#but there are Plans and sketches so I think I should have a new chapter by next week

[otaku553]

Sorry for the unexpectedly long hiatus! I’m working on it

[sy-on-boy]

(Potentially) new information from the Spy x Family exhibit book!

Okay, I’ve done some digging around and not gonna lie, some information in there has me excited. I can’t read Japanese so I took photos and put them through translate, so it’s not the most accurate, and please take this post with a grain of salt. Here we go!

Translations are more than welcome! Feel free to use these photos and feel free to DM me for clearer photos. I would also love to know what this all means haha. Japanese “raw” text is taken from Google translate and may be inaccurate to what is actually shown in the photos.

✩ The SxF world apparently has no Christmas!

I’ve heard claims of it, and here’s a picture I took.

“遠藤達哉先生 コメント

こちらは冬の休載イラスト です。 電飾一個一個を北斗 神拳ばりに連打して描きま した。 クリスマスっぽい雰 囲気を出していますが、 『SPY×FAMILY』の世界に クリスマスはありません。”

Google translate tells me that there’s no Christmas in the SxF world but he tried to create a Christmas-like atmosphere? Not sure but it would align with other people’s claims.

✩ Yuri apparently had a girlfriend in a rough draft!

This is Endo’s handwriting so the machine can’t recognise the words easily, but I think the woman in the bottom of Yuri’s sheet is his “girlfriend”? And Google translate tells me she’s Yuri’s “weakness” and Twilight might use her against Yuri / take advantage of the girlfriend? This is a very interesting idea that didn’t get used in canon (yet?). I think in canon, Yuri is popular but he’s too devoted to his sister. A new significant other of a prominent character would shake things up. Especially when it comes to Yuri, a member of the SSS.

By the way, Yuri’s potential designs are kind of cool. I like the ponytail.

✩ Apparently “Oscar” was one of Twilight’s potential names! + Early Twilight designs

I think we know Yor was originally short for Yorlanda (this is in the upper sheet). There’s a whole list of names beside Twilight and the name Oscar オスカー appeared frequently. There are also more names that I can’t decipher.

✩ Designs of some potential WISE agents! (And early Fiona)

Fiona’s sheet (next to Yuri’s) was titled “WISE spy (female)” and now we have a sheet titled “WISE spy (male)”. Was Fiona a placeholder spy that made it to the main cast? Or will this “male spy” end up having significance too? The two smaller heads at the left are apparently Twilight’s associates. Also, a Melinda sketch. Not gonna lie, the male spy feels kinda cute. Hope he’s not completely scrapped.

✩ Endo’s interview!

I feel like I should put this earlier but I was distracted with the Christmas / Yuri’s potential girlfriend thing. This is at the very end of the book. Apparently Endo was influenced by the invasion of Ukraine in 2022. This interview was apparently taken in March 2023. I think it’s fairly important so I’ll wait for a proper translation before saying anything else.

✩ Comments on Donovan, Melinda, Redacted, and Sylvia!

These two pages are together and I found it significant because Endo discusses the SxF themes. (My notes are not direct translations.) Apparently:

Sylvia’s scene in Mission 20 is Endo’s favourite scene, and he was looking at materials related to war for a long time and wondered if he could make use of it. [JP below]

とてもお気に入りのシーンです。 「SPY×FAMILY」の連載とは関係無し 昔から戦争に関する資料は色々見て いたので、多少はこの作品にも活かせ ているのかなーと。

Donovan’s statement of “in the end, people will never understand each other” (rough paraphrase) is the theme of the work. And Endo wanted to create a feeling of Donovan being the final boss. He didn’t plan on arranging it from the beginning, but he thinks the Desmonds are a good contrast to the Forgers. (Does this mean the Forgers think people will understand each other?) [JP below]

作品のテーマでもあるセリフ ですね。 少しでもドノバンの ラスボス感を醸し出せればい いなーと思いながら描きまし た。最初から意図して配置し たわけではないですが、デス モンド家はフォージャーと 良い対比になっているのかな と思います

The chapters on Twilight’s past coincided with the anime so Endo thought it was a good idea to explore Twilight’s past. [JP below]

アニメが始まるタイミングな のもあって、黄昏〉という人 物を掘り下げる良い機会かな と思い過去編を入れました。 あまり重たくなりすぎないよ うに、でも伝えたいことは最低限伝えられるように、自分 なりにバランスを取って描い たつもりです。

Melinda is described as “friendly” (?) even though she is dignified. A positive description of Melinda… interesting. What’s also interesting is that after she learns that Yor is the mother of the child who got into a fight with Damian, she “shows interest”. Melinda, what do you want with Anya? [JP below]

ダミアンの母で、東国元首相夫人。気品に溢れつ つも、気さくな性格。 ヨルが息子と喧嘩したアー ニャの母親と知り、興味を示している。

I personally think these two pages contain hints about the mystery of the featured characters and would love to know what it means :D

✩ Early Yor and Bond!

There’s a lot more Yor but again the image limit is constricting me. I really like the Bond designs, they’re funny and he’s just a chonky little boi :)

✩ Comments on the panel of Twilight’s head in Yor’s lap!

“珍しいイチャイチャシーンです。 ヨルさん は一年中酔っ払ってればいいのに”

Which apparently means: “a rare flirting (?) scene, I wish Yor was drunk all year long”

?!??! Twiyor?!! Hello!! I cannot resist mentioning this one, this is one of my favourite Twiyor / SxF scenes. Are we gonna get more drunk Yor? More Twiyor? More flirting? I’m excited now.

I’ve reached the image limit, so here’s all for this post for now! Translations are totally welcome and again I would love to know what this all means. I’m sorry if I accidentally said misleading information, so please tell me so I can correct it. Once again, don’t take my words as complete fact. The Yuri girlfriend thing is really surprising to me haha.

[ohcorny]

hey corny. so i always see people recommending to outline their story before starting it, but could you talk a little bit more about what that means? what is an outline and how do you structure one? how long are the ones you write, depending on the project? do you focus on plot beats or feelings? how specific do you get? can u recommend any readings for learning more?

up front i don't have any resources for this, only experience. and outlines feel like one of those things where it's like... there are a million ways to do it and the way that works for me might not work for you. i have a friend who writes out all his ideas on index cards and that, for me, is insane. but he's also a better writer than me so who can say what is right or wrong.

anyway an outline is essentially a sketch but for a story. you go through the whole thing, start to finish, and figure out what goes where and what happens when. the idea is that this is the stage where you work out all the big picture stuff and make sure it all fits together, now, and not after you've drawn twenty pages and suddenly go "wait shit that doesn't work" and have to do it over. it is much easier to delete and rewrite a paragraph than to redraw several pages.

doing anything more, ie including dialogue or feelings, depends entirely on how useful that information is to you at that point in the process and whether the purpose of the outline is for your own guidance, or so somebody else can tell what you're trying to achieve.

this got really long with multiple examples

here is an excerpt from the original outline i used to pitch Hunger's Bite to publishers. this one had to be polished to a professional standard, because somebody else was going to read it and decide whether they wanted to give me thousands of dollars to tell this story. (also several of the details are no longer accurate. for instance it now takes place 9 years earlier lmao)

this paragraph represents the first eight pages of the book. the final book is 264 pages long, and the outline was 12 pages of paragraphs as dense as this one.

it establishes where we are, who's there, and what they're doing. i describe their conversation, but i don't commit to the dialogue. i will occasionally include snippets of literal dialogue, but usually only if it's Important Dialogue, or i just don't want to forget a good idea i had while outlining. it's not expected at this step.

an outline written as part of a pitch to a publisher should tell the whole story, with all the important details, and leave nothing ambiguous. they need to know the tone, shape, and the arcs. no secrets! all the spoilers. outlines for yourself should do this too, but outlines for others need to be as clear about your vision as possible. again, an outline like this exists for the purpose of getting you paid thousands of dollars. you should write it like that.

in comparison, here's an excerpt from the outline i wrote for revisions to my WIP prose novel, so i could show it to my agent (who already read the draft) to be like "do these changes sound good?" i'm not selling it to anyone yet, just making a guide so i can have a conversation about it. so it doesn't need to be neat, it just needs to be functional and clear. the first chapter was entirely new stuff. the second bit was just writing down what was already in the chapter that existed.

i have historically been very bad at outlining things when i don't think i "need" to, and only wrote this one after having written like 60k words of the book without any overall plan. i gave what i had to my agent for feedback and then sat down and figured out how i could apply it. it's made the whole revisions process significantly less daunting. now i have a checklist for things i need to do! this one was a paragraph or two for each chapter, with the ones that needed a lot of rewriting given a bit more detail.

lastly, here's a bit of the outline for the first roger crenshaw book. i was the only person who had to see this, and since the story was planned to be very short i didn't have to worry about a whole lot. as long as i knew what was supposed to go where, it would work. honestly it's not a whole lot different from the previous example.

this one was like five paragraphs and it did the job, and this story was like 15k words. you only need as much or as little as will actually help you on the page.

basically if you take nothing else from this, it's that there are multiple ways to write an outline, that it does not need to be perfect if you're doing it for yourself, and that it only needs what you think is important (unless it is for other people. then it should have everything). and also it's a good idea to do it earlier in the project than after you've written 60k words or drawn--jesus christ i got up to 12 chapters in never satisfied? it's amazing i didn't quit sooner

[randomyuu]

so hold my hand (consign me not to darkness) [1/4]

Ah, yes. The fic that made me realise I’m in desperate need of Cursed Spirit Gojou in my ever-growing favourite GoYuu tropes.

Content Warning!

Major Character Death. Other characters are disrespectful to the corpse.

I highly suggest you read the fic first, or just the fic, since I don’t think I was properly able to adapt it into drawings. While I managed to use roughly two weeks of on-and-off planning, researching, and storyboarding, I only had a full week to finish it. You can read more of my thoughts below the comic if you’re curious.

Title: so hold my hand (consign me not to darkness)

Author: qalb_al_louz

It’s ongoing, and as of this drawing, the fic is in its third chapter. While this is (sexually) SFW, always be mindful of the tags! Please keep yourself safe and sound.

Please read from right to left, and enjoy!

You can only upload 30 images in one post, huh Damn, I gotta divide it into parts

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

Alrighty, I'll put my watered down unhinged thoughts below. No extra drawings down there if you're curious haha (unless you want to see the storyboard and the characters' full body character sheet, lemme know). You can skip the stuff underneath the Keep Reading for all parts.

This fic had me grinning from ear to ear every time I read this. The atmosphere, how it goes from POV to POV—of pure fear and panic—and the peak excitement I got when Yuuji properly meets Gojou, like brooooo 😭

Gosh I cannot emphasise how much I love this fic. I’ve always been wanting to make a whole comic out of it, especially since it was 2 chapters and it doesn’t look like the author will update it, but it just… kind of forgotten ∠( ᐛ 」∠)＿

But then the author posted a new chapter and I told myself this is a sign I should really start.

also goddamn I was so naive to think I can tackle 2 chapters as comic—no I was in fact cannot

The moment I laid my eyes on the first paragraph, things were portrayed very vividly in my mind. The panel, the angle, Gojou's head rolling down... I was like, hell yeah. Then I continued reading and I finally succumbed to my desire to draw this out.

At first I want to adapt this into a vertical format like those manhwas. However the longer I try to learn and storyboard it... I am simply not yet comfortable with it, especially for such a big project. Even the 1st storyboard starts vaguely vertical before the panels quickly crammed into that B4-B5 format lol. The first sketch estimated 69 (heh) pages for 90% of chapter 1. I said "no" for my own sanity and fully focused on the usual manga format and it was narrowed down to 60. Still a lot though, quantity and time-wise. So with a heavy heart, I can only do the majority of chapter 1 :”) I really really want to draw Sukuna talks back to Gojou—do you have any idea how good that scene was??? Gojou tried so hard to restrain himself, he’s so other I love him 😭

Due to the sheer length of this comic (I'm still in disbelief), I have limit lots of things, and that includes the drawing. If you've seen my other JJK fanarts, they are more rendered than this one. Well, this one is purely sketched with the help of the eraser to tidy up some lines. This is also the first fanart that I did purely on Photoshop, so I can control the typesets and drawings in one place. Usually, I use Photoshop for panels and typesetting and Krita for drawing.

I don't really like Photoshop's brush, but it did really well in curbing my perfectionist tendencies, so that's good.

It's also been quite a while since I draw in general (sobs) so... yeah, you might find differences, or not ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ But I hope you enjoy it nonetheless!

I know setting is important, but maaan I genuinely won't miss rereading chapter 83-93 with a heavy focus on background and character locations. I just want to read the action and dialogue😭 However continuity is really important. But my spatial intelligence is almost non-existent even GPS sometimes can't help me. All I'm saying is that if you find some silly drawing mistakes, do forgive me ∠( ᐛ 」∠)＿I only drew all this in a week because otherwise I won't have another chance to complete this.

Well, lots of things I won't miss from this project, but haha let's talk about the characters instead because holy shit what was I thinking, starting this year drawing this many characters in the same project??? I have never drawn anyone here except for Yuuji, Gojou, Nanami and Megumi. I don't think I've ever drawn older Getou before. I already forgot how to draw my boy Yuuji and I gotta draw all these people???

This is what you call making a bad decision, kids. Don't do your "drawing warmup" after months of not drawing and tackling a project of a scale way bigger than you've ever tackled before.

Thank you for reading this far! I hope you find my complaint entertaining! But make no mistake, I genuinely still love the fic. Drawing this, even with all the headaches it gave me, only makes me adore this fic even more.

Thank you very much to each one of you who follows and leaves comments and tags on my silly art—it never failed to make my day :D And I sincerely wish this one also made your day or even made your minute! I'll see you in the next part!

[merinsedai]

Dreamling Abbey

My fic for the @the-centennial-husbands-bigbang !!

No lie, guys: I decided to do this after coming out of a heart scan at the hospital on the sign up deadline. The thinking being: I could have a dicky ticker here, why not try something new? And this was perfect because if there's one thing I know about myself, it's that I need a deadline.

And so here we are.

