#put it under the cut because it was looong

[vroomian]

Yrz hit the garden of the royal palace in hell in ablaze of agony and with a glitching form. Unfortunately Lucifer and Lilith are out at the moment and three year old Charlie is in the garden with a pair of imp minders.

Unfortunately those imps see a random angel in the palace garden and abandon baby Charlie without looking back.

Wait, Yrz thinks through the agony, is that a fucking baby????

Also, Yrz immediately flash backs to his disastrous arrival in heaven and how he fried four weak angels just from loosing control.

Unfortunately this baby is sitting well within frying distance. She is also cute as — hah — hell.

Nope! Yrz has never hurt a baby in any goddamn lifetime and he’s not starting now. His monstrous will rises from the depths and his self control snaps it’s jaw around the agony and swallows it whole. He yanks his power into form. It still fucking hurts but that is the least important part of this situation. His glitching form snaps into a body that’s broken but solid. His paper wings and one leg are angled wrong, and what passes for ribs are for sure broken. Inky blood leaks from a multitude of wounds, turning to gold ichor when it touches the ground.

the baby remains unfried.

It only feels like he’s dying. It’s just a body. Yrz can deal.

Yrz’s still working on human adjacent facial features so he settles on manifesting one sheet of paper with a smiley face on it. “Hey honey, where are your parents?”

The little girl grins — and those are little baby fangs. “Daddy go out!”

Great.

Babysitting it is.

This, Yrz thinks, really is hell.

“You got a name, you little demon?”

The girls eyes honest to god sparkle. Why. How. “Char-char!

-

Lucifer and Lilith, alerted to an intruder by their panicked staff, show up in full demon forms.

They find baby Charlie happily scribbling over some of yrzs paper wings and chattering happily to a long suffering Yrz.

All the grown ups pause, wary.

Charlie immediately shrieks and wobbles to her parents in delight. Her very dangerous parents. Yrz recognizes that face from the archives.

Lucifer Morningstar snatches up his daughter like she’s a treasure he thought lost forever. And if that’s Lucifer the woman must be Lilith.

Yrz cannot catch a break.

Yrz clears his throat — or what passes for it. It sounds like a Peice of paper being torn apart. He morphs his stupid smiley face sheet into an origami rose. Harder to read. “I come in peace?”

Lucifer glances at the crater where his garden used to be. He raised an eyebrow.

Ah.

“I fell from heaven really, really fast in peace?” Yrz tries.

“Of course you did, And what do you do to be booted out of the pearly gates? Murder? Arson? Something — worse?” Lucifer sounded tired. He was still clutching Charlie to his chest which undermined the nonchalance in his voice.

Um. Yrz shrugs with his broken shoulders as much as he can. “Nothing really? I left.”

Yrz also trashed the place as he went, but that was more of a side effect than a cause. Besides, was a crime really committed if no one saw you do it?

“You — left.”

“Yeah.”

“You left paradise. The paradise created specifically for humans who lived virtuous lives. The paradise made specifically by God, the all knowing creator?”

“It was nice,” what Yrz had seen of it before he was locked in a golden cage for one hundred years. “But it was also kinda — boring.”

Lucifer stares. “Boring. My fathers crowning glory.”

“I’m sure God worked really hard on it?” Yrz half asked, getting a little annoyed with all the staring. “Look I don’t really know what you want me to say here. it’s not like I asked for eternal paradise okay. I literally just did my job to the best of my ability while I was alive! I don’t even worship any kind of god! I was ready for nothingness, without consciousness! Not hymns and sugar forever! No problems to solve at all!”

Yrz tried to keep himself entertained! But even all of the records of heaven couldn’t last forever for a being of pure information that Yrz had become, a thing that could just — absorb shit instantly,! make it a part of himself! He went through the whole archive in fifty years — and he never forgot anything anymore. Any longer in that cage and he would have chewed off his own wings. He would’ve broken his halo and used the pieces to see if suicide was still an option. He could feel himself slipping into that cold place where humanity meant less than nothing. The only thing that remained was the problem: a way out. By any means necessary.

Yrz was not a being made for stagnation.

Something was bound to break. So Yrz made sure it wasn’t him.

Sure heaven was a little bit… charred, but what prisoner felt bad for their jailers?

Not this one.

“What the fuck,” Lucifer said. His demon form vanished.

“Fuck!” Charlie said, cheerfully.

“Darling,” lilith said chidingly.

“Oh fuck — no I mean, darn! Sorry, dearest. Come on char-char, don’t say that, daddy didn’t mean to say a bad word!”

“Fuck!”

“Oh, this going to be like the s-word incident all over again huh? Why are children like this?”

Lilith and Yrz watched as the king of hell began to wander off, completely absorbed in his giggling daughter.

Finally Lilith broke the silence. “ you’re injured. Come and we shall see to your care.”

“And in return?” Yrz asked, wary.

He wouldn’t exchange one cage for another.

She smiled, a soft, sad little thing. “ while you recover, nothing. You shall be as an honored guest. Afterwards we shall negotiate.”

“…why?”

Lilith glanced after her husband and child. “I am no stranger to the marks left by those who are so convinced of their righteousness that they are blind to the grace of mercy. No one here is a friend to those golden cowards in their golden home.”

Yes. She would be. To be created and given to some man without choice — disgusting. Yrz would’ve rejected that commandment as well. He would belong to himself and those he chose.

“I can’t really move,” Yrz admitted sheepishly. “My — everything is broken.”

Lilith nearly smiled. “I am aware. The injures of a fall that long are also familiar. May I?” She knelt by him, careful of his wings. The scribbles from Charlie were very pink against their paleness.

Yrz blinked. Some sort of healing magic? “Sure — woah!”

Lilith picked Yrz up as if he weight nothing. He stifled a noise of agony and felt his form glitch again. He stilled with a grimness. No frying the queen of hell who’s trying to help you, asshole.

“Sorry,” he said because that had to sting.

“It is no matter,” Lilith said. “You are much more injured than I thought if your form is that unstable. “

“Well,” Yrz said. “There was a baby right there. I couldn’t just — my form is pretty difficult to withstand.”

Lilith paused and looked down to meet yrzs eyes would be, if he had any. “Thank you. She is dear beyond words to both of us. “

“I don’t need thanks for not hurting a kid,” Yrz said dryly. “Not lashing out when in pain is a basic adult skill.”

“And yet it is a rare talent.”

Yrz wished he had eyes so he could roll them. “It shouldn’t be.”

“Mama!” Charlie’s vice called out. “Come sing, sing! Fuck!”

Lilith laughed under her breath. She carried Yrz towards her home and family.

Hell, Yrz concluded, was beyond weird.

He felt better already.

[halloween4life]

The Orange Side is going to represent Impulsiveness and the rest of y'all are wrong: a thread

For obvious reasons the title of this post is a joke. But anyway, hi hello. I wanted to talk about my theory of what I think the Orange Side is gonna be! Now this post is going to be looong so for the sake of everyone it's going to be put under the cut.

Disclaimers that I want to get out of the way now: I have just recently re-entered the fandom and I haven't been into Sanders Sides in years. I'm not a Patreon supporter nor do I have Twitter so I lack any information that may have been revealed there. Also I am still in the process of rewatching the series. So as of now, I don't really have a complete understanding of the series. I apologize if I get anything wrong, and if any of this puts you off, totally valid.

Oh also, general spoilers for like, anything Sanders Sides related but specifically Working Through Intrusive Thoughts (if you still somehow have not watched it). Honestly I recommend watching it before reading this as a refresher, because most of this theory is based around/supported by that video. It's like, really the only foundation for this theory as I don't really delve much into the other episodes.

First things first, I am going to lay down some rules on what the Orange Side could represent:

1) The concept needs to in some way be the "opposite" of logic. Realistically this doesn't have to be the case in the series, but based on how the other Dark Sides function, it makes the most sense for now.

2) The concept needs to be generally considered negative for them to be considered a Dark Side.

3) Whatever they represent needs to REALISTICALLY make sense as an aspect of C! Thomas' identity. I think a lot of people forget that the Sides are that, Sides of a whole person. So I tried my best to make that work.

Now, with that out of the way,,,I'm going to "debunk" some theories first. Yes sorry there is a lot of set up to this theory, but I feel like it's important. Also, reminder, if you believe in either of the theories I am going to debunk, that is TOTALLY 100% VALID! I'm just going to discuss why I don't think they work, so this is all just my opinion!

Theory 1: The Orange Side represents Rage

I'm pretty sure this is the most popular theory right now, and I know a lot of people also disagree with it. I think this one mostly came about because our only real evidence of the Orange Side is through Logan's anger fueled outbursts in WTIT and Learning New Things About Ourselves. While I definitely understand this line of thinking, I don't think it's right.

First and foremost, it breaks the third rule set up earlier. Again, all these characters are facets of Thomas' personality. And from what we've seen of him, it just doesn't make sense with his personality. Now, again, this could obviously be different in the series, we could learn that this is actually his rage and he's just been repressing it, but I doubt that'll be the case. (Also I feel like this could break the first rule but I don't know how to explain why).

Secondly, and I just think that rage in and of itself is just, way too specific of a concept to be represented by a side. This kinda works in tandem with the first point, since again, it just doesn't seem that large of an aspect of Thomas that it would be represented by its own side. As well, all the other sides represent either much larger concepts or multiple at a time. For instance, Logan, Patton, and Roman represent logic, morality, and (good) creativity respectively. While Virgil and Janus do represent anxiety and deceit, those titles are rather reductive, as they also represent vigilance and self-preservation respectively. (Really I think we need to talk more about the fact that Janus is canonically Thomas' self-preservation but is really only viewed as "deceit"). Remus is a fun case as although he is viewed as "intrusive thoughts", he as a whole represents the bad side of creativity. TLDR: Rage is too specific a concept to be its own side.

Theory 2: The Orange Side Represents Emotion

Okay I'm going to be honest, I've only seen one person on here with this theory (and for the life of me I can't remember their name). But I just want to say that if you are reading this, this isn't me calling you out or anything (honestly I really agreed with your theory until I came up with this one). If I remember correctly, this theory is more built on the Orange Side being an opposite to logic, and how emotions tend to cloud logic, similar to the reasoning for rage.

I think this theory most obviously breaks rule 2. Now emotions as a whole do have the capacity to be bad, I think the concept of just emotion is not generally considered bad. Definitely not enough for it to be considered along with the Dark Sides. It's simply too big of a concept to be either "good" or "bad".

On that subject, I think this theory has a similar issue to the rage theory, but in the opposite direction. While rage was too specific, emotions are waaay too broad to just be one singular side. Especially given that all of the current sides have some sway over Thomas' emotions. And it's also possible that this side would be considered too close to Patton. While yes, it is not explicitly stated that he is in charge of Thomas' emotions, he definitely has the most sway over them. Ultimately, I think this theory is just too vague to work.

Okay, now with that all out of the way, let's get into my actual theory. So,

Why do I think the Orange Side will represent Impulsiveness?

I'm going to start this off by comparing my claims to the rules I made up. Because tbh, that's how I came to the conclusion in the first place before I started finding evidence to support it (but isn't that how all good hypotheses work?)

1) Does impulsiveness act as a counter to logic?

According to Merriam-Webster's dictionary, Impulsive is defined as "prone to sudden illogical changes of mind, ideas, or actions". Now I was gonna go on a big explanation of how they are opposites but it literally says illogical in the definition. So uh, yayy 🎉🎉🎉

2) Is impulsiveness seen as a negative thing?

Now, truthfully there is no way for me to prove that impulsiveness is either "good" or "bad". That being said, I feel like a lot of people generally view impulsiveness as a bad thing. While in small amounts it can be seen as good and fun, the more frequently you engage in impulsive behaviors, the more destructive it can become. Often leading to bad decision making, i.e. avoiding work, making big financial decisions without much thought, and generally just doing what you want over what may be important.

3) Does this fit within Thomas' personality?

