#liminality and liminal have red lines under them

[snek-panini]

Today I've got binderary book #3 to share! It's a lighthouse (burning) by books-and-omens. This is a really excellent canonverse (sort of) historical setting liminal ghost story-esque fic that I read practically in one sitting sometime last summer. It's fantastic, well-characterized, angsty and fluffy and fairly plotty and with some really unique worldbuilding. I honestly can't sing its praises enough; it's one of the only times since taking up this hobby that I've known I wanted to bind something before I actually finished reading it.

Have a look at the rest of the photos under the cut; this one came out really well and I'm in love with it.

For this cover we have lineco book cloth on the spine, a strip of chiyogami paper that I got in one one ChibiJay's random paper packs, and blue-gray sketch paper for the primary gray space. It's a little hard to tell in the photos but the HTV for the titles is in two different colors, silver for "a lighthouse" and pewter for "(burning)". The effect is more pronounced in person and I love it. The pewter came in a multi-pack of cricut foil HTV and I can't seem to find it on its own anywhere, which is a shame because it's beautiful. The sort of streaky effect on the cover was unintentional but I'm kinda liking it? It's a more porous paper for drawing or painting or something, and I tried to wax it for waterproofing, but when I used the heat press to get the title on the wax darkened in the spots where the glue was applied to the cover board. At first I was disappointed, but the fic features a really massive unnatural storm, and it sort of looks like water running down a windowpane, so I'm leaning into that and calling it an aesthetic. The back didn't get this heat treatment, so it doesn't have the pattern.

Top view, showing the bookmark and handmade end bands. The bookmark is a navy blue ribbon cut from the inside of a shirt, and I chose red and white because there are so many picturesque lighthouses that have red and white stripes. It's the only color in the book that's not blue or gray. The endpapers are a navy blue silk moire, and I had better luck with them than I did with the platinum ones on my Persuasion bind even though they are the same brand. Maybe it's practice or maybe navy just hides more sins than platinum.

For the title page I went fairly simple (for me anyway) with just a frame I pulled from rawpixel. It suits the story, though, being set sometime around or before the early 20th century. I also played with text colors on the title page, with some words being grayed out to mimic the effect on the cover. The section break is me getting clever with a feature of my printer. I often use a gray line to denote section breaks, but for whatever reason my printer doesn't like them and often makes them blurry. It is only these lines that come out blurry; larger images don't do this even if they are complex. So for this one, where a major feature of the story is trying to figure out what's real and what's a supernatural occurrence, I made one that was deliberately heavier in the center so it would come out sort of smoky or fuzzy, like it wasn't quite real and couldn't be clearly seen. It doesn't look this fuzzy in the unprinted file but I love the effect and I feel very clever for manipulating the printer like this.

I'm going to show off some interior shots but this bit contains spoilers for the story, so if you don't want to see that then maybe skip the rest of the post.

I wanted to get creative with my title placement since a lot of my binds look very similar inside, and this concept really let me try that out. The plot of the story is that the reason there are so many supernatural phenomena at this lighthouse is that someone in the future ran an experiment to harvest energy and accidentally cracked spacetime with it, and bits of the future and the past and the might-have-been are seeping through the cracks, and the longer the cracks exist the more seeps through them and the worse the ghostly stuff gets. At first it's not clear whether there's anything weird happening at all, and it becomes clearer that something is wrong the further in you get because the cracks are worse. So I had this idea for a vintage lighthouse illustration with an overlay of cracks in glass, that become more defined as the story progresses until something is done and they're sealed up in the end. I am not a visual artist and even this straightforward concept was too much for my skills, so I chose the lighthouse and the crack overlay and my amazing husband did the actual image manipulation. There are five different images, with the cracks invisible in the first and final chapter and most visible in chapter 10 and 11, when the characters are trying hardest to fix the problem. I'm really really proud of how well this turned out.

And that's it! I have several more binderary books to post but they are all still waiting for titles before I do the photos, so I don't know when I'll have them up.

[sentientsky]

here, have a little angelfish ficlet (ft. lots of queer yearning. also. “be gay, do crime” vibes)

It's all the same; a slow, monotonous dragging of time through liminal space. There had never been room enough for shifting tides or changing winds—no room to stretch one's wings. Because Heaven, by its very nature, is antiseptic. Pure autoclave, all pressure and steam and the absence of touch. That's part of the deal. You want to keep the wings? The halo? Well, then, you have to learn to live under the fluorescent glare of a silent god.

It's all the same, save for the slippery red heat of Michael's heart hurling itself staccato against her breastbone. In truth, it’s a heart that doesn’t really need to beat—that doesn’t need to exist at all, save for her inclination to feel the heavy weight of it writhing in her chest. In a way she doesn’t quite yet understand, she wants proof. She wants to feel her pulse, feel it move in a way that leaves a mark, bruises flesh. 

She sits with her hands folded, one pressed over top of the other. From afar, it might even look as though she’s praying (it might look as though she’s holy, still held firm in the Mother's grasp). She breathes in. Slow, tentative—as though the air might carry unspoken words out and away from her. There’s a certain chilling numbness that creeps up on you when you’ve lived this way for so long; a buzzing static that burns from the base of your skull, all the way down to the backs of your knees, your calves—the place where your feet hit the ground running (always running, always dying to get out even as you lean into the punches). It’s the feeling of living in the hollowed-out limbs of a corpse, of walking around with waxen, rotting flesh and a smile that stretches slightly too far to be genuine. 

And yet, now, for once, her body is no longer whirring—no longer silently humming with agitation or the drive to propel herself forward and up, ever up. For once, she’s still, save for the thrashing in her throat. She breathes out. She rolls words around in her mouth: flashpoint, epiphany—whispers them like a prayer spoken to no one—lightning strike, catalyst. A thread pulled so taut, it cuts to marrow. Breathe in, breathe out. Keep the pace, hold the line. Adjust to the status quo. But the status quo has never looked so unappealing. Because, she realizes, if someone had asked her to paint the slope of a silver-blue throat, or the upturned palm of a scaled hand, she could do it with her eyes closed. She could do it in complete darkness, at the edge of existence. Of this she was nearly certain.

--- It had taken place in the corridors that stretch from one end of infinity to the next; a slicing wound driven between the ribs of the universe. And it had been innocuous, really—a passing glance, at first. And then an icy nod, the turn of a jaw towards the stale light. The brush of shoulders, and the ache that bloomed in her at the touch. Time wore on, kingdoms rose and fell. The sea drew towards the shore, Michael’s eyes drew towards a too-sharp mouth. In their own fragment of purgatory made heaven made something completely new, she and Dagon exchanged rasped whispers—hushed murmurings of a revolution.

The inferno in her gut grew, consumed, devoured. Years clawed past. It's important to note that angels, as imagined in most popular religious scripture, are exceptionally good at self-restraint. And for the most part, this is true. But those who wrote the holy texts never considered the canted slope of the devil’s mouth; they never imagined that the devil could be gentle, could press her palm to yours like a promise and speak new religion into being. And so, after what could have been eons or mere decades, they fell together, breath intermingling in the space that had become more sanctuary than abyss. Flashpoint, epiphany. It had been inevitable, really. Lightning strike, catalyst. They were two neutron stars collapsing in on themselves. Gravity, heat, the press of a sigh into her open mouth. The hunger that settled in the bottom of her gut. --- So when Gabriel walks into her office, head held high and grinning, Michael swallows it all down. She chokes it back, feels all the love she has for her demon lodge in her throat and stay there.

Of course, she could open her mouth now to speak and have it all tumble out onto the floor. She could Fall—had Fallen already, in a sense, the world pitching around her with the weight of all she wanted but could not have. The muscles of her back ached, wings flickering somewhere in the aether, thrashing like an augury. Like an omen. Let it ache, she thought. Let it wound me, infect me, take me down. If this is my destruction, so be it. Beneath the desk, the blade in her hand glittered like a piranha’s open mouth. Maybe Heaven needed a little shaking up, after all.

[desk-drawerr]

Mall Dreams

i have these recurring dreams about a mall. it's similar to my local mall but much bigger and extremely different in layout. I seem to find new locations every time i dream about it, and i just wanted to put it into words so i don't forget. It feels liminal despite being full of people. the people themselves are always in my peripheral vision, like blurry shadows that seem to disappear when i get close, or stay if they're impeding my progress somehow. sometimes i speak to them, but i never remember what exactly they say. the whole style of the mall appears to be similar to the actual mall i go to. mostly white and beige, tiled floor, and glass ceilings to let the light in on the upper floors.

some key locations are: - the 2 floor gaming store: a shop with a red and white colour scheme that sells mostly xbox 360 games and accessories, with a dark bottom floor i don't recall ever going to. - the giant arcade: bigger than the arcade in my actual local mall (which is pretty big). large entrance with glass windows spanning almost the whole arcade. often extremely dark, a cafeteria type area on the far left side, crane and prize games on the right. in the middle is assorted skill based or leisure games like basketball, and some other weird unknowable games only understandable in a dream. this arcade always features at least 1 version of DDR, usually multiple machines. i am almost always much worse at DDR in this arcade than i am when i'm awake. crane machines once had moomin merchandise inside. one time it was closed and the whole place was pitch black save for a few spotlights. - the clothing store: a store that sells clothes. brightly lit with high ceilings and a black and white mid 2000s chic look to the logo and walls, whatever my brain thinks that means. thin black lines and flower designs. sells makeup stuff, clothes, and sometimes giant stuffed animals. has an escalator going to an upper floor - The ice cream shop: an ice cream shop. darkly lit with a mostly red colour scheme, sells ice cream and milkshakes too, although i have never been able to acquire anything from this store due to lack of funds. - The window: the back entrance of the mall, always brightly lit with sunlight coming into the mall through the window. i think there's a pretzel shop around here somewhere, but i can't find it. banks and other back of the mall places live here. the exit leads to a car park. the car park has no cars parked. reminds me of an airport. - The platform: somewhere in the middle of the mall. a circular platform one can walk on on the second floor. tiny escalators allow access from the main mall floor to the platform. there are no railings to stop you from falling through to the bottom floor. very unstable. it shifts under your weight.

Key characters: the gaming store guy: works at the 2 floor gaming store, very friendly and lets me look around even if i'm not buying anything. offered to show me the lower floor. i can't remember if i went down there or not. the ice cream shop worker: works at the ice cream shop. a stickler for dream rules as evidenced by my inability to buy ice cream with insufficient funds. the pursuer: i don't know who this man is. in my most recent dream he stalked me through the mall. i don't recall anything becoming of it but it made me uneasy. the guy on the DDR machine who just won't leave: actually this is more like multiple people, but in my mall dreams that have featured DDR, more than once has there been someone playing on the machine making me unable to play myself. when i do get a chance to play, the Dream Anti-Gravity™ kicks in and i suck at the game.

