#maybe this is self-indulgent

[bookshelf-in-progress]

My Favorite Lines from Each of the Stories I've Written This Year

There will be spoilers.

Without Words

I've said that my favorite line is:

Even now, I am silent. But my silence fills with the sound of beating wings.

But I think my favorite might actually be the ending (a contender for one of the best endings I've written).

There are no words to express all I want to say. Fortunately, we have never needed words. I force my way past my brothers, throw my arms around Christian's neck, pull him in for a kiss, and let my silence speak for me. This time, he understands.

Purity of Mind

Either this hint at Adam's fairy tale identity.

Adam stroked his blue-black whiskers, neatly trimmed for his homecoming. A deep chuckle rumbled in his throat; after months of her tiptoeing around him, her frankness was amusing. "I paid your parents richly for the privilege."

Or this chilling reveal of it.

He would never have opted for such an impersonal death. It was much more satisfying to feel the life draining away beneath his fingers.

Length of Years

I like how concisely I managed to summarize the lifetime of events that kept the prince from returning to the tower.

"I might have returned, when my temper cooled, but then there were the wars, the diplomatic missions, the voyages, the marriage treaty, the children..." He sat wearily on her window ledge. "By the time life slowed down, I assumed you'd long ago moved on, and it would have been disloyal to seek you out."

Loving Memory

I love the beautiful irony of this scene ending.

"What would she need to do to make you love her? What would you want in a wife?" Someone who can come into a ballroom clad in furs and not feel shame. Someone who knows how to laugh and cry. Someone who loves to watch the northern lights. Someone who travels night and day to apologize to a man she betrayed. In the end, I choose the diplomatic answer. "I don't know that I can ask for more than what I already have."

My very favorite part might be the flashbacks. I wanted this part to involve the usual scenes from the beginning of the fairy tale, but was afraid this would involve a lot of extra writing. So I love that I managed to do it with five two-sentence-long scenes.

As sappy as it is, I can't help loving their reunion. (Even if I don't think "senseless" is the word I was going for here.)

"Karina," I breathe. "I remember." "Everything?" she asks, as tears stream down her face. "Everything," I say, and kiss her senseless.

And my very most favorite part might be their quiet scene together afterward, where he's rejoicing in their reunion in ways that put me in mind both of Manalive and the Eden/salvation story.

My own. My beloved. My wife. It is like falling in love all over again.

In Chains

Of course it's the moment of reveal.

Vallen met the young man’s eyes and explained as calmly as possible, “I admire your devotion, but the river is only strictly required in the marriage rite—” Of kings.

A Song of Starlight

The last part of this line was always central to my idea of the story, but I also love the opening clause that let me transition to that moment.

After eternity had come and gone, the song slowed and faded away, and Birgit was herself again--cold and alone, but no longer afraid.

Stars and Shadows: A Fairy Tale

Even when I was uncertain about the readability of this strange style and feeling self-conscious about posting it, I thought the entire story was worth it just for this line.

Your breath will shine before you in delicate white clouds, your very life made visible for the fragile, lovely thing it is.

The True Story: An Epistolary Novelette

I love Penny's relatable line about the horrors of recommending books.

It's always a little bit horrible when someone else reads one of your favorite books, because if they hate it, it crushes a piece of your heart, and I don't have that many pieces to spare.

I like this line of Ben's, which clarified some things about the philosophy of this story for me.

Making peace with mystery--knowing that some things are ever unknowable--is not the same as refusing to believe the truth that comes before your eyes.

And this one (which let me get a bit more theological than I thought I could get away with).

I may not know how these books come into my shop, but I know from whom.

Penny's freakout over the loss of Mercator always makes me laugh.

If the U.S. Postal Service is responsible for their destruction, I'll...we'll...we'll make them pay! This is a murder and there must be justice! Don't worry, I don't blame you. But the next mailman to cross my path better watch out.

As does this follow-up one.

Still no sign of Mercator. Did you forget to send it again, or do I have to lay siege to the post office?

