#mother is going to work now!!!!

[tojiscrack]

for my ‘liar, liar’ readers :)

guys, i’m gonna spend the next six hours writing — with necessary breaks ofc — which means i’ll be very active here on tumblr. wc for chapter 5 is currently at 15.2k words (the half way mark has been hit!!!)

it’s currently 4:05pm where i live. i don’t think, even with six hours worth of writing, i can complete the chapter today, but i do believe that this’ll push the wc above 20k words and closer to the epic final scene i have planned, so that this chapter can possibly be released next week?

idkkk, i’m gonna randomly post updates about the wc and how far along i’m with it in the replies section 😟 spam me with emojis and your presence cuz it’s gonna be me, my room, and my coffee from here on out 🤭

(ik most of my readers live in the states, so a lot of you might be asleep rn, so good morning for when you wake up and see this! here’s a cookie 🍪)

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Daddy, don't go.

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 293

Jason takes a deep breath. He takes a deep breath, in for ten seconds, out for eight, and just takes a minute before looking again. Nope, there’s still the strange quartet of orbs in the box of what should be stolen weapons (What, the government had enough, honestly) that gave his workers the heebie-jeebies. 

Which is not the vibe he gets from them. In fact, he’s actually kind of concerned with how much he has to beat the Pit back with how quickly it lurches to latch onto the… Well they’re not gems, and he’s a little wary about touching them at first, but the Pit does seem to settle when he does.

Alright, he can deal with this. It’s not like he has several heads in a duffel bag that needs to be delivered or a tiny assassin child back in his safehouse (Seriously Talia, why was he the preferred babysitter?) or an entire gang in Crime Alley to deal with. It’ll be fine. 

…

He would like to curse out his past self, because there’s now four babies in his safehouse that appeared to have fucking hatched from the orbs. Goddamnit. 

[charlietheepicwriter7]

One of Jonathan Crane's last patients before he began his experiments with fear gas was a young boy, barely out of his toddler years, who'd wake up every night screaming from intense nightmares.

Jonathan could still recognize that boy over a decade later as the boy was wheeled into Arkham Asylum, strapped to a gurney. Danny Fenton shot him a tired grin. "Hey, Doc! You mind if we start holding sessions again? I got a lot more tangible fears I need to work through this time."

[doctorsiren]

I’ve been thinking about Miles as Serizawa quite a bit 😁

[super-nova5045]

sylvia plath, todd anderson and virginia woolf (aka ACTUAL tortured poets) watching taylor “im breaking up with my boyfriend for his intense depression and blaming it on him, im dating a racist who enjoys watching woc being brutalized and harasses young woc artists, i sent my fans out on a hate train to attack a young woc actress for a line she had to say as part of her job to show how mentally ill her character was, im dating a maga supporter, i refuse to say anything about a current genocide despite being the most influential person in the world right now, i am a billionaire, i fly 13 minute flights and have the highest carbon emission of any celebrity, i am a known white feminist who only speaks about issues when it affects me and has constantly let my fans get away with extreme racism and even encouraged it by associating myself with known racists” swift call herself a tortured poet (her writing sounds like a bunch of thesaurus words slapped over gabba hanna and rupi kaur-esque poetry that was created purely as a trinket for an edgy pinterest board)

[flufflecat]

Ya don't know what you're messin' with!

[idontmindifuforgetme]

Just a girl who wants to be her mother’s daughter in the ways that matter

[almostthursdayy]

cringe death note oc posting what’s new

BIG PIECE of mello & my dn oc, M, more info about her right here 😈😈⤵️⤵️

i love her sm and i WILL talk extensively about her the second i’m given the chance. she’s literally the reason i got into death note so everyone say thank you M!

