#tenderhooked

[iguessyouregonnamissthepantyraid]

i need u to know that i'll go so long without seeing your posts on my dash and then when i finally see one i always end up scrolling thru your blog and it brings me such great delight. like reading the morning newspaper but it's my beloved mutual's blog of the last few weeks.

oh man i'm not posting nearly as much anymore with the phd getting more intense but it is LOVELY to know you like what i say when i pop my head back in every so often 🫶

[altschmerzes]

OWO OWO OWO EEEEEEEE gav i am SO eyes emoji about everythinggggg you're working on and im gonna hold it so so so close to me forever but i am ESPECIALLY eyes emoji about "scales tipped" >:))))

OHHHHH THIS ONE. the short version is this is the one where lamb, having expected a carbon copy of the man who ruined his life and instead got... river, does the math incorrectly and starts to suspect david cartwright may have abused river. he determines that if this is a possibility, and what's more if it may still be happening, then it is on him to make sure that the old bastard isn't still hurting people including someone under lamb's own roof. (david Did Not hurt river and Is Not hurting him now. unfortunately by the time lamb reaches this conclusion he is in over his head and far more invested in river's well-being than he ever planned on getting.)

more detailed sort of layout of things under the cut :)

the title is from sleeping at last's 'heirloom'

the scale tipped / when you inherited / a fight that you were born to lose / it's not your fault / no it's not your fault / i put this heavy heart in you

basically. lamb gets word of a new reject getting sent to slough house. and then there's possibly the worst news it possibly could have been: this is not just any reject, this is david cartwright's baby grandson all grown up. and so lamb has to brace himself because what he's expecting is another david. david as lamb remembers him. an ice cold monster who kept his own hands clean at the expense of everyone around him. i used to have a heart. and then i worked for him.

and if this kid is anything like david, then he is a danger to his colleagues to the service and to the public. lamb is expecting david 2.0, someone that he's going to have to protect people from. and that's not good. that's something he's not happy about having to prepare for. and then what he actually gets is uh. river. which actually, somehow, is worse.

he meets river. he sees what sort of person river is. he realizes he was wrong. this isn’t another david. but the conclusion he NEXT reaches is uh. is also not really… right. because he starts to think okay. so the kid's not another david. river cartwright is, it would seem, a good, sweet lad. and so lamb goes to the next logical step in his mind which is fuck. david raised this kid. it's not unlikely david also abused him. maybe the one place he didn't mind getting his own hands dirty was behind the closed door of his own home.

which, for the record… did not happen. but lamb doesn't know what we do, as the audience, about how david and river are with each other. all lamb knows is the david he knew and the river he's found himself with now (constantly seeking approval, prone to shying away and making himself small when people get in his space, reckless with his own safety, desperate for connection) and that is not an equation that he likes the answer to.

so now he's gone from thinking okay. i'm going to have to protect people from river. how do i do that. to the honestly much more difficult question of is river being hurt and how am i going to protect him. because if david hurt him, it's not unlikely it would still be happening. and if david is hurting someone now, especially someone under lamb's roof at slough house, then it's on lamb to make it stop.

so lamb needs to… look into this. he needs to test river's reactions to some things, see if he can uncover warning signs. and the problem is, he does. river's got some uh. concerning behaviours and instincts. kid's clearly got some Issues. but also when lamb takes it a little farther and starts asking some questions with other questions hidden under them, bringing up david in a way that doesn't rouse suspicion but will get the subject on the table, river's responses are like… not that.

(it doesn’t totally help clear things up that river's got... some issues. maybe his mum had a boyfriend or two who Didn’t Like Him Much. maybe it's because of his mum herself. his general sense of people not wanting him and his grandparents taking him in because they had to but he always wondered if one day he would ruin it. spider did not Help. so it’s like- he reacts to those initial probing efforts in a way lamb finds troubling. but when they actually talk in any way about david, the kid’s all relaxed shoulders and soft eyes. it doesn’t compute.)

and so it wasn’t like that. that’s not what it was like. but that initial sort of like. rollercoaster of worrying about river in two very different and whiplash inducing ways. is he dangerous like david. is he in danger from david. could have very easily gotten river right under his skin quick. in a way that’s really troubling to him now and very hard to shake. and it still... lamb dismisses the initial concern, but it sits at the back of his mind for a while. he's never completely, 100% certain.

and some encounter with david like. through some tense interaction, they’re sort of standing off. david is having a more lucid day. and to cap the conversation off, before he leaves, lamb is just. oh and for the record. you’d better not have laid a hand on that boy. cause if i find out you did…

(river finds out this happened and is torn between being UTTERLY HORRIFIED and a little oddly warmed by it and he’s like. having some of the weirdest mixed feelings of his life because on the one hand lamb just. went out of his way to try to protect him, and it was in a way completely unrelated to the job. and on the other hand lamb implicitly accused david of abusing him and oh my gd??? oh my GD why did he DO THAT lamb what the FUCK???

and he talks to david about it like. HE SAID WHAT TO YOU? OH MY GD. IM SO SORRY. I HAVE NO IDEA WHY HE- JESUS. IM SO SORRY. and david is bizarrely unphased by it like. jackson lamb and i have had our differences, to put it mildly. looking after your well-being is not one of them.)

[eluvion]

OUGH.... 🍓 for the emoji wip game!!

