#Wip excerpt

[amidnightjen]

The man who opens the door is not her brother. He’s just as tall as she remembered Evan being but he’s dark haired and brown eyed and a complete stranger.

He’s also holding a baby in one arm. It’s the baby who holds her gaze. Soft blonde curls, startling blue eyes and a tiny little birthmark.

“Can I help you?” The man asks, growing at her and then shifting his baby slightly further out of her reach as though he’s worried she’s going to snatch the little girl and run.

“I’m looking for Evan,” she tells the man.

“He’s not here.”

“Oh. Sorry, I, uh - he lives here, though? Evan Buckley?”

“Yeah,” the man confirms slowly. “Who are you?” He still sounds wary and she feels so wrong footed. She hadn’t really thought much beyond running, beyond finding her baby brother.

“I’m Maddie,” she says, and even as she does, she wonders if it will even mean anything to this man. This man who is holding a tiny little baby version of Evan.

But the man’s eyebrows shoot up and he takes a step back, not to protect himself further, she realises, but to give her room to come inside. “Oh, wow, uh, you should come in.”

“I can wait out here,” she offers, still remembering his earlier caution.

The man snorts. “And let him come home and find you waiting outside? Nah, he’d kill me.”

“He might not want to see me,” she cautions because she has to prepare herself for the the possibility that he won’t want to see her.

The man snorts. “I’m Eddie by the way,” he introduces, shutting the door behind her. He bounces the baby in his arms gently, adding, “This is Maddie.”

The sob that tears out of her is unplanned and raw.

Maddie.

Evan named his daughter Maddie.

[pen-of-roses]

Some people are made for the sun.

That's what all the stories and songs and pretty poems claimed anyway. Some people are made for the sun, others are made for the night. It's a pretty bit of flattery, one he's sure he's used before, easy to mimic and true enough if rather empty. After all, the golden frame of daylight can make most anything appear beautiful when positioned just right. Even the night can make one shine when the cloak of stars forces you to lean in close to see all.

But as he tilts his head to the sky, it's suddenly clear he was made for moments like this.

Moments where the sky is a dull white blanket of clouds. Where everything is covered in that pale and dreary haze that dims almost all the world's colors. Where the air is full of mist that can't be seen until it settles shining over his closed eyes and that faint trace of a smile. Where everything is hushed to hear calm and easy breaths. Where there's a chilled breeze that runs fingers through honey brown curls and paints his cheeks and twitching ear pink. Where he stands so vivid. Where he seems so at peace.

He could stand just as beautifully under the sun, just as pretty veiled in night, but the light would seem so harsh in comparison, the dark so consuming. An ill fit.

He was made for this grayed world. Made, not to create them, but to bring out the still beauty and the sharp edges and the quiet and real life in this world.

[a-guy-named-e]

“You are both so gay.”

“Oh, that’s rich coming from you, Kristen,” Fabian argued, still grinning. “Besides, you’ve literally kissed all of us, and three of us are guys, I think that makes you like… sixty percent straight.”

Kristen gasped in mock outrage. “Never, and I mean never, call me straight again!”

[topazadine]

🚨Description, Momentum, and Tension; Or, How Not to Bore a Reader🚨

This was inspired by, of all things, horrible Booktok takes like the above.

You know, the ones where they say they will only read the dialogue because they just want to understand the plot and they blaze past any descriptions because they're apparently worthless?

I doubt I can change their minds, since such people allergic to actually, you know ... reading. BUT! There may be some salvageable ones yet.

Today, we're doing to discuss how to write exciting descriptions, and where to put them for maximum impact. Perhaps we'll get the Booktok girlies to read a book for fun instead of treating it like a school assignment.

Again, as always, this is just my opinion as someone who has been writing for a long time. And a lot.

Maybe you'll disagree, and that's fine. This is my opinion and my perspective. With that, let's go!

What do Description, Momentum, and Tension mean?

Description is anything that is not action or dialogue. It could be of a room, a character, a landscape, etc. Description can also include interiority, like stream of consciousness thoughts.

Momentum is the forward thrust of the plot. This is not the same as pacing, though it is related to it. When you have momentum, you are moving forward; that could be slowly or quickly, depending on what you need at the moment.

