Just to be explicit - that last graph is citing data 2011.
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Stranger Things
AnasAbdin
he wasn't even looking at me and he found me
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roma★

blake kathryn
we're not kids anymore.

if i look back, i am lost

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Not today Justin
Sade Olutola
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ellievsbear
PUT YOUR BEARD IN MY MOUTH
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@asleeg
Just to be explicit - that last graph is citing data 2011.

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the very essence of romance is uncertainty (1075 words) by Aslee Chapters: 1/? Fandom: IT - Stephen King, IT (2017) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier Characters: Eddie Kaspbrak, Richie Tozier, the other Losers in small quanitities, Lots of OCs Additional Tags: outside perspective, Second Person, idk this is the fic i'm the least proud of i've ever written, Post-Canon, but like in a, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Way - Freeform, it's an, Eddie Kaspbrak Lives, AU Summary:
"Eddie Kaspbrak hasn't been at work in a couple of days, and it's starting to get to you. It's not the unexplained absence or the missed calls that had your hackles up. He'd been gone for a handful of days, no more than he was when he thought he had the flu, and he didn't like to take work calls around Myra. But there was something else, this time. Anxiety had started buzzing in your bones when Eddie called to ask you to take a couple of meetings for him. Something was wrong. Something big."
or: A look at Eddie and Richie, post-canon, and the effect they have on each other's lives.
#onelinewednesday
“London is much the same as it always is, and though she knows she is imagining it, Sasha can feel the thrum of the Thames under her feet as she darts through the crowd.”
Part of chapter one of the cybernoir AU I’ve been working on.
no man is rich enough to buy back his past (2/2)
{ao3)
cc: @roswyrm
This was supposed to be a business meeting.
That was the lie Zolf had told the Americans when he'd left, anyway. They had been suspicious, when he'd packed his things and flitted back to England within a week of showing up. For good reason, too; Zolf wouldn't have trusted himself, if he had been in their position. It hadn't been part of the plan, when Zolf had sought the Separatists out. He'd only wanted to know about his family, and puzzle out what exactly it was that they were doing against the Meritocracy.
Maybe, just maybe, if the explanations had made enough sense, he would have joined them. Zolf felt no real loyalty to the Meritocrats; He was still a mercenary at heart. Besides, he wasn't sure how much he had ever bought that "talent" bollocks as much as he just... didn't care who was running the place. A part of him wondered if his influence could protect Hamid and Sasha from their wrath.
If the Separatists had turned out to be as greedy and high-minded as the people they wanted so desperately to be free from, well. America had ships that needed crewmen.
However the plan would have unfolded, the Cult of Hades dashed it upon the rocks. They showed up in America only a few days after Zolf did. Though the robed figures weren't exactly chatty, the ones captured had loosened their tongues enough once he had threatened to tear them out. Zolf had hopped on the next airship out, with the very simple excuse that he still had enough professional courtesy to see the rest of it through.
Of course, he left out the part where it was less professional courtesy and more the heart-shattering urge to never lose another family.
And also the part where one of said teammates was a descendant of one of the metiocrats, and also showing some very dragon-like traits lately, but. Well. They didn't need to know everything.
no man is rich enough to buy back his past (1/2)
[read on ao3]
[a b-day fic for @roswyrm ]
It wasn't until he saw Zolf again, the sobs already rising up in the back of his throat, that Hamid understood how much he had missed his best friend.
Because that was what Zolf was, at the end of all things. Bertie never had been, had proven that over and over again, and Sasha was brilliant and loyal, but Zolf had been… special. Zolf had been the one he cared about so intensely it inspired him to scream and cry and do all the things his family had tried to train out of him. It was Zolf that had held him the darkness, Zolf who had saved him from himself, Zolf who had inspired him to lead. Zolf was his best friend.
And Hamid was a mass of tears shaped something like a halfling.

