“If you were my wife, I’d want to make love to you every day just to get to see how beautiful you look right now.”
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saw waitress 2 weeks ago and for the second day in a row a soft place to land is being played on repeat
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a soft place to land by ace_astronaut [T]
“I just didn’t think being on my own would be this hard,” he sobbed.
At this, every part of Sarah wanted to reach through the screen, brush the tears from his feverish cheeks, and whisper, you’re not on your own. But she couldn’t. So instead, she simply stayed on the phone with him, two-hundred miles away, and reminded him, over and over again, to breathe.
When Nick’s first rodeo with freshers’ flu hits worse than anticipated, Sarah summons him back home to recharge.
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“You come from a different Atlanta than I do,” said Ruthie.
A Soft Place to Land, Susan Rebecca White
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“You know Mars Street?” asked Ruthie, surprised. Most of her classmates did not live near the Castro. Most lived in the Avenues, or in Pacific Heights or Sea Cliff.
A Soft Place to Land, Susan Rebecca White
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Fanfic Friday
Merry 3rd day of Christmas, here’s some more of the WIP
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Jonas glances down at his mug. “It’s just been hard, you know,” he sighs. “With everything going on at home. And Lucy.”
The pang of guilt from earlier resurfaces. “I’m sorry,” Sam murmurs, tightening her grip on her mug. “About tonight.”
Jonas looks up, frowning. “What are you talking about?”
Sam averts her eyes. “I just mean…I know the bedtime routine is something special between you and Lucy, and I didn’t mean to intrude.”
It’s Jonas’ turn to shake his head. “You didn’t intrude on anything,” he counters. “Lucy asked you.”
Sam sighs. “Still,” she argues, “it’s your thing. Not mine. I shouldn’t have - “
”Sam, stop,” Jonas cuts in. “It’s okay. I’m glad Lucy’s so comfortable with you.”
Sam glances back at him. “Are you sure?”
Jonas nods, although his eyes are still heavy with an unspoken weight. “Yes,” he replies. “It means that she trusts you. And that she’s happy here. Which is all I want for her really.” He takes a deep breath. “To be honest, you’re better with her than I am.”
Sam is taken aback. “What do you mean?”
Jonas shrugs. “Exactly what I said. You’re better with her than I’ve been lately. Sometimes I wonder if she’s better off - “
”Jonas,” Sam interrupts, fear spiking in her chest. “Don’t talk like that.”
He looks up again, meeting her eyes. “It’s true,” he says quietly. “I’ve been a mess since we got here and you’re the only one who’s been holding it all together.”
Sam’s heart is pounding now, and the forlorn expression on Jonas’ face isn’t helping matters. “It’s not true,” she counters, her voice taking on an almost desperate edge. “You’ve been spending all this time with her, keeping her safe, doing activities. If she’s happy, it’s because of you, not me.”
Jonas lets out another sigh. “What if it’s not enough, Sam?”
Sam frowns. “Of course it’s enough.”
”What if it isn’t, though?” he snaps, causing Sam to flinch at his sudden change in tone. “It’s not like I haven’t already failed her.”
Sam lowers her mug into her lap, anxiety starting to creep into her limbs. “Jonas,” she starts, “what are you talking about?”
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Fanfic Friday
I’m sorry that I keep dropping random snippets instead of uploading this, I got sick so that took me out for most of the week and now I’ve been delayed on making progress so um, have some more out-of-context depression I guess idk
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Sam reaches for the “Lucy book,” which is in fact an illustrated copy of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe that she picked up from the library’s used bookstore. Jonas took a liking to fantasy literature during his brief time on SG-1, The Chronicles of Narnia being one of his favorites. Lucy herself is named for the youngest Pevensie sibling, and Jonas, of course, has passed on his love for the series to his daughter.
Sam has overheard him reading the books at many a bedtime story session, and it’s become something and he and Lucy have bonded over. So for Sam to suddenly be taking his place feels wrong somehow, as if it’s an intrusion on a special moment that should only be shared between the two of them. She shoots Jonas another apologetic look. Once again he responds with an encouraging smile, but Sam detects a hint of sadness lurking behind his eyes.
A gentle tug on her pant leg brings her back to the present moment. “Why’ren’t you reading yet?” Lucy asks.
