#re-edited chapter 1 and now am about to post it

[piracytheorist]

In Life, And in Death (1/11)

Fandom: Spy x Family Word count: 4.1k for this chapter | 32.4k in total Rating: T Warnings: Temporary character death, graphic violence, horror imagery, body horror, mild gore, whump, language Cover art by @buf309

Summary: Anya is kidnapped, and Twilight is thrown into the horrors of a mysterious, deadly village. Forced and then choosing to survive its trials - physical and mental - he's brought to figure out who he truly is. (A Resident Evil Village fusion)

AO3

~

Author's Note: Probably my most insane fanfic project yet. After I successfully probed SOMEONE, aka @spencer-is-someone, into watching a Resident Evil Village gameplay, they fell in love with Ethan Winters but felt he went through too much in the game, prompting the idea "What if Loid went through all that stuff instead". And well, 32 thousand words later, here I am, inflicting this literal horror upon y'all.

I made a post about it, and the absolutely wonderful @buf309 went and made this amazing cover art, and I literally couldn't be more thankful for that. I was so amazed when I saw the first draft sketch that I went like I'M GONNA WAIT TILL IT'S READY TO POST THE FIC. Seriously, words cannot describe how grateful I am, I sincerely hope the fic feels satisfying enough for the work you've done <3

If you know how the Resident Evil Village story goes, this is pretty much the same... yes, in all of its "parts-in-jars" glory (if you know you know, if you don't you will soon), just with Twilight taking the place of Ethan Winters. There will be a few changes from the original story to fit Twilight's character, some to facilitate the adaptation from game narrative to fanfic narrative, some to fit my own tastes, and an actually hopeful ending because we were all left heartbroken after the ending of RE Village so might as well pour some healing juice to put our hearts back together same way Ethan puts his limbs back together and hope for the best.

Do take note of the warnings, please. There is one part of the story I actually had chills while writing (yes, that part for those of you who know, it will be slightly changed but the essence will be the same) and it is based on the story of a horror/survival game, so make sure you're okay to read something as intense as this.

The story is written in full, though I'm still doing small bits of editing here and there. I don't have a posting schedule, but I'm thinking of updating twice a week, or once if I see the editing is taking longer. Chapter titles are taken from track titles of the game's original soundtrack.

So yeah, long intro over, take not of the warnings, I hope you enjoy if you read on!

~

Chapter 1: Bloodthirsty

~

“Anya, don’t sit so close to the TV,” Loid said, not looking up from the counter.

Unsurprisingly, there was no response. He wouldn’t doubt that she hadn’t even heard him, let alone acknowledged his request.

He picked up a handful of minced meat to mould into a burger steak, deciding to give her another reminder in two minutes from now. Yor had just left to walk Bond, so it was only his direction she had to follow – and she was starting to make clear whose directions she preferred to follow nowadays.

He placed the burger on the pan as his body tensed. A split second later, the door burst open.

He jumped through the opening between the kitchen and the living room, but even that seemed a pointless blessing as thick smoke quickly covered the apartment.

He rushed through it to grab Anya, who trembled against him, but he didn’t have the time to move away from the shots.

Two silenced shots, piercing through his clothes and reaching into the skin of his back.

No blood. But they were pinching his skin, and he immediately felt groggy…

He dropped to his side, unable to move as figures approached him. One of them took Anya.

“PAPA!” she screamed at him.

He feebly raised his hand. “Wait,” was the only thing he could say, before his hand dropped.

More figures approached him, and then his vision went dark.

~

Focus, Twilight.

Don’t open your eyes yet. Don’t alert the enemy yet.

He held his breath for a moment.

He was somewhere cold, outside.

He could feel something soft but freezing underneath him. Snow?

His hair didn’t feel wet, so he mustn’t have been lying there long.

It was quiet. He could only hear distant sounds of wind and crows flying somewhere close.

He couldn’t feel anyone’s presence, so he decided to open one single eye to check.

But then both his eyes shot wide open.

In front of him stood a magnificent gothic mansion. It could be a mansion, or it could be a damn castle. It was surrounded by a thick wall, like a fortress.

He sat up. He was indeed lying on the snow, but it was the least of his concerns right now.

He had apparently been placed on the castle’s garden. Right in the middle of the winter, it was only decorated by a few naked trees as well as three scarecrows.

Those didn’t seem to do their job well enough, he thought, as crows still flew around, some even sitting on them.

He got up, checking himself for injuries. He couldn’t feel any pain or any indication of pierced skin. How had they drugged him?

It was then he realized he was now wearing his jacket.

Had they dressed him for the cold? While taking off his apron and the gloves he wore while preparing food?

What the hell?

Where even was this place?

Why was he brought here?

Where was Anya?

His attention was drawn back to the apparently useless scarecrows, and a chill ran down his spine – unrelated to the cold – when he noticed something eerie about them.

Carefully, he took a few steps towards them.

His breath caught in his throat when he was close enough to notice.

Those weren’t plain scarecrows.

Those were actual, human bodies hanging on wooden crosses.

His breath finally came out shaky, forming a cloud.

What the hell was this place?

Unable to quell his curiosity, he stepped closer, trying to notice for any details on the bodies, in case he recognized them.

All three seemed to be men, of ages between thirty and fifty, and they couldn’t have been dead for longer than a week or so. The cold might have preserved their bodies, but exposure to the outside would do as much more damage.

He couldn’t recognize any of their faces – or what was left of them.

Well, he didn’t even know where he was, how far away from Berlint or even in Ostania for that matter.

He clenched his hands into fists and turned around, looking around the walls surrounding the castle.

There was a huge metal door blocking the path outside. No climbing the wall; it was too smooth and covered in even more slippery ice. Climbing the trees wouldn’t give him enough height to swing himself out.

Which meant, his only way of getting answers was through the castle.

He must have been placed there for a reason, after all, and if they’d wanted to kill him they would have already done so.

He reached the entrance, and the door swung open easily.

The entrance hall was as luxuriously decorated as the outside hinted at. A lush burgundy carpet went up the few steps, leading to a wall where a painting of three young women hung.

The door closed behind him, and he didn’t miss the definitive clang as metal bars started descending right in front of it.

He turned, and for a few seconds he weighed his options.

He could break the door quickly enough before the bars descended too low, and slip outside.

But then again, they obviously wanted him in there, and again, it didn’t seem that killing him was their priority.

He faced forward, ignoring the sound of the bars trapping him in there.

He might as well play their game.

He walked to the painting. Underneath it was an inscription that wrote “Bela, Daniela, and Cassandra.���

Which one was which?

The women on the painting didn’t seem too different from each other. The painting itself didn’t seem all too enlightening, either; it looked like any common Romantic-style oil painting.

Well, it wasn’t going to give him any answers, would it?

He turned around, walking down a corridor and out into another, larger hall. He noticed how warm the whole building was, despite the freezing weather outside and the apparently old construction of the place.

This hall had hanging, lit candles all over the walls, though they couldn’t be the source of the heating. The lighting was low, but lucky for him, he’d been trained enough in low lighting for that not to be an issue.

He jerked back at the sound of a swarm of flies coming his way, then he sensed someone’s presence.

Flies, he could handle.

But then the flies started gathering together, and within seconds they morphed into three women, dressed in black hooded cloaks.

“Wha—?” he whispered.

“Looking for Anya?” a voice said, and he assumed it’d come from one of the women. Who had just formed from flies.

The absurdity of his situation almost made him forget that she had just mentioned Anya.

Which meant they probably knew where she was.

However, he was too shocked by the sight that he couldn’t move when one of the women, all of whom were cackling, approached him and pushed him backwards.

She swung the scythe she held in her hand, and he pulled his legs away just before she could bury it in his calf.

“Oh, he’s feisty!” the woman said with a wide smile.

Her arm then almost zapped through the air, and his left leg was exploding in pain before he could even register the movement.

He yelped in pain as she leaned closer to him and took a long sniff.

Her mouth and jaw were covered in blood, though her blond hair looked pristine clean.

“Mmm, man-blood,” she said.

She then leaned back and started dragging him, by the scythe embedded in his leg, as he still lay helplessly on the ground.

She was too fast. He flailed around, trying to grab at anything they passed by to make her stop, even though that would mean the scythe would rip his entire leg open, but then another woman reached his other side and buried her scythe in his right leg.

He threw his head back, biting down another yell of pain.

Could he just have one moment?!

The women dragged him down another corridor and into what he quickly realized was a bedroom. They removed their scythes, and he quickly reached to assess the damage, when he heard the blond woman say “Mother, I bring you fresh prey,” as she pointed at him with her hand.

“You are so kind to me, daughters,” came a voice of a woman who sounded older than them.

Older, and bigger.

She was sitting on a massive chair, holding an equally massive glass of red wine. She took a sip from it, then stood up and turned to him, saying, “Now, lets take a look at him.”

He raised his head to look at her.

And then raised it higher.

She had the build of a muscular woman, with curves proportionate to her height, which must have been about three meters tall. She wore a black wide-brimmed hat over her chin-length black hair, and a long white dress that reached down to her feet, though she moved comfortably in it.

“Well, well. Loid Forger,” she said. “Came looking for your daughter, I presume?”

He sat there, frozen.

They knew who he was – or at least pretended to be? And they knew Anya was also taken?

She walked closer to him, smiling as she put her hands on her hips. “For you to think you can waltz right in here—let’s see how special you are,” she nearly purred.

She threw her hands up in a sign for something, and two of the younger women said “Yes, mother,” as they grabbed his arms and pulled him up.

His first thought was that he was standing up surprisingly well for just having had two scythes ran through his legs.

His second thought was terror as one woman grabbed his hand, and the other produced a very sharp-looking knife.

Before he could jerk back, she sliced his palm open.

He bit back a grunt; it wasn’t a deep cut, but it would be annoying…

His last thought trailed off as the tall woman reached down, grabbed his hand, brought it to her lips… and started sucking.

Now he really was frozen in terror.

What the hell was this nightmare?

The woman pulled her head back, licking at her lips with a blood-soaked tongue.

She threw his hand away. “Hmm,” she said. “Still fresh, but only barely.”

He wrapped his hand into a fist, keeping it close to his chest.

“Then let’s devour his man-flesh quickly, mother!” one of the women said, handing a handkerchief to her.

“But I’m the one who captured him!” the blond woman protested.

“Now, now, daughters,” the tall woman said, patting at her lips with the handkerchief. “First, I must inform Mother Miranda. But later, well, there will be enough for everyone.” She threw the handkerchief aside, smiling down at him. “Put him up!”

The young women surrounded him, and though he struggled, they were too strong for him as they put heavy manacles on his wrists.

A thick build, but he could break out of them with little effort.

But then, they secured a chain to them, and the chain started going up. He was lifted off his feet, and started grunting as the full force of his weight fell on his wrists.

Don’t say anything. Don’t let them take a hold of any weaknesses.

He clenched his jaw, keeping his voice from making any sounds as they headed out of the room. The tall woman had to bend to get through that door, and one of the young women – the second one who had stabbed his leg – bent down and picked up the discarded handkerchief, smelling the blood on it and laughing, as she followed them.

Breathing hard, he looked up at the manacles.

The pain was intense but manageable, though he already felt the tingling of numbness in his fingers. By his calculations, he had about fifteen or so minutes before cut blood circulation would start causing permanent damage.

Escape, first. Then you can freak out.

He grabbed the chain and dragged his body up. Though his legs were still bleeding, he brought them up so he could hold the chain between his feet.

He was gasping by the time he managed that, but at least he had less pain on his hands and a better view of the manacles.

They were old and rusty, but seemed to have a fairly standard locking mechanism. Bringing his body closer, he fished the lockpick out from a hidden pocket of his jacket.

Biting his lip, he worked through the lock of the right manacle. Just as it opened, his feet slipped from the chain and dropped down, causing all of his weight to drop onto his injured left hand.

The pain knocked the air out of his lungs.

Think! Think! Pull yourself together!

Taking in a laboured breath, he looked back up.

The lockpick had slipped from his hand and was now too far down for him to get it. His right hand was free, but he didn’t have any other options left.

Reaching up, he wrapped his free hand around his left thumb, and with a sharp pull, he dislocated it.

As his other hand was coated in blood from the cut, his wrist slipped through the manacle as soon as his thumb wasn’t in the way.

He dropped to the ground clumsily, not managing to balance his landing.

