Michigan Just Gave Us The Rhetorical Weapon That Could Push Biden And The DNC To Turn Their Backs On

the first time you go home after your childhood dog dies

you will immediately turn to the right of the front door, where the dog bed was. sorry. force of habit. there is a side table in its stead. it has a cherry finish. mom has moved the radio into your room.

you keep your old house as the primary shipping address “just in case.” your new sunglasses will have come in and are waiting on the front step. the old ones broke when you were pawing through your work bag trying to find that pack of gum.

the house will be silent. it’s never been this silent for this long. every few minutes over the last 13 years, your dog would snuffle and bite at that one spot on his stomach. the tap tap tap of his toenails against the floorboards heralded his arrival. in high school, you learned to shut your bedroom door at night. sometimes you’d forget and you would wake up to the jingle of his nametag. you don’t realize you’re looking for something until you find yourself surprised that the living room is empty. 

you will live out of your suitcase in your childhood bedroom and stub your toe against the new exercise bike in the corner. you forgot to put your laundry away before you left. the wrinkles that form on your favorite work blouse (the one you got for $8) will remind you of the river you learned to swim in. your cousin is going to grad school out west. you should reach out. you’ve been telling yourself this for over a year. 

you will think about bringing back the lamp by your bed to furnish the living room but ultimately decide to leave it here. just in case. you will find your dog’s harness buried in the second drawer of your grandmother’s dresser and sniff it cautiously. don’t worry— the smell will linger for months. you will make a to-do list for work tomorrow and watch the sunset. you used to keep a spare pen in the desk drawer. it’s run out of ink. you thought you were done grieving.

in the evening, you will bump into your youngest brother outside mom’s room. oops sorry. my bad. mom is quietly reading in her room. your brother will continue transporting boxes from the attic. he is moving out in two days. the last time you heard the cicadas sing was also here. you can’t hear them in your new apartment. mom declared how happy she was for everyone at dinner. you thought she might be holding back tears. you wanted to ask if she would be okay by herself. you will instead ask her what she did with the dog bed. 

the first time you go home after your childhood dog dies, you let the rest of the song play out before turning off the car. you text your roommate that you made it back safely and that traffic was horrible. you check your email and pin a message from your coworker. you wish mom was home already. you draft a text to your friend: i’m scared that my house won’t feel like home anymore. you add red onion to your grocery list. you should have stopped for a bathroom break an hour ago. you miss how things were last august. mr. rodney waves at you as he makes his way up the block. “how long are you here for?” he asks. you tell him just a few days. you delete the text. tonight you will sleep with the door open. 

act iii officially started!

hi this is like almost 5 days late bc i was traveling but ch 13 of looking out for you is up for act iii🎊

i've moved my updates to every saturday so get excited for another one very soon!

highlight reel for chapter 13: shiro and lance platonic bonding, klance development, the return of group shenanigans!

chapter 5 update!

heyoooo icymi chapter 5 is up! i have this fic split up into 3 acts in my mind so far and we have reached the end of act i. i was gonna go a behind the scenes today but uhhh im gonna be at the mechanic's for a good chunk of tmrw (im going off EST) so it might be a little later in the evening tomorrow.

anyway yeah im gonna be talking about my inspiration for the specific characterization and ideas i have for the progression of the klance relationship. <3 thanks for checking it out!

act i behind the scenes

hi hello, welcome to a little bts for my voltron college au fanfic, looking out for you on ao3!

favorite scene: the ending of chapter 5, actually! i remember i was typing as fast as i fucking could to try and get it done and sent to my beta (i was also holding my family up for dinner lmao). the last few paragraphs where keith reflects on how far he's come and lance catching him in his own head— that just kinda poured out of me and after going back and rereading it, i don't think there was ever a different way to end the chapter.

