#but then GETTING to that i was like 'ah that needs exposition'

[deathfavor]

my indulgent version 2 for @yeonban

Xue Yang grimace as he grips the edge of the sink, hunched over as he closes his eyes. Great. The word is bitter and angry in his mind. This self-appointed mission had been practically pointless and to top it all off, it seemed like Jin Guangyao was passing through the city. So the whole place is the human equivalent of someone kicking a massive hornet's nest. Frankly, Xue Yang can't be blamed for not knowing about the other's traveling plans for some clan event even if they were announced - he never kept up with the cultivators when he was a guest disciple, let alone now that he's supposed to be DEAD. But as he likes to say, he's going to make Death fight tooth and nail to drag him to hell. He was supposed to be dead for years now. Xue Yang IS dead as far as the world is concerned. Most of the world hadn't ever known he existed in the first place.

MAYBE he'd taken a distant peak at the heart of the city just for a glimpse. Xue Yang hadn't gone close ; he'd observed from the safety of the shadows far away. Now that he reflects on it, maybe that could have attracted attention from an eagle-eyed observer. Most other people has surged to the street for a glimpse while he'd stayed away. It's the only reason Xue Yang can think of for suddenly having someone try to follow him later. It was a LAUGHABLE attempt, but it had been rather NICE to slaughter and mangle the unfortunate fool. The dogs on the street were having a nice feast tonight.

It doesn't matter. Xue Yang will leave before the sun rises and this place on the outskirts of town doesn't ask for names or information. Xue Yang shoves off his outer robes and shirt, eyeing the ugly bruises and scars - blood from his earlier slaughter staining his collarbones while a fresh, recovering injury on his lower back has seeped through the messy, sloppy bandaging. More than that, though Xue Yang watches when the door. Age and time has only sharpened his already uncanny ability to sense danger. The door silently opens but he's already waiting with a skull piercing nail in hand. He throws it when a hooded figure steps in and watches it embed itself deep into the wood while the figure doesn't flinch.

Xue Yang hates that it means nothing. Nothing, because Xue Yang knows who that is. Nothing, because they both know if Xue Yang really meant it, he wouldn't have missed.

" Oh? Is this one worth a visit from an old friend? " Xue Yang flashes his teeth in a dangerous grin, and nearly wants to bark with laughter at the insanity of this situation. Jun Guangyao's too smart for his own good. Suddenly the fool earlier seems like a greeting - or a test to see if Death would appear in monstrous violence, a telltale sign of Xue Yang. Damn. Well played. He licks his teeth, head cocked to the side with a smirk.

XUE YANG. He hasn't heard his own name from someone else in YEARS. His smirk freezes, eyes focused intently on the man in front of him. His jaw clenches, unclenches, and clenches again. He's not mad though, or else violence would have already revealed itself. He doesn't know what he feels. He ALMOST wants to plead to hear his name again, and isn't that pathetic? It digs up the ugliness in his chest - the wrathful resentment that even temporary happiness hadn't been able to crush. Xue Yang didn't exist in Yi City until he was synonymous with death and disaster descending. It wasn't XUE YANG that was happy, just a nameless stranger. Now Xue Yang is alive, brought back on gilded tongue.

He couldn't care less about the blood or injuries that the other can see in the mirror or on him. There's no way he'd actually be here. It's probably just an illusion or talisman or something. Meng Yao is probably very comfortably lounging in some overly extravagant bed in one of the fancy buildings and whatever else clan leaders do. Xue Yang never has and never will care. Maybe he should be envious, but he'd never taken well to formalities even when he'd been with the Jin clan. A wild animal is still wild even in a sanctuary. So when Meng Yao says something about tending to wounds that Xue Yang waves off, ( some things never change ) , Xue Yang merely rolls his eyes. An illusion or projection can't do anything other than lecture.

Except Meng Yao can touch him and illusions can't do that. The warmth of fingers on his skin almost feels like FIRE. Xue Yang's head snaps towards the other and stares dumbfounded when the stained, messy bandages are yanked away and cold fabric washes away the blood at the injury he can't reach himself. ( Another eventual scar most likely given Xue Yang's lack of care to it. ) His mouth is suddenly dry. He's not afraid even though this is a DANGEROUS spot to be in. Part of him wants to shove Meng Yao away, to grab his few things and flee. Part of him just finds RELIEF that someone knows him. He wants to talk. He wants to run. He's suspicious. He's.....tired. In the end, Xue Yang finds himself just standing there and letting Meng Yao do as he pleases with a sharp eye following his every move.

" Ow- Ow! Hey! " Xue Yang is all skin and bones and raw power packed into muscles. His lower back muscles twitch under the cleaning and it fucking hurts. Yet even he knows better than to reject this help. ( Because who willingly helps Xue Yang? No one. And who does Xue Yang allow to help him? No one. Except, evidently, one lone soul who is the answer to both. ) " This is MY room you know. Showing up here and immediately in my stuff. " He scoffs and glares at Meng Yao in the mirror but he doesn't stop him or make any move to hurt him. He clicks his tongue. " You shouldn't be here you know. " Pot calling the kettle black, really. Neither of them should be here. It abruptly brings back a much earlier memory of them slinking around Jin Guangshan's hidden rooms where they shouldn't be, plotting a demise. He shakes his head slightly, knuckles white as he grips the counter. Fine, maybe it's a bit worse than he'd care to admit. " Guess this is rather fitting a reunion though, huh? " He grins, sharp again. He can't exactly imagine a TYPICAL reunion. Not for them. Xue Yang wouldn't ever change that.

[buggiesnax]

ruh-roh raggy I wrote a few chapters today and have come to the conclusion that i hate my entire fic

[tpwrtrmnky]

exposition

[ID: Four panel comic with crudely drawn stick people.

Panel 1: A blue person with sunglasses and dog ears is talking to an orange person with dog ears.

Blue: "Ah, young Orange."

Orange: "I, uh, aren't you younger than-"

Blue: "I understand that you have approached me to discuss an issue. As is the doctrine of our anarcho-caninist commune, we shall conduct this meeting in expository form, speaking as if intent on being observed by an unknown third party in need of being spoonfed everything we, as individuals, are already aware of."

Orange: "Wait-"

Blue: "Let us begin by stating our medical histories: I am on gel that makes you blue and have had dog ear implants."

Orange: "I uh. I know. You told me yesterday."

Blue: "It is your turn. State it!"

Orange: "…You can look at me and tell that I'm-"

Blue: "You cannot rely on the third party knowing how you became orange!"

Orange: "…Gel. It's gel."

Panel 2: An extremely tall, hot pink person with fluffy bits around their chest and extremities, as well as floppy dog ears and a bandana worn as a mask, interjects into the conversation between the two.

Hot Pink: "I sense that this discussion is at risk of becoming an argument. Let us recite the Acknowledgment of Legitimacy, as per the doctrine."

Blue and Hot Pink: "We recognise that opinions are held by individuals and do not represent everyone of their chromatic alignment. We understand that if any individual is found to be in the wrong, it does not delegitimize their identity, only their viewpoint."

Orange: "I uh. Does anyone not believe this? Who are we disagreeing with here?"

Hot Pink: "I am on injections that make you hot pink and have taken topical fluffy fur gel. Now we may proceed."

Panel 3: Zoom in on Hot Pink and Blue as they continue spoonfeeding unnecessary exposition to you, the reader.

Blue: "Before proceeding we must also clarify that the doctrine is an idiosyncracy of our commune, and not reflective of wider anarchist nor caninist movements."

Hot Pink: "Indeed. Furthermore, I would like to establish that we exist in the context of the past affecting the present, as individuals with personal histories that affect our present state, and have established this doctrine in response to said history."

Orange: "I- how- what history- are you explaining that the past exists??

Who is this for?

How did you decide to talk like this?"

Panel 4: A green person with a tail and long, pointy dog ears appears opposite of Orange to make it all make sense.

Green: "You bring up an excellent question. I am on a combination of pills that make you green and pills that block my naturally occurring red, which I do not personally consider a medical condition but which is often pathologized as such. Before proceeding and getting to the point we must go over the historical context in which this conversation is taking place."

Orange: "Wait, no, I know history, please-"

Green: "Caninism, as formulated by Barx in the 1800s…"

End ID.]

Bonus panel:

[ID 2: Presumably sometime later, the green dogperson is still talking.

Green: "You see, the Expository Doctrine is primarily a performance art critique of the tendency to demand that media explains everything to the viewer, and how pandering to this demand causes dialogue to be unnatural, stilted and unnecessarily verbose."

Orange: "I know. You say this every day."

Green: "Indeed, part of the performance serves to emphasize how in a serial but episodic medium, such mandatory exposition quickly becomes frustrating and repetitive!"

End ID 2.]

Start - Previous - Next

[nobodycallsmerae]

still got so much to find out

pairing: bang chan x producer!reader(f)

title:i like it by stray kids (album: ate)

cw: swearing, mentions of drinking/getting drunk

synopsis: chan thought there was something between you both, but when he saw you put your arms around hyunjin's waist as if it were the most natural thing in the world, he began questioning the whole situation.

tags: fluff, mutual pining-ish, miscommunication-ish heh, stubid :( and petty chan, minor minho + chan bonding, loong exposition, hwang siblings = real siblings (!!)

links: ao3 | wattpad

note: there were some issues with the povs I faced while writing this, so for the first part, it'll be in 2nd person, while the last 3/4th of the story is in 3rd person. sorry for the confusion !

word count: 2.9k

enjoy !

“I think you need help, man.”

“What’chu talking about, I’m fine.” The man you were basically carrying on one shoulder tried to stand up, tripping over his feet and words.

“See?” He stumbled, standing up on one foot to prove his sobriety. “Are you proud of me now?” He flashed an endearing smile at you. Your face flushed at the sudden eye contact. You covered it with a groan as Chris fell right into your arms again. 

Instead of the quiet evening you had planned, you had never imagined that you'd end up spending your Sunday night at a restaurant watching over eight guys drinking as if it's their last day and telling a very drunk Christopher that you were proud of him for standing up.

You turned around as you heard a click sound behind you, and saw a chuckling Felix clicking pictures of their leader. 

“Aw man,” Jeongin looked over his shoulders. “That has such good blackmail potential.” 

“Or a really cute birthday post.” Felix cackled. 

“Hey, come on now guys, don’t—” Felix turns his screen towards you with a smirk. “—forget to send that picture to me. Anyway, instead of smiling like fools, come here and help me get him in the car.” 

Changbin and Jisung walk towards you, followed by Minho and Seungmin, who were the most sober of the bunch, and helped carry Chan off of your shoulders. 

“Hey, no, wait,” Chris whined as soon as Changbin pulled him off of you, his senses seeming to come back to him. “Let me drop you home, y/n.” 

“Chan,” Your eyes went soft with a smile. “I would love to, but neither of us are sober enough to drive, and I—” 

“She's coming with me, man, not with your drunk ass,” Hyunjin walked over, casually draping an arm over your shoulders. “Lets get going, y/n. We can't be late.”

As you gave Christopher’s hand a squeeze and walked over towards Hyunjin, it felt as if you had squeezed the life out of Chris. 

Had he misunderstood you this whole time? 

As Chris sat sandwiched between Jisung and Changbin in the backseat, he saw you and Hyunjin get into another car while you were giggling with an arm casually wrapped around his waist. 

As you got into the car, he saw Hyunjin hand you a present. 

Chris thought you and him had something going on; he didn't know what, but he sure felt something. And those feelings were stronger this evening, when each smile he brought out of you made his heart ache and his lips twitch up. 

But was it only him who was feeling that way? 

“You okay, Chris?” Minho called out from the driver's seat, looking over at him with concerned eyes. “I've never seen you drink so much.” 

“Ah, yeah, don't worry about me,” He rubbed his face with a groan, the effect of the alcohol making him tired. He smiled as he felt Changbin and Jisung’s heads fall on his shoulders with a soft thud. “You know how hectic it has been with the new single. I guess I just wanted to let loose for a moment.” 

“I get it,” Minho paused, debating on whether to continue or not. “I just… I hope you're not pushing yourself too much, Chan. We're here to help you if you need… and y/n’s here too. So just, reach out, okay?” 

“Mhm,” Chris smiled. “I will. Thanks, Minho.” 

Usually it would seem weird that they were having a heart to heart after a night-out when one of them was sober, but Chris understood where Minho was coming from. 

It was unusual for Chris to drink, let alone get drunk, so he might think that something was on his mind for him to drink like that. 

But little did Minho know, it wasn't something, but rather someone. 

Chan wasn't even planning on drinking, knowing he had a producing session the next day, but when his stupid friends suggested a game of a shot for a secret, he couldn't help but comply, intoxicated not by the soju, but by the need to learn more, to know more about you.

But as he remembered seeing you wrap an arm around Hyunjin as if it was the most natural thing in the world, Christopher didn't know what to feel. 

The only thing he was sure of now was that no matter how he felt, the feelings of his brother came first; he could never do something that would hurt Hyunjin, or put you in an awkward position. 

Y/N, although a fairly new producer at JYPE, was already popular amongst other artists. She had almost received a celebrity status, when even the public knew a song produced by y/n was sure to top the charts. 

But as a kpop fan since her younger days, for y/n, her job was more like a paid hobby, where she got to meet and collaborate with other artists.

So, when she was proposed to co-produce several songs for Stray Kids’ new album, she jumped at the opportunity; not only because of the group’s popularity, but also because she was a die-hard fan of the group. 

She was obsessed with their music, their  vision and the momentous impact they’d had on artists and fans around the globe— she felt honored that she would be able to leave her mark amongst their talent. 

She was excited to work with them; even while casually greeting them in the halls of the building, she found their energy to be highly contagious. And that feeling remained when she became close friends with the members only after a few weeks of working with them.  

While becoming friends with all the members, y/n couldn't help but want something more with a special member. 

Maybe she did have a tiny crush on him even before they started working together; greeting him in the elevator or bumping into him while getting coffee used to be the highlight of her day. 

But after spending more time together, it wasn't just his extremely handsome face, but he became incredibly attractive to her once she saw the way he treated those around him, his commanding but caring personality and his charming aura. 

Being co-producers, she always had to spend time with him, and looking at him in his element, his passion is what made her look up to him as a fellow artist too. 

Y/n was down bad, but how couldn't she be?

Because the person living rent free in her head was Christopher Bang of all people. 

But what excited her, was the fact that maybe she wasn't the only one feeling that way— 

From asking her to hang out with them during dance practice, to purposefully going on coffee-runs together, or going on late night drives on the guise of dropping her home when both of them knew they had drivers.  

Y/n couldn't help but feel delusional and believe that Chan was doing these small gestures as a way to spend more time with her. 

And maybe. Just maybe, her suspicions were proven right last night, when in a crowded restaurant, it felt like it was just the two of them. 

As the group decided to go out to celebrate, everyone expected Chan to look after them, as always, and stay relatively sober for his session the next day. But contrary to popular belief, when y/n saw him gulp down shot after shot to know more about her, y/n couldn't help but feel special. 

As the other members were immersed in their own conversation, Chris and y/n were in a different world.

They shared their hopes and dreams and desires, and the moment that y/n knew that this moment counted for something, that it was different, is when Chris told her, the most relaxed and genuine she had ever seen him, that “It's nice being just Chris, for once. Thank you for not being bored of Christopher y/n.” 

She knew as a leader, and as a performer in general, how much responsibility Chris had to shoulder on a daily basis. And hearing him say that made y/n feel somewhat proud of herself, for letting him let go for once. 

In the dead of night, when half the city was asleep, she whispered in the softest voice, almost unknowingly, as she helped him walk out of the restaurant. 

“I think I'm in love with you, Chris.” 

But as he stumbled over invisible rocks, y/n felt thankful for drunk Chris because spilling it out like that felt like a mistake. 

But once hearing it out loud, she understood these feelings were here to stay, so she decided she would have a conversation with him once he sobered up. 

But now, roughly an hour had passed of them sitting uncomfortably in the recording booth, and for the life of her, y/n couldn't figure out what the hell was going on with Christopher Bahng. 

As she had entered the recording booth an hour ago, she’d felt herself smiling instinctively as she saw Chris sitting on the couch, nervously clutching the hangover medicine in her hands.

“Hey,” Y/n stood in front of him with an uncharacteristically nervous smile. “How are you? Yesterday was wild, right? I brought hangover medicine for you… I wanted to make sure—”  

“Oh, I'm okay.” Chan replied nonchalantly, not looking up from his phone. “Just so you know Changbin and Jisung will be late, so you can probably save it for them, I guess.” 

This was different.

Chris, no matter how busy or preoccupied he was, always made an effort for the other person, may it be the other members or a polite barista. 

The thought hitting her like a pile of rocks, y/n realized what if he had actually heard her confession last night and this was his way of rejecting her? 

But no matter what, they still had to work on the songs together, and y/n thought maybe this was for the best, so that they could still continue working together as if nothing had happened, because no matter what, y/n did not want her own feelings to meddle with Stray Kids’ performance. 

But as an hour had passed with them making little to no progress on the new song, y/n was fed up. 

They usually had such good chemistry, and it felt like their production and arrangement styles merged perfectly, but honestly, she felt like Chris was being a major asshole now. 

Chan was working as if she wasn't even in the room, or when she made a suggestion, he added it without as much as a thought, making her feel as if he was just humouring her. 

Okay, maybe it was hard to work with someone you know has a crush on you, but did he have to act as if he couldn't even stand when your hands brushed together? 

Y/n was hurt, but as a workaholic, she was also frustrated by his closed-off behavior. She was surprised too, because she knew how much Chan valued his work, so it made no sense for him to be acting this way. 

“Okay, man.” Y/n finally snapped, when they'd been replaying the same three second audio clip from the last fifteen minutes. “What's your problem?” 

“What's my problem?” Chan had the audacity to act surprised. Y/n hated how she still found his accent attractive in this situation. “I don't know, maybe you'd like to answer that when you've been the one silently just sitting here s—”

“What else do you expect me to do when you don't even want to acknowledge my presence in the room?” 

“What do—” 

“Okay you know what,” Y/n had to address the elephant in the room, or else they'd be going back and forth the whole day. “I know I fucked up, okay? And I guess you must hate working with me now, but can we just forget about it and act like nothing happened? I swear I won't do anything weird.” 

“Wait a minute, back up;” Chan’s face flushed. “Can you tell me exactly what you're talking about? Did… did something happen last night?” 

“What the hell, man” Y/n wished the ground would swallow her at this point. “You want me to say it aloud? Is this your way of making me more embarrassed than I already am?” 

“No, I—” 

“I confessed, okay? I said it.” She blurted. “And now you're uncomfortable, I understand, but please try to—” 

“You confessed… to me?” 

“Are you dumb? Of course, Christopher, who else?” 

“Wait but,” He didn't know what to feel, happy or distressed. “What about Hyunjin?” 

“Hyunjin? What about him? I—” Y/n was confused, but then her eyes opened wide in realization as she covered her mouth in shock.

“Oh my God, are you with Hyunjin?! Shut up, I'm so sorry! He did tell me he was with someone but I never thought… Oh my God, Chris, I never meant to—” 

“What the actual fuck? No?!” Christopher stopped her, unable to hear her talk about this for another moment. “I'm not with Hyunjin, okay? We're literally like brothers. And why aren't you mad… aren't you dating Hyunjin?” 

“Me… and Hyunjin? Ew, no!” Y/n looked like she was about to throw up. “He literally is my brother. Well, my cousin, but still. What the hell, what made you think we were together?” 

“Hold up, you guys are cousins?” 

“Well, yeah. I mean we didn't want to be public about it because people may think I got the job only because of him. Honestly I thought he told you guys, but it may have slipped his mind.

"And I didn't think it was my place to tell you guys, so I guess its kind of like a secret?” She scratched her head. “But what made you think we were together?” 

“Well,” It was Bang Chan’s turn to be embarrassed now. “Last night I saw him give you a present and you both went together to—” 

“Don't even finish that sentence.” She made a mental note to have a talk with Hyunjin and the members and finally tell them about their relationship, otherwise she was going to loose her mind. “It's Ye-ji’s birthday today, remember? Since the three of us are close, Hyunjin and I had planned a little something for her to wish her at midnight. So the present you saw was for Ye-ji, not me.” 

“Oh.” The silence that followed was the most awkward moment of Chris’ life. 

After what felt like eternity, it felt like the ice had finally been broken has they broke out into unfiltered laughter once they met each other's eyes. 

“Wait,” Y/n smirked. “Does that mean you were jealous, Chris?” 

“Whatever,” Chris gave her an endearing smile, the same one from last night. “I was okay? I was jealous, and I'd never felt anything like that before. I just didn't want to put either of you in a difficult position, which now I realize was a pretty stupid move from my side because I guess I could've simply just asked either one of you.” Both of them chuckled. 

Chris gently took y/n’s hands in his as he continued. 

“So, I tried to distance myself from you. But I realized, I just couldn't. We're a great team, and I think it's because we truly understand and know each other, which is a surprise, because I've never felt like this about anything or anyone in a long time. 

“And not only that, you're one of the most talented and amazing people I've had the honour of knowing. Unfortunately, I do not remember what you said last night, so, I'm going to shoot my shot and hope i don't make a fool of myself.

"I think I'm in love with you, Y/n. It may be a risk, but you're a risk I'm willing to take. So I want to ask you, y/n, would you please—” 

Before he could finish, Y/n, misty-eyed and overjoyed, reached forward to kiss him, and she felt relieved when she felt him smile against her. 

“I guess that's a yes?” Breathlessly, Chris smiled. 