[bookshelf-in-progress]

No matter how many times it happens, I'm always shocked by how reliably all my problems with any given story are solved by making it shorter. If I go into a story with the idea that it'll be long, that I should use as much detail as I want to craft a full-length and fully-fleshed-out story instead of a short one, it always turns into this rambling, meandering, soulless thing that's no fun to read, and I get tangled up in so many flimsy, sprawling layers of character and worldbuilding that the plot becomes unworkable.

The minute I tell myself, "Let's make this as short as possible," the problems fall away, I find the heart of the story again, the pacing is brisk, scenes get multiple purposes, the world feels deeper because I'm implying things that spark the reader's imagination rather than trying to put every threadbare, boring detail on the page. Every time. You'd think I'd have learned by now.

[antiquepearlss]

I actually really want Eugene to officiate the Varigo wedding because one, it’s not a very official or proper wedding. If anything, it’s something Rapunzel and Varian put together in one week and is essentially just a giant party where they blow stuff up and eat cake. Varian totally asks Eugene thirty minutes beforehand if he will officiate and after five minutes of sobbing, he agrees.

And two, because I want him to say this line-

“It has been a joy to watch your distracting childish rivalry turn into a distracting childish courtship, which will undoubtedly turn into a distracting childish marriage.”

[swan2swan]

The biggest problem with Dominion is the dichotomy of Maisie's plotline with regards to motherhood, and the way both plots revolve around it from wholly opposite perspectives while never actually clashing.

Her plot starts off simply enough: she's angsting about not being a real person, Claire's trying to protect her, and Maisie spits at her with the "You're not my mother!" line right before she's kidnapped.

This is a classic Finding Nemo setup, which Claire takes to with gusto: she calls on favors, slips into seedy markets, fights a crime boss, eludes raptors, jumps out of a plane, and crawls through a forest to get the girl she calls her daughter back. Most stories would show this as a trial: ye olde "GASP! My parents love me!" story.

But the fact that Claire has no obligation to bring Maisie back is never challenged. Soyona doesn't bother with asking or playing the role of the tempting serpent instilling doubt; the closest the movie comes to that is Franklin giving her the "I told you this would happen" speech. It's all taken for granted, which is...okay, because we have already established who Claire is, but that's not the problem.

The problem comes with the other half of the story: Maisie mopes to Wu about how she's just a close, and Wu immediately points out how no, she was conceived and carried in a human womb just like everyone else! And he calls Charlotte "your mother".

And Maisie goes "Is that my mother?"

And when she meets Ellie, Dr. Sattler is somehow fully aware of who Maisie's REAL MOTHER, the one who created her and who she looks like, is, and gushes about how great of a eugen--person she was. Every single time Maisie talks about "her mother" with the people around her, the word is referring to Charlotte Lockwood, the woman who birthed her.

Meanwhile, that Claire woman is crawling into a slimy pond to get away from a twenty-foot-tall Kreugersaurus because she wants to get Maisie away from kidnappers.

Of course, Maisie runs back to her and yells "Those are my parents!", but there's still something missing there. Claire's side of the story is all about her powering through, risking her life time and time again to track down her daughter...but there's never really a moment between them later. Maisie even posits the "So I was just an experiment to her..." plotline that has been seen before, but even that's immediately refuted.

The movie's not wrong for avoiding the cliches and the oft-used tropes of foster motherhood, but it doesn't really break any new ground, either. Obviously, people can have more than one mom, but there's something of an imbalanced focus on Charlotte as Maisie's mother in the Maisie and Jurassic Park plotline, while Claire in the Jurassic World plotline is doing all the expected Mom Stuff.

I can't wholly express what's bothering me about it, maybe I'm overthinking it, but it...doesn't quite sit right with me.