Sam blushes and settles down on the carpet, crossing her legs in front of her. “Do you want to start?”
Lucy beams, her hazel eyes glowing in the light from the bedside lamp. “Uh-huh!” she exclaims, reaching her little arms towards the book.
Sam opens it up to the first page, holding it between her and Lucy. Like her father, Lucy is a quick study, and her reading skills are quite impressive for a mere three-year-old. She stretches out her index finger and places it beneath the first word on the page, just like Jonas has taught her.
”Lu-cy,” she starts, carefully sounding out every syllable, “Looks In-to A War-dro-be.”
She turns to Sam, brimming with glee. “That’s me!” she squeaks.
Sam can’t help but smile. “Yes, it is,” she says. “Do you want to keep going?”
Lucy shakes her head. “No, you read now, Auntie Sam.” She pauses. “P’ease.”
Sam stifles a laugh and picks up where Lucy left off. “Once there were four children whose names were Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy,” she begins.
She continues on, making an attempt at character voices the way she’s heard Jonas do so before. She’s certain she’s nowhere near as good at it as he is, but thankfully Lucy doesn’t complain. By the time she’s halfway through the second chapter, Lucy’s eyelids are starting to droop.
”Sing now, Auntie Sam? P’ease?”
Sam marks the page with the book’s inner flap and gently places it back on the nightstand. “Okay,” she says softly. “What do you want me to sing?”
Lucy shrugs, her eyes falling closed. “Dunno,” she mumbles, already half-asleep.
Sam takes a breath, wracking her brain for something appropriate. Then, in a flash, it comes to her.
She opens her mouth and starts to sing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” She can’t remember the opening lines, so she starts at the chorus, her voice sounding thin and wispy. But as she watches Lucy drift off to sleep, one hand gently stroking her hair, a surge of hidden confidence bubbles up from somewhere inside her. Sam’s voice grows stronger and the notes become clearer, and by the time she reaches the end, she’s been swept away by the song just as much as Lucy has.
Sam’s hand finally stills, coming to rest on Lucy’s cheek. Lucy twitches a little, then settles into her pillow with a tiny sigh. It’s then that Sam feels something else stir inside her, something that she last felt when she first met Cassie all those years ago. She’s never been able to put a name to it, but she knows what it is, and its unexpected reappearance startles her. She pulls back, feeling a lump rise in her throat.
A creak in the floorboards startles her again, and she whirls around to see Jonas shifting his weight against the door frame. There’s a million emotions written across his face, most of which Sam is unable to read. But the tears in his eyes are unmistakable, and the sight makes her own vision start to blur.
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WIP Update: I think I’m 90% sold on baby Quinn’s name, I feel like it fits the best. Also she’s a cutie
Jonas has to bribe Lucy with an extra cookie in order to get her to agree to bath time. Sam has never been able to make heads or tails of kids and baths. On some days Lucy practically leaps at the the chance to take one, and she insists on staying in the tub for as long as possible before Jonas has to drag her out. On other days, she flat-out refuses to even go near the bathroom, which has resulted in Jonas and Sam chasing her around the house on more than one occasion.
Today seems to be a bit of both. At first Lucy whines, sticking out her lip in an exaggerated pout that Sam secretly thinks is the most adorable thing she’s ever seen. But once she’s in the bath, Jonas has trouble coaxing her out of it. Or, at least, that’s what it sounds like from the muffled argument on the other side of the door. The guest bathroom is only a half bath, so Jonas and Lucy have had to share the one attached to Sam’s bedroom. Unable to contain her curiosity, Sam tiptoes closer, catching snippets of the conversation.
[[MORE]]”It’s bedtime now, Luce,” Jonas is saying, his voice laced with a hint of frustration.
”Don’t wanna, Bubba,” Lucy whines.
Sam hears Jonas sigh. ”Lucy, remember how we talked about how sometimes we have to do things we don’t want to?”
Sam holds back a laugh, envisioning Lucy’s face twisting into her signature pout. “Five more minutes, Bubba?” the little girl pleads. “P’ease?”
Sam decides to give him a hand. She opens the door a crack pokes her head in. “Need some help in here?”
