#I went to pick through my drafts and figure out what I wanted to post next and had to double check my numbers

[witherby]

THIS BLOG IS LESS THAN TWO WEEKS OLD

IS THE DC FANDOM OK

[eyra]

stuff what I have learnt about writing good

If you've followed me for longer than two minutes then you'll likely know (because I keep going on about it) that I've been working on a novel for the past year. It's always been a dream of mine to write and publish a book and whilst I still have a long way to go before I can even start thinking about querying (whether on this book, or the next, or the next, etc.) I suppose I can now say that a book Exists. I have written A Book.

Now whether or not that book ever sees the light of day, the process of writing it has been truly eye-opening. I went in knowing virtually nothing and came out, still with a huge amount to learn, but with a whole library of tools that I didn't have before. I'm now putting these to use with the first draft of my second book and already the process feels so much more enjoyable, because I've started to figure out how to make it work for me.

I wanted to jot down what I've learnt purely for my own reference so I can keep looking back and reminding myself what worked for me first time around, but given that I get a nice number of asks picking my brain about my own writing process, I thought I might as well share all this with you lot in case there's anyone out there who finds it useful!

So here are the big things that I've learnt so far...

1. Not every trick works for every writer

This has been, by far, my biggest learning. Starting to plan a novel for me felt SO overwhelming - I felt like I was bombarded on all sides with "this is how to write a novel" content, and it felt like there was just too much to learn and like I would never find my way through it. I spent weeks (months...) doing every worksheet, every outlining method, every chart, anything I could get my hands on. Some of them, by the end, proved themselves very useful. A lot of them didn't. There are thousands of voices online that are telling you "this is the right way to write a book" or even "this is the ONLY way to write a book" - don't listen to them. Try things, but don't feel like you have to fit yourself into every single box. Just find the things that work for you.

2. It's possible to overplan

On a related note - sometimes you just need to start writing. I spent WAY TOO LONG faffing about before I put pen to paper with my first book. So, so long planning out characters and plot points, a lot of which I then had to completely reimagine mid-draft because I realised they just didn't work anymore. In hindsight, some of this was down to me being scared to actually start writing - the planning stage was a bit of a comfort zone for me, despite not naturally being a plotter/architect - I have always always always been a pantser/gardener, but I got sucked into the whole "proper authors do it THIS way" narrative.

With my second novel, I did a nice amount of planning but then just bit the bullet and started drafting. I know where my story begins, ends, what my major themes are, I know all my main characters and I know my key plot points. The rest, I'm figuring out as I draft. If nothing else - I'm having a lot more fun this time around.

3. Think about voice and tense before drafting

Yeah duh obvious right? NOT TO ME. If you were following me around April time, you may have witnessed a series of minor breakdowns when I realised that, having written a whole first draft in third person present tense, the entire book should actually have been written in first person past tense. So that meant, basically, starting over from scratch. This was a big learning for me, and not a mistake I'm likely to make again.

4. Stop looking at your word count

For someone who's never really put much thought into word count before - my approach with fanfiction has already been "it'll be as long as it'll be" - I got OBSESSED with the word count of my first couple of drafts. A lot of people will tell you that any good novel "has to be" under 100k words. I constantly see this one post on Pinterest that says "I promise you that you can tell the story you want to tell in 100k words or under." I'm definitely no expert on this (and I'll eat my words when an agent tells me my manuscript needs cutting down), but I'm sceptical - a lot of stories can and should be under 100k words, sure, but most of my favourite books are much longer than this. However, I did get stuck in a "this manuscript has to be between 70k and 100k words" mindset and felt like a failure whenever it was sitting outside of that bracket. Also - keep your genre in mind. If you're writing a rom-com, 70k could work perfectly. If you're writing fantasy, you're probably going to go over that.

5. Know whether you're an overwriter or an underwriter

And related to the above - know whether you tend to write bare bones-style then add to it, or whether you tend to dump it all on the page then cut back later. I'm the first, and I knew this, but I still panicked when my first draft was only around 70k. I felt like it was rushing through the plot at an unreasonable pace and it didn't feel "finished". This was because it was a first draft. By the time I sent my manuscript to my beta reader, it was around 126k.

6. The dumb stuff works

The title of the document for my first draft was "XXX - worst possible version" and at multiple points during the drafting process I changed the font to Comic Sans size 48. It works. Completely takes the pressure off and gives you full permission to write big, write silly, write unhinged, write mad things that you'll cut back by 90% later. But it gets it all on the page. If you're stuck or cringing at yourself in Times New Roman size 12, try Comic Sans size 48.

7. Don't compare your first draft to your favourite book

Like an idiot, I did this. I still find myself doing it. It's possibly my worst writing habit. I'll type out a page at 11pm after a full day at work and no dinner and then I'll pick up a published book and think "ah man, the page I've just written is nowhere NEAR as good as this." Published books are fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh drafts that then go through months and months of editing. Do not compare your manuscript to a published book. Just don't do it.

8. Don't try to be That Author

Good writers are good readers. Absolutely read broadly, read deeply, just read. Fiction, non-fiction, poetry, everything. And it's fine to find yourself influenced by other writers - that's how writing works. But don't try to BE other writers. One of the issues I had to unpick last year was that I was reading a lot of authors whose writing styles are very different to my own. I know my own style fairly well by this point - fanfiction's a great sandbox for figuring that out - but at certain moments during my editing phases I found myself cutting away at my prose because it felt "too different" to the books I was reading at the time. This was a weird thing for me to have done, and I went back and fixed it later.

I think what I'm trying to say with this one is: take inspiration from everywhere, let yourself be influenced by different writing styles, but find your own voice and trust it. Literature already has a Sally Rooney and a Donna Tartt and a Leigh Bardugo. It doesn't need a clone - it needs you!

I'll finish by sharing what I've found to be the most useful plotting template. This obviously isn't the total extent of my planning process by any means, but after trying about a million different plotting techniques for my first manuscript, this is the one:

The 27 chapter method (more examples here)

And finally, two little character tricks that I find invaluable:

AITAH?

Character philosophy

I hope someone out there finds something useful in this post! Although I've been writing in some capacity since I was a teenager, 2024 was definitely the year I realised that I am a writer at my core. I want to be a published author, but I'm already a writer. It brings me happiness like nothing else in the world! And I love to talk about all aspects of writing, so my ask box is always very much open.

Happy scribbling! x

[tlbodine]

Stuck? Try junebugging.

I don't know who needs to hear this, but we're 5 days into nanowrimo so maybe this will be helpful.

Do you want the safety and surety of knowing what happens next in your story but can't stick to an outline? Does knowing in advance what will happen suck the joy out of discovery writing? Do you try to wing it through plots but get tangled in plot holes or have a story that runs out of steam because you can't figure out what went wrong? Are you at your most creative when you have a little bit of guidance? Do you tend to under-write? Do you get ideas in your head for random scenes and snippets that drop from the sky without context?

If any of these apply to you, junebugging a draft might be for you!

What Is Junebugging?

Since you're on Tumblr, you might already be familiar with the concept of junebugging as it relates to cleaning. If not -- I think the idea was first introduced to me by @jumpingjacktrash.

The basic idea is that you tackle cleaning by way of controlled chaos. You pick a specific area you want to focus on, like your kitchen sink, and then wander off to deal with other things as they occur to you, but always returning back to that area. You end up cleaning a little bit at a time in an order that may not make sense to an outsider but which keeps you from getting overwhelmed and discouraged.

How Does Junebugging Work in Writing?

OK, so that's great, but how does this work with writing? Well. In my case, the general idea is to jump between writing linearly, outlining, and writing out of order. It usually looks something like:

Start free-writing a scene, feeling my way through it and enjoying the discovery process.

Thinking, ok, now I have this scene, did anything need to happen to lead up to it? Do I need to go back and add some foreshadowing? Does this scene set anything up that needs to be paid off? And then jump forward/back to make those adjustments.

I'll usually have a bunch of disconnected ideas of ideas that have popped into my head, so I'll write those down in a list somewhere and then try to figure out what goes in between them and what order it goes in.

I'll write what I call "micro-scenes" which is where I'll just sketch out a few essential elements of what's going on without worrying too much about details, description, etc. -- just he did this, she said that, the setting was this, real bare-bones script. Then I can come back through and flesh out each of those microscenes into an actual scene later.

Got a story that has a complex structure? No problem. Write through each storyline one at a time and then chop them up and weave them together afterward. Write all the B plot scenes first then come back through to do A plot and C plot. Move the pieces around like legos. No one ever has to know.

This method works for me because I can't "decide" story elements in advance. I have never been able to just sit down and "figure out" what happens in a story beyond a couple steps ahead -- I have to discovery-write my way forward. But at the same time, that gets really daunting. So I zoom forward with micro-scenes, roughing out the beats in the most bare-bones way possible, then when I run out of clear vision for what happens next I backtrack, flesh out those scenes, build in connective tissue, etc. and by then I will probably find more inspiration to jump forward.

It's basically folding drafting, outlining, and revising all together into a single phase of writing, which is chaotic and goes against everything people teach you, but if it works? then it fuckin works.

Anyway, sorry for the jumbled-up post, I'm dashing this off quickly while I heat up a pizza and I'm about to dive back into my WIP -- but I hope this was a little helpful. If nothing else, take this as my blanket permission that it's 100% OK to jump around, write out of order, write messy, outline sometimes, pants sometimes, and do whatever else it takes just to get through the story. You've got this. Good luck.

[jjkamochoso]

Okay guys I screwed this up yesterday!! This was a request from @killuagirly and was originally an ask but I accidentally posted it unfinished instead of saving as a draft and had to delete it lol SO here's the request: "Another Feitan request! Feitan with a Female Reader who's dying to 'pretty him up'! He's already gorgeous as is of course, but wouldn't it be so fun to do a morning & nightly routine with him? If she's lucky, Feitan will let her paint his nails! He goes for black when she asks what color he'd like, but maybe with a little pink heart on each ring finger! He wouldn't mind that much, so long as the Troupe doesn't see of course. He'd never hear the end of it."

Here's my answer to the ask: I loved this so much😭❤️ thank you for always bringing me your Feitan ideas, I absolutely love writing for this man🥺❤️ I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it!!🫶

And finally, here's the fic:

Pretty in Portor

Fluff

Feitan Portor x f!reader

Warnings: slight mentions of violence

Feitan had no clue how he got so easily persuaded by you. It was like you put a spell on him or used some sort of crazy Nen technique to manipulate his actions. Of course, he knew that wasn’t the case—

He just really, really loved you.

