#I can NOT starting thinking too much about this story I’ve got projects that need to progress or finish first but

[uchiha-gaeshi]

I’m calling off my SI/OC fic.

[dorkagedoodles]

And there we have it folks - the end of Empyrean Book I! I sound like a parrot but just ... thank you so much for reading! Also, for everyone's convenience, the afterword is also in text under the "keep reading" bellow. <<< PREVIOUS ✧˖☆˖✧˖☆˖✧Page Archive✧˖☆˖✧˖☆˖✧

(To be continued ... ) AFTERWORD

I’ve been putting off writing this for way too long, thinking I have plenty of time until suddenly: BAM! December was upon me and the final update of Empyrean Book I was uploaded while I had the worst migraine in years and couldn’t even scramble together a last minute afterword. But here we go. I’ll try not to care about sounding professional or eloquent, just so I can get it done.

First I want to say a big thank you to everyone who've read Empyrean, all the way through or just a little bit, I’m grateful nonetheless. And extra big thank you to everyone who’s left comments or nice tags in the reblogs etc. I’m awful at responding, but I’ve seen them all and really, really appreciate it.

I worked on the book on and off for three years and I’m pretty happy with the end result. Of course, this is just the beginning of the story. I have an outline for the whole thing, aiming for a total of four books of similar length which will, as you can guess, take a loooooong time. Which brings me to my second point.

Empyrean will go on hiatus for the time being. For how long? I wish I knew. While Book 2 is all scripted and currently in the sketching stage, I have no idea when I’ll have enough finished pages for an update. Once I do, however, I’ll probably update as I finish the pages, rather than wait for the whole book to be complete.

I don’t think I need to explain much of why this is. It’s simply being an adult. It’s having rent, bills and a cat with special dietary needs. And what Empyrean brings in joy it certainly doesn’t bring in money, so ever since July I’ve drawn almost nothing but freelance work.

Despite that, I still feel positive about the future of Empyrean. It’s already been published in parts in a small Swedish magazine and I’ve met people and opened doors that would have been impossible, had I not created Empyrean. Long time followers might remember how I’ve long wanted to be able to support myself by making art. And right now? That's exactly what I’m doing.

Finishing Empyrean will take many years and, in the end, it might never even get picked up by a publisher. But I’m at peace with both of those things. I draw Empyrean entirely for myself and would continue to do so even if not a single other person was reading it. Though … as long as there’s at least one such person I will keep uploading it too!

Lastly, I’ve been looking into self-publishing and hope to give that a try. No solid plans yet, just counting costs, looking at kickstarters and such. I’m currently neck-deep in a big project, but once that’s over I can start thinking about it again. When the time comes, I will of course post about it.

I think that is all. It got a bit longer and ramblier than I planned but oh well.

Again, thank you so much for reading Empyrean! And until next time! -Hans

[winter510]

What are some of your favorite VAT7K headcanons??

I was actually planning on talking abt my headcanons eventually so thanks sm for asking this so I actually do it lmao‼️‼️

Here’s some I’ve just kinda adopted from general fandom stuff:

Genderfluid Hugo (He genuinely doesn’t really care too much how people refer to him, but when someone does call her by “she” or “they” they still perk up a little bit. (I’m not projecting you are))

Transmasc Varian

Lesbian Nuru (tbh I almost didn’t even add this cuz I forget this isn’t just straight up canon lmfao)

Hugo’s love language is being annoying

Hugo started calling Varian cliche cheesy petnames as a joke, but eventually just got used to it & now they’re stuck like that.

They all definitely went undercover at a ball (possibly masquerade ball?) at some point in the story

Yong starts arguments between the other 3 on purpose sometimes either bc he finds it funny how easy it is, or because he wants to sneak off and do smth he’s not supposed to and needs smth to distract them

And here’s some of my own:

After all the stuff with the eternal library is done, Yong & Nuru can go back to their kingdoms and fix their problems, but Varian & Hugo aren’t ready to say goodbye *just* yet. They leave the library to Donella while they all travel together again. They drop Yong off at the fire kingdom and after saying goodbye to Nuru at the air kingdom, they head back to Corona. I have a lot of ideas for things that happen inbetween those events, but I’m not gonna get into all of that lol.

When Nuru first joined the group, and I mean like *just* joined, first day, she thought Yong was really cute and endearing, and bordered on babying him. But after experiencing him being, well, Yong, about his pyrotechnics, she did start treating him like more of an equal (partially because she understood he wasn’t a baby and partially because she was a little scared of him after that lol)

Hugo definitely has “dated” lots of people, but still HEAVILY exaggerates the number to sound cool.

Hugo always falls asleep last/stays up the latest, but sometimes falls asleep at random parts of the day bc of that.

There’s an ATLA-esque episode where Hugo (either by accident or on purpose, you decide) involves Nuru in some sort of theft, and she starts freaking out. I think this could probably end in a change of perspective somehow, like maybe Nuru initially thinks *any* kind of stealing is wrong, but then sees that they genuinely *need* this item and there was no other way to get it, and comes to understand not *all* crimes are inherently bad/selfish on principle. Smth like that.

Then as a partner to the hc above, there’s also some kind of episode that does this but for Hugo seeing things from Nuru’s perspective. I’m not entirely sure what this would be yet, tho. Maybe the rest of the gang getting injured/sick and Hugo needs to take care of & be responsible for them?? Still gotta think abt it.

There’s probably more but I started writing this almost right after I got up & I’ve been writing for like an hour(???) at this point (I had to re-format this like 5 times)

[yeonmuse]

ᥫ᭡ f!reader x yang jungwon ── 𝒢enre. Uni au. fluff, non idol enha. feats. ot7 [reqs are open] ᝰ.ᐟ 𝓁ibrary 🎧

authors 𝓃𝑜𝓉𝑒𝓈 I this series has officially met its end everyone, though I’m thinking about making a special christmas chapter im not 100% I will be doing so. Considering I have all of the other members series to start writing. Within ending this i’d like it to be known that every member will be receiving a mini series that all tie in with one another, beginning with this series. This is part of admins Enhypen university Series

ᦓynopsis Jungwon is a film major that finds honestly complete captivated by an antisocial girl with a love for the stars and a passion for music

TAGLIST CLOSED FOR THIS SERIES

The girl with the headphones | THE FINAL CHAPTER

Tonight was the night that Jungwon and the film club had been working so hard on, the night had finally come to premier the film they had all been working so hard to pull together. The first viewing would be at heartstrings, with only a selective few from campus. Yn was more excited than anyone, Jungwon hadn’t told her much about the film other than a few minor details when the two began working on it together so she was over the moon to finally see what ideas had been plaguing his mind.

The two of them hadn’t really spoken much since last night, the night they shared their first kiss. Though she knew it was because he was most likely far too busy trying to perfect things at heartstrings for tonight’s film viewing. When It came to his craft Jungwon was completely serious about it, she’d always found herself admiring him or staring at him at the time even the two were working on the project together. Something about the way his expressions changed so vividly when he was focused, made it impossible to keep her eyes off of him.

A knock at the door forced the girl out of her thoughts of her boyfriend as she brushed her teeth. Before she herself could even make it to the door her roommate had already opened it.

“Oh Nessa! When did you get back from your parents?” Chaewon slips inside as if it were her own dorm, something she had done time and time again and both yn and nessa had grown used to it.

“I got back yesterday, the snow storm last night made it completely hell to get back.”

“Are you coming to Jungwons premiere tonight?”

“I wasn’t going to at first but I feel like I’ve missed so much that I need to be there to not miss anything else, besides I need to meet this new boyfriend.”

“You haven’t met Jungwon yet??”

“Nope she hasn’t let him come over here once because she was too afraid i’d scare him away.” Nessa sighs dramatically and holds her chest as if she had just been struck in the heart.

“That’s not true, he always asked to walk me back to the dorm but it’s been snowing so much I don’t want him out in the cold for too long.”

“Oh she’s whipped.”

“She’s been daydreaming about him ever since I got back.”

“That kiss must have done a number on you or something, he’s all you can think about now.”

“Okay okay enough you two, are we going to go shopping tonight or not, or will you both stand here all day talking about my love affairs?”

“Who says we can’t do both?” Nessa shrugs as yn opens the door and both she and Chaewon follow each other out.

“Oh I almost forgot we’re waiting on one more person.” Chaewon pulls her phone from her pocket as the three of them step out into the main hall of the girls dormitory.

“I thought Sunoo was helping the guys with preparations today?”

“He is, it’s not Sunoo that’s joining us.” As Chaewon slips her phone back into her pocket, as if on queue her name is called causing the three of them to whip their heads around to the hallway.

“Chae Chae you did not.”

“Isn’t that the girl from the theater department”

“Long story short, Heeseung has a thing for her and he’s been trying to approach her for months but fails every time.”

“Heeseung? As in Lee Heseung? As in thee Lee Heeseung, that's always flirting?”

“Yup, I invited her to the premier tonight.”

“Chaewon Heeseung might actually kill you this time.”

“He tried to set me up with an obviously straight woman, this isn’t the worst I could do.” As Sakoia finally made it over to the three of them, it was obvious to the three of them why Heeseung had taken a liking to her. Not only could she sing, and act but she was breathtakingly beautiful.

“Were you guys waiting on me all this time? Show preparations ran a little later than usual today.”

“Nope you’re actually just in time. Koia, this is yn and that’s her roommate Nessa.”

“Nice to meet you both, Chaewon talked about you both nonstop yesterday.”

“I didn't know you were into theater Chae.”

“Oh she’s not, the only reason she was there was because the fashion department and theater department are working together for the upcoming show.”

“I’ve never been more stressed out about fashion in my life, theater majors are no joke.” The three of them laugh at Chaewons obvious fatigue having to deal with so many thoughts and ideas having been thrown at her yesterday.

“Should we get going now? We only have 5 hours until the premier and Chaewon takes the longest time picking out outfits.”

“Mm yeah let’s go, or else we’d end up missing the movie picking out an outfit for just Chae alone.”

While the girls had been out and about, shopping and pampering themselves for tonight’s premier Jungwon had been working the guys like it was their 9 to 5.

“How come Taehyun gets off so easily without doing anything?” Jake complains, as he and the others continue making decorations for the tabletops.