“Yes, yes, yes… A thousand times yes, Christopher Bang!” Y/n laughed. “I think I'm in love with you, too. You—”  

The two of them jumped in their seats as they heard something fall. As they turned their heads, they saw Changbin and Jisung standing near the door, looking at everything but them. 

“Oh, hey, guys, didn't notice you there!” Jisung said in an extremely high-pitched voice. “How are you?” 

Changbin, the voice of reason for once, smiled knowing. “We were going to say that we're sorry we're late, but I guess you did not really feel our absence.”

Chris knew that smirk— it was that of him winning a bet. “We can complete this song another day if you want.” Changbin said, smacking Jisung on the head for acting so dumb. 

“It's okay guys,” Y/n wanted to die. She knew she was never going to live this down. “We were just waiting for you—” 

“No, you know what, thanks, Binnie.” Chris held y/n’s hand with a smirk as they stood up and walked towards the door. Chris knew they were not going to live this down anyway, so he might as well take this opportunity. “We'll let you know when we'll be free. Don't call us!” 

As Chris and y/n walked out of the room in a fit of laughter, they heard Changbin laugh just as loud. 

“Sweet!” Changbin cackled. “I’m gonna be 50 dollars richer!” 

a/n: honestly i never really thought how hard it would be writing an xreader fic, because at one point i literally started using you as a name instead of a pronoun lol. literally was so much harder and i had actually written a snippet weeks ago before i abandoned it due to writer's block but then ate dropped (go stream y'all !!) and the new era has been living rent free in my head, so that gave me the motivation to finally get back to that and make it what it is today lol.

my first xreader and honestly channie was the best person as my muse ♡ i can only say i may write more hehe

i hope you enjoyed and please lmk what you thought and leave comments in my ask box, on ao3 or the tags !! requests are also welcome ♡

untill next time 💌

bang chan masterlist <3

[ivystoryweaver]

Spectre

A Moon Knight Halloween Love Story

Event #10: A Quiet Place

prev | Fic Masterlist | My Masterlist

Summary: You and Steven get a few more answers before he takes you home and shows you how much he's missed you.

Pairing this chapter: Steven Grant x f!reader

A/n: I know I promised Jake, but I switched the order of 2 chapters, and I promise you'll like this one!

Word count: 2.1k

Content: exposition again, domestic fluff, steven gets to shine, fingering, p in v, bit of language, not beta'd

☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ

PREVIOUSLY on Spectre…

"Ms. Marjorie, why does she look the same? What happened to her body?”

"When I cast the spell on her," Ms. Marjorie explained, leaning forward on her elbows, "It's like I froze time for her. She is exactly the same as the night she died, except no longer in her old body."

She turned to you, smiling softly. “Their love essentially made you…materialize, just as they perceived you to be. I really don't know a better way to explain it."

☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ

“Let me get this straight,” Steven said. “This shop completely vanished, o-or I was hallucinating. What is actually going on here?”

"As I said, it’s Halloween," Ms. Marjorie explained. "Not a holiday you’d associate very closely with love, I suppose, but - you see - love is the most powerful magic in the world.

“Your lovely partner here wasn’t haunting you, as you’ve told me Mr. Spector feared,” she went on. “She was simply suspended between the world of the living and the dead."

“Then, why were you pretending to work here?” Steven inquired, gesturing around him animatedly. “What even is this place?”

“My shop," she simply replied.

"But...it disappeared," Steven argued. "When I needed answers most, it wasn't here."

"Ah yes," Ms. Marjorie smiled warmly. "When you needed answers most," she nodded your way, "you found her. When you were ready." She shrugged, beginning to tidy up the tea cups and saucers. "The rest was all a bit of witchcraft, nothing more."

You pondered your words for a moment before smiling fondly. "Thank you, Ms. Marjorie, for everything. You and Steven - both of you saved my life.”

"I fudged a spell that was meant to save your life, but if it turned out well in the end, then I suppose I did some good and for that, I am grateful," she chuckled.

"And we are grateful as well," Steven chimed. "Thank you for helping me, and for your kindness, but I do believe I may need to ask you one more favor."

"What is that, Steven?"

Steven took a deep breath. “The man who killed my partner. Do you know anything about him? Did you see anything else?”

“Nothing that will be of much help, I’m afraid. not that night anyway. But something mystical is at work here. Your grandmother called out to me because she sensed your danger from beyond. She’s connected to all this somehow.

"But enough time spent with an old lady. Go on and enjoy yourselves," Ms. Marjorie instructed, gazing at you pointedly. "Enjoy life."

"Thank you again." You stood, giving the older woman a warm embrace. "You’re an angel to me."

"Oh I doubt that," Ms. Marjorie chuckled. "But happy to help."

Golden-hued trees, late autumn sunshine and the changes that had infiltrated in your hometown over the last few months took your breath away as you passed them by.

Steven glanced over at you worriedly, reaching for your hand.

"This is all so unbelievable," you uttered, awestruck. "It's like I'm in some other universe. It's magical. But it's a lot."

“I can’t believe it either. We should get you some things from the drug store, but someone might see you. Maybe I should take you home first, and come back,” Steven suggested.

“No. No, I don’t want to be alone. I’ll just come with you,” you quickly protested, your racing heart reminding you just how alive you really were.

By the time you gathered some necessities and checked out at the drug store, Steven noticed you seemed a bit glassy eyed and short of breath.

"Let's go home, love," he said softly. "I've got you."

Back in your kitchen, you eased down on a chair, watching Steven carefully as he unloaded the bags from the store and put on the kettle.

"We'll order you some things online. Some clothes - whatever you want."

He watched you for a response, but you hadn't said much since you walked into the drugstore earlier.

Kneeling down in front of you, he reached for your hand. "Darling, I know this is all...impossible. But I'm here."

You nodded, mutely.

A line of concern creased his forehead as he chewed on the corner of his lip. But he was determined to take care of you. A few moments later, he set your favorite tea in front of you, despite the fact that you drank some with Ms. Marjorie.

The tea comforted you almost as much as when Steven brought Jeremiah to sit on the table beside you.

"I'm sorry," you finally uttered, tracing your finger over the cool glass of the fish bowl. "It...I think it feels too good to be true, it can't be true. It can't be."

"That's the way I've always felt about you, love," he sweetly returned, warm, earthy eyes locking with yours. "An absolute wonder, you are."

"Steven..." you whispered, your heart - your entire body so full of love an awe. "I think my head might explode if I think about this any harder," you confessed.

Steven brilliantly distracted you for the remainder of the afternoon and evening. He put on the most mundane documentary - just enough to hold your slight interest but keep everything calm.

Then he got the laptop and helped you pick out some basic clothes from your favorite store. They would arrive tomorrow because he paid for expedited shipping.

When your mind would start to wander, he would take the laptop and pull you close, even kiss you deeply. Once the documentary ended, he read to you for a little while.

The people on your street and the surrounding ones knew you had passed away, so not too many trick-or-treaters rang the doorbell, hoping not to disturb Mr. Spector, but Steven was prepared with a couple of bags of candy from the drugstore. You stayed out of sight as to not give the young ones a real fright.

The next time the doorball rang, it was for a dinner delivery, which somehow seemed like the most delicious thing you'd ever eaten. Before long, you grew sleepy, simply because existing was so damn draining. At least today.

You felt a little distant from Steven, not because there was anything wrong between the two of you, but because you hadn't spoken to him much all afternoon.

Still, he'd given you exactly what you'd needed. Just enough mental stimulation to keep your mind from wandering and getting overwhelmed. Just enough tenderness to make you feel special.

You ended the day feeling cherished, with a full belly. And you had clothes, shoes and other necessities on the way.

"I feel like I bored you to death on my first day alive," you finally joked after brushing your teeth.

"You know that could never be true," Steven refuted, wiping his mouth with a towel before pressing a kiss to your cheek.

"Thank you for today," you said seriously, wrapping your arms around his neck as you stared deeply into his eyes. "You're like a touchstone. I feel so safe with you."

"I would do anything to keep you safe," he whispered against your lips, taking them captive for a tender but sensual kiss, squeezing your hips possessively. "Come on, love, let's get you to bed."

"I slept a lot today. I really am boring," you joked.

"Oh we won't be sleeping," he cheekily returned, goosing your ribs which made you squeal.

Whatever slight distance you had felt with Steven evaporated once you were in bed, as he gathered you to the warmth of his chest and slotted his mouth against yours. Hungry hands gripped the t-shirt he'd slid over your head not ten minutes ago as he kissed you until you both needed air.

"Can't even say how much I've missed you," he murmured, pushing his fingertips over the curve of your back, easing your shirt upward. His thumbs grazed the sides of your breasts, underneath your arms, causing your breath to stutter.

"Tell me to stop and I will," he went on, sampling your lips one at a time, only pausing when pulling the shirt over your head interrupted you.

His eyes flickered down to your mouth, then your chest as he licked his lips. "Never thought I'd see you this way again."

You swallowed hard, your breath quickening under his hungry gaze.

"You alright, darling?" He smiled gently, brushing his hand across your collarbone. "Too much?"

"No," you breathed out - your fingers twisting through his curls as you pulled your bare chest flush against his cotton-covered one, sharing his breath as your body bloomed with desire. You tugged his hair a little too hard, desperate to somehow drag yourself closer still.

"Missed that," he moaned out, smiling against your cheek even as he rushed to get his own t-shirt off.

Your lips fused together again as the heat of his bare chest, the sweet warmth of his breath in your mouth - the soft seduction of his tongue tasting yours - and the possessive grip as he slid his hands once more up the curve of your back - set your body aflame with need.

Steven was clear that he wanted you, but still, he took his time - every nip of his teeth, soothed with the heat of his tongue. Every desperate grip eased into a seductive caress, and when his fingers finally slid between your legs - when he found the core of you hot and wet for him - he caressed you only once before pressing his forehead to yours.

"Let me make you mine again," he begged, fingertips twitching with the need to touch you - the thick outline of his bulge pressed hungrily against your bare thigh.

"Steven," you gasped, his possessive claim making you wild with desire. Your legs fell open as he coaxed you open, plunging his tongue in your mouth and two fingers deep inside you.

Your hungry moan spurred him on as he fingered you just the way you liked. Steven was all sweet seduction. It was fun to make him whimper, but he could really pull you apart when he wanted to.

But tonight wasn't about anything but cherishing you, here, alive.

So, as you worked him free of his pajama pants and stroked the velvet length of him, you found that you didn't want him to take his time. Not tonight. Just in case.

"Please, Steven," you sweetly begged him, tugging him seductively while grinding against his hand. "Need you inside."

He groaned at your touch, and your hunger to feel him, relieved that it wasn't too much for you. Soon enough, your remaining clothes were discarded and Steven climbed on top of you, caging you in with his surprisingly strong forearms. His biceps flexed deliciously as he held up his weight, positioning himself perfectly.

He knew your body as well as his own - better, maybe, since he shared his body. Without another thought, or a hand to guide him, he pushed inside you, tilting his hips exactly how he knew -

"Oh fuck Steven..." you gasped, your back arching off the bed.

Your partner knew how to please you, hitting that spot that only familiar lovers could find so easily - like the steps of a well-rehearsed dance.

"My beautiful girl," Steven breathed against your neck, between spine-tingling open-mouthed kisses laid seductively on your throat.

Slow, devastatingly deep thrusts made you whimper with both satisfaction and yearning.

"Stay here with me," he begged, hands touching you all over, finding a home on the curve of your hips as he worked himself in and out of you with fierce possessiveness. "Stay with me. Please stay..."

You whimpered his name, gripping the breadth of his shoulders as your bodies twisted, hot and wet and alive, faster and deeper until he spilled inside you only seconds after your body seized in absolute rapture, clenching him with your velvet warmth.

Steven kissed you messily, hungry and sated at the same time, hips slowing and finally stopping as his weight dropped down, caging you in. He quickly attempted to pull away, as to not crush you, but you slung your leg around his thighs and held him there.

"Stay," you echoed his plea from earlier. "Stay right here. Stay inside. I need you." You murmured plea tickled his ear, making him shiver with desire, even though he felt sated.

"Likely to crush you love." You felt him smile against your neck, his damp curls tickling your cheek. "But I'll stay right here as long as you want."

"Forever, Steven."

☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ

You jolted awake - your dreams vivid and intense once again. Cool air kissed your skin where you kicked off your comforter, finding yourself alone in bed, still naked after making love with Steven, but clean. He must have woken up and taken care of a few things.

"Steven?" You called out, sitting up, attempting to push down the anxiety stirring in the center of you. Maybe he was in the bathroom.

Drawing a cleansing breath, you tried to steady your breathing. Damn dreams.

"Steven?" You tried again, but before you could push yourself off the bed, you heard someone else.

"Cálmate, mi amor."

The smooth voice of your partner washed over you as you blinked, rubbing the sleep out of your eyes.

"J-Jake?"

☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ

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[callme-dickmaster]

Sweetheart - (eddie munson x reader)

**UNDER HEAVY CONSTRUCTION**

Ch. One - The Wot?

summary: when the split mayfield/hargrove family move to hawkins the oldest mayfield finds out that hawkins might be the weird change she needed.

pairing: eddie x fem!goth!mayfield! reader

warnings: 18+ (minors dni) this is obnoxiously long, unfortunate use of y/n, language, mentions of abuse, billy hargrove -i think that's all-

author's note: i'm nervous but also excited for this. the first few chapters are purely exposition and are honestly pretty boring except for some funny stuff but it picks up pretty fast. let me know if you like it and want to see the rest. love you <3

Part 2 >>

Y/n Mayfield stretched her arms above her head as she stepped out of her stepbrother's Camaro outside Hawkins High School on her first day, discreetly tossing her nearly finished joint on the ground. "Uh, hello?" her sister Max called from the backseat. "Oh, my bad," Y/n snorted. She moved the seat forward so Max could step out. Her stepbrother Billy was already long gone and on the way to the school but neither of the sisters noticed or cared.

Max punched Y/n's shoulder when she stood fully with a smile. Y/n gasped and dramatically held her shoulder with a look of fake anguish on her face. Max giggled and told her to shut up. Y/n snickered and ruffled Max's hair.

"See ya, rat," Y/n said. "Bye Simmons," Max replied, skating towards the middle school. "Still hate KISS!" Y/n yelled, earning a middle finger from her little sister.

The older girl noticed two other teenagers gawking at them from their own car across the lot. She smirked and tossed a peace sign above her head as she walked backwards towards the high school before turning and walking normally.

Y/n kinda liked it in Hawkins. California was too warm, and it was always ridiculously bright there. Being a person who liked to wear dark clothes didn't really mix well with that. That and all the people there were obnoxious and annoying. But it was California.

Not much else to expect.

Y/n smiled charmingly at the receptionist in the office as she walked in. "Hey, uh, I'm new? Should be under Mayfield?" she asked.

The receptionist shuffled through the papers on her desk and pulled out two papers. One was her schedule, and one was a little map of the school. Y/n tried not to laugh out loud at the map but thanked her anyways. "Ah! Let me call up a student to show you to class. Hold on one second, hon," the lady said, calling someone on the phone and telling Y/n to wait there for a minute. She nodded and leaned against the wall until the girl who was staring at her earlier came in.

"Hi, Nancy. Would you mind showing her to her first class? You have it together," the receptionist lady asked. Nancy stuttered before nodding with a 'sure!' and motioning for Y/n to follow her. Y/n did, saluting the secretary as she left.

Nancy walked beside her, humming quietly at the faint smell of weed, hair dye, and fabric softener from Y/n. Nancy thought it was odd but comforting for some reason. "Sorry. I-I'm Nancy. Wheeler," Nancy spoke up, introducing herself. Y/n snorted at her awkwardness and shook the girl's outstretched hand, "All good. I'm Y/n," she said.

Nancy nodded with a smile, "Nice. It suits you," she replied. Y/n smiled and thanked her.

They did get a good conversation going after that, having finally broken the ice and Nancy took her schedule from her to see what classes they had together. The shorter of the pair also showed Y/n where her locker was so she didn't have to carry all of her stuff and helped her get it open. Y/n, still partially high, tried her best to listen to what Nancy had to say. Nancy seemed pretty smart, and it was obvious she had lived in Hawkins her whole life, so good thing to have a friend who knows their shit.

Nancy glared at people who were staring at Y/n, who was completely oblivious to it as she carried her books and dropped the other school stuff she didn't put in her locker into the bag her mom made her carry. Y/n towered over Nancy, so she stuck out like a sore thumb. Not because Y/n was inherently tall, but because she had a pair of six-inch-tall black platform boots to add to her normal height.

Nancy noticed and thought it was brave of her. People were very judgmental in Hawkins, so to walk around without caring and with a look like that took guts. Nancy appreciated it. She had never really hung out or met anyone like Y/n, but she'd always wondered what it would be like to have a friend like her.

Y/n was currently standing at an even six feet tall and wore black head to toe including her hair, which was dyed jet black and ruffled into a shaggy cut.

Nancy smiled in satisfaction with herself when they walked into class and people gaped at them walking in together. Miss perfect Nancy Wheeler walking around with someone who looks like something straight out of a heavy metal magazine.

Robin Buckley's eyes widened from her spot in the back corner seat, and she listened to Y/n talk when the teacher made her introduce herself. Everyone was staring at her, seeming completely interested in what she had to say.

"Uh, hey! I'm Y/n," she said, "I'm from California. Now I live here. I'm just trying to graduate, so, if you're chill, we can hang!" Y/n mumbled thanks to the teacher before taking a seat in the back directly behind Nancy. Nancy turned around and gave her a thumbs-up, inviting her to sit with her at lunch. Y/n snickered and shrugged, which was her way of saying yes.

The whole class kept staring at her off and on, trying to focus on schoolwork but also hung up on the new girl. Hawkins almost never got new kids, but when they got one like this?

Everyone is shell-shocked.

Y/n blinked slowly and listened to the teacher ramble on about math. She grabbed a tin of Altoids that obviously didn't have Altoids in it anymore and popped one in her mouth. The bell rang shortly after and Y/n and Nancy were on their way to their lockers and next class.

Y/n took off her jacket, shoving it in her locker, and even that simple action earned some whispers. Nancy also looked a little shocked when she walked up, hugging a new pile of books to her chest. A guy who was about half an inch shorter than Y/n with huge hair trailed after her, eyes widening at Nancy's new friend. "What?" Y/n asked obliviously, eyes bouncing from one to the other. The couple was quiet, trying to come up with an answer, and failing.

"It's the tattoos, innit?" Y/n whispered. Nancy nodded a small smile on her lips.

"I can, like, put my jacket back on if it makes y'all uncomfortable..." Y/n offered.

"Nah, man, they're cool! I just think people weren't expecting them," the guy replied swiftly. "Oh. Okay," Y/n shrugged, and they were walking to class.

Y/n sucked her teeth and picked up the pace to toss herself into the lockers next to a blond boy dressed in all denim, a smarmy look on his face.

"What?" he said sharply.

Y/n laughed at him, "Oh, you wound me with your hatred!" Billy looked very unthreatening having to look up to speak to her eye to eye. He rolled his eyes and repeated himself. "Just wondering how your day is going. Are people staring at you too, or is it just me?" Y/n asked.

Billy scoffed and looked around, noticing a few people quickly avoiding his gaze before they got caught staring.

"Nah, it's not just you," Billy said lowly, slamming his locker and stomping away.

Y/n found her way to second period and sat down next to Nancy after having to introduce herself again.

"Hey!"

Y/n turned at the sharp whisper and raised an eyebrow at a brunette sitting next to her. Y/n looked around before pointing at herself, "Me?" she whispered back. The brunette nodded. Y/n waved hesitantly, glancing at the teacher to make sure they wouldn't get in trouble. The brunette held up a finger, turning to her notebook and writing something in it before ripping it out and passing it to Y/n.

"hi"

Y/n smirked and wrote back "hi :)" the brown-haired girl smiled and wrote on the paper under that.

"I'm Robin"

"Y/n" Y/n wrote back.

"I know. We have first together too."

"Oh, word? Nice."

"I know! Anyways, I think we should be friends! I like your style."

"Hell yeah we should! You seem nice and thank you." "Awesome!! I was so worried that wasn't going to work."

"Ahahaha don't worry you're cool."

"Yay I'm cool!! But I won't make you pass notes for an eternity. You probably have a lot to catch up on, so I'll see you later, k?"

"Ok!"

And with that, Y/n made a new friend.

taglist: @sisgotdemons @tlclick73 @deafeningmoontragedy @marjoriea13 @playfuloutcast @twosluttychains @leetaeilsnecktattoo @lil-quinnie @razzles-bottom-lip @originalstar1

@yessargeantbarnes happy birthday babes <3

tiny author's note: hii!! i'm glad y'all were excited about this! this starts slow but it gets to the point pretty quick so don't worry there will be eddie content very very soon. Let me know if you wanna be on the taglist! love you! :)

[liketwoswansinbalance]

Salt & Storybook

This fic is also available on Wattpad or AO3, if you would prefer to read it elsewhere.

⸻

@heya-there-friends and @wisteriaum Yes, the whump fic is out! And here it is!

Hopefully, if I meet your expectations, I’d be like a magician announcing an act:

Step up, one and all, Evers and Nevers, young and old—step right up to witness the death-defying struggles of one Rafal Mistral! The great Rafal, horrifically maltreated by his own Pen, tortured within an enclosure of his own “design!” After all, there is no rest for the wicked…

Anyway, have fun. I sure did. Ngl, whilst I wrote this one, it kind of became a laugh riot at Rafal’s expense. So, don’t kill me. I’ve done a lot of damage.

