#and now here i am at 1am on a work night posting this

[k-itsmaywriting]

But I swore hands were made for fighting - Loewe/Agate

Fandom: Trails in the Sky / Sora no Kiseki Relationships: Loewe/Agate Crosner Tags: Pre-Canon, Canon Divergent, Gangsters, Canon-Typical Violence, Robbery, NSFW (detailed tags on AO3) Words: 12,955 Summary:

The mission objective is clear enough: infiltrate and observe the delinquent gang in Ruan for one month, and report back. Loewe doesn’t know what the professor could possibly ever need with a bunch of unruly brats, but what is a tool’s place to question its master’s orders?

---

The Ravens are even more underwhelming than Loewe had imagined.

He turns his head to look around the high walls of the warehouse, gaze following the wide circle of bodies surrounding him. Each of the boys don a red bandana somewhere on their person - some tied to their belts, others around their heads - the colour stark where they snicker and scowl at him from the shadows.

As much as they bare their teeth, there is no refinement to their steps. No purpose in their stances except to appear threatening. And so Loewe looks at their eyes, wide and bright and reckless, where their youth betrays them. He would be surprised if any one of them is a day older than sixteen.

To fight these children seriously would be a cruelty.

“What’s wrong, newbie?! Think you can’t handle ‘em?”

Read the rest on AO3

[enris]

CAN I HAVE YOUR DAUGHTER FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE?

synopsis after a year, jake finally earns your father’s blessing. (even if that meant breaking his bank account)

pairing sim jaeyun x f! reader

warnings this is not proofread! i apologize for any mistakes

word count 1.5k+

note first ever official post on tumblr 🥹 and i’m starting it with a slightly long one…bare with me 😔 i hope you enjoy reading, feedback is highly appreciated as i am still kind of new to writing! and of course, if it wasn’t obvious from the title, this is inspired by the song Rude by Magic!

“CAN I HAVE YOUR DAUGHTER FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE?” you watched as jake asked your father the same question, once again. you’ve already told him countless times to not worry about whether your father accepts him or not, but he just can’t seem to live without getting your father’s blessing. so now he made it his whole life mission to get his blessing.

you were watering your precious plants as you heard your dad rejecting him, again.

“my answer is still no.”

the expression left on your boyfriend’s face was just unbearable to see. it almost looked like he was about to cry any second now.

“dad, what’s so hard about accepting him? can’t you tell he’s a nice guy…” you say, trying to convince him yourself, but nothing was working.

“yn, you are way too young to be getting married right now, you hear me? this is unacceptable behavior. and you, young mister,” your father turned to jake who was already staring at him with puppy eyes, “you are not marrying my daughter, you get it? you have been asking me this same question for the past YEAR and it’s been bothering me ever since then. please, leave immediately.”

“what do you mean i’m too young? dad, i graduate from college in 2 months!” you say, but all you got in return was a head shake. you looked over to jake who shrugged back at you.

“yeah, and who’s the one who refused to dorm in? let alone going overseas, you threw a tantrum because you wanted to stay here for college!” your father argued back after a few moments.

you gasped as jake couldn’t hide his smile, “dad!”

“yn, come on, i wanna take you to this new restaurant that opened up.” jake smiled at you as he held his hand out, signaling for you to hold it.

“eh—? young boy, you better not do anything to my daughter, you hear me!? i’m not giving you my blessing for a reason! and you, young girl, you better be home before dark! i can’t stand it when you try to sneak back into the house at 1am…”

“what? you could hear me?” you ask, suddenly remembering all the times you’ve came back home late at night. i guess all the struggles for staying quiet doesn’t matter anymore.

before you could say anything else, your dad went back inside of the house, leaving you dumbfounded.

“i mean—how could he just say that and leave..?! this whole time i’ve been extra careful to not wake him…but he heard me this whole time?!” you couldn’t believe this whole situation, and turned back to your boyfriend.

“well, at least you don’t need to worry about being loud…?” he nervously smiled at you as you stared at him.

you took a deep breath in, “let’s just go to this restaurant. i’m starving.”

you and jake arrived at the recently opened restaurant and were shocked on how busy it was, despite being new. luckily, you guys got a table pretty fast.

“wow, even their menus are pretty.” you say as you scanned through all the foods that were available.

“yeah, they are.” jake responds, but he wasn’t looking at the menu. his eyes were on you as you were looking at what to order.

“hello! may i start off with your drinks for you today?” a waiter soon came over to your table and pulled out her pen and notepad.

“ah yeah, we’ll just take a water.” you say and watched as she wrote it down.

“awesome! are you guys ready to order?” she continues to ask, and you looked over at jake who nodded with a smile.

“uh, i’ll have this pasta please. what are you gonna order?” you turn to your boyfriend who was still scanning over the menu.

“i’ll take the same as her.” he says and the waiter writes down both of your guys’ orders before collecting the menus.

“alright, i’ll be back with your waters and your food will be our shortly after!”

as the waiter left your guys’ table, jake turned to you, his face more serious than before. but of course, what he said was not serious, at all.

“so, how should i suck up to your father?” he leaned in closer to you as he asked.

“what?” you were taken aback from the sudden question he had asked you, “what do you mean?”

jake’s eyes wandered off a bit as he leaned back into his seat again, “well it’s obvious he doesn’t want me to marry you…so i need to suck up to him, don’t i? what does he like? i need to buy him something don’t i? or do i need to show him im a good person…what do i do?”

“woah woah, calm down…what’s all this rush for? you’re acting like your gonna propose to me as soon as we graduate or something.” you say, and you can see the expression of jake’s face change immediately.

“ahaha, i just wanna make sure your father accepts me!” he chuckled nervously, though you can see the sweat dripping down forehead.

“calm down babe. if you are that desperate to get my father’s blessing then you do have to throw a little money around for him..”

“how much money are we talking? if it’s something expensive like gucci or…” jake paused as he noticed the expression on your face. even though you didn’t say anything, it was almost obvious you were telling him he needed to buy something expensive.

jake cleared his throat as he looked at the specific item, “wow…your father is an expensive guy isn’t he?” he scoffed, his hand covering his mouth out of pure shock.

“his birthday is coming up soon…if you buy this for him im almost completely sure his whole perspective on you would change.” you say, and he almost couldn’t even believe you.

“shit, i really gotta buy this specific rolex for him?”

“yeah, he’s been dying to have this specific one.”

all your boyfriend could do was nod continuously as he stared at the price of the watch.

he clapped his hands together, “all right, i’ll get this for him then!” he says with a forced smile. “my bank account will be crying tonight…” he mumbled before walking away to get a person for help.

you rushed over to him, “hey, you don’t have to do this you know? my fathers blessing surely doesn’t mean that much to you, does it? you can just get his favorite food instead.”

jake turned over to you, “baby. if i get him something expensive, especially if it’s something he’s always wanted, he would definitely give me his blessing. if i don’t have his blessing that means i can’t marry you, and i want you to be by my side forever.”

before you could even say anything else jake planed a soft kiss on your lips before calling over a worker.

“do you think he’ll say yes now?” jake asked you before he head inside of the house.

“i mean i sure hope he would…” you responded.

“how about this; if he doesn’t give me his blessing then i’ll kidnap you and after we graduate college we travel overseas and we can get married there!”

you scoffed, “you’re serious about this aren’t you?”

“of course, my girlfriend WILL become my wife and i’ll make sure of it!”

as soon as you guys were about to head inside of the house, your dad opened the door for you. you were shocked, but definitely not as much as your boyfriend who was beside you.

“everybody is getting ready to eat dinner now, what’s taking you so long?”

“uh—hello! yn’s father..” jake waved nervously at your dad who just stared at him. “happy birthday! i got you a gift.”

“oh? what is this?” your father dug his hand inside of the bag and was met with a rolex box. he gasped as he realized what it was.

“it may not be the right time to ask this question considering the special occasion so i apologize in advance. but, CAN I HAVE YOUR DAUGHTER FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE, please?”

you were scared looking at your father’s expression and noticed his grip on the rolex tightening. out of impulse you spatted out a few sentences.

“please dad, he’s really a nice guy. he treats me so well and i love him so much, you don’t understand how much i want him to stay in my life. if you don’t give him your blessing then i wi—”

“silly boy, is this your way of sucking up to me? huh? just because you bought me a rolex i’ve been wanting for ages you expect me to give my blessing to you just like that?” you and jake were both shocked at how your father responded.

“dad—”

“it definitely worked.”

jake’s eyes immediately widened, “wait, really?! i have your blessing?”

“i’ve been testing you all along to see how good of a guy you are and you definitely exceeded my expectations. treat my daughter well, sim jaeyun. im lending you my trust and hope you protect yn.”

you couldn’t hide your smile and so couldn’t jake. you guys both hugged each other before he thanked your father.

“thank you! i promise i will keep your daughter safe. as long as she’s with me only good things shall happen to her!”

© enris 2024. please do not copy, translate, or repost

xtra omg i’m sorry if this seemed messy 😭 again i’m new to doing things like these so feedback is appreciated!

[gumnut-logic]

Diary of a Fanboy Engineer

Alexander Sweetapple series on Ao3

What's this? Is this Nuttyfic? Not a nuttyfic reblog? The first in ages?

Why yes, yes, it is.

Consequently, the writing muscles are a bit rusty so don't expect much.

However this was prompted by conspiring Thunderfam on this post.

It is a bit of a 'let's see if this idea works or not', but since most of my fic comes under that category, I'm hoping it works at least a little :D

So we have the beginnings of some possible Sweetapple Diaries :D

Many thanks to the wonderful @onereyofstarlight for proof reading and pointing out the bits that really didn't work :D ::hugs you tight:: And many thanks to the Sweetapple cheering squad - without you, there would be no Sweetapple ::hugs you all to bits::

Warnings for m/m fic and a bucket of fluff.