I am MOST affronted by how hard this was?! And how bloody long it took me (mostly because I spent a lot of time staring into space or relentlessly googling 'did they have xyz in Edwardian England) All you wonderful, talented writers have made it look so easy that all that effort came as somewhat of a shock. Honestly, I am deeply saddened that the copious amount of Dreamling fic I have voraciously consumed in the past 18 months has not magically made a fantastic author out of me. Why does osmosis not work for writing?

If you read, I hope you enjoy!

(The ticker's fine, by the way. Not dicky at all.)

Art by the fabulous @lalaithquetzallicaresi Thanks for squeezing me in there, lovely! ❤

Pairing: Dream/Hob

Rating: Mature

Word Count: 50k

Warnings: Rape/Non-Con elements

Tags: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Downton Abbey Fusion, look it's Downton Abbey but Dreamling omegaverse. Sorta. If you squint, I'm not sure Julian Fellowes would approve, If you haven't seen Downton it definitely won't matter, because I've unashamedly just stolen bits and pieces and thrown the rest to the wind, Attempted Sexual Assault, Rape/Non-con Elements, Non-Consensual Kissing, Pining, period typical attitudes to gender. If you reframe gender to include alpha beta omega dynamics, omega rights paralleling the suffragette movement in England, Minor Violence, lots of vague references to classic cars, mention of unethical medical procedures, Time and Night are bad parents, Omega Dream of the Endless, Alpha Hob Gadling, Hob Gadling Loves Dream of the Endless | Morpheus, Dream of the Endless│Morpheus Needs a Hug, Unbeta'd

Read chapter 1 on ao3

Fic Summary: Lord Morpheus is the eldest child of the Earl and Countess of Endless, an ancient family hiding huge debts behind a fine name. As an omega, Morpheus cannot inherit his father's title or the family's ancestral home. His function is simple: secure a match that is both socially advantageous and financially viable, thus securing the future of the estate and the title of Earl of Endless for his offspring. The family believe that their troubles are solved when Morpheus dutifully (if reluctantly) becomes engaged to his wealthy cousin, Patrick. However, all their carefully laid plans are thrown into chaos when Patrick drowns on the ill-fated Titianic.

Now Morpheus is navigating treacherous waters of his own and discovering how tight the ties of family loyalty bind him. Will the charming and handsome Duke of Crowborough prove his saviour? Or will the wealthy yet odious Sir Roderick Burgess ensnare Morpheus in plans of his own?

Meanwhile, the family’s new chauffeur, one Robert Gadling, is muddying the waters of Morpheus’s existence even further- where is the line between a servant and a friend? Can Hob help Morpheus see that life exists beyond the confines of family and function?

Chapters below the cuts and in subsequent reblogs, should you wish to read it here on tumblr.

Chapter 1: Complications with the Great Matter.

April 1912.

The papers had been late this morning. Not that Morpheus notices their tardiness. Serious daily newspapers are the preserve of his father and since Morpheus has little interest in the society gossip that proliferated on the pages of The Daily Sketch, the only periodical he is allowed in his room, he rarely bothers to glance at it. However, the large photograph blazing across the front page is so arresting that he finds his eyes drawn to it immediately, ignoring all else on his vanity to take the paper and read.  It is bad news of course, the papers rarely print anything but.  ‘DISASTER TO TITANIC ON HER MAIDEN VOYAGE’ boldly proclaims the headline, beneath which is black and white image of the doomed liner, adjoined by one of her seemingly also doomed captain, John Smith. Morpheus’s eyebrows draw down as he reads the brief article: so many presumed dead, so few saved.  They would know people, of course. His mother knew the Astors, and they had dined with Lady Rothes only last month. Still, the privilege of first class likely meant they would be amongst the survivors. Those below decks… on their way to a better life, well they would not have been so fortunate. What a tragedy, Morpheus sighs and closes the paper. This news rather put his own woes into perspective-

The door bangs open and Desire flounces in without so much as a by your leave, as is their way. 

“Dream!” they shout without preamble, then glance at the newspaper in his hands with a slight moue of disappointment. Being the bearer of bad news is something Desire takes a measure of delight in, “Oh, you’ve seen already, Huh,” They shake their head, before bending over Morpheus to look more closely at his paper, hand gripping his shoulder. This close, the smell of the perfume Desire favours- a rich and spicy aroma deliberately chosen to overwhelm their natural omega scent- makes him wrinkle his nose and move his head away. Desire’s fingers tighten on his shoulder and they huff in amusement. They are not strictly allowed to wear perfumes but Desire goes their own way with everything.  “When Jessamy told me, I thought she must have dreamt it!” Desire continues in a low tone, meeting Morpheus’s eyes in the mirror.  “To think, we were just talking about that ship the other week. Remember how excited old Lucy Rothes was? Supposed to be unsinkable- ha!”

“Every mountain is unclimbable until they climb, so every ship is unsinkable until it sinks,” Morpheus responds neutrally, putting the paper down and shrugging Desire’s hand off to stand. Desire moves with him, smoothing their hands over the non-existent wrinkles on the shoulder of his jacket before adjusting his already meticulously placed tie pin. Morpheus endures the attention for a moment before once again moving away. He does not enjoy this close scrutiny and Desire knows it, but it is always a delight of theirs to make him feel uncomfortable.

“Hm” Desire hums then shrugs, “Come on, now you’re all sorted, lets go to breakfast. Aponoia said she saw the telegram boy come by. I want to find out if there’s any more news. Won’t it be something if someone truly important drowned? Gossip for weeks.”

***

The papers always print bad news. Of course they do. But that news is viewed through a detached lens. Shocking, of course, but not too close to home. Telegrams though- that’s different. They take that news and make it personal. 

Breakfast had proven to be a fraught affair. Their father had been away from the room when they first arrived, speaking with their mother so they were to learn, but he had soon been back and imparted the news of their family’s misfortune to his children with unusual brevity. Then he had left without saying anything further, leaving the three of them to process the news alone: the news that Patrick Endless, their wealthy cousin and Morpheus’s fiance, had been aboard the Titanic with his father, James and neither were listed among the names of the survivors. Morpheus had not felt like eating further and had removed himself back to his rooms with his siblings following uninvited (though not strictly unwanted). He had wanted to think but he also knew the danger of getting lost so deeply in his mind, so Desire’s sniping and Aponoia’s quiet presence would be… grounding. 

The stupid thing was that Patrick was not even meant to be on that cursed ship; he and his father weren’t expected in New York until May. Why? He thought Why did they go? And without saying anything? Perhaps Patrick had planned to telegram from New York- a boast and a surprise. 

“Turns out that the lure of the Titanic’s maiden voyage was too strong.” Desire says as if reading his mind, and with a hint of mischief in their golden eyes. They lounge dramatically against the doorframe whilst Morpheus stands and stares out of his window, gazing at the grounds below. It all looks so quiet, so normal. Why doesn’t he feel sad?  Desire continues, “They wanted to be part of history and now they are history.”

“Desire,” Morpheus chides half heartedly. It is a crass statement but he can’t find it in himself to react more strongly. Maybe they are looking for a reaction from him, or maybe this is now how his sibling processes strong emotions. It certainly seems in character. Aponoia has not yet spoken. She just sits unmoving, staring vacantly ahead, toying with the ring on her finger, turning it over and over. He himself feels oddly disconnected from the news. How is one meant to react upon learning that their intended had been so suddenly and shockingly killed- drowned in the icy waters of the North Atlantic, their frozen corpse not even recovered, just left to sink and rot in the sea. Dream blinks slowly, probably not like this, he thinks vaguely. He feels there should be some weeping and wailing involved at the very least. 

But there is only numbness.

***

“Uh, I detest black,” Desire flounces into the room the next morning whilst Morpheus is busy writing in his journal. He enjoys writing, it helps to order his often scattered and rebellious thoughts. 

Jessamy, the maid he shares with his siblings, has just finished fixing his hair and is busily setting his bed to rights, plumping the pillows and smoothing the coverlets.  Desire regards themself critically in Morpheus’ tall mirror, turning this way and that. Aponoia trails after them silently. She is also dressed in black and it makes her look even more wan and washed out than usual. As for Desire, their outfit may have been the requisite black, but it still looked to Morpheus to be sufficiently rakish as to raise their parents’ blood pressure. Hardly proper mourning material. “At least going into mourning won’t ruin your aesthetic, Dream dear,” Desire stretches languidly and collapses back on the just-made bed, smiling thinly. “Always a silver lining somewhere.”

“Full mourning still seems a lot for a cousin,” Morpheus replies vaguely. He tries to pay little attention to his siblings, bent over his journal and writing quickly. The habit of diary writing was born of necessity: a strategy to help quiet his mind, he’d been told, but now it is a pleasure. 

“But not for a fiance,” Aponoia’s voice is quiet. There is no accusation in her tone, only the retelling of fact.

Morpheus huffs slightly. “He was not really a fiance.”

“No? I thought that was what you call a man you’re going to marry?”

“I was only going to marry him if nothing better turned up,” he turns the page and continues writing.

“Morpheus! What a dreadful thing to say!” Desire looks simply delighted. “Poor dear Patrick was absolutely besotted with you. It was quite pathetic to witness really- your indifference and his lovelorn obsessiveness,” they shudder theatrically. “Perhaps it’s a good thing he drowned; saved him from a miserable life with you as husband.”

“You dare suggest I would have been a poor husband to him?” Morpheus demands, slamming his diary closed and rounding on his sibling. Desire shrugs insouciantly, fiddling with a diamond earring.

‘“Well you didn’t love him. Barely liked him. And he wasn’t the cleverest where you were concerned, but he would have seen it sooner or later, and hated you for it. Of course, I could wish an unhappy marriage upon you, dearest brother. But Patrick? He deserved better.”

‘Better?’ Morpheus raises his eyebrows. Desire’s words were often full of spite towards him but this was such a quick switch around from mocking Patrick to defending him. Was there something here he had never seen? Never bothered to look for, in truth. “You would have considered yourself a better prospect, my sibling? Taken what I would have discarded?” He raises his eyebrows in challenge and they glare at each other for a moment, then Desire drops their gaze.

‘Yes,’ they say softly, vulnerability etching their features momentarily. “Would that I were eldest and not… as I am. Then I would have taken him like a shot.”

They stand, shields quickly  going back up. “Well,” they sniff pointedly, looking away from Morpheus and towards the door,  “It’s not so bad I suppose. Mama says we can go into half mourning next month, then full colour by September. A shame we have to spend the summer so drab- and miss the season down in London!- but at least we’ll be ready for shooting parties in the autumn.  Come on Appy, let’s leave his lordship alone. He clearly craves solitude. To think,” they sneer, “and write in his stupid diary.” They flow out the room without a backwards glance, Aponoia dutifully trailing in their wake.

Morpheus sighs and turns back to his journal, opening it and staring at the blank page but not picking his pen back up. Desire and Patrick… not that he thought Patrick had returned any sort of affection to his younger sibling but still, had he really been so blind?

“I was so terribly sorry to hear the news, my lord,” Jessamy offers quietly into the silence of the room as she finishes adjusting his bed again. “You say these things but I know you are sad. Whatever you say.” “You are a dear,” Morpheus murmurs. “But I do not feel as badly as I should. I do not really know… what I feel.”  That is probably a bad reflection upon me, he thinks. The truth was that beyond the normal amount of grief that came with the sudden and untimely passing of an acquaintance, Dream felt nothing.  Patrick had hardly been a grand passion. They had known each other since childhood but had been thrown together through circumstance rather than any actual attraction and they had barely anything in common.  So no, he was not as sad as he should be and that was what was really making him sad.  This marriage would have been a thing of duty. Their family was old, old enough indeed to have had plenty of time to rack up considerable debts. A lack of money hidden behind a fine name. Morpheus’ marriage to Patrick would have secured the estate’s future, shored up its ailing finances and kept the title very much in the family. As an omega, Morpheus would never have been able to inherit his father’s title but his children could, if they were alphas. And now, there was no marriage, no money and a very uncertain future ahead of them. Morpheus’s one duty, his one function in society, was to secure a good match and that duty lay so heavily upon his shoulders. If only Olly had stayed- but no, there was no use in dealing in ‘if onlies’. Practicalities only, and practicalities meant marriage. And soon.

[chaoticspeedrun]

✨🎵watching, waiting, anticipating🎵✨

✨🎵like a sun about to set it's not over.. Yet🎵✨

💃✨💃✨💃✨

EEEEEEEEEEEEHHH!!!!! I'M EXCITED ᕕ(՞ᗜ՞)ᕗ!!!!

I'm using this ask to post an update! :D

These last weeks have been wild and extremely busy, I hate posting the beginning of a fic without quickly posting the rest, however for now it was necessary and I think it will be worth it!

Behold the new look of the Leo Anastasia AU!

What does it include? A light and dark theme, you can switch between them in the settings, a foldable sidebar menu that can be hidden from view with a Restart button, Save button, Settings button as well as other misc items.

This will not only make the story look better but it will also make the gameplay much easier, it took me a while to figure out however, as before I was simply using the default formatting Twine uses, but now I changed the way of coding to use Sugarcube which forces me to use CSS which, I started using for this as a complete newbie, however with the basics down the next chapter of the fic with the updated theme should come in the following days! I also plan on adding sketches/drawings through the story as I did with the Little mermaid AU as I was posting it.

Thank you guys for your excitement, it makes it so much better to work on this, I can't wait to let you guys see what I have planned!

[tbznewberry]

the boyz become human

Part 2

In a collaboration with Cyberlife, you've helped create 11 new androids to be used in the police force, but they seem to have a certain humanly soft spot for their creator.

Genre: yandere, sci-fi, futuristic, Detroit become human AU

Warnings: I'm not sure what to put to be honest, creepy behavior?

A/N: this was originally a chapter story that never got done, this is the first 3 chapters, I might post more chapters but we'll see

"Follow my hand, good job."

The nice lady in front of him holds up her fingers and he follows them with his eyes back and forth. She moves closer, picks up a small flashlight and shines in his eyes. He doesn't move. She smiles proudly and pulls back, looking at the other person in the laboratory. 

"This one has functional eyes", she says.

"Good, which one was that?" the human male says, looking at his clipboard in hand.

