#So here’s some fun facts. I have some of these scenes already written as dialogue. Mainly the Fjorm bit and time Anna got one hit K.O.ed.

[hulloitsdani]

i want to know your anna thoughts so bad hi.

Hullo! Sure I can provide some Anna thoughts! I have so god damn many. Some other characters are also going to work their way in here too, if you don’t mind. And buckle up, this is gonna be a long one. I got a whole short story for y’all here.

Without further ado, I present to you: The Commander Anna Post

Let’s have some fun, shall we?

So in the age discussion of the feh main cast from a while back, I mentioned how I accounted for Anna’s bizarre position in Askr’s military by making her a child soldier. She has been fighting since she was a young teenager and has logged a decade of combat experience at this point.

I want there to be some fun consequences for this. For example, Anna is rocking some very serious injuries that will likely be with her for the rest of her life. Most notable being her left shoulder. Just by looking at her in full commander regalia, it’s not obvious that there’s any kind of issue. But Anna can’t lift her left arm all the way anymore. Her armor does an excellent job covering up the inconsistency, as it doesn’t allow for that level of mobility anyway. But take the armor off and you can see her shoulder is an absolute mess. It is, and I quote, “the worst healing job I’ve ever seen” according to Veronica.

It’s a bizarre sight for the kid. It’s not the type of thing she expected to learn about an enemy commander. Perhaps THE enemy commander. But in this situation that hardly matters, as she is the group healer as they all trek deeper into the realm of the dead. And Veronica is tending to her wounds only to find the pitiful scarred skin, warped and uneven from a hastily rushed healing process. It’s from a long time ago, she explains. From when she was still just a foot solider. But that… doesn’t make sense does it? Was Bruno not her ally? He has the capacity to heal— he was the one who taught Veronica the little she knows. Even his worst attempts were leagues better than the work done here.

Anna can only shrug, a motion made mostly with her right shoulder. He didn’t reveal that he was a mage of any kind while he was with them. So, even if he wanted to, there’s a chance he could not afford to. Veronica doesn’t know what to say to that. There’s this… uncomfortable knowing between the two of them. They know now, in retrospect, that swallowing down the truth like that must have ate Bruno alive. Just another reason for his sorry state that they didn’t catch until it was nearly too late. Add that to the pile of tiny behaviors that now make sense, right? The intensity of his expression as he insisted Veronica learn how to heal despite her protests and the daggers he’d stare into the intricate scaring on Anna’s shoulder. Throw them all in. Every last piece.

Commander Anna looks at the princess and unexpectedly breaks the tension with a laugh. You see, it’s funny, because this is exactly how she started to figure out Zacharias was Bruno. Very few know about her shoulder. She’s not exactly brazen about it, nor do the people she interacts with have the medical knowledge to glean how serious it is. She doubts even Kiran knows, to be honest. The only person who knows without a shadow of a doubt is Zacharias, because he was there when it happened. He’s probably the reason why she survived that day at all. So, you must imagine her surprise, when a masked stranger targeted this weakness and forced her to fight left handed. It was the most bizarre fight of her life! Fighting someone who clearly knew her, but she herself could not place!

Veronica was not there, but she can picture the lunacy of it. Bruno fighting his comrade as the commander attempted to fight a stranger. She hasn’t really seen Anna entirely thrown off before, but knowing that her brother managed it brings her satisfaction. She deserves it after all the times her and the rest of these fools have done it to Veronica. Feels like comeuppance. She chuckles. They both do. Gods she’s having a moment with the enemy commander. What has the world come to?

Fjorm has a far less positive reaction to piecing it together. After the events of book 2, she knows her time is short. She… cannot face the remains of her family in this state. It would be a slow painful death to rot away behind castle walls and wheeze into soft silks. No, she would much rather die on her feet. Put her body to good use while it’s still able.

So she trains. She trains until she feels her bones threaten to snap. She must have been at it for hours before the commander offers to spar her. With how busy Anna normally is, it’s a rather rare opportunity to spar one on one. Fjorm instantly leaps for the chance.

So they fight, and Fjorm can see it. The way her left arm lags and the scarring that curls out from beneath her sleeve. Burns maybe? Possible electricity? Clearly an old injury from a mage. A weakness in her defenses that she can exploit, surely.

Anna makes no such thing possible. Maybe she learned since her fight with Bruno or maybe Fjorm isn’t fast enough to take advantage of it, but Anna easily evades any attempt to use this against her. Focusing her left just seems to earn Fjorm a swift jab in return. From there, the fight might already be over. Anna’s left arm might be lacking but her legs and mobility sure aren’t. She takes the opportunity to effortlessly bully her way into Fjorm’s space and renders her lance useless. It’s infuriating, but Fjorm is learning. She can do this— she has to. Ten losses deep is when Anna calls it. They put good work in and it’s time for lunch!

Fjorm is ready to throw her lance into the sun.

She insists she can keep going, but the commander is not budging. Still, she tries to push her luck. But once a look of annoyance makes a home on her features, Fjorm knows that’s it. Another disappointing loss. Damnit. She turns to find someone else to spar, but is very surprised to find Anna will not allow such a thing. They are both going to take a break, or Fjorm might find herself barred from the training grounds. She states that if Fjorm cannot be trusted to keep her own wellbeing in mind, then she cannot be trusted out here at all.

However, Anna provides her with a singular counter offer. This can all be avoided if Fjorm tells her what’s wrong. Because she isn’t stupid, something is clearly amiss. And Fjorm— at wits end and most definitely exhausted, dehydrated, and starving—flips her lid a bit. Begins to go off. She’s angry at Anna, and her stupid backswing with her axe, and her own inability to deal with it despite her inherent disadvantage with a lance, and how she keeps failing in front of the people here, and how weak she must appear, and how even the commander of an army in Askr is outclassing her as a warrior and leader, and how she can’t even hate her for it because Anna is just doing her job, and how that all means that the problem must lie within herself!!!

That’s, uh, wow. That’s more than Anna bargained for. She briefly internally wishes that Kiran or Sharena was here right now, as they’re far better at this type of thing. Maybe… she should just go for the most obvious one, yeah? Yeah! Anna isn’t a leader. Commanding people and leading them are vastly different skills. Complimentary! But different.

Look, on ledger, the order entirely under her name, but in practice it is run by four people. Alfonse, Sharena, Kiran, and herself. And it very much HAS to be. The order operates at such a large scale now that the division of labor was necessary. Anna is not so egotistical to think she could run this whole operation by herself, either.

This includes the actual leadership position of the order. Anna is very good at telling people what to do and when to do it, but actually rallying people to a cause? That’s wayyy above her pay grade. Hardly has the force of personality to pull that off. But the others do, and so does Fjorm. Hell, Fjorm has that is SPADES. Despite having lost just about everything, she managed to rally her broken beaten homeland against Surtr and Muspel through sheer force of will. That’s kind of insane, and it’s a little bizarre to the commander that the savior of Nifil can’t see that.

Besides, she’s not a better fighter than Fjorm either. She quite physically can’t be! Fjorm is angry that she couldn’t defeat her in less than ideal circumstances, but let’s be real, all she needs is a little practice. And maybe a full eight hours of sleep. And some food. And water. Can you see what she’s putting down here? The only real leg up Anna has on Fjorm is that she’s going to ask for help, despite the heavy hit to her ego. It’s why the order exists as it does, after all.

That conversation leaves Fjorm with a lot to think about. Both as a person and of her view of Anna. She apologizes for behavior and swears to do better. As proof of her determination, she takes her up on the offer of lunch, much to Anna’s amusement.

Much later down the line, Sharena learns— PROPERLY learns, within the realm of dreams. She’s not blind though. Over the years she has noticed the scaring and the favoring of her right hand. Soooo, Sharena makes an effort to cover her! Stick by her left! Her massive shield is more than capable of protecting her too! And that’s the routine they fall seamlessly into as they follow Peony through Freyr’s dream land and Freya’s nightmare.

Anna generally deals with the challenges of that place better than the rest, for the aforementioned reasons. She knows her limits, she asks for help, and she talks her problems through. The vulnerability may be uncomfortable for her at times, but it is not enough to prevent her from doing so in order to progress smoothly. It might hurt her pride a little as commander, but Sharena and Alfonse are her friends, no? She can say that now, after walking through literal hell and back with them. So she doesn’t mind if they are the ones to see the child she grew around to protect.

Rather angry kid, if you can believe it! Stubborn too. Getting split and copied throughout time and space as a result of Askr and Embla’s never ending war had that effect. And Sharena gets to see that little girl, stubbornly clinging to her axe, bleeding from a wound on her leg that she knows one day will scar over.

It’s from one of the first battles she was ever in, Anna explains. As a merchant, her dad saw it fit to train her in order to defend herself from bandits. And she had put those skills to use before— but not like this. Never like this. It was the first true fight for her life. Not very pleasant, as you can imagine! She still gets nightmares sometimes, as you can see. Happened a few times in the realm of the dead actually. But, luckily, it no longer haunts her as much as it once did. It’s just a scar on her leg now!

The sentiment doesn’t comfort Sharena much. This is, frankly, awful! She hates how scared she looks! A-and how large the wound on her leg is! She hates how… unaware of it she personally was! Why didn’t Anna tell her about this sooner? To which Anna can only shrug. Nobody asked, and if she’s being honest, she probably wouldn’t have told. Not the whole truth anyway. She can admit when she needs help but… she’s still human. It’s a lot easier to admit she had a nightmare than admit that she finds the very thought of bleeding out a worse death than drowning. Still gets her the help she needs, without being more vulnerable than necessary. Sharena rests her head on her shoulder.

“Are all of your scars like this?”