Wheezing, he looked at his left hand.

Bleeding, and a dislocated thumb.

He gave himself ten seconds.

Ten seconds to wonder where the hell he had gotten himself into, what that tall woman even was, standing at three meters tall and drinking blood, and what her “daughters” were, emerging from flies and also participating in… blood drinking? Cannibalism?

Ten seconds, and he was back to himself.

Focus, Twilight.

He looked at his legs – they were still bleeding, but he felt confident he could stand on them. Though those scythes looked sharp, they must have split a tendon or two apart.

At the corner of the room stood a vanity table, and on top of it, along with various cosmetics, lay a small green bottle with a cross on the label.

He stood up carefully, glad that his legs weren’t trembling. He picked up the bottle, carefully reading the label.

Medical alcohol.

Not one to trust this place that much, he opened the lid, and sure enough, it smelled like ethyl alcohol.

He sat down with a grunt, pulling his right trouser up. He didn’t have any clean gauze, so his only option was to pour liquid right over the wound.

He braced himself for the sting of pain, but instead, the liquid brought a cool, numbing sensation.

And then, right in front of his eyes, his wound closed then disappeared completely.

He stared at it.

Ten more seconds.

What the hell.

He looked at the bottle again. Medical alcohol, it said. It smelled like it too.

He looked back at his leg, raising his other trouser where the other wound still stood.

What the hell?!

Uncertain, he poured a little less liquid over that wound.

The wound immediately stopped bleeding as new skin seemed to form, though it didn’t heal completely.

He let out a breath. If he were honest with himself, this wasn’t really the weirdest thing to happen in the last few minutes, was it?

He turned to his mangled hand. Just how much could that liquid heal?

He poured an equal dosage to it, and was still surprised to see his thumb painlessly slide into its place, as well as the cut close completely.

Well, at least it could be useful.

He didn’t have time to worry over the supernatural. He had to get out of there, and find out where Anya was.

He took the path of unlocked doors, as he didn’t want to waste time and noise trying to break the lock of every locked door he found. Breaking the windows wouldn’t lead him anywhere – each one was sealed shut, and though he wasn’t averse to turning into a hooligan for the sake of escaping, the entire castle seemed to be surrounded by that wall.

He needed to get to a higher floor, but the safest and most silent path led him to the basement, where he found himself walking along piles and piles of dead bodies.

He had to hold his breath as he passed them by; apparently the occupants of the castle had the habit of feasting on the blood of humans, and did it so often that the amount of bodies was too big to act as decoration for their garden.

It was all men, however. As young as twenty-three, from what he could gather with a quick look.

The fly-women seemed to be confident enough in their hunting that they didn’t take away the handgun from one of the more fresh bodies. Twilight couldn’t tell if that was a police officer, a soldier, or a man aware of what he’d been dealing with, but it didn’t matter to him. He undid the holster, as gently as he could out of respect of the deceased man, and he put it on under his jacket.

He checked the magazine. Ten bullets out of sixteen.

He looked at the man. Had he shot those first six bullets right before he was killed?

The man had a shoulder bag on him, and inside was a box of bullets, a total of forty. He slid that too over his own shoulder.

He kept the safety on the gun on, but held it in his hand. He picked up a hunting knife from one of the other bodies and walked on.

As the bodies thinned out, he found a lone skeletal figure draped in a plain canvas cloak. The limbs stood out, bare, emaciated, and rotting. While other bodies were in a similar state of decomposition, they were fully clothed, at most with a few rips in their clothes. This one was the only one so bare.

And it was holding a scythe in its hand, old and rusty in comparison to the women’s scythes, but still sharp enough to do harm.

He approached it carefully, keeping both hands on the gun.

He thanked his training for that, as the figure moved when he passed right by it.

He yelped in shock, moving away from it and raising his gun at it.

“Stop!” he said. “Don’t move!”

The creature, whatever that was, didn’t seem like it listened let alone register his words. It stood up, hunched over, then lunged at him with the scythe.

Not finding any alternatives, he shot right at its head.

The creature jerked back as a screech left its mouth.

Twilight held his breath.

His blood froze when he saw it still stand on its legs and try to swing at him again.

He shot again. He was perfectly certain the bullet got through its head.

Yet the creature moved again.

And he shot again.

Only now did the creature finally drop to its knees, but it was still screeching and growling.

Desperate, Twilight took the knife and drove it through the creature’s skull, three times, until he felt it stop moving.

It collapsed on the floor.

Hell knew if it would rise again. It was supposed to be dead already, wasn’t it?

He turned around and ran.

There were more creatures on the way. Some he slashed at with the knife, some he shot at, some he simply ran away from. A few managed to nick him with their scythes, and if he were honest, he was more worried about infections than the injuries themselves.

As he found a quiet corner, he pulled out the alcohol – or whatever that was. It seemed to work on the nicks too, making them close quickly and painlessly.

He supported himself on the wall, forcing his breath to calm down.

He had to get out. Now.

Holding the gun tight to his hand, he moved to leave, but then a buzzing and a voice sounded from behind him.

“Hmm. Warm, bright, red blood.”

He didn’t turn to look at her. He knew it was the blond woman.

He made a run for it as flies swarmed around him, until he found a staircase going up, reaching into what looked like a kitchen area.

“Where are you going, little one?”

The woman appeared right in front of him, cutting off his path. She was smiling at him, surrounded by flies, her face still stained with blood.

“I just want to find Anya,” he managed.

“Aw,” she said. She then pushed him back and he fell on the ground. She lay over him, reaching at his neck and biting.

Yelling, he took the gun and fired twice at her stomach.

She reached up, laughing as fresh blood ran from her lips.

He shot at her head.

“Your bullets cannot harm m—”

Her voice cut off when another of his shots passed through her and hit the window behind her.

The glass cracked, and it quickly shattered as a cold gust of wind blew into the room.

The gust threw the woman’s hood off her head. Twilight tightened his hold on the gun when he spotted a massive, fleshy scar on her temple, a bald spot from her long hair.

The woman shrieked, then growled. Her skin, already pale as it was, seemed to start cracking and turn grey. She looked at her hands, still gasping in pain, and then turned to him, yelling, “You stupid man-thing!”

His mind finally picked up the pace. The cold made her weak?

He stood up, raising his gun at her.

“How dare you bare your teeth at us!” she shouted, then lunged at him with her scythe.

He managed to block her attack, pushing her back, and he shot at her face.

She groaned, still standing, but she said, “What? My body—it’s breaking…”

He kept his gun up. “Just let me go,” he said.

A wild rumble came from her mouth as she turned to attack him again. She reached him, and he could only block her at the last moment, his arms taking the full blow of her scythe. “Give up!” she said, reaching back for another swing of her weapon.

He shot twice at her head, and she yelled again.

The flies seemed to drop in numbers, and her skin cracked more and more. He barely managed to avoid two more of her attacks, and then she fell on him, ready to bite his head off, he supposed in the split second it took him to kick her off of him.

He shot two more times.

“This can’t be,” she said, weakly now, her body swaying.

“Let me go!” he repeated, taking two steps back.

She screamed and reached back with her scythe, and he shot again.

And then a sizzling sound came from her body, as she started swinging wildly, not reaching anything. She groaned and groaned, and her body transformed.

It seemed to calcify into gravel, as she slowly stopped moving, her hand still up in a pose of attack.

And then it broke down.

Whatever it was, it cracked into small pieces, and what started as the form of a woman was now a pile of something on the ground.

Breathing hard, he leaned his back on the wall behind him and slid down to the floor.

His hands were trembling, his feet felt like water.

What the hell was all that?

Were was he?

Why was he brought here?

And where was Anya?

What were those creatures…?

He closed his eyes. Ten seconds. Just ten seconds to freak out.

He just had to get out. Find Anya and…

He opened his eyes, his throat tensing.

Did he really have to find her?

As far as he was concerned, right now she was a liability to him. He had to prioritize his safety first.

It wasn’t like there were piles of bodies of dead girls around, was it?

Letting out a deep sigh, he stood back up. The woman had managed to hurt him a little, but the healing liquid was in short supply and he could handle those injuries up to a point.

The woman. Who was now a pile of ash.

Calm down, Twilight. Get yourself in order and find a way out.

The castle proved massive, and he couldn’t find any viable exit paths even as he seemed to reach what looked like hallways reaching into bedrooms.

Then, a mournful scream sounded from a floor below.

“What have you done to my daughter?!”

His blood chilled. If the “daughter” had been that vicious, he didn’t want to face whatever her mother had in store for him.

[alive-gh0st]

Hello, Hello, Hello! I love the layout of your tumblr page! Absolutely stunning! I hope you’re doing well, darling! May I request something?

A Cupid reader x Omi-Mark Grayson. I would love to see the difference in personality. Maybe, Reader is excitingly telling Omi-Mark about all the couples, they’ve gotten together and Omi-Mark chuckles? Or perhaps, a simple Cupid Reader struck themselves with their own arrow and is yearning for Omi-Mark and he finally gives in? I would just love to see their contrast!

ପ(੭ ´ᵕ`)੭°• જ⁀➴

HELLO??? First of all—thank you for complimenting my layouts.ᐟ.ᐟ They take approximately 13 years off my lifespan because yes, I do all of it on my phone. With my fingers. Like a feral graphic design cryptid with a god complex.

Second—this ask appeared in my inbox like a glitter bomb full of rogue heartstrings.ᐟ.ᐟ and I am obsessed.

„Omni!Mark x Cupid!Reader”??? That concept is so deliciously insane (in the best way) it deserves its own zip code.

And YES you may request something.ᐟ.ᐟ I adore when people throw ideas my way—and let me bring them to life. Again „Omni!Mark x Cupid!Reader”??????? genius. iconic. a duality so sharp it could cut drywall.

Reader accidentally love-arrowing herself??? Omni-Mark being all stoic and meanwhile Cupid Reader is literally clutching her chest like “why is my heart doing jazz hands??”—oh i am so into this.

Also—love when people give lil extras about what they’re envisioning—it helps me build the vibe, moodboard, and maybe a shrine (casual). honored to take this on. BRB, channeling Cupid via caffeine and delusion.

Just a heads up—it might take a little time to write and post it because I’m currently buried under a small avalanche of fic drafts. But I will write it. Your idea lives rent-free in my heart now.

You’re stuck with me. 𝔁𝓸𝔁𝓸

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

❝Hearts Don’t Miss❞

Omni!Mark Grayson x Cupid!Reader➶

HAS OFFICIALLY LANDED FROM THE STARS!!!

•♡🤍♡🤍♡🤍♡˚₊‧ ꒰ა 💗 ໒꒱ ‧₊˚♡🤍♡🤍♡🤍♡•

SO SORRY for the wait—turns out Cupid wings don’t grow back overnight (tragic, I know). Between threading timelines and re-editing until my drafts cried for mercy, this one took a second. But! It’s finally stitched and sealed with divine ache and stardust.

IT’S FINALLY HERE!!! It’s soft. It’s sharp. It’s 4.4k+ words of grief-glittered lore, a bruised god, a wingless love-agent, emotional inertia, cracked hearts, and maybe—just maybe—a red string starting to twitch.

Huge love-arrow shoutout to @lycheee-jelly for planting this idea straight into my writer brain like a rogue dart to the soul (Cupid-style).

You have absurdly good taste and a terrifying understanding of duality. I owe you a field of wildflowers and an emotional support arrow.

Let me know what you think! I’ll be floating in a lace-threaded cloud of feelings (and probably dreaming up Chapter 1).

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

a/n: it’s happening. ”Hearts Don’t Miss” (Omni!Mark Grayson x Cupid!Reader) is officially being written! our favorite grumpy viltrumite is about to get emotionally steamrolled by a love-coded chaos alien entity with wings, and honestly? he deserves it. and—plot twist—it might spiral into a multi-chapter series. accidentally. maybe. probably. I’m just saying… the red string is getting longer. stay tuned.

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌With Love, @alive-gh0st

[red-riot-unbreakable-heart]

Shoto's First Kiss Timeline? Idk let's plot it out together

Gif Caption: Me and Shoto sitting together on the train, vibing. 💕

Hi All!!

If you're a fan of the Shoto's First Kiss series, Chapter 5 dropped at like 3:30 am EST this morning because I am an absolute HEATHEN and decided to have a late night/early morning editing session for 3 hours before posting. This was fun because I decided to add the whole Lisa Frank phone background scene for kicks and add a little more build up to the smut scene (I love a slowish burn...what can I say!?).