"The third one", she says. 

"God, I’ll never know who you mean! You should name them!”

“Me?”

“Yeah? They're your creations."

"Not really, I just planned how they were supposed to look, it was your people that built them.” She looks at the android in front of her. “Nevertheless, they don't need any. They aren't going to be household androids."

"But we have eleven of them, it'd be easier to get their names. I know everyone will mix them up calling them the first, the second and whatever." He points at the android in front of the woman. "Start with him. Was he the third?"

She nods and turns to the android, frowning. "I'll name him Younghoon." 

"Alright, and the others?"

She gives them all a name each, saying that she’s picking the first that comes to mind.

“You haven’t told me what they’ll be used for”, the woman says. “Why have I helped Cyberlife build them? I know that they’re meant for something special since you don’t use the normal models. You’re making brand new ones. If they’re not going to be household androids … then what are they going to do?”  

“They’ll be used by the police. We already have interrogation and detective androids, but these ones are different.” The man breaks out into a smile. “They can fight … they can manipulate … they can seduce, they’re quicker than any other android, they charge quickly, they have scanners to read humans feelings … and they’re perfect with children! They’ll be perfect in the police force. They’ll be amazing!”

The woman in front of Younghoon nods. He follows her motions with his eyes, studying her.

“That does sound amazing”, she says thoughtfully. “It explains a lot about why you needed them to be handsome. You can’t seduce a criminal with ugly androids, can you?”

The man chuckles. “No. You can’t. Thank you for being such a good designer.”

“Thank you for bringing my sketches to life …” She looks at the android sitting in front of her up and down with proud eyes, “... they’re remarkable.”

“We’re so happy you like them. Cyberlife will send you a check.”

“I know. I could use some money. How much for each android?”

“Around $250 000.”

“Oh shit.”

The man laughs again. Y/N lifts her eyebrows amusingly. 

“You don’t even know how much money you’ll get for the job?” he asks. “And still you took it?”

The woman smiles shyly. “Of course, this job would look great on my resume in the future. Who wouldn’t want to work for Cyberlife?”

The man smiles and shakes his head, walking over to the window. 

“Y/N”, the man says. “We should start the next test. It’s getting late and I think you need to go home soon.”

Y/N nods and stands up. 

“What’s the next test?” she asks. 

“Physical test”, the man says, looking through his list. “Strength, speed, reflexes and so on.”

Y/N looks at the androids. 

“Stand up”, she says. 

They all stand up at the same time and wait for their next instruction. They’re different heights with different hair colors and different facial features. But they all wear the same outfit — a gray suit with their serial number, a white shirt and some glowing parts. Y/N notices how Eric’s dark blue-gray hair is falling over his eyes and gently pushes it up again. She gives him a smile. 

"Thank you", he says.

Y/N looks at the man behind her in surprise.

"Who programmed him to say that?" she asks. "I thought they were only programmed to answer when you speak to them?"

"If you give them something or do something for them, they'll thank you", the man says.

"How polite."

She looks at Eric again, placing her hand on his cheek. He can feel her warmth. It’s not artificial, it’s not produced or charged — it’s human.

"It's almost scary how human they feel and look", she says. "If I didn't see the emotion indicator on his temple, I'd think he was a human in an android's suit. His skin is so soft."

"Yeah, we made them warm for the victims sake", the man says. "They're supposed to comfort victims in any situation and if they don't feel warm and human, it might make the situation worse." The main smirks slightly. "We've made sure their hugs are as comforting and welcoming as possible. We made this survey of what type of hugs are the best and gave them all the most voted ones. Smart, right?"

Y/N smiles mischievously. 

"You want to try it out, don't you?" the man asks, raising an eyebrow.

"Maybe", she giggles. "I created them, I should get to test their abilities out."

"Then what are you waiting for? Just choose one."

Y/N looks at the row of androids, visibly thinking. She walks over to Jaehyun.

"Do I give him a command or …?" she asks.

"No, he knows that you want a hug, he can scan you. He'll choose what type of hug he'll give you."

"Right, sorry. They're so advanced I forget everything."

The android opens his arms and she walks right into the embrace. He closes his arms around her tightly. Her warmth is flowing from under her white shirt. 

"They have three different types of embraces", the man says. "Loving, comforting and protecting."

"What's the difference?"

"Well, a loving one is when there's nothing wrong. We call it 'the everyday hug'. Then there's the comforting feeling of a tighter but more sentimental hug for when the victims are crying or scared. And the last one, is the one he's doing right now … weirdly enough."

"The protective hold?"

"Yeah … it only occurs when the victim is in danger … but you're not. The protective embrace is a tight, firm hug that isn't supposed to be easy to get out of. If the victim is in danger, then it shouldn't be easy to get out of." The man looks through his papers. "Weird, we've tested it before with different men, women and children, they haven't given the protective hug to any of them."

Y/N taps the android on his arm. He looks down at her hand. It'd be so easy to break, so important to protect.

"Let me go", she says.

Jaehyun opens his arms and she leaves. The warmth lingers on his hands.

“Let’s start with the real test.”

Kevin follows Y/N with his eyes. She’s walking to the other side of the room to collect something. She picks up a red, little ball in her hand, bouncing it on the hard floor a couple of times. 

“Now throw it”, the man says. “At any of them.”

“What if I hurt them?” she wonders hesitantly. 

“They’re androids, they won’t feel it.”

“Well … what if I break them instead?”

“They’re equipped with quick reflexes, don’t worry.”

Y/N looks at the androids with a concerned gaze in her eyes. They can scan her, see how nervous she feels. It’s almost enough to make them ask how she’s feeling to see if she needs to be protected. She throws the ball at them. Chanhee catches it before it hits any of them. 

“Woah”, she gasps in shock. “Those are really quick reflexes.” 

Chanhee holds out the ball to her. She takes it gently and backs away to throw again. Sangyeon catches it this time and gives it back.

“I’m so scared to damage them”, the woman says, throwing an uncertain gaze in their direction. “They’re so advanced and so many people have been working on them. I’d feel horrible if I broke them.”

“You won’t”, the human male says. “They’re built for that.”

She throws the ball a few more times before moving onto the next test. Strength. The man places out boxing bags with a strength meter. One by one, they’re allowed to punch it, scoring higher than anyone has done before. 

“Shit, one blow to my head and it’ll fall off”, she whispers. “They can seriously hurt someone.”

“They can, but they won’t if it isn’t necessary”, the man says. “They’re more for protecting people than hurting them. Y/N, would you want to be the guinea pig for that?”

“For what?”

“I’ll slap your wrist and we’ll see how they react. If I’m correct, they’ll go into protection mode.”

The woman nods. The human male rolls up her sleeve on her left arm and hits her wrist fast and hard with two fingers. A ‘swoosh’ along with a ‘snitch’ echoes throughout the room. She whimpers and backs away. The first one to reach her is Haknyeon, pulling her back from the male in the room as the others form a barricade between her and the man. Haknyeon embraces her in that tight hug again. He hides her face down into his shoulder. 

“If I were to put up a fight now, they’d attack”, the man says. “But I won’t.”

Changmin turns around and lifts up Y/N’s arm in his hands to examine it. There’s nothing to see, but he can’t help but keep holding her arm.

“Are you okay?” he asks.

“Yes, yes, I’m okay”, she answers. “You can stop now. Everything is okay.”

The eleven androids listen, going back to their positions. All but one. 

“Haknyeon, you can let Y/N go now”, the man says. 

“She’s not safe yet”, Haknyeon answers.

“Yes, I’m safe”, Y/N says, tapping his arm. “You can let me go now.”

“You’re not safe.”

“Is this a malfunction?” 

The man frowns. “I’m not sure. What would you be in danger of?”

“You”, Haknyeon answers. 

“No, he’s not a threat”, Y/N reassures him. “I’m okay, he’s not dangerous, it was all a test. Haknyeon, please, let me go.”

The eleven androids scan her and grow cautious again. She’s afraid. They go into protective mode once more. 

“I don’t think you thought this through”, Y/N whispers, eyes on the male that caused this situation. 

“Guys, it’s okay, it was just a test.” 

She places her hand over Haknyeon’s. He looks down at her hand, feeling the warmth ooze from it. Should he let her go? He can detect her fear, but she promises that she’s alright. This kind of morality isn’t programmed for him. He senses fear, he can’t let her go until she’s not afraid anymore. 

“Well, since this isn’t working …”, she starts mumbling before trying to break free from Haknyeon’s arms. 

He doesn’t budge. Instead, his grip grows tighter. He can’t let her go. She’s in danger, she can’t leave his arms. 

“Fucking dammit!” she mutters, giving up. “What do I do?” 

“I’m not sure”, the man replies, looking through the papers. 

“Maybe you should leave the room? They see you as the threat.”

The man nods and leaves the room. The eleven androids relax. Instead of looking at the guy, they turn towards the woman, having their full attention to her. 

“You’re still scared”, Jacob says. 

“I’m not afraid of the man, he’s not a threat”, she says. 

“Then what are you scared of?” Kevin asks. 

“Well … you … kind of. Just please let me go now. Scan me. I’m not scared anymore.”

She’s right.

“Let her go”, Chanhee says. 

Haknyeon does. She hurries over to the door and lets her colleague in again. 

“I think i should go”, Y/N says, grabbing her beige coat. “I don’t want that to happen again. You should check with the ones programming them. That shouldn’t happen with a real victim.”

“You’ll be here for the presentation, right?” the man asks. “You should be the one introducing them to the police.”

“I think so”, she says. “I’ll go now. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Y/N. Get home safely and sleep well.”

She thanks him, wishes him the same and leaves. The androids follow her with their eyes until she’s left the laboratory. The man turns to the androids. 

“Well, I guess that means bedtime for you”, he says, clapping his hands once. “Let’s get you charged and ready for tomorrow.”

The androids sit down on their chairs as the man walks behind them, plugging the cords into the back of their necks. Sunwoo can feel how he gets shut off, eyes falling shut, everything turning black. The last thing he sees is a picture of the woman that created them. 

——♤——

She's nervous. They can tell … both from scanning her and her walking back and forth across the floor. She's wearing a white suit that enhances all of her features. The only thing separating them and the audience is a giant, red curtain. 

"Y/N", Juyeon says. "You're stressed."

"I know", she answers quickly. "I'm about to hold a speech in front of a thousand people! They're Cyberlife workers, cops, journalists … I can't do it."

"Yes, you can", Chanhee says, taking a step forward and hugging her in the comforting manner he’s been programmed with. He can feel that it’s not enough. "Look at me."

And she does. He holds his hands on her upper arms. Everything about her is so human. Everything from how her gaze falters, hands tremble and chest rises and falls. Neither Chanhee or the others do any of that.

"Breathe in and breathe out with me", he says, doing the technique he's programmed with.

She breathes along with him until he can't detect the same level of nervousness anymore. He lets her go.

"Everything we did in the laboratory last week will be presented live on the stage", Y/N says. "You'll have to show them what you showed me and my colleague. But you can do that, I'm sure. You’re programmed to perfection.” She clears her throat. “Do any of you feel that there's something wrong with your programming or if there are any parts that are loose?"

They answer negatively.

"Good", Y/N says, fixing Younghoon’s tie. “You’ll do better than me out there. I’m jealous … you can’t feel nervous.”

“No, we can’t”, Kevin says. 

Y/N fixes her hair, but it gets stuck on one of the buttons in the suit and her shaky fingers can’t untie it. 

“Can you help me?” she asks, looking at Sangyeon. “I can’t turn my head up if I’m stuck on the button.”

He takes a smooth step forward and starts untying her hair from the button. 

“Is that okay?” he asks as the hair is loose. 

“Yes, it’s okay, thank you”, Y/N answers with a smile. “Go back to the line now before the curtain is removed. Perfection, okay?”

“Yes, ma'am”, Kevin says. 

“Don’t move from your positions. Last week shouldn’t be repeated … not here. Whatever your scanners say … I’m alright, okay?”

“Okay”, the eleven men answer. 

The woman fixes their ties, hair and blazers before brushing off her own white clothes. The red curtains pull to the side and she freezes. Sunwoo’s scanner shows that her anxiety is rising. His instinct is to walk over to her and help her, but there’s an invisible wall that prevents him from doing that. An order. Don’t move from your positions. 

“Welcome!” Y/N smiles. “On the behalf of Cyberlife, I am proud to present the coming generations of androids!”

She walks to the side of the stage to show the eleven androids. A wave of applause roars throughout the auditorium. It’s maxed to its capacity. 

Y/N talks on and on about what special features the eleven androids have that separates them from the rest of the androids Cyberlife has produced. Curious and impressed eyes wander over the androids, looking at them up and down. They can detect some lust in the audience, some are doing more than admiring them.

One by one, they show their strength, speed and communication ability. The crowd cheers for them.

"Impressive, aren't they?" Y/N smiles. "They will be working undercover, hence why their faces aren't like the other androids Cyberlife given to the police force. Connor, for an example." Y/N looks at them up and down and all they can detect is sadness although she smiles. "They'll do just fine, I'm sure of it. Thank you for listening. They will be put into work before the month is over."

The crowd applause for the last time before the red curtain separate them again. Y/N breathes out shakily and removes the headset she's been using.

"You can move now", she says.

"Why are you sad?" Jaehyun asks. 

"I'm not sad, I- …" she interrupts herself. "I guess there's no need to lie to you. You can tell. Well, I'm just a little sad because this is probably the last time we'll see each other."

The LED rings on the androids temples flashes yellow. Why aren't they going to meet? What has happened? If she's sad, does that mean something bad will happen?

"Why?" Haknyeon asks.

"My job here is done", Y/N sighs. "You'll be given to the police next week or so … and then your real life starts." 

None of the androids answer. They're trying to process the newly given information. It doesn't make sense. She created them, she can't leave them now. From the moment they opened their eyes the first time she's been there.

"I guess I'm just a little sad my work is over", she says, shrugging. "But it's been nice to meet you. I'm sure you'll do great. I'll cheer you on."

"Will you visit?" Changmin asks. "We'd appreciate it."