Yes. It has been shown time and time again that Thomas has an issue with his impulsive behaviors. Oftentimes manifesting in him avoiding chores and general self-care in favor of doing something easy or entertaining. The most clear example of this being the video "Growing Up." While yes, most of these decisions are made due to Patton, it's not entirely uncommon for the sides to be affected or swayed by the others. (Also if I'm being honest, I don't think it entirely fair to analyze the earlier episodes with the same critical lens as the later ones, it's definitely not fair to Thomas (the real Thomas) to criticize the early episodes for not perfectly aligning with later lore).

Now, finally, we can get into some evidence to support all these claims I'm making. First things first, as of right now Logan and the Orange Side are one in the same. We haven't been given any proof that they are at least physically different beings (unless you want to count the orange eyes in the Sanders Sides anime intro parody). So all of our evidence is just Logan acting really out of character. So, where does Logan act impulsively?

Our first major incident of this (I'm pretty sure) is in the episode "Learning New Things About Ourselves", specifically the scene where Roman essentially pisses him off so much that he throw's a crumpled up note card at him. Most important is his reaction afterwards, being shocked at himself.

He was basically pushed so far that he reacted without thinking (impulsively some may say? ok I'll stop, I'm sorry). Which, obviously, is EXTREMELY out of character for him. He is logic, he is supposed to think first before he acts, go through possible scenarios and decide the most favorable outcome. Yet, here he loses all control.

Our next example is less of Logan acting impulsive and more so how I believe his actions are affecting Thomas. In the episode "Working Through Intrusive Thoughts", Thomas basically spends the whole time being tormented by Remus because he can't keep his mind off of the risky text he sent Nico (I'm aroace but I'm gonna assume valid? So real?). While Logan is simultaneously trying to keep Thomas on schedule, accommodate his struggles, and accommodate Remus' actions as part of Thomas' identity. Basically, it's a lot, and when he's finally at his limit, well

Yeahhhh, a certain something makes itself known. And while Logan doesn't act particularly irrationally or impulsively in this moment (literally all he does is yell at Remus), it is what Thomas does after this outbreak that I find interesting. As immediately afterward he gets a call from Nico, inviting him out. And given the choice between what he has planned to do and needs to get done for the day, vs spending the day with Nico?

He decides suddenly to just drop everything he is doing for Nico. A rather impulsive decision if you ask me. And while yes, technically none of what Thomas was doing needed to get done that day (it was mostly chores), it was part of a plan and he promised himself to stick to it. Logan doesn't react well to any of this, both his own outburst and Thomas deciding to just leave him behind like it's nothing. And I don't think it's gonna spell anything good in the future for Logan and the rest of the gang.

So, where does that leave us now?

Well, moving a bit on to what I think is going to happen next. Obviously things are going to get worse before they get better. Logan will fall more and more into impulsive behaviors, which will only become more destructive for Thomas. As well, I think (hope, pray) that there will be some sort of team up between Logan and Remus. They're the only sides who I think could "properly" get along (I know that Janus and Remus have some sort of friendship, but it can only work so well as Janus being self-preservation can only really run counter to Remus' intrusive thoughts). Most likely they will feed into each other in a horrible cycle of "I can make him worse." I don't think that would be either of their genuine intentions, as I don't like labeling the Dark Sides and "bad", but I definitely don't think they would be good for each other. I do also think this will come about because Remus either knows or understands something about Logan that the others don't, not even Janus. As well I do hope that Logan and the Orange Side are one in the same somehow, and not just Logan being influenced.

Anyway, sorry for the insanely long post and sorry if it started to devolve towards the end. I am quite literally writing this on no hours of sleep, so give me a bit of grace. Also, another sorry if I have gotten anything wrong or if I have missed something. It has been very long since I've engaged with Sanders Sides, but I'm trying my best. Anyway, thank you for coming to my ted-talk, I hope Logan gets to commit murder in the next episode.

[mirkhammett]

champagne coast / kirk

there’s a specific vibe i went for in this, and i don’t know if i manage to express it properly but..those coming of age movie parties with jeff buckley in the soundtrack ^.^ you get me?? this is my first time trying to write something longer than 400 words in a looong while, so pls bare with me and my clusters of infinite mistakes lol

reblogs, likes, comments and asks are all highly appreciated! if this gets some interactions i may do a part 2 with..fun stuff wink wink!! i also apologise for how rushed the ending is, but i gave up lol

summary: you meet a cute guitarist at a party, that’s about it ^.^

word count; 4.2k

warnings; mentions of drugs, smoking (tobacco+marijuana, reader+kirk smoke cigs)

i have not proofread this yet so expect mistakes!!

the summer breeze is discouraging. desolate plants are surviving just barely under the malicious sun, like a record that just keeps on playing; the aftermath of the music, the seconds of muffled silence as the vinyl spins effortlessly, and you know you should just get up and remove the stylus, because the impracticalness of such a simple act of futility, could end up with a damaged record. and no one wants a damaged record.

there’s often a local yearn for the heat, summer always seeming too far away in winter, as the miserable humidity is replaced with a sharp winter, ice flakes cutting like blades, which to some, would be considered worse. and to this sum, the summer breeze may be a blessing.

everything about this place could be deemed as overstimulating. from the immense mass of people, all in garments that would never live to see the day in a public place, with such little material- could these things really be considered as clothes? and judging by the majority of party-goers, your opinion would be considered unpopular.

the concrete is hot to touch- the unsteady porch not doing much to help. it’s slightly better than inside the house, though.

it isn’t too big, it’s just too small. a perfectly adequate residence for someone in their mid 20s to occupy, and it looks it too. the entryway of the house is not only filled with coats and others of the sort, but all 4 of the cream coloured walls are adorned in posters. some are easily known- you recognise one in particular as a promotional poster for a new thrash band, the logo on the corner signifying that whoever owns this, got it fresh from a record store window.

entering though the hallway into the kitchen felt like a treacherous task for you, under the oppressive temperatures. sporting this thin sweater may have not been the right choice, you criticise.

there’s a table in the kitchen. well, the remains of a table. empty beer cans are scattered across, and a half full bowl of punch sits, patiently waiting for its next victim to intoxicate with its high levels of ethanol, and god knows what else. you pondered if fresh orange juice was used, or artificial.

you feel their eyes on you before you see it. and then a hands reaching out to you. skinny, nimble fingers connected to a tanned wrist, paired with a couple dainty, gold, probably fake, bracelets. and that tanned wrist connects to an equally tan body, (of course.)

you look at her quizzically. she’s got flowing hair, brown ribbons of curl that shone with an orange tint under the shitty, dingy lamp illuminating the cramped room. and then you gazed up at her again.

do you know her? does she know you?

staring unblinkingly at her, you realise, is probably very much off putting. it’s hard to take kindness from strangers, well, for most people. it’s even harder to tell if that kindness is genuine. you believe in the idea, quality, or quantity. at least that’s what you tell yourself- and it maybe the whole reason you ended up in this predicament.

she’s got a man on her arm. he’s tall, well, he’s taller than both you, and her. his long, blonde hair is looking a little ratty, and you know she must have thought the same too. you can also tell he’s been trying to grow out a ‘horse-shoe’ moustache, judging by the minor prickles of hair, and the subtle shaping.

he’s looking at you like a guard dog- and his expression is fully straight. you can’t tell if he’s one of those people, that show a hard exterior, but really, is the complete opposite, or, if he is really a dick and is gonna punch you if you stare any longer. choosing a safe option, you glance back at her.

“here,” she nudges you again. oh, she’s got a cup. it’s one of those cheap, red plastic cups you always see in the movies- the frat party ones. her presence is warm. she smiles warmly. is that a thing?

“get yourself a drink.” and then she’s opening up the palm of your hand, and tightening your fingers around the plastic rim.

you hum in surprise. it’s not every day a complete stranger is nice to you. infact, you can only count one specific time where this happened before. the one time that led to you coming to this party, through the kindness of a once mutual, now, you felt comfortable enough to consider, just a friend.

“oh! thank you.” you give the best, closed mouth wide smile you can, though it seems more like a grimace.

she doesn’t care. they’re already gone.

the next room is slightly more interesting than the last, a blue strobe light left in the corner. thought it’s not glowing in multi colours like it should be, instead it’s just illuminating the room, which could be the antithesis of something spacious, in a pale blue hue. it’s reflecting off onto an old, worn leather couch with multiple holes, which you can only assume are from cigarette stubs.

the whole house has some sort of retro style, which you appreciate.

the summer breeze, once discouraging, now borderlining on something sinister. could the sun really have malicious intent? or is the world just hell bent against you?- with your fashion choices not accommodated to the ever changing weather.

you pass a couple of groups- they don’t look older than you, though they don’t look younger. but the bodies on bodies is all too much to handle, when everyone’s body temperature has accumulated into one big cacophony, a spell for disaster.

every thing was getting too much.

the grandfather clock standing proud, ticking in a futile rhythm, back and forth, on and off, a constant reminder of the stench of sweat covered bodies and the metallic aroma of almost empty cans of beer, for the sticky residue left behind, which had escaped out of one too many discarded cans, and seeped into possibly every material in this cramped hole of a living space. the longer this party would go on, the harder it would be to call this room a living space. scrap that, this is an un-liveable space.

the atmosphere was fine. the people were fine. everything was fine minding it’s own, but together, seeming like a recipe for a symphony of destruction.

luckily for you, there was an out.

big wooden doors, with bigger glass panels, providing the only symbol of a once eloquent residence. the whole house was, well, not modern, but in a sense it didn’t carry this vintage-ness; like the decorations of choice did- so it was a nice touch. at least you thought.

and those big wooden doors, led you to your freedom, or in other words, the patio.

upon first examination, the garden was split into two groups. the outdoor couch sitting area, which provided just as many cigarette burns as the excuse of a couch inside, but longer, presenting itself in an ‘L’ shape. and on this couch, sprawled out were a group of people, all comfortable in very, odd? positions. wait, on a different thought, not all.

he was very pretty from a first glance, his chocolate curls fading into something more, like black ribbons of coal, though they shone with a red tinge under the harsh glow from the ongoing sunset.

you never stopped to notice the sunset.

but he looked almost rigid. he seemed reserved. he seemed different. it was like he had purposely tried to squeeze himself down the cracks of the sofa, for it to swallow him whole. but then again, he didn’t seem anxious.

he held a joint between nimble fingers. from a distance, you could make out the red rashes lining them, small bloody scars, in such a recognisable pattern that you just knew all too well, he had to play guitar. often. he was having trouble smoking it, though. intimate breaths of wind cascaded his locks to cover his pretty features, sticking to his chapped lips as he brought up the blunt and examined, close and personal.

you pondered if maybe, just maybe, he was like you too. practically a stranger to this new world before your eyes, lacking the confidence to do anything to change it. sure, you were confident in yourself, there was no reason for you not to be. just, in social situations like this, it would tend to falter.

oh, wait. no, you take it back.

the guard dog from before-hand sits tall beside the curly brunette. he seems to be ranting about something. the nice girls not by his side anymore. you wonder if anything happened between them.

the ratty blonde sported a goofy grin. so you were right. a labrador in disguise. you stole a few more glances, before continuing down your trail.

you didn’t think you’d fit into other group either. this was was more, energetic, a pile of sweaty messes, a cheap speaker blasting heavy metal, with a crispness to the speaker that could never be recreated with a new one, nor the sense of comfort that comes with it. something worn down, worn with love, like a jacket, peeling at the seams. a jacket that’s been well loved by someone, despite its flaws.

it was hard to concentrate on your thoughts and breathe pure air properly with the booming deathly melodie’s of ozzy osbourne blasting, the bass managing to shake a loose rope swing hanging from an old oak tree. you thought it must’ve been a gentle reminder of childhood.

the path continued to trail on, the melancholic rock dying it by a couple slight octaves. then it ended. a large, unsteady fence stood tall, and not very proud. a bench resided, with 2 more oak trees, one on each side, in a way to protect the bench, preserve the wood from heavy sunlight.

the bench wasn’t the most comfortable, but it served for what it could. it was obviously aged down through the years, so really, you couldn’t complain.

the view was pretty. the sun going down, with all these people enjoying themselves, it was a gorgeous sight. though it was funny you still hadn’t wandered into the small minority you knew yet. though you were growing impatient under this blanket of loneliness, itching for something that would burn, something to exhale.

the pocket of your worn jeans were loose- loose enough to know that if something wanted to fall out, by all means it could. and now, after futile attempts to find your lighter, you prayed to anyone that would listen, please say i haven’t lost it.

but alas, the gods still weren’t on your side. maybe it was something in the air, which bubbled up into a fit of internal rage, your three-quarters empty pack providing a strong sense of tobacco, laying lifeless in your rigid lap.