Anna… blinks. No. They’re not. Not even the one on her leg is all bad. She was saved by this elderly couple and their son, who saw the fighting and began dragging injured soldiers off the battlefield. They made awful puns the whole time they stitched up her leg and gave her the best tea she ever had. Anna has bought a lot of different teas trying to find it, but to this day, she has no clue what it was. Makes it better, to be honest. Sharena looks at her expectantly, waiting for her to continue.

Ah, story time then? Okay. Well. Uh, this line on the inside of her elbow is from a bandit. Rather nasty encounter, but she returned the favor by shoving an entire container of expensive makeup powder into his eyes. Her dad was so mad but god it was so worth it. And this scar on her thumb is from one of her first times cooking in the road. She was pealing a potato but one of her sisters slammed into her and nearly took off her finger. This nick on her clavicle is from the first battle she ever won. When the enemy finally retreated she screamed so loud that her voice was raw for a week. Then there’s this scar underneath her chin, which has to be the most embarrassing ones she has. Zacharias and her had some leftover money one week and decided to treat themselves to a drink or two or five. In trying to make it back to the barracks, they both fell. Hard. She walked away with this, but Zacharias fully fractured his wrist. Explaining what happened to the healers the next morning was dreadful. And… and then there’s the one on her shoulder. Anna was actually recovering from it when she met Alfonse and Sharena.

The princess sits up for that one. Really? Gods she didn’t show it. And it’s because, on some level, she couldn’t. It was from the last battle before the shaky truce was called between Askr and Embla. The one Veronica will inevitably break. And the truce was called for good reason. The battle was hell on earth. Anna… nearly died there. She should have died there, frankly. A point blank strike from a lightning mage with metal armor in the rain should have been the last mistake she ever made. But by some miracle, it wasn’t.

… In retrospect, she thinks it’s because of Zacharias. Things got hazy after she went down, but knowing what they do now, he must have used his own magic to kill the mage and heal her. She didn’t walk out unscathed, but it was enough.

Haha, gods, she will never stop feeling guilty about him, will she?

Anyway, the injury was pretty bad. Her shoulder never moved the same again. But seeing as they were both recently hired to be Sharena and Alfonse’s retainers, they couldn’t exactly let Gustav know how serious it was. Might cost them the job. So a truly comical level of shenanigans went into ensuring it was kept secret. Including this game she created where every time Zacharias accidentally touched her injured shoulder, he would pay up 10 gold. He was not a very touchy guy, but even Sharena knew that this was something he just did. A tiny reassuring shoulder pat to convey that he was listening. So this was, perhaps, the best money making scheme Anna ever came up with. His apologetic look would shift so quickly into one of so much instant regret. And Sharena, upon reflection, remembers this.

WAIT WAIT WAIT SHE REMEMBERS THIS. THATS WHAT THE NOTE PASSING THING WAS!!!! Alfonse had pointed out in one meeting that the new retainers were passing something between each other and Sharena insisted it must have been notes because of how boringgggg it was. BUT NO IT WAS GOLD. ZACHARIAS TOUCHED HER SHOULDER EARLIER IN THAT MEETING AND SHE WINCED. HE THEN WAITED A WHILE BEFORE PAYING UP TO NOT MAKE IT OBVIOUS. THATS HILARIOUS!!!

Anna starts cackling as Sharena begins to line up all the pieces. The nightmare fully dissipating as she shares in this silly secret. There’s a chance she would have died with it. Hell, we know of a world where she probably did. This is not a story she’d even give to her family of merchants, who despite being direct reflections of her, do not share the scars she’s littered with. Never had to be, and thus don’t quite understand. But, Sharena does. All her friends do. And it feels weird to say that because real friends have always been in short supply. But gods this is too good. How absolutely absurd it is, that they are in the realm of dreams trying to find their missing friend and defeat the goddess who took them, and Commander Anna of the Order of Heroes is about to pop a lung laughing as she tells Princess Sharena of Askr about the fallout from the time she nearly died.

It’s dumb! This is dumb! And it’s possibly the happiest she’s ever been.

[actuallyjustabiscuit]

So as someone who is very fond of the Latin American dub of certain Disney movies, I wanted to check out TADC in Spanish…

…and found some interesting dialogue changes.

Now changes in translation is not unheard of when dubbing something that was written in a different language, of course. This is usually done to help make the lip movements look more natural, but also because some jokes or expressions can hit different depending on the language.

And I think that’s really neat

So I wanna share some of these differences that I spotted from episode 3 🙂

“And Zooble returns to normal.”

“I’m already nor[mal]…”

So the original joke Jax makes in English is “And Zooble turns straight.” which Zooble then clarifies that their limbs just straighten out when they hold their breath.

But I think the change to Zooble getting defensive over their appearance (or just taking offense at the implication that they’re abnormal) makes the fact that they hate their body hit a lot harder.

“Bubble has those?”

This is referring to Bubble having feelings, which is certainly a good question.

It’s sounds like an insult, but I’d find it funnier if Zooble’s curiosity was sincere.

“Excuse me, could you repeat that? I don’t speak Lovecraftian.”

C’mon, we were all thinking this angel looked a little too much like an eldritch abomination.

“And Pomni, every time she comes back from one we lose a little more of her”

…this…really puts Pomni’s experience in the Circus into perspective.

It also makes me wonder how much Zooble is projecting here.

“Please, stay dead.”

Not much different from the original but I love that she says “porfis” instead of “por favor” because using the abbreviated version makes her sound cuter.

“Congratulations, my honey mariachi rockers (?)”

…I don’t even know…

My personal favorite dialogue change because Caine is basically saying “And that’s the end!” but instead of referring to a story (which is usually the context for which this phrase is used) he’s referring to his adventures.

I just thinks it’s fun how they essentially made Caine rhyme like a Dr. Suess character.

So…this…

I’m gonna try to explain why this scene hit me so much harder in Spanish. Again, it’s not that different from the original where Kinger says “In this world, the worst thing you can do is make someone think they’re not wanted or loved”

But here, it sounds almost...poetic? Melodic? My point is that he’s rhyming here, and I’m almost certain that it was intentional.

Like…directly translating this into English would not do this subtle change justice. Or vice versa! Directly translating the English version to Spanish would not hold the same aesthetically pleasing delivery.

And that’s another thing!

I want to give a quick shout out to the amazing voice actors that lent their talent for the Spanish dub of TADC.

Especially, Rodo Balderas (Caine), Maureen Herman (Zooble) and Elliot Leguizamo (Kinger), because WOW their performances in this episode was peak.

Elliot make Kinger so goofy. Like really goofy. Then when we get to the point where he talks about Queenie his voice gets so soft. You can feel how much he loves and misses her. Seriously, the range on this man!

Anyway, yeah, watching the show in Spanish definitely gives another enjoyable experience.

[shapelytimber]

Wdym it's been 5 months ? Anyway, here is the end of my little comic serie about this niche Skyrim mod

*Insert me 100%ing the 4th arc of the hit mod 'vigilant' for the elder scrolls V Skyrim with little difficulty having a grand ol' time*

I messed up my files so Teldryn divorced me while I was away ckgkckkc And you know what good for him, he got a cottage and a kid out of it

[PART 1] - [PART 2] - [PART 3]

[COMMISSIONS]

If you're interested in my thoughts about this mod, you can read that below (it's fucking long so I'm sparing you all just here for the art to have to scroll through all that) vvv

A fantastic mod for sure ! I had so much fun, the voice acting was (for the most part) quite impressive, the music !!!!!!!!! Excuse me who gave this mod permission to have this fucking banger of an ost ???? Loved the new environnements, and there was so much of them !! Especially in act 4, I felt that all the locations had a unique and gorgeous aesthetic (frankly it was the most fun I had doing dungeons in skyrim... the bar is on the floor tho- if I ever see another nordic tomb or draugr I'll not be responsible for my actions), and fucking impressive mise en scene.

And the fights were so fun ??? In skyrim ?? Incredible.

But I still have some problems with it- first let's get the elephant out of the room : act 1 and 2... Boy oh boy were they not so great- I get that the begining is a slow burn to 1) get to know the vigilants of stendar, and 2) drive home the fact that the vigilants are quite incompetent and stendar hates them. Ok this is cool ! And they definetly were some highlights, like with the story of the three kajiits (I'm not good with remembering names (forshadowing for later-)), the ending of act 1, and uuuuuuuhhhh underground windhelm looked sick in act 2 !

But the quests in general were not very fun, at least not fun enough to distract me from the parts of the scenario I understood- which were kind of sexist and not that interesting (the sexism doesn't get better with act 3 and 4 but at least I'm having fun)- like I don't expect great women characters, this is still a tes mod, and it definitly doesn't get to "the man writting this is a fucking creep and I'm not playing this any longer" territory... But all the women we interact with are either : prostitutes, mothers/wives, or abuse(it's nearly always rape) victims- like I don't really mind that the first quest is to track down a vampire prostitute who propose to show me her sweetrolls, but it gets pretty tiresome after a while (and kinda ridiculous, like do all the big musley men I'm fighting in act 4 have to angst about their wives ? Can't a big musley woman angst about her partner too...). The worst one is Lamae Bal. From the charadesign, to the dialogues with her, to her story- hated that.

And also we don't have much dialogue choices and ways to influence the story in these 2 (3) first acts. Which I understand like this is a lot of work for fan content, but it's such a stark contrast to act 4 it's a bit jaring.

But speaking of the story... I get this is a very thoughtful and well researched story. A lot of work reading the tes wiki as been done by the author... But I, on the other hand, did not read the entire extended lore wiki- and I admit I was not understanding any of it during Act 4. Like I got a general idea, and the epic, dramatic and emotional moments were still impactful ! But I really don't think the author did a great job getting the story accross, and the more the mod progress, the more this problem becomes relevant. The recuring problem of tes games is that they have really deep interesting lore that we rarely get to see in the games ; the problem of this mod is that we get presented with this lore as if we already knew it.

And after watching an explaination of the story, it's such a shame because it's really good !! And well written ! But I don't think I should need a youtube video to understand it...