[dazais-guardian-angel]

With today's entry, I was rather surprised and confused that Johnathan seemed to turn around so quickly from the absolute pit of despair he was in yesterday, having newfound determination and energy when he's seemingly been completely hopeless and inactive for weeks now (and for good reason). Not that I ever thought he'd completely given up, but there's definitely been a slow decline in how descriptive his journal entries have been to reflect his declining mental state (more robotic, less of his actual feelings about things), and today was a sharp contrast; it feels more like the early entries again. I thought, well, his mind is probably just so cracked at this point that he's looped all the way back around to being bold and energetic again, because by now he's desperate enough to throw caution to the wind: he either succeeds doing something extremely reckless to escape, or he fails and meets his end in a far better way than if he just waits for his fate by Dracula's hands.

...But having thought about it and reading other posts, I realized (probably stupidly obvious as it is) that his sudden change in mood probably has to do with what happened to the baby. Despite how scared he's been all this time, yesterday he didn't hesitate for a single second to try to save the baby once he realized from the previous incident what was happening, not thinking about his own life at all. And then he despaired when he couldn't save the child, the first time he's mentioned crying in the book at all, and then he had to witness the mother blaming him for her baby's death, and being killed herself for trying to rescue it. Now, the day after that horrific and heartbreaking failure, he's suddenly more determined than he's been in ages to escape. Maybe that was a turning point for Johnathan, and lit a fire under him... maybe he's clinging to the need to escape not just for himself and the people he loves anymore, but for the vain hope that he can put a stop to Dracula's schemes somehow once he gets out, because he doesn't want to let any more children die :' )

[jackmkelly]

i think (i know) hard promises jack changed his name after his brother died. francis sullivan has a mother a father and a baby brother he loves So much. jack kelly is the boy with no family gone on to be strike leader. he Needs to separate the two different parts of his life because its entirely too overwhelming to admit Everything hes been through so young. like he said to sarah he knows whats real and what isnt. he needs to be jack because he cant stand the idea of anyone who isnt his mother father or brother calling him francis/any nick name associated with that (side rant on every adult in the script continuously calling him sullivan until he hits everyone with the baller line drop “francis sullivan at your service” because he can finally get some justice for the kid he’s hiding inside). he Needs to divide the two parts of his life because he Knows its made him a different person. he knows the way he acts now isnt the way he acted with his family. jack kelly is more than an allies to protect himself from snyder its also how he protects himself from his past.

[thesummerstorms]

Long rough draft piece of my Rook de Riva being confronted with her past while Lucanis is stuck trying to reconcile his knowledge with his emotions while feeling protective.

One day, eventually, in the course of many much more impossible events, one day after an entire life time, Arsinoë de Riva finally walks out of an Eluvian and into the gaze of one of her Apostate mother's former collaborators.

After, Arsinoë will explain that he recognizes her because the name she gives the innkeeper was one of her mother's years ago. In the moment, all Lucanis knows is that they're being followed.

Lucanis and Arsinoë both immediately pick up on the fact that this elderly "farmer" has too much interest, is following a little too close. In the slight shift of a stance, a glancing look at the other's face, they come to agreement, easier than even he and Illario once could. They both have weapons ready as they turn into a deserted side street.

(Bellara is not quite as quick on the uptake despite their subtle efforts.)

The glint of steel and then Lucanis is moving. There is light and heat pouring over Arsinoë's gloved hand, a second away from bathing them in fire.

But the Elven man hasn't drawn on them. Instead, he's placed himself between Bellara and a red-crystal blade, swearing back in colorful Antivan when the Venatori exalt the name of the Great God Lusacan. Blood follows, and magic, the sweep of violet wings and the gleam of Bellara's bow.

Blood follows. Then silence as the man turns to look at Arsinoë critically, athame still unsheathed.

Lucanis doesn't move to put himself between them. He is a Crow: she is a Crow; it would be an insult to them both and all their training. Still, the urge is there, amplified in Spite's hissing demands, all of them centered on Rook.

The stranger seems unconcerned by Lucanis or by Bellara's rushed questioning. He keeps one brow raised as he asks "Corina Soldati, huh?" When Arsinoë doesn't answer, he adds 'You look like her, you know. More scars, but the face is the same."