“need a light?”

he walked up awkwardly, intertwining his hands together. his blunt was gone, whether he had finished it himself or passed it on, you didn’t know. he smiled warmly, and if you blinked you would’ve missed it.

and all of a sudden the unbearable heat was back, sending a tinge to yours cheeks, feeling like being trapped inside a car under the scorching sun- but he didn’t look affected by the heat, in his black button up (half un-buttoned), infact, he looked angelic under the hues of reds, purples, and yellows, and whatever else fit into the mix.

he seemed nice; nice enough, to even suggest such an offer to a stranger.

“please.” you mumbled, and he warmly reached his hand out, a battered, black lighter, one of the cheap ones from the convenience stores, clasped loosely. he wiggled his fingers. revealing the lighter to your gaze, he emitted that same, goofy smile, only now revealing his crooked pearls.

he sat down on the bench.

“you don’t know many people here, huh?” he questioned. though his voice wasn’t judgy, nor threatening.

well, it’s great that your efforts to stay on the down low went out the door. it’s even greater to know that people have noticed your outstanding loneliness.

“is it that obvious?”

he stifled a laugh, shrugging slightly, sporting a wide grin. “that’s okay,” he muttered. “you know, i don’t know many either.”

the reality seemed embarrassing, and with anyone else, you would never, on your own life, admit it. but somehow, in this moment, everything was different.

he fixed his posture, resting his hands in his lap, his head turned towards you. you pursed your lips, a small smile gracing. he looked down to your lap, cigarette still in your hand, and signalled for you to raise it.

you quickly caught on, assuming he would just hand you the lighter after you placed the cigarette between your lips. he did not.

instead he leaned in closer, bringing one hand to cover one side of the cigarette, the other to light it up effortlessly. oh, i guess that works too.

you took a puff, the inhale longer than the exhale, the smoke a delicious burn in your lungs. resting the cigarette between 2 nimble fingers, you bit your chapped lip.

“i’m kirk, by the way.”

“hi kirk,” you grinned, and told him your name. he grinned back.

he fiddled with his fingers, cracking his knuckles with expertise. and then he points at your shirt. “i like fleetwood mac, too.”

hanging with kirk wasn’t so bad. actually it wasn’t bad, not at all. somehow minutes turned into shorter minutes, 60 seconds seeming to pass all too quick. and those minutes were quickly consumed by a larger number, a black hole that could be called hours.

the night air had turned chilly, the effects of a bipolar summer very clear. the arrival of goosebumps took place, and so did a great warmth, the crackle of a fire pit, and the smell of fresh wood, the aroma of smoke. legs now touching one another’s as a multitude of different people sat around in criss-cross positions.

but that wasn’t where you found yourself.

sitting in the passenger seat of his run down black 70s capri, a heavy scent of cologne mixed with a faint essence of weed, hanging lowly, stuck into the leather seats. the key clattered as he pushed it into the lock, the engine starting up with a fierce roar.

a conversation about music had somehow led you here, sitting almost shyly in his car, legs folded upon one another. it all started with a singular comment about fleetwood mac, and in a matter of minutes you found yourself immersed in conversation, somehow sitting close together than you had before, the heat of his breath radiating closely as he enthusiastically ranted about led zeppelin IV. and then some more, about who he believed to be his biggest inspiration, jimi hendrix.

oh yeah, you learnt he plays guitar too.

and with a declaration that he was hungry, sported with his reddened eyes, you were off. well, you were never really given the choice. your hand grasped tightly in his, excitedly taken back through the garden, through the shitty cramped living space, (and him accidentally walking into the smaller couch), back through the kitchen with bottles now empty, red plastic cups now scattered, through to the entry way. with that same, sweet thrash poster now hanging on.

and as the car roared up, so did the symphonies of rolling stones, because you can’t always get what you want.

“so the blonde one, he’s your friend?”

the melody of the rolling stones, switching to the doors, a mix-tape he probably burnt himself, disrupted. god bless jim morrison.

he raised a brow, though still looking at the road ahead, answering quizzically. “which blonde one?”

you bit back a smile. “the scary blonde one, with long hair. and the pretty girlfriend.”

this caused kirk to grin, shaking his head slightly to stop his hair from disrupting his view of the darkened roads. the streetlights didn’t go much to help accommodate pedestrians, nor drivers. the headlights of his vintage vehicle were slightly darker than the average, but he seemed used to it.

“ah, james. he’s my bandmate. scary, no, long hair, yes, girlfriend, no. he doesn’t do girlfriends,” he hummed lowly. “he’s one of my bestfriends.” james. you wondered if he was still with the girl you earlier assumed to be his girlfriend.

and then you sat in silence for maybe 30 seconds, maybe a full minute, pondering your next words. he didn’t seem to mind, waiting just slightly impatiently for the red light to turn green and give the get go. he rolled down the window.

“do you do girlfriends?” you asked suddenly. the longer it took for him to form a response, the more you regretted ever asking. maybe that was too forward for a guy you hadn’t even known for a full day. but then you could argue that him taking you out for dinner was even worse.

he was caught off guard, quickly masking his suprise. “i…don’t know,” he spun the wheel with skill as he turned left into a parking lot of a 50s presenting dinner, sporting a glowing red sign, walls painted once white now a light yellow. he stopped the car as he pulled into a parking spot, twisting the keys. the engine abruptly stopped, and so did the music. and then he turned to look at you, with a small smile. “do you do boyfriends?” and that was when you finally made eye contact.

shrugging slightly, you looked from his eyes to your lap, and back up to his eyes again. “i don’t know.”

his grin widened, and you return the gesture.

the gleaming lights of the diner held a stark contrast to the gloomy sky, the current time being in the early hours of the morning very obvious- and in a couple hours you’d start to hear the birds cheep and the sky lighten, and determine it time for bed.

he led you into the diner, holding the door open for you like a gentleman, the little bell on top of the door chiming in recognition of your arrival.

and from there he traveled with experience of the 24-hour diner, to a booth hidden in the corner, though still visible under the cream glare of the flickering lights; almost too visible, you thought, the brightness of the lights already forming a subtle headache in the back of your mind. the two comforts of the booth were separated with a nimble oak wood table, the sturdiness of it which had definitely gone down in its many years of occupying this place.

he grabs two menus before sitting down on one side of the booth, and you follow, sitting down on the other. he hands you one menu, and opens his own.

“i want a milkshake.” he murmurs, his eyes still scanning over the menu. you lean over the table, your menu left unopened, shifting slightly to examine the contents of drinks he was looking at.

“which flavour?” you question, slumping back into your seat.

“dunno,” he puts the menu down, looking up at you. “what flavour do you want?”

his eye contact is almost too much to handle, causing you to look back down at your hands. he doesn’t comment on it, that is if he ever even noticed the slight tint of blush on your cheeks.

“vanilla.” throughout the options of chocolate, strawberry, and banana, there’s a clear winner.

“then that’s what we’ll get.” he smiles, his red hued eyes crinkling at the corners as he grins. you bite the side of your lip, suppressing a grin, sporting a one sided, shy smile as you try to resettle your composure.

you open the menu, trying to distract yourself from the flush on your cheeks and the man sitting infront of you. his curls drop down as he tries to push them out of his face, watching you almost shyly.

“what are you gonna get?” you voice, finally looking up from the menu.

he tucks his black coils behind his ears. “the burger,” and then leans down slightly, his elbows making contact with the table, his eyes still on you. “do you wanna share?”

you nod, grinning widely. “okay, we’ll share.”

the diner lights flicker again, as well as the chime of the door, the slight rush of wind causing an appreciate breeze. there’s an empty coffee cup on the bar side, and an imprint in a red stool.

adorned in a teal coloured uniform, a tired, and pissed, (probably a college student), waitress takes your order. she doesn’t bother to put on a fake persona, and you don’t blame her. infact, you almost feel sorry that her nap in the staff room was cut short, by the puffiness of her eyes. as for kirk, he doesn’t even bat an eye at her as you order politely, his eyes still fixtated on you.

and in mere minutes the food arrives, a vanilla milkshake with a candied red cherry on top already in your grasp. kirk has taken to the task of trying to cut the burger evenly into 2 pieces, through frowns when he’s cut one slice bigger than the other. you take the smaller piece, knowing the effects of weed on your hunger. when he realises this, he pouts. “i’m not that hungry,” you explain, taking your first bite.

he pushes the fries further towards you. they’re in a wooden tray, with a tissue adorned with patterns of red and white squares underneath. you chew throughly before swallowing, setting the burger back down on the plate.

he reaches out for a fry, surprising you when he reaches even further towards you, bringing the fry up to your mouth. you take it, giggling.

while you chew on the fry with one hand, you pick up the milkshake with the other and bring the straw to his mouth, mimicking his previous movements. he smiles widely as he takes down a big gulp, laughing through his closed mouth. “wait, that’s so good.”

“i know!” you exclaim, taking a couple of salty fries from the bunch.

you dip a handful of fries into the milkshake, and he grimaces. “that’s criminal!”

you roll your eyes, giggling. “no it’s not,” you dip another one in. “you just don’t have taste.” he finishes his part of the burger ravenously, and you push the plate with your half eaten burger towards him.

“are you sure?” he questions, looking for any signs of unsureness on your face.

“only if i can have the cherry.” you bargain.

“deal,” he picks the cherry off from the top of the milkshake, wiping the whipped cream off from it with his finger, then bringing his finger to his mouth. he reaches out to give you the cherry. “here you go, m’lady.”

you let out another high pitched laugh, bringing the cherry to your plump lips and nibbling on the stem. the waitress cringes at the sound, leaning her head down in her hands and closing her eyes. you pity her.

kirk finishes the burger quickly, his next mission being reaching out for the fries. you’re not sure if he’s just got the munchies, or if he’s also even eaten today.

and soon enough, you’re flopping back into your seat, empty dishes covering the table. kirk is leaning towards you, smiling softly. you yawn, covering your face with a soft hand.

“you tired?” he murmurs, tilting his head as he smiles sweetly. you make a quiet sound, similar to a hum, and his smile grows. “okay,” he reaches over the table for your hand. “let me take you home.”

and then once again, your back in his passenger seat, the smell of cologne and marijuana now comforting. he puts the key in as softly as he can, and the second the car roars to life he takes it to himself to turn the radio down to the lowest level, looking over at you. you’re slumped in the seat, your head towards the window. he just grins.

the sky isn’t so dark anymore, a greyish dark blue, with a slint orange before sunrise. “i’m gonna need you to give me directions, ‘mkay?” he pulls out of the car park as you respond quietly, giving him the directions.

a few minutes into the ride, you realise he’s going miles below the speed limit, to keep the car steady, and not pull you out of your sleepy state. he’s humming along to the radio, his finger tapping the wheel at every beat.

trees pass in a flash, so do streetlights and benches, sets of three drains, and a couple single drains too.

then time flashes again and he’s pulling up outside your apartment, already outside the passenger door and beating you to open it. he walks you to the doorway of the building, stopping and playing with his hands.

you look up at him, smiling shyly. he does the same. “thank you for tonight, kirk,” you hesitantly open the building door. “do you wanna, maybe, do this again?”

“o-of course. i’d love to.” if you blinked, you would’ve missed the slight flush tinting his cheeks, rushing down into his neck and shoulders. he fumbles in his pocket for a piece of ripped newspaper and a pen, scribbling down his home phone number in messy writing, and if it was anything but numbers you’d have a hard time reading it. “call me, okay?”