I love this moment because Ben surprised even me by unbending and talking like an ordinary person with a sense of humor instead of a Victorian businessman with a stick up his rear.

This is me not saying I told you so. That doesn't leave me much else to say.

This is my favorite description of Cardinal's Map I've managed so far.

It's the most beautiful...well, not fantasy. But it's not not fantasy.

I'm very pleased with how Christine's reaction to Cardinal's Map turned out, but my favorite lines might be

It's like this book reached into my soul and rearranged the furniture.

And

It's just...a story, so I let my guard down and it got under my skin.

And this. Even if it gets a bit on-the-nose and sappy, it's still kind of sweet. (And it amused me while typing it because the author's hand in all this is me.)

There was someone's hand in all this--an author arranging all the pieces of the story in a way I'd never have been able to achieve on my own. Maybe before that'd make me feel helpless, but now, I don’t know, I guess I feel cared for. Like someone’s watching out for me.

The Sylph in the Storm

I've always liked this reveal.

Then the firelight revealed what the night had hidden. Though the man stood as tall and real and human as any of us, the light shone through him.

This scene with Captain Avery was one of my favorites in the original version, and was a big reason I kept coming back to this scene and loved it enough to try to turn it into a short story here.

“Sarah,” the Captain said suddenly, “could you pour some tea for our guest?" Tea? For a sylph?  I didn't understand how he could consume anything, but the Captain knew about these sorts of things.  And when faced with the question of what one did with a sylph in the parlor, tea seemed as sensible an answer as anything else. The sylph stood and tried to decline. "That's very kind, but you needn't..." The Captain's face was as firm as it ever could have been when he'd commanded a ship.    “You've form enough to take food, and you're tired enough to need it.” “I can't take repayment...” “Good,” the Captain replied, “because none of us have any hope of repaying you.  But you need to allow us our gratitude, and you'll need nourishment before you can do much else.”

[eydilily]

(look at what i have to offer) — this is the spider's nest.

[corantus]

marceline x 90s joan jett fits 🖤🦇

crossover btwn my favorite women. ft my design for her guitar

[amygdalae]

I think he wld be very happy as a zookeeper

[cj-the-random-artist]

Ok hear me out: Narilamb but they're both aroace and in a qpr.

I've been rolling around in my head for like a long long time this idea that Narinder and Lambert could both be aroace and (after like. A couple of centuries or so) end up in this like very comfortable very close relationship that neither of them define as anything specific other than calling it a "companionship". But on the other hand most of the cult thinks that they're dating in secret or something despite the fact that both of them have said they don't take lovers, because they are clearly very tight but maybe not super openly so, so maybe the cultists thing they're being secretive and hiding something or something like that. Idk but my aroace brain loves thinking about extremely close (mostly) platonic relationships and for some reason my brain decided hmm. I'm going to take this and throw it at Narilamb and see how I like it.

So then I decided to make a ridiculous joke comic about Narinder asking Lambert's hand in marriage specifically because he wants to get out of paying taxes. Because like, I know that spouse followers do actually still have to pay taxes in the actual game but. Hey Narinder and Lambert have presumably never married so they probably don't know that...? Honestly the only reason I made this was because the concept tickled me and I spent too much time on this for no one to see it, so. This comic and all it's absolute ridiculousness be upon ye.

While there's a tiny part of me that's been thinking about making this into an AU (which I'd probably call something like the "Strictly Platonic AU" or something), I know for a fact that I would blatantly not do anything legitimate with it so. It's an unofficial AU I guess?? But. Anyways. I thought this would be funny. Enjoy my ramblings and I hope you enjoy this thing that I spent. Actual time on. Lol

[anbaisai]

he's so mean

[toxungen]

woof woof wats up lol

[hajihiko]

💕

[laspicyfresa]

This California heat is gonna be the DEATH of me! 😩 I want to be on a beach in La Paz NEOW!

