#split intro sheet

[valcubust-writes]

Read the Demo here! / art account is @valcubust​ / Da Spotify

...

2027, A voice transcript found on a recording device:

"...can be killed with fire, testing done in..." A french accent. "September of 2025. If I am counting correct."

. . .

"Now, with more testing I can hopefully learn more about them. Learn advantages. Sending someone out to rile them up. Will check in later."

...End transcript.

You're alive.

One survivor amongst thousands of dead. The actual death toll (if there was ever a record of it) is unavailable now. The world ended in 2026.

Now, four-hundred and twenty-three days later, you're here. In the outskirts of Scarswater, Ohio; you live in what used to be a small farming community. Once full of life and a bustling economy, but even before The End, the area had been steadily gentrified. Dead fields, closed businesses, and now, a beautiful wasteland of parking lots and unused plazas.  

Whatever caused it is unknown. Of course, you could ask everyone you know and they would all have their own ideas about what happened.

All that you know for certain is that in January of 2026, everything stopped working. Cellphones, computers, televisions... all electronics went on the fritz before shutting down entirely. After that, people started disappearing. Animals, too. And then went the crops, mass death of acres and acres of valuable foods and materials. All gone within six months. Mass hysteria ensued, people got scared, started hoarding goods. Everyone and their mother had a gun pointed right at the road, just in case anyone got any funny ideas.

And all of that was before the bizarre sightings.

The... things. Gooey, tar-like. They absorb, and absorb, and absorb.

You wondered, for a bit, how they could eat so much. But that thought has long passed. They have no limits, no voices, no care in the world except consume. How long until they finally consume you, too?

FEATURES

Play as a nonbinary, male, or female character; straight, bisexual, or gay.

Custom Pronouns (I'm considering adding duo pronouns as well. like, she/they etc.).

Choice for a ‘common’ name or something bizarre. In which characters will definitely recognize that you have named yourself something batshit.

Asexual routes (this is very important to me)!

A mildly customizable backstory

Several love interests

LOVE INTERESTS

Miles/Mindy (He/they, She/they): A surprisingly bashful stranger with a farmer's tan, M has the means to keep to themself alive and safe, so why are they bothering to make sure you make it, too? Circumstances have thrown the two of you together, whether or not they stick around is up to you.

Audria (They/them): Goofy and a little out of touch, Audria is a certified genius, not that it matters anymore. The key to your protection — and your group's — is them. They often head out of the camp to scavenge, and  know how to keep a car running. Audria is one of the few people still around who knows anything about electronics. They often seem preoccupied with something important, but Audria always makes time for you.

Calvin/Carissa (He/him, She/her): The unofficial leader of your group — not that they'd want to claim the title — C is in charge of food collection, distribution, and growing. They have a chill attitude about life, and a whole mess of conspiracies. Still, you wonder what's hidden behind all of the easy smiles.

Lola (She/her): Lola is an unfriendly, hot mess. You've never met someone so flighty in your life. She is distrustful and stubborn, and you suspect even the name she told you might be fake. It might be hard to get to know her.

Sandy (She/her, He/him, They/them (genderfluid)): Sandy is a transfer from the West Coast. during a yearly visit to family, they got caught up in an unfamiliar setting. Sandy floats about life, taking very little seriously. They remain fickle in just about every category in their life; they have an easygoing attitude and a tendency to make everything into a joke.

OTHER CHARACTERS

Bea, Preston, Courtney

Bea (She/her): Bea is soft and caring. Not just to you, but the other people in your group as well. Being the only person around with any knowledge about healthcare, she is charge of medical.

Preston (He/him): Preston is a proper hill-billy, not the most likeable of people, but you can't deny he's a good shot. Preston keeps watch and hunts for the group.

Courtney (She/her): The younger sister to C, Courtney juggles many tasks, usually helping out with what others are doing. She always wants to go with you when you leave.

The rest will join later!:)

WARNINGS

 Definitely some bad language, and slang that might not immediately understood by everyone. I’ll most likely include a glossary if it is too ‘Ohio’ of me.

A warning that there is definitely going to be reference to death and hardship (often), as well as active death among background/side characters.

I’m still waffling over a couple of the names I’ve chosen, but for now I think I’m satisfied with them. We shall see!

General warning for horror elements, there’s for sure going to be body horror in the future, and as well as I can write grotesque imagery.

Mentions/explicit depictions of drugs/alcohol/addictions/guns

content/trigger warnings for gender and body dysphoria, plus mild transphobia ( NOT EXPLICIT, it is implied, referencing a point in time in the past )

This setting is (obviously) very specific to me, as I’ve always wanted to tell a story about the type of scenery I see often. I’ve gotten to see a fun mix of rural yet urban in the area I live in that I haven’t seen someone really tackle before.

I’m also super busy, so writing will come pretty slow for me.

Important note: This story may be enjoyed by people who have the same tastes as me, but it’s mostly being written for myself! I love my characters dearly and it absolutely tickles me to see them finally coming to life in text. But it’s very sculpted to my preferences. This story is for me, and it is about my experiences and those I know closely. Give or take a few monsters.

[jadeshifting]

— INTRO 2 THE SLYTHERINS

˚　　　　✦　　　.　　. 　 ˚　.　　　　　 . ✦　　　 　˚　　　　 . ★⋆. ࿐࿔

MATTHEO THOMAS MARVOLO RIDDLE . magic that incinerates its target. fireworks. messy hair. dice and card games. push-ups. charcoal drawings. stack of unreturned library books. steak so rare it’s bloody. insane right hook. late night swims. tall stacks of pancakes. sleeping facedown on homework parchments. perfectly split orange slices.

PANSY PANEGYRIA PARKINSON . freezing cold hands. hair clippings in the sink. espresso martinis. cartwheels. reading by the window while it storms. pears. scribbles of the moon phases. running cannonballs off the dock. sun-bleached bones. jeweled silver earrings. spinning and jumping rather than dancing. plant clippings tucked in pockets.

MILLICENT AUDREY BULSTRODE . pressed flowers in textbook pages. gentle hands. lemon loaf with poppy seeds. light pinky lip gloss. snails. doodling on notes in class. lacy bed canopy. emotional support water bottle. preserved butterfly wings. lotuses floating on the lake. jam-filled cookies. wearing wired earbuds. stockings constantly torn.

LORENZO MASSIMO BERKSHIRE . best tree climber. polished loafers. insanely loud laughing. massive record collection. slow mornings in the greenhouse. poetry books. board games. high fiving everyone. clinking potion bottles. marshmallows. loud snoring. cinnamon rolls fresh out of the oven. making paper airplanes. half-melted cookie dough ice cream.

BLAISE ORION ZABINI . a hankerchief for other people to use. caramel coffee. murder mystery books. comforting hugs. freshly pressed shirts. bumblebees. unconditionally punctual. long games of chess. pumpkin pasties. sheet music. seems to know something others don’t. impeccable manners. fresh, clean cologne. unfurling the newspaper every morning.

ASTORIA ACANTHYLLIS GREENGRASS . notes in French. seashell collection. the perfect nude lipstick. effortless elegance. going for therapeutic swims. bird baths. silent if she doesn’t have anything to say. yellow roses. mother-of-pearl. sipping matcha. wandering by the lake like a ghost. perfect posture. blackberry jam on croissants. silk pillowcases.

THEODORE TIBERIUS DONATO NOTT . coffee that’s way too strong. the worst chainsmoker. napping everywhere. silver flask. dark chocolate. bowls of blueberries. throwing huge logs in the fire. insane plays during quidditch games. refusing to put shoes on. tall glasses of butterbeer. tattered book spines. wrinkled sweaters. flittering sparrow wings. chocolate muffins.

DRACO LUCIUS MALFOY . silver rings and bracelets. pine candles. forehead creases. deft piano playing hands. perfectly slanted handwriting. the overpowering smell of wand polish. crunchy apples. terribly boring magical theory books. crisply tied parcels. freshly brewed peppermint tea. searching for constellations. crystal decanters of water. tucked bedsheet corners.

DAPHNE CLEOMEDE GREENGRASS . the most poisonous judgemental glare. shiny gold jewelry. too many throw pillows. olive juice. 20-step hair routine. sparkling champagne. cheesecake. unbelievably long bubble baths. crème filled doughnuts for breakfast. jewelry box with a lock and key. powdered sugar. loose silk tops. gold-dusted nails.

˚　　　　✦　　　.　　. 　 ˚　.　　　　　 . ✦　　　 　˚　　　　 . ★⋆. ࿐࿔

[ ib @wishicouldkeepconcentration !! ]

[ghostboneswrites2]

Daryl × fem reader

Reader accidentally breaks her glasses cause she pressed her face too hard in the pillows while Daryl was fucking her from behind

(I don't know how to make requests lol)

I love your writing <3

Spectacles

18+ MDNI || Warnings: smutty intro, profanity, generally suggestive content

        All you could do was drop the sheets and surrender to the animalistic noises that escaped you every time his pelvis connected violently with your bare ass. 

        He loved you like that — completely limp and sex drunk. He was a man who enjoyed having control, and it translated into the bedroom frequently. Especially when he had a bad day or just hadn’t got his hands on you the way he needed to in a while. 

        You were both completely lost in the moment. He was almost seeing double as his eyes lost focus, barely managing to watch your body react to his movements as he neared his high. 

        He sped up and hit harder and harder until he unloaded completely, crashing down over your back and panting with exhaustion. After some time he rolled off of you and you rolled over to face him, only to realize your glasses had come off.

        You sat up to find them. When you did, they were split down the middle, right where they would attractively sit over your nose. You held them up and stared at them in disbelief. 

        Daryl sat up behind you and looked over your shoulder. 

        “That just happened?” He asked softly. You sighed.

        “Yeah, probably when you were rearranging my guts just now.” You quipped. He chuckled and reached over, taking them from your hand and looking them over quickly. 

        “I’ll fix ‘em.” He promised, with a quick peck on the forehead, before he jumped off the mattress and disappeared from the room. You resorted to climbing in the shower and washing yourself off instead of waiting around or falling asleep.

        The water was warm and comforting over your sweaty flesh, and when you got out, you felt fresh and crisp in the cool conditioned air. 

        You were surprised to find Daryl in your room when you went to get dressed, looking accomplished. You thought he’d gone home for the night. 

        “Oh. You’re still here?” You asked casually as you rummaged through your drawers for something comfortable and clean.

        “Told ya I’d fix ‘em.” He floated. You threw your clothes on and walked over to him, climbing in his lap and straddling him. 

        You took your mended spectacles from his grasp and looked them over. It appeared he had melted the plastic and stuck the two halves back together. You were impressed. 

        “Innovative.” You commented. 

        “Uh-huh.” He rolled his eyes a little. “Try ‘em on.”

        You slid them over your ears and adjusted them on your nose with a shrug. 

        “Fits just the same.”  You smiled.

        “Good, now take ‘em off so I don’t break ‘em again.” He smirked. You giggled and set the glasses on the night stand as he rolled you over onto  the bed and planted erotic kisses over your exposed neck.  

       “Daryl.” You whined. “I just took a shower.”

        “Didn’t have to shower for me.” He groaned into your shoulder, pressing his hard clock against you. 

        “It wasn’t for you, asshole.” You lightly slapped his shoulder. “It was for bed.”

        “I’m in your bed.”

        “For sleeping in my bed.” You clarified. 

         “Mm. Not gonna work, sorry.” 

[spider-ghoul]

The Pain of losing him (Pt. 1?/Intro)

Summery: After Luke left, his girlfriend is alone to find herself. And as the years pass by, the girl with pretty hair becomes the Son of death.

FYI: This is part one of a fic I'm also posting on Ao3 and this is gonna serve as a background for the actual story (starting in chapter two) I'll be posting soon.