Also omfg I am not good with names mod please- everything has like 2-3 different weird fantasy names (but it's never explained it's the same thing, and what the thing is is never explained-), there is a billion men characters with weird ass long names, and the mod expects me to remember them all 5-6 hours after they got killed ??? I don't remember them 5 seconds after I'm done talking to them-

But I had fun playing it, and that's what matters <3 and I'll never get other twink molag bal <3

Also, my mage dragonborn is even more op now omg I can summon an army of 8ft musle men + molag bal + Jyggalag ??? The only fight I had a bit of trouble with was Pelinal's, the rest got obliterated easily (by Pelinal) kgkgkfjfifb

I'll probably need to nerf Elaris at some point in the future-

[jolalibrary]

Hello fellow scout,

I’m here on official scout business! I would love, love, love to know what your writing process looks like - do you meticulously plot out everything beforehand or are you a dash out ideas in note form and see what your characters are up to kind of person? Does everything get written on your phone or are you a big screen only kind of writer? Do you only get inspo first thing in the morning or last thing at night?!

I’d love to hear anything you’d like to share!

Much love,

Al 🖤

Al!! 🩷 i love this question, but i need to apologise now for how lengthy this is likely about to get, because your girl does not have a linear process.

for your eyes and ease, i have listed in bullet points:

sometimes, i need a detailed plot if there's lots of moving parts within the piece. so if there's lots of build up and i need to weave, then a chapter by chapter (but this isn't rigid) process needs to be built.

but often, I'll have the summary, and then i write the ending/last scene first. because then i have a direction.

i try to then write the beginning scene/opening chapter, even if it's the roughest (because first chapters and opening scenes are always - in my opinion - my weakest) because then it's there.

from then, i fuck about and find out. sometimes i know X, Y and Z needs to happen before i reach the ending, and sometimes a scene will pop up in my head that I decide needs to be in it, and so i then have to move things around to make it work.

if it's a series, I'll have a document of rolling ideas, a document of dialogue (dialogue comes to me easier than scenes) and then my plot. if it's a one shot, I'll separate the document into sections to achieve this so i can work in one place.

before i get into the gritty of it, i need to know my characters. for pedro boys, it's a little easier as I'll already have a concrete-ish idea of who they are, but the person they're paired with often i need to spend a bit of time with. usually they either come to me or i have to work a bit harder (use spotify to find their song, pinterest to find their vibe and play around with dialogue to find their voice).

phone versus PC: i write on both, i tend to find i can write my first draft on my phone - this does also allow me to move around rooms. sometimes, i start something in one room, and then need to sit somewhere else. i can write on my laptop, but the vibe and the mood needs to be right, but my phone doesn't need a lot of that. i can only edit on my laptop though, and usually in a quiet room (i'm dyslexic, so i dread to think what would happen if i didn't). when i edit on my phone, it's for a quick drabble and I'll spend so long editing that i give myself a headache... not ideal.

poor @goodwithcheese and @secretelephanttattoo know the wind can blow and i get inspo. i am somehow incapable of having ideas, it's just that some are like fun "OMG IMAGINE" and some are like, "i need to write this". but i can only write either later at night (post 7pm) or early in the morning (4am-7am) anything between 7-7pm has to be like so good i can't put it down. it does happen, but it's rare and special when it happens. (do me yourself is the exception, if i can squirrel myself away, i can write it, it's the most fun I've had writing in a really long time).

EXTRA BONUS FACT: music is always involved. i have playlists for almost all moods and some fics, and often, i can't begin something without a song. music matters to me a lot.

EXTRA EXTRA BONUS FACT: my commute is 30 mins each way and i usually turn over difficult ideas or issues in plots, and so this either leads to a voice note that i have to cringingly listen back to, OR a note OR, i work out i need to rewrite the chapter. ugh.

I am sure there's likely more jo-weirdness, but i feel I've talked so much, so i'm going to stop, but feel free to ask follow ups if I've not been clear hahaha.

ily, thank you so much for this lovely ask

[vamp-ress]

Writing Check-In

Active WIPs (as in: I'm actively working on those)

Broken Wings (working title) This Viggorli bunny is still taking up all my brain power. I'm now at 47.000 words and about 2/3 done. At the moment I'm stuck writing a pivotal dialogue scene and my usual tactic of simply powering through a first draft to get it over with isn't working overly well. We'll see ... Since I started writing this story within two or there weeks of "conceiving" it, I'm changing quite a few things as I go along. This is not usually my MO - usually I ponder a story for a long, long while in my head and when I start writing I have all the details detailed out. Here though, the first draft is pretty rough. I've already made a bullet point list of things I need to change in editing.

WIPs on hiatus (as in: on the backburner, but they will most probably come back)

The Way North (working title) Yepp, still on hiatus. Aragorn and his female OC (don't worry, this won't be a romance) are still sitting quietly on my harddrive awaiting further inspiration.

First Meeting (working title) This is also still on hiatus. This is actually really depressing, but I can't really write A/L when I write V/O. The tone of my Aralas stories doesn't really gel with Viggorli and it's so very jarring to switch between both.

Dol Guldur (working title) Yes, I actually managed to start a story in August to then promptly put it on hiatus. This was meant to be a Teitho entry and I've written three pages so far, but then the aforementioned Viggorli AU took up all my brain-space and all other inspiration has flown out the window since then. It's most annoying. I know found out the sakurashakedown wrote a story for that particular Teitho challenge - what a missed chance. We could have "competed"!

Finished Stories (as in, will post eventually)

Live and Let Die This A/L darkfic AU is still on the horizon. It is finished and is just waiting for the days to grow shorter and darker. I should probably post this now, shouldn't I? It's getting cold, dark and depressing. Just like this story. Are you in the mood for some major character death? Let me know - I can provide.

With Silver This next installment in my With-Verse is finished. I'm going to repost the whole series to DW's Vigorli comm and once I've done that the new story will follow. This will hit your dashboard in November. That means you'll have 12000 words of yummy Viggorli to look forward to. You are welcome ;-)

Labour of Love This Viggorli ficlet will be posted sometime after "With Silver" - so probably late November or early December. This is an AU where I took the characters to a strange place. I'm not really sure what possessed me to write this, but I love them both dearly in this story.

Blood Moon This little ficlet was written for @flashfictionfridayofficial. I mean, I have a werewolf!AU. I absolutely have to write something for a prompt like full moon frenzy. So this is Aralas, even if they both are never mentioned by name and they're not doing anything slashy in this story. The wolfverse is my Middle Earth playground. The fact that I write all of these stories in first person seems limiting, but it gives me the chance to explore something like this.

Waylaid I developped the plot for this while on a walk with my two ponies (and yes, it was evening and fog was creeping in). When I came back to the barn, the story was done and I wrote it down in two days. It was a little short notice for Halloween, but who cares. It's not meant to be more than a quick fun romp for Viggorli. So all's good.

[annaraebananawriter]

It’s Stupid, Really

Well, well, well. What do we have here? Why, it’s another oneshot based off of some tweets from @dreemurr-skelememer, this time about Dream having a panic attack/ptsd episode in front of Nightmare, how interesting!

I did change a few small details, but the overall idea is the same. I just got into a flow while writing it and rid the flow until the end. 

Also, fun fact: I had planned to write this in January. I got all the dialogue written in my document and everything and then never touched it until now. I had originally planned to do it from Nightmare’s POV, but apparently that was the wrong move, because I looked at it again and decided to write from Dream’s POV instead, and I kid you not that the exact second I made that decision, I knew how to do it.

All the motivation I was missing came flooding in.

So, maybe all that advice about scenes maybe needing to be written from a different POV than what you planned is true. 

And the pacing of this might be fast, maybe too fast, but I think it reads well. Reads like you’re short of breath, I think.

Now, I...I don’t have much else to add. Happy reading, I guess!!!

Fandom: Undertale/UTMV

Characters:   Dream, Nightmare (Who belong to Joku), and mentioned Ink (Who belongs to Comyet), mentioned Bad Sanses, and mentioned Blue (Who belongs to P0pcornPr1nce)

Warnings: A panic attack and/or a PTSD episode, calling a panic attack and/or PTSD episode ‘stupid’, and self-hate, and I think that’s it. Let me know!

Summary: “ A party with a big crowd of people triggers a panic attack for Dream, who gets lost in memories of the Apple Incident. Luckily, or unluckily, depending, Nightmare is also at this party and is also the closest person available for Dream to cling to. (UTMV, Dream Sans Centric)”

Word Count: 3240

~oOo~

Dream tries to hunch himself over to appear smaller. Maybe he can blend into the crowd and can slip out of here soon.

Ink had heard of a party in some AU and really wanted to go. He tried to get both Dream and Blue to go with him, but Blue already had things to do. Dream, on the other hand, had a rather boring day planned of lying in bed and thinking for hours, and he felt bad because he wanted to say no but didn’t have a real excuse, so he ended up saying yes. Ink was excited, however, and they arrived rather early.

One would think that arriving early would help him get used to the size of the crowd, but the more skeletons he watched enter, the worse he felt. He was offered a drink multiple times and could politely deny only a few times before people got suspicious, wondering if he was alright. He grabbed some water to make people stop asking. It seemed to work, so his next problem was getting lost in the crowd until he could escape to a quieter part of the building. It made him uncomfortable, being surrounded by people, but he forced himself to work through it, sipping at his drink.

Oh, look. An exit was right in front of him, and only a few skeletons were in the way.

He sighs in relief, clutching his drink like a lifeline.

“Hey, Dream!” A Sans he’s only seen a couple of times from an AU he can’t remember the name of shouts, leaning on him. He grabs Dream’s drink out of his hands. “Why’re you just drinking water? Let me get you a real drink.”

“Oh, no thank you, I…” Dream starts, but the Sans stumbles off anyway. He cringes, sighs, and backs away, aiming to huddle into a corner and be invisible until the end of the party.

