reineboots

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no not at all. they’re very well organized. Quite possibly the most organized of all time, actually

anyone else's internal story notes a mess

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AUGHHHH…. irving…..

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i have been so feral for this show. for THREE YEARS now. and I feel like it’s starting to become more widely known now and this brings me joy

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prologue - the untimely demise of Stephen O'Brien

It was an April afternoon, as average as any other that had come before it.

It was also, unfortunately, the last average April afternoon Sophie and Stephen would experience together. 

She picked him up from Chess Club as she did every Tuesday, with two burgers and a medium fry for them to share. The car pulled up, music pumping loudly enough that Stephen could feel it in his teeth and the soles of his shoes. And there she was, hair gleaming in the yellow afternoon light. Where would his majesty like to voyage for today’s expedition? she asked. 

He said that he was inclined to pay a visit to that old park they went to as kids, the one with the gazebo with the paint peeling off. 

With pleasure, my liege! 

And they were on their way. 

Stephen couldn’t wait any longer and took a huge bite of his burger, feeling the knot of hunger and tension in him melt away. The two had been doing this little ritual for a full year and a half— well, since they got their licenses— and Stephen had yet to grow weary of it. In fact he would probably choose to live in this moment forever, if given the option. This conviction would only grow in the years that followed. 

Sophie told him, through waving hands and raised eyebrows, all about the wild thing her aunt had messaged in the family group chat while he had been playing chess in the library with nerds. He grinned along and rolled down the windows, savoring the blast of warm air that poured through the car’s innards.

They hit the highway. Sophie cranked the music louder over the roar of the asphalt beneath them. Stephen could hardly hear her now, and yelled this. She gave a squinting smile— the sun was now hot and bright in their faces— and, ignoring his antics, continued on with her story. It was a tacit admission: it didn’t matter, in the end, if her aunt truly believed that Sophie’s youngest cousin, the morning following his baptism, would undergo an unholy metamorphosis and emerge from his bedcovers a demonic lizard. The details of it all didn’t matter. What did matter was his and Sophie’s laughter, and the sun and the wind and the world rushing past, blurred and fuzzy and altogether inconsequential, at least when they were together. 

He should have just enjoyed the moment. The details didn’t matter! he would later find himself screaming at his younger self. Just shut shut your mouth, and it won’t happen. You can stop it from happening if you just shut your fucking mouth. 

Stephen caught a few of Sophie’s words between verses and blasts of wind, and, chuckling in disbelief, he felt a bolt of inspiration run through him. Now, that would make her laugh. He yelled some smart-ass comment about Aunt Patricia, and Sophie looked away from the road to read his lips. He could read hers clearly enough: WHAT?

He yelled it again, grinning like the idiot he was. She shook her head— nope, still not getting it— and he gestured: turn it down!  

Her eyes flicked to the console. She reached, right hand off the wheel. The sun painted her in shades of gold as she did so. It sparked in the halo of frizz in her hair, and shimmered on the acne-prone combination skin she hated so much, and dripped from her eyelashes to pool in her eyes as they glanced down and away from the road. 

There was a sickening crunch; Stephen’s ribs decided to meld with the dashboard. Sophie’s did not.

She had always joked that beat-up old Gloria wasn’t worth the scrap she was made of. The car’s air conditioning was perpetually broken; the speakers always crackled after a storm, no matter how small; and sometimes you had to wiggle the seatbelts a bit to actually get them to click. 

In the end, she may as well have not been wearing a seatbelt at all. 

Stephen slammed back into the real world, swaddled in old Gloria’s airbags, but Sophie did not. She flew. 

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*puts on the most immensely intensely normal outfit* heh… they don’t know im cosplaying my oc……..

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the "came back wrong" trope except like... they didnt. like this mad scientists wife died, and so he studied necromancy, brought her back, and she came back and it all worked. like she came back exactly the same as she was before with literally no difference. but the scientist guy is like "oh no... what have i done.... shes Different now!!!! she came back Wrong!!!!" and shes just like. chilling. reading a book. cooking dinner. shes just so so normal but in the guys mind hes like "oh shes soooo weird" but shes just normal

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Now, me and Stephen sat on either side of a campfire, facing each other but making eye contact only with the flames that lapped at the air between us. On the table beside me lay Bromley’s smuggled game of Jenga: Paradox Edition, advertising Infinite Blocks; Infinite Fun! It flickered, causing me to feel a stabbing sensation between the eyes, and I eyed it suspiciously.