I hope you enjoy these little scribbles :D

-o-o-o-

14 Jul

We are going to Paris.

Mr Tracy told Virgil in no uncertain terms that he needed time off. I can’t agree more. Hell, all the brothers need time off, but Virgil has been flagging lately. He denies it, of course. Workaholic to the core. I can see where he is coming from, but really, he needs to take better care of himself - they all do.

Paris was an interesting choice. I’ve never been to Europe, but I guess that comes with the billionaire territory.

I am excited, there are so many opportunities in Paris. I’m particularly looking forward to seeing some real Da Vinci. Climbing the Eiffel Tower is also on my list.

But for our next holiday, I think we’ll choose a spot more close to home. I know some quiet seaside towns where we could rent a bach and just lay back and relax.

Maybe France has a few hidden corners we could climb into.

Anyway, it’s something to look forward to. Really, anytime, anywhere, would be fantastic.

-o-o-o-

15 Jul

Today wasn’t a good one. We had multiple failures in the latest prototype.

Erica isn’t happy. She says it isn’t my fault, but honestly, I should have seen at least one of them coming. The effect of vacuum on micro air pockets in a flexible solid is so obvious it was ridiculous. How did I miss it?

Dearest had to cancel out again. Mount Etna tried to take out some tourists.

Virgil isn’t happy. Apparently, he has been warning the Italian authorities about the destabilisation of the volcano’s eastern face, but because their equipment can’t detect what International Rescue’s equipment can, they don’t want to sacrifice the tourism euros to close the tours.

Fortunately, it was only a partial collapse and IR was able to save those caught in the landslide. I have to say though, Commander Tracy was furious in the holoclip shown on the news. I wouldn’t want to be person responsible right now. Scott can get scary.

I did get to see some cool shots of Virgil in action though. That, I could never get tired of. He and Gordon manoeuvred Two and rappelled down to pull people out of the dirt and ash.

They are such heroes.

I do miss him, of course, but those poor people needed him more than I did.

Maybe we can holochat later…oh god, it’s 3am already!

-o-o-o-

16 Jul

Erica woke me up this morning. Really, I love her, she is so good to me, but bloody hell, can’t she knock?

Okay, it was nearly eleven and I had my phone on silent and I didn’t answer the door and…

At least I had my pyjama pants on, I guess.

What if Virgil had been here?

She said that was the reason she barged in, Virgil wasn’t here - no great green ‘bird and Tracy Two wasn’t logged at the airfield, and I was late for work. I might have been dead or something.

She cares and I appreciate that.

She could have held off the laughter, though.

Besides, I wasn’t late for work. Work is on flexi-time and considering I was up until 1am last night analysing yesterday’s screw ups, my sleep-in was natural and totally allowed.

Virgil left me a message with a ‘maybe tonight’. I’m hoping, but if there is one thing I’ve learnt it is that whatever happens, happens. No hoping too hard.

So here I am writing this entry a little earlier to kill some of that hoping time.

We solved two out of the three problems we had yesterday. The third is being a pain in the ass. Erica says I should speak to John as this lies in his speciality. I said, not until we’ve exhausted all our resources because John is a busy man.

We’re all busy, she said, and he offered to help. Gordon helped with the water issues. I could even ask Alan.

Really? It’s not at the point where I have to go to the top to help solve the problem. We’ll give it a few more days. It’s urgent, but not life threatening like the Tracy brothers need to attend to. They’ve got enough on their plate.

But John has such a lovely voice, she said.

I swear she does this just to rile me up.

That or she does have a thing for John. You would think she would have a thing for Mr Tracy, he was the one who saved her from the earthquake. Hell, she and Fireman Fred still have a mutual flirting thing going on.

—!

Virgil is here!

-o-o-o-

17 Jul

The sun rose early this morning. Somewhere in our haste we forgot to close the blinds and the first rays of dawn woke me.

I’m not a morning person, I’m the first to admit that. But this morning…

You’re lying on your belly and the covers have slipped down to your waist. The sun is painting your skin in shades of gold and your hair is glowing.

You are beautiful.

…

PS: I haven’t read anything, I promise. I just needed to write the image down and this book was the closest at hand. Can I paint you some time?

…

He read the above to me when I woke.

Let’s just say I was late to work again.

-o-o-o-

17 Jul (cont.)

Virgil stayed at Māhia today. He helped with the issue we were having with the prototype, though we did end up calling John.

John was happy to help - man, he thinks fast. Don’t get me wrong, I love my math and my physics, but John seems to be able to bend both to his will. It took him a total of five minutes. Five minutes! To design a solution to our problem - in between rescue calls.

It was one of those daunting moments where I could see exactly why they work so well together.

Of course, I am working with V.T. Green. Just let me name drop that right here. And the Voice Who Answers…is my life real? How the hell did I end up here?

Frickin’ bloody amazing.

-o-o-o-

[drippingmoon]

Merry new year to everyone, again! 🥳💞🥂

I know it wasn’t an event this year, but writing a yearly wrap-up is really therapeutic, you know? So I decided to continue the tradition, and if anyone wants to join me, absolutely view this as an open invitation^^ Introduction is over, and now let’s see what 2023 looked like:

(spoilers: I adored it. I'm also probably going to make this my fixed post, in case anyone ever wants to catch up with me. And also because my second baby, AoS, is growing, and it doesn't have an intro, but I can't leave it out.)

Stats

Aquiver, Aglow: 181k (draft 4) + 195k (draft 5) + hmm, draft 6 is an outlier, because I didn’t rewrite from scratch, so I’m unsure of the written word count. I didn’t change much from draft 5, so I’d say an extra 15-20k. Total word count: 376k+

Remains of a Night: 120k 

Aberration of Sunlight: 134k

This was definitely my most productive year to date. And I got so hungry: the more I wrote, the more I just wanted to keep writing, and honestly? I’m proudest of myself for literally carving writing time whenever I got a spot into my schedule. Mostly it was from 8pm-11pm, but I had a mad run where my only free window was from 1am till I literally felt I was dying… I’ll talk about that separately🤣🤣👌

Though, I'm seriously understating it.

Like a lot of other people, I would have all these hours when I was younger when I didn't have anything to do, yet I'd still find some excuse not to write. "I'm waiting for the right time." "I'm anxious I'm not going to get it right." "Tomorrow! Tomorrow I can start right from the morning, and I'll have more time to write, yeah?" or "I'm too tired now, it's late..." and so the snowball rolled down and downhill and I found every reason under the sun not to write, now that I think about it. Sigh. So much time wasted. But I can't regret it either, because I needed those baby steps at that time.

And now! Now I do what I thought I'd never learn to: I prioritize, and I actually organize my daily stuff so it's not so impossible anymore to have a little bit of writing time. I don't take it for granted either. It feels like such character growth for me, I'm immensely proud of it.

And for the record? This year was a huge improvement over yesteryear mentally, too. It turns out, what I needed to get over my word count anxiety… was to be faced with people who literally didn’t give a fuck about it, and just cared about the story. One of the most unexpected things beta stage managed to do to me… was to quench all my anxieties. It’s as simple as that. I read and enjoy very long books. People also do that. So, I’m very happy to say I’m no longer in a tizzy about ‘quiv. It might kill my chances for trad publishing, it might not. I’ll be happy come what may.

Because it’s so simple how working on ‘quiv or thinking about it makes me joyous, and now I can just enjoy that freely. I will miss writing this story so much. I really will. But at least I’ll have it forever to reread, and I hope this thought brings comfort to everyone who also has problems letting go, like it does to me.

Let’s break it down a little, shall we?🤩

Aquiver, Aglow◇◇◇

My little star of the hour. How fond I am of it.

Like you could glean from above, ‘quiv went through three drafts this year. More specifically: in the first part of the year, practically almost as soon as February arrived. I knew it was getting closer to the final version, and gave me the push to finish all three back to back. I couldn’t justify anymore the bazillion AUs I do with rewrites (basically, WHAT IFs from events, WHAT IF it went this different way, WHAT IF Tyrone actually said this here… and so on and so forth. I wanted to test out as many pathways as possible, and did I exhaust every one of them in existence? Definitely not. I don’t think that can happen, you just keep getting new ideas. On and on. What happened, instead, is that these couple different pathways, at some point, cemented themselves as canon in my mind. I didn’t want to tease myself with alternatives anymore, and that’s when I knew they would be it. Some bits from the first draft, some from the third, some from the second. Some were even draft 6 originals!

It’s a bit of a weird process. I definitely didn’t need to reach draft 3, and meet Mezusa, because I could’ve feasibly made it work with just Yles in the story. It still would’ve made sense, though in a different way. But if I hadn’t… I might’ve missed one of the best characters I’ll ever probably have created, and the story (and Yles) is much stronger for her, if you ask me. 

For that matter, yes, full rewrites every single draft might take a lot of time and effort, but honestly I don’t think I’d ever change my writing process (save for the moments of frustration when I think I will lol) because of the sheer satisfaction of it. Whoever said so long never to settle on the first version, I owe you a beer and probably some curses as well lmao, but very lovingly. You shaped my writing life.

I don’t have much else to share about ‘quiv, other than it’s off with my beta readers my beloved, and maybe a tentative promise that, if anyone wants, you’ll be able to read this precious ball of hope of mine relatively soon. This story is so gentle to me. And as much as I loved to write and work on it, I dearly hope that whoever decides to give it a go, is treated just the same. That’s the only wish I have.

I also don’t know if I’ll go trad or self-published. Instincts say trad, because I fuckin’ suck at marketing (fact), and I know I’d grow resentful if I’d have to put so many hours into advertising when I know I could instead… write. I’m a writer. That’s the only thing I know how to do. Trad, however, might not be as kind on a ~200k as life’s been, so I might not have a choice. If it comes down to that… I’ll just treat it as I do everything. I don't love this story any less if I just write, publish without a fuss, hope that maybe, just maybe, a reader or two will stumble upon the story and we could talk. Maybe we can have the fun of our lives, create some genuine connection. I know that’s applies to a lot of writers. I hope we can accomplish it.