"I don't think so. I don't want to grow attached to you. You have work to do and it wouldn't be appropriate. You're androids … you don't have feelings … I'd just hurt myself."

Being androids, they can't understand what she's meaning. Confused, they look at her.

"What do you mean?" Kevin asks. "We can't understand emotions."

"Well … what I mean is that you're programmed to seduce and I made you handsome. Even I would fall for you and that wouldn't be good for anyone. You'd seduce me without thinking and I'd be left hoping for something that'd never be able to happen. And even if that wouldn’t happen … I’d expect too much from you and get hurt."

"We understand", Chanhee says.

Silence. 

"I'll get going now", Y/N says and picks up her bag. "Good luck with everything. Wait,  before I go, can I ask you something, Jaehyun?"

"Of course", he answers.

"When you hugged me, you held the protective hold. My coworker said that none of you had ever done that to any of the participants that tried it out. Why?"

"They weren't in any danger", Jaehyun answers.

"I wasn't either. So why?"

Jaehyun looks into her eyes, scanning her. Confusion. 

"You're our creator", he answers. "We’ll always need to protect you."

[steamberrystudio]

03/12/2023

Hey everyone! Time for the bi-weekly tumblr update for Steamberry stuffs!

Summary

Finished editing Chapter 5 (WSC)

Decided an additional chapter was needed to fix pacing/plot stuff.

Received some new BG art (WSC)

Worked on the GS lore book including adding profiles and short stories

Ramble

Okay so in my last update I was in the middle of editing chapter 5 and was nearly to the start of chapter six in editing Asher's route. I finished up chapter 5...

At that point when I was looking ahead, I started feeling like I wanted to add in a transition scene to move between Chapter 5 and Chapter 6.

As I started plotting out this scene, one of my ideas took on a life of its own and I realised that it might be better to interject a new, fleshed out story incident that would allow me to slow the pacing as well as flesh out the setting and universe a little more. This incident would also let me tie into some earlier events and connect them to something that occurs in chapter 6, also foreshadowing the chapter 6 incident.

 Ultimately, this became too much to call a "scene" and I decided to branch it off into a supplementary chapter (IE a chapter a bit shorter than the others and meant to be released along with another chapter.

That is what I've been working on since the last update.

This chapter has now served to set up multiple important things.

And is currently 17000 words long (it's going to end up closer to 25k by the end I think. There is a pretty significant story branch that happens at this point based on a specific player choice (That is or is not available based on other factors). If the choice is available and if the player makes that choice, it leads to an entirely different flow of events for a substantial portion of the chapter. That's what I'm currently working on writing.

I have it plotted out in a very detailed way and just have to write it.

Chapters with heavy branching are always a bit of a doozy to write and the WSC chapters are pretty long in general (the longest chapter is 62,000 words right now). So yeah.

Adding new content is still a part of editing I suppose. At least sometimes. I was so excited to cut 4000 words of content in chapter 5. 

Then I added 17000+ more. So.....

That sounds accurate for me. 😱

I've been having a lot of health struggles the last couple of weeks mostly related to chronic fatigue and pain. That, in addition to some really irritating "real life" stuff. But things are still moving forward.

Current word count is 440,000 words.

Regarding the GS lore book - I've been adding character profiles to a "people" section and have also been working on some of the short stories/drabbles. It's close to 300 pages at this point. 💪

Other Stuff:

As usual, I have received a completed BG and sketch, acquiring the game environments at a steady pace.

Upcoming Weeks:

This is getting into a busy time of year so I have a lot of real life distractions even apart from HEALTH. ❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹 Progress always slows a little for me during this period since we have a lot going on.

But here is the plan.

Try to finish adding the profiles to the lore book. (Noooot sure I will. There are still a lot to go and the formatting for them is tricky. And I'm alternating between adding profiles and finishing writing a few side stories I've had ideas for for a while)

Try to finish chapter 5.5 for WSC

That's all for this week. There should be on more update here before the end of the year. See you then! 💪💪

[paingoes]

Destroyer - Discourse

(Masterlist)

hello again. kind of an experimental chapter, eye strain warning for colored text.

(Content: discussion of death and war)

=======================

He could still get yelled at online, though. This was often the case. People demanded that he stop trolling all the time and would not listen when he explained he was dead serious. 

He was lucky there were a few people with nothing better to do than argue with him. He liked the one with the rose in their name.

rosencratz: because it’s against interplanetary law to kill civilians! if it was anybody but empire they would be taken to court. 

ndhakdvsnnd: so if it was legal to kill them it would be okay

rosencratz: no thats not the point! im just bringing it up as an example of what they can get away with 

ndhakdvsnnd: you said the law was corrupt though. i don’t understand

rosencratz: yes its corrupt in certain instances! but not across the board. obviously its wrong to kill people whether its legal or not

ndhakdvsnnd: why

rosencratz: why what?

ndhakdvsnnd: why is it wrong to kill people

rosencratz: ???

ndhakdvsnnd: im serious. people kill each other all the time so why is it wrong now but not wrong other times

rosencratz: its always wrong to kill people! 

ndhakdvsnnd: why

rosencratz: because it hurts them and it overrides their will. people dont want to die. its wrong for someone else to make that decision for them.

ndhakdvsnnd: why

rosencratz: because people should have a right to their own life! everyone deserves to have a chance at a safe and happy life and doing anything to violate that is wrong.

ndhakdvsnnd: who decides if its wrong or not?

rosencratz: well thats just my belief. and i think its the belief of most good people who want to live in harmony with others. you wouldnt want someone else controlling your life, would you? so you should do unto others as you would have them do to you :)

ndhakdvsnnd: okay

Delta opened a different window, pulling up the Empire portal. He looked at the projected casualties at Lemuria, then shifted directories to see the latest military reports all across the Empire. It updated about twice an hour, always some new catastrophe developing on a different front. He switched back to the forum’s private chat.

ndhakdvsnnd: so its always wrong to kill people? its never okay?

rosencratz: yeah pretty much! the only reason it would ever really be okay is to prevent the deaths of other people but even then it isnt a good thing its just a necessary evil

ndhakdvsnnd: how would you know if it prevented the deaths of other people

rosencratz: it depends!

ndhakdvsnnd: depends on what

rosencratz: i have to go to bed now but we can talk more later if youre serious. Haha im a philosophy major so im always thinking about these things. 

ndhakdvsnnd: okay i dont care

rosencratz: no need to be rude!

ndhakdvsnnd: im sorry. yes we can talk more later im afk a lot though so i will just message you when i have time.

rosencratz: okay! goodnight!

ndhakdvsnnd: gn

Delta closed out of the window, now focused entirely on the Empire portal. It let him see the sketches of plans some months in advance. He could see the projected earnings and land gains. He had to click around a little to find projected fatalities and the plans for body removal. Most of the plans didn’t involve him; he couldn’t be everywhere at once. But his callsign still came up with some regularity. He squirmed a little, his unease growing. Some impalpable feeling of dread had been gnawing at him all week. It was like he couldn’t look at it head on. He opened the forum again. There were other messages waiting for him. 

ndhakdvsnnd: what does evil mean

merrium: The opposite of good.

ndhakdvsnnd: no i know that im asking how you would define it.

merrium: I think evil is a condition or a mindset that certain people embrace. You have to repeatedly condition yourself into disregarding the experiences and emotions of other people in order to achieve your own goals. Cruelty and callousness are evil. Selfishness is evil. Ignorance and greed are evil. 

ndhakdvsnnd: okay. is that why you dont like empire?

merrium: Where do I begin? 

ndhakdvsnnd: i dont know

merrium: I won’t begin. You can see my post history, I won’t rehash all those hundreds of essays for you. But I can send you a more proper reading list if you want, little fledgling 

ndhakdvsnnd: send it to me

merrium: Link here.

ndhakdvsnnd: thank you. can i keep asking questions and you wont get mad at me

merrium: Of course! I don’t anger easily. It comes with the territory.

ndhakdvsnnd: is it bad to hurt people

merrium: Violence is a multi-faceted thing. It’s bad to hurt innocent people and it’s bad to use disproportionate force against people who can’t defend themselves. But it’s really a problem of what is considered “violence”. Empire has formed a monopoly on violence, so that its war and oppression are often codified and accepted as the default. It is not recognized for the evil it is. “Violence” however is reserved for the lower classes who have fallen out of lockstep with Empire and it is used to mark them for execution or imprisonment. Oftentimes, violence is the only correct response to repression, and so is morally excusable.

ndhakdvsnnd: so it depends 

merrium: Yes, it depends on who is doing it and why.

ndhakdvsnnd: okay thank you. do you think everyone from empire is evil.

merrium: That’s a lot of people. I wouldn’t hold ordinary citizens responsible for the crimes of their government, but they can definitely be complacent. I think everyone who works to uphold the system is evil. 

ndhakdvsnnd: what should they do 

merrium: Stop being evil.

ndhakdvsnnd: how 

merrium: Stop supporting Empire and start working to resist it. It’s not enough to be against Empire. You have to be pro-resistance. I would recommend they all throw their guns down and refuse to fight another whit for it.

ndhakdvsnnd: they would die if they did that though

merrium: Imagine how the people they killed must have felt.

Delta considered this. He closed all the windows. The screen was giving him a kind of anxiety and besides, he had to be up soon. The long nights were taking their toll. Dark circles had formed under his eyes – darker than usual. The internet made him feel very stupid and very scared, but he could never draw himself away from it easily. He thought about Lemuria. All his thoughts kept drifting back to it. He thought about the mech site and the sand dunes and the Iselin, the countless vessels and castles he had laid to waste. Each time, he’d felt the pulse of life within his grasp. If he did the math, the amount of lives he’d destroyed must have been in the early thousands. If it’s really that bad to kill, then he was definitely evil. He mulled over this as he went to sleep. Did it make any difference? Should he care?

He thought about what it would be like to die and all the times he believed he would. He didn’t like it, but his feelings had never counted for much. The value of any life eluded him. Not once had he ever been made to consider it. This would complicate things. His last thought before drifting asleep was exactly that. This would complicate things.

[lildrabbles]

Chapter 5: Getting to know each other

2007! Raph x Female! Reader

Summary: It's been a long day, but you finally get to know more about the turtle.

Warnings: swearing

A/N: sorry for not updating in a couple days! Kinda forget about it, but I just needed to add a couple more things then I was done!

You were extremely tired by the time you got home. You had to take the subway, which was as usual, full of sketch heads. You fumbled with your keys when you arrived at your apartment door. You heard a door open from down the hall, making you look up. It was your nosey neighbour, Brenda.

"Oh hello there!" She smiled happily.

You smiled to be polite. "Hello Brenda." You quickly got back to fumbling with the lock so you didn't have to talk to her.

"So have you heard the news about this Nightwatcher? I think it's just crazy!" She said, walking over right beside you.

You cringed a little. "O-oh, yeah, it is crazy.."

"Well I personally think he should just stop, I mean it's the police job to do that kind of stuff! He's just putting more people in danger!" She exclaimed.

"Mmhmm.." You nodded before finally getting the key in the hole. "Well, I gotta get going-"

"And that whole thing about the police chase last night was absurd!"

"Yeah haha, ok I gotta-"

"Oh! And that new restaurant that opened in town, you and I should totally go some time for a girl's night!"

"Yes that would be great, but I really have to get going now." You finally managed to finish a sentence.

"Oh yeah of course, of course! Have a good night, hun!" She then turned away, flipping her hair as she walked back down the hall.

You groaned quietly as you walked in your apartment, slipping your shoes off as you relocked your door. You looked around. "Raph?" You called out, half expecting no answer.

To your surprise, you heard a "Through here!" With the gruff, Manhattan accent you had already somehow gotten used to, despite it only being a day.

You walked through to the living room to find him sprawled out on the couch looking at his sais.

"You're still here?" A hint of surprise in your voice.

"You said to stay, didn't ya?" He quirked an eyebrow up.

"Well yeah, I just didn't expect you to..."

"Listen? Yeah I get told that a lot." He said before throwing his sais down on the coffee table, then sitting up, winching a little but otherwise was fine.

You walked over and sat beside him. "What did you do all day?"

Raph shrugged. "Nothing really... I uh, took a bath earlier, if you don't mind."

"No of course not!" You smiled up at him.

He smiled a little back at you, before clearing his voice and looking away. "How was work?" He asked with a gruff voice.

"Eh, tiring." You shrugged, leaning back. He nodded. Silence fell over the both of you, until you decided to break it.

"So um.. when are you planning to go back to the sewers?"

"Depends, when will Doc Y/N declare me healthy again?" He smirked a little.

You giggled. "Well, you still need to let it heal, but... I mean, if your family is worried then it must be best to go back. Do you have first aid down there?"

He nodded. "Yeah, Don has some."

You looked up at him questioningly.

"Oh, he's uh, my brother. My other one is Mikey."

"Didn't you mention something about another brother?"

"Hm?" He furrowed his brows.

"Well, last night you said 'my brother's are probably worried about them, 2 of them at least' or something like that. So do you have more than 2 other brothers?"

He chuckled. "Well, aren't you observant?" He sighed. "My other brother, he's the oldest, his name is Leo, but.. he left a while ago, and I think he aint coming back for a while. Cuz he has to be 'worthy' or some shit." He scoffed.

"Oh..." You didn't wanna pry too much cuz he seemed upset about it, so you moved on with a different question. "So are you all turtles?"

Raph nodded. "Yep. Mutated freaks. Well, I guess there's my dad, too."

"Is he a turtle too?"

"Ah... no, actually. He's not our biological father, um... he's a mutated rat. We're just a family of mutants."

Your eyes widened a little. "Oh!" You then smiled. "Tell me more!"

He grinned a little, happy to finally have someone to talk to.

You both ended up talking for hours, asking each other questions. Raph knew he could trust you. Which was weird cuz he didn't usually ever trust anyone. But there was just someone about you that... he knew he could trust with his and his family's secret.

It was starting to get dark by the time you started running out of questions to ask.

You finally sighed. "Well, you probably wanna be heading back down to the sewers, huh?"

"Eh, yeah probably.. don't wanna worry my brother's TOO much." Raph chuckled.

You stood up and smiled. "Give me a minute, I have something for you and your family."

