#a smart is like throwing a pebble at a bird. the bird (me) may or may not be hurt but has a decent survival chance imo

[incandescent-irrigation]

#if youre driving a car in which you can kill me which is most cars

i think every car is probably capable of killing a pedestrian, however i'm enamored by the idea that you have low-intensity superpowers & would destroy a Smart that runs into you

if a smart hit me i would break a clavicle or maybe a rib, so what im saying is it's a sliding scale from "no injury defo death" to "no death no injury" with Really small grey scale of "will defo not die and defo get injured".

the "no injury no death" is mostly comprised of this bad boy and its equivalents

i could eat this for breakfast. this bitch can store 32 clowns if you remove the chairs and the engine. its made of fucking aluminum to me. if there were four of me we could lift it up and then immediately go to the emergency room with displaced discs.

[strangerays]

Nothing in Particular Update #3

About seven months and I finished the first draft at 93k!

I always imagined how it would feel to finish a first draft (I’ve been writing novels “seriously” since about 2017) and now that I’ve finally done it, I can say it’s a better feeling than I imagined! Telling my friends and family (and even my doctor, who was really quite excited about it) was an amazing amazing thing. I’m generally pretty nervous to tell people about my work, but I had a really positive reaction. Honestly all of it has me on a creative high (not sure I’m coming down from that any time soon lol).

I’m going back for my last year of school in two days, which means I’m not going to have as much time as I did to write all summer. This is okay, because I’m actually going to take an entire month off of writing! I’m really burnt out - don’t want to start editing a story that’s so near to me if I don’t feel ready. I’ll talk more about editing when the time comes!

In a lot of ways, I found that my life mimicked my art. I think for a lot of people, it tends to be the other way around, but this story did a lot to heal me.

Going to hop right into excerpts now! I’m not going to explain much this far into the story because I would like to try to publish this story (FAR in the future) so I apologize for that! Also, I stopped naming most of the chapters until I go back and edit because there are just SO MANY and I didn’t have the time to stop and think of cool names. Anyways... enjoy!!

(Here is the link to the original masterpost!)

#1

text: Rays of gold curled to the ground, primordial and shy as the fire reeds on the cusps of shallow pool around the bay outside of Mothouse combed them to fine sparkles. I remembered the way Lonan kneeled on the edges of this pool. He never dove in – just blinked slowly as he watched crabs and minnows chase each other in a swirl of sand. I could not resist the water. I’d made it a part of me. My hair was longer then; down to my elbows, fading from dark red to orange and white, soaked always. Lonan let me borrow his shirts when I forgot to bring my own. They hung from my waist, too big for me, and I was warm even as the breeze rocked us inside.

#2

text: The sky was never blue in Point Blink. At least, I couldn’t remember the last time the clouds hadn’t given way to a dark gray mist. Jude was here. I was out of place. I was floating – watching slender, underfed pines wave in the breeze behind houses on the water before they disappeared underneath furls of cloud. Bursts of warm light shone in windows on the bay, like hungry eyes watching for a storm. A group of kids our age chaffed on a rocky expanse, their heads popping over pockets of darkness when they laughed. Froths of cloud stretched across the sky, moving the ground with it. Long stretches of trees and islands far on the other side of our small pocket of ocean looked more like large freight ships. Lights glittered and beamed on the roads and highways that belonged to the city. Pink was starting to show over the horizon. Lonan was on the other side. Somewhere.

#3

text: 

Jude sucked her lips in and flopped onto her stomach so she could see the blue below her feet. Her dark curls draped over her ears and hid her nose.

“I can’t see the bottom of the ocean.” She cupped her fingers with the other hand. “See where the water fades to white and back again? The endless tide. Why do people say the ocean is blue?”

I leaned forward. She was right. Blue ocean climbed up the side of the cliffs and turned the rocks a dark gray; ate the erosion as if from a plate. I’d never had the ocean explained to me that way before.

“I think I like it that way,” I said.

I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what was at the bottom of Point Blink.

#4

text: 

She smiled weakly. “It’s okay. This is just guesswork. Patchwork.”

I wanted to apologize again, but I had a strong guess that it might make her annoyed with me. “It’s kind of like… I’m just waiting for the next bad thing to happen.”

She wrinkled her nose and eyebrows, scrunched up her little face. “That’s dumb.”

“I think it’s a smart way to live.” Sometimes it felt like worry was the only thing that kept me alive. It wasn’t dumb at all.