I really like my mall dreams. Would probably make a good game.

[ineffablemossy]

Wish Upon a Fallen Star

I'm still on the waitlist for AO3, so I thought I'd just post the first part of this fic on here. I haven't written fiction for a long ass time, 20 years maybe? I've got so many ideas rolling round in my head, feels good. Just a short one to start though. 906 words. This will be in 2 parts and should post the rest this weekend. Feedback welcomed but please be gentle if possible!

---

A loud crack pushed him to spin on his heels. The heat from his sword flickered near his face as he moved. Aziraphale looked up at the brooding sky, shades of purple betraying the chaos of the battlefield below. In this liminal dimension, chunks of stony island floated among fractured celestial architecture. Everywhere around him the battle still raged. How long had they been fighting? It felt like days had passed since the two sides had first clashed. 

He felt a deep ache in his bones as weariness overtook him. 

“Why are we tearing ourselves apart like this!” he shouted, then bit his lip as he thought better of the question.

He spotted a star, brighter than those peeking through the background; it shifted, slowly at first. The light streaked downwards, gathering speed. “That’s no star,” Aziraphale whispered to himself. Following the movement of the falling star with his eyes, he made a wish [1].

[1] It was perhaps the first wish made upon a star, and much later it would be he who put the idea into a human’s head. After all, his wish had come true, surely it would work for them too.

His wings beat once, lifting him from the broken ground. His muscles tensed and he propelled himself forward. As he approached his doubts grew. Sparks fizzed around the light, flying off into the dark before petering out. There! He inhaled sharply as he saw the outline of pale feathers shimmering in the burning blue-white light. His strong wings beat faster now, matched by his heart hammering against his ribcage. Could it be them? He’d looked everywhere, scouring every corner of the battlefield, searching for one angel. 

“No!” his voice was thin, his throat tightening as he spotted strands of blazing copper hair plunging through the heavy air. He could make out the singed robes fluttering around their limp form. His eyes filled with determination, although the lines on his face betrayed the fear that gripped him. He dived.

So cold. So bright. I can’t feel my wings. I can’t feel. I can’t.

A wide island rushed towards them. Too fast. I have to make it, thought Aziraphale. I have to. Please God help me. His wings burned with the effort as he caught up to the trail of light. His face stung as the ash and sulphur in the air whipped at him. Tears sprung unbidden from his wild eyes as his jaw opened in a scream of terror. He reached with both arms, dropping his sword as his fingertips grazed the hem of the angel’s smouldering robes. And then there was no more sky.

Dark. Thunder. I can’t feel Her.

A cloud of dust and bits of grass blew across the platform, the impact shuddering through the grey stone. The dust slowly settled on a jumbled pile of feathers. Stillness fell as gently as the night, the sounds of fighting suddenly distant. 

One of the wings twitched.

Soft. So soft. Softsoftsoftsoftsoft sosososo…

Aziraphale opened his eyes. They were sticky with tears and the ash clinging to his lashes. He held his breath as he moved his wings, sharp pain spreading through the shoulder under him to his coracoid. Taking a ragged breath to push the pain to the back of his mind, he dared himself to look in the space between his arms.

The angel’s shock of red hair spilled across Aziraphale’s chest, just below his chin. Their limp form seemed too small as he held them tightly. Relief flooded through him and his breath hitched, slowly morphing into small sobs as more tears streaked down the sides of his round cheeks. He rolled onto his back, cradling his fallen star gently and burying his face in the long fiery tresses.

“Please,” he whispered longingly, “please. Please wake up. Please wake up. Don’t go. Please this can’t be the end. I’m sorry I couldn’t find you. I promised I would.. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry..” he broke off with a tight feeling in his throat and cold dread gripping his stomach.

Softsoftsoftsososoft I don’t want to go

The angel breathed in suddenly and coughed twice before the sound dragged out into a whine. Aziraphale’s eyes fluttered closed.

“Oh thank God! Oh, thank you thank you,” his mind raced as words tumbled out of him “It’s alright, I’ve got you, I’ve got you. You’re ok, you’re alright, I’ll never ever leave your side. I’m here, I’m here, I'm right here dearest”. He smoothed his hands gently over the angel’s back, feeling their breathing slow as they came to.

“Azi.. Azi…” they croaked, pressing their face to his chest. Aziraphale felt the hands that had created so many of the Universe’s beauties bunch in the fabric around his waist. “Azira…”

“Raphael,” he replied in a soothing voice “my darling, it’s me. You’re going to be alright now my dear. Just stay still a moment, you’ve been through the proverbial wars I fear.” They lay there on the grass in the middle of the empty sky, far below the celestial combat they had plummeted through. Time seemed to stretch out and Aziraphale thought he could well stay there for all Eternity and be happy with his lot.

I want to stay. Here forever. For Eternity. Please don’t let this moment end. It’s all going wrong, please just let me stay. Here here just here with him please please please just him just here…

---

to be continued shortly...

[sixty-silver-wishes]

okay I'm currently listening to the bbc radio "caligari" adaptation that @anotherscrappile found for me, and I actually really like it so far??? there are some things I would have done differently, but I wanna share my thoughts and update them

so it looks like we have two other narrator characters besides francis, a man and a woman. I'm not sure who these characters are supposed to represent yet, but the man's name appears to be "jakob straadt," which is the name of the "red herring" murderer, so I think they're going to do something with that? anyway, these two characters keep cutting into the storyline with commentary, occasionally giving asides about ww1 flashbacks, which I have mixed feelings on.

so, obviously, the ww1 interpretation is a very strong one, and the war did influence the film. however, what makes "caligari" so effective as a piece of media, to me, is its interpretative potential, so I feel like stressing any one interpretation risks lessening that potential. they also set it specifically in 1919, which, again, I don't know how to feel about; the original film did not have a particular time period, which I think adds to its liminal quality and the idea that its themes transcend any one era. it may have been influenced by the events of ww1, but "caligari" resonates with me because its themes are timeless, for better or worse.

things I really like so far- alan is a poet! this makes me really happy, because it's a strong headcanon that I hold as well. making alan a poet, I feel, not only allows him to contrast with francis' more logical nature, but also ties him to the concept of innocence and the romantic movement- made significant as he's cut down by cesare, who may embody expressionism and related movements as a trauma response as romanticism wanes around the turn of the century.

also, a sympathetic portrayal of cesare! yay! they also seem to be going for "cesare as trauma," which is an interpretation I personally really like. also, cesare sings all his lines in countertenor, which I think is pretty neat, and some appear to be internal monologues. caligari's lines are all read out by francis or the other narrator characters, and so his dynamic with cesare is interestingly subverted; cesare is allowed to speak here, but caligari isn't. I really like this idea; it allows him a space in the narrative that he didn't previously have, while still emphasizing his position under caligari. so far, his trauma is front and center in this interpretation, and it's interesting to see how it's handled.

[liminalpebble]

Violet: Chapter 8, Communion

Masterlist link

Chapter 8: Communion

Will slept a mercifully sound and dreamless sleep during his nap. He was awakened by Mrs. Ambrose's gentle tap on his door. 

He thanked her and stretched as the golden hue of an autumn evening  spilled through his window. The pastor washed up and dressed for dinner; combing his wavy hair as well as he could into submission and carefully lined up the fussy buttons and bow tie of his suit. After a time, he managed them well enough. Checking his appearance in the mirror, he felt unsatisfied, woefully under-dressed and scruffy, but tidy enough.

As he exited his room he could hear the joyful arrival of the earliest guests and a hubbub of friendly greeting; the clinking of hors d'oeurve plates and champagne flutes. Gazing across the hallway, his eyes grew wide when Violetta emerged as he had never seen her before. She wore a beautiful gown of wine red satin that spiraled and draped over her voluptuous curves to the most perfect effect. Her thick black hair, usually pulled up messily and hastily, was smoothed and pinned elegantly away from her face to reveal the soft neck he craved the taste of so desperately. Her sarcastic charms were set aside in favor of a set of fine gold earrings and a matching necklace that shimmered richly, framing her features and accentuating her olive skin. As she turned and glided down the hall she stopped in her tracks, seeing him. Both of them felt as if their hearts had stopped in this little world of liminal space; a quiet shadowy corridor where only the faint ghost of the merriment below them could reach their ears.

“You...you look absolutely stunning, Violetta,” he said breathlessly and she looked down with an embarrassed blush in the apples of her cheeks.

She waved her hand saying, “Thank you. It's nothing,” just as she did when offering him tea, and the memory of this habit twisted his affectionate heart. She raised her eyes to scan up his body, finally resting at his bright eyes. “You look very nice as well, but your tie is...well...a mess. May I?”

He gave a breathy chuckle of embarrassment and smiled, mumbling, “yes, of course,” as the blood rushed to turn his ears a bright pink. He couldn't take his eyes off of her lovely face as her deft hands worked his bow tie into its proper state, then smoothed over it, inspecting her work, trying not to notice that beneath her palms she could feel his firm chest rising and falling with breath.

“There we go,” she said briskly, turning to leave, but Will grabbed her hand, holding it against  his heart, with his own.

“Violetta, please. We need to talk.”

She looked at him, brown eyes suddenly black and lethal. “Reverend, you made it abundantly clear that you didn't want to discuss it. Now let me go,” she said in a hissing whisper.

He curled his hand more firmly around hers. “No, Violetta. It wasn't...it's just that...”

She stared him squarely in the eyes, challenging him. “That you are a coward, William Ransome?”

He gave a heavy, pensive, frustrated exhale. “I am, and have been, but please. I just want you to understand...”

“I waited for you so patiently, to give me even a single word. Like a stupid dog awaiting a command,” she said, quietly but articulately, tears welling in the black pools of her eyes. “At least I had the dignity to refuse to chase after you for a conversation. You could have just said that I mean nothing to you right away and saved us both a great deal of heartache now. Ah, but I suppose you weren't expecting to be faced with me again, like this. Why bother, right? When you could just leave me in limbo and it's easier that w...”

“Please!” Will said, a bit louder than he intended, and then remembered to lower his voice again. “I'm begging you, Violetta. Tomorrow is Sunday, the servants will have the day off, the Ambroses will be on their way to Spain. While the house will be empty please let me come and just talk with you.”

She scoffed, “Don't you have a church pew to occupy somewhere? A pulpit to preach to sinners like me from?”.

He gave her the first glare of angry hurt he had ever aimed at her, and she was startled by how icy his eyes could be, how deeply she had wounded his delicate pride with just a few words. He settled himself again, and it passed easily like a storm cloud that had been blocking the sun. “I have to be at church, yes, in the morning. I can come by after. May I?”

“As you wish,” she said bluntly, trying to seem impassive as she looked in vain about herself for a handkerchief to no avail.