On his way, more people shout, gleeful about something happening further into the crowd, and he flinches. People shift, aiming to get a closer look at all the commotion, and he tries to elbow his way through as gently as he can. He stumbles and gets dragged into the crowd, people pushing him multiple ways.

He cringes again, trying to escape, but can’t find a gap to squeeze through. Is it just him, or is it really hot in here all of a sudden?

“You absolute beast!” Someone shouts, sparking laughter—

No, no, not laughter, jeers. People whisper to each other, nasty things about his brother—

No, no, no, not about his brother, just comments on whatever is going on—

No, wait. More people are shouting, some proclaiming that they knew it, some hurling insults, some just scoffing in disbelief—

In disgust.

Someone in front of him shifts to the right. He catches a glimpse of a skeleton huddled on the ground, curled up by the base of something—

A tree, Mother—

No, stop, stop being stupid—

And something rolling on the ground in front of them—

An apple—

Stop.

Dream’s breath hitches.

He steps back, turning, trying to get away from it, telling himself it wasn’t real, it couldn’t be real. It was the past. He wasn’t there anymore, he left long ago. This wasn’t happening. Someone shoves at him—

And if this wasn’t real, would he still feel that? He can’t tell.

There are more leers and someone whoops, throwing something in the air—

Rocks rain down on Mother.

Nightmare tries to talk over all the noise, frantically explaining himself, but no one is listening.

Dream tries to fight his way through, get in front of the crowd, in front of his friends. He’s confused because they never acted this mean before. They keep throwing rocks, and he knows being hit with a rock hurts, so why are they throwing them at Nighty?

Something is wrong, something is wrong, something is wrong.

The wrongness fills him in rhythm with his footsteps. He’s breathing heavily, using all of his efforts to get out of this blasted crowd and find Nighty and get him away from all of this noise. His brother doesn’t like loud noises anymore. He doesn’t know why, but that doesn’t matter, because this is a loud noise and Nighty hates it here, he’s sure of it.

They need to get out.

Dream runs—

Stop, stop, stop, get out of here, this isn’t right, move on, move away—

Find Nighty and protect him, find him and protect him, find him and protect him—

Hurry, hurry, hurry—

With a final shove, he steps out in front of the crowd and looks up frantically, searching.

Only, Mother isn’t here. Neither is Nighty.

Blinking, he turns, facing the crowd of villagers, but this crowd is warped, wrong. They are all wrong. He doesn’t recognize any of them. He backs away from them, confused and worried and alarmed. His back presses against a wall and he stops breathing.

He can’t move.

He can’t move.

He can’t move anymore, something hardening his body and making him numb—

No, no, no, no, no. Not happening. You’re not there.

Stop being stupid.

He needs to find his brother. He needs to find him. They’re in danger. Nighty’s in danger. They need to find each other and run before it all goes wrong. They need to escape.

Where is his brother? Where is he? Where—

The word looks dizzy, he feels dizzy—

There’s someone beside him and—

“Dream?”

—They know his name.

Dream blinks.

The breath he was holding escapes him in a gasp.

The person beside them is dark and blurry. He can’t make out many details. Something moves behind them. Another villager? Then that means this is a villager. Not one that he recognizes, though. But maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe they can help.

They might know where Nightmare is.

“Dream, what…” the villager starts, confused, and concerned. Dream jolts into action, frantically grabbing onto their shoulders. His hands slid, almost like he was grabbing at oil. That’s odd. It’s familiar, too. Odd. He tightens his grip. “Hey! Get off—”

They don’t like that very much. Dream doesn’t care what they do or don’t like as long as they help him. “Have you seen my brother?”

The villager stills. “Huh?”

Frustrated, his fingers twitch. He glances around as the villager takes a moment to reorient themselves.

No Mother, no brother. Still the same.

His chest is beginning to tighten again.

“What?”

“My brother.” Dream exhales sharply at the villager’s confusion. “Looks like me, exactly like me. Just wears purple instead. It’s his favorite colour.” He doesn’t know why he mentioned that. The villager didn’t need to know that. Can’t he do anything right? “Have you seen him? I need to find him. I need to find him. Fast.”

The villager laughs harshly in disbelief. “Is—Is this a joke or something? Dream—”

“It’s not safe here. Not safe. I need to find Nighty. I need to get to him. It’s not safe here.” Dream explains, glancing around again. No change. Has it gotten hotter? He feels like he’s sweating a lot. “We’re in danger. Very bad, bad danger. He’s in danger. I need to find him. Have you seen him? Please tell me where he is.”

“Dream…”

Though he hears the villager try to speak, Dream rushes over him, impatient. “Tell me, please. Tell me, tell me, tell me. Please. I need to get there in time. I can’t be late again. Things—” He chokes on a breath and something pricks at his sockets, the edges of his vision darkening. “I can’t lose him. I can’t. He’s all I have. Please. Please. Please. Please. Please…” His voice cracks and he repeats the word over and over.

Please help him, please, please, please—

Please save Nighty, please, please, please, please—

Please, please, please, please—

He’s being led somewhere. Is the villager helping him?

Please, please, please, please—

The music—when did that start? Where even was he?—fades the further they get.

Please, please, please, please—

Doors shut behind them.

Dream can’t see anything anymore; he’s panicking too much.

Where was he? Where is Nightmare? He needs to find Nightmare.

The villager makes him sit down. He frowns, trying to get up. He can’t rest now, not when Nighty needs him. The villager doesn’t let him up.

“Breathe, Dream.”

He is breathing. Isn’t he? Maybe he’s not. Maybe he’s dead and that’s why this place is so unfamiliar and Nighty wasn’t here and, and, and—

“Breathe.”

He’s breathing. He’s trying.

He wants his brother.

“I’m right here. Keep breathing, slowly. Match me. In…out. Good. You’re not in the village, Dream. Okay? You’re not there.”

But wasn’t he just…?

“You haven’t been there in years. We’re both safe. It’s okay.”

But it wasn’t. It wasn’t okay.

He needs to—

“Keep breathing, focus on breathing.”

Dream wants to scowl. He wants to frown and complain that he is doing all of that and it’s not helping. But he doesn’t, he instead inhales—

And his chest lightens a bit.

He squeezes his eyes shut, and exhales, trying to do as ordered.

His chest continues to lighten, cracks appearing in the stone as patches fall off of him—

You’re not there. You haven’t been there in years. Focus, Dream.

But it all feels so real.

And he can practically taste the apple on his tongue, the smell of negativity in the air—

And he inhales—

And the feel of a smooth staff in his hand, fabric clenched in his fist, tinging in his legs as he’s turned to stone—

And he exhales—

And the sound of wind and silence and manic laughter—

And he breathes—

And he sees—

And he—

And…

And he blinks, sockets aching.

And he sees the darkness in his vision fading. It bubbles away, letting his surroundings take its place. He’s sitting against the railing of the balcony of the building. One of them, at least. The bars bite into his back. There’s a faint breeze, carrying the smell of flowers from the garden below. It’s nice.

And Nightmare is in front of him, kneeling, hand outstretched and hovering.

Dream blinks in surprise.

Nightmare looks concerned, eye wide.

They stare at each other for a moment.

Brow furrowing, Dream clears his throat, craving a glass of water. His voice is hoarse. “…Nightmare?”

Nightmare shifts, hand lowering. “Yeah.” His brother relaxes a bit, still watching him.

Something drips off his fingers.

Goop the same colour as the goop that covers his brother covers his hands. It’s slimy and gross and the minute he notices, he wants to wipe it off, but it feels awkward and inconsiderate of him to do that in front of his brother.

Dream glances around, avoiding looking at him. Shame begins to heat his face and he internally sighs. Of course. He just had to get this way in front of Nightmare. This is like, the worst possible thing. But it’s just his luck. And now he’s left here afterward, wanting nothing more than to teleport straight home and sleep the next week away.

But doesn’t he owe it to Nighty for an explanation?

“Sorry…” His voice cracks again, and he coughs. “I—”

His mouth continues moving, but nothing comes out.

He frowns, trying again. “I—”

“Hold that thought.”

Dream looks up as Nightmare stands, walking back inside.

Well, if he really wants to, he could teleport away now and not face the humiliation surely coming his way. Nightmare will probably return with one of his guys and then a fight will break out, taking advantage of his weakened state. He doesn’t want to fight right now, doesn’t even want to move. If he could, he would just flop over and sleep right here. Then all of the aftermath of this can be dealt with once he wakes up.

But, no, he’s a big boy, and he will face it now as he should.

He wraps his arms around his legs and buries his head in his knees. God, he’s such an idiot. No, he’s weak. He knew coming to this party with Ink would be a risk. He felt the panic at the start, the minute they arrived and people were still pouring into the big, big room, but he swallowed it back and tried to forget about it. It was only when the crowd pulled him along that he got lost in his head. Everyone he pushed in his fight to get away must be so confused, and they must’ve talked about it with their friends and now everyone was probably wondering why he was acting so weird.

Hopefully, no one noticed the terror he felt, but he has a feeling it might’ve been obvious…

This will be such a big mess to clean up. Why did his brain have to betray him like this? Why did he give in so easily? It was like he wanted to get lost, and he never wants to get lost. He always says that it’s the last time he’d ever feel like this, but there always ends up being another thing that triggers it again. He doesn’t know how to stop it besides avoiding anything he manages to clue in on, like crowds.

And yet, here he was. Here he fucking was.

A hand grabs his wrist. Dream’s head snaps up. He watches, eyes wide, as Nightmare holds his hand and runs a damp washcloth over it, cleaning it. For some reason. Why? Why would his brother come back just to clean him up?

This wasn’t his mess to deal with.

This…this, the cleaning, reminds him of patching Nightmare up under Mother. It brings the aching longing he got sleeping in branches and walking through the woods to the front of his mind. It hurts and hurts and he’s unable to shake it off.

