#primtheamazing

[lovefrombegonia]

YQY: I kinda dissociated from all the guilt and killed and burnt the whole Qiu estate.

SJ: ...a--and you got away with it??

YQY: I think shizun covered for me. I forgor 💀

COOL. COOL. Not unhinged at all. I love you, you mad mad man!

[suzukiblu]

Ko-fi thank-you sentences for @primtheamazing, @beatrice-otter, @qwertynerd97, and LadyLeocadia, who all picked the same WIP; Kara gets to Earth on time and the Kents get a two-for-one special on free kids.

Ma and Pa take her and Kal to a quaint little brick building and lead them inside. It's full of things Kara can't identify, but also racks and racks of clothes and dishware and furniture. She's briefly bewildered by the place, unsure if it's just a very unusual tailor shop or . . . what, exactly. Then she realizes–Smoll-Veel is a Laborer settlement, so this is probably just a clothing shop. She's never been to one before–the House of El always uses tailors–but Laborers must wear through their clothes much faster and need replacements for those clothes much faster, so of course they wouldn't always have time to wait for a tailor, when they just need to get back to work. And Laborers' work clothes must be much plainer than most tailors would be interested in making anyway, really. No demonstration of skill or fashion or anything similar. Nothing to really interest a real Artisan.

Ma guides Kara through the oddly-arranged racks of clothing and starts taking different items off them, and Pa disappears somewhere else when Kara is distracted by a particularly soft and pretty dress that Ma holds up to her. It worries her for a moment, for no good reason. Like he's just vanished from the universe and won't ever come back; like he's just dust and ash and dead and gone–

Kara forces herself not to think about it and smiles at Ma, who smiles back. Kal burbles and tries to stick his whole fist in his mouth, and Ma laughs fondly at the sight. Kara wants to cry. Instead she presses a kiss to his hair and holds him just a tiny, tiny bit tighter. He giggles and smacks her in the face with his spit-sticky hand.

She needs to take care of him. Needs to protect him. Needs to keep him safe.

He's the only thing she has left to keep safe.

The only thing she has left at all, except for their smashed-up ships and the clothes she came here wearing and the blanket he's all wrapped up in.

Kara tries not to think too much, and smiles at another pretty dress as Ma holds it up too. Ma picks out a few more things–a skirt or two, a pair of pants made of the same sturdy blue material as the jacket Kara's wearing, some strange tops with very short sleeves–and it's all soft and unstructured and very peculiar-looking, to be honest, but it seems to please Ma to pick them out with her and also beggars really can't be choosers.

And Kara does think the dresses are pretty.

Pa comes back with his arms full of–toys, maybe? They look like toys. Kara blinks in confusion. Why is he . . .

Pa holds up one of the toys, a soft little thing that looks a bit like a dog and is even white and floppy-eared like Krypto was, and offers it to Kal. His little face lights up in unabashed delight as he reaches for it, and Kara nearly cries.

Kal squishes the toy in a hug and then starts chewing on one of those floppy ears. Kara nearly cries again.

Ma and Pa really are just that kind, she thinks. Feeding them and giving her clothes is already so much, but they didn't need to offer Kal a toy. That's . . .

They didn't need to do that.

Or any of this.

Ma makes an approving sound; Pa looks pleased. Kal coos happily at his toy.

Kara keeps not crying, but it's getting harder and harder to manage.

She can't possibly repay them for this. They must know that. How could she? She's not from this planet; she doesn't speak its language or know anything about it. She can try to be another "Kent" for them, maybe, but that's all she could possibly do: basic Laborer work, not even anything specialized. Certainly nothing with any real experience necessary to it.

And even if she did, it'd be more so she could take care of Kal than to repay them anyway, so . . .

She doesn't understand why they're being so kind.

Ma takes the pile of clothes and leads the way to a little row of curtained doors off to the side of the shop. Kara isn't sure, for a moment, but thinks–are they fitting rooms, maybe? Though there aren't any tailors in them, when she peeks into the one Ma is hanging up all those clothes in. She can only assume she's just supposed to try them on and see if they fit. Which seems like a time-consuming process, really, but is admittedly much less time-consuming than a tailor making a full wardrobe's worth of custom pieces from scratch.