@brie-is-cheesy had some great questions in the comments of Chapter 5, I'm going to post it below and answer the best I can! I don't have a full answer to everything and I'm taking some ✨creative liberties ✨ here and there but lets see if I can clear some things up for my lovely readers!

Hiiiii, totally loved it; I was wondering when this is set? Like the timeline, I just got confused I'll leave the list of confusing things about the timeline,, I wrote about how much I love this in my reblog cuz this is awesome!! -since bnha is set in the mid to late 2100s I was wondering if the older songs they're listening to will include songs that are relatively new for us as of now? -when does this occur? Like you mentioned they're in their first year, and its after they've moved into the dorms but it's nearing the summer of next year, so is it after the war arc, or after the events of bnha entirely? Just wanted to ask! Thank you for the update!!<3 - brie-is-cheesy

Okay these are FAB questions and honestly I can't give you a straight answer to all of them!

Here's the background: So this story started out as a one shot - this past year, Shoto hasn't been one of my main MHA favorites. When I started the Red Riot Unbreakable Heart blog, my goal was to focus on what I've been calling "My Big Three." This includes Kirishima (lol thus my username), Hakws, and Hitoshi Shinsou (I love me an emo man). I was sprinkling in smutty one shots here and there involving other characters (ex. BakuDeku Smut: Hooking Up At A Pro Hero Gala and Beneath the Bookshelves | BakuDeku ). Shoto was one of those random one offs that I was like, huh why not!? But then I published Shoto's First Kiss (Part One) this one shot about Reader x Shoto totally took off in a way I wasn't expecting. Shoto resonates a lot with you all and the more I started writing for him, the more I grew to love him. He's so complex and in need of love and care. He has so much capacity for love!! I wanted to explore that more and figure out how he would act in his first encounters with intimacy and relationships. So I kept posting chapters, and started plotting out this wild story!

Timeline: When I started writing the one shot, I wanted the story to ambiguously take place in the 2nd or 3rd year when the characters were a little older. I was kind of working it in an AU where the war had vaguely happened and was over but everyone is okay and no one was injured/died/had their quirk impacted by AFO. In the context of Shoto's First Kiss chapter one - the war doesn't matter (at least if you re-read it I hope you don't find any plot holes mentioning the war!?). Also I have tried to say "Class A" instead of "Class 1A" because as I wrote more chapters, I still hadn't figured out what year we are in here.

Now that we're world building and have a more fleshed out story, here's what I'm thinking. Bare with me, we are going to need to suspend some disbelief here and I might need to go back and make some tweaks to previous chapters to keep everything in line with this line of thinking. But let's say this:

Timeline: The timeline takes place in the character's 1st year. I just combed through this timeline of MHA that someone put together on Reddit. I'm thinking this likely takes place at the end of Term 1. Final exams are coming up, and the students have heard a little about the training camp. Most of the MHA events so far are probably cannon in my fic universe, unless otherwise mentioned. The great thing for me is - most of MHA is in the context of Izuku's experiences, so there's a lot of wiggle room in the timeline for what could be happening between Shoto x The Reader. I haven't decided if the current chapters take place before or after Shoto/Izuku/Ida's encounter with Stain, because I can see some interesting plot points coming from that. I'll think about it!! This may change, but for purposes of continuity I think this could work as I move forward with my plotting!

Age: All the characters are at least 16. Let's just roll with that and take some creative liberties here. I'm aging everyone up.

The Dorms: In this fic universe, I pictured the students moving into the dorms at the start of the year. Like the dorms are just part of the normal UA experience - for all intents and purposes it's a boarding school.

The Songs: Okay this is a really interesting idea! I am literally just putting in playlists of music I like right now, I didn't think much about modern music flowing into the story. Lol would Honenuki listen to BRAT!? Maybe. I love him and think of him as a sweet chill cinnamon roll of a dude, though. I think he would be scandalized by Guess Featuring Billie Eilish. Or maybe he'd love it. He'd def love Chappell Roan, though. Dude is a sloot for Red Wine Super Nova and I just know it!

The Vibe: @ all of my beloved readers - I realize that this story means a lot to people, and I love that!! Even though we explore complex and serious subject matter at times, this is still a goofy silly story that I write for fun! Please don't hold me to these ideas that I'm throwing out in a semi-public brainstorm. I am but a simple fanfic writer who churns out most of the Shoto pages at midnight after I work two jobs. Shoto's First Kiss is a project that I write purely for fun and to build community with other adult MHA fans. I'm not like going to publish this as a book or put it on Patr*on behind a paywall or something. So let's keep it light! That being said, I love interacting with everyone so if there are fun questions that you think would be interesting for me to answer in this story, let me know! I'm very open to hearing thoughts and considering new ideas here :)

Update!!! *2/2/25* | Hitoshi Shinsou is in Class A. He was transferred in earlier in the year. Don't question it...just go with it. We love Hitoshi. Hitoshi belongs in Class A. Class A also currently has 22 students because I've decided the war hasn't happened yet in my AU timeline. So students #21 and #22 are Y/N and Hitoshi, respectively.

Okay okay SORRY FOR SO MUCH INFO! Thanks again @brie-is-cheesy for being so thoughtful in your reading and for asking these great questions! This is def going to help me guide the next few chapters of the story as I plot things out and as we get a satisfying next chapter in The Party arc. I'm going to post this reply on my Master List so we can all keep track of it and come back to it easily if needed.

As always, thanks for reading!! Sending good vibes to all ☺️

XOXO,

Red Riot Unbreakable Heart ❤️

Shoto's First Kiss Series:

Part 1: Shoto Todoroki x Reader | First Kiss ❄️🔥💋

Part 2: Shoto Todoroki x Reader | First Kiss ❄️🔥💋 PART 2

Part 3: Shoto Todoroki x Reader | First Kiss ❄️🔥💋 PART 3

Part 4: Shoto Todoroki x Reader | First Kiss ❄️🔥💋 PART 4

Part 5: Shoto Todoroki x Reader | First Kiss ❄️🔥💋 PART 5

My Master List

Red's Recos: If you're looking for more fun smutty stories from my writing desk, I'll share 3 of my all time favorites from my Master List. These are all fairly long and have a lot of sexual tension/build up with some satisfying smut scenes:

How to Suck Your Best Friend’s D*ck 🍆💋

BakuDeku Smut: Hooking Up At A Pro Hero Gala

A Long, *Hard* Night with Eijiro Kirishima

[secret-third-thing]

17! tell me everything 👀

God fears me for my process is fucking biblical.

Also link to post if people want to play <3

Please note this is for fanfic. My original fiction process has EVEN MORE STEPS AHAAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHA.

Step 1: Be absolutely overwhelmed with an idea. I know an idea is worth writing when it pesters me enough that it intrudes when I'm doing other things or writing other stories. If it doesn't, I send it to the plot bunny graveyard. Get fucked.

Step 2: Let it cook. That's right. Every idea has to cook a little bit. It decides when it's time for plotting. Sometimes it's an immediate plotting situation, sometimes it cooks for a year or two.

Step 3: Write down some key points. What do I wanna have happen? This is to help me figure out scope. I am much better at looking at an idea and sussing out how long it's gonna be. I categorize it into one of the following categories

Baby (under 3k)

Big Baby (3-5k)

Solid Oneshot (5-10k)

We're pretending this is a one shot (10-17k)

Normal Mult-chap (17k-50k)

Danger zone (50-80k)

Chonky Monster (80k+)

Absolute Unit (150k+)*

Someone help me I've fallen (200+)*

*my pet peeve is fics that go on forever when they should have just ended. YOU NEED TO PLOT BETTER. jk it's fanfic do whatever you want.

This step is done partially for fun and partially because it helps me figure out how many beats and scenes I need.

Step 4: I decide on a target word count (I'm good at guessing. I'm usually within 15% of my est wc when I finish) and then I fill out my math sheet that I made while I was bored and unemployed last year. It basically estimates how many scenes I need assuming scenes average at 1200-1500. And then it divides those scenes into acts and then it tells me how many scenes per point in the save the cat outline. 😂 If people want it they have to slide into my dms and ask me nicely + compliment eris and/or beron. Ideally both.

Step 5: Time to fill out the main beats of the outline! Yay! This takes X days, which is to say it takes the time it needs.

Step 5b: If I have multi povs, I do this process for every pov

Step 5c: Then I weave the povs together - which beats can be shared? etc

Step 6: Write out every scene I plan on writing 🫡 I know exactly what's happening and the intended outcome. Yay!

Step 7: Work on something else. This story needs to cook a bit.

Step 8: Come back and see how I feel about the story. Then I do this scene analysis thing where I ensure that my scenes are covering different elements of craft so we are as efficient as possible. If a scene does not accomplish a goal, I yeet it. This is KEY. I'm not gonna type it all out here partially because it's long/complicated and partially cause the mentor who taught me it, asked me to keep it vague since she's worked hard to cultivate her mentorship guidance and process.

Step 9: I make scene tweaks. If my outline has gaps, I cry about it and then radically accept it'll come to me later.

Step 9b: Sometimes I shop the outline around and make revisions based on feedback.

Step 10: Draft. But only when I want to. I don't brute force shit anymore. (I've been writing the full fic first before posting this time around) But yes. Write the full damn first draft. This takes however long it takes.

Step 11: Set it aside and do anything else, ideally not writing related. Watch movies, play games, go to an art museum.

Step 12: Revision time!!! YAY! Read through the entire fic. Write down allllll my horrible little thoughts about it. teehee.

Step 13: Re-outline. Really see what the story actually is. Decide if I need to rewrite anything.

Step 13b: do any necessary rewrites. cry about it1!!

Step 14: Revise POV/ Voice

Step 15: Revise Character

Step 16: Revise Plot again if needed

Step 17: Scene level edits (world building, descriptions, dialogue, details whatever)

Step 18: Now it's time for beta!!! Please cry clap. Depending on the posting situation (event week vs whenever) I may just do one chapter instead of the full fic.

Step 19: NOW do the edits! Again!

Step 19b: Send to betas again for feedback. Edit again. Repeat indefinitely.

Step 20: Grammar pass!!!

Step 21: Beta pass 2 (usually just a sign off that im not insane)

Step 22: Dark Night of the Soul. I grieve. I wonder if this is any good. And then by the end of brooding, I'm feeling a little evil.

Step 23: Post and give very little shits about kudos etc because they mean nothing and I know I'm fucking awesome. (you are too btw.)

Step 24: Kill God.*

Step 25: Become God.*

*Sorry these last two steps are for me only.

Hope this helps!

[lawofnamesmedia]

At the Bottom of the Garden, Chapter 22: Post Script (AKA the credits)

And, now that the first season is released, I am proud to be able to credit the amazing cast and crew behind the show.

(also, finally, what BNJH means)

In starting work on this project, I knew I wanted to frame it as a real thing that was really, actually happening. But that meant that I would be asking actors to delay their well-deserved credit till the end of the season.

I think that may have ended up being harder on me than them.

It was /exceedingly difficult/ not to yell about all of them, all the time.

I managed it, mostly, but I've learned that no matter how deeply I want to get into unreality, alternate realities, and the blurred lines between the real wold and fiction, I need to be able to praise my actors by name.

But since I can't go back and re-do that for THIS season, here's the credits for At the Bottom of the Garden, Season 1.

(In no particular order)

Tessa Thorn, who played the voice of Nadia Davis Taylor was played by Miller Power

Daniel Wright, who played himself, and several one-off voices, was played by Michael E. Freemantle

Fabian Haley the graduate student was played by Denver Stuart

Koen Akkerman of Logical Abductions was played by Rowan van Grinsven

Christopher Merrick was played by SJ Ryker

Charlotte Fletcher was played by Jill Bee

Thomas Hill was played by Lou Sutcliffe

Aldous Belleteyre was played by Juniper Berry

Simon Davis-Taylor was played by John Kennard

Mrs. Evelyn Hill was played by Fay Roberts

The periodic whispers were voiced by Vic Collins

The show also included the voices of Kale Brown & Amy Young

And, of course, Aidan Moss himself was played by Jasper Locke.

The show was sound designed by my amazing husband, Erik Seguinte

It was written and partially edited by Ash Seguinte (uh... me.)

I cannnot say enough good things about the cast and crew.