“Um maybe because Taehyun owns the place and he’s already helped enough by letting Jungwon premier hops film here and making the menu for tonight’s show.” Taehyun retorts to his complaining in a mock whiney voice as he places a stack of menus onto the diner counter for them to take.

“Fair enough.”

“Where is Jungwon anyways?”

“He went off into the back room to make sure the film was working properly.”

“Film? What is this in the 1800s? Why didn’t he just make it a drive or something?”

“He wanted it to be authentic, like a drive in theater so he had another copy of it put on film.”

“Do any of you even know what the film is about?” They all fell silent before looking around at one another, usually at least one of them would have been listening to him when he’d go on and on about his works, but not one of them knew.

“I don’t think he ever talked about this one now that I think about it?”

They were right, he hadn’t talked about it, the only people that truly knew what this film was about had been them and those that had put the work in in making the film. Only he knew the true meaning behind the film though, but once everyone else had seen it it would become a matter of time until they realized its true meaning too.

Eventually the sun had started to set and all of the guests had come flooding into the cafe. The very last four to enter had been the four girls that spent almost the entire day in preparations for the night. Once they entered they all parted ways, Chaewon going off to find manon, Nessa going off to find herself a drink and yn off to find Jungwon, that left Sakoia alone.

“Are my eyes playing tricks or were yn and Chaewon serious about inviting Sakoia to the premier.” Sunghoon calls out, making both Heeseung and Jay turn towards the direction which Sakoia stood, seemingly on a phone call.

“Oh Chaewon actually did it.” Sunoo laughs as he joins the three of them, he honestly couldn’t say that he hadn’t expected her to actually do it after all it was Chaewon.

“Of course this was Chaewons doing.” Heeseung rolls his eyes, he had been trying his best to act nonchalant, as if he didn’t care but it was obvious he wanted nothing more than to go talk to her.

“You still haven’t talked to her yet?” Jay was shocked to say the least, if there was anyone out of the Seven of them that had the least trouble with talking to women, it was Heeseung.

“He’s tried, every time he has she’s either had preparations for a show or he chickened out on asking her out.” Jakes comment only further annoyed him

“Why don’t you just tell her you have questions about a play or something?” Maybe Sunghoon had been onto something with that suggestion.

“Five bucks says he chickens out or she gets another call.” Jake bets as the four of them watched Heeseung finally approach her with a newfound confidence (more like annoyance)

“Jungwon, are you here?” Yn had slowly made her way through the back hallway of the cafe, knowing that Jungwon was bound to be found in one of the rooms if not out with the others.

She found him standing next to a film camera, his eyebrows furrowed as he rewound the film back to its start in preparation for the film night. She stood in the doorway watching with a smile on her face, her hip and head resting against the doorframe.

“Penny for your thoughts.” Hearing his girlfriend's voice he couldn’t help but feel his heart leap in his chest, pulling his focus away from the camera he turned to look at her. As his eyes fell upon her standing there in her beautiful dress, he felt the luckiest man in the world was no one other than himself. His eyes raked over her figure as if he was capturing a snapshot with his eyes.

“How can I focus on tonight's film when my girlfriend is standing here looking this beautiful in front of me.” As she steps inside the room he closes the space between the two slipping an arm around her waist while the other hand rests on the side of her neck and face.

“You're an absolutely breathtaking baby.” He places loving kisses on her forehead and cheek until finally his lips rests on hers making sparks fly between the two. She couldn’t hide the smile that made its way into her face at his gentle loving kisses.

“How were preparations? Is everything ready for tonight?”

“They went surprisingly smooth, other than a few dramatics from Jake, everyone pulled their weight.”

“It really looks beautiful out there tonight, I can’t wait to see how everything came out.” She smiles and Jungwon can’t help but melt at the sight of her smiling before him. This was what he had waited for from the moment he saw her. Spent months thinking of how to approach her, how to get her attention without scaring her off. All the time he spent with her occupying his mind, the nights the two had been alone working on the sound score, it all led up to this moment. He felt content holding her here in his arms, as no one else’s but his.

“Is everybody here already?”

“Mhm we’re all just waiting for the man that made all of this happen.” She smiles, locking her fingers with his as he stares down at her with pure adoration in his gaze.

“Then let’s not keep them waiting any longer.” He brushes the loose strands of hair behind her ear before leading her out of the room.

As she took a seat amongst the others Jungwon made his way to the front of the cafe to give his pre premier speech.

“I want to thank everyone for coming tonight, the film team has been working on this film very diligently over the last two months. I’ll admit it surely wasn’t easy having to go through so many different changes and rewrites but it was all worth it. Usually the films I’ve made in the past have all been some sort of documentations or darker concepts but this one is a little different than the others, please enjoy tonight and I'd really appreciate any feedback you’d like to give when the film is over, thank you.” Once Jungwon’s shows was over everyone applauds, the guys of course cheered louder than anyone else, then the film began.

The film itself had been everything Jungwon hoped it to be, a silent film that focused more of the musicality than it did the lines, though the very few lines there were had been aced by the actors and actress. A love story of two people that had no one other than themselves. An empty world where only the two of them existed, a girl that loved music and a boy that absolutely loved films. Both walk the world aimlessly, alone until they cross paths with one another and discover that they aren’t alone anymore, they’ve found each other. It was obvious in the film that the guy had completely adorned the female lead. He’d look at her with so much love and adoration in his eyes yet she was completely clueless. Always walking around wearing those same headphones, humming soft tunes when the two sat alone together just enjoying each other's company. He’d show her his favorite movies and she’d show him all of her favorite songs. The two of them became inseparable, completely bound to one another, not simply because they were the only two still walking the earth but because their connection was strong. By the end of the film he confesses his love to her in an empty aquarium, pulling her headphones of her ears he stares directly into his eyes and asks her. For once in her life the female leads world silences, no music, no solemn tune just silence.

“Even if there were a million others walking this earth, my eyes will always find you, the girl with the headphones. Through any crowd, my eyes would only see you.”

The movie ended with those words, leaving a lingering feeling in the audience, a feeling of the unknown as well, or at least unknown to everyone that had watched that wasn’t him or the rest of both their friends. They all knew, everyone knew..the film was about her, yn.

As if she herself had just realized it her eyes met him, full of tears, her heart thumping in her chest. He met his gaze with one of her own and wiped away every tear that fell from her cheek. Then he recited those words

“Even with the millions of others walking this earth, my eyes will always find you, Through any crowd, my eyes will always only see you.”

Previous part | Series Masterlist | Full Enha Masterlist

🔖 @jwonistic @jiamini @sol3chu @river-demon-slayer @butterflywonz @squiishymeow @firstclassjaylee

Authors final thank you and goodbye to this series

Thank you to everyone that has read this series completely through, this has been one of my absolute favorites to write and I’m so sad that it’s now come to an end but I really did enjoy writing this one. To anyone that commented, liked, reposted or even asked to be part of the taglist thank you so much i love you all and appreciate your interest in my series

[writingtraumaforever]

Uncontrolled Chaos: Chapter 1

Notes: I’m wanting to start some sort of fluffier story. I do a lot of angsty one-shots, but I need something soft in the mix too. So here it is! I’ve been thinking of this concept since Sonic X Shadow Generations came out and it all got me thinking about alternate timelines and dimensions and such. Be patient with me! I’m not use to writing big projects so this will be trial and error..

Summary: Chaos Control is unpredictable. And when used improperly, it can create— well.. CHAOS. Shadow wakes up after using it with the fake chaos emerald and things are definitely off. Especially with a certain blue hedgehog..

Rating: Currently T for language, but prolly will end up being mature (18+). 👀

Chapter Select: Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6

Support my Ao3!

Cover Art:

Start:

There has been some crazy things happen to Shadow while using chaos control. And he usually isn’t one to experiment with such abilities messily. However, he currently doesn’t have much of a choice.

In a mission alone, he found himself struggling. Which is saying something since he doesn’t often struggle at all, thus him being assigned jobs alone. But this was different. His chaos emerald had disappeared a while back due to a place called—what Rouge informed him as— Starfall Islands. She had been panicky at the time because Knuckles had disappeared, taking on guarding the Master Emerald herself and guising it as her trying to steal it when he returned. He informed her that Sonic and co. had been investigating these islands due to the emeralds being pulled there, and apparently a lot went down.

Either way, Shadow was out a chaos emerald. But he did still have the fake one the young fox had made all those years ago.

And that’s where things went wrong.

He remembered Sonic had been able to use chaos control with it, though it wiped out Sonic’s energy for a while. Either way, Shadow didn’t have much choice as he was running out of time. The detonators he had set up were nearing their end and Shadow still hadn’t made it out yet.

He pulled out the fake chaos emerald, gripping it in his gloved hand as he gritted his teeth and skated down the long halls of the supposedly abandoned GUN facility. ‘Supposedly’ because they had detected movement on their scans of it and sent Shadow to investigate only to find Eggman sniffing around with more bots than they had originally anticipated.

He huffed out labored breaths, dodging the shots from the robots behind him as he skated down the hall. Glancing down to his watch, he saw he had 10 seconds left. An agitated growl escaped him as his eyes looked up to see the exit blocked by several more bots. He could take them down and get out easy. But not within 10 seconds.

10.

Shadow’s ruby eyes look down at the amber-colored emerald in his hands.

9.

His eyes shut as he kept skating.

8.

If Sonic could do it, he could do it. He’s the Ultimate Lifeform.

7.

He tried to focus on the emerald, the minimal energy flowing through it.

6.

It wasn’t near as much as a real one.. but it could work.

5.

While concentrating, he is hit by a blast in his back, stumbling a bit with a grunt before hissing and quickly regaining his footing to continue on.

4.

Ignoring the sting, he opened his eyes, filled with determination.

3.

“Chaos—“

2.

“—Control!!”

1.

A flash of light, the facility explodes along with the badniks inside.

Shadow has that familiar feeling of the chaos energy flowing out of him and through the emerald back inside him.. moving him through reality as he envisions himself standing on the cliff side far away at the rendezvous point..

But then he feels something else.

He gasps, eyes clamping shut at the sudden loss of a massive amount of his energy. Gritting his teeth through the empty pain, he feels what can only be described as a tug..