And so, I’ll finish this section of the wrap-up with a kiss to my ‘quiv, for all the warmth it’s ever brought me. It’s come so far, I know it can live distinct from me from now on. It brings me great comfort. And I look forward to the times I’ll reread it, and we can relive our best experiences together. Never thought I’d get to this point. Thank you, ‘quiv.

Remains of a Night♤♤♤

Mwhahaha! And because ‘quiv took all the pressure, this left AoS to be an extremely fun and spirited experience. Literally the chillest I’ve ever been writing. In many ways, it’s more my thing than I expected ‘quiv to be: I get to murder characters left and right, it’s more plot-heavy and banking on the tension created by a creature that horrifies the characters down to their marrow, but still the only way to defeat it is to know it better, which, uh, might have unpleasant consequences for them. It’s got chase and stealth scenes, and it always shoots me with adrenaline to think about them. In short, exactly my jam.

It’s not a new book, nope. You knew it before as Aberration of Sunlight, but from the get-go I felt it would be bigger than ‘quiv. Very fortunately for me, I had a place where to break it, and behold: there’s RoaN (book 1), and AoS (book 2). There might be a third book, which I dearly hope not because titling sucks, but it depends on the Sycamine arc. More on that in AoS.

One last thing to note, before we delve into the story (hoo-ray for earlier drafts, because I can talk more frankly about them). This is the culprit of my 1am writing adventures!!😫❤ My schedule became too packed, then NaNo came round and I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to honor how AoS began, because it was last year’s NaNo, aaand I’m happy to say I won NaNo, somehow, with 56k down before I died. At that time, I only had one section left to write (from both books), otherwise, hahahaha, yeah, it wouldn’t have flown. Still, most of draft 2 I’d written in September-October, with my fairy lights, late nights, and cups of hot cocoa, exactly like how life should be<3

Alright. We’re going through them chapter-by-chapter again, exactly because I love seeing the titles so much:

ACT 1

Cracked Visor, Scorpion Grass

I did it! I did! Twas another shower thought I managed to get down in time. Bare broken sentences, but they did the impossible, and arranged this chapter into a structure I adore to bits and won't ever change. (And 'quiv's naughty voice left me alone for once and I could write it properly!) While I don't think I'll ever be happy with a first chapter (not as a concept, but the writing — part of me will always wish that the reader just had all the information already lol), this one is in the right place.

It pays its respects to the story of the broken helmet at the foot of a spaceship, and how it reconnects Madigan with all the people who'd suffered from being tethered to the planets when they yearned to fly, but the Beast punished them cruelly for it. It makes him feel phantoms of their efforts. The tone is exactly what I needed this story to start from: melancholy and numbly hopeless, against the backdrop of the Beasts's echoed cries.

Rain Through the Universe

Unlike 'quiv, because RoaN and AoS are way more plot-heavy, it's not as easy to change things willy-nilly (whereas 'quiv was all about character bonds and dynamics). As such, it's very similar to draft 1. Because of that, I'll frankendraft next (select and combine drafts 1 and 2, rewrite to connect them) and afterwards I'll try something I've always wanted to. (Scrivener keeps hinting at it!) I'm gonna split the chapters into scenes, and focus on those individually and how I can just rewrite them and set their purpose in stone<3 I'm excited!

As for the chapter itself, gods, I love the atmosphere. Just the wreckage of a sundered ship, and Madigan’s sudden madman appearance making a lasting impression on Spica, because how could it not. They no longer answer distress calls in that age, it just means more dead bodies. In fact, they're forbidden to. Madigan instead brings him what he himself lacks: hope. And a lot of crawling around while dreading the Beast's lambent eye opening, and oh my, the moments are really flying by😈👏 extreme fun for me as the writer.

Aberration of Light

If you remember, the books follow two timelines, which will connect at some point. The first and main one is Madigan and Spica’s story. The other is Holloway’s, in the distant past of that universe, and who’s been dubbed the most selfish man in existence. That’s important, because of how the Beast came to be. But that becomes important later. For now, a weird-ass new recruit has joined the ship, and the witchy crew will very soon start making bets if she’s the Beast in human flesh, which really wouldn’t bode well for their future.

Night Falls On Their Reflection

Draft 2 became Spica’s draft. It was high time. He didn't exist in the original idea beyond chapter 2, but he refused to die with his story untold. And now he's one of the most independent thinkers I've ever written. Now he's Madigan's son (yes, even at 25), best friend, back-to-back partner all in one, and I could watch the trust and mutual respect between these two forever. To be sure: Madigan comes up with the dumbass plans, and Spica's only too happy to follow him through everything (it is good fun.)

He's repaying the incredible kindness Madigan's shown him when answering his distress call, after all.

But it goes a bit further than that, doesn't it? Madigan is used to watching over myriad people. He's the Superintendent of his planet, and while he genuinely loves people, kindness is his default. It doesn't go further than that for him. He doesn't necessarily think people need, much less desire his presence there beyond Madigan extending help, and most of the time, he's content with that. Kindness does make him happy. And it should be the same with Spica now, shouldn't it? He's kind, but he's not Spica's family, nor ever will be. Yet he immediately feels a connection with the boy, that has nothing to do with bonding over escaping-a-cosmic-disaster. And so does Spica.

This is the moment when Madigan starts feeling guilty, for stepping where he should not. But here's the beauty of Spica's character: he's nothing if not dead sure of his own feelings, and what he sees with his eyes. It's okay if Madigan keeps unexpectedly taking steps back. For very long, there'd been nobody to support Spica's beliefs. So he does the same, as when he followed his heart to go into dead space: he believes in himself and Madigan, and that their paths aren't meant to diverge. They mean too much to each other for that to ever happen.

(In short, and legend says you can still hear me screeching about these two ten thousand years later, I love these two so much, and especially the parallels between Spica going alone into outer space and loving Madigan.)

(And, okay, obviously all these developments don't happen in a single chapter, but I couldn't stop gushing🤭🥰.)

Who Puts These Tombs in Ice

Overall, I think draft 2’s Luitgart performed worse than draft 1. Mainly it's the setting I want to revert (still an icy, sempiternally dark hell, but with different ice constructions) because some of the beats are a huge improvement, and again, I gotta combine the two. Otherwise, I’m still as obsessed about the Luitgart arc as I’ve ever been, and huge thanks to it for being so strong it could function as an ending of its own, allowing me to split the book.

Gettin’ into spoilery territory, but I have to un-kill Madigan so many times it leaves me in hysterics. That was what I was supposed to fix this draft. It got worse. Considerably.

(One constant: the chapter being a love letter to Madigan, and how his first answer will always be to help the other, no matter if they deserve it or not<3 and finally, finally, he gets acknowledged for it, and the favor returned.)

ACT 2

Lemon-Dotted Days + Remnant

Two Holloway chapters! I’m actually massively pleased with how they’ve turned out. Last year, I said the main issue was that I had an outline, and that never works for me. So I did what I do best and rewrote everything from scratch, and the result is both uncanny and… unexpected.

Unexpected, because I never in my life thought Holloway’s voice would make me laugh so much. He’s supposed to be unsympathetic, but then you get his interactions with Saintlark (the new crewmate, possibly Beast) where they’re contemplating the harvest of a nebula, and he’s harshly critical of it, which gives Saintlark hope… only to go deadpan One Moment Later: if they’d used the nebula to prolong their lives instead of bolstering the war, they wouldn’t have died like clown idiots. 

And, they could’ve maybe stolen immortality from the nebula. They would've had to share it with him, of course. Or he would've murdered them to get it.

That, my guys, is his personality in a nutshell.

I have a lot of feelings on Holloway now, and most involve me huffing and slapping my forehead while groaning, but oh my gods. Was it ever so fun. And wait, wait, wait. Since I'm talking of humor (apparently a lot of comedy fit into this horror lmfao) I have to show you guys the following section🤣🤣👏:

Corpse Snow

The drifters are set howling on the ice. They share glances, five separate vehicles nodding at each other. Madigan revs up the engine, splitting the air with a jet of steam and vibration.

The last of the marines are climbing into the box. A figure flashes past Madigan’s drifter — and he leans over, teeth grinding because of his ribs, and he does his very best to grab someone by the back of their suit and pull. Workout days were never his strength, though. He only succeeds in stopping them in the frost smoke.

It’s Spica dangling from his hand, expressionless.

Lieutenant Hahn instantly seizes on the situation. He throws Madigan a long, withering look. “Whatcha doing, Boss?” he asks softly, about to unhinge his jaw again.

Madigan nudges Spica into the drifter. “Picking up your boy.”

Spica gets the hint and deposits himself into the front seat, glancing from his father to his Superintendent. He seems to give up on whatever’s going on, and makes himself cozy in the frosty spot. And Madigan, of course, pretends not to notice Hahn’s drifter sliding closer.

“And you didn’t consider I might want to have my son with me?”

Madigan looks up and sighs. “Lieutenant, dear Lieutenant,” he starts pleadingly. “Why won’t you show some leniency to a poor, wounded man?”

Hahn’s drifter stops, summoning a breeze across the icy floor that gently rocks the other vehicle. His breathing distorts the comms with static. “And what exactly is my son right now?”

“My trusty navigator,” Madigan answers easily.

“Sir’s emotional walking stick?” Spica pipes in at the same time.

They both look over. Spica’s quietly turned to the navigation, as serene as daylight, seemingly oblivious to how Madigan's expression changes, lightning-fast. He quickly hides it under the guise of a polite mask, as the marines stir and turn their attention on them. They’re snickering.