Will tapped her shoulder, and as she raised her eyes to him, she saw him holding one out to her with a kind, crooked grin. As she took it, dabbing at her eyes, he took the chance to try wrapping his arms around her. Though he was afraid she might simply shove him away, he couldn't stand to see her cry without kissing the top of her head and gathering her in. She let him, closing her eyes, feeling the peace of it. It felt wonderful to let him, but she forced herself to break the spell and in a moment she was swishing down the stairs in a cloud of red satin.

---

The group was a small but influential one, close friends of the powerful but benevolent Ambroses. The esteemed surgeon, Dr. Luke Garrett attended and decided to approach the reverend as a strange attempt to bury the hatchet between them. It was as close as either of them would ever get to an apology from the other unusual man. They could both be proud, obsessive, prickly and unpleasant if you got the wrong side of them, deeply loyal if you caught the right one. Will thought the two of them standing together like this a bit darkly funny, as if it were a sad little club of bookish men previously rejected by Cora Seabourne. As they talked, putting the past behind them, the reverend even considered that he might be growing to like the blunt, brilliant, impish doctor. There was something about his lack of pretense that Will saw as a relief after coming up against the walls of society and propriety which were currently obstructing him. Will Ransome though he was warming up to Luke Garrett, until he began to talk about Violetta Vespero.

“So, Ransome, have you been acquainted with the little Vespero princess yet? The Ambroses seem to adore her. What do you think?” Luke asked, turning his beady eyes to where Violetta was standing, listening politely and silently to the others. She went through all the right motions of posture and manners but just, somehow, didn't fit. Will could see it in her sad eyes; she was miles away in her mind.

“She happens to be my student, actually, she's quite bright. Wise beyond her years.”

“Yes, that's all very well, but what about her. She's rich, you know.”

“So I've gathered.”

“It would be nice to marry into a family like that. The resources for my work and research would be phenomenal! It's a shame she's not very pretty.”

“Not pretty?”

“Well, not terrible to look at. It's just that you would expect women from families like that to be a bit more...I don't know...stunning, incredible, celestial. She's a bit chubby and swarthy for my taste...not to mention a bit long in the tooth for marrying. Rumor is that she has...hmm...how shall I put this delicately...no proclivity towards men, which I suppose means that's one for the convent then.”

Will glared down at the man with distaste, wanting very much to point out that Garrett himself was chubby and swarthy, much older than her, and a good deal less attractive in many ways than his Violetta.

His Violetta...he thought with a pang of indignation.

“Garrett, what manners! Women are human beings, you know, not wares at a meat market. Good lord, man.”

Garrett shrugged. “We're all dead meat in the end, vicar” he said swigging the last of his wine. “Anyway, I wonder if I could court her? Marrying rich might be worth the rest of how odd she is. At least we know she's a good cook.”

Good God! No wonder she's so cynical. Will thought, surround by men who think like this her whole life...men who think of her as currency. Men who ignore her unless they want something from her.

And now she thinks that's the kind of man I am as well. The epiphany hit him like a hammer striking an anvil; it vibrated through him clearly, painfully.

Luke persisted. “I know you're a man of the cloth, Will, but even you must notice women sometimes,” and then said, under his breath, “at least, you used to.” poking at Will's friendship, infatuation with, and ultimate rejection by Cora.

“That's enough!” Will growled out, louder than he intended, drawing several eyes to himself from around the room as the chatter and chime of the party stilled. Darting his eyes around frantically, he said, “My apologies. Excuse me,” and retreated to a vacant parlor. Violetta waited until the party began its chatter again then followed him to where he stood, closing his eyes and trying to breathe, forehead resting against the wall.

“Will?” she said gently, and he turned to face her, surprised. “What happened?”

He tried to gather his words but found he could only stay silent. She continued, “Listen, I know it's a bit embarrassing, but it's not the end of the world. Garrett has grated on everyone's nerves at one time or another. It's not the first time someone has scolded him publicly. I think everyone in that room has done the same, myself included.”

Will shook his head and maintained his distance. “I thought I was ready to...to join the land of the living, as Charles said, but I suppose I'm still not suitable for polite company.”

She gave a wry, knowing little grin. It was a sentiment she could relate to.

He continued with a huff. “Violetta, he was talking about you like....like you were currency, or a piece of meat. I couldn't stand it.”

“I appreciate your concern,, but it's nothing I haven't heard or known of before. That's how they all talk about me. Let me guess...'she's not very pretty, but she's rich'...that sort of thing? It barely affects me anymore.”

He nodded bashfully. “God, my gender is horrible. I'm so sorry, Violetta.”

She shook her head. “Don't be, Padre. It's not your fault, but I appreciate your sympathy.”

He met her eyes and said in a whisper. “Please, don't call me that.”

“What? Padre? I apologize. I keep forgetting...it's just force of habit with...”

He growled in a whisper, “You...you have no idea what it does to me.”

She smiled a little mischievously at that, but decided in his current state she would have mercy and resist teasing him about it. He hesitated but strode slightly closer.

“Why are you being so kind to me? You'd have every right to scream at me...to eat me alive after what I've put you through.”

She thought for a moment and Will watched her bow her lovely head, stroke her wine glass, “Because I know what it is to hurt the way you are hurting. Because I think I understand. We are, all of us, fragile things, flawed things, fearful things. We could all use a little grace sometimes...” She twitched the corner of her mouth in the tiniest hint of a smile, “...divine or otherwise.”

He gave her a look of astonishment and pained tenderness. “Thank you.”

“Well, Reverend, please come join us. Dinner's about to be served. I've made some delicious lamb, if I do say so myself.”

Will gave a breathy chuckle and looked down, smiling. “You always do love your symbolism, don't you Miss Vespero?'” he asked, then followed her to the dining room.

“Do this in remembrance of me,” she recited with a sardonic shrug, and then took a hearty gulp of her wine.

-

Taglist: @coldnique @muddyorbs @goblingirlsarah @acidcasualties @jennyggggrrr @holymultiplefandomsbatman @icytrickster17 @pati52 @marcotheflychair @ladyofthestayingpower @gigglingtigger-deactivated20230 @alexakeyloveloki @letsg00000honey @bitchyexpertprincess @lokisgoodgirl @sweetsigyn @lovelysizzlingbluebird @talklokitome @dragonmurray @peaches1958  

[thelightningthatjumpsbetween]

Chapter Three

RE8 | Wintersberg | Romance, Slow Burn | Action, Sci-Fi

Sequel of Winters and the Beast, a Resident Evil: Village Story

Table Of Contents

“Are you sure you want to go alone?” 

“Hey, I’ve got this.  It’s important to make sure we know before this meeting, right? And it’ll only take a minute..  I know how hard it is for you to see her like that..heh…or at all.” 

“I will be here if you need anything, simply call.” 

—---------

Ethan was standing barefoot in one of the many blooming, cliffside gardens of the Heisenberg estate when Eva’s voice faded.  He closed his eyes and passed through the liminal space, which he now understood was simply a gateway to the real layers of the Mutamycete’s realms.  

Passing that one thin layer that almost-touched reality meant that he disappeared from where he stood in the garden.  Physically, he was now completely within the mold network.  

It was a way to travel that he’d gotten more comfortable with in the last few months, if comfortable was the right word.  Thanks to Eva, he was beginning to understand the network he was unwillingly a part of.  

This–moving, it felt like flipping through pages of a book.  Ethan spoke to the ever-present yet startlingly shy choir of whispers that moved around him.  

Take me to Miranda’s garden.  

The first time he went there, it had been involuntary, nearly a disaster, and Miranda had a hand in his partial appearance.  Now that he chose to travel within this world, he could be safer about it.  Sort of.  

The “garden” was not a real place–it had no counterpart in the outside world–rather, it was one of Miranda’s created spaces.  It was a deep lake where hundreds, if not thousands, of bodies floated under a mass of liquid that he wasn’t entirely sure was water.  Sometimes it changed to black, and sometimes a bloody, disgustingly deep red.  He saw it in his nightmares.  

Instead of manifesting under the water, face to face with scores of decaying bodies, Ethan found himself on the rocky shore of the lake.  Large stones made a border around the dark water, where gentle waves created lapping sounds.  

Willing himself invisible was something he had no problem learning, much to Eva’s delight.  In an instant he looked down, seeing the golden shimmer that dissipated like sparks around him.  He could not see his own body.  Ethan paced along the water’s edge.  

He chose this spot simply because Miranda seemed to spend more time here lately.  Eva guessed it was to help phase out of ‘memory’ mode, where Miranda had been reliving nearly a decade of her own life with her daughter on a dreamy, ever-repeating loop.  Moving into her own created space where she could focus on her “power” meant that she was more interested in that, than her daughter’s life and memory.  

To no one’s surprise, really.  

The “garden” was something Miranda had created after she touched the mold in the cave, but not much else was known about it.  She could quickly sense Eva in these places she’d made, but so far, she had not sensed Ethan.  This would be his third time in this miserable place, and he hoped, one of his last.  He needed the connection with Miranda’s consciousness to “jump” to the next memory he wanted to see.  To see if his, and Eva’s, hunch was correct.  

But where was Miranda, dammit?  Ethan strode farther out toward the beckoning, murky waterside, his eyes tracing the line of the water’s horizon across the foggy shores.  

It felt like a terrible spot to be, void of any other landmarks save the faux-treeline, faded mountain backdrop and the fog itself.  The lake was medium sized, but endlessly deep.  Still, on the surface, she had nowhere to hide.  There was only water, and several rock formations nearby, away from the shore.  

He would have to swim to get to them, and he had absolutely zero interest in doing so.  On his first venture here Miranda had sat on those stones, and once, seemingly prayed, or spoke to something that Ethan could not see.  

As the midnight moon rises on black wings….

Something bubbled, moved.  He froze, watching the water, and then nearly ran back toward the tree cover when Miranda’s head emerged from the water.  She shook her head as her body rose, moving directly upward.

At first he thought she was floating upward, but he realized as his stomach turned, that tendrils of mycelium were wrapped around her bare legs, pushing her upward from below, and now drifting toward the rocky island.   

She held something in each hand, and blackish-maroon water cascaded down, dripping off her pale form as she gracefully stepped onto a flat stone.  Miranda was only forty or fifty feet away.  She had been in the midst of transforming, he realized as he stumbled backwards subconsciously.  The long blackened claws were now fading into feminine hands, her almost spidery body shrinking to the petite form he was familiar with.  She hummed in approval of this and stroked her cheek with one hand, still holding whatever she’d fetched from the murky water.  

She was naked.  Remembering what lay at the bottom of this lake, Ethan truly thought he might be sick, but he forced himself to watch as she spun on her toes, facing the area she’d just emerged from and raising one of the items in her hand over her head in a triumphant gesture. 