CONTENT WARNING:

If you do not like dark humor, graphic depictions of violence and injury, and/or do not like the thought of Rafal being physically tortured, please, do not read this fic, or read it at your own discretion. I do not want to upset anyone. So, that is why I’m telling you this now: that probably, by most standards, I’ve been really cruel to him.

The fic contains the following:

Alcohol, vandalism, book burning, physical assault and punishment (by the Pen), disproportionate retribution as revenge, some swearing on the milder side, depiction of injuries.

Thus, potential for violence in my TOTSMOV41 WIP aside, this is literally the absolute meanest I’ve ever been to Rafal.

And, Rafal is a bit of a silly goose (not in a good way) due to his impaired judgment. Though, I tried to keep him in character. Rhian should’ve grounded him in the absence of their parents. But it was too late.

Summary:

Rafal does some much needed “spring cleaning” to remove every trace of Vulcan from his tower and gets far more pain than he bargained for in return.

Or

Rafal has an idiotic episode after the resolution to the Vulcan fiasco while Rhian is oblivious.

Context:

This fic takes place during Rise, shortly after Vulcan’s murder and slightly before Rafal’s renovations to Evil and his torture of the Never students.

It is also somewhat plotless, so I could call it a character study. The exposition part towards the beginning was essentially my premise for writing the whump in the first place, which is why there is some lead-up prior to the action.

⸻

With an impish gleam in his eyes, Rafal blasted the glass display cases Vulcan had left behind to smithereens, spraying the stone walls and floors of his tower with razor-edged shards and splinters of glass.

Then, from Vulcan’s black desk, he dashed a cluster of black crystals to the floor for good measure.

The floor crunched underfoot with every step he took, a mosaic of inedible salt and pepper, as he whistled the shanty he’d composed, mentally gliding through the lyrics:

I asked the queen. . .

What is more pathetic than a Vulcan?

She said: Nothing I’ve seen!

He ground the shards into the grooves between the stone tiles, pulverizing most of what remained. The coarser flecks of glass dust caught in the traction of his boots, and it struck Rafal that he’d have to sweep up his mess before Rhian accused it of being a hazard to their eyes or lungs. Ah well. One more task to add to his steadily growing list. But it was all worthwhile.

No longer would his chambers be a stultifying “museum,” dedicated to the past exploits and conquests of that vile man. It was first and foremost his study.

Rafal sunk into one of the leftover black leather chairs, the one by the desk, and picked up the wineglass he hadn’t been attending to, swilling the garnet liquid around before taking another sip.

Just yesterday, when the brothers had supped together for the first time in six months, Rafal had gotten into an argument with Rhian about the restorations to be made to the silver tower and all the changes he’d already enacted in his School and its curriculum.

He would rather have lived in a bare cell than spend a minute longer in the company of Vulcan’s things, but Rhian had objected, saying the enemy’s furnishings were better than none at all.

And Rhian had further countered Rafal’s calls for immediate action, claiming they had all the time in the world, and to not be childish and impatient. With time, Rhian had said, he could devise a tasteful, new decorating scheme and between the two of them, they could even enjoy all the odds and ends Vulcan had left lying about in his wake.

Yet Rafal was having none of that. Their first order of business was not mindlessly pleasuring themselves but removal—no, it was the complete erasure and sterilization of the premises. That’s what would be done with the remains. Not the human ones though.

Rafal had eventually relented on that matter as Rhian had staunchly drawn the line at Rafal mounting Vulcan’s severed head on a wall as he’d once said. Thus, the head was discarded before it ever had the chance to rot.

Aside from Rafal’s efforts to claim a mortal trophy to no avail, everything else was proceeding smoothly—contrary to Rhian’s wishes. Rafal was still adamant that everything which so much as stunk of Vulcan’s musky cologne vanished from their sight as soon as possible. After all he’d endured to retake their School, he deserved to have his way, that much Rhian owed him.

Glancing out the window, he observed phase one of his plan already coming to a close as his chest swole with heady, vinous pride.

That very moment, thick, churning smoke laden with ash clogged the skies overhead, curling around Evil’s spires—physical proof he had retaken his School.

He stood up and inhaled the noxious fumes and drained the rest of his glass before setting it down again. He was recommitted all right. Here, he’d remain, ’til the end of time.

The spectacle far below was truly a sight to behold. Rafal had burnt the entirety of Vulcan’s life’s work in a great, purging pyre.

Gone now were the steaming, taxidermied bats, the mirror of molten, incandescent glass, the barechested portrait, warped and discolored, and more grotesque than ever, the deformed periscope Rafal had knocked the lenses out of, and the desiccated roses with their petals flaking off into the ether—it was all worthless memorabilia, everything, transformed into a charred, lifeless, amorphous mass that still smoldered this very hour, the objects caving in on themselves, the dying embers retreating into the disordered miscellany.

Rafal set his glass down, hesitated, and poured another up to the brim in celebration. The rising heat was hellish.

All that was left to do was buff away the gilded bats carved into the stairs and he would be rid of that loathsome viper forever. Then, his chosen renovations and agenda would commence, carried out by Humburg, his Stymphs, and the Man-Wolves.

But, he couldn’t get ahead of himself. He sipped from his glass, savoring the bitterness of the red wine, and set it down firmly.

Then he set to work, freeing the storybooks.

The benighted Vulcan had stowed the tales away in massive, black leather chests that had been ignorantly shoved aside, stacked slantedly like a slag heap in half-shadowed corners.

Coarse, drunken pirate. The imbecile was wholly unfit to direct the course of Evil’s future. Only Rafal could be capable of manning such an operation, charting such a course for the students once again under his eminent tutelage.

Hand aglow with black, he whisked his glass off the desk again, floating it over to himself, and took another swig before setting it on the floor beside him. He’d cleared away a small oasis for himself to sit in, until he swept up the shards decking the floors all around him.

The alcohol burned his throat, matching his surfacing rage as his head clouded.

No one would replace the storybooks on the tower’s shelves if he didn’t, he thought resentfully.

His brother had done enough damage already. Enough was enough. He wasn’t Rhian’s personal manservant. What a degrading role that would be.

But Rhian never remembered to clean up after himself, and the books had to get onto the shelves in some way or another.

Rafal exhaled. His brother was in dire need of a lecture, but first, Rafal carped to himself, the task of cleaning up lay before him.

He and he alone would restore the storybooks to their former, casual glory in their places of honor, just as the brothers themselves had been restored by the Pen.

Naturally, Rafal stacked all of Evil’s tales at the top of the tower’s shelves, for his own reference. Rhian surely wouldn’t quarrel with him after all the work was done.

Besides, it was true. Rafal was the only one willing to do it all. To forge order out of inscrutable chaos, mogrify the failed students at every class’ graduation, attend to the Stymphs, clean up the rubble, execute invaders, burn up the corpses—he took on all sins, all so his Ever brother wouldn’t have to lift a finger and stain his hands.

All for naught, was it?

No, Rafal consoled himself. Definitely not. Rhian couldn’t be trusted to do a thing.

Rhian was too cowardly and weak to handle the more gruesome chores on Rafal’s roster. He’d invited a numbskull substitute in, to replace his own brother with.

That batty substitute had no place in his School. Vulcan hadn’t even been a true Never. Not in name or in memory.

Rafal lifted his glass to his lips and tossed back more of his jewel-toned drink, blood and heat and vigor rushing to the surface of his alabaster skin.

If he had missed anything, every piece of evidence, every last little shred of a reminder would be burnt to the ground, even if it took both castles down with it, he decided right then and there. He would will it to happen.

He set his glass down on a stone tile.

No matter if the taxidermied bats could’ve raked in a tidy profit. He didn’t need material wealth when he had sorcery. The usurper’s mere presence had overstayed its welcome and Rafal intended to do something about it.

He picked up his drink again and downed half of it, swallowing the wine quickly as the rest sloshed onto the floor, glinting a deep ruby in the dim, afternoon light.

He scowled. More mess to clean up.

Rafal squeezed the fine, crystal stem of his wineglass with a vise-like grip. It snapped in two—just like how he would snap Vulcan’s spine in two, if the man ever dared return from the dead.

The glass had splintered under the pressure he’d applied, needly slivers sticking into his fingers, pricking his palm, until his pale hand was dotted with pinpricks of blood.

As always, the blood suctioned itself right in, drawn back by an invisible force, and the pinpricks sealed themselves up.

Rafal tended to cast off pain with ease, like it was just another one of his overcoats. By now, he was numb to little cuts like these, unlike his foolhardy yet absurdly delicate brother.

He scraped himself off the floor, up to his feet again, and staggered over to the last chest.

Then, he thrust the chest’s weighty lid back, and lifted out the first stack of storybooks.

His fingers grazed the gold-foiled title of the first book in the stack.

In a glaring, grandiose script, the tale’s cover read: THE UGLY DUCKLING.

Duckling.

Rafal grimaced as his temper flared, revulsion climbing up his throat. Then, his resolve hardened. He’d vowed to strip this place of Vulcan, and he would.

The other storybooks fell out of his grasp and clattered to the floor, face up at the one still locked in his grasp.

Duckling indeed.

Rafal flipped the front cover of the storybook open and tore out a single page.

The page sailed down and landed at his feet, settling lightly atop the broken display glass and fragments of wineglass.

Then, he grasped a stiff handful of pages, the heavy paper twisting, warping only slightly, and finally bending in on itself as he wrenched it apart from the book’s spine.

The paper’s edges sliced into his hand, drawing blood from cuts that vanished as soon as they appeared.

He let the handful he’d ripped out scatter to the wind.

Some pages flew out the window. Others dropped into the greedy, licking flames of the fireplace, curling in on themselves, blackening, joining the soot.

The rest of the pages, he extracted one by one, methodical in his process, tearing each painstakingly lettered sheet from its seams, which had been sewn together with care, as if he were plucking feathers from a wild fowl to be cooked—now, just a hollow, pageless shell of binding left in his hands.

Without a second thought, Rafal slung the storybook’s empty binding into the bright, steadily burning fire.

It caught on the fireplace’s grate, angled like a broken bird.

Rafal heaved a great sigh of relief. Gone. At last.

Then, fully satisfied with himself, he surveyed his efforts at cleaning up, even if the room looked worse than how it had begun this morning. Still, he cast his gaze over the terrain of reshelved tales, spilt wine, scattered glass and black crystal, and the few, loose pages pinned to the floor, wedged underneath the broken glass, fluttering in the breeze.

Despite everything, he felt accomplished.

It was only when he caught sight of the Pen, suspended and still, that he remembered he wasn’t alone. He was being watched.

Not long before, the Pen had stood, vertically suspended in the air over its lectern, its gleaming metal cool, but now, it scalded hotter and hotter, angrily searing hot as a branding iron. Then, it tilted, tip glowing red like a reproachful eye.

Rafal simply stared back, waiting for the Pen’s response. Yet, it did not move, a fact which puzzled him.

The Pen’s tip brightened to a blinding, radiant, white pinprick, as if it were readying itself to defend its tales from the scourge of Evil it had allowed to take up residence in its tower.

Rafal squinted at the light. What was it up to?

That was when he glimpsed something launching out of the fireplace in his peripheral vision.

The storybook’s binding rocketed out from its resting place, where it had nested in the grate, flying at him like a missile, sizzling through the air, like a shot bird with its flaming wingspan spread, its front and back covers open, its spine cracked.

A corner of the binding struck Rafal square in the eye. Hard.

Only one foggish, halfway lucid thought flashed through Rafal’s mind as he squinched his eyes shut: It was taunting him. Mocking his flight.

His face gnarled in pain as he doubled over before crumpling to the floor like an ungainly egret.

Splayed on the floor, Rafal hissed, clawing at his eye, knocking the smoldering mass away from his face. Then, he drew himself up into a crouch, his torso supported by shaking forearms, his hands pressed against the glass-strewn floor, jagged edges cutting through the fabric of his slacks at the knees and into his palms as he tried to sweep some of the fragments away.

Hell. Just Hell. He should’ve cleaned up sooner.

He supposed he was done with cleaning today, come what may, and that he should get started on the glass.

Yet first, Rafal strained his neck and examined his distorted, many-eyed reflections in the shards beneath him, prodding the skin near his wounded eye. His fingertips came away with bright blood.

A few areas of his face still bled slightly, gradually mending themselves, thin rivulets of blood trickling down his neck, criss-crossing in a fine, thorny latticework, ultimately staining his starched, white shirt collar.

He rose to his feet slowly and latched onto a shelf as he faltered for a moment, attempting to regain his balance. Then, he drew himself fully upright again, as if nothing had happened. And, with one hand still gripping the shelf’s edges, he unbuttoned the top button of his shirt, the one, restrictive one that always pressed against the base of his throat, so he could breathe properly and catch his breath.

Rafal sighed in relief. He’d served the absurd, seemingly arbitrary punishment the Pen had dealt him and it was now well over with.

Then, the Storian moved.

His every muscle tensing, Rafal clutched the shelf harder as it creaked under his death grip, his knuckles white as bone. About to bolt for the open window, he realized his legs were stiff and cold, a cramp shooting through his side from his last fall.

Straight as an arrow, the Storian tore through the air toward Rafal, dead set on harming him.

By some miracle, Rafal caught the Pen, letting go of the shelf as he dropped to the floor, not without taking the entire floor-to-ceiling bookcase down with him.

Rafal willed himself not to scream as his eyes widened in horror at a great shadow looming over him, deepening seconds before the crash as vertigo overtook his senses.

Were the pages whirling around him? It couldn’t be bats amid those ink-hatched illustrations. It couldn’t! Not when Vulcan was gone. Not when Vulcan was dead.

As it neared, the bookcase grew larger and larger in Rafal’s sightline, rushing forward rapidly, encroaching on him, almost eclipsing him. Blood roared in his ears and rushed to his head tossed back at a perilous angle, right before he shunted himself back, turning, his back towards the storybooks’ spines, as books fell out at random, several hardcovers hitting his flailing extremities as they poured out and passed him by en route to the floor, one solid thud after another.

The bookcase had narrowly missed his core, but it had trapped his legs, pinning him to the floor, slowly leaching away his vitality as his head swum and his vision dimmed, turning to a feathery blur.

All the bones in Rafal’s legs had shattered upon impact, when he made contact with the stone, bone spearing through his split skin, drenching his pant legs in hot, rapidly clotting blood as he choked aridly on what little spittle he had, too parched to scream, blinking away the blackness at the edges of his vision.

His bones immediately started to knit themselves back together, but refused to heal completely, for, the soul-crushing force of the bookcase still bore down on him, mincing all the unrepaired fragments in his legs.

Leaning on his elbows, Pen still clasped tight his grip, Rafal set his jaw, soldiered through his faintness, and tried to drag himself forward, out from underneath the suffocating weight of history, scraping slowly over the flagstones still littered with glass.

Suppose his bones joined the shards. Then what?

He freed his hips and one of his legs, struggling further, but found he was effectively immobilized for the time being. Only his ankle was caught now, but it would’ve been unwise to dislocate his leg from its socket by yanking it any harder than he was already.

The structure of the shelf collapsed further, the more he struggled beneath it, like a snare closing in on a bird, threatening to cut off its circulation—but if he could just loosen his foot from these damn planks, it…

It was like the Pen wished to teach him a lesson by entombing him, entombing him here, under the weight of every fairy tale he’d ever taught.

Rafal’s face burned.

EVIL SCHOOL MASTER ENCASED AMONG MANUSCRIPTS—he could picture the words emblazoned atop every paper in the Woods, documenting this final humiliation, all the next day’s headlines shouting and blaring in Rhian’s face.

The Evers would pop champagne bottles. His students would dance over his grave—dancing in the chequer’d shade… come forth to play, on a sunshine holiday—how’d that line go? And which tale was it from?

Wrapped in a delirium, he thought of the sprawling tale of Satan’s fall. Demon, chastened and exiled. Hell. What had he gotten himself into? Hell.

At least Rhian would mourn him, he thought grimly, and shook his head, his rage simmering. The boards wouldn’t loosen around his foot!

Rafal swallowed a heaving breath and let it settle in his chest like a stone. There he lay on his bed of glass, still holding the Pen, now hoisting it aloft, over his stone-abraded face, as it glinted in the light, his arms outstretched in a perverse kind of victory, absolutely sloshed and nearly slain, by his own shelf, by his own Pen, by his own hand.

Another thought surfaced suddenly, unbidden: He could lift it all with his sorcery.

But at that thought, the Storian sparked to life.

Hell. That Pen. To Hell with it.

The ancient script running down the side of the Pen glowed and cast shadowy glyphs across the floor, refracted light catching in the glass, piercing Rafal’s eyes, and the strange markings heated, the Pen’s shaft scorching against his palms, causing Rafal to loosen his grip slightly as he tried not to let go.

Yet, the Storian prevailed and wrested itself from Rafal’s grip, slipping out from his fingers with ease, likely readying itself for a second wave.

Gritting his teeth, Rafal steeled himself for action, both hands alit as he at once summoned the last of his magic, drawing from his deepest reserves, from his lifeblood.

Working through his total exhaustion, he managed to lift the bookcase up at a modest tilt, by only a few hairs’ widths—yet that was enough for him to crawl out from underneath it.

He hauled himself up onto his feet again with most of his weight distributed on his better-healed leg, thinking about slaking his thirst, punishment presumed to be over.

Just then, a cool gust of wind blew in, battering the diaphanous, silver curtains Rhian had put up, as if it meant to revive him, and Rafal turned away from the Pen to the window.

That was the moment the Storian chose to attack with a new vengeance, redoubling its efforts against Evil incarnate.

Some unseen force from within the tower flung Rafal across the chamber, casting him onto his side as he skid across the dining table, long limbs catching in the folds of the tablecloth, his obtruding form sending Rhian’s once deftly arranged table settings—now clashing utensils and dishes and glasses—flying before they smashed against the far wall along with Rafal’s skull as he clenched his teeth at the sheer percussive force of the collision.

To wit, it had to be the Pen. What else? Rafal griped. A fairy-tale punishment fit for a fairy-tale villain?

His ears rang with the strident sounds of shattering bone china and clanging metal, ricocheting off the wall as plate shards rained down on him, the whole tumult reverberating like he was trapped in an echo chamber with a cavalcade.

The din resounded as his side throbbed and he kicked blindly at the bonds of tangled tablecloth wound around his legs. Part of the white cloth had settled over his head, draping like a sheet, and he couldn’t see anything, couldn’t see any of the ruins about him, much less sit up.

Finally, he tore the cloth back viciously, reclaiming his sight in a huff. Apparently, a singular knife had skimmed past his heart and had instead lanced through the flaccid fabric of his shirt, burying itself between the stone tiles.

Rafal groaned and turned over rigidly, his shirt tearing around the knife blade as he settled for lying prone, bloodied cheek to the floor, small cuts abound, droplets of blood blooming across his shirt and the tablecloth.

Then, Rafal rolled his eyes back to the ceiling and noticed the Pen hovering above him. He dealt it a withering glare from below, not yet beaten into submission, and reached upwards with tremorous arms to grasp at it.

The Storian appeared to glare back as it flitted out of his reach, darting back and forth archly as if to tease him, rendering all his exertion futile.

That was when the Storian made to invoke a final crescendo to complete Rafal’s torture. It descended on Rafal with an exhilarating swoop as the School Master shielded his eyes, burying his face in his shuddering arms, bracing himself for excruciating pain, fervid blood coursing through him as he tried to propel himself onto his feet and act, but he felt as if he’d sunken into the floor. He couldn’t move!

And the Storian didn’t hold back.

Its nib ripped through the back of his shirt, tip to flesh, sharp as a spindle, glowing with white-hot ire. It then raked over his exposed back, his neck, and the back of his arms.

Eyes watering insanely, Rafal hissed and rasped for breath, abject fury surging through his veins. A strangled gasp left his lips—he wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d been choked to death by his own slit throat.

One stroke after another, the Storian lashed across his skin, slashing with a capricious flourish.

He was sure that it intended to flay him alive, and he’d never gotten the chance to say goodbye to Rhian, he thought morosely, head dulling.

These cuts were worse than the time the vampiric, literal blood-sucking, ruby-throated hummingbirds of Akgul had swarmed him. The Never mining kingdom bred them specifically to flit around, slit the throats and tear to shreds the clothes of any passerby who ventured too close to the vaults which were filled to the brim with riches.

Those cuts had been shallow, mere scratches that had closed in a matter of seconds. These lacerations were flesh-deep.

And the Storian didn’t cease moving. Again and again, it slit open his flesh.

Rafal choked out another gasp and pressed himself into the serrated glass and crockery below him as if he could escape the terror above, and shifted onto his side, realizing his mistake immediately as he remembered.

The salt.

The night before, his routine dinner argument with Rhian had culminated in his act of hurling a glass salt shaker at his brother’s swollen head, for being pompous and self-righteous that day.

Naturally, Rhian had become upset last night—not just because he’d been clocked in the head and not just because Rafal had obstinately accused him of being an aesthetic-obsessed egomaniac—but because, of course, this all had happened after Rafal had already swept three dishes onto the floor that selfsame week and broken them.

Smashing the fine china had started to convert itself into a regular dinnertime event, much like an extravagant, exceedingly costly, burlesque sideshow. Predictably, Rhian had insisted that bone china plates were a rank pain to replace. And then, he proclaimed that if this, this breach, this delinquent conduct, continued, he would never dine with Rafal again. In sum, this was his tirade directed towards an unresponsive audience of one, one thick-skulled, unsympathetically glacial brother, all the while dramatically bemoaning Rafal’s dramatic tendencies.