Lieutenant Hahn throws up his hands, giving up on everything.

This is also the first 30k chapter I’ve ever written. It's everything I've ever wanted to do with ice.

Heart of the Void

The end of the book. Originally, it was the ending section to Corpse Snow, but since it already got so ungodly long, I chipped off that bit and I have to say I’m very happy with how it works as an epilogue! So it ends the frosty, weary journey, and I can’t see the two books as separate yet, but here we bid goodbye to the first.

Aberration of Sunlight♧♧♧

I did the unthinkable and created a fifth arc. This might not seem like much to you, but I was screaming bloody murder you guys😭😭😭. Sigh. It’s so sigh. For so long, AoS consisted of four clear-cut acts, but it was necessary. With the introduction of Sycamine, and making it two books, it was just needed. It’s still one of the worst things I’ve ever done because I was used to four😃💔

(The chapters continue from where RoaN left off – from chapter 10, to 21.)

ACT 3

Retro Spectrum

Sycamine, oh Sycamine. Definitely the break I needed before Days in Darkness. It made for a really neat beginning. It’s calmer, focusing on the knowledge they have on the Beast. It’s also a reflection on Procyon (their main star) and the story of the two straggler dog constellations, and what they'd been running away from. I liked the direction it took. It veered away from the Beast for a bit, so the tension kept expanding in the background. And when it returns, well... maybe they shouldn't have been so eager to see it again🤭.

It suffers from the same syndrome as draft 1’s first chapter… it’s there in the vicinity of the idea, but too much to the left. Not bad for a first attempt. The setting annoys me – I really don't enjoy writing cities, and AoS didn't change that. So, for our next try, I was thinking... maybe we don't need to be on the planet, but up close and veeery personal with it. It's a secret❤.

And, oh gods. I put a moustache-twirling villain in this. And then I couldn’t stop myself from naming some sucker Sweetman Calories. I don’t know what happened to me during those days, but I’m crying🤣🤣🤣.

Toast to the Light

Holloway and Saintlark’s story is slowly coming to an end. Unexpectedly bleaker than draft 1, yet it feels much more sincere. Holloway has a way of saying everything Saintlark needs to hear. No surprise. They did that to themselves.

Dissonant Recognition

Ahhhh, the Madigan-is-slowly-losing-his-grip-on-reality chapter, or maybe he should really stop staring into the suns. One of my favorites<3 Also because it features Moren (!!!) who has a blast staying in the grey morality area, because she doesn’t know if her actions could ever matter, or if she could change anything. Does she just exist? Is she a player or just pawn? Who knows. Besides that, she gets along great with Spica. They form such a teasing duo, the level of mutual respect they felt for each other on sight was a delight to write. My favorite ally of theirs, even if her destiny lies elsewhere.

Night Beneath the Elevator

Best title hands down, dethroning Solgesis. I’m going batshit crazy about the visuals, it's exactly my thing. This half-light slanted over an elevator waiting in a rundown basement to be boarded. And there's something underneath it, and always has been. Something insidiously creeping up and waving its tendril fingers at you as you're just waiting for the fucking thing to ascend. Immaculate, guys, I'm telling you, and I'm cursing my hands because I can't make a wallpaper of this. I want to eat that atmosphere.

Time-sensitive missions, y'all.

And why the heck did nobody inform me I was going to add Command as an actual character and have them talk with Madigan?! That entire convo, made up entirely on the spot but somehow with a direction, made me realize what an idiot I’d been for not doing it sooner. They mean so much to Madigan, after all.

(And Mariya. So much Mariya in these chapters.)

ACT 4

Loop System

Like Who Puts These Tombs in Ice, draft 1 might’ve done it better. Not Spica and Madigan, though, because of the sheer development Spica’s been through and the dynamic he’s managed to form with the crew. It's different from Madigan’s, but similar enough that it’s got Hahn commenting lightly: [Spica’s] picked up quite a few habits from Madigan, hasn’t he? Almost as if they’ve gotten very very close, huh? How about Madigan tell him more?

(I adore writing Hahn.)

Outreach

Another Holloway chapter. Doesn’t have the punch of the kids subplot from draft 1, but this just makes it worse for Saintlark personally, because, this time, the consequences are on her.

Days in Darkness

I knew the moment I first got the idea this would be my favorite chapter. Well, it finally happened in draft 2: when the entire crew is here, this time, and ready for the final countdown, to relive the experience of being trapped in a ship that's disintegrating. No more heroes left behind. I'd been so tired writing this chapter in draft 1, but this time around it was incredible. Everything went up sharply from here, both in terms of events and how on fire I was.

(Maybe less than the gorgon, but I was.)

ACT 5

Echo Terminal

The first of the two log chapters.

I've never written smoother, more visual chapters than in this period. Days in Darkness changed me so much, I was writing day and night by this point and couldn't get enough. Well, I hit my limit in the second half of the very last chapter, but I am beyond satisfied. Even the Beast's metamorphosis took me by storm, because I'd been wondering what the final verbs, the final images, the final design for it was going to be. I didn't expect it to come to me this early, and with such thrill. Those were my very best days of the year, and I toast to them.

(And I knew it was going to be fantastic when Halo's Warthog Run OST started blaring in my head, with as much adrenaline.)

Where, Now? + Solgesis

My beloved. The second and last of the two log chapters, but it’s Noelle Saintlark’s log.

Holloway’s timeline ends here. Or maybe it just gets carried into the future. I thought I’d want to rewrite his parts again, make the plot just a tiny bit more psychedelic and nonsensical because it’s so close to the Beast… but Solgesis put all my fears to rest. Even the formatting and layout is a bit of that special thing I’ve always wanted to try, and it really changes the perspective of the previous chapters. There's a new confession that stands at the heart of Holloway's stories.

Honestly, the only thing that needs urgent working on is the anger at the end of the chapter.

Anger is so hard for me to write sometimes. Not because I don’t connect with it, but because I feel self-conscious writing it. The wildest I felt it was when I tackled 'quiv's chapter 3 and Imera's Turning speech, both in quick succession (before I'd even written draft 1. I'd been taking notes.) Since then... I just thing back to how keenly I'd felt that anger, and I kind of intimidate myself out of it. Kind of like a natural resistence, I quench it from myself. Which is actually hilarious when you think about it. It’s like I’m going I BANISH THEE FROM MY BRAIN because generally, as a person, I dislike feeling and operating on anger. But no worries. I’m going to find a way around it.

Watch me😎.

What Goes Around…

(Now it’s the time for me to start crying some rivers, and, alright, it won’t be visible so I’ll say it: the chapter titles are holding a conversation, guys. They speak to each other. And sometimes it’s both sides of the same coin, like how What Goes Around (comes around) hints here. If you take two chapters, one from the beginning and one from the end (for example 1 and 21) it'll tell you a little secret. Okay, What Goes Around and Rain Through the Universe communicate through their plot, which I can’t spoil but of course it has to do with Madigan and Spica and how they first meet… but there is one title pair that does it best visibly. 

Lemon-Dotted Days and Days in Darkness.

And I hadn’t even planned this. All the parallels I wanted to draw… I feel like they built themselves, guys. They really did, and it makes me so wildly happy I don’t even know how to stop my hands from flailing.

And, with them being 21 chapters, they meet in the middle, on the one unpaired chapter.

Called Toast to the Light.

I friggin’ love everything.

New Sunrise, Forget-Me-Right

Of course, Forget-Me-Right is a play on Scorpion Grass. But it’s also such a gentle name for the chapter, because everything ends here. Lying on their backs, staring out into the universe, and it really, really is over. Just a dark horizon on which stars flare and bloom. And suddenly, that maddened rush to make every sacrifice count, to remember every soul they’ve encountered because the legend says the Beast absorbs you when it kills you – all that suffocating pressure dissipates. Lightness remains. Because they’ve protected each other.

For the first time in my writing journey, blood rushed to my head with such emotion I had to stop writing, which never happens. I had to look up and exclaim, holy fuck. But how could I not, considering how the story ends for the Beast? I am speechless. A lot of gorgeous surprises this draft.

Conclusion□●□

Whew, what a year it's been! As for how 2024 will probably look like, though I don't like making plans: finishing the beta stage for 'quiv, and tackling RoaN and AoS's draft 3. Thaaaat one I'm actually starting on Christmas, when I can (finally!!) reread draft 2 with my mug of hot cocoa (or maybe mulled wine for a change) and, no surprises here, I'm hyper stoked for that<3 <3 <3 I legit can't wait to see where the new draft brings them. I might not have set any expectations for them, but they're vying to keep up with 'quiv and I adore it🤭❤

As for my lovely friends... well, you know by how I spam your tags how much I adore you and wish you happiness forever🤩🥺🥳 I don't know what my activity will look like in the near future, so for now I won't be saying anything, and my semi-hiatus continues. Semi, because you're unforgettable and I crave to see what everyone's been up to and (!!!!) what you've written!

So let's meet in 2024 again, and all the best wishes to you, the reader🥰🥂❤.

[f-imaginings]

17 and 19 for the writers asks! <3

17. talk about your writing and editing process

Okay so I start with the planning stage, this is the part I love. My stories are generally plot heavy and have lots of moving parts so getting to line them all up is the most fun. I do one basic plan after watching the show episode it's based on (I've had to do this for all the recent chapters but am excited to have more free reign with the sequel) and note down all the important details and fun little Easter eggs I want to include (stuff like what the background characters are doing or what the bumper stickers say that Stan holds or whether Dipper's bag is packed or not) then after that I do another run through where I split up the scenes so scenes with similar themes go together and so it can jump between povs in a satisfying way (eg in the last chapter all the prison breaky stuff happened when ford was in the prison ship so they were thematically linked, and each pov gets breaks/cuts to other povs to build momentum and create tension between each character arc especially if they depict contrasting goals) then I use that plan as a check list of how many scenes I have to do in each chapter and if I get stuck at any point I do one more plan to hammer out the flow (I did this for the Stan's argument last chapter).