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Hey guys! Me again. I'm having some trouble making it to regular paychecks at the new job, and my bank account is currently empty. If you've ever enjoyed my fanfic work (or REALLY enjoyed my opinions, lol) please consider dropping a few dollars. For further clarification: I have to drive two hours (round trip) for this job, sometimes 7 days a week. This would be for gas money. http://ko-fi.com/asleegraves
[incomplete fic] ‘til thou wert weary of idolatry
[i’ll never finish this so i’m throwing it at you. have fun. read here on ao3 if you prefer.]
The water was cold.
It was a sign of just how far Zolf had fell that it registered as an annoyance at all. A sailor and a pirate and now an adventurer, he had faced the worst of what the sea had to offer him and survived. He was a cleric of Poseidon, for the love of Triton's barnacle'd nips, and he'd been through the many trials set before him. Two weeks ago he'd nearly drowned crossing the channel, and cold had been the last thing on his mind.
Then again, he'd also had a leg two weeks ago. It had been just the one, but that had counted for more than he'd given it credit for.
Now he was slowly starting to chill in tepid water in the most prestigious hotel in all of Paris, legless, aimless, and without a idea of how his life had gotten to this point. There had never been an agreement to all of this nonsense. Zolf had planned on an auspicious start to the London Rangers (they were still working on the name) as mercenary agents of the Meritocrats, yes, but he had rather thought it would be more of a whirlwind trip around the world, ferreting out clues and fighting grand wizards. Ancient catacombs were supposed to house undead creatures and similarly ancient secrets, not amoral machines carefully managing the whole world.
Saving the world hadn't exactly been in the contract, but they had done it anyway, because Zolf had been an idiot and his friends-- Hamid and Sasha, anyway --were so, so good.
The ache in his bones was a punishment for his sins, Zolf had decided, but it didn't make getting out of the tub any easier.
yet each man does not die, chapter two
My magpie,
The messenger never returned, and has not sent word to his fellows in many moons. Therefore, I can be as lovelorn as I like, and lovelorn I must be, as I know this will never reach you and yet I still write. I cannot help it. So much has happened here, and every time I see a new challenge on my doorstep, I understand why you wanted a baker to study a cursed sword. My heart aches for you so completely that sometimes I fear it will begin to beat for the want of you. So I write, and imagine that we are in my kitchen, and soon you will kiss it all away.
The refugee camps merged, as Rosana promised, but citizens of both lost nations still have much to fear in Rosemerrow's shadow. Hanna assures me that things will settle, that Ordenna will not be so foolish as to march on the halflings, but I am unsure. You cannot-- well, perhaps you could, my dearest, but we mere mortals cannot --meet steel with culture. If they even marched at all; often my colleagues speak of my countrymen so that I believe they would give us up willingly.
Rosana says she can fix this, and Tristero guide me if I am wrong, but I believe her. A persuasive tongue, has our Rosana. Do you know it? She says you have not met, but perhaps you know of her as I know Hadrian.
Oh, Hadrian. Rosana does tell the most outlandish stories….
Your ugly face traumatized me, please erase your pictures from the internet, save us
I literally don't have any pictures on this blog, as it is a writing blog! Given that you chose to send your vitriol to a place where I literally post only my work, I'm going to have to ask that, in the future, my hate mail be grammatically correct. Hate with spelling errors and bad punctuation will be deleted without further consideration. Consider reading a book before trying to make me feel bad.
yet each man does not die, chapter one
My dearest, Lem,
I don't know if this will ever reach you. The post is not something I've ever had to rely on with any regularity; The closest I've ever come is the messages to and from Brandish's ships. But that was with birds, not people, and I'm afraid I would trust a Panther over a messenger any day. The people of Rosemarrow sigh over their letters in ways that do little to instill much trust, and most of the other immigrants will complain about how the snow and the darkness have cut them off from their old homes. The messengers do little to improve perceptions of themselves, giben that they are skinny things, half starved and feeble.
You've been gone for six moons now, three days by the old reckoning, and with the rise and fall of every one of them, I worry a little more. It is ridiculous of me, I agree, and you are probably laughing at me right now, with that flustered smile that I cannot help but adore on your face. You're well within your rights to laugh. We existed apart for decades before we met on that ship, and in the months that passed after our parting, we managed to survive just fine without each other.
But as odd as it might seem, saying goodbye to you was so much harder the second time. Meeting you was amazing and awful in equal parts, and seeing you again was even more so-- You rip the heart from my chest and yet I cannot keep you, a fact which is so fundamentally unfair that I cannot reconcile your absence in my mind.
My chest aches when I think of you, whispering excitedly about lost civilizations and running off on your foolish adventures with no one to temper your enthusiasm. Part of me believes that you should be here, or I should be there, even though I know it is better for us apart, and that no good would come of me following you to the ends of Hieron.
Perhaps the reason the thought of you plagues me so is that I am surrounded by reminders. The refugees from Velas have started to arrive, pushed out of the city by the news of Ordenna's approach, and they all seem to know your name....