In general, momentum will ebb and flow throughout a story, same as you have less forward momentum when you're turning a corner in your car. You'll start out slowly and gradually pick up pace throughout the story, until something intense happens (like the climax), after which momentum will slow down toward the end.

Tension is suspense or anticipation, and it is directly related to momentum. This is what keeps people turning pages because they want to know what happens.

I will put description aside for a second and delve a bit further into the relationship between tension and momentum.

Momentum = Tension + Pace

Again, momentum is not the same as pace. Momentum is the sense that the story is progressing toward something; tension is about intriguing your readers. You vary the tension based on the pace to get the right momentum.

You can have a slow-paced plot with such extreme tension that people simply can't put it down, because there is momentum; we feel something building up and we want to know what it is. This is common in horror stories. That creeping sense of dread is tension, and as it builds, so does the momentum.

On the other hand, you can have a fast-paced plot with 0% tension that no one gives a shit about. (Sorry Hurricane Wars, I DNFed after like five seconds because it was boring despite being super fast.)

In this case, you haven't gotten the right blend between pace and tension, which means there's not enough momentum. You've slammed me into a brick wall and I gave up. This is a common problem with adventure and thriller stories.

Tension is what makes people care, and it needs to be proportional to the momentum.

Think like you'll pulling something. You need strong tension to build momentum for a heavier (slower-paced) story. But you need light tension to build momentum for a lighter (faster-paced) story. And your pacing will vary, so you'll need different tensions throughout the book to maintain momentum.

And where does that tension come from? It comes from everywhere, but today we'll focus on description.

Description Builds Tension, Which Sets the Momentum

I don't think most people actually hate descriptions. Or maybe I am just too optimistic.

Readers (not Booktok girlies) hate descriptions that take away from the tension and are in the wrong places. These kinds of descriptions bring everything to a screeching halt because no one cares about them at that exact moment.

Description slows things down, which can be a good thing when you need tension. When you don't need tension - such as if you're in the middle of the fight scene - you need less description. You've built up the momentum already; now you let it hum along until it slows down again. Then, you pick it back up by introducing tension through dialogue, action, and description.

Here is a description I am particularly proud of. This scene happens in Absent All Light, the fifth book in The Eirenic Verses series.

Clearly these arrows are very, very important. I told you the fletching, what type of wood they are, that they have an iron tip.

They feel so important because there's not many other descriptions here. I am holding you by the face and making you look at them.

We're seeing this scene in slo-mo; you watch each arrow hit its mark. Now you're wondering what the fuck is so special about these arrows, of all arrows on the planet.

And you're probably also frustrated because our boy Orrinir passed tf out and can't even tell you anything more. What's with these things?! Where are they coming from?! Who cares so much about this stupid useless man?!

(Me. I do. Orrinir is baby.)

This unveils something else important, which is that you don't need to handhold your readers.

Allow Your Readers Some Autonomy

It's okay not to describe everything. In fact, it's better not to describe everything. Describe what is essential to what you are trying to show, and let everything else be a bit blurry. This helps maintain momentum: you're not bringing everything to a halt in order to take your reader on an MTV Cribs-style tour of a single room.

And, if the reader cottons on to the fact that you only describe things that are important, then they want to understand why you mentioned it. This creates tension ... and thus momentum.

Here's another example from the my WIP Funeral of Hopes, where we get to see a description of an outhouse. (Hell yeah!)

This description gives us a lot of context clues without going into disgusting detail:

It's nighttime.

We're obviously in a premodern world if there's an outhouse, and given the weird names, it's a fantasy premodern world.

Their outhouse does not smell particularly bad because of the ventillation. Our noses aren't being assaulted through the screen.

These characters have enough money to commission a nice outhouse. Probably not super rich, but not hurting financially either.

Their country has artisans, which suggests the place isn't raggedly destitute.

Orrinir is a simp.

Uileac hasn't gone to therapy about the fact that his parents were slaughtered pretty much right in front of him (because therapy does not exist yet). Instead, he avoids anything whatsoever that reminds him of his trauma, but it keeps coming up anyway.

We don't need to know the type of wood or the setup; it's an outhouse. Even if you, specifically, have not been in an outhouse, you likely have some cultural consciousness of what they look like. You can rely on that to fill in what wood it is, what the interior is, etc. Going too much into detail would be super annoying.