Lucy is sitting in the middle of the tub, surrounded by a cloud of bubbles which she’s currently pretending to swim through. Jonas is crouched on the floor next to her, holding a towel in his outstretched hands.
He turns around to face Sam, his eyes pleading. “Please,” he begs. “I’ve tried everything.”
Sam stifles a snort and walks in. “Hey, Luce,” she says, joining Jonas on the floor. “Do you think you can come out now?”
”No,” Lucy replies as if this is the most obvious answer in the world. “I’m a mermaid, Auntie Sam.”
Sam and Jonas exchange glances, and she has to suppress another laugh at the helpless look on his face. “Well,” Sam starts, trying another approach, “I think the magic in the water might run out soon. Which means you’ll have to turn into a human again.”
Lucy looks up, scowling. “The water isn’t magic,” she retorts. “I’m magic.”
Jonas groans. “I never should’ve let her watch The Little Mermaid,” he mutters.
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from chapter 4. thanks for the ask!! <3
the thing about the aizawa saving izuku as a kid stuff is that i made things harder for myself than i needed to for no real reason. like, the whole fic is inherently not canon compliant because of how different things would be after, so i could have just made up whatever i want - but i was intrigued to see if i could spin the aizawa saving izuku as a kid stuff in a way that made both their actions in their canon first day meeting at least vaguely plausible
i had not actually really thought until i got this ask about why that is. i guess i lean towards making things canon compliant when possible, because it’s personally more satisfying to me that way, and also sometimes interesting things happen if you try to write within tight restrictions. so a lot of stuff in that passage and in the fic in general is a consequence of needing aizawa to not remember and izuku to not say anything when they meet at UA
i’ll explain more as we get into the passage itself:
[[MORE]]“It was okay, though,” Izuku says. “You stopped them. You saved us.”
Eraserhead looks at Izuku for a long time, that worried expression shifting but never leaving. “The older you never said anything,” he says at last.
narrator voice: It Was Not Okay. a lot of this fic is aizawa quietly observing things that make teenaged izuku’s behaviour retrospectively more concerning and this is for sure one of them. and normally he actually does a pretty good job of doing that quietly bc he is king of compartmentalizing
tangent but a lot of other characters in this fic inadvertently stress little izuku out because they don’t compartmentalize as well. the whole thing is so weird that they forget about izuku’s subjective experience of the situation as a disoriented frightened kid and forget that their familiarity with teenage izuku doesn’t translate. not because they’re monsters - it’s a deeply weird situation, and people often forget about little kids’ subjective experiences even when that kid isn’t also basically a walking quirk accident. this is reflected in name stuff - aizawa intentionally makes the switch to izuku immediately to create a separation in his mind between 16yo hero student and frightened 7yo (which is somewhat easier bc he meets baby izuku in a situation that v much puts him in hero mode not teacher mode. and also he already has practice with traumatised 7 year olds)
so this is one of relatively few times he does address little izuku while thinking/talking about the older one, because while the stuff he’s learned about izuku before (late bloomer, level of anxiety, general behaviour honestly) is worrying, it wasn’t about him. this is like…this kid’s secret-keeping is so inbuilt that he never told me we’d met before (and also doesn’t seem to understand that it’s okay to be upset about having been in a very scary situation as a tiny tiny kid)
Izuku shrugs helplessly. He doesn’t know why the boy he’d seen staring back at him from Uraraka’s phone screen would do anything. He’s just as much of a stranger as any of those teenagers.
man a lot of this fic is me waving my arms and yelling bc de-aging for the de-aged person is so deeply existentially weird. most of the de-aging fics i’ve read don’t get that deep into that weirdness, which is entirely fair bc i think my level of interest in that element is an outlier, but truly like…
imagine you wake up and it’s almost 10 years in the future. you’re surrounded by people you don’t know but who know you and have whole relationships with you that you know nothing about. and you live somewhere different, you have an entirely different life. and it seems life a good life, better than you ever imagined having even, but that’s already so jarring emotionally even when you are not trying to not process all that as a literal child.
so whenever i was figuring my way through young izuku’s POV, i couldn’t make his older self not on some level uncanny and frightening to think about. and it’s also, as discussed above, even stranger when people expect you to be able to speak for them and account for their actions
“Your mom never brought it up either.”
yeah so one of the consequences of trying to make that first meeting vaguely plausible is that inko can’t know. bc you cannot tell me that if inko midoriya knew there was a hero who saved her son and that hero is now his homeroom teacher, that there wouldn’t have been a lovely handwritten thank you note. probably a fruit basket also.