“You’re going to be fine though. We’re going to be fine. If something bad happens, we’ll deal with it. Don’t let it eat you.”

There was wisdom in what this seventeen-year-old girl on my bed had offered me. I caught it like a gold coin. Before I could reply with anything, she launched into another question. I didn’t want to think much about change anyways.

#5

text:

“Oh. Wow. That’s like, next year.” I sort of laughed.

“A year can be a long time,” Lonan said with a wince. “What do you think?”          

I sighed through my nose and leaned back with him. The sun was going down. Sometimes, my life felt less like a golden hourglass and more like a stopwatch with a broken face.

“For once, I think I agree with your mom.”

Lonan just stared at me, with something like awe.

“I think you should do what you want,” I said.

 “Ray,” Lonan started.

“No,” I interrupted him. “It’s not about me. She’s stopped you from doing anything and everything you’ve wanted to for the last four years, so when you go to college, you’ve got to separate yourself from this place.” I pointed to him. “You’re allowed to do this.”

#6

text: 

Maybe I was just being strange. Lonan was my best friend. It didn’t help that there was a little bit of him in everything – the tide pools, the echo of shells, my broken camera.

Soon, we stood in the center of the field. A breeze whispered through the cattails, fanning against our knees. Ellis loped behind me as I stepped in and out of tire tracks under the cloudless sun. She wasn’t much different than Jude. Her footsteps crunched excitedly behind mine, excited at the prospect of an unprecedented adventure. I’d missed those.

Lonan said he didn’t like to walk in fields because the wind tricked him into thinking that someone was behind him. Every brisk of his heel was a trick of the mind. Sometimes I felt the same way, like I might be haunted.

#7

text: 

The ageless water begged me closer, frizzed my hair and swathed my arms in a sweet, familiar scent. I remembered galloping down to the shore with a childhood friend in one May. Soft piano accompanied croaky lyrics from someone’s radio when we fell chest-first into the water. Static erupted in my head. There had been nothing new for me in Point Blink for so long that I’d forgotten what it was like to float. Grass turned into pebbles, and I heard Ellis’ footsteps soften to the beat of the sand. Our eyes crumbled the shells that walled the long expanse of dark sand where waves rolled in. We leaned over like two swans, crunching shells beneath our feet, displaying shells to one another, naming the ones we recognized, and when I looked out at the horizon, I saw blue.

Red plastic cups, cigarettes, and even some broken glass stuck out through the sand as we made our way further down the shoreline, as if someone had thrown a party. My brow furrowed. Maybe this part of the beach wasn’t so abandoned after all.

Between the spit of the waves and dry sand lay some sort of book. Sand trickled out of the pages and onto my shoes when I swept it out of line of an oncoming wave. Ellis was beside me in moments. Shells tolled under her shoes.

#8

*Warning for mention of blood (fake blood and fake knife!!) this takes place on Halloween haha*

text: 

Jude held the container in her palm, kneeled down so we were shoulder to shoulder. Her eyes fixed on the knife in my neck, mine on her hands, then her focused expression. Her fingers tipped my chin up, cold on my skin. I tried not to move. Suddenly, I wasn’t thinking about Dad, or Raven, or Lonan. I only let Jude in – this girl who had come out of nowhere and wrecked me, saved me. And she didn’t know any of that. I didn’t owe anything to her, but I needed her. She kept us afloat when I couldn’t even keep myself above water. Her fingers painted blood over the center of my throat, our breath quiet on each other’s cheeks. She held my shoulder as she set back.               

“Absolutely feral,” she said.

#9

text: 

“Point Blink is all I have. It’s where I am, what I am.” My throat was tight. “It’s all I’ve known. I am happy with my life. And I’m sorry, but I’m not willing to throw all of that away so we can dig up answers. I want to stay.”

 Jude sat there for a moment. I think Florian and Ellis had turned to look at us, because when we went silent, I could no longer heat their hushed whispers, only the sound of water as it rose and rose and rose. I wondered if it would rain.

Jude sat up on her hands, then her knees, then she stood over me.

“Is that what you honestly believe?”

Tears bubbled in her eyes. Blood streaked down her cheeks. I’d been so focused on not crying, I had missed when she started to.

“Point Blink is just the same as anywhere,” she said. The words sat somewhere above her inside her chest, weak and frail, as though they’d been realized a long time ago.