It was a heart, he saw with a sinking feeling, and Ethan took respite in the tree trunk he was now backed up to, sagging against the rough bark as though the pine needed to hold him upright.  Not only was Miranda wringing the heart’s blood over her head as she’d done with Ethan, but she now spoke something else unintelligible–Romanian, he could tell–and then after her remark, she sank her teeth into the muscle.  

It squelched, and he grimaced.  Ethan didn’t need to see more, he remembered.  She was here, and that was what he needed.  

With an exhale, he tried very hard to focus on literally anything other than the image of naked Miranda eating a heart, and he mentally spoke the request linked to the woman’s consciousness.  

Show me her memories–where she put the crystals of the people below the water.  

The only reason that Eva had known the purpose of this macabre ‘garden’ was thanks to Miranda’s notes, which on this topic had all but vanished over the years.  It seemed it was one of her first ‘tasks’ after being infected with the mold.  Rendering souls inside the mutamycete unable to move or communicate by drowning them, and then somehow transferring whatever was left of them into a crystal.  

As Heisenberg explained it, it was not a death.  It was worse; she was creating a network of batteries.  Souls to be utilized as power.  Her power.  These “bodies” were suspended, frozen in a state where only Miranda had access to their energy, while the essence of their humanity–a nuisance that was not needed–was split into a crystal and discarded. 

In addition to the mass murder of the village that happened just before Ethan’s arrival, it seemed Miranda had orchestrated a reign of terror on the Mold’s consciousness as well.  It was likely one reason that the voices were so timid around her, as well as a reason that Eva hadn’t met a plethora of other people catalogued by the Mold in her time there.  

The sound of Miranda’s almost sensual eating of the heart paused and she looked in Ethan’s direction, one eyebrow quirking as though she sensed him.  

“Who disturbs me?” she asked sharply, and Ethan raised his eyebrows.  Anytime now, voices. 

The scene began to shimmer and he knew he would soon leave this stratum, as the edges of his vision darkened.  

Miranda couldn’t see him, but she was powerful enough to sense him, and likely the moving, responsive network of the mold as well.  

She called a name that Ethan didn’t recognize.  Jochen?

Just as the scene darkened and Ethan felt the earth tip away from him, she called another name, and that one he did recognize.  

“Mia?” 

—---------

Ethan found his feet easily, and stepped into a trail in a moonlit forest.  He shivered and heard his heart suddenly, thudding loudly in his chest.  It was perhaps due to almost being seen by a naked, blood-soaked heart-eating crazy bitch, but also to the name she’d said.  Why would Mia be there? 

Ethan nearly fell over a rock when he realized he was walking behind a blond woman.  So close that he could reach out and touch her.  Despite his original inkling that it was Eva, he realized moments after that this woman was definitely not Eva.  

She walked with purpose, and an almost hedonistic feminine gait.  She was clad in simple black, but even from the back Ethan could see that it was far more revealing than her “Human” clothing choices.  

And she smelled coppery.  Like blood.  

Miranda. 

This was her memory–he was in no danger here, at least not immediately.  The mutamycete was simply pulling information from history: in this case, from Miranda directly.  The same way it replayed all of the moments from his own life after his body was re-absorbed.  

Eva postulated that the Mold tried to replay scenes to better store them, especially ones that it “liked”, but he didn’t know anything about that.  The whole idea was creepy.  As if the mold watched lives, and had thoughts about what it saw.  

He began to walk in step with her.  If he’d known Romanian, Ethan might try to speak to the woman, but he only knew grocery store words, how to order beer, and the occasional curse.  But from this angle he could see into whatever she was carrying–a basket, full of –oh, fuck, disgusting-dead crows, and among them, a bed of jagged crystals.  

So that was how she got rid of the humans, he realized with fresh horror–the parts of them that weren’t useful in her energy network, her “garden”, were bonded with….other physical beings.  In this case, it appeared, birds.  That would explain the sacrifices.  

The crystals were all coated in blood, and her hands were bloody.  

Miranda was nearly skipping along the dark path, and Ethan noted that she seemed drunk.  His long legs slowed until he was behind her again.   To see less was somehow easier.  

The only good thing about this situation was that he did recognize where he was walking.  He and Eva had made this hike a month ago when they first started unraveling Miranda’s plans, trying to get one step ahead.   

On the mountain range that kept the village isolated was Lacul Vrăjitoarelor, or, “Witch’s Lake.”  (“Of fucking course that’s its name,” Ethan had spat venomously at the map, which caused Karl to chuckle, and Eva’s eyes to widen at his sour disposition.) 

It was not too far of a walk from the village, but Karl had confirmed it was out of the Mutamycete’s reach–the mold did not seem to grow anywhere around it.  He had raised a magnetic field around the area, while Eva tried to locate any trace of the mold, but none existed.  It was likely past the ‘border’ of the mycelium.  

And here was Miranda, with her basket full of bloody crystals.  

If their guesses were correct, she was isolating harvested souls to a ghoulish, swampy lake where they could never be recovered or reunited by way of the Megamycete.  

The ecstatic woman approached the water’s edge and dipped her feet in, spinning as if dancing in the shallow water.  Ethan paused with his hands in his pockets, the look of disgust clear when she paused in her spin, staring at him in shock.  

“Alătură-te mie?”

He actually understood that one, but Ethan shook his head slowly.  This was the first time she’d seen him, spoken to him in a memory.  And if history were anything to go by, the real Miranda could rejoin this ‘memory’ anytime she wanted, as if alerted by her former self of his presence.  

“Oh, you speak English,” she said in a heavy accent, and the wide smile that broke across her face was nothing but uncanny.  She wore dark makeup and her cleavage was…well, it was there, and then some.  Ethan’s eyes widened at her remark.  How was she able to know English if this was a memory? 

She pressed him.  “Don’t I…know you?”

“No,” he said very quickly, and dipped his head toward the basket.  “What are you going to do with those?”

“These….sinners?”  Her smile was still strong.  She was acting…seductive?  Was she flirting with him?  She gazed toward him with heavy lids and the smile morphed into a grin, then she bit her lip.  “Come in with me and see.” 

“Isn’t it bad enough that you ripped people away from their bodies,” he countered with a gesture.  “Without the insult of taking them away from the network that preserved them?”

“I do know you,” she said in that same heavy, sultry voice that suited her so poorly.  Miranda tossed the basket aside, discarding its macabre contents into the stillwater without a single thought.  “We were…together.” 

“Nope,” he said even more quickly.  Well, dammit.  If she was going to do anything different before she’d seen him, his chance was gone.  “Wrong guy.”  

Home, he begged internally.  Home, now.  

The ground began to wobble, but she stepped out of the water, unbuttoning her bodice thoughtfully as she began to circle Ethan.  His cheeks turned red as he reached up toward the necklace.  The compass.  Ethan gripped it so hard he thought it might shatter.  

Home?

She is keeping you there, came the fairy voice, in a hurried whisper.  Not the mold.  Eva.  

Wait there, I will get Karl.  

His heart doubled in speed.  

“Why are you holding me here?” Ethan said bluntly.  “I don’t want–”

“I am?” Miranda looked genuinely befuddled, and even stopped with the undressing.  “How curious.” 

So, memory-Miranda wasn’t doing it.  It was probably “Just had two hearts for brunch” Miranda who was preventing him from leaving.  Great.  All she had to do now was find him, traipsing along on her memory stratum, and interrogating her about her shitty soul-battery program.  

Ethan felt a pulling sensation.  In his feet, fingertips.  A magnetic field.  

“But we were together.  I was….someone, for you.  I shifted.  I remember it.”

“N-nope,” Ethan said as he struggled to stand upright, hand still clenched over the compass.  “Wrong guy, I told you.” 

“You were exquisite,” she said as if remembering the tastiest dessert of her entire life.  Just as Ethan cringed, he felt the pulling sensation turn into vertigo, and the scene, including Miranda, fell away into blackness.  Just as he was pulled, another memory entered his mind–blending with Miranda’s, likely.  

But it wasn’t the memory of her masquerading as Heisenberg.  

It was an intimate encounter between him and Mia.  The last night they were together before…Before Chris….

That flickering feeling overtook him.  Like flipping through pages of a book. 

Ethan again landed on his bare feet, stumbling, and felt a strong hand on his back.  His shirt was bunched up, and Ethan realized Karl was holding him by the scruff of his neck as if he were a dog.  When Winters abruptly righted himself, he turned and caught the bewildered, wide-eyed gaze of Heisenberg.  It immediately turned into a scowl, in which the engineer began gruffly,  “Just what in the hell–”

“It was my fault,” Eva interrupted, but Ethan stopped her. 

“It was not,” he began, but Karl was already arguing again.  

Ethan sighed and blinked in the early morning sun while Heisenberg ranted, “--supposed to just, wait for the next dumbass thing for you to get yourself into, like a goddamn cat in a roomful of rockin’ chairs, I swear to fuckin’--”

“Shall we eat breakfast?” Eva asked in a withering, motherly tone, and Ethan cringed at the memory of the squelching heart.  He knew he was probably a light shade of green.  Without waiting for either of them, he shrugged away from Karl’s grip and headed toward the dining room.  

[vullcanica]

@vilestblood:

"I kept the black cat."

Tenuously, he confesses, fixated on the plush white cat, tracing the velvety fabric's scuffs and the emblazoned red ribbon around its neck. Worn-out — or well-loved — and decorated with several milestones of sobriety. Its mere presence in Nicodemo's apartment told a long story to Antonín, yet he could merely glimpse that time between then and now.

He knows Nicodemo is standing by the door.

His ears feel warm, ringing slightly at the rhythm of his heartbeat. His mind is still fuzzy and slow like an old movie playing before him. Nicodemo said he could have a concussion. He's staying the night because of that. He should go to a hospital, but... the couch is so soft underneath him. The white cat feels so heavy on his lap. He couldn't possibly get up. He doesn't want to go.

"Back in Paris," the black cat. "It's in a locked drawer." Is it? The last time... did he put it back in that drawer?

"No." He's always so busy lately. He forgot. It wasn't intentional. But maybe it was. "It's on my desk."

Antonín chuckles sans humour. Something keeps gnawing at his heart, a pain worse than any wound. Unrelenting. "He gave me good advice the other day, that little shabby thing." Melancholy bleeds inside him, prompting him to lift his gaze to meet Nicodemo. "I miss the black cat."

  "... Did you.."

  Funny thing, shame. A thing utterly foreign to him in all but Antonín's white-hot, mesmeric presence. It sits heavy on the tongue. Weighs it down. His voice cracks.