Izuku hunches over a little more. That’s the only other memory he has from that night—his dad kneeling in front of Izuku and explaining that it wasn’t a good idea to worry his mom by telling her what happened. “My mom…worries,” Izuku echoes. “So I think my dad didn’t really…tell her. Or if he did, he made it sound…less bad? No heroes or villains.”
Eraserhead hums. “I see that’s a familial trait.”
Izuku isn’t sure if he means the worrying or making things sound less bad. He shrugs helplessly again.
so if inko isn’t there, then the logical answer is that hisashi is instead. which then decides some stuff about hisashi in itself, if he did not explain that any of this occurred to inko. sorry to hisashi midoriya for my slander of his hypothetical character in two different fics now. but i liked the idea, like aizawa says, of these familial traits - these ways that parents teach their kids, intentionally or otherwise, about how they should interact with the world
there’s a song i really like from 36 questions the podcast musical, Our Word, which goes through the ways the narrator’s parents taught her that lying was the best way to succeed in life, starting with her accidentally breaking something of her dad’s as a little kid and her mom reassuring her it was okay because they could just lie to him & say they don’t know how it got broken
i wasn’t thinking of that explicitly, and this is a pretty different lesson learned, but i like the idea of hisashi having taught izuku, whether he meant to or not, that he is responsible for not upsetting his mom by letting her know about bad things that have happened to him. that if he cares about his mom, he’ll make sure she doesn’t have to be hurt too by things that have already hurt him.
which is particularly insidious when you think about those two legacies, because izuku is also an anxious kid already. as he gets older he can recognise his mom’s anxiety more and knows what it feels like to be that scared. so of course he’d want to make sure she doesn’t have to feel like that when she doesn’t have to. all he has to do is smile and say it’s okay. what kind of hero will he be if he can’t do that?
this isn’t my fixed headcanon for izuku’s family, but it is one i found interesting to explore, especially when only filling in impressions of hisashi through a few tiny hazy memories. and i do think it’s fun that all of that came out of trying to make two kind of irreconcilable things - aizawa saving izuku as a kid and their meeting at UA still going the way it did in canon - fit together.
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Title: A Soft Place to Land | Author: Janae Marks | Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books (2021)
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Hi Anon! I’m so sorry this reply is so late! I am planning to continue it. I’ve debated back and forth for the past few months because I hit a wall of writer’s block (thanks, depression), but I really do miss the story, and I would love to get back to it. I’ve already written chapter 27 so I just need to edit it now. And I do have a ton of content written for future chapters if I can ever manage to get it together enough to tie things together.
But thank you SO much for this ask! It really does mean the world to me that you’re enjoying the story!! 😭🤩
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they may not match my energy, but them just giving my golden-retriever jump-up-and-down all-caps-i-love-you-at-3-pm energy a soft, warm welcoming gentle space for me to be my energy securely and comfortably is… everything. it means the whole wide world with her oceans and mountains to me
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Dean Winchester | A Soft Place To Land Oh, gosh, I wasn’t ready for this, I had to get some tissues after first 20 seconds… </3 A perfect birthday-tribute to Dean by destielsevermore. He really deserves a soft place to land.
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sam's town - Chapter 1 - eitherSadness_orEuphoria - Supernatural [Archive of Our Own]
part one of a little Sam side story! dedicated to my asptl co-founder @percephoney (hell yeah)
the rest of it will come after i wrap up this semester, so keep eyes peeled for the LEAD UP INTO S1 CANON DIVERGENCE
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This isn’t part of the lyrics series. This is just me talking about how much I love A Soft Place To Land from Waitress. Like…the softness…the longing for better things to come…the cautious optimism. Fuuuuk…like “when your breaking point’s all that you have, a dream is a soft place to land” and “a dream needs believing to taste like the real thing” it doesn’t hold as much anxiety and anticipation as When He Sees Me but it isn’t as resigned as She Used To Be Mine. Idk it’s been a comfort song of mine lately