I could probably add a little bit more description - temperature, noises outside, if there's a breeze, if it's stuffy in there - without losing my readers, and maybe I will.

Of course, sometimes you just want to describe something pretty, and that's fine. But if you're describing something pretty, then it should have a reason for being there. Either it's a symbol of something, or it connects back to a particular theme, or it reminds the character of something else, or whatever.

Okay, so now we know what purpose description has, how to use it to build tension and maintain momentum, and so on. But what about exactly where to put it?

Where to Put Descriptions

Hellos.

When meeting a character for the first time, you will want to describe them. Face, height, size, eye color, hair color and style, maybe their clothing if it denotes something about them (rich, poor, messy, neat, weird, out of place, pretentious, humble, etc).

The more that your POV describes a character, the more crucial they are to the plot. Please do not describe every single side character because no one cares.

In fact, if the character isn't in more than a few scenes, don't even name them. Your reader's cognitive load increases with each character that you introduce and describe. I share more about that in my post about not overcomplicating fantasy stories.

The way that characters are described is also important, as I have discussed in remembering perspective when writing descriptions.

As characters grow closer, you can add new details as long as they would not clash with previous ones.

For example, the MC may notice a very small scar on the love interest's cheek after being together for a few days or weeks, which is an opportunity to share more about the love interest's backstory. The MC would not fail to mention an enormous scar that goes right across the love interest's cheek. That would, in fact, be one of the first things they noticed.

Goodbyes.

When characters part from one another is a good time to slow down and let the reader soak in the moment.

You can describe the setting as the other character walks away, or notice something about the departing character's gait - whatever.

Adding description makes their departure seem momentous and can denote how important the character is to the MC. Focusing on setting? Unimportant, maybe annoying, and the MC is glad to see them go away. Focusing on the character? Important, the MC probably likes them.

Travel Scenes.

This is a given, especially for fantasy adventures. Show us what's happening out there! If you can work themes into your descriptions by focusing on key elements - and having the characters react to those things - that's all the better.

We can get a lot of characterization by seeing how your MC observes their surroundings.

For example, if your character is a foreigner and has a bad opinion of wherever they are, then you can really draw out their disdain and help us understand them better.

If they are scared, they're going to look for things that feel safe and familiar - and panic if they don't see any. If they are excited about their journey, even the stupidest things will seem wondrous to them.

If they're naive, they may want someone to explain everything they see (hence annoying other characters and building conflict).

In this way, you're developing characterization, worldbuilding, infusing themes, and drawing a pretty picture, all at once. Multifunctional writing is always good.

"Approaching the Door" moments.

What I mean is those moments before something serious happens. It's the eve of a battle, or it's right before the character must make a huge decision that will change their life forever, or they're waiting for terrible news.

Think about sitting in the principal's office waiting for them to return so you can get yelled at. You're focusing on anything you can get your eyes on to distract yourself from what you know is coming.

Suddenly that stupid "#1 School Administrator" mug on the desk is the most important thing you've ever seen and you can't stop looking at it: analyzing its gloss, seeing the little dribble of coffee around the rim, noticing that the text is peeling. This can tell us how long the principal has been working in education, if they're a tidy person or a messy one, and maybe even how much they are liked by their peers.

If you've made it clear that something is going to happen soon, slowing down and describing (important!) things will feel agonizing to the reader. They will start clinging to every word for a clue about what is going down, trying to tell what the weather means, and so on.

Here's a brief example: we're waiting for Orrinir to give us the answer (and, hence, give his captors the answer). A lot hinges upon this answer, so I slow down to add some tension.

Not too slow, mind you. Again, it would be annoying if this went on for pages and pages. But now we have more tension again anyway, because we need to know whether the Sinans will figure out that Orrinir is lying.

By slowing down and giving a small flashback, it emphasizes how critical this question is to Orrinir's continued survival.

After Action.

These are the "cigarettes after sex" descriptions. Once something big and important has happened, we need to ease up so the reader can take a breather.

Too much action all at once is, paradoxically, very boring. You're vomiting all this action on the reader so they don't have time to digest what the hell is happening before you've dragged them on to the next point.