That’s why he found himself in your room in the hideout of whatever city the Phantom Troupe had business in this time, wearing a fluffy headband pulling back his bangs while you applied a face mask to his pale skin. You already had your own on, sporting a fluffy headband matching his.

“Why you no ask Machi or Shizuku, even Pakunoda, to do this?”

“They’re not into this kind of stuff,” you whined.

“And I am?” he questioned, prompting you to jokingly swat at him. “You bring in water? I no going out to bathroom to wash off.”

“Of course. I’m not a monster,” you replied. “I won’t make you too uncomfortable as you so sweetly partake in my nightly routine with me.”

“Too late,” he grumbled, earning a gentle flick of the forehead.

After you both rinsed off the mask, you rummaged through your belongings to find the rest of your skincare items. You laid them out on the bed, all of the foreign labels piquing Feitan’s interest.

“What this?” he asked, picking up a small jar.

“I was just looking for that! Thank you,” you said as he handed it to you. “It’s exfoliation for your lips. It gets all the dead skin off and makes them smooth. You want some?”

“Looks sticky. Absolutely not.”

“Your loss.” You giggled mischievously before your voice gained a flirty tone. “You know, if you ever wanna kiss anyone, this is a great way to make sure your lips are smooth.”

Feitan glared at you mercilessly. “Don’t say stupid things.”

“Just a suggestion!” you exclaimed, putting your hands up in defense. You put some of the product on your lips and scrubbed with your finger, taking care to get your lips nice and soft. Feitan busied himself with looking at your array of items, thinking your words over and trying not to blush. His eyes trailed up, sneaking a glance at the way your finger ran over your now moisturized lips as his mind filled with what they might feel like against his own…

He quickly went back to his reading of ingredients on whatever bottle he picked up, trying to shake those thoughts out of his head. You were none the wiser of what he was thinking about, though you couldn’t help but notice that Feitan was a little too engrossed in the bottle of serum he was holding, especially after his not-so-subtle peek at you just a minute ago. You wondered if maybe that could mean he felt the same about you that you did about him? You hadn’t a clue and it didn’t help to ponder over questions you were sure you’d never have answers to, so you picked up a bottle of nail polish to forget your worries for the moment.

“You want your nails done too?” you asked.

“Only if you have black,” he snorted, figuring your girly, pink loving self wouldn’t be caught dead in black nail polish. To his horror, you procured a bottle of his color request and held it up.

“Perfect! I’ll do yours after I do mine.”

Feitan wanted to protest, but knew it was no use. He was a man of his word, after all, so he sat quietly, mindlessly flipping through a book he had brought into your room as you began to paint your nails.

“All done,” you had said after a few minutes. “Your turn!”

Feitan groaned but sat across from you anyway.

“Hand, please,” you told him. He held out his left hand first and you went to work, but not before he almost shivered at the skin-on-skin contact. When both hands were done, two coats of polish and one layer of lotion later, Feitan was impressed with the end result. He had to admit, he was a fan of the dark color contrasting against his skin.

“They look so pretty!” you gushed, fawning over the great job you did with his nails. You grasped his fingers and turned them every which way, inspecting them closely. They looked nice, sure, but they were missing something.

Your eyes lit up. “I know! I can paint a little heart on one of the nails.”

“Anatomical?” He smiled darkly. “Bloody?”

You screwed your nose up in disgust. “No, I was thinking something more like this.”

You picked up a small brush, used for creating tiny details, and dipped it into the pink polish bottle. You then carefully made a few strokes over each of his pinky nails, drawing a dainty heart on each one.

“There,” you said triumphantly. Feitan looked at his nails, confused at how he should feel. On one hand, it was sweet of you to include him in your hobbies and enthusiastically make him participate, but on the other hand, how could you not see how wildly ironic it was, painting cutesy hearts on the nails of a sadistic torturer? The same nails that were normally inflicting pain and misery, caked in blood and other bodily fluids, were now covered in nail polish and sweet smelling lotion, being treated with a tenderness he forgot he had craved for so long. Unfortunately, because there was a “no fighting your fellow Troupe members” rule, Feitan wouldn’t dare to walk out of your room with the nail art; he couldn’t bear the idea of being teased to no end and not being able to shut the person up with violence.

“Tch. Cover it with paint. I no need anyone seeing this.”

“Aww Fei, are you sure?” you pouted. “But you look adorable!”

“No want to look adorable when killing someone. That your job.”

You giggled as you opened the black polish bottle again while the man quickly looked away, trying to hide his sheepishness at the compliment he inadvertently gave you. Now that your last minute art additions were covered, it made it even more special to him. He loved knowing he had your heart, a little piece of you, hidden away in a place only he knew of.

“This is more your style anyway,” you said, smiling softly at his plain black nails. You were about to put the polish back in your bag but before you could do anything, Feitan stopped you.

“Wait. Sit.”

You obliged, curious to know what he was up to. Feitan himself seemed surprised that he spoke up, but nevertheless continued.

“Choose color and give me brush.”

Your stomach fluttered with excitement when you realized he was going to do some nail art on you as well.

“I’ll do black,” you said, “that way we’ll match each other.”

“Gross,” he muttered, feeling his cheeks warm as he studied your splayed out hands in front of him, not daring to peek at your gorgeous face in his flustered state. He busied himself with the brush, starting his art. You decided to wait until he was done before looking at your nails to keep it a surprise. Your eyelashes fluttered closed, enjoying the relaxing atmosphere. Feitan, now finished, was going to question why you hadn’t said anything yet but he looked up to see your shut eyes. You looked so peaceful that he wouldn’t be surprised if you were asleep. His gaze darted down to your lips, the skin softer than ever after your exfoliation, and he was so terribly tempted to kiss you. He stared you down, deathly still as he took this time to inspect all of your pretty facial features while he knew for sure you wouldn’t catch him doing so.

“Feitan,” you whispered, his skin erupting in goosebumps at the way you said his name, “are you all done?”

He wanted to say no, have you all to himself as he continued to commit your every fine line and curve of your expression to his memory, but as selfish of a man he was, he didn’t want to make you wait to see his work any longer.

“Open eyes.”

You did what he said, but instead of your nails, your vision was filled with the handsome face of the man you adored to no end.

“So pretty,” you breathed out, getting lost in his gray eyes.

“You haven’t seen nails yet, idiot,” he chided, wishing the acid in his stomach could dissolve the butterflies flying around in it.

“Hmm? Yeah, you’re right,” you replied, finally examining his artistry. You gasped with delight at what you saw. Feitan had drawn a skull, similar to the one on his cowl, on each of your ring fingers.

“They’re perfect! Feitan, I love it! Thank you!” you exclaimed. He was about to answer you but was dumbstruck when you planted a kiss at the corner of his lips before bringing him into a bone crushing hug.

“I’m just so excited! We look so good!” you continued, eventually pulling away from him with a big smile. “I’ll be right back, I’m going to show everyone!”

You ran off, your bunny slippers thumping against the hard floor. Feitan brought his polished fingers to his face where they rested against the spot you had just kissed, letting a lovestruck grin rest on his face.

Your lips were even softer than he dreamed of.

[always-andromeda]

𝐰𝐢𝐬𝐡 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞…

𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 ⟡ Joel Miller x Tess Servopoulos

𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭 ⟡ 700

𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲 ⟡ Joel mourns a life he wishes he could've had.

𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫'𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞 ⟡ I've had this one stuck in my drafts for a long while. I've been adding to it little by little whenever I've felt sad enough. It's a tiny drabble and I don't feel super confident in it. But I'm trying to ease back into writing. Forgive me for not posting in a while. Life has been a little busy. But please accept my offering of some sad, angsty shit lmao.

𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 ⟡ pure, unadulterated angst. mentions of Ellie. nothing else I can think of!!

He tries not to think about it. About what she’d think – what she’d say – seeing him now. Hair longer than she ever got the chance to see; long enough that she could run her fingers through the silver streaked strands. When he finds himself alone on a quiet night he can sometimes feel it. Her lithe digits caressing the nape of his neck in a way that she never could outside the safety of their four walls.

Back then, everyone knew just who he answered to. Joel Miller was her attack dog through and through. All Tess had to do was point and unclip the leash and he was off. It was an effective arrangement. He used to have an anchor point; a shelter to be reeled back into when he strayed too far. It was a shelter that went up in flames along with Tess. And Jackson is all uncharted, all marked by unfamiliar touches that aren’t hers.

Some part of him always knew it went far deeper than a business arrangement. It was pure luck that staying with Tess was beneficial in both a practical sense and a…less practical sense. Of course he’d always been reluctant to question the less practical parts of their relationship.

Maybe that’s why he does now; when she’s no longer around to pick it apart herself.

He finds Tess in the oddest things. Ellie’s jokes, for one. He knows that Tess would’ve gotten a kick out of them. She would’ve rolled her eyes before remarking, “That was terrible.” All while harboring the slightest grin. Sometimes it’s the image in his head of her eyes glimmering that makes him crack a smile of his own.

It seemed a cruel joke that the world had taken Tess and bestowed the teenager upon him in the same breath. But it made sense. After all, it was the same world that took Sarah and then gave him Tess to begin with. Some days he doesn’t question the trade off. There’s no use. Tess wouldn’t have wanted him to question her sacrifice that way. Other days it is much more difficult to listen to the more practical version of her. Some days…he strays.

She would’ve loved the food. It wasn’t like Bill’s gourmet lunches. But those QZ rations had nothing on the food from the greenhouse. She would’ve loved the fruit. When summer came around he remembered the way she’d woken up from a dream one night. She’d dreamt she was a kid. She was at a farm her parents used to take her to in the summers. She got to bite into the deep crimson flesh of a plum. The juice had only just begun to run down her chin when she’d woken up. Her voice was soft and barely audible over the rumble of FEDRA trucks rolling by their apartment. She said it was just something stupid. To him it was something sacred. He couldn’t explain to Ellie why he’d gone quiet when he saw a basket of plums in the cafeteria. And he wasn’t surprised when his tasted sour.

Even his house felt occupied. Her figure floated in door frames as he cooked and cleaned and did whatever menial task he needed to. Hip cocked and lips curled into a smirk as she teased him over how much he traded for coffee beans. He would’ve said something humorous in response, he’s sure of it. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway. She was always far too clever for him. She’d state as much as he poured her a fresh cup of coffee.

