thought, hey, saving his kids may do that. And they sent Hawkeye to infiltrate the mercenaries that had taken them.

Except they were fuck-off guns there and while he could take them all out if it was just him, he'd have to be 90% crazier of motherfucker than he actually is to try that shit with two kids in the line of fire.

And then an absolutely crazy motherfucker showed up and did exactly that. Caught his arrow mid-backflip. Kicked his ass too. It was sort of sick as hell. He hasn't met anyone so good at hand to hand since black widow.

They couldn't not recruit that guy.

And like. They found him. They found him really easily. The castle family kidnapped him. It was kind of obvious.

So Clint and Coulson roll up with the recruitment pitch and Clints like "hey, haha, I'm Clint, you stabbed me, wow you're like, completely insane, I mean that literally and in a figurative impressiveness sense, want to be best friends" and matts a fucking centimeter from launching himself out the window and starting a new life in Mexico.

And coulson's good at what he does. He can tell that matts not at all buying what he's selling, is more than a little freaked out at the idea of being identified as enhanced, and is almost definitely a former child soldier if their background was accurate about who took him from his orphanage for a few months. He also knows that Matt's abilities are too unique and too useful to just walk away from them. Nothing can be hidden from him. And if a fucking nuke is missing and they need someone to sniff it out, they need to be able to set Matt loose on a city for it. So he makes the pitch of "what if I keep you out of all databases, tell no one your name, and have you as a strictly as needed member of the roster," to which Matt replies with something along the line of "you can go and get fucked with you fascist shadow agency bullshit, you fucking totalitarian nightmare freaks, you try and drag me off to your freak show org to be a fucking dog on a leash for your illegal agency and I'll bite your goddamn face off, the world would have to end for me to come within a hundred godforsaken feet of you," which is… a coarse but technically affirmative answer that Coulson takes to mean as "Yes, if the world is ending, I will come to your agency." He honestly tells him that he'll keep matts secret and leaves. And Matt is still considering the Mexico plan but decides that he has a family to keep him here now in foggy and the castles and decides to risk staying. And that's that.

Which leads into my semi-crack fic of Matt being in the original Avengers, which I won't subject you to here. but some highlights:

Matt misses the first day of world-saving because he took off the second the SHIELD guy came by to pick him up. He managed to hide for 27 consecutive hours before they dragged his ass to the helicarrier.

He wasn't briefed at all because they ask him if he read the files they gave him and he just tosses them on the table and asks "does this look like fucking Braille to you." He repeatedly threatens to sue them for a lack of ada compliance.

He keeps getting stuck in rooms because this nightmare space ship only uses screens for everything, including door handles.

The hulk: *is the hulk*

Matt, has a stick: WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO WITH THAT

Tony: in a few minutes I'll know every secret SHIELD has ever had

Matt, has listened to at least eight top secret HYDRA meetings since being locked into this fucking hell ship: MHMM

They save the day, he's in a mask, the press asks them all whats next for the avengers and he's like "well I have a day job, I'm going home" and just. Walks away.

Three weeks later he starts fighting crime of his own volition and whenever anyone mentions hey is it maybe that avenger fellow he replies to the official inquiries with "oh no you see I have a day job" which should not work but does

Of course, Matt learning about HYDRA leads into my other semi-crack fic involving Matt simply immediately telling Captain America about the fucking Nazi's, and Cap rediscovering his life's passion, which is punching some fucking Nazi's. Except, he really needs Matt to spy on HYDRA for this to work, and Matt's identity is still almost entirely secret even within SHIELD and he doesn't want to endanger that. So they embark on introducing everyone to Matt Murdock, his totally normal, blind attorney boyfriend who is not at all a superpowered ultimate spy who happens to be secretly a very reluctant Avenger. It is now a fake dating AU.

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[keyboarddream]

Will Graham can drift with anyone. Jack Crawford's the Marshall of the Dome, and it's his job to keep everyone safe. Hannibal Lecter's a brilliant pilot without a partner, so the solution's obvious. Sure, maybe there was a reason Will stopped being a pilot two years ago, and why he turned to a quieter life, living with Abigail, attending therapy session with Alana, and lecturing on drifting. But the Kaiju are coming, and they will wait for no-one.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/53087419/chapters/134315647

In this chapter, Will Graham has blood on his hands, and Jack Crawford has a situation on his.

[superdupervenience]

One Level Deeper

This is fanfiction of Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, which is the most important fiction I’ve ever read.

***********************************

“Mr. Potter, you’ve been standing out there for nearly five minutes,” Professor Quirrell called through his foreboding office door. “You’re worse than Miss Granger. And you are about to be late to my meeting. I do not like when people are late to my meetings.”

  The door opened, and Harry took a few steps back from the highly amused harbinger of Doom–who, strangely, seemed to have left his doominess elsewhere today. “Whatever you fear, young Ravenclaw, it cannot be more frightening than earning my animosity.” He returned to his office chair.

  “That,” Harry conceded, “is a most compelling argument.”

  “Yes.” Harry stopped in the doorway for a few moments, dumbfounded by what he was seeing. At first he thought they must be in a totally different part of the castle. But no, it was the same office he’d been in before. Only each detail had been adjusted to create an atmosphere that clashed with everything he knew about professor Quirrell. It seemed… welcoming. Comforting, even.

  The lighting was soft. A hint of musky incense wafted toward the door, and the air was warmer than in the hall outside. The bookshelves were draped in translucent green fabric, obscuring all but the faint outlines of their contents. The furniture was more appropriate for curling up with a novel than for private lessons. A thick fluffy carpet covered the marble floor. The few knick knacks had been removed, and the desk was clear save for a small unlit candle, perfectly centered.

  “Mr. Potter,” said Quirrell, smiling, “sit.” He gestured toward the overstuffed armchair opposite him across the desk. Harry complied, and was startled again when the chair adjusted beneath him, hugging him gently. He got the disturbing impression it was relieved to be sat upon.

  “You seem ill at ease, Mr. Potter. Is something the matter?” Quirrell looked genuinely concerned–indeed, now that Harry considered it, his manner actually matched the room to some extent. He found that far more disturbing than the chair.

  “Well, no, not exactly,” he replied slowly. Harry struggled to articulate his thoughts, shifting nervously. The chair readjusted accordingly.

  “You are wondering, among other things, why I seem to have taken decorating advice from Professor Trelawney.” Quirrell was speaking softly in a particularly low register, and he seemed to be taking extra care of his vowels. The effect was… well, it was soothing, actually.

  Harry had imagined many possible scenarios unfolding today, but this was definitely not one of them. “The usual atmosphere of my office is not conducive to the purpose of this particular meeting,” the professor explained. “Many believe occlumency must be learned by brute force, that a mind repeatedly assaulted will learn to defend itself more quickly than one tenderly guided. This is false. It is merely difficult for the foolish and impatient to take a more subtle approach.”

  “You’re going to… to ‘tenderly guide’ my mind?” Harry barely kept his jaw from hanging open.

  The corners of the Professor’s lips twitched upward. “Yes.” He sat back in his own chair, which had not been replaced with an overstuffed sentient cushion.

  There was a long pause in which Quirrell was infuriatingly smug, and Harry was trying to stop his head from backflipping so violently. He ran through several reality checks to ensure he wasn’t asleep before concluding that the real world really was out to lunch.