This time, I put those good things in audio format, rather than writing. So I'll leave it with my profound gratitude, and also excitement about moving on to season 2.

[hypersomniagame]

HYPERSOMNIA JANUARY DEV LOG : "LOG 1, WOOHOO!"

Hi! For all of you who follow HYPERSOMNIA, or are just stopping by, let me introduce you to this post to really set the tone.

For 2024, I am going to try to release a dev log about HYPERSOMNIA once a month, may come earlier, may come a little late, but I'm doing this to help give insight on to how the game is going, and to give me motivation to work on the game.

First things first, big news!

HYPERSOMNIA IS NOW AVAILABLE TO WISHLIST ON STEAM! (LINK)

After a while of back and forwarding with Valve, I've finally got a Steam page to call my own, and MAN is it bizarre seeing my weird little RPG in my Steam library. Like, that's my logo, and my key art, and screenshots of MY game, that's so weird. It doesn't feel real. BUT IT IS!

And, I would really really really really really appreciate it if you would consider wishlisting the game on Steam. It helps with the algorithm, and my happiness because I like seeing numbers go up, it feels good.

I even drew this as a announcement/commemoration for the page going live.

(P.S; if you couldn't tell, I really like Half-Life, it's one of my favorite game series.)

Secondly...

A new trailer is in the works! We were accepted for this year's MOTHER Direct (4th time baby, whoo!)

The trailer has been coming along well, I hope to show more battle oriented clips that I've missed the last few years, like special moves.

Can you believe I've never actually gotten to adding those in the game? I mean, they come set-up in default RPG Maker projects but I've never gotten around to revamping them until now, year 4 of engine work. Isn't that strange?

I also hope to improve on editing in the trailers. Whenever I finish a trailer I come back a few months later to notice minor points where I was kinda sloppy.

I'm not much of a video editor, (I only learned so I could edit trailers on my own) but I'd like to keep them at a good presentable quality. You gotta have standards with that kinda stuff, it's important!

OK, TIME FOR THE ACTUAL GAME STUFF. HERE WE GO.

Abilities are now implemented! And work! Wahoo!

In HYPERSOMNIA, players are able to switch abilities between party members. I find this a really interesting mechanic for how simple it seems, you get to choose who plays what role in your party. I think this is HUGE, and opens up a lot of unique scenarios for the game's encounters. I've had this planned for years, as far back as 2021 if I can recall, so it's super cool seeing it in game.

Mapping is being worked on!

I've also been working on mapping out more areas of the game! The forest part you hopefully saw in the last trailer is almost completely mapped. I've been working on the second part to it and am hoping to finish it sometime soon.

Mapping forests really suck. THOUGH, almost all the maps for the first chapter of the game are done! That's just another step closer to the demo. (Which, FYI, will be on Steam and Itch! ^^)

I've also been working on re-spriting older scenes!

This one's been really fun to do, I've been going back and redoing older stuff from the 2022 trailer, like this train! It's weird seeing it side by side, because you can definitely see where it's come from but at the same time, it looks so different.

(Also side note, these sprites are CRUSTY! EWWW!)

Lastly, Script and Music updates!

The script for HYPERSOMNIA's first act has been completed! with just 37 pages of just cutscene dialog alone! We're also currently working on wrapping up NPC dialog! Not much else to say.

And music is being worked on!

Music has been making some progress! I like to lay out demo's for areas I'm mapping out to help make both the music and scene come together. (Also, to help break up the eerie silence when playtesting...)

Speaking of music, FIREBALL, the games main battle theme, was recently delisted on our YouTube channel.

We did this because we decided we wanted to resample FIREBALL, and found that it's best to not have the song uploaded until a complete, final version is made. At least for the demo, it could possibly change before the final game but that's a bit too far in the future for me to think about fully.

Hey! Thanks for reading the whole dev log! Unless you just skipped to the end, you should probably go back up and read it. there's a steam page now. and some cool ross art at the top. you're missing out!

I hope this was like, readable to you all. I'm new to this whole dev log thing, so if you read it all the way through, let me know! It'd be cool!

I'd like to use this portion to pretty much just advertise Unique Indie RPG's.

Have you ever seen that strange purple square at the beginning of the 2nd and 3rd HYPERSOMNIA trailers?

Yeah, that! That's UNIQUE INDIE RPG's, which is a Discord community for you guessed it, Unique Indie RPG videogames developed by people like me! Or you! Or whoever! Who cares!

I help run it with some of my friends, and we all share cool stuff about our videogames! There's a ton of other SUPER cool RPG Maker games there like Astral Guard [LINK], or SOMEWHEN [LINK], or even MOMOinc [LINK]!

And of course, HYPERSOMNIA. It's a really laid back community, we're all super chill. Come swing by! We'd love to have ya, and SHOW US YOUR GAME!

[LINK TO DISCORD SERVER]

TWITTER

YOUTUBE

STEAM

UNIQUE INDIE RPG'S [SHOW US YOUR GAME!]

[PREV] [ABOUT HYPERSOMNIA] [NEXT]

[sinner-sunflower]

P.2 HH Lucifer-centric AU 12/?

STORY 1, PART 1, PART 2, PART 3, PART 4, PART 5, PART 6, PART 7, PART 8, PART 9, PART 10, PART 11, PART 13, PART 14, PART 14.5, PART 15, PART 16, PART 17, PART 18, PART 19, PART 20, PART 21, PART 22, PART 23, PART 24, PART 25, PART 26

If you guys see any changes when re-reading a chapter, means that I'm just proofreading and editing it haha

I proofread after I post something. Anyone interested in being a beta reader/proofreader?

-----------------------------------------------

Lucifer is anxious.

After his no more than 10 minute nap was interrupted by the arrival of Belphegor, they were the only 2 in the room. The Sin of Sloth all but ordered that no one enters Lucifer's quarters until she is has looked him over and deemed fine and safe.

He didn't even get to see Charlie but Belphegor in doctor mode is someone he doesn't want to be difficult with.

He could hear the rest of the Sins beyond the door, probably pushing each other to try and sneak a peak or hear something. It reminds him of the time when the Sins first came into existence and acted like clingy children to him and Lilith.

With all the experience he had with them, he still managed to fuck up with Charlie.

Belphegor: -head?

Oh, Bel was talking.

Lucifer: Hmm?

She purses her lips at his inattentiveness and type something on her tablet. This can't be good.

Belphegor: I asked how is your head?

Lucifer: Still attached to me.

Bel gave him a deadpan look.

Belphegor: Very funny.

Lucifer: I am a clown.

Belphegor: Do not let Mammon hear you say that, he might include you as one of his trademark jesters.

Bel fired a few more standard questions and despite her doubts, he was honestly feeling fine. His body and mind is just craving sleep right now but he's in not any sort of pain. Plus, it's not like Bel can cure his problem no matter how good she and her meds are.

Belphegor: Charlie mentioned stuff came out of you? Like dark smoke?

Lucifer: You have to take her word for it because I have no idea what was happening. I was basically asleep the whole time. You should check on her too though. She looks worse than I did.

Belphegor: Yes. Maybe next time, inform one of us of your whereabouts so that the princess doesn't have a mental breakdown when she finds you near dead.

Lucifer: Yeah yeah. But I was only there for a nap. Honest! You know how these Heaven trips are always so tiring, Bel.

Belphegor: Which brings me to my next question, how long have you been coming and going into Heaven?

Lucifer: Uhhh I don't know what you're talking about.

Belphegor: Don't think I did not get that slip of tongue. You said trips.

Lucifer: Did I? I meant trip. Cos this is the first time I've come back there. Yep.

Belphegor: You are supposed to be the father of lies yet you cannot even make up a good enough excuse when the situation calls for it.

Lucifer: Ouch.

Belphegor: So, how long have you been making your secret Heavenly trips without us knowing…… Your Majesty.

Ahhh ever so respectful, even when she's scolding him.

Lucifer: It looks like you already had your suspicions even before I fucked it up.

Belphegor: Opening a portal to a place that is obviously not the entrance to Heaven, having a key to open said portal to a private quarters, not one message above for a permission. It's not rocket science.

Lucifer: Jeez. I didn't even know you were watching that intently.

Belphegor: What servant would I be if I did not keep an eye on my King.

Lucifer: Ain't a good servant supposed to follow their King with no questions asked? This is feeling a lot like an interrogation.

Belphegor: You are correct. And you have mine and the Sins' unyielding loyalty. But.. it does appear like you've forgotten a simple detail.

Lucifer: Oh yeah? And what's that?

Belphegor: You are our big brother. We value you as our family, not simply as royalty.

Lucifer doesn't know what to say to that. Instead he opts to steer the subject.

Lucifer: Do the others know?

Belphegor: I do not think so. And I have half a mind to let them loose on you but.. no. I have a very good inkling you don't want anyone to know of your endeavours.

Lucifer: Just don't tell them. Not yet.

He know Bel won't but he still wants to ask anyway.

Belphegor: Very well. But you are not answering my question. How. Long?

Lucifer can't help but gulp. There's really no getting out of this one. He's a bit glad it's Bel and not anyone else. If there's anyone of the Sins who knows how to keep something to themselves, it's the Sin of Sloth.

Thankfully, she's also too focused on the fact that he's having secret meetings in Heaven than what happened back at the palace.

Lucifer: ….More or less 5000 years ago. It was Michael who reached out first. No one else knows except my siblings up there.

Belphegor: Not even the head Seraphim?

Lucifer: As far as Sera is concerned, I am still banned from setting foot beyond the pearly gates.

Belphegor: Why would the Archangel Michael take that risk then? If found out, would that not affect his standing in Heaven?

Lucifer: At first it was just to stay up to date. He said that he didn't fully trust the council but I think that's just an excuse to have me alone with no one hovering. It's not frequent enough that anyone in Heaven will be able to sense me. But I stopped going when the extermination was proposed.

He took Bel's silence as a cue to continue.

Lucifer: Long before the Fall, Michael and I promised never to lie to each other. And during those secret meetings, I still thought that. I told him everything. But he never told me about the extermination so I guess it was just me upholding that promise. I'm such a fool.

He buries his face in his hands because the he really is a fool. Michael wasn't the only one pretending everything was okay; that anything barely changed. Lucifer hopes that Belphegor doesn't take his secrecy the wrong way.

He just wanted to be the little brother again.

Belphegor: You are a fool.

He can't help but shot Belphegor a pitying look but she puts up a hand before he could say something.

Belphegor: But so was I when I kept that secret that almost destroyed all of Hell. So was Satan for antagonizing the Son of God on Earth which consequently made them think it was you. So was Asmodeus for making his crystals and allowing illegal travels on the human world. So was Mammon when he tried to sue you for the first time and sent you to one of your self-isolation punishments. So was Leviathan for picking a fight with Lilith when you were already in distress. So was Beelzebub for almost letting you drink yourself to death. And so was Lilith for leaving.

The Sin of Sloth moves in front of him so their knees are touching. Bel had never been a touchy person. Much like Alastor, small gestures of touch are her way of shouting her love for you.

He'll forever be honored to be on the receiving end of those kinds of affection because he knows that those gifts given only to people who they think they deserve.

Belphegor: We're fools and we must learn from it. Was it not you who gave humanity the gift of knowledge? Who gave us life? Who gave us free will? So now you have the free will to choose if you'll remain one.

-----------------------------------------------

I don't know why but I love writing Belphegor so much. It's the way she talks that is just easy to keep writing.

Anyway, continuation of this is tomorrow!

I only wanted a Bel and Luci chapter again, you'll see the rest of the Sins and Charlie again tomorrow!

Likes, reblogs, and comments are always appreciated!

[not-poignant]

Hello!

Why do you only answer anon questions?

I recently saw an author note suggesting something like that. Is there any reason why?

Hi anon,

I don't only ever answer anon questions. It just looks that way because I answer most non-anon questions privately. I.e. - Where you can't see the responses.

I actually don't get to all of my asks, both anon and off-anon. So I mostly answer asks (anon or non-anon) when:

a) The social anxiety isn't too bad b) I have time (my priorities for writing go in this order: Writing -> Responding to recent chapter comments -> Editing (that should be before comments but whoops) -> Being active on the Fae Tales Discord -> Doing admin (schedule / Patreon posts / Ream posts / round up / scheduling excerpts / posting excerpts / Tumblr chapter updates) -> Asks (not all, mind, just some. I usually try to go in batches of 3, but sometimes I can't, like now, because it's literally midnight) -> Replies to comments on older works.)