There's no tension, except maybe a tension headache because your reader is confused and disoriented. There's no momentum because everything is occurring right on top of itself.

As such, you break it up with a bit of description, pumping the brakes on the momentum. It's the difference between throwing someone off a cliff (horrifying, criminal offense) versus strapping them into a harness and rappeling down (exciting, recreational activity).

The descriptions may literally be after sex, like when the characters are admiring each other or the scenery after scaling a building to bang on the roof. Or they may be after a battle, during the cleanup or while the characters are convalescing. Or they may be after a huge important reveal, while the characters are digesting the news and trying to figure out what to do next.

Lulls

Again, you can't have 24/7 adventure and excitement or your reader will have a nervous breakdown. It's okay to have quick flashes of description during conversations, or while waiting for things.

To ensure you keep a good momentum, these descriptions should be pretty brief. It could just be your POV character noticing something sitting on the table, or hearing a noise outside, or taking a sip of tea.

These small descriptions can add a lot of depth without boring anyone.

Where Not to Put Descriptions

This isn't to say that there should be no descriptions at all in these places, but any and all descriptions should be kept very brief: no more than a sentence or two.

Fight scenes

Arguments

Chase scenes

Revelations

Explanations

Basically, anywhere that there is a lot of action in your particular genre, you need less description. You've got a lot of momentum now and can focus primarily on what's happening rather than where you are, assuming you set things up correctly.

So, now we get to the scariest question.

How Much Description Is Too Much?

Description is good. But like most things, description becomes bad when it is in the wrong place at the wrong time.

A quick rule of thumb is that if you have a full page of nothing but description - no dialogue, no action - you have too much. You don't have to remove it all: you just need to chunk it up by including an action or a conversation.

Your character should not be musing to themselves for a full page. I can't even listen to myself muse for a full page, and I am the main character in my own life. Throw a grenade at them, or have the building collapse, or whatever.

They also shouldn't be just describing things for a full page, even if it's some beautiful scenic locale. Have you ever tried to just sit there for 10 minutes and pick out every single little thing you see around you? Exhausting!

Real people would not do that, no matter how interesting somewhere is. They'd grab a snack, or turn to the person next to them and ask a question, or wonder what it would feel like to run into traffic, then promptly tell themselves not to do that and go back to admiring the scenery.

And man, if you are describing another character for a full half a page, your MC is either very horny or very, very bored.

You're probably sick of hearing this if you've been reading my blog, but this is a golden rule.

Characters are not real people, but for the most part, they must feel like real people.

Even the most fantastical of fantastic fantasy stories still have characters that feel like a real person, because people like stories that have realistic people in them.

Description is the same way if you are working in third person limited or first person. Think about how long you spend describing something when seeing it for the first time, or when you first meet someone. Probably not very long! You're not sitting there musing for ten minutes without doing anything whatsoever.

Together with dialogue and action, description builds a world, offers characterization, and creates tension: all the elements you need for a great story.

And speaking of great stories, do you want to read one? Of course you do. You should pick up my debut book, 9 Years Yearning.

This lovely novella is about two soldiers (the ones mentioned above, in fact) as they come to understand one another over their training at the War Academy. You can expect a lot of gay yearning, some fight scenes, and a bratty little sister who is simultaneously adorable and annoying.

If you do decide to read my book, don't forget to leave a review!

They're crucial for getting books on more eyes because Amazon loves reviews. And we wouldn't want to upset Amazon. (Please, Amazon is scary.)

[penny00dreadful]

☎️ and 🥵 for the wip game! 🥰

Yes yes YES I had so much fun with these.

☎️

Dustin put up the mother of all fights, screaming at them all that they had to stay. This was where they were supposed to meet Steve and the rest of the Party. This was where they would have been told to go! They had to stay! They couldn’t leave until they turned up. What if they arrived and everyone had gone? It was only the darkening and reddening of the clouds in the distance that convinced him it was futile to stay. But even so, he insisted on leaving a message.