  “As much as I’m enjoying this,” mused Quirrell, “I’m afraid I’m going to need you to stop trying to not be confused. We’ll get nowhere if you insist on making sense of everything that happens today. You’re welcome to attempt to sort things out later. Understand that I wear many hats, and leave it at that for now. At the moment, I need you to let your guard down. Will you do that for me, Harry?”

  Harry pondered the request for a long time. Professor Quirrell was the last person on Earth around whom Harry felt it wise to let his guard down, especially in light of his recently acquired knowledge that Quirrell was a telepath. On the other hand, if Quirrell wanted to harm him or violate his privacy, it wasn’t like Harry had much say, guarded or not. That was, after all, the point. Finally, he answered: “I’ll give it a try.”

  “Splendid. Before we begin, I’ll need your word not to speak of this with anyone. The particular instructional techniques I’ll employ may evidence that my abilities as a legilimens are rather a lot more advanced than even Dumbledore suspects. As I’m sure you’ll understand, I’d like to keep it that way.”

  Harry nodded. “Of course. You have it.”

  “Good. Now then. It will put you at ease to know that I will not be reading your mind. Not in the way you fear, anyway. A sufficiently skilled legilimens can detect the structure of thoughts without intruding upon their contents. I shall monitor abstract patterns and emotional overtones, but that is all the information I’ll need to guide you effectively, at least at this stage. I’ll continue to obtain whatever other information I desire the hard way. Do you understand?”

  “You’ll know how I think, but not what I think.”

  “Precisely. In addition, remember that legilimency generally is not mind control. I will not force you directly to think or behave according to my will.”

  Harry tilted his head hesitantly. “What exactly do you mean by 'directly’?”

  The Professor pondered this for several seconds–an unusually long time for him–before answering. “The choice to follow my instructions will always be yours. Your thoughts will remain entirely under your own control.”

  Harry smirked at this. “Cognitive science is a very new field, but we understand enough already to know it doesn’t work the way you’re suggesting.”

  Quirrell seemed puzzled, so Harry went on.

  “Come to think of it, we hardly need to look much farther than philosophy here. Let’s say something is my choice if–and only if–my wanting it to happen causes it to happen. What causes me to want it to happen?”

  Harry paused, gathering his thoughts. “Well, that’s probably really complicated, but it at least has something to do with unconscious parts of my mind. The things in my unconscious are there for a whole lot of reasons, none of which are that I am currently deciding for them to be there. By definition, actually. If things I never wanted and caused to happen can affect the overall makeup of my mind–things like where I was born or how long I slept when I forgot to set my alarm–then you can too. Magic or no.”

  Now Quirrell looked a little worried.

  “I assume,” Harry concluded, “you mean I will retain whatever degree of control over my thoughts I usually have.“

  "I’m afraid the degree of control you usually have is the best I can offer. I’m astonished that muggles have discovered such things without the use of legilimency, but we will have to save further discussion of it for another time.”

  “Agreed,” said Harry.

  “It would not benefit me to harm you, Mr. Potter, or I’d have done it already. You have my word that I will not. Will that do?” Harry nodded his consent. “Let us begin, then.”

  “What do I do?” Harry asked. His heartbeat suddenly seemed quite loud.

  The lights dimmed further. “First of all, watch this candle flame.” The candle spontaneously ignited. “Keep watching it. You won’t take your eyes off the flame, no matter how relaxed and drowsy it makes you. Other than that, you don’t need to do anything besides what comes naturally.” Harry watched the flame. Professor Quirrell continued speaking, very slowly, and with increasingly long pauses that matched up with Harry’s breathing. The rest of the room around the candle flame quickly faded out. It was as though his visual cortex had simply given up on interpreting any other information.

  “The purpose of today’s lesson is to enhance your powers of introspection. As you already know, there are many features of consciousness most people routinely neglect to attend to. The ones we’ll focus on today are called 'surfaces’, and they are the first structures a legilimens encounters when attempting to enter your mind.”

  Harry’s heart had slowed down. A lot. Quirrell seemed to be speaking from much farther away than the other side of the desk. Surfaces, thought Harry. Got it.

  “This will take a type of concentration you’ve likely never experienced, for which relaxation is essential. Following my instructions will induce that relaxation. But you needn’t be concerned with following my instructions when it does not feel completely effortless to do so. This is not a test–and, I assure you, you will enjoy it immensely.”

  It was not effortless to keep watching the candle. In fact, it was becoming quite difficult. His eyes wanted to blink heavily, to drop their gaze from the very bright light. But, strangely, he felt it would have been even more difficult to look away.

  “Relax into the chair. You’ll find that no effort whatsoever is required to maintain an upright position. Let go of every single muscle. Besides, of course, your eyelids, however heavy they feel. Keep watching the candle.”

  The chair certainly seemed eager to take more of his weight. He obliged, and felt as though he were melting. Which was a surprisingly pleasant sensation. It seemed to be charmed to seek out muscles that were still holding tension. It would then massage them gently until they completely relaxed. He was barely aware of what Quirrell was saying now. It took almost all of his attention to keep his eyes open, to keep watching the candle.

  Then, like a very dim star you can see only when you don’t look too hard, he felt something soft at the edge of his mind. He’d never experienced his consciousness as having an edge, or a shape of any kind. But now it seemed to have an outer surface, or at least part of one, and there was a light pressure against it. That part seemed to be in the top left corner toward the back, though that didn’t make any sense. It was confusing, though not unpleasant.

  Professor Quirrell’s voice was even quieter now, as quiet as a whisper, yet still low and full. “Soon you will not be able to keep your eyes open,” he intoned. “The impulse to relax will be too overwhelming, and you will simply be incapable of sustaining your gaze any longer.”

  At that, the difficulty at least tripled.

  “It’s all right, Harry. When you feel that impulse, just let them close.” The pressure on his mind increased, matching the now tremendous weight of his eyelids. Wordlessly, the pressure was giving him permission, seducing him to let go. It was too much. The next time he blinked, he yielded to it, his eyelids finally dropping in delicious surrender. And then the world was gone.

  Harry didn’t know for how long he sat in silence after that. It could have been a few minutes. It could have been hours. It was the most profound calm he’d ever experienced.

  He could often feel that gentle presence drifting about, alighting now and then on the surface of his thoughts, sinking sometimes to chart the convoluted depths of his mind. It moved with a slow rocking motion, propelled by the wind of his breath. Delicately, it guided him to relinquish his unconscious grasp on each cognitive process still running in the background, leading to deeper relaxation than he’d thought possible.

  His mind grew consummately still, until he could not have remembered what it meant to think or to feel anything at all besides this perpetual abandonment to calm. He watched it drift without guessing what would happen next, without caring. He’d completely forgotten he was in Quirrell’s office, that he had a body, that this was all part of a lesson in occlumency. Eventually, even the drifting ceased.

  Utter the darkness, empty the void, silent the endless night.

  Then, smashing through the silence, a single thought thundered across his mind: “It’s full of stars.” For out of the darkness suddenly burst ten thousand points of light, and he thought he was again observing Professor Quirrell’s secret spell.

  Even as the true image of distant space enshrouded him, something seemed discordant. Something was different. This was not quite what he remembered. It took him awhile (though time meant little now), as he basked in its austerity, to make out what had changed.