Kara takes Kal into the fitting room with her and tries on the clothes while he plays with his new toy, and she can mostly breathe as long as she keeps an eye on him. She probably should've left him outside with Ma and Pa instead of having him sit on the floor in here while she goes through all the clothes one by one, but with the curtain drawn she wouldn't have been able to see him and then . . .

She exhales. Tries on another skirt. It's pretty. Soft and shapeless, but with interesting pleats in it and a bright blue and yellow pattern.

She thinks her mother would've liked it, and then tries not to think.

She's been trying not to think a lot, at this point.

Kal is so little. So small and defenseless and she's not even come of age, technically, she's only–

Well, no, Kara realizes. She must be sixteen by now. After the sleep-stasis in the ship on the way here . . .

She swallows. Reaches for another skirt to try on. It's pink.

She's sixteen, and her parents are dead.

She's sixteen and her parents have been dead.

And so are Kal’s, and she's the only thing he has in the universe.

Kal giggles. Baps her leg with his soft toy and makes a playful growling sound.

Kara buries her face in the skirt and sobs in silence, all hitched breaths and messy, painful tears.

She wants her mom.

[deisderiumbooks]

"Ning Yingying got him into trouble in the exact same way that the Little Palace Mistress gets Gongyi Xiao into trouble. She’s only trying to help, but all she’s accomplishing is throwing extra fuel on the fire. The fact that she cares is the only true balm she can offer. That might sound like nothing, but Luo Binghe knows how precious such a small thing can be. To Gongyi Xiao, it might be the only true comfort he has. 

Luo Binghe should take it away from him."

I'm absolutely chewing the walls over @PrimtheAmazing's Tarnished Gold. The Little Palace Mistress is so sympathetic and loyal in that fic while still being completely awful. Let her have some depth of characterization!!! it's good for the soul (my soul!) Also watching lbh try to pry her away from sy!gyx and think that he's winning (maybe he is--he is Luo Binghe after all) give me life.

[sajwho-art]

Helen smiles at him. Helen Richardson had had a small, shaky, uncertain, tear stained smile when he’d known her. Helen smiles like Michael, instead.

Michael Shelley probably hadn’t smiled like Michael had, either. He didn’t seem like the type to smile like that, from the little he heard about him on the tapes, the story. Not so wide, with so many teeth, eyes so open.

But no one smiles at Jon nowadays, so he smiles back for just a moment, even if he still feels a bit like he’s looking at something wearing Helen’s corpse.

— things don’t have to make sense,  https://archiveofourown.org/works/22256212

Commission for the wonderful @primtheamazing

[ostentenacity]

Finished one more book project in 2020!

Text: “Beastly Behaviour” by @primtheamazing.

I think I’m getting better at judging the cover board size. The first few books I did ended up having slightly wonky spacing at the top and bottom, but I’m really proud of how this one turned out.

[sazandorable]

prompt: jon and daisy just POORLY pretending to be normal human beings around regular ppl

It’s two in the afternoon and the scary butch and her weird silver fox are already back again, without their sensible leash-holder this time, and consequently already drunk off their arses. Bettie weighs the pros and cons of another weeping mess versus the hefty apologetic tip.

“Heeeey,” the woman drawls, slightly cross-eyed and her hand with her nails way too long and way too close to Bettie’s arm, “bring us another round and some bloody, bloody steak, love, yeah?”

“Daisy, down,” the bloke mutters, as if to a mutt, and Bettie half expects her to bite his head off for it but instead it works and she curls up in the corner of the booth with a childish pout, grumpily licking her teeth.

“Sorry, Elzbieta, just another two beers please,” he says, wiping a stream of tears from his eyes without blinking, even though her tag reads ‘Bettie’ and not even her coworkers know her full name and you know what, she’s seen a lot, but he better leave an ever bigger tip than last time.

[mira-eyeteeth]

Of course, my dear! Here’s the scene from Chapter 33, from Tim’s point of view. I may write another scene later, because Tim and Martin do have a couple interactions that Jon doesn’t get to see and thus cannot show up in Patchwork proper.

Content warning for thoughts bordering on suicide ideation, and implied (perceived) sexual assault.

You can pretend I’m not here. That was a bad joke. Like Tim was just going to be able to ignore the second monster that had replaced one of his co-workers.