I’d stared into her eyes until they disappeared. She grabbed onto a branch above her and quietly swung herself around a corner. Her footsteps echoed until they dissolved into waves and birds and frogs and left me in the dark.

#10

*Warning for strong language!*

text:

“Why didn’t you tell me how you’d been feeling?” he asked after a few moments of silence. It was beginning to stretch uncomfortably.

“I know I don’t deserve to know,” he added, “but you’ve always put me first.”

I picked at the wood that peeled from the fence.

“I just want you to be okay,” Lonan croaked. “Please tell me what to do.”

Even when we were together, we still worried about each other. It wasn’t always that way. Maybe that was my fault. I didn’t want to think about it.

 “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” I mumbled into the crisp, red air. “To be fair, I didn’t know it like I know now for a long time. I think sometimes I got the same way as a kid. Now I have a name for it, and I still don’t know if it feels right.” I sighed. “I guess… I guess I just thought that was how things were supposed to be. I thought I was only the humming low and the high.”

“Of course that’s not how you’re fucking supposed to be.”

 I coughed on a laugh, wiped away a new set of tears. On the rare occasion that Lonan did swear, he sounded much like he was doing it for the first time.

I hadn’t fully realized what I’d said before Lonan’s hand was around my arm. He pulled me close to his chest. I felt smaller than him; warm and safe. I exhaled and sunk into him, didn’t allow anything else in. I’d almost forgotten what that felt like.

“You’re funny and smart and better than a lot of people.”

And... that wraps up all of my excerpts for the time being! I really enjoyed writing the last four chapters of this book. Of course they aren’t perfect. A lot of the book needs improvement. There are entire characters who are flat and plot lines I just forgot about! Come October, I plan to get back into my edits/rewrite the story.

Really quick before I finish writing this:

I just wanted to thank everyone who read about my story and showed genuine interest in the characters. Had I not received all of this love from people in real life and online, I might never have finished this draft at all. When I started this story, my mental health was really quite bad. (I’m doing a whole lot better these days!!) I guess you could say the idea started as more of a journal entry. All of these characters are like little parts of me coming together to help the main character, and I think there’s something really special about that.

Thank you so much! Good luck on all your creative endeavors! It pays off in the end, I promise :)

tag list (ask to be +/-); @wannabeauthorzofija @a-completely-normal-writer @baguettethebooklover @corkytheguar​ @writeherewaiting @cryptid-s-wips @kingsinking @author-a-holmes

[8bittheatrics]

Oh boy more FF9 AU, featuring post-end scenes where everyone should be happy but whoops, these kids have issues and are also still teenagers or in their *very* early twenties and have not had time to adjust to anything

AKA Where in the World is Sorey Fabool Alexandros the First, AKA Let Mikleo Say Fuck. Actually the latter has been established as a good summary of the entire AU. Plus all these post-end scenes I’ve been playing with for months are why it’s taking forever to get a real chapter out. I just felt like sharing this one because I’m having feelings about the boys again. You know, like every day.

Sorey's sitting by the eidolon wall when a dagger suddenly sinks into the ground at his side, dangerously close to his hand.

"What the fuck, Sorey!?"

He's in so much trouble.

"SIR TRIBAL, THAT IS NO WAY TO GREET ROYALTY."

"...Phoenix? What? ...Sorey. Answers. Now."

"I feel like if I answer incorrectly I'm gonna get a dagger to the throat."

"That might not be entirely wrong."

"HIS HIGHNESS HAS BEEN FEELING CLAUSTROPHOBIC AT THE CASTLE LATELY. ALSO IT MAY BE MY FAULT."

Mikleo runs his hands through his hair, burying his face in them and letting out a long, rough sigh that turns into a groan halfway through.

"You told no one you were leaving."

"You weren't around to tell."

"You didn't tell Alisha you were leaving."

"Well..."

"What the fuck, Sorey."

"It's not like she told me when she was leaving back when we all met."

"I know you're not this petty, Sorey. Explain."

"..."

Phoenix climbs up Sorey and stands on his shoulder, the tiniest barrier between him and Mikleo.

"Perhaps, Sir Tribal, it would be better to plan to stay tonight. Go visit the other normin. Let his highness be for now."

With another sigh, Mikleo shrugs, arms hanging limply in the air.

"Fine. Whatever. I'll...go fish with Difens and Bienfu or something."

***

"How long has Sorey been here, Bienfu?"