  Oh. He wasn’t seeing it. His eyes were closed, but it wasn’t even a visual image at all. He was feeling those blazing stars against the abyss. They were his awareness cast about in countless burning points of concentration, crystallized thought glittering across his whole consciousness. If there is something it is like, he thought wordlessly, to be the limitless night sky, perhaps this is it. He was not aware of the tears on his cheeks.

  And then he heard the professor’s voice, barely above a whisper. “Those points are your own attention. I am now only observing from the outside. You are maintaining them, and you can control them as you please. Try moving one. You’ll find they move along curved planes, if you don’t push too hard.” Harry tried. Nothing happened. “You can’t move them quite like you’d move a limb. You probably won’t experience a strong sense of agency when it happens. Just expect it to happen, and don’t get in its way.”

  Harry expected one of the stars to move. He relaxed, letting its path be empty, and simply knew where it would go. Gently, it began to glide, like a satellite across the upper atmosphere, along the surface of his mind. He felt Professor Quirrell indicate another point of light, and he nudged that one to the left. “Try several,” Quirrell instructed. Harry picked a patch of about a dozen stars, and moved them all just a little upward.

  “Excellent, Harry. You have found your surfaces. You are very close to making a rudimentary occlumency barrier.” Harry continued sending stars this way and that as Quirrell spoke. He felt like he was simply watching, and that by some incredible coincidence the stars moved as he predicted they would. It was strange to feel a third party to his own actions.

  “Relax, now, Harry. Let the points rest where they are.” There was silence again, and Harry sank down a little deeper into the blankness, which he hoped he would never have to leave. “Good. Just keep dropping like that. Don’t worry about the stars; they’re stable enough now that you needn’t tend to them actively.”

  Another immeasurable stretch of time passed. He could feel the presence of the Professor again, guiding his thoughts back down to perfect stillness. When next he heard Quirrell’s voice, it was only in his mind.

  “The stars are points of intensely concentrated awareness. Imagine they are clenched like fists. Can you feel them struggling, wanting to open?” He paused for Harry to take note of the sensation.

  “Now, let them go.” Harry released them all at once, and the lights began to diffuse, to blossom out across his mind.

  They melted into little puddles, like ice cubes on hot pavement. The borders of the pools of light met, merged, and reinforced each other. Now broad stretches of sky hung in soft radiance all around him, the stars replaced with what felt like giant forcefields. They were warm and reassuring. As he poured more of himself into them, they became brighter, and Harry felt strong.

  Quirrell’s words were soft, but with a hint of excitement. “You have much more in you,” he said. “You can reinforce this barrier five times over at least.” Harry felt Quirrell touching a surface, felt him encountering resistance. It was like answering before the question was over, and he knew the barrier was working.

  Without the usual cognitive machinery grinding away, weighing and calculating and inhibiting, his response to his success was immediate, fierce: A colossal dam broke inside of him then. All the certainty, fortitude, and satisfaction he could experience rushed directly into the forcefield. He thought he might have outshone the sun. Harry felt invincible as the barrier blazed across his mind.

  “It is enough, Harry,” Quirrell said. “Remember this sensation, but do not maintain it. Back off now.” It was difficult for him to stem the flow of emotion, but when finally he’d drawn the storm back into himself, Harry was utterly exhausted.

  He spiraled downward at an incredible rate, and Quirrell was there to assist in recovery, even as he continued to speak aloud. “That was very well done. Such a display was beyond even my ambitions for your first lesson. You intuited an effective approach without explicit instruction.” His voice was back to low and soothing, and he was speaking again in a rhythm that followed Harry’s breath. “I’m going to start counting up soon from one to ten, and you will begin moving toward regular wakefulness. But not just yet. Rest here awhile.

  “You have gained full awareness of your surfaces, and the method you employed has its advantages. But it is also terribly fragile.

  “A display like that completely occludes a very brief scan and may even blind the legilimens for a few moments. But any legilimens worthy of that designation would shatter such a barrier completely without thinking twice. All I’d have to do is introduce a seed of self doubt, and it would be over. Not only would I have easy access to the deeper parts of your mind, but you’d have no energy left for further defense.”

  There was silence for several minutes, as the professor simply let Harry sit, keeping his mind to himself. Eventually, he started counting, and little by little Harry became aware of his body, the room, and what he was doing in it. On ten, Harry opened his eyes.

  He took a breath to speak, but gave up on it right away when he realized he didn’t know what to say. He’d need to spend some time processing these past two hours before he could think straight enough to say much of anything at all. The professor smiled. “You will return at three tomorrow, and I will answer your questions then. That is also when you will receive your first assignment.” Harry nodded rather languidly. “For now, Mr. Potter, have a light dinner, and do not attempt anything more engaging than checkers. You will sleep very soundly indeed this night.”

  “Yes,” said Harry, “I expect I will.”

[oc-siblings-bracket]

OC-Siblings-Bracket 1.10

Pick a Set

Martin & Danny Wyttegun

Sabrina & Sylvia Cuillere

Voting ended onSep 24, 2023

info down there because these posts are long ↓

Martin & Danny Wyttegun by @pet-rock-from-hell

Info:

They’re short, they commit crimes together, they definitely only survive by luck at this point, they’re so incredibly cringe fail. it’s fine they both make up for it with that any pronouns swag, They’re half demons with feathers instead of hair and they’re just so cool i promise.

Sabrina & Sylvia Cuillere by @keyboardandadream

(no available image, symbolically significant one provided by submitter)

Info:

Sylvia and Sabrina Cuillere are the two children of Micheal Joseph and Marie Cuillere, in 1960s New Orleans. Sylvia was born first, by about four years.

A young Sylvia drowned, in the river of New Orleans. Father and Marie refuse to speak of her. Sabrina only knows she has a sister because she can see Sylvia’s ghost. Sylvia grows and doesn’t, at the same time: she’s always going to be a dead six year old, but she’s also always four years older.

The nuns disputed whether this is a miracle or the Devil’s work; either way, they cared an awful lot about Sabrina seeing Sylvia, until Father decides that a servant or parishioner must have told the secret, and Sylvia was dismissed as an imaginary friend.

As a result of Sylvia’s tragic drowning, Sabrina isn’t allowed near the water, or out much at all, really. Sylvia flits between the outside and Sabrina, and Sabrina wonders whether she’s really seeing her sister or not.

Sylvia spies a handsome shiphand, Billy, and points him out to Sabrina; to her dismay, Sabrina begins a romance with Billy, and begins talk of elopement and escape from New Orleans and the Family Cuillere. Sylvia is tied to the river that drowned her, the City that Care Forgot. Sabrina is not.

Sabrina does leave, and it’s a terrible nine months. But Sabrina returns, weeping, speaking of dreadful apparitions openly to her parents, and of her bearing a child, no evidence of which remains, thank God. But the apparitions do not stop, and Sylvia cannot reach her sister any more than their parents can.

Sabrina is placed in a quiet madhouse by the river, by the Ocean, and Sylvia can follow. Does follow, of course. Now, in the madhouse, Sabrina can speak openly to Sylvia, and neither of them can leave. All the walls are white, but the River is just outside, and it is beautiful.

[keyboardandadream]

vote for my ocs sabrina and sylvia cuillere please

[polysyndetonaddictsupportgroup]

📓 <333

Okay back to answering these

I have this one very sprawling, episodic fic I call the Peter Parker Roommates AU that I deeply adore that’s basically based on the idea that, when the three Peters hugged at the end of multiverse, they got kind of glitched together and gained the ability to hop into each others universes.

