Okay maybe I did another 2nd person fic. For @smallethoweek. It's only 333 words. You're Etho, and Joel is fire, but you will not burn.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
Heâs made of fire, but you know you wonât burn.
The ship burned and it was half an excuse, to run wild torching everything.
(You thought âeverything burnsâ was an exaggeration, but he even went for the base of stone (and then Ren and BigB were gone, after Ren told you to control your wife, after you set the ground on fire, trying to be more like Joel.))
Heâs so beautiful in firelight, and you follow him in his wake of destruction, trying to help, trying to be a part of it, trying to be inside the fire with him. You know you wonât burn, because youâre his, and he wonât let you.
Everyone knows â everyone thinks they know â what Joel is like, but they donât, not really. They know he brings fire and destruction and death, that heâs unhinged and obsessive, that heâs dangerous, and they arenât wrong. They donât know, canât know, that he truly is fire. Heâs also goofy and insecure and his voice breaks when heâs anxious, but heâs always burning on the inside. Heâs made of fire, he is fire â but you know you wonât burn.
(read the rest on ao3)
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Once upon a time I made a poll and people said they like wips from fic that are coming soon. This one... well I've got a summary and tags set! It'll be in the next few days! It's about 9k, which is more than I meant, but so be it. After this, it's bangs and my published wips (i hope).
This is in my university larper au, but I promise it's entirely stand alone -- i thought very hard about including backstory. If you're interested in the overall series (which only parts of are likely to be published). If you're interested, I made an overview doc. It includes links to other wip wednesdays, both smalletho and flower husbands!
It was clear that Joelâs friends had grown weary of hearing him whine about Etho, possibly even more than they seemed sick of him gushing about him, so he tried to only share the anxiety spirals when he was at his worst and desperate for distraction. None of them knew how consistently (every day) he felt crazy about Etho â and not the good kind of âbeing crazyâ about a super hot, totally ripped genius who keeps showing up at your dorm room to show you a very good time. Instead he had âtry your best to not become a stalker but itâs seeming diceyâ crazy and âintense, desperate hyperfixationâ crazy. Not instead, actually â heâd accepted heâs picked up multiple kinds of crazy, and might be suffering from more kinds of Etho crazy than he realized.
Joel told himself it was worth it.
This is my fourth. I certainly hope ao3 will be up come tuesday afternoon, if not I'll put out more fic bits.
This one was supposed to be for @smallethoweek, back in january. I have two wips from that week that I still plan to publish! They are college larpers, they met playing a larp called "double life" and started hooking up. It's a few weeks later and they are hooking up all the time.
The final fic will be, I think, barely M. I don't love the title and i hope to be struck with inspiration.
(I also have a 2k modern Flower Husbands wip clip up and a "smallidarity back on empires without grian" post-lim life fic, and a silly smallidarity emp s2 one.)
"The Hangover Brunch" by BlocksRuinedMe
Thinking about the ongoing, and perhaps eternal, ambiguity around the nature of his relationship with Etho made Joel anxious, so he tried to limit how much he let himself dwell. He wasnât very successful, but he kept trying because he couldnât see a better option. The one time heâd tried to discuss it with Etho had been unpleasant and ended with Joel very drunk and making questionable decisions, sure he had been thoroughly and permanently dumped. It was still unclear to Joel (and he wasnât about to ask) what Etho thought had happened, if he even thought there had been a fight, because he texted Joel two days later as if nothing had changed. Joel was relieved to be able to slip back into whatever-they-had-going-on as if nothing had happened, and privately swore to not bring it up again, regardless of how many times his friends asked him to. He was sure it would get sorted out eventually, one way or another. The (perhaps imagined) breakup had left Joel very clear that he wanted whatever he could get from Etho. He didnât see any reason to risk losing what he was getting and his hopes for the future. Â
The anxiety about Etho was usually easiest to push away when he was with Etho. Joel didnât know enough about relationships to know if that was unusual or ironic, but he was very grateful to not (always) be a total disaster when they were together. The nights alone, the days spent repeatedly checking his messages (despite always having push notifications on for Etho), the wandering thoughts during class and in lab â those were the real problem.Â