  He watches Antonín trace deft fingers over a small, incriminating tear where his own thumb has rubbed the fabric down to nothing and feels the cavernous humiliation of a secret laid bare. There are months of worrying the soft white cat between shaky digits evident on its worn facáde, of clutching it in sleep, lining its little ribbon collar with waypoint coins from NA meetings; unwittingly adorning it with keepsakes of emotion. Traces of desperation, longing, joy and love meant for Antonín, but never meant for his eyes. A private reverie he'd witlessly forgotten to hide. And suddenly that's his heart right there, held bare and gentle in the hands of its spitting image. White paw to pale fingers. Some kind of grandfather paradox which threatens to implode the walls of his already feeble ventricles and reality itself as he knows it.

  His grip on the glass of water tightens, lip digging into his sternum where he's clutched it to his chest. Antonín probably needs it. He should hand it to him... He'd only meant to fetch it from the other room, but doing anything with it now would mean crossing the liminal doorway between the there-then where he has space to breathe or run or hide and the here-now of.. this, whatever it is. There's a ghost of his best friend sat in the living room, dressed in blood and anguish, and he's saying terrible, awful things to him - that he's kept him in ways that might matter, that he talks to him still. Nico finds he can only bear witness - suddenly a stranger in his own skin and his too big sleep shit and short hair and his innards twisting painfully like a knife's cut through them - fighting to find a voce down his own throat to interject before something gives.

I miss the black cat. (I miss you.)

"Enough."

  His heart goes first. He can almost feel the fucked up little thing constrict in protest - an old, still weeping wound rupturing altogether. His eyes sting next, hot behind the sockets. Heavy under the lead weight of a searching gaze and the threat of tears. He squeezes them shut to escape both. His breath comes short, stuttery. The panic-pain of Antonín's surreal entrance into his life and his quick near-departure catches up all at once, breaking his resolve. Splitting his chest - one side selfless, the other selfish. He wants to hold him again... soothe other hurts beyond the physical evident in his drawn face. Even now, he isn't sure he's allowed.

  "I don't know what any of that means." It isn't hope, this he knows. He doesn't know much else. The familiar desire to attribute any meaning Antonín's presence here - to any of his words - gets extinguished by the choking hand of memory: 'Don't contact me again.' - a clear-cut last message. A closed door.

  The tears come quietly, by habit alone. He's mourned this ghost a thousand times before. He'll mourn it again.

"Why did you come here?"

  

[justahappycloud]

10 fics, 10 lines, 10 tags

Thank you @onlythebravest for tagging me!! Here's how this works:

Open 10 of your fics (any fic will do), go to somewhere in the middle and grab a line. Tag 10 people.

so here we go (under the cut):

i couldn't choose ten fics from the little amount i have so i just did the first ten lol

🎵 Station 28

Through the windows, they watch the same colours Harry fell in love with in his childhood bleed into the nature that surrounds them.

🏎️ taste the ambrosia on your lips

You lose a lot of things when you’re a demigod, but somehow, losing your friends always feels like the ultimate blow.

🎵 Bulletrpoof

Seven years together and Harry still has the feeling he’s scamming him by making him stay.

🎵 "i hate you" is my love language

“Fuck you,” Louis says to the straw, still held between his fingers. “This is for Nemo.”

🎭 Playing Matchmaker Goes Wrong (Or Does It?)

“Please don’t tell me part of your plan involves ending up in the hospital.”

⚰️ the lies we tell ourselves (are not always what we think)

His hands quivered as he massaged where the presumed tie had been.

🎭i see your true colours

“Are those tuna sandwiches?”

💡 stand up and shout it out (if you want it)

To sum it up, he was feeling like shit.

💡 Liminal Space

But luckily, he wasn’t there alone.

💡 The Jacket Rainbow of Dating Todd Brotzman

Sometimes, loving Todd felt like his green jacket. 

i tag @duquesademiel, @larry-hiatus, @nooradeservedbetter, @1loulu5, @justanothershadeofblue, @red-pandaaa, @greeneyesfriedrice, @alwaysxlarrie, @beardyboyzx, @thebreadvansstuff

(if you don't have 10 works, just do all of them!! sharing random lines is fun and we have to spread the love <3) (but no pressure to participate lol)

[kyowuin]

for the ask game ... them all !! ^_^ tell me ur answers for all of tuem

FUCKING YIPPIE

gonna answer this more like smt general since i couldn't pick one kin for this

cw: i focus on my fictionkins since is a fictionkin ask game LOL

content under cut since this is LOONG.

⏳ - How long have you known about this kin?

my most old kin is mark heatcliff, basically from the beginning of 2022, it's been two years with this kin, wowz

my most recent kin is dave strider ! homestuck swag

❔ - How did you figure out you kinned this character?

smt more general for this one, i normally try to draw myself as the character, call myself the character, triying to interact more on the media if i really id with them, meditate sometimes

and other times is just like, i get a gut feeling about this character, and when i accept im that character, i finally can understand many things

❤️ - What's your favorite memory from this kin?

my fav memorie between all my kins is genuinely this memorie where i'm having a chocolate cup with cesar, talking about school, and having a cozy day on the couch while it was raining out... it makes me so happy

💔 - What's your least favorite memory from this kin?

my lest favourite memorie between all my kins is, well... that scene with sal on wadanohara on watgbs, yeah

🤝 - What's your relationship with this kintype (ie spiritual, psychological, etc)?

MIXED, but, it's in a big part psychological

✔️ - What details about this kin, if any, line up really close with canon?

my most canon close kin if wadanohara! i remember many stuff that happened to her, also happened to me in my kin experience!

✖️ - What details about this kin, if any, are really different from canon?

my most canon divergent kin is stanley from the stanley parable, is mostly a weird combo of getting out of the parable and the time on the parable the narrator had more freedom

✨ - What did you look like?

UHM, hard to answer as a general thing, so i will choose sunny from omori!

i had bangers, short and not cared hair, yellow teeth, i had a mole on my cheek and also eyebags!

👕 - What sort of clothing do you associate with this kin?

another one hard to answer in general

STANLEY I CHOOSE U

i associate ties and those working pants that any average officer has, i also have a grey pair of jeans for him

🎶 - What music / songs do you associate with your kin?

UHAKDNSMDNSNND. i will do a playlist in the future, but i associate we grew up so well with most of them

🖼️ - What sort of aesthetics do you associate with your kin?

sunny : oddcore

wadanohara : cleancore

stanley : liminality

dave strider : some weird red violent shit

mark heatcliff : comfy aesthetic ( and also weirdcore )

🎂 - Are there any foods / flavors you associate with this kin?

DAVE I CHOOSE U

pizza, that's it that's the answer

🫂 - Who were you closest with in your canon?

sunny : kel

mark heatcliff : cesar and sarah

wadanohara : idate and dolphi

dave strider : dirk, john, jake & jade

stanley : the narrator (obvs)

💥 - What skills or abilities did this kin have, if any, that you can't do now but wish you could? (ie superpowers, languages you don't speak, skills you don't currently have, etc)

sunny (me) were really good at baseball and i'm shitty in it actually, dave (me) were SO at handling weapons, and i'm so BAD at it, lil mention of omari!kel kin, were really good at sports, and i'm generally so bad that i ashame myself everytime i play any

🐦 - Is there anything you miss about this kin's body that you don't currently have? (ie basic appearance traits, tails, wings, etc)

i miss the straight hair of sunny, i mostly miss the hairs of everyone LOL, but i also miss the height of mark heatcliff (i was. so tall, like a lot)

🌌 - Do you ever experience astral limb sensations with this kin? (IE feeling your wings, tail, something your kintype has that your current body does not)

i sometimes feel the braces of heatcliff and other times feel the patch of sunnys missing eye

🔮 - Have you ever predicted something about your source material before it happened based on kin feelings? (For example, having a kin memory that lines up with something that happens in your source before you ever knew about it)

sadly not :(

👥 - Do you have any canonmates for this kin, and/or are you interested in finding canonmates?

i wish i had ones... but i'm too awkard to actually make a call somewhere

[sleepyowlwrites]

FTWT CCCLXXI

since I desire to watch Teen Wolf, Stargate SG-1 AND The Umbrella Academy, I am watching none of them, and instead I'm watching five minutes of random never have I ever episodes despite being actively annoyed by the characters. unrelated, I drew on my hand in green pen and it says "I am creation both haunted and holy" and what a line THAT is. (it's half-alive, you all should be listening to them) okay so tag now. @winterandwords @did-i-do-this-write

push (death story)

“It’s not really the Under, though. Space is pretty liminal here. Gravity is just a concept. If we push through the perceptions and find concrete substance, we’re really next to time. So even though you fell, it wasn’t really down. It was sideways. Not that it matters. However we are is what we perceive. It’s all the same in the end.”

“So this is-” Lawrence screws up his face, trying to think about any of that information in a way that sticks. “This is the Sideways? The Adjacent? The Next-Door?”

Din chuckles, or swallows their own teeth. Lawrence can’t tell from the sound. “You’re starting to understand.”

pull (city story d0)

When they pull up, there’s a group of guys loitering beside the door, smoking. One of them glances over and nods at Rune. Jet turns in time to see her roll her eyes while taking off her helmet.

“I thought you said no punching people.”

“I meant it!” Rune grabs his arm and holds it. “This is a gym. I full intend for us to punch bags made for punching.”

Jet shakes his arm but she doesn’t let go. What is happening?

The same guy wanders over from the rest, stomping out his cigarette on the pavement. “Hey, Rune. Who’s this?”

“This is Jet,” Rune answers, very blandly, like she doesn’t want to be conversing with him.

Oh good, Jet can already feel his instincts creeping up his spine. Days of peace are overrated. If they do end up punching people, he’s fine with that. “Nice to meet you,” he says, equally blandly.

lift (she stole the night from you, 2020)

she comes in quietly dripping black lace like ink off a letter left out in the rain and it drags behind her - staining the carpet, the walls; she lifts a finger to trace your expression like she wants to feel it deeper than her skin and it settles like a dust cloud over her hair - staining the strands, her neck;

carry (the chamber of restitution, 2011)

By silent consent, they stayed close together while trekking through another long white hallway after the red room. After arriving at the mouth of a cave-like staircase, Rothis took the lead, not because he thought Quileya was afraid, but because he didn't want to show his own fear. A brave face was almost as essential to a mission like this as bringing along the proper equipment. Not that it was wise to ignore caution when poking around in Its territory, but courage was often the most important tool a wizard could carry.