Shortly after, both brothers had refused to clean up, each claiming the mess was the other’s fault, Rafal alleging that Rhian was the source of his provocation, that Rhian drove him up the wall and had thereby caused him to lose the plot—and break his tenuous accord with the Pen since it had last resisted his will over the matter of Aladdin’s placement.

And, the miserable result of these acts was that the salt shaker had cracked open and emptied all its contents—all over the very tract of tower floor Rafal had just rolled over onto. All due to the Pen.

Damn the little devil! Rafal fumed, writhing as his flesh was stuck by glass shards and the spilt salt needled its way into his fresh cuts, aggravating them. And his cuts weren’t healing! Instead they stung. Even the shallower scratches hadn’t closed.

The Storian sliced his front, nearing his throat, as he tried to suppress the feeling in his every nerve, awash with a sense of mounting dread as his own movements repeatedly caused him to be pricked by splinters of glass and the rough, tearing grit of the salt, recurrently entering his open wounds.

Why had he thrown the salt at Rhian when Rhian had simply asked him to pass it?

And now, he was paying for his deed. He’d only compounded this, this agony, and the Storian was making sure he knew it.

How much of an absolute sodding fool he was!

Rafal thrashed further, and spat blood in protest once more at the infernal Pen, choking on nothing but air as his tongue went dry and his voice died in his throat.

His eyes turned bleary and itched. It was as if he could feel his nerves drying out and dying with every passing second as the salt absorbed his blood, the skin around his cuts shriveling, even if the cuts themselves widened, rubbed, and stretched open by the salt and debris, which irritated him like sand would’ve, if not for the chemical burn—the prickling, electric flares of sharp, white-hot pain.

And yet, the corroding burn shocked him awake with a revelation, shearing through his senses that had been suffused with the duller pain’s veil.

What if this torment wasn’t just punishment for desecrating a storybook? It was a petty, Evil act, to be sure. But wasn’t that to be expected from him? Why would the Pen retaliate like this then?

And what if it wasn’t just punishment for vandalizing the Pen’s tower? What if he was expected to apologize to Rhian?

Never. What an indignity that would be, he rejected the idea like a foreign body, then stiffened at his first instinct.

But could apologizing be any worse than where he lay now? Perhaps, he should. If he lived through the Pen’s torment, he probably ought to.

In that instant, his vision whirled, reddening, and his body betrayed him, surrendering to the Pen as he blacked out.

⸻

Rafal’s breath hitched as he returned to consciousness. Had the Pen yielded?

He fought to turn his head as he glanced over at the Pen, watching him from across the chamber at a tilt.

Then, the Storian righted itself, stationed back over its lectern, dormant, as if nothing had befallen its master, once again turning a blind eye to Man’s treachery when doing so suited it, as it always did…

A fairy-tale punishment fit for a fairy-tale villain.

What scraps remained of Rafal’s shredded shirt clung to his lean frame. The fabric was soaked through with blood. He shut his eyes for a moment and inhaled. He’d have to peel it off in the bath, likely.

As he sat up, the muscles in his back twisted, exacerbating the pain of the gashes crossing his back, which still stung, continuing to bleed.

The blood loss wouldn’t be fatal, Rafal knew. But, he wondered whether the Pen would let it go on until he fell unconscious again.

His blood wasn’t clotting regularly and it was all the Pen’s fault, for its magical interference, preventing him from healing any quicker than he usually did.

At this rate, he couldn’t foresee the Pen granting him relief from these wounds—not when it believed he deserved to live so he could suffer. All he could do was staunch the bleeding.

Rafal clambered to his feet for what he hoped would be the last time, stumbling forward before he thrust out his arms to hold onto the edge of Vulcan’s desk and keep himself from falling.

He decided to seek out bandages, or rather, any strip of fabric he could tear, save for the tatters of his grimy, thoroughly bloodstained and oxidized shirt, which looked a rusted brown, far from its former, crisp, white state.

The curtains. The curtains would serve well enough. He hobbled over to them, lit his fingerglow to assist himself, and tore away a strip from the gauzy swaths of fabric, shooting the Pen another glare as he trod, breathless, towards the bathroom.

Once within the bathroom, he planned to run himself an ice-cold bath, but first, he’d run the cuts on his arms under the water for a while, to numb himself, so he could recover a greater range of motion.

No need to undress. His clothes were unsalvageable at this point, and he was certain his brother would agree.

Then, anticipating the reprieve of the biting chill, he bent over to turn on the tap, and did not realize that he’d overcorrected himself, headrush returning, knees buckling, as he pitched forward and slammed face-first into the faucet, passing out.

The bathwater continued to gush and his blood continued to flow forth, mottled bruises already forming across his severe pallor.

Rafal’s body slid partway into the tub, and he awoke minutes later, wracked with a dull ache, half his frame slung over the side of the tub, smeared with blood. His head jolted up, hit by the faucet a second time, as shock permeated his body, which was half-submerged in the frigid, faintly pink water. Not that he could truly sense the cold.

He tried to collect his bearings, but found he didn’t want to move any longer. Nor could he. But he figured he’d wait out the pain, or numb it. Whichever came first.

Albeit, when he sat up, extraneous heat still streamed through his body, radiating outward from his core to his extremities, and he doubted the swelling about his cuts would recede that soon.

Fortunately, he couldn’t catch a fever. He was immune to all illnesses… unless the Pen revoked his immortality. Though, he’d be fine alone. And besides, he had no time to brood.

Rafal stared down at the lacerations lining his forearms. New, youthful skin was already beginning to pave over his cuts, at an imperceptibly slow rate, even if the process hurt like Hell.

To pass the time and staunch the blood, he conjured up strands of gauze bandages that unspooled in midair, allowing them to turn rounds, to twirl and spin before his eyes for an infinitesimal moment before he seized them.

Then, he wound the bandages loosely around his arms, making a poorly-executed, overall hack job of it as his stiff, frozen fingers lacked the dexterity required to tighten them any further.

Well, that would have to suffice for his purposes.

But, no sooner than when he tied the last bandage did he realize the gauze on his other arm had to be replaced since it had leaked through, sopping red once again.

Nevermind.

A copious number of bandages dangled from his outstretched arms as he shuffled back into the main chamber of the tower like one of the undead.

There he sat as the day turned to dusk, stewing silently, tending to the rest of his wounds, awaiting Rhian’s return, applying layer after layer of rapidly reddening gauze.

At last, when he was partly wrapped up, he resembled a dehydrated corpse that would be preserved for the rest of time, forever bound to his duties, like one of the undead, who hadn’t the mind to know when to let go, tugged along by the colorless skein of an immortal life.

He didn’t bother to light a candle.

⸻

As Rhian ambled up the tower staircase, he hummed to himself under his breath and wondered if Rafal had left him any wine. His brother was often a spoilsport and Rhian wouldn’t have been surprised if Rafal had tossed their last bottle.

He took stock of his mental checklist while he continued on his ascent. He’d left Rafal alone for the day, after their tiff last night. Perhaps, Rafal would be ready to apologize. But Rafal was often stubborn, and Rhian suspected he was still sulking.

Brothers. They were such work.

The new furniture he’d ordered from Gillikin would arrive by the School’s shoreside tomorrow, so the place had to be spotless.

Without a doubt, Rafal had finished the spring cleaning by now. And petulantance aside, Rafal never could stand disarray, so surely, he could be trusted with that simple of a task.

Indeed, maybe the Pen really was on his side, and Rhian could check that item off his list now.

He set his foot on the next step, and flinched at a cracking sound.

Rhian peered down at a fragment of glass, cleft in two.

That was odd. Rafal had probably missed a spot when he’d taken out the rubbish, Rhian reasoned, his stomach turning with a twinge of anxiety. Nothing to fret about. Nothing at all.

Rhian knelt down and picked up the shards, stuffing them into one of his jacket pockets. He had to remind Rafal about sweeping up after airing out the place—speaking of which, not one of the windows Rhian had passed had been opened. The air was stale, and it seemed that Rafal had forgotten.

Rhian sighed. He would do it himself later, before his shower. He’d had a long day of curriculum reform as his brother had demanded he add a new section to Surviving Fairy Tales, about distinguishing Good from Evil, because, Rafal had jabbed, even Good’s Master direly needed a refresher when he’d invited the worst kind of Evil into their School.

As he proceeded on his climb, Rhian observed that the stairwell was coated in dust, like it had been beset by a cyclone of some kind.

Now, it wasn’t unlike the Nevers themselves to bathe in dust, but their School Master was definitely above poor sanitary practices, at least regarding himself, if not his renovations. And yet, every surface was saturated with dust, oddly granular dust, that drew blood when Rhian pressed a particle of it between his thumb and forefinger.

Rhian winced at the stinging sensation, knowing his pain would fade soon. Was this glass? He’d told Rafal he didn’t want to compromise their lungs! But Rafal never listened.

Rhian watched as the blood seeped back into his skin, that closed where he’d been pricked. Well… that was a comforting sign. His bond with Rafal was still intact despite last night’s conflict.

He made his way further up the stairs. It was a moonless night and he only had the stars to see by.

Stray storybook pages flapped in the stairwell, and the steps were riddled with more glass dust and drops of blood?

What if they had been besieged by another intruder? Another Vulcan? That would explain the glass. What if Rafal blamed him for allowing an uninvited guest to break in? Had he cast the entry-sealing spell when he’d left their tower that morning? Or had he been preoccupied by, by Storian knows what! He couldn’t remember now.

Heart thrumming, Rhian raced up the remaining stairs in a panic and flattened himself against the wall by the entryway to the tower’s main chamber, to listen.

All he heard was the echo of rustling paper and the cool night wind.

Rhian lit his fingerglow. It burned with warm, pure, golden light, gilding the stones around him. He would vanquish any threat that lay ahead of him. And if Rafal was there, they’d face it together.

Trembling, Rhian swept the presumably monster-clawed, blood-encrusted, silver curtains aside, unsure of what dark horrors he’d be met with in the confines of his own home.

Stepping softly over the threshold, he picked his way into the pitch dark chamber, gold fingerglow illuminating the space, as a scene of total carnage flashed into existence.

Rhian gaped as his eyes flicked across the blood-spattered floor, his light spilling onto it and bouncing back into his eyes. All he saw was pure upheaval. The fire had long since guttered out as it had consumed all of its kindling. An entire bookcase, overturned. Water, pooling out from beneath the bathroom door, circulating along the grooves between the stones. And the tales. They had clearly flown across the room, tossed about erratically, like they’d been subjected to a storm at sea. And—

His gaze landed on a stooped figure with a ragged, irregular breath, shielding its eyes from the sudden flare of harsh light.

Rhian’s breath caught. Was it a Night Crawler? Or some other lethal creature of the night? Some undead thing? He backed up.

Finally, Rhian’s eyes adjusted to the light—was that Rafal?

He squinted down at spikes of snow-white hair, matted with blood, then, eyes widening with recognition, surveyed Rafal’s baffling state of partial undress. Rhian’s distempered brother had propped himself up at the base of the fallen bookcase, and hadn’t risen from where he sat.

Rafal stared up at Rhian in the lit doorway without a word, his eyes hollow and vacant.

“I-I thought you were a monster.”

Rafal’s frown deepened. “Lovely,” he breathed hoarsely. “You’re not the first to think that.” He snuck a brief look at the Pen.

Rhian’s chest flooded with relief. It was only then, after Rafal had spoken, that Rhian’s fears had evaporated. He recognized his brother’s voice and was now certain he was with the living and not one of the undead, some sinister being risen from the grave with the intent of taking over their School.

“Where’s our intruder then? Have you burnt up the corpse?” Rhian wrung his hands, glancing around.

“There is none.”

Rhian paused for a moment, processing his brother’s words. “Then whose blood—” Rhian stopped, unnerved. “Yours? It’s yours?”

Rafal nodded, grim, and began to placidly wrap more bandages around his torso, tightening them with the aid of his sorcery.

With narrowed eyes, Rhian peeked fearfully at his brother’s back and almost passed out in shock. It was all cut up and bleeding, crossed by haphazard strips of overlapping bandages that hung off his arms.

Concerned, Rhian stared at Rafal, haunted by the bloody sight, until he found his voice. “Wh—” He swallowed the bile rising in his throat, trying to quell his nausea. “What happened?”

“The Storian.”

Rhian blinked at his imaginary monster, and gazed warily at the true monster, hard at work, diligently inking in a new tale, once and forever unmasked. It had been the monster all along.

What would they do now? Subdue it somehow? Though, Rafal’s trials were already over…

“Will it heal?” Rhian asked tentatively, wide-eyed.

“What do you think,” Rhian’s monster answered. “I’ll walk it off.”

That was when Rhian registered his brother’s resignation, and knew he should drop the matter altogether. But, he had one final question: “Why did it attack y—”

“Ice. Bring me ice.”

“But—”

“Now,” the Evil School Master cut out caustically. “And not a word about the Pen favoring Good.”

Stunned into dead silence, Rhian scurried away to fetch ice. The most damage always occurred within the shortest window of time.

Yet one fact held true in his mind: Rafal hadn’t learnt his lesson and never would.

⸻

Note:

I’d leap at any feedback you have! Please, if you’re up to it, I’d love to hear your reception of this fic, any thoughts, feelings, reactions, or concrit you have, any at all, especially as this is the most action and the least dialogue I’ve possibly ever written, given the unusual nature of the fic.

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask. I’m almost always willing to elaborate!

In addition, I’m not of a legal drinking age in my country nor do I have any inclination to drink. So, apologies if there are any inaccuracies regarding the alcohol use. You can certainly let me know what the errors are, if there are any.

Did anyone catch any of the references I made?

In writing this fic, I realized it diverged a lot from my previous ones because it relies more on imagery than dialogue, so I personally had to really push the envelope with it. In fact, this was probably the most difficult fic I’ve written thus far because I think crafting dialogue tends to come to me more easily than action sequences do, and well, this fic is almost all action.

(And I wanted the fic to feel cinematic, as if it were panning over a train wreck or a hazard zone the audience wouldn’t be able to peel their eyes away from. Yeah, I know. It probably sounds strange, that the desired effect I had in mind while writing this was “vehicular collision,” haha.)

Trivia: My use of “Pen” versus “Storian” was very intentional here. For some reason, I just intuitively found that it made some kind of weird sense to call it “the Storian” when it had an active role and “the Pen” when it was an object acted upon or mentioned, with a few exceptions. It just felt right.

⸻

I even wrote a rhyme for the fic:

He gets bruised—he was struck.

He gets burned; he gets cut.

All done by a Pen

While he’d been drained of his luck.

And all befell him while salty and drunk.

⸻

Playlist:

“Fall Away” - twenty one pilots

“21 Guns” - Green Day

“Save You” - Turin Brakes

“Enemy” - Imagine Dragons & JID

[asolverssolution]

Chapter 2: Lousy Exposition

I tap my foot against the floor as I ponder what was going on with Cyn. Something isn't right, I think to myself. The old creak of the floorboards are the only sound in the room aside from my tapping. What could possibly happen at the Gala, I thought to myself more. I think back to our conversation. Was it fear she was feeling? Or was it intent, the darker part of my system whispers.

I shake my head. Cyn is way too shy to do something to the Gala, my system retorts. My internal monologue is interrupted by the sound of running. I run to the door and open it, revealing Tessa and J, quickly walking down the old manor's hallway. The two look at me, fear in their eyes. "What's going on?" I ask, concerned. Tessa steps toward me and grabs my hand. "Cyn is about to harm people in the Gala." Tessa says hastily. It takes a second before I roll my eyes. "Funny joke, you two." I said, annoyed. Tessa shakes her head. "J, tell them!" Tessa says harshly, before continuing down the hallway. J motions for me to follow, which I oblige. "Cyn, almost an hour ago, became some Eldritch abomination thing- Looked like a worm or snake- And said a vague threat. Not to come to the Gala because Tessa seems squeamish." J says quickly. "That makes no sense. I saw Cyn only 15-ish minutes ago. She was normal and scared of the Gala." I argue. She rolls her eyes. "Cyn always treated you different, Ava. How she acts towards you has always been softer, ever since you two first spoke." She fires back. I grit my teeth. J has always claimed that for ages now and at this exact moment, it is getting on my nerves.

The two begin to ascend the stairs and I freeze. Cyn said to stay down here, my thoughts remind me. Tessa and J look back at me. "Cyn said I should stay down here." I say, barely above a whisper. Tessa sighs and J rolls their eyes once more, approaching me. "Well, Cyn isn't your boss, Tessa is. So you're coming." J says sternly. She reaches down and grabs my arm. She tugs me and I nearly fall onto the stairs. She continuously pulls me, slowly pulling me up- Then the force goes away. I hear Tessa scream. I look up and see the disabled Drone from before with a claw for a hand. A very crooked smile on it's face. I notice it slashed off J's arm, which is now falling limp onto the stairs. Another appears and grabs me before I can even blink. I nearly let out a scream when I hear Cyn's voice come from it softly, somehow calming me.

"This wasn't supposed to happen. Plan B it is. Ava, do not struggle. I would never harm you." It states before attempting to dash away from the fight clearly about to start.

• w •

I watch as my systems turn back on. I blink a few times before looking around slowly. I was clearly in the Nurse's office. The random artwork, manuals on repairs, and the unused medicine cabinet made it obvious. I look around a moment and spot Uzi standing by the door, tapping her foot as she looked down. I stretch my arms and legs, ensuring I was ready to move. As I stood up, Uzi looks toward me and shows a hint of relief. "You made me thought I killed you, jerk!" She exclaims angrily. I roll my eyes. Leave it to her to get angry I dared to be knocked out, I think to myself, amused. "What, were ya worried?" I tease. I see her cheeks blush. "No! How dare- Ugh, bite me!" She yells, beginning to leave the office. Not entirely however, as she realizes I wasn't following and turned to stare at me, still pouting. I roll my eyes and follow, which she seems to approve of as she continues to angry stomp.

"May I ask why you are carrying around a exploding gun?" I ask. She gives me a glare over her shoulder. "It won't be exploding for long! I just need a part from the Imperium's Junkyard!" She exclaims. I give out a loud sigh. "Ah yes, the place where we will be killed with no consequences." I state. "I never asked you to come!" She exclaims, turning around. A few Drones look at us as she yells. I see her demeanor instantly change to a more shy one as she notices the stares. "But I know you want me to." I retort with a smirk. She tries to fire back, realizes she can't, and begins walking again. "Bite me." She says quietly. I chuckle as we approach her family's room. She opens the door and turns to me. "I'll be by in a few hours. Be ready." She demands. I raise an eyebrow and she sighs, the blush returning. "Please?" She mutters. I chuckle and she glares. I put my hands in the air. "Yes ma'am." I reply. She smiles, gives a determined nod, and closes the door.

I quietly head toward the main doors, deciding to just wait for her rather then do anything else. As I enter the main area where the final door is, I think about the situation going on beyond these walls. Cyn has no idea where the WDF's cities are since we stuck to pre-existing structures, usually underground. That is the only reason how Nori got them to accept diplomats. Now the only question is why are they keeping the stalemate on so long. Are they locating us to strike? Or are they sizing us up? Hard to tell...

I lean against the giant door's frame, opening up Flappy Drone on my system to keep me entertained as I wait for time to fly.

[writingforfishes]

Otto and Atticus Lore 1: Mark's Hangover

The inspiration for this story came at the most inconvenient time. I was at work and as the images and sounds came to me, I had to fight hard to make it appear like I was actually present. The drive home was only successful because I had taken the way home so many times before as I was still stuck in the headspace. I mad-dashed this story when I got to my computer and ended up staying awake way too long to complete it. I edited it and changed it this morning.

This was NOT the story I was intending to create next! I hope it holds up tomorrow when I read over it after I've posted it!

I was also not intending on making a separate series on the lore of these two characters, but the asks in my inbox made me think about their pasts and inspired some deeper consideration on the plots and thoughts I already had in mind.

Disclaimers: This is a work of FANTASY. Otto and Atticus are such a good couple because I need them to be a good couple. This is not, for the most part, realistic. (Also, I don't even have a tambour style mantel clock, nor did anyone in my family.)

I don't know anyone who has a kink specifically for watching someone get aroused. If that kink does exist (or is just a normal way of people reacting), I'm completely unfamiliar with it and have created a possible fictional representation of a kink. Thus, any of Otto's thoughts are extrapolated from ideas I thought would be plausible. (I am very asexual.)

If anyone is familiar with the series Otto's character was based on, this is basically a rewrite of similar character dynamics. I give real-world reasons for the fantasy content in the series to have happened. I know nothing of police procedure or detective procedure.

I do not have alcoholism. I know a few people who are alcoholics, but I don't have personal experience with the feeling of being an alcoholic and the emotions that surround the disease. If I'm misrepresenting something here, I apologize.

CW (there will probably be quite a few in this one):

Representation of a hangover from an emotional drinking binge.

Allusion to Otto's past as an alcoholic and reflection as a recovering alcoholic.

Allusion to Otto's falling off the wagon at one point. (very brief)

Mention of Jana's addiction to prescription drugs and alcohol.

Mention of Jana and Mark's break up.

Uncomfortable hiccups that concern Otto.

Mention of throwing up and retching.

Hiccups that Otto thinks are suggestive of needing to throw up.

No depiction of emeto. Discussion of previous purge (very brief).

Verbal description of the sound of Mark's hiccups by Otto to Atticus.

Verbal description of Otto's hiccups from Atticus to Otto.

Arousal mention.

Arousal and follow through implication.

A small hiccup battle.

Otto being extremely patient and understanding.

Otto also being the Felix to Mark's Oscar.

I STG, children, just look up The Odd Couple.

Atticus being embarrassed.

Mark being embarrassed.