You then walked over to your kitchen area behind the counter, grabbing a random bag along the way. You started to pack some extra food you had, and some snacks for them as well as some drinks. You then grabbed a small piece of paper, writing your name and phone number on it before sticking it in the bag with the rest of the goods.

You quickly ran to your bathroom to grab your first aid kit and grabbed some extra bandages and gauze and ran back to stick them in the bag as well, just in case they ran out. When you were finished, you handed the bag to him.

He looked dumbfounded."Uh... Y/N this is great but I can't accept this, what about you-"

"Don't worry about me silly, I can buy stuff, you can't. Just... please, take it. My numbers in there too... j-just in case of an emergency or..."

"Or?" Raph tilted his head in confusion.

"... or maybe if you ever wanted to hang out again. You seem like a nice guy, and I would love to see you again other than just the news." You giggled a little.

He blushed a little. "Uh, y-yeah, I would like that too." He smiled. Actually being referred to as a guy and not a turtle mutant freak gave him a funny but enjoyable feeling in his stomach. After he realised what was happening he cleared his voice. "Well i best get going.."

"Right! Right.." You smiled awkwardly up at him while walking him to your window.

Before he stepped out onto the fire escape, he looked back at you. "And uh... I guess I should thank you, Y/N. You saved my life."

"And you saved mine." You smiled. "Ok go, before someone gets suspicious."

He smirked before jumping out, then somehow jumping off the railing and onto the ground on his feet, stumbling a little as the hand holding the bag came up to grasp at his wound. You heard him mutter "fck!", before running off into the night and disappearing into the shadows. You worried about him, but you knew he would be fine.

[red-bat-arse]

I Got a Problem 🎸🎶🎻

AO3

Chapter One/Two

Eddie 'The Freak' Munson, famous for bringing rock to new heights with his band Hellfire, listens to everything but Country. 'King' Steve Harrington, leading light of the new generation of traditional Country artists, has a few thoughts about that.

=<+>=

Eddie made himself go into the studio, even though he felt sick to his stomach at the idea of another fruitless session. He'd just feel worse if he stayed home -he'd lay in bed all day with his brain running in circles about getting into his office and working, and he'd keep thinking about it until the sun went from risen to set and he fell back asleep, exhausted from doing fuck all.

So he pulled into the lot and grabbed his traveller thermos to keep him going until someone made him take a break for lunch, and he trudged inside, waving over at Claudia as he passed reception. She looked extra busy, on the phone and typing at the same time, so he didn't stop until the elevator brought him upstairs and he pushed into the lounge room, beelining straight for the coffee machine.

It was weirdly busy in the halls for this early. Sure they were old school at Prison Break and it was an unspoken rule that at least half of everyone's work should be done in house, but the kids usually left it to the afternoon and Wayne preferred his late nights where he could chat with Hop and the guards as long as he liked. Granted, Eddie hadn't done much but hole up in a recording booth these last few months, but he was usually pretty solid on his friends' schedules.

Then the drawl made it to his ears, and he realized one crucial point he'd failed to take into account -country artists were morning people.

"Morning, Munson," was called over, and when he glanced in their direction it was... well, he was pretty sure he knew the kid, the younger of Mama Byers' two sons. The girls looked familiar from the party last week, but otherwise he was drawing a blank.

"Uh, hey," he raised a hand, not really in the mood to socialize. His mind kept drifting back to the unfinished songs on his computer and the sound techs he kept having to put off talking to about production ideas. But he already dug his grave with Harrington, he supposed he should play nice with some of the rest of them; while the pot was filling he meandered over and glanced down at the papers scattered on the table. "Album art?"

The kid -Bill? Will? Yeah, Will -nodded, smiling shyly. "I said I'd do some sketches up for Mike's EP -uh, we got to talking at the party," he ducked his head, and Eddie pulled a nearby one over to inspect it. It kind of reminded him of his classic D&D manuals, and he guessed it'd suit the medieval imagery Mike favoured. "I'm not planning on recording anything right now, so it'll keep me busy. I really liked the painting you chose for The Wrong Road -I heard you and Grant did it yourselves?"

Another country boy who knew his work, would wonders never cease? "Yeah, Grant and I workshopped it. I'm sure I've got the sketches around if you ever wanna see them," he offered, and Will nodded quick. "And you ladies are...?"

A prim little brunette in a ruffled shirt and a blonde who would've looked like a cheerleader if she wasn't wearing an oversized flannel and one of the biggest belt buckles he'd ever seen. "Chrissy Cunningham, charmed," the blonde said with a giggle and an exaggerated accent, holding up her hand like a lady in a period drama. When Eddie went to take it she shifted smoothly into a firm handshake. "And this's Nancy Wheeler. It's real nice to be at a good label finally, thanks for putting up with the tight quarters on such short notice."

"It's no problem," Eddie stuck his hands in his pockets and shrugged, one eye on the coffee machine. He could almost feel the shadow of an idea for a chord coming on, if he could just get his joe and go. "Tiger really as shitty as they say?"

"Whatever you've heard, it was worse," Nancy said, crossing her arms. "Thank god Steve finally got to everyone. I was really to shoot my way out."

"Nancy also shoots pistol competitively," Will piped up helpfully.

"It was... restrictive," Chrissy said with the air of someone holding themselves back, especially with the way Nancy snorted derisively. "Especially to us girls. Purity rings, attending church, that sort of thing -Steve was the one who convinced us we could walk away, and hired a lawyer so we could take our work with us. Even though he-"

"We're very glad to be at Prison Break," Will interrupted, nodding up at Eddie. "Especially me and Jonathan, because Chief Hopper brought Mom in with such a good contract, we don't all have to work extra. We can just focus on the music, or my art, or anything."

"And once we're done with the new album, Hopper said we're free to record solo work. Never would've gotten that from Tiger," Nancy smiled, satisfied, and Eddie suddenly recalled she was one of the Harrington quartet. Her and the elder brother Byers and one other girl. "Is anyone on your team good with percussion?"

Eddie had exactly zero interest in discussing how percussion could work into a good old square dance, or whatever. Luckily he was saved from more talking by the shrill beep of the coffee machine, and he waved himself off with a half promise to ask if Grant was still dabbling in trumpet as of late.

As he filled the thermos up, he turned over what 'worse than you've heard' could mean. He knew he'd been lucky in both labels he'd signed with over his career, thanks to Wayne, but everyone heard the horror stories eventually.

Tiger Studios had always flown under the radar, a bigger record label on the other side of the city from Prison Break that catered exclusively to Country singers in much the same way PB used to cater to hard rock. Honestly, Eddie was a little behind the times, since even before the accident he'd been focused on the album, the tour, and helping plan Jeff's impending nuptials.

Of course, he heard the gossip the past few weeks. One artist dropping their label was rare, let alone ten at once like happened at Tiger. Harrington's lawyer must be fucking amazing to pull that shit off, although there were rumours of the execs only backing off because of some pretty hefty accusations flung their way. The kind of shit that made Eddie thank god for Wayne and Hopper whenever he thought about it too hard.

And in the middle of it all, or at the helm, was 'King' Steve Harrington, risen star of Country at large. Most of the references went over his head, but when someone was called a modern day Garth Brooks, well, that wasn't a light title to bear, even Eddie could say that. It'd be the metal equivalent of a new Ozzy Osbourne -it could happen, but increasingly unlikely as time went on. Harrington, who apparently convinced all the others to leave, and ensured they actually could -that was closing in on Dio territory if he really got away with it without a hitch.

He wasn't too sure if he actually had, though. He caught Chrissy's little slip, before Will broke in; but in the end, it wasn't any of his business. Harrington was here now, signed with them all neat and legal-like, so he'd obviously fought his own battle and come out the victor. The details would probably reach him eventually.

For now, he twisted the lid on his coffee and turned to go, grabbing a banana when his stomach twinged in protest. As he left, Mike and El came in with two more of the country club, and all four called after him their good mornings, more chipper than he was used to so early.

Eddie waved over his shoulder, already wanting to just go home and sleep. He shifted his thermos to his better hand and trudged up to his usual booth anyway. He couldn't keep the band on hiatus forever.

*

The trend continued through the next while; every time Eddie walked in, no matter what time of day or which floor he was on, the studio seemed more bustling and lively than ever before. Part of it was just that an extra ten people, and a few more security and special technicians and the like, just meant it was natural. But, grudging as he had to admit, the country club were all around just happy to have a space to work on their music and weren't shy about interacting with everyone. Even Eddie, who was probably the least approachable besides Hopper and in a perpetual bad mood besides, he found himself getting pulled into little talks with them on his brief forays into the lounge -although it was mainly Chrissy, who was the most personable of the whole lot.

It probably helped that she smoked about as much as he did, and they swapped a few tips between them to break the ice. Or, she smoked as much as he did on a good day. Lately he was tearing his hair out over his writers block more often than not, so he was smoking nearly every night when he got home, and a bit on his lunch breaks when it really got bad. That was probably why he put his foot in his mouth the way he did, about two weeks into Prison Break's new normal.

Eddie was at the tail end of a string of bad days, and not just because of the dead end of working on the album. Monday was the five year anniversary of his old man dying in jail of a heart attack, which already put him off completely. He was on pins and needles for days, irritated at the slightest reminder and getting reminded at every turn, which sucked because even the good memories were all tinged with hurt by now. Then he cut his hand open on a tin of tomatoes at home like an idiot, which was probably the worst because it meant he couldn't even write when the rare burst of inspiration hit him. He didn't need stitches, but it was a close thing.

After that, it all snowballed. He was frustrated, so he tried to work it out on his laptop -he couldn't get the lyrics to work, so he fiddled with the arrangements he'd written down -when he couldn't visualize how the sounds would mesh, he stomped down to one of the empty booths to play previous recordings back until they poured out of his ears and he was ready to scream. All that, so when lunch or his inevitable breaking point came by he was first out to the courtyard to light up and try to smoke the stress away.

Usually, at work, it was just cigarettes. Today, Eddie sucked down half a joint and the sandwich he brought from home and then went up to claim a booth.

Today, though, his usual booth was occupied. Today, he came into the observation area to see Steve Harrington and the elder brother Byers sitting inside, no sound techs or anything around, picking on their guitars and bickering back and forth about lyrics and timing for the fiddle to come in on the chorus.

And the fucking song was the stupidest thing he'd ever heard.

"I don't blame this brewski for sweatin' like it's guilty of something," Harrington sung jauntily, hamming it up for Byers, who rolled his eyes but obliged with picking out a tune. Eddie had stopped dead when he realized they were working, if you could call a song apparently about feeling bad for drinking a 12 ounce on the water work, and watched with his blood boiling as Harrington sketched out a whole song in a few minutes.

He found himself horribly jealous, not something he often had to deal with, at the ease with which it seemed to come to Harrington. Sure, it wasn't exactly fucking Mob Rules being written in there but it was leaps and bounds more than Eddie was accomplishing at the moment, and he clenched his fists as the pair inside busted up laughing at their own silly song.

Harrington even broke out a stupid, embarrassing Elvis impression for the end of one of the last choruses, which Byers suggested they leave in. Like they were completely fucking around with this in one of Prison Break's good recording rooms, completely unaware that there were other people who wanted to use it to work on serious projects. Not on three chord nonsense songs that talked about the fish not biting at the fucking lake.

Eddie didn't know how long he stood there fuming but unable to make himself interrupt, but it must have been a good while because when Byers pushed open the connecting door and saw him, his knees were sore when he unlocked them.

"Uh, hey man, didn't notice you," Byers said awkwardly, one eyebrow raised at whatever expression was on Eddie's face right now. He didn't dwell on it, just looked back at Harrington as if Eddie wasn't even there. "You good with me taking off early?"

"Yeah, man, go get Baby Byers," Harrington waved him off, flashing those pearly whites again. Bigger Byers nodded, and kind of skirted around Eddie as best he could, his guitar on his back -the door to the hall swung shut with a click, leaving him alone with Harrington.

The other man stood up and stretched, no less put together here than at the party a few weeks back. This time it was a little polo ensemble, brown and cream to match the boots again, a big blue buckle on the belt to go with the blue jeans on his ass. That ticked Eddie off too.

"What's up with you, Munson?" Harrington asked, barely glancing his way as he packed up his songbook. "Did you finally figure out your hair needs conditioner instead of twelve in one?"

"Ha. Funny," Eddie sneered, making Harrington actually look at him. He could feel the frustration from hell week bubbling over, eager for an easy target he already didn't like. "Don't you get tired of singing that shit? Brewskis, Harrington? You've got to be embarrassed."

Harrington straightened up, one hand on his belt, the other with a few loose papers held firmly in front of him. He leveled Eddie with an almost bored look, huffing once like he didn't have a care in the world, like Eddie was the weird one here.

"Beer on the lake, fish in the water, might as well put a truck and a pretty girl in there, get a bingo card," Eddie went on, even more irritated at the non-reaction. "What, not enough songs on the album about drinking already?"

"No, man, it's just a fun one," Harrington said, shoulders shrugging. "It's not that serious."

"It's a waste of time is what it is," Eddie threw up his hands, the first big movement since he'd walked in, and oh, god, ow. "You could actually sing about something important, y'know."

Finally that seemed to make Harrington twitch. "Y'know, Munson, you're being pretty judgey right now. You don't know what is or isn't important to me."

"You're gonna tell me a song about demolishing a pack of crap beer by a lake is important to you," Eddie said, stung by the reprimand, if only because Harrington was right. He was kind of losing his grip on why he was even in here, why he'd even come in today when he felt so bad. "Look me in the eyes and say that. Go on!"

Eddie half expected Harrington's expression to go steely, kind of like when he'd been interrupted by Murray at the party.

Instead, Harrington cracked a smile and shrugged again. He dropped his notebook in his messenger bag and put his hands on his hips, tilting his head to look at Eddie up and down, inspecting him.

"Does it have to be without laughing? Cause I don't think I can make it," he crossed his arms and pursed his lips, a little furrow appearing in his forehead. "Are you okay, Munson? You don't look so good."

"I'm fucking fine," Eddie grit out.