And then a yank.

And then nothing.

•••

Shadow begins to slowly feel again.

And by slowly feel, he means absolute exhaustion.

His muscles feel as though they won’t work if he tries to move them, his bones feel like jelly. Even his eyelids don’t seem to want to open quite yet.

His ear flicks.. the sound of birds through a window to his left.

He sniffs. Sage and lavender..

Is he…?

His eyes finally flutter open, a small grunt escaping him at the brightness coming from the window that is indeed to his left.

His window.

He’s.. home..?

Trying to sit up, he grunts and finds himself unable to just yet. He doesn’t hurt so much as he just feels… drained.

Though, there is a lingering ache to his back.. must be where he had gotten shot.

He glances down at himself to see a bandage wrapped around him.. so someone must’ve found him and mended him.

Probably Rouge if he had to guess. She has a nurturing streak in her even if she’d never admit it.

He lets his head sink into his pillow, eyes fluttering a bit from how tired he is. But he’s rested enough. It’s daylight out, and which means he had to at least been out for the night. And he doesn’t need sleep.

Taking a deep breath and just about to try and force himself up, he hears footsteps.

He pauses, head lifting and eyes moving to look at the door and watch the bat enter.

Except.. the bat doesn’t enter.

Instead, Shadow is met by emerald eyes peeking inside. Opening the door fully, Sonic steps into the room holding a bottle of water. He’s smiling, soft and gentle as if approaching an infant. His ears are slightly folded back, the way he’s tense but slightly hunched screams relief. His eyes hold concern in them, worry. But he tries not to show it with how he’s all smiles and bright eyes. Shadow can see how bloodshot they are though. Has he slept?? Probably not. The dumb hedgehog is too irresponsible to properly take care of himself and-

What is he doing in Shadow’s house???

“Hey, Faker..,” Sonic says in a tone that throws Shadow off a bit. It’s not cocky and energized and loud; it’s small and breathy and almost affectionate.

Still annoying, though.

Shadow doesn’t speak, just watches Sonic with a scowl as the blue hedgehog approaches. Sonic sits on the side of the bed, Shadow’s ruby eyes looking him up and down in an ‘excuse you’ and ‘who do you think you are??’ sort of manner. Sonic either doesn’t notice or ignores this, moving to open the bottle of water for Shadow and holding it to his mouth, “Drink up for me, huh?”

Shadow raises a hand to snatch the bottle away, nearly spilling it in the process but glaring at Sonic nonetheless, “I am perfectly capable of drinking myself.”

Sonic blinks and then chuckles with a roll of his eyes, “Well excuuuse me for caring.”

Shadow grunts, lifting the bottle a bit shakily to take a long sip from it. He downs it all in one go, sighing in relief once he’s done and setting the empty bottle on his lap. He really needed that. It almost made him dizzy with the energy boost that alone gave him.

But he still felt a bit off.

Closing his eyes to take a deep breath, his attention is swiftly turned back to the blue hedgehog when he feels a hand touching his head. It rubs along the top of it down Shadow’s back to underneath his back quills and lightly scratches there.

Shadow tenses up then jolts a bit, shifting away from Sonic the best he can in the moment as his wide eyes stare at the hero in both disbelief and disgust.

“I didn’t say you could touch me,” Shadow nearly growls out, his fangs showing with how he sneers at Sonic. Sonic’s hand is returned to himself as if it had been burned, staring at Shadow a bit surprised before speaking with an awkward smile, “Sorry..” His ears flatten further to his head, looking a bit like a kicked puppy.

Shadow’s eyes narrow at him a moment before he frowns and looks around, “What are you even doing here?? How did you get here??” Last Shadow checked, Sonic didn’t know where he lived.

Sonic pauses and then looks away with a knitted brow, “I brought you back here after we found you.. You were hurt, and you wouldn’t wake up. It really scared me—“

“Who is ‘we’?? Why were you near GUN property—“

He pauses.

Blinks.

Scared???

Sonic looks at Shadow with an even more concerned look now, “GUN property? Shadow, what are you talking about??”

Shadow frowns at him, trying to determine if this is some sort of obnoxious prank of some sort.

“...What are you talking about?” Shadow asks skeptically.

Sonic chuckles a bit at that, “I asked you first.”

“I don’t care.”

“What is with your attitude??” Sonic huffs, his arms crossing impatiently over his chest, “Are you mad at me??? I get it if you’re mad, but can’t we just talk about it without you being an asshole??”

“Excuse me?!”

“I know I messed up, and I am genuinely so sorry. I never meant for you to get hurt! But I also didn’t ask for you to save my butt like that or take the hit-”

“You’re making no sense!” Shadow snaps again, feeling his head start to throb now. He was getting overwhelmed.

Why was Sonic in his house?

Why was Sonic talking about Shadow saving him when he did no such thing??

Why was Sonic comfortable enough to sit on his bed and touch him???

What is going on!?

“Calm down, Shadow!” Sonic scolds a bit softer, brows knitted with worry as he watches Shadow seethe in his stress, “Why are you being so easily-agitated???”

“What are you doing here!? Where’s Rouge???”

Sonic looks at Shadow like he’s got two heads, “Shadow, did you hit your head???”

Sonic doesn’t even hesitate, moving a hand to cup Shadow’s cheek and gently tilt his head towards him so he can get a better look of it. His other hand gently feeling through Shadow’s quills, and Shadow feels his face heating up. His cheeks puff as he tries not to explode.

It’s too much.

It’s TOO MUCH.

“Stop touching me!!!!”

Sonic immediately moves to stand up, staring at Shadow with surprise at how angry he seems. The hero doesn’t look angry, though. He looks worried. And scared almost.

Taking a small breath, he backs up a bit towards the door and then looks down a moment, “...Okay.” His eyes lift again to Shadow, looking determined, “Okay. Let’s just calm down, huh?? Let’s talk..”

Shadow growls at him, “And why would I talk to you??”

“Because I’m the one here listening??” Sonic says with a little tilt of his head, his hands resting on his hips, “...Why are you being so hostile?”

“Because you’ve invaded my home and my personal space!” Shadow sneers back, glaring daggers at Sonic.

Sonic’s hands raise a bit at that in a surrender sort of way, “Well, that’s fair about the personal space, I guess. You just woke up and you’re probably overwhelmed. But I thought we were cool on calling this our home at this point.”

Shadow’s eyes widen a bit at that, scoffing as if absolutely baffled at Sonic’s words, “Our home?? What the hell are you on about now???”

Sonic stares at Shadow looking a bit confused now as well, that worry returning again with an done expression on his face, “...That’s it. I’m calling Tails,” he huffs, turning to walk out the bedroom door.

Shadow’s eyes widen, leaning up to yell after him, “DO NOT INVITE MORE PEOPLE TO MY HOUSE!”

[writingquestionsanswered]

Hi, are there any recommendations you have for me for my writing process? My process is extremely long because I keep getting stuck. Got an idea for a conflict, okay. Stuck on fleshing that out. Eventually done. Stuck on my characters, who they are, and their roles. Finally get that done. But now I need to figure out backstory. Stuck. Figure out the plotline/solution to the conflict. Stuck. It's MONTHS between these steps of writing a story. I'm on the verge of giving up...

Slow and Clunky Writing Process

Please don't give up. The world needs the stories only you can tell. ♥

There is so much information out there about plot, story structure, conflict, goals, outlining, backstory, plot points, pacing, theme, character arc... blah, blah, blah... it can get incredibly overwhelming, especially if you can't seem to get to point of actually writing the story.

Having said that, I think it's so, soooo important to know that you don't actually have to worry so much about that stuff at the beginning.

The truth of the matter is, your first stories are probably not going to be the stories you publish. That doesn't mean you can't publish them, it's just that most of us will write two or three, maybe four or five stories before we write one that's good enough to share. As a result, what typically happens is you get a little bit better at all of those things (conflict, pacing, character arc, etc.) with every story you write. Keep learning about those things as you go, and try your best to incorporate them into each story, but you shouldn't be looking for a level of perfection that they hold you back.

Think of it like this: if you decided you wanted to build your own home, you wouldn't read a bunch of blog posts and books about home construction, maybe take a workshop or two, and then start building, expecting to build a house you could actually live in. Instead, you'd probably start by building some smaller structures... maybe a dog house, a patio with pergola, maybe help a friend split a big room in their house into two rooms. You'd take on smaller projects to put your budding skills to use and practice them. Then, when you got really good at everything, you might be ready to build your house.

Writing is the same way. You can't take all of that information and pour it into a perfect, flawless story in one go round. It's too hard, too overwhelming, and you never get a chance to actually hone your budding skills.

So, start by just writing the stories you want to write... just for fun... just to practice your skills. Don't worry if your conflict isn't perfectly fleshed out. Don't worry if your pacing is wonky or your character arc is unsatisfactory. Focus first on just writing the story. Then, you can hone your revision skills by trying to improve those things once the first draft is complete. Put the story through two or three revisions, and you're really sharpening those skills. When you go to write and revise the next story, it's going to be a little bit easier.

You'll know when you get to a point where you've written something that's publishable. You'll still need to do two or three revisions to get it where it needs to be, but the whole process will be much easier.

And one last thing: don't worry about backstory unless it's critical for helping the reader understand the world of the story, the conflict, or who the character is/why they do what they do. ♥

Happy writing! I promise it gets easier!!!

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

♦ Questions that violate my ask policies will be deleted! ♦ Please see my master list of top posts before asking ♦ Learn more about WQA here

[aylish91]

I don’t know if you’ve answered an ask like this before, so sorry if you have, but what does your writing process look like? Is there a certain space you like to write in? A time? Music? Do you have an outline that you follow or do you write more according to your mood? Do you have to plan to write or do you jot things down as they come to your mind?

I’ve found that I need to like write out a bunch of garbage - like at least three chapter’s worth - and sit on it for a bit before I tear into it and rearrange it and I’m just wondering how writing looks for other people.

Thanks in advance, I really admire your writing and how lovely your descriptions always are :)

Thank you so much for the ask and for liking my writing!!! It really means a lot!