The staircase, besides being black and dark and wide enough only for two people to pass each other, also seemed endless. Around and around the two wizards stepped, with Rothis holding a wizard's light in one hand to show the way. Although he could not see her, Rothis knew that Quileya was preparing her spells, reciting in her head eight of nine words to a killing spell, or a shield spell, among others. He tried to do the same. If not for Quileya's interpretation of the pattern messages from the red room, he wouldn't have felt so nervous. But the words kept rebounding in his mind. Enter the chamber of restitution; the debt will be paid; life will end.

mountain (dreams, whispers, fireflies, 2017)

you are a leaf fall in autumn you are a wind down the mountain you are a heartache and you are a pretty pain

you are a warm fireplace you are affectionate nicknames you are a ship and you are an airplane

river (jasper and juniper, 2022)

We don't eat the fruit from the trees with red roots. We don't drink from the jasper waterfall. We walk down the hill in boots that take long strides, eating up the grass as we go. Daisies grow under the junipers down in the valley. They turn red up in the hill, where they drink the river and blush all day. It doesn't hurt them, just changes their face.

tree (the other colors might have been, but I didn't see them, 2021)

I lay back on sweaters that need mending and poke holes in the ceiling and when it starts raining I think maybe I’ll just drown now. Maybe there are new worlds at the bottom of the sea. My house is underwater when the sun comes back outside and I’ve grown roots. There is a tree poking out of my windows, draped in honeysuckle and last night’s noodles.

I dig my way out of the driveway and build a monument to myself in the snow. Winter was ages ago. I’m still sleeping it off.

dirt (guild story d0)

Sharp teeth sank into his skin, the pain a welcome respite from the darkness. Marz opened his eyes with a shuddering breath, his body quaking from the effort of it. Two bright blue eyes stare up at him, unblinking. A mangy street cat let out a half-hearted growl as it released its bite into Marz’s arm. As it backed away, Marz lifted that same arm up above his head, wondering at the smooth skin of it.

Hadn’t he just been covered in dirt? In his own blood?

The second realization jolted him upwards. Marz sat panting in the alley where he’d fallen, the ground cold and icy beneath him, the air frigid around him. He moved his limbs around. They all followed his commands, as energetic as ever, and none of them were covered in either dirt or blood. Instead, on his wrist sat a bracelet.

teeth, take, turn, time. BONUS: traipse, turmoil. @talesofsorrowandofruin @ink-fireplace-coffee @pepperdee @bloodlessheirbyjacques @asher-orion-writes OR ANYBODY

[twwpress]

Creator Spotlight #22: jazzjo

Welcome back to the TWW Author Spotlight! For every spotlight, we’ll ask each featured author the same ten questions (as well as questions you submitted on Twitter!). This week we’re excited to be chatting with jazzjo (on AO3 - @sameschtick on twitter)!

1) What are your top 5 desert island fics by other authors?

baby it’s cold outside by crossingdelancey It’s short, it’s sweet, it’s cj’s gay meg ryan winter, what more could you want.

may these memories break our fall by claudiasjeancregg A real gateway fic to cj/toby/andy that captures the internal lives of all three characters so well; I could (and do) read it over and over.

Red, White, and Boo by fleurfemme Scream meets West Wing meets great ensemble writing. Incredible.

departures and arrivals by rearviewmirror Atlas plays with distance and time and liminal space to pack so much yearning into this piece.

we thought love was something we weren’t meant to find by darlingdarling I love pieces that take a little moment in canon and expand on the potential and this one just knocks it out of the park. 

 2) Do you have a favorite character to write? Favorite ship(s) to write? Are there characters or ships you'd like to write more of? 

My crutch character is C.J. by a long shot (who’s surprised) – the interiority of her as a character in how she’s portrayed is just so fascinating to me. My favourite character to write is probably either Andy or Charlie. Both of them get witty repartee in canon but there’s so much not said that I do love taking my authorial liberties.

Favourite ship is cj/andy hands down. I think I’ve populated half the tag (the math works out – 29/55) because I’m incorrigible about them. This extends to permutations within the cj/andy/toby triangle, which is a sandbox I love to play in.

I’d like to explore writing more about Charlie, Donna, and Joey. I’ve done a bit of all three (finally caved and wrote something Charlie-centric recently) but they’re still more challenging to properly capture. 

 3) Tell us about your writing process (setup/location? Night or day? Snacks/beverages? Computer/phone/notebook? Music or silence? Anything else you want to share is welcome!) 

My (somewhat messy) rolling desk. Night (by necessity, because work). Emotional support water bottle or seltzer or a hot drink. Laptop, though I used to primarily write in a notebook. Music either completely accelerates or impedes the process, it’s really a toss up. I love writing with it, and take a lot of inspiration from it, but I sometimes get too distracted by it and have to turn it off.

I used to write longer things, back before I started working full-time. I only started writing for TWW in the last half-year and have gravitated to shorter chapters and one-shots because I like writing a full chapter in one sitting and I have less time. Even so, this lil baby can fit so much angst into it. 

 4) What writing advice do you have for others who may be reading this? 

Write what you want to read. If something comes naturally, lean in. Catch passing thoughts and phrases in a small notebook or on your phone. Make a habit of writing. There’s always time to write – five minutes on the train, ten minutes before you sleep – but don’t let it take over your rest time. 

 5) From where do you usually draw your inspiration? (Other forms of media, music, tropes, etc?) 

I love pulling and expanding on the tiniest moments in canon, or I’ll get a single line of a song so under my skin it turns into something on the page. I love intertextuality and my best work tends to happen between mediums.

I tend to draw on things I know well, so you’ll see recurrent themes and references like classical music, theater, Jewish life, and literature sprinkled throughout my writing.

6) What is the fic you've written that you're most proud of and why? 

This is cheating, but I couldn’t pick between two.

turning in place is probably the best developed of anything i’ve written for TWW. It digs into Toby as a character in ways I didn’t really think I could do, and it really was me trying to find a way I could stomach the shuttle leak arc. It plays with time, it plays with religion, it plays with guilt and family and dwelling too much or too little or just enough on things, and if that isn’t Toby Ziegler. I think form, character, and content collided in a way I have been trying to get to again in this fic, and I still don’t know how I did it.

In one-shot land, enumerated powers comes to mind. It came completely out the left field, but I loved writing Evelyn Baker Lang as a character and imagining (aka spreadsheet planning) a workable backstory for her that bled through the whole fic. 

 7) What's the fic trope/concept/AU you'd read 1000 of? What's the fic trope/concept/AU you'd write 1000 of?

Romcom tropes kill me in the best way every time. Writing-wise, I love writing looks into post-canon and filling in the blanks within canon. 

 8) Is there anything you'd like to try writing-wise that you haven't yet? 

A true ensemble fic. I came close in too wise to woo peaceably but not quite. 

 9) What's your go-to Starbucks/coffee shop/other drink order? 

I tend to go for black coffee out of my aeropress, sometimes slightly sweetened, and I love all manners of tea, but both of those tend to be drinks I make myself. My one vice is bubble tea, and I’ll almost always get unsweetened oolong tea with taro pearls, without the ice in it if I can help it. 

 10) Do you have any current projects you'd like to promote or anything upcoming you'd like to tell us about?

I’m working on an Andy/Toby fic inspired by The Last Five Years – we see Andy in reverse and Toby in chronological order – called compel me to ask you for more. 

Submitted questions:

From @JessBakesCakes: Do you have a headcanon about one of your fics that didn’t make it to the story for one reason or another? If so, what is it?

The continuation to watching the skies (the charlie-centric fic I mentioned earlier where Charlie is COS to POTUS, which is Andy) that I clipped and set aside to focus more on Charlie’s road back to the White House has C.J. eventually running for Congress in Andy’s second term because the spin boys make a whole case for it, even though she still feels a bit like an outsider to Hill politics. I almost always think of C.J. – like Leo – as the person behind the curtain, but I think one of the ways she might step into a campaign of her own is if someone she really trusted made a case for why it would help the constituents for her to run in place of a shitty incumbent. 

 From @S4MWILS0N: favorite: season, ep, one liner, character duo (romantic), character duo (platonic), plot arc, hc for pre post and during canon? craziest au you’ve ever considered? snippet/idea that never became anything? fave trope to read or write? moment that made u fall in love w the show?

Favourite…

Season: Three

Episode: The Supremes or Hartsfield’s Landing

One-Liner: “There is literally no one in the world that I don’t hate right now.” 

Character Duo (Romantic): CJ/Andy

Character Duo (Platonic): CJ & Josh (early seasons) CJ & Charlie (later seasons)

Plot Arc: debate prep (also that we only saw the original campaign after we were already invested)

HC for Pre-Canon: CJ and Andy were grad school roommates. When Toby first introduces the two when he starts dating Andy they don’t tell him, and just let how similar they can be freak him out. He doesn’t find out for way longer than you think. 

HC for Post-Canon: Charlie sets out on his own for a bit. Donna finishes school and goes back into politics. CJ never goes to California – she goes to Ohio to take care of her father, then back to the East Coast. 

HC for During Canon: CJ has a personal relationship with each of the Bartlet girls – she’s the older sister Liz never got to have; she’s a model for living a full life while queer to Ellie; Zoey is a little skeptical at first but she ends up closest to CJ because CJ always Shows Up for her, no matter what, and holds her father back from being too embarrassing. 

Craziest AU: rockstar AU my white whale

Snippet that never became anything: I have a whole folder titled “ideas i may never write / finish”. I will refrain from naming names out of hope that something will eventually exit that folder.

Moment that made me fall in love with the show: when I realised everyone talks as fast as I do

Thank you so much to jazzjo! And thank you to everyone who asked questions. This is our last creator spotlight for now - we may pick it up again if there’s interest in the future! We really appreciate every one who signed up to be featured and who asked questions for making this such a fun experience! As always you can reach us at weeklypressbriefing@gmail.com, through tumblr messages, or on Twitter!

xx, What’s next?

[wintersandthebeast]

11. Anchor

RE8 | Wintersberg | Romance, Slow Burn | Action, Sci-Fi

Link to Master List

Ethan walked ahead of Karl back to the outcropping where he’d seen the scar of the liminal space. He paused, realizing he didn’t quite know how to…what had she said? 

His ‘friend’?

Anchor.  He had to anchor Karl. 

How the fuck do you anchor Karl? 

Heisenberg stood expectantly behind Ethan, jamming the head of his hammer back into the ground, leaning on it, and stroking his freshly-trimmed beard.  Ethan turned to look at him, scowling as he pondered how to do this.  

“You uh, want me to push you off the edge?” Heisenberg guessed, and when Ethan’s frown deepened, the older man actually chuckled.  

“Very funny,” Ethan sneered, and spoke louder as Heisenberg was still trying to mask his snickering at his own joke. 

“Have you ever….can you go….can you see…”  He didn’t want to say the mold’s consciousness , because he himself was mold.  It made him feel less real, less alive.  He didn’t want to be a part of that world…he wanted to be a part of this one.  The realization caused his voice to falter.  He gestured at the hole.  

“Uh,” Karl guessed where Ethan was going.  “If I’m standing on the ground where there’s Mold under me, I can see it sometimes.  Have to raise a magnetic field.”  He tapped his head.  “The uh…”

“Cadou,” Ethan guessed, and Heisenberg nodded, surprised.  