Otto being a well-adjusted bi.

Mark being a disaster straight.

Jana is not a bad person. I intend to prove this in future stories.

Alice is also not a bad person. Etc. Etc.

Realizing how much I do lean heavily in a masc cast. I don't know why that is. Ah well, it's my fantasy anyway.

Mention of Atticus' parents both no longer existing.

Long moments in the story where no hiccups occur.

Lots of exposition surrounding past events. (I know, I know. Show, don't tell. But I had a need to write it out.

Um, if there's other stuff please tell me?

Finally! The story!

It was 6:30am and Otto was just about to have his first cup of coffee for the day when he heard the stairs from the loft bed creaking with heavy, ambling footsteps. Otto watched with attentive curiosity as Mark lumbered into the kitchen in boxers and a white shirt.

“Hey HNGK’UH!…” the younger man muttered as he sat down heavily across from Otto and shielded his eyes from the lights.

Otto wordlessly got up, sitting his unsipped coffee on the table, and turned off the overhead light while drawing the shades of the small window over the sink to let in a softer natural light into the kitchen.

“HUNGK!”

Poor guy had a wicked case of hiccups, it sounded like, and Otto knew a bad case of hiccups. A few weeks ago, Mark had been on the witnessing side of a 5-hour case of hiccups to which Otto had been victim.

But Otto knew good and well this wasn’t just about a case of the hiccups. The hiccups were a consequence of Mark’s actions. Mark’s actions were a consequence of an exorbitant amount of alcohol had the night before at a bar after work. The alcohol binge was a consequence of the fact that the future life he’d been planning with Jana had been crumbling slowly around him after a whole bunch of unpleasantness and drama that proceeded the breakup.

Mark had been staying with Otto for a few months as Jana and his relationship started to disintegrate. Yesterday Mark had told Otto that Jana had come by the police station, where he worked, to retrieve the spare key to their previously shared house from him and give him some stuff that he’d found of his that she thought he might want back.

Otto figured the finality of it all probably hit Mark pretty hard when he got a call at around 1am. Mark was slurring into his phone so much Otto could barely understand him. He had Mark hand the phone to the bartender, and he was able to get the address and head over to retrieve the wayward detective. The bartender, consequentially, was Margie.

Margie did a very good job of taking care of Mark before Otto arrived. Otto was very appreciative of the gesture. She kept his friend safe. The next week he’d visit the bar again during the daytime and would be lucky enough for her to be working so he could give her more thanks. They would start to talk, and a friendship would form quickly, thereafter.

Like clockwork, a customary pun for a clock maker, Otto awoke at 6am despite the late night. He didn’t expect Mark to be awake until much later that day.

“Didn’t think you’d be up this early,” Otto said. He kept his voice soft and tried to minimize the sounds of his shuffling through cabinets. “How’re you holding up?”

“HNGK! I’m okay. Hiccups woke me. Could-HINGK!-couldn’t get back to sleep,” Mark replied in a hoarse voice just above a whisper.

Mark lifted his hand away from his face a little when he realized the lights weren’t as bright as they had seemed before. He squinted his dark blue eyes in Otto’s direction as he watched the taller man walk back and forth. He had to look away when he found himself getting dizzy while trying to follow Otto’s path. The dull ache of pain behind his eyes and sinuses made him squeeze his eyes and pinch the bridge of his nose with his fingers.

Mark wondered if Ralph would’ve been as respectful of his current condition as Otto seemed. Ralph would have, no doubt, treated his hangover with some humor. Maybe he would’ve spoken a little loud or turned on all the lights. Ralph might’ve been sensitive later to Mark’s plight, but his friend and work partner seemed the type to shock someone in his sad, hungover state with tough love.

Mark wondered if Otto might have had a little more experience with being in the detective’s similar situation than Ralph. Mark was not wrong in his thought process, impressive as it for his brain to have formed the thought in such a dehydrated and painful state.

Otto had taken the time, when he’d settled his friend down enough that he knew he wouldn’t wake and was safe from further purging, to silence all of the chimes and striking clocks he owned. Otto had, indeed, been in Mark’s shoes and physical state more times and to a greater degree than it was likely Mark had. One thing Otto remembered viscerally about those times is that he could’ve done with a little understanding and kindness despite the bad decisions that lead him to the consequences of his self-destructive behavior.

“Here,” Otto said as he sat a glass of orange-hued liquid beside Mark’s elbow. “It’s Emergen-C. Electrolytes and vitamins. You’re really dehydrated, man, and this is a quicker way to replenish that. Tastes like orange. This,” Otto held up a small pocket of wax paper folded over a small amount of powder, “is BC powder. Powdered Aspirin and caffeine. Quickest way to get some pain relief from that headache. You gonna puke? Those hiccups sound suspicious…”

Mark took a while to respond, his brain working on reserves with all of the pressure and pounding in his head. Right. The hiccups.

“Naw. Did all of that HNK!-that last night. HMGK! I always get these after a nigh-HNGK’M!-night like...like last night. Usually takes a HNK-UH! a while to stop. Nothing helps. Kinda like you-HNGK!-yours. Thanks,” Mark said as he took a swig of the glass. The Emergen-C’s light fizz felt refreshing even though the artificialness of the orange flavor was a little offensive.

Mark felt Otto’s warm hand on his shoulder before the older man crossed back to where he was sitting before.

Otto sat down and observed his friend’s pallor and slow movements. He had memories of his own struggles with hangovers. He also had memories of squelching those hangovers with more drinking. It was less ‘hair of the dog’ and more the whole damn canine. To be fair, it was an effective method for a while. Not really something that, Otto discovered, was sustainable.

“Yeah, just pour that powder in your mouth and wash it down really quick with the water. Trust me, you don’t want that taste to linger any longer than it has to,” Otto said as he watched Mark’s cautious handling of the wax paper.

Otto watched him make a face from the bitterness of the powder before the detective quickly gulped the Emergen-C flavored water as a chaser. Otto couldn’t help but give a little chuckle.

“You good?” the clock maker asked.

“Y-HUNGK!-Yeah. Ugh!” Mark exclaimed, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

“It’ll help, I promise. I know you feel like crap right now. No real shortcut to a hangover, man, but you can treat the symptoms. If you’re feeling like it, I can fix us both some breakfast after I finish my coffee,” Otto said.

“Thanks. That might b-HINGK!-might be good,” Mark said sheepishly. He jerked with another hiccup and tossed his head to clear his dark hair from in front of his eyes. He regretted the motion almost immediately as he winced.

Just as Otto was finally starting to take a sip of his still steaming coffee, Mark spoke up again and Otto met his tired eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

Otto lowered the mug again, shaking his head.

“Dude, you don’t have anything to be sorry for,” he said with a sad smile. “Listen, man, you are going through some tough shit right now. I mean, I’m really glad Jana’s finally getting the treatment she needs. And you were a big part of that. And, well, you know, the whole malpractice lawsuit with that bitch blonde lawyer, Alice...whatshername moved that recovery along legally, but you were a part of it, too!”

Mark snorted at the cavalier summation Otto gave of his ex’s journey from addiction to almost losing her veterinarian license, to starting in a recovery program, to Jana realizing that she couldn’t hold up a relationship with Mark and recover at the same time. While he knew it wasn’t a personal attack, Mark couldn’t help but feel supreme grief in knowing that the person he fell in love with was going through something that, not only could he not help with, but that he was a hindrance in overcoming.

Not to mention he had purchased an engagement ring he had planned on unveiling at the right moment, which seemed perpetually postponed by upticks in crime and cases he couldn’t ignore. So, did he really blame her for not feeling safe in the relationship?

Otto was speaking again, and Mark looked up from his thoughts to listen. His body jolted again, and he was reminded that his hangover was still actively punishing him for his choices. The hiccups didn’t hurt, per se, but they were definitely hard, loud, and sounded pretty terrible.

“I mean, you know I’ve been in your place before. I mean, not exactly, but similar. No one would blame you for having a little self-destructive pity party. Just...not too many of them. Cause then you end up in the hospital 15-some-odd years later being told that your pancreas is on its last legs and one more drink could send you into a fatal situation. That’s...obviously specific to my experience, but you get it. Anyway, you got wasted cause you were grieving, and you asked your amazing friend who came to pick you up if he thought you were good-looking because for some reason none of the girls at the bar wanted to go home with the shit-faced drunk guy.

“And I meant what I said. You’re extremely hot and it’s so depressing that you’re completely so heterosexual. Like...painfully straight. Ugh!” Otto said, rolling his eyes dramatically.

Mark’s eyes had gotten so comically wide that Otto could see the bloodshot veins in the whites of them and the pink inflammation lining his eyelids.

“I HNGK-KUH!-I didn’t say all that, did I? HU’NGK!” Mark asked aghast as he rubbed his chest.

“You really did. Then you suggested we try being in a relationship because, and I quote, ‘you do guys sometimes, right?’ As if I haven’t explicitly told you my preferences. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m flattered. But I just don’t think we’d make a good match.

“We have a dishwasher, Mark. We have a machine that does the dishes for us. In the kitchen. Next to the sink that has a garbage disposal. Why do we have piles of dirty dishes? Not to mention if I find your boxers in a load of my clothes one more time I...sneaky bastard. Like a thief except instead of stealing things you invade my loads of laundry, so you don’t have to do your own. Like that bird. What’s that bird? That bird who lays its eggs in the other bird’s nest and has them raise their babies, so they don’t have to? Fuck! Cuckoo bird! How the hell does a clock maker forget that?!” Otto exclaimed. “You’re like a damn laundry cuckoo bird forcing me to wash your underwear!”

Mark was having a struggle trying to coordinate his silent laughter with his forceful hiccups. His body jolted against the back of the chair again as Otto seemed to wind down.

“I swear, man H’UNGK!, I don’t remember any HNGK!-any of that. Seriously, I’m NGK!-I’m really sorry you had to deal with—ugh!” the silent hiccup thumped hard in his chest as it choked his words, “deal with me. Damn, these things are an-HNGK!-annoying!” Mark said, rubbing his chest again.

The detective did notice, though, that his headache had already started to fade. He still felt a little foggy and unsettled in his stomach, but he was already feeling better. He wasn’t sure it was Otto’s humorous distraction or the Emergen-C and BC powder. Perhaps it was a combination.

“You sure you’re good with the stomach stuff? Cause those things sound like little retches…” Otto said, still suspicious.

“Well, if you keep t-ANGK!-talking about the stomach stuff I might HNGK!-might start feeling sick, so…” Mark said, crossing his arms as he winced at another silent bodily jerk.

“Alright, alright. I’ll stop,” Otto said, holding up his hands.

“You’re not one t-HINGK!-to hiccup-shame. Mr. Five H-HUMPK!-Hours of Scary Ass Hiccups!” Mark exclaimed.

“Touché!” Otto said at the reference to the time the clock maker developed a case of hiccups that persisted for most of the day. When Mark suggested holding his breath, Otto’s body rejected the cure and gave him the fastest hiccups he’d ever had. Otto was sore for days after that night.

Otto finally touched his lips to his mug of coffee that was still quite warm. Mark chuckled before another hiccup hit him. As Otto swallowed, he gave his friend a questioning look.

“Ass hiccups,” Mark explained with a smirk. Otto would wonder later if Mark still wasn’t a little drunk.

Otto inhaled the coffee with a surprised laugh and started coughing violently. His coughing was interspersed with...well...hiccups.

“Shit! HUCK!” Otto exclaimed between coughing.

He looked up to find Mark covering his mouth, but mirth in his eyes, as he watched Otto’s struggles.

“No HNGK!-no way. Dude, do we seriously HNGKL!-have the hiccups at the same UNGK!-same time?” Mark guffawed.

“This is HULP!HMK!-this is all y-HMK!-your fault, man. HLMK! Dammit!” Otto said.

Mark just laughed again, another hard hiccup smacking into his chest and throat.

After a while, they both calmed down. For the next few minutes, it was quiet save for the call and response their hiccups played with each other. Otto continued to sip his coffee, stubborn to drink the warm beverage he was so looking forward to. Mark nursed the rest of the Emergen-C, energy that he had regained from before having dissipated as he stared into the residue on the inside of his glass.

Though Otto’s hiccups were still rapid they had decreased in strength while Mark’s stayed forceful and deep.

“HNGK!” Mark’s hiccups said.

“Hlp!Hip!” said Otto’s.

“HUNGK!…HMP’K!”

“Huck!-himp!mp!”

“HU’NGK!...UCK!...HMMNGK!”

“Huck!Huck’l!Hmpk!Mp!” Otto sighed at the fast cluster and patted his chest, muffling another hiccup behind his hand.

“Stop that!” Mark suddenly exclaimed.

Otto looked up from a paper he had begun to do the crossword on with confusion.

“You can’t t-HNGK!-tell me you’re not d-UMPK!-doing that on purpose,” Mark said.

Otto frowned, head jerking in more hiccups.

“You’re out hi-HILMK!-out hiccuping me. You’re doing one-HNGK!-one more hiccup each time,” Mark complained, grumpily sipping the last of his enhanced water. Most of it was, of course, put on. But he had genuinely wondered if somehow Otto was doing it on purpose, too.

Otto, for his part, had been oblivious to the hiccup war that Mark had been forging. But he smiled now, taking a haughty tone.

“Well…I am the hmpk!hip!-the sup—superior hic-hu’up!-hiccuper,” he said, battling through another cluster and putting a fist over his mouth as three more hit him in a row.

A beat past before they both erupted into giggling laughter at the ridiculousness. The laughter ended in both of them letting out a hiccup simultaneously, Mark’s “HINGK!” to Otto’s “Hi’ilp!” which sent them into another roll of laughter that perpetuated itself for a while before they both got tired and winded.

Otto’s hiccups ended before Mark’s and the detective ended up hiccuping for about an hour in total which left him feeling sore and tired. But Otto’s breakfast and subsequent lunch and pressuring his friend to drink more water helped Mark feel much better by the end of the day.

***

To be honest, Otto had been terrified that night when he got the call from Mark. Mark was a rational person who didn’t often let vices lead his actions. He had a very clear and logical leaning and seeing the man so out of character and destroyed shook Otto’s core. In addition, having to enter a bar again and seeing representations of himself in his worst times all around him being unnerving and unsettling in and of itself.

The main reason Mark and him had become the unlikely friends they were was due to a case of mistaken identity where Otto lived one street away from a man guilty of kidnapping and murder. Otto also fit the physical description of the man in question, which wasn’t much: a tall man with a beard and wild curly hair.

After Otto’s innocence was proven, he was still getting harassed by his neighbors who hadn’t gotten the news that the actual murderer had been caught and was being prosecuted. Otto had stormed into the police station with the dark-haired, blue-eyed detective in his sights. Before the police there could usher him out (forcefully) Mark stopped them and let Otto have his say.

Otto demanded that some representative of the police go around his neighborhood and clarify that Otto was, in fact, innocent. Additionally, someone had thrown a brick through his window, and he held Mark personally responsible for paying for said window’s replacement. Also, he hadn’t spent this many years getting his life back together as a recovering alcoholic to now be chased out of his home because of a crime he actually didn’t commit!

To Otto’s surprise, it was the lead detectives, Mark and his partner Ralph themselves who went around to every one of his neighbors and explained Otto’s innocence. They ended at Otto’s door with sincere apologies, especially Mark. He was, after all, the one who had tackled Otto to the front steps of his own house in the first place.

He was further surprised to see Mark at his door again a few days later. He gave him a check to reimburse the window and had another request for Otto. His girlfriend, he suspected, was abusing her prescription drugs and alcohol and did Otto know of any programs that could be of use. And could Otto, perhaps, be willing to help Mark understand some of what she was going through from a place of having gone through something similar? Mark didn’t understand addiction from a personal standpoint, and it was causing a rift between he and Jana that he feared was irreparable.

The request was incredibly personal and bordered on inappropriate and offensive, but something about Mark’s countenance endeared him to Otto. Otto could tell Mark was coming from a place of wanting to learn and though it was a heavy burden to share his vulnerability with a man who accused him from murder, he felt compelled to try and help.

So, Otto, who had been living a pretty secluded life up until that point, reticently decided to be of service to Mark’s questions. The friendship ended up being mutually beneficial. Otto hadn’t realized how his reclusive life had been gnawing at his mental health. It had gotten to the point where he was scared to do anything social for fear of losing control of his desires. Mark ended up being the soft introduction to an unexpectedly functional, safe friendship. It was something he’d never experienced before.

It took a while for Otto not to see Mark as some twenty-something cop made detective before they were mature enough to handle it when he couldn’t even handle his private life. And the clock maker was more than full of opinions about those facts that he didn’t at all hide from the detective during their friendship. But Otto’s gruffness was chipped away by Mark’s eagerness to learn and try to help his girlfriend, Jana. And perhaps if Mark had been more forward with Jana about that learning process and his intentions things might’ve ended differently. Finding out your boyfriend was talking about your most intimate personal struggles with a stranger was distressing and Jana was quickly losing trust in Mark and their relationship.

All said, Jana still remained part of their social circle throughout her recovery. And, of course, the story of the lawyer who led Jana’s prosecution which almost led to her losing her license and livelihood was a whole other story. Alice and Mark together. No one saw that coming.

***

Atticus continued to stroke and massage Otto’s scalp as he finished the recollection. Somehow, the clock maker’s head had ended up on Atticus’ lap while they both reclined in bed as he spoke. The writer often wondered if Otto was part dog with the way he’d flop on them at times and how much he appreciated his head massaged.

The story had started only because Atticus mentioned how they had a fantasy of Otto and another one of their friends having hiccups simultaneously. But, they were quick to caveat, if that actually happened, they wouldn’t know how they’d contain themselves. The fantasy was still a thought that gave them some arousal, though.

The fantasy reminded Otto of the one time both he and Mark had them simultaneously and his mouth ran away with the story.

“Wow. That definitely helps fill some gaps,” Atticus said. Learning more about the history of Otto’s friendships was enlightening.

Jana had moved a few hours away by the time Atticus had met Otto. She stopped by every now and then to reconnect, but Atty hadn’t been available for those sessions. After all this time, they still hadn’t met the person who’d, in many ways, triggered the events that led Otto to meeting them.

If Otto hadn’t been such good friends with Mark, and if Atticus hadn’t been a victim of a serial robbery in their old apartment complex, then Mark wouldn’t have known to suggest Otto to them after the thief had knocked an old clock Atticus had inherited from its shelf. That clock still existed and ran perfectly after Otto had repaired it. It was in the loft bedroom where Atty found themselves often to write or decompress. It was a tambour style mantel clock. Atty had it in their house growing up. Atticus didn’t even know which side of the family it was from. With both of their parents gone, they probably never would.

Clocks aside, Mark needing Otto’s guidance on Jana, in some twisted way, made it possible for Atticus and Otto to find each other. So, Atticus might owe Jana as much gratitude for them being together as Mark.

“Yeah, I forget you don’t know all of this stuff,” Otto admitted. Atticus seemed so integrated into his life that it didn’t occur to him to tell them how everyone connected.

All of Atticus’ friends were in their home state (or were relationships they’d made online). Once they’d moved, they had to make new connections. It just so happened, timewise, that Otto was one of those first connections.

“Mark was lucky to have you,” Atty said.

“Yeah, well, he saw me a lot worse than that later that year when I fell off the whole sobriety wagon. So…” Otto trailed off and seemed to snuggle his head further into the softness of Atticus’ thighs.

Atticus sighed. That story they’d heard. It wasn’t a pleasant one.

“You don’t have to do that,” they said. “Qualify your good deeds with having been more of a challenge to deal with at some other point in time. You’re a good person and you’re good at taking care of people. It’s okay to admit that.” Atticus scratched their short nails along the back of Otto’s head when they felt his neck tense.

“I know,” he finally said, breathing warmth onto Atticus’ legs in a huff. “I just wasn’t for so long...but...yeah, I know.”

“All I know is who I see, and who I see is amazing,” Atty said. They smiled as Otto turned on his back to look at them.

“Yeah, well, you’re pretty amazing, too,” Otto said, lips pulling back in a smile showing just a little bit of teeth, but it was a smile that met his eyes. “And that thing you said about not qualifying your positive traits? You’re gonna, like, do that too, right? Maybe give that one a place in the old self-talk dialogue?”

Otto’s finger reached up to tap Atticus’ temple as the writer glared at him.

“See? This is why I don’t give you compliments. Always got to turn them back on me. Like weaponized kindness. Smug bastard,” Atticus muttered.

Otto laughed.

“So what did they sound like?” Atty asked sheepishly.

“What?” Otto asked with a frown as he led one of Atticus’ hands to the middle of his chest and rubbed his hand over theirs. Atty had yet to figure out why Otto preferred their hand in that spot, but they felt honored, for some reason, to be led there.

“Mark’s…” they stuttered and stopped, then they tried again, “Mark’s hiccups.”

“Oh!” Otto said in understanding. Then he scrunched his brows again while thinking. Mark’s hiccups were so distinctive, and he was trying to figure out how to word the description accurately.

“They were kind of, um, gulpy? They seemed really powerful. Like each hiccup really rocked his body back. Um. Kind of wet, too? Not sure if that’s the right way to describe it, but it was like there was wetness in the back of his throat whenever he hiccuped that sort of...sounded...I dunno…” he struggled to find the word before he gave up and shrugged “...wet!”

“You said you kind of thought he was going to throw up at first?” Atticus asked.

“Well, I mean, yeah. But he didn’t. They were just really powerful and sort of...liquidy,” Otto said, still shaking his head with the inaccurate description.

“So, wet,” Atticus confirmed lamely.