"Two days! He showed up right after Phoenix decided to finally show his fancy godly mug around here again. 'I'm an eidolon,' he says. Psh. We all knew him as a normin first, so he's on the same level as the rest of us."

"Didn't ask for any of that information, but thanks."

"Anytime!"

"Also, don't try to put oglops in the stew this time."

"Oh, come on! Oglops taste great when seasoned right!"

"No oglops."

***

Twilight sets in, the setting sun giving a ghostly illumination to the incense smoke rising from the low pedestal encircled by the wall. It's only proper to pay respect while he's here, Sorey figures, and there's something comforting in the way it curls into the sky. Phoenix dozes quietly in his hood, just like before. It's odd, him being physically present again, but not at all unwelcome. Sorey would be lying if he said he wouldn't have jumped on the opportunity to leave the castle regardless. Phoenix's vanished presence was just the perfect excuse for it. A few echoed words in his head from the eidolon about coming home, and suddenly it felt like there was a void in him, not quite yet all too similar to when he lost all his eidolons.

There wasn't time to explain. To go about every duty and policy so everything could be covered while he was away. Part of him, knowingly far less logical but nonetheless loud, feels like it would've been deemed unimportant, anyway. Something that could wait for another patrol or frivolous request from well-off people who don't need it to be taken care of first. He's just...started to feel trapped again, despite the improvements. It's hard to accept. At least here, he feels free.

A hand drops onto his shoulder and he starts, turning to see Mikleo--much calmer now--giving him a cocked smile.

"Dinner's ready. You hungry?"

Sorey nods, and Mikleo bends to grasp his hand and pull him up and away from the wall.

Even after a couple years to adjust to his faded memories, faceless and blurred like a ruined painting, Sorey still sees fire.

***

"So," Mikleo begins, ladling stew inside a bowl and passing it to Sorey, "talk to me."

"Okay." Sorey spoons out some stew, ready to shove it in his mouth when he hesitates, pulls it away slightly, and blows on it. Then he shoves it in.

"Talk to me about why you left."

"...Nnnnnnnah."

"It's just me. You know you can talk to me. I even put the daggers away."

"Yeaaaah, you still threw one at me earlier, sooo..."

"Because you scared the hell out of me!"

"I could've lost a finger!"

"Hey, I knew where I was throwing it. I have good aim."

"Still."

"You're changing the subject."

"Mmm..."

Sorey averts his eyes, opting to eat quietly. Mikleo doesn't press, and dinner is filled with the sounds of skittering, chattering normin.

His bowl is soon empty and the normin have picked the pot clean, so Sorey opts to find something very interesting to stare at on the weathered table in lieu of talking to anyone.

"Hey."

He looks up as Mikleo moves around the table to grab his bowl.

"I love you."

Mikleo pats his shoulder softly, and Sorey watches as he moves to the kitchen.

"I love you, too," Sorey calls out. Phoenix maneuvers out of Sorey's hood and leaps onto the table with a flourish. Sorey smiles and pokes at one of Phoenix's extended paws, chuckling as Phoenix swats his finger away.

"I missed having you around."

"I never left you, highness."

"Yeah, I know. But being able to see you without summoning you is nice."

"Admittedly, I do prefer my physical form. Now, shall we help with the dishes? Sir Tribal did come all this way for you, after all."

Sorey sighs.

"Yeah. I guess I should."

He briefly considers trying to slip by and hide in the storage room, but the normin would probably rat him out.

He should be happy. He's supposed to be. Everything went back to normal, then got even better than normal when Mikleo and Rose returned, and he should, by all means, be happy. He's just...not. But he should be happy, and the feeling that he's being incredibly ungrateful is overwhelming.

"So."

Sorey tenses.

"Did Bienfu make you eat any oglops? He tried to put some in the stew, too, but I said no. And might have threatened to cook his hat."

Sorey relaxes somewhat with a short chuckle.

"Nah, no oglops. He went to go catch some once, but Grimoirh glared at him until he stopped. We just grilled up some fish the last couple nights."

"That's good. I don't think I'd be able to kiss you anymore if you ate an oglop."

"Isn't that a little extreme?"

"Oglops are nothing to joke about."

Much to Sorey's dismay, Mikleo grabs at the end of his cloak to dry his hands, a self-satisfied smirk on his face. Sorey yanks it out of his hands with a pout.

"Not a towel."

"I'll be sure to use your shirt next time, then."

"Use your own!"