"Alright," Harrington held up his hands. "Then, no, a song about a pack of beer ain't that important. But I still think you're being harsh. I get you don't like my music, but you don't have to go out of your way to antagonize me, man."

"I'm trying to be helpful, man. I don't want you laughed off stage when you break out your cringey little Elvis bit," Fuck, why couldn't he just stop? Not everything that reminded him had to be fucking attacked, but now with Harrington actively engaging him, it was almost like he'd passed the point of no return. "If I'm thinking it, so are other people."

Harrington rolled his eyes hard. "And if everyone told me to jump off a bridge, I'd say sure, which one! Do you hear yourself, Munson? I thought rock was supposed to be all about counterculture."

"Rock is an outlet. Sorry for caring about what I put out into the world, I guess I just don't want to embarrass my fans," he'd gotten closer to Harrington at some point, and it was weird -the way his blood was pumping, he almost felt good for the first time in who knew how long. "Or my label for that matter."

Harrington cracked. "I don't put out songs to please the fans, asshole, or any fucking label. I've got fans because they like the music I make. Sure you ain't a little confused?"

"No, I've got it. You've got low standards," Eddie smirked and relished the offence written on Harrington's stupid pretty face.

"Well, at least I can still make music," he said, finally angry, and Eddie flinched back like he'd been slapped. "You're right, Munson, I'm glad to put out a hundred songs that are corny and cringey, because at least they're genuine. How long's Hellfire been on hiatus now, seven months? You ever think the reason you can't spit out a single track anymore is because you're too wound up your own ass and stuck there, you fucking prick?"

In the ringing silence after that, Eddie's mouth dropped open and he felt his face go pale. Harrington's eyes went wide and he muttered a curse under his breath, instant regret plain as day on his face.

"God, Munson, I'm sorry. I didn't mean-"

"You obviously fucking meant it," Eddie snarled, but it was weak, and his head was swimming. His hands were trembling at his sides, heat crawling up his neck at the realization he'd been an unwarranted asshole and brought this on himself. Just another shit day on the tail end of a shit week of a shit seven months. "Fuck this, I can't fucking think anymore. I'll stay out of your fucking hair, Harrington."

"No, wait, man, is something wrong-"

"I said I'm fucking fine!" Eddie stepped forward and shoved Harrington back when he looked about to come close, and didn't feel any better. In fact, when the guy only looked more concerned, he felt about ten times smaller, and his stomach lurched like he was going to be sick.

"Have fun with your goof off anthems, man. I've got actual music to work on."

He ignored anything else Harrington might have said and spun on his heel, out the door in two long strides and down the hall in five. He couldn't stand the idea of an enclosed elevator right now, so he pushed into the stairwell and thundered down the three flights to the ground floor, tunnel vision getting him out the back and into the parking lot in record time.

He was such a fucking idiot. Why did he do that? Why did he see Harrington and go completely off the rails like an absolute lunatic -it wasn't even his fault that country just -jesus christ, he must think he was crazy-

Eddie let out a strangled laugh and fumbled his keys to the ground, reaching down and grabbing them after a shaky minute. He probably shouldn't be driving.

He got into his car anyway, put the keys on the dashboard and sat there like a weirdo staring straight ahead, gripping the steering wheel tight enough to make his fingers ache.

Maybe Harrington was right.

Maybe every shitty thing he'd ever heard from a tabloid was right -that he was a fucking snob who took himself too seriously, and was only making music for the money. There were people who thought he didn't even like making music, and after seven months of this, how could Eddie refute them?

He didn't like it anymore. The thought made his teeth chatter and his brain shy away, but it was true. Ever since he woke up in the hospital and got his expected recovery time on a little note card, he'd dreaded picking up a guitar again. When he finally forced himself to, the chords didn't come easily anymore, and all he could hear was the echo of Jeff's horrified scream. He put it down and tried to write lyrics, but everything was too dark, or too confusing, or made Gareth's face pinch when he looked over the cue cards. He stopped being able to write them not long after.

He didn't like making music. Eddie gagged on nothing and curled in on himself, shivering even in the warm air. He hated making music! He was up his own ass about the album, and getting back on the horse for the fans, and writing these fucking asinine songs about pointless, serious topics that the charts would love and the magazines would rave over and-

Even if he did write it, he wouldn't be able to tour. It hit him like a brick that if he could barely pick up his guitar in the studio, how the hell was he supposed to walk back on stage after what happened? How the fuck was he supposed to play live with all those people watching him when he couldn't even play for himself?

Oh god, he'd never make another album-

Eddie jolted in his seat at that particular thought and fumbled for his keys again, getting them in the ignition with nausea rolling in his stomach. He couldn't think about that right now. Not here in his car where anyone could see -not five minutes after making a complete awful fool of himself and running away like a coward. He had to get home and get in bed and hide. He had to get somewhere safe to freak out.

He didn't remember the drive home, but he got there. Ben took one look at him and ushered him in, accompanying him into the elevator and taking his keys from him to open his door once they reached his floor. The doorman got him inside and tried to fuss, but Eddie loudly thanked him and asked him to go, so he did, reluctantly.

Eddie got to his bedroom, crawled under the covers, and curled himself into a ball.

Maybe he'd never make another record.

Maybe he'd be on hiatus for forever and let down all his fans and Hopper. He'd let down his band, and his uncle, and he'd disappoint his Momma, and he'd never make another album because-

-because he was scared of doing another live show and getting hurt again, and he couldn't write lyrics anymore because everything was wrong in his head, and he couldn't pick up a guitar anymore because his hand wasn't right anymore-

Because he didn't check. Because he fucked up just like always, just like he'd fucked up today by not walking out the minute he heard twangy guitar and let himself get reminded of his shit Dad and how he used to hurt him and-

-Eddie was just-

-he was just-

-so tired.

[naevethewizard]

WIP Whenever

Cheers, @andauril, for tagging me! WIP from Chapter 28 of The 7,007:

“You need to have an exact phrase in mind when making a wish,” Naeve said. “I know,” Astarion replied, a bit testily. And he really did — Astarion had read and reread the book that Gale had lent them when Naeve had told them about their new plans. The dire warning underneath the author’s sketch of a Wish Ring had been exceedingly detailed. “And, as I have told you, repeatedly, I’ll only be able to make a wish if we ever actually find the damn ring. Which is far from a guarantee, so let’s not get ahead of ourselves, shall we?” Naeve frowned. “I don’t think we should wait until the ring is in our hands to decide the phrasing of your wish.” That was fair — Astarion was hardly renowned for his restraint nor patience. Still, it seemed a bit optimistic to have this conversation at all. He flipped his lockpick in his hands and asked, “Even if this discussion, as well as our efforts to find the ring at all, are likely to be pointless? What are the odds that a thousands-year old ring hasn't been scavenged or destroyed yet?” “I don’t know,” Naeve answered. “But those treasure hunters certainly seemed to think that it was worth the effort. So tell me your wish.” “Fine,” Astarion grumbled. “I wish… Ugh. I wish to walk in the sun again.” “That’s a terrible wish.” “It is not,” Astarion snapped, stung. “That’s the whole bloody point—” “No, not the intent of the wish,” Naeve said, shaking her head quickly. “The intent itself is more than sound. But the phrasing of the wish could go awry. If you wish to walk in the sun again — the ring could transport you to the middle of a daylit street, and you’d be turned to ash the second you took a step. Or the ring could teleport you straight into the sun itself.” “How would that be a more straightforward interpretation of my request?” “I’m not saying that it’s a more straightforward interpretation,” Naeve huffed. “But it is possible. Wish spells are primarily meant to duplicate lesser spells — controlling the weather, or creating an earthquake, something for which a spell already exists. When someone wishes something that isn’t a normal spell, it could go horribly wrong. That’s why the Wish Committee exists. Half of it is reviewing applications — the other half is to ensure that the wish has no chance to backfire.” “It seems hideously unfair that causing an entire gods-damned earthquake is more straightforward than letting me not burn to a crisp on a summer’s day.” “Magic isn’t fair. But it loves rules.” “Funny to see how that love of rules doesn’t extend to its wizards.” She flashed him a grin. “It’s important to know the rules before you break them.”

[spaceorphan18]

WIP ASK ME GAME

I was tagged by @bitbybitwrites (thank you dear) who has a lovely header - I wish I was savvy enough with such things to have a banner for writing. <3

Anyway, here's where I am at with writing (and you guys are always welcome to come chat with me about them) but more so, an update for anyone who is interested.

WIPs I'm Actually Working On (in order of priority)

Head Over Feet - The canon divergent post-Season 5 reunion fic I always wanted to write. All of my writing got sidelined during my unfortunate excursion to Indiana last year, but now I'm back writing pretty regularly. I'm hoping to have the next chapter out maybe next week-ish. I've loved writing this one, as I've had the idea for this in one form or another for a long, long time.

In The City That We Love - Tells the story of the year leading up to what we see in the flashforward at the end of Season 6, and based on a sketch I wrote years ago for the 'last' season of the show. They're kind of individual stories tied together, and I've only written the first 'chapter' but I do plan on getting to this once I wrap Head Over Feet

The Spaces In-Between - The Following Kurt Through Cannon fic that I've been picking away at for years now. I know I'm not far, but I have an idea for this one that will follow a long with a giant rewatch and analysis of the show. I just need to get organized...

The CrossRhodes Saga - This is my mystery/noir fic where Kurt is a detective looking in on sketchy happenings at a bar run by Santana. I think I may revamp the first few chapters and start clean with it, but I really would like to get back to it once my other big things are done.

The Smut Challenge - I mean it is what it says on the tin. I feel like I should get back to this every once in a while just to keep it going. I feel like it'd be an impressive feat just to write 365 mini fics of porn.

And that's what I've got for now.

I have no new ideas, but as I was originally thinking of wrapping up my fic writing days in order to focus on some original fiction. But who knows -- I'm already thinking I'd miss writing fic if I stopped, so I'm kind of hoping I get a new big idea....

I think most of the people I know have already been tagged but please do this if you're reading it!

[ofsappho]

treehouse, chapter 2 🔞 (also available on ao3)

Dream of the Endless | Lord Morpheus x reader pregnancy fic

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A doctor’s appointment and a dream.

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i decided to prioritize putting this story up on tumblr after ao3 went down for 2 days. so here's the second chapter! i'd hate for this fic to be permanently lost

So Dream didn’t end up leaving his number. Or social media, or really any way to contact him.

You’d checked the notepad by your door, flipped through page after page on the off chance Dream hid something in the very back.

Nothing.

Except for a doodle - a hastily drawn scribble of a raven. You remember the clever little raven outside of the club the night before. Matthew. Cute.

But he was still gone without a word.

So you moped around your apartment for more than a few weeks, only leaving for groceries and whenever your friend prodded at you to leave and accompany them to a bookstore or Shakespeare in the park.

It’s been a very, very, very long time since you’d even interacted with someone with more than friendship in mind, much less gotten dicked down. A year and some months, if your memory is correct. No matter. You pull your mind away from the specifics of that.

Can anyone blame you for being hung up on someone like Dream?

He’s like your teenage Byronic hero dream on steroids. And sometimes, when you close your eyes, you feel like you’re looking in his eyes again, blazing blue fire even in your memories.

If it weren’t for the hickies lining your skin, the ache between your legs, and that little raven sketch, well. You would’ve thought you dreamed him up.

You historically don’t handle abandonment well, even though you know he did nothing wrong, and you hold no resentment. It’s not his fault you have trauma. So you keep to your room, filling the white noise in your brain with television and music and anything at all to keep yourself from thinking of him.

You’re lonely. You hadn’t realized until he’d lit up your life, just for that one night, but you’re lonely. Aimless. For some reason, that encounter with Dream reminded you of all the hopes and longings you shoved to the side in the interest of survival. Which, at the time, entailed whatever work you could get and a roof over your head. A social life was a secondary concern at best.

Well, you’ve achieved those things now.

But you still feel hollow and empty—a shell of the person you wanted to be ten years ago.

You wanted to be happy. You wanted to be surrounded by a family of your own making, one that loved you as much as you loved them.

Your friend Willow is lovely, but they have their own life, their kids. Not much room for you.

For once, you’d tasted feelings far beyond what you’d allowed yourself to feel for so long. And now, you’re not sure you can go back to an empty house and a life tinted in black and white and grey.

You keep up with your therapy appointments, and your therapist recommends you continue putting yourself out there after such an unexpected social success with your one-night stand. Maybe she’s right; perhaps you should actually just get over your issues with being a part of the world and move on with your life properly.

Unfortunately, your plans to do that today (Willow bothered you over text about some local witch faire they wanted to go to and insisted you come with and maybe make some new friends) are stalled by how shitty you feel when you wake up that morning.

Like, ‘someone hit you with a truck’ kind of feeling shitty.

You’re exhausted, which doesn’t make sense because you slept past your alarms, and your whole body aches. A migraine threatens to black out your vision when you sit up. 

You’ve been taking care of yourself on your own for long enough now that typically you can manage all the things you dislike without help; making doctor’s appointments, waiting in line at the pharmacy. Phone calls suck no matter how often you force yourself to make them.

But you can’t seem to drag yourself out of bed this time.

Thankfully, Willow is thrilled to come over and help you. They text you that it’s about time you reached out and didn’t try to take on the world alone.

When they come to pick you up, you’ve successfully showered and thrown on a clean pair of sweatpants and a random t-shirt. That’s the only thing you feel up to wearing at the moment; your stomach is bloated like it does when you PMS, and these clothes feel like wrapping yourself up in a blanket.

PMS. Hm.

Willow fills you in on their kids’ latest shenanigans, then hands you the travel mug of hot tea their wife packed for you after you’ve buckled in next to them.

You’re late. You hadn’t noticed until today - but you’re about two weeks late. You’d taken your placeholder pills on schedule, per your prescription, but the depressive episode had such a grip on you that you’d completely forgotten about your period.

While Willow waits at a stoplight, you interrupt the stream of questions about your well-being. “I’m late.”

The light turns green. You guys are about ten minutes out from the nearest urgent care that takes your (admittedly shitty) health insurance. “How late?” Willow says evenly, their calm demeanor a sharp contrast to the storm raging inside your mind.