It was clear that Joelâs friends had grown weary of hearing him whine about Etho, possibly even more than they seemed sick of him gushing about Etho, so he tried to only share the anxiety spirals when he was at his worst and desperate for distraction. None of them knew how consistently (every day) he felt crazy about Etho - and not the good kind of âbeing crazyâ about a super hot, totally ripped genius who keeps showing up at your dorm room to show you a very good time. Instead he had âtry your best to not become a stalker but itâs looking diceyâ crazy and âmaybe fail out of school from being too gayâ crazy. Not instead of, though, heâd accepted he had multiple kinds of crazy, and might be suffering from more kinds of Etho crazy than he realized. He told himself it was worth it.Â
Despite being over nearly every night, Etho didnât often stay the night in Joelâs cramped dorm room. When he did he usually woke up and left early. They never talked about it, of course, but Joel knew it was early enough that his housemates might not realize he hadnât come home the night before. After weeks Joel hadnât even been in Ethoâs bedroom, which he told himself was⌠fine. When Etho fell asleep before Joel, or slept in after Joel (who never slept much anyway), Joel let himself beâor at least feel likeâa total creep by watching Etho sleep. Those moments were both excruciating and exquisite to Joelâs fragile heart. In the relaxation of sleep, Etho looked peaceful, vulnerable, open - even soft. It felt precious and beautiful and it made Joelâs heart hurt. He longed to have that from waking Etho, and tried to be patient.
The rest of the world (or at least most of it) didnât get to see this Etho, and Joel clung desperately to that knowledge, that he was being gifted with some special part of Etho. He knew he would sound crazy if he said it out loud. He knew that Etho wasnât specifically gifting him this, he was on some level taking it without Ethoâs knowledge. But Etho felt safe enough to give Joel that [access], and that meant the world to Joel.Â
For all their sexual connection and intensity, these moments were when Joel felt an intimacy heâd lacked in all of his ill-fated and brief attempts at dating. No matter what Etho thought, or felt, this was the best relationship Joel had ever had.Â
On the excruciating side, all those feelings reminded Joel of everything he didn't have with Etho. Being affectionate and using pet names in public, romantic things like dates and sappy goodnight texts if they slept apart, and getting to introduce Etho to people and say âThis is my boyfriend, Etho.â Right now heâd settle for having literally any idea of what he could expect from Etho, of what this meant to Etho, what he meant to Etho. They'd never even had a conversation about sex with other people, so Joel operated under the assumption that Etho was sleeping with an unknown number of other people. Joel was a little surprised that he didn't feel particularly jealous about the idea â he didn't think he needed to be Ethoâs Only in any regard. It wasn't about the amount of time they spent together (though he'd love more), it was more about how they spent the time they had, how they interacted with the world, and with each other. If Etho had an actual serious public relationship, while Joel was left in limbo, that would at minimum sting, if not devastate him. Joel felt sure heâd be happy for Etho to have a dozen boyfriends (or girlfriends, or whoever friends)... as long as he could be one too.Â
People like the fic I wrote! I'm getting a good response! I am happy!
I am never putting out something rushed again, lol. I have corrected a lot of errors and fixed lost changes. I'm about to go do another round of typo fixing. If you read and see any, I much prefer being told now than noticing it later. Backstory: I used to teach sat prep and have to write documents to professional standards and I can't turn off those glasses. I'm trying to truly understand that most people's eyes can skim over typoe and autocomplete in a way I truly can not. It might make some things make more sense? Typos you don't notice in fic might make my editor brain kick in. Writing makes me happier than reading so it's okay.
Back to the key to his problem - I'm heartbroken over something I just realized didn't make it into the final version, and considering a missing scenes sequel? Is that... a thing? You might be shocked how much got cut from the outline for a 20k fic I wrote in 6 days. (A bunch if because things evolved).
The Joel/Lizzie reunion sequel is trying to claw its way out of my brain so I've made a series, Locks and Keys. Lizzie deserves to get her reward!
Reminder the fic is very nsfw but here it is! The Key to His Problem. 20k, DoubleLife, SmallEtho with extensively discussed Joel/Lizzie. Everyone is happy and having a good time, once they get through Joel's anxiety.