Ethan turned to look over the new canyon.  He sighed.  Might as well tell Karl everything he knew.  Which wasn’t a lot.  “A girl…a really weird one--Not Eveline--I can see her sometimes.  I guess I can go…back and forth.  She said that I could maybe anchor you.” 

“Hmmm,” Karl supplied, still stroking his beard.  Ethan’s scowl was turning into more of a pondering gaze.  

“So if you’re holding on to me, and…I’m just going to assume the mycelium is under us,” Ethan sighed, slightly grossed out at the prospect.  Karl nodded at this, and jerked his thumb back toward the manor.  

“Only direction I’ve mapped is that way.  End of the underground network is on the property line, just before the west garden.” 

That was fascinating.  Ethan wanted to ask more, but he was also eager to do whatever he was going to do.  Eager, he realized, to try to use his powers.  Gross.  

“Okay,” Ethan said, shrugging.  “So how do I, anchor you?”

Karl’s head tipped.  He was the scientist, after all.  Before continuing, he looked around at the crowd.  Most of the people were farther away by now, creating large groups around the bonfire who were talking amongst themselves.  This seemed to satisfy Heisenberg, and he turned back to the blond.  

“You hold my arm,” he instructed, “I’ll use the hammer and raise the field.  When I do that, you just do whatever you do when you--” he gestured, “...travel? Normally.” 

Ethan stepped forward and grasped the other man’s upper arm, sparing only a moment to look self-consciously around when Heisenberg’s hammer rang, a resonating tone that he’d only heard once before.  Now Karl held the hammer out and the gears began to spin.  Ethan was mesmerized in spite of himself, and it took him another moment to remember it was his turn to show off.  He closed his eyes, thought of the scar, and opened them.  

They were back.  The magnetic field spun around both of them for another moment, Ethan sensing rather than seeing anything, until Karl waved a hand and it dropped.  The resonance chime disappeared, and it was replaced with Karl’s impressed exhale.  The corpses, buildings, the red-blood tinted stranded-in-time spiral spread out in front of the men. 

“Shit,” he said finally, simply.  Ethan nodded in agreement.  

Karl looked around, incredulous, and then peered back at the wound. Ethan could sense many more things now.  Was it because he was getting better at this movement between worlds?  He heard echoes of screams, explosions, sobbing.  It was like one big haunted soup down there, except the soup was frozen in place.  The only things moving were the big, twisted trees of the ‘roots’.  

“They’re stuck,” Ethan realized, wondering if he was finally losing his mind, that he could sense what the mold was doing.  “Everything is…stuck, but it’s trying to move.  It’s like…”  What was it like?  He wasn’t a doctor.  He knew science in terms of computers, and that was about it.  “Scrambled.”  It felt just like seeing a programming error, a big one.  How was that possible?  

Karl was creating an electric field, he realized in awe.  He could see the engineer’s outstretched hand, positioned as though Karl were just feeling the temperature of the earth, but in this space, Ethan could sense? See?  He wasn’t quite sure, it was too fuzzy.  But a stream of energy left the man’s body and projected toward the ravine.  Like a meter.  Ethan gripped Heisenberg’s arm and glanced at his face, but Karl was focused on the frozen tornado of debris in front of them.  

The electric field dropped.  Ethan could feel that too.  He could also feel a headache creeping forward.  

Karl inhaled.  “Hysteresis.” 

“What?”

Karl finally looked at him, and Ethan wondered if the other man had forgotten he was here.  He had that focused, intent look on his face.  It was likely he was doing something else entirely in his mind.  Calculations of some kind.  Ethan, for the first time, felt understanding, almost camaraderie with the other’s thoughts.

Karl didn’t seem to share this moment as he stared, a little lost, at Ethan.  He finally removed his glasses, and the look of ‘how do I explain this’ was evident on his face.  

“It’s….it has to do with the magnetic field,” Karl explained.  “I don’t get why.”  He actually looked a little concerned, Ethan thought.    Karl eyed the hundred-foot-high frozen statue of decay.  “Hysteresis is…” 

“I actually know about it,” Ethan interrupted, fighting dizziness.  He was busy, remembering a specific class on data recovery.  He didn’t understand the phenomenon on a physics level, but magnetic fields-and magnets- were an important part of hard disk drives.  Ethan’s specialty was more software than hardware, but he was nothing if not a thorough learner.  

Heisenberg looked absolutely delighted about this, but then Ethan noticed that the other man had a darkened trail of black trickling from his nose.  He’d seen that before.  Once on Heisenberg, and once on himself.  He pointed to his own nose, eyes wide.  “I think we have to leave.” 

Karl seemed to know exactly what he was referring to, wiping the fluid.  “Yep, time to go.”

The hammer raised again, the field expanding and Ethan exhaled, closing his eyes.  

When he opened them, there was sunlight, but then a crackle sounded when he removed his fingers from Karl’s arm.  Ethan cried out, feeling the worst shock he’d ever received.  Heisenberg dropped the hammer, looking immediately apologetic, and several people near the fire approached.  In the lead was Maricara, holding Rosemary, who in turn held up a big, drooled-on piece of shortbread and looked less than curious about what her father was up to. 

Ethan clutched his chest, fighting the urge to say fuck in front of a bunch of elderly ladies.  He groaned instead, feeling nausea.  

Most of the approaching Roma looked worried, but Maricara had an air of understanding about her features.  As Ethan leaned forward, cringing in pain, and Karl apologetically slapped his back, she leaned in.  Her dark eyes scanned past the pair over the ruins. Her voice was hushed, almost reverent, as though she thought the two awkward men were prophets of some kind. 

“What did you see?”

Heisenberg shook his head.  When Ethan stood again, he also had the black trickle from his nose, and he wiped it away quickly.  Ethan nodded, signaling that he was okay--was he, though?--and Karl supplied, “It’s…" hand gesture, "...wrong.”

“Is it something you can fix?”

He stared again at Ethan.  When Ethan began to exhale, “I’m fine,” Karl pushed him toward the bonfire up the hill.  “Go heat up, Winters.  That heart can’t take another shock like that, you’ve got healin’ to do.” 

He begrudgingly agreed, and stumbled toward the fire.  Ethan was thankful for the warmth, and he stood huddled in the fur, feeling the heat on his face.  He closed his eyes.  It felt good, he realized, to be out in the sun.  Even the chilly winter sun.  The cold at his back, the warm fire at his front.  It reminded him of his younger days spent camping, hiking, exploring.  Ethan had always tried to temper his sedentary, boring cubicle life with outdoor activities.  He missed the friends he’d planned events with.  If only they could hear how his life had gone, he mused with a smile.  Trying to explain the similarities between a corrupted drive and a big hole in a fungal colony brain would not be his usual catching up conversation. 

When he felt the pangs in his chest subside, he blearily opened his eyes and glanced around for Rosemary.  There she was, gnawing deeply on the shortbread, her eyes curious as she stared from person to person.  Maricara bounced the girl slightly while she spoke to Karl.  Ethan couldn’t hear the conversation, but he continued to watch them as his mind drifted. 

After several minutes, Karl broke away from the elder and sauntered toward Ethan.  He stared at the fire in silence for a moment. 

“I think I can fix it.”

The blond nodded.  But then Heisenberg sighed.  “Oppose the magnetic field, get it back to…normal?”  He frowned.  “I don’t know if--how--that could affect…”

“Miranda?” Ethan guessed, and Heisenberg nodded, his frown deepening. 

“I’m more concerned with the act of moving that big of a magnetic field,” Ethan confessed.  “That’s a huge surface area.”  The scar was at least a city block’s diameter, and over a hundred feet high.  Curiosity overtook him as he remembered their fight behind the factory.  Heisenberg himself had been a tornado of steel and rust.  But that had been at Heisenberg’s detriment, hadn’t it? 

Ethan crossed his arms, “Have you ever…moved anything that big?  Other than…” when we fought. 

Karl didn’t pause before he gave a curt nod.  “Yeah.” 

“Really?”  Ethan gazed at him expectantly.  “What was it?”

Karl shook his head, indicating that he didn’t want to speak of it, but honesty compelled him to reply.  Still, a stutter lingered on the words.  “F-field of uh, it was a.  Camp.”

“A camp.”  Ethan sounded vaguely sarcastic. 

Karl stared at him with almost a glare.  “It was--a field of landmines over a Soviet camp.  Taking prisoners of war….picked em up, carried em over.  Missiles too.  That was…the first time.” 

That ominous sentence carried a feeling of dread into the silence that followed.  Ethan’s eyebrows rose as he tried to imagine Karl magnetizing and raising an entire field of landmines, and he had nothing to say in response to that.  

Karl’s eyes were still free of the glasses, and they looked doubly eerie with firelight reflecting in them.  Ethan tried not to stare.  Heisenberg peered at the fire before crossing his own arms.  

“She thinks it’s a good idea,” Karl nodded toward the Roma elder, “But wants us to wait til tonight.” 

“I imagine that would be upsetting to have happen in broad daylight," Ethan acknowledged. 

He still didn’t know much about Roma tradition, but the Duke had given him a brief synopsis on the ride over.  In general, creating a huge magnetic field and upending a mass grave to reverse the field's direction and equalize the ‘wound’ and doing god-knows-what to the Mold's consciousness and everybody in it, including Miranda--yeah, that would probably fall under ‘bad omen.’  Ethan paused, and then ventured, “Do you think my…the…heart, will last until then?”

Karl shrugged, then tilted his head with familiar Karl swagger. “Guess we’ll find out,” and with a hint of his sadistic, pre-crystallized personality, he shot a wolfish grin at Ethan and meandered away, toward one of the other groups.  Ethan watched him go with a mix of anger and surprise.  The asshole.  

And yet, something about him felt so familiar.  He also realized he didn’t worry much about whatever secrets the other man might be keeping.  An odd change from the last decade. 

[blackvahana]

The descending Shepard tone begins to rise, and now all we do is... some form of being, some form of existence in a glass aquarium at the bottom of the sea - in that it's just as low pressure, just as bright.

There's so many choices here as to whether I'm going to go insane or not. A genuine choice, asked of me, two different behaviours I could exhibit, two different reactions I could have to myself. I can choose to be overwhelmed and crack my mind in two like the Sky itself does under my weight or... shut up and do my job. You can choose to quit and go home, or you can keep going. Nyarlathotep 3, one of the two Cryo Chamber collab albums I use to tell myself it's work time and to sit and do that work, begins to play.