They discover this fact entirely by accident after the entire matter is settled, everyone’s been sent back to their home universes and forgotten Tom Holland!Peter.

WHAT THEY SHOULD DO:

Tell the fucking wizards

WHAT THEY DO NOT DO:

okay so the thing is

They know, okay? They know that this is probably “cosmically dangerous” and “endangering the fabric of reality” or whatever. They all don’t want to rip a hole in the space time continuum that destroys all of existence.

But there’s a very compelling counterpoint to not telling the wizards.

And that’s that all of them are homeless and rent is very very expensive in every version of New York City and it is very very hard to get a roommate when you’re secretly fucking Spider-Man. They have never had such an unparalleled opportunity to split rent three ways before.

the thing is that apparently changing the fates of people who were “important” to your “past” may or may not change the world you come back to. 2/3 Spider-Men did not know they would be homeless coming out the other end of this and are very unprepared. The last 1/3 only had like 7 minutes of forewarning and is likewise caught off guard.

THE SPIDERMEN AND THEIR RESPECTIVE LIVING SITUATIONS:

Tom Holland!Peter (“Pete”): cold, homeless, alone, and sad. Has no idea if he still legally exists or not

Tobey McGuire!Peter (“Peter B.”): see the thing is that he’s been figuring things out and on/off with Mary Jane for a long time and when he left his universe last he and MJ were actually making a pretty good go at long term domesticity and had an apartment together and were really happy. He gets back and they’re very much off again and not on speaking terms, apparently, for reasons that he can’t figure out because they’re not on speaking terms. He has no idea where he lives. He cannot find it. He has tried. Where are all of his things. Currently has the clothes on his back and nothing else.

Andrew Garfield!Peter (“Peter P.”): not technically homeless but seriously considering it as a preferable alternative. The thing is that when he last left his universe he was living on his own, having moved out of Aunt Mays house for her safety and sanity. The universe he returned to was not that. He’s back in his childhood bedroom and apparently in this universe he was fighting a crime ring he was not fighting when he left because his closet is full of cocaine and he does not know why or where he got it or what mob he stole it from. It’s just. It’s an enormous amount of cocaine. He can’t remember what to do with it. He needs to get out of his aunts house and take his cocaine with him.

Anyway they realize that Peter B.’s aunt may never lost her house (a de-Goblin’d Norman Osborn paid it off and refused to accept any reimbursement whatsoever in complete guilt over what happened with Pete’s May). However, she is the oldest out of any May by a lot and needs to be in full time assisted living care home (also forcibly paid for by Norman Osborn for reasons that. Yeah. Would not explain. Makes sense why now.) and the 3 Peters decide to move in together at Peter B’s home and split living costs from there.

Honestly it’s too sprawling of a fic to adequately summarize so here are the highlights:

Peter B’s universe has a long time Daredevil that he’s absolute best friends with and neither of them will admit that they’re friends. They’re in a “purely professional” relationship except they like send each other recipes and go antiquing together on the weekends. Both of them fucking hate their universe’s Avengers, who just cropped up.

Okay it’s not that they HATE them it’s just that they hate them. The thing is that this universes avengers didn’t get the hard launch of an alien invasion. Peter B’s universe had Just Spider-Man for a very long time and then Daredevil and Luke Cage and Jessica Jones and other street folk popped up and now the government is trying to roll out their own superhero team. The thing is they don’t have a super large amount to work with since there’s no alien invasion and people fucking love Spider-Man and other solo heroes so they just play the team angle really hard. The government basically launches a PR campaign that’s about how superhero teams are inherently more trustworthy and have more accountability because you have them keeping each other in check. They’re trying to rope in Spider-Man because he’s got the most street cred out of anyone like just join a TEAM get support from a TEAM and it’s just. It’s so annoying and inconvenient. Leave him BE.

Daredevil is having similar problems and is similarly angry about it. He’s not joining a team with tony stark out of all the godforsaken people. Get off of his rooftop and stop trying to recruit him.

They decide “fuck it” and to form a “team” with each other so that way they can say LOOK we have a TEAM we did the TEAM thing leave us alone now. What’s their team name? Uhhh… red. Team red. Because they both are wearing red. Leave them alone now.

This leads to some random guy named Deadpool taking out billboards and television ads begging to be made a part of their team. They don’t know who he is. He left a muffin basket nailed to the Peters front door with a knife as a bribe/for your consideration gift. How does this man know where they live and who is he. Anyway the muffins were fantastic

(Pete during Peter Bs biweekly bitchfest about the avengers: hey it’s probably a good idea you’re not teaming up with them because shield was secretly nazis in my universe

Peter B, slamming his hand on the counter: I KNEW IT)

(Peter B’s Matt (“Mr. Murdock”) waking Pete up in the middle of the night: what do you mean they were secretly nazi’s

Pete, violently realizing that his attorney was daredevil the whole fucking time: oh I’m gonna torture him with that *cue three months straight where he makes a bunch of lawyer jokes around his universe’s daredevil to drive him mad with paranoia*)

Mike Murdock shenanigans when Pete’s Matt gets caught as Daredevil, arrested, and put on trial and Pete, who has decided he owes him a life debt for his help when he was in the hot seat, concoctes a wild scheme where they claim it was his twin brother Mike Murdock all along. Forces Mr. Murdock to go along as their “Mike” by promising to find a way to reveal SHIELD as secretly nazis, because they’re so fucking annoying and Mr. Murdock wants public humiliation and pain for the inconvenience of having to deal with them

When they do reveal them as secretly nazis they do it through Peter B’s universe’s Bucky, who ends up moving to Pete’s universe in a sort of recovery/witness relocation thing. He moves in with Pete’s Matt (“Matt”), who hates this fact. Leave his home.

Peter B’s universe’s Steve hurdles into depression when it’s discovered that he was working for Nazis and Bucky doesn’t want to see him (he immigrated to another universe and they were planning to tell 0 people that fact) and keeps moping where Peter B has to see it, ruining his now AMAZING mood now that the avengers and shield were publicly ruined. So he drops him off at Matt’s apartment. Matt hates this fact. Leave his home.

This Steve decides that immigration to another universe is the only and best option and becomes a barista and decides his fake name is going to be his favorite character from his favorite book from the 40s that was sadly mostly unknown. So he goes around as Frodo the Barista now. What do you mean that book is popular here. He can’t change it again.

He fights crime as a vigilante in Brooklyn with his Bucky in his free time. Matt is frothing with rage that this is his problem and demands Pete do something about it. Pete starts spreading the rumor that this is the ghost of Captain America and Bucky Barnes haunting Brooklyn, obviously. He is aware that his universes Bucky is still alive. People believe it anyway. Now there’s ghost tours in Brooklyn to see the ghost of someone who’s still fucking alive.

(Matt: I need them out of my home I can’t take this anymore

Foggy, squinting at him: you fucked both of them didn’t you

Matt: that is BESIDES THE POINT)

Peter P’s universe is the only one without a daredevil and he is SO UPSET. He loves daredevils. He wants one so so bad. This is so unfair.