It always takes him a second to come back to his reality. There’s no second mug to fill, no second plate at the dinner table, no second pair of boots by the door, no one to share a bed or bathroom with. It’s always empty save for him and his cruel imagination.

How could she haunt a place she’d never been? Maybe that didn’t even matter. Maybe what they’d shared over those difficult years went beyond a time or place. Whether he liked it or not, she was there. But not in the ways that mattered most. Not in the ways Joel wished she was.

[queenofbaws]

"i missed hearing your voice.." Jossam post game? I hope things are going alright

He told himself that he wasn't worried, that he'd pulled off crazier stunts than this without breaking a sweat. The ball was in his court, after all, and even if he didn't have the home team advantage as he parked his car and stepped out onto her driveway (salt crunching under his feet like grit from the mines), other advantages abounded: he looked pathetic, for one, bruised like an overripe summer peach; he'd had time to run his lines, for another, drafting before refining, refining before editing, editing before finalizing, finalizing before practicing, practicing, practicing.

Even now, as he carefully climbed the steps to her front door, setting a little more weight than usual against the side rail (he'd landed strangely when he'd fallen into the vent shaft, and all the kings horses and all the kings men hadn't quite been able to figure out how or why he'd managed to fuck that muscle group up in such a particular fashion), he worked through the script in his head:

Hi there, long time no see! I was in the neighborhood, thought I'd check in...I think maybe you forgot to pay your phone bill this month - the damn thing just rings and rings when I call, no answer, no voicemail, nothing. Hey, look, don't sweat it, I don't even care that you kinda-sorta blew the lodge to smithereens, that's what we've got insurance for, know what I mean? What's a little property damage between friends? Oh, quick question while I have you: You don't, ha ha ha, hee hee hee, hoo hoo hoo, I don't know, hate me, do you?

But before he could so much as knock, Sam opened the door and his oh-so-brilliant plan crumbled into so much dust.

She had that effect on him. Always had.

Why hadn't he planned for that?

There was a beat where they simply stood like that, opposite one another in a hundred separate ways, her arms folded despite being on the warmer side of the threshold, his open wide despite the cold, both of them posturing, posturing, posturing as if they could fix the problem through body language alone.

Josh wet his lips. Forgot his lines. "Hi." There. Hi there. That was what he'd practiced, that was what he'd written, that was part of the plan that would endear him to her again. It wouldn't come out, though, couldn't squeeze its way through the pinhole of his throat, not now that she was actually looking at him, not now that they were close enough for him to smell her fabric softener and see the butterfly bandage holding that cut over her eyebrow together.

He tried again, took it from the top as Dad would say...and failed just as spectacularly. "I, uh, hi."

Sam's entire body seemed to move with her breath, drawing up on the inhale, folding over on the exhale. She was tired, he saw, she was so, so tired - and all because of him. "What do you want, Josh?" she asked, the question smooth and unhalting, improvised but earnest.

He hadn't considered that. Hadn't planned on a question. He hadn't practiced any answers, hadn't drafted a line of banter that would come across as suitably apologetic while still being rakish and playful, and -

And...

And.

And, God help him, it all just came out.

"I wanted to see you," he said, the rush of blood in his ears deafening him to his own voice, filling his head with panicked radio static. "I know I'm the last person you want to see, but...you weren't answering your phone, you weren't answering your messenger, you weren't answering your email - holy shit, Sammy, I almost picked up a pencil to write you an actual hand-to-God letter, but I was worried you'd throw it in the shredder as soon as you saw my name, and there'd go my seventy-three cents of postage. In this economy, I - "

Her eyebrows went up. His stomach sank into his feet.

He tried again.

"Look, I...I know you don't want to talk to me. If I were you, I wouldn't want to talk to me either, but...but you don't have to talk. You don't have to say a word to me if you don't want, you can close the door in my face right here, right now, and I'll get it, I really will, but I just..." His throat was a desert. He swallowed hard, found his words cracking anyway. "I miss hearing your voice. I miss seeing you. I...I miss everything about you, and I know the only person to blame for that shit is me, but I don't know how to fix it, so..." Out went his arms again, a pathetic mimicry of himself, a gesture as hollow as it was familiar. "I'm open to suggestions."

Sam took another breath, her shoulders rising then falling, her gaze never flinching, and something in the shape of her mouth, the jut of her hip, convinced him that he'd been right, that she was only a second away from slamming the door in his face, turning the latch so hard he'd be able to hear it click. After what he'd put her through - after what he'd put them all through - it was what he deserved, what he had coming, what he'd brought down on himself, what he'd -

"You should probably start by coming in, then," she sighed, finally dropping her eyes from his as she held the door open, making space for him to step inside. "My list's a little too long to go through with the wind blowing like that - trust me, I've timed it."

"I bet you have, Sammy," he said as he took that first step onto the mat, his eyes prickling from the warmth of her house and something else, something he wasn't quite willing to let himself believe yet. "And I'm all ears."

[mvltisstuff]

What about a fic where reader is Evan’s sister and gets into a bad car accident? Lots of angst but also some fluff please. 🫶🫶

slipping through my fingers - e.b

summary: request :)

evan buckley x sister!reader (a lot of maddie too 🩶)

a/n: i have an eddie diaz oneshot in the drafts currently that i’ve been debating on posting. it contains a pretty sensitive subject, so i really wanted to get it right. it was inspired by another request, along with another show. i hope you enjoy this and i’ll keep on writing some more for you guys :))

y/n could say growing up with as the youngest buckley wasn’t the easiest task. the consistency of begging for attention was draining from the start. going above and beyond for just a grain of appreciation was the default in their house. she was repeatedly looked through, almost as if she wasn’t there due to her parents grief.

she had come after buck in a desperate attempt to be able to save david, but failed in the end. he was gone too soon, so therefore, y/n was almost like a chore. sure, her parents loved her, but she wasn’t the child they wanted. dealing with the discovery of why she wasn’t loved enough was just as bad as experiencing it. maddie was in boston with doug, and buck had gone onto his own adventures. meanwhile y/n was stuck at home with nowhere to go and no plans of leaving. she dreamed about it, though. she heard about buck moving to los angeles and immediately wanted to be with him. she was almost done with college, and after that, she packed up her diploma and degree and flew away.

life in california was amazing. she had friends, she was loved, and she had no reminders of the lonesomeness she felt at home. for once, she was able to make a home out of where she was. maddie was safe, and it felt like they were a fixed version of their family.

out of the pure intentions in her heart, y/n invited her distant parents back to LA. with maddie expecting a new baby, and the years of a few texts, there was a new hope that maybe things could be turned around. it wouldn’t change their childhood experiences, but maybe they could heal them. maddie was on board, but buck was still skeptical. their words were like knives and the scars couldn’t be helped. he showed up anyway, wanting to give maddie and her baby the opportunity to have a life with them.

they travelled six hours, and chimney and maddie were gracious enough to host a dinner for everyone. maddie received hugs and gifts as buck and y/n were kind of nudged away. when maddie got her baby box that her parents had from when they were kids, buck and y/n had just become dusty figures. they didn’t say anything, at least not about that.

an explosive speech from buck had ignited from the judgmental words from their parents, causing him to be begging for love and expressing his inner teenage self. he had removed himself from the dining room of the apartment, and y/n sat in her seat, slumped over with her head in her hands.

“god, can you guys please just do something other than reprimand us?” y/n breaks the awkward silence.

“we were just speaking, y/n!” says their father. “if evan wants to storm out, let him.”

“well, maybe he wouldn’t have stormed out if you didn’t nit-pick ever part of his life.”

“you invited us, y/n. i don’t know what you want us to say. you know what we went through-“

“and you think that’s an excuse? if so, it’s a shitty one and we all know it. no parent should have to say goodbye to a child, but no child needs to go unloved because they don’t care anymore. and you didn’t even bat an eye when he begged you to ‘love him anyway’. so if you want to sit here, and tear down everything we have build from your actions, be our guest.”

“you always defend your siblings, y/n. you guys have never once put yourself in our shoes!” their mother cries out.

“oh, trust me, we did. for over 20 years,” maddie breaks in.

“how do you think we feel, maddie? you all just packed up your stuff and ran away to leave us with nothing,” speaks their father, again.

“dad, i can’t… i can’t do this. everything i did, i did it myself. i made this life here for myself! so did maddie, so did buck. don’t go putting yourselves on a pedestal,” she begins to gather her things, and put hers and bucks dinner plates away for maddie and chimney.

“where are you going?” chimney says, trying to calm everything down and he’s definitely in the most awkward situation.

“chim, thank you for dinner and letting us come over. you’re welcome over to my place anytime. i’m sorry, but i’m going to see my brother,” y/n says, shutting the door behind her.

while maddie stays back, trying to pick up the broken pieces, y/n drives over to bucks apartment. she repeatedly calls him, making sure he’s okay and to say that she’s coming over. the roads were dark from the early sunsets of the fall, barely illuminated from the streetlights.

“buck,” she says into her phone. “i know you’re pissed off, and im sorry i arranged this. but i need to know you’re ok, so im on my way over. please call me back.”

she ends the voicemail and tries to put her phone back into the holder. it slips out of her shaky hands and onto the floor of the seat. she groans out, worried he would call her back and she wouldn’t be able to answer. she doesn’t reach down, but she looks at the phone on the floor.

a drunk, someone intoxicated with alcohol, must have been driving like a maniac. swerving through lanes with no warning and passing several signs. she tried so hard. she tried to move out of the way, but the spontaneous movements of the driver had confronted their cars head on.

the flash of white from y/n’s airbags flew out at her. the glass of her windshield was shattered, laying all over the dashboard and the seats. her head drooped onto her shoulder. the cuts on her face were stinging and the other pain in her body went unnoticeable due to shock. the soft ringtone of her phone was vibrating on the bottom of the car. the ringing in her ears caused the sound to be faded out, and she couldn’t even get it to call 9-1-1.

“maddie, hey,” buck says as maddie picks up the phone. “have you, uh, tried calling y/n? she left me so many calls and now she won’t answer.”

“no, i haven’t. she said she was coming to see you,” maddie replies, confused.

“where’s mom and dad?”