“Are you alright?” Nightmare asks, focusing on his task.

Dream swallows. “I’m fine.”

His brother looks up, unconvinced, raising a brow.

“Really, I am,” he insists.

Nightmare’s eye flicks over his face, searching for a lie.

Dream prepares himself, resigned at explaining. The words are on the tip of his tongue, ready, when—

“Okay.”

“Huh?”

“Okay.” Nightmare goes back to cleaning. He’s ruing a perfectly good washcloth just for Dream. He doesn’t know how to feel. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

The words feel foreign to him. “Oh…Thanks.”

Nightmare hums.

Odd.

Dream’s not used to being told he doesn’t have to talk about things if he doesn’t want to. The villagers always wanted to make sure he was happy, asking him again and again if he was and flocking to make him feel better if he said he wasn’t. Even now, people prefer to know everything about his job. Most of the conversations he has with people besides Blue or Ink or a few others are one-sided questions about himself.

He's relieved that Nightmare is giving him a choice. He wants to stay silent and let them both forget this ever existed. If they can, that is. Still. He wants to keep any of what he was thinking about to himself, as much as he can. His brother is still his enemy, after all, and giving away all his vulnerabilities will only result in more difficult battles.

He doesn’t want to say anything, and yet he does.

For some reason, having a choice makes him want to tell Nightmare something even more. “I don’t like crowds. Specifically, not, um…big ones. Or loud ones. Or big loud crowds crammed in a small room. Whenever I’m in one for a long time, it…” He swallows again, glancing up and catching Nightmare’s eye. “It brings back bad memories,” he whispers, feeling childish that he’s avoiding saying anything specific.

Nightmare watches him for a moment. “Okay.”

His face is expertly blank. He can’t tell what his brother is feeling.

“I apologize that you had to deal with this.” Dream sighs. “I usually handle it.” He chuckles, tired. “It’s stupid, really.”

Nightmare still doesn’t say anything. Still blank. He’s finished with his task, setting the washcloth aside so he can fiddle with his fingers.

Dream starts, “I—”

“I don’t like apples.”

He blinks, forgetting what he was going to say. “…What?”

“I don’t. Brings back some bad memories. So, I don’t buy any or eat any. And that’s fine. I’m sure my boys know my dislike of them, too, ‘cause they never bring any home when they go shopping.” Nightmare pauses. “They may not…understand, exactly, but they don’t need to. They’re my friends. They accept it and live with it.” He looks right at Dream. “We all do.”

Dream blinks, looking at his hands. There wasn’t a speck left on them. Even all the dirt from the week, the build-up of grime he hadn’t had the energy to wash off, it was all gone. It felt strange to see the white bones underneath, marred by scratches as they were. He clenches them and opens them, admiring them.

Nightmare wasn’t talking about himself anymore. In his own, roundabout way, he was offering some advice that Dream really needs to hear. Stuff he has told others to do—trust those around you because the fact they were still there meant they cared far more than you realized. Friends lean on each other; no friendship is one-sided. Communicate, and you’ll have a better relationship. Whenever he had given the advice, he always felt he was lying, spouting facts he didn’t know were true. His brother seems to say it with such belief, and he probably does because he's learned all of it himself.

While Dream was stuck in stone, Nightmare was growing and moving on. He already knew this but it still surprises and pains him when he sees what that really means firsthand.

And yet…for all of his moving on, his brother still helped him today.

His brother could’ve just left him to his panic attack, let him make a fool of himself in front of everyone. Let rumors spread across the multiverse about him, watch his reputation and others’ trust in him crumble. Let him be weak. That was his goal, right? Beat him and give him a taste of what was owed to him, a sliver of what happened to his brother all those years ago? Why help his enemy out of a vulnerable spot, why not take advantage?

Dream wants to say it’s because, despite everything, they were still brothers, and that took priority over anything else.

With a new surge of confidence, Dream clenches his fists. “Right…Night, I—” But when he looks up, Nightmare is gone. He falters, looking around the empty garden as if his brother was simply hiding from him, but he knows he is gone.

He doesn’t sense him in the AU anymore.

Sighing, he stands on shaky legs. He’s disappointed, yes, but not surprised. He’ll just have to tell him another day how sorry he was about what happened, how much he misses him. Ask if he feels the same way. Ask if he wants to be brothers again in more than just title. Maybe, just maybe, Night’ll listen to him and maybe he’ll even say he wants to as well.

For now, though, Dream steels his resolve and leaves.

He’ll explain to Ink in the morning that he doesn’t really like big crowds, parties included.

[stuiie]

Hi Stuie!

I absolutely adore your story! I started reading it two days ago and just finished it 😅 There are SO MANY things I love about it, I could go on forever, but I’ll just name a few.

For starters, the pet names! They have me on my knees 🧎‍♀️‍➡️ I love how Wanda and Natasha call each other “My love” and Ducky is referred to as “My little love”. My personal favourite, simple as it may be, is “Darling”. It makes me melt every time without fail. And when she was all shy about wanting to be referred to as “Princess” , I think that was in the club? Either way, *chefs kiss*.

The slow burn in this story was so well-written, I love how you set the scene and gave us backstory instead of going straight in, it really adds to the reading experience. The fact that they took so long to tell Yelena, much as she may dislike it, also adds to the authenticity, because it feels like something that would just kind of happen? Ducky was so scared of losing Yelena as a friend, of course she was hesitant to tell her.

This is just a small thing, but the rest of the characters in the story being from the marvel universe is just such a nice touch. Sometimes I’d be so deep into the story that I wouldn’t realise, like it took me a while to realise that Peter was Peter Parker lmao. But especially all the scenes at various parties and the club, where all of Natasha and Wanda’s friends are pre-existing characters. I like knowing what characters in stories look like, so it’s nice to already know or to be able to just Google them.

Another thing related to the characters is that you write them all so well! Sometimes it can be hard to give characters separate personalities, and their dialogue can be a little dry. But you’ve done a wonderful job of giving them all unique dialogue and little personality quirks, which just makes it more enjoyable to read. Like how Wanda has less control than Natasha, as is made clear in the elevator scene.

One of the specific things I enjoy is when Wanda paints with Ducky, especially when she sits behind her. The way you describe it, with Wanda taking charge and helping her is so sweet. That first time she did it and Ducky got all nervous when Natasha came in was cute lmao.

Thank you for writing this great fic, you’re a fantastic writer and I can’t wait for chapter 30! <3

Hi endofn1ght 🥰,

First of all wow, thank you so much for your incredibly kind message! 🥹 I’m honestly so touched that you took the time to share your thoughts in such detail—I’m over the moon over here. Second of all, it means a lot to hear that you enjoyed the pet names; I was afraid I had overused them a bit, but I love them so much. I wanted them to add an extra layer of affection between the characters. Thank you so much for sharing your favorite ones; I love to know these things.

The slow burn was something I really wanted to get right, so I do get a bit emotional hearing that you liked it. It means a lot to me as a writer to know you felt Ducky’s hesitance to tell Yelena was a natural reaction and that you enjoyed how it all unfolded.

Haha, hell YEAH! I’m so very happy that you enjoyed the inclusion of other Marvel characters! I had a lot of fun incorporating them into the story in subtle ways, and I love that you picked up on those moments. It’s super rewarding to know that the characters and their personalities felt distinct and authentic 🥰.

The painting scene was one of my favorite scenes to write between Wanda and Ducky. I spent a lot of time trying to capture those intimate, sweet moments between them. Your feedback makes me feel like all the little details I put in are really appreciated, which is so motivating.

Thank you again so very much for your wonderful words and for being such a supportive reader. I really needed this after some extremely grueling days at work. 💖

I’m so excited to share Chapter 30 with you, and I hope to finish it soon. I’m still aiming for this week, unless something unexpected happens!

[strawberryjamsara]

Emotion route for the ask game. You've said it's poorly written before so I wonder what you might like about it

Sorry for taking a while to answer this! I reblogged the game while wicked sick and thought maybe being stuck in bed would give me motivation to write these, but as it turns out being sick isn’t the time you feel like coming up with positivity.

That being said. I’ve started some meds so here’s what I like about emotion route.

So first, and probably most cliched, I love the Sara talks to Joe scene. Do I wish we got a final scene between Shin and Kanna? Always, but Shin using his last moments to redeem himself and give Sara peace is honestly so heartwarming, and the conversation is so so good. They pulled out all the stops, the cgi, the music, and the dialogue, as Joe expresses he doesn’t quite understand what’s going on, but Sara is still Sara and that’s what matters. Also parallels, I love in logic route when Sara sees the AI, she’s so broken she hardly has any reaction to the main game, and in emotion route she’s already in tears.

In addition, while I’ve expressed so many times how dirty the route does Kannas arc, I actually enjoy her lantern event more than Shins. While I like learning about Shin and Sou’s dynamic, and Sara poking around and making fun of him, I think Kanna just having a normal day at the ice cream shop is so adorable, and the context what that day really means turns it into a tragedy. I also love her scene with Kugie afterwards, and just the subtle tragedy implied in the fact that Kugie wants to reunite Kanna with a family she has no interest in, that she already loves her sister and wanted to give her a wish.

I think the Real Hinako reveal works so much better if Alice or Reko are saying it instead of Qtaro. That horrible emotional gut punch for Alice especially, as he realizes, despite the fact he’d just been shown he hadn’t killed Hiyori, he is a murderer, and of a small child even. Knowing that Hiyori most definitely did that on purpose.

I also think Ranmaru is good here. He’s still absolutely far from a mentally stable individual (I guess this goes against the point of the game but I will say it’s annoying how his suicide attempt is glossed over) but I think emotion route does a good job showing his growth into a hero as opposed to logic route and his downfall into villainy. I think that emotion route Ranmaru is sort of underrated as a kid who still struggles a lot, and sometimes does the wrong thing, but he’s just an insecure kid with a savior complex he’s trying okay.

