damn agency breakin' my stuff.

— THE A.A.H.W WILL NEVER STOP HUNTING YOU.

20↑. any referral. taken; boyfriend is @crimsonquartet, partner is @high-functioning-flesh.

posts about madness combat. i ♡ damned dissenters.

i write fic on ao3 under the user "defenduaube". mostly 2bhank, partially other nonsense.

posts always okay to reblog, askbox aways open! i do take requests for drabbles at anytime, but i don't guarantee fast turnarounds; i write at my own pace! (please specify if something is a drabble request unless i've recently posted a call asking for them..!)

i prefer all communication through asks rather than instant message. i don't have or use other social medias.

published works; #fractalefics drabbles; #fractalescrib answered asks; #fractaleinbox text posts, essays, various anything else; #fractaletxt

dividers by k1ssyoursister. header by antipathy-arsonist.

extended about here (best on desktop).

finally i beat my schedule down enough to finish this wip that was sitting in scattered chunks for a long time.. if you've caught me occasionally in mr. k's streams mentioning christnarr, it's your lucky day~

jebediah is faced with an opportunity he never could have imagined, he's a pretty lucky man to have someone he cares for so much settled into bed with him.. or is he?

read; it's holier anyday, and yet it's eating me alive on ao3.

Hofnarr had a tendency to speak strangely on their lunch breaks, Jebediah would easily admit that, and yet somehow she always found ways to be stranger than he imagined.

His brow furrows in an odd mix of intrigue and confusion. "Beg pardon?"

"Dr. Gonne." she says it so matter-of-factly, as if she's certain that's the perplexing part.

"Yes, I've gathered that." he rolls his eyes, "What do you mean, "what does she call me"? My name?"

"Exactly!"

..This is absurdly stupid.

Jebediah exhales through his nose, trying to calculate how to put the two of them on the same page. Sometimes he wonders if Hofnarr has even read the rest of the book they're in, despite her brilliance in the lab.

Thankfully, she does the explaining for him, albeit after he's already hit a few walls doing the mental legwork. "She's professional, right? Dr. Christoff, is that what she says?" Jebediah makes an affirming noise, and that seems to satisfy her. Himself, not so much.

"And.. why is this pertinent information to you?" Hofnarr opens her mouth to respond and promptly closes it.

She thinks back to earlier in the day when she'd visited Gonne's office, bringing them some pre-packaged snacks and a water bottle (anything to keep them from consuming nothing but a cup of coffee, on a good day). Gonne never spoke much unless they were asked about work, and even then responses were left scarce at times. Their aloof nature notwithstanding, Hofnarr did try to be friendly to them and offer invitations to stop holing up in their lab. They would never accept those offers, but it's the thought that counts.

As Hofnarr talked, Gonne didn't really respond, per usual, tinkering with one of their machines and not even pretending they're listening. "Jeb and I are going out to lunch now if you'd like to come with us," was one of the things she'd said amidst longer rambles about how some fresh air and daylight would be good for Gonne and so on. She'd continued speaking for a good while beyond that point, too, in spite of how Gonne felt about those concepts.

Suddenly, while she was mid-sentence, Gonne whipped around and responded for once, in the most peculiar way possible. "Wait, who is Jeb?" Hofnarr paused speaking at that, blinking at them incredulously. "Is that-- Dr. Christoff, yes?"

"Uh.. yes."

"Ohhh," Gonne nodded and turned their attention right back to their work. "Well, have fun with that, Dr. Hofnarr!"

Hofnarr, having been still utterly flummoxed by that question, had forgotten anything she was even trying to say. "Yeah.. right.. you too, Dr. Gonne."

Following that she'd gone out for said lunch with Jebediah, who is still looking at her expectantly waiting on a response. "I was just.." she stammers under the weight of his gaze, "Just curious. She talks kind of funny sometimes."

Jebediah is silent for what feels like hours, before eventually he makes another small affirmative sound. "She is.. definitely bizarre."

i've still been receiving asks over my period of inactivity, and i really am grateful 🙏 thank you for continuing to engage with me..!! i'm finding my groove again and getting back into the swing of normalcy, so just bear with me while i do that.

i was up to a lot behind the scenes (~2 weeks cross country travel, private projects, fic work.. yadda yadda..) that took my time away from blogging. but i miss blogging! and i have a lot to tend to here too..! so here i am! occasionally. we're coming back around.

oh..! those eyelashes are comically large, you weren't kidding.

mister cowboy, huh.. sheriff is one of those characters i think i would be much more focused on if i took more time to study him. i do want to get around to him eventually, as i do with everyone in this nevadean nightmare, i just had a few other projects to shove at before i found the time. OTL even now i'm not 100% on all his little details, but you asked for my thoughts, not for me to do research. i do have some of those!