Brace yourself, it’s a bit of a long one. It’s got some peeks of things though~

~~~

I have two places that I like to write at the most: Shoved in the corner at the table with my laptop and in the corner at my computer desk on the desktop. (I like to have notebooks or paper around to write down random thoughts. Hehe.) Time of day usually doesn’t matter, just whenever I am not desperately busy.

Unfortunately, my brain gets distracted remarkably easily. I cannot have music on while I am writing, otherwise, I find myself unable to think about what I’m writing and only about the song. It also gets me sucked into YouTube or doomscrolling.

As for my writing process… It really depends on what I am doing or writing.

For example, a lot of the requests I have written have been “in the moment” type of things. I get an overall sense of what I want it to look like, start typing, and see where the words take me. These take a lot of, what I like to call, “daydream time”. The story stews and rolls around in my brain in bits and pieces until the right combinations make their way into one coherent piece. As you can imagine, the amount of time that takes varies. Sometimes I can crank it out after thinking about it, within a day or two. Sometimes what my mind wants doesn’t end up working in the document and it takes several chunks written, sliced, and completely redone before it starts to form properly. (All versions or thoughts I don’t want to forget or that I might still use, get put at the end of the document.)

*** A tip I have been implementing a lot more lately is: It is perfectly okay to start over. It could be a scene, an opening, or an entire document. Sometimes what you want, is not necessarily what it needs. If it’s not working, don’t force it. It never turns out to your “standards” and just ends up wasting a lot of your time. If you need to, work on the next part or something else until your mind settles enough to figure it out. ***

For other projects or WIPs, my imaginings fester long enough or hit hard enough that I write down everything I can about it so I will remember. It is all chaotic. More serious works get vague chapter outlines or fully paraphrased if I have more in-depth musings. My favorites even get background information for future chapters~ (There are even times I write a whole scene on paper.)

Now, keep in mind that I am all over the place and very disorganized. My notes can and have been done on random bits of paper, written in a document or notebook, or scribbled on anything I can physically get my hands on. Many a quote has been put on random doodle pages because I didn’t want it to disappear once my squirrel mind flitted away. Guardians of the Deep was paraphrased on an old stained paper on my nightstand/dresser at 3:00 in the morning because I refused to let the dreamed inspiration leave me…

With all the information I store, I eventually write based on the information and what the visions have left me. I only get about a chapter or one short done before I too am leaving it for a bit. Depending on how fast I want to get it out or how busy I am, it might be for several hours or a couple of days. I find that time helps me spot things that could be better, fixed, or that I have missed (After all, all first drafts are going to be a little bit awful and I still manage to miss stuff after the go throughs… Sigh. Hahaha!). It also helps get my mind out of it’s tunnel vision. After that, I simply try to edit the best I can and post.

It’s wonky and all over the place, but it seems to work for me.

[applestorms]

the demons got to me and i’m thinking about mello again.

god i so desperately wish we could’ve seen him interact with L in canon. near too, but mello in particular— i’ve already written my mello & misa parallels post so i won’t reiterate all that here but, fuck. i think their similarities would’ve been so obvious if we had actually seen mello’s hero worship of L in practice, like more than just his freak out at roger upon hearing about his death.

do you think he would’ve been loud, in his face about it? i don’t think so. i can’t help thinking back to near’s explanation of why L picked the two of them out to be his successors— the two quiet kids at the back of the room, glowering and watching while everyone else asked their questions. the obvious implication is that L picked them out because they seemed to idolize him, to respect him the least. near at least seems to have managed to stick with that mindset for most of canon… but when did mello’s view start changing? was he just better at hiding it? did his feelings ever become more, less mixed? did he worship L like a cold, distant god— or grow to respect the minor points of humanity that seeped out from the corners?

speaking of: how the FUCK did that conversation about the LABB murder case go? how much of that story was actually, directly told to mello, and how much was his own fantasy, filling in the blanks? he clearly projected onto BB. did he join the mafia with that knowledge in mind, that the desperate, inferiority complex-riddled serial killer was the archetype he fit into better than the world famous detective? did he care about justice, any kind of moral standard— did he bloody his hands or find ways to work around it?

mello knew was never going to be L’s successor, not if he played the game according to its established rules. did L ever imply such things to his face? actually, what the hell did L think of near? was he aware of the burden he put on those fucking kids, did he ever care for even a second? did he mistakenly assume his own immortality, even in the face of a supernatural murder?

(clawing desperately at the walls of my enclosure. L getting annoyed at his pet orphanage of super-geniuses for distracting him from his evil boyfriend is one of my favorite fic tropes of all time, if you gimme recs for that i’ll kiss you)

i wonder if mello ever saw the parts of L in near that everyone else seems to unable to see past. maybe he did, but even so— i think he, of all people, was most aware of all the ways in which near was himself. how easily he fit the role but all the ways in which he broke out of it as well, the similarities in their intelligence & methods of thinking but the minor details that meant near could win where L never could. where mello himself never could. he probably knew how that guy functioned better than anyone, maybe even better than near himself, though i doubt he’d ever do much with that knowledge. it’s one of the few places where i see mello & near switching in terms of passivity— mello knowing Everything about near but doing very little about it, paralyzed by his own self-doubt, while near comparatively struggles to claw as much Mello Knowledge as he can, poking and prodding and pushing him in every direction, all while getting continually blind-sighted as he explodes in random ways he can barely fathom.

i like to think that, in contrast with near’s extreme codependence, mello is actually quite self-sufficient. weirdly, he seems to me like the DN character to be the most likely to actually go to therapy at some point. i think he’s a lot more self aware than he lets on, if only because his inferiority complex drives so much of his self hatred, pushing him to always be better, stronger, more independent. i like to imagine that his apartment or room or wherever the fuck he lives is actually quite clean, that he pushes himself to learn how to cook, how to take care of himself. L never sleeps and near probably sleeps too much but mello needs a consistent, solid 7-8 hours a night or he starts getting cranky— the kind of person who functions better in the sunlight, to take from a fic i read recently.

i wonder how much of his life he remembers from before the orphanage. he seems like he might have emotional ties there, but something he’d never or only very rarely speak about— glimpses of a past life that keeps him up at night on occasion, where near is blessed with a complete lack of any earlier memories. mello just seems more inclined towards sentimentality like that, extreme in all his emotions, particularly when they’re utilized for the purpose of self-destruction. he wears a rosary, has a cross on his gun, chooses to die in a dilapidated church. good lord, he chooses to die in a church.

did he grieve matt? he apologizes, yes. but did he already know he was to join him so soon?

i desperately wish to see a version of mello who had the time to commit to his name and chill the fuck out for a while. get some meds, separate himself from the burdens of L, of the rivalry, and allow himself the chance to relax and breathe and properly heal. part of the reason why his death in particular hits me so hard is the fact that it all seems so possible with him, that he has the most potential to genuinely get over this shit— to not just stew in the corners of the earth and let time wash over him (like a certain someone), but actually, literally get his fucking life back.

he’s explosive, yes, he’s neurotic and emotional and lashes out at everyone and anyone he pleases— but in that same way, he’s honest. mello and near do not bullshit themselves in the ways that L and light do so consistently, they don’t bother lying to themselves or putting on airs about the kinds of people they are or the kinds of things they want. they know their place in the world, the expectations on their shoulders.

everybody likes thinking about “L wins” and “KIRA wins” scenarios, but you know what i really want to consider? what the fuck would mello winning look like? i mean, he’s a character whose primarily fucking trait is the fact that he loses, that he’s always second place. i almost feel like mello winning could’ve been one of the best case scenarios— because for mello to truly win, to not just overpower near and tell him to suck it (a situation which would not make mello legitimately happy, just put him in the same situation as light killing L), he’d have to get over the biggest hurdle of his own bullshit and legitimately grow as a person.

i yearn to see a near that got the chance to grow up with his other half, and a mello who got the chance to live for himself again. they deserve that: quiet afternoons to bitch at each other and argue over whatever book they decided to read that week, near whining about having to do chores and mello yelling at him to clean up his fucking legos, matt shaking his head in the corner.

get those kids a fucking happy ending.

[dani-ya-dig]

You know what. I wasn’t gonna do this because I didn’t wanna seem like I was shitting on anyone’s parade too much, but this is my blog so….

Thoughts about the Project Meridian finale under the cut. This is just my opinion, if you feel differently that’s cool!

I would like to start this off by saying, no one take this as a discredit to Erik’s work on the audio. It was wonderfully produced, and wonderfully acted. I liked the way he did it, I liked hearing other VAs (cough cough GBA as Quinn). I thought the audio itself was good.

I fucking hated it as an ending to Project Meridian.

I dislike the “they woke up and it was just a dream” trope in most media. To Erik’s credit this was a pretty well done version of it, but that doesn’t make me like it more.

I think I understand why it ended this way too. Project Meridian took a huge turn from what it started as with Marcus’ first video. I think that turn did come from a place of, Erik wanting to connect all of his storylines to the same universe, especially after “The Cost”. I think he didn’t know how to tie Marcus into all of that because… it’s about a fucking robot? What does that have to do with magic?

Then Avior’s first video happened, and the whole thing with the meridian got started up, and I think Erik was like “oh shit, that would be a really cool way to tie in the android listener I’ve got!”, and it was. It was a completely 180 there for a while but it was really, really interesting.

But from there the storylines only got far more complex, the ordeal with the meridian and the sovereigns is WAY BIGGER that it originally was when James got introduced.

Now, on top of Sovereign State, there is also The Balance, and even Hush and Vega now. Like this is a lot of storylines that are all kind of very tied around the whole problem happening with the Meridian and the Sovereigns (I really don’t know how else to describe it lol).

So what I assume happened was Erik eventually came to a cross roads after the James audio before the final three PM videos, when James said they were moving into the next phase. So Erik had to be like “okay how can I make a next phase of this story, without ruining everything else I am building up around this same focal point?”.