Then law student Matt Murdock starts dicking around in black sweatpants and Peter P could not be more excited. Oh god oh fuck yes yes yes yes it’s happening

His Matt is deeply confused as to how he already caught Spider-Man’s attention and doesn’t want to team up with him. He’s just cleaning up his neighborhood. This isn’t a Thing he doesn’t have a superhero name. When Peter p insists on knowing who he is he just replies “I am a Man of Justice”

Peter P is so fucking psyched and blinded that he got a dramatic theatre kid Matt Murdock that he forgets himself and decides “I’m gonna call you MJ. You look like an M name” and then has a panic attack because BOTH the other Peters fell in love with an MJ. Did he jinx this cosmically?? Oh god

The thing is that Peter P’s universe didn’t get an Avengers, they got a fantastic four. Peter P is in a very unwilling and one sided rivalry with Johnny Storm on account that Johnny Storm keeps trying to rival him and he’s like. Fucking 17. Peter P is an adult man in grad school he can’t, this is, it’s just embarrassing is what it is. However Pete fucking betrayed him by dating Johnny Storm (re: had a star crossed and doomed to fail genuine relationship with him that helped him recover from losing MJ and Ned and crashed and failed due to the fact that Reed Richards was chasing the multiverse and Pete decided he couldn’t risk what he had with the Peters after losing his entire family to the multiverse last time. They broke up and both were devastated)

(Peter P, under the impression he has Big Brother Authority, which does not exist: I FORBID IT

Pete: I do not care man

Peter B, has a headache: let’s all take a step back

Peter P: he’s, he’s immature and bad and always dating new people every week and and he is trying to steal your sweetness

Pete: *stares at him* *ungodly screeching*)

The thing is that the Johnny Storm led to an agreement where they could not date each others friends/enemies multiversal counterparts because it got weird fast. What do you MEAN that your MJ is your Daredevil Pete has ONE FRIEND IN HIS ENTIRE UNIVERSE AND THATS HIS MATT PETER P CANNOT DATE HIS MATT

This leads to a period of time where Pete insists upon living out of a little hobo sack in his universe, which leads to an even more embarrassing period of time where Peter B is aggressively trying to hunt him down and force him to talk about his feelings, which is the one thing Pete is refusing to do. Peter B refuses to let Pete (who is in his self destructive loner phase, they all have one, it’s a Peter Parker thing) live alone. He needs a roommate who can patch him up or peter b will fucking web them together. Pete says “fine” and gets a roommate. The roommate is the Punisher. He is the only one who thinks this is a solution. Except Frank is weirdly good with angst riddled seventeen year olds and pete gets more emotional actualization and moves back in with the other Peters

Peter Bs JJJ has actual journalistic integrity and some modicum of concern for this random teenager that his photographer took in and thinks he just needs stability and structure and support in life to succeed. He keeps trying to be a mentor figure in Pete’s life who is simply not having it.

He eventually ends up in multiversal shenanigans and discovers Pete’s version of him, who he decides is the Evil Version of him who sells fucking scam multivitamins and slanders a perfectly nice young man. His thing was different they’re not talking about that anyway he has to kill the version of him without journalistic integrity

Peter B, could not be more tired: *deep breath*

Mr. Murdock is in a long standing polycule with his Karen and his Foggy and the thing is that both his Karen and his Foggy have baby fever but can’t adopt because their lives are hostile to children’s continued survival and he decides that what he really needs for them is a durable orphan who can be their like, pseudo child and he can be like the weird uncle to. He just sort of shoves Pete in their path, who fucking owes him for the entire thing with Mike Murdock, and it’s really very extremely awkward when they figure out he was doing it to help Karen and foggy get out their latent parenting instincts. Pete feels violated.

There’s this entire subplot with scarlet witch and multiversal versions of her orphaned twins trying to find a version of their mom (who died in Peter B’s universe) that they can be with that would take too long to get into but whenever they misbehave on the quest to find Pete’s scarlet witch and see if she ever considered motherhood they threaten to send them back to their home universe to be Mr Murdock’s durable orphans

There’s a lot more but this is very long already

[justleaveacommentfest]

WE'RE BACK BABEYYYYYYYYYYY

[justleaveacommentfest]

FAQ

[rankheresy]

Stepping Into the Field Calling "Heere, Competitors! Competitors! C'mere Competitors, Give Me Contact Information!" and Looking Around Despairingly

Due to tumblr being a terrible website and me not having thought ahead, I have one person who did not give me sufficient contact information as well as one whose blog doesn't show up when I search for it.

With that in mind, I'm hoping the following can report to base (DM me on discord: therealvinelle or on tumblr: therealvinelle)

Ao3: KatieSarah

Ao3: Lantakalar. Tumblr: renmeno

[keyboarddream]

Hi, KatieSarah! We're assigned as cowriters, but ... yeah I can't find you. if you turn on cowriting permissions...?

[polysyndetonaddictsupportgroup]

you might have been asked this question before but ive been curious for a while about what would have happened when gertrude was there when jon originally gave his statement? would anything change ?

Honestly she probably would have killed him.

Like, it feels mean to say? It would have been more out of mercy than anything.

If Jon had come to her with only a Leitner, she would have taken care of the Leitner and sent him home. She doesn't normally intervene on behalf of the Statement givers, but they also aren't usually eight, and it isn't unheard of for Gertrude to intervene for the random unlucky souls who cross her path. She intervened on behalf of Jack Barnabas, and she told the monster pig dude how to handle his problem. It's selective when she intervenes, but I think if it's just a little boy scared by a book, she would help.

The thing about Gertrude is that I don’t I think she is or ever has been heartless; I just think she’s brutally practical.

One of the most interesting tidbits about her is that she looked for Eric Delano for months after he went missing, but wasn’t close enough to know that he had quit ages before he actually died. She avenged Sarah’s death by seeking out someone she had never, ever let herself meet before that moment, but she did this right after sacrificing Michael without hesitation. She seemed genuinely fond of Gerry, but she still bound him to a book.

I think that, at the end of the day, it wouldn’t be that she wouldn’t want to save Jon. It would just be that she would realize that she couldn’t.

If he had just arrived with a Guest for Mr. Spider, I think Jon would have walked away remembering her fondly as the brusk but ultimately nice old lady who had her assistant make him a cup of tea and taught him how to burn a Leitner. But he didn’t just come because of A Guest for Mr. Spider. He came because of Tommy Bradstaff.

Gertrude’s shown to be more wary of the Web than pretty much any other entity. She got tricked by them way back when she defeated her first ritual, and I don’t think she forgets. I also don’t think she would have thought it was ever a good idea to voluntarily set herself in a competition with the Mother of Puppets. Jon's eight and scared and she'd want to help him, but she also would have immediately recognized that saving him comes with a very high price tag and a very low chance of success.

I do think Gertrude would have at least tried to think of a way to save him. I just think she would have ultimately come to the conclusion that there wasn’t one.

And it’s just practicality, right? That’s the big difference between her and Jon in nhthcth. It doesn’t matter how badly she wishes she could help; she’ll accept when she can’t. But when she can, she usually racks up a very big win. Jon will wildly intervene without even considering his chances. Like, there's a reason why the Eye led him to Danny Stoker that night--it's not conscious the way humans are or the spiders are, but even pavlov's dogs learned association, and the Eye seems to be capable of that kind of low-level consciousness. When Jon finds Eric Delano's statement in canon, it's because he listened to the tapes the Eye didn't want him to hear. That implies the Eye is at least partially able to make connections based on its own impulses and desires.

Jon's its special little boy who has been resolutely fucking starving himself for almost two decades. He went and joined the eldritch version of AA with Daisy in an attempt not to feed the Eye other than when absolutely strictly necessary, and the Eye's never been happy with his starvation diet. But the one sure-fire way to get Jon to forget his sense and start ripping statements out of avatars is to shove some poor schmuck being eaten in his line of sight.