Rest of this going under a Read More because the TL;DR is: I work hard, am pretty sick, and I cannot get to all of my asks, and I also reply to plenty of non-anon asks, just not in a place where you can see them, anon.

c) I'm well enough to even get to all of those things in the first place, which I'm often not, especially since we got a special needs dog who has - it seems - as many health issues as I do. (I'm literally going to bed in about five minutes because I need to be up early so he can go under general anaesthetic for X-rays)

With the addition:

d) I kind of want to have hobbies and stuff. And see loved ones. And look after my garden.

As a result of all of that, I am extremely time poor. When I'm not working, anon, I am usually horizontal, and trying to rest re: chronic illnesses.

It's not that I choose to only answer anon asks, I answer plenty of non-anon asks privately, but I cannot get to all of my asks (I currently have, er, 93, I haven't responded to - I'm so sorry everyone, I'll get to that when the guilt of not having any Palmarosa this month isn't as bad asdlkfjas).

Social anxiety also means I feel terribly guilty if I let an ask go longer than about 1-2 months without me answering, which doesn't help much! Sometimes being a single person trying to get to everyone while doing the main thing that people are here for (the writing) while like, going to the hospital, getting MRIs for myself, X-Rays for my dog and so on just means that... I cannot get to everything the same way I used to. Honestly even back then, my therapists were begging me to do less and work less hard sadlfkjsa (I cannot tell you how often I've found it amusing we've focused less on the CSA in my past and more on how much of a workaholic I am).

It might change when I'm not working on like 8 stories at the same time anymore, but then I'm sure I'll have folks on anon in my inbox, telling me I don't write enough anymore. (That's okay, they'll have old stories to reread asldfkja)

I am doing my absolute best, and very often, I am surpassing my limits whee.

But I definitely don't only answer anon questions, you just don't see them as much on my Tumblr, because I like the opportunity to give more personal responses to people rather than the 'oh you forced me to respond to this in front of an invisible crowd, so now I have to reply like I'm responding to many people, instead of just one.' Whether that means I have to be more educational, or explain more, or make it clearer to folks that it's not personal (because now I'm not just thinking of you, anon, but all the other people who have sent me asks that I haven't been able to reply to, and I'm now having to reply to all of them as well, in case they see this), etc. It's just a different vibe. Sometimes I really enjoy that. Sometimes it's incredibly stressful.

Folks using their account name invariably get private responses, unless they send me lots of asks, and then... I just... alas, have to be really careful with my time.

[numerousbees1106]

SMALL CROWN OF LAZARUS PROGRESS UPDATE:

The first chapter of Arc 2 is written! Right now it's sitting at 5,590 words and 24 pages, but that's subject to change as I go through re-reading and editing. I just wanted you guys to know that I am working on and making progress on Arc 2 :)

Like Arc 1, I will be waiting to post the first chapter of Arc 2 until ALL the chapters of Arc 2 are finished - I have absolutely no clue how long that may take or how many chapters there will be as I don't plan these things out (when I do, I am always wrong so I've given up on that) and I just go where my writing takes me. For now, Chapter 3 of Crown Of Lazarus will be posted on Saturday the 8th of March, 2025.

(Not sure what I'm talking about? Read the teasers here and here, and read the fic here!)

[spacealligator]

I'm curious to know how you manage your documents for fics, so I've come to you with a few (possibly fun?) questions regarding your process !

1 - How do you name your documents? 2- If you have a multichapter fic, do you keep it all on one document, have a separate document for every chapter, or something else? 3 - If a situation arises where you want to make a drastic change that can essentially end up deleting thousands of words, do you commit to deleting those chunks and start fixing them right in the original document, or do you resort to making copies first so that you still have the original? Something else, maybe? 4 - Optional freebie slot ! Tell me something about your process that you might want to mention, but I didn't have a question specific enough for you to mention it !

hellou whoooo, thank you so much for the ask, here`s how my mess of a brain organizes everything?

1- most of the time the titles are just the theme of the fic, so for the Handsome Cop universe ie the title of the google docs was police AU for a long time, Ive had names like roommate AU, ame trio AU, flower AU etc very straight foward. I only change the title of the google docs once I settle on a title I really like, and that usually happens when Im about to publish and have to come up with something hehe

2- I keep all chapters in one doc, and also, if Im writing a series, theyre also in the doc because I often need to reference it to check some infos or really just the tone of the writing up until then. The worst part is correcting some info that you`ve been using for some time, like the age of a character changes, or something that happened in their past and they reference it a lot, then I have to go over the whole text and look for the specific mentions of that info and it just sucks

3- I have a google docs called kill your darlings where I put the scenes and ideas that were edited off my final drafts, I often go through the drabbles to check if there`s any cool idea in there I can re use under a new light

oh man 4 it`s gonna be a wild one

while reviewing and editing I often use text to speech tools to make sure that the writing sounds natural, its really useful for non native english speakers like myself

I have a spreadsheet of all my wips, with their % completion status, whats still on the pipeline to be written, and just silly ideas that I want to explore in the future (I had to do this because I had more wips than I could manage and was drowning in plot bunnies hehe)

when Im stuck I like writing on my phone because its hard to care about formatting, so I just shoot hundreds of words into a doc that when I open up in the computer looks like a enormous wall of text, and its easier for me to correct, edit and fill in the gaps once I have the main content on a page (blank pages scare me)

I often write all the dialogue of the scene first, and then fill in the gaps with descriptions and inner monologues, this way I make sure the conversations in my fics have some rhythm to them

most of my stories never had an outline, I just get this scene in my had and then I have to do the work around to get there and after it the consequences of it, right now Im working on my cowboy bebop AU and its the first time I really planned a plot, but I dont know whether is better or not

sometimes I go back to read my fics already posted but I often get an itch to correct things like wording and typos, but I dont because thats a rabbit hole I don`t wanna fall into

I hope you enjoyed reading my answers and got something useful out of them, I`d love to ask you right back and hear about your writing process too!

[galebrainrot2024]

Gale Seeking Godhood Part V/5 PATH 1

Oh boy. Well. I wanted to release all three paths simultaneously but that may take some time so I'll release the paths as they are completed. This will be the only part for Path 1.

Paths 2 & 3 may be 1-2 parts depending on my brain.

Summary: Continuation of Gale seeking the crown post elder brain, final chapter for Path 1.

Editing to say that I do tweak and edit as I read and re-read these pieces and this makes my heart ache every time I reach the end. Anyway, I'm not crying. Just some dust.

Path 1

You approach Shadowheart with a warm smile and embrace her - “Gods, it’s been to long,” you breathe out as she hugs you. She smells nice - fresh and you can’t help but to inhale the rosewater and lavender from her skin when you embrace. 

“Did you just sniff me?” 

“Sorry,” you blush, caught. “I guess I’m not used to everyone being so… clean? It’s nice, for the record,” You rub the back of your neck and feel redness simmer beneath your cheeks. 

Her melodic laugh echos in your ears as she says, “I suppose I should take the compliment. Although, sometimes I miss the smell of fresh mud on my skin,” she muses. 

“Don’t tell me you miss sleeping in the dirt too?” You raise your eyebrows and smile. 

She takes your hands in hers, “You know, I actually have found a spot that I frequent when I’m feeling nostalgic.” Giving your hand a gentle squeeze she says, “I’ve missed you. Now tell me, what have you been up to!” 

You feel the looming dread fill your belly and Shadowheart recognizes the look, graciously stepping in, “You don’t have to share, if you don’t want. I can’t imagine it has been easy… I can’t say I’m entirely surprised, although I had my hopes. Do you think…” her unfinished question lingers in the air between the two of you. 

Do you think he will come? 

You aren’t sure. You had tried not to think about it leading up to the party, anxiety twisting your stomach into knots when you received the invitation - from Wither’s, of all people - or unpeople? 

Shadowheart reads the look in your eyes and wraps an arm around your shoulder and pulls you against her as she leads you towards the rest of your companions. The air is full of merriment, music, and laughter - sounds that your soul has been desperately aching for. “I’ll let you wallow more later - for now, it’s time to celebrate, everyone has been expecting you.” And as she ushers you towards your companions you are filled with the sounds of their ‘whoops’ and ‘there they are!’ and fond slaps on the back, hugs, and the like. Astarion hands you a glass of something strong. 

“Here, you’ll need it - in case, well, you know.” He gives you a wink and brushes his shoulders off giving a little bow. “I am surprised - I thought out of any one of us I’d be the one most likely to go off the rails not - ugh - Gale.” Your cheeks burn and Astarion gestures as if to say ‘be serious’, “Oh come now. What use is being a 200 year old Vampire Spawn if I can’t have a bit of fun at others’ expense?”

You glower at him and his eyes twinkle playfully as he pulls you into a hug. “Oh! I have missed you, you know. Maybe you’ll let me have a nibble later? I do miss that taste.. like a strong, bittersweet brandy..” You see his mouth begin to water and you shimmy from his grasp. 

“We’ll see,” You smirk and he pouts as if hurt and goes to mingle elsewhere. 

“Hey you!” Karlach comes bounding over and gestures wildly, “I can’t believe the bastard did it! I’m here!” 

“It wouldn’t be a party without our liveliest companion!” Minsc bellows and shakes you by your shoulders from behind. “Good to see you, my friend.” 

Everyone’s attention shifts as soon as you hear a familiar and warm voice. 

He’s here. 

***

You feel trapped in the amber of the moment when you see him descend into the party. The familiar, tell-tale marking of the orb is no longer etched into his skin and his eyes dart around nervously as he brushes at his clothes. Tara moseys beside him. 

You step behind Minsc a bit as if to hide and try to distract yourself with the countless treats spread before you although you are anything but hungry. The moment you look up you see his eyes locked on you. You forget yourself as the rush of feeling seizes you, each emotion convoluted and overwhelming.

Two months. It was two months since you told him you never wanted to see him again. Now, as he stood not fifty feet looking ashamed and remorseful, you feel your heart wrench. He cautiously makes his way over to you, his hands mussing nervously in his hair.

“Hi.“ Gale says breathlessly. “Can I - Can we talk?” He shifts uncomfortably on his feet and gazes at you expectantly. 

“Lead the way,” you gesture and you feel your companions' watchful gaze as you and Gale begin to walk towards the water. 

***

As you sit on the embankment the sounds of the water lapping against the shore fills the cool night air. It smells like fresh grass and rain, the stars littering the sky with their wonder. 

“Thank you,” Gale begins, breaking the charged silence. “For taking the time to speak with me, I mean. I wasn’t sure if… well, I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted nothing to do with me at all. I don’t deserve your kindness, nor your ear, and I am grateful for it all the same.” 

You sit silently and watch him. You feel a heaviness that stirs in your belly, the unconditional love you once felt melded into something else, it made your heart sick. As his brown eyes meet yours you can see the infinite possibilities of what could have been. You do not owe him this, not your time nor energy, but you give it generously. A part of you still longs for him. Gale reaches his hand out as if to brush your hair and recoils his hand, looking towards the water. 

“What happened?” You ask timidly. “That’s why you came, is it not?” 

“Well…” he pauses to look at you, “I needed to see you. I - I know that it’s selfish, especially after what you said.” He sighs and brushes his bottom lip with his thumb. You feel your heart pang, the nervous habit one you find endearing. “Where to begin?” He asks this sincerely and you see his the wheels of his mind churn as he struggles to find the words. 

“I suppose it came down to this: when you left, Tara took her leave shortly after.” He inhales and his voice trembles, “The loneliness… I could hardly bear it. I poured all my time, energy into deciphering the last words of the Netherese text in my isolation. At least that would give me purpose, I thought. I didn’t eat, I didn’t sleep. Godhood was… it was everything. Time seemed to hardly pass at all. Once I cracked the cipher to ascend I - ” he stops and rubs his temples with one hand. 

You and he sit in a stilled quiet for a moment before he is able to continue. The sounds of the party filter through the air to you as you wait with bated breath. 