🥵

“Do you think he’d choke me if I asked him to?” Steve tilted his head only slightly, putting the two guys in his peripheral vision, eyes still locked on Eddie atop the small stage this Indy bar had to offer, belting out into the microphone and running his deft fingers over the neck of his guitar. “Oh yeah,” the guys friend answered. “He looks like the type to give you a good smack around if you asked for it.” “Fuck, I think I’m going to.” “What?” “Ask for it.” Steve kept his face straight, but he was pretty sure his eyes were burning into Eddie, staring him down from his position at the bar. As soon as Corroded Coffin was done performing, Steve was gonna show these two guys exactly who Eddie belonged to.

[mrcformoso]

Sneak peek number 3 for the epilogue of Mind in Madness, Heart in Peace!

One straight pairing in TGCF I lowkey ship HAHAHA but also Pei Ming has some extra Character Development and needs to hash things out with our Rain Master.

I had my surgery and I'm currently on recovery, so I'll probably be working more on the fic now that I have the peace of mind that I'm on the road to healing. It's much easier to write without that haze of uncertainty and anxiety over my head.

I will do my best to finish it by the weekend! Hopefully!

[oliolioxenfreewrites]

introducing the mistskin walkers

take a read and let me know what you think!

writing share tag list; express interest if you’re wanting to join 🤟🏾

@drchenquill @illarian-rambling @kaylinalexanderbooks @leahpardo-pa-potato @slenders1ckn3ss

@somethingclevermahogony @inky-duchess @sassystyl @rotting-moon-writes

@avaseofpeonies @oc-atelier @ceph-the-ghost-writer @paeliae-occasionally @davycoquette

@rirori-jeorgiarn @spookyceph @enne-uni @the-golden-comet @wyked-ao3

@unforgettable-sensations @hissorrow22 @boredwritergirl @thewrathoffemalerage

[fletchingbrilliant]

i keep getting jumpscared by Vox every time I open Photoshop back up

[kaylinalexanderbooks]

First/Last Line

Thanks for @melpomene-grey here, @willtheweaver here, @the-golden-comet here, and @oh-no-another-idea here, here!

Rules: post the first and last line that you wrote today or any other first and last line

Not exactly in drafting mode, but here's the first and last lines of the most recent chapter:

From The Secret Portal Part Two (Hye-Jin POV)

“Would you like me to review my findings over the last several months?” Dr. Moon asked.

*****

She now stood behind Tyler, who’d spun in his chair to face her.

I forgot that I had such a good writing streak and then I annoyingly stopped mid-scene because it wasn't that engaging ughhhh

Tagging @oliolioxenfreewrites @theelfauthor @nailamoonsi @winterandwords @somethingclevermahogony

+ ANYONE ELSE

TSP intro

TSP tag list (ask to be +/-): @thepeculiarbird @illarian-rambling @televisionjester @finchwrites

@literarynecromancy @honeybewrites @the-golden-comet @corinneglass

[ksbbb]

Fuck it Friday

Tagged by @hemlocksandfoxgloves

Paint the Town Red🩸

“He’s angry. Has a bit of a temper.” Nolan comments, trying to sound helpful and giving as much insight as he can.

“He’s a werewolf though?” Theo sounds so damn ridiculous. He has to ask but he hates appearing like he’s clueless.

“He wasn’t a werewolf then. I can only imagine he’s a new type of monster.” Mason retorts, the pain in his eyes evident, and——-ah. There it is.

Mason misses his little childhood friend.

“He’s quite an interesting guy.” Theo smirks, happy to be gaining some progress with them and loving the details they’re divulging.

“I don’t know what you’re planning, but save it. You’ll only be beaten by Scott again.” Mason ruefully smiles, and he slams the door, locking it behind him.

Theo’s not planning anything this time. He’s bored and he needs the leg up to get some quiet. Even with nothing planned, he’s still always watching his back, fearing the worst, and waiting to be sent back to hell.

It’s fine. Not really, but maybe it never was, because when he turns to head back to his truck, Liam’s in it. He’s staring back at him and calmly licking his lips.

Tagging @wolfboy88 @thiamsxbitch @mmoosen @maplesyrizzup @honestlydarkprincess @theoceanismyinkwell @chasing-chimeras

[amidnightjen]

Arthur Pendragon had never frozen in battle. He’d never hesitated when confronted with a fight, be it a challenging knight, a bandit or a sorcerer, he’d always prided himself on his ability to act under any circumstances, not to hesitate when the moment called for it.