Arsinoë doesn't twitch, but it's actually the stillness that gives her away. It would to any Crow — that unnatural, frozen poise of a child who has been beaten until they learn not to react, not to let the gasp or whimper slip past their lips.

Spite senses it too, his agitation palpable and roiling behind Lucanis's eyes, pushing for movement, to bring steel against this stranger who has FRIGHTENED startled Rook. Lucanis, like that same Crow child, does not react. He holds, ready, waiting for the shift in Arsinoë's stance that will give him permission to strike.

"Corina...Soldati?" Bellara asks, eyes flitting back and forth between Rook and the stranger. "Wait, is that a real person? Am I supposed to know who that is?"

Lucanis has never heard of a Corina Soldati in any capacity connected with the Crows, or in any of Caterina's careful strategizing around the merchant princes and their houses, but that doesn't have to mean anything. The part that matters is why the man cares.

If this is some past job come back to haunt Rook, it would better to end this now, quickly, and make their escape back through the Eluvian towards Treviso, where Viago can be apprised as Arsinoë's Talon. How Bellara would take that, though –

Rook still has not spoken- as uncharacteristic of her as her stony face, and that's setting off its own alarms- when the man interrupts his silent strategizing.

"She had other names. Antiklea, maybe. Antiklea Zangari?" A pause. "Fuck, you two don't know anything, do you." It isn't a question. "Well then, kid, what name are you using these days? When you're not using hers."

ROOK. IS QUIET! WHY IS ROOK? QUIET!

Lucanis couldn't answer Spite even if he wanted; he's never seen Arsinoë freeze like this, but there isn't time to dissect it. Bellara has moved to put herself between Arsinoë and the old man, Crows be damned, so Lucanis jumps in to speak the same way he would watch her back in a fight.

"De Riva." He answers for her. It's the only identity of hers a target has any right to know. "Why do you care?"

"We go back a ways," the man says, and finally sheathes his mage knife. Tucked into his belt, it looks as deceptive as he is, a farmer's hunting weapon without the glinting silverite blade. "You might have been too young to remember though, kid. And Antiklea didn't bring you around much."

"No." Rook doesn't move. She's normally an expressive talker, hands in constant motion, but she is still holding, eyes watchful. Waiting for the signal, as if young and bruised again."No, she didn't. Not when she didn't have to."

WHO. IS IT?

Lucanis bites back the question, instead making a deliberate point of not sheathing Rialto. He doesn't know of an Antiklea either, but something about this is throwing Rook is off her game. He can't afford to make more openings in her guard.

Footsteps go past the narrow mouth of the street and all of them, even the man tense. Spite hovers behind the man's shoulder, violet, violent light spilling over the stranger's face for only Lucanis to see.

SMELLS LIKE. RAIN AND DUST.

"Do we have a problem here?" Lucanis asks, at the same time as Bellara turns to Arsinoë, her back left open, FOOLISH , "Wait, do you know him Rook?"

Arsinoë glances her thumb along the sharpened Everite edge of her blade and shakes her head. "You weren't one of the ones she left me with, were you?"

Left you with???

"No," the man agrees. " You wouldn't have been any safer with me than you were with her. She's dead now, you know. Your mother."

What?

That's what this was about?

Lucanis has known of course, that Arsinoë wasn't de Riva by blood, whether it be Viago's or the previous Talon's. She was compradi, purchased, the same as most Crow fledglings were, and of course she had to have come from somewhere but –

Your mother is dead.

Lucanis blinked away the sudden twist in his chest and saw that Spite had rounded back to leer at the man's face, echoing confused anger. Incidentally, this also put the demon closer to Rook. Bellara had reached out immediately to put a steadying hand on Rook's elbow, but –

Arsinoë seemed to relax, her body shuddering as she released a breath. The mage knife was moving in her hands, but it was the same as the way she fidgeted with her fork or quill, not the intricate weave of a mage casting a spell.