“I met Mystra in the Astral Plane. I knew I could still surrender the crown to her, to rid the world of this wickedness. To at last be cured of the orb. I was so close…” The way Gale says this is almost regretful, as if a part of him still wishes he became a God. “I became the inheritor of Karsus’ power at last. When Mystra asked my intentions I was fully prepared to take the Weave from her. And then,“ He looks at you, his eyes pleading and he covers one of your hands with his. You shudder, surprised by how his touch still ignites you. “And then I thought of you. Of Tara. My mother. Of all I’d given up in pursuit of my own blind ambition, of everyone I had hurt in the process. I realized I was no better than Mystra, treating those around me like amusements to be eventually discarded. Oh… I was so ashamed. I still am.” Gale brings your hand to his lips and brushes the back of it. You feel heat spread through you, although it is tainted by sadness. “Mystra granted me renewed life - to become her chosen once more, to remove the blight in my chest. My life my own again at last.” 

He turns fully to face you, on his knees, taking both of your hands. “I’m so sorry, for everything. For what I put you through… I doubt I’ll ever forgive myself for it and know it is selfish to ask for yours. I am not deserving of it and I will not claim otherwise. Although it may be beyond a shadow of a hope - is there - would you ever consider us again?” His eyes flash with terror and anticipation. “I know I am hardly worthy of your love..” His last words hang in the air and you consider them thoughtfully. 

When you break the silence, you feel your hands become cold and sweaty within his, your heart thrumming wildly before you speak. “You were already worthy of it, Gale. You were worthy until you decided to put your ambition over the ones you claimed to love.” Your voice is somber and you avert your gaze as his eyes seem to sear into you. You feel Gale’s hands stiffen and you see his expression fall. You look at him then, the bittersweetness of your voice wrapping Gale in a cocoon. “Gods, I wish it were different. Sometimes… I like to imagine that it is, in a different space, in another time, where we end up happily, spending our mornings lazily and exploring one another… where you chose me.” You see the tears form in his eyes, unaware of the ones that begin to roll down your cheeks until you taste their saltiness on your lips. “But that life is not meant for us here. Not now. Not after everything.” 

“I see,” his voice quakes and you brush your fingers against Gale’s cheeks and turn his face to look at you. 

“I will always love you, even if we are not together. Sometimes, though, when something is lost, despite our best intentions… that chapter must close indefinitely.” 

Gale closes his eyes and brings your hands to his lips again, knowing this will be the last time he will taste your skin and experience the feeling of your bodies intimate in this way. You feel him try to drink every part of you in, committing this moment to memory. You sigh, relishing in the moment although your heart feels shattered and ruined beyond mending. His final words float through the chambers of your mind as you gaze into his eyes, “If I cannot spend eternity with you.. I’ll settle for this evening.” 

You allow the silence to settle over you then, enjoying Gale’s company for one last time. 

[queenburd]

there's a hole where your heart lies (i can see it with my third eye) - 1

A/N: hello. hi. I have this teslaverse/Queenie fic that I've been working on for the better part of two years, possibly longer, and it's just been kind of stuck for a while. but I think about it often, and chapter 1 has been done for a solid minute. I've edited it and re-edited it and it's just. it's sitting here. I wanna show people. so I am posting chapter 1 for now. and if I get more done, then I get more done.

warnings for this fic as a whole...? there's a lot of child trauma, but to get into details would be massive spoilers and I'm going to keep them under wraps. for this chapter? well, there's rather dismissive language about horror victims, and there's an extended horror scene near the end. also, BUGS.

chapter 1

The world's in gray-scale.

The dirty white buildings are tightly clustered, in a courtyard that only barely meets the definition—it's a glorified parking lot, if anything. Dark gray concrete stretches out in all directions, cut through with lightning-bolt cracks that are unevenly colored in with rubbery black filler. A low fog hangs heavy above bare trees and benches with once-white paint that flakes off the dead wood.

There's no wind, but the stagnant air still manages to sting cold, sharp and biting. There's a deadly silence that rings, makes one uncomfortably aware of his own heartbeat and breathing. An abject misery hangs from the sky over the buildings like a thick, suffocating blanket.

In truth, the place seems more like a penitentiary than a children's school.

At the end of the empty lot, from a narrow gap between buildings, comes the grating gravely noise of an object being dragged across the concrete. It approaches steadily in the same way rain drums against the roof of a car; a consistent thrum of rolling, unending noise.

The child crosses the concrete at a steady pace; her wheeled backpack rolls through the silence in a deafening grind that thunders loud like a heartbeat, louder and louder and louder still, until the moment it stops. The silence races back in to fill the gaps, faster than the mind can conceive, leaving a sensation like ears popping under the release of pressure.

The girl and her cargo have stopped. Her eyebrows are furrowed, mouth set in a perplexed frown that turns into an abject, angry scowl.

“You're not supposed to be here.”

Kass snaps upright from the mattress, lungs burning for air. His hand clutches frantically at his chest where his heart pounds away under his skin, viciously trying to escape him. Dib hovers at his elbow, eyes wide and flicking between him and his bed-mate. She's still, chest rising and falling slowly; her breath softly rattles on every exhale. The pads of Kass's fingers press to his aching sternum, massaging at the space to little avail as he tries to catch his breath. His mouth is dry and cottony; he takes the time to swallow and find it in him to speak.

“Fuck. Fuck.”

--

It's been four days since he pulled the van back up into the garage; four days since he gathered up her limp, light body from the cargo hold and carried it into the garage through the back doors. Four days since Dib paced back and forth, crushing a feather that's dangled off his wrist for the better part of two years in his fist, pleading, “I need help, I need help, come on, why isn't it working,” as Kass set her down onto his bed with a terrible gentleness, and set his body into autopilot so that he wouldn't retch.

Four days of fighting the urge to grab her by the shoulders and shake her awake, while Dib frantically went through his own dark websites trying to figure out what went wrong.

Four days. Four days ago they were sitting next to each other in the van.

--

The streetlights are cutting stark patterns through the dirty windows of the van as it grumbles down the eerily quiet city street. The yellow-orange beams aren't enough for Dib to see his notes for more than a couple seconds before they are gone, then there again, then gone. He grimaces where he sits in the cabin, just behind the driver's seat.

“Do we know anything about the survivors?”

“Survivor, singular. Not much more beyond what I sent you,” comes the terse reply from the driver's seat where Kass white-knuckles the steering wheel, eyes straight ahead. “The little delinquent's comatose, and he's not getting better. Even with the feeding tube, doctors are saying it's getting worse.”

“Some kind of vampire maybe?”

“Definitely parasitic, but nobody's caught anything creeping in and out the place.”

May looks out the window from her place in the passenger seat silently, her shoulders hunched and curled inwards. Dib shifts uncomfortably, catching how the streetlights cut her profile in the window. He watches Kass turn his head towards her, like he's trying to catch her in his peripheral, before something in his jaw tightens and he focuses on the road.

This isn't what Dib was expecting when Kass texted him the previous night, suggesting he assist with a paranormal hunt. When they'd discussed it, there had been no mention of... this, this weird, palpable tension that's settled over the two people in the front seats. He doesn't really know what to do with the suspicion he's likely been invited along to break some of that tension.

He pushes through valiantly. “What about the other kids? I know their condition was, uh, pretty bad, but couldn't get much detail off the news articles.”

“Husks,” Kass says, his tone clipped. “Dried up like they'd been there decades. No bites, no scratches, basically mummies without the wrapping paper.”

“But the articles said they'd been missing--”

“Four days, I know, Einstein. You do realize I read the articles before I sent them to you, right? Why do you think the nasty particulars were kept out of them? The press would have a field day if they knew how the kids looked. It's why all their parents opted for torching. Can't imagine any of them would be interested in open-casket.”

It's crass, which isn't new. Beside Kass, May's fingers curl a little tighter into her sleeves. The van jostles as it pulls off the street into the empty parking lot in front of the deteriorated storefront. It comes to a rough stop that leaves Dib gripping the shoulder of the driver's seat, before the engine dies.

“Right,” Kass says. “Come on.”

They exit the vehicle in relative silence. As he climbs out the back, Dib examines May's face closely. Her eyes won't meet his, a fact he's becoming more and more alarmed by, but before he can try to reach out to her, she's trailing away from the van towards the boarded up storefront without a word. Huffing, he slams the door to the cabin shut and runs to catch up with Kass, who is two steps behind May, hands shoved into his coat pockets.

“I thought you said this place was closed up. It looks in bad shape. Why are the lights on?”

“Whole block is paid for by the city. Since the other storefronts are open, they don't bother trying to get this one shut down. Plus,” Kass says with a grimace, “wiring's at least two decades old. It's all knotted up with the other stores, so taking it out would mean rewiring the whole bloody building. Costs less to just let the bulbs burn out.”

True enough, past the dirty and broken panes at the top of the store windows, the lights inside flicker with irregularity. When they step onto the pavement, Dib can't help how his eyes are drawn to the bright yellow police tape that flutters slightly in the night breeze, stretched in front of the locked sliding doors. “You sure we're not going to have to worry about authorities?” he asks suddenly, uncertain. “Isn't this an active crime scene?”

Ahead of them, May has shifted without looking back and flown up to one of the broken windows to creep in. Kass's gaze follows her, his mouth a firm thin line. “Not anymore. Police can't find evidence of foul play, since they've gotten fuckall from the scene they're trying to retrace the victims' steps. Hell, they can't even pinpoint what day they died because of the condition of the bodies, so they're looking into other avenues.”

“But,” Dib starts, gritting his teeth when the front doors slide open slowly with a grinding noise, the padding bristles rotted and the mechanism complaining from lack of oil. May pushes them to fully widen with a grimace, and tears at the police tape with hardly a thought. “But,” he starts again, “you guys are pretty sure it's supernatural.”

“Like you said. Vampiric tendencies.” Kass steps into the store past May, and pauses there. Dib narrows his eyes, squints at the way Kass's arm lifts, as if to set a hand on one of her shoulders—before it moves up instead to scratch at the back of his head. “Hurry up now.”

Dib huffs again and follows, falling in step with May, who had stayed in the door frame. “Hey,” he says, nudging her shoulder with his to try to catch her eyes. “Thanks for getting the door.”

May finally meets his gaze, offering a crooked little half-smile that slips away far too quickly for his liking. Her brows are creased upward, and in the flickering LED lights he can't help seeing the deep dark shadows under her eyes. “S'what I'm here for.”

“Pfft, no, there's plenty of other ways we could've gotten in, you're here for way more important reasons.” Dib grins. “Somebody's gotta have some sense here. You are the one with the brain cell in the party.”

That prompts a quiet huff of laughter. “Truly, we are doomed.”

“When you two are finished playing out your sitcom,” the short tone snaps from ahead, “come look at this.”

Rolling his eyes, Dib focuses forward again, where Kass has stopped just past the customer service counter near the store entrance. He finds him looking down the expanse of the building with a grimace, and follows Kass's gaze.

“Jeez. This place is worse than the garage was when you were living in it.”

The store may have closed several years ago, but it still hosts plenty of racks and rows and shelves, numerous nooks and crannies covered in dust, grime, cobwebs, and who knows what else. It's big, too, and it only feels bigger from the broken mirrors that line the ends of the clothing racks and hover in every dark corner of the building. It's impossible to see the entirety of the store from the front, the view blocked by the shelving and the supporting pillars, save for the two main walkways down the length of it. Overhead, bugs drift lazily around the inconsistent lights.

“I thought it would be... emptier,” May says from Dib's other side. “I mean, I know the whole chain closed, so they'd have to try to sell the stands and so on, but... I guess they didn't manage.”

Kass taps his index finger against his thigh in irritation. “Bollocks. Right, strategy is going to have to change considering the mess we'll have to sort through. We'll have to be methodical about this.” He turns suddenly, his annoyed squint aimed at May. “You used to work retail. Any suggestions?”

She seems taken aback that he's looking to her, so she stumbles through her words for a few seconds. “Oh, I—um, when—When I worked retail they had us in sections for our shifts. You'd sort of weave through the aisles and shelves in that section to make sure everything was in place. And, you know, to keep an eye out for security devices.” May brings her hand up to her mouth, curling a light fist to press against her lower lip while she thinks. “Oh, and, when going to and coming back from breaks, we'd have to loop the perimeter and go through the aisles there in the same way.”

He nods, clearly thinking while he paces forward a few steps. “So starting at the corner and weaving through to make sure nothing's overlooked. I'll take the front left side and head towards the back. Astro-boy, head to the back right side and move towards the front. Duckie, take the middle racks.”