funnily enough, when i think about the sheriff, i actually think about him most before all of the nexus and jebediah mumbo jumbo. my favorite concept of him is when he was in his mattress man days, i really love this vision of this big hairy guy in the cowboy outfit with the boots and the hat talking about how you better get on down to sheriff's mattress ranch for deals that can't be corralled! or, uh.. something like that. it's super cute to me. i've made a post here or there about watching his ads on a little crt tv.

i do believe he was very into this concept and was proud of what he'd made of that business! back then he was such a gentle man, the kind that would give you the shirt off his back if you asked him for it and wouldn't assume you'd do him wrong. you can't afford the entire cost of this mattress today? "aw, no problem partner, i'll knock 50 bucks off it for ya, how's that sound?" what a dear. if only he could've stayed that soft.

dealing with nexus changed sheriff in every way imaginable. that generosity was his downfall in a sense, being that it's some of what led him into giving assistance to jebediah, but i think he also had this feeling that if he didn't help out the world spiraling downward would be his fault. mister officer i am so sorry about the way that accepting jebediah's offer still did not absolve you of that guilt and you felt that way anyhow.

he can act much more prideful than he is, placing on this confident bravado that sits nicely with the star-shaped badge on his coat, although it doesn't sit very nicely in his mind when he's only sharing company with a bottle of whiskey. sheriff is actually acutely aware that he is not cut out to lead MERC or to lead much of anything beyond a small business, he just has no choice otherwise and hasn't since jebediah approached him. in the world he lives in, you cannot appear unsure of yourself, especially in such a powerful position, unless you desperately want to end up dead. (and he considers that he might, sometimes. if he empties that bottle and really sits with it.)

i wouldn't exactly call him a coward, sheriff does make attempts. he's not the bravest man around by any means of course, however he does feel a strong sense of justice and responsibility for those under and around him. the catch is that he's also just selfish enough now to send them in his place when he can.. even if the shame and remorse crushes him in the aftermath, he still feels scared to die, so scared that those other emotions are conceptually easier to deal with.

"but didn't you just say he might want to die sometimes two seconds ago?" yeah. it's possible to simultaneously be suicidal and scared of death, sheriff is a man that can do both. nevada is probably the least sensible place to be afraid of dying, when coming back is so easy, but going through the other place or your own personalized hell to return is also pretty scary! sheriff would rather handle the burden of leadership and feel miserable about it than go through that. i can see that making him pretty hesitant to even attempt recovering any of his fallen men, especially after he did die and have to experience his greatest fear. it didn't make him any less terrified, if anything it justified those nerves.

he's such a contradictory do as i say and not as i do type of person and that's what makes him so interesting. he's lost his certainty these days and can't confidently know what to say or do to begin with. riding that horrible metronome makes him motion sick and he hates it, he just can't get off the ride (and even if he tried, he'd be glued there anyhow). he's a shell of what he used to be, and he knows it. he misses his old self and his old life. he'll stare in the mirror at the way he's dropped an uncomfortable amount of weight and his hair has thinned and feel so many complicated things. he doesn't know what to do with himself.

of course it's not to say he's nothing but a pathetic meow meow, sheriff does have his skills! he's a fantastic gunman! he does take exceptional care of his men (aside from the sacrifices to save his own skin)! he's far from the best leader, but he's really not the worst either. he's exhausted but he will press on. he's functionally miserable, but he will defend himself. there's still a lot to admire about him, and he does earn the respect of others through it. it gets on my nerves just a little when sheriff is reduced to this one-note scaredy cat doormat character, or when he's portrayed too powerfully.. he walks the line of those things.

and yes, i hear you saying, "you write him like that too!" sure i do, depending on situational context. the key difference between them (to me) is that dei's default is playing funnynan and sanford's similar nature comes out more when he's comfortable. it bounces naturally off of dei who is conveniently also the one sanford is most comfortable around. when he eventually does try speaking to hank blank stares only get him so far, you know? they're just not really close enough for a lot of it. he'll make loose attempts here and there to just sort of.. test the waters(?) and see what happens. (not much, ford. not much.)

and even then, hank creeps him out! him and dei both! eventually i think he's sensible enough to go.. okay, bud, you don't wanna talk and i don't like how you look at me, so i'll just not. he and dei even bond over how their heebies get fucking jeebied anytime hank exists. in my heart the ad is set when sanford is comfortable enough to try chatting, he must be if he's talking smack about hank while they're in the back, but not long enough for him to see hank as anything but some freaky creature he's contracted to work with.

don't even get me started on "he's gonna be a reeeeal problem, mark my words." there is some camaraderie, but not full trust. that's what drives me crazy. people like sanford, to me, take so much time to go through these different stages of how they think of others. right now he's in the "you're okay i guess, but don't fuck with me" grey area. and that area is where his personality starts to come through. asking hank questions and trying to be engaging then turning to talk shit with dei. it's hilarious and it's so him.