Planning is my favourite. Once the plan is done I just write out the scene. If I have an idea for a good line or dialogue when I'm at work and can't write I jot it down in my notes app and incorporate it when I get home. Writing flows pretty well and if I get stuck on anything I talk it out with my fiance, walk around and sometimes rewatch the episodes to help me capture the character voice properly (will probably need to do this for Gideon's dialogue).

I'm an edit as I go gal. Once one scene is done I edit it over and I reread and edit previous scenes so it flows well and there are no continuity issues. I might make a decision in a more recent scene that affects how the older scenes play out so I'll go back and add in who has the car keys or where something is positioned to make it make sense. I also like to reread and edit the chapters when I'm out and about, so since I got the word app on my phone I've been loving editing on the go. Each chapter gets edited in increments while the chapter is in progress and then gets one more passthrough before publishing to catch any grammar or spelling issues or any continuity issues before I publish. Sometimes I do this last edit at a reasonable hour and sometimes I do it at 1am BC I'm so keen to post lmao but mostly I try to edit/post at an hour where I'm switched on enough to catch any mistakes.

I also welcome feedback from readers if there's anything I missed and need to edit over once it's posted. The wonderful @xenotwink used to beta read for me and then worked in editing and enjoyed it less after that work experience so I'm editing things myself now (and am very grateful for all the help they've given over the years) and I know I overuse the comma but if it didn't want to be used and abused it shouldn't have been such a sexy little punctuation mark!!! It's winking at me all the time, how could I resist?

19. the most interesting topic you’ve researched for a fic

Haha I feel like answering gravity falls is just a cop out here haha. I'm on that wiki all the dang time. Let's see, I've researched a lot of odd topics for this fic.

Off the top of my head there's been pig husbandry and swill feeding, scientific inventions and patents between the 80s and the 2013s, hyperprexia, US regulatory bodies around environmental protection and the top nuclear mismanagement disasters in us history, who was head of what department at that time, how to make an ornithopter, behenian fixed sigils and their historical uses, popular tourist attractions in the Midwest, a lot about Albuquerque, what a tixo was and how transistorised computers work, the plots to night of the living dead and invasion of the body snatchers as well as the original escape from witch mountain (thank you Wikipedia, I could have watched the actual films but who has time for that), what space currency is (QUID is a real thing) and obviously various astrological phenomena like the hourglass nebula and hoags object and all the messier belt locations mentioned in the fic, a bit about alien races so I could make tongue in cheek references during the black market segments, at the time I hadn't watched back to the future (I since have) and had to google Delorean BC I knew of it through pop culture osmosis but didn't know what it looked like, I did a lot of research when naming the different ocs and side characters (although again some of those names were tongue in cheek like how raha dinero's name means money money lmao like the ABBA song), OBVIOUSLY I listened to a shitton of ABBA to pick the perfect lyrics and deep dived into their back catalogue so I'm not winning any prizes for band trivia but I'm great at remembering lyrics, there was how to cheat at poker, how to cheat at other card games, what does mercury poisoning look like, what gasses are in space so I knew what Ford could potentially breathe in, what is the most common ailment when eating unfamiliar foods (liver issues), what type of car would ford likely have driven when he first lived in gravity falls, what type of car did Stan drive, idioms for En, I reread the journal 3 and blacklight journal a lot, did a brief little research into phenomenological reductions and rewatched high school musical for Mabel's mind scenes. A lot of the American tourist landmarks too, especially in the Midwest and how mall of America is an actual place and not a brand or chain of places (wild), tonnes of Americanisms since I only know about Australia and the UK (although I did visit the US a bunch but that was mostly to California, hiking in a cave there though helped inform my descriptions during the hike to the crash site scene), did a bit of research on pterodactyl genuses to get Quetzalcoatlus Pinesorial and does rewatching grease count? I mostly just wanted to reference the flying car for weirdmaggedon so I threw that in for narrative symmetry haha.

I thought this would be a little answer but it turned out longer than I thought. I'm learning new things all the time with this fic and I think it's wonderful 😊

Thank you for asking! Love the questions you picked 💛💛💛

[darcydarlingdabbles]

❣️🖋️ Darcy Darling’s Writing Update 🖋️

Dec 17th, 2024

(yes, I'm using the banner again. Causes it's pretty and I like it~)

🩷Fanfics |✒️Original Fics |🩸Fave Comments

~Fanfics~

At Mid Winter~

Posting every day until Christmas ~

All other fics on pause for the holidays

I made a new Banner for this AU~ first fic listed on my master post

Falling for the Morningstars ~

The rough draft is about...8 chapters ahead of the posted fic

The tension, is delicious~

I write linearly, but this is the slowest burn I've written and I AM DYING.

Until the Devil's Last Dance ~

First draft of Part 2 completed last night at 1am XD

Ngl, the ending of Part 2 made me cry

I can't wait to start Part 3, the in Hell section is my favorite and it has the happy ending~

A Harmony of Haunted Hearts~

This is the Alastor/Charlie/Vaggie one, my only not RadioApple

Rough draft is only about 2 chapters ahead of the posted fic

My other slowburn baby, killing me softly,

The Melody Between Us~

The spin off of The Static Between Us that I said totally wasn't happening but now totally is. XD

I started out writing shameless smut about Vox being cucked, now it's a whole thing.

This fic is last on my list currently, sooo don't expect updates until like mid January. But I'm impulsive so the first chapter/Prologue is up. (it's just a scene setter though don't get too excited XD

~Original Fics~

You can read these for free on Ream, but I've also got a special offer for my fanfic peeps to read for free for a year.

Throuple vs Plant Zombies -

Books 4, 5, and 6 have been vaguely summarized, about to do a chapter outline before the end of the year.

Book 1 is being published Jan 22, 2025 and is on preorder now!

Alpha reader gave me feedback that there was too much drama, not enough zombie...me, dramatic? Never. But I fixed that XD

Smalltown Sheriff 2nd Chance MM -

Book 3 has been finished!

Book 1 is being published Feb 19, 2025 and is on preorder now!

Everywhere but Amazon...thanks Amazon.

Got flagged for being erotica...whoops, look my boys are horny Okayyy? XD

MM Age Gap Superhero/Soulmates -

Book 3 finished this morning!

Book 1 is being published March 19, 2025 and preorder is up now!

Another slow burn bb, why do I do this to myself. The first major sexy scene is the end of book 3...killllling meeeee.

~Fave Comments~

"I love it when they play nice with each other and have each others back 🥹" Ream User on Take Me Home "Oh I loved this so much. Alastor is always the one to console and care for Lucifer. Seeing Alastor being taken care of is so beautiful. Doms also need reassurance that what they're doing is okay by their subs. Consent, words of affirmation, and safe words are for both parties. I'm glad we got to see such vulnerable displays from not only Lucifer but Alastor as well." Kermit_in_disguise on At Mid Winter " Omyfuckinghell!!! 😳😳😳 I think I need to change my pants now....... Al sooooo good and hot as dominant role here, so I understand Vox in 5 chapter. I'm wanna be in Luci's place too... Anyway in all your works which your write amazing sex scenes. Your fics with dominant Al are really one of the best, which i found in Ao3." Anji_Newman on Boys at the Beach

You have no idea how much my ace ass prides myself on having amazing sex scenes XD

Thanks for reading~

[drdemonprince]

How do you get to sleep? You appear to sleep about as much as me which isn’t very much. How do you get the brain to calm its jets?

I'm not sure where you're getting information on how much I sleep, maybe from me posting late? I get 8.5 most nights from 1am to 9:30am. I don't really have trouble falling asleep these days, so I don't know how much this will help, but here are the things that have made sleep easy for me:

having a consistent wake-up schedule. Sleeping regularly for me isn't so much about when I go to bed so much as when I wake up. If I wake up around the same time every day, I get tired around the same time -- naps and sleeping in are just personally very depressing and throw me out of wack.

having a consistent life schedule. Before I got a full-time job and was stuck freelancing and adjuncting, my sleep schedule was a mess. But the moment I had a consistent place to be every morning at the same time, everything fell into place for me. Now my office is remote, so times don't matter so much, but I've stuck to a regular wake-up schedule anyway.

I quit caffeine. It's incredibly easy for me to wake up because I am not experiencing caffeine withdrawal every morning. It's easy to fall asleep because I don't have a lingering caffeine buzz. I love decaf as a ritual, but I can hop out of bed and hit the pavement without anything and be fine all day.

I don't workout or apply testosterone gel at night, and I avoid annoying work tasks at night. Anything that will get my blood pumping and my energy through the roof.

Your usual sleep hygiene: nothing in bed other than reading a book, blackout curtains, earplugs at the ready if the neighbors get noisy, and a stuffed animal to press against my body.

[sunsetrubdowns]

Also. Hi. I remembered I can talk as much as I want to on here. Do you want to hear about this guy I kind of broke up with but kind of wasnt really dating to begin with and will probably have to break up with again for good measure. This actually turned into an insanely long post because it's an insane situation so I'm putting it under a cut because I love you and your scrolling experience and it's probably incoherent anyways

So. Well you may or may not be aware but I was couch surfing for like 3 weeks in September and a friend of mine who I met through work helped me out a lot with moving my stuff out of my apartment and into storage and helping me get my shit together. And in the weeks leading up to me moving out/while I was homeless we spent a lot of time together (like. Pretty much every day LOL) because I needed to be constantly distracted and he apparently had all the free time in the world. Cool!

Now it's important to give the context that he had asked me out back in like June and I said no because not only did I think we had very little chemistry and he was very needy but ALSO I was going through one of the worst depressive periods in my life. Really just was not the vibe at the time. Also my read on the situation was 100% correct like I was right about everything lol.