“the hotel, they left soon after her.”

buck pulls his phone away from his ear and the buzzing on his hand. y/n’s name appears across the screen. “oh, she’s calling me know,” he hangs up the phone and answers it to a bone-chilling sentence.

“is this evan buckley?” a deep, unknown voice asks in bucks ear.

y/n was awake in the ambulance, hearing all the chaos and jargon around her. she knew she’d never hear the end from buck, being a firefighter. she begged them to let him know, telling them repeatedly, “my brother works at the 118,” and how maddie is a dispatcher.

she was wheeled into the hospital on her stretcher, collar on and a big bandage around her waist for a massive piece of glass in her abdomen. “y/n buckley, 27, three-car pileup with an oblique fracture to the tibia and penetration wound to the abdomen, likely to not have hit any major organs.” and before she knew it, she was sped into the trauma rooms and given more morphine. she just wanted her brother and sister. not all these doctors or her parents.

buck picked up maddie on the way to the hospital, not thinking twice before smashing the gas pedal down. he ran through those doors like a strike of lighting, being seen in one place and somewhere else the next. he forced her name out to the nurse as maddie caught up to him. “relation to the patient?”

“brother, and sister,” he says, impatiently, both hands flat on the counter.

the nurse typed rapidly on her computer. “she’s in surgery, honey. but she’s stable.”

buck puffs out a sigh of relief as maddie grabs his arm, leading him to the waiting room. almost all of the 118 was in this hospital, like she was a firefighter herself. chimney had brought hen, and eddie had come as well as bobby. athena had told bobby, as she was the one who arrested the man who caused the crash.

buck tries to calm himself down remembers all the times he tried to one-up her and smiles at the memories. he and maddie exchange small and sweet memories of their little sister, as her life remains in the hands of someone else.

“hey,” maddie nudges him, trying to think of something to cheer him up. “remember when she stole 20’s out of our wallet to buy us christmas gifts?”

buck giggles a bit, “yeah, and then we tried playing tag, so we spun her around a ton of times and hid inside until she just sat there.”

“and then she fell down the stairs from being so dizzy,” maddie smiles.

“ruthless!” chim interrupts, sitting next to maddie.

“you know you two are what made it so hard to leave.”

“i know. imagine having to leave her all alone with mom and dad, though. she’s gotta be ok, maddie.”

“she will, buck. no one’s getting rid of her that easy.”

the doctor with a scrub cap on comes walking into the waiting room, followed by a few interns and others. “buckleys?”

maddie and buck shoot out of their seat first, and chimney and hen follow soon after like a train. “oh, my bad.” hen says, pulling her and chim back down to sit.

“what’s goin’ on, doc?”

“y/n will be fine. she had a fracture in her leg which we fixed up. she’ll need some help getting around, but she’ll be good as new,” the doctor informs.

they knew she would make it out, but hearing it being confirmed by the doctor made it so much more real. buck was speechless, not being able to mutter out any words. “can we see her?” maddie asks.

“you can, she’s still sedated from anesthesia and intubated, but cynthia, here, can lead you to the room.”

seeing y/n’s fragile and hurt body on the bed was an agonizing sight. maybe if buck hadn’t stormed out, she wouldn’t be in this bed and have come across that driver. maybe he could’ve driven her home. all the ‘if’s’ and ‘maybes’ in bucks head were floating through, thinking it’s his fault. he always takes the blame for these situations when it is completely the opposite.

buck sees tragedy every day, and maddie hears it. maddies only sister was in the small hospital room with a tube down her throat. she needed y/n there to help her, and her baby needed her aunt. buck needed his little sister, the one always there for him and forever will be. the thought of her not being there scared him to death. even though they see get rushed into the hospital or sent to the morgue every day, it will never prepare you from seeing your favorite people in that position.

buck stumbled over to the chair by the side of the bed, pulling it out for maddie to rest her aching feet. he walked to the other side of the bed, sitting down and grabbing lightly onto y/n’s hand like he was scared to break it. “i don’t know if we should say something. let her know we’re here, you know.”

“she knows, evan,” maddie says, meeting bucks eyes with her own. “i know that.”

buck smiles and looks down at y/n, her chest rising and falling with the hissing of the tubes and machines. he observes the iv’s and cuts and fresh new bruises. he wants to kill whoever did this, but at the moment, his only concern is the well-being of y/n.

so, for the rest of the night, maddie and buck didn’t move from their spots once until she was awoken and the tube was removed. they held her hand, and when y/n was awoken, she knew she was safe from the hands that were tangled with hers.

[imagionationstation]

Is there more to Mikey's and Donnie's meeting of the SAINW story?

See, the silly part of me just wanted to type, “yes” and then post.

But I get the feeling that actually this means, “Can we see more of the moment when Mikey and Donnie meet?”

And to that I say-!

Yeah, sure, it’s just sitting in my drafts anyway.

Now I just gotta figure out where the technical ‘meeting’ begins and ends before they transition to other things…. Mmmm… Okay!

Disclaimer: This is an old first draft, unedited.

Donnie stood up just as he caught a shadow move out of the corner of his eye. He instinctively ducked behind the garbage can and peered around it to pinpoint if this was a figment of his imagination or a new danger. 

The cloaking night was definitely not helping with his investigation, but he could quickly tell that whatever it was, it definitely wasn't the previous.

His hand slipped into his belt for smoke bombs as the shadow slipped about, it's movement slightly erratic and searching, and he crouched down when it near his position. He was just about to chuck the smoke bombs and bolt when the shadow spoke, it's voice barely above a whisper, yet somehow undeniably familiar. 

"-promise, I'm not gonna hurt you. I'm the good guy. Seriously, I'm like, a great guy. Everyone says so. I just wanna take you somewhere safe. Swear it on a turtle's honor. I'm-"

"Mikey?"

Donnie jumped to his feet and moved out from behind the dumpster, so much hope stirring that it almost hurt. The shadow completely froze and the more Donnie stared, the more he could make out the broad shell and shape of a mutant turtle. His belt was different and now bore a vertical strap like his own, a mask framing wide baby-blue eyes that cut through the darkness, one visible arm clutching a nunchuck while the other remained hidden in shadow. 

"Mikey!" Overjoyed to find one of his siblings way sooner than he could have possibly hoped, he began to move forward, only to pause when Mikey quickly put three more steps between them, moving from the shadows and into full view. 

Donnie went entirely rigid when he realized that his left arm hadn't simply been cloaked in shadows, but was missing entirely, a healed over stump all that was left. His mind racing to comprehend this, he barely picked up on the way Mikey's posture seemed anxious and defensive, eyes that normally sparkled with life hardened warily. 

"So... You're not dead."

"Well, I- no..." 

Mikey seemed to deflate a bit at this and then looked him over again, giving Donnie the impression he was expecting him to say or do something. 

Donnie could only blink as he struggled to form a coherent sentence. "What- what happened to- you? And- And New York?"

Mikey raised an eye ridge, his expression a spookily close reflection of Leo's you-can't-be-serious face. "Alien invasion, dude. Duh. You been hiding under a rock for all these years?"

His tone was unnaturally cold and Donnie had to do a double take on the last accusation. "All these...? I don't... Why would I have been...?"

Mikey stared at him for a moment as though unsure what to make of him and then shook his head dismissively. "Whatever. See ya, dude."

Wha- see ya!?

Donnie's heart launched to his throat as Mikey turned and then he bolted forward, skidding in his path almost frantically. He needed a trustworthy face to help him out. He had way to many unanswered questions and they were only piling up by the second. 

Besides, why would he just up and abandon him there?!

Mikey raised his arm as if to defend himself, the movement drawing Donnie's attention to the purple clothe tied around his wrist. His eyes strayed on it before he turned back to his younger brother, who he suddenly realized was taller than he remembered. And broader.

A terrifying realization began trying to creep in and his voice trembled despite his best efforts to still it. "Mikey, wait! Please! I need your help! I don't know what's going on! I just- I woke up in the lab and- and the lair was obliterated and- and- and now the Kraang have taken over!? I mean, just yesterday the very idea of a full invasion was purely hypothetical! Please Mikey, I don't understand any of this and I need-"

"Woah, woah, dude, hold up." Donnie clamped his mouth shut as every nerve in his body went wild, his younger brother studying him as though unsure what to make of his existence. "So, what, is this, like- amnesia?"

Donnie gave a weak shrug, not quite trusting himself to open his mouth, and Mikey's expression seemed to change. A new curiosity wiped away the hardened tint that looked so out of place on his little brother's face. "Huh. Okay. What do you remember then?"

"Wa- uh, we had an argument, I got mad, went into my lab and..." His eyes widened and he quickly grabbed the strap of his bag, moving it in front of him and rummaging through it. "A Kraang device that I took went off and I- have- it- sooomewhe-here it is!"

He pulled out the smooth circle and presented it for Mikey's examination. His younger brother looked between it and him with interest, something bright and familiar appearing in his gaze. His voice lost the accusing tint. "How's it work?" 

"I don't know. I was examining it when it zapped me and everything went nuts." He gingerly ran his fingers along the side as he'd done before and the rods suddenly began to spark, both brothers gasping as a electric pink began to grow in the hole before something fizzled and it vanished. 

"Is that what happened last time?" All traces of angry Mikey was gone, and replaced with the giddy little brother who always came to his lab in the hopes of being wowed by a new invention. 

This helped Donnie's nerves to settled and he brought it closer to his face, studying the middle. "Not exactly... There was more of a painful explosion. There must have been some kind of power surge when I hit the hidden switch, perhaps whatever this is wasn't a completed project, and now it's fried. Unfortunate, really, I would have liked to know what it did."

He glanced over to Mikey and realized he was staring at him both intently and like he'd lost his mind. He lowered the device awkwardly, wondering if he was missing something. "What?" 

"How old are you?"

Distractedly, Donnie turned his attention back to the device, turning it over in his palm to study the side, wondering if he need to explain the logistics of being quadruplets again. "Sixteen, just like you." 

"Dude. I'm twenty."

Donnie's entire body stiffened and he turned to him in shock. "Excuse me?"

"Gonna be twenty-one in four months. Pretty much an ah-dult." Mikey lifted his finger wisely before pointing at the device. "And you should be too, cause you've been missing for almost five years, bro. But if you don't remember it and you certainly don't look like you've grown up..."

"Bu- n-no, I-"

"That means," Mikey gushed as Donnie's mind fought against acknowledging anything or putting pieces together. "you either drank from the fountain of youth and it gave you amnesia, or that, my stammering bro, is a certified Kraang time travel device!" 