Sorry if this is bad lmao

No major content warning xx

~~~~~~~~~

When Luke Castellan was 19, he left. It was only three weeks after his birthday, the last week of july. He tried to take me with him, he really did. At night, as I toss and turn in my sheets, I can still hear his sweet voice filled with venom. 

“Darling, Please. Whoever Your Dad is still hasn't claimed you? Don't you think we could-” 

“Stop it luke. You’re crazy. I’m getting Chiron-” 

“Y/N, Darling, don’t.” 

And as i broke into a run, Something stung my ankle. When I woke up in the medic cabin hours later, he was gone. And a uncouncus Percy Jackson was beside me, his body turning in his unwanted sleep. 

I was fifteen then. My own birthday was coming up. I spent it at camp Half-blood without luke. Without knowing who my godly parent was. The Hermes cabin wasn’t the same without Luke, but I couldn’t leave camp. I attracted monsters like flies to honey. I didn’t know what else to do. I spent my nights in Luke's empty bed, any of the Hermes kids could have tried to take it from me. They didn’t. They missed the ghost of their brother just as much as I missed the ghost of my boyfriend. 

I was sixteen, when I went with the son of Poseidon to receive the golden fleece. It was supposed to be me, Percy, and Annabeth. And grover, after we rescued him. Clarisse tagged along. I hadn’t spoken to her, not since Luke. Believe it or not, they were friends. Despite the bickering and arguing, they were close. 

Talking to her again made it impossible to not think of him. 

Then, there were the sirens. Despite my better judgment, I tied myself up with Annabeth to hear their song. The first thing I saw was Luke. Then I saw myself. The scrawny girl was long gone. In her place, a boy. A boy with dark hair and eyes that matched mine. He looked like the boys in my old pinterest boards, in the stories with the morally gray characters. He looked like me. 

When Percy freed me from the ropes, and received Annabeth from the deep, which was horrifying. I asked Annabeth for her dagger. They were both horrified as the hair fell over the side of the boat, but as I ran my hand through my new hair, I smiled. 

When I went back to camp with Grover and the golden fleece, I went back to the Hermes cabin. And I still slept in his bed, but I felt so much better because not only was I a different person, I was myself. I talked to Chiron, and got a proper chest binder and then everyone knew I was a boy. 

I was still sixteen when My hair went from blonde, to brown, then to an inky black. The change in my hair was something I didn’t know how to feel about it. But it looked like me. And then, when I woke up from the nightmares of Luke, and I went outside to escape the restraints of his cabin, the grass died under my feet. I didn’t tell anyone. 

Percy Jackson was fourteen when his mom drove Grover, Thalia, Annabeth, Percy, and I to a boarding school. Me and Thalia had become quick friends and her anger towards Luke made me feel so, so much better. 

That was when I met two kids with the same dark eyes as me. I felt some uncanny urge to protect them. When the quest was put forward, I wanted to go. I didn’t. Not until a disheveled looking Percy Jackson found me that night. 

Percy promised Nico something that I didn’t quite hear. 

Percy Jackson Held up the sky. So did Annabeth Chase. And so did I. 

The cosmos weighed nothing compared to having to tell that little boy his sister was dead. I held his hand, and he said it, not to me, but to percy. 

“Where’s my sister?” 

I hugged him tightly as Percy handed him the last thing his sister wanted him to have. And the ground split open underneath me. 

As Nico ran, the dark blur over my head told both me, and Percy Jackson about my father.

[autumnslance]

Hi! I’ve been trying to make an introductory post for my WoL, but when I tried doing so freeform it ended up overly long and full of rambling. I’ve searched for templates all over the internet, but the only ones I can find are in the general style of D&D character sheets that include irrelevant information about stats while not properly dedicating space to the actual character traits. I saw the format you used for your OCs, and it seems to be about what I’m looking for. Is there any chance you could provide a blank template along those lines for me and others who might have the same problem?

Funnily, while I keep them all similar, I didn't have a template before now. Also reminds me I need to do some updating and revision on my own OCs, it's been awhile and they can use a refresh for character and plot updates.

I recommend making static pages over posts; easier to track and edit. I am a stickler for organization, so keep my pinned post to the bare basics with links to the profiles and other pages, to keep from stretching the post to a mile long, in part, and to keep the info where it's easily read and relevant. Also because mobile app view won't show one's theme and links, and the pinned post is more likely to be seen and accessible than a sidebar or menu.

I have tutorials on how to set a custom theme (and access full blog features) as well as how to create those static blog pages. Tumblr may have made some updates since, but the gist is the same, and the Help pages have newer details if necessary.

I do urge keeping colors and format simple, accessible, and reader friendly, including screen reader friendly. A row of asterisks or tildes as a separator line are usually individually read out by screen readers, as is the code used to make those fancy hard-to-read gothic letters folks use for "aesthetics." In a lot of my profiles, I split sections with images of the character (which should also use alt text if we're trying to be kind and inclusive, and it's to the point of a profile page anyway).

I think I will put the intro and template here in the post under a cut, and then in a Reply Comment add a link to the Google Doc version, cuz of how Tumblr is about external links. An actual blank copy-pasta is on the GDoc, what's below has some thought processes for each section for guidance.

This a pretty modular template, that can be added to or subtracted from as needed. Move descriptive blocks around as they seem more or less relevant for your OC, substitute things that make sense over things that don’t; this is just a starting point!

I see these as broad strokes; a quick introduction and general overview of your character, meant to give an at-a-glance idea of who they are. It’s handy for other writers and artists, and even oneself for keeping track of some details. I recommend practicing succinct writing here; these blocks should each stay between 100-300 words or thereabouts. Use links to other pages and tags to point toward longer details and stories (and keep them handy for yourself!). It also makes it much easier when you want to revise things when characterization marches forward, or if you want to retcon something entirely.

But these are all just my opinions and ideas on how I approach OC profiles after making them in some form or another for about a quarter century. Make it as long or short as it needs to be, change it up, go nuts, I ain’t your mom, and so on 😉

-

Statistics: The basics; barebones, at-a-glance stat blocks, handy for quick reference. Can be added to or shortened as needed. If a stat starts to word wrap on a standard screen, trim it and move that extra detail to the “Description” paragraph below the list.

Race: (for FF14 fantasy possibilities) Nationality: (or Ethnicity, whatever works. Where are they from, as that helps shape them?) Height: (both feet/inches and centimeters are handy here) Eyes: Build: (I prefer this to weight, as that’s ridiculously variable depending on one’s build, which is more important visually anyway; are they broad, stocky, skinny, muscular, stringy, etc) Hair: (color, type, texture, preferred lengths and styling) Skin: (sometimes I fold scars into here, if there’s nothing too outstanding) Scars: Voice: (how do they sound?) Nameday: Age: (depends on your personal timeline for your OCs, but I recommend an age range over specifics; mid-20s, 25-35, late teens, a little over a century, etc. Less updating and fits with the handwaved time bubble anyway) Disciplines: (what are their main job[s]? The adventuring or professional skills they’ve learned?) Hobbies: Birthplace: Current Home: Occupation: (Their actual day job, different from or part of their disciplines?) Signature Items: (A particular weapon? A piece of jewelry? Always wear a specific coat?)

Description: A very short "immediate impressions" type description; what would someone "on the street" see when meeting/looking at your character on a typical day? Taking some of the info from the stats but then how you want those barebone facts to be seen; is the OC elegant, or rough? Expensive clothes or simple attire? Any particular smells, or sounds? I recommend around 100 words.

Biography: Very brief, general overview of the backstory that led them to the point where they become a story protagonist (adventurer, the WoL, or other roleplay archetype). Don't have to go into great detail, keep it short and simple; it's a blurb that sets up how they got here in broad strokes. I think my longest bio is around 300 words, and it probably shouldn’t go over that here.

To get more details, one can always link to specific stories, or to a tag. I have multiple OCs, so I might make my tags something like "Aeryn Backstory" or "Iyna Lore" or "Punchy History" or some combo thereof (I usually try to keep them consistent though for ease).

Persona: What face do they present to the world? How are they perceived by the public, acquaintances, coworkers, family, actual friends? Some of these answers will be the same, some may change depending on if and how they code switch in various social situations.

From there, what lies underneath the surface? What are some general internal attitudes, traits, feelings?

A hundred words for outward demeanor and another one hundred for innermost self ought to cover the general broad strokes.

Romance: If so inclined, details about the OC's relationship details; sexual and romantic orientations, relationship history, current situations, how they view and approach intimacy (or not!).

Links to relationship tags or stories or art can work well here, too.

Echo: Does the OC have an Echo at all? Is it a "typical" Echo, or do they have some special abilities, some things they're better at than others? How does it affect them, how do they feel about it?

This is another section that may be a free space section to remove or swap to something else relevant to the character.

Hobbies: The stuff outside of work and heroics. Ways they relax, special interests, side jobs, things they enjoy, and so on. This can be an expansion of the listing in the stat block, or you can cut out one or the other to avoid redundancy.

Companions: What’s their chocobo like, or do they have another favored mount? What pet(s) do they have? Are they practically a Disney Princess? Have a familiar? Do they prefer arcane entities? Technological constructs? Or do they eschew companions entirely?

How to find the OC in game: This is where I list things like realm and data center, and addresses for the FC house and personal house or apartment. Not necessary if you don't want folks to go looking.

Links: The links can be scattered through the post in relevant sections, or gathered together here. I tend to put my basic tag for the character, if I have an aesthetic tag for them, their story tags, any links to art references or other miscellaneous items I want easily found for myself and others. I often put this close to the top if a profile is longer and I want those links to be quick referenced.

OOC: Any particular notes one wants to make about the character from a meta perspective. Can also be combined with the Links.

[softichill]

The Sounds of Nightmares unofficial transcript

Chapter 3 - The Theater of the Mind

(Once again made with @queen0fm0nsterz!!!)

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

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

[Click]

[Otto sighs, shifting]

OTTO: Noone vanished last night. 

[Another sigh]

OTTO: As she slept, I was monitoring her ultradian sleep cycle. There was no REM/NREM oscillation; instead, involuntary spasms grew progressively worse. [shift] As I was about to wake Noone, her… body… evanesced. For a split instant- then returned, calm as can be. 

OTTO: [deep breath, loud exhale] Lacking sleep, I can’t be sure I wasn’t hallucinating. Yet the image of her sheets deflating… is imprinted upon my mind. [Sigh] After yesterday’s session, no less, when she claimed to hear this:

[Click, tape plays]

Recording of NOONE: “The faraway drifts near. Tread long, then, sink deep. Two flows from one, and here, is whole again.”

[Click, tape stops]

OTTO: A coincidence? [light clinking of ceramic/glass] Or, synchronicity? …(Scoff) Is that that bloody moth again?! 

[Loud smack, Otto sits back down] 

OTTO: Riddle piles upon riddle, and answers continue to elude. [Tape rewinding] I’ll sift through every word if I must. 

[Intro plays]

[Click]

[Loud clicking and clacking, electric humming, Otto screwing something in]

OTTO: [Humming drops, returns] It’s clear. Noone’s symptoms go beyond parasomnias. [Continuing to build] Her retellings are too detailed, vocabulary too advanced, as if derived from the oneiric itself. 

[Humming raises in pitch, clicking] 

OTTO: However, what I find impossible to believe is that Noone’s seen who you saw, Cici. [Chair creaks, clattering] If two people, without any contact, shared the exact same observation, is it proof of transpersonal dreaming?

[Otto’s building continues]

OTTO: But such implies concurrence! And these dreams are years apart! Then… no. [buzzing picks up] I cannot be taken to metaphysical backwaters. Sounding like my old professor. [building] I’ve remained balanced over the years by clinging to the notion that my recollection of what happened years ago was wrong. [click, humming gets loud again] But now, those memories are coming home to roost. 

[Clicks, electronic humming, building stops]

OTTO: [Shift] Before I began at the CPI I promised to finish this apparatus. I let it fall away, convinced that attempting it was fool’s work. Now struggling to put myself in her shoes, well. Fool me twice. 

[Humming gets louder, buzzes out completely as it shocks Otto and he lets out an “Oh!”]

[A small pained noise from Otto before he starts to put the apparatus away]

[Door opens]

OTTO: (Gasp) Noone! [Scoff, he walks away from the recorder] You’re meant to wait outside. 

NOONE: (Far away) What are you working on?-

[Audio cuts]

[Click, blank noise]

[Audio starts again]

OTTO: We’ve come to know each other better over the past weeks, haven’t we?

NOONE: Because we’re friends! That’s why. And, friends tell each other things. 

OTTO: Friends. That’s right. One of the absolutes I’ve come to realize is that, the more time you spend with someone, the harder it becomes to hide who you really are. The only exception to this rule is with the company of oneself- we willfully hide what we’d rather not face. Like, the Candleman you mentioned seeing, under hypnosis. 

NOONE: I don’t like that. 

OTTO: What?

NOONE: Hiding things from myself. 

OTTO: Nobody likes it. That’s why it’s important to reveal your inner face. “Depth analysis”, we call it. And so, I’d like you to think of this session as a dialogue with your unconscious mind- you are asking the questions, not me. 

NOONE: …Asking myself questions?

OTTO: I’ll help! But, as you go, I’d like you to try. So! This… Candleman. Did you see him again?

NOONE: I-I did. 

OTTO: And what was this meeting like?