So you know obviously I'm aware that he has a little crush on me this whole time but I'm in a truly delusional headspace where I'm like well this is not so bad :) I'm having fun hanging out with him so whatever happens, happens :). And what happens is that WHILE I am still homeless we end up having a little feelings talk where I'm like well this is nice but I've kind of got a lot going on right now and I need to settle my life situation out before I'm comfortable getting into anything official or serious. And he's like yeah I totally understand that. But then maybe a week later after I secure and move into my place he IMMEDIATELY. And I mean like immediately. Starts calling me his girlfriend. Not to me but to other people. Like going around to my coworkers and people at work to be like btw we're together now :). Which made me kind of uncomfortable but I just brushed it off because I am a huuuuuge pushover and I was like, sure I guess we're together. Even though I'm very private about my personal life and it took me like a good month to refer to him as my boyfriend out loud and I didn't even MENTION him to my best friends (hi besties) for a couple weeks after that. Because I was like damn I don't even know what to say. Also he never even attempted to do anything more than hold my hand a few times so we were still just hanging out the way we had been to begin with.

And THEN he started coming to the bowling alley where I work every single night and just like.... hanging around for hours and hours until we closed to drive me home (6 blocks away) and to talk to me while I'm working and on my breaks. And when he drove me home after work every SINGLE night he would park and walk me to my door and unless I was very clearly like yeahhh I'm exhausted Goodnight Bye :) he would often invite himself into my apartment just to hang around until I was like. Okay I have to go to bed because it's after 1am please leave. And it got to the point where I felt like I never had any time to myself and my social battery was constantly at 0 and I was also spending way more money than was within my budget because he was dragging me out to eat and do things constantly and to go to Disneyland and shit and also at the place where I work every single day and not leaving no matter how clearly Im like hey sorry I'm just. soooo tired right now and work is so busy etc. There were only THREE days in October that I had totally to myself. I could barely even find time to spend with my roommate I had just moved in with and he also was not really seeming to spend time with any of his own friends when he'd had an incredibly active social life like, just a month ago.

It was starting to really freak me out that I felt like he was trying to replace not only his previous long term girlfriend who broke up with him earlier this year but also his entire social circle. With lil old me. And I felt like he was trying to force a level of familiarity with me that simply was not there like... man you don't even KNOW me like that don't talk to me like you know me. Don't talk to me like you know me when you're also trying so hard all the time to like, impress me and prove something to me.

It got to the point by mid October that I was like desperate for time to myself to decompress and process things and most of my mental energy was going to trying to find ways to avoid him and scripting a breakup speech in my head. And instead of trying to talk to ME he would go into my workplace and try to ask my work friends. While they were working. For advice on what to do when I seemed distant or unhappy. And even though they really only ever told him to just communicate with me he decided to wait until the day before Halloween to be like "I realized that I was maybe doing to much by going to hang around your workplace every day and also it's been a month and a half but I want to officially ask you to be my girlfriend now :)" and was somehow genuinely shocked when I said no. And basically outlined everything I've said here to be like I need to be left alone or I'm going to kill myself a little bit so please leave me alone.

But it seems like what he took out of the conversation was "I need to take some naps and then I'll feel better and then we can go back to normal :)" because he just kept being like "how do you feel how are you doing you look better are you feeling rested" and continuing to go to my coworkers and my roommate at work and asking about me and show up at the bowling alley frequently and text me continually as I just brushed him off over and over and eventually stopped replying to his messages. Until finally last week I was working on a day I normally don't work and he came in and I, again, kind of brushed him off when he came to just like do small talk with me. So he went to my roommate who was also working to be like "oh I think I'm going to talk to them today we need to talk but I don't know if they just want to be left alone or not..." while she (blessed angel that she is) just refused to give him any real information. But then he just kept like, trying to chitchat with me while I was working so I started brushing him off again and he ended up going to my roommate AGAIN to vent about me. And then left and texted her all this stuff about how he doesn't know if I like him anymore but he's just going to leave me alone and try to get over me etc and how he's been so stressed over stuff with his parents etc etc and framing it as if HE is breaking things off with ME. But since then has continued to go to her to ask about me and talk about how he's trying to get over me and heartbreak and whatever and etc. But has not expressed anything at all to me personally in any capacity since I told him I needed space.

Meanwhile I've gone on multiple dates with someone I genuinely really like and who has slept over at my apartment multiple times LOL. And there are so many little details of weird shit that I've had to cut for time here but like genuinely what the hell man

Anyways have I mentioned that this man is 34 years old. Because he's 34 years old. And if you've read all this you are so cordially invited to share your thoughts and/or guess his chart placements in the replies. Funny as fuck situation that I'm in

[masked-and-doomed]

Heya! Just wanted you to know that I wrote a fanfic after being inspired by one of your posts that I really liked

I love the internal monologue you have with your lambs and I tried to replicate it as best as I could using our favourite doctor as a subject and his two alter egos. Hope you like it! :]

https://archiveofourown.org/works/58304626

Ohhh I enjoyed it very dearly!! Gripping it tightly between my hands.

It's truly flattering to be an inspiration 😊😊 To be cool even in my most mentally ill moments lol. UG would soak in this praise forever.

Speaking of dialogue between me and fictional characters- woke up at 1am, (2am now. Whoops) 3 hours of sleep I got. It's Faust's birthday today, so I thought I'd get to work on drawing his lovely self. Well. Uh. The following happend. For realsies in my brain. Like the responses just appeared, rather than crafted.

--

“Should get... 7 hours sleep...”

Haah-? But it's your birthday, I gotta do something for you.

“The doc would want ya to sleep, kid.”

Chaos?? You too?

“You should listen to your father, you of all people should know that.”

Chronus?? Fucking hell, guys. You're really telling me not to make a birthday gift for him right now?

“Would rather, birthday gift be... Good night's sleep...”

You are a selfish motherfucker, Faust.

Fine. I'll go to sleep. I'm gonna fucking kill you in the morning, Faust.

--

I am still pouting in bed as I try to rest. Fuck these bitches trying to get me healthy. Faust guilt gear art for his bday is clearly the priority here. But nooo apparently not. Ridiculous, this guy.

[man-down-in-hatchet-town]

THE CASE OF THE GREATER GATSBY EPISODE 17 MOMENTUM AND EPISODE 18 SMOOTH

What a lucky girl am I. Citizen Jasper Fox one week, then Mel’s Christmas party (narrated by Cliff and Willie of all people!) the next. The Persauds truly are spoiling me. And so many details to mull over!

Full mulling under the cut. It’s long, there are theories, blah blah blah. You know the drill.

So, uh, guys, DID I ACTUALLY GUESS IT?? Is my wild-and-crazy Sheilah/Mel theory from a couple of posts back actually on the money??? We haven’t gotten full confirmation from the story yet, just suspicion from our characters, and since it’s my theory I’m going to refuse to truly believe until there’s no room for doubt. But Fig and Ford have happily jumped aboard the good ship Meilah, and I’m soooo here to see how that plays out.

On the other hand, the other part of that theory, that TD is Fitzgerald’s mysterious midnight murderer, doesn’t hold up as well. Wilhelmina and Cliff vouch for the fact that he was at the party between Fitzy’s exit and 1am. This doesn’t necessarily mean anything—Scott was too drunk to record the exact time of his own murder, and while we can infer that it was before 1am (as he probably started recording the moment he arrived home), we don’t know for sure. But even if TD didn’t head to Fitzgerald’s in the dead of night, we still have to account for his hour-long disappearance earlier in the evening. Sheilah notably mentions that she cannot find her keys at around the same time that TD goes missing. As staff able to take people’s coats, TD was perfectly situated to lift her keys without being noticed. He likely spent that missing hour breaking into Scott’s and Sheilah’s house, right? He could have been trying to acquire a copy of Greater Gatsby for Mel, accomplish something related to his quest to join the Brigade, or even follow some order from Mel related to Sheilah’s and Fitzy’s latest spat. After all, we know from an off-hand comment from Cliff that the pair had recently had a fight dramatic enough to become full-blown Hollywood gossip.

But Fitzgerald’s murder is not the only mystery to solve. Do we think this Horace Beanslot, with his apparent disdain for original stories, has anything to do with the mysterious death threats plaguing adaptions? Think about it: Horace strikes down Mel’s passion project idea, over-ruling her enthusiasm for genuine storytelling and art (who knew?) because adaptions are a financially safer bet. Barely a week later, Wilhelmina receives the first in a series of threatening letters targeting those involved with making said Hollywood adaptions. What if the letters are an intentional plan cooked up by Mel and/or TD to make adaptions toxic to Hollywood, encouraging Beanslot to allow Mel’s original passion projects instead? That would explain why so many of the letters were dropped off around the Grapes set without anyone noticing—it would be easy for TD or hired help to deliver all manner of things without attracting any attention. A quest to destroy Hollywood’s adaption habit could also explain why Mel seems to be almost actively sabotaging The Grapes of Wrath at every turn.

And then, ever so inevitably, there is the Dash of it all. What the flippity-flappity-frick was he doing at that party? Fitzgerald had yet to be murdered, Wilhelmina had yet to receive the first letter… all of the cases Fig and Ford are investigating technically hadn’t started. So was Dash there on a matter unrelated to what he’s working on now? Or is he part of something that began much earlier than we know? I mentioned last time that Dash only really appears when Willie is around, and this pattern held true once again. Maybe Roger hired him to keep an eye on Wilhelmina while he was away in the slammer? Alternatively, is/was Dash somehow working for Penny? I don’t think this is particularly likely, their alleged Christmastime hook-up feels more like a cheeky nod to Joey and Lauren’s real life marriage, but it seemed worth asking.