Here's the thing, that madness is an instinct, and it has to be rewritten. Let's wind back for a second: I'm pacing in the goddamn castle-house in Ananyavarda or more so in the temporary to-be room I'm building, reading from a book that is a tumour-esque growth from the flesh of Grey-self energy, bound to me, bound to insanity, bound to the space-time god of liminal doorways. The writing shifts and dreams itself into and out of existence, really, it acts like a book in a dream, because we are in one now. But I get it. I have a choice here as to whether I act like I'm dreaming or just shut it and continue my work. I'm reading from it, because the Dream ultimately is a scrying vessel and one that... Look, the corners are being strung in spider web projections of geometry. Yes, the Plane Wife is calling in the back of my mind wondering when I'll crack her like a chicken carcass on a board opened to be evenly cooked, massage her broken form into place.

I'm annoyed, and when I'm annoyed - oh look, the sky is grey - never mind. No one needs to be strangled here, no one needs to be strung up.

Do you ever sit and wonder, understanding reality as symbols and expressions as symbolic - gods and all beings being manifested into aspects of reality and living out metaphorical story lives - what exactly the symbols are referencing? What is God seeing that he's dreaming of down here in reality? When a storm god acts like a storm, because he was manifested as one, what is the storm? What is it that both the storm and the storm god are acting like? Are the symbols all self-contained references? That's the answer. Reject the alignment of the mirror - and reject that being the answer, too. There's multiple answers and lines of thought to this at the same time - ugh, right. Let me split off another body to work on this. Let me make three selves including me, and I'll be the one of those three that sits in a dramatic huff to talk on Tumblr on another plane.

Big sigh, like a dog upset that you didn't give him a treat. Do I ever take myself seriously...

Anyway. The books I'm using... Simple. Complex, but simple, you could conceptualise them by extrapolating the concept of hitting a tennis ball against a wall for practice. Hit, sound, wall hit, sound, bounce, sound, return, sound, hit. This, this book, one of many possible, is the sound the body makes in the groans of giant ships being torn up by the unyeilding weight of the Abyss. Books are a symbol, I'm a symbol, the Library is a symbol, whatever, each produces a sound which is heard in the overall return, the sound of the letters on the page.

Hello self to the right, why are you taking a break. No, why are you melting into red flesh candle wax. Great colours, but...

I'm so un-hungry, so uninterested in food - which is to say I become food. Melting these bodies back down, I see the rivers of blood in them which is to say I see the divide between them being the substance of the world I just borrowed - useless as a gift to make the world given it already is of the world - and the blood, myself, my essence, reality rewound to my specific tightness. Blood, right.

Two more bodies, then. And these will become of blood - wow! Cool, multiple selves - and watch me fight with myself over who lives and who dies, just kidding, I know collectively I'm going to do that.

There's something in me that scrambles to be recognised as a real, independent person. It claws against the selves that claim size and scope over my existence, and yes, they have it. They existed before I was created, and because I'm an incarnation of theirs I will die, be absorbed by them, and they will carry on afterwards... Let's not speak of other things.

Letters are gold on black paper. Letters are... things I could easily replicate, letters are positions in spacetime. I am so, so bored. Can we get this over and done with?

-

I'm annoyed at how much I'm dragging everything out. I'm annoyed at how long I'm taking to do anything, not from a lack of skill, or that sort of irritation at a genuine source of dawdling, I just don't have the patience for this. I don't have patience for the pinprick stars of time piercing my body at current, the Physical Plane, white bird with white feathers that do nothing but drag the wind down. Linearity, Polarity extended and expanded and body stretched over - I don't have the patience. It's not about how long it's taking, it's the feeling of my own body pierced by all these points...

... And I get it. There you go, a smile for you, myself.

[lewashi-misc]

The Tragedy of Unity Church.

“Divine Love, through me, blesses and multiplies all that I have, all that I give, all that I receive, and all that I am. Thank you, God, forever. Amen.” – Rev. Scott, from a Unity prayer blessing

"All the sacred scriptures from the world’s great religions can be used to discover truth.”

The walk in Unity Village, Kansas, is meditative, ethereal even. Mosaics are lined across the walls, with generations of spiders recycling their ancestor's cobweb homes in the abandoned corners of vintage nurseries and libraries. The vast village (1.97 square miles), once a sacred place for self-awareness in Christ, became a shell of a location. The energy reflects that of ruins, as if the mindset it was established upon slowly eroded under rebellious waters.

I remember going to Unity churches as a child. I will not go into detail about the different hurtful experiences of the locations I was brought to. But I will talk about my "explorations". When I wasn't playing the grand piano by ear in the rainbow-lit sanctuary, I was sneaking with my siblings up a long inclining ramp lined with a vintage, burgundy carpet while the members ate together in a distant hall. At the end of the ramp lies a humble gray door that stays untouched, not to be opened. Beyond this lay a variety of rooms, as if two houses were morphed together, with every room abandoned, frozen decades ago in time. I remember:

A fireplace and a rocking horse in what appears to be a 90s nursery. The green walls were brightly lit by opened curtains.

An abandoned bathroom with a shower and toilet. The toilet was broken, the sink emitted brown water.

An office full of random papers from the early 2000s and the 80s. Stacks and stacks of papers, books, and office supplies were sprawled about, with cobwebs connecting them all.

A dark basement, complete with dim lighting, lightly flooded and abandoned as well.

To the left was another bathroom without lights. I distinctly remember taking a photo of a living centipede crawling out of the sink's center. The little red camera with this blurry image is since defunct.

To the right was a room of boxes, more neatly organized where members rarely went to grab outside supplies. Going in here, to an adjacent room, was a room full of books, with a single hanging light. In the center was a very old computer. Even as a child, I was computer savvy; I figured out how to turn it on, but realized that the OS was corrupt and unable to boot, leaving me on an old BIOS screen that I was completely unfamiliar with.

Finally, the room that unsettled me the most: a dark, liminal room. The walls were decorated with children's murals, holding hands happily with a yellow sun facing the doorway. In the middle of the unlit room was a drain and a single chair, toppled over. The light fixture was directly above it. What object was lying in the corner of the room that made me afraid?

My siblings stopped wanting to go with me. They were unsurprisingly afraid of the dark basement. To this day, I sorely wish I had taken more pictures.

Myrtle Fillmore was the mind behind the church accredited to Charles Fillmore, who did still play a large role in Unity. It is said that he wrote what Myrtle said and, after her death, carried the message on. However, he was having an affair with someone else during the time, and remarried after Myrtle's death.

When you are over a movement with spiritual power, your operations determine its outcome. Unity churches, once united, have now gone their own ways, remarrying to other doctrines, some even morphing into cults that welcome newcomers into a web of tight control, manipulation, and pettiness. Now, TruthUnity.net and Silent Prayer phone lines are the lasting living remnants of the original Unity church. I have not had great experiences with the modern Unity churches. As a child, I could've let my experiences of witnessing and documenting church member abuse become religious trauma. I could've let the tears be engrained in my soul. But as a teen I processed many heavy events at once, to the grace of God, with my experiences with Unity being one of them. Xenos/Dwell is another story entirely.

The essence of the Unity movement shares much in common with the powerful Christian Science movement, despite the Christian Science tendency to shake heads at any and every different belief system it becomes aware of.

I wish the best for those seeking the Christ, the Divine Light.

- lewashi, the creator.

[blue-opossum]

Damaged Man (Another "Warning"?): Injured Protoconsciousness

        Damaged Man (Another "Warning"?): Injured Protoconsciousness

        3 minutes to read.

        Friday morning, 21 July 2023.

        Dream #20,668-02.

        My protoconsciousness proxy has not appeared with these dynamics since 17 May 2017. Following that dreaming experience, a day later, I felt extraordinarily close to death after getting out of bed. Ultimately, this was related to severe indigestion along with incredible weakness.

        This dream's staging begins in a proto-cognizant mode. It starts with Zsuzsanna and me sitting on the floor of Leonard's bedroom in the King Street mansion. Dreaming experiences of this type and sleep cycle period correspond the most with my intuitive background focus of being in bed. Because of that, the setting is always a bedroom or the outcome leading to a bedroom (often, an erroneous one, depending on my sleep depth and degree of liminality). It completely dismisses real-world legitimacy to prevent confusion with real-life aspects. For example, Zsuzsanna had never been to America. The rest of my dream's content has the usual errors and contradictions.

        I am sorting comic book digests in an equidistant arrangement on the floor. The ones I look through are in black and white. There are several Marvel Comics "Power Pack" digests (though I had never seen that title in digest form or black and white). The pages include their parents as superheroes (not a legitimate factor in the real comic book). So far, that counts as three errors contradicting real-world factors and viable memory. (I have mapped dreams with as many as 30 outstanding errors or more.)

        I read a few lines of dialog, but the images have mangled limbs and bodies reminiscent of AI art. I wonder if I have all the "Power Pack" books, but I may be missing a few. I think there might be 29 issues. (At first, I think there may be only about 12 until I find issue number 29.) At one point, I discover that one contains only text rather than comic book panels. I inform Zsuzsanna of this, finding it puzzling. One of the issues at one point seems to be a catalog for electronic products instead. I am vaguely puzzled.

        My dream transitions to an otherwise predictable protoconsciousness proxy staging (often with the proxy coming in through a doorway, as in this case, with increased vividness and a sense of my physical body suddenly standing in the room). It is an unknown man with his head wrapped in bandages. Several strange wounds are around his head, like exaggerated red elongated welts. I do not perceive him as intrusive. I happily exclaim, "How are you?" even though he is seemingly badly injured. I correct myself by affirming his obvious injuries but trying to be as friendly as possible. He talks about his injuries, relating them to a factory accident.

        I talk about this being Leonard's room and talk about him. I do not consider that he died. I say how friendly and giving he was, using the term "pinhead." (He had microcephaly in real life.) I say how he kept a bedpan under his bed for when he had to urinate in the middle of the night (even though the bathroom was only a short distance from his room).

        Later, as I speak with my protoconsciousness proxy, I notice he has no eyes, only empty eye sockets by which I can see the inside of the back of his skull. (Unlike the AI image, however, the details are white and partly lit, not dark or black.) Besides the several recent scars, he appeared like a normal male in the previous scene, where less of his face was covered.

        Despite the unusual dynamics, there are still typical sleep cycle correlations throughout. "Missing" eyes, artificial eyes, or other eye-related factors usually correlate with an intuitive awareness of my eyes being closed while sleeping - as simple as that - no reason to be an idiot.

        One comic book having only text is a background recall that some comic books I read when growing up sometimes had a story (usually only one page) with only text, not superhero comics, but Harvey comics and some horror comics (making this attribute the 4th mistake in that segment).

        The bedpan reference, though true regarding Leonard, is more of an intuitive association of needing to wake to use the bathroom.

        The number of comic books is likely a temporality factor (which dreams otherwise lack). Thinking there may be more in the series is probably related to the number of potential days in a month as 29 or so - during an increasing but subtle real-world recall toward protoconsciousness staging, based on the factor of a comic book being a "periodical."