"Time travel isn't possible." Donnie argued anxiously, earning a disapproving scoff. "Oh, yeah? Then how else do you explain all this? Hmm? Hmmmm!? Time travel, brah! Time! Travel!"

Donnie's mouth opened and shut without retort as things began making more sense without him wanting them to. Why he woke up alone in a demolished lab. Why the lair was a wreck. How the Kraang succeeded invading New York. Why Mikey seemed so different-

Wait. What happened to everyone else!?

"Mikey!" His younger brother stopped what appeared to be excited muttering as he paced and spun towards him. "Mikey, where is the rest of our family? Our friends? Is everyone okay?" 

Mikey looked like he was about to respond when his eyes suddenly widened and he glanced up at the dark sky. "Sewer bunnies! Why didn't you tell me how late it is!? Aw man, I'm so going to be dead when he finds out!"

[bqstqnbruin]

See You Again

I'm actually posting a fic for the first time in seven months aka the first fic I've finished in seven months peace love teaching

anyway, I wrote this for the lovely @wyattjohnston's summer fic exchange! I got to write for @selfindulgentpoorlywritten but I've never written for Nico before, so I hope you like this (I was fully inspired by my own mess of a life)

Edit since I’m a dumbass thank you to @kat-hearts for reading this first and being amazing ily 😭

One of the characters, Nat is nonbinary, and I did my best to make the reader gender netural, which I haven't done before on either account, so I hope I did it justice (if something is glaringly wrong, please let me know!)

Warnings: I was mean with the ending? A little? Also, some swearing, drinking, almost physical fighting

Word Count: almost 2.8k

_______________________________________

“When was the last time you saw him?”

You tried to shift through your memory to figure that out. In person, the last time was sometime in the first week of December about two years ago. Thinking about him, which thankfully didn’t count, would involve you giving a much more recent answer, way more recent than you would really like to admit. “I don’t remember.” 

“Well,” your roommate Nat says, looking down at their phone. “I have bad news.”

“Fucking hell,” you moan, tilting your head to hit the back of the seat of the Uber. You knew what they were going to say before the words even started to come out of their mouth.

“Nico is going to be there tonight. With all the guys.” You let out another groan, the Uber driver giving you a scowl through the rearview mirror. “I’m sorry! Jack didn’t know he was coming, or he would have told us way before we got ready.” 

You stare out the window, trying to think of all the ways that you could get out of this situation. You already paid for the Uber and didn’t want to pay for another one. You weren’t about to go somewhere by yourself, especially since the bar you were heading towards wasn’t within a reasonable walking distance if you were to go somewhere by yourself, and no way was Nat going to leave with you without Jack, and Jack, of course, wasn't going to leave without his teammates. 

“We can go back right now and I’ll tell Jack to have fun with his team instead,” Nat tells you as if they could read your mind. They put their hand over yours, trying to give you any sense of calm that was setting into your panic. “We do not have to be around Nico.” 

“What kind of person tells someone they like them but not enough to date them?” you mutter, knowing you and Nat have had this conversation many times on your kitchen floor, drunk and crying together at 2 in the morning. They had introduced you to Nico one night after a game when the team went out to celebrate. They had been dating Jack for about a year at that point, meeting him through his brother at Michigan and reconnecting when they both realized they were going to be in New Jersey together. Quinn had used the reasoning of, “he won’t know anyone in the state,” only for everyone to realize later that he knew Jack had been smitten with Nat since they met. If only you had been so lucky. 

You had known of Nico, obviously. How could you not? He was the captain of the Devils, the team you grew up surrounded by, the number one draft pick in the sport your roommate never shut up about. He covered your social media feeds without you really wanting them to and everyone you knew talked about what a great game he had the night before. You couldn’t escape the idea of him, no matter where you went. 

When you met him that night a few years back, there was something about him in person that you were drawn to. He had been just an idea to you, not someone you could think about as being real. You spent that entire night with him, your friends either wandering off or you too enthralled with Nico to notice that they were there. Nat and Jack were heading back to your place before last call, and you were left knowing that you had to see Nico again.  

He asked if he could kiss you, making you melt as his hand gently snaked its way to your cheek, pulling you close when you said yes and covering your mouth with his. You waited for his text the next day, anxiously checking your phone until he finally did after 3 pm. From then on, you told each other everything, texting each other whenever you could, him calling you and heading over to your apartment whenever he didn’t have an obligation to the team. You fell hard for him and you had believed that he felt the same about you. 

“The kind of person who doesn’t know what they have until it’s gone,” Nat tells you, trying to pep you up. “Hey, we can find you a guy that is just as hot as Nico tonight.” 

“I’m gonna move to Ireland and isolate myself with the spuds.”

“Act like you can be away from me for that long,” they tease, earning a laugh from you. “I’m serious, though. Tell me what you want to do, or who you want to do, and Jack and I will make it happen.”

You didn’t want someone just as hot as Nico, you wanted Nico. You hated the fact that there was more than one time that you had pulled up his messages on your phone, part of you unable to delete that conversation thread even though you knew it would be the healthy thing to do. But you weren’t known amongst your friends for doing what was best for your mental wellbeing, so you kept them, going back through the conversations you had in the four months you were seeing him. The last text was what haunted you the most, him telling you that he was going to be back in Switzerland for the summer and that he ‘didn’t want you tied down to one person’ while he was gone.

He said he would text you when he was back. 

He never did. 

There were multiple times when you wanted to text him, but you never did, either. 

“Yeah,” you manage to choke out. “Let’s do it.” 

You spend the rest of the ride in silence, trying to think of where in the bar you would be able to hide from Nico so that he wouldn’t see you. The guys were already inside, Jack telling Nat about 10 minutes ago that they went to start drinking as fast as they could. 

The bar was somehow muggy inside, as if the beer itself hung in the air rather than the sweat of the nearly one hundred drunk people that were crowding every square inch of the floor. Jack was easy to spot for Nat, his five foot eleven frame not the largest of his teammates, but still distinct enough that your roommate had left your side within seconds of entering to be with their partner. 

So much for finding you someone tonight. 

You tried to stay away from him, closer to Nat and Jack as best as you could, but they kept wandering off from you. The last thing you wanted to do was go with them when they were both on their way to drunk and have a history of doing slightly illegal things in the bathrooms at bars. 

You had to find someone to talk to. Any person who looked interesting. Any other guy on the team who you were friends with, but that was really only Jack, and that was really only because he’s dating Nat. Your phone was your only comfort, finding a table that had been pushed up against the wall and hoping that there was something you could doom scroll on that would distract you from looking towards Nico. 

He had the right to do what he wanted at the bar with his teammates. You weren’t together. 

“You ok?” you hear during a lull in the music, pulling you away from your phone for a moment. You didn’t know who was standing in front of you, one of the newer guys from the trade deadline that Nat definitely hadn’t introduced you to. He was waiting for you to respond, looking like he had wanted to sit down with you.

“Yeah, just, not a big ‘going out’ person.”

He lets out a nervous laugh, a smile that sends a jolt through your system that you hadn’t felt in a while. Since Nico, if you were really willing to be honest with yourself. “Me neither, honestly. I’m just here because I didn’t have anything else to do.” 

“I got dragged here with my roommate so they can be with their boyfriend,” you tell him, gesturing to Nat and Jack trying their best to sneak out of the bathroom, Jack’s shirt buttoned wrong, both of their previously neatly styled hair in a mess that you only saw after hearing them the night before. 

“So that’s the infamous Nat,” he says, taking the seat beside you. You nod as he continues, “Jack never shuts up about them. Not that Jack shuts up about anything or anyone, ever, but especially not Nat.” 

“I always knew he was a good one,” you tell him, introducing yourself so he knew you as more than just, ‘his teammate's partner’s roommate.’

“I’m Timo.” 

You spent the rest of the night bouncing between the table and the bar with Timo, him buying you every drink you wanted. There was something about him that was different, but you couldn’t focus all of your attention on him. 

He was talking about his time in San Jose while you were waiting for your next round of drinks. You couldn’t focus on a word he was saying, Nico within your line of sight talking to a girl. A really attractive girl, you might add. You felt your heart drop, feeling a lump in your throat forming faster than you could lie to yourself about that scene having no effect on you. Naturally, Nico would talk to other people. You hadn’t talked to him in two years, let alone seen him in person. Just because you couldn’t get over him, no matter how hard you tried, that didn’t mean he didn’t get over you.

“And then I got traded here, and I love it, so far,” you tune back into Timo, who is suddenly much closer than you remember. It’s just because the bar is loud, people are starting to crowd for drinks, and, fuck, you have to admit, he’s pretty hot. 

Nico was still watching. 

Timo took your hand, leading you off to the table where you were before, the drinks in your hand probably not ones that you needed to begin with. His free hand snaked its way to your waist, pulling you close to him. You could feel your heart racing faster with every inch he got closer to you. You wanted him to kiss you. 

You thought you did. 

“I’m sorry,” you pull away right as his lips were about to meet yours, tears starting to form in your eyes, leaving the drink he bought you in his hands as you ran from him. Your breath catches in your throat while you try to find Nat and Jack, just praying that they weren’t back in the bathroom or too intoxicated in general to help out. 

You heard Timo calling after you, somehow, through the volume of the music and your own drunkenness, breaking through and getting to you. You didn’t want Timo calling your name, you wanted it to be Nico. 

You needed it to be Nico. 

“Hey, hey,” you hear, feeling a familiar hand gently place itself on your arm. You turn around, Nico’s face a mixture of concern and fury. “What did he do?” 

“He, he,” you stammer, the tears falling faster the more you looked at him, every memory you had with him suddenly rushing back into your mind. “He didn’t do anything. You did.”

You yank your arm from him, trying to find anywhere to be in the building that didn’t have one of Nico’s teammates looking at you causing a scene. You knew he was following you, calling your name again and again over the music. People were starting to stare, but no part of you cared, trying harder to not let the tears that were burning your eyes fall down your cheeks. 

Nat and Jack were nowhere to be seen, the rest of Nico’s teammates trying to figure out what was going on when you burst through the front door of the bar, the cold fall air hitting your face as soon as you did. You let out a sob, trying to steady yourself against the wall of the building, sliding down to the ground while people waiting to get in tried to figure out if they should help you or if you were just another drunk person having some sort of meltdown that was none of their business. 