“Yeah. Like the sound of someone who just drank something when they swallow. That sticky sound in the back of their throat, you know?”

“Oh yeah! Yeah, I know what you’re talking about! Okay...wow...actually that sounds kind of hot,” Atty said.

“Yeah?” Otto asked, grinning.

“Shaddup,” they responded grumpily.

“No, I think it’s cute. What do you like about mine?” Otto fished.

“You know, I like that yours are fast. As long as they don’t bother you too much.”

“Do I have any...hot sounding hiccups?” he asked. He was rubbing Atticus’ hand again.

“It’s just the variety,” Atticus said after a while. “Each hiccup is different. Each one is a surprise. I like when you muffle them and they get louder, and harder, and longer, one after the other, until you sound hoarse and have to open your mouth to let sharper ones out. I-I like what they do to your body. Gawd, Otto, your body moves with every hiccup. Your cute, soft belly jumps and jiggles so much and you do that thing where when your head is jerked back you blink like you’re surprised. And, just, the way you react, man. How you’re so casual with them but also trying to be considerate about them with other people or when you get a little annoyed that they’re interrupting you when you’re trying to say something it’s all just so...hot. Guh…”

Atticus could feel heat crawling up their neck in both arousal and embarrassment.

“Well damn,” Otto whispered.

“Sorry.”

“No, don’t be. I mean, when you say it like that, it does sound kind of hot,” Otto admitted. He put his fingers up to his mouth and started subconsciously nibbling at his cuticles in thought. “So, it’s not just hiccups but all the stuff around hiccups. I mean obviously it’s the body movements and the sound, but it’s more. It’s how I interact with my hiccups that’s some of what turns you on. The unexpectedness of them. Is it, maybe...Is it because I’m flustered by them?”

“Sometimes,” Atty admitted.

Otto nodded, squinting in more thought.

“I think...that’s sort of why I get turned on by seeing people aroused. They aren’t completely in control, so they just react without...being able to help it. And if they’re trying to hide it and I know it? That’s so hot. Seeing them interact with people and me knowing how hard they’re trying to keep control. Not exactly something we can ever roleplay, but it doesn’t take much when I notice that anyway. My favorite part is...well...watching them relieve the feeling. The myriad of emotion. Jeez. I dunno. My body just—and nothing else really triggers that arousal for me. Doesn’t matter how attractive someone is. It’s that. And I’m there in an instant,” Otto said.

“I can definitely understand that. Damn. It’s bedtime and I am so charged right now,” Atticus admitted.

“Me, too. You...you wanna watch one of those files I made for you? While-while I watch you?” Otto asked in a small voice.

Atticus gasped.

“Oh, gawd, can we? I didn’t even...I’ll get my ear buds. You probably don’t wanna hear yourself. Gawd, I want this so much!” Atty said.

That night as Atty watched the first video where Otto made his hiccups faster by holding his breath (recommended by Otto, himself) and Otto watched Atticus, the writer couldn’t be more grateful to Jana and Mark for their involvement in getting the two of them together. Never would Atticus had ever thought that a relationship could be this symbiotic and honest, that kindness battles were the worst of their spats, and that their most serious moments came from wanting to take care of each other and expressing their gratitude for each other.

[writingquestionsanswered]

Any tips for writing dialogue that feels real? A lot of the stuff I’ve been trying to write feels clunky and forced.

Why Your Dialogue Feels Inauthentic and Clunky

1 - You Haven't Developed Your Character Voices

Character voice is the way your character's personality comes out in the things they think and say. It's how little or often they speak, whether they're concise or wordy, it's the slang and types of words they use, it's speech quirks like saying "um" or "uh" a lot, it's bad habits like interrupting people, the facial expressions and hand gestures/body language they use when they speak, how things like attitude/knowledge/beliefs affect what they say, and even things like tone of voice and accent. Having a good handle on who your characters are and how that affects what they say when they talk is the first crucial step in writing smooth, authentic dialogue.

2 - You've Got Too Much Dialogue or Not Enough

Good stories are a balance between exposition (explaining), action (things happening), and dialogue (conversation.) That doesn't mean it has to be an even three-way split, but you generally wouldn't want to have a 50/30/20 split, for example. When your dialogue gets lost in the exposition and action, it stands out like a sore thumb when it does occur, and all that attention and pressure on these occasional conversation can make them feel naturally awkward. And when your dialogue overwhelms the exposition and action, there's just so much of it, the awkwardness comes from the sense that these characters never shut-up. So, try to have a reasonable balance of dialogue to action and exposition in every scene, chapter, and the overall story to whatever degree is possible. Again, that doesn't mean you can't have an occasional scene or chapter that's light or heavy on dialogue--as long as it's reasonably balanced overall, it's fine.

3 - Your Characters Are Too Long-Winded

Good dialogue is direct... every line plays a role in furthering the purpose of the conversation, promoting character development, or adding to the reader's understanding of the situation or setting. There are no throwaway lines and no unnecessary soliloquies. Everything is communicated in the fewest words possible--within reason. Your characters don't need to sound like they're speaking in code. They just don't need to spend two paragraphs to communicate that it's snowing.

4 - You're Trying Too Hard to Be "Realistic"

When writing dialogue, it can be tempting to render it out the way we hear it and speak it in real life. So we're tempted to add a lot of pauses, trailing off moments, interruptions, interjections (things like um/ah/hmm/huh/gah/what?!/OMG!) And, perhaps worst of all, over using strange spellings and dropped letters to render accents and speech disability (see: Writing Character Slang and Accents.) While you can do these things sparingly/thoughtfully, you have to be careful about overdoing it in the name of realism, because too much of this stuff actually does the opposite and makes your dialogue feel unauthentic.

5 - You've Got a Couple of "Talking Heads"

When dialogue is just a back and forth of lines, it comes across like a couple of floating heads having a conversation in an empty room. It doesn't feel realistic because in real life, we move our faces and bodies, interact with the environment and people around us, and we're aware of the sensory details of our surroundings. So, make sure to include all of that in your dialogue scenes, too.

AND THE #1 REASON - You're Repeating Dialogue Tags

One of the biggest reasons dialogue ends up sounding clunky and inauthentic is it's over-tagged...

"What time is it?" Jeff asked. "It's eleven," Sarah said.

Pam frowned. "Already?"

"Yep, we're super late," Sarah replied. "We should go."

Jeff laughed and said, "Yeah, we probably should"

It's clunky, it's awkward, it doesn't feel real... See my post Avoiding Repetition with Dialogue Tags for help in cutting back.

I hope that helps!

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

I've been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I've learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

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[pico-farad]

I hit episode 90 of Vrains! Season 2 is long, so I'm stopping here to put down some thoughts.

But before that, I wanted say that I was blown away by the response to Secret Identities AU! I didn't even know the Vrains fandom was still alive, but clearly I was mistaken. I plan to make a part 2 going over more characters and changes I'd make, but I'm going to hold off until I've finished the series, so that I can factor in the larger arc of the story.

For now though, here's my thoughts on the second third of Vrains (up to Aoi vs. Bohman). I had too much to say again, so this part will cover Soulburner and Flame.

Critique is meant in good taste. I don't think the Vrains writers will be offended.

All Vrains season analysis posts

⇀ Soulburner

Well, I saw this coming. With a protagonist like Yusaku, the writers need a character who can engage him and generally fill up that "Yugioh friend" role, which was sorely missing in Season 1. Naoki, Go, or Ai? Not marketable enough. They needed to make an anime boy, and they sure did.

That said, I was expecting more from Yusaku and Soulburner's relationship, it's a little... nondescript. They had the same problem in season 1, where the writers don't leave room for the characters to just be characters and bounce off each other, it's all just plot and duels and exposition. At least season 1 had the excuse of Yusaku's trauma alienating him from others, but not only has Yusaku already resolved to overcoming that barrier, but Soulburner is one of the only people who can connect with him because of that experience.

I really would have liked to see them connect more on both being victims of the Lost Incident. Season 1's emotional conflict resolved with Yusaku putting his trauma behind him, so Season 2 needs a new emotional conflict. This would be an excellent use of Soulburner's character, except they've made the strange decision that Soulburner has also already overcome his trauma... offscreen.

Don't get me wrong, the Soulburner vs. Blood Shepherd episodes are good. Having Soulburner and Flame trick Blood Shepherd with their acting is a fine gotcha, but think about what we could have gotten if Takeru was allowed to grow through the story itself -- Yusaku and Flame both encouraging him, Takeru finding strength in Yusaku, the only person he knows who has been though the same trauma as him, but was able to stand up to Hanoi nonetheless. Instead, we don't even get to see Yusaku's reaction to Soulburner's backstory, he's stuck outside the bubble.

I can see why people like him though. Both his designs are good, he gets some funny lines, some good duels. I like his trait of fanboying over the heroes who saved Vrains, EXCEPT that the duels vs. Go and Blue Girl were unforgivable and I WILL go deep into that in their sections, mark my words anime boy.

Most of all though, I like his relationship with Flame.

⇀ Flame

He's funny. Like if Jack was five inches tall. I like how he just casually puts words in Soulburner's mouth. ("Prepare yourself! Soulburner never shows mercy!" "What? I didn't say that." "You didn't?") Flame thinks he's the Ratatouille rat in this relationship, both of them think they're the one calling the shots, and that's great.

I wish that element of their relationship had come back in the Soulburner vs. Windy duel, which is another case of introducing an interesting challenge for the characters -- in this case, the idea that Flame should want to be independent of Soulburner -- only to once again go Psych! Bamboozled! They were just acting the whole time!

Ah yeah, they sure tricked me into thinking we would get some good character development...

It's a shame, because I think Windy actually does raise an interesting point. The audience is biased towards thinking of Soulburner as the one who calls the shots -- he's the one who plays the cards, who declares attacks and announces effects, while Flame is the one who looks like a mascot and provides standard Yugioh audience commentary. It makes complete sense for Windy to instill doubt in Flame this way, because the conflict between the Ignis and humans is that humans think AI should only serve humans, and Ignis believe in their own free will.

For reference, here is the exchange that happens (paraphrased) after Soulburner refuses to listen to Flame's advice not to set a card (though this is just part of the act)

Windy: Don't you want to fight using your own will, Flame? Partners are just a nuisance. That's why I got rid of mine. Soulburner: Nuisance? During the Lost Incident, the captured spent every day in an unimaginable situation. Despair, day after day... When we were freed, we were so happy that our hope became reality! But you stole that away from your partner because you thought he was a nuisance? Flame: Windy, we were able to be created because they spent day after day enduring despair. We should be thanking them. We have no right to steal their hope!

Flame's rebuttal to Windy is so bizarrely essentialist. The Ignis don't owe anything to the Lost Incident victims, much less gratitude. They didn't ask to be created, and they are not responsible for the crimes of SOL. The message should have been something like "I chose Soulburner with my own free will."

Flame does not owe Takeru anything, but he chooses to be his partner, because the whole point of the Ignis is that they have free will. That is the proper resolution to Windy asking "Don't you want to fight using your own will?" The answer is no, they choose to fight together. Even if Soulburner appears to be the one calling the shots because he wears the duel disk, they are equals, and the reason Soulburner takes the lead is because Flame trusts him. 5D telepathy chess undercuts that.

⇀ Lost Incident Victims, and Alternate Season 2 thoughts

The more I think about it, the more I wish they used the different Lost Incident victims to explore different reactions to trauma. Yusaku used it to fuel him and his revenge, Takeru went down a route of self-sabotage and lashing out, Jin shut himself down, and Spectre, uh, decided to be Like That lmao.

Here's the set-up that I would have done for Season 2: after Jin is kidnapped, Yusaku decides to seek out the other Lost Incident victims to see if any of them have been targeted too, which could give them a clue on how to get Jin back. This is how he meets Takeru. 

Yusaku has to learn how to connect with people, which follows up on the season 1 finale, where he resolves to open himself up to others and tells Revolver that he wants to be friends. By befriending Takeru and helping him overcome his trauma, and eventually the other Lost Incident victims too, it builds up to the reprise of Yusaku vs. Revolver, where Yusaku finally succeeds in connecting with Revolver, who he realizes is another victim of the Lost Incident.

Jin and Miyu get to be actual characters this way, too, rather than just damsel devices. I'd also pay to see the deranged interactions Spectre would have with Yusaku.

[suckishima]

oh man, i get why panels like these dont make into animation because on the surface they're just like, administrative-y feeling and superfluous exposition that doesn't affect the plot, but ah i actually think these type of details are one of the things that pushes haikyuu over the edge in terms of fleshing out a world that feels rooted in reality

like, this whole page mainly functions to contribute to the series' themes about volleyball being about more than what just happens on the court (and how it's your habits and dedication to all things that will bring you to success or happiness), but i like that it's also subtly adding to the series' unspoken themes about classism with the "that goes double for small teams like us" line. and how we see each member of the team practically drowning in bags and equipment to take inside and everyone has a job and tasks—and i mean everyone too, we easily see takeda in the bottom left, but yachi is there too, and then players who are starters or senpais (who usually arent given duties bc theyre supposed to focus on warming up staying focused etc) like daichi pushing the ball cart, are helping too—because there's no sort of official/sponsored outside support and they can only rely on themselves

i especially like how the line is basically an offhand comment too, there isn't a complaint in there anywhere, it's just a fact of something they need to be aware of so they can get the job done and meet all of the other teams on a level playing field—that's the part that i think furudate does so successfully throughout the series. these small moments are just sprinkled throughout the whole thing to give the reader a very solid and real understanding of the school's reality without having to shine a spotlight on it directly—like the bit about how excited tanaka is when he sees the big hotel only to find out that theyre at the much smaller one next door (while the girls rep from miyagi, who won the most recent interhigh, actually is in the big hotel) (and of course everything from this post that i've reblogged a bunch of times lmao)

[love-killed-the-superstar]

The Last Ronin 2: Re-Evolution Issue #1 LIVEBLOG

SPOILERS ABOUND. I'M NOT GOING TO BE NORMAL ABOUT THIS IT'LL PROBABLY GET SUPER LONG

Okay so Casey Marie's muscles are something I'm never going to get over. SHE LOOKS GOOD!!!!! Her getup is feeling a little too reminiscent of a cape-wielding superhero for my tastes to be honest - I really loved the more practical outfits she wore in TLR Lost Years, especially in issue 4 when she was running the training mission for the kids. But ah well, I'm sure this will grow on me. It may not be practical (edna's law of no capes is coming to mind, also PLEASE TIE YOUR HAIR UP WHEN YOU'RE FIGHTING GIRL!!!) but it's very cunty anyway which I appreciate

Straight up thought she killed this guy - what was that sound effect if he's still able to walk??? I fr thought she snapped his neck

IDK if we needed a whole 8 pages of punching and kicking to exposition dump what we kinda already knew from what's been shown in the lost years (esp the lost day special) but IT'S FINE IG... NOW ONTO THE BABIES

SORRY, SORRY. TEENAGERS NOW.

GIGGLING KICKING MY FEET. We're ALREADY getting the leo-v-raph adjacent dynamic with these two and I'm living for it. if one of them drops a stone cold 'fearless leader' jab i will lose my shit

HI? HELLO, EXCUSE ME, MIND-TALKING? PICTURES IN HEAD? ARE WE A FAMILY THAT LUCID DREAMS OR SOMETHING?!?? I DON'T REMEMBER THIS BEING SOMETHING THEY COULD DO?? every new speech bubble here is like a punch to the gut, wdym telepathy wdym secret lair wdym honouring everything master splinter taught you???? (although i'm proud that when this panel dropped on news sites i was immediately like THAT ISN'T THE KITCHEN FROM LOST YEARS. turns out it was a Secret Lair TM)

Teenage Mutant Ninja Seance -- TURTLES COUNT IT OFF!!

not gonna screenshot the whole backstory but they're basically doing a telepathic puppet show explaining the backstory and it's pretty much the mirage origins with a bit of extra tlr flair. as always it HURTS ME seeing the turtles dying so thanks for that tlr2 :'')) icb these kids watch a mind movie of their uncles dying every fucking night. yall are messy

SOBBING AND CRYING,, I WISH YOU'D ALL HAD THE CHANCE TO KNOW HIM TOO!!!!!! I WISH YOU'D GOTTEN TO KNOW ALL OF THEM!!!!! (tlr splinter doesnt count tho because hes a dick)

there was a cool sequence of them rooftop hopping n stuff but i wont cover it bc we already saw it in a bunch of news articles weeks ago

i just did the SHARPEST INHALE. casey marie you and your beautiful muscular arms have aged like the finest wine

YI NO!!!!!

lmaooo moja is JUDGING your taste in women u two

lots of text... blah blah blah jobs, crimerates, blah blah... jiro in pig uniform jumpscare.. casey marie i thought u were going to fix him :(((

YESSSSS KIDS ARE GOING ON A MISSION WITH THEIR MOM, LETS FUCKING GOOOOO

MY BABIES ARE KICKING ASS!!!!!

....,.HUH

WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED TO MY BABY BOY ODIE!!!!!!!!!!! WHO DID THIS TO HIM!!!!!!???? WHAT??!???? HUH/1?!!? EXCUSE ME????

I'M . LIKE WHAT DO I EVEN SAY TO THIS. IT CAME OUT OF NOWHERE??? WHAT IS GOING ON!!!

FINAL THOUGHTS:

dude that first issue was wordy but the kids were ON POINT. they were so fun!! their dialogue is fun and they kick ass.

i loved yi announcing the punishment for casey while the others were like NOO SHE DIDNT MEAN THAT DONT LISTEN TO HER. we're getting more of their personalities and it's great!! it was a nice throwback to issue 2 of lost years when they were cleaning - yi refused to help because of how strictly she was following instructions. im picking up that she might be neurodivergent but i did get that from the lost years too - only doing things within strict instructions, getting frustrated at teaching odyn chess, not because of him playing horseys with the knights but that it was Against The Rules Of Chess - and now not picking up on some social cues. It's nice to see!! I love her very much, but it feels like besides rehashing the origin story she took a bit of a backseat to the other three.

i want to know more about why uno said being a rebel was moja's 'thing', since she didn't seem to be any more rebellious than the other three in this issue. we didn't get any unique interactions between her and casey marie which is what i felt was lacking from lost years but i wonder if this is hinting towards a more turbulent mother-daughter dynamic with them... I REALLY HOPE SO!! her and uno butting heads in a leo-raph way is very fun - i don't mind one or two prior group dynamics leaking into the new turtle siblings because they're all so different from the original 4.

uno seems to be taking on slightly more of a leader role than moja so i think he won the title of fearless leader. which is fine, i think it'll be fun to see and he's definitely less of an asshole now than when he was growing up in lost years. still picking on odyn a bit but seems to snipe at moja just as much. even when he was commenting on yi's storytelling he didn't make fun of her, though - i think she may have inherited the 2k3 don ability of being Completely Unbullyable.

i was really pleased that odyn felt more involved!! i feel like he took the backseat a few times in lost years - it was fun seeing more of his personality shine through! he and yi seem to get on the best, and i giggled at them rolling their eyes at moja and uno's raph-leo schtick. i didn't expect him to TURN TO FUCKING STONE THOUGH, so i'm nervous about that. WHAT DOES IT MEAN? WHO DID THIS TO MY BOY? IS HE GOING TO TURN BACK NEXT CHAPTER OR IS HE OUT OF COMMISSION UNTIL THE END OF THE RUN??? (if it's the latter i'll be a bit annoyed - don't take odyn away from the equation please!!)

I do wonder if by introducing casually that they can PSYCHICALLY CONNECT, the turtles will use that as a technique to reach odyn's mind to make sure he's still in there and piece together what's happened to him. i mean, their casual telepathy has gotta be some sort of chekhov's gun right?

and shit.... april was so fucking mad casey took the babies out so she's going to EXPLODE when she finds out what happened to her baby boy, her beloved favourite, her baby odyn :''(( im giggling rubbing my hands together waiting for the fallout but also if she cries i might cry too. speaking of april, she seems to be working on a new project and i saw nano particles mentioned - are we going to have a roninverse version of nano in this run???? I NEED MY ROBOT SON

as always, casey marie... u have aged like fine wine. u are stunning. disappointed that ur still believing that jiro can do good as a cop when their entire police force and government is corrupt as fuck. just feels very naive of her. i'm excited to see her break down at the concept of losing odyn - in fact i need everyone to mourn this beautiful kid. they tell us so much that shes a super clingy helicopter mom and i am picking up on the strict part, but it would be nice to see more of her just... hugging her kids. holding them. i get why she didnt in this issue but id love more mama casey squishing their cheeks and kissing their foreheads.

i have zero fucking clue what's going on with odyn. im wondering if it's somehow related to nano, or to whatever project April is working on - she says it's to do with clearing the tunnels, but I''m not convinced. who knows, there might be some ulterior motive happening.

Anyway, that's the end of my liveblog!! thanks for reading all the way to the end... go read it wherever you read ur comics!!!

[bokettochild]

I'd love your commentary on this bit from Footsteps Across History:

“ Bud, ” the rancher emphasizes, but the smile says he knows just what Legend thought he heard. Wild wants to know, he really wants to know. Is it the reason Twilight’s eyes are gentle now when they turn to their brash team-mate?  

Zelda, not having witnessed them any other way than here and now, is not so distracted, and instead whips around, eyes sparking even fiercer. “Yes! Please, don your items again!” And then she falters and coughs, “ah, for your own sake, of course.”  

The vet smiles at her. Eyes glinting.  

Despite himself, despite knowing this is Legend , not the captain, Wild feels the need to sidle just the slightest bit closer to his princess.  

