#and somehow everything is so soft | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

catsafarithewriter · 2 years ago

Note

"Can you stop implementing secret rooms in my house?" You will do something brilliant with this, I just know it!

A/N: Okay, so I promise this prompt, uh, prompted this ficlet, but it went off the rails. If you were hoping for humour, sorry! I humbly offer you heartfelt sincerity instead! Have a ficlet about Baron’s early years in the Sanctuary! <3

"I know of a place," the crow gargoyle had told him. "It's not a home but it's safe. It's a refuge for Creations."

At first he stays because it's safe.

Beyond the Sanctuary lies a world torn apart by war. A treaty may have been signed, but the echoes of the conflict linger in poverty, and hunger, and mourning, and he finds he can help only so much from the confines of his creation.

He is nothing but a figurine, after all.

The Sanctuary is quiet. Empty. As he had been promised, it is a refuge, not a home. The little Creation world lines up a sea of houses which go vacant, and he chooses a simple workshop build with an eerily familiar shop front.

And so he retreats into that world, at least until the drone of planes and the stench of grief are almost forgotten, he promises himself.

And then he stays because he has nowhere else to go.

"I will make my way there eventually," says the gargoyle who tells him of the Sanctuary. The other Creation gestures to the remnants of the cathedral which had once been his perch. "But first I must see my people safe."

Baron has no people. He left behind his world – one of magic and mystery – in search of his lost soulmate, and instead found himself in a place plagued by destruction. He has had no time to form the familial bonds which tie others of his kind to this world.

Other Creations come and go through the Sanctuary, but none stay. Why would they, when they have homes or roots or people to return to?

It's not their fault he does not.

"The war must have driven many Creations to seek a refuge," the gargoyle Creation remarks when he finally makes his way to the Sanctuary. He has given his name as Toto, and there is less of the gargoyle about him than Baron remembers. Baron wonders how long it has been since the war ended. "Whenever I've dropped by, this place has been almost always empty."

Baron does not speak of the keening loneliness which has kindled within him, nor the surreptious timing of so many Creations finding their way to the Sanctuary's threshold. It has been a kindness, even if the ever-turning carasol of new faces is only a skin-deep balm.

And then he stays because maybe she will hear of the Sanctuary.

He has no other word for what Baroness Louise von Gikkingen is to him, other than soulmate. It is perhaps more literal than how most take it; they both were formed from the same soul of the same artisan, and were never meant to be apart.

She still exists – he'd feel it if she had been utterly lost – but the connection is faint, and he fears he could search a new world every day and never find her.

(He voices his grief for his missing half only once, but does not miss the portrait that appears on his mantelpiece the following day. Neither does he ask how the Sanctuary knows her face, and yet cannot find her.)

And then he stays because he is comfortable.

"I've never known a Creation to visit here for so long," Toto says in his next flying visit. He has almost entirely shed his gargoyle origins now, bearing more resemblance to a common corvid than the creature of tooth and talon he'd been carved as. Baron, meanwhile, has changed little in the intervening years, save for some alterations to his colour palette.

He has had no need to change.

"Where else would I go?" Baron asks. He opens a cupboard door and gathers up a bag of tea leaves. He's never gone shopping, but the Sanctuary never seems to run empty.

"I've heard of you in my travels," Toto says. "The Cat Creation who helped so many."

"I tried," Baron corrects.

"I would have thought you'd have grown bored by now," the crow continues.

Baron pauses, his hands curling around the kettle which never needs filling. "It would be... inauthentic to say I have not thought about it," he says. "Life is consistent here, unchanging. It was a relief when I first arrived, but sometimes I do miss the unpredictability of the outside world."

"Perhaps it's time to leave."

Baron smiles, and sets to making his tea. "I will think on it."

The next day, he selects a book off a shelf, and a hidden door slides open.

The door is new.

The book is not.

The passageway leads deeper into the Sanctuary, to a room impossible by human physics but unrestrained by the Sanctuary's magic. Bay windows look out onto a sea of stars, galaxies swirling like whirlpools across the expanse. And for the first time in too long, Baron feels life return to his old wooden heart.

It's the first secret room he discovers, but is far from the last.

He knows the cupboard under the sink wasn't always a tunnel, nor the western window a portal or the mirror a doorway, and at first it is a delight. His world, so safe and secure, now has surprises. Secrets.