NOONE: …He was much clearer. Not just him, everything about it. My nightmare. 

OTTO: Elaborate, please. Was it worse? More vivid?

NOONE: What’s it like- Uhm… as if I’m watching a film, that I’m also the star of. And when I woke… it was here, in the Coppy, that felt more like the dream. 

OTTO: Hm, more palpable. The Candleman-

NOONE: I can’t talk about him without the rest. …If this is an interview with myself, might I begin where I want?

OTTO: Of course! Let your imagination run. But don’t be afraid to interact with the dream. This is an important step in our process- the dialogue. Bring together the divided parts of yourself. 

NOONE: …The mirror. 

OTTO: Pardon?

NOONE: The one off your shelf. If I’m meant to speak to myself, well…

OTTO: [Pause] …Patients aren’t meant to have mirrors, but, here you are, my bright girl. 

[Otto gives her the mirror]

OTTO: Begin as you please. 

[Pause]

NOONE, Narrating: …In the dark… a hand let go of mine. 

[Slip noise, Dream!Noone gasps. Dream ambience begins.] 

NOONE: Opening my eyes, I lay on hot concrete, staring up at a sky with- no sun. And… before me was, endless grey, broken by- yellow lines of paint, all the way to the horizon!

NOONE: Standing, in that carpark, I heard a silence. So silent, my own heartbeat was a marching drum in comparison. …It was followed by… a loneliness, so lonely, I could hardly bear it. I had to turn away. 

[Dream!Noone walking on gravel]

NOONE: Behind me, I was glad to see a building! A shopping mall, so large I- I felt half my normal size. Its doors opened, [sliding gravel] and I ran to them. 

[running footsteps, transition from gravel to tile. Doors close behind Dream!Noone.]

NOONE: Inside the promenade, [lights click on] the lights flicked on, one by one, greeting me as the PA speakers came alive with music. 

[Tinny, slightly off-sounding mall music]

NOONE: It had been ages since I’d visited a shopping center. I didn’t know where to start!

OTTO: You saw no need to find an exit right away?

NOONE: I felt like I was in good hands. But many shops were closed, though. There were no doors, and… no displays in the windows. Or, there must have been a private entrance, because- I could see shadows beyond the glass. 

NOONE: …A-after passing by several shops this way, I grew disappointed, but that’s when… a cowboy’s voice came over the speaker. 

COWBOY, slightly overlapped with Noone: “Sale at Jujube’s Toys! Dolls, games, puzzles, and more! Ground floor by the fountain!”

NOONE: I could see that fountain in front of me! And on the other side, was… a bright green storefront, with bubbles floating out the entrance. 

[Dream!Noone walking over, doors hiss as they open. Different tinny music.]

NOONE: Shelves and- shelves of wonders lined the shop! The toys on the first shelf were very old, but… deeper shelves held the same toys I had back home, and deeper ones held exactly those I’d wish for, even Little Lotty Potty! But… these Lotties had black eyes, not blue. And their skin was… yellow, like autumn leaves. 

NOONE: The shop owner wasn’t present, so… I grabbed one and began playing on the carpet. 

[Dream!Noone humming Six’s Theme. Doll makes automated noises.]

NOONE: But, it didn’t take long for me to grow… bored. That was the first time I… I felt too old for dolls. 

OTTO: (distant-sounding) Maturity is natural as you approach adolescence. The brain loses interest in things once held dear. 

NOONE: The idea of growing up made me sad. And as if reacting… Lotty’s dress became wet. The doll was doing as its name said, but… [doll chattering] the liquid was- dark and thick. I put her down to find something else. But the choices were almost too many! Towering shelves extending deep in- the gloom of the impossibly long shop!

NOONE: I settled on the games section, but, most were meant for two. Suddenly, a staticky whisper said,

Voice, overlapping with NOONE: “I’ll play with you.”

NOONE: I-I thought it was the shopkeeper, but… nobody was around. My eyes fell upon a jewelry-making kit, with a red necklace on the cover. I took the box back to where I left Lotty, only… she was gone. The shelf above, where the other dolls had been, was completely empty too. I wanted to make the jewelry, I really did, but… I felt weird, so… I put it down. Then, the PA crackled, a woman’s voice this time:

Voice, ov. NOONE: “Jujube’s Toys is now closing.”

NOONE: [Lights clicking off] The lights shut off, bubbles stopped… and, the last thing I saw before exiting… [toy train noises] was the train set crashing to a stop. [quiet fake bell ringing, toy engine stops] 

[Dream!Noone walking out of the store]

NOONE: The promenade was empty, still. Each step [steps become echoey] echoed across the walls and floors, which were- pearl white, and had patterns like… veins. 

[steps and music continues]

NOONE: I came to three sets of stairs, side-by-side, leading to the next floor. I chose one, and, reaching to the top, I saw another open shop. Mademoiselle’s… (saying it wrong) bijottery. 

OTTO: (still distant) Bijouterie. But, regardless- you could read this?

NOONE: Yes. The letters were quite big. 

OTTO: …Have you been able to read in your dreams before?

NOONE: I’m not sure. That’s not a question I would ask myself, though, Otto. 

OTTO: Apologies. 

NOONE, Narrating: The glass case in the center of the room… pulled me in. Full of… gold, and silver necklaces. Hanging in the middle, was… an enchanting red pendant. And before you ask, yes, it was just like on the box at the toy store. T-The PA came on again,

Voice, ov. with NOONE: “A free gift to all little girls 10 and under!”

NOONE: Without asking, I put the necklace on, glowing, like a ruby teardrop. With my gift, I set to leave, but… someone must’ve left the speaker on because… I heard arguing. 

NOONE: (overlapping) “Don’t overdo it!” Said a first voice, followed by a second, (overlapping) “One more prize can’t hurt!”

[something being set down, wheels across tile, whoosh]

NOONE: From the back room, a rack of dresses rolled out. All, exactly my size.

[Dream!Noone looking through the dresses]

NOONE: It’d been ages since I’d been allowed to pick out my own dress. The telly people chose them for me. These ones were very pretty, with lace and, and bows and stitching but, one… it… it was the plaid dress I wore the day I arrived at the Coppy. How could my dress be here? [lowering pitch of voice, asking questions to herself] Your real life doesn’t have to mix into your dreams Noone, why now? 

OTTO, interrupting narration: (astonished) Pardon?

NOONE: (giggling) I’m asking myself questions. Well, the only explanation is that they could see inside my head.

OTTO: I’m not sure that’s logical.

NOONE: Let me finish! Please. You’ll see.

NOONE, narrating: Back out on the promenade, the shop gates began to slam shut. [Gates slamming] I was worried the mall was closing, but on the floor above, a set of spinning bright lights came on [Lights turn on]. The music stopped and, the PA crackled with a sing-songy voice, 

Voice, ov. with NOONE: [music] “Showtime’s patrons! Our daily motion picture will begin shortly. Hot popcorn’s popping and the seats await in the playhouse!” 

NOONE: [Lights shutting off] The rest of the mall went dark, making the lights more enticing to follow. 

[Dream!Noone walks across the mall]

NOONE: The lobby was- red from floor to ceiling. Buckets of popcorn overflowed on the concession stand. I grabbed one, and hurried to push open the huge golden doors leading into the theater.  

[Running steps, doors creak. Slightly off organ music plays.] 

NOONE: The velvet seats went for rows and rows, full of people. A spotlight hit the stage, illuminating an organ, but… there was no organ player. Only tall curtains swaying in some breeze. I tiptoed down the aisle, and sat centered with the screen. The chair seemed to hug me, and the room fell dark [crunching] as the first buttery bit hit my tongue. 

[Music stops playing, sounds of projector booting up]

NOONE: Without adverts or introduction, the film began. Images of… trees on fire and… white hooves galloping. I recognized the picture instantly because I’ve seen it a hundred times. “The Healing Horn”. [Movie plays] Only the scenes were out of order, and the unicorn… her horn was misshapen, like… a rotten tree branch. The evil prince’s face, too, was… was wrong. 

NOONE: Feeling out of place I – I looked around. The audience, I… I realized, was not people but… mannequins. 

NOONE: All of a sudden, a familiar scent entered the dream. Ocean. I was no longer alone. The dusty projector light made it difficult to suss, but a few seats over… was the Candleman. His eyes and mouth were… deep black pits inside a mess like a wet gunny sack, sagging down the floor. Without turning, he spoke. 

[Growing noise stops]

OTTO, interrupting abruptly: He – what?! [Shifting] What did he say? 

NOONE: [Sighing] It was like a – a voice underwater. The words could hardly escape the folds of skin. He repeated them to me. 

NOONE as the FERRYMAN, glitching: “The faraway drifts near. Tread long, then sink deep. Two flows from one, and here, is whole again.”

OTTO: And then? [shifting in the chair] What else? 

NOONE, as the FERRYMAN: “Here. Here. Here.”

NOONE: He just repeated over and over.

OTTO: There must be more! Try, try! Interact with the dream!

NOONE: There was no more!

OTTO: (raising his voice) Ask who he is, ask what he wants!

NOONE: (raising her voice) It doesn’t work that way!

OTTO: You were right there! Don’t tell me you did nothing?! Not a damn thing!

NOONE: Stop!

OTTO: [farther away] I’m beginning to doubt you’ve seen this Candleman! [Noone struggling] Perhaps you’ve invented the whole story! 

NOONE: Please, stop- my head!

[Otto hisses (gets hit?), sounds of something being knocked over, Noone runs out of the room.] 

[Otto huffs and stops the tape]

[Click. Blank noise. Another click]

[Various shifting noises. Silence. Door opens and someone walks, then closes it]

OTTO: [far away, stern] What are you doing? With the mirror. [Steps] You’re up to something, but we’ll let it slide. I know girls like you. 

[Shifting]

OTTO: You’re upset with me, aren’t you? [plastic clacking] Here. A pill for your headache. (Sigh) Earlier, that was… awfully…[Otto sits] that- that was not how friends act. Sleep has evaded me too. I’ve grown worried, trying to… please, forgive me. I’d very much like to hear the rest. I won’t interrupt, you have my word. 

[Silence.]

NOONE: … Fine. 

OTTO: So… you were in this theater with him. 

NOONE, narrating: … All kinds of pictured* flashed on the screen, and then he was gone, leaving me alone again. Or so I thought. The projector flickered in the booth. I dashed up, and found the door ajar. A new voice came over the PA, angry. “No patrons in the projection room!” The door was stuck, but I pushed and pushed. The PA boomed, 

VOICE, ov. with NOONE: “You must not enter!”

[Crashing, door opens]

NOONE: The projector I saw first was shaped like… a deformed eye. Then, my attention fell to… the mass on the floor. [Slimy sound] A brain? A heart? …No. It’s muscles pumped and pumped, and its tubes ran into the walls. The voice came, both from inside the room and over the PA: 

VOICE, ov. with NOONE: “Happy day, No One.”

NOONE: It… it knew my real nickname. The ones kids at school scribbled all over my books. How? Because it was in my head. …I asked, “You’re the one who’s been talking? All those voices?”. Then, I saw countless film cans around the room, and understood. It was so alone, it took to imitating. Then it said, 

VOICE, ov. with NOONE: “Are you going to leave? Like all the others?”

NOONE: I managed a… “Yes”. The thing began pulsing and, upset, it sort of cried out. 

VOICE, ov. with NOONE: “So many, they take what they want and go, or get snatched away or worse!” 

NOONE: It paused, then went on, 

VOICE, ov. with NOONE: “Whatever you desire, it’s yours.”

NOONE: … But I didn’t want anything from it. The PA belted, 

VOICE, ov. with NOONE: “The pendant! You wanted that!”

NOONE: The pulsing worsened until another voice came within the first,

VOICE 2, ov. with NOONE: “You’ve driven another away!” [Not overlapping, repeating: “You’ve driven another away!]

NOONE: I felt bad for it. Or them… this place had been warped by pain, and wanted so badly to keep me. Even the walls began throbbing. What could I do?!

[Noise intensifies, Dream!Noone breathes heavily] 

NOONE: I – I ran. Down the stairs, out of the theater. 

[Dream!Noone runs away]

NOONE: On the promenade, the lights were flashing so as to be dizzying. The PA screeched, 

VOICE, ov. with NOONE: “Everyone needs someone! Don’t leave me alone!”

NOONE: The walls began to cry that dark thick liquid, pooling around me, I looked up. From the floor above, the Candleman stared, pointing at my chest. At the pendant. I flung it down into the liquid, then he reached a hand toward me and – 

[All noise stops]

NOONE: And all faded, as the PA sobbed,

VOICE, ov. with NOONE: “Don’t take her! Not this one, too…” 

[Narration stops. Silence. Shifting]

OTTO: T-There was um… uh, e-excuse me, a curious phrase. “Warped by pain”. Is that how you feel, sometimes? 

[Silence]

OTTO: Noone? Are you still angry with me? Or… distracted by the mirror? 

NOONE: Behind my ear…  there’s… a sore. 

OTTO: Is that why you wanted the mirror all along?

NOONE: [Hum] It’s like the ones I used to get. I need to see it. 

[Shifting]

OTTO: Nothing’s there. It’s red because you’ve been picking at it. 

NOONE: …I have one more question for myself. Why do I have these dreams? Water sickness, that’s my answer. 

OTTO: Noone. It’s wiped out of your system. There have been no known reinfections. It’s in your mind. 

NOONE: (with increasing distress) What if the cure is the cause? I never had nightmares or headaches before all of this, before going on telly, before – before this! –

OTTO, interrupting: (whispering) No, no, come, come, come, come here, my girl. [Shifting, Otto hugs Noone] You’re not sick. You’re perfectly fine. You’re a perfectly wonderful little girl. This time I will protect you. 

[The mirror falls on the ground and breaks]

NOONE: I’m sorry! I’m sorry, uh, you were squeezing so tight and… it slipped. 

[The mirror shards are picked up. Otto throws them away] 

OTTO: You asked why you dream. The truth? Nobody knows. My studies always assumed they were more than the brain’s way of filtering unconscious thoughts. But I had no answer either. An old professor of mine thought he did. He believed dreams come from an ever shifting plane, a quiddity of consciousness. 

NOONE: Quidd-i-ty…

OTTO: Quiddity. The essence of a thing. In this case, a semiatangible plane outside the mind. 

NOONE: Is it the same as mutual dreams? I don’t understand.

OTTO: My colleagues didn’t either. I’ve flip-flopped over the years, but I figured it was impossible to prove.

NOONE: Will I ever get rid of them, then? Will I ever leave the Coppy?

OTTO: You must understand, you are a unique case. I want to let you go, as soon as – 

NOONE, interrupting: I’m better?

OTTO: (sighing) Yes. As soon as you’re better. [Otto stands, picks something up] Now – 

NOONE: I know, I know. (Lower pitch, mimicking Otto) “Sweets for my sweet”. ���Do I have to go back to my room?

[Sounds of plates] 

OTTO: I’ve- got to tidy, [wrappers] and, you reminded me there’s something I need to find. On you go. I’ll come by later. 

[Shift, audio cuts]

[Audio starts]

[Otto looks through papers, and sighs] 

OTTO: Ah, I found it. The paper that stained my professor’s career. Kept it all these years, hoping and dreading there was truth in these words… 