Dib frowns crookedly. He can see the logic in Kass's strategy, but it's definitely not the safest approach. Beside him, May seems to have similar thoughts.

“I don't know if it's such a good idea to split up, Kass,” she starts, before stepping back as Kass turns to stride towards her.

“What do you suggest, then? If you've any opinions on the subject, please feel free to share with the rest of us.”

Dib's missing something, if the way Kass's words make May's shoulders go right up to her ears is anything to go by. He watches uncomfortably as she visibly steels herself, words tripping through a false start. “I'm not—I'm just saying it's a lot more dangerous that way.”

Kass's voice becomes poisonous saccharine. “How about I go start in the corner, and you come back to me when you decide what you want to do instead, if what I want is clearly so unrealistic.” The humor drops and leaves chilly anger in its wake. “You make up your mind and tell me what you want. If you ever feel like bringing it up.”

“That's not—” she starts, but he has already stepped past her without giving her another glance. Dib watches her forcefully swallow, hands curled into little fists that she presses under her arms, shoulder curling inward. “That's not fair,” she finishes quietly, to nobody in particular.

There's a creeping awkward silence, where neither she nor Dib move. Then, with a small huff, May presses her fist to her mouth again and begins walking with purpose. “C'mon,” she says quietly. “We'll weave the right side together, see about getting things done more efficiently.”

Dib trails after her down the right main walkway towards the back of the store, heels of his boots feeling loud on the filthy concrete tile and broken glass. “Hey,” he says, mostly to her back, “May, slow down, c'mon.”

“What, Dib?” The question is short, terse, but she obliges, lets him alongside her. From here he can see her eyes are still on the floor, her arms still tight bands against her chest. They pass mirror after mirror, and May's profile is distorted in the cracked reflection. It makes him uneasy, how many mirrors there are.

“Are you okay? No, wait, that's a dumb question,” he admonishes himself quickly. “You're not okay, I can see that. But—what's going on between you and Kass? I mean I know it's not my business, we've been over that a million times, but I'm really... you look...”

“Like shit,” she finishes in a deadpan voice. “Yeah, I know.”

“I mean I wasn't gonna say that.”

“Yeah, but we both know it's accurate.” May gives a hard sniffle, gritting her teeth like she's angry with herself. “It's—We're. We had a... disagreement. He's angry. He's...”

Dib scowls. “He shouldn't be taking it out on you, whatever the hell it is he did.”

“He didn't—Dib, you can't always...” They reach the back of the main building, and May stops and turns to face him, pinching the space between her brows hard enough to dent the skin with her nails. “He's frustrated, and it's my fault. He's allowed to feel frustrated with me.”

“That doesn't change the fact he's being needlessly mean.”

“Can we please not talk about this anymore?” There's a desperation in her voice, and a threat of her voice cracking. She looks up to the ceiling, where the lights capture the passing silhouettes of winged insects, moths and gnats alike. Her eyes shine as she clearly and valiantly attempts to not cry in front of him. “Can we just do this and, and I'll sort it out myself? Please?”

Dib audibly lets the air out of his nose. “I'll stop bugging you. Here,” he says suddenly, “you take the right side starting from the back. I'll take the left side from the back, and meet up with Kass halfway. We'll start on the middle.”

May's eyes flick from the ceiling to him, the corners lined with resignation. She looks so deeply tired, and below the flickering light the bags under her eyes look stark, the sockets sunken and shadowed.

“You know that I know you just want to pick a fight with him, right.”

“I'm not gonna pick a fight!” he says, unconvincingly defensive.

She sighs and squeezes her eyes shut, clearly frustrated but too worn to pursue the subject. “Fine. Go on. Don't hound him though. I'll meet up with you in a bit.” She doesn't look at him when she turns the corner and walks away from him, her silhouette terribly small besides the tall stands before it disappears from view entirely.

Dib takes a deep breath, and then he goes to the corner. He turns, and he doesn't weave, but beelines for where Kass is about a third of the way through the aisles, crouched by an endcap that faces the wall.

“Thought I told you to go to the other side, Encyclopedia Brown,” the man states without looking up from where he's examining something on a low shelf.

“May's started there. I need to talk to you.”

“No, you don't,” Kass retorts. “You need to turn back round and trot off like a good loyal chihuahua and take your nose right out of my business where it doesn't belong. I know you have eyes, Dib, but according to everyone in your little yes-man group, you also have a brain, so do us the honor of using it for once, and keep your trap shut.”

“Okay but you realize you just brought it up yourself before I could even say anything.”

“I'm well aware we're about the furthest thing from subtle, Columbo, even someone as emotionally constipated as you would pick up on it.”

“Could you stop being an asshole for five minutes?” Dib says utterly exasperated. “I know you don't care about what I think, and I know it's not my business, but May's in bad shape and you have something to do with it. Big shocker, I know, but I have a problem with that!”

Kass finally looks away from the shelf to put his elbow on his knee and press his forehead to his fist with a grimace. “I know, chrissake. I know, Dib.”

His tone is startlingly pained, even fraying with a waver laced through his words. Dib hasn't heard anything akin to it in his life—well, no. That isn't true. It's remarkably reminiscent to an apology offered in a deserted mall to a younger Dib. The stark surprise is enough to render him silent.

Kass continues without acknowledging whatever might be on his face. The man looks almost agonized, teeth grit and brows drawn tightly together.

“You think I want this? D'you think I find it fun? That I enjoy being an absolute arse-shit to the one person who I—who actively enjoys my presence? I don't, believe it or not, I actually truly don't.” He stands, turns sharply to face Dib, expression hardened. “But this isn't on me, this whole clusterfuck. I can't fix it. It's broken but, if you can even comprehend it, I'm not the person who cocked it up and has to try to patch it.”

Dib swallows, body tensing when Kass approaches and bullies his way into his personal bubble. They're about matching in height these days, so Kass can't loom over him like he used to, but the man's whole posture is still actively aggressive, on the offensive--

No. That doesn't seem right.

There's this thing that some species in nature do to protect themselves—it's called deimatic behavior. The phrase is used to refer to animals that do things when under threat, like make themselves look bigger, or show off bright toxic colors, in the attempt to scare off the thing hunting them. Frill-necked lizards fan out the frills on either side of their faces and open their mouths wide while standing on their hind legs, to look as large and imposing as possible. Some species of snakes flatten the skin around their heads to look more like a cobra. It's a bluff tactic, only really a type of defense mechanism.

What Kass is doing is not much different, Dib thinks. He looks posed to strike, but he's only resorted to this after an intense negative reaction because of what Dib said. He's trying to look large because he's trying to protect himself.

Dib has seen Kass in a bad way before, but hindsight is 20-20 and he lacked the context at the time to recognize a large amount of the cruelty was means of lashing out to keep himself safe. It doesn't help that, as a baseline, Kass is sullen, unpleasant, sarcastic and all around nasty around most people.

But, when Dib was younger, Kass didn't need to posture as much, not until he was on the back foot. He only doubled down when he felt actively in danger.

So this...

Kass seems to realize his reaction in the same moment, because he steps back and pinches the brow of his nose, letting out a breath.

“I know she's not okay. I know I'm not helping. I get that you have it in your head that you can just thwack me over the head to the point of concussion until I apologize or some other children's show nonsense, but this is not something either of us can fix. We can't just put a plaster over it like a baby boo-boo. Do you realize how aggravating that is, to see something so fucked but not have any power over the situation?”

Dib swallows. He bites the inside of his cheek.

“She said you were frustrated with her. I thought she was just—trying to justify you being a shithead.”

Kass doesn't say anything to that, rubbing his hand against the side of his face.

“Did she... do something?”

“She didn't do anything,” he finally mutters. “She never--”

He's cut short by a noise Dib doesn't think he'll ever be able to forget. May is screaming.

They're both moving before his brain even fully processes the sound; experience has ingrained instinct. Kass bolts ahead of him through the aisle, and they both see the stark, blazing light that reflects off the mirrors and leaves spots in Dib's retinas. It pulses and shines like a star, there by the right walkway where the aisles turn into racks.

They're still a few yards from it, their boots thudding and squeaking loudly on the dusty floors, when the screaming cuts out. Kass lurches forward, gun drawn and arm yanking at the wheeled rack, pushing himself forward. Those last few feet, Dib pushes himself desperately for a last burst of speed, so he's unprepared to run face-first into Kass's shoulder where he's stopped suddenly.

Before them, May screams around a massive bony hand that wraps around her face to hold her entire skull against the floor. The sound is muffled by the noise of swarming insects—moths of every size, in the air, on the floor, crawling out of the thing that has pinned May to the ground while her heels skid and squeak against the tiles in a futile bid for traction. They're in May's hair, on her clothes. They flutter through the exposed ribcage made of rotting wood--

The monster is a massive, skeletal thing. Wide empty sockets stare at its captured meal, out of a shattered skull where the winged insects crawl and alight on the branches of a dead tree. It's part bone, part wood, part flayed skin and exposed muscle, all pressed down on May's chest, its thin limbs caging her small body.

Kass shoots it straight in the skull, expanding the shattered hole into the eye sockets. The only reaction it provides is a tip of its head, bits of matted thin hair swaying as it tilts its face towards them.

The noise of the swarm rises, moths flying in thick clusters as Kass shoots again at a target Dib can now barely see. “Stop, stop, you'll hit May!” Dib shouts over the noise—but before the sentence is even fully out of his mouth the noise dies entirely.

The moths are gone. The creature is gone. The only sounds now is their panting, and the horrible wheeze that rattles out of May's throat as she convulses on the floor for only a moment more, before going entirely, deathly still.

Dib pushes forward past Kass, who still holds his gun as he scans the store rapidly. Dropping to his knees on the floor, Dib presses his hand to May's shoulder, then her face.

“May! May, wake up!”

By all accounts, she seems physically unharmed. She's still breathing, though it still sounds somewhat strained. But despite his shaking her shoulder, despite his hands pressing to her throat and her cheek, her eyes stay closed. She doesn't rouse. She doesn't move.

And there's something else.

“Kass, she's not waking up! She's not—I thought she was invulnerable!”

He glances over his shoulder where Kass has approached, and finds the man has gone still at the sight of them. The color has left his face entirely. He doesn't answer Dib, which is probably the most frightening thing.

“Isn't she?!”

Kass drops beside him. He touches May's hand, her cheek, and confirms what Dib has already discovered. Her skin is almost cold to the touch.

May is never cold. She's a goddess of light and life, a literal firebird, always barely warmer than the rest of them. Now, her cheek is cooler than even his own fingers.

“How was I supposed to know,” he breathes out. “I wouldn't—if I'd known this was necrotic based, I'd never have been so stupid as to have brought her.”

He looks up at Dib. The lights above are stark and harsh, which only adds to the ghastly pale shade of his face, drawn up in unfamiliar terror.

“How the fuck was I supposed to know?!”

end chapter 1.

[lord-aldhelm]

WIP Wednesday

Another week, another tag game! Please share your last sentence; or, if you don’t have one, share a plot bunny or idea! (OR sketch for your artwork!)

Thank you for tagging me @paula-in-dreamland!!! I cannot believe it is Wednesday already! Urgh!

A little snippet from Chapter 11 of my Aldflaed WIP Darkest Before the Dawn:

She gazed up at him with eyes filled with a warmth and softness that he had not seen from her before. It made him uneasy, and he glanced around quickly to make sure no one was watching them. He forced himself to maintain composure and keep his face as stoic as possible, which was becoming increasingly difficult given the way she kept staring at him.

I plan to publish Chapter 9 sometime this week as well.

In art news, I have to put Aldhelm on hold for the time being, since I need to get started on my pet portrait commissions! I am sad casting him aside, but I hope to be able to get back to painting him next month! Here is the last WIP photo before the break:

The sword is finished! I started working on his hands but did not get the chance to finish them before stopping. Once the final piece is done, I will show close up scans of it with details about the various parts/symbols in it.

Now, the first pet portrait of the year:

This is Chibi! He is a shorthaired grey kitty with BIG green eyes! I am working on the background for his portrait right now.