“okay.” you grin softly, stepping into the doorway.

he backs up, smiling as he waves you off. “okay.”

and then the door shuts.

[godofdumpsterfalling]

Headcanon Dump - Hermes & Apollo ft. Dionysus (Riordanverse)

Because I have a mountain of these and if I don’t organize them they will be completely incoherent. Under a cut for length.

- Apollo basically raised Hermes, for all the value of “raised” when concerning gods.

- Maia did not want to be a mother, and had no idea how to. She tried, and did care about Hermes, but was secretly relieved when Hermes took to following Apollo everywhere. Zeus was really perfecting his parenting style of the day, which was caring about his kids from a distance (he had other priorities, they were not really near the top) and occasionally popping in to give some Fatherly Advice or have bonding moment (omg taking his kids fishing…deadbeat dad core for REAL) before fucking off again like “parental control duties DONE I am SUCH a good dad. See you again in like 50 years, sport!” It was particularly bad when Hermes was born.

- Hermes followed Apollo around for a solid couple hundred years, acting as his shadow pretty much. It drove Athena and Artemis CRAZY. Apollo’s extroverted ass was completely baffled by people being off put by his baby brother basically being attached to his back. He’s not gonna bother you he’s just gonna hang out?? What’s the problem??

- Hermes stayed in a younger form for a looong time because he knew Apollo would never say no to him if he looked cute enough. Until he got hit with the depression beam, he kept whipping that form out whenever he got in trouble. He’s baby, your honor, you can’t be mad at a BABY

- Hermes held Dionysus for 2 seconds before he decided he was willing to die for this little guy. The couple hours after he was born were spent by Hermes holding him up to random family members and going “LOOK AT HIM HES SO SMALL” and the family members going “Hermes please do your job”

- When Dionysus joined Olympus, Hermes eagerly took him under his wing in a similar manner to Apollo taking on Hermes. Not as much weird parental responsibility though. But he was still following Apollo everywhere so Apollo got TWO mischievous shadows. Much to Artmemis’ dismay. Why are there TWO OF THEM

- All they ever had to do was duck behind Apollo and he’d defend them against whoever they’d pissed off now even when they were 100% in the wrong. Especially when they were 100% in the wrong, honestly.

- Zeus and Hermes’ relationship has a lot of layers (a post for another time) but the bare bones basics is that early on Zeus just thought he was a Clown (that’s my funny boy <3) and nowadays he’s Zeus’ under appreciated, overworked personal assistant. Although he’s kind of been Zeus’ lapdog since the beginning. Father Please Notice Me I am not as shiny as Apollo but I can roll over so nice pls pls pls

- Hermes has not had a nap in the past century somebody please help him. Give your local delivery man a nice tip because he has like 20 other domains and would rather be doing Literally Anything Else. And also a hug maybe, the most contact he ever gets is when he brushes hands with whoever he’s giving a package. Somebody get this man a paid vacation he has been holding Olympus together with duct tape

- Hermes has the worst case of Middle Child Syndrome Known To Man

- Hermes and Artemis like each other! Shockingly. For reasons unrelated to Apollo, even. They just like to hang out. Hermes is one of the two Olympians she’s happy to be around <3

- Apollo has tried, with varying success, to get Hermes and Athena to be friends. The results have been… mixed.

- Athena, Apollo and Hermes will occasionally have absolutely legendary verbal smackdowns. So brutal that it would actually evaporate a mortal on the spot. Indescribable, really. Anyone who overhears them will never mentally recover,

[shiroganeryo]

So... I may or may have not made a Dazatsu lovechild a while ago 💦 Decided to show her to the world after seeing some discourse on the neighboring site today 😅

I took inspiration from Yūko Tsushima, Osamu Dazai's daughter and novelist! Her ability is Child of Fortune.

A lot about her is still a WIP, but please check under the read more cut if you're interested in knowing more about her (and also see me exposing myself with the delirious idea that brought her into being)!

Feat. married Dazatsu, which is always good; but this post is looong.

So, how did this happen?

I'm very weak and give lovechildren to my ships often. I was thinking about how cute would be a child of theirs and conveniently found out about Dazai's daughter, who also was a novelist and everything simply fell into place effortlessly.

The actual backstory

Yūko is a byproduct of the Book. The text written into it desired a strong ability that could be easily manipulated to come into being. However, since the Book follows a certain logic, such ability manifested as a singularity; key traits of two abilities it considered powerful if combined merged and came into being as an infant's.

Still following the Book's logic, this weak, vulnerable being appeared in the vicinity of the ones who would protect it from harm.

And now the "serious" part is out of the way, imagine Dazai randomly getting up in the middle of the night for a glass of water and finding a sleeping cat that had broken into their home.

...Except when he touches it to put it back outside, it turns into a child.

This is a case of "instructions too vague, gave a random couple a child" lmao

What happens from there

What else would Dazai do if not wake Atsushi up, who at first doesn't understand why all that fuss just because of a cat that broke in until he sees it for himself. Both are extremely confused.

Then what else would they do if not resort to Kyouka next door because they're at a loss and need a female's feedback here. She's immediately smitten but Atsushi keeps reminding her they can't just keep her like a lost kitten, they need to find her parents.

This results in them deciding to take her to the Agency, they're detectives after all. The three of them walk in, Dazai with the girl in his arms (to prevent her from activating her ability and running off), Atsushi carrying a bag with the improvised provisions they had arranged, and Kyouka with the straightest face ever.

Everyone looks at them in confusion. Ranpo instantly knows what's up. Atsushi says he would love to say they can explain but he honestly has no idea whatsoever.

They tell the others what happened and since Ranpo likes to make things more amusing, he remarks on how similar she looks to both Dazai and Atsushi in appearance, and that her ability also resembles Atsushi's weretiger features. Dazai instantly picks up on the hints.

Kunikida is hellbent on finding the girl's parents before anything else, but Dazai suggests running a DNA test to test a theory of his. Kunikida resists a little because there's just no way you're implying what you're implying, but Dazai insists for the sake of ruling out possibilities.

It's a perfect match with both him and Atsushi.

The next steps

Apparently, they're her parents now. She needs registration documents and whatnot; Ango takes care of the bureaucracies and necessary paperwork to make this happen more smoothly because this is by no means your everyday occurrence, she must be properly recorded in the Special Division's files.

Since Dazai and Atsushi are married, this means they're also both her legal guardians. For safety's sake, her surname is registered as Tsushima (津島) instead of Nakajima (中島) to make her a little harder to track because there's definitely something up with that (or so Dazai thinks, which he tells Ango).

To help cover her identity better, she's also accepted into the Agency as an employee (she went through an entrance exam and all) of sorts, so Fukuzawa's ability takes effect on her. The ID card on her lanyard is her official detective ID.

Currently, she's learning how to read and write and undergoing training to better control her ability.

Ability

Yūko's ability was dubbed Child of Fortune (寵児, Chōji); it's still under observation to determine the full potential of her skills. So far, it's known that much like Atsushi, she's able of transforming fully into a tiger (except it's a tiger cub) or partially, into a weretiger. She supposedly has restoration skills, but they're still not fully developed.

Exceptionally strong claws.

She also has a powerful bite, observed to neutralize the effect of other abilities with the only exception being No Longer Human. The bite leaves a mark that renders the affected person unable of using their ability for a set time.

Some trivia

Since Yūko can't heal herself properly yet, her injuries are kept bandaged. Usually seen on the wrists or ankles. I left this detail to match Dazai's bandages, as a visual representation of the young age the irl author lost her father to suicide.

The reason why her left hand is bandaged in the second drawing though, is because she punched a classmate who was bullying her; she didn't mind the offenses until it sounded like they were badmouthing Atsushi and GOD FORBID she hears anyone say anything bad about any of her dads.

It's fine btw, they're best friends now. Dazai actually talked to the kid and they apologized after that; Yūko only apologized because Atsushi told her to.

I need you to imagine them being called to the school because Yūko got into a fight and Atsushi becoming disconcerted after learning the reason behind it from their daughter while Dazai tried very hard not to laugh because it would upset Atsushi but he was a little too proud of Yūko (defend your cinnamon roll dad!)

She's very easy to deal with, a very calm and obedient child despite having a strong, assertive personality. When she's not in school, she's hanging out in the Agency; she stays in the lounge area of the office and spends her time drawing or trying to write words. Both Atsushi and Dazai take turns checking on her.

Like any child, Yūko has a lot of energy and may tire out her parents, especially if she decides to activate her ability; she outsped Atsushi once and since then they're both surprised and terrified. She always falls for Dazai's trap of calling her by saying "pspsps" with a smile though and fails to understand why she turns back to normal every time.

Her training isn't just to teach her how to control her ability better, but also to teach her how to use it responsibly. Sometimes it looks a lot like gym classes tbh.

Yes, tiger Atsushi does carry tiger cub Yūko around in his mouth and gives her baths.

Yes, Dazai does whine there's yet another cat in his immediate family circle that he can't pet.

And if you read until here, I wish you a wonderful day, please know that I love you and am sending good things vibes your way 🫶

[alexwilltellyouthings]

Entirely self indulgent rating post about the top 10 TV shows that made me fucking insane for some reason

10. Sense8

God, this was so good. Such a blessing. I saw part of the cast during a Pride Parade and it's one of my favorite memories. I felt every possible emotion with this show, I love it.

9. The Last of Us

This is kind of a cheat, because the obsession comes from the games, but it is what it is. It's one of the few games that had a big impact on me and I closely relate it to my relationship with my dad. Can't wait to cry my heart out at season 2.

8. Good Omens

It's a given, isn't it? That stupid angel with his stupid demon and their stupid God. GRRRAAWW. A lot of thoughts and feelings came from the fandom, I have to point out. It's been very nice.

7. The Umbrella Academy

I have the first issue of the comics autographed by Gerard Way!! I mean, yes, it's because I'm a MCR fan, but it became even more precious after I got into the show. I'm rewatching right now, preparing for the last season. I'll be a mess when I say goodbye to them. Can't even really think about it too hard or I'll cry right now.

Continues under the cut

6. Our Flag Means Death

LISTEN THIS CHANGED EVERYTHING TO ME. What do you mean we can have a show THIS queer? It's all I want now. I ate it up. I smiled so much. I wanted this so badly and had no idea.

5. Interview with the Vampire

Feels like it should be top 3 honestly but I'll get there. This is also a cheat, I've been reading the Vampire Chronicles since I was like 15. Growing up with Anne Rice probably messed me up but hey at least I have great taste. And seeing them on screen? The way they made it BETTER? And Lestat?? Who has been haunting me for 15 years on and off??? And the second season and their reunion and and and?????????? I'm STILL insane about them and will be forever, I'm afraid.

4. Doctor Who

Listen. Listen. Okay. Yeah. What can I say? If you get into it, you're doomed. And I have been doomed for 10 years at least. I stopped watching for a while and got back last year, and it hit me all over again. I love this dumbass genius alien in a way that's calm, even. Just a permanent part of who I am now.

3. The Untamed

The year was 2022, it had been a while since I had a proper fixation and I didn't think it would happen with this danmei live-action, but then came Wei Wuxian. Guys, if I tell you I fell in love. Couldn't stop thinking about him. Everyday I was plagued by his smile and red ribbon and tragic backstory, yadayadayada. I really like other characters too, and their stories, but WWX did something to me that I still don't quite understand.

2. Queer as Folk (US)

This was a looong time ago and it didn't really persist over time like the others, but it was my first actual obsession. I was clinically insane over these gays. I had no one to talk to about them, so for every episode I wrote several pages of notes to comment to my (only) friend at school the next day, the poor thing. It was pretty much all I talked about because I spent EVERY MINUTE we had to talk going over the notes and explaining the episode. Like, between classes, during breaks, everything. Months of that. She held on firmly because she was a good friend, but I'm aware it must've been terrible. Like I said, insane.