It could be nothing—just stress combined with some sort of bug. Birth control pills mess with your cycle, to begin with; that’s why you must take the placebos.

You try not to focus on the other possibility. You don’t even want to name it - irrationally, you fear that naming that outcome will make it true.

The California sun streams through the car windows. The warmth feels nice on your face, comforting and lulling you into a daze. It’s not a super convenient time to drift off, but you’re sapped of all your strength, your fight.

Willow needs to nudge you to pull you out of your car-ride-induced trance. “Um- two weeks. I think,” You reply. Then you need to repeat yourself; an ambulance driving past with its alarms blaring had blocked out what you said.

Your friend nods without taking their eyes from the road, light catching in their dyed purple hair. “I wouldn’t be worried. We’ll see what the doctor says, okay?”

“Okay.”

You can see the parking lot from here, and Willow turns in to look for a spot. “Finish your tea. You won’t feel any better if you’re dehydrated.” Neither of you acknowledges the elephant in the room - that the nurse will almost certainly order a pregnancy test.

You drain the carafe. The peppermint and honey settle your stomach and gives you enough energy to get out of the car and face urgent care. Ugh. You despise going to the doctor.

It’s not the nurse’s fault this sucks. You feel bad that you can’t muster more enthusiasm to answer her fairly-standard questions, but the fluorescent overhead lights kick your migraine into high gear.

“When was the date of your last period?”

You explain the situation; that you’re late, but you’re on the pill, and you’ve been stressed out recently, so sometimes these things just happen.

To her credit, she has a wonderful bedside manner and doesn’t blink twice. “That’s fine. We’ll get you checked out. I’ll have to ask you to provide a urine sample for me after I’m done taking down all your information if that’s alright.”

“Yeah, I can.” You fiddle with the torn edge of the paper they’ve laid out on the exam chair to focus on your breathing. Maybe you should ask for Ibuprofen or something for your headache. But it might fuck up your blood pressure or something, and then you’d have to come back. Nope. Absolutely not.

“And I assume you’ve recently been intimate with at least one male sexual partner? Did you use any other forms of contraception, and would you like us to run a full STD panel?” She’s doing her best not to sound judgmental, and you know she isn’t, but the questions still sound rude. The nurse is doing her job, you tell yourself. She needs to pry.

You sigh. “Just the one, yeah. And we were only… intimate once. Almost four weeks ago. I haven’t done anything like that in over a year, and nothing else since. We kind of, you know, forgot about other forms of contraception? We thought the pill would be enough. And a full panel would be wonderful, thank you.” You’ve learned your lesson about letting your hormones lead you astray; if there’s ever a repeat hookup like this, which you highly doubt, you will most certainly be getting a condom involved—and negotiating the encounter beforehand.

You might have been more cautious with someone else, more level-headed, but Dream had made you wild and carefree. And desired, worthy. Seen.

It was an intoxicating combination. He’s unlike anyone you’ve known, and you’re sure you won’t meet anyone like him again.

“Alright, not a problem. Are you on any medications?”

You clear your throat before continuing. “A few. For my… mental health. Um, Lamictal, Seroquel, Prozac…”

After making her last notes on her iPad, the nurse moves to one of the cupboards to pull out a clear container. “Got it. Alright, I need you to go to the bathroom down the hall…”

And with all of those tasks done, you wait.

You can hear things happening outside the examination room. Beeping, hushed whispers, footsteps on squeaky clean linoleum. Maybe they’ve forgotten about you here. Even when you close your eyes, you can’t block out the white lights reflecting off the equally white walls, blinding you even when you try to imagine that you’re literally anywhere else.

Your stomach roils, nausea knotting up your insides. Even your joints are protesting you being outside of your bed right now. God, you feel like shit.

A tall woman walks in, cloaked in neatly-pressed scrubs. She looks friendly, too, and her demeanor takes the edge off your anxiety. “Hi there, I’m Dr. Chang, the doctor on staff today. I’ll be taking a look at you if that’s alright. I’m sorry to hear that you haven’t been feeling well.”

She checks all the things you expect her to. Her stethoscope is chilly on your skin as she listens to your heart, and it sends a shiver through you. Then she checks your throat and feels your stomach. “I agree; this does appear just to be some bloating. I recommend you try some ginger tea when you get home.”

Before she can continue, the nurse from before knocks and lets herself in, handing over a paper printout with some whispered words.

“So we just received the results of your pregnancy test, and it came back positive. Congratulations. I believe four weeks along, per the date of your last period.”

Your hands press up against your stomach. You’re pregnant. Actually pregnant. There’s nothing you can feel, not yet, but the world seems to have shifted in the blink of an eye. Everything- everything is different. “Oh.”

For a moment, you just sit there in shock, completely silent and trying to wrap your head around the news. There’s a fetus growing inside of you right now, as you think of it. Before you do anything else, you quickly shoot Willow a text and set your phone to silent, knuckles white as you clench it. Almost hard enough to break the case protector, you remind yourself. You have to be careful, especially as you can’t afford to replace it right now. So you slowly relinquish your death grip. With effort.

The doctor pauses, waiting to see if you say anything else. When she realizes you’re still listening, just unable to put together coherent words, she nods and continues. “From what I understand, you aren’t currently in a relationship with the father?”

Dream. If only that asshole had left his number like he said he would.

This is all too much, too soon. Like, fuck, you still can’t believe your suspicions were right. Maybe you manifested this or some shit. Ugh.

But you can’t linger on that any further, not when you have to figure out what to do next.

There’s no sense in raging against the inevitable. You’ll be alone in this, no matter how much you wish you weren’t. So you put him out of your mind. He’s gone. “No, no, I’m not. I have no way of getting in contact with him. So he won’t be a factor in any of this.” Practicality wins your internal struggle between what priorities should be in which order.

Whatever decision you make next will be for no one but yourself. If Dream wanted a say in it, perhaps he should’ve stuck around.

It is what it is. For now, you put him away in your head. You can revisit your spite, bitterness, and panic when you’re not in public.

“Well, alright. If that’s the case, then you have two options. You can continue with the pregnancy, in which case you need to schedule an ultrasound in a month with an obstetrician, we can provide a reference if you need one, or if you’d like, you can terminate the pregnancy.”

“Terminate?”

The doctor nods. “Yes, you are early enough in gestation that we would be able to prescribe a medical abortion if you chose to terminate the pregnancy.” Her tone remains clinical and nonjudgmental. You can tell she’ll back whatever choice you settle on. You appreciate that.

You’d always wanted a family of your own. Babies of your own. This isn’t exactly what you intended when you first made that dream years ago as a small child. You dreamed of pouring all the love you never received into someone else, someone innocent and unmarked by the world. Someone you could protect and cherish.

A little one of your own, to love you and to make you proud.

Being a young single mother is hard. And if you fuck up, you’re not the one who will pay for it. They will—your baby.

You’ve begun already to think of the fetus as your baby. Damn it.

You look up at her for the first time since the doctor told you the test results. “Thank you for giving me that option. And if I decided to go through with the pregnancy? Are the ultrasound and the OBGYN  everything?”

It will be hard. Your job is barely enough to pay rent on your shitty one-room apartment and fill your fridge, much less pay for what looks to be at least another eight months of prenatal care. Baby clothes. Toys, books. College. And you’ll have to take time off to actually have the baby.

It will be so fucking difficult.

But Dream reminded you, though unintentionally on his part, that you never wanted to be stuck like this, alone and numb inside for the rest of your life. You feel a little bit of gratitude welling up between the cracks of your fear. Perhaps you’ve been waiting your whole life for a chance like this. To finally try your hand at being happy.

You hope the baby looks like him, even if the resemblance is slight.

Dream was so beautiful. Almost inhuman. And kind. Kind to you, who needed it desperately. The baby would do a lot better with his genetics instead of yours.

Maybe you’ll try to find him. You’d hire a private investigator if you had the money, which you most certainly do not, but you want to see him again. At least to tell him about the baby. No expectations for him to be involved; you won’t be beholden to any man who doesn’t want you, but at the very least, you want to look in his eyes one more time.

He’s haunting you. It’s more than a little pathetic of you, longing for a pretty stranger. But you miss him.

“Uh, no, unfortunately, there’s a little bit more to it. If you carry the pregnancy to term, you will have to come off all the medications you have listed here. Ideally, as soon as possible - you should make an appointment with your prescriber to begin a taper.”

“All of them?” You ask hesitantly.

“Yes. All of what you have listed below can increase the risk of birth defects and complications, and the Prozac, if continued through your third trimester, can result in your baby being born with neonatal abstinence syndrome, or what is better known as neonatal withdrawal.”

You haven’t been off those medications in a year and a half. They’ve kept you stable and functional. Safe. “I see.” You don’t like the person you remember being before you started taking them. That person was a terror to others and to yourself. It’s a good balance of mood stabilizers, antipsychotics, antidepressants. You need them.

But they could hurt the baby.

Withdrawal sucks, majorly, so you’ve heard. It’s not something you want to undergo for at least another few years; when you have a better job and maybe someone else to see you through it.

But you don’t have another option if you want this child. You’ll have to do it alone, and broke, and vulnerable.

You almost start crying in the examination room, but you wipe away the tears before they fall. Good. It would be so humiliating to break down in front of this stranger.

You can’t go back to the way you were before the medication, the therapy. You wouldn’t survive that. And you have a duty to be a good mother, beyond just the mechanics of having the kid. Good mothers don’t make their children suffer for their issues.

Your mind wanders back to Dream, regardless of your efforts to put him aside. You have to keep telling yourself that you know literally nothing about him. You don’t know his last name or his favorite color. But it sure would be nice if he was here with you now.

No. This is for you.

“You don’t have to make a decision today. I just wanted to provide you with all the information you need to choose. You still have time, so let us know whatever we can do to support you. Do you have any questions?”

Your voice rings out clear and strong when you answer her. “No, no. It’s okay. I’ve made my choice. I’m going to keep the baby.”

You can do it. This is something good and pure and worth fighting for.

You promise yourself that you’ll survive this. And you don’t need him. You’ve survived worse - and while you don’t believe in any gods or spirits, you’d like to see even them try and stop you.

“Alright, if you’re sure.”

“…yes. I am.”

You leave with a referral for an obstetrician appointment in a month and an armful of different leaflets of various things the urgent care wants you to know.

You didn’t tell Willow of your decision, but they take one look at your face as you get in the car, and they know. “You’re keeping the baby.”

You shouldn’t be nervous telling them - this is your best friend, the closest thing you have to family. “Yes.”

They smile, bright and proud. “Well, I always hoped you’d make Diana and I aunties one day.”

Willow promises to be there through your pregnancy and after. But they remind you not to be so proud, to not wait for things to get dire before asking for help. “We’ve always considered you one of us, but we can’t support you if you don’t tell us you need supporting.”

And for the first time, you plan to follow through on your promise to reach out. Things are looking up, and you feel hope unfurling in you, hesitant and paper-thin.

You lock your front door behind you tightly, checking once, then twice to ensure it’s secure. You’re alone, just like before. But not truly alone anymore.

It will be some time before the baby shows up on an ultrasound, and you remember the doctor telling you that the first trimester is particularly vulnerable and miscarriages are frequent. That would ruin you. You close your eyes, and you hope against hope that the little one will make it through.

And now that you’re barefoot on your old living room carpet, all the feelings you’ve been holding down come out. You sob and scream yourself hoarse, hot tears tracking down your cheeks.

You’re not sure who you’re crying for; yourself, or your baby who won’t get to have a father, or for the possibility that even if Dream knew, he would still walk away. Or worse.

You want more than anything to tell him.

Weeping is more exhausting than it seems. After you stop sniffling so loudly, you stumble into your room and quickly peel off your clothes. The nest of blankets on your mattress seems to be the optimal place to tuck yourself into, dark and soft and warm.

Sleep drags you under fast.

Full-on dreams, like this one, are rare for you. Especially ones where you find any consciousness at all. Some people are just like that; dreamless. If you’ve ever been plagued with nightmares, you never remember them.

The world around you is grey and misty. You can feel fog dampening your skin and clinging to your hair as you turn in search of a horizon. Nothing. Just an expanse of clouded sky with no end or beginning.

For the first time since you tumbled into this vision, you notice the ground beneath you. Or maybe the ground didn’t truly exist until you realized it was there. It’s solid, bits of fresh grass and stubborn weed growing together out of dark, rich soil, their brilliant green leaves bursting with dew.

It’s been a while since you’ve seen that shade of green, so full of life that you wish you could carry it with you wherever you go. Since you moved to the city, all you see now are brown, sun-baked palm trees and dead front lawns.

You feel the urge to open your hands, and when you do, sprigs of young dandelion blossoms lie in the center of your palms. Their bright, cheery yellow blooms are surreal, stolen from an Impressionist painting and plopped right in the middle of a Realist landscape.

This is a good dream. You’d happily spend the rest of the night here curled up on the earth, cushioned by young clovers as the sweet smell of wild violets washes you clean.

Admittedly, it could be better.

“You called out for me.” You turn at the sound of his voice. Dream, in the distance. Of course.

He looks more real than anything else in this place, including you, and simultaneously out of focus. Try as you might, you can’t concentrate on him enough to see him as you would in real life. He belongs here, and you don’t.

You blink, and suddenly he stands before you in the same outfit, of course; tall and proud in the dream your mind built out of memories.

You know he’s a person just like you, but Dream barely looks human here. That’s the way dreams are about other people, you think. Always a reflection of your perception and never objective.

Here his skin is pale as bone, with what looks like the North Star itself split into two and set in the hollows of his eye sockets. Dream’s mouth remains stained red, and this isn’t the time to think about him like that, to picture biting down on his flushed mouth until you draw real blood.

But this is your dream, so if you think about it, you should be able to do as you please.

His hair remains messy. Even your sleepy mind gets that correct, and you admit he looks perfect this way. Terrifying. And perfect.

It takes you a second to decide that he most closely resembles what you think a god should look like - powerful and commanding in every facet of his being. Even the way his brow furrows when you fail to answer his question is intimidating.