(Please don’t judge me on my shading. Been awhile since I’ve done male anatomy ✋🏼😔)

[k0mmari]

Endless Abyss(kinda)! SY AU

First things first, this is very much inspired by this post by @/rainbowsmagicandshit and @/allpiesforourown, HIGHLY recommend reading that fist just to get a glimpse of where I started off, but do note I have accidentally deviated from the original idea a bit, so uh, oops ig.

This was born out of a mix of different ideas (as usual), so think of this as ‘The AU where SY is a demon, and also the Endless Abyss, and also my excuse to have Binghe possibly make a harem consisting entirely of SY’s’, or, as I like to call it:

As per usual, Shen Yuan has died. It happens to the best of us, and of course, he died while reading the glittering piece of trash that is Proud Immortal Demon Way.But, as he is in the process of getting snatched away by the System, something goes wrong, and the System has to quickly redirect itself and it causes SY to get knocked out of course.

His soul scrambles to find a new host, and it manages to find someone suitable enough. When SY wakes up though, he isn’t greeted by the sight of a roof, or a forest, or anything remotely familiar; instead, the moment he regains consciousness, he’s senses are flooded with as much information as possible. It’s like a computer with too many tabs open, but in this case, you can see all the tabs at the same time and all of them are playing the most obnoxiously loud videos possible, in fact, everything feels so overwhelming even thinking becomes too much.

What SY doesn’t know is that he has transmigrated into the body of a Titan, an almost extinct godly demon race that only existed in the confines of Airplane’s first drafts, and it turns out shoving a human soul into the body of a deity doesn’t bode so well, since what the human mind is able to process doesn’t even come close to what a Titan is able to feel. So because SY can’t get a hold of his own mind, his control of his own body is also not great, and he is completely unaware as his newly acquired body goes on a rampage.

See, SY is currently in a very old version of the Demon Realm, so old in fact, Heavenly Demons still rule over the Realm. It really is quite a shame that SY wasn’t in his right mind at the time, and instead of being able to observe how ancient Heavenly Demons governed demonic society, he instead accidentally set on a path of destruction, with the casualties being anything that had the bad luck of standing in his way. In fact, the destruction got so bad a few of the Heavenly Demons rulers, who notoriously hated each other, settles on a temporary peace agreement and joined forces to stop the mad Titan.

SY, in his frenzied state, didn’t even notice as hundreds of years went by as the Heavenly Demons tried to stop him, and also barely noticed when they finally managed to chain him down and cast him away to be forever banished to the Endless Abyss. His body, once so tall it grazed the clouds, was torn apart, with each of its different parts sealed away in various locations as an attempt to diminish the Titan’s power. It worked, actually, and unbeknownst to the demons, SY slowly began to get his thoughts in order; the event that finally pushed him to coherency was when a few of those Heavenly Demon rulers got greedy, and while sealing away SY’s body parts, attempted to harness his power for themselves, and tried to create legendary weapons out of his flesh and bone.

Most of them failed, a Titan’s power to overwhelming for even a Heavenly Demon to handle, but one of them succeeded, and created a powerful sword made from the Titan’s own heart: Xin Mo. Unfortunately for the creator of Xin Mo, it didn’t take long for them to fall into madness and eventually succumb to Xin Mo’s power, casting themselves away to hold onto the sword forever in the same valley SY’s hands were sealed; but it is as they say, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure, and while Xin MO’s creator perished, they managed to take enough power away from SY for him to finally be able to think.

It had been a thousand years at this point, and SY’s first coherent thought was that he desperately needed a break, and that in all these years, he hadn’t managed to get a single glimpse into the world of PIDW, and what a waste! Specially since he was now in the most interesting area Airplane had managed to create, he was itching to explore the world. Of course, in his current state he wasn’t exactly able to move (having his limbs cut off certainly didn’t help, but apparently it had been so long since he was imprisoned that his Main Body had started to fuse with the Abyss? Really, more of a slight inconvenience than anything), but he also had become tired of his Titan body with it’s Titan feelings, and so he decided to split his consciousness and create a small army of human sized avatars who were later dubbed his ‘Watchers’, who’s sole purpose was to explore the Endless Abyss and send their findings back to the Main Body (in bite sized, easy to understand thoughts).

