i exist

they/them | 30s & tired | fanfic writer ROTE, Brokeback, and the Pitt Header by Bottan | Avatar by Jasán

[smoky-solitude]

Hi! I'm Smoky! I write fanfic!

You can see all my works on ao3! But here’s a synopsis:

🐺Realm of the Elderlings🗡️

Set in the Six Duchies:

Updated Feb 1: FitzChivalry Farseer, the Bastard Monarch: (Rated E) 193K, ~80% posted. Diverges in FF 34. Fitzloved. Fluffy and healing. Buckkeep life with Fitz's family who delight and annoy him in turn.

A Box with Two Locks: (Rated E) 27K, FF Fitzloved Elderling tent fic spanning three nights. Ideally read after FFBM ch27, but can be standalone

Dandelion Fluff: (Rated G) 2K. AA Fitz and Nosy meet the Fool in Buckkeep Town when they're babies. Has art!

A Lone Wolf: (Rated T) 3K. GF Berserker Fitz fic that also includes grief processing.

Driving the Worms Away: (Rated T) 2K. AF Fitz finds a purpose for that damn firebrick.

The Road to Withywoods: (Rated G) 2K. AA Chivalry needs to figure out what he can to keep his son alive.

The Fruit Knife: (Rated M) 7K. AA Chade’s struggles as a master assassin, especially apprentices. Now available in Русский!

to emerge from the shadows: (Rated T) 1K. RA Chade feels like he can't do anything, and he decides enough is enough.

Queen and Sacrifice: (Rated E) 7K. AQ-FE Kettricken POV. Kett/Laurel fic for Kinktober. Bondage + Kett character study.

All my ROTE microfics (NR) archived on ao3 since I manage the @rote-microfic blog and filtering those posts for mine is difficult.

Setting AUs:

The Ballad of Beloved: (Rated M, includes MCD) 11K. Trojan War AU featuring the exhaustion of war and the freedom of obligation that comes with death. Fitzloved. Spoilers through FF. Has art!

Dancing on the Edge of a Cliff: (Rated E) 18K. Western AU featuring tooth-rotting domestic fluff, family, cards, and obviously dancing. Fitzloved. Spoilers through GF. Has art!

The Bastard Knight: (Rated M) 42K. Medieval AU with Knight!Fitz and French!Golden. Fitzloved with a side of FitzKett. Spoilers through FF.

Posted June 1: The Bullet and the Blood (Rated E) 12K. Mafia!Fitz/Vampire!Amber with a side of Coffee Shop AU. A heartwarming, bloody, sexy getting together fic. Has art!

🤠 Brokeback Mountain ⛰️

Semi-novelization fics:

Updated Dec 8: to be warm. (Rated E) 31K. Ennis's POV. 5 chaps of 7 are posted, covering the first 79 mins of movie.

Updated May 9: to dream. (Rated E) 38K. Jack's POV. 5 chaps of 7 are posted, covering the first 79 mins of the movie.

🩺The Pitt 🏥

Signs of Life. (Rated E) 4K. The morning of July 4th, Jack can't sleep. He has to keep checking to make sure Robby is still there, still alive. Rabbot, S2E01 spoilers

Somebody to Love (better late than never). (Rated T) 9K. Five times Robby should probably have figured out he's gay, and one time he did. Rabbot, S1 spoilers.

What's in a name? (Rated G) 2K. Robby goes through a series of names over the year and his grandmother has opinions about each one. Minor Rabbot, S1 spoilers.

Posted June 7: I thought I was immune to this kind of pining (Rated E) 5K. Army Vet and MS3 Jack is definitely totally 100% straight, and he has a bit of a crush on Attending Robby. Rabbot. S1 spoilers.

Posted June 8: I just want your extra time and your… kiss! (Rated T) 6K. A 5+1 where Jack keeps publicly making out with a very embarrassed, very happy Robby, and one where Robby returns the favor. Rabbot. S1 spoilers.