So I think he just… prioritized the other storylines and just ended PM in the way he knew how to without jeopardizing other plots.

…it was just a dream.

I can’t, and won’t, blame Erik for not knowing how to proceed with Project Meridian, and the turn it took. Especially not when (to my knowledge) Marcus’ script was the first he ever wrote for the channel, he couldn’t have predicted how big all of this would get and how his storytelling would change. But you also can’t tell me worth a damn that the ending we got was intended to be the ending for the story Project Meridian started with.

But this whole post is truly about my personal beef with the whole “it was just a bad dream” trope. It pisses me off every time. It makes me so angry every time, but in this case I understand why it was used and it was done well for what it was.

So yeah, I’m pretty fucking disappointed that this was the end for PM when I was expecting like a big revelation that would really change the game for the other more narrative plots of the channel.

But also there was a Sam audio recently and I got Quinn content out of the deal so I’m sure I will survive lol

Also Quinn’s “Did somebody say Gore??” Made me giggle way too fucking hard. I hate him. I need to see him public executed NOW.

[anime-grimmy-art]

It’s this time of the year again, folks. Time to wrap up the art Ive made in the last 12 months in another Year in Review! I’ve noticed that this is my fifth Year in Review in a row, so I’ll be making an extra post looking back on the progress in those last 5 years!

I've got a lot to say about this year, but purely art wise, I've gone all when it comes to comics, damn! I've kinda found a format that is messy, and therefore more time efficient, yet still looks good. I even made 2 animatics and lotsa shorts/reels! All that on top of opening coms twice, and, oh yeah, MAKING A WHOLE ASS 4MIN ANIMATION ON MY OWN.

How is my hand still alive.

2023 has been….interesting, to say the least. The first half year I was working on my thesis project, aka making an animated short all on my own (in the art department), which makes it honestly surprising how much I managed to churn out between animating. Trigun rly did have me in a choke hold.

Summer was a bit more spotty, esp. with me not being able to draw anything during August as I was writing my thesis (and doing commissions). And towards the end of the year, Kingdom Hearts tried to save me, but alas, Genshin Impact has finally sunk its teeth into me and dragged me to the bottom of the rabbit hole. It all started with me watching a story summary and lore videos while I was sick after my thesis and I was too intrigued to not dig deeper and well, first I fell in love with Kaeya and then the ships started dropping in left and right.

I’m not gonna lie, the last few months have been weird. I finished my masters in October, and have been on job hunt since, sadly without success so far. I’m existing in this weird limbo of still not grasping I’m not a student anymore after 18 years in education, not really being able to accept I’m an adult, yet desperately trying to find something so I can make a routine, cos rn Im too scared to build a rhythm as I know I’ll have a so much harder time readjusting again. It’s left me in a weird emotional state, where most of the time I feel fine, but when it counts, there’s just, nothing. No joy at getting my diploma, no anticipation to finally go to a convention again, neither any sadness hearing my grandfather died. It frustrates me that it extends to my art as well, there’s excitement over ideas and concepts, but no motivation to pick up the pencil, which makes me either not finish art at all or making so many shortcuts and just ending up with sth not satisfactory to me since it’s not the idea I sought after.

Tho, not everything is doom and gloom. I DID finish a whole ass short animation and got my masters degree, that IS sth to be proud of. Also, while Im struggling at drawing, I’ve also kinda started integrating my shortcuts into my style and some stuff I’ve thrown together actually turns out real good nowadays. Also, and this might be a bit of a weird one, I’m so fucking happy to know I can still enjoy gay ships. I’ve been a bit uncertain over the last few years because when I was around 16-18, I had a real big yaoi phase, which mostly came from the fact so much stuff came out that tickled my brain in the right way (Free, Haikyuu, etc.). But over the years, my enthusiasm died down, and I even started to resent some ships because it’s all some fandoms produced. I often found myself liking a hetero ship more than the popular gay ship, which really made me not wanna stick around because I did not care for most fanart and you can only go through a tag with art you don’t care about so long before you lose interest. I think in retrospect that it rly had nothing to do with the ships being gay ships but rather cos the fans just shoved it in your face when you didn’t care (and shipping culture nowadays also can get real scary). But I’m so happy to see I can still get obsessed with a ship and it’s all thanks to Haikaveh/Kavetham. It really just needed the right flavour for me to dig in again. And oh my god, I FINALLY like a ship with a SHIT TON of art and fanfictions, no more scrounging the crumbs from the bottom of the barrel. 

Anyways, enough lamenting. Here’s to hoping I can bite my tongue and get shit started properly in 2024, and that my brainrots may make me obsessed enough to churn out an obscene amount of fanart again.

[lunaflowers]

Okay! 💓Could you write something about married couple and s/o wants a baby so bad. But baekhyun is not ready or confused idk. He doesn't want it for now. Reader is really disappointed and sad. She loves babies so much and can't wait have one. But baekhyun's reaction (angry or annoying) is made her angry/sad. A big fight but a happy end please. 🥺🥺 (maybe some tears too)

If it is not okay for you then no problem! 🌼

Thank you 💓

Hope you like this, anon 💖 Pairing: Byun Baekhyun x Reader Word Count: 1.7k Genre: Angst and Fluff Warnings: None that I can think of

The evening had been lovely. You and your husband, Baekhyun, had spent it strolling through the tree lined park near your home. It was verging on autumn and there was a slight chill in the air, but the full cold of fall hadn’t hit yet. The sun had almost completely set but it wasn’t fully dark yet. You two were holding hands and chatting about how your days had been. 

You were recently unemployed, having left your job as a nurse due to increasing stress and anxiety. Currently, you were playing full time homemaker so that meant you were home alone all day while Baekhyun was at work at a consultancy firm. The days were long but fulfilling. You tried your best to keep yourself occupied, trying new recipes, as well as arts and crafts, reading and writing and regular exercise. The break was nice and it had you contemplating what you really wanted to do with your life, where your true priorities lay.

“Actually, I wanted to talk to you about something,” you said. Baekhyun had just finished telling you about a new project he was taking on at work, and all the responsibilities that were going to come along with it. He loved his job but you knew how demanding it could be, keeping him at the office for long hours. Thankfully he was paid generously for his hard work.

“What is it?” He looked at you and squeezed your hand a little. 

“Well, I was thinking since I’m home now and we’re settled, it might be the perfect time to start trying for a baby. We finally have the time and space for it.”

Baekhyun snorted. “Right. Very funny.”

He kept on walking beside you. You didn’t know what you expected his reaction to be but it certainly wasn’t that. Why would he think you were joking about something like this? “I’m being serious, Baek. Let’s start a family.” 

Baekhyun said nothing for a few moments and you waited in tense silence, listening to the gravel crunching under your shoes. This conversation was already not going the way you had anticipated.

“YN, babe, I’ve just spent the last ten minutes telling you about the new client and how I’m project leader and all the extra hours of work I’m going to be taking on and you come back with this?”

“I’m not saying it’s going to be easy. And I know how hard you’re working and I appreciate it so much, especially now. But this is important too.”

Baekhyun scoffed and you felt hurt. “It’s out of the question,” he said, his tone one of finality. 

“What? We can’t even talk about it?”

“There’s nothing to talk about. There’s no way we can have a baby right now.” He was dismissing you and you felt enraged all of a sudden.

You pulled your hand out of his. “Why are you being so cold?” You had to work to keep your voice even. You weren’t trying to make a scene, there were couples, families, children milling about the place enjoying the evening and you didn’t need to be the story they talked about as they got home.

“I’m not doing this here,” he said, testily. 

Annoyed, you began walking ahead of him, back towards the home you shared. You arrived and Baekhyun followed soon after, a look of irritation on his face. “You’re being childish leaving me behind like that.”

“I’m childish? You won’t even talk to me!” 

“I told you what I thought.”

“No, you made a decision for the both of us and then acted like I was the unreasonable one for having an issue with that. Do you not want to have kids with me?”

“All I said was not now,” he said, his teeth gritted. He was angry, a rare sight, and seeing him angry only made you more angry.

“What do you mean, not now? We’re both in our thirties, Baek! It’s not like we’re in our early twenties anymore with all the time in the world to wait. It only gets harder the older you get.”

“So what? If it doesn’t happen, it doesn’t happen,” Baekhyun shot back and your jaw dropped.

“Are you fucking kidding me right now? I’ve always said I’ve wanted kids. You know this. You said you wanted them too when we got married. And now this? What the fuck, Baekhyun?”

“Don’t you get it, YN? I have enough going on right now as it is. Work is insane, I’m having to work longer and longer hours, take on all these new responsibilities. You quit your job so I have to keep everything afloat financially all by myself. And now you want this?”

Your eyes widened, tears filling them at his words. It felt like he’d slapped you. He’d never made you feel guilty for not working. When you left your job, Baekhyun had been nothing but kind and supportive, telling you that he had everything handled and that you should take your time to decide when and even if you wanted to return to work, that you had nothing to worry about.

The hurt on your face made Baekhyun soften. He tried to walk back his statement, “I didn’t mean it like that… I just meant-”

“Forget it. Just forget I said anything. I’m going to bed,” you said, your voice even. You turned to and began walking down the hallway. You heard your husband calling for your attention but you ignored him. After you had washed up, you got in bed and began to cry silent tears alone. How had it all gone so wrong?

Baekhyun entered the bedroom about an hour later. You closed your eyes as he came in, pretending to be asleep on your tear soaked pillowcase. You were in no mood to talk to him right now.

“YN,” you heard him say from behind you. You pretended you didn’t hear him, staying as still as you could, hoping he would think you were asleep and leave you alone. No such luck. When Baekhyun wanted to talk, he was relentless about it.

“YN, come on…” he said, approaching you from behind. “I know you’re not asleep.” He put his hand on your shoulder and jiggled you lightly.

You turned onto your back and looked up at him with swollen eyes and lips. It was clear that you had been crying this whole time and that broke his heart. He hated seeing you cry more than anything.

“Baby, don’t cry,” Baekhyun said softly. He produced a bouquet of sad looking carnations from behind his back and held it out to you. “Sorry, I know they’re not great but I got them at the gas station. They’re all I could get at this time of night.”

You sat up against the headboard of your bed and said nothing, but you took the bouquet in your hand, fingering the petals of the flowers.