Discoveries.

And so he stays because he is curious.

"You're looking better than my last visit," Toto remarks. He's added some light to his form, now bearing the marks of a magpie, and it feels like a pointed move away from his gargoyle origins. "Brighter. More awake."

"I was not aware I was so lacking during our last meeting."

Toto shuffles his wings. "Not lacking, but... sedate," he settles on. "Last time, it felt as though life had ceased to surprise you, and you are too young a Creation to feel that already."

Baron opens a cupboard. It's filled with jam jars. He tries it again, and this time he finds the tea leaves he is looking for. "Did you only come here to share judgement on my life choices, or can I offer you a spot of tea?"

"I came because I found her."

Baron drops the tea leaves. The cupboard door slams shut of its own accord.

"Her?"

"I found a trail," Toto clarifies. "A man who had once been engaged to a woman who had once had the Baroness in her possession."

It's a lot of loose connections, but it's the first breadcrumb he's found in decades. Baron feels his lungs go tight, his heart constrained by an unfamiliar tendril of hope. "Show me."

Toto nods and nudges open the doors, but instead of the Sanctuary courtyard, they are met with a corridor, old and dusty.

"Uh, Baron – is that normal?"

Not now.

Not like this.

Baron doesn't reply. Instead he shuts the double doors, counts to ten, and opens them again.

This time it's a different corridor, one marked with elaborately carved sconces lighting up a polished marble floor.

Again, and it's a tunnel, roughly hewn from rock that shouldn't be there.

Another try, and it's a hall of mirrors.

Baron stares at the infinite reflections, all staring back, and wonders when his fur had so dulled. In this light it's almost grey.

He shuts the doors once more.

"Baron...?"

"A moment, Toto." He sets his forehead against the grained wooden lines of the door. He notes the pine scent, and realises it's been too long since he breathed in air not saturated with Sanctuary magic. "Old friend," he murmurs, "you have been nothing but good to me, but I need you now to stop implementing secret rooms in my house. I need you," he says, "to let me go."

The door shivers.

"She is my soulmate. She is all I have left of my old world, my old life," he says. "Let me go to her now."

The door shivers again.

And then it clicks open.

Not onto the Sanctuary courtyard, but to a simple street. To the Human World.

And so he leaves.

The man whom Toto had talked about owns a humble antique store and so it is easy enough to blend in. Despite the Human World being less believing of the supernatural than Baron remembers, the man seems to take the talking figurine in his stride, and shares all he knows of his once-fiancee. Separated by the same war that Baron discovered this world in, the man can point him in no direction, but offer him a place to stay in hopes that one day that will change.

And so he stays.

The Human World has changed since he last retreated from it. The war still bears its marks on the older generation, but the children speak of futures untainted by conflict. The man's grandson wishes to craft violins, and the kids in the street take time to pet the stray cat on the shop's doorstep.

And then the girl arrives.

She is lost in more ways than one, but carries a curiosity that he recognises. She is young, burdened by that weight that all youth feel in that they must know their life's course or else flounder, and so he reaches out. He tells her a story – his story – and she discovers a passion in writing.

He helps.

And he succeeds.

It is not long after that that the antique shop's owner tells him he's tracked down a clue to his lost fiancee. Baron bids his farewell to the man and, with the unexpected aid of a stray cat, sets out to find his soulmate.

He does the unimaginable.

He finds her.

She has changed since they last saw each other – not so much in looks (her dress is different, and her hat has changed, but her fur is the same snow-white as before) – but in personality. She is bolder than he remembered; she stands taller, surer, and there is a cocky, reckless sort of grjn that he is sure their artisan never carved. She has discarded her Baroness title for all but the rare moment, instead going by Louise to those who know her now.

She pulls him into a tight embrace and tells him all about her missing years. About the adventure, and danger, and the worlds she has seen.

"Did you never look for me?" Baron asks.

She breaks the embrace and, oh, how he has almost forgotten those sapphire-blue eyes. "Of course I looked, Humbert. I found my way back to our artisan, but he said you had gone. So I came back, but this world is so large and we are so small..." He sees the glimmer of something akin to guilt. "Eventually I decided to live my life."

To move on, is the unspoken addition, but Baron can't even find it in himself to be hurt. Sedate, Toto had called him, but now he wonders if faded would have been truer. He looks to Louise and sees that she is more alive than he has been for decades.