Posted June 9. I don’t look like me no more, no more (Rated T) 2K. Robby’s most of the way into a bottle of bourbon and organizing his pill bottles. Thankfully he calls Jack. Rabbot. S2 spoilers.

Posted June 12. My cigarette burnt my fingers ‘cause I forgot I lit it (Rated T) 2.5k. The morning after “I don’t look like me,” Robby wakes up confused, hungover, and with a clothed Jack sleeping on him. Rabbot. S2 spoilers.

Posted June 10. You’re ever welcome with me any time you like (Rated E) 2K. Jack takes Robby camping and things don’t go as planned. Rabbot. S1 spoilers.

Posted June 11. I’ll call you when I get to Chicago (Rated T) 8K. Slow burn Soulmate AU about grief processing and rescues. Rabbot. S2 spoilers.

Posted June 13. I'll go wherever you go (Rated G). 2K. Jack and Robby go to a conference, and Jack doesn't like all the attention Robby gets. Rabbot. S1 spoilers.

😇Good Omens😈

Posted May 16. It Began with a Bang (Rated G) 3K. God starts to lose it a bit before the Big Bang and when Humans evolve on New Earth. GO3 spoilers.

Posted May 18. Again and Again (rated T) 7K. On New Earth, human Crowley and Aziraphale search and find one another again and again. A series of meetcutes. GO3 spoilers.

I edit this post as things change instead of making a new one 👍🏼

[kzlatkova]

Anyone who's ever done anything creative needs to fucking see this.

[smoky-solitude]

To me, Robby is the doctor, and Michael, Mike, Mikey, and Misha are various aspects of the person.

But 50-something Robby struggles to see himself as a person instead of as a doctor, like he views “person” as a Halloween costume for the doctor is he is the rest of the year.

[bompeii]

beach boys ☀️

a cutesy rabbot birthday request from patreon last month, befitting this wicked heat wave 🔥

insta | ao3

[smoky-solitude]

Jack’s gotten used to it, to Robby’s six week itches. He learned to tuck his chin and catch the punches with his forearms. His heart could only take so much. The blocks worked to protect his heart, but he still wound up bruised after each announcement.

“I think she’s the one,” Robby would say. And a month and a half later, “it’s not working out.” A decade ago, before Janey, Robby would add, “and I don’t know why,” but after Janey, he started saying, “it’s my fault. You know the one linking factor in all these breakup? Me.” Robby’s smile was sickly, and it broke Jack’s heart.

Once, in a fit of brave drunkenness, he’d replied flippantly, flirtatiously, “that’s because you haven’t dated me yet.”

Robby laughed and clapped him on the knee.

His heart had been bruised for a long, long time.

And afterwards? Well, Jack tried to move on. Get on the apps, message some people, maybe schedule a date or two. That was, until he mentioned a date to Robby, and Robby, well. He acted like Robby.

Robby had gotten used to it, to Jack being single. After his wife had died, Jack took time to mourn, and Robby stepped up to become his default person. Emergency contact? You got it. Ride to the airport? Of course. Need to sit in silence after a shift with someone else in the room? Hell, Robby could use that too.

Jack had always been Robby’s default person, so it’s not like that was a hardship. He was just returning the favor. Even while Robby was with Janey, he never switched his emergency contact away from Jack Abbot, though he’d gotten close.

Robby didn’t date to find a new default person, was the thing. He couldn’t give a reason why, exactly, he tried anymore. He suspected it was to fill that hole in his heart, the one burrowed into the core of him when he was eight. Maybe that’s why he flitted from person to person, looking for someone willing to make him whole. And when each relationship failed, it wasn’t the other person’s fault. It was Robby’s. He was trying to heal something that was terminal.

“That’s because you haven’t dated me yet,” Jack had joked. And Robby laughed, because that’s how you respond to jokes like that, but those words burrowed into him, a twin line he didn’t dare look at too hard.

Robby shouldn’t have been surprised when Jack told him he couldn’t get a beer on Friday because he had a date. But Robby had never been good at doing what he should do in relationships, so he felt like he’d been decked.