WIP Wednesday - Blood and Other Lusts (DL SmallEtho)
Normally i clean my wips up more but i got possessed and wrote 2k, some of it 20 wpm, of jimmy/joel and joel/etho, jimmy being unhappy about joel and etho's relationship issues. I posted raw wip on discord and someone cried from the emotional intensity! So that was cool! But I've got baby music in the morning so here's the beginning of what should be my next fic posted.
-----
After turning Red, it didnât take long for Etho to suspect he might have A Joel Problem.Â
Death was disorienting and confusing, and Etho knew they would come back different this time, but this? This was more than he had expected. He could feel it as a tingle on his skin, a heat in his chest. He felt like his blood was pulsing faster and harder, like his senses were heightened, like his reflexes were faster. Everything felt more intense, but perhaps that would fade as he acclimatized. It was strange, but he was getting used to it⌠and it felt good.Â
Joel, though, didnât seem to need any time to get used to being Red. Joel came back enraged and ready to murder. Etho did feel more interested in murder than before, so at first he didnât realize how much farther along the bloodlust path Joel was, and how unconcerned he would be with letting things like their odds of success get in his way.Â
As they hurried back to the Mid-Century Modern house to retrieve their belongings, Etho egged Joel on, because getting Joel riled up was always fun, if sometimes also destructive. (Which wasnât necessarily a problem) Etho loved getting Joel agitated, making him flustered, causing him to shriek or squawk â Joel always smiled in the end, even if he tried to hide it. This time he easily wound Joel up about the idea someone had stolen their hard-earned diamonds, when they had no reason to believe anyone had. Heâd been unsure in the beginning, but being soulmates with Joel was fun.Â
Heâd had plenty of fun before, but Joel was a different and exciting kind of fun. He and Joel had known about their connection, felt each otherâs pain, all, for weeks. But now it was different, he felt like his blood was heating up, and felt like he could feel Joelâs too. It sounded ridiculous and overdramatic, so he didnât say anything, but he had to wonder if Joel felt it too.
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An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
What's up block people fans! It's #SmallEthoWeek and for Day 1 I went kinda overboard with 4200 words of Joel having A Very Rough Time trying to play the next Traffic Life game without Etho. Rated T for cursing. I did this very quickly and I'm honestly pretty proud of how it came out, this Joel feels real and complete to me! Writing Joel POV is my new favorite thing, I hope you enjoy!
The prompt was "a song you like", and i used a song I adore, "Call Off Your Ghost" by Dessa. Thanks to @giddyfenix for organizing! Check out @smallethoweek for more!
Fic preview, go to ao3 for more!
âWhat about you, Joel, who are you teaming with?â
So the invitation wasnât coming. Joel had been hanging around like a pathetic unwanted puppy, stupidly holding onto the idea that Etho might still want him, that what theyâd had before meant something, meant anything. Heâd spent their whole relationship afraid that Etho would rather be with Bdubs, that he was only giving Joel the time of day because heâd been assigned to him. He couldnât know for sure, but âteaming with Bdubs and Impulse while Joel was standing right thereâ seemed like a strong indicator.
âOh, still weighing my options, Iâm quite popular, as you know. Better go pick the lucky winners though, Iâll see you lot later.â
Joel strode away briskly, not waiting for any response, freeing himself from the need to school his face. He was wildly disappointed, but heâd die three times before heâd let them know it. He didnât need them, and he wouldnât have enjoyed being with Bdubs anyway, but he had hoped it would be worth it to be with Etho. But if Etho was going to give all his attention to Bdubs, maybe being there would be the worse option.
Better off this way. He was just feeling nostalgia, it would pass. He didnât need Etho, who never would have worked with him without the soulmate bond anyway.
Unfortunately, Joelâs implication that he had multiple groups wanting to work with him was a complete fabrication. Heâd been so set on Etho, so deluded that he would get to be with Etho, that heâd not put any effort into finding a team. He did a quick circuit of the current teams, enough to gather who all was working together. He didnât want to work with Scar, too chaotic, or Pearl, not after her instability last time. With Ren he was worried heâd get swept up into some weird Ren stuff. That left only Grian, Jimmy, and Tango. A pair of soulmates, and one of The Bad Soulmates. It would have to do.