"But we're found each other now!" Louise declares. "We can travel the worlds and see everything there is to see – together! Oh, there are worlds with waterfalls of diamonds, and flying whales, and – oh, so many people! There's so much to learn!"

"That sounds... wonderful."

His soulmate fixes him with a steely look. "But?"

But he thinks of the schoolgirl with her passion for writing, and the sense that he was finally helping someone again.

Oh, how he had missed that.

"But I think that we have different paths to happiness," he says. "I think I may have just realised what I want to do with my life."

"And it's not gallivanting off through other worlds, is it?" Louise asks softly.

"It's not." He smiles. "But I think our paths will cross nonetheless."

He returns to the Sanctuary with purpose, and it responds in kind. Alongside the stray cat who had helped him find Louise, he sets up the Cat Bureau in a little cottage-like house which bears striking resemblance to the old antique shop. The Sanctuary finds those who need the help of a cat Creation, ushering them into its world, until the Bureau garners enough of a reputation that clients find their own way there.

"So you're staying for good this time?" Toto asks. He's returned to a full black plumage, and his feathers shimmer with an iridescent gleam.

"I believe so." Baron regards his friend. "What's this? No recommendations to venture further afield this time?"

Toto casts a beady eye over the Bureau, and then Baron, both sure in purpose. "No. Finally. You're not running away from something, but to it instead."

"There's always room for another member in the Bureau, you know."

Toto smiles. "I'll think on it."

And Baron stays because he is home.

A/N: This whole ficlet started because I looked at that prompt and thought “what if the Sanctuary tried to cater to Baron’s personality and installed hidden rooms to keep him entertained” and then snowballed rapidly into “the Sanctuary is so used to being only a stopping point for Creations, never a home, that when Baron stays longer than usual it becomes attached to him and tries to tempt him to stay permanently by always giving him exactly what it thinks he needs/will make him stay.”

#the cat returns #cat writes #tcr ficlet #also whoopsies this became 2K words #I get very attached to stories where you have two hurting individuals healing with the help of each other #and also I just really like the idea of houses wanting to be homes #the Sanctuary not even realising it was missing being a home until Baron accidentally showed it was an option #look I have a weird amount of feelings for a place that is really just a setting in the film #it has a personality now #and feeling #also toto constantly just looking at this disaster of a cat creation and being like #oh dear. I somehow feel responsible for this mess #also also dropping in my personal headcanon that toto was originally a bird like gargoyle #and after the war wanted peace and quiet #so his appearance changed to something more mundane and less scary #toto choosing to look after those around him with kindness rather than physical strength #it's important to me that after everything toto was able to choose to be soft #despite his original build

27 notes · View notes

alley-chat · 2 years ago

Text

when marinette and adrien finally get married it will be in the sewers

#adrienette #ladynoir #miraculous ladybug #they will have planned a super elaborate wedding and the whole city will be invited and everything will be perfect #mari will stress about it so much beforehand and make a million backup plans for anything that could go wrong #but then somehow they end up being late anyway. to their own wedding #and shenanigans will happen and before you know it the married couple-to-be will find themselves in the sewers #having one last argument about having failed each other or something #but they'll solve it and be all soft smiles #and be so in love they envelope then and there with just the two of them #and they'll eventually emerge looking all sappy at each other #and their friends will finally manage to make contact with them and be like ''well are you gonna get married or not??''#and the two will be like oh whoops we already did #*elope not envelope dangit. im not rewriting all that #oh actually just looked up what elope means and that's not it either. exhange vows and rings you know what im going for

22 notes · View notes

xcziel · 1 year ago

Text

^^^ credit to this 💙gorgeous💙 pic from @moonlovingvampire for driving me back to the palettes because i love everything about it (including the moon lamp *eyes it enviously*)

under the cut, the original suggested colors -

i know it looks for "accent" shades but COME ON

all those soft subtle organic hues and it grabs ... black, and the yellow of the one light in the background? for sure they are contrasts i guess

when i see a glowing moon at twilight it definitely evokes images of ... bees??? warning signs? crime scene tape? lol