1. Dead Boy Detectives

Maybe I'm putting this up here because it's my current hyperfixation? Maybe. But I don't think I have felt something hit as strongly as this since QaF over there. This time I can participate in fandom so I don't need to write every thought I have because it's all a big talk anyway, but I'm still pretty much having those thoughts all the time for *checks notes* nearly three months. I'm writing more than I have in years. I'm back at Tumblr after I don't know how long. I'm staring at GIFs over and over like I have the fucking time for that. I'm distracted at work daily. I talk about it in therapy. I have the main cast's notifications on. I'm getting involved in fandom discourse sometimes even knowing I shouldn't. It's a nightmare. I love it. I love them.

If you read all of this, congrats! Now you know how my mind works, kinda!! I'm open to talk about any and all of these shows. It's amazing how they mess us up. It's also scary, but anyway.

[embrace-your-inner-kid]

Just want to get my thoughts out for those who could be hurt or annoyed at the "sisters" comment from Laudna. Hopefully they can have a soothing effect because I'm really not shocked at the comment, and it doesn't change any of my thoughts on their current dynamic or the possibility of them becoming romantic in the future. It actually feeds into my theories on Laudna's complicated feelings toward romance in general and her potential complicated feelings toward Imogen (that pause was looong and deliberate lol, and there's been other similar moments when others have poked her about her relationship with Imogen).

Also, ignore all the a**holes who use things like this to stoke their hate, make use of your mute and block buttons and ship and theorize what you want.

I'll put my thoughts under a read more because this might get long.

Ok... so, to start with the obvious, Imogen's feelings are pretty clear at this point, and a number of the Bell's Hells have clocked them.

It's Laudna that is super complicated when it comes to viewing herself as romanceable to anyone, which is interesting because out of everyone in the group she tends to think the most romantically as long as it's not about her. Even letting out some more crass horniness through Pate. She projects a lot, on Pate and also on Imogen. She wants to ensure Imogen reaches her potential and finds fulfillment in her life, everything that was brutally cut short in her own.

I've always got the vibe that Laudna views her life as over/stagnant even though she's technically alive. She's stuck in an undead form, unaging and having to be very careful amongst the general populace, hoping to not draw out their pitchforks. I think she envisions building a life and growing old with a romantic partner as an impossibility, hence shutting down any thought of romance for herself. As Laudna has said, she hasn't accessed that part of her brain in a long time. I think that vault has only been opened recently after Dusk asked her out, and unfortunately, those brief thoughts on romance pertaining to herself with another got twisted with Dusk's betrayal coming shortly after.

Dusk was this unassuming, "normal" being who Laudna would have been parsing having romantic intentions towards her when suddenly it's revealed that they're actually a fey of the Unseelie Court and their intentions weren't true. I think this sent Laudna into a tailspin after freshly opening her brain to romance again. This person who treated her nicely and seemed to have romantic intentions is revealed to have been a lie. That's gotta sting and flare up her insecurities surrounding something she locked away in the first place. I don't think it's a coincidence that she started acting extra flirty and interested in the Nightmare King right after that. I get the feeling that after romance was put at the forefront of her mind, she couldn't close it off again, but with the deceit and betrayal being born from it she only thinks someone more 'monstrous' could ever be interested in her: "an undead nightmare". Hence, the weird Ira moments following Yu's reveal. At least, those are the feelings I have on all that happened.

I don't think a possible romance between Imogen and Laudna is anywhere near off the table. Yes, even after the most recent comment. It's not some automatic dismissal of something ever happening. Unfortunately, it just means waiting longer to find out if it will happen.

Personally, I get the feeling that Laudna is repressing herself and compartmentalizing like she always does. There's been too many weird pauses from Laudna whenever anyone has pressed about the dynamic between her and Imogen. I just don't know when the dam is going to break to get her to face that, and anyone who has been hoping for a kiss or confession really soon probably needs to lower those expectations. I don't get the feeling they're both there yet. I think Laudna needs to realize her own worth, understand the projecting she's been doing, and put the pedestal she has Imogen on away so she can view them on equal footing before she can even start to grasp at any romance there. I get the feeling she doesn't even view Imogen as an option because she views herself as undesirable in that way, especially to someone she views as highly as Imogen.

On the bright side, Imogen is pretty easy to read on the feelings front. We're just going to have to wait and see. In the meantime, don't let anyone rain on your parade and ship to your hearts content. People can try all they want, but this ship is not shut down from happening until the campaign ends.

[meymmey]

The reverse AU is so cool! I would love to hear more random head cannons about each boy! (I don't know what specifically to ask, I just wanna know more!)

My goodness, thank you!!! You don't know how widely I smiled when I saw your ask😭

A reaaaaally long yap under cut, be aware...

Boo! Did it scare you?

Well anyway lol, let's start! Derek first since he has been on my mind for a while now hehe. (Oh, and sorry for any mistakes here, I have never written anything as long as this.)

Derek is not a great student in this AU, like at all. He is not a complete underachiever only because he has some kind of magical talent lol. He doesn't care about his studies or anything related to that "boring stuff". The only thing Derek likes to do is playing football (or soccer, doesn't matter for him) but he still does NOT put as much effort as the og Derek. He would much rather go on a walk at least or hang out with his friends. Or do anything else that is more fun.

Derek is not really friendly towards new people. For example, he wouldn't go out of his way to be kind to Jeremy, especially after the guy turned out to be... well, Jeremy.

Derek CAN and WILL break a rule or two if he wants to. Not to the extremes, but he is not as proper as the og lol. Drawing something on a still fresh concrete? Sounds like fun! "Breaking in" into his old apartment complex to check out the pool? He is going first!

Baxter time!

The color of his hair here is veeery light grey (as shown in the previous drawing I've made!) The guy still doesn't like it, but for slightly different reasons: 1) it looks like he has grey hair even when he is clearly not in his sixties; 2) (this reason probably got into his head when he was in college) it's as if he is not great (or pure?) enough for a clear white color. However, he refuses to dye his hair since he is just... afraid.

Baxter's meeting with the MC was not as graceful as the og. Firstly, the MC asked him out (however it may be) on a dance. Secondly, Ward is still a great and talented dancer, but due to his much more nervous demeanor and unfamiliarity with dancing with strangers (he also just doesn't like it), the event doesn't go as swiftly.

Baxter doesn't have as great of a memory as the og's. So, to put it simply, it would take a miracle (or a looong long talk from the MC lol) for Baxter to remember that they have already met.

Now Cove!!

The relationship between him and his dad are good in Step 1, but gradually worsen as the time goes by. (Even though Cove's relationships with everyone else are untouched in this AU, I thought it would be unwise of me to not change them between him and his parents since it's a big part of his story.) In Step 1 Cove doesn't entirely understand what divorce between his mom and dad means, so he just... goes with the flow? He doesn't rebel or run away, Cliff doesn't even need to bargain with a child for Cove and the MC to meet lol, the new neighbours just introduce themselves to each other.

In this AU Cove... does not like to eat. He doesn't like food. I mean, he eats, obviously, but, for example, in the wedding dlc Cove is very passionate about everything as he is in canon regarding wedding preparations, maybe in some parts even more, however, taste testing the flavours for the cake he gladly hands to MC. (You can even compare him to Pearl from SU in a way lol)

Cove is not proud of his scar. At all. He always tries to hide his arm behind his back without even realising it sometimes. He is quite glad when it starts to heal and be less noticable. However Cove still feels kinda nostalgic every time he looks at it.

That's all!!! Again, I'm really honored, thank you very much for your time and interest!

[moonchild-in-blue]

Low-effort comic based on recent events.

If you consume any type of creative content for free, and you enjoy it, Tell The Creator. Likes and shares are great, but they can never replace Real human interaction. Real conversation. And you don't need to write an essay (although that is always welcomed!). A simple comment goes a looong way.

A little rant and the full comic (the 4 panels together) under the cut:

Speaking as someone who struggles a lot with motivation and self-discipline, and who is a creative irl, I can't really put into words how much it means to me to hear someone enjoys my work and has a genuine interest.

Go nuts in the comment sections/tags. Or just go for a good ol' "Hey, this is cool 👍". Obssess over that one weird detail you thought it was interesting.

Human interaction is vital for an artist. It tells us were are not just screaming at the void, that there is someone out there who is paying attention. You'd be surprised how many of us have been lifted off of the lowest of the lows because someone said they liked our work.

(obviously the point of art/creating is not to get attention, and of course you shouldn't measure your value in external validation, but I think I made my point clear).

And if you've read this whole silly vent, thank you and I love you, and take this as a sign to tell your favorite creators how much you love their work! 🌙💙✨

[leahnardo-da-veggie]

Writer Questionnaire

Double tagged by @the-letterbox-archives! It's all under the cut cos this is looong.

Part 1

q1) is writing a hobby or way of life?

Creativity and imagination is a way of life. Writing's just my chosen method of expressing it.

q2) a journal full of writing notes or a clean, completed manuscript?

Completed manuscript haha. I'm not Tolkien, nobody's gonna wanna read my version of the Silmarillon.

q3) who (or what) is your writing inspiration?

Err- Real life, I guess? My dreams, too. I take what I see and make it into a story.

q4) which is worse: someone you ��idolise” reading your first draft or listening to you sing?

My first drafts tend to be really neat, so singing. My singing's atrocious.

q5) has writing from someone else’s pov ever changed your own perspective?

Not for writing, but debating? Yeah, sometimes getting put on opp for a case where I'd rather be gov makes me see a whole new world.

q6) tumblr, ao3, livejournal, or ffn?

Tumblr. I like the community here :)

q7) ao3 wordcount, and are you satisfied with it?

Err- My AO3 contains things I would rather not share with this mostly family-friendly blog, but my wordcount's about 30k there. In total, though? 250k words or so.

q8) what movie/book/fic gripped you irrevocably?

Lolita, definitely. I read it as a 13 year old, then as a 15 year old, and as a 17 year old, and it still breaks my heart every time.

q9) what’s the highest compliment you could ever be given, and have you been given it?

The highest compliment would be for someone to say I made them cry/rage/laugh from my writing, and I'm pleased to say I once managed to send a friend into a fit of fury from my writing (it was Heroes that did it, mind you. She really hated Mara.)

q10) what defines your writing style?

I experiment a lot with styles, but I'd say I have 2 main ones. The more high-fantasy descriptive style, and something lighter and more fast-paced.

Part 2:

how long have you had your writing tumblr/writeblr? a fast and loose estimate is fine!

7months or so!

what led you to create it?

I wrote something I was insanely proud of, and felt the need to show it to the world.

what’s your favourite thing about the writeblr community?

The mutual interaction! So fun to watch my brain rot over someone else's OCs, and vice versa.

what’s one thing you’d like your mutuals to know about you?

I'm a nice person, I swear. If I've ever accidentally upset any of you, just tell me! I'll try my best to rectify whatever I did.

is there anything you’d like to see more of on your dash?

Not more, but I'd like to see less politics. My life's stressful enough without that stuff

which wips or writing projects are you noodling about, lately?

I'm still dying from The Fae Prince, because holy crap that came out of nowhere and took my brain by storm.

how long have you been working on them?

I never work on projects for long, sadly. I just don't have the attention span for them! My oldest active project right now is Mind of a Mercenary, and it's 7 months old (I started it on New Year's Eve last year)

do you remember what inspired them/what got you started?

Yeah. Luna's been a fav of mine since I was a 14 year old, and I always wanted to tell her story. I felt I hadn't done it justice the previous two times I wrote it, so I tried again!

how much time, in your best estimation, do you spend thinking about them?

I only actually think about writing when I'm actively writing, haha. So about 2 hours a day?

when someone asks the dreaded, “what do you write about,” question, what do you usually say?

Horror and fantasy! It's pretty easy cos I'm a stickler for those genres.

name any characters you created. side characters, protagonists, antagonists, characters who’ve never been written, the first original abomination you ever pulled from your ass; whomever you’d like!

Hmm... In order of species, Ina Angelborn, Kimael Angelborn, Isobel Angelborn, Hash Brown, Hans-el Ko-clan, Miphala Sa-clan, Cefalin Sa-clan, Katherine Tan (yes Kat's Chinese, get with the program), Michael Woods, Iraela Foundling, Ramaeria Foundling, Maizen Carver, Sonder Woods (no relation), Mara Ng, David I-forgot-his-last-name.

who’s the most unhinged?