[pawseds]

I convinced our Delta Green game master to have a play-by-post (basically text roleplay) section in our game's server and uhhhhh maybe I've been having too much fun with it. Writing is faster than drawing comics, what can I say?

(Long ramble about writing stories below hehe oops)

While we're here! A bit about writing: I like writing! I've written for loger than I've drawn for (because school). I think I'm better at writing than drawing for that reason (I'm more confident at least). I've written short stories. I've written short stories about TTRPG things. I've also written a ~100k word novel by hand for 2 years. While writing it, I had 'writing class' (technically AS/A level Ennglish Language classes). It was the only class I had confidence in and high expectations for.

With those 2 combined, I burnt out pretty quick LOL. Specifically, I had a big perfectionism issue because of the high expectations I had from my teacher and especially myself -- it was the one thing I knew excelled at in school, so I better do it well! After I was done with the novel and A levels, I was supposed to edit the novel. It's been years and I haven't done it yet, and I wouldn't write non-assignment stories (except 2) until now. Writing became more nerverwracking than it was fun, so why would I?

To get back to the PBP thing: I've been in a campaign that was fully PBP. With my mindset being the way it is, hey! This is just one big writing exercise, so I ran along with that and had fun with it. I saw how some players would make their own PBP and essentially monologue/have a scene only with their PC. That was cool to see.

And now, my current Delta Green campaign (tagged 'Helvetia'). Hrothgar (guy in drawing) and his kids were ported over from a previous D&D campaign (the fully PBP one!), so the crew had a very well defined background already. Of course I get tons of drawing ideas for them, except I don't have the time to draw them all (compsci hard). But since the server has a PBP section, I had like 2 weeks to kill between session 0 and 1, and I was bursting with ideas... I made a lot of solo PBPs that were essentially short stories.

It didn't quite hit me until some time ago, but the PBPs actually made me enjoy writing again -- enjoy it a lot more, in fact! I think the format of Discord threads and messages removed most perfectionism tendencies I had. I just had to fire the story away, message by message. It didn't have to be amazing, and it was fun! (Also I really don't know how to shut up with them LOL)

I'll definitely be cleaning these PBPs up and posting them here as stories. Some of them are just silly, fun, slice-of-life character sketches. (These were the stories I wrote after my novel... and yes, they were about my other set of Delta Green characters LMAO) (and I've posted them here under pawsedswrite btw!) But some I see as legitamite short stories that I would edit more heavily and present as a short story. They were the kinds I could see myself writing on a document rather than on Discord.

Well, I lied. 'I would edit' is false. I have already edited one, because I spent like 5-6h writing this one PBP (oops) instead of writing the draft for my short story class/elective (oops 2). I joked to my two friends saying that I could just submit it as my assignment. Apparently, they both really liked it and said the dialogued slapped. So I did!

I procrastinated like hell on it though, because I was very nervous to go back into the PBP with an axe to edit it. Being in a writing class where nearly everyone else has been formally studying writing for some years kinda puts some pressure on ya!

Like the last assignment (which I'll post here after editing), I had a lot of worries. But the feedback and grade I got from my last assignment, the peer review I got from the current one, and also the support from those two friends (shoutout @katastrofish <3) made me feel more confident in myself. And also the fact that I had a lot of fun editing the PBP!

Uhhh this ramble was way longer than expected LMFAO if you've made it this far, damn, thanks for reading! If you also write or have similar experiences, feel free to share em. And have a good day!

(bonus POV editing)

[cruorons]

Writing Process

Okay, so I thought I'd share some of my writing process here considering it is a writing blog after all. Maybe someone will find these useful or give some helpful input considering my process tends to be rather chaotic.

1. Ideas

I don't really sit down with the intention of coming up with an idea for a fic. Most of it comes to me naturally, as I go on about my day and daydream about certain dynamics or lore. However, I've noticed I tend to get inspired by:

• music - I like making playlists for fanfics I haven't even written yet, and then listen to the songs as I write. It helps me shape the plan for how the story is about to go, set the mood, in certain cases even inspire specific scenes.

• personal experiences - I noticed fics like that tend to perform well. People can tell when something is heartfelt. Do not underestimate your readers.

• ships - Already mentioned them, but about to highlight them again. Some people say that ship fics are less than but I couldn't disagree more. I've never been truly in love myself, yet find it such a fascinating thing. I could write about it endlessly from a bunch of different perspectives and never get bored of it.

Maybe it's my brain stopping me, but I never get inspired by fanart, as much as I love looking through the tags on here. Just a fun fact.

Basically, I start off with a single scene in my brain and then, I build off of it.

2. Beginning

When I realize I have something to elaborate on, that's when I boot up Google Docs and open a new document. I used to work in Word instead, but I switched to a different program for convenience. Google Docs crashes less and seems neater.

That's also when I like to think of a name for the fic. I search through synonyms for key words, phrases, famous and niché quotes. I like my titles short and concise, but also symbolic; such as with 'inferno', 'endophagy' and 'dowager'. They have to make sense within the context of the fanfic.

After I find something cool, that's when I make a document called "[fic name] PLAN".

- It's where I start writing down the idea in more detail.

- It's good to elaborate on each scene. A few sentences won't cut it; sometimes in the plan, I even put in actual paragraphs or even dialogue.

- English is not my native language, but I like to write the plan using it anyway. Ironically, it gives my brain more freedom; grammar in English is easier than the one in my native language.

- My plans usually have ~1-2k words.

- If I write a chaptered fic, I try to make a plan document for each chapter. Also, I tend to have the beginning of the story and the ending in my head, but add onto the middle as I go. So, even though I've had the idea for 'endophagy' in my head since 2021, as well as the ending (!), the chapters in between are improv.

3. The fanfic

I try to finish writing the plan in full before moving onto the actual thing, but there are exceptions.

I create a new document called the actual fic's name in another tab and start writing. I check the plan document every now and then, because oftentimes I forget about certain story beats or dialogue I wanted to include. When I finish a paragraph, I mark it in red in the plan, then switch the tab again. It's helpful to see your progress.

Now, a more controversial thing about me is that

I refuse to make multiple drafts

There are writers that make a bunch of drafts. If that works for you, amazing! Personally, it'd drive me insane. The longer I work on a fic, the more I begin to despise it. I don't write for pleasure, I write because I have things boiling in my head and it's the only way to release the tension. A such, I write the entire fic and then read through it once to catch mistakes. Then, I post and forget all about it.

If you've read through everything, congratulations! And thank you. I have found a welcoming community on ao3 and I like it there so, so much.

[cboffshore]

hi everyone. I come bearing IICT(OSC) insider knowledge, hints, and memes.

bc spoilers: everything else is under the cut. Do not proceed before you read the fic. Unless you like having twists untwisted in advance. That's on you.

(one day I wanna try my hand at redrawing/tracing this Gayle meme to be Nya, but that's neither here nor there.)

If I ever do any super, super in-depth analysis of this work, it's not happening today, as I'm fighting a weather migraine and longform ideas are NOT my friends. However, I did want to make a few fun bonus notes. These aren't bulleted bc mobile browser formatting.

The weapon in the escape scene was only originally supposed to be a rusty pipe (loosely inspired by a piece of Fall Out Boy promo art used on "What a Time To Be Alive", and yes I KNOW Pete has a baseball bat. I said LOOSELY.) I waffled on the chain element for a LONG time. However, on Halloween, Han doodled this for Trick or Treat asks, and that was enough to make me commit to the idea. @spinjitsuburst: I have no idea if you've read this fic or not, but I never did properly tell you how helpful that was. (And none of that is a spoiler if you do go read it, just turn back now and you'll be safe.)

The Incense Gambit is a real chess strategy; however, we don't call it that. The actual move set is called the Bongcloud Attack, which I learned about when I was doing chess research for this fic. I started out by trying to learn chess online, and at some point, I decided it would be fun to have Nya win with a recognizably stupid move set. Knowing very little about chess at that point (having lost to most of the bots and people I played), I Googled a list of joke chess openers and picked the one that made me laugh the hardest. The Mighty Donut was in second place, but that requires both players to cooperate, so that wouldn't have worked. Not wanting to write "what, you've never heard of the Bongcloud Attack?" as a dialogue line, I switched the name to Incense Gambit both as a reference to smoke and for the fact that "incense" also means "to anger." I should also disclose that one of my few chess wins happened when I USED the Bongcloud, which... that's not normal.

In my first outline, the REAL Landon was originally supposed to set off the escape sequence. Stopping Nya was supposed to be pure luck/desperation on his part, followed by an encounter with Nadakhan where I would've been able to cram in a small analysis of how he treats his crew members. It didn't work out and I never wrote it, but there were secret passageways involved, and it could've been fun if I'd gotten it to work. I still think that bringing the shapeshifting back was the wiser choice, though.

I've already gotten two separate comments that, to different degrees, claim this would have worked as a plausible canon installment. Which is good! The whole point of this is to fill the gaps in her experience, so hearing that this seems believable is always lovely.

If you reread c5, take note of who resets the board each time. Without realizing it, I assigned that duty to whoever feels more strongly that they are controlling the situation at that point.

The wine vs tea thing I hinted at in a few past posts: both beverages are written as symbols of how much Nadakhan is present in a given scene. Wine only appears if he's directly visible - things like the chess sequence and in the dream, where I use wine to describe the air. Tea, however, only appears if Nya can't see him, but he's still influencing the events. These include his gloves smelling like black tea when Nya is blindfolded, the presence of tea on the meal tray, and - of course - the tea she uses as a weapon in the escape sequence.