It’s pretty directly stated in nhthcth that danny isn’t the first victim of another entity he’s tried to snatch, even if he’s never gotten as involved with a pair of victims as the stoker brothers. And honestly—he almost didn’t get super involved with them either. Like, when he was trying to duck out after the initial fight at the theatre, long term involvement would have only made it worse for them. Most of the time, the absolute best chances come from "hope that they've forgotten you existed and won't come back for round two. if that fails maybe just hop continents and it will be too inconvenient for them to track you down again. buy guns." There's a pretty high mortality rate with people who hang around him, and he's not exactly expecting these random male model brothers to manage this world long-term.

If Jon’s hadn’t straight up passed out, he would have called Daisy to come pick him up and bitched to her about fucked up clowns being a problem now. He’d feel vaguely mad at himself when nikola skinned both Danny and Tim, because it’d be just another case of him trying to help and just increasing the body count, which is what happens most of the time.

I think Mike described him like someone who kept putting half dead birds in boxes and feeling disappointed when he opened the lid and saw they’d croaked. It's not unheard of for the people he helps to make it, but it's also not exactly often either. And that’s not even really to say he’s any less powerful or capable than gertrude was—honestly, between him and Daisy? They’re sort of a powerhouse duo. Like, people are afraid of hunters. At one point Dekker says that he was going up against something that would require a hunter to kill, and that while he knew a few, he would never actually risk consulting one. Amateur lobotomy it is. And Daisy is the sort of hunter that can kill other hunters. Jon’s this absolute muppet of a human being rolling up to soul-rending horror like “this is Daisy :) she is my best friend :)” and then they turn around and the Avatar of Fucking Them Up is standing there breathing too heavy and blatantly fucking insane. It’s like if kermit the frog kept bringing the fucking terminator to social events.

And Jon isn’t exactly a slouch either. Like, he’s keeping himself as weak as he can, and he’s still strolling into other entities' domains, feeding on them, and just... walking away again. These are people who are extremely used to being the human equivalent of a great white shark, more powerful and deadly than anyone else in any room they're in, but they've got this extremely distressed looking twink curb stomping them when he has reached the absolute breaking point of his Victorian Fatigue. this man keeps coming into their homes and one-shotting them after weakening himself to the point of being on death's door. jon on his own makes other avatars twitchy, but the Jon and Daisy Buddy Cop is honestly kind of one that the other avatars are somewhat actively afraid of.

Like, they'll dunk on Jon (where daisy can't see), because he's jon and he's ridiculous and pathetic at all times, but people are secretly pretty careful to toe the line of shit jon will put up with. Mike will be smarmy with Jon because he knows Jon will let him get away with it, but he also knows that if he fucks around too hard jon will put him through a psychic paper shredder and daisy will bury his corpse in the woods. It's not a secret that Daisy and Jon are strolling around feeding on and blatantly fucking murdering things like them, but none of these self-serving assholes have managed to handle a pretty active threat to their longevity. that's more because they can't than because they won't.

And still, Gertrude is pretty universally regarded as a force of nature, but Jon's still getting told that a seven percent success rate is a bit generous.

Gertrude is Gertrude Robinson, and she's the baddest bitch around, and that has a huge bit to do with her success rate. But it would be a mistake to say that the number of battles she picked didn't have something to do with why she's more successful. Like--Gertrude's going for quantity over sentiment. She'll save the world, but the individual people in it? Those aren't the fights she has ever prioritized, at the end of the day.

Almost all of the statements Jon in canon recorded were from her tenure, and Jon's follow ups usually concluded with "and then they horribly died." Gertrude was casually eating a fucking sandwich in her office and watching while Jane Prentiss decided that she couldn't be saved and went off to cram her forearm in a spooky wasp nest. She didn't help Jane. She didn't explain what was happening. She didn't try to intervene. She ate her sandwich, and she let Jane leave, and I think that at least in part she would have agreed with Jane's assessment. There wasn't any saving her, and that's a judgment that always precludes Gertrude's help.

Gertrude wins as often as she does because she picks her battles carefully. She delivers maximum damage to maximum effect, and she doesn't spin her wheels on things she knows are a waste of resources. She came right on the heels of an archivist who died because he burned through his resources and his luck, and her tenure has been marked by her being smart enough to be cautious.

I think Jon would have given her his statement. I think she would have been nice to him. I think she would have allowed herself to feel sorry for him, and sorry that he was so young, and sorry that it was too late.

I think that she would have considered what the web could have planned for him, and she would have considered how painful a fate was waiting for him if he met the End the Spider probably had planned for him. And I think she would have decided it would be crueler to let him meet it.

Gertrude in nhthcth specifically has always had a weird, twisted mercy when it came to Jon. She never manipulated him, is the thing. Elias made sure that what he did to Jon had long past the point of no return by the time Gertrude ever caught wind of his existence. As far as she was ever concerned, Jon was beyond saving from the day they met, which meant there was no point in trying. She was never going to offer him the mercy of trying to help him.

But she could have played him and she didn't. And I think that's about the most merciful action that Gertrude Robinson would have been capable of.

She knows about Agnes, okay? better than anyone. she's been bodily hauling the world as they know it through a decade of apocalypse attempts. She took one look at Jon and realized that elias had made him to wear the watcher's crown, but also that she couldn't kill him without completely alienating her resources to stop much sooner apocalypses.

But she sort of knew from the day they met that she may have to one day kill him, if only to stop him from wearing the crown. It wasn't set in stone, but it was a very significant possibility.

In chapter 24, Jon reached out to gertrude for absolutely any comfort possible, and she actually could have given it to him. She could have strung him along with false hope, or just given him a shoulder to cry on. Someone other than elias to love.

And she would have done that knowing that she was actively planning how to kill him when the time came. And she's definitely not above that kind of manipulation. Jon's extremely vulnerable when he comes to her, and he already thinks of her as a source of hope. Stringing him along and being his only source of comfort and support would give her an enormous advantage over him that she normally wouldn't ignore. But if he did die by her hands one day, as she knows he probably will, he'd finally go to his end after a very painful life being murdered by the only person that he thought loved him after he lost Gerry. Gertrude sort of uncharacteristically gave up that advantage to spare him from that final betrayal. She'd never sacrifice the world for him, she could have loved him like her own son and she would still kill him without hesitation, and she won't lie to herself about that fact either. It's a weird, twisted act of mercy to have it be turning the cold shoulder to a little boy begging for help, but in her mind, it was the most merciful option open to her.

And I kind of like the idea of Jonathan Sims in nhthcth always demanding the most painful acts of mercy of Gertrude that she's ever contemplated. Because the thing is, if she had been the one to take his Statement that day, she's almost definitely would have decided that Jon couldn't be saved. Not when the thing after him was the Web. And once she decides that, she has two options: let him meet the End waiting outside of those doors, or handle it herself.

And the thing is, her MO is to go for the former. It's not like she's mercy killing everyone who shows up and tells her of the fate worse than death that's most likely to befall them--hell, to take the risk of mercy killing is borderline out of character to her. If it were anyone else, she wouldn't have done it.