Iraela would like to be first place, and Mara would like to think she's last, but I'm afraid first and last gotta go to Ina and David respectively.

who comes the most naturally for you to write?

Naturally, Hans-el, as long as I don't take too close a look at what I'm typing. Otherwise, Luna. Her inner monologue sounds an awful lot like mine.

do you ever cringe at them?

All the time.

how much control do you feel you have over your characters? do they ever “write themselves,” refuse to cooperate, or do things you didn’t expect? to what degree? are some less cooperative than others?

That depends. The more I write about a character, the more they refuse to follow instructions. That's what makes Ina so damn hard to write. Woman's lived in my head for a good 15 or so years, now.

what makes you want to follow another writeblr account? do you follow ‘em as you see ‘em, or take time scoping out the blog to make sure you align with its content? do you follow based on wips, or vibes?

I follow them as I see 'em!

what makes you decide against following?

Too much politics. I cannot express how much I hate to see politics on my dash. I have real life for that stuff. Also too much religion/ideology. The only things I tolerate on my dash are fandom, cats, and writblr stuff.

do you interact with non-mutuals often?

Occasionally? I mean, I do try to reach out to whoever I see in the community, even if I haven't followed them yet.

do your mutuals’ characters occupy space in your noodle?

My noodle is currently occupied by JavaScript, so no. But soon, I will have time to go binge everyone's writing again, and I will find my next obsession amongst my moots' writing!

Tagging @cowboybrunch, @theink-stainedfolk, @urnumber1star, @mundanemoongirl, and @gioiaalbanoart (open tag too!) Feel free to choose between part 1 or part 2, or even do the whole thing!

[maleficore]

I really don't think I'll ever get to actually writing it this decade because I have just That Many other wips and this story is Long, but my god I keep rolling that RDR2 Modern AU of mine in my head like a pretty pebble and I have Many Thoughts. Looong ramble under the cut.

The general gist of it that it's supposed to be a "happy ending" to a true crime story, but it isn't. Not for a long while, at least. Like imagine watching a 45 minute documentary on a missing person's case, the credits roll and you're like "Wow so happy that they turned up in the end" but on the other side of the country that person has been having the worst fucking time for the past year and would've probably been better off missing.

Let me explain.

Up until May 1999 the story plays out like your run of the mill Modern AU that is kept as close to canon as I can make it. Of course some things are different in the way that comes from throwing everything a 100 years into the future like how Eliza and Isaac died in a car accident, not a home robbery. People have jobs that are different, some backstories needed to be adjusted. Arthur's last name is Matthews and not Morgan, having been adopted by Hosea and Bessie when he was around 8 or so. Him and Mary have actually been married, but it still didn't work out. Small divergences, seemingly inconsequential.

Then on May 18th Arthur Matthews goes missing. Leaves no clues as to what might've caused him to leave and where, had showed no signs anything could be wrong before he disappeared. A proper mystery. Of course it's a big thing for a while, Hosea being a pretty well known crook defence lawyer makes it interesting for the news, but after 6 months of nothing even the nastiest vultures get bored and everyone pretty much assumes Arthur to have died. Especially since he's well known to be a recovering alcoholic with multiple relapses under his belt. Probably fell off the wagon again, tripped into a ditch, hit his head. Dead.

That's when Arthur Morgan shows up.

It's up to the reader to decide if this is some universe warping time travel shenanigans or if he's the same person that went missing, just having an episode of some sorts. To everyone in the story Arthur "I'm telling you, I jumped off a sinking boat in 1899 and then showed up here" Morgan comes off as Mentally Unwell, so it doesn't really matter since it is not told from his perspective anyway and there's no way of really knowing.

(It's John's POV by the way. Forgot to mention that, whoopsie.)

And the entire story is basically a whumpy hate letter to all time travel AUs where Arthur gets yeeted into our times and pretty much shrugs it off with minor discomfort (/lh I don't actually hate those, they're silly fun, but they're not realistic?? And I am a realism nerd). Here, he gets majorly fucked up by it. Because how could he not be? First off, Hosea, who he just watched die maybe days prior, is alive and well. So is Sean and so is Lenny. He may be happy, but all that only makes everything feel even less real, pushes him further into believing that the reality he's in is some sort of a mirage or a dream. People talk about all these things that have not happened to him, there are pictures of a stranger with his face in places he's never been to. It's distressing and Arthur might be a guy that handles pressure well, but I doubt there's a single person on earth that wouldn't break under the weight of that. He's no different.

He keeps getting really distressed whenever that kind of stuff gets brought up too often. Starts having regular panic attacks, gets put on medication, sent to therapy. The "gang" are there to help him through it, but the situation takes a lot out John in particular once he realises that whatever has happened to Arthur seems unlikely to be reversed. Just as much as the person in every single family picture is a stranger to Arthur, this Arthur is a stranger to John. It's like he really died in a way. So the plot is just as much Arthur learning to cope and maybe eventually accepting that all of this is real and he's just "crazy", as John watching him go through it while simultaneously grieving the person he no longer is.

Basically an essay pondering the question "What makes us who we are, our memories or personality?" disguised as a fanfic because I like getting philosophical sometimes lol And I genuinely love it. This AU is my baby and really want to work on it, but it would have to straight up be a novel-length story. I don't have that in me 😭😭

[mumms-the-word]

#17 for the writer's asks. Like you have a schedule for Nautera, and I can't fathom writing fast enough to strick to a schedule 😭, or being certain I wouldn't want to change some parts until the fic is almost done. So I'm interested to hear what your process is!

Oh man this question is so complicated for me haha here we go. Looong answer ahead so I've put most of it under the cut!

17. talk about your writing and editing process

okay so let me start off by saying...I don't have a consistent process haha

I do up to a point. So most of the time for fic, when I get an idea, I'll mull it around in my head a bit, and I might jot down a few lines or notes I don't want to forget in the Notes app (either on my phone or on my laptop), and then I'll set it aside for when I have time to write it. Then I write it, read over it the next day for edits, put it in tumblr for another round of edits, and post it when I feel like I'm happy with it.

But in reality? Oof. It really just depends. (also TLDR, writing is a process, and I love my fanfic community <3)

Sometimes the inspiration to write a whole oneshot or scene takes me and I'll write out a first draft right there in the Notes app (I tend to sacrifice work when I do this, which is bad and often why I end up with so much unfinished work with deadlines staring me dead in the face at the last minute. So I do not recommend this, but hyperfixation will hyperfixate...) I believe I wrote the entire first drafts for Choosing to Live and Ascension, Return in one day each.

Other times, I'll come back to it and play around with it for a bit. Sometimes the writing is easy! Chapter 4 for In Fathoms Below was super fun for me to write (especially the last half) because I had battle music playing and I was just so excited to get to the dragon turtle reveal. Chapter 5, which will be a much more intense action/adventure scene, was significantly harder and took much longer. I think I spent several days, probably a week fighting with that chapter, because I wanted it to be good, fast-paced, and tense...but also make sense. I'll probably still mess with it before it posts on Friday.

Sometimes, I can write a whole scene/chapter in a day. Other times it takes me several days. It really just depends. Sometimes music helps. Sometimes I just can't make one single paragraph work and it frustrates me for days (*coughcoughCHAPTER 5cough*). Sometimes I write myself into a corner and I don't know how to fix what I did, but I'm too stubborn to delete anything just yet or start over. Not every chapter/scene/oneshot is the same!

Once I have a full draft of the chapter/oneshot, however, then I start to edit it. This also changes up depending on the project. For a oneshot, I might read through it twice on my Notes app, adjusting things as I go. I try not to write a full oneshot and post it on the same day so I can sleep on it and come back to it with a fresh brain (mini fics like the Nightfall and alone, finally fics don't count, I'll post those after two read-throughs on the same day because they are asks).

Once I'm half-satisfied with it in Notes, then I'll stick it into tumblr on my laptop and use the Grammarly widget to help catch grammar mistakes. Reading it in a different font/arrangement/format also helps with finding mistakes or catching awkward sentences. Once I'm happy with it on tumblr, I'll queue it up to post, and then copy/paste everything into AO3 and post it there once it goes live on tumblr.

For a chapter of my longfics, however, I might read it several times. I'll go back and read the previous chapter and then the current one to make sure I've kept things consistent and that everything flows or transitions from one chapter to the next, for example. I'll read it once a day for a couple of days (maybe skipping a day if I'm frustrated with it) and see what each new day brings in terms of edits, fixes, and ideas. With the Masquerade longfic, because it's kind of just for me and a friend (though I'm excited that others are enjoying it too!), I'll post the chapter as soon as I'm relatively satisfied with it, maybe only spending 2-3 days on edits (not counting time spent writing a full draft).

For the Nautera/Atlantis fic, however, because I know there's a bit more hype from 2-3 more readers (and people have been SO lovely in their comments on AO3 as well!! <3), I put a smidge more effort into it. For one, I set up a schedule and wrote several chapters in advance, because last week and this week is PACKED with deadlines and work I ignored while doing other things (ahem, like writing the Atlantis fic). I wrote 4 chapters pretty much in the span of a week and then held off posting any of them until I had a good queue lined up. Then I queued them up over two weeks.

The benefit to this is that it gives me breathing room to write at my own pace while still ensuring I have content for my readers...which is different than the Masquerade fic, which I kind of write "as the inspiration strikes" and so I don't update it nearly as consistently (sorry friends). Trust me, if I posted chapters as soon as I had them ready, I would've posted 4 chapters back to back on the same day or on 4 days, and then we'd be waiting 2-3 weeks (or months) for the next chapter. I'd get bogged down by shame, I'd contemplate quietly quitting the project, it would be a whole thing. The queue helps me and my readers. I really need to implement it for the masquerade fic too.

(I still have a queue going, actually. I currently have Nautera's chapter 5 queued up to post on Friday and chapter 6 in a "midway" draft stage, and the start of chapter 7 in Notes. I don't normally write that far ahead! But the idea has me in a chokehold...and I'd rather write it than work, unfortunately.)

HOWEVER. The benefit and downside to having the chapters queued up and being excited for them is that I can still mess with them. So for the Nautera/Atlantis chapters, they might sit in my queue for a week, and every day I might go back in and make tiny adjustments. So for some things, I might only do a day of edits, maybe 2 days. For something like the Nautera/Atlantis fic, though? I have a bad habit of messing with each chapter several times lol sometimes this is fine and sometimes I feel like I'm messing with them too much, you know?

All that said, for some reason, fics don't trigger my perfectionism, even knowing I have actual readers reading and responding to them. You'd think they would, but they don't. Unlike my original book projects, which trigger my perfectionism so bad I haven't finished several of them because I want to keep messing with them, fics are consumed so quickly I feel less pressure about sharing them. I think there's a kind of freedom in knowing that once it's posted, it's out there, for better or for worse. You can fix minor edits, but you don't necessarily have to sweat the small stuff because it's just fanfic, it's posted for free, and if people don't want to read it, it's not personal. It's been really fun, actually, and I love the little community I've built making BG3 fics for people (and for myself).

I think, also, it's been healthy for me to hone my writing craft/skills away from fandom spaces first. I didn't get an AO3 until this year and I'm in my late 20s. I think if I had tried to write fanfic when I was a teen or even in my early 20s, I'd be too obsessed with the numbers. At this point in my life, I'm just happy to get a couple of comments, and happier still that my writing brings 4-5 people joy <3

It also helps to remember the wise words of one of my graduate instructors when it comes to certain projects: Done is better than good. This is a life-saver for essays and school projects, of course, but for fic, I know we want our content to be good. So I'll adjust it for fic here:

Done is better than perfect.

[sensitiveheartless]

*kicks down your door*

The newest chapter of Dazai’s Moving Detective Agency is so fucking good it is now my fave chapter I did not expect THAT to be the solution to the heart thing. Also the Akutagawa and Atsushi thing was Goddamn hilarious.