It is the first years of his Watchers wandering about that SY finally understood what had happened to his body, and figured out that Xin Mo was a product of his flesh. He figured that since demons tried to use his body for malicious purposes before, with one even succeeding, he decided that one Xin Mo was enough, and came up with a plan: He was going to piece his Titan body back together as a means to prevent anything of the sort happening again, but he was immediately going to seal the Titan body away again, as to not have to deal with it’s overwhelming power.

As the Watchers were sent to locate his body parts again, one of their first findings were the hands, which also meant the resting place of Xin Mo itself. How lucky, he thought! He could just take the hands away and maybe leave one of the Watchers guarding Xin Mo so when Luo Binghe eventually comes to retrieve his sword, SY at least can catch a glimpse of his favorite protagonist! He wasted no time, and while his avatars tried to unseal his hands, one of them went to move Xin Mo, just so it was out of the way, and in doing so the sword retaliated and ended up disintegrating the poor Watcher. What a rude sword, going against its own body.

Fine! If Xin Mo was going to be difficult so be it, and SY formed a new plan: before reuniting his Titan body back together, SY send his Watchers to keep an eye on as much of the Endless Abyss as possible and the moment Luo Binghe fell in, he would turn to hugging the protagonist’s thigh and help him survive the harsh environment as long as Binghe took Xin Mo. Well, it should be no problem, right? Binghe was fated to get the sword one way or another, and SY is sure his involvement will be small insignificant enough that it won’t be much more of a side quest for the future Demon Emperor!

Now, if he were a half human, half Heavenly Demon teenager who just got pushed into hell by his teacher, where would he land….

*

So, as you can see, this is mostly more like SY’s origin story lol, but I’ll probably write Binghe’s first meetings with the Watchers sometime soon (hopefully).In the meantime though, enjoy some more of the bonus sketches I did while figuring out the AU, and of course, if anyone has any questions or thoughts about this, feel free to send them to me!

[seasononesam]

Supernatural (2005-2020) // Gravity Falls (2012-2016)

[choccy-milky]

☼ seb & clora x elden ring ☼

SUPER self-indulgent thing i had to draw once i got the idea, bc i love FromSoftware and all their games (...& also bc i will never get tired of drawing clora like an ethereal lightbulb LOL 🔆) ↓ extra doodles and a lot of yapping below❗ ↓ (& elden ring DLC final boss spoilers)

their boss mechanics bc im a nerd LMAO🥰

if you target clora and kill her before seb, seb will be inflicted with madness/frenzy, and his stats will be raised for the remainder of the fight

with clora dead, seb will stop using holy/slash damage, and will instead use occult, madness/frenzied flame, and his own blood to inflict bleed damage

killing clora first makes the fight wayy harder, but also reaps much better rewards/a unique item (like the ornstein and smough boss fight in DS1)

if you kill seb first and don't finish off clora quickly enough, she'll just keep reviving him over and over (like the twin princes fight in DS3)

when you get seb down to like 10% health, he'll stop going on the offensive and will instead do everything he can to protect clora (while being visibly beaten up & limping😭kinda like sif in DS1)

this is the boss i re-skinned them as (promised consort radahn) bc i love this design...and even the lore makes sense bc the big guy (radahn) was brought back to life to serve miquella and fight for him (kinda like my seb and his horcrux👀) i also considered giving clora a halo similar to miquella's (but in the design of her hairclip) except i scrapped that bc i thought it looked weird LOL. i still like the idea tho so...just pretend its there LMAO🙂‍↕️🙏 ok im done 🗣️

[boar-cry]

you remind me of someone.

A while ago I read this headcannon that maybe Gliscor reminded Ingo of Emmet because of the smile. And a few days ago I realized Crobat looks awfully similar to someone else...

[dakeus-art]

My take on the new cast!

[lazylittledragon]

new terrible woman unlocked i'm very excited

[punnifullife]

Been binge-watching the '03 show and it's re-ignited my hyper-fixation on one of my first OTPs as a kid.