The whole situation really was a lot like a game of Jenga, I thought. Almost an entire day had passed since our reunion, but somehow we had miraculously avoided having any discussions at all about certain topics and certain events, particularly the ones which carried a certain emotional heft. Neither one of us wanted to be the one to collapse the tower— so, in order to keep it upright as long as possible, we had locked ourselves in a game of revealing as little as we could about our grief-ravaged mental states, back and forth, each of us removing and replacing single wooden blocks, ideally until the end of time itself. As long as the tower stood, however rickety, we could at least pretend that everything was normal and as it had been before.

Stephen finally spoke, with a measured, tentative tone that didn’t match his words. “Oh, I wanted to say earlier— your new paintings are awesome. I only look a little bit goofy! It’s great.”

My turn. “Dude. I’m lionizing you. You look a lot goofy by default. I hate to break it to you, but the paintings are supposed to be generally improved versions of you, facially-speaking.”

“Can’t you make them have—you know—a total absence of goofy? Absolutely no goof at all?” He was matching my energy, warming up to me. Good. This was how we had used to talk to each other, right?

“Even for the greatest painters of our generation, there’s a limit to what’s physically possible.”

He gave a shout of mock despair. “So I suppose I am doomed to wallow in my own misery forever, then? Knowing that even the best possible version of me continues to have, at minimum, trace amounts of goofy?”

The tower wobbled precariously. I couldn’t keep doing this. “My condolences, sucks for you, et cetera. Me, personally? Can’t relate.” And I stuck out my tongue and did a half-hearted little peace sign. “That’s right, folks, she’s a perfect ten.”

I dared to lift my gaze from the flames, and was startled by the earnest spark I glimpsed in Stephen’s expression. It was a joke, and he was laughing, but I think some part of him wholeheartedly believed what I had said, and some part of me didn’t like that. The Jenga tower in my mind teetered on the edge of collapse.

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The man was tall, thin, and pale. A pale frayed suit on pale hair and pale skin, skin that, though it shone with an uncanny luster, wrinkled and sagged and pulled taut as it moved, as skin was prone to do in any human past a certain age. Through its paper-thin fragility Stephen could see a blush of warmth as blood coursed by beneath. Exactly what one would expect to see.

The man by no means looked to be dead. But there was something about him that just felt incorrect. He moved with a total disregard (borne from ignorance, or possibly disrespect) for the obvious fragility of the body he inhabited. When the man leapt up from the bench before Stephen, he felt an urge to gently grab the man's arm and guide him back to his seat. The overall impression was that of an elderly used-car salesman rendered effectively immortal through the consumption of vast quantities of caffeine.

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the sound of fire, as the wood hears it

On one end you shrivel and die, blackening and curling to nothing to the accompaniment of a million hissing screams.

the other end of you feels a warmth to its back and calls it sunshine. Above you the cheerful blue smiles down, unfettered, and the air below lies paralyzed, and you are alone, and so the flames will stop only when there is nothing left of you to burn

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Heaven Sent novelization test (Doctor Who)

As you come into this world, something else is also born.  You begin your life, and it begins a journey towards you. It moves slowly, but it never stops.  Wherever you go, whatever path you take, it will follow.  Never faster, never slower, always coming.  You will run. It will walk.  You will rest. It will not.  One day, you will linger in the same place too long.  You will sit too still  or sleep too deep,  and when, too late, you rise to go,  you will notice a second shadow next to yours.  Your life will then be over.

HEAVEN SENT

An agonized, strangled cry split the silence of the room. Then there was a horrid stench of burning flesh, shortly followed by a heavy thump, then silence once more. 

Except—there was the matter of the transporter in the center of the brick-walled chamber. A few lights glimmered around the rounded base, flashing faster and faster as the gentle hum of hidden machinery heightened into a full-bodied roar. The glass cylinder blazed with light, and then the roar faded and the light within the cylinder was swiftly replaced by the silhouette of a man. An older man; and one a bit haggard around the edges at that. 