*Shakes your hand, fixes the door, and leaves.*

HULLO oh my gosh I'm sorry this took me so long to respond to alskdfjskfjs this ask was one of the ones that kept disappearing and reappearing in my browser inbox for some reason — ANYWAY YESSS (I want to talk about spoilers for chapter 19 so I'm gonna put them under the cut :0)

Ok so the heart thing! I wanted to mention that I remember seeing your comment where you theorized about how maybe the heart thing would be solved by Chuuya and Dazai kissing or saying "I love you" for the first time, and that maybe they could metaphorically share a heart between them, and the way you wrote it sounded so nice and romantic and lovely and while I was reading it I was internally just thinking "oh no" because of how it was actually going to go XD

In retrospect I really did have Chuuya solve it in the most brute force way possible aksdjfksfjks — speaking of that scene though, it did change a bit from the way I had originally planned it! Since I wrote the story back to front, I figured out the ending first, then the middle, then went back to the beginning and worked forward from there — so as a result, by the time I got back to the ending, a bunch of character stuff had changed.

Basically, in my first draft, Chuuya was going to get out of the chasm, find Dazai in the castle ruins, tell Yosano "before you say anything I know this is very medically inadvisable", then immediately pull his own heart out of his chest and split it in half (much to the utter horror of everyone watching). I was kind of hand-waving the magic aspect at that point, figuring "well, he's a star with a shit-ton of magic, he can probably survive doing wild stuff like that".

...But then I started writing everything out from the beginning, and added all the stuff with Chuuya learning not to shut out the people who care about him and to let them help him when he's in trouble, and in the process of really digging into his character arc I realized that I had made it so that him acting on his own like that would have been rolling back the character development I had already given him aksjdfksdfjskj SO I thought about it for a looong time and gradually figured out how to incorporate Rimbaud, Yosano, Kyouka, and the rest into all helping out in their own ways. And I ended up liking that version way better, since it fits more with the theme of support and the importance of all Chuuya's bonds he's made along the way, so I think it was worth the extra effort in the end!

...It still is a very brute-force way to solve it though XD Chuuya has a very straight forward approach to everything ksjfkdsj

ANYWAY that was a long ramble — I'm also really glad you enjoyed the Akutagawa and Atsushi shenanigans, I ended up having way too much fun with that part :D Their interactions are actually pretty similar to how I initially planned everything out (that end part where Dazai and Chuuya are completely wrapped up in each other while everything is spiraling out of control around them is heavily inspired by the ending of the book version of Howl's Moving Castle, and I had most of the dialogue for it figured out from the beginning).

...Honestly, considering how out of order I wrote it, I'm surprised I didn't have to scrap more scenes. As it is, the only things that really ended up getting changed/scrapped were:

A part of chapter 11 (in particular, the bit where Chuuya and Dazai talk after Dazai brings Akutagawa and Kyouka to the castle was originally a very different tone, because Chuuya was not supposed to have gotten as far along his "realizing he has feelings for Dazai" arc)(I do still kinda like the original version for the comedy aspect, but I like the way the final version fits with their relationship progression better)

A scene where Dazai was going to get drunk, which had to be scrapped entirely (I was basing it off of the book scene where Howl gets drunk and goes on a rant about the curse, but I ended up deciding that it a), made things way too obvious, and b), Chuuya should have absolutely figured everything out from what Dazai said and I didn't want to make Chuuya seem like a moron)

The final confrontation between Chuuya, Dazai, and Fyodor changed a LOT. I rewrote that scene. So many times. Similar to the Chuuya-pulling-out-his-heart-scene, there was a bit in my original draft that ended up being very out of character for Dazai because of how his and Chuuya's relationship had developed in the rest of the story, so I had to completely switch around how they got into the chasm in the first place. I again think it was worth the effort though, because I think where it landed (Dazai completely losing control of the situation and having to trust Chuuya to save them both) was more interesting for Dazai's arc as well.

Anyway, all that said— I've had a really really good time writing this fic, and I'm happy other people have enjoyed it too!! (And hopefully I can actually finish chapter 20 soon aksdjfksdj things keep getting in the way of it help)

[just-a-carrot]

hi carrot

its kinda a long speech and not really a great one so i’m sorry if you’re not used to criticism(i haven’t seen any of it yet) but i’ve been talking about it with my friend and i can’t hide the urge to ask you what happened

i’ve been following OW updates for a looong long time now, and i feel like what you started with isn’t really what you’re going with right now, i’m not telling you that you should change the whole plot that you have or anything, i’m just saying that OW kinda lost this vibe that i’ve got while playing the first 4 arcs

before it was a disturbing, kinda frightening, messed-up in its own way story, with fucked-up characters and the same fucked-up backgrounds. while playing it i’ve felt like you didn’t give a shit about how gory or wicked the novel is because it’s just how the story was! you made me feel conflicted emotions towards every character, everyone had their EXTREMELY bad side but in the same amount a good one, and nothing of it was left aside like it’s nothing. Technically, the only reason why i loved OW so much is because of how much crazy stuff was going on, like literally my heart was on FIRE after each arc, i was only thinking about how fucked up(in a good way) this story is!

So… Since the first part of Arc 5 i knew that it wasn’t it anymore, everything felt too rushed and too…kind? I mean, i didn’t really get the whole thing about how Iggy and Genzou just let all of the things that Gidget did slide, they didn’t even really apologise for anything? I get that it’s wonderland who messed up their minds and finally they’re free from it whoohoo but no way that it could be THAT easily forgiven. I liked the ending of second part but? Genzou was a fucking dick for more than a decade and literally ruined Orlam, and definitely did something terrible at some point(that you decided to keep behind the scenes(i’m talking about the one thing that he regrets)), it’s just NO WAY that a “sorry” would cut it. He didn’t do anything yet to earn it. And Iggy isn’t a perfect guy either. It’s okay for now, no time for heart to heart talks and stuff, but it would be really sad if everyone just gonna accept things just how they are.

so um shit that’s a LOT of words, but i just wanted to tell that it feels like you’re either holding back or just decided to turn everything into semi-sweet story about forgiveness and mistakes and power of friendship?? i know that everyone like it right now, and you really really improved on technical and artistic side, which is fantastic

i’m just curious about how do you see OW as of now, what story is it, did i missed some parts which made me think like it’s a whole another thing? feel free to tell me “YOU’RE WRONG” if it’s really like that

hey!! thanks so much for sending this in. i don't mind criticism at all and i would never tell you that you're wrong 🤣 i know fully well that this is far from a perfect game and there are many things wrong with it. both simply because nothing is ever perfect and also because my skills and capacity as a solo developer have their limits (even putting my own mental health on any given day aside alkdjfalsd)

this turned out really long and rambling so i've put it under a cut LOL

that's a good question tbh -- if something changed since i began working on the game. quite a few things have i will admit. many plot points weren't developed until mid-way through production. character arcs went in new ways. new characters came into being that i had never planned for. so i do think you're exactly right in that yeah, the game has taken a lot of turns and the vibe of the end is probably quite different from the earlier stuff, in particular Arc 1. actually my very first iteration of the initial idea was just to have the whole game be Arc 1! 🤣 it was only after sitting on it a while (still long before actual production began) that i happened upon the idea of the loops and then began thinking about each of the characters' initial core arcs. and then by the time production of each arc came around, they changed even more as i actually began writing them. i think Arc 2 was probably the one that changed the least from my initial ideas. then starting in Arc 3, things began to change a lot. and that compounded more and more, to the point that Arc 4 was almost nothing like my initial idea aside from the fact that I knew it would focus on Gidget. for instance, plot points like after-prom and everything involved didn't even come into being until I was working on Arc 3. so there were a LOT of like, plot lines that didn't really work their way into the game until various points throughout production. and a lot of that just comes down to me living with the characters and story more and discovering new things about them while writing. and also adding more and more of myself??? i think that was also a big thing. the more i worked on the game, the more of myself went into the game, and the more "courageous" i felt about what i was putting into the game. i will be completely honest here and say that when i released Arc 1, i was actually afraid of saying there was going to be some "gay stuff" in it 🤣💦 i was nervous about being so open and out there with my creative works, especially as someone who's a bit older and keeps to themself more in general already. but then the more i worked on the game, the more courageous i felt, and the more of myself went into the game, and the more open i started to feel, which allowed me to be myself a lot more. in a way, in my head at least, my mindset from back from when i was working on Arc 1 is a lot different from now in that at the time, my goal was to just create something horrific and more in the general horror category, but now it's become much more personal to me and i don't really care as much about being shocking and horrific as i do about about the characters themselves and how important they've become to me and how my own personal stories have evolved through them. so it is perhaps a bit of a different mindset and is probably evident even in the way i talk about the game too 💦💦💦 and i also realize that this might be not what a lot of people like, especially if they liked the game more for the dark and horrific aspects. so for that i apologize to anyone who also feels let down by some of the directions the game has taken that may not be in line with their expectations 😞

i'm also really sorry that Arc 5 has felt rushed to you so far. for me personally it doesn't feel rushed at all as i've been working on Arc 5 on its own for over a year now and it's still not done and i've burnt out multiple times on it 🤣 but i can understand how on a player side it could feel that way, especially with all the other unmet expectations about the game and story. i have always been heading towards what i refer to as a "light in the tunnel" with the ending of the game. i think even as far back as responding to comments on itch from like Arc 1 and Arc 2 era i wrote things like that, especially when people would ask about the eventual ending LOL perhaps because with my previous game it did NOT have any kind of hopeful ending. but i did definitely want to lead into an ending that wasn't completely hopeless. that even if not everything was "fixed" (since there are some things that just will never be fixed) it's at least better off than things were before. but i freely admit that the way i handle reaching that point might not meet everyone's expectations (and this is one of my biggest fears and anxieties tbh... because there's been so much build-up and people have a lot of expectations now and there's basically no way i'm going to meet them all 💦)

Arc 5 is interesting to me in that there are quite a few things about it that actually do match my initial ideas for it almost exactly -- even back from when i was still working on Arcs 1 and 2 and just thinking towards the future. for instance, i actually started randomly working on some Arc 5 sprites in december of 2021 (and accidentally left them in the Arc 2 game files that some people found LOL). they were similar to what they would eventually become (orlam was basically zombiefied, gidget was wearing a very fancy dress, and genzou looked mentally traumatized), though i didn't end up finishing/using them as there were slight things that changed about them and also my drawing skills had gotten better by the time Arc 5 rolled around too lol. so i did have a general idea of how each character arc would culminate even if i didn't have all the ideas worked out specifically (most of the final details weren't worked out until i was literally writing things). i also drew this picture in summer of 2022 while working on Arc 4 that would eventually become a basically 1-to-1 CG because the scene was so visceral in my mind:

however there were a lot of other parts of Arc 5 that didn't come into being until i was working on it. cecil's involvement for instance, since cecil himself didn't come into being until Arc 4. jerry's involvement, since jerry didn't become more of an actual character until i developed OFW (rather than just the one-off joke in Arc 2). the final collector scene was one i knew would happen but didn't know exactly how i was gonna do it until i actually wrote it (and was also influenced by my work on OFW). the iggy dolls i did come up with somewhat early on, though their kind of quirky manner and scenes didn't really develop until i was actually working on it. and the spider idea for gidget's finale was something that didn't develop until i was actively working on Arc 5. the scenes in orlam's castle were actually pretty close to my original visions for them (i even had the music picked out for the chase scene already since like Arc 1 or 2 LOL) even if it wasn't until i was working on 5.15 that i figured out exactly how to do the final genzou/orlam bit (i had a few different potential iterations in my mind for it, though they all had similar vibes)

i'm probably writing way too much at this point 🤣 but i guess i just wanted to show how indeed a lot has changed since production started and Arc 1 was released, though there were still other parts that did remain at least basically the same in spirit. so i guess it's kind of a mixed bag! but you're definitely right that no matter how many specific scenes might have remained the same or changed, the overall vibe likely has changed, which all comes down to me and how i've changed and how my approach and mindset has also changed

to that end, i can really only apologize 😞 the game is in a place where now where i'm happier than i've been with it since all of production, but i freely admit it might have turned into something that people don't like anymore or that doesn't meet their expectations. also that i could have done things better -- devoted more time to it, written it better, developed the characters better. i am only human and so the things i create will have many flaws. i'm always trying to improve! but no matter how much i improve there will always still be issues. game dev in and of itself is just something i do for fun because i want to tell stories. it's not something i ever want to make money off of for instance. i really just do it because i enjoy it (and sometimes it's the only thing that keeps me going through my mental health stuff) and i also know that i don't have the skills to make anything that will ever be more than that. i'm really sorry to anyone i've let down because of the direction of the story and the changes in how i've approached the game. i wish i could have made a better game for you 😭

[you-go-kaboom-i-go-kaboom]

First Sentence Tag Game

tagged by @rosieblogstuff hiii thank youuu

Rules: share the first lines of ten of your most recent fanfics and tag ten people. If you have written less than ten, don’t be shy and share anyway.

im not sure of who has/hasn’t been tagged already so if you see this and wanna do it, please do. you can say I tagged you I love seeing other people’s stuff :)!

some people are posting the most recent line of some of their WIPs. so here’s opening lines from fics I finished but never posted and also recent lines some WIPs

under the cut bc looong

1. (WIP) mac committing arson in a restaurant front:

His hand scrambled against the countertop for a weapon, clutching for half a regrettable second around a hot, metal stove grate before he reached down further and snagged a wooden spoon.