As for the interviews, I’m afraid they were a little more informative to Ford than they were to me. It appears we are fast approaching the part of most detective stories in which said detective has figured out the case and chosen to keep their loyal audience (me) in the dark. We’ll just have to see if I can catch up before everything is brought to light. I didn’t get much from Mel and TD, and the Farnsworth Farnsworth aside simply feels like a silly audio-drama bit, but Vivian and Barnaby were as fascinating as always. Much like Ford himself, I was particularly interested to hear that the cops had already questioned Barnaby about his tie clip. Assuming Ford or Claudette didn’t slip up, there’s only a couple of ways the cops could have grabbed that info: Sheilah could have tipped them off, or the cops could have placed it there themselves. We know that Vivian and Mo are very deep in cahoots—what if she gave him the tie clip to place at the scene, and Mo was the mysterious trespasser spotted by Citizen Jasper Fox? We’ve known from the beginning that Vivian is intent on placing the blame for Fitzgerald’s murder at Barnaby’s door, whether he’s guilty or not. Perhaps, due to their pre-nup, locking him up is her attempt to get him out of her life without losing access to his wealth. But if she’s working with Mo, why hire Fig and Ford? And what does our least favorite cop get out of this? Is it tit-for-tat for some help stealing the bar from Bixby? Who knows, maybe Vivian’s having an affair with Mo as well.

Also, speaking of tie clips, Vivian gave F. Scott one on the night of his murder. Coincidence?

Other Stray Thoughts: -Why was Leery’s Christmas so sad? Are the Persuad’s just poking fun at country music tropes, or did he really just lose a love? And does that have anything to do with anything? -Well, Barnaby’s middle name is “Ellis,” not “Eugene.” But you can’t win them all. -We know Mel has mob ties through her sister’s high school boyfriend Lucky Luciano. Does this play into any knowledge she has of Luigi? -Our little Ford’s ice-cold heart is slowly but surely melting and it’s a lovely bit of character development. Just in time for real-life Christmas. -I love Cliff and his friendship with Willie. He’s constantly lowering his expectations and she’s constantly limboing right under them nonetheless. -I desperately want to see this tap-dance adaption of The Grapes of Wrath. Like, what do you mean it will feature actual wrathful-looking grapes??

That’s all I have for these episode! Six more to go!

[sxfterhearts]

omg chat why is writing kinda hard???

ok so this is a bit of an aside (warning: this post is long) but @348kg and i talked about this and honestly writing fanfics is a way for us to express ourselves creatively while using our idols as inspo for our work. and it’s fun most of the time.. but like honestly, 70-80% of the time, writing is hard. it’s not easy, like… it’s actually quite hard work.

and i know everyone has seen posts of like “pls reblog instead of just silently reading” or “pls like at least to show your appreciation” etc etc etc and ur probs sick of hearing it but like, it’s so true???

writing is honestly hard. and for most of us fanfic writers.. im sure you know but we have lives outside of our blogs. we are students, or we work normal jobs, we have life responsibilities, we have problems to deal with, and yet somewhere in between our busy lives we manage to find the time to sit down and create these pieces of writing for you, the reader, to read.

and tbh, i don’t really know where im going with this? i just want to let you know this: a typical 1-2k words one-shot probably takes me around 2-3 hours to write (on average, on a good day - sometimes longer or shorter). but it takes you maybe 10-15 mins, at most 30 mins to read depending on your reading speed. isn’t the time gap a little wild 🫠 on a typical work day, i get home from work at about 6, i cook myself dinner and eat, i shower and clean up, and if i know im writing that night, i make sure to clear my schedule (ie no overtime, no phone calls to friends or parents etc) and i sit on my laptop and write from about 10ish to about midnight. then i pause and i edit, and set things up to get ready post (think: pictures, title, word count, writing the warnings, summary, doing the tags) and by the time i post, it’s probably 1am.

i breathe a sigh of relief because it feels good! it feels really good to release my labour of love (literally) out into the world. and honestly, you know who you are, but those of you who constantly read and reblog my work, i see u!! (Alexa play i see u by p1harmony) and those who leave comments or reviews in the tags, i also see u (that’s why i like to reblog and respond to your tags too)!! it honestly brings me so much joy when someone comes and talks to me about something i wrote and how it made them feel. or even when someone recommends a fic i wrote. all these things that are so little and take so little of your time actually mean so much to me and im sure other writers as well.

and so i guess what im trying to say to everyone is: if you are a fic reader, if you read any fics, i just want you to know that the fic you loved reading took the writer a lot of resources to write (brain power, creativity and importantly time). i hope this gives u an insight into the process of a writer/writing a fic because im hoping it might help with whether or not you decide to hit that like or reblog or comment button in the near future!!

(also, i think it’s a shame that as writers sometimes we have to compromise on what we actually want to write vs what to write to get more engagement, likes, rbs etc. personally i have been writing on tumblr since 2020 on and off so ive been on here for four years now and i have a good sense of what is a good formula for a “successful” fic - usually it’s smut, usually it’s for the most popular member in terms of fic reading, and usually it’s of a certain length posted around a certain time etc etc. but i guess i don’t rly care anymore bc im a kinda old tumblr writer who isn’t bothered about the notes as much as i am just grateful for the little comments people send me saying that what i wrote made them feel seen or resonated with them. cos i think that is priceless 🥹)

PS. in no way am i complaining about the engagement or lack thereof that i personally get, nor am i complaining about the mere fact that writing is hard bc yes i am aware that i wanted to write in the first place and so it was my decision haha

[frzerburn]

Hello. First off I am here to say you can’t be given me life updates then fall off the face of the earth! I need to know what happens next, we drinking more coffee? We fighting off bitches? We out here dancing? 😂

Anyways, I hope you are well friend. I like hearing all the things and hopefully this makes you laugh a little. 😊

This is coco and she makes the best faces when she wakes up from naps 😂

🤣….Im Sawwy!

Almost got into a fight that i was trying to stop the other night with my barguest. I really want sum fucking coffee damn it!!!! I dont connect well with others so lets say im staving off bitches 😊. Also i dance behind the bar every night and i personally think its fucking amaze ballz! Btw u made my fucking night last night when i saw you wrote me literally made me smile cause tbh i dont genuinely think anyone cares about my life much at all,which is fine but this actually had me leaving my phone open in the service well lasg night with a thoughtful smile on my face. Hmmmmmm lets see…its 5:55am and i still haven’t gone to sleep since closing my bar at 1am. Ive been binge watching the office for the past week and a half for the 5th time now cause why nottttt mental health 😋. I met literally the sweetest couple and they love me and i think theyre the greatest and unfortunately theyre moving to Michigan so theres that but they’ve come to see me at my bar twice now and plan to come see me more before they leave. My hair has been looking very different and pretty dope and i love it because it helps my mental health. Ive been thoroughly enjoying a game on xbox with my best friend which i will say is the best game ive ever played! Busy football season is upon us and i need the money and very excited for the busy work seeing as im super hyper active! My jeep (Zoey) has been treating me right so were good there. Ive been posting alot about Border Collies because i really want a super active dog to run everyday with & they’re beautiful 😍. My Aunt Lily sent me $100 for gas last night and that was such a random surprise 😊💛. Oh ! Dare i say fall is upon us?!?!? 🍂 🍁 🍃

September & December both have Friday 13ths so im gonna get lots of piercings because those are my favorite holidays! Ive been deeping alot of awesome music like Jaded by Fordo , Lost souls Baby Keem ,Like we wrote LITHE & i just loving listening to anything EDEN! Like i absolutely have been listening to Zzz ALOT! Hmmmmm i havent read in a week now just cause my Adhd gets the best of me and i cant focus but thats life. Coco is fucking adorable!!!!!!!!! What a fucking cutie!

Thanks for being the best , friend and i hope you’re out here doing your best and if you’re not i wanna hear about it all! Seriously im glad u reached out to me! Means literally more than i can put into words! I have so much more to talk about but i wrote a fucking book bwahahahahaha! You’re so very welcome!

💛🍂🍃🍁

[intriguingpeoplebyangelafloyd]

CRAIG FOLBIGG

CRAIG FOLBIGG

4 March 2024

Craig Folbigg has sadly died at the age of 55 after suffering a heart attack. Folbigg was the ex-husband of Kathleen Folbigg and the father of the four children, Caleb, Patrick, Sarah and Laura who all died between 1989 and 1999.

            Kathleen spent 20 years behind bars after being found guilty of killing her children. She was released in 2023 due to doubt about how their children died. It was suggested that the children may have died from natural causes due to a rare genetic factor.

            Craig always believed that his wife had killed their children; this was due to what she wrote in her diary, which were disturbing (which I’ve posted here last year) and many other factors.

            On the night Sarah died, Craig woke up and looked at the time; it was 1:10 am. He noticed his wife and daughter were no longer in the room. He drifted back to sleep and woke up when Kathleen returned to bed. Twenty minutes later she got out of bed, and alerted Craig to tell him that Sarah wasn’t breathing. Kathleen wrote on the calendar ‘Sarah left us at 1am’.

            Kathleen suffered from depression and stress, and became incredibly frustrated with her four children. On the Monday morning that Laura died, Kathleen was frustrated with her and screamed at Laura so forcefully that Craig ran to see what was going on. Kathleen was trying to force-feed Laura her breakfast and Craig suggest not to feed her if she doesn’t want it right now and Kathleen told him to ‘fuck off’. Kathleen grabbed Laura and put her on the ground, Laura started darting around and Craig said that Kathleen roared and screamed, ‘I can’t handle her when she’s like this!’ Laura was afraid of Kathleen and Craig was trying to comfort her, Kathleen stormed into the room and told him to give her the baby and for him to go to work.  

            At 8:30am Kathleen called him at work and told him that he was ‘too soft on her’ [Laura]. Craig suggested that the two come in to visit him at work, which they did. Not long after they left, Laura would be dead.