!!!!!!! this one never made it out of the depths of my google docs wip folder but!!!! here's a snippet from my team red wip, which is inspired from chapter 9 of in technicolor by deniigiq

warnings for attempted rape and violence

It’s scary that Red doesn’t move when Wade rips the guy off of him, just shudders in place. It’s scarier that Red flinches away from the blood when Wade cuts the guy’s damn head off.

But the scariest fucking part is that Red doesn’t even move towards at the body. He doesn’t bitch about the sanctity of life, or glare in Wade’s general direction, or do any of the Red Things he’s supposed to. He just backs into the other wall and shakes like a fucking puppy in the rain.

“Red,” Wade says, sitting across from him. Gotta let him see the escape route, even if it means Wade’s gotta sit in the puddle of blood. “Red, you okay?”

He doesn’t answer. He just balls himself up into a tiny Red-ball and breathes ragged and nasty. Wade doesn’t want to touch Red, not after… fuck. Fuck.

Wade pokes him in the knee. There. Touch that ain’t really a touch. 

“Fine,” Red whispers, the words choking him. “‘M fine.”

Sure he is.

“Okay,” Wade says, because Matt really should have his well-deserved breakdown in a room with a ceiling, at least. “Up-and-up, Redthew.”

Wade offers him a hand. Red takes it wordlessly, and nope, Wade fucking hates that. Matt is supposed to be Catholically stoic and refuse help and make this more difficult than it has any right being. A Matt that accepts help on the first try is a Matt that’s really damn shaken.

He thinks, briefly, about calling Nelson, but he figures when Red is himself again, it should be his choice. Wade’s just gotta get Red somewhere that has four fucking walls. 

So he half-carries Matt to his apartment, silent and twitchy, shallow breaths taking up too much space in the night. 

[altschmerzes]

ouuuuugh 14, 16, and/or 37 for the ask game MWAH MWAH

THANK YOUUUUUUU

14. how do you write emotional scenes? Do you ever feel what the characters feel? Do you draw from personal experiences?

i do sometimes draw from personal experiences, yeah! i don't know how much because, not to get weirdly personal on main, but i don't have a very easy time identifying my own emotions and emotional experiences a lot of the time much less describing them, but i do lean on that, yeah, i think, when i can. i don't feel what the characters feel, no, i've never like... writing is a less emotional experience for me than reading is? i'll Get Myself with emotional scenes when i'm rereading my writing but not often when i'm writing them if that makes sense. as for how i write them, not to answer the parts of this question in reverse order lmfao, but basically i build the scaffolding first. i set up the basic facts of what's going on, and i have an idea of what i want to convey. X is grieving and goes to a place that reminds them of Y to feel close to Y. and then i build up on top of that, i try to describe how they're feeling in their body. what they're thinking. how it affects them, if they're trying to stop feeling it - because i like to figure out not only what they're experiencing but how they feel about what they're feeling.

16. How many fic ideas are you nurturing right now? Share one of them?

ONE MILLION. that's an exaggeration haha but i have no idea how many i actually have percolating. there's always like. a lot floating around. one of the ideas that i haven't done any writing on or talking about yet publicly would be uhhh. oh here's a fun pull - a greenwing & dart fic about the thing mr. dart said in book um. two i think? about thinking jemis had killed himself for a bit there. and him being unable to like... process that jemis really was home. lot of standing outside and looking up at jemis's apartment window and the light inside in the middle of the night until jemis catches him doing that and is like uh. Uh. that's gonna be fun.

37. How do you choose where to end a chapter?

oh this often drives me insane. usually it's like. a wrap-up of a scene, and also a wrap-up of the trajectory of the chapter? sometimes there isn't a very good flow throughout a chapter but i try to end it in a place that feels like a good chunk of narrative has gone by but no new big ideas are getting immediately introduced. if there's a particular Big emotional beat i try not to let two of them happen in one chapter (partially because i am selfish and if there's something i Really want people to comment on i try not to put it in a chapter with something else i Also really want to hear people's thoughts on sdlkjfs)

[lady-of-the-spirit]

🌹🌹!!

again the violin-centered arata the legend au featuring: my fave boys in the process of moving in together, picking up old hobbies as an adult, and light childhood trauma (because no character who acts Like That could have had a good childhood)

Kannagi lifted the violin case for Yataka to see. "What's this?" Yataka looked up again. Kannagi was prepared for a snarky "it's a violin" type of comment. He was not prepared for Yataka's face lighting up, mouth starting to lift into a smile, eyes shining with excitement - just for a moment. Then the unfettered joy Kannagi had seen dropped, disappeared completely, replaced by a look of surprise and a small frown. "I forgot I had that," Yataka said, mostly to himself. "That was in the closet?" "Yeah, up on the shelf." He did not comment on how weird it was that Yataka would forget. "Is it yours?" "It is." Yataka set the bowl into the box. He made no move to come take the case from Kannagi or see his old instrument. "It was." "I didn't know you played." "I used to," Yataka said. "When I was younger." Yataka was almost frustratingly private about his childhood. The most Kannagi knew was that his parents were strict to the point of stifling, that Yataka hadn't spoken to them since he left to go to university, and a handful of minor details Yataka had let slip here and there. Now he could add "played the violin" to the list.

for every “🌹” received in my inbox i’ll post one random sentence of a random WIP i’m currently writing