Baekhyun sat down beside you facing you. “I want to apologize for what I said earlier. I never meant to make it sound like I blame you for any stress I’m feeling. And I love having you not work to be honest. I love the fact that you’re always there when I come home, that we get to spend so much more time together.”

You put the flowers down beside you and took his hand in yours. “I appreciate that.” You gave him a sad smile. It obviously didn’t heal your heart but you appreciated his effort in trying to comfort you. Baekhyun was the only man you’d ever been with who actually gave a shit if you cried. 

“I’m sorry too. I know you’ve been under a lot of pressure at work and you’ve been so amazing and patient with me. I should’ve brought it up at another time.”

“No. The thing is… you’re actually right. It is something we should be talking about. We’re not getting younger. I just…” He trailed off.

You leaned forward and put a hand on his cheek, stroking it gently. “Talk to me, baby.”

“I’m scared shitless. The idea of being a father fucking terrifies me. Being responsible for a human life. Making sure he or she grows up and is healthy and happy and all the good things. How the fuck am I supposed to do that? What if I fuck it all up?”

You almost giggled but you held it back. You definitely didn’t want to demean Baekhyun’s feelings but the fact that he even thought for a second he might not be a good father was just so ludicrous. He was the most kind and loving person you’d ever met. Any child would be lucky to have him as a father.

“Baekhyun… It’s normal to be scared about being a parent. I am too. But we can’t let it paralyze us.”

Baekhyun sighed, “I know but… It’s a life, you know? It’s forever. It’s not something we can try out for a few months and then decide to get rid of it if we don’t want it.”

“You’re right. But like… I think it’s one of those things where you just have to dive right in. Delaying this forever isn’t going to help.”

He looked up at you with his Bambi eyes and you looked back at him. He looked so young and sweet faced, he definitely didn’t look like a man in his thirties. But he looked tired. Maybe you’d been too preoccupied with what you wanted that you hadn’t realised sometimes he needed you to build up his confidence the way he always did yours.

“Baekhyun, you’re going to be the most amazing father. I’m sure of it. You’re so filled with love and so patient and smart and gentle. Not to mention your child-like spirit.”

He laughed at that, and you smiled.

“Besides, we’re going to be doing it together. It’s a team effort. We can lean on each other like we always do.”

Baekhyun leaned forward and kissed you on the lips. “I like the sound of that.” He pulled you closer to him and wrapped his arms around you. The warmth of his body was so comforting and you leaned into him, breathing in his familiar scent. “So, we’re really going to have a baby, hmm?” He said, softly.

“I mean, we’re going to try.”

“Trying sounds fun. Let’s try right now,” Baekhyun said, kissing you again.

[blessedarethebinarybreakers]

Hey, this is going to be long and wordy but I’m kinda desperate. Lately I’ve been having doubts about whether Jesus actually said what’s recorded in the gospels and whether those accounts are true, and the uncertainty there scares me, especially since I know the gospel writers almost certainly had their own agendas and that’s why accounts of the same event can sound different, why the birth narrative was skipped over or not, etc. On top of that I’ve seen posts from Jewish users outlining why Judaism typically doesn’t accept Jesus as Messiah/why you can’t be Jewish if you believe that, and their arguments seem pretty sound. So it all boils down to this big scary question of “What if this whole Jesus-as-Messiah thing was just the result of projection onto some random guy who seemed to be the real deal because the writers were so desperate to be rescued from the Roman occupation?” It sucks cuz I’ve been enjoying my renewed interest in church (for the most part) and while I’ve tried my best to learn not to take the Bible literally all the time (yay for growing up in an inerrantist doctrinal tradition 🙄), I still want to take it seriously and I still want to believe in Jesus as savior/Lord/etc. I don’t want to just be like, “Yeah I don’t buy the whole Messiah thing but I can still follow his example!” I want there to be meat behind why I follow, if that makes sense. So inasmuch as this could be my OCD being bored and trying to take hold of whatever it thinks would bug me the most (wouldn’t be the first time!), I would really appreciate any advice you have. I know there may not be any certainty or reassurance to be found here, but I still want to hear from someone who’s been there before so I can chart a path forward, and I think this is an important question to wrestle with. Plus I remember from one of your posts you said you have seminary notes on this exact topic so I’m curious lol.

"Gospel Truth": how do we know what Jesus really said and did?

Hey again! Sorry for the long delay on this one but I wanted to do some research before responding! You're right that these are important questions, and you're absolutely not the only one to feel doubt and anxiety over them. You're also right that I can't offer you certainty, but I do hope you'll find encouragement here, and places to go as you continue your journey.

This got super long (as always lol), so let's start with aTL;DR:

In this post, you'll find that there's a lot that we can surmise is very probable about Jesus' life story, but that ultimately we can't know much for certain — and that's okay. In Evolving in Monkey Town: How a Girl Who Knew All the Answers Learned to Ask the Questions), Rachel Held Evans gets to the heart of the matter:

"I don’t know which Bible stories ought to be treated as historically accurate, scientifically provable accounts of facts and which stories are meant to be metaphorical. I don’t know if it really matters so long as those stories transform my life."

This is a time where scholarship & faith go hand-in-hand: using the minds God gifted us, we study and learn what we can; and we cultivate faith in the things we can't — a faith that doesn't deny doubt, but makes room for it, and calls us into community so that we can wrestle out meaning together.

A couple other notes before we kick off:

Please know that you don't Have To Study All The Things if you decide it's healthier for you not to go chasing those rabbit holes. You don't need to be an expert in Biblical studies to be a "good Christian" or to take scripture seriously or to get to know God deeply.

I trust you know yourself and how your OCD works better than I could. So I'm going to share the information I have, and leave it to you to determine for yourself how much information you need in order to feel reassured, without giving your mind new problems to ruminate over.

So here's a link to a Google doc that has A Lot of information — like, too much lol. But save it for after you read this post; I'm putting the most relevant & important info here! If you finish this post and feel satisfied, you never even have to look in the doc.

However deep you go, if you find yourself getting overwhelmed, know that whatever you are feeling is valid and probably pretty common, and take a break! Do a calming meditation or an activity you enjoy to help regulate your mind and body. If possible, have someone you can unpack this stuff with — or have a notebook ready to journal in. <3

Okay, all that outta the way, let's dig in!

Who wrote the Gospels?

Tradition goes that the authors of the four canonical Gospels are three of Jesus' closest disciples — Matthew, Mark, and John — plus a disciple of Paul — Luke. But academics have determine that this tradition is very improbable; it's much more likely that none of the four authors knew Jesus personally, and that the earliest of them (Mark) wasn't recorded till the 60s — decades after Jesus lived and died!

When people learn this, it often leads to something of a crisis of faith. If these writers didn't even know Jesus firsthand, where the heck did they get their information?? And come to think of it, why do their accounts differ? Is some of it made up? Is all of it made up??

The anxiety and fear that wells up is normal, and it's healthy to acknowledge that you're feeling it. But once that first shock abates, it's possible to discover a sort of freedom in the knowledge that the Gospel writers (and all the authors of the biblical texts) were human, with human biases and specific goals fitting their unique context; and that they didn't have all the answers!

This realization can free us to approach scripture without certain expectations (that it's all inerrant and prescriptive, etc.), and allows us to bring our doubts to the table with us. If something in the text seems questionable — particularly if it seems to promote bigotry and injustice rather than God's love — we can consider whether something in its author's cultural context might be responsible for that part of scripture.

So taking some time to learn the unique contexts of each writer can be quite enriching to how we engage the Gospels. For a chart that sums up the Gospel writers' unique contexts, audiences, and priorities, see this post.

For even more, you'll want a book that digs into that stuff — I recommend Raymond Brown's An Introduction to the New Testament (the abridged version!!). As you learn about the Gospel writers, I hope several things become evident:

First, that they weren't just making things up whole cloth, or relying on a game of "he said she said" telephone for their information! Each one drew from different primary or secondary sources, eyewitness testimonies or written texts (many of which no longer exist, but scholars have pieced together evidence of, like the famous "Q source" that both Matthew and Luke drew from).

Yes, each author does have an agenda in writing about Jesus, and in how they tell his story. But that's not a nefarious thing; it's true of any text, whether biography, poetry, novel, song — you don't take the time to write something without a purpose in mind! With variation between their specific goals, overall each Gospel writer's agenda was to persuade their audience that Jesus is worth following, and/or to offer encouragement to those who already believed.

Another thing that modern readers sometimes interpret as intentionally deceptive is that, yeah, the Gospels contain things that aren't strictly factual, and that the writers knew weren't strictly factual. This is because ancient ideas about history & biography are very different from our own. When we read a biography, we expect it to be all facts, with citations proving those facts. But the ancients were much less concerned with making sure every detail was accurate; instead, they were focused on making their specific point about whatever thing or person they were writing/reading about. So yes, they might embellish one detail or leave out another in order to fortify their desired message. They cared more about the Truth as they interpreted it than a purely factual account.

On a similar note, each Gospel writer understands Jesus and the meaning behind his story a little differently — hence why they all tell things in slightly different orders, and characterize Jesus differently, etc. This is also understandable — we all interpret stories differently; we all come to different conclusions even when we have the same or similar information. See the section in the google doc titled "each Gospel's essence" to learn more about the different ways each writer characterizes Jesus, and why they may have interpreted him the way they did.

On that topic, let's get to your question about...

Jesus — Messiah, or no?

If you read the Gospel of Matthew and take it as pure fact, you'll determine that Jesus is the Messiah his people were waiting for — that he did indeed fulfill various scriptures. But if you read Mark, you won't find that argument at all! To the author of Mark, Jesus clearly did not match the stipulations of the awaited-for Messiah — and for Mark, that's kinda the point: that Jesus is something new and surprising, unlike anything human beings expected, upturning our ideas of power and salvation.

...So how did they come to these vastly different views??

Well, Matthew was a Jew writing to persuade his fellow Jews that the Jesus movement was worth joining; to do so, he felt he had to "prove" that it fit into Jewish tradition. So he prioritizes showing how Jesus is a righteous Jew who abides by Torah, and that he is indeed the Messiah they've been waiting for.