            After Laura’s death, Craig asked Kathleen what happened. He noticed various holes in her story and things weren’t adding up. Doubt formed.

#craigfolbigg #kathleenfolbigg           

[thisselflovecamebacktome]

I've been meaning to make a post on the new legends game since the announcement, but have continuously had stuff come up so finally getting around to it now. Noting now that I've only seen very little (I'll mention what beneath the cut) about it so if any of this has been proven/disproven, my bad I guess lmao. But yeah, with that in mind, these are my very late night thoughts/predictions for the game.

So starting off I want to say that the only things I have seen on this game is the trailer and that apparently the whole game happens within Lumiose City. My kneejerk reaction to it happening purely in Lumiose was disappointment but then I took a step back and remembered that this will be Lumiose before it becomes the city we know from X and Y. Realistically I cannot see them making the areas of the game either 1. any smaller than Legends Arceus or 2. if they are smaller, have any less areas than Legends Arceus. Like with all the work they've done since Sword and Shield with bigger areas, I have faith that the sizing won't be an issue here.

Plot wise I am a little nervous, but I think a lot of that is just because there's so much that is unknown for now. Like tbh we don't even know if it'll have the same elements as Legends Arceus. Like for all we know it's a level by level game that once you finish a level, you can't go back because that part of Lumiose will have been built. Like I doubt that's the case, I imagine it'll be similar to Legends Arceus because they know that works, but we just don't know for sure yet.

Much like everyone else, I do hope Zygarde gets a proper story and tbh I don't want the A in the title to be another legendary (I do have a theory that instead of a new one, it may be Arceus but we'll see), but as long as it's written well, I will be happy. I also do wonder if the swords of justice will play a role given them being based on the 3 musketeers and feeling like they should be in Kalos.

More broadly plotwise, I am also super happy that Kalos was picked because tbh it's one of my least favourite games given how many missed opportunities I felt it had (likely due to the lack of a 3rd game) so I am excited to hopefully see those gaps be filled.

But yeah, overall I will say though, with Legends Arceus being my favourite pokemon game, it does have a lot to live up to, and that makes me anxious.

As I'm sure is the case with most people, my main hope for this game is that there are new mega pokemon (and regional forms). And tbh, I hope that any pokemon that already has a mega doesn't get a new one... maybe with the exception of Blastoise and Venusaur because it'd be nice for Charizard to not have the special treatment lmao. I don't really have any hopes for specific pokemon to get a new form or mega, maybe something I wouldn't usually use. Like I had never used Muk before Sun and Moon and now Alolan Muk is a top 10 pokemon ever for me.

Starter wise, my first guess is that they will pick all 3 from ones that aren't generation 6 or generations that were picked for Legends Arceus. Sprigatito, Sobble and Torchic were the first to come to mind, but I also have a nagging (affectionate) feeling that Squirtle may also be picked. If I'm right, I will likely pick Sobble because I've never done a runthrough with it, but if it is Squirtle and not Sobble, I really don't know because I've used all three of those pretty evenly. Then again, Lavender specifically came from another region iirc (did we ever talk about the implications of this? Like the 'Hisuian' starter forms may not actually be from Hisui if he brought them along from where he was from. Like I know pokemon says it's the area that determines the form but it takes years/generations to adjust so there's likely another region that had at least similar if not the same final forms as the Hisuian starters) so they could use that as a reason to finally give the generation 6 starters a mega and/or new final form.

And there is probably more but it's 1am here so those thoughts will have to wait for another time.

[callipraxia]

Day Three Progress:

Total Word Count: 5877

Notebook Page Reached: 30

Percentage of Project Completed: 12%

Narrators Utilized: 1

Number of Scenes Worked On: 1

Interactions Written: 5

Outfits Described: 2, though far more sparse descriptions than any previous outfit descriptions.

Random Thought Had: “…how sure am I that I know how adding one hundred to a number works? Five seconds ago I was totally confident about that but now I am unsure if the number is getting bigger too fast. Why does this happen every time I think I have figured out a relatively painless way to address a problem? This is second grade math for crying out loud!”

Gonna be honest, I was displeased with my output for Day Three. There was a lot of filler, and a lot of deliberately using three little words where one ordinary word would do just to get to the count, and even then, I barely made it to par before midnight after writing hear-constantly for the last three hours of the day. I was feeling exceedingly poorly yesterday - all week I had been unable to sleep except for between the hours of 6-9 am, and I didn’t thrive on that kind of sleep diet when I was young. Now, it was a clear Message: find some means of going to sleep, or illness would be with me shortly.

Thankfully, though, my anxiety meds finally arrived at the pharmacy, so I slept from 1am-9am. Said medication and several rounds on the heating pad helped with the bad shoulder, as did taking six hours off of my unofficial job as my grandmother’s minder - I went home, washed several loads of clothes, washed up where my mother had been cooking earlier, and was in a much better state of mind by evening. Dr. Jean Shinoda Bolen would probably lump me in with the Hestias in her book of “conceptualizing feminine archetypes as Greek goddesses;” I don’t know if I would say I find anything spiritual about doing housework, but the silence and solitude and satisfaction of rapidly-visible results does do wonderful things for me. It’s one reason I’m so fond of Emily Bronte; her writing, sadly small though the surviving quantity is, is amazing of course, but I also relate to her intensely as a person. I, too, don’t do well physically or mentally when I spend too much time among people in 3D and can only really achieve equilibrium in a “very noiseless, very secluded but unrestricted and unartificial mode of life,” to quote Charlotte Bronte. I’m somewhat more gregarious than Emily (I can’t even see EJB posting anonymously on AO3, much less writing all this on tumblr), but despite that, I’ve always had an affinity for her, even though my collection of flaws is more akin to Charlotte’s.

As for why this wasn’t posted last night, there’s an easy explanation for that! Between scrambling to preserve my Duolingo streak and squeeze in my last NaNo update, my phone battery was extended past the limits of what it could do on 10%. So the phone died in my hand just after I started typing this post, so I put the phone on the charger and went to bed.

Anyway. Yesterday is over, today is another day. Here’s to a better Day 4!

[bardofavon]

Can u do 18 about the about the name scène? "I want you to have it" / "give it to me". You had me at the edge of mu seat and I still can't stop thinking about it 😭

weird questions for writers

18. Choose a passage from your writing. Tell me about the backstory of this moment. How you came up with it, how it changed from start to end.

This is another verrrryyyy long response because I'm really taking you through every single change and where all my choices came from, so it's also under the cut!!

Okay so this is actually very funny because it's everyone's favorite part of the chapter, including mine, but it actually wasn't there originally. The scene was supposed to end after the line “I’m just wondering what other monstrous things you’ve merely let people think that you’ve done.” 

So anyway there I am, 1am the night before my self-imposed deadline, and I finish the chapter. And it's...like...shorter than I would like it to be, and I didn't feel GREAT about it but I was really determined to update. And then the next day I copied it from my google docs to the "add a chapter" page on ao3 and I was doing my last read over before I posted it and I got to the part where Kaz gets weird about calling the Darkling "Darkling" in a conversation. And ORIGINALLY that was a seed I was planting to deal with later but I was like, "no, actually, they're going to talk about it now"

so I just took like an extra twenty minutes and banged it out on my keyboard before i went to the party i was supposed to go to meaning i didn't have time to overthink it.

originally, after Kaz says "give it to me," the Darkling tells him his name and Kaz repeats it and then they KISSED but then I was like.....no.....this is too soon (I KNOW IT'S BEEN 20 CHAPTER SINCE THE LAST TIME THEY KISSED BUT IT'S STILL TOO SOON!!!!) but it ALSO felt like the name exchange was still happening a little sooner than I wanted it to in my chronology.

it doesn't happen in canon until Ruin and Rising after a lot of shit happened, and it's not going to take that long here but I did want it to build a bit more.

It was important to Alina, obviously, but it feels like it's somehow more important to Kaz. Kaz is someone who also changed his name, shed his old identity, and knows exactly how much it means to share that with someone else. He's still angry, actually, that the Darkling knows his true name and used it to prove a point during an argument. So part of him wants the Darkling's true name as retribution, he wants to have something of the Darkling if the Darkling has something of his, but he also feels like the exchanging of the name would make them more equal in a way they weren't before.

It also does the double job of continuing to humanize the Darkling which is something he's subconsciously trying to do in his head because throwing his lot in with a tyrannical dictator who wants to destroy half the world is not great to stomach, and he thinks he'll sleep better at night if he can understand the Darkling's actual goals and who he is as a person and work toward something with him.

It would also give him a new bargaining chip, chess piece, puzzle piece, whatever you want to call it. It's information he doesn't have, and once he has it he's going to be better off because it's something he can use. He already knows if the Darkling is soft on him, having his name and using it in a conversation will pull things more toward his favor.

And of course, the part he would never admit to himself, he just wants to know it. He wants to know more about him, he wants to say his name, he wants to be that close to him.

Throughout the whole scene I wanted it to have that level of emotional vulnerability but I also wanted the exchange to kind of feel like a metaphor for kissing, in a way??? Kaz has all of these physical boundaries that can't be crossed, even if crossing them and making that physical connection will make him more powerful. The Darkling has emotional boundaries that can't be crossed, even if crossing them will help get him what he wants (which is Kaz).

In the end, I kind of like that even though they're both trying to work on these things and overcome them even when they get to a part within themselves where they might be able to take steps toward progress, they forget that there's also intrinsic factors keeping them apart too that are almost more monumental than what's going on inside their head, and that's where Sturmhond comes in.

Also, I knew I needed a confrontation between the two factions on the boat to keep the plot moving and this interruption felt like a good segue into that for the next chapter, oops, so sorry gamers.

it's also funny because me going "this could be a little longer, what if they kissed" is exactly how i wrote chapter 25 HAHA.