For all that Tim was starting to believe that death might not be too bad an alternative to working in this place, he highly doubted that whatever Martin was now would decide to just kill him cleanly. All the monsters he’d ever heard of (and encountered) seemed to like to take their time, drag things out, toy with their prey.

So Tim was constantly and intensely aware of wherever Martin was while they were sharing space in the Archives. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end whenever he heard Martin get up from his desk, heart rate picking up and muscles tensing. The monster had done it three times so far, once to fetch some files, once to go to the restroom, and now he had disappeared into the break room. Tim didn’t know if it was better or worse, when Martin was out of sight.

Tim flinched at the sound of the printer kicking on. It started spitting out reams of pages while the door to Jon’s office creaked open and the asshole himself slunk out into the open. He had the distant look in his eyes that indicated his thoughts were entirely elsewhere, and he didn’t so much as glance at Tim as he fetched the printouts and shuffled through them, muttering to himself.

Martin breezed past Tim’s desk, making a beeline for Jon before the man disappeared back into his office. Tim watched with mild horror as Jon absentmindedly took the offered cup of tea. He wasn’t really going to drink something that a monster had made, was h–

And then Jon kissed Martin. The distant look in his eyes didn’t clear away, but Jon stopped reading the papers long enough to turn his head towards Martin, pop up onto his toes, and press a kiss to Martin’s cheek.

This apparently wasn’t any kind of a surprise to Martin, who watched with hooded eyes and a smirk as Jon vanished back into his office.

Whatever deal Martin had made with the spiders, they had gotten him what he wanted. Jon. The thought of what might have happened to Jon while Tim had been gone made him feel ill.

Before Tim could think better of forcing a confrontation with the thing, angry words were flying from his mouth while his fists clenched, braced against the edge of his desk. “Martin. What the hell did you do to Jon?”

Martin blinked, the smile fading as he looked at Tim, aping confusion. “I.. what? I just got him some tea. Like always?”

Some part of Tim wondered if the monster was actually trying to deny it, or whether he just thought being disingenuous was funny. Not that it really mattered. “Yeah, you did. And then he kissed you. The guy who you’ve had a hopeless crush on for years. The guy who actively despised you for most of those years. And now you’ve got some creepy spider powers- which, by the way, are another thing that Jon hates- and all of a sudden, he’s kissing you.”

Martin’s eyes went wide, and he shifted gears, changing from acting confused to acting horrified. “No, that’s not… I would never–”

Did he really expect that to work? “It sure looks like that’s what you’re doing. Wouldn’t have believed it before, but I guess monsters are monsters, aren’t they?” Tim spat.

“Tim, I’m not- I’m not forcing anything on Jon. I swear. I don’t–” Martin continued with the charade, at least until the door to Jon’s office was yanked open again and Jon lurched into the doorway.

“Martin. Please leave, I think I need to speak with Tim alone,” Jon said, and he sounded more frantic than usual. Had he realized that Tim might be able to help him?

“But–” Martin began to protest.

“Out,” Jon cut him off, and Martin left. Any hope that Tim had of being able to stop this died then, as Martin ascended the stairs. If talking to Jon was going to do any good, then Martin wouldn’t have knuckled under so quickly. Which meant this was what he wanted to have happen.

Tim looked away from the empty staircase and eyed Jon warily. “Gonna tell me it’s all of your own free will, boss?”

Jon sighed. “I would, if I expected that to convince you. Come in and sit down,“  he said, motioning to his office.

Tim begrudgingly got up and walked into Jon’s office. Once there, his attention was drawn to the cobwebs that covered the papers in the wastepaper basket. He remembered Jon freaking out about the tiniest spider that had scuttled out from behind one of the filing boxes Jon had been rooting through. He remembered the spiders swarming over Martin’s skin. The way that Jon had been staring off elsewhere when he kissed Martin.

Dissociation? Was Martin just threatening Jon into compliance, or had he messed with his head even more than that?

“Sit down, Tim.”

Tim sat, watching Jon settle at his desk and clasp his hands in front of him, clearing his throat. “First, I appreciate your concern.”

The damn professionalism of his tone grated on Tim. Like there was anything about this entire situation that was in any way professional. Tim crossed his arms and slouched further in his chair. “Don’t get me wrong, you’re still a bastard, but no one deserves to be forced into something like this,” he said.