OTTO, reading: “We know now that there is no center to the universe. Previously we thought it was the Sun, before that we thought it was the Earth. Our species always insists that ours is the quintessence of experience. Yet scientific observation proves our folly ad nauseum. If geocentrism took centuries to disprove, the question is not if but when the same will happen to reality itself. That which we are equipped to perceive may not be the only world. Let alone the predominant one.” 

[Click]

[Outro plays]

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

*This is what she actually says. I have no idea why.

[pstelwitchcraft]

My Scene-By-Scene of the new CR intro (Part 2)

(Part 1)

- the split second cut to delilah?? Absolutely immaculate. I gasped! It was so so good

- also so tragic to see her as the little doll... eugh

- always want to know more abt their little pact

- is laudna stuck with delilah or the other way around? Guess it depends the way you see it

- second little laudna/imogen moment and???

- these girlies make me ILL

- So, so adorable seeing their protectiveness and devotion for each other shown in the intro

- like its jumping into each others arms mid fall, fighting beside each other, bringing literal fresh breath and life to the other's existence or i dont want it at this point

- the outfits also make me think this was probably storyboarded before they got together?? They're meant to be

- no one's doing it quite like them 💜🖤

- then we get all my babies in their little sun tree cuddle sesh

- they are so incredibly precious to me and I love that this little scene made it in

- fearne/orym and fcg/ashton cuddle buddies! The sheets they stole from castle whitestone 🤌🤌

- the whole FCG section is just BRUTAL

- not that i was expecting less from sam's new extremely traumatized lil guy

- seeing their absolutely massacred group as their eyes turn red?? The fact that you can see Pussy's buzzsaw thrown in the dirt??? And Dancer without an arm passed out right by it??Take me now

- and then the split second he's about to use the same buzzsaw to hurt Ashton before Orym intervenes? So so good, i need to smoke this, i need it in my bloodstream yall have no clue

- Orym using his seedling powers to deescalate the situation and them all hugging abt it?? Adorable!

- specially adore the little detail of ashton's steady hand on their arm, there's just so much love in this little D&D party 🥺

- fearne stealing from ashton AGAIN.

- also peep laudna's hand on imogen's shoulder 🥺🥺 at this point I'm convinced dani was in the writer's room for this

- or possessedbyhorsegirl!Laura

(part 3)

[hazzybat]

Thanks for coming Mr Jordan

okay so remember this idea by @cinder-rose of Nace having certain exciting dreams about Jan? well I wrote a little intro and then kinda wrote chapter 1 I guess? maybe I'll make it into more but for now have this! (casual 1000+ words lol)

this is 18+ btw as it involves porn dreams

Nace relaxed on the couch, his shirt off and warmth enveloping him. He was seeing Jan over the holidays but he couldn't remember which holidays they were. The house was large, full of impossible rooms and the largest, softest couch Nace could imagine. Then Jan was sprawled out next to him, his body warm flush against his own. His arm was loose around his neck and his lips were so close to Nace's. He felt a pang of guilt. He had a girlfriend who was.... he didn't know where she was. But Jan was so inviting and soft, his chest hair rough against his own flushed skin. Those beautiful lips whispered out "Thanks for coming Mr Jordan" before they pressed themselves to Nace's. Jan was everywhere. He was hot and perfect and he ground their hips together and Nace could think of nothing but how amazing it felt. Jan's hand snaked down his pants and right as he held his cock and began to stroke him Nace woke up. He wondered for a moment why his bed was so empty, his sheets tangled around his hips and drool on his cheek. Then his mind caught up and he groaned angrily. He was now single. His girlfriend had split with him a week ago, a mutual decision that still broke his heart. They hadn't been good for a while, drifting further and further apart until he hardly felt he knew the woman in front of him. Her side of the bed was cold. His mind replayed the dream and he groaned again. Why had it been Jan? Sure he was close to Jan but why did his sleep filled mind decide to put the man in his sex dreams? Even in his dream he’d felt guilty for kissing him. His hand trailed down his body until it found his very erect cock, precum already leaking from the tip. There was no point in wasting a perfectly good boner he mused. Maybe once he got off he could clear his head. He brought up his favourite porn, choosing to look at the amateur threesome from some time in the 90s rather than dwell on dream-Jan's perfect fingers and lips and body.

The video did the trick, the two men touching and feeling the woman before they made out with each other over her, the low quality footage allowing him to imagine their faces however he wanted and the moans a perfect mix of deep masculine need and high feminine want. He came easily and for a moment allowed himself to remember Jan's deep raspy words, "Thanks for coming Mr Jordan" It was just a dream. He needed a shower and a coffee, his mind already sweeping away the details like cobwebs. It didn't mean anything anyway. ‐--------- "Thank you for coming Mr Jordan" Jan said from the couch when Nace walked into the studio. The statement sent a pulse of pleasure straight to his dick and his brain short circuited. Did Jan know somehow? Could he read minds? Could he see the blush that was steadily covering Nace's cheeks? What the fuck was going on? Jan was sitting in one of the armchairs, his laptop open on the coffee table in front of him. He had a black tie slung around his neck and a black blazer on top with no shirt to speak of. A pair of Nace spare glasses were perched atop his nose. Looking closer it was actually one of Nace's blazers he'd stolen as well. "Nice glasses, where'd you get them?" Nace asked in at attempt at humour, something to bring a sense of normality back to this very strange day. Jan didn't answer, instead he leaned back in the chair, pulling the blazer back to show off a nipple, which he began to stroke with a lazy finger. "I'm so glad you're here Mr Jordan, I've been going through your accounts and I'm afraid the numbers are all wrong" Jan was overacting, his voice exaggerated and breathy asthe hand as his nipple began to kneed at his non existent breasts. His other hand took off the glasses and bit down on the arm of it seductively, looking at Nace with dark eyes. Nace was thoroughly confused but his cock was enjoying the terrible acting a bit too much, twitching at every breathy moan Jan gave between words. Had he actually woken up this morning? Was he still in his strange porn dream?

"I think I can fix the numbers, but only if you do me a big, long, hard favour," Jan continued, rising from the couch and sauntering over to where Nace was still frozen to the spot. This was hell, Nace had died and this was his punishment for staring a bit to long at Jan's fingers when he played. Or maybe it was heaven with the way Jan looked at him, glasses still in fingers, the end in his mouth and tongue dancing over it obscenely. Jan reached him and wrapped his arms around Nace's neck. His hand instinctively found Jan's hips. His brain finally kicked into gear when he managed to ask "what the fuck is happening?" "We got 2 minutes boys!" Jure cheered from his spot behind the door, walking into the room with his phone, using it as a stopwatch and proudly displaying the time to the others. Bojan followed close behind, handing over a note to Jure and grumbling to Kris about "why couldn't he wait another 20 seconds". Jan hadn't moved from his arms and Nace was still thoroughly confused. Jan took pity on him and explained "Bojan found the tie and your spare glasses and somehow we ended up with the idea of a bad porn intro. Sorry you ended up our leading lady but we wanted to see how long it would take you to question things." Jan was grinning along with the others as he fished around in his wallet and handed Jure a note alongside Bojan's. Kris tutted at Nace as if disappointed, also handing over a note to the drummer who was gleefully counting his winnings. Nace was bright red. They were going to be the death of him he knew it. He reluctantly dropped his hands from Jan’s waist and tried to laugh along with the others. This was going to be a very long day.

[motleyquixotes]

Motley Quixotes #10: First Week Montage

[Image ID:

a comic with four panels with a narration box saying "The 1st Week of Freshman year."

Panel 1 is labeled "Monday" and is tinged purple. A college dorm room has a loft bed and a TST baphomet bi flag on the left side, and a plain bed and posters (Gyibaaw, Frost Like Ashes, Drottnar, "The Blood of the Martyrs is the Seed of the Church") on the right side. A leather jacket with a "Die so to Live" back patch lies on the floor on the right side, along with a phone playing music (Lyrics: "Gotas ardientes cayeron en tierra sangre de pacto"). On the left, Renee (a college freshman with light brown skin, black hair in a ponytail, a belly button piercing, and black diamond-shaped pupils, wearing a black crop top, black athletic pants, studded belt with chains, black combat boots, and a moon choker) looks at a sheet of paper on a plain desk and says, "Oh, hey, you're in Intro to Art History, too." On the right, Indigo (a college freshman with warm medium brown skin, short black hair with a half-shaved cut and dark blue streaks, and black pupils shaped like a cross and an ichthus, wearing a black shirt, bullet belt, cargo pants, and black boots) puts a poster on the wall and responds, "Uh-huh. Thinking about it as a major, actually." Renee answers, "Ah, I'm going for anthropology."

Panel 2 is labeled "Tuesday" and is tinged gray-gold. Renee and Indigo sit in class, Renee looking towards the front and Indigo doodling. Parzival (a college freshman with light skin and short curly brown hair, wearing a black shirt and a green and gold jester hat with a feather, a gold cross, and a gold ichthus attatched to the bells) sits in the back sleeping; a thought bubble coming from her head shows (from left to right) three brightly colored prehistoric animals, a human in furs carving cup-shaped hollows into a rock, red handprints coming from the human's hand, a stone cup with blood in it, a mass of eyes with different-colored irises, an eye with a red iris embedded in a hand. Feirefiz (a college freshman with medium brown skin with vitilago and dark brown river-shaped pupils, wearing a purple hijab, a pink long-sleeved sweater, and a maroon maxi skirt) raises her hand and says, "Professor Withers! Wouldn't you say that the fact that the earliest artwork is non-representational disrupts the popular narratives of how art developed? And of what makes good art?" A speech bubble comes from off-panel, answering, "Well, we don't know that cupules were intended as art…"

Panel 3 is labeled "Wednesday" and is tinged orange-red and split into three subpanels. Panel 3.1: Maranatha (a college freshman with pale skin, long wild blond hair, and green pupils shaped like flames, wearing a long-sleeved long blue dress), Kai (a college freshman with light tan freckled skin, short wavy brown hair, and teal pupils shaped like concentric squares, wearing square glasses, one earring, a plaid shirt, a red ascot, and red checked pants), and Indigo sit in a student lounge with red semi-circular couches and windows. Renee has just come in with her arms partially around Jack (a college junior with light skin, dishwater blonde hair styled in a short undercut, and blue star-shaped pupils) and she blushes and says, "Hey guys, this is Jack; he lives on the floor..". Maranatha says "Hi Jack!!!" and Indigo says "H'lo." Panel 3.2: Closeup, Kai says "Oh, he's the RA--" and Renee interrupts, saying "Shhh" while blushing fiercely with a drop of sweat on her cheek. Panel 3.3: Jack pulls Renee towards him, smiling while biting his lip, while one pupil turns black. Renee sticks her tongue out flirtatiously. A tiny chibi version of Indigo meets eyes with Jack, puzzled. From off-panel, Maranatha says "But they said we should make friends with the RAs…." Kai responds, "Uh, Maranatha…" Maranatha says, "What?" and Kai says, "Heh…nothing."

Panel 4 is labeled "Friday" and is tinged seafoam green. Kai, Indigo, Jack, and Maranatha sit at a table in a dining hall while Renee, smiling, is coming up to the table carrying a tray of food. Kai and Indigo are debating excitedly, with Indigo saying, "But the one reason you can trust your senses at all is because of God! He is the axiom!" Kai says, "Within that framework you can't know anything at all, except by divine revelation…" and Indigo responds, "Exactly!" Maranatha says to Jack, "Do you believe in God, Jack?" Jack responds, "Maybe. I'm not really religious." Maranatha says, "Oh! Me neither! I'm just a Christian who loves Jesus!" Jack says, "Haha..yeah I'm spiritual. … I believe in magic." /end ID]

[stesierra]

Guys, I'm working on a new writeblr intro that explains what my books are about but it's taking me a while because I write too much. In the meantime, here's the first chapter of my adult fantasy trilogy. Maybe a little less thrilling than my YA and NA stuff.

If you want to be added or removed from my writing taglist, please let me know. I keep asking if people want to be removed because I'm pretty sure no one wants to be inundated with this much writing.

The Halfway Revenant

Chapter One

Mindral Thideet said, “Show me what you’ve got, and I’ll pay you what it’s worth.” If it was worth anything. She had her doubts. The junkman’s armful of old pages and books stank of mildew and piss, almost strong enough to drown out his body odor.

The junkman bared his crooked teeth and slapped his ragged prizes down on her table. “Got a lot of good things this time, areh. Valuable things. Worth dozens of facts. A book of them, even.”

“We’ll see, aran.” Gingerly, she drew the pile towards her. It stank even worse up close. The white Nimina light overhead illuminated faded letters and torn parchment pages. Some them were so wrinkled they looked about to fall to shreds. Water stains covered others, and the ink had bled so badly they were completely illegible. This was no treasure trove. But she’d pay the man something, no matter how useless his information. That was what kept the junkmen coming to her door.

The junkman sniffed and rocked as she sorted through his odds and ends. His pupils filled his bright eyes as though he sat in the deepest darkness, a sign he was coming down from a sooz high. Only an idiot bargained under the influence, and idiots didn’t last long in the city of knowledge.

She shoved the loose pages aside and opened the first of the books. Missing pages greeted her, and spines warped with age. Where had he gotten these? At the bottom of a trash heap?

“You’re so pretty,” the junkman slurred, staring at her with those drugged eyes.

“I’m perfectly average,” Mindral said. “And if you want to get paid, you’ll keep your compliments to yourself.” It was true. Her dark olive skin and gray eyes fit in perfectly at Shaneh. She’d cropped her black hair short, as was the fashion. Her sharp face and modest curves seldom drew attention. No, she’d earned her place here with her brain, not her beauty.

She sorted through the books, dismissing one after another, until at last she stumbled across an unfinished journal. The cover hung by a thread, and water damage had warped the pages and blurred the writing, but none of the leaves were missing. Only a good family could afford paper pages dyed pure white.

She flipped to the front, looking for a sign of the writer’s identify. In the upper right corner, a neat hand had written, “Property of Kuldeev Nimina. Reward for return.”