“A date?” He squeaked. He cleared his throat. “With, uh, with who?”

“Someone from an app,” Jack said evasively.

Robby’s mind stuttered through a billion questions he desperately wanted the answer to, and his tongue decided to say the one he didn’t honestly care about. “Is she hot?”

Jack rolled his eyes at Robby and walked away.

Robby spent the whole week fishing as subtly as he could, which wasn’t subtle at all.

“Why are you so obsessed with this, Robby? Let the man go on his date.” Dana had spent the week trying to talk sense into him. It hadn’t been working.

“He just won’t tell me anything about her,” Robby complained.

“It’s a first date. His first since his wife’s death. Maybe he doesn’t want to make it bigger than it is.”

“But it is a big deal,” Robby argued.

“How many first dates have you gone on in the past five years?” Dana rebutted. “Has Jack ever behaved this way?”

“No,” Robby moped.

“Well then, let it be.”

“But—“

Dana cut him off. “If it bothers you so much, why don’t you ask him on a date?” She let out a sharp exhale. “You’re as bad as my daughter when she was a teenager,” she muttered.

“I don’t—“

“You do, Robby. You really, really do.” Dana tapped her pen on the clipboard and started to walk away.

“You don’t even know what I was going to say,” Robby called after her. She waved him away over her shoulder.

Friday began like a readied guillotine, and Jack wound up popping in for a few hours to help out.

“What’s going on, brother? You keep giving me side eye.” Jack leaned on the counter next to Robby and pressed their shoulders together. “Don’t tell me it’s about tonight.” He had a teasing tone, the bastard.

“I was wondering…” he trailed off. Dana caught his eye and raised her eyebrows before she made a very distinct 180 turn and walked away.

“Wondering… what?”

Robby shook his head. “If you maybe wanted to go on a date.” He didn’t dare look at Jack, but there was no immediate response. Then the silence grew longer. Robby would worry Jack had left except their upper arms were still pressed together. “With me,” he added, in case it was unclear.

Jack chuckled, which wasn’t the most promising response. Robby leaned away from him, but Jack’s shoulder followed, maintaining the pressure.

“I’d love to, Robby.” Robby let out a huge sigh of relief. “How about tonight?”

Robby looked sideways at him. “Don’t you have a date tonight?”

“I canceled this morning.” Jack said cheerfully. “My evening has opened up. It’s got a hole the size and shape of Michael Robinavitch, if you’re willing to fill it.”

“But—”

“I’ll pick you up? 8 o’clock?” Jack clapped his shoulder and walked away with a bounce to his step.

“What just happened?” Robby asked the Hub. Dana rolled her eyes at him.

[fact-dogsarehappiness]

Rip Jack Twist, you would’ve loved glaring at Ennis while listening to Good Luck Babe by Chappell Roan

[xavantina]

Murderbot + text posts [168/∞]

[splattergutz]

[depsidase]

[youremysunshine8]

Ok I love this???

"baptise me in hot dog water"

Hot dog water - there's a Tumblr post out there I've seen saying hot dog water is the opposite of holy water, due to the fact that a single drop of it will contaminate what it touches. I assume this was partly inspired by this allusion but who knows for sure.

Also the the idea of holy water as inhuman and cleaning vs hot dog water as the remains of feeding someone - often a child - and entirely human. It may be dirty and I do not want it on me but God hot dog water has some memories. You will not wash away my sins. They're mine. Also, anyone can make hot dog water but holy water is refined, restricted (yes anyone can make it in an emergency but lay people are restricted from it)

"you and I both know"

Unlike baptism for babies, this one is done between two people who are both aware of what is happening. The one receiving the baptism gives the orders about what they want to happen. The giver and receiver are portrayed as equals. They are equally aware of their humanity.

"the holy stuff won't take"

Ooof heartbreaking, amazing line. Raises so many questions. What does it mean when the water "takes"? What has the receiver done that makes them unfit for holy water? Or, what has the holy water done that makes it to weak to help, to be a part of your life?