The Doctor staggered. His head collided with the wall of the transport in an audible smack, and he lept back, coughing and gasping for breath. His trembling fingers fumbled for a moment with the door to the pod. Then—success. The door glided open, and the Doctor stepped gingerly out into wherever it was he had been sent. He felt his boot sink into the floor in an unexpected way as his weight shifted out of the pod. 

Sand. Peculiar.  

Long-distance trasmats were interesting things. They functioned by decomposing energy, matter, and information in one location, then simply recomposing it in a new one, in that order. Though simple in concept, they were technological marvels. It took most races many thousands of years, ten thousands of years, even, to stumble their way into the discovery of the fifty-nine time-and-space-transcending mathematical formulas necessary to make the things actually run. And even then, it typically took them another few centuries to get the hang of transmatting anything more complex than a few orderly atoms. The transmats invariably seemed to have an upper limit on what they could convey at once, and, in many cases, whatever additional “non-critical” information that might remain, such as one’s favorite color or their memories of their ninety-first birthday, would lag a few seconds behind the rest. This was one such occasion. The Doctor could not recall how or why he was here. And then he could. 

Clara—the quantum shade—Everything you’re about to say I already know—a scream—Clara’s hand against his cheek—His own voice: Don’t leave me—And hers: Everyone faces it alone, in the end—that awful scream—Clara on the cold ground—Clara cold in his arms as he walked her back inside—and Clara cold under that blanket he had used, with shaking hands, to veil her corpse. The Doctor’s countenance hardened. 

He bent to gather a handful of sand and let it run through his fingers. It was smooth and fine and carried the same chill as the air. On closer inspection, its qualities were more characteristic of some variety of dust. Ash, perhaps.

“If you think because she is dead, I am weak, then you understand very little,” he warned the empty chamber, and wiped his hand in a single stiff gesture. “If you were any part of killing her, and you are not afraid, then you understand nothing at all. 

“So, for your own sake, understand this. I am the Doctor—I'm coming to find you— and I will never, ever stop.”

The chamber did not react. His unseen foe was unimpressed, or possibly speechless with fear. Most likely the latter, and as they should be. He had a reputation to uphold.

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So I rediscovered a draft of this like a day ago and thought. huh. There might be something here. So I went over it, made some edits, and now I'm thinking of just going ahead and finishing it over winter break. This represents about the first 5 minutes of the ep, so if my math is right then this is already 10% done. That's a totally doable project in 3 weeks. Right guys. right

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on today’s episode of Wild Things I Overhear At Work:

Preteen boy and his sister are looking at jewelry. He picks up a “555” necklace.

preteen boy: If i saw a girl wearing this, I’d marry her on the spot just to send her straight to hell

Nobody reacts. the pair walk on to look at more jewelry.

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Pear, Pear, Peach

There’s a bittersweetness to looking out at your yard and realizing the trees you planted as a child are no longer saplings.

Now they are strong and tall, and their stems, no longer tender and green, have disappeared behind an armor of bark skin.

The world of your childhood is gone. Everything has changed. Everything has grown.

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a dream i woke up crying from :)

The dream began with my death. I was hit by a car and instantly became a ghost. I didn’t realize at first; it took a while to catch on that no one was reacting to my presence. Eventually I realized in a place kind of like a public bathroom. I think I might have entered a stall when someone was showering, and they didn’t react. Funny in retrospect, but absolutely horrifying at the time because it confirmed my worst suspicions. I was indeed dead.

At this point I didn’t even do anything, I just broke down and started sobbing as the realization of it all washed over me, and I realized that I’d never see my husband again. 

Then, I felt an odd tugging sensation in my stomach. Time has always been a bit of a fluid medium for ghosts, and I was about to discover this first-hand. I blinked, and suddenly found myself seated next to my husband Pete on the couch of our apartment— with him to my left, and his sister Irene with long, dark hair to my right, on her phone. Stunned, I reached out to touch his arm. He was warm and solid. He glanced over at me and smiled. Even now, awake, I can visualize him so well. Like me, he seemed to be in his early thirties, and was a natural redhead, but with eyebrows dark like his eyes, which were a rich brown. He wore a fairly thick beard, too, which was neatly groomed into a rounded shape. His eyes crinkled upwards at the corners when he smiled— the very beginnings of the wrinkles he would wear in old age. When he grinned at me then, I had to fight with everything in me not to burst into tears at the thought of him growing old without me. Already, my time left with him was rapidly running out. I could feel it.