He was frozen now.

His hand on his sword, mouth open as he’d been about to shout for his manservant, his entire body stilled as he completely failed to react to what was happening before him.

He’d seen the fog of the spell coming, had been desperately fighting with his knights to clear as many people from the citadel as they could before they succumbed. He’d known, even as he’d been running and calling orders over the panic and chaos, that he would soon lose his city, his people, to a spell he had no way of stopping, to a sorcerer he couldn’t identify.

He’d known he would continue to fight and that unless, by some miracle, they found the sorcerer, that he too would fall beneath the curse and that there was nothing he could do to fight against the sweeping fog.

There wasn’t anything he could do.

But Merlin -

He’d never seen his manservant look so -

There had been such sorrow in his eyes and then he’d -

But Merlin wasn’t -

He didn’t -

Arthur had never heard Merlin’s voice sound so deep and commanding. He’d never once seen his manservant throw a hand toward the sky and command lightning. He’d never seen the man he trusted betray him so deeply and he froze, unable to move or act as Merlin - stupid, bumbling Merlin - commanded the very sky and nature itself to do his bidding.

A sorcerer. The man he trusted beyond all other.

Merlin was a sorcerer.

And frozen, though he was, furious as he was, still unable to move, he could say nothing. Do nothing.

Arthur Pendragon had never frozen in battle. He’d never hesitated when confronted with a fight, be it a challenging knight, a bandit or a sorcerer, but he froze then, in the face of the greatest betrayal he’d ever known.

Froze even as Merlin wielded magic to save Camelot.

[hardlyinteresting]

Aaron Hotchner x actress!reader coming soon

thank you to @hotchfiles for encouraging this concept!

[davycoquette]

when it comes to slaughter, you will do your work on water

SNP Westerhout is a thousand feet long, steely grey with a red belly. She’s been at this for almost twenty years by the time you join her skeleton crew.

One of the young seamen, Buchanan, doesn’t like you much. From the time you joined the crew he’s doubted your age out loud in front of everybody. He says shit like, “You don’t look nineteen. Do you think he looks nineteen, Cillian? He can’t be.”

You turn seventeen in a few days, but that’s besides the point. It’s right there on your fake ID: nineteen. 

You’re a real pussy about it, too;  prideless, cowardly, invisible. But not to Buchanan; to him you must be some threat.

You are, in the end. At his end.

🤠 PRETZELS AND VIOLENCE BELOW THE CUT 🤠

He does nothing without an audience. Passing by each other in an otherwise empty corridor, he says nothing. Won’t even look up off the floor in front of him. But when the other guys are milling around, he’s full of condescension, full of doubt about you, full of theories. You think you don’t give him anything to work with, but sometimes it feels like your shame is a long strip of magnetic reel he’s unspooling in front of everybody. The things he says, stupid as they are, cut you open and dissect you so everyone can lean over and see what’s stowed inside your skeleton.

You don’t like it, but you’re not gonna do anything about it.

The more you demure, the ballsier Buchanan gets. He starts trying to pick fights, albeit only when there’s somebody to see it. He’s a little bit shorter than you are, but bigger. (Everybody was bigger than you back then, when you were a kid pretending to be a man pretending to be human.) When he pushes, you stagger. When he shoves the heels of his hands against yours, he can push you down onto your knees, then he kicks you in the ribs. It happens about that way a couple times. It knocks the breath out of you and you can’t get back on your feet right away, so the sight of you on your hands and knees sucking for air is a nice spectacle — but it doesn’t hurt, really. Not for long. The seamen and the oilers get tired of watching you long before you’re on your feet again. It’s funny for them, but not impressive. Some of the older guys think he could stand to pick on somebody who stands a chance for a change.

You do start to wonder if you ought to take offense. You catch sight of the bruises he leaves and wonder if they shouldn’t go deeper than they do. If your pride shouldn’t feel bruised and soft like overripe fruit. It doesn’t, though — it feels more like watching some character you don’t care much about get the shit kicked out of him on TV.