“Hey,” you hear, a soft voice coming from above you. “I’m so sorry if I did something wrong.” Timo slid down next to you. “I read the situation wrong, I thought you were also into me.”

“I am, I just,” you start, trying to think of what to say. 

“Hey, what the fuck did you do?” Nico yells, pulling Timo off the ground. “What did he do to make you cry?”

“Nico, stop,” you let out, Timo looking both confused and terrified by his new captain’s hand on his shirt collar. “He didn’t do anything.”

“What the fuck did I miss?” Timo asked, slowly trying to back away from Nico staring you down. 

“Why can you talk to other people and I can’t?” you ask him, feeling your sadness turn into anger. “You had no issue not talking to me for the last two years.” 

“I’m gonna go,” Timo lets out, barely loud enough for the two of you to hear and sneaking away before you could notice. 

“You didn’t want to talk to me,” Nico counters, taking a step towards you. “But you wanted to talk to TImo instead?”

“Where the fuck did you get that idea?” 

“You never texted me. You’ve spent the entire night avoiding me. You think I didn’t see you when you were by yourself on your phone?” 

“You were in Sweden. And you could have come up to me and talked to me, what was stopping you? Oh, that’s right, your new girlfriend.”

“Switzerland. And she’s not my girlfriend. I haven’t seen anyone in ages.”

“Wherever you were, you weren’t here,” you tell him, your back against the wall. How long had it been since he had last seen someone? There was no way you had been the last person he was with. “You told me you didn’t want to be tied down while you were back home. You didn’t even want to talk to me, because if you did, you would have.” 

“You’re joking,” he scoffs. “You think I didn’t want to talk to you? Every fucking day I have thought about how our conversations would go when I saw you after you get home from work. I would think about you telling me about your day, about everything you would tell Nat, or whoever you were seeing at the time. Every single person I saw in the last two years, I wanted them to be you.” 

You didn’t know what to say, letting Nico’s words sink in. “Then why didn’t you text me when you came back from Switzerland?” 

Nico took in a deep breath, closing his eyes and tilting his head up to the sky. “Because I thought there was no way someone else wouldn’t have realized how amazing you are. There was no way I could be someone who you thought was worth waiting for.” 

Nico takes a step towards you, his hand gently taking yours. This was a moment you had been thinking about since he left for Switzerland two years ago. You knew he was going to kiss you, having you pinned against the wall of the building. His free hand cupped your cheek.

“There you guys are!” Nat interrupts, them and Jack clearly having just finished up doing something they weren’t supposed to be doing. Nico steps away from you, clearing his throat, the red in his cheeks so noticeable there was no way even your roommate wouldn’t comment on it later.  “We’ve been looking for you, for um.”

“Long enough,” Jack finishes their sentence, a stupid smile covering his face. You knew he was lying, but no part of your brain was letting you focus on that. Nico leaned against the building, his arm up over your head. “The uber’s almost here. Are you ready to go?”

No. “Yes.” 

The three of you leave Nico standing there by himself, Nat and Jack falling asleep in the Uber as soon as it gets on the highway. 

You check your phone for the first time in a while, a lone notification popping up on your phone that hadn’t been there in almost two years. 

‘Nico, iMessage.’ 

[skegulium]

haha hey here's an unprompted drabble ask prompt that is completely unprompted and not so you can post a four year old drabble that you wrote and totally didn't forget to post for FOUR YEARS just so you can have context for an original god idea for the upcoming ball prompt: The prompt is 'Nightmare' :)

oh hi totally anonymous anon you're SO right i SHOULD write a little drabble using the prompt nightmare for orivar that i'll then let sit in my drafts for four years, just so i can have some original lore context for orivar's outfit for the upcoming ball! thanks bestie, i owe you my life!

==>Orivar Tyrgan | 13 Sweeps (or something) | probably somewhere out in the water idk where she was when i wrote this four years ago

Cw: non-graphic violence

Dozens kneel around you, their heads bowed on their knees and their hands clasped in front. You can't see faces and you don't recognize anyone by their horns. It makes you anxious as you pick through the crowd, skirting around every troll and doing your best to not touch a single one. 

The temple of the old gods around you is packed to the brim with them. You're not sure how you got here or how there were so many devouts in the first place - there aren’t this many people who live in Jyyr’s Bay anymore -  but you didn't try to figure it out. You had other things to do. You had to get to the back of the temple, where the lantern light was sucked into pitch blackness and where every troll was facing. You had to get there. There was no other choice for you. 

So you walked carefully through the crowds with your hands up and masking your fear. You’d be proud of your control, if your hands didn’t ache from the effort keeping them from trembling.

The shrine is ten feet away. Eight. Six. Then, three. You stopped among the trolls and the howl of winter winds outside made the ancient building creak and the fires flicker. Was there anyone else even breathing in here? 

You can’t keep the tremble from your hands anymore.

“Please,” you call to the mass of shadows. “Please, I have a request. Will you hear it?”

It's quiet for a moment. No one responds to your pleas, not a troll or the darkened shrine. Maybe you weren’t loud enough? Did you ask the question wrong? Should you use the old language? You bite your lip, then - 

”And who are you to ask a favor of me?”

The voice was deep. It reverberated through the ancient wood of the temple, through the air and made your blood vibrate through your veins. It was the voice of something ancient and more powerful than you - it took every fiber of your being to stay upright.

You inhale shakily, digging your heels in where you stood. “Please,” you say, softer. “I'm no one. I'm no one, but I want to be -” You stop and look at the trolls around you. “I want to be one of them.”

One of them. Blunt toothed, smooth skinned, normal blooded trolls. No fins, no gills, no hint of pink. No violence etched into your face, blood on your hands, or screams in your memory.

The temple went quiet again. Not even the brazier crackled now and before you, you could see the shadow begin to move. It rustled, it twisted and slowly wings began to slip out of the darkness. Inky black feathers, longer than the temple was wide, curved around the room and seemed to suck the light into them. You can’t look for too long at them - your mind would be pulled from your skull like the flames of the braziers.

”And what…makes you think we want you?”

Your hands shook at your side. What could you say to make them accept you? One hand went up to touch at your neck and you inhaled as you looked into the shadows.

When you did, two sets of three eyes were staring back.

They pushed at the blackness, pushed until two heads came out and the light glinted off of inky beaks. Two ravens, each with three eyes and they both tilted as they looked at you.

Old voices. Old gods. Worlds and visions unfathomable swirled in their eyes. Thousands of years and thousands of trolls has been seen by them, judged by them. You are but one of many.

“I'm one of your people,” You say. Your tongue was as heavy as a rock in your mouth but you forced yourself to speak. “I was hatched here, I was raised here, I speak your tongue and I know your stories -”

”And what makes you think we want you?” All six eyes stare at you and they slowly blink. They spoke as one, two voices meshed together to callously wrap around your ears. ”You are not one of our own. We did not ask for you. You should not have learned our stories, our tongue or wasted the time of our people.”

”Leave, Orivar Tyrgan. You are not one of us. We do not want you here.”

The two heads began to pull back into the darkness then and you couldn't help but step forward. You couldn't let them leave now, you didn't want them to leave - you didn't even have a chance to argue your stance. The toe of a boot smacked against one of the devouts in front of you and for the first time, they began to move. Their heads turned and your breath caught in your throat as you stared at the flat expanse of skin over their heads. No eyes, no nose or mouth - just grey skin pulled taunt across the skull and the distinctive red trident of the empire branded across it. You don't know how they saw you but they did. Only one stood to face you at first, then the troll next to them stood. Then another and another and as you whip your head around in a panic, you could watch as the rest rose to look at you.

“No,” you croak softly as they began to reach for you. “No, I'm one of - I'm one of you -”

Claws dug into your clothes, your skin, your horns and you felt powerless as they started to rip you apart. They were all silent but even as you felt the stretch and pop of limbs coming out of sockets, you could still see the swirling, six eyes watching you from the darkness. 

Watching. Watching, until fingers went for your face and there was a sickening pressure until you couldn't see them anymore. 

[hircines-hunter]

Hello hello :3c For the firsts asks: 6, 19, G, U, 💋 and 📝 for any ship of your choosing fufufufu

Thank you so much Senu!!! This took so long to make… the patients won’t stop.

6.First time they realized their "calling" in life

Sifkni’s calling will always be a werewolf. She was born as one. But after her first transformation she knew what she was made for. It takes her awhile to feel comfortable with being Harbinger. But when she kicked Vignar out before she was thought of as a potential candidate for Harbinger.

19. First time they felt rejected by another character

Sifkni does not like Brynjolf. He’s very dismissive of her in general and it is to protect Estinan. It is the first time she’s been affected by a rejection.

G. First time seeing the other one sick/injured

Farkas is injured during Dustman’s. That’s the first time Sifkni sees him seriously injured. And things happen to Sifkni later, that are more plot relevant. I won’t reveal it.

U. First pet names/nicknames they give each other

My love is probably their most used names for each other. Farkas does call her Sif a lot before and after they’re together.

📝 - Pick a character: first draft of that character + the final version of that character

Good gods. Uhm. Original Siffy is uh.. the writing is bad.

Original draft

A Nord woman stumbled across the vast Skyrim landscape. Her only light were the twin moons and stars above. She just instinctively ran. Her long auburn hair whipped around her. 

She couldn’t stop running. 

Not just yet. 

She needed to get farther away from the Pale. The farther away the better.

The woman came across a small house near a river. She came to a slight halt and decided to go ask for shelter. Before she even reached the house, outside the mines, her world went black.

Third and Posted draft

Sifkni’s feet carried her far from her home. Far from everything she’d known. Everything she loved. It didn’t matter anymore. Her heart dropped. What was she going to do now? Everyone was gone.

Papa. Rithle. Estinan. Lucret. Thonro.

Sifkni didn’t know how long she had been running. She figured she had been running all day and all-night judging by how she felt. Her legs were numb. Her lungs were on fire. Her feet were raw. Her body finally felt the elements. She shivered against the chill morning.

She felt the grime of sweat and dirt. And blood. Her auburn hair stuck to the grime instead of the breeze. She struggled to keep her eyes open, but not from exhaustion. Her eyes were puffy and red from crying.

Sifkni paused to look around.

Where am I?

She didn’t know where she was located. She knew she hadn’t left Skyrim. But the landscape changed. The forest was different. It was warm compared to the Pale. But the exact location evaded her. None of this was familiar to her.