A lump formed in her throat. No one would reward her for returning this book. Kuldeev Nimina, a famous recluse and researcher, had split his head open at the bottom of Delshet Canyon a little over two years ago.

It was a fate she courted every time she went gliding. Sometimes she thought about him and all the other careless folk who had smashed into the floor of the canyon when she got ready to glide, but the air called to her, and she couldn’t stay away.

“What are you going to pay me?” the junkman asked, bumping against her table. “You want that one. Don’t you?”

She scooted her stool back. “I’ll give you a page of facts. No more, no less.” He wouldn’t remember them, not high on sooz. If he was lucky, he could read.

“Good facts?”

“Enough to buy a whole month of meals.” Or a few servings of sooz.

He flashed yellowed teeth at her. “Deal.”

She shoved her new pile of junk aside and grabbed a fresh sheet of paper. As she painted words on it, she pondered her purchase. She might be underpaying for the journal. A genius inventor like Kuldeev might have mentioned nuggets brilliance in his private journal. He’d been one of the Niminas to design the far-writer, allowing letters to be sent from here to the capital city in the blink of an eye. This journal could be the most valuable thing she’d found that year.

Oh, the Thideet family wouldn’t dare steal Kuldeev’s research and claim it as their own. The Niminas would destroy them if they ever found out. But the Thideets could sell the journal back to the Nimina family for a pretty penny.

The junkman shambled away with a sheet of facts clutched in his meaty hand. Mindral turned back to the journal. She needed her next big break, and perhaps this was it.

She was squinting down at the blurred writing when Shad said from the doorway, “More junk again? You’re going to be buried under it if you buy any more.”

When she glanced up, her cousin grinned at her. His features were softer than any other Thideet’s, and he towered over them all, but his gray eyes marked him as a member of the family.

She snorted. “We have room. Why haven’t you gone home yet? Or did you plan to bring me dinner?”

“You’re not the only one who can stay late,” he said. “And I only bring you lunch because you forget the whole world once you get into the books. Buy your own dinner.” He sauntered forward, a sheet of paper folded in his hand. His blue linen tunic and trousers cost three times as much as her knee-length undyed frock. Shad took pride in showing off the family’s wealth. Mindral liked clothes she wasn’t afraid to stain.

“What’s this?” she said when he slapped the letter down on her pile.

“From the far-writer.”

“I can get up and check it myself, you know.” But she unfolded the page and peered down at it.

It wasn’t much of a letter, just a note. It read,

Mindral,

Your silence over the last year has not gone unnoticed. Two long letters only, with only minor contributions to the family’s wealth of information. I find myself questioning why I have you posted to Shaneh at all. You have many cousins who would jump at the chance to lead our work in the city of knowledge.

Unless you soon prove yourself useful in this post, I will recall you back to Nahiroun. The Mahtiar family has expressed interest in a marriage alliance. A wife and mother would serve the family better than a researcher who rests on her laurels.

Find something to increase the family renown by the end of summer or join the caravans and return home this fall.

With all due respect,

Jahmind Thideet

With all due respect. Mindral knew exactly how much respect her uncle thought she was due. She flung the letter onto the junk pile, where it belonged. “Did you read this piece of shit?”

Shad blinked guileless eyes at her. “Would I do that?”

“You check the far-writer twenty times a day, looking for gossip. I know you read it. What do you think of it?”

His face sobered. “I think he’s serious, Mindral. I know you two always butt heads, but he’s never threatened to send you home before.”

Mindral put her head in her hands. “One slow year, and he thinks I’m a failure. The ten years I’ve spent here mean nothing to him.”

“He’s a hard man.”

“He’s a bastard.”

Shad grinned. “Don’t talk about our grandmother that way.”

“I will if I want to.” She brooded over her pile of trash. “I’ve got to find something to make him happy. But nothing makes that man happy.” She already spent every day trading for useful information, searching the family archive for lost works of genius. Things hid in the archive that no living human remembered. The Thideet family was too minor to have a vote in the oligarchy, but it was old. It had been at the city of knowledge for a long time.

And the junk piles were always another source of knowledge. Everyone in the city knew to bring the things they couldn’t sell elsewhere to Mindral. She’d pay at least a few tidbits for them. Even if Jahmind considered it a waste of time, Mindral had made some of her greatest discoveries among the junk. Kuldeev’s journal might be one of them.

“Go home, Mindral,” her cousin said. “You can make a brillian breakthrough tomorrow.”

She glanced at her enchanted bracelet. The color said it was just before dusk, and her stomach threatened to eat its way out of her abdomen. “You first.”

“I only stayed this late to bother you.”

She rolled her eyes, scooped up the journal and a generous armful of the junk pile, and slid everything into her bag. “Fine. Let’s head out.” She shrugged on her folded glider and backpack and left Jahmind’s note behind. Let it be lost among the trash, where it deserved to be.

As they left the old stone building, they squeezed between bookshelves and crates stuffed into every available space. The Nimina lights flickered out one after another behind them. The crystal orbs only glowed when someone was around to benefit. Mindral wasn’t sure how the Nimina family had enchanted them to do that, for the workings of the lights was one piece of information that wasn’t for sale. The country of Sakhder was full of such enchantments, kept private property by patents and closely guarded secrets.

The ancient archive door shut behind them with a creek. She locked it, the last of thirteen Thideets to leave for the day. A blast of hot spring air stripped away the dusty scent of old books, and she took a whiff of the smoke that drifted up from the cookfires on the levels far below. Up here on the highest level, archives and museums marched along the cliffside road for miles. The ancients had carved the buildings from limestone, decorating them with family emblems and symbols of the four gods. The basalt cliff stretched out over the street to keep off the rare rains. The mud nests of omicats clustered under the overhang, like the nest of cliff swallows. In the dim light of dusk, the omicats flocked back to their nests, tucking all four paws and both wings in, so that only their cat-like heads and the tip of their tails stuck out of the openings. Their high-pitched mews echoed out across the canyon.

“Come on,” Shad said. “I’m starving.”

Mindral ambled away from the archive, glancing across the empty air towards the other side of the city, where she lived. Far, far below, the dark blue Narjeh River ran, but Mindral wasn’t afraid of heights. She loved the thrill of standing on the edge, a thousand feet above the earth, and knowing she could open her glider and fly all the way down to the canyon floor.

Something red streaked down from the overhanging ceiling, and Shad cursed as it buzzed his head, missing his ear by an inch. The creature flew straight towards Mindral, its four clawed paws outstretched, and thumped into her chest with a chirp.

Mindral grinned. “Pitra, what have I told you about harassing Shad?”

The omicat flatted her over-large ears and bared her needle-like teeth. She climbed Mindral’s frock, up to perch upon her shoulder, and fanned her leathery wings against Mindral’s cheek. The omicat stretched no longer than Mindral’s hand from pink nose to the tufted tip of her tail.

“That thing is a menace,” Shad said, rubbing at his short hair. “I’ve told you a dozen times. It’s probably diseased. I found a document yesterday that listed a dozen diseases people can get from bats.”

“Pitra isn’t a bat.” Mindral offered the omicat her finger to sniff.

He frowned at her. “She’s got the wings of one, and she’s just as wild. Everyone knows you can’t tame omicats.”

“That’s why I don’t try,” Mindral said, patting the creature on the back. “She comes to me because I helped her once. And you’re wrong. A bat’s wings are like an outstretched hand, with skin between the fingers. Omicats have wings supported by a single, long finger.”

He threw his hands up. “That doesn’t mean it doesn’t have rabies! Hasn’t anyone told you that when wild animals get too close to people, it’s because they’re sick?”

“Are you sick?” Mindral asked Pitra, and the little creature yawned in her face. “See, Shad? Nothing to worry about. Don’t you want dinner?”

“Whatever,” he muttered and turned to trudge away from the archive. Mindral followed.

The city of knowledge was like no other city in the world. Not only did it have omicats roosting in the ceiling, it was vertical, made of ten layers carved into both sides of a towering, sheer-sided limestone and basalt canyon. Enchanted bronze pipes climbed the canyon walls, bringing fresh water from the river to the city above. Enchanted columns reinforced the layers, preventing erosion and collapse. The city’s layers were not deep, each composed of a road and three rows of three-story buildings, but they stretched for twenty miles. At the last census, the ten layers contained twenty-five thousand, seven hundred and sixty buildings—counting shops and archives—and forty-three thousand, five hundred and fifty-two citizens. Mindral knew because it was her business to know as much as possible. Besides, the fact was usually enough to buy a snack from the food vendors.

Not far from the archive, a rope bridge spanned the gap between the two walls of Delshet Canyon. Two hoists down to the lower levels stood beside it. A short line waited to use them.

Shad headed towards the line, and Mindral bumped his shoulder and said, “See you tomorrow.”

He narrowed his eyes at her. “Ride down with me. Show me you’re sane.”

She grinned at him. “Sane? Pitra and I are going flying. What could be saner than that?”

“Anything,” he snapped. “At least that thing has wings. You’ve just got a flimsy glider.”

She touched the device folded on her back. “This glider is the finest of its kind. Built of copper and sailcloth and featherlight wood. Enchanted with feathers for lift and maneuverability. I can sail all the way down to the canyon floor, if I want to.”

“I don’t care if the Niminas themselves enchanted it. It’s madness.”

She gestured out towards the open air between the two sides of the canyon. “But it’s such beautiful madness. Look!”

Down below, people swept past each other on wings of canvas and wood, heading home from work in the fastest and most dangerous way.

Shad stared down at the sight. “Someday, you’re going to step off the edge and collide with someone else. And then you’ll go splat down at the bottom.”

“Worrywart,” she said joyfully. “I’ve never gone splat.”

“There’s a first time for everything,” he muttered. “Look, I’ll walk with you.”

“Going out of your way?”

He folded his arms. “If you have to glide home every day, at least I can make sure you make it.”

They strolled north along the road, passing researchers from other families as they left for the night. They all bowed their heads and called her Areh Thideet. She remembered only some of their names but offered a polite “areh” or “aran” to each. As they walked, young teenagers accosted them, advertising for other families who had information or inventions to trade.

A good half of them worked for the Cheref family. They proclaimed the wonders of the family’s transcription device, which could make a thousand copies of a letter in under an hour. Mindral smiled politely but ignored them. As if she—and everyone—hadn’t heard all about the transcription device. Its invention had launched the Cherefs to key family status, earning them a vote in the oligarchy. They had achieved the aim of every lesser family. If Mindral ever made a discovery great enough to cause such a leap in power, she could take over as head of the family and make Jahmind marry whoever she chose.

Mindral petted Pitra as they bypassed another hawking teenager. She told Shad, “You’re silly for walking all the way with me. You’ll just have to walk back.”

He sniffed. “Someone has to look out for you.”

“I’m older than you.”

“Less mature. Who came in drunk last week?”

She lifted her chin. “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about. And you definitely didn’t have a hangover two days ago. We two are the most serious researchers Shaneh has ever seen.”

He laughed, and she counted it as a win.

By the time they reached the point opposite her neighborhood, the sky had dimmed, welcoming the night. Another rope bridge connected the east and west sides of Delshet Canyon, edged by two hoists.

Shad said, “Ride the hoist down. Be a sensible, sedate woman for once.”

Mindral grinned at him. “Oh, Shad, that’s not me.” And she stepped to the edge of the street instead and climbed up onto the low guard wall. The eighth level, her goal, stood at least seven hundred feet below. The people on the road down there looked like a trail of ants.

“Ready, Pitra?” she asked her small companion. The omicat chirped and spread her wings on Mindral’s shoulder.

Shad shook his head and took a step towards the edge. “Why do you love falling to your death so much? You’re supposed to be smart.”

“I really will see you tomorrow,” she told her cousin. “Don’t fret. And I love gliding because it’s the only time I feel really free.”

“You’re crazy,” he told her.

She grinned and spread the wings of her glider. As Pitra leaped from her shoulder, she pushed off into empty space. Gravity seized her, and she dived, streaking through the air like a hawk. Pitra flew beside her, mewling in delight and dancing around her like a leaf blown on a breeze. The wind ruffled her hair and whipped up her frock, exposing the breeches she wore beneath.

As always, when she flew, delight swelled in her heart and sparked in her limbs. If a job had existed where she could spend all her time in the air, she would take it in a second. But her family considered gliding nothing but the indulgence of a dare devil. Unbecoming of a serious reseacher. Only Pitra shared her joy. Only Pitra understood.

As she neared the eight level, she aimed for one of the many rope nets set up to catch air travels. She landed in center, catching the ropes with her hands and feet, and clambered out. The wings of her glider folded away just as Pitra swooped in to land on her head.

“Shoulder, please,” she said sternly and put a hand up to help the omicat climb down to her usual perch. “What have I told you about landing in my hair?”

Pitra chirped and rubbed her pink nose into Mindral’s ear. The omicat always cuddled close right after they’d flown together. She loved it just as much as Mindral did. Mindral shot her a loving smile, but the fragrant air called to her empty stomach. The many food vendors that camped along the road on the eighth level always scented the air with smoke and frying meat, and today it was particularly strong. She followed her nose to her favorite, Parasham Sohem, a mountain of a man who appreciated the value of her information.

For once, no one lined up for Parasham’s food. He bent over his dung fire, stirring a pan perched on a three-legged stand. A dozen skewers of fresh pork roasted beside the flames, glistening with their own fat. Parasham’s bald head and round face glistened, too, with prodigious sweat.