But Jon was eight. He was begging her for help that she couldn't give. And the Web has never been merciful. Either it was lying about wanting him for itself and he was going to be killed in the most slow, horrifying way possible, or it wasn't and he wasn't even going to get the mercy of death. Like, if a horrible, tragic fate is inevitable for him, Gertrude has to at least contemplate if there's an option that's more merciful than the rest.

Even giving him a less painful death is dangerous for Gertrude, but I think that's more of a price she'd be willing to contemplate. Like, killing another entity's victim is another way of snatching a meal from them. She had to at least entertain the risk that the Web would have some kind of retribution for it. But she would also entertain the fact that Jon's only sitting in the Archives because the Web let him get that far, that it wanted him to give its Statement to her, and ultimately decide that the risk is one she's willing to shoulder.

I think she would have made sure it didn't hurt. I think she would have made it quick, and made sure he didn't know it was happening. but I don't think she would have ever saved Jon the way he wanted to be saved.

If I’m being extremely generous (and self indulgent) and trying to come up with a world where she would go on a crusade to save him, and probably assuming some kind of off screen character arc that’s completely made her change her entire approach to life, I think she’d bring him to Agnes Montague.

If Jon could ever have a chance way back when he was eight, I think it would have been Agnes. Agnes is the direct opposite of the Web. She's the demigod messiah of the entity of Fucking Up All Your Life Plans. In canon, she's the one that Gertrude went to when she did need to go after the Web. If she had decided to try for him and needed to come up with an option to save him, she'd go to Agnes.

That being said, getting to that decision is just still really unlikely. For all of the above reasons and because of the difficulties Agnes poses. Even if they're in like, lesbian soul love, they've never met in person, and she doesn't really know if Agnes will help. It may attract the Lightless Flame's attention, and Jon may just end up burnt to death instead of filled with spiders. A lot of ways it could go wrong and give Jon a worse fate. It's the sort of Hail Mary play Gertrude never really did.

That line is in the summary because I thought it said everything about what the reader needed to know for Jon in nhthcth. (Also, I just thought it sounded nice.)

Jon in nhthcth is sort of defined by the fact that he has never gotten past who he was in the moment that James Wright locked him in Gertrude's office. It's one of the two cornerstones of everything he became.

The other cornerstone, of course, is Gerry.

Jon has spent his entire life trying to figure out a way that he could have been anything but what he is. It's been a decade and change, but he's never, ever been able to let go of what happened to him. And that feels at least a little off.

Maybe it's the idea that time heals all wounds, maybe it's the idea that Stockholm Syndrome should have kicked in eventually, maybe it's the evil god eating parts of his personality, maybe it's the idea that it's probably exhausting to eternally be struggling against a fate that you met when you were fucking eight. Even if he never becomes okay with what happened to him, he probably should have at least accepted it and moved on to some measure. Like, this has been his reality for almost his entire life. No matter how terrible it was, people usually adapt and acclimate to what happens to him.

One of the core traits of Jon in nhthcth was always supposed to be that Jon just didn't for some reason.

Like, Jon has not even passed the threshold of accepting what happened to him. It's all these years later, and he's desperately replaying what happened and trying to come up with the version that has him going home at the end. Even if you don't accept your current situation, you probably should have stopped trying to figure out what you could have done differently when you were eight, no matter how terrible what happened is.

At the end of the day, even with all he knows, Jon just has never understood why he couldn't have been saved.

He knows there's no Light Side at the end of the day. This isn't some big battle of Good Against Evil--it's just a series of Bad inconveniencing Other Bad because what Other Bad wants is not in the interest of what Bad wants. There's no ancient secret order battling the dark--there's just a lot of people stopping each other from ending the world because they want to be the ones to do it, and also like, Gertrude Robinson and her good-time buddy That One Random Priest. If you're looking for someone to save you in the TMA world, there just isn't really anyone.

And that's part of why Jon goes in after Danny Stoker. It's part of why he keeps undertaking the world's most half-assed rescue attempts. Trying to save Danny when his entire life has indicated that's impossible and probably going to make things worse is a deeply irrational thing to do. He probably should have learned when to walk away by now.

But a part of him is still eight, and a part of him has spent his entire life going over the worst thing that ever happened to him and trying to figure out the way to make it different.

It takes a specific sort of person to keep undertaking herculean efforts in a desperate, wild attempt to save people that he knows are as good as dead. And I think that sort of person once was someone who was as good as dead. He saves Danny Stoker because a part of him is still desperately trying to find the person who could have done the same for him.

In the end, he became the thing he once needed most in the world, which was a chance. I don't think he's realized that fact. And I don't know if he'd find it comforting if he did.

The other thing about that sentence is that it's completely and utterly pointless.

Like. It's been eighteen fucking years. At a certain point, you have to decide it doesn't matter anymore, and clinging to the question of whether someone could have saved you just doesn't help anything. But one of the other core traits of Jon in nhthcth was that he was someone who just simply did not care if what he was doing was practical or had any chances of succeeding.

He's designed to be so stubborn in it that it's almost ridiculous, and more than a little comical but it's honestly borderline sad to me. Here Jon is, making it his life's fucking mission to hold the title of World's Shittiest Employee. He is going to make his hostage situation inconvenient for everyone. He's not doing fucking paperwork; he's only here because elias kidnapped him. He can't get away, but he's going to be the absolute most unmanageable nightmare alive.

It does absolutely nothing to help him.

He doesn't think anyone in the Institute is ever going to help him. He doesn't think he's going to force Elias's hand into letting him go by racking up the most HR complaints in Institute history. It doesn't actually help him in any way to do the vast majority of what he does--it actively hurts him, actually. There's no one in the Institute who wants to help him, because they see him as a nuisance. When he causes Elias too much trouble, Elias punishes him for it. It'd be better from a consequentialist perspective to have settled into some kind of facade of normalcy, but he hasn't. Because playing along, going along with the facade as an Institute employee--he'd have to at least implicitly admit that what happened to him isn't relevant anymore. Sure, Elias kidnapped him and fed him to an ancient, primordial hunger from the dawn of civilization, but by god, he has his monthly staff meeting to get to, and that's too important to make a fuss about the first thing.

It's kind of sad, because while the Institute didn't know the entire picture, nineteen-year old Martin almost immediately said "wow, that blatantly unstable child sure does act like he's being severely abused." Elias had to feed him a story about an entirely different abuser to dodge the world's most needed CPS visit, and Martin still almost turned around and reported Elias literally the same afternoon. Yeah, Elias had a story for the institute to explain jon's Everything, but they really didn't have to buy it.

Like, willful ignorance absolutely played a role in it. Part of it was Elias was their boss and nobody wanted to be the one to accuse him of child abuse. It was easier to accept his lies at face value and not stick their neck out for him. Part of it was just that Jon's never been a very likable victim for them. He wasn't some tearful damsel they could swoop in and save--he smoked too much and was angry and loud about it. And once they made that initial decision to ignore their misgivings, the chances of anyone breaking that pattern got extremely low. No one wants to admit to themselves that they ignored a little kid in an extremely abusive household just because his abuser was their boss and they didn't like the kid all that much. Martin kind of hit Jon like a grenade when he first joined up and actually gave a shit if he was okay.

Of course, this all means that Jon's spent the past decade or so being told by everyone who could see him hurting that his upset at the soul-crushing pain he was in was inconvenient to them and it's rude of him to be so loud about it, could he do that somewhere else, because it really doesn't matter. and he's still there saying "it does matter. it matters to me."