“I would think that my being a bastard would be a point in my favour. If Martin was the one controlling my actions now, don’t you think I’d be less of a prat?” Jon asked.

Tim hadn’t thought a lot of things. Tim hadn’t thought that Martin would be the kind of person to harm someone else like this. He hadn’t thought that his friend had been dead for six months. He hadn’t thought his job was full of monsters and killers and something he could never escape. “Who can say? I thought I knew what Sasha was like, too, but that didn’t help me notice anything when that thing killed her and took her place, did it?” Tim replied.

“No. No, it didn’t,” Jon admitted, and he suddenly looked incredibly tired, even more so than usual.

Just what had he gone through? What had happened, when Tim had left him to Martin?

Tim looked away, unable to meet his eyes.  “I shouldn’t have left you alone here. Now you're…"

Unbidden, Tim wondered what would be underneath now, if Jon’s skin were pulled away like Danny’s had been. Nothing but cobwebs, or was there still enough of him inside to be afraid of what was happening to him? Tim let out a huff of a laugh, because it was either that or a sob. He’d left Danny alone, left Sasha alone, left Jon alone. Just how many husks of people he once knew was he going to be faced with? "I guess I have a habit of abandoning people to become hollowed-out puppets, don’t I?”

There was a beat of silence, then Jon spoke again. “Martin hasn’t done anything like that to me, Tim."

Yeah, because Jon would definitely want to kiss a spider monster of his own volition. "And you would know, right?”

Jon sighed. “Well, I can’t ask you to believe me or Martin. For one thing, asking for your trust would be incredibly hypocritical. However. We do still need to work together. For now, know that I’m aware that you’re opposed to my will being subverted. And that I appreciate it. If I do end up needing help, if I’m in distress, I will speak with you about it, or seek help in some other manner. Until that time, you can assume that I’m content with the current situation involving Martin. …or you can assume that this whole thing is one more horror that is outside of your power to resolve. Either or.”

“So you’re asking me to just drop this,” Tim said flatly. He wondered if this was supposed to be a warning. Stay out of it, or else.

“Essentially. If you wanted to, I suppose you could go to HR and report me for taking advantage of my subordinate, but given our current situation, I very much doubt that would be successful in removing either Martin or myself from the Archives,” Jon pointed out.

“Yeah. If stalking didn’t get you canned, then why would screwing your assistant?” Tim said bitterly. He regretted the last few words as soon as he said them. He hated it here and he hated Jon but it wasn’t like Jon had been given a say in whatever Martin had decided to do to him.

“We aren’t– That doesn’t really matter,” Jon said, and Tim hoped that was true, that Martin somehow still had some boundaries. Not that the whole situation wasn’t bad enough already.

Jon kept making excuses for Martin, kept making excuses for himself, kept making excuses for the Institute, like anything about this entire place could be anything but a complete nightmare.

But Tim didn’t think Jon was a good enough actor to just keep pretending he was fine with Martin. He certainly hadn’t been very subtle about his rampaging paranoia, and that was when he’d been doing his best to skulk around unnoticed.

It wasn’t just a threat that Martin was holding over Jon’s head to keep him in line, then. He’d actually messed with Jon’s perception in some way.

Even if Jon could somehow break free of that, there probably wasn’t anything either of them could do. Once the monsters set their sights on you, that tended to be it. You were going to suffer horrifically and then maybe if you were lucky, you would die.

Tim still tried to reach out, one more time. Maybe because he still had some hope, somewhere. Maybe because Jon deserved to at least be in his right mind when he met his fate. Maybe because Tim didn’t want to be the only one fully aware of how incredibly fucked up everything was. Or maybe Tim was just an idiot. “I… I don’t know how much leeway you have, like this. But you should think about what you actually want. About where the other things you’re feeling might be coming from.”

“I already have. Truly,” Jon replied.

Yeah, that was about what he expected. Tim left to go sit at his desk and try to ignore his own inevitable horrible fate.

[vands38]

A quick treat for Prim who wanted more Jonnit fic and suggested "travis dragging jonnit into shenanigans so they can do crime while just looking like a young boy and his adorable dog (definitely not a coyote...)" which is an A+++ idea. So, here's some shenanigans.