Mindral leaned close and inhaled the sweet smoky scent. “Parasham, my friend, tell me what’s for dinner.”

Parasham straightened, rubbing a hand across his thin eyebrows. “Noodles and sour chicken for you, if you pay for it. Friendship only earns so many free meals. Nothing for that menace on your shoulder.”

She offered him a winning smile. “I paid you last week. And Pitra isn’t a menace. She’s got the manners of a key family areh.”

He shook a fat finger at her. “Last week’s information bought last week’s meals. If you want another dinner, you’ll have to trade information or goods. And don’t tell me that creature’s harmless! Six omicats already swooped in and stole a skewer of meat from me not half an hour ago!”

“But Pitra wasn’t among them. She was with me.”

He snorted. “So you say! The vermin all look the same to me. Do you want food or not?”

“I do. I’ll trade information. I found an old recipe for lentil cakes in our archives. If I give it to you, that’s worth six meals and six cubes of meat for Pitra.”

“Four,” he countered.

“Five, and I won’t go lower, Aran Sohem. I can find food elsewhere.”

“No need to get formal,” he muttered. “Fine. Five meals and five cubes of meat.”

She recited the recipe to him, and he listened with the keen attention and perfect memory that made every salesperson in Shaneh a success. Then she held out a hand. “Meat cube first.”

He grumbled but pulled a piece off one of the skewers of pork. It wasn’t cooked through yet, but Pitra would prefer that anyway. Mindral presented the morsel to her companion, who sniffed it and took a cautious lick.

“Does that thing have a problem with my cooking?” Parasham asked, folding his brawny arms.

Pitra snapped her head forward and snatched the piece from Mindral’s fingers. With a flutter of wings, she flew away, taking her treat off to some private place to enjoy. “Not at all,” Mindral told the cook. “Now my turn.” She dug her ceramic bowl out of her pack, and he shoveled noodles and chicken into it until it overflowed.

She walked home, sniffing at the steam that curled up from her pungent meal. Black chickens strutted along the road, and white ducks waddled besides it. A small pack of branded dwarf pigs gobbled up the waste piles the food vendors had left behind.

Beggars lined the path, hoping for handouts. One snatched at her foot and said, “Areh Thideet, Areh Thideet. Have pity.”

She raised an eyebrow. “You know me?” The beggars knew almost nothing, which was why they were beggars.

“Everyone knows you, areh. You discovered the Fardooz Codex, which everyone thought lost for all time. Get me a meal, and I’ll tell you secrets I have overheard about the key families.”

She stepped beyond the man’s reach. “If you had reliable information, you could trade it to the cooks yourself.”

“The Nimanas and the Cherefs are building an alliance through marriage,” his neighbor insisted. “The cooks don’t believe us, but I know you will.”

“Which Nimina? Which Cheref? The Nimina family thinks the Cherefs are upstarts and wouldn’t marry into them if their position depended on it. I won’t buy you a meal for that.”

The beggars’ faces fell.

Pitra swooped down to land on Mindral’s chest, digging little claws into her frock. The meat cube had vanish down her gullet. Mindral smiled at her and told the beggars, “I’ll tell you how to make an onion and garlic sauce you can trade with the cooks. You can cite me as a source. If you think you can remember it correctly.”

She hurried on after that, eager to get home before her food got cold. To Pitra, she said, “Are you coming inside with me tonight? Or are you going back to your nest?”

The omicat chirped and scaled from one shoulder to the other. She stayed clinging to Mindral as she headed back into the buildings that lined the street. Two rows in, beneath Nimina lights hung from the rock overhang, she reached her dwelling. Like everyone else, she’d shuttered her small windows against the late spring heat. The locked door awaited her, framed by a few carvings of Harvad, the god of curiosity. She bowed her head to his image, that of a sun crowned with many eyes, and told Pitra, “Last chance to stay outside for the night. What do you say?”

The omicat nestled down against her neck, her soft fur tickling Mindral’s skin, and began to purr.

A Nimina light blinked on as Mindral entered, and her silver fan, enchanted with peppermint, rose water and the wings of dragonflies, blew cool air in her face. Pitra launched herself from Mindral’s shoulder and fluttered over to land on the overflowing stone bookcase, which held tomes borrowed from the archive.

“Don’t scratch that,” Mindral said. “You’ll break your claws.”

Pitra must have agreed, because she leaped to the neighboring writing table and dug her little claws into the wood. The scratches blended in with all those the omicat had made in the past.

Mindral stepped in and put her bowl down on her small dining table. Pitra joined her, rattling the bronze spoons and knives, and batted at her great indulgence, her spice kit. She rescued it before the omicat could smash the tiny bottles filled with cumin and tumeric and saffron. Mindral didn’t cook, for like most people in Shaneh, her dwelling lacked a fireplace or chimney, but she liked to add a little variety to her purchased meals.

“Behave yourself,” she told the wild omicat. Gently, she set her glider down by the table, like the treasured object it was. Her backpack of documents she dumped out on the writing table.

“Prrow,” Pitra said, rolling onto her back to knock the spoons off the table. Mindral didn’t bother to pick them up. She slurped the chicken and noodles up from the edge of the bowl, puckering her lips at the sour sauce.

When the bowl was empty, she took it outside to the communal water faucet and rinsed it before ducking her head in the stream. A real bath would have to wait until she had time to haul water to her room. Tonight she had research to do.

Back home, she discovered that Pitra had curled up on her pillow, her tiny leathery wings outstretched, and fallen asleep. She’d have to wake the omicat to go to bed, but that was fine. Sleep wasn’t important when she had research to do.

She shoved the junk pile aside and settled in to read Kuldeev’s journal.

#

Very early in the morning, near the end of the filled-in portion of the journal, Mindral stumbled across a drawing that spanned an entire page. Kuldeev had illustrated an unusual apparatus. It looked something like a table, with four legs and a thick top, but two slots in the sides held carefully sketched pieces of paper. Mindral raised her eyebrows. She told Pitra, who was still snoring on her pillow, “This looks just like the Cheref family’s transcription device. You know, I went to see it once, out of curiosity. You wouldn’t believe what they charge to use it.”

The omicat lifted her head and blinked sleepily at Mindral.

“You’re right,” Mindral said, as though the creature had answered her. “Who cares about resemblance? It’s the enchantment that matters, and the Cherefs will never let that slip from their fingers.”

Yet the opposing page read,

I have devised a notion that I am sure will please Laminda: an enchantment to duplicate written pages without the labor of a scribe. I am still working out the fine details, but I have the general form of the instrument and the and the components I will use for it. Ink and paper, obviously. Fine vellum marked with praises of the four gods of knowledge, to give the ability to transfer the ink to paper. The feathers and tongue of a raven, for the ability to mimic. The wings of a butterfly, to allow transformation. The hairs of a horse, for speed. Spider webs, to bind all the magic together. I am testing a few more ingredients, but I am confident I will have a working prototype within the fortnight.

Mindral blinked down at the journal. “Pitra, you won’t believe this. Kuldeev was working on his own transcription device before he died. He even lists some of the ingredients. This is huge.”

The omicat rose from her pillow, stretching out its tiny forelegs, and mewled questioningly.

Mindral jabbed at the partial recipe. “If this contains the details on how to make an alternative transcription device, the Niminas will pay a fortune to get it back. They can put out their own version and put the Cherefs out of business. Jahmind will sing my praises.”

Pitra jumped up on the table and sat in front of the journal, her tail wrapped around her forepaws. She gazed into Mindral’s eyes with great interest and then yawned.

Mindral couldn’t stifle her own yawn in return. “I can’t go to bed yet,” she mumbled. “There’s got to be more information on the device in here.”

After a dozen pages, she found another mention.

I was approached today by a man from a minor family who knew of my duplication instrument. I have no idea how, for I have written about it nowhere but in my private notebooks and this journal, and I do not speak of my research to anyone. Even the rest of the family does not yet know of my current work. But this man knew. And how he insulted me! He offered me a ridiculous sum of gold for my work and my silence, expecting I would let him steal my discovery if only he paid me enough. Hah! As if gold means anything in the city of knowledge. Even had he offered me a thousand books of lost wisdom, I would refuse. My work is sacred to me. I will share it with the world only when it and I am ready, and when I do, my name will be on it.

Mindral frowned and rubbed at the edge of a page. “I don’t know about this journal, Pitra. Something’s wrong with this story. First Kuldeev was designing an alternative transcription device, and then someone tried to buy it off of him? Who found out about it and how?” She shook her head. “I should just box it up and send it home with the last of the caravans. Jahmind will know how to strike a deal with the Niminas.”

But she didn’t box it up. She couldn’t stop now, not so close to the end. Kuldeev’s final entry said,

I have been robbed! Some fiend broke into my house and rifled through my things, stealing every notebook and jotting of research I had. This journal was only spared because I keep it at the bottom of my laundry hamper, where visitors will not stumble across it. I suspect the man who approached me last week of this violation. I can recreate much of what I lost, but that is not the point! Someone means to claim my work as their own, I am certain of it. I go next to the far-writer, to complain to Laminda. The Nimina family will not tolerate such abuses! Any family who publicizes an invention stolen from me we will crush. And I will tell Laminda to watch the family of the man who desired to buy my work from me. We will uncover the guilty, and they will pay.

Nothing more followed. Mindral paged back to the head of the entry and read the date. Kokufeh 3rd, year 3969. In summer, on the very day Kuldeev had smashed his head open at the bottom of the canyon.

Mindral shut the book and stared down at it until Pitra sat upon it and batted at her chin. Then she told the omicat, “I think Kuldeev was murdered. I think the Cherefs did it.”

This was such a such a shocking statement that Mindral glanced around, as if she expected to find eavesdroppers lurking in the corner. But only Pitra heard her words, and the wild animal responded by fleeing to the door, where she scratched, demanding to be let out.

Mindral rose on unsteady legs and went to open the door. Pitra zipped out through the opening and vanished, leaving Mindral alone with her terrible suspicions and no idea of what she was supposed to do about them. She couldn’t take the journal to a Nimina to share what she had discovered. Kuldeev had been the only Nimina to live in Shaneh for the last decade. All she could do was pass it on to Jahmind, who could pass it on to the Niminas back at Nahiroun. But that didn’t seem like enough. Kuldeev had been murdered in Shaneh, and if there was information about who had done it, it was here, not back at Nahiroun.

Pitra was gone, but Mindral still said aloud, “I could find out who did it. I could get proof. The Niminas would reward us.” This could be the big discovery that Jahmind had demanded.

She wished she could go back to the street and call Pitra back, for she desperately needed a hug. But the animal was wild, not a pet, even if it did seem to be her friend. She hid the journal under the clean clothes in her wooden trunk, next to the useless gold she’d brought from Nahiroun ten years ago. Then she curled up on her reed-stuffed mattress and fell asleep with her head pillowed on one arm.

In her dreams, she searched for murderers, but they turned on her when she found them, and she died alone at the bottom of Delshet Canyon, her body broken in two.

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[sweeterthanmydreams]

The Third Summer: Triple Trouble part 1 (the Hemming-Byrd Legacy)

[Legacy Challenge Rules] [My Legacy Sheet] [Blank Legacy Sheet] [Intro] [<< Previous] [Next >>]

Summer starts in with Lanuola's baby boot camp: she's rotating through the infants doing tummy time to get Amethyst, Merida, and Tourmaline their milestones. Ophelia tries hard to knock out her knitting once and for all while Bea gets her art on and starts working through a pack of crayons; she's not got much childhood yet, but she still has goals to achieve! If you haven't heard much about Ruby, it's because she aged up with terrible needs and has been walking across the lot aimlessly instead of dealing with them. This girl is doing serious laps, getting nowhere... Lanuola takes the babies through their first bubble baths in her homemade tub starting with Tourmaline and ending with Merida. At some point while marathon-drawing, Bea loses a second tooth.

Bea finally gets to play her violin, and Lanuola watches to give her pointers. While they're out practicing, visitors drop by: it's the neighbors to the rescue! The Iosuas drop by with extra food to help the struggling new parents which is greatly needed, since they're a little lacking on both time and leftovers. The next morning, Beatrix wakes up with yet another lose tooth; this girl is going to have an empty mouth sooner rather than later. I'm starting to suspect that the game is forgetting she already lost a tooth before. Beatrix decides to help out by tending the garden; after sleeping like the dead, little Ruby gets up to watch her. Day 2 of baby boot camp begin in earnest: Merida is the first to achieve solo tummy time powers! Ruby sings a jaunty little tune to baby sister Tourmaline and discovers that she's a little singer: she just likes making little musical melodies.

Bea knocks her aspiration out of the park! She's now an Artistic Prodigy and more than ready to move on to the wide world of teenage hood. I'm not ready for her to move on; sorta wish she had three weeks as a child (& three as a teen) instead of the 2:4 split. If this weren't a graded challenge, I'd just skew the aging to be a 3:3 split but I will refrain. The infants continue to conspire to have a nightmare array of traits: between Amethyst peeing on them during feed time, Merida letting it fly during changings, Tourmaline projectile sneezing snot, and Ruby getting her food everywhere Ophelia and Lanuola are eagerly awaiting the days when their little ones are old enough to be responsible for their own messes. There is so much yuck on the floor at all times.