Other things I am currently working on:

Re-making a few gifsets from early Season 3 and one from Season 2 with better coloring/quality (already done, in my queue)

Making gifsets for Season 4 (just finished episode 1 a few days ago)

Making gifsets for Wihtgar for the source blog (hope to post the first one soon)

A series of edits for my Pinterest account that I will also be posting here

No pressure tags:

@gemini-mama @thelettersfromnoone @synintheraven @garunsdottir @thenameswinter99

@bagheerita @solinarimoon @errruvande @aneurins-barnard

@waterfallsilverberrywrites @holy3cake @whitedarkmoonflower @bilbotargaryen

@grinningkatz @ladyinred2248 @hikaruchen @st-eve-barnes @alexagirlie @lady-wyrd

Let me know if you want to be added/removed from my taglist.

[chenziee]

A Little Bundle of Drama: Official announcement!

TL;DR: I am going to be reposting and continuing this fic. You can help me decide how to go about it by filling out THIS FORM!

---------------------------------

Hello, Riren nation, it’s been a while!

As you may have noticed, I have some good news regrading my omegaverse!mpreg Levi/Eren story A Little Bundle of Drama!! The past few weeks, I've been living in a slightly insane haze of working on this story again and i'm super excited about it!

Since it’s been… way too long, I will need to reupload all current chapters with edits before I can continue the story. Good news is, I have those edits ready and I have actually started working on brand new chapters. BUT! There is a question of how to go about that—and that’s where YOU lovely people come in!

I have created a super quick form/interest check with a few simple questions! It takes two minutes to fill out and it would help me immensely to see what you guys prefer! This form will be up for a week or two before I make a decision :)

My main questions:

1) Should I start re-uploading the story ASAP (with the risk of eventually sporadic updates) or wait until the story is completely finished (with the risk of that never happening)?

2) Should I delete this fic and start posting it brand new, simply reupload the chapters as they are, or leave the story but delete all chapters so that you can get notified about the next chapter being updated? (chapters will be updated once a week regardless of choice)

There are two more questions in the form, but these are at the core of the issue. If you don’t want to fill out the form but still want to give me feedback, you can simply answer these in the replies!

With this remaster, I can promise:

new chapters

more consistent tenses

more consistent POVs

more consistent terminology

some awkwardness fixed

old typos fixed and replaced by new, more creative typos created by me rewriting words with different words

more kisses

more biting

more emotion and details in general

better, expanded chapter 5 (getting together chapter) 

they will now be apologising and thanking profusely, not any other random words starting with a P (RIP)

no more depression in the notes (sorry)

more kisses and biting (this is important)

I still have no clue where the story is going and have no plan whatsoever further than three scenes ahead at any given time (we're winging it just like we always have, thank you 🤍)

At this point, I can't promise:

consistent updates past like... chapter 30

If you have any questions or notes, you can leave them in the form, DM me or shoot me an ask, or email me at chenziee1358 @ gmail(.)com!

Thank you so much for your patience all this time and I look forward to seeing you soon!!

- chenziee

TL;DR: I am going to be reposting and continuing this fic. You can help me decide how to go about it by filling out THIS FORM!

[tactical-mode]

After a rushed release, I took my time re-editing and reshooting and am now happy with the final product. Lesson learned. Perfectionism is the enemy of putting a product out, but I can afford to take the time to be proud of it.

Between where we left Cloud last time and where we find him in this opening shot, I actually filmed multiple scenes using Remake that took us into the station house, through a combat, up the stairs, and back out onto the street. These scenes were cut because they weren’t in the OG, it’s as simple as that. The 76 shots and ~15 minutes of good footage are waiting on the ancillary hard drive to be used in a music video or something.

[Chapter 01] Scene 10:  Meeting AVALANCHE

(see my post from Episode 1 to read about why I enumerate scenes this way)

This is the first major overhaul to a scene from 7R, and I cut a lot, refilmed, and moved shots around much more than folks might notice, and I had to manipulate a lot to make it seem like Biggs is interacting with Cloud, which he doesn’t actually do in the Remake scene.

The character’s mouth animations surprised me by how well they could be interpreted to be saying the PS1 lines, especially:

Jessie: “--s, this, uh, what was his name again?”

Jessie: “SOLDIER? Aren’t they the enemy?”

Biggs: “He’s a professional, unlike the rest of us.”

Biggs: “He quit them, and now he’s one of us.”

For the dialogue in this scene I blended PS1 and EC. Forever shout out to Yinza for preserving the PS1 script.

(remember to turn on closed-captioning for the dialogue!)

Scene 11:  Opening the Gate

There’s some stage blocking here and another instance where I decide to go with Remake and/or EC’s dialogue over OG. In OG, Barret tells them to split up (they don’t), the player is given the option to rename him, he tells Cloud that he doesn’t trust him, and then he tells the player how to use the controller buttons to run. Yeah, that won’t work. We’re going to keep his one line about trust:

“Ex-SOLDIER, huh? Don't trust ya!” (PS1/Beacause)

“You’d better be worth the money, merc. Every last gil.” (7R)

For this, 7R’s line is the most evocative and gives us just a bit more context for the situation at hand. I’m not super thrilled that it extraneously introduces us to the concept of ‘gil’, the fictional currency of FF7’s world, which isn’t relevant to the story right now (in the OG, Aerith introduces it when selling the player a flower). But the line is just so damn cool. Barret is so damn cool.

I cut the extraneous chatter between Cloud and Wedge here. I added a couple of shots around the door opening, such as moving one of Wedge’s face-muggings and a wide shot of Jessie and Biggs being sneaky.

I blended the different movements of the soundtrack here to match the iconic tilt of the camera up at the reactor. I also made sure to keep the entire sequence timed in such a way that Barret’s cold turn back is accented by the tense cellos. They haven’t said which one of Remake’s many composers is responsible for each individual diversion from Uematsu’s original score, but I would put good money on Shotaro Shima for the cinematic variation that plays during this scene. The forevariance of the Main Theme here is a particularly nice touch.

Scene 12: Combat: Cloud vs. 1 MP and 1 Guard Hound

A combat has begun, which means that our major story moments for the episode are behind us. That’s not to say that there won’t be plot in the following few minutes, but there won’t be dialogue. Enjoy the slow-motion feast for the eyes and ears, I really enjoyed making it.

Because Cloud is the only combatant in these, it’s easy to actually choreograph and re-shoot the fights, finaggling the enemies into the same locations as I use the same moves on them. This fight can be repeated after opening a nearby chest, allowing me to quickly restart it without having to reload, with only minor changes to the starting positions. For instance, in the first scenario, the members of AVALANCHE start on the battlefield and spend the first few rounds taking the lift, whereas they’re already at the top at the start of the second fight.

I really loved the naturally moody lighting on the crew in the warehouse, and cutting back and forth allowed me to mask some of the “jumping around” that the enemies and Cloud do – although not all, as eagle-eyed viewers will see. This will become less possible when more characters become involved in fights, but for the opening encounters I thought it would be important to show how this slow-mo thing could give the impression of fights progressing. Here's my favorite from the cutting room floor:

Scenes 13-14: Through the Warehouse

At three separate times, I mask edits to the score. At the end of the combat, Cloud sheathes his sword, allowing me to cut out 14 bars and restore Uematsu’s original score structure. I then put this opening piano on loop, extending it until enemies are on the screen (it’s masked again by the sound of the lift and by Jessie cutting the wires. In Uematsu’s structure, loops of the song don’t include the timpanis and orchestra hits from the beginning, but 7R’s version does include them, which I think is an oversight. However, it had the unintended upside of scoring the arrival of enemies from behind Cloud really well! Also, we can associate the orchestra hits with Cloud once more as they punctuate him whirling around and preparing to fight!

Fun fact: Bombing Mission has a bpm of 136, so when I found editing the music too repetitive I would use placeholders with the same bpm and then fine-tune it later. Highlights from the playlist I made were Rocket Man, Thunderstruck, Go Your Own Way, Jump (For My Love), and, heh, Sandstorm. 

Scene 15: Combat: Cloud vs. 2 MPs, 1 Guard Hound

With this combat, I chose to introduce the viewer to magic - specifically, Cloud’s ability to cast lightning and ice. In OG, the player learns this by taking control of Cloud down on the train platform, but its quite possible in a playthrough for Cloud to never use magic – and indeed, in 7R he begins with different spell abilities altogether!

However, I feel like this short encounter was the way to introduce magic with the maximum hype possible, and I’m proud of the result. Cloud zaps one MP, dispatches the other with a quick sword slice, then fires off an ice spell to nab the pup.

I tried to have the materia in focus while Cloud was casting in order to provide a visual clue as to where this magic comes from, because it won’t be exposited with dialogue for some time yet.

Scene 16: Combat: Cloud vs. 2 MPs

Around 1 minute of combat footage represents about 2-3 hours of shooting, and about 5 hours of editing. This one took a bit longer because I remained in bullet time so that I could get coverage of the crew running out onto the bridge.

For this combat, I cut out a chunk of the score to make room for the section that uses a variation on the Main Theme, accenting a Cloud hero shot.

Scene 17: The Bridge

This was pretty straightforward to shoot except for cutting out a door puzzle that triggers AVALANCHE running into the reactor. Filming around that was a bit tricky. I also dabbled in my first bit of colour-correction here, as jumping from the gap between sectors back into that metal tunnel was hard on the eyes.

A quick clip of the music to ramp up towards the credits, and about a hundred reshoots of that camera so that it passes between the pipes and not through them. And we're done.

Final Thoughts

I can’t believe anyone reads these things, but if you did, hey thanks. Let me know what you think of the series! And dOn’T fOrGeT tO LiKe aNd sUbScRiBe!

[crimetimesteadicam]

ok @morporkian-cryptid tagged me to do this fic author interview so here we go...

if you would like to do this, i am officially tagging you, yes you, right now. tag me back so i can see your answers

1 How many works do you have on AO3?

i got 40

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

1,044,749

3. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

sorry like none of these are lupin iii. a blight on my lupin iii blog

Wabisabi (991 kudos) - Spirited Away. idk it's short and cute, read it

BONES OF BLACK MARROW (952 kudos) - Homestuck. the infamous cyoa cannibalism sex fic. scrolling through the things people say about it in the bookmarks is always so funny

Cum mortuis in lingua mortua (925 kudos) - Homestuck. no clue why it has so many kudos lol it was like the first long thing i've ever wrote (a whole decade ago??? jesus). it's a d&d/discworld joke

Vanitas vanitatum (914 kudos) - Homestuck. the same d&d/discworld joke except the LI is turbo depressed. notable for being the only fic i ever outlined and edited and that's why it whips

Supermassive Retinol Overdose! (677 kudos) - hey look, a lupin fic made it on here!

4. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

i do when i have something meaningful to say besides "thank you!" i don't have a lot of thoughts about my own work so therefore i tend to not respond if there's not a direct question :( my head is empty. i always respond to every single comment on the last chapter of longfics though because i'm always impressed people read that far lol. genuinely, from the bottom of my heart, thank you for reading all that

5. What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

idk uhhhh i wrote a series once where two of the main couples break up at the end, but it wasn't really angsty

6. What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

they all end pretty happily

7. Do you write crossovers?

if i did it was so long ago i don't remember it

8. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

no but people used to send passive aggressive hate about my art in fics once in a while. hasn't happened in like 2+ years

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

yes. every kind. EVERY KIND

10. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

a bot will sometimes scrape my high kudos homestuck fics and plant them on a junk ebook site

11. Have you ever had a fic translated?

yeah i think like 7 of them got translated into russian and do numbers on ficbook.net

12. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

in the past me and my friend would sit around a laptop and scream laugh write our way through crack fics

13. What’s your all-time favorite ship?

right now it's jiglup and fujilup

14. What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

i finish almost all my WIPs because i'm a freak. if i don't finish a WIP it's because some dramatic life event happened. this has only occurred two times

15. What are your writing strengths?

im a funny binch

16. What are your writing weaknesses?

i don't outline or edit or re-read any of my fanfic. i just type it and then eyeball it for typos and then post it. i COULD outline and such to really make the narrative nice and tight, but i don't find it very fun to do (for fanfic) and this is like, my relaxing wind down hobby. i just wanna have fun haha. the only reason my fics like, make sense, is because i write at least one ending scene first thing and always aim for that, and also i write out of order so i kinda know the route of the story

17. What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

it's fine if it makes sense to do it there as a narrative device

18. What was the first fandom you wrote for?

h-hetalia crack fic.....

19. What’s a fandom/ship you haven’t written for yet but want to?

once i figure out how to draw zenigata it's over for you bitches. luzeni hours on da clock

20. What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

for lupin iii fic, i like Lightkeepers the best