You have a healthy sense of self-preservation, though you ignore it most of the time. And that instinct kicks in suddenly; people on the Internet call it ‘uncanny valley.’ Dream is strange, unknown, and those qualities make you want to turn and run. But you don’t - this is your dream painted by your mind. “Hello.”

His face is more expressive in the real world. Hell, one of those statues you compared him to would emote more than he does in your dream. “You called for me.” You can hear an odd, alien tone in his voice, an out-of-place harmony.

“You didn’t leave a number behind.”

“What is it that you want?” Dream’s mouth is a furious line that grows more menacing the longer you go without saying anything. He seems about ready to unhinge his jaw or something. It shouldn’t be hot. It shouldn’t.

It is.

Of course, the version of him that lives in your imagination jumps straight to the point.

You laugh, the sound bubbling up inside of you. It spills out, loud against the silence enveloping the two of you. With it spills all your anxiety and that animal hindbrain caution. Fuck it. “Well, since I probably won’t ever find you in the real world and I’m just talking to a figment of my subconscious, it doesn’t matter. Maybe it will feel good to tell you here, though it won’t do much. I’m fucking talking to myself.” He watches you closely like you’re a threat. “I’m pregnant.”

Shock looks so out of place on his regal countenance, usually as implacable as the deep ocean. It’s comical. “You’re…”

Now, you know he heard you the first time, but you’re in the mood to be annoying. It’s not like he can do anything about it. “Pregnant. Yeah. With a fetus. A baby. Your baby. There hasn’t been anyone else, and no one since. I know it’s yours. And you’re part of my dream, so you should know that too.” The ground below your feet rumbles, and you almost lose your footing. Thankfully, you avoid faceplanting in the grass without too much flailing. Weird. When you look around, the fog seems alive, pulsing and swirling through the air in a fury. Almost like sand.

Then everything settles as if nothing happened. “I see,” He says. And the starlight in Dream’s eyes dims until he looks precisely like he did when you first met. A human, just like you. You hold back the urge to step closer and run your fingers along the arch of his cheekbone, to inhale and fill your lungs with the salt and smoke and warmth of his scent. He’s so pretty that it seems unfair. You still want him. Maybe it was a good thing he left without a word - it would be so easy to wrap your mind, life, and heart around a man like Dream.

You don’t move closer.

All it takes is a split second for your fears to roar back to life. Your dream responds in kind, conjuring up menacing, shapeless forms. Nightmares. “I’m going to keep the baby. If I see you again, you don’t need to be involved, if you don’t want. I won’t ask for child support or anything; you could be part of our child’s life. But I’m going to keep them. I’m just afraid you’d take it badly or that you’d try to take them from me. I don’t want to fight you, but I will if I must.”

You can be realistic; you likely would lose a custody battle if he decided to fuck with you. Dream’s clothes seemed ridiculously high quality and expensive, and you remember how power trailed in his shadow where he walked. You have none of that.

But you’d give the fight your all.

Your mind gives you a break and doesn’t make you get into it with him in your sleep. Your dream stays sweet and easy as one of his hands gestures towards the shadows. The nightmares flee before you realize they’re gone. “Do you wish for me to be involved?”

You still don’t fully know your answer to that.

You want what’s best for the baby. That became your priority the moment you decided to go through with the pregnancy.

“I mean. Yeah. Probably. Again, only if you want, in whatever capacity you want. I’m not exactly set up to be a single parent. But you’re me, so you should already know that. I don’t need to explain further. I won’t force you to do anything, though. This is my choice. You can’t make me change my mind.”

In your dream, he hesitates, then looks you over. “And that is all you wish? Truly?” He asks, his resonant voice echoing in your ears, overlapped with the sound of wings fluttering and the hiss of sand in the wind.

“Uh- yeah. Yeah.”

“This dream is over.”

You wake up alone. It’s tomorrow; you must’ve slept straight through yesterday after getting back from urgent care. You can’t remember what you dreamed about. Hopefully, it was something good.

-

friendly reminder that this does also exist on ao3 if you'd like to read ahead! you can find it here.

thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy!

[theotherluxray]

May I ask you how you plan out you panels and compositions for your amazing comic pages?

Haha thank you for the compliments!

I'm not the best at this, I'm rather messy, so take my advice with a grain of salt. You'd probably get some better advice from more professional comic artists. Nevertheless, here's what I can say!

1st) I often study and reference how my favorite manga and comics do it. How to block out a page, what amount of detail to include, what needs to be the center of focus, what corners need to be cut... This comic is my first time making a comic, so studying those that did it successfully has been hugely important. My role models for this have been Hiromu Arakawa (Fullmetal Alchemist), Kentaro Muira (Berserk), and recently @do9bessa (artist who makes PMD Rescue Rangers, and recently made a really good Avatar comic). Hiromu Arakawa and FMA in particular have been good teachers for how I should lay out and pace pages.

2) Planning the flow of the panels. Personally I think I still need to work on this, but the most important thing for any page and story is pacing, and making sure each panel of a comic guides smoothly to the next panel and thus keep the readers eyes following along. Kentaro Muira does this pretty well (as does Arakawa too), but I think the best artist who did this in a "simple yet impressive" way was Akira Toriyama (Dragon Ball).

3) Thumb-nailing and Scripting! I do scripting kind of ad-hoc, but I always do thumb-nailing... even if I kinda hate it. Thumb-nailing, for those who don't know, is basically a pre-sketch of the art you wanna make but in a really tiny canvas space, typically 1x1 inch or 2.5x2.5 cm (adjust as needed to properly scale to a full page of course). Doing it this way forces me to focus more on how the page will be laid out and flow than anything else, and gives me a blue print to improve from when i actually start sketching. it's hard to draw in tiny spaces, so I need to get the most important details put down for the thumbnails to even make sense (and thus, for my pages to make sense). Scripting helps make the thumb-nailing process easier, though sometimes I combine the steps and do them at the same time.

4) Practice and f*cking up. The big one, the one that haunts all artists. You just gotta do it. You just gotta put the time in and make bad art sometimes to "git gud". Half of the first chapter of my story is kind of painful to read because of poor art and messy page layouts (not to mention how long that first chapter got). At the end of the day, this is a fancomic; who cares if the art is bad or the pages aren't well laid out at first, or even every now and then? Or if you decide you can't keep up with it due to life issues or new passions? It's very low stakes, and though I take it seriously because I want the comic to be good, it's freeing to know "I can just take a break, half ass a page sometimes, or even quit if I don't like this" because this sort of thing happens all the time with fancomics. If I was making an entirely new comic for a new IP, the stakes would be higher, because I would need to bring in trust and fight for the merit of the IP, but not so with a fancomic. It's the perfect project to practice, put out bad art sometimes, and have fun without high stakes.

tl;dr: Look at your favorite manga and how they do it, practice and use thumb-nails to plan pages, and be comfortable with fucking up or half-assing sometimes.

[lemonysnicket]

adventures in bookbinding: making the negret colophon playing card book!

it's diy girl summer and i am Bored. time to attempt a completely new craft with zero research except for like. 3 youtube videos!

so, to start off, i suppose i will ramble a wee bit about my plans/goals/reasoning. truth be told, i just really really like my blorbo who book binds and i think it would be very fun to become Just like him for real. therefore we will be embarking on a journey!! to become my blorbo and also find something crafty to do today. quick psa that this is not a real tutorial because i have absolutely zero experience, but more of a general guide and/or craft with me! let's do this in sectionssss!!

1 - the plan!!

so for my first bookbinding project we are going to do something small, starting out by being silly and taking a page (lol) out of negret colophon's book (lol....) when he makes a tiny book and uses two playing cards as the covers. this will give me a little tiny trial run so i can learn the basic skills and use easily available materials around my house!! afterwards i think i'll sketch out a more ambitious journal idea - i have lots of fabric lying around that would work perfectly to cover a cardboard cover. wow, that's wordy! so! without further ado let's begin :) negret's little bookbinding project is described in the first chapter of raconteurs in this little excerpt here.

seems simple enough!! also the absolute perfect beginner project. it is tiny and the materials consist of Literally Anything. let's get groovy!!

2. materials!!

here's what we're working with:

playing cards! i found a deck lying around in a random drawer somewhere and chances are you have one laying around too. i chose the ace of spades and diamonds, because the text specifies a pair of aces but i couldn't find a matching pair, lol. i was also very tempted to choose one of the king cards as an homage to maisie's story later on (and because the king cards are absolutely gorgeous and detailed) but we're sticking to canon right now. we'll use the other cards for a future project.

needles!! a lot of the tutorials i see use very big or thick needles but i don't have those and this is also a very small project, not a huge journal, so any can work.

thread!! use whatever color you would like! at this point i was very indecisive because i have a lot of options and they're all quite pretty colors, but i settled on red later.

an assortment of papers!! use literally whatever you have lying around. for me, i managed to dig up the one scrap of newspaper in my house, since that's specifically listed, but most of my pages were from a book i sacrificed for an old art project, magazines and flyers, a lot of which were college mail because we're at that point in my life, lol. this is a recycling sort of project. choose anything! the more variety the better :)

i didn't display these in the photo, but if you have an awl, use an awl! i do not have one so i improvised, which i'll elaborate upon later. also, scissors! to cut the pages to scale. a ruler also came in handy :)

alright, now that we have all our tools in order, it's time to get into it :)

3. creating the pages!!

our first step is to measure our playing cards! you might not have to do this step because i'm fairly certain most cards are uniform in size/make, but check just in case, lol.

my cards measured to be 2.5" wide and 3.5" tall. i am no mathematician but using my singular brain cell i deduced that the papers should be twice the width of our cover, since those will fold to be the same size. so, using my Expert calculations, i made a little template cut from an index card measuring 3.5" x 5".

now we get to cutting!! using your various materials, cut out a bunch of papers to the size of your template. i just cut around it because i could not be bothered enough to waste time tracing, lol. i didn't go in with a plan, but i cut 16 papers to this size, which ended up being perfect. here are all my pages !! look at all the colors and textures!! the fun thing about the project being so small is that you can specifically cut the pages as the most interesting photos or sections, or you can even do it at angles too. as long as it ends up the right size, anything is fair game

now, we're going to make the papers into signatures! i just learned this word today lol. essentially, we will be grouping our papers and then folding those in half to become little mini books/pages. since i had 16 papers, i made 4 signatures with 4 pages each.

at this point i was tempted to go cut up more and make a fifth signature, but i decided against it since i didn't want the book to become too thick, and 4 sets with 4 papers each ended up being just about right. one of the tutorials i watched suggested that you group your signatures with paperclips or bobby pins, and at the time i waved off the suggestion but i totally agree now. i didn't have any clips to work with and i managed fine without them, but it definitely would have been easier if i had. so if you have them, use them! it'll make your life better lol. at this point you can stack your signatures together and itll look like a book!

oh yeah now we're cooking!!

4. preparing for binding!!

it was at this point in the process where i ventured out from knowing what i was doing to completely balling, but everything turned out okay and i'll walk you through it! our next step is to create the holes with which we will sew our signatures together. we're going to mark those off. once again i have zero clue how to do math but i managed to use my giant incredible smooth brain one more time to mark my template with a few equidistant points with which we can mark our signatures.

in case it's not clear, i kind of just counted the lines and then had to look up how much that was, but you can also just eyeball it if you're good enough. side note, i added two more holes after this, with one just below the very top and one just below the very bottom.

pardon my very unsightly nails, lol - here's how i used my template to mark the very center of each of my signature. you'll want to mark the point on the center line where you folded it while keeping the pages of each signature together. HOPEFULLY WITH A PAPERCLIP. and without further ado it's time for the stabbing!

now...here's where i got a little bit sacrilegious. you'll recall that earlier i mentioned how i don't have an awl in my possession yet? well, i managed to improvise a solution...

yes that is a sewing pin. IN MY DEFENSE it's all i had, and functionally it's basically the same as an awl! just on a much smaller scale. it worked out though - i imagine that if i'd been using thicker paper it would have posed a bit of a problem but for this project specifically, it was fine. do not kill me book binders. now it's time to get serious...

5. the binding

everyone stay calm! stay calm! it will be okay. i was lowkey intimidated by this part as this was Truly out of my depth of expertise, but i promise it's not that complicated. you're going to get your needle and thread now - i settled upon this gorgeous red color because it contrasted nicely with the playing cards, and there really wasn't much red in the papers i chose.

gorgeous!! tbh i always knew i'd go with the red because i've always envisioned the book with red thread anyways. like come on look at my very first drawing of negret WITH it. literally the exact same materials. i simply had to.

okay. now to the binding part. i don't have any real photos or insights or instructions for this whole stage because 1. i was deep in focus mode and 2. entirely relied on a tutorial for this part. here's the tutorial i used - massive shoutout to this lovely lady ! my spine didn't turn out nearly as neat as hers because i did not properly follow directions for the first bunch of knots (and i had to kind of improvise with the cover) but here's how it turned out!

not too bad for my first book, lol. try not to stress out about it being perfect because this book is not supposed to be perfect! the imperfections give it character. worst case scenario, if you really mess up, your eclectic book is just a little more eclectic than intended. and that's never a crime :)

now the one problem i had to figure out on my own was how to attach the covers, since most tutorials explain how to attach actual big separate covers and not - essentially paper. i ended up just... attaching them as if they were another page or signature to the front and back. my holes on the covers were a few millimeters away from the edge, though, since there's no crease or fold to align them with. what i did was essentially do the first knots/stitching on the signature like the tutorial said, but for each hole i sewed through in the first/last signature, i also made an additional loop through the adjacent hole on the cover. you can kind of see how i passed my needle through like instructed and then took a little extra detour to stitch the card as well. in some places i ended up making new holes in the signature too that were closer to where the cards' holes lined up?? try not to do that but it worked and it looks fine so really whatever makes it attach and hold is perfect.

6. bask in your glory!!!

aaaand that's it!! you did it!! this was a ton of fun to work on and i absolutely loved making this little adventure into a new craft with something so near and dear to my heart. if you make one please be sure to tag me!! i would love love LOVE to see :) here's an additional picture of my little monster (+ next to the legend himself. art credit to me lol. look the books are twinning!!)