Bea gets some quality mom time with Ophelia when she teaches her to knit; after hanging out for a bit, Ophelia masters her Lady of the Knits aspiration! In order to buckle down on helping with the babies, she's putting of picking a new goal for now. (After popping into Fabulously Wealth for the weekly deposit trait.) Amethyst is the first triplet to learn to sit up! Tourmaline is the next to figure it out and after a good nights sleep, Merida too gets sitting up figured out; she's the last to sit but the first to try a baby food with mom Lanuola. It's papaya and Merida quite likes it.

Lanuola gets a job offer to jump back into the world of business and try her hand at it's second branch: CEO. In the spirit of her midlife crisis, Ophelia takes off for work in the most ridiculous outfit I've ever seen. Bea and Ruby enjoy a beach day together. They decide to immortalize the baby turtle Bea saw in sand as a sculpture. As the sun sets over the sand, Bea celebrates her birthday with a bunch of her friends from her club! Thanks to the delicious tajine Lanuola served, they've also managed to ace the "have six sims sit & eat together" challenge for the Legacy. Bea continues down that green brick road as she ages up and has decided she's really into making things; on top of that, she's hoping to follow in mom Ophelia's footsteps and become a world class painter!

After her friends have gone home, her mom's introduce her to the big present they got her: her own recycling machine! She can't wait to rip the ribbons off and get to deconstructing! Now that she's rolled 2/3 of her traits, this means she has only one more chance to roll Child of the Islands and is thereby unlikely to be our heir. She still has a lot to achieve with Fabrication, so maybe she'll stay on to support the future heir when she grows up.

Tourmaline masters the pincer grasp and gets to try her first baby foods: applesauce & bananas, both of which she likes. Now that she's eating the chair, it's become clear that Tourmaline is ALSO a messy eater; she's been watching Ruby too much! After a glitchy bedtime juggle, all three infants are simultaneously put in their cribs for the night since it's due to rain tomorrow; Marcus Flex decides to step in and read Amethyst to sleep which gives Lanuola a chance to get back to her fitness goals & Ophelia some time to write a style blog.

In the morning, it's Beatrix's first day of high school! Despite my best efforts, I couldn't get rid of the overcast gloom pardon the particularly drab "off to school" shots. Since it's monsoon season anyways I, the player, take a break by making sure both Ophelia and Lanuola go to work leaving me with an empty house for the day; this also makes it Ruby's first day of daycare: she's gotten a surprising amount of "at home" time with her moms. Before Ophelia heads out to work, she helps Ruby work through some flash cards so she can master her final skill: learning to talk. Congratulations on completing all your skills Ruby!

This is the point where the game crashed on me. Thankfully I only lost a little bit of the evening & the morning routine, but I did my best to recreate it from my notes. I'm going to need Growing Together to cut me a break with these weird glitches.

At work, Lanuola discovers something fishy is up with the business' finances. Although the best idea for her career is to keep her head down, she decides it's time to blow the whistle (mostly for the fame boost). She does in fact get her fifteen minutes of fame on the local news and the confidence of doing the right thing, but she ends up home early for the day because she's been fired. That's alright with her, though: she's planning to kick her feet up and relax with the babies while waiting for her connections to roll another Business opportunity her way. Beatrix arrives home from school stressed out from all her hard work but there's good news! Family friend Wiki calls to inform her that she's way out performed expectations: she's ready for early graduation! Beatrix is STOKED; she can't wait to start college! That evening, after putting in for admission and scholarships, Beatrix is initiated into the Hummingbird Collective and joins her first meeting.

Amethyst is a slow learner but she finally gets to try her first baby food with Ophelia: it's yogurt and she loves it. Wiki & Fetia lend a helping hand while Ophelia and Lanuola try to get the triplets through the last of their milestones before their birthday. At this point, they've yet to stand on their own or say their first words so, despite Lanuola's tireless hours in baby boot camp, it's still a rush to get the basics complete. Little peanut butter puff (Merida) gets to try her first finger foods but is unsure about her peanut butter puffs. Amethyst tries her first finger food, too, (yogurt melts) but she was also unsure about them. In comparison to big sister Ruby, the triplets are not all that engaged with food; maybe Beatrix's picky eater phase rubbed off on them. While goofing around with Beatrix, Merida says her first word: "piggy"! Currently the score for "hearing first words" is two for two in Beatrix's favor.

Meanwhile, Lanuola wins the "ultimate milestone blocker" award: thanks to a carried over moodlet from a terminated pregnancy she can't wait to sit down the moment Tourmaline is out of her hands. The only problem is, she was setting Tourmaline down to pull herself up on that very chair... I very nearly burst a blood vessel over that one because it happened a lot. Amethyst says her first word while playing by herself on the play mat: her mom's overheard it while feeding her sisters & they both agree it was "hee hee. Oops.". After several false starts (read: Lanuola sitting in the chair before she could get to it) Merida is the last one to achieve "pull to stand". That just leaves Tourmaline's first word as the only milestone they're still waiting on.

If you've been counting, you'll notice that I'm already out of images in this post. Catch the tail end of the summer featuring the triplet's birthday and Ruby's birthday in the next part!

[auncyen]

I guess I will promo my own fic lol I tend to do one shots though I do want to continue some of these.

(pre-game)

Knife to Meet You - Siffrin's intro to the group.

Three Sheets to the Stars - Tipsy Isabeau trying to sway drunk Odile from her "Siffrin is an assassin" theory. Neither of them can figure out what's actually going on with Siffrin, though.

Broken Constellations - a oneshot about the aftermath of Siffrin losing their eye.

Cassiopeia - based on the theory of Euphrasie being an islander herself, how backstory would have affected her. (planning to continue)

(mid-game)

all our yesterdays to dusty death - very short speculation on what the 'glimpse of the future' is.

act 5 (alternate scene) - hunger gets the better of Siffrin at the clocktower, setting act 5 down a different path. whether that's an improvement or not is debatable. (planning to continue)

(post-game)

What's In A Name? - Odile (and everyone else) learns where Siffrin got their name from: their blorbo from their favorite stageplay. Which just so happens to be a depressing tragedy.

Of Stars and Longing - an au where Siffrin managed to avoid looping at all! And the party split up for their own separate paths. But he's still in others' hearts, and if you know how to ask, the Universe is inclined to grant wishes... (planning to continue)

you guys should totally send me some isat fic recs for me to read mhm (this is also the perfect time to promote your own fic if you want)

[sheetmusiclibrarypdf]

Tubular bells (Intro) – Mike Oldfield sheet music

Tubular bells (Intro) – Mike Oldfield sheet music Mike Oldfield The Road to Tubular Bells: 1971-1973 The Shooting Star: 1974-1975 Out of the limelight: 1976-1978 Touring Band: 1979-1984 Please, subscribe to our Library. Thank you!The Video Years: 1985-1988 Best Sheet Music download from our Library.The end of the Virgin Era: 1989-1991 The story is not over

Tubular bells (Intro) – Mike Oldfield sheet music

https://dai.ly/x8jdphe

Mike Oldfield

He was born in the city of Reading, England on May 15, 1953. His father Raymond was a doctor who had a guitar he bought while serving in the Royal Air Force in Egypt during World War II. Mike remembers how his father 'used to play the guitar every Christmas Eve, singing the only song he knew how to play, Danny Boy.' Mike also attributed his early interest in music to virtuoso guitarist Bert Weedon. 'I saw it on TV when I was seven years old and immediately convinced my father to buy me my first guitar. In fact, I think if it hadn't been for Bert I never would have become the main thing in my life.' The Oldfields became a musical family. Mike's older brother, Terry is now a renowned composer in the field of TV documentary music and already has several albums on the market. His sister Sally became a professional singer and had a hit in the early 80's with everyone known as 'Mirrors', she now calls herself Natasha Oldfield. By the age of 10, Mike was already composing instrumental pieces for acoustic guitar. The guitar was for him more than an instrument. it was an escape route from a family situation that was worsening and cutting him off from the outside world for a long time. Throughout the past decade, the acoustic music scene had been in very good health. Music was played in many of the clubs that were open during that period. It was in one of those clubs where young Mike began to realize that his musical ideas were accepted by a large majority of the public. 'He used to have two 15-minute instrumentals that he would play at the local folk clubs where he would go through all the styles,' he would say. 'He would even totally detune the strings and bend them over the neck and do all sorts of things. As soon as I got vacations from school, he would spend the whole week practicing and playing the guitar.' He also tried electronic music, him playing instrumental pieces from 'The Shadows' in an amateur band. When he was 13 years old, the Oldfield family moved to Romford in Essex. In 1967, he dropped out of school and together with his sister Sally formed Sallyangie, a folk voice and guitar duo. They were signed by the Transatlantic company, which released the album 'Children Of The Sun' in 1968 and the single 'Two Ships' in 1969. Around this time Mike's guitar playing was heavily influenced by 'baroque folk' popularized by John Renbourn, Pentangle leader and Bert Jansch. After a year, the end of Sallyangie came. Mike returned to rock music, forming another group of similar duration called Barefeet. That led to a job as a bassist with Kevin Ayers & the Whole World. Ayers was a founding member of Soft Machine but left the group in 1968. The following year they made the 'Joy Of A Toy' album which led to a tour in 1970. Among the members of the Whole World was David Bedford taking care of the keyboards. Bedford, who was a classically trained composer, struck up a good friendship with Mike, helping him compose an early version of Tubular Bells. While on tour with The Whole World, Mike came into contact with the Centipede, a huge jazz band conducted by Keith Tippett. The wide range of instruments available to them influenced Mike in the multi-instrumental character that he would later give to his own compositions. Kevin Ayers & the Whole World recorded two albums, Shooting At The Moon and Whatevershebringswesing before splitting up in August 1971. Until then Mike had been playing electric guitar and his masterful solos with Kevin Ayers had already earned him a reputation as a master. The Road to Tubular Bells: 1971-1973 During that period Mike began to order the musical ideas that would later form part of Tubular Bells. Using a four-track recorder with two tracks going one way and two tracks going the other that Kevin Ayers lent him, he discovered that if he covered the erase head with a small piece of cardboard he could record on four tracks. In this way he could begin to record the ideas necessary to realize his dream. That dream was to create a symphony, similar to the large-scale compositions for orchestra with different movements that could be found in many works of classical music. With Ayers' tape recorder he went into his bedroom in the house he shared with the other members of the group, and ideas for his new work slowly began to take shape. Already involved in the work, Mike insisted on playing all the instruments himself. And he thought that it would not be difficult for him with his natural gift to master almost any instrument; from the glockenspiel to the grand piano, the classical guitar, the Farfisa organ… . While continuing to work with Kevin Ayers, he also assisted with recordings being made at London's famous Abbey Road Studios. He soon discovered that the studio had a warehouse full of all kinds of instruments, so he would manage to arrive early and while the others arrived, he would experiment with those instruments and thus incorporate new sounds and textures into his musical ideas. Engrossed in his work, he set out to capture all the deep emotions he was experiencing at that time in his music. Either way, one would have to wonder if Mike's state of mind would have allowed him to withstand the pressure of working with other people much longer. Especially considering that what he was doing would be a job that he would gradually become a vehicle to unload his deepest emotions and those with which he was having the most trouble living. After creating a small demo, he started going through all the record labels trying to convince someone to support his project. They all gave him a resounding NO for an answer, saying that this was 'not commercial' and that if it were ever published, no one would buy it. Obviously, that had happened to him for putting his faith in that little worked model. After having composed the hypnotic introduction (the theme that would form the main part of his magnum opus after developing it), he would still remember that. If only he could have recorded, edited and promoted it! But a ray of light would illuminate his future. Mike left the Kevin Ayers band and worked occasionally as a guitarist to earn a living. One such job was in the backing band for the £5 a night London production of Hair, the 'tribal love-rock musical'. He also played bass for a time in a band led by soul singer Arthur Lewis. The group was to record at a recently opened studio in a mansion in Shipton-on-Cherwell, 20 miles from Oxford. The Manor recording studios were built for Richard Branson by Tom Newman, assisted among others by Simon Heyworth. It was a team of good friends. The girlfriends of some of them were also there to attend to them, as well as a cook, cleaners and gardeners. As Mike later commented, 'We treated any problems that came up like we were one big family.' The great atmosphere in the studio and the attitude of Newman and Heyworth gave Mike the opportunity to record a demo of his musical ideas. They both loved it. Heyworth and Newman launched a campaign to persuade Branson to edit it and to leave the studio for a while to record it. From the outset it seemed that this was not the appropriate moment. The project had to wait a bit for the arrival of Simon Draper who would join Branson to create the Virgin record company. Draper had extensive musical knowledge and when he heard Mike's ideas, he was immediately enthusiastic. Mike continued to develop and refine his ideas that he could now give a name to: Tubular Bells, although it initially carried names like Breakfast in Bed and Opus One (Opus 1). But she had almost given up hope of realizing her dream when Draper offered her a week of study time at The Manor. A wide selection of instruments was brought into the studio and work began. During that week something else of the first part was recorded, and the rest of the work during sessions spread over the following months. From the beginning Mike put the facilities that the technology of the time gave him to the limit to make his recordings. Very soon he started using 16 tracks. As more and more instruments were added to the recording, the sessions were also a test of the inventive resources of Newman and Heyworth who mixed it all together as well as they could be based on their knowledge. The studio's equipment was not automated, and all the work was done manually by Mike. Simon Heyworth and Tom Newman were already using every finger at their disposal on the mixing desk. This made the relationship between producers and artist less close, but even so, each of the three learned many things from their other two companions. During the session, Mike played over 20 instruments and approximately 2000 test tapes were recorded. The music was played almost entirely by himself, except for Viv Stanshall (Vocals), Jon Field (Flute), Steve Broughton (Percussion) and Mundy Ellis (Vocals). Tom Newman and Simon Heyworth earned credit as co-producers. When the sessions were over, Branson took the Tubular Bells tapes with him to the music industry fair, MIDEM, in Cannes in January 1973. An executive from an American company told him, 'if you put lyrics on it, I'll buy it for $20,000. '. With no one showing interest, Branson and Draper decided to release the album themselves on their new Virgin Records label. Tubular Bells was released on May 25, 1973. It came out of a recording and mixing process that could have been called art in its purest form. Critics did what they could to define it. The public simply opened their hearts to him. The press in his country was perplexed. Influential BBC radio DJ John Peel wrote that it was 'a record that genuinely covered new and uncharted territory', with music that 'combines logic with surprise, sunshine with rain'. 