Westerhout is headed for the Strait of Malacca when you finally talk to him. Everyone’s nervous because some smaller vessel got hijacked a couple weeks back. One of the pirates had a grenade-launcher, Cillian tells everyone at lunch-time. You listen, but only because you like the look of him. (This is something you grapple with from time to time, but mostly you accept it. It’s far from the worst thing about you.) If pirates want to try and steal forty-foot containers loaded with mysterious contents, they could just kick you about it, too. They can blow you up — what choice does anybody have?

But Buchanan is real nervous about it. He doesn’t say anything at lunch; just wears this chary look on his face. Part of you wants to feel smug about that, but looking at him just makes you blue. He can’t sleep that night. It’s strange that you even notice — but you’re fresh off your shift, and the sky is a cold, cold shade of grey. It blazes silvery behind the ovular windows leading from your room, which you share with a guy called Lopez, to the snack machines. They’re bubbly with condensation, and the bright primary shades of the containers out on the deck blur like a surreal, preschool dream.

You pause and look out over the deck from the doors to the emergency escape. Your hand clears water from the glass and you squint at the dark shape leaned over the deck rail. The stacked containers look like a city built around him, like Buchanan’s standing at the edge of the world.

Spotlights on the deck light the way to him. You’re forgoing a bag of out-of-date pretzels for this, and don’t quite know why. By the time you see him through a narrow frame of corrugated steel boxes stacked forty feet high on either side, you’re sure what you want to do. (It was iffy, at first, because your mind kept snapping to the little utility knife in your back pocket on your way here. Must’ve been self-preservation, though, because Buchanan’s kicked you so many times.) When you reach him he doesn’t turn around, so you lay your hand briefly on his shoulder then lean over the rail next to him and you both watch foam lap out of the black ocean.

Buchanan mutters something like an apology, which you don’t answer. The follow-up is excuses: he guesses he’s a little bit homesick. He was in the foster system for most of his childhood; his adopted father recently passed away. Can you be homesick, he wonders, if you never had a home?

You’re barely listening, but you understand doubt and confusion and lonesomeness so intimately it comes as a shock that anyone else could be acquainted with them without you hearing about it. It shouldn’t surprise you, though, because these things don’t talk. (That’s kind of the hell of it, isn’t it?)

You look over at him, finally, and he looks at you like it’s the first time he’s ever seen you. Like he didn’t know who it was he was talking to all this time, or knocking down, and you realize he’s not the age he says he is, either. He looks heartbroken for a beat and his mouth works around a “Why,” but it’s eaten up by waves rushing against Westerhout’s belly and he abandons whatever it is he’s gonna say. Reaches out instead and holds onto to the back of your neck while he looks in your eyes like he’s sorry, then all of a sudden he’s coming closer and closer and you can’t begin to imagine what it is he’ll do

and you never find out, because you slip the knife from your pocket and spring it and jam it down to the hilt between his ribs.

He clenches up and grabs at your skinny wrist. His eyes drop down and his mouth moves — probably another one of those why questions but only blood comes out — and you don’t know, exactly, but you think to him, you know why. It occurs to you to yank your knife out of him and drive it in a dozen more times, but it also occurs that his blood would paint an abstract expressionist work of evidence against you, so you shove him at the railing instead. He’s heavy and you can’t seem to lift him over. The light’s leaving his eyes the whole time and his body starts to list and sag. He drapes his spine over the metal and you grab his pants and haul him the rest of the way, then let go. Your knife slips out of your grip and falls with him. He hits the water and you imagine he bobs back to the surface in the dark gloom, but the knife sinks.

You step back and look at the rail. It’s clean. There’s a glob of blood on the deck, which you wash away with a styrofoam cup and sludgy rainwater you dug out of one of the garbage cans fixed to the outer deck. You do the same with the blood crusted at the corner of your thumb nail, then buy your pretzels and take a long shower and you’re in bed eating when Lopez comes into the room.

It’s a few hours before they start looking for Buchanan. You can’t sleep, but pretend to wake up, then help look for him at one in the morning. Knowing you won’t find him doesn’t diminish your effort. It takes thirteen men a long time to scour a ship that size. Hours after you dropped him over the railing, they call in a search and rescue.