The poem as a whole - I love the lack of capitalization. It adds a sort of intimacy to the poem, and the statement from the speaker. The high words "baptise" and "holy" being offset by "take" and "hot dog". Also "hot dog water" vs "holy stuff." The cadence! I would lick it.

[the-real-seebs]

I love the serious analysis, and I think I find it persuasive.

This also sheds a lot of light on some plot points in Scooby Doo! Mystery Incorporated.

[zwoelffarben]

Not to turn this into another house full of chintz, but I'mma fuck this poem on the floor.

Meter

There are two readings of the poem's meter that I immediately identify, the first is how I'd want to read it, and the second is how a normal person would probably read it, but both make the same point.

In my interpretation (left), the first line is four wholely irregular feet: an iamb into a dibrach into two trochees; The second line is two trouches into a hanging stressed syllable; And the third line is three iambs.

In the more normal interpretation(right), the first line and second line are six trochees all together plus that hanging syllable in 'knowing' which transitions the poem to iambic trimeter.

And look at the interesting result of that laid bare:

In English poetry there's a tradition, all other things being equal, that iambs are considered the sophisticated foot with trochees often being contrasted as the vulgar or common foot.

The vulgar in specificity "hot dog water" is put in trochee, while the respectably vague "the holy stuff" is afforded iambs. Without the poet having thought of the stress things the pattern actively, this incapulation of the English poetic tradition is astounding. Especially when you consider the

Chiasmus

Chiasmus is a figure of rhetorical construction, in which two pairs of ideas are laid across each other, A B B A. It's one of the more popular figures of rhetoric and if you're looking for it you'll see it everywhere.

In the most literal sense, it's about repetition; but, you can apply it more liberally to ideas, thoughts, or in this case, parts of speech:

The nouns and verb pairs in the first and third lines crossover each other. They are in chiasmus. Structurally, the inversion makes the poem feel more solid, while still furthering emphasizing the contrast between the idea of hot dog water and the holy stuff.

Opening with a command and closing with a result.

[lucifer-is-a-bag-of-dicks]

as soon as I find the perfect fabric this bitch is getting cross stitched right on it

[zeepia-tu]

finished piece from april fools sketch <3

[unfetteredautism]

i love lifelong bisexual whore robby a lot but i think comphet/late in life gay awakening robby is very special as well

[smoky-solitude]

That stupid bastard son of a stupid prince Fitz and his stupid magical Molly and his stupid fay Lord Golden and his stupid lovesick Fool.

I held my harp in my hands, ready to throw it across the room as I raged. A number of cups and bowls had seen my wrath already, and I knew in some silent cowering corner of my mind that this, this tantrum of mine was not going to help anything, that it hardly even felt good, but I could no more stop myself in my behavior than I could stop the men that—

Like a fall into the ocean, all rage left my body, and I wound up clinging to my harp instead, a piece of driftwood in the dark crashing abyss that was myself.

I had tried so hard, over the years, to mend the broken bits of myself, with nails or glue or fraying pieces of rope, with always-conditional affection and the admiration of others. Sometimes I even convinced myself this pile of flotsam was a person. But it did not take much to reveal all to be a farce.

“Molly’s, you stupid bitch. Always Molly’s.”

Why was it that those words could take me apart?

They were pathetic, and I knew in the core of myself that they were a lie that he told himself much the same way I did: to bid up his broken mass of a being in the shape of a person. I had thought, early on, that maybe we could help each other, that over the years we could rebuild the other into something better, something a bit more stable. But all we had done had been to show one another where the most secret chinks in our armor were.

His Fool would understand, I thought. She and I had been friends for a little while, in the mountains. She had carved this harp for me, improving the pitch even after we had fought as bitterly as cats. Hers was another friendship I had thrown away in a misguided attempt to help. She had loved Fitz, that much was obvious, and I had become convinced that the only reason Fitz did not see it was because he thought the Fool to be a man.