As requested though, rings are produced from the bag, and though the vet regards them with something doubtful, something furrowing his brows and tightening the lines of his mouth, no such conflicts arise in the rancher’s eyes. Dark hands scoop the bands up and slide them over gnarled fingers without hesitation, and the effect is near immediate. Color seeps back into the vet’s skin like fire licking across paper. Pale scars fade to highlight instead the generous smatter of freckles dusting across drawn cheeks and long ears. A heavy sigh escapes through lips that touch with color rather than grey and pale like they’d been but a moment later. Legend looks suddenly alive, and- and-  

It’s like looking into the cosmos, like an explosion of a star, bright and warm in the room around them. The aura that was curled tight and flickering is suddenly warmth and light and color that spirals out, flowing around them and has sighs escaping from each of the rest of them, even as Zelda’s eyes glitter and her pen works against her notebook near feverishly. It’s a galaxy unfurling into the sky, a bright star shining, returning from the brink of a fiery falling to instead burn bright and strong once more.  

Twilight touches a hand to his head, shaking it slightly.  

Time stumbles back slightly, startled, but apparently not knowing why.  

Wild’s own aura, green and rich and winding, sings in return, reaching out to twine itself close into the starlight that breaks across it. Vines reaching for cosmos and winds singing to endless skies.  

The cosmos sings back, and Legend chuckles at him, eyes burning into his own before the guarded veil falls once more.  

Ooh! This one was a challenge to write, but some fun too. Flora can be a fun character to play with and this was my first time using her again since.....oof, Whumptober 2021? Yeah, I needed to use her again, so I had fun with this, she also made a great character to help with exposition about some headcannons and stuff in this thing!

Anyways! That opening bit is Legend misheard Twilight the first time and thought he called him "bun" or "bunny" and thus outed him in front of everyone. Twilight is VERY aware of this, hence why he corrects himself, but he still finds it funny. Wild however is NOT aware of this and is thus pretty confused, because when did these two start having secret jokes/teasing methods/healthy chemistry? He wants the T, and the boys aren't spilling, which is just so unfair!

Of course, Zelly over here really has no clue that this isn't a normal sort of interaction between the rancher and the vet, so she doesn't really question it at all and is happy to just move on and ask Legend to use his things. she does care, of course, that he gets better, but the scientist in her also wants to see how this all works! She's a bit flustered, but Legend is just seeing a Zelda being passionate ad awkward and he's humored because she's kinda cute, but like in the way his sister is!

Wild does not realize that Legend is reminded of his sister, he just sees an attractive dude smiling at his princess. Granted, that's his brother, and granted he has context, but there's a part of him that is conscious of Legend's ability to seduce, a skill the vet has accidentally employed frequently and does not realize he possesses. So yeah, Wild's gettind a bit defensive of his grila nd making sure Legend is aware to keep his paws off (not that Legend ever would).

During that though, Twilight is just...not involved. Twilight is perfectly content to move on with the whole "making Legend get better" thing, as is Flora. The vet has some wariness because yes, he understands the fact that using his aids isn't bad (or at least he's starting to understand) but he also has a part of his brain going "we were assigned a task and doing this will complete us from completing the task". His inner programming of "take task, accomplish task, cross task off" is telling him that if he gives up his goal of lasting without his aids, he's thus leaving that task box unchecked forever! And he's not sure if he can handle that. Twilight takes the decision out of his hands though by acting for him, thus ending the internal debate.

Now, i wanna pause in my dissection of the characters' thoughts and actions to focus on one little thing that was in my head the whole bit I wrote this scene. if you've read The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe you might remember the bit where Lucy, Susan and Aslan return to the witch's castle and Aslan restores the enchanted prisoners to living forms rather than stone The bit were C.S. Lewis describes the life returning to them always stuck with me; his comparison of fire catching and licking across a bit of newspaper, that's what was in my head here when Legend starts wearing the ring again.

I took the restoration bit as a chance to throw in some of my favorite appearance headcannons for Legend, especially the freckles, because those always make me happy! But I also wanted to focus on the fact that Legend's magical self is also being restored, and since Wild is a magical sensitive being I felt I could talk about the magic auras of the boys here. Was it because I was reading eldritch!Wild right before writing this? Yes.

Legend's magic is like the stars or a galaxy in my mind, meanwhile Wild's is like vines or a forest, all green and twisting and twining (maybe sort of like the Zonai magic appears in the TotK trailers?) I wanted to explore, briefly, the interplay of the two, the fact that they don't mesh, but they co-exist well, much like Legend and Wild, and they sort of complement each other through the fact taht theyre both nature based, but in vastly different, but equally awe inspiring realms of nature.

Legend and Wild are both aware of each others' magics, the fact that theirs are both reaching out, and the fact that the other is responding Flora is as well, but she's already too busy taking notes to express outward excitement. Twilight and Time however are caught off guard and don't fully comprehend the magical explosion happening around them they're magic agacent, but not nearly as magical as our boys, so they can sense it, but they don't know what they're feeling so much.

And that's it! Thanks for sending this one! I really enjoyed picking it apart and explaining things!

[vntako]

vn in a bottle: her tears were my light

ah i've found something very nice

decided to read some short vns to figure out how to write one and i thought this first one i went for appropriately explicitly defined starts, middles, and endings as part of it's narrative. along with the whole time travel shebang (you play as time) i found this was a bit too appropriate for what i was deciding to write but thought hey this is the universe nudging me gently into finishing the thing.

the story starts with time all alone, and finding space. i love the whole love at first sight schtick, oh and there's an implication of fated lovers thing ("it's like i've met you before" and all that jazz)

space is very cute

i find it difficult to talk about this game without spoiling it bc it's really short and there's not much to say about the exposition apart from space being super cute (the whole thing is around ~30 mins for me, at least less than an hour)

well, to be a bit less vague, i like the story's themes of loneliness. relationships are a complex thing, and memories aren't so reliable sometimes. and people do ultimately change. we misunderstand, we discuss, we compromise. i like that the story reminds us to do our best to try not to leave anyone in our lives lonely.

oh the the fluff between the characters is great, i like a lot

OH forgot to mention the music, it's super good. it fits over the emotional parts so well, especially the true ending song geez. also there are vocal tracks in the extras using eleanor forte and they're really good i need them on like, spotify to put in a playlist (one of them is there, it wasn't my fav but this is pretty nice)

go play this game it's free on itch over here you can play it in your browser no downloads just a bit of loading time

her tears were my light by NomnomNami (itch.io)

spoilers beyond this point

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if it gets you to play it you should know you get to kiss the girls

so you have to save space from being killed by this other girl nil, and she has the power to stop you from rewinding so you gotta start at the start every time you try to save space

the whole "doing different things but always leading to the same result" (insanity) plot line is very appealing to me, and this vn has that. space is killed every time you try to reset. you reset anyway. wowza. i love that.

eventually, we find out nil and space are the same, which is implied by their similar appearances and parallels and stuff. i like that, that's cool, so at that point the goal for you is to reconcile the two of em despite them being polar opposites of each other (space is the girlfailure and nil is the girlboss)

it genuinely hurt me resetting out of the nil ending btw, i didn't get a screenshot but jeezums (nil is best girl sorry)

a few resets in you get to have this moment with space

it's great

i don't like that this kiss decides you abandon nil, though. well, you come around eventually.

you get the true beginning by talking things out with nil, making up for what you've done (even if you don't remember), and deciding not to abandon either of them. that's great, i like that a lot. talking is good.

nil is super cute

to talk a bit more, i like how nil gets so desperate to the point that time misunderstands her intentions. i think, that like happens a fair bit in real life. heck if someone forgot about me to go and have fun with someone else i would uh, die. time hears her out eventually and they come to a compromise and it all works out for the three of them. they both forgive each other. and space doesn't die (yay)

the true beginning is basically a poly ending and that makes this vn a 10/10

[canmom]

The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere: 013-032

Previously: 000-012, spinoff post about entropy [all Flower posts]

Time for more flower...

...no, not that flower!

Unless...?

Welcome back to my liveblog of sorts for web novel The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere by @lurinatftbn! Shout out to the Flower discord for giving me such a kind welcome. You're making me want to go all out on this liveblog, but, I musn't...! So I'm going to try to just comment on things that jumped out as especially noteworthy rather than write down everything that went down.

Especially since... a lot happened in these chapters. We have a perfect androgyne tree thing! Magical duels! Questionable student/teacher relationships! Steamed hams! Intense political arguments at dinner! Metafictional assurance of fair play! Prosognostic events! Transgender AIs! And of course........

a murder!!!!!

...ok that one was kinda obvious. But the first body has hit the floor! I don't feel like I have nearly enough information yet to start speculating about who might have dunnit.

That's a lie. It was definitely Kinzo Ushiromiya. That bastard.

So, from the top!

We're introduced to a few of the members of the Order, with by far the most screen time going to Su's mentor and ah, kinda-girlfriend? Neferuaten. And like, damn, lot going on there!

Before I get into the meat of that - first the bit where I search a character's name on Wikipedia. Neferuaten's name is most likely a reference to an Egyptian female king/pharaoh (a rank that's apparently distinct, conceptually, from a queen) variously called Ankhkheperure-Merit-Neferkheperure, Waenre, and Aten Neferneferuaten. Most often shortened to just Neferneferuaten.

Her exact historical identity seems to be a little unclear - she may or may not be the same person as Nefertiti for example. Whoever she was, she apparently reigned for a couple of years around 1334–1332 BCE, and was then succeeded by the famous child king Tutankhamun. Or maybe Smenkhkare came in between them? Seems to be a matter of some debate. Girl really needed to leave a few more vast and trunkless legs of stone so we can figure this stuff out.

In any case, this version of Neferuaten goes way back with Su. Her introduction is to launch a magical attack on our poor girl while she's contemplating the 'everblossom'. One of those classic 'master surprise attacks the student to see how much they've learned' deals. This servers as a fine exposition for the exact mechanics of magical duels.

Zettai! Ummei! Mokushiroku!

Let's briefly note how magical duels and magic works here, since it seems like it will be very relevant later.

The more we learn about magic, the more explicit is that this system is not some natural property of the universe, but something that's designed by the mysterious Ironworkers. It seems like it's kind of an API to the Ironworker admin console. The Ironworkers wanted to make it difficult to do magic on human bodies, and therefore they designed a system for detecting what is 'human', based on three heuristics - anatomical, motion and neurological.

Humans, being the freaky little hackers that we are, of course set about figuring out how to bypass this system, and created standardised means, consisting of three spells, termed [x]-beguiling arcana. In a sense the three criteria are something like three 'hitpoints': the primary way to win a duel is to get all three spells off, thus making your opponent vulnerable to magic.

To achieve this, you can either speak the words of a spell or sign them by drawing them with your fingers - i.e. one way or the other express the appropriate string of symbols. This is risky because if you're interrupted at the wrong time, your spell can backfire and blow up, and getting a spell right requires precise pronunciation and also rapid mental maths. So the general 'gameplay' of magical duels involves attempting to disrupt the opponent's focus and aim, while fast-casting the spells that are most familiar to you.

We're introduced to a few spells that could be useful in battle, such as

Matter-Shifting (telekinesis spell with a geometric bent, used to move a cube of dirt to act as a smokescreen),

Matter-Annihilating (deletes stuff),

Entropy-Denying (essentially a shield that freezes objects and fluids in relative motion),

Air-Thrusting (creates a shockwave air blast),

Light-Warping (fucks up the light for visual cover),

World-Deafening (mutes all sound, which can interrupt casts)

Entropy-Accelerating (disrupts coherency, causing rapid aging-like effects - can be used on a 'higher plane' to disrupt all magic in an area)

Entropy-Reversing (rewinds matter along its path of motion - reference to entropy here seems a tad dubious but w/e)

It's clearly a pretty carefully thought out system - I appreciate that it's approached from the point of view of someone trying to exploit the shit out of the system and figure out what the real meta would be. It does kinda seem like if you got the drop on a wizard and shot them with a sniper rifle they'd be toast, but we'll see later that much more powerful weapons than mere chemical firearms exist in this world, and presumably in a combat situation everyone would have entropy-denying (or equivalent) shields up, so maybe that's a moot point.

Anyway, we are later informed by the closest thing to authorial voice that everything we're told here about magic can be assumed to be axiomatically true, similar to the red text in Umineko. Which pretty heavily foreshadows that this is going to be on the test, if you like!

the magical metaphysics

With apologies to Neferuaten, who will get more detailed comments shortly, there are some other big revelations about magic and the nature of this world that I should talk about while we're on the subject of magic!

In the last post I wondered whether casting magic is an innate quality or a 'skill issue' situation. It turns out the answer is sorta 'neither'. In fact, it's something that has to be unlocked, using special equipment and a particular ritual. The cost of this ritual is not yet entirely spelled out, but we definitely get an inkling. It's rather ominously implied by this exchange in chapter 22:

"We're supposed to want to save people, to make the world better. To defend a bunch of people who practically committed murder--" "You're a murderer too, dour girl." I stopped, and blinked. It took me some moments to process the words. They'd come from Lilith, who now seemed to have finished with her dessert. Now she was just slowly swirling her spoon around in the last remnants of the chocolate sludge on the plate and, occasionally, dipping a finger into her cream bowl and licking little bits of it up. Her expression was irritated, but disconnected. "All arcanists are," she said. "It's how it happens. So having fights over moral high ground like this is very stupid and annoying. Please stop."

In the same chapter, Su uses something called an 'acclimation log', in which she records her 'association' with a series of diary entries from her childhood self. It all suggests that Su's present consciousness has somehow taken over the body of another character, who we could maybe call original!Su.

A few chapters later, we find out what's the deal with prosognostic events. In fact we get a pretty extensive exposition. It turns out that iron is magical in this universe, providing access to higher dimensions, FTL and all sorts of shit. However, because the Mimikos and other worlds are running on a 'substrate' of iron - sort of like a simulation - we are told this is why they can't recursively include iron within. And since the human body includes a certain amount of iron (most notably, in the haemoglobin protein in red blood cells), it is not possible to fully realise the human body inside these artificial worlds.

a self-referential quibble

Here's how Su puts it:

A substrate cannot exist within itself. That sounds awkward when I put it so directly, but it's not too hard to understand if you think about it in abstract-- A foundation obviously can't support another foundation of equal weight and nature, because… Well, it would make nonsense of the whole premise. A book is a device for storing information, but it cannot contain within its letters everything about itself and what it contains, because that is already more than it contains. A box cannot hold another box of equal size, unless it is bent or otherwise changed. A mind cannot hold another mind…

On the face of it, this seems on the face of it... not entirely true, at least in some domains? You can run a virtual machine program on a computer, representing any particular combination of hardware and software, which is from the perspective of software 'on the inside', essentially indistinguishable from a computer running on 'bare metal' hardware. The only real difference is that operating the virtual machine has some computational overhead, so it will be slower. The more virtual machines you nest, the slower it gets.

But 'from the inside', the only way to tell which layer of virtual machine you're on would be to refer to some kind of external clock signal (which can trivially be spoofed) and notice that it's running slower than it should!

We could also mention here the subject of quines, which are programs which print their own source code.

Let's consider Su's examples. The book that completely describes its contents might be able to get around this problem in a similar fashion to a quine, by exploiting redundancy and self-reference.

For example, let's try creating a string that completely describes its own content, using a quine-style technique.

This string begins with a sentence followed by its quotation, and then 100 letter ws; the sentence is: "This string begins with a sentence followed by its quotation, and then 100 letter ws; the sentence is: " wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

In fact the '100 letter ws' could literally be the entire string that follows. Suppose the length of the 'real content' of the book is S, and the length of the rest of the 'metadata sentence' describing properties of the book is M; then the total length of the book is 2M+3S.

You can add as much additional information to the 'metadata' string as you like, provided you quote it again afterwards. If you don't like having a book be three times the length it needs to be, you could compress the 'real content' string using an algorithm like DEFLATE, and include instructions in the 'metadata' on how to decompress it. (Text tends to compress really well.) This is where we run up into notions probably all too familiar to rats, or indeed anyone who recently read Seth Dickinson's new novel Exordia, such as Kolmogorov complexity.

But... I think this might well be intentional. Given how common notions like 'stacks of simulations' and 'self-reference' are in rat space, I suspect we may be being misled! The 'rules' of the game - more on that in a moment - say that Su won't deliberately lie to us, and won't withold information without saying so, but her perceptions could be mistaken. Maybe she's been given a false explanation of why the world works the way it does.

It's also totally possible that while the general point (you can't contain a thing in itself) may have some edge cases, the specific instance - you can't build a universe on a giant higher-dimensional iron spike and still have that universe contain iron - may still be true. We don't know the first thing about building universes using magic iron after all.

anyway... the Deal with Prosognisia!

The Ironworkers had a hacky workaround to the 'no iron' rule: they had a few tens of thousands of preserved human bodies on board their Tower of Asphodel. Asphodel, incidentally, is a genus of flower, said to carpet the Asphodel Meadows, one of the three divisions of the realm of Hades. (In their game, Supergiant decided to convert it into a lava zone.) It looks rather pretty actually!

So, they were able to instantiate these bodies in their rebuilt worlds by sort of making them into a reference to one of these stored human bodies. Here's Su again, chapter 26:

Some human bodies, or at least the impression of them and the iron within, had been preserved as part of the Tower, frozen in a timeless place. And because of that, it was eventually discovered it was possible for them to exist in the artificed planes as a sort of stable paradox. After all, while a book can't exist within itself, it can still reference other stuff it does contain internally, even if it makes for somewhat awkward reading. A few tweaks and workarounds solved the problem of the iron associated with that human body staying a part of it, and just like that, human beings were walking something at least akin to the earth once again. However, this only permitted replicas of those bodies within the Tower to exist. The creation of new ones remained impossible, and births not incubated by anima taken by the same mechanism would inevitably fail. And there were far fewer preserved bodies than minds; scarcely more than ten thousand or so for each party.

So every human born in the Mimikos is forked from one of these human bodies. For... mysterious reasons, if you recognise that someone nearby is forked from the same body as you, you both straight up die. If you touch such a person (a 'contact paradox') it's even worse, and all the iron in your body disappears, leaving behind a 'greenish sludge', which seems to be a severe enough disaster to cause deaths of nearby people as well.

(This is a little surprising given that the iron in the human body is only about 60 parts per million by mass, but it would kinda destroy your blood's ability to carry oxygen, so it would definitely be pretty fatal.)

The 'distinction treatment' we heard about is able to mitigate the risks somewhat - with quick medical intervention and time magic, it's possible to allow the people involved to make a full recovery. An interesting wrinkle is that it's implied either Ophelia or new character Balthazar is trans, because normally people of the same gender can't share an upstream body.

That definitely leads to a very fascinating fucked up medical emergency scene, but the reason I'm discussing it now is because it's got bearing on this big-deal question of 'what's so fucked up about arcanists anyway'...

so what's so fucked up about arcanists anyway?

Having finally answered one of the major questions, we can start zeroing in on another. In a flashback scene in chapter 30, we learn that the 'original' bodies have innate access to the magic API, but when you're given a distinct identity at birth you quickly lose it. To have your sv_cheats 1 restored, you have to go through a process that, it would seem, downloads a new mind into your head from one of those original bodies...

The man sat back a little in his chair, crossing his legs idly. "It's intimidating in concept, but please do understand that, in the overwhelming majority of cases, there are no observable effects whatsoever. Around half of the individuals who go through it don't even lose consciousness, and of the other, four out of five don't report any abnormalities when they reawaken. And even of the remaining 10%, the symptoms are negligible for nine out of ten-- Fleeting false memories, minor alterations in temperament that self correct, usually in under a day..." "And the others?" I inquired. "The remaining one percent." He considered this question for a few moments, obviously choosing his words carefully. "The technical term for the rare cases where confusion persists in the longer term is pneumaic assimilation failure. We have a program for treatment, using a combination of various phychological and medical means. It's time-tested. It brings people back to themselves quickly, usually within only only a few months at most." 'Confusion.' 'Brings people back to themselves.' I wasn't feeling fond of the way he couched everything in euphemism. It wasn't helping. "What do you mean by 'it brings people back to themselves'..?" I furrowed my brow. "They just... Forget everything?" "Not immediately," he said. "But they lose a sense of association with... Well, with anything that shouldn't be there, and that leads those memories and feelings to fade over time." He smiled. "The human mind is very adept at excising anything it judges to be out of place. All it needs is a push in the right direction."

The new mind tends to rapidly adjust to its new context, connecting to the memories stored in the body and assuming continuity of identity. But in rare cases it fails! Nuts! And we can infer poor Su appears to be one such case.

Presumably this is what Lilith is referring to when she says that all arcanists are murderers. It's not clear if there is continuity of consciousness when you get /mode +o'd - since you (usually) inherit the memories it is perhaps hard to say whether such a thing is meaningful.

In any case, Su's mega-guilt complex, the reason she seems to want to visit the mysterious egomancer Samium, seems to be at least partly that she's evicted the previous consciousness to inhabit this body. I don't think that's the whole story though! Her grandad seems to be involved somehow too. I don't think Su is literally the reincarnation of her grandad, because it seems unlikely that he'd be motivated to carry out ego suicide like this.

introducing teacher mommy

All those major revelations aside, let's get back to the subject of Neferuaten, aka 'Grandmaster', Su's old mentor in entropic thanatomancy. She quickly establishes herself as one of the most likeable of the inner circle of the Order - she's funny, understanding, generally affable and a little self-effacing. Su definitely puts her on a massive pedestal - though other characters such as Ran find her a little more sussy.