This "chapter" needs more editing than others, and may or may not ever make it to the official chronicle of yote lore. Posting it anyway! 💃 Taggin': @fortunatetragedy @saturnine-saturneight @cowboybrunch

[ghostradiodylan]

I don't usually do WIP Wednesdays, but this is a snippet of my WIP and it happens to be Wednesday... Posting a little preview for accountability because I really need to finish this and get it posted!

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His walk back to the lodge would be peaceful, scenic even, if not for the macabre circumstances. The woods are coming to life like they always do at daybreak. They’d been friendly, a cherished place of respite just a few short hours ago, but now each sound sets his teeth on edge, has his imagination conjuring an enemy approach to correspond with every rustling of grass, every breeze that moves through the canopy of leaves. He’s nearing his destination when Ryan’s paranoia actually manifests into something real, stops him dead in his tracks.

Someone or something is staggering out of the tree line and toward the lodge, pale and lanky and coated in blood. The sight of it kicks Ryan’s heart into overdrive. Chris Hackett is dead and the sun is up. Ryan knows, logically, that the monsters should be gone, but it sets off every alarm bell in his brain anyway, has him raising his rifle and switching off the safety, just in case. He stares into the distance for a few seconds more and is struck with a realization that shocks him so badly he nearly drops the gun. Instead he slowly lowers it and engages the safety again, letting it dangle from the strap over his shoulder. The tall figure he’s got in his sights is not a werewolf. Not anymore. 

“Dylan.”

Ryan breathes his name into the morning mist like a secret. 

Dylan’s usually fluffy hair is stuck down to his head with blood and rainwater. His formerly gray t-shirt is now mostly varying shades of deep red and is so thoroughly torn that it appears to be more hole than shirt, hanging off his torso like some sort of crudely-fashioned fishing net. His cropped jeans are shredded to ribbons up to his knees and his stilted gait, Ryan realizes, is likely due to him having lost his shoes when all the skin exploded off of his body. By Dylan’s typical standards, he looks pretty rough, but he’s just about the most beautiful thing Ryan can imagine seeing at the edge of the forest on this godawful morning.

He’s alive. He’s okay. Until this moment, Ryan hadn’t even consciously known that he’d been expecting another outcome. Truthfully, he hadn’t allowed himself to think about Dylan very much at all once he’d left for the Hackett house. He’d done some quick and necessary compartmentalization to focus on the more pressing problem of Laura and Chris. Now, he feels the protective numbness he’s wrapped around himself like a blanket shifting and falling away, his battered heart hammering as it fills with something that could only be hope. He hesitates for a moment, as though he’s afraid that calling out to him aloud will cause Dylan to dissolve into the ether like a ghost. Then Ryan takes a deep breath and finds his voice. 

“Dylan!” he shouts, and Dylan startles, his head whipping around in search of the sound. He spots Ryan and looks like he’s doing a double-take himself, his gore-spattered face alight with recognition and disbelief, like he can’t quite accept that what he’s seeing could be real either.

“Ryan?” he calls back, “Ryan!”

Ryan reaches a full sprint in Dylan’s direction before he even realizes that he’s running.

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[penny00dreadful]

🥵 for Wip Weekend please and thank you

And thanks for the tag!! 💖

Oooohhhh I am excited I am excited!

“Do you remember-?” Steve breathed, hand slowly stroking over himself, legs spread wide, sitting back on their bed, Eddie on his knees on the ground below, those impossibly wide eyes staring up at him, sitting on his hands, like he’d been told to. Steve tilted his head back, letting a soft exhale out from between his lips as he squeezed himself at the tip, feeling the pleasure running through his entire body. “Do you remember what I said to you last night?” Rolling his head along his shoulders, Steve looked down at Eddie again, watching him fight through the fog in his brain, a slightly confused scrunch in his eyebrows before it came back to him. “Oh, you asshole.” Steve’s jaw clenched and he tightened his fist around himself, his whole body going rigid as he glared down at Eddie. “The fuck did you just say to me?”

[mrcformoso]

Sneak peek no. 2 for the epilogue of Mind in Madness, Heart in Peace! We're closing all the storylines, and this includes resolving the BeefLeaf drama.

My surgery is scheduled on Feb 12, so I'll hopefully be able to post the epilogue by then!

(I also commissioned another art piece for this epilogue and I can't wait for you guys to see it!!!!)