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tAG YOURSELF
Sometimes I think I was born lonely.
Then again, I suppose that's the point all those poets like to make-- We join this world lonely and screaming, and we leave that way. The problem is, I think that's supposed to turn off for a couple years, at least, but... I can't remember a time when I wasn't lonely.
I wasn't raised into it; Not really. My family was an odd kind of lonely, the kind where you convince yourself that the only people you need are the ones the universe just happened to put right next to you. We didn't do much. Or, I should say, they didn't do much. Mostly they just sat in the living room, watching whatever my step-father wanted.
He used to be lonely, too, the kind of lonely that you choose when you know you're going to hurt the people around you. One day, though, he decided he didn't care anymore, and crawled out of his loneliness. I think I preferred him in that cave. I don't care what the poets say about this, either; The devil I didn't know was a thousand times better than the one I do.
I tried their loneliness for a long, long time, but it came with a game I wasn't going to play. They sat in their cave, staring at their TV, and he would hunt for his next victim. He was the only one who knew rules, and he changed them as soon as he thought one of us might be catching on. I think his favourite part of it was watching us be surprised by his hatred, like after a thousand blows we still weren't convinced of his inclination to strike.
You have to understand, he never actually hit us. But I think he wanted to, sometimes. The worst of it was funneled through routine spankings and the rough grip on my wrists... Not that it matters. He did enough damage with words alone.
The main rule of the game, and the only one that never changed, is that you weren't allowed to help other players. He detested loyalty to anyone but himself. I always thought that maybe it looked too much like mutiny in his eyes. He was vigilant, though, and people kept to the rule: God helps those who help themselves.
I was really, really bad at the game.
My therapist says I have too much empathy. It's easy for me to put other people's emotions above my own because their pain hurts more than mine. I don't know if it's because of The Rule or if that's why the game was so difficult, but I could never pull it off. I yearned to shield them from even a fraction of the pain that I knew he was capable of, but every time I tried, I was punished.
One of my clearest memories of that time in my life, is him yelling at my mother. I don't remember about what, though I guess it doesn't really matter now. I just remember yelling, and yelling, and suddenly I couldn't take it anymore. So I sat up, and I yelled back. I don't know why. She's twice my age, and the one who married him. I couldn't have been more than 13. But I wanted to stand up for her, because that's what families are supposed to do.
My mother was excellent at the game, and the most rigorous when it came to the rule. She turned on me before the sentence was even out of my mouth, and I was the new prey.
Now, though, I wonder: was that my intention all along? All I knew was that I wanted to save my mom from him, and I guess in some small way, that night, I did.
Eventually, though, the fight ran out of me. You have to understand, I was so young, and there is only so much a child can take before they exhaust themselves. I just wanted to be left alone. So I was. I didn't dare wander back into the reaches of the game, and my fellow prey didn't dare reach out to me. I was so alone, but it was the safest I'd ever been.
It didn't last forever. Eventually, he stalked out of his cave and into my tiny hovel. He would stand in the doorway and roar for hours. Never a toe over the line: He let me keep my tiny, lonely victory, but only so long as I knew that I was never really safe.
Years later, my mother finally broke the rule.
It was too late for me.
I've been lonely my whole life, and that's not something that can be fixed. There's something broken in me, something needy and starved. My mother used to call me her clingy child, in that way she does when she doesn't know or care how much it hurts. She was right. All I've ever wanted was to not be alone, and now, I don't know that I'd know what to do with company if I had it.
Here's the thing they don't tell you about being an adult: Life as we know it is just a game. A game I am very, very familiar with. The rules, as much as I've ever been able to understand them, haven't changed.
I'm still the one sticking up for people. I'm still the one all alone.
I wonder how long until I get tired of this game, too.
Samol's words sting in ways that Lem isn't ready to admit.
They sound so much like Fero, in a way-- "Don't be so obsessed with past, Lem; The future doesn't matter. Go home. Be happy with the time you have left." Maybe it's the fact that he can hear Fero's voice echoing after Samol's that makes it all seem so mocking. Even when he leaves the table, tucked into his own room, he can hear the words follow him. More voices have joined, the countless people who have handed him the same trite advice, over and over.
Be happy, they chant, as he rummages through the cupboards, desperate for a distraction. Why can't you be happy?
As if Samol even knows what happiness for Lem looks like.