I gotta say, the author is really good at writing old academics. Each one of them comes across as strongly believable, distinctive, motivated and flawed characters. I'll talk a bit about the others in a bit but first let's talk age gap yuri! lmao

Anyway, at the end of chapter 20 we get this:

Then she leaned over and, in an impulsive, almost casual gesture, kissed me on the lips. Before turning, heading to the exit.

'Huh!' thinks the reader. 'That sure is an unusual thing for someone's teacher to do.'

It is quite a few chapters later before Su gets round to telling us a bit more about what's going on...

After that, we met outside of the university more and more often, her becoming sort of a source of emotional support. At some point, I became aware that what was happening was probably quite inappropriate. It's not like I was underage, having turned 25 two years prior, but she was my professor. But I'd been bad at making friends in both of... Well, in both my past contexts, and I'd felt so lonely living in Tem-Aphat, away from Ran and any reminders of the resolutions we'd made. And it all somehow felt so natural. Things got out of hand. One day, I'd had a fight with my father over the logic bridge, and had got a little drunk when I was due to see her. I don't know exactly what I was thinking, but I did something uncharacteristic of me. Inappropriate. But she didn't respond in the way I'd expected. To my shock, she didn't act like it was inappropriate at all. It wasn't as if we ended up dating. That would never have worked, and I was pretty sure she was past wanting that sort of thing anyway. On some levels, she always kept her distance. But it became something we did together, an avenue of private expression that became part of her support for me - and mine, eventually for her.

Su then expresses a bunch of guilt over the whole thing. (Not least because it's a 'selfish' thing she's doing in a body that, implicitly, she doesn't think of as hers.)

The issue of age here is interesting lol. Definitely my gut reaction, and probably the one the story is aiming to elicit, is to be a bit 'wuh oh' by all this, maybe think of Makima wrapping Denji round her finger. That said, by vastly expanding the range of human ages, it's definitely poking pretty hard at our intuitions about what's 'appropriate'. The vibes are like... the students are constantly referred to as 'the kids' by the hundreds-year-old wizards. I don't think we're told Su's current age, but if she was 27 in this flashback, and in the present she says a 29 year old computer is close in age to her, so I would guess currently early 30s. Neferuaten's age is not stated at this point but given her position she's def a few hundred years up there.

The vibe though is that Su is infatuated with someone who has vastly more emotional maturity and experience of the world, not to mention social power over her, and that person is all too happy to encourage it.

The way Su tells it, it sounds like this fling went pretty ok for them? But I definitely feel like things are probably not gonna stay ok, given how clearly the 'inappropriate' nature of this relationship has been foregrounded!

Dark yuri is literally one of the things I'm here for, so I'm looking forward to the fireworks lmao.

Anyway, besides that, we get a bit of a sense of Neferuaten's ideology. She actually shares a lot of Su's skepticism about the viability of the whole immortality project. She makes a big point of making sure the gang get a sense of the order's culture and rituals, apparently viewing this as a chance for their project to be judged by outsiders for the first time. On a personal level, she raises the issue of if the project might be able to save only the young - whether they might be the last humans to not become immortal. Nef's attitude seems to be that she'd be good with that - something she clashes with Kam over.

Otherwise, she's kinda... world-weary, I suppose you could say. She seems to look at the firey youngsters with an attitude along the lines of 'wish I still had that'. She does love to perform to an audience, asking leading questions to set up some lesson or another.

She's a fun character, I enjoy reading her a lot.

Also she seems to have made a sapient AI in the basement! Only everyone says it's definitely not sapient - it is in some sense not agentic, it can't change its motivation, allegedly. Still, it definitely has a 'passing the Turing test' sorta vibe.

don't mention the war

Besides Nef, we get introduced to a few of the remaining members of the class, and also the masters of the Order. Of note is Bardiya, the former revolutionary. He's a very 'speak his mind without preamble' sort of character, which can land him in hot water.

So, returning to Chapter 22, we have a really juicy scene in which a dinner conversation gets very heated after Bardiya mentions his role in the war, provoking a political row with Durvasa, a member of the order. It's a really well observed social dynamics scene - the characters dancing around the topic and the way a row is almost avoided, and then it isn't - Bard's determination, Kam's brown-nosing, Su getting drawn in against her better judgement in a deeply relatable way.

Thanks to this convo, we get a sense of the events of the revolution! So, as @nightpool helpfully informed me, I actually got things a bit mixed up in my rough timeline last time. The 'gerontocrats' were not a feature of the distant-past imperial era - rather it's a figure identified as an oppressor class by a very recent movement, still within living memory for even the youngsters.

The events broadly seem to reflect something like the Paris Commune. There was a famine under the hand of a 'Meritist' city council, killing thousands, which led to a popular uprising let by a 'paritist' movement. The paritists executed a handful of people and redistributed property based primarily on age, intending to break the power of the 'gerontocrats' who had neglected the 'younger generations' by hoarding resources. The Administration overseeing the whole world alliance then cracked down hard - deploying a poison gas that, though it was intended to be nonlethal, turned out to have unexpected lethal side effects.

In the aftermath of the revolution, it seems many reforms were made - besides relaxing the rules on what magic is banned, they changed the equation of scarcity so that food could be replicated more readily? Little unclear on this part. Su mentions that the situation is different now than it was when the Alliance was built, with the material scarcity mostly gone, but clearly there was a famine in recent memory.

Anyway, there is naturally a big generational divide over this. The older generations lived through some pretty fucked-up sounding wars, called things like the 'Great Interplanar War', and in the aftermath built a political system that was supposed to secure peace. (c.f. League of Nations, UN). Although she broadly sympathises with the revolutionaries, Su seems to extends the older generation a fair bit of understanding for having built this system and fearing what would happen if it were destroyed. Though the most relativist view comes from the mouth of Neferuaten:

"I think a common problem with inter-generational communication is an inability to really convey context and scope," Neferuaten said. I noted she didn't actually convey if Kam's understanding of what her point had been was correct or not. "Someone who lived through the Interluminary Strife might tell a young person from the modern day that they have no understanding of hunger, only for the latter to stubbornly retort that they lived through that Ikaryonic famine that preluded the civil dispute… Except that one was a catastrophe that lasted decades and killed tens of millions, while the other slew less than a thousand." She sighed. "People try to relate the experiences of others to their own lives in order to contextualize their understanding of the world and how it might be bettered, but those second-hand experiences inevitably become caricatures, conveying no useful truths. It makes me wonder if human beings, both young and old, are capable of learning from history at all."

Around here is raised the question of a person's political development - the arc from a young person's anger at the state of the world and determination to tear it aside for something better, against the resignation of an older person who fears losing what is already there, however flawed. (We might note of course that there exist young conservatives and old radicals. Circumstances have a lot to do with it.)

Of course, with this whole 'gerontocrat' business at stake already, the mission of the Order hoping to achieve immortality is naturally cast in a dubious light. Fun conflict. On the one hand we have 'can immortality be achieved, and what will it cost', on the other 'who will benefit from it, if it is'! So much narrative force is obtained by politicising this, attaching it to characters with personal motivations and histories, instead of leaving it up to an abstract 'living forever good/bad'.

But it's not all political debates and shagging your teacher...

Over the course of these chapters we get a sense of what the order's been up to!

Let's talk flowers. Just prior to the meeting with Nef, Su comes across an enormous freaky plantlike thing. This turns out to be an experiment to create a being that can survive in even the most extreme environments, like the bottom of the ocean - an attempt to demonstrate that immortality is possible at least in principle. This lifeform is termed the Nittaimalaru or 'Everblossom'. It seems like a pretty good candidate for being the story's eponymous Flower - symbolically, the underwater immortality-granting plant that appears in the Epic of Gilgamesh.

It's worth noting here that 'indefinite lifespan' is actually not entirely impossible in our natural world. I was talking about this with a friend who raised some interesting points:

reading the first post i wanna bring up that while the concept of cancer is fundamental to any multicellular organism the presence of cancer as a problem is actually pretty niche. same with telomere degradation, which is a purposeful anti-cancer measurement. like pretty much all perennial plant life is capable of absolute immortality. while the lobster grows forever until it can no longer use its legs to push its great weight along the sand towards food, if a tree overshoots its growth it's more than happy to break off its unnecessaries, though with both of them at a certain point it's always good to have help after a while. as mammals we're very obsessed with the concept of like ending death as this sort of ultimate goal, prime directive, whatever, when that shit was deliberately turned on in the first place (assigning intent to evolution sue me), because in terms of cost benefit it gave us something in return that we as students of medicine or biology are still not fully grasping.

After a little more discussion:

@play-now-my-lord wrote:

even if humans weren't causing climate change, climactic fluctuations over centuries upend a lot of what is normal in specific areas. if the people on a farmstead in bronze age sweden lived 500 years, the methods and habits they internalized when they were young would habitually be incorrect for the conditions as they existed, the weather, the soil

other friend:

that's how most trees die in the end the root system operates as a weak parallel to the tree's neurons, with a more physiological bent than say our chemical one. patterns around balance, nutrient access, hydrology, and wind are ingrained and learned over centuries and the more regular/consistent that cycle is the more a root will grow. if a tree's roots are built around buttressing from a wind tunnel due to forest conditions and the trees around it fall for whatever reason, it has to relearn what used to be a hundred year old certainty that it needs to lean against the westerly gale every winter, etc. - this is generally a pretty brittle process altogether when it comes to the base of the plant n stuff

some caveats:

should be noted i overlooked a lot of nuance about perennial mortality, like, some plants are more used to investing into survival than others i'm thinking of like how beech bark disease doesn't affect the roots of the beech, so the trunk dies but new shoots continue to grow out and eventually catch the disease and repeat, so the plant is essentially still immortal but forced into a perpetual state of adolescence. but i think for a great number of trees if the tree falls it just goes "eh the rot consumes us all " and dies

Among mammals, we could also note the cancer resistance of the naked mole rat, which loves to defy all sorts of generalisations (also one of the only non-arthropod eusocial animals). They're not exactly immortal, living around 37 years on average, but their chance of dying at any given year is pretty much flat rather than increasing with age.

Of course, longevity and resilience are different things. Nef mentions the resilience of tardigrades as an inspiration. As far as their experiment goes, the 'everblossom' is not an entirely successful experiment, requiring twice-yearly maintenance to address an imbalance.

Given how prominently it features, and the invocation of Gilgamesh, it seems pretty damn likely that the everblossom will in fact be a key to immortality, or something like it.

Religion exists after all!

Other parts of the facility are also pretty funky. We learn that it was patterned after the old headquarters of the Order, which was destroyed when they got found out; that headquarters was built in an old church compound. What sort of thing does a church worship in this world? Actually it's kinda goffic as fuck. Makes Catholicism look downright tame. It's a polytheistic religion and the deities involved are figures like this...

In the center of the circle was a statue, about 8 feet high, and of the kind of ornate-but-formulaic design that characterized art from the Second Resurrection. It depicted a tall, skinny woman, though her two sides, left and right, were very different in nature. The left was beautiful and youthful in a generic, almost ethnicity-less way, dressed in the most delicate of silk peploi, with long and unrealistically tidy curls falling elegantly over her shoulders. Her lip was curled into a gentle half-smile, kind but slightly mysterious, teasing. Her right... Well, her right, to say the least, was very different. On that side, she appeared to be skinless, although it was hard to tell with a statue; I recalled it being a matter of hot debate among the boys in my class back in secondary school. It was possible she was simply incredibly emaciated, or that there were supposed to be growths - like scales - erupting from her flesh. Her hair was made up of hateful, eyeless wyrms, biting and hissing at each other, and her flesh, which was naked save for a tasteful rag covering one area in particular, was covered in numerous stab wounds, bleeding openly. As for her face, it was grim and wide eyed. Mournful and contemptful both. I recognized the figure depicted at once; I passed one of her temples whenever I went to the distribution hall to pick up groceries. This was Phui, Dying Goddess of Love Given Way To Anguish, one of the eleven deities of the now largely defunct Ysaran-Inotian Pantheon.

In the stories, Phui was the third-to-last of the gods to fall during the end of the world, who attempted to take her own life after the death of her lover. But the breaking of the heavens had left her unable to die, meaning that no matter how she much she cut into her flesh, how much she starved herself of food and drink, reprieve would never come. Only relentless, unceasing pain, and grief for that which she had lost.

Metal album cover ass-religion, I'm into it.

The mysterious Ironworkers seem to have really drummed into the population of their new Mimikos that there was a very nice world once, and they'd better be damn sad about what happened to it. However, religion has waned in the present day, and it seems most characters are atheists of some sort.

What did happen to it, anyway? It's referred to as 'the collapse' with a lowercase c; I noticed an author's comment where the author says it's not a case of just a name for the apocalypse. A few people in the comments started speculating about false vacuum collapse. This is a physics thing. Basically, a remote possibility exists in the standard model of particle physics that the existence of matter in our universe could be in a kind of local energy minimum, but it would be possible for it to locally fall into a true minimum, creating a kind of bubble that expands at the speed of light and just deletes everything. We're pretty sure that isn't true though. If it did happen we literally would not be able to do anything... at least in a universe without FTL.

(Curiously, Su mentions special relativity at one point. With all the funky cosmology stuff I kinda wondered if special relativity is still real, but apparently it is! Electromagnetism has been mentioned as still being a thing a couple of times now, so rather than being totally absent it seems like the physics is a bit different, with an electric shock being sufficient to cause radiation poisoning.)

The fair play interlude

In between chapters 22 and 24 we get a curious little interlude called Intermission ∞ 1. The introduction presents it as something that is happening on one of the 'higher planes', translated into terms we can understand, which is grounds for it to get metafictional.

Two entities, calling themselves the Playwright and the Director, discuss the direction of the story so far before laying out the version of fair-play mystery rules this story will be operating under. They are as follows:

THE PERSPECTIVE OF THE PROTAGONIST IS ALWAYS TRUTHFUL

ALL EVENTS FOLLOW THE RULES OF CONVENTIONAL REALITY, UNLESS INDICATED OTHERWISE

ALL SYSTEMS INTRODUCED CANNOT BREAK THEIR OWN RULES AS DEFINED WITHIN THE NARRATIVE, UNLESS INDICATED OTHERWISE

I made them red because it feels like they would be red in Umineko.

Further clarifications and caveats allow that Su can withold information (for dramatic tension or whatever I guess) but she'll always tell us when she does, and an example of 'system introduced' is the magic duel sequence: the characters know accurately how magic duels work.

The two entities are performing this story for some sort of audience, and during their double-act credit themselves with control over the direction of the scenario, sometimes disagreeing. (Another one, the chorus, enters at the end.) Probably best not to think too hard about what that implies for our characters on the 'main' level of the story being 'real', it's probably just a cute bit to take the audience aside without completely breaking the fourth wall. Then again... who knows!

What this means is that my concerns about professed liar Su being an unreliable narrator are unfounded. It's still a limited POV, so Su could fail to notice things or be deceived, but she's not trying to pull one over on us.

I bring this up because...

There's been a mordah!

So, in the last chapter I read - strictly the beginning of a new arc - we find someone dead!

Well, this was kinda foreshadowed earlier. The chef disappeared, the assistant chef was knocked out by magic, and some kinda crazy time magic happened in the pantry - with the heavy implication that someone was trapped in some kinda hyperbolic time pantry for many years. At least they'd have plenty to eat..? The characters don't pick up on the implication of the tally marks and write it off as a stasis field malfunction.

So, it was natural to suspect the cook is dead. Indeed they are: Su finds a mysterious note in the book given to her by an academic at the school as a parting gift, warning her not to trust the inner council - inexplicably written two years prior and warning her to check the archive in a certain position. Investigating this, she and Kam find a secret armoury room. In there is a tunnel, and at the bottom, the cook appears to have committed suicide, leaving a suicide note vaguely implying the Order is up to some seriously sussy shit.

Of course, Kam and Su immediately suspect foul play. But they also both have ulterior motives for coming to this conference, so they agree to keep it hush-hush. This is definitely a great idea that won't get everyone killed by Beatrice... I mean uh. Whoever the murderer is.

The obvious question is, who dunnit? And why? Unfortunately, we don't really have alibis for most of the characters. Many of the inner circle haven't even shown up on screen yet. So there's a lot of people who it might have been.

More suspects! More suspects!

I haven't even mentioned several of the characters. We also have Sacnicte, steward of the house - she's an arcanist, and Su is kinda insanely horny for her aesthetically appreciative, in a way that the other characters notice and are literally like 'I don't see it'... which makes me wonder if we have a situation where someone has fucked with her perceptions. She's very down to earth and casual.

Her name is probably a reference to the Maya princess Sac Nicté, meaning 'white flower', who according to legend was involved in the migration of the Itza people from the Chichen Itza. Mind you the article I'm getting this from is kinda horrendous; the sole source is in Spanish and appears to be some random website from 2004.

Among the older generation, we have Theo's dad, Linos. He is a generally affable chap, kinda socially awkward (he's responsible for prolonging the political discussion by a botched apology) but otherwise not particularly standing out among the Order members.

Linos or Linus is another Greek name with a few referents.

The Order member who really does stand out is Anna, or in full, Amtu-hedu-anna. She's the one who's properly old, having dodged many of the 'kills people around 500' bullets of this setting, and not especially inclined to make nice. Very 'straight to the point' kinda lady. We meet her fairly briefly - Ran seems to have landed in her good books.

This one really took some digging! It seems to be based on Enheduanna, who was a Sumerian high priestess of Nanna and the oldest named author in history, credited for tablets like The Exaltation of Inanna, although it seems there's some debate over whether she definitely wrote them. Her rank in Sumerian was Entu, and I could fully believe 'amtu hedu anna' is a different transliteration of 'Entu Hedu Anna'.

As mentioned above, we're introduced to two logic engines, Sekhmet and Eshmun, built respectively by Neferuaten and (the as yet unseen) Hamilcar. Sekhmet has more biological components and wants to be a human. She wants to be human, and she's also expressed a distinct pronoun preference and gender id, which I suppose makes her trans. Eshmun is a more traditional logic engine with a lot of cogs; Sekhmet calls him 'big brother', so I guess he gets he pronouns from that.

Sekhmet is of course named for the Egyptian lion-headed warrior/medicine goddess. Eshmun is a Phoenician god of healing. Hamilcar was a name used by a number of Carthaginians, mostly generals.

Ezekiel is another one of the student gang. We haven't seen much of him yet, so I don't have a lot to say about him. Abrahamic prophet.

Balthazar is a student from another school - another thanatomancer in fact. He's something like the protégé of Zeno, and his presence is Zeno's condition for having this whole affair go ahead. He's got the same eyes as Ophelia, and Zeno failing to do his paperwork and allowing to happen is a big deal. But Zeno's kind of a bigshot so it might not come to anything. Anyway, Su is kind of suspicious towards Balthazar, but he takes it all in good humour.

Balthazar was one of the three magi in Christian mythology. There were a few Zenos, but the best known is surely Zeno of Elea, who came up with his famous "we need to invent calculus to solve this" paradoxes around infinite sums.

Yantho is a member of the Order staff, who was cooking when whoever did shenanigans in the kitchen... did shenanigans in the kitchen. His roast was ruined, but sadly he was too unconscious to order fast food and pass it off as his cooking. He can't speak and communicates by writing on his tablet.

The name crops up as an obscure Maya deity, part of a trio of brothers with Usukun and Uyitzin, but I can't find any source that seems particularly definitive.

Samium is an old egomancer, whose presence is a secret that only Su and Ran are in on. Su wants to speak to him, for reasons that are probably to do with finding out if he can restore 'original!Su' into her body, or maybe resurrecting her grandfather, or something?

...is that everyone? I think that's everyone. At some point I probably need to make an Umineko-style character screen lol.

can we solve anything yet?

Since this chapter is the beginning of the arc, I suspect there's more info to divulge before we can think about trying to solve this one. And, given the Umineko inspo, the problem to solve probably isn't simply 'whodunnit' but something more fundamental to the nature of this world.

Still, it seems all but spelled out explicitly that current!Su failed to properly assimilate into her body after she became an arcanist. Her grandfather's final 'kindness' is less clear. Her intentions with Samium... I've mentioned the obvious theories about already. She's mega guilty about overwriting this poor girl and has decided the only course of action is to try and restore the mind that inhabited her body originally. But I don't think we have the whole picture just yet, because I still can't figure out what her granddad did.

Given her discussion of 'dragon' vs 'phoenix' resurrection, and of how her meeting with Samium might change the order, I also theorised - before I really twigged the arcanist thing - that she was here to resurrect her grandfather in her own body. Body-hopping is like, the classic immortality strat after all. But... I'm less convinced of that one now? It doesn't seem like Su particularly liked the old man, she definitely doesn't want to follow in his footsteps, and 'saw him die unexpectedly during the revolution' does not seem like it would inspire the same sort of guilt.

Still, he surely did something to her, she's definitely cryptically alluded to that enough times.

Besides that?

Obviously really digging this story! Honestly, this one rules. It helps that the author is clearly into a lot of the same shit I am. All the long discussions and beat by beat narration could potentially feel a little dry, but honestly, I'm pretty hooked, it's definitely pulling me forwards. It's a fascinating, conflict-rich setting, that raises all sorts of interesting concepts. It's confident in knowing what it wants to be. Umineko is a hell of a tough act to follow, but this one has a distinct identity of its own. Can't wait to see what happens now the mystery seems to be about to kick off for real.

With that in mind, I'm sure it won't be long until the next one of these. I may have to dial back the detail a bit, this is kinda having a bad effect on my work right now. There's just so many fascinating corners to follow up ^^'

Anyway, I realise these posts are kinda massive for tumblr, so I'm gonna start copying them over to canmom.art soon. <See you next time>.