#palettes #too good to just admire passively thank you for this it's stunning #like moon sky greenery wood water stone (it think that's granite or similar) and *light*#just everything visually - but also mentally emotionally - satisying to look at #fantastic composition as well - you are so right to be proud #god i love how the moon lamp looks - i keep almost getting one for myself but other things take precedence :/#your plant looks healthy too - all of mine are either going gangbusters with little input from me or like deathly unhappy #the colors are just SO GOOD #however i will mention again how gray is just the weirdest fucking thing in digital shading #like look here: every shade of gray just glows and has subtle hues hidden in it #but when you pull out the individual shades they are SO flat and boring unless you are very careful and picky #like select the wrong area and instead of the depth and luminosity you get like ... minecraft brick or 8-bit videogame 'castle'#just the strangest thing - and it throws all the other colors off bc it looks so artificial #i guess in nature nothing is ever really a flat gray so in the human eye it hits the uncanny valley easily #and the only other time you see unrelieved flat gray is like the painted walls of institutions or whatever #for sure there are lovely soft grays but somehow without the benefit of like ... textural variation on here it's a tough selection #there's your useless observation for the day hah #seriously though thank you again for the photo - it triggered a part of my brain i haven't really been using lately

9 notes · View notes

boundinparchment · 1 year ago

Text

Migraine is gone but dear god do I have such yearning and internal conflicts and ideas for the rest of DALDOM…

#only benefit of migraines: am bedridden and I use my stories to stop thinking about the pain #your honor they are so soft for each other despite everything and I don’t know what to do about it other than to give it to them #but they have to work for it I’m sorry I don’t make the rules #I still need MC’s memories fixed and we haven’t even gotten to the physical elements of their relationship or her other PTSD #and the internal conflict both of them have about predestination and making sense of THAT #you can bet neither of them enjoy that everything they’ve worked towards separately somehow just brings them back to each other #and they have to embrace it but also: is it even a choice #just when I thought I was out of the woods #between this and the plot and the events I want to happen—#gonna take me another fucking year to finish isn’t it—

3 notes · View notes

elkian · 11 months ago

Text

oddert reblogged

somecunttookmyurl

3h ago

2d ago

One small but extremely annoying effect of Tech Modernization or w/e is how UI contrast is garbage anymore, especially just, like, application windows in general.

"Ooh our scrollbar expands when you mouse over it! Or does it? Only you can know by sitting there like an idiot for 3 seconds waiting for it to expand, only to move your cursor away just as it does so!" or Discord's even more excellent "scrollbar is 2 shades off of the background color and is one (1) pixel wide" fuck OFF

I tried to move a system window around yesterday and had to click 3 times before I got the half of the upper bar that let me drag it. Why are there two separate bars with absolutely nothing to visually differentiate them on that.

"Well if you look closely-" I should not!! have to squint!!! at the screen for a minute straight to detect basic UI elements!! Not mention how ableist this shit is, and for what? ~✨Aesthetic✨~?

and then every website and app imitates this but in different ways so everything is consistently dogshit to try to use but not always in ways you can immediately grok it's!!!! terrible!!!! just put lines on things again I'm begging you!!!!

#Yesyesyes#We dodged a bullet with Neumorphism but there's so much patently obviously bad design that just isn't challenged#Our work machines are particularly annoying becuase windows 10 doesn't have drop shadows on the edge of windows#Trying to tell which of three file explorers and two terminals I'm clicking on is a massive pain in the ass#Thank goodness we developed guidelines to account for these things but assessibility is a mindset#And it's just not one that many have via @oddert this led me to look up Neumorphism and jfc I am so glad that is not the standard. If they try to make that universal we may need to start taking cartoon mallets to every Tech company

One small but extremely annoying effect of Tech Modernization or w/e is how UI contrast is garbage anymore, especially just, like, application windows in general.

"Well if you look closely-" I should not!! have to squint!!! at the screen for a minute straight to detect basic UI elements!! Not mention how ableist this shit is, and for what? ~✨Aesthetic✨~?