'A lengthy work, almost classical in its structure and in the way the theme is established and deftly worked', said the Melody Maker. Some interviewers even thought they could tell what Mike's influences were: 'The texture of Tubular Bells is quite reminiscent of Sibelius, Vaughan Williams, Michel Legrand and The Last Night Of The Proms,' wrote television producer Tony Palmer. Tubular Bells will always be remembered as a moment in rock music history that captured the hearts and imaginations of many people. It was also a starting point from which to appreciate the many changes and discoveries made by this creator who, starting at the age of 19, grew in maturity. The album entered the UK charts in July and soon reached No. 1. Tubular Bells began selling out across Europe. In June 1973, a live concert by Tubular Bells was given at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London. Mike was joined for this occasion by guitarists Mick Taylor (of the Rolling Stones), Steve Hillage (of Gong), Fred Frith (of Henry Cow) and Ted Speight. Also taking part were David Bedford, Kevin Ayers and Pierre Moerlen, the percussionist for the avant-garde rock band Gong and who would be a fixture on Mike's band of musicians for many years. Although his appearance was announced, Stevie Winwood could not play at the end because due to certain problems she had not had much time to rehearse. The audience's response was described by a New Musical Express journalist as follows: 'The entire audience stood up and started asking for more. That was just one of those rare, spur-of-the-moment tokens of appreciation.' Tubular Bells was also released in the United States, but everything was happening more slowly there. The necessary push for the album's sales to skyrocket came when film director William Friedkin, encouraged by Richard Branson, decided to use a 4-minute excerpt in the controversial horror film The Exorcist. Mike was not consulted regarding the association of his work with that film and would later tell reporters that he had not liked it. In the UK, a Tubular Bells single was released with a remixed version of the album in a 'quadraphonic' version, a system that required four speakers for full use. To show the wonders of that new system, the Tubular Bells 'Quad' included an extra sequence of an airplane appearing to move around the listener, which was recorded after The Sailor's Hornpipe. The Shooting Star: 1974-1975 Mike Oldfield had long dreamed of the time when Tubular Bells would be released. When that happened he couldn't take the pressure and still emotionally exhausted from the recording process for Tubular Bells he retired to his new home in Herefordshire. It was there that he began creating his new work that would later take the name of nearby Hergest Ridge. Released in England in September 1974, like its predecessor Tubular Bells, this was an album containing a single theme song. Again almost all the instruments are played by Mike himself. The most talked about effect was what one reviewer called a 'electrical storm'. Other musicians who contributed to the album included Sally Oldfield and Clodagh Simmonds (vocals), June Whiting and Lindsay Cooper (oboes), and Ted Hobart (trumpet). For Mike, music composition was a constant work in progress. The symphonic scheme used in Tubular Bells was continued in a series of later works: Hergest Ridge, Ommadawn, Incantations, QE2 and Amarok. Hergest Ridge went straight to number one on the UK sales chart. Virgin Records also advertised it on television, although the slogan had to be changed for this purpose. The ad originally said the album was available from 'Virgin and other immaculate record stores'. It had to be changed for another due to the possible objections that the Catholic Church could present. Although some critics viewed Hergest Ridge as inferior to Tubular Bells, most loved it. One said it was 'The most everyday rock music with some classical symphony'. Another wrote that it was 'a series of emotional spikes exploding here and there through a tickling stillness'. In December 1974, the orchestral versions of Tubular Bells and Hergest Ridge were presented in concert at the Royal Albert Hall in London. The concert was planned by David Bedford who conducted the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra with guitar solos by Steve Hillage. Mike himself would play the guitar in the studio version of that concert, which was released in January 1975 under the name The Orchestral Tubular Bells. In that same year but a little later those same orchestral arrangements were presented in concerts in Glasgow and Newcastle. In Scotland, Steve Hillage played guitar parts with the Scottish National Orchestra, and the soloist in the North East was Andy Summers, later a member of The Police. The sense of humor that was evident in the 'introduction to the instruments' of Tubular Bells was prominently featured on Don Alfonso, a single that was released in March 1975. With the help of Chris Cutler (drums), David Bedford (vocals ) and Kevin Ayers (Wine Bottles), Mike told the story of a bullfighter who worked for Oxo ('Worked for Oxo'). In a slightly more serious direction, he released Ommadawn in September 1975. His third great work of symphonic rock had taken him nine months to record. At Ommadawn, Mike played about 20 instruments, ranging from guitars to grand piano to spinet. The album incorporated music from Africa and Ireland by way of Jabula's African percussion group and the Uilean bagpipes of Paddy Moloney, leader of the Chieftains. Other contributing artists included Terry and Sally Oldfield, members of the Hereford City Band, and recorder (a type of flute) soloist Leslie Penney. Penney also accompanied Mike on the Christmas single, a version of the traditional Christmas carol In Dulci Jubilo which managed to reach number four in the UK charts. Although many journalists hailed Ommadawn as yet another triumph, some resentment began to show in some criticism of the album by others. Perhaps influenced by the influx of rock fashion into previously retro-style pubs, one UK pop newspaper called Ommadawn 'bland and inconsequential'. An excellent background music for banquets.' Although he had not yet returned from the tour he was doing to promote that work, Mike contributed to albums by other musicians with whom he was associated. His guitar playing can be heard on records released in 1975 by David Bedford, Edgar Broughton and Tom Newman. The impact of Tubular Bells continued in 1975. In that year it was awarded a Grammy for Best Instrumental Composition and the enormous popularity that these instruments (tubular bells) were reaching led the company that manufactured them, Premier, to launch a selling a new range of rigid metal tubes. In a different vein, a reader wrote to Mayfair magazine: 'The most exciting moment of my sex life came recently when we both finally climaxed together listening to the end of Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells.' Out of the limelight: 1976-1978 In the following years the then world famous Tubular Bells theme appeared in a disco version by the Champs Boys, a group of French studio musicians. That was almost all that was heard of Mike's music in 1976, although fans of equestrian sports did hear an excerpt from Ommadawn as an intro to the televised broadcast of the Horse Of The Year Show. Mike hid from the public for longer than he did from 1976 to 1978. He would later tell reporters that he had psychological problems and that is why he went into seclusion in the country at his home in Gloucestershire to create the music that would later be called Incantations. . To hide it from the public eye, Virgin compiled Boxed, a four-disc set containing their three albums released to date and a fourth disc containing singles, special collaborations on records by other artists, and a song sung by Mike himself called Speak (Tho ' You Only Say Farewell). Mike's only new work in 1976 was the Christmas single, Portsmouth, another traditional song arranged by Oldfield. It reached number 3, one position above that of In Dulci Jubilo. Read the full article

[of-ruins-and-rubble]

Intro + Rules

My Main account is @maydays-medbay

All posts will be tagged with IC response or OOC response for better organization

Below the cut will include information about the OCs related to this blog, and it will also have a list of every prompt currently open on the blog. This will hopefully make this blog easier to navigate :>

IDW is the continuity in which these characters are based off of, but I don't believe that the Ruination Corps. is so heavily tied to it that they couldn't be in other continuities as well.

If you would like, you could always mix in more than one character into an ask. For example, how one character would respond to a question for another character. You could also end up having two interacting depending on what you send. Or not! It's up to you what you want to ask my characters lol

This will be edited from time to time, and all updates will be stated at the top of this post.

[Character Info + Prompt list below]

Characters

Paradigm | Cannibal, Mnemosurgeon, Two-Faced Vitriol | They/Them, He/Him

Comprised of two individual bots, Jekyll and Hyde, and has two sparks in their frame

Both Jekyll and Hyde, when referred to individually, use He/Him pronouns

Hyde is the dominant of the two, more often being in control of the body and their motor functions

Hyde is cunning and overall an extremely manipulative individual, while Jekyll is more brutish and headstrong

They lead the Ruination Corps. alongside 5 other bots, though they are the overall "supreme" leader

Here are some images of what they look like: [X, Ref sheet] [X, Right]

Halcyon | Tactician, Chemist, Lurker in the Dark | They/He/It

One of the Salvific Six

Their tongue turns into a needle that they use to inject others with a variety of their dark concoctions, or suck fluids from objects

Has no optics on its face, though he does have sensors there...not to say that they don't have optics somewhere on their frame

Jaw can split open to grip onto things when using his needle

Here are some images of what they look like: [X, most recent] [X, Bottom Left] [X, Shows the needle appendage best]

Vyrox | Surveillance Officer, Analyst, Creator of Malware | Xe/Xem, Ey/Em, Any (Enby Pref)

Member of the Salvific Six, often considered Paradigm's Right Hand

Has an built-in system that lets em look through cameras and other surveillance devices- including comm units and other things of the like

Enjoys creating viruses that xe can use against other bots

Xe aren't afraid to get their hands dirty if ey have a duty that upholds the cause

Traitors will face Vyrox whether they like it or not, xe don't miss anything going on within xyr ranks

[Eir design needs to be reworked, so there are no references for em as of right now]

Turncoat | Infiltrator, Spy, Betrayer of All | He/Him

Salvific Six member

Turncoat is a shifter, able to morph his body structure into that of another bot relative to his size

Semi-Close with another Salvific six member named Reaver

Not known for his ability to keep relationships

Often does work for Vyrox as an informant. He's the least seen member after Vyrox since he's often adorning another bot's identity and off on work

Decent surgical knowledge thanks to his time posing as other bots within the field of medicine

Both an informant and an assassin

[There are no references for Turncoat as of now]

Reaver | Bodyguard, Brawler, Keeper of Tyranny | He/Him

Largest member of the Salvific Six

Has six arms, the smallest of which are called his tertiaries. They are able to be folded up and stored when he doesn't want to use them

Smooth voice and surprisingly outgoing for a member of the Salvific Six

Often wonders what his worth is to the Ruination Corps. and feels as though he's only appreciated for his size and strength

Morally Grey

[No current references for this character are available]

Serrous | Executioner, Render of Flesh | He/Him

Second largest member of the Salvific Six

Covered in saws. Arms, legs, torso, back- you name it. There's a saw there

No face, instead there's a maw of rotating blades, pincers, and- you guessed it- saws

Super quiet and collected. Often uses gestures instead of words

His brain module isn't actually in his head. Where is it? You'll never know :)

[No refs available]

Current Ask Games

Webkinz Themed Prompts [X, The questions here are pretty cool]

[mengyan]

rubs my hands together. marcy facetiming anne and sasha to show them their new room post amphibia. 500+ go

The telltale intro to a popular donghua rings its beginning notes on Anne’s nightstand, and she lunges for the phone with an easy, practiced motion.

“Marbles!” she’s yelling, not even one second after picking up the call. “Hi! How are you doing? Are you settling in? How’s the new room? Is the traffic less intense over there?”

“Anna Banana!” Marcy’s shouting back, giggling. “Slow down! Sash isn’t even on the call yet! I’ll tell you guys everything, I promise, but you gotta relax!”

“You haven’t called in sooo long, Mar-Mar, ‘course I’m not gonna relax!” Anne retorts, sticking out her tongue at the camera. “Plus, you know Sasha likes hearing your ringtone music as much as he pretends not to know where it’s from, so he’s probably just letting it ring. I caught him watching an episode yesterday at lunch and he practically leaped off of the picnic bench to hide the evidence.”

Marcy giggles again and props their phone up on their desk so that their friends will have a better view of their room. “I just called you two last Friday, Annie. And it’s a good show, I don’t know what he’s so afraid of.”

Before Anne can reply, a noise sounds from both of their screens, and the split screen splits once more to fit Sasha into the frame. His face is lightly sweated out from his fencing class, but he’s smiling, making a kissy face at the camera.

“Hey nerds!” he greets, blowing kisses. Both of them blow some back. “Talking about me?”

“Oh