(It's also worth noting that when Matthew writes, over and over, about Jesus "fulfilling" various bits of Hebrew scripture, that verb "fulfilling" doesn't mean what it might sound like to us — that a given text was always and only about Jesus, with the prophet having Jesus in mind when they wrote it. Rather, to Matthew "fulfilling" the text meant "filling it up" with more meaning — adding to its meaning, not replacing the old meaning. More on that, with citations, in the Google doc.)

Meanwhile, Mark's author was a Jew writing mostly to gentile members of the early Jesus movement. He knew they wouldn't care whether or not Jesus fit the Jewish expectations for a Messiah! (In fact, giving Jesus a bit more of a "Greek" flair would appeal to them more.) So Mark doesn't perform the mental and rhetorical gymnastics that Matthew does to try to make Jesus fit the Messiah requirements.

So which Gospel got it right?

For many matters of scripture, I say "it's open to interpretation!" or "Maybe both are right in different ways, conveying different truths!" But for this particular case, it is very important as Christians to accept that Jesus absolutely does not fit the Jewish requirements for their Messiah. To argue otherwise is antisemitic — it's supersessionist, meaning it claims that Christianity supersedes or replaces Judaism.

We might understand, as the author of Mark did, Jesus to be a messiah — which just means "anointed one" in Hebrew (the Greek counterpart is "Christ") — without making antisemitic claims that Jews "failed to recognize their own Messiah." (In fact, there are multiple messiahs in scripture, e.g. in Isaiah 45, the foreign king Cyrus is referred to as God's messiah; though later scriptures like Daniel do start talking about a specific Messiah who will usher in redemption & a new age for the Jewish people.)

We can understand why some of the biblical authors, like Matthew, interpreted Jesus as this specific Messiah as a result of their own specific context, without agreeing with their view. See this post about “Anti-Jewish Content in the New Testament: Why it’s there and what we should do about it” for more on this important topic.  (You can also find even further resources on supersessionism in this post.)

...Okay, so we've looked at the authors of the Gospels a good bit. We've learned that their idea of a "biography" is very different from ours — that they didn't consider it bad to rearrange, leave out, or embellish accounts — but what does that leave us with when it comes to knowing who Jesus "really" was?

What can we know for sure about Jesus?

Let's look at the facts. The first one is: we don't have any. Not any 100% certain ones, anyway. The guy lived before audio recorders and cameras; we're relying on written and oral accounts, which can be fabricated.

However, there are points about the Jesus story that are regarded as almost certainly historical by the vast majority of historians today, so let's look at those first:

Jesus almost 100% certainly existed. There is enough historical evidence (both inside and outside the Bible) to confirm this — even non-Christian historians almost unanimously agree that there was a historical Jesus. (Phew, am I right?)

Almost all historians also agree that several parts of Jesus' story almost definitely happened: that he was baptized in the Jordan; that he traveled around teaching and offering miracles (whether or not they agree he actually had the power to perform real miracles, of course); and that he was arrested and crucified by the occupying Roman Empire.

Some of these almost-irrefutable claims lend plausibility to others: if he traveled around teaching, what was he teaching? Why not the sermons, the parables recorded in the Gospels? And if he was crucified — the death of a criminal, an insurrectionist — what did he do to get himself crucified? He must have done something to cause Rome to see him as a threat to their Empire — why not some of the sayings and actions that are recorded in the Gospels, like his claim to be "Son of God" (a title used for Caesar); his protest march into Jerusalem satirizing Caesar; and his disruption at the Temple?

The attempt to determine which parts of scripture are "authentic," i.e. things that really happened / things Jesus really said," is often called "The Quest for the Historical Jesus."

Over the decades, scholars interested in this pursuit have developed various "criteria of authenticity," which they use to try to determine how probable any given bit of the Gospels is. In the google doc, I summarize the history of this "quest" and describe some of the most popular criteria. But what's important to understand is that these criteria have major limitations — they're often applied somewhat arbitrarily, for one thing, and ultimately they can't "prove" for sure whether something in the text is definitely historical or definitely not. So honestly, this is not a field of study that I recommend everyone go immerse themselves in! When I do, I have fun for a while, then kinda end up more overwhelmed by how much we can't know.

Still, sometimes these criteria of authenticity do yield some interesting points. For instance, the "Criteria of Embarrassment" (yes, that's what it's called lol) asserts that anything in the text that would have been embarrassing to its author is more likely to be historical fact — because why would the author have made something up that puts them in an unflattering light, or might be used to argue against their message?

For example, a lot of Gospel stories depict Jesus' disciples being kinda clueless, or saying petty things, or failing miserably (e.g. the denial of Peter). Why would the Gospel authors have wanted to make these earliest believers, who are meant to be role models for their audience, look so bad? This criterion says that wouldn't — that they must include those stories because they really happened, rather than being things the author made up to make their point.

Or take the Criterion of Multiple Attestation, which determines how many sources include a certain saying or event. The more sources contain a specific story, the more plausibly "authentic" that story is, since it means that different unconnected communities knew that story. Logical enough.

So yes, there are ways to consider the historicity of the Gospels — but not definitively. So the question becomes: is the historical knowledge we do have enough for me to feel some level of, I don't know, peace? stability in my faith?

And, at the end of the day, how important to me is it that every single thing the Gospels say is completely factual?

Back to what matters: the Good News

Facts are great — God gifted us our minds, and various scripture stories show God encourages us to wrestle with the text! — but we are called to faith as well.

Furthermore, taking the Bible seriously means accepting it for what it is — a collection of ancient texts compiled by humans, even if guided by Divinity — rather than insisting it be what it is not. For the Gospels, that means accepting that they are not biography, but story, and prioritize Truth over fact.

My pastor friend Roger puts it like this:

“For me, it isn’t about deciding which things Jesus really said or didn’t say. That’s a road that goes nowhere. As a pastoral response, I take scripture at face value and work to empathize with the people in and behind the text. Through that empathy, I can find some meaning that connects with what we’re facing here and now.”

When we acknowledge that the Bible includes human interpretations of the Divine, and that we bring our own human interpretations to our reading of it, where does that leave us?

It leaves us in need of conversation, of an expansion of our perspectives by talking through scripture in community. We do that conversing with friends, or attending Bible studies at church, or reading a variety of theological texts — getting as many unique understandings of Jesus as we can, joining our ideas together to get an ever broader glimpse of the Divine.

There's a reason Jesus taught in parables: he didn't want there to be one definitive answer to matters of life and faith! He wanted to ignite conversation, to draw us into community — because it's in community that we are the image of God, the Body of Christ.

So keep on wrestling, wondering, talking it through (taking time to rest when needed — there's no rush!). We discover scripture's meaning for us in our own place and time through the wrestling, together.

[christinescupofcoffee]

no idea why I never did a writeblr introduction post but better now than never!

the name’s Hannah, also known as nirvhannah, but lately I’ve been going by my middle name of Christine. My specialty is science fiction, but I’ve also indulged in erotica, gothic horror, and even shitty romance. My stories are complex and layered, filled with emotion and a very dry sense of humor—regardless of whether it’s fanfiction or not. My stories are getting more and more gutsy, in the humor and content, with the passing of time, too. My writing has also been described as “verbose” and I even had a teacher liken it to Gabriel García Marquez.

I’ve been toiling away at fanfiction since 2019 and aside from a couple of works, nothing I make seems to strike something with people. I actually got my start with original fiction, going all the way back to when I could pick up a pencil and when I could read. I wrote my first short story when I was 6, my first novella at 13, and I wrote my first novel at 24, in 2017, called “Black Rain,” which I wrote in memory of my fallen friend, Chris Cornell. Yes, THAT Chris Cornell.

I wrote so much after he died… 1+ million words to be exact. Then I started my ao3 account and I’ve now clocked in close to 5 million words. I developed quite the work ethic during quarantine and now it’s this pervasive itch, this desire I have. I have to write or I’m going to lose my mind.

I’m actually an artist, doing my own cartoon style since I was 13. I also have years of experience in the field of STEM, so I know all about the pretensions, the near-inhuman behavior, and the way they look down their nose at everything (“think outside the box”? pfff, not like that, you’re not). I used to be really fat, too—well, I used to have an eating disorder, I needed to overcome it somehow. But I’ve shed close to 100 pounds in the last 15 months as of writing, so I can actually say I beat anorexia and obesity (I’m still a little chubby, too—I actually don’t mind it, tbh). It gets really weird when I say I’m an award-winning baker: I won 1st place for my chocolate babka this year!

as for my writing, I have the usual grandiose daydreams about getting published but truthfully, I don’t see it happening. I’m too twisted, too “out there”, too spicy, too dry, and I tend to veer into burlesque territory at times and publishers are pussies now. Plus, I tend to inject a great deal of darkness into everything. But I’m here, writing things that range from a few hundred words to 1.1 million words.

I’ve got my masterlist. Currently, I’ve got nine passion projects and my ao3. I’ve got notes for original stories from years ago. I’ve got memories, I’ve got shit.

(I should also mention that this is a side blog so I can’t follow back)

[kindlingkeen]

I need to know if I’m alone in this or maybe missing something.

It always bothers me when people say Tim’s childhood was so much worse than Jason’s, or even says they’re the same kinda thing. Am I the only one in this?? (More specifically when they compare them) Like it feels like they’re minimizing Jason’s story to nothing, when it makes his character up as much as his death does. (I’ve even seen people compare Tim’s childhood to Jason’s death, which is. A choice.)

Granted, I’m not a big Tim fan (he’s a cool character, just not the one I focus on) so maybe I’ve missed some part of his canonical backstory or ive subconsciously got something against his character idk.

But from my understanding, Tim is a rich kid who was taken care of (as in, he always had what he needed), just his parents were neglectful? Or away? (Not to say this isn’t bad, of course wouldn’t wish that on a kid either)

But Jason’s lived surrounded by crime and poverty, hell we see panels where he’s hurt and generally not havin a great time.

And I’m fine with people making angst worse because like, favourite character. I’m sure I’m guilty of doing the same to Jason (fave character bias and whatnot) it’s just something that strikes me as odd. But hey, maybe I just don’t know about some canon panel that shows Tim’s childhood as a tragedy where he almost died countless times (another thing I’ve seen fans use)