favorite character: copout answer but i dont have a favorite character to write. i have a huge soft spot for canon lance and pidge but in the fic, i love the small moments where lance or keith are interacting one-on-one with each other or with other people. i feel like i can really dig into the characterization there. hunk and lance's dynamic has been really fun for me to write because i am so soft at the thought of childhood best friends who have seen each other in almost every version of themselves and know each other in and out. i think hunk and lance stabilize each other pretty well, and they just seem to exist as two sides of the same coin. i also really enjoy pidge's dynamic with lance because it reminds me of two of my friends who were essentially brother and sister and argued all the time and made fun of each other. but ultimately, they'd fight to the death for each other. shiro and keith's dynamic is fun because i like being able to get in keith's head and write a shit ton of his inner monologue but then what comes out is like three sentences while shiro just patiently waits for him to spit it out. i also have been hinting (which ill be deepning later on) that even though keith and shiro love each other and are close, there's some distance between them that's built over time. i think it's natural, especially when keith still hasn't fully come to terms that someone he perceives to be a hero would ever take a chance on him. when shiro, the gay depressed bitch that he is, goes to college and experiences the sanctity of forming your own community and meeting people who really truly get you, ofc he's going to constantly want to go back. i think that yearning definitely scares keith and thus leads him to distancing himself as a means of self preservation. and ofc, shiro sees keith pulling away but isn't sure what to do because keith won't talk to him so there's gonna be some underlying tension. can't wait to unpack all of that! i love u space dad i love u space emo.

least favorite scene: i fucking hate action oml. i don't mind reading it but i cannot stand writing it and that's mainly because i have such a rotten little brain that has a hard time processing shit and so the pacing is really difficult for me. (thank u to my beta for suffering through my constant questions). all the paintball scenes in act i weren't my favorite because i had to constantly map out where all 12 characters were on the field at all times and how they were moving and where they were moving. that being said, i do think the paintball scenes were valuable because i got to explore how each individual member would act separately and then as a group. i am v happy that there will be no more paintball after this, tho. (i have never played paintball before in my life). character's ethnic identities yeah so i made a note around chapter 2? i think? that i wanted to incorporate the lived experiences of 1.5, second, and third generation immigrants because this is a fanfic but also i wanted to ground it in reality a little. as a person of color, going to college i had the freedom to explore my identity and also reconcile notions of home and tradition with an entirely new group of people. im a huge sucker for language and it was important to me to incorporate various degrees of bilingualness because that's how i saw other people from multicultural households talk.

i couldn't really include keith being half-galra in a college au but i did see potential to have him go through an identity crisis about being half-korean (asians being forever foreigners, aliens, immigrants). since krolia wasn't there to see him grow up and help him connect with his korean heritage, i think that definitely contributed to keith's anger and trauma of not having the one person who could understand what he was feeling. as someone who grew up not knowing their biological family, i can understand keith's reluctance to even attempt to dive into his heritage and so he's just stuck in this liminal space where he's half-korean living with two japanese people. i created a somewhat elaborate backstory for him and i have big plans for his identity exploration further on so im very excited to project write more.

this has been a short but sweet bts of looking out for you! get excited for act ii! there will be more klance(!!!) and relationship development among the other characters (keith & allura, lance & allura, lance & adam!)

but if i dont see immediate results for my efforts ill die

I don’t even care who fucking wins the presidency this year look at this

fic update in the form of langst character study

hi are u a former/current fan of voltron: legendary defender that was disappointed with lance's overall (lack of) character development within the show and felt that there could have been more to explore like his family life, identity as a queer-coded man, and his deep insecurities?

hi have you ever returned to your hometown and your childhood home and realized that everything around you is different and changing and the people around you are moving on and nothing will stay the same and you're having a hard time reconciling with the grief of change and growing up and navigating the landscape that is family dynamics and transitioning into being an adult?

omg that's crazy— read my fic.

lol jk but icymi, chapter 11 and 12 are going to be character-centric. chapter 11 is solely dedicated to lance and exploring his fear of being left behind/not good enough, his relationship with his dad, and his relationship with his siblings. chapter 12 will be focused on keith.

taking a bit of a step back from the group shenanigans at college for the next 2 chapters but i really enjoyed writing lance's section and getting to know him as a character, and i hope you all do as well :)

pls check it out!