She saw the early morning rays of the sun shine from behind the distant mountains. Smoke billowed from the chimney of a nearby house. At least someone lived out here.

She looked down at her blood covered hands. The disarray of her clothing or lack thereof. The rags she’d thrown on her body before running, barely covered her. Hopefully they could help her. The residents of the house. Hopefully.

She started her way towards the house. She desperately needed help. She reached out to knock on the door.

Someone shoved Sifkni to the ground. She screamed and struggled against the person holding her down. She was too exhausted. She choked back on a cry. Her eyes glinted silver before her captor hit her head with the back of their axe. Pain seared through her head and temple. Her world went dark.

💋 Favorite "first kiss" scene you've written between two characters

Ah…. Hmmmmmmmmm…. You know. Probably Sifarkas’ first kiss. It’s…. Just very….healing for her.

I’ll put it under read more!

At midday, Farkas grabbed her arm. “Ah. I forgot. Sorry. It’s your name day today. I have something for you.” He patted his pockets.

A gift? Sifkni’s heart pounded. She narrowed her eyes at him.

“I know…. You might not want to accept it. But, it’s yours. I can hold onto it longer… if you need me to.” He rummaged through the pockets of his coat and pulled out a delicately wrapped gift. “It reminded me of you.”

Sifkni took the gift and opened it. She saw the antler handle and the leather cover. A knife? She took the cover off. She stared at the icy blue blade. It sparkled in the sunlight. Beautiful. She looked at Farkas and then at the knife. “It’s … gorgeous.” Her eyebrows furrowed. She was at a loss for words. Was this really hers?

“The color reminded me of your eyes. And I thought you would like something useful and sturdy. Since you like hunting.” He held his hand out. She placed the knife in his hand. “It’s stalhrim. It’s as strong as ebony I think.” He looked over the knife with a soft smile on his face.

Sifkni looked at him. Her cheeks flushed at his comment. 

This wasn’t a bribery gift. 
This wasn’t from Thonro. 

She took a deep breath.

“I can hold onto it. Until you’re ready.” He smiled. 

Sifkni stared at him. She took the knife back and looked it over. She held it in front of the sun. The light prismed across the ground, casting sparkling rainbows on it. Beautiful. She moved it, causing the rainbows to shift around them. “I love it. A lot.” She looked at Farkas, a smile on her face. “I really do.” She said above a whisper.

“It’s okay. You can let me hold onto it until you’re ready. If it’s later today, tomorrow or even 10 years from now. It’ll be yours.”

Sifkni looked over the knife. She put the cover back on and she put it into her pocket. This wasn’t Thonro. This was Farkas. Farkas genuinely gave her a gift. Because he cared for her. It was a thoughtful gift. She did need a new knife. And it was the right amount of gorgeous and useful. She felt her eyes well. “No… no, I’ll take it now. It makes me happy.” She looked back at him. She turned and faced him. “Really.”

Sifkni wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him close into a hug. Her cheeks brushed against his unshaven beard. She pulled away slightly to look at his face. His lips. He had a smile on them. His eyes were soft. Sifkni put her hand on his cheek, fingers trailing across his beard. His scars across his cheek and his lips. She leaned up and kissed him. Gentle. Soft. It felt natural and right. She felt her cheeks heat. 

Farkas put his hand behind her head and tilted her head, kissing her deeper. His fingers trailed through her hair. He pulled away and smiled at her. He wiped her tears away with his thumb. 

Sifkni’s face turned bright red. “I… I’m sorry!” She looked away. She should’ve asked first. Her happiness overwhelmed her.

“No….” He put his hands on her face and turned her face to him. “Don’t.” He leaned over and kissed her forehead. “I’ve been thinking about doing that for a long time. Don’t apologize. Please.”

Sifkni didn’t think her face could turn any more red, but she felt it grow hotter. “A long time?”

He nodded. “Aye. I….” He looked at her flushed face. He cleared his throat. He could barely see her freckles under the blush. “I… I never thought you would actually…”

Sifkni had a small smile. “Me either… I. I think… I have wanted to kiss you… since we left Jorrvaskr.” She put her hands on his. “Can… Can I kiss you again?” She asked as she leaned up.

“Aye. Anytime.” He pulled her closer as they kissed again.

[3lkin]

Hey y'all. 2024's almost done, ain't that somethin. what a wild year.

(sappy stuff under the cut)

So. Here we are. December 24th, wowza.

Honestly, Imma just start out by saying thank you. Thank you to all the people who followed, or liked my work or reblogged, or even just saw it in passing and kept on scrolling. Thank you to anyone who saw any of my friend's work, or even just existed in the mcyt community. Y’all are my inspirations, and I don’t think I would be where I’m at right now without the incredible support I’ve gotten this past year, especially from my friends over on the Desert Life SMP <3

I wasn’t really sure if I actually wanted to post this over here originally. The art I tend to post are the pieces I’m the most proud of. I don’t like posting sketches or unfinished pieces because they feel messy, or like I didn’t try hard enough. But I also think it’s a valuable thing to show progress, and show where you came from as an artist, as short a timeline as 1 year might be.

Funnily enough, when 2024 first hit, I was the least involved in the mcyt community that I’d been since 2020. I hadn’t really watched Secret Life, I was sort of scooting away from the QSMP, and I was barely paying attention to Hermitcraft (dark times, I know). So what was I up to early 2024 in my art journey? Well, I was finishing up my first Outerwilds animatic (which, as of yesterday, just crossed 4k views WHAT THE FU-). It’s strange, because I remember when working on it, I made the choice not to show the main, player, characters face til the very end, which one may classify as stylistic, but nonono, I just really hated drawing humanoids lmao.

When I finally put that animatic to bed, I wanted to pick up a new project, and for some weird reason, even though I wasn’t really even paying attention to the mcyt community at that time, I drafted up a Life Series Winners animatic. And that’s basically the only thing I worked on, February, March, and April. Looking back on all that now, I’m still really proud of what I set out to make. At the time, I know how happy I was with that style, and how excited I’d been when I first figured out how to tween and started attempting a bit of animation. That animatic got me a place on my first MAP, where I met so many wonderful people, many of which are such large parts of my life now. And after that, the year just took off.

throughout June and July, I participated in Art Fight for the first time, and was exposed to so many incredible artists. I went back to using line art, relearned how to shade and utilize color. August hit, and I was convinced to jump on Tumblr. Was that a good decision? Um. Well it certainly fueled the Desert Duo brainrot I’ll tell ya that. In all truth tho, having the ability to show my work to the wider community was something I didn’t really have up until that point, and seeing how excited people were about Wild Life or other mcyt goings-ons was such a cool experience.

If someone walked up to January 2024 Elkin, and showed her the last three months of work I’ve done, I don’t think in her wildest dreams they would ever think it was them who was going to make it. I’m honestly so proud of where I’m at with my art right now, and how far I’ve come over just this past year. Whether it’s through colors, anatomy, composition, effects, I’ve learned so much from so many wonderful people, and I can’t thank them enough for being such large inspirations.

Damn this got long fast lmao, was meant to be only a couple paragraphs :/ If for some reason you’ve made it all the way down this post, thank you to you as well, for taking the time to be here and read this absolutely blabber. Hope all y’all have a wonderful holiday season, and a happy New Year. Here’s to 2025 :)

[whopperflower-will]

Never Miss the Details | Clorinde x Navia

VERY short first post (530 words)

Navia accidentally makes a roleplay script for the Tabletop Troupe a bit too personal…

Written by Windblumez (@whopperflower-will)

“A new script?” Clorinde asked, thumbing through the pages of the booklet Navia had handed her with a bright smile that felt like summertime sunshine.

“Mhm,” Navia nodded, leaning forward in her seat and watching the script. Her eyes fluttered from page to page. “I wasn’t sure how you’d feel about being the game master for this one but I knew you definitely wouldn’t want to be a player.”

Clorinde’s strict focus then shifted to stare at Navia, who quickly received Clorinde’s gaze with her own eyes. Setting down the script on the tea table, Clorinde asked, “why? Why wouldn’t I want to be a player? Does it have something to do with my occupation?”

Navia chuckled nervously, pulling a piece of hair away from her mouth. Since she was leaning over her sat-down friend, her hair kept falling into her face, losing the natural, perfect frame it usually kept around her cheeks. “Well… kind of.”

“Kind of?” One of Clorinde’s eyebrows quirked up comically, forming an expression one doesn’t normally see on such a stoic face.

“I know you usually don’t like to play any characters that are written to be intimidating. About how you don’t want to scare off the other players or whatever…”

Clorinde picked back up the script to continue looking through it. “From what I gathered… it’s a classic fantasy story. The type you’d see in Inazuman light novels. Save the princess, stop the bad guy… oh.”

She realized there was another character written into the scripts: a mysterious figure who kept frequently to the shadows and upheld the justice of Fontaine.

“…Having romantic sentiments towards the princess? This really does read like an Inazuman light novel. Well, Hubel’s shop did recently get a bunch of new releases after all, so I suppose it makes sense…” Clorinde muttered to herself in contemplation while Navia’s cheeks started turning beet red.

“Uhm…” Navia chuckled nervously, reaching out to close the script in Clorinde’s hands. “I forgot I added that very minor detail in there. I must’ve written some of it while sleep-deprived. That was my first draft after all.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, let’s just…” Navia tried to pull the booklet out of Clorinde’s hands, but the Champion Duelist stayed put.

“No, it’s well-written and beautifully thought-out. I would be honored to be the game master for such a script. I’ll find a suitable group to play it with,” Clorinde explained, pulling the booklet away from Navia’s small attempts to grab at it.

And so the next week when Clorinde met up with Navia for tea, Navia had to control her blush as Clorinde went on and on about the detailed actions that occurred in the roleplay. She had clearly not expected Clorinde to take it all that far…

“Yes, and so the roleplayers all found the idea of the relationship quite cute. They set them up on dates at tea parties, not far different from the ones we have now.”

“Oh! Well… uh… that’s great, Clorinde! Uhm…”

Navia would have to ask later whether or not Clorinde thought this was a date or not. It was simply tough luck that Clorinde was such a hard person to read.

[edai-crplpnk]

2.- was sasuke right? || 3.- were naruto's intentions with sasuke selfish? || 8.- show a screenshot of your latest draft with no context ((always gonna pick the excuse to see sneak peeks lol)) || 14.-openings or endings?