So yeah. Generally, what do you think about this? I am not too great with character analysis & whatever else, but I like the stuff you’ve said in regards to characters. I know you’re a Jason fan, unsure about how you feel about Tim/how much you know, but curious about your opinion anyway. Thanks.

You are not alone, anon.

You’re also not missing anything in canon, Tim’s childhood was not a tragedy (his parents traveled a lot and he spent his time in boarding school). Were his parents on the neglectful side? Yes. Does that equate to being parentless and living on the street before the age of 12? No. I answered an Ask about Tim a little while ago explaining why I don’t really care much for Tim in the comics or a lot of fanfics. And I only ranted a little about how projecting Jason’s trauma onto Tim is Not. Cool. So maybe check that out.

As for my opinion on this … *takes a deep breath* Let me start by saying that everyone should like what they like, read what they want, write what they want, etc. No judgement or shame intended at all.

But … my opinion is that the enemy-to-caretaker trope is to blame for the over abundance of this dynamic in the fandom.

It seems like this trope grew out of/is a Gen take on enemies-to-lovers. I have absolutely no problem with this trope in general. In fact, I quite enjoy it in certain settings. But the thing is, lovers can be equals. But a caretaker, that has an inherent power imbalance to the relationship. A caretaker takes care of a person who is in some way weaker or less able than them.

So, to make Jason a caretaker for Tim, you somehow have to make Tim weaker, and with time and repetition that’s gotten amplified to much weaker.

The easiest way to do this is to jack up the angst and trauma of Tim’s origin story and increase his overall vulnerability. Because in reality, the inherent power imbalance between Jason and Tim is not that significant. Jason is only two years older than Tim. They’re both supposed to be badass vigilantes who can fight and solve crimes. Tim’s home life was loads more stable and supportive.

Play a few games of fanfic telephone, and all of a sudden you have a baseline of touch-starved Timmy who was made to sleep in a cupboard under the stairs as a wee little niblet and then Lazarus-mad Jason came along and tried to murder him repeatedly (nope), slit his throat (‘twas but a scratch), and generally traumatized him beyond repair (Tim is Robin, pretty sure he’s been beaten up before). 🤦‍♀️

That’s my opinion, anon! Thanks for the ask! 💙

[hongluboobs]

what's the debt of tears and what's this about cutting bao-yu open ?? also how does this relate to hong lu? i don't have the context to ask anything more specific but i need to know this.. . please

(ask in reference to this post )

Hi Anon! Apologies this took a bit, i got distracted with some projects and didn't have the energy to answer this right away, hopefully you're still here to see this :)

First off, Bao-yu is Hong Lu's book equivalent. I don't know if you already knew this, but I made the diagram with the assumption people knew this and it kind of blew up way bigger than intended on both here and twitter 😅

The debt of tears is a really big concept in Red Chamber surrounding the fates of Bao-yu and Dai-yu. Bao-yu was originally a piece of jade that the goddess was using to create the sky, but he ended up unused and cast onto the earth. From there, he ended up finding the Crimson Pearl Flower, which he watered every day. Eventually, the flower ended up transforming into a fairy (Dai-yu) due to the care with which he watered her. Dai-yu thinks on how she could repay him for this and settles on “The only way in which I could perhaps repay him would be with the tears shed during the whole of a mortal lifetime if he and I were ever to be reborn as humans in the world below.”

And wouldn't you believe it! They do end up reincarnated as humans in the world below. Bao-yu and Dai-yu are very close throughout their mortal lives, but the debt of tears comes back into the picture during Bao-yu's wedding. He believes he is getting married to Dai-yu as his family told him (because he wouldn't agree to marriage otherwise), but it isn't until the wedding starts he discovers this isn't the case and the family chose for him to marry someone else with a higher social standing. Dai-yu thinks Bao-yu was willingly deceiving her with this and is so distraught about it that she cries until she dies (she is very sickly pretty much constantly and this book is written like a soap opera) which fulfills the Debt of Tears.

As you can imagine, this really messes up Bao-yu. His mental state degrades throughout the book, but that's the nail in the coffin for it all. The debt of tears and the wedding is the emotional climax of the book, and I cannot imagine limbus's adaptation of the story not doing something with it.

The thing about cutting Bao-yu open happens in a dream, and is also related to the debt of tears/ Bao-yu and Dai-yu's relationship actually!

It happens in a dream Dai-yu has in chapter 82 where she's chosen as a second wife for a man and has to leave the Jias. She does Not Want this at all and is unable to do anything in order to stop it. Eventually, she finds Bao-yu and this scene plays out (this next section is words taken directly from the book. because im really normal about it. theres a tldr at the bottom if you aren't reading all that) :

Suddenly she thought: ‘Why haven’t I seen Bao-yu today? He might still know of a way out.’ And as the thought entered her mind, she looked up and sure enough, there, standing right in front of her, all laughter and smiles, was Bao-yu himself. ‘My warmest congratulations, coz!’ This was too much for Dai-yu. Her last vestige of maidenly reserve vanished. She clutched hold of him and cried out: ‘Now I know how heartless and cruel you really are, Bao-yu!’ ‘No, you are wrong,’ he replied. ‘But if you have a husband to go to, then we must go our separate ways.’ Dai-yu listened in despair as this, her very last hope, was taken from her. Clinging to him helplessly, she gave a feverish cry: ‘Oh Bao! I’ve no separate way to go! How could you say such a thing!’ ‘If you don’t want to go, then stay here,’ he replied calmly. ‘You were originally engaged to me. That’s why you came to live here. Has it never occurred to you how specially I’ve always treated you? Haven’t you noticed?’ Suddenly it all seemed clear. She really was engaged to Bao-yu after all. Of course she was! In an instant her despair changed to joy. ‘My mind is made up once and for ever! But you must give me the word. Am I to go? Or am I to stay?’ ‘I’ve told you, stay here with me. If you still don’t trust me, look at my heart.’ With these words he took out a small knife and brought it down across his chest. Blood came spurting out. Terrified out of her wits, Dai-yu tried to staunch the flow with her hand, crying out: ‘How could you? You should have killed me first!’ ‘Don’t worry,’ said Bao-yu. ‘I’m going to show you my heart.’ He fumbled about inside the gaping flesh, while Dai-yu, shaking convulsively, afraid someone might burst in on them at any moment, pressed him to her tightly and wept bitterly. ‘Oh no!’ said Bao-yu. ‘It’s not there any more! My time has come!’ His eyes flickered and he fell with a dull thud to the floor.

tl;dr Bao-yu reassures Dai-yu that there's a way out of her new engagement because she was originally brought to the jia house to be engaged to Bao-yu. Dai-yu is unsure of this and Bao-yu decides to show her his heart to convince her he's telling the truth. he does this by physically cutting his chest open to pull out his heart, but he lacks a heart within his chest to find.

Red Chamber isn't free of violence by any means, but this scene always fucking Got me. its so shocking out of nowhere and its such a potent image, i've drawn something akin to it before because it Got Me so much.

I brought it up in the diagram because his lack of heart reminded me of how the gloom peccatuli contain organs within them, but do not appear to be living organisms, or play part in biological activities. We know Hong Lu has his jade eye, which is probably either prosthetic or a Secret Third (non-normal human eye) Thing, so what's to say he doesn't have other inhuman oddities to him.

It also connects "truth" to physical exposure, in this case exposure not stopping at the skin and going deeper to the organ level. The intertwining of truth and fiction is a HUGE thing in red chamber and this would be really cool if the hypothetical Hong Lu distortion had elements from the gloom peccatulum for this as well (false organs exposed through transparent skin would be both true and false. Really cool)

There's also the concept of "seeing with the eyes" versus "seeing with the heart" which would go crazy when combining all of this. I don't think i can go into that there but tldr is this quote from the little prince

It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.

And with Hong Lu's eye connection... do you see what im putting down

[b0tster]

ever since coming out, i’ve had a very difficult time inserting myself into the lgbt community, specifically the trans community. i don’t know why; i’ve just never felt like i belong in any specific place, like i’m not good enough or look “proper” enough to take part. i’m not sure if that’s rooted in how isolated i was a kid and teenager just trying to to sort through this stuff. but i can’t be that way any more, and i guess in seeking to view myself as more “valid” i’ve gone through a lot of personal changes. and despite my internalized feelings towards myself from my childhood and parents and society at the time, i’ve come to love and accept myself for the project that i am.

i guess i just wanted to get that out since we’re all doing this.

to the anon, i just want to say: i was in a similar situation for years and years. i first started questioning myself when i was a child. it got worse as i got older. eventually i learned to just shove it down and ignore it. as i got older though, and grew more autonomous, and grew as a person, i realized that those feelings never went away. and from 19-25, i just kept crushing them down, but every time took more and more out of me.

i came out to my sister in tears at like 12:30am in the office of my workplace. her response? “yeah no that checks out for you.”

i’ve never been more relieved or angry, or laughed so hard, at a response, but that was the push over the edge i needed. and i don’t want you to think any of us are directly telling you that you are trans, you should transition, blah blah blah.

i have a lot of regrets about how i handled my transition. i wish i had access to more information in the 90s and 00s. i wish i had people like those that are all over this website, encouraging me to look inside myself to see what was going on. i wish i had had all of you incredible people to talk to. i spent the better part of 26 years denying who i was because i was afraid of what it might mean, and because i didn’t have any base of knowledge to understand any of my feelings. i felt alone and isolated, in that tiny ass rural town in virginia. it wasn’t until i got to college that i really saw people like me, and even then i was too intimidated, too afraid to approach or talk to them.

anon, my only real advice to you would just be to talk. find people to talk to. talk to yourself if you have to. if you think they’re steps you want to take? give them a shot. you can always stop if it doesn’t jive with you.

i started transitioning at 28. i lost my hrt a year and a half later. i just got it back a month ago, and now at 31, i’m back at square one.

my biggest regret will always be, that i didn’t give myself the chance to be myself sooner. don’t rob yourself of that chance, anon, by hiding your light under a bushel. we’ll all be around. talk to us. talk to everyone you can, and you’ll learn a little more about yourself each time. i just wish someone had told me that sooner.

love all of you guys. 💜. thank you for giving me a place to put this, botster, and thank you anon and botster for giving me an excuse to share my story.

Thank you so much for your kind words. I don't even know how to properly respond to this 🥺

I know its not fully directed at me though. But this shows how important it is to be out and proud for those who are willing.

Having a platform where people feel safe enough to ask these questions is so important.