I shot a nervous look down at my phone— the date and time were from today, minutes before I died. The first time around, I had already left the house by now. Something was going on here. 

I scooted up next to Peter and laid my head on his shoulder. He wrapped a warm, comforting arm around me. “What’s up? You call out of work?” 

“Yeah,” I said, swallowing. “Guess I wasn’t feeling well.” I guessed I had teleported here to the moments soon after I stepped out of the apartment the first time around. 

“Aw, I’m sorry.” His arm tightened in a half-hug. “Want me to get you anything?” 

“No, that’s alright.” How much time did I have left with him? A minute? Two?

He started talking about an ad he saw for Universal, and how he went to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter as a kid and would love to go again sometime. “I always wanted to go to Universal,” I said. “But it was always too expensive… now I’ll never get to.” Despair crawled into my voice, and I shut my mouth, trying to focus on the warmth of Peter next to me. He leaned back to give me a puzzled grin. “We can still go. We just need to start saving, that’s all. It might take a little while, but that’s fine.”

The seconds were trickling down to nothing. I clung to him, feeling the rise and fall of his chest. Suddenly, his body shifted— his phone was going off. My stomach sinking, I leaned away from him to give him space to take the call. 

He turned away from me as he raised the phone to his ear. A few moments later the life drained from his face. He swallowed, blinked, and hung up the phone, cutting off the voice of the somber woman on the other side.

Why was I still here? I should’ve been yanked back to my present time. Could he still see me? “Pete?” I whispered, hope rising in me. 

He slowly looked down at where I had been sitting, and I’ll never forget the expression of heartrending confusion on his face. His sister, on the other side of the couch, had caught enough of the call to be just as alarmed. When she raised her eyes from her phone she turned white as a sheet. Their eyes met across the couch, looking straight past me. Peter’s jaw worked for a moment as he tried to speak. 

“Did you hear her come back in? After she left for work?” He asked hoarsely. We had a security system that would announce whenever the front door opened. Irene slowly shook her head. “I didn’t either,” Pete said. 

It felt like my heart was ripping itself to shreds. I pulled myself against him again, praying for him to wrap his arm around me one last time. But he didn’t. He felt as warm and real as ever, but he didn’t react to me at all. Instead, he looked off in the distance for a moment. I saw his eyes glaze with tears, and they darted around a few times before settling back to look at me. Or rather, look through me. Because to him, I had vanished. He was staring at the spot where I had been. He was looking for me, right into my eyes, but he couldn’t find me.

It felt like the entire world was falling apart around me. I finally let the tears come, and buried my head against his shoulder. He didn’t react. I clung to him harder, as if I could bring myself back to life out of sheer force of will. Wet, keening sobs escaped my lips. He still didn’t react.

Desperation rose in my chest. I was going to be yanked back to my own time any second now. I didn’t want to go. I wanted to be here with him forever. I sobbed even harder. And it was then that I felt a massive shift within me, and Peter and our living room disappeared. I had woken up.

I was 19, and alone in my bed.

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I LOVE TORMENTING MY LITTLE GUYS !!!!

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one who was once xithara, bloody of fang and cold of heart.

elliot my poor lost beloved ❤️ this is part one of a diptych— the next will feature adonis (az’raem).

i did this without a reference somehow and it turned out WAYY better than i expected, so hip hip hooray for that

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you guys really seem to like it when I tenpost sooooo *tosses this into your enclosure*

[dug this one up from the archives... it's a wip and will probably always be one, so you guys get to enjoy it as is]

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list of incredibly niche tropes

a character gradually loses their memory throughout the story, heartbreakingly forgetting loving moments they've shared with others

shapeshifters that are still working on perfectly mimicking humans, resulting in something that looks entirely human but that makes all your instincts scream run.

a main character dies quietly and/or alone, unnoticed by everyone else

the antagonist defeats the protagonist in battle, then cradles them in their arms, because they know the protag despises them with their whole being and they want to torment them just a little more before they die.

a character receives prophetic dreams of a future that will come to pass if everything goes well. In these dreams, them and the love interest gradually fall in love. In reality, though, everything does not go well. Character A dies knowing everything that could have happened between them and B, but did not.

these are all used in my book btw..! reblog w niche tropes in your story... I need more for my collection. the nichier the better