Mikleo snickers before grabbing Sorey's hand, pulling him down to the small dock overlooking the river. He sits, tossing a few stray pebbles into the waterfall as he waits for Sorey to get comfortable beside him. A small contest develops wordlessly as they try to see who can toss a pebble to the top of the waterfall. Until, of course, one strays from its arc and hits Bienfu. There's no more pebble throwing after that.

Craning his neck to look at the stars, Mikleo sighs.

"Alright. I listened to Phoenix and left you alone for a bit. Time for you to talk to me. Why did I just spend days in a panic trying to locate you across the globe?"

"The daggers are still put away, right?"

"Yep."

Sorey peers around, suspicious, until Mikleo knocks him lightly on top of his head.

"They're on the bookshelf."

"If you say so..."

"I know so. I put them there. Now why'd you run off?"

"It really did mostly have to do with Phoenix."

"Mostly?"

"I'd heard his voice a few days ago, and then suddenly he was gone. It was...kinda like when my eidolons got extracted, but it was just him specifically. Like there was a void. He said he was coming home, so I had to come check. Sure enough, he was here, back as a normin."

Hands still linked, Mikleo threads their fingers together, brows furrowed in concern.

"Okay, I get that, but why wouldn't you tell someone? Alisha would've understood, especially if it felt like that. And what did you mean by 'mostly'?"

"I mean, it was my reason for going, but..."

"But...?"

Sorey bites his lip, and Mikleo immediately brings his other hand up, thumb pushing down softly beneath Sorey's lip to ease it out of his teeth.

"Come on, Sorey. This is what I'm here for."

"You're here for lots of reasons."

"And one of them is helping you stop bottling things in. Talk to me already."

"It's stupid."

"It's not the first time you've told me that and it certainly won't be the last."

"But if it actually is stupid and you think differently of me after?"

"That's not gonna happen. Besides, I've witnessed you doing plenty of stupid things already and I'm still here. I don't think anything can top pitching us backward off a cliff into the ocean to escape a horde of angry land birds, anyway."

"Hey, I had a couple contingency plans ready."

"Sure. Now stop changing the subject and tell me your stupid thing."

Sorey's eyes dart around for a subject to change it to, but it seems all the normin have scattered. Traitors.

"You didn't bring me over here to push me into the river, did you?"

"I might if you keep this up. Do you actually believe me when I tell you I love you or am I doing something really wrong here?"

Sorey frantically waves a placating hand. "No, no! It's just! I'm. Just." He sighs. "It's...so stupid."

"You keep saying that, but I can't tell you if you're right or not until I know what 'it' is."

"I know, just. Lemme think."

Maybe he could just pitch himself down the waterfall here. That's one way to get out of this conversation. But no, that's the real stupid thing here. Leviathan wouldn't be happy having to fish him out with a wave, and Mikleo would probably try to follow.

"You look like you're thinking about running. And that's why I'm still holding your hand."

Damn Mikleo for being smart.

"Don't run. I don't want you to feel like you have to run. I'm not here to judge. Or to kill you. Alisha might; she did say she was going to. I won't, though."

"That's...not very reassuring."

"It's what I've got. Come on now. Ramble at me. Deep breath and go."

Sorey takes a deep breath and goes.

"Everything's back to normal at home and that should be great, you and Rose are home and the town is finally back in order and Alisha is doing amazing and I've got more than I could have imagined and everything is better but I still feel like I'm trapped there in the castle like now I'm tied to my royal duties and things outside Alexandria just don't matter anymore which is why I thought everyone would brush off Phoenix being gone as something that could be taken care of after the next patrol or royal court approval or whatever mundane thing the nobles want reviewed that day and that bothers me but I know it's irrational and I know I should be happy with everything but I'm not and I feel awful for feeling that way. I'm. I'm not happy, Mikleo. I'm not. I'm awful for it, but I'm just not."

Mikleo stares, and Sorey once again considers the pros and cons of tossing himself off the dock. But the grip on his hand tightens, and Mikleo stands and pulls him up and away (unfortunately) from the dock. Silent, he leads Sorey up the stairs and out of the small cottage.

"What," Sorey starts, hesitant. "What are you doing?"

"Kidnapping you. Right now. The Red Rose is closer, but we can take your ship if it's less obvious. Alisha just sent me to get you, she didn't give me a time limit."

Sorey's eyes widen.

"Where are we going?"

"Anywhere."

Phoenix salutes from his perch on the broken fountain as they pass, and Sorey smiles.