For the Controversial Naruto Take Ask

2 - was sasuke right?

I'd like to preface this by saying I find it utterly insane how everyone (in canon and also a bit in the fandom tbh) says stuff about sasuke needing to atone for his crimes and whatnot when he literally has never killed anyone in the whole series. Even Naruto has, and he hasn't. And it's explicitly said that he has gone out of his way not to, and that he has asked Taka not to either while they were working for him. So, of course, the whole barging in at the gokage summit thing was not very cordial, but compared to what most of the characters have done, he's pretty fine. (Kakashi kills a child in the very first arc, may I remind everyone.)

Anyway. If the question is "Was Sasuke right about wanting a revolution and to take down Konoha's government?" I mean. Yes, I think that genocide is bad and that states that have been built in a way that allows and, furthermore, have flourished on them, should be undermined. I don't know if he was going to have a plan for that that would have led to something more functional to be built, I'll give you that, but yes Homura and Koharu should have died in a jail cell decades ago.

The part where he went full "I am going to become an eternal god hated by all and ruling by fear" was probably ill-advised though.

3 - were naruto's intentions with sasuke selfish?

That's an interesting question because I've never thought about it like that? I think that one thing happening in their dynamic is that they have very similar problems and trauma, but very different ways to react to it. And so they can relate to the other's motivation, but tend to think "but you are being mistaken about the solution because I know how to solve this and it's not that". But the truth is they are both traumatised teenagers willing to literally die for attention and a feeling of accomplishment and purpose, so I don't think either of them really has it figured out 😭

I don't think that Naruto's intentions with Sasuke were selfish, in the sense that I think he genuinely was doing what he was doing with the belief that it was the right way and that it would help and save him (which, for a part at least, it did). But maybe it was selfish in that he wasn't able to consider that because just he is seeing one path out of his problems and pain, then that path has to be right for Sasuke as well. To consider that he was a different person who maybe needed to make different choices and that's okay.

Not to do my self-promo but actually yesdo this authors, it's good: this is part of what I wanted to explore in Take You Heart Above The Water. Sasuke cannot (and as a matter of fact, in canon, does not) come back to Konoha and integrate into it the way Naruto does. And it's not necessarily a good goal for him to have. They have different relationships with the village, the people, different needs, or maybe similar ones but different ways to meet them. Helping people grow and feel happy and loved doesn't always mean helping them have the same life as you do.

8 - show a screenshot of your latest draft with no context

The last thing I worked I just posted it, so I'm going to take sneak peek of the last WIP I've worked on. It's All Bones and a Beating Heart, my ShikaChou modern AU.

The breaks in his voice takes him by surprise like a tide rising while one’s looking away, only catching back their attention when the cold water reaches their feet. The admission he’s about to make has been building in the back of his mind for weeks, unspeakable but unshakable too, feeding on him like a parasite that will now gush out through his throat after having overgrown his guts, and there’s nothing he can do to stop it. His lashes stick with tears when he blinks and his lips are dry when they part. “I don’t want anything in me anymore.”

Fun times 👍

14 - openings or endings?

I'm gonna say endings just for Nakushita Kotoba.

Thank you for asking!!

[vryfmi]

talk shop tuesday!!!! I love love LOVED your piece for the tea toast & ghosts zine – what was your experience in planning and creating it? was it a challenge to combine both art and writing, and did your art influence your writing or vice versa? I'd love to hear about your thought process in the creation of that really cool piece :D

thank you so much! it's really nice to hear especially since it's my first posted writing!

if im being honest i wanted to write an article from the very beginning, it was the overall idea that was ever changing but eventually i found it. since TTG zine's topic was your favourite thing about l&co, and i had no idea how to incorporate skullyle and it was too much work to come up with technical parts of ghost-lamps (tho i did dive deep into street lights' wiring at one point), i figured i'd stick to my favourite thing of all - worldbuilding and dark stuff!

The Idea™, at first, was to come up with a few cases and illustrate them, but the longer i rotated those the more i didn't like the prospect of making something separate and not rooted into canon. so i skimmed through the books while looking for any mentions of Fittes and Rotwell cases, since back then i already decided to use the Mud Lane Phantom's story. the other two i took are from TSS and THB and they were vague enough to be able to lengthen them to an article entry.

i outlined ideas first, what themes i wanted to convey, what i wanted to put out there for fans and how these cases would've work with each other. from the that point i started drawing the illustrations. quite a backwards process. and it all sounds good on paper but in reality irl struggles really weren't making me any favours and i wasn't meeting deadlines at all, but mods team was patient and understanding with me, they are literally the best!

for Mud Lane i went for slight mockery of pioneers because, well, yeah. there was quite a lot of made up lore that i decided to cast aside (like what if "today" at the crossroad there's a statue of Fittes and Rotwell? a museum? a tourist attraction? a gift shop?). overall im just really proud of illustration that i did, i should draw more of Marissa and Tom at some point.

fun fact and easter egg of sorts: Marissa's pose was supposed to be an homage to first poster of the series and the way Lucy stands in it! i think it got lost along the way as i changed the pose but i think it's still readable enough. i love drawing parallels between the two (:

[id: a side by side of Marissa in illustration, where she's holding her lantern with her right hand and looking beyond the viewer, and Lucy from the first Netflix' poster, where she stands in a simillar manner but points with her rapier at something out of view./end id]

picking one case set 50 years before the others ment that i'd have to contrast them, draw a parallel and make them work against each other to bring up the best and the worst. The Shoreditch one was, admittedly, more of that coming up with something that wasn't there in the first place. first book only mentioned patrols and i latched onto them. (plus i was drafting it at around the same time as l&co bigbang came out and i was massively inspired by my teammates work which incorporated those patrols but in metro tunnels. great case-fic btw). mainly i went for darker aspects of agent's work there, thinking that to fit in sewers the team would've been of smaller children, and that Kipps (yeah, he's there in illustration) would be as close to them as possible, unlike other inspectors we are used to seeing.

Holland Park Hounds was the one that i was the most excited for because wdym we as a fandom don't talk about possible animal-ghosts?? sure, it could've been Changer(s) but is it really? plus how badass of Holly to be part of it AND it was famous enough that Lucy knew of it as well!

Holly Munro pushed a stray hair or two behind her ear. ‘Well, I’ve seen some things. I was there in the Holland Park Cellar case, when our party got blockaded underground by those seven spectral dogs. It was quite a tight spot. And after that—’ ‘I heard about Holland Park, Holly, and I can tell you the thing that makes the bloody footprints is ten times worse. I’m only saying. I don’t want to frighten you. I just wouldn’t want you to get hurt.’ (THB)

innitially i wanted to do something about a horse-phantom that was mentioned somewhere but for the life of me i couldn't find it in books, so i'll leave it for my next reread. but this case has so much more ties to the main gang and especially Holly herself. i really wanted to draw a picture of her and her team after the case but no composition really worked so i kept it to park's plan (my urban planer friend said it looked good even). plus giving a plan and thorough haunting information somehow felt very Rotwell to me.

aaand i think that's it! not much to say for back cover only that my friend really disliked my choice of comic sans for one of the adverts. and that i wanted to make it gritty, as if its a wall right around the corner of the Fittes ball court.

[fountainpenguin]

dangggggggg I see why this chapter of dogs life took you a bit to figure out!!! I loved every word, you keep outdoing yourself each time and the worldbuildingggggggggg!!!!! Absolutely insane what you do with these characters keep it up!

Thank you so much… 🥺 I actually had another 5k words for this chapter I've been working with for weeks, but this weekend I finally called it quits and threw them in the scrap doc and started those scenes over, like I knew I should :'D

I loved the explosive screaming Martyn scene I'd written, but in my heart, I knew the way I wanted to do it was out of character (Too much over-explaining his emotions at a time he isn't thinking straight, and I just couldn't see him figuring out how he feels and putting it into words so soon after he gets this tense).

I'd like to bring it back in pieces throughout the rest of the story, so we'll see how much of that stays and goes!

There's a whole scene I wrote with TwoMuchGrian and PiglinMyNose gifting Rhetoric a welcome basket, but I've put it off for later because it wasn't working with the pacing and where I wanted reader's focus to be this chapter. They are so silly... I think we'll see them next time.

I recently made my Skeleton Train series on AO3 as a place to post scenes I liked, but scrapped… My Dog’s Life scrap doc is over 70k words, so you’ll probably see scenes there someday if I don't find a place for them later in the story. Not all my scraps are worth sharing, but there are some neat gems. The Martyn scene will definitely go in there if I don't find a place for it.

I thought I could fit the entire patrol interaction in this one chapter and it was intimidating, but splitting it was the right choice and really got me to the end. This chapter was a ton of work, so thank you; that means a lot (especially since when I went to bed, I felt like this ended up a "filler chapter that won't live up to expectations" and I was starting to regret dedicating that much time to it).

After sleeping and looking at it with fresh eyes, I'm very pleased with it and I do think it's nice, so I'm glad that a chapter that was giving me so much trouble ended up so well! That took a lot of work. The switch from writing the talk between BigB and Mumbo to scrapping that, instead showing them explaining what they talked about to Etho (who's tense because he disagrees with them) was my savior...

And the best news is, I’m currently at 8.8k words on the next chapter, largely due to the scraps. Jimmy's scene in that one has been written since 2023, so I'm looking forward to sharing it! It was one of the first things I wrote for Dog's Life and in my mind, it's what a lot of the story has been leading to.

I actually have pencil art for Jimmy that I won't get to post for this chapter because I'm giving all the intermission ones pixel art sprites instead, wheeze... He's the only character who hasn't gotten pencil-drawn chapter art yet because this scene was originally planned to be in Chapter 10 before I changed direction. Both my Jimmy sprites are super cute though - I have one of him with canary wings and another where he's dressed in pillager clothes with his pillager captain flag - so I'm excited!

The chapter after that focuses on Grian. It's been (almost) fully drafted since April and is one of my favorites, so I'm in a good position to pick up from here! Almost done with the intermission and then we'll be back for Session 3 on-server, which I've already decided will be 1 chapter per team (No more, no less). We'll see...! Dog's Life is really flowing through its plot, though, and I'm happy.

Thanks again for the support after a very tough chapter! I'm glad to have it off my plate and I’m so glad you like it :) It was nice to have my "Chalaza" buffer this month while I finished this, that's for sure.