#why do they want things to look like... idk how to describe it it almost looks like a pregnancy test ad???#oh no contrast AND soft drop shadows AND rounded edges on absolutely everything #terrible #i remember when windows first started rounding off the boxes in... was it vista?#i HATED it #i still kinda hate it but the modern trend is so bad that it can't keep up #also case study on this post: I legitimately cannot tell #if I'm making this a proper reblog #or somehow editing my own post via reblog #BECAUSE THERE IS NO LINE IN THE POST EDITOR WINDOW SEPARATING THE TWO

21K notes · View notes

allthingswhumpyandangsty · 5 months ago

Text

HOW TO WRITE A CHARACTER WHO IS IN PAIN

first thing you might want to consider: is the pain mental or physical?

if it’s physical, what type of pain is it causing? — sharp pain, white-hot pain, acute pain, dull ache, throbbing pain, chronic pain, neuropathic pain (typically caused by nerve damage), etc

if it’s mental, what is the reason your character is in pain? — grief, heartbreak, betrayal, anger, hopelessness, fear and anxiety, etc

because your character will react differently to different types of pain

PHYSICAL PAIN

sharp and white-hot pain may cause a character to grit their teeth, scream, moan, twist their body. their skin may appear pale, eyes red-rimmed and sunken with layers of sweat covering their forehead. they may have tears in their eyes (and the tears may feel hot), but they don’t necessarily have to always be crying.

acute pain may be similar to sharp and white-hot pain; acute pain is sudden and urgent and often comes without a warning, so your character may experience a hitched breathing where they suddenly stop what they’re doing and clench their hand at the spot where it hurts with widened eyes and open mouth (like they’re gasping for air).

dull ache and throbbing pain can result in your character wanting to lay down and close their eyes. if it’s a headache, they may ask for the lights to be turned off and they may be less responsive, in the sense that they’d rather not engage in any activity or conversation and they’d rather be left alone. they may make a soft whimper from their throat from time to time, depends on their personality (if they don’t mind others seeing their discomfort, they may whimper. but if your character doesn’t like anyone seeing them in a not-so-strong state, chances are they won’t make any sound, they might even pretend like they’re fine by continuing with their normal routine, and they may or may not end up throwing up or fainting).

if your character experience chronic pain, their pain will not go away (unlike any other illnesses or injuries where the pain stops after the person is healed) so they can feel all these types of sharp pain shooting through their body. there can also be soreness and stiffness around some specific spots, and it will affect their life. so your character will be lucky if they have caretakers in their life. but are they stubborn? do they accept help from others or do they like to pretend like they’re fine in front of everybody until their body can’t take it anymore and so they can no longer pretend?

neuropathic pain or nerve pain will have your character feeling these senses of burning, shooting and stabbing sensation, and the pain can come very suddenly and without any warning — think of it as an electric shock that causes through your character’s body all of a sudden. your character may yelp or gasp in shock, how they react may vary depends on the severity of the pain and how long it lasts.

EMOTIONAL PAIN

grief can make your character shut themself off from their friends and the world in general. or they can also lash out at anyone who tries to comfort them. (five states of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and eventual acceptance.)

heartbreak — your character might want to lock themself in a room, anywhere where they are unseen. or they may want to pretend that everything’s fine, that they’re not hurt. until they break down.

betrayal can leave a character with confusion, the feelings of ‘what went wrong?’, so it’s understandable if your character blames themself at first, that maybe it’s their fault because they’ve somehow done something wrong somewhere that caused the other character to betray them. what comes after confusion may be anger. your character can be angry at the person who betrayed them and at themself, after they think they’ve done something wrong that resulted in them being betrayed, they may also be angry at themself next for ‘falling’ for the lies and for ‘being fooled’. so yes, betrayal can leave your character with the hatred that’s directed towards the character who betrayed them and themself. whether or not your character can ‘move on and forgive’ is up to you.

there are several ways a character can react to anger; they can simply lash out, break things, scream and yell, or they can also go complete silent. no shouting, no thrashing the place. they can sit alone in silence and they may cry. anger does make people cry. it mostly won’t be anything like ‘ugly sobbing’ but your character’s eyes can be bloodshot, red-rimmed and there will be tears, only that there won’t be any sobbing in most cases.

hopelessness can be a very valid reason for it, if you want your character to do something reckless or stupid. most people will do anything if they’re desperate enough. so if you want your character to run into a burning building, jump in front of a bullet, or confess their love to their archenemy in front of all their friends, hopelessness is always a valid reason. there’s no ‘out of character’ if they are hopeless and are desperate enough.

fear and anxiety. your character may be trembling, their hands may be shaky. they may lose their appetite. they may be sweaty and/or bouncing their feet. they may have a panic attack if it’s severe enough.

and I think that’s it for now! feel free to add anything I may have forgotten to mention here!

15K notes · View notes