Just--doing pointless things because if he doesn't then they stop mattering and they have to matter somehow defines so much of what he does.

When he was a little boy, Gerry told him that the clothes you wore were meant to be things that make you feel like you, that were who you were or wanted to be, and Jon decided that the parts of him that he loved were made up of other people. It's been fourteen years since he told him that, and out of all the people he's tried to make himself with, Daisy is the only one he still has in his life. He wears the secondhand clothes of people who he lost without anyone else caring to preserve a self that people are actively trying to kill. The fact that he feels more like him when he wears Gerry's coat only matters to the extent that he lets it. He makes pointless interventions on behalf of people he knows he probably can't save, because if he doesn't, then he fact that they needed help to begin with didn't matter. It only mattered whether they could have been saved; needing to be saved doesn't factor in.

I basically wanted him to be the opposite of Basira. Basira was the world's most polite hostage in Season 3. Martin had to actually ask her if she was aware she was in a hostage situation. Her entire thing was that there was no point in getting upset at something you couldn't change--you either got on as best you could or you found a way to change it anyway. That's the exact opposite to nhthcth Jon's approach to life--the Web even pokes fun at him for it in chapter 9. A spider's prey thrashes itself to death trying to get out of its web. Jon's just--flailing like a fly struggling against a web. Gertrude always conserved her resources and energy for where it would matter most, but he exhausts himself on things he knows wouldn't succeed. It doesn't make any practical sense, but there's something viscerally human about it still.

And the last thing that sentence tells you about Jon is that he is someone who has to believe in the lightning strike.

The thing is? Jon knows about pretty much everything this post discussed. No one really knew Gertrude, but if there was someone who did, it was him. He's been hanging around her since he was a little kid. It's been stated that she personally tried to teach him to some degree, though, and we've seen that she's stated to his face that she would not have tried to save him if she had been the one to take his statement. She never really represented a chance at things having gone differently to begin with.

But he still thinks of her specifically when he tries to find the version of himself that isn't this. Because even if she was never really a chance, she was still the biggest chance he had.

Jon was eight. He knew jack all when this started, and he was going up against the most dangerous entity there was. He was never going to come up with a place to go to that wasn't the Magnus Institute, and he was never going to outsmart the Web on his own. Gertrude Robinson was the only one who he ever had a snowball's chance of crossing paths with who wasn't like, actively evil.

There's basically nil chance of her having had some kind of midlife crisis right before he showed up and deciding that this is the one she must save and damn the consequences. There's an even smaller chance of her actually pulling it off and saving him from the Web. But that was the biggest chance he had, and he can't help but cling to it.

Sometimes, you have to beat the odds. Sometimes, lightning strikes.

If you believe in the idea of the multiverse, and that everything that can happen will happen, there is a Jon out there in some far-off universe who walked into the Magnus Institute and met Gertrude Robinson instead of James Wright. There is a Gertrude Robinson who, against all odds, decided that Jon was worth the costs of saving him, who fought tooth and nail to save him and won. It's a fairytale he tells himself, but the idea of someone kind enough to put him in a car so they could drive all about, go on adventures, and find places with rain was also a fairytale he once heard, and it still happened. Gerry was his lightning strike.

And that's really the crux of it. In order for Jon to have loved Gerry the way he did, he had to be someone who would bank everything on odds that were a lot smaller than being struck by lightning. Jon needs to be the type of person who will believe in chances that barely exist, because if he doesn't, he could have never made he decisions he had to make to stay by Gerry's side.

Gerry Keay was not Gertrude Robinson, and he definitely was not anywhere near her caliber when he was the little boy who tried to take Jon and run. They live in a world that tears into your soul, that Marks you in a way that cannot be removed and that never, ever lets you go. It's monsters eating other monsters, and they were both very small and very damned from the get-out. The chances of Jon Sims and Gerry Keay saving each other were always so much smaller than the chances of Gertrude Robinson saving him, and he knew it. If he couldn't believe that there was at least a chance that Gertrude would have saved him, then he couldn't believe that he and Gerry ever had a chance of finding their way home.

We still don't know where Gerry is in 2013, why he isn't there, but we know that Daisy saw him with Jon in 2011, kicking each other under the table for making ill-timed jokes to a monster who wanted to kill them. They first ran in 1999. That's twelve years of betting everything on odds south of a lightning strike. It takes specific kinds of people to do that. It takes people who will take the worst odds possible because they're the only ones they have.

There's no power of love or friendship or hope in that universe, but I think Jon and Gerry wanted to believe that they could love each other to the point of survival. They were looking at a world where, in the whole span of human history, love had not made a lick of difference to the things they faced, and they were asking to be the exception. Wondering if Gertrude Robinson would have saved him... it's hardly the most improbable thing Jon's ever let himself believe.

[bizarrelittlemew]

Are you frustrated you can't leave second kudos on AO3? or third kudos? or whatever-who's-counting kudos?

Well, have I got the html for you!

Plop any of these in a comment (by copy&pasting the code) to make an author's day and show your appreciation!

Second kudos: <img src="https://i.ibb.co/tHMjbb6/second-kudos.png" alt="second kudos">

Third kudos: <img src="https://i.ibb.co/52bggQH/third-kudos.png" alt="third kudos">

nth kudos: <img src="https://i.ibb.co/6y7qGtC/nth-kudos.png" alt="nth kudos">

yet another kudos: <img src="https://i.ibb.co/wKtcj0s/yet-another-kudos.png" alt="yet another kudos">

It will look something like this (and will be transparent with white outline on dark backgrounds):

Feel free to spread and use these as much as you like! (and if you have ideas for other variations, let me know ✌️)

[bizarrelittlemew]

So happy to see people enjoying these and spreading the love 💖

UPDATE with some suggestions from the replies! And bonus: cookie kudos.

HTML codes under the cut.

ALL the kudos: <img src="https://i.ibb.co/KsndWzq/all-the-kudos.png" alt="all the kudos">

Chapter kudos: <img src="https://i.ibb.co/9ZSmqrp/Chapter-kudos.png" alt="Chapter kudos">

Elevenses kudos: <img src="https://i.ibb.co/6P4JTsP/elevenses-kudos.png" alt="elevenses kudos">

Heaps of kudos: <img src="https://i.ibb.co/GvRw2HS/heaps-of-kudos.png" alt="heaps of kudos">

Kisses your forehead kudos: <img src="https://i.ibb.co/6nph6nM/kisses-your-forehead.png" alt="kisses your forehead kudos">

Reading in public kudos: <img src="https://i.ibb.co/f1HDR2K/reading-in-public.png" alt="reading in public kudos">

Re-read kudos: <img src="https://i.ibb.co/jWYQ8bt/re-read-kudos.png" alt="re-read kudos">

Should be working kudos: <img src="https://i.ibb.co/26WJHKg/should-be-working.png" alt="should be working kudos">

Read the whole fic in one go kudos: <img src="https://i.ibb.co/jMHrgSk/the-whole-fic.png" alt="read the whole fic in one go kudos">

Ungodly hour kudos: <img src="https://i.ibb.co/84300T6/ungodly-hour.png" alt="ungodly hour kudos">

What about elevenses kudos: <img src="https://i.ibb.co/WW3cQJ2/what-about-elevenses.png" alt="what about elevenses kudos">

[gingersnapwolves]

let me tell you, I got a ‘kisses your forehead’ kudos and it absolutely made my day