And wasn’t a bit of honesty worthwhile in the name of the greater good? That Molly of his did not even know he lived, yet he hung all hopes of his future on the mother of his child who had left rather than tell him she was pregnant.

And I saw how he looked at his Fool. We all did.

But no. Fitz preferred to live his life of misery and lies, and I had lost the Fool’s friendship in the bargain.

I felt most certain that she would understand my pain in this moment, my frustration. For, like me, she had competed for Fitz’s affections with not Molly, but some idealized version of her in his head that he had conjured up. No real woman could win against the image a man held of his childhood sweetheart in his head.

But the Fool had flown with the Queen and I to Buckkeep, and thence I did not know where she had wound up. Somewhere far from Fitz, I decided jealously. For all that I was a minstrel, it was the toy maker who travelled the world and found the stories. My two crooked fingers had killed any notion of greatness.

And now the life I lived, the one I’d fought for and cobbled together and defended with the ferocity of a she-wolf? It too fell apart. My husband had eyes for another, and the Queen and Chade both preferred that idiot Fitz to my own company. Fitz needed only speak to them for me to wind up once more cast out with only my wits and what I could carry.

I wiped my soggy face and plucked the strings of the Fool’s harp. It had been a broken thing from Moonseye, made beautiful by her knife and Skill-laden fingers. She would understand my struggle, I knew. If only she were here. If only I hadn’t pushed her away too.

For the @rote-microfic prompt “harp.” 698 words.

[helvyeah1]

maybe possibly robby’s s3 look?

[victorious1956]

Chapters: 30/30 Words: 18,813 Fandom: Brokeback Mountain (2005) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Ennis Del Mar/Jack Twist Characters: Ennis Del Mar, Jack Twist, Jack Twist’s Mother (Brokeback Mountain), John Twist, Alma Del Mar, Bobby Twist, Alma Del Mar Jr., Lureen Newsome, L. D. Newsome, Randall Malone, Lashawn Malone, various oc’s Additional Tags: Ficlet Collection, Miscellaneous scenes, Some close to canon, others further away from it

Series: Part 7 of BBM Ficlets

Summary: A month of short scenes from the lives of Ennis and Jack and their families.

Pride Month 2026 draws to a close, and this month-long collection of ficlets is complete.

[tsukibyeollie]

The whole season set ❤️

Available on my Inprnt !

Spring / Summer / Fall / Winter

[smoky-solitude]

Fitz hadn’t returned, though he had promised.

For nearly two weeks, I waited for him in Prilkop’s cave. He had promised to return, and Prilkop was readying supplies, and I needed desperately to heal for our return journey.

Had I angered him so desperately when I pried my Skill from his wrist, that he no longer wished to see me? Or had it been earlier, when I rejected his offer to join us as we went south?

Even exhausted as I was, I could not idle away the days as I waited for my body to mend. I wrote a poem, and Prilkop taught me the secret of imbuing to memory stone, though he was shocked when I revealed my silvered fingertips that made the work so much the easier.

I wanted to imbue the stone with a dozen memories, a hundred, so that even as the years grew long and Fitz grew old, he would still have these to comfort him. But the block was small, and there was room only for a few.

I selected carefully, choosing ones where we were at peace, ones he would know.

Once all was done, I slid my index finger over my little face. There was room, I sensed, for one more.

“I have never been wise,” I murmured into the stone. A true statement, but also a promise. He would know what I meant, even if he wished never to see me again. I would hand them to Chade if Fitz refused to see me, though I doubted even my insolent catalyst would be so cruel as to refuse me.

I had not even said goodbye.

For @rote-microfic ‘s prompt, “memory.” 275 words.

[lin4lool]

heatwave rabbot, because :)

(non sexual nakedness!! they just ran hot and wanted to sleep peacefully)

left one is them having a slow morning on their weekend off together TT

had to add this sketch of me from this morning haha:

made myself a little nest in the basement, because my flat was just too hot and I had a massive headache