Speaking of the escape sequence, I made this meme VERY early on and I still find it stupid funny:

[lurkinglurkerwholurks]

Trapped

First posted: July 30, 2018

Focuses on: Jason Todd (and Bruce Wayne)

My favorite bookmark: "i think this is my favorite jason fic now?? shit" thank u but I've written better, please come back

Tier: Top 20 in terms of hits, kudos, and bookmarks, surprisingly

This is my "behind the scenes" series where I indulge myself horribly by annotating my fics. Link to the fic itself above. Thoughts below the cut.

Another BatFam Week entry, but this time the prompt is the title.

This one started with a very specific kinetic image of being able to feel Bruce's hand covering Jason's eyes and knowing why. Very horse blinders, but soft and dadly. From there it was just a matter of writing it.

A panicked whine whistled through the dark.

In my own fics, the use of "whine" is very "Oh hi, I've been binging fic indiscriminately for weeks and now have plunged headfirst into writing without knowing a thing about how to do it my own way." No shade on people who do use that verb. I just don't anymore, because it's not my style.

He was buried. Buried in the dark with the bugs and the worms and the dirt.

Treble parallel structures are just the best and I rely on them way too much but also I AM NOT SORRY.

He swung his arm in a panic, forearm slamming against the wall of rubble. Nothing moved, but his arm screamed, so he joined it.

☺️

That was him. Good, good, that was good, dead people didn’t know their own name, because they were dead, but he was going to be dead because he couldn’t see and couldn’t get out and oh god he was buried again—

I really hecking love stream-of-consciousness panic, though I would edit some of the commas here. They were technically, grammatically correct, but a few implied breaths Jason was definitely not taking.

Also I don't remember if it was this fic or another early one but some commenter tried to be like "capitalize that g." No. When the characters reference the deity or deliberately the name, that's God. This is god.

No matter where Jason had cried out for him—in a warehouse in Ethiopia, in a muddy grave, on the banks of the Pit—Bruce had never been here.

Listen, you might think you hate your dad, but when you're living out your worst nightmare, it's good to have him around! Like oh thank goodness AN ADULT, and not just any adult, the ADULT WHO FIXES THINGS.

Bruce’s hand tightened on his ankle.

Some things are just fun to write because it's less about imagining and more about, no, I can just tell you Bruce has his gloves on and his fingers are around Jason's ankle and the pad of his thumb is pressed to that little hollow between the ankle bone and the Achilles heel, I'm not conjuring it, that's just how it is.

It was a ludicrously heavy beam, and his muscles were already weak from panic and fading adrenaline.

I have no idea how heavy concrete with a rebar center actually is. If I were Audrey, I would have googled it and researched down to the ounce. As it is, my brain went "It's like the Little Billy scene in Rocketman, it's fine."

“I have died here,” Jason reminded him, voice teetering like a small figure on a bridge.

I pat past me on the back for that wording.

Bruce placed his hand over Jason’s eyes, sandpapery callouses rubbing across soft eyelashes and bloody skin.

Bruce has my dad's hands. Which doesn't actually make sense because Bruce is a manual labor guy and my dad's only callouses are writing callouses, but it's true.

“You’re not alone. I’m here, and I’m not leaving you.” Bruce kissed Jason’s forehead tenderly, then prompted, “Say it.”

Yay forehead kiss.

“You are not alone.” “I am not alone.”

I am not fond of dialogue-only endings (when I do them.)

Also, to pull out one of my own replies from the comments:

The hill I choose to die on is that the majority of both the strife and bliss between Bruce and Jason at any point in their lives centers on the fact that Bruce is the closest anyone has come to earning total trust from Jason. Period. So that makes every betrayal ten times worse but also means that when the chips are down, Jason will turn to Bruce. 

Another gem from the comments: my elation that @cerusee (whose work I had devoured) read AND liked this fic AND liked it well enough to text it to @audreycritter (who had not yet appeared like a Jack-in-the-Box to drag me bodily into friendship.) I tried to play it cool in the reply. I was not chill in real life.

[skibasyndrome]

Darling Simon, here are some fic writing questions! Curious about 2, 7 and/or 8, and 4/37?

Wish you a fabulous Friday!

Hey there W, thank you so much for asking me all of these! :) And I'm sorry for waiting with answering until it's not even Friday anymore ahhh, but I hope you had a good one! 💜💜💜

2: Is there a trope you’ve yet to try your hand at, but really want to?

Oh sooooooo many!!!!! I really wanna write some classic enemies to lovers sometime and OH okay, this is probably highly specific, but I cooked up this AU idea with @sillylittleflower once and like one of the things that me wanna write it the most is the fact that I could include a good old tending to the wounds of someone and getting very close to them in process scene in it. Scenes like that are 100/10 and I will not rest until I've been able to write at least one!!!!

7: Share a snippet from one of your favorite pieces of prose you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

God... the way I always forget everything immediately after I post it. But hmmm, something I REALLY enjoyed writing is this in Never Letting You Go:

Him on his knees to worship Simon, to offer him everything he has. To spell his veneration out, rededicate this space, make it into a temple for them and their love. To fill the air around them with the sounds of his sweet and breathy prayer. Wilhelm nuzzles his nose along the patch of hair and smiles to himself. If anyone dares to intrude on this moment that feels so fucking holy, well, let them see.

Because listen... something about using religious imagery to write about gay stuff? Idk, that's just a personal favorite of mine. Oh and I love the entire scene that this is taken out of because it's something I hadn't planned, it just sort of came to me and I love that I was able to take this very compromising position, but then not do what's most likely expected and instead make it into this sweet little break in between the sex, idk? I love writing not-always-so-linear sex scenes in case you hadn't noticed, lol.

8: Share a snippet from one of your favorite dialogue scenes you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

I've recently been trying (and really enjoying!) to write more dialogue-heavy stuff, and I had soooo much fun with EVERYTHING in Lavender Haze, but especially some of the not-so-smoot flirting:

“I uh, I don’t,” he’s stumbling over the words, still not taking his eyes off Simon. “I can’t dance, really.” “Oh, don't they teach you stuff like that at… royal school?” Simon shoots back, a challenging glint in his eyes that honest to god makes Wilhelm's knee buckle. Wilhelm winces dramatically. “Don't fucking remind me… I can give you a really unsexy waltz if that's what you want.” The laughter bubbling from Simon's throat is worth all the embarrassment Wilhelm feels at the memory of tripping over his own feet at some function. “Okay, new question: is there such a thing as a sexy waltz?” Simon asks and Wilhelm snorts. “Clumsy waltz, then?” Wilhelm tries and can’t quite fight the fluttering inside his chest at the way Simon is shaking his head at him playfully.

4: How many fic ideas are you nurturing right now? Care to share one of them?

Oh god... too many for someone that should focus on getting one thing out at a time. But it's also kinda cool, because back in October I thought I'd never be able to come up with an original fic idea (as in, not taking something from canon) ever again.

Okay, I counted about 11 that I have traces of in my Google docs, some of them already have a bunch of actual writing to them, some just have outlines, but I love all of them and hope to get to them at one point of the other <3

37: Talk about your current wips.

Oh my goooood, I could talk for HOURS about them, this is too much ahhhh. Well, my most current WIP is a Sequel to my beloved Lavender Haze, which has Wille dealing with the aftermath of his hook-up (and maaaaaaybe, love at first sight situation, but who's to say) with Simon. I'm having a lot of fun with including other characters for once, like Felice, her gf, Maddie, Rosh and just trying my hand at something AU for once :)

And well... my vampire AU....... beloved...... beautiful......... when will I do her the honors of finally writing that first chapter instead of literally everything that comes after!?!?!?

And then I have a bunch of other ideas that I bother @sillylittleflower with 24/7 because they don't wanna leave my head, one of them, very, veeeeeery beloved is a photography student AU, hopefully strangers to friends to lovers and very, very soft and! which is new for me! Simon POV!

Please ask me some fun fic writer asks <3

[illusionremember]

Writer's Journal #02

I mentioned this the other day, but I've made a second blog ( @sabookey ) that will center around writing. I'll probably keep any deeper discussion of my original projects mainly over there, but I'll reblog it here when that comes up.

Historically, I've struggled to feel comfortable talking about my stories, especially when they are WIPs. It's not that I'm afraid of hearing what people think. As a young teen, I saw a lot of people warning creatives off of sharing their OCs for fear of IP theft, and that really stuck with me. The more recent AI bull doesn't help with that kind of paranoia, either. But regardless, as I'm starting to dive into each of these projects more, the discomfort around sharing is something that I'm trying to let go of.

One project I'm currently working on though, is a fanfic I started toying with the idea of years ago — my Tremors!AU Supernatural fic. A few months ago I rewatched Tremors (always a fun movie) and the idea came back and this time I'm actually going forward with it. I haven't written fanfic in a very long time, but coming off of a long period of burnout and depression and recovery, where I'm trying to center my writing again, it helps to have something completely self-indulgent that I can just... play with.

Here’s some things I’ve loved lately, working on my current projects:

I'm just about done with the rough for the first three chapters of the SPN Tremors!AU, and hitting roughly 14,500 words so far, which has already exceeded my more modest goal of 10K words per month :D

I'm getting to write the first one-on-one scene for the romantic arc (which is honestly like a C-level subplot, but I'm a hopeless romantic at heart) and while I was having some trouble with it at first, once I got into their dialogue, it started to flow again. These characters make it so easy to write them connecting with each other on a deeper level than most.

I'm a big believer that learning happens best when you are experimenting and trying things out. That's proven true here - working on this project is really helping me learn more about pacing and balance.

I've talked about this a few times with friends and family, so some of you already know this, but this has been a game changer when it comes to how I do outlines and rough drafts. I always struggle with that part, but this feels... easy, for once. I'm trying hard not to put this project up on some kind of pedestal. Like sometimes in the back of my mind I'm like, if I can complete this fic, then I can apply what I've learned from it to my original works and it'll make every project work like a dream. Which is an impractical expectation to place, but... jfc this has been so much more fun and effortless. I'm also trying to remind myself that being a fanfic, there's a lot of workload lifted off my shoulders when it comes to fabricating a plot. But still.