2. (finished) escaping a prison in an icy tundra seemed too easy because it was:

All it took was a stolen wool uniform, courtesy of the unconscious guard now in Mac’s cell, and the matching hat to hide his hair.

3. (WIP) antarctic dogfighting/dog racing/gambling ring:

Mac and Jack both turned their heads toward the source of the sound. Jack’s hand twitched toward his concealed gun on reflex, but it was such a small move it went undetected. A man was approaching casually, a bright smile on his cold-rosied cheeks. “Didn’t mean to startle you,” he said, breath puffing in the air. “New guys tend to spook easy. Is it your first time?”

4. (WIP) malpractice extravaganza:

Mac’s arm dragged along the floor of the car as they moved him, fingers relaxed into a slight curl. Blond hair, in complete disarray, was dragged through blood.

5. (finished) riley and desi dual caretaking post-DMT:

Mac had been dead to the world since the moment Riley and Desi got him to the bedroom. They hadn’t even been able to convince him to change out of the blue button-up before he flopped backward on top of the covers and refused to move again.

6. (finished) ice bath missing kidney trope:

Mac's teeth chattered; the shivering was what woke him. His muscles were wracked with shudders so violent each tremble that ripped through him brought with it a wave of pain. Coldness prickled along his arms and legs and back.

7. (WIP) mac’s bleeding out in a meth lab and riley gets into a knife fight:

She ventured further into the lab; the stench from the chemicals was stronger than ever, almost unbearable.

8. (WIP) blind bomb mule mac gets arrested in an airport, has bad day:

"But then they called over law enforcement too, and they were gettin' rough and putting him in cuffs, and they won't let me the hell over by him, Matty. They got everything shut down here, nobody's going anywhere and they're handling his bag like it's made of glass."

9. (WIP) um 30k+ stalking fic or sum shit:

"Mac," Jack called, entering the room and clapping his hands to startle Mac awake. "Is that desk really that comfortable? If I knew all it took for you to get some sleep was putting you in an office chair, I'da been tucking you in there all these years instead of the bed."

10. (WIP) mac fell down a well trying to help a little girl wip that wasn’t in the most recent 10 but I’ve had it SO LONG (like 2 years) and want to finish very badly but I keep forgetting about it:

The girl giggled at the remark, wiping at her eyes again. “Jack is funny.” She reached out for the walkie, which Mac handed over without hesitation. “Hi, Jack.”

[antisolararc]

4 and/or 5 for the worldbuilding prompts !

This is looong, so I'll put them under the cut.

4. What are some major landmarks you encounter on your travels? Do locals tell tales about their origin? Write about how these experiences might affect you as you continue on your journey.

THE SEA OF SOLACE

As the ship approached, the silhouette in the mist begins to sharpen. Meru, the great volcano, greeted them in the distance. They were already familiar, of course. Well, sort of. Meridian had never been there, but they knew plenty about it - it's the center of the universe! In the days before anyone reached it, they said it was so high up that its peak pierced the heavens. Once people got there, they brought it down, though. Far down, they thought spitefully.

Even from here, they could see that the surface of the mountain had an opalescent shine to it . They squinted. It was kind of overwhelming, actually. Golden clouds poured down from the caldera and congregated around waterline, keeping the island afloat. They weren't close enough to see Ruyi, yet, though. Meru's evil stepsister had a much lower elevation.

A great magicians' circle had taken over Meru, or so they'd been told. Primarily benevolent, but not above the great sway of politics and violence. 'They've got this code,' Reynardine had said. 'They're really serious about it. Best I don't play around with them too much.' When Mery had inquired further, he'd just shrugged.

Ruyi, on the other hand, was under no such rule. The magicians' circle observed, sure, and intervened if they thought it was a threat to them, but sounded like just about anything went at the sorcerers' market. That was the appeal, after all. Anything you desire for the right price.

They peeled their hands off the guardrail and slowly, stiffly, headed back inside. Thinking about it too much was making them uneasy.

XALABASE

Eyes wide, Odd stared for longer than he would have liked. He hadn't expected it to be this impressive. The temple was a whole complex within itself. Later, he'd just blame the pictures, but, inwardly, he admitted to himself that he didn't realize it was possible to make (not to mention maintain ) a structure like this without the aid of magic.

It was easily as elaborate as one of Ranlindyr's monoliths. Not only that, though -- unlike the sleek, smooth monoliths, every surface was intricately detailed with some sort of art. In the center of the courtyard, a great sculpture of the universe had been automated to keep the time.

Faintly, he could hear it ticking. That's annoying. Luckily, he could make his own devices run with complete silence -- otherwise, it would seriously increase his odds of being caught. Well, he supposed that was one thing they hadn't figured out yet.

VALONVYR

Suddenly, the barren landscape turned into a forest of palms. If it felt uncomfortably unnatural, that's because it was. The trees were unnaturally, artificially green in a way that clashed with just about everything they'd seen thus far. And, of course, the ad banners hung in-between them didn't help. On the left, "DON'T FORGET, GOD ALWAYS REMEMBERS." On the right, "SLIPPERY STEVE'S HASH SHACK -> 1 MILE OFF EXIT 3."

"Wellspring City!" Ivrel threw her hands up with a derisive scoff. "The jewel of the desert! The oasis of indulgence! Why, the good lord must've put all his favorite souls here, lest the dust sap all their virtue out and leave 'em like tadpoles with a puddle. S'pose someone's gotta stay late to clean up after, too, though..." She scratched her chin. What the hell was that, a monologue? She was letting Tjong rub off on her too much.

Next to her, Zee didn't really seem to absorb any of what she said -- she was too busy trying not to sideswipe any trees along the ever-twisting road.

"Ah!" She yelped as she made a sharp right. "Why's the road like this!? What's with these trees!?"

"It's a windbreak," Ivrel grumbled.

"With palm trees? I didn't think those grew here..."

"They don't."

The implication must have been clear enough, because Zee only replied with "oh."

RANLINDYR

Instinctively, Vita jumped.

This thing stood out as starkly different from the rest of the city. It wasn't unnaturally smooth, it was scaled. Great spires of glass shot out from its back, each glistening with a different color. She glared at the gargantuan gargoyle with distaste. What bizarre waste of space! It's own grotesquely painted eyes threatened to subjugate her own, though, so she quickly redirected her gaze.

She leaned into Odd, tugging on his arm so she could whisper in his ear. Begrudgingly, he obliged.

"What the hell is that!?

"...What?"

They jerked their head in the direction of the strange structure.

"Oh." A pause. "That's the Obsidian Crocodile," he said, as if it was obvious. "Never heard of public art?"

"It's garish!" She clicked her tongue. "I wouldn't figure this fits within the city beautification guidelines."

"Uh, yeah, I think that's the point." He crossed his arms. "It's supposed to remind us of our sins, or whatever." He didn't meet her eyes. "I mean, you can figure it out..." Suddenly hesitant, Odd trailed off.

Yeah, Vita could figure it out alright.

They turned away from him as their frowned deepened. Ranlindyr had a sort of melancholy simmering beneath its skin that she hadn't quite anticipated. It wasn't like Valonvyr, where grief turned to brazen displays of bloodshed. Here, the vulgarity lurked more subtly. Much to her displeasure, it made it made the hair on her arms stand straight -- something that her homeland had never done, despite it all.

LANTERN ISLAND

Just the sight of it made her a little uneasy. She'd only seen The Traveler's ship a few times, and, even then, she'd always quickly averted her gaze, praying not to catch the eye of a malicious spirit. Other people stayed to watch for it with a sort of glee in their eye. Some even managed to board the ship. A few returned with ancient treasures, but others never returned at all. There must have been an intricate labyrinth inside.

Zee used to wonder why anyone would do that -- so scary, so dangerous, and for what? A piece of history they'd have to shun? But things were different now. She understood, perhaps too well. The old Kalayan vessel brought with it a sea of fog, and it suddenly became much harder to see.

"Was that the boat?" Meridian asked from somewhere in the haze.

"Uh, yeah! It's super haunted!"

"...No kidding, ah?"

KALIBARU

Theoretically, it was very easy to slip into an alleyway in Kalibaru, considering the sheer abundance of them. In practice, his size served as a significant setback. Tjong was used to feeling large, and, usually, he rather liked it. Right now, though, he felt like he took up too much space in the crowd, despite the fact that he went largely (unusually) unacknowledged. Vendors crowed at him, hawking souvenirs and street food that he couldn't eat, but only children bothered to shy away from him as though he was a beast.

Although he'd never admit it, he once fantasized about such a thing. To traverse the world as if he were a human, or at least something akin to one. Perhaps his fantasies had been naive. To his right, another, smaller path branched out in-between two buildings. Before the crowd could surge again, he slipped into it.

The light wasn't so bright here, thanks to the looming shadow of a massive complex of shophouses. The alley opened up to a small courtyard with a stone carving of a horned frog in the center. Water poured from its gaping mouth into a little pond. The chatter of the masses had disappeared, replaced by the gurgling fountain.

Unlike the main road, this area was empty, at least for the time being. In comparison, the emptiness should have felt uncanny, but Tjong found that it was far more comfortable. It reminded him of his home, in a way that most of the city was simply too lively to do.

As he wandered, an old stone shrine caught his eye. It was for some local ancestor he was unfamiliar with. The structure itself was weathered, but, even so, recent offerings lay before it -- fresh fruit, pastries, shells, finely crafted trinkets.

He paused to examine it with a wistful longing in his eyes.

Longing for what? He wasn't sure he could say.

5. Write about someone you’ve lost along your adventures, how did you deal with that loss?

"Apologies, perhaps this is impolite…" Anata clasped their hands. "But Dr. Alquarix's death-"

"He was asking for it." Odd curled in on himself defensively.

Literally. Even if, despite his great accolades, he didn't truly understand what he was asking for.

"I don't doubt that he was." They laughed. Don't laugh at me. "But you followed along, didn't you? I suppose your reason is obvious, I was just curious… Why then? What was the breaking point?" The old man was excruciatingly good at pulling out the most loaded questions as if they were just the tiniest bit indelicate.

Odd shrugged, looking away. "…I dunno. It was just… all of it, really." He shook his head. "The opportunity was there. Who could blame me?" A lot of people, it turned out. He growled, baring his teeth. "Long overdue, anyways. Someon- I should have done it earlier!" Well, that part was the truth, at least. His face flushed in embarrassment. Shame for how foolish he'd always been. Hindsight's twenty-twenty, huh?

"Are you relieved?" Anata's knowing smile made him itch. "To be free. Now you can follow your dreams!"

"Yeah." His voice was hollowed. "I can follow my dreams."