"I assumed she was, by now," Arsinoë admitted, "It's been long enough. And even back then, well... I guess even as a kid I knew she wasn't going to come for me. Either she was dead or–"

Or cutting her losses. The unspoken words hung in the air.

And Arsinoë had been compradi. He knew that, knew the long, sordid history of the Crows and the children they bought to raise.

But... surely not. This was Rook. And even Caterina had-

LEFT ROOK? LEFT! ROOK!

"No, she wouldn't have," the man confirms, but Bellara's face is more devastated than Rook's, "that wasn't Antiklea's way of doing things. A couple of us looked, though, for what it's worth. Got as far as Filomena's widow and a couple of Templars, but then –".

"Then the Circle," Arsinoë agrees. "And then the Crows."

"The Crows? ... De Riva. Fuck, kid."

Lucanis bristles, even though his own thoughts have been circling and circling, twisting around compradi and bruising and silence, the strike of a cane. Arsinoë's free hand brushes his glove in recognition, and then the twist turns to shame.

"Things are what they are," Arsinoë tells her mother's associate with no more defensiveness than a shrug. Finally, the heat and flame of her mage orb flickers out of view. "I'm sorry if using one of her names upset you. I didn't expect it to be recognized after this long."

"Rook-" Bellara exclaims, but the glance Arsinoë shoots her isn't one looking for apologies.

The man shifts a little awkwardly, as if its finally hitting him just how absurd this whole conversation has been. "There are a few of us still around. A couple of the others might have some things of hers, I think. A stave or..."

"No. No that's not necessary."

"Arsinoë... Do you still use Arsinoë?"

"It's fine," Arsinoë waves him off, which doesn't actually answer the question, but the man relents. "I don't...She wouldn't..."

Wouldn't what? Wouldn't want to pass on her weapons to the daughter she apparently didn't look for?

"Still, I could-"

"No. Thank you. But whatever debts were there back then, neither of us owes the other now. I'll be fine."

"Debts?" Bellara asks incredulously, then "Rook, are you sure..."

"Bellara." Lucanis's jaw clicks as he says her name.

Arsinoë gives them all another small shake of the head, then glances at the still cooling Venatori corpses. "We should go. Before these are missed, I mean." Her eyes look to Bellara, to Lucanis, seeking, as if worried they might protest the sudden departure.

As if they would be worried about the groceries right now.

The man relents with a nod. "I'll handle the bodies. We can still do that much. Go safe... Signora de Riva."

Arsinoë turns heel without another glance in his direction. Bellara scrambles after her, leaving Lucanis to follow. He watches even as he leaves, until the old elf turns to the bodies with a sigh.

"So that was-" Bellara begins as he's catching up, but Arsinoë throws a hand up.

"Bel. Please. Not here."

Still Arsinoë accepts when Bellara tentatively links an arm through hers, though Lucanis swears he sees her flinch. Bellara looks back over her shoulder at him, expression still clear and full of all the words Arsinoë has rejected.

That was weird, right? He can almost hear her voice when their eyes meet. That was really weird. And sad.

Unfortunately... Lucanis thinks he understands more than he might like.

"When we get to the Lighthouse," he offers, "I'll send Harding for anything we need urgently and then I can start a pot of ciocalta calda while the stove heats."

Arsinoë gives no sign she heard him, her face distant. He starts revising dinner plans and the grocery list he will give to Harding. The broth can be put towards soup, maybe. Something easy to eat, to sip at, and what's left of the bread to soak in it.

LEFT ROOK? SOMEONE. LEFT ROOK THERE? Spite demands. The demon is unusually agitated, even for Spite.

Lucanis wishes he had a better answer.

But isn't that always how it is with the compradi?

Even Rook.

[xxplastic-cubexx]

chat htey fuckin jumpscared me while im trying to do my assignment