I was able to talk through some issues I was having with one scene and character in chapter 3 (Thank you again to @alkalidumpling! <3 ) which was really nice because, as mentioned above, I often don't talk about WIPs. The fact that this was productive is very heartening!

I wrote a scene between two characters that really don't get a lot of interaction typically, in canon or in fic (at least, not ones I've read) and it was really fun because it pulls out a different dynamic for each than I think I'm used to seeing. Plus its kinda fun to have characters interacting where I don't have as much intent or stakes to pour into how their relationship needs to go - there's some freedom there that's very intriguing to me.

Feel free to respond or reblog and talk about the things you’ve enjoyed about working on your WIP! I wanna try and build more positivity around the creative process, and I’d love to hear what kinds of things other people are doing!

[zalrb]

idk if this is an umcomfortable ask, i'm sorry if is but with steferine coming up a bit recently i was wondering which are some of the steferine sex scenes your most proud of from your stelena+steferine fic? cause i know you said writing sex scenes is super tricky with finding natural dialogue that doesn't just seem corny and unnatural. (i think you nailed it by the way! it all seemed very sincere and in character for the story. just like what they would say and do in those scenarios.)

Oh, with the amount of things we've talked about on this blog, trust me, this is not an uncomfortable ask so dw 😉

Steferine sex scenes, hmm ... I will choose three.

Their scene in "Kill" because I'd already written them doing quite a bit in the previous parts and so I was like, how am I going to keep this fresh and dark but still in character for Stefan specifically with it continuing a cycle without it being too repetitive of what's been done/said in the parts before and also for Katherine figuring out a way to, in her mind, beat Elena and beat Rebekah, which is through the intensity of their dysfunction and the intensity with which Stefan fights the urge to take things too far because with Elena he'd never do that and with Rebekah (specifically in the 20s) he was already off the deep end so it's that struggle between both that Katherine's like, oh yeah, this is mine, and I think I found a really fun way to do it that also didn't undercut Stelena:

“Fine,” she said, opening her eyes to look at him. “So then fight for me. Keep me from walking out that door. Make me stay here.” 

            Katherine’s eyes glinted with a primal kind of malice.

[...]

She walked out of his room but then found herself backing into it again. Stefan had intercepted her in the hallway, blocking her path, and started walking, guiding her back to where they were a moment ago. His expression was dangerous. Katherine’s skin tingled. He was doing what she told him to. Keeping her from leaving. But she needed the words. She needed his surrender. 

“You want me to stay here,” she said. “Say it.” 

He took a hold of her, his grasp tight enough to break the bones of a human, and kissed her violently, bruising her lips, thrusting his tongue in her mouth, making her knees buckle and head swim.

There was no affection, just an angry passion. She pulled her mouth away and slapped him hard across the face, splitting his lip, her fingernails clawing his skin with one sharp rake that left scratches on his cheek. His eyes reddened and veins darkened his face, his upper lip curled as fangs descended. Katherine grabbed him by the back of his head and forced him to her, kissing him again, pushing him to a wall. She bit his tongue, making him wrench away. Reacting instinctively, he grasped her throat and lowered her to her knees. She looked up at him with excitement, her eyes daring him.  

He blinked rapidly and his irises were back to their normal green, the veins disappeared from his face, his fangs were gone. Now that his senses had returned, he let go of Katherine but his hand, trembling, still hovered around her neck, as if itching to continue. This, Katherine thought triumphantly, he’d never do, never have to do, never feel with his precious Elena. Or that wench Rebekah. This battle within himself, that belonged to her.

2. One of their first scenes in "Toxic" when they're starting to get into their rhythm and Stefan threatens to break the door if she doesn't let him in, just because I think it's a hot scenario, lmao, and I could absolutely see Stefan just being very matter-of-fact about it, like it's happening

Stefan immediately went to open the door but it was locked. He waited for her to open it but she stayed where she was, her body bowing off the bed, delighted at seeing his taut expression, his stillness. She knew that his quietness, his lack of reaction only proved how aroused he really was. She started to pant and then –

“Let me in.” 

Katherine grinned and continued, turning her head even further to the side so he could see the agonized pleasure contorting her face. He flexed his jaw and looked her in the eye.

“Katherine, I will break this door.” 

That elicited an urgent noise from her, which only inflamed Stefan further. He exhaled, frustrated. She smirked and when Stefan saw her eyes cloud as she edged closer, he broke off the door handle, banging the door open with a force that made the glass shatter.

3. Their scene in "Blood" because I didn't expect the reaction it got from readers of the series, I didn't realize they'd find it to be so hot and so heartbreaking for Elena lmao

Could he do it? And then, like the week before, the belt was around her neck and he held onto it like a leash. She waited, still looking up at him, and he tugged her forward, into him, and then she surprised him as she sank her teeth into his inner thigh, making him curse. She moaned as she drank and he panted, smashing his fist against the brick, making a hole in the wall, instinctively pulling on the belt, tightening it around her, making her groan and feed, making him dizzy with the carnality of it all.

Did this make Katherine his or did it make him hers? She’d had him in 1864, she’d had him drunk on her, blinded to her, infatuated with her, yearning for her, and then she’d killed him. Condemned him. How to make up for that? How to get her back. For that. The confusion made him want to conquer her, possess her, for good. No blurred lines.

Somewhere, he knew he should resist. Stop this game. Stopping would be what proved something. But it was a distant caution in comparison to the immediate, overwhelming pleasure radiating throughout him from the source of her bite. She started massaging him as she fed and his free hand was twisted in her hair and he licked his lips, tasting her blood, as she drank his, pulling on the belt, and he hated himself as much as he relished the pleasure and he wanted to leave and he wanted to stay and —

“Oh my God, Stefan!”

[bagelrites]

Have you ever had a fanfiction idea you knew was great but didn't have the time/courage/patience to write ? What would be the backbones of it and what scene in particular would you still like to see written one day ?

So my problem is that when I think of a fan fiction idea even if I have 20 other wips I still somehow think I will do it someday. There is one big fic idea that I had that I have pretty much given up on though, and that's the Squid Game AU. Obviously I thought of it when the DTeam were playing in the Squid Game tournament, and the premise would be that George and Sapnap are contestants who very early on become friends and form an alliance, and Dream is a guard who keeps somehow ending up in situations where he has to talk to George, and they start falling in love. There'd be a lot of complicated feelings, but in the end George escapes with Dream because in that final game he doesn't actually get shot when he loses (I think Dream would have gotten some of the other guards on his side,) but he plays dead until the field is cleared and then Dream comes and whisks him away and they escape on a boat together. George is kind of sad about leaving Sapnap behind, but he has a feeling he's going to win, and he's right of course.

I don't think I'll write more or a shortened version or anything one day. I had so little of it written, in fact, I could actually share everything I wrote here right now, so I'll put it below the cut :)

This was the opening:

George liked the blue hue of his jumper. He’d been told it was turquoise, actually, but it looked a grayish blue to him, cool and muted, like the still face of a lake reflecting the sky. The white stripes could be clouds, perhaps. The numbers over his heart the ripples of a fish flipping from the water, or perhaps the pearly feathers of an egret in flight.

And yes, technically it was a prisoner’s uniform, but George felt it was important to find comforts even—or perhaps especially—in circumstances such as these.

The dormitory was spacious, in its own way. The beds were stacked three layers high, but the mattresses weren’t terribly thin, and there was a wealth of free space opposite the bunks, plenty of room for all two hundred competitors to mingle together, or else find some corner to sulk in alone. The white walls were bright, too, and the ceilings were high.

George supposed if this was the room he was destined to sleep his last night in, at least it was clean and airy. Better than rotting away in a cramped prison cell, right?

He rolled from his side onto his back, staring up at the cross-beams holding up the mattress above him. It had been about an hour or so since they let the competitors into the dorm, and so far there was no word as to when the games would begin. George had been trying to nap in his bunk to wait it out, but everyone else was being far too talkative, and the din of voices kept him awake. Finally, he got antsy enough to get up, deciding to take a stroll around the room and scope out his competitors.

Not that he really thought it would help him win. He didn’t quite plan to do that. Didn't see the point in trying, if he was honest. If he won, he won. If he didn’t…

Then I had a few scenes of dialogue jotted down. First George teasing Dream:

“Why did you say that?”

“Say what?”

“That you trust me.”

“Oh. I don’t know. You’re fun to mess with.”

Dream looked away.

“George, you don’t even know me.”

“You could change that.”

“George—” Dream sputtered, and George giggled. He sounded so cute when he was flustered.

“You’re already talking to me. That’s a step in the right direction.”

Dream froze, and didn’t make any reply. George wished he could see behind his mask, see if he was angry, or scared, or just flushed from embarrassment. He was betting on the latter. “Oh, now you’re all quiet.”

And then here's George seeing Dream's face for the first time:

“Wow, you’re—” George paused, face flushing. “Nothing.”

“I’m nothing?” Dream chuckled.

“No, I mean—I mean you’re, um…” his mind raced for the right word, the least embarrassing word. “Handsome?”

“Oh, I am?” Dream leaned closer, smirking, and George covered his face with his hands.

“No, I meant hot! You’re hot!” he said, muffled into his palms.

Dream just laughed, the sound light and lovely and adoring, and George melted under the warmth of it.

And finally some George + Sapnap dialogue:

“Why do you think you’re gonna win?”

“Because I have to. I have to think it,” Sapnap said. “If I don’t think I can win, then I know I’ll die. You know?” 

George hummed.

“I think you might actually do it.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, I don’t know. I just… have this feeling that you’re gonna go all the way,” George said.

“Well, then I want you to go all the way with me.”

George smiled and couldn’t help snickering a little at that.

“What? I mean it.”

“Oh, c’mon. You know what that sounded like.”