Lem sinks to the floor, bitterness and defeat rising high and sour in the back of his throat. The God of Everything looks at Lem King and sees a man for whom music is happiness. The thought would make him scoff, if he could breathe around his emotions. He's had his fill of music, and played his share of audiences. Maybe if he had left the Archives earlier, Lem could make a life on the stage, but now all he knows are the sharp, shattered notes of war.
The sweetest things he plays now are idle things in the dead of the night, his yearning for things he doesn't deserve translated into warm whole notes that fade into the frigid air. Love songs sell tickets, but those songs belong to only one man. A man who Lem is beginning to dread he'll never see again.
Lem knows where his happiness lies.
I got to be a late bloomer in everything but sex and escapism. My body grew too fast, and they ripped me out by the roots. My innocence caked under their nails like dirt.
I withered into myself, fantasy worlds swirling in my head as winter settled around me. I stunted under the heavy snow, their ever present weight on top of me, and waited until spring.
The rest of me caught up, but I am an awkward, crooked thing. I do not fit where I am supposed to, and my blooms-- They are weak and pale.
I would give everything to have never grown at all.
You have to understand, it's not like I'm against divorce or anything.
Divorce is a just an end, and all relationships have ends. Divorce isn't breaking a sacred vow, it's just saying goodbye. People are so dramatic about it, acting like it's the end of the world instead of just a break of a thread in a tapestry. It gets worse when kids are involved; They like to crowd around and coo softly about how scared and confused the kid must be.If they bothered to ask, they'd know that divorce is a relief just as much for the kid as the parents. The tension breaks, and while custody can get nasty, nothing is as bad as when they're still married, when they both still own you.
Nah, divorce isn't all that bad for the kids, really. It's the remarrying that will really screw you over.
Maybe if my parents were better at, you know, being parents, it wouldn't have been so bad. But when your parents have no idea what they're doing, and, trust me, most of them don't, it's the most alienating feeling in the world.
You remember when you were a kid, and people would say stuff like, oh, he's your second cousin, twice removed? That's what step-families are like. A family, but… removed.
I was my mom's first kid, and my dad's second. I loved my older brother desperately, but he felt so far away sometimes. Having a brother you can't tease or play with or beg for protection is… wrong. It leaves a hole in your heart, but you swallow it and love them anyway.
A family, once removed.
After my parents got divorced, they both got married again: My parents are the definition of serial monogamists; I don't think they ever learned how to be alone.
They both made another family for themselves, because it's all either of them have ever known how to do, and I, a literal infant, grit my teeth and dove in head first.
It's not so bad when they're only once removed, you know? There's always the thought in your head, hey, this isn't really my family, but it's nice. If you're lucky, your Once Removed Parent likes you, calls you their own. If they don't… Well, at least you love your siblings.
Serial monogamists never stop at once removed.
I'm on twice, now, with my mom, and my father mows through removals and re-establishments so quickly that I stopped counting. It's awful, the further you get. Your parents, your real parents, just… forget. Forget that you exist, that you ever existed, that, once upon a time, you were the only family they knew.
My mom's family is rich. She has three kids, and two dogs, and everything she's ever wanted.
I sleep on the floor of a rotting house that sits in a cow pasture I don't own, trying to write myself into a higher level of existence.
No matter how far we both reach for each other, we'll never close that gap. It's the loneliest thing, being the only member of your family.

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I have lived a thousand years within my own sorrows.
Even my elders hold the fresh face of youth. They laugh, and I feel my own ancient lungs shudder in my chest. They dance, and my bones creak as I beg them to hold a little longer. They will find their rest soon, I tell them, and they will turn to dust within me.
Reflections keep me captivated in the smoothness of my own visage. Surely wrinkles should line my face, surely film should dull my eyes. I expect death itself to peer out, but instead there is only a young, frail thing staring back. I do not know them.
So do not smile at me like that, pretty one. I am too old and too broken to love you and your constellation smile. I am nothing but the ruins of a future we lost, the echo of someone you could have loved.
Do not dream of things marked for death, or the sorrow will creep, like rust, into the fringes of your heart.
this single second of messy ass rotoscoping is based off of this post/fic: http://grandwretch.tumblr.com/post/152550829023/thepodcastcat-im-listening-to-lone-digger-by AO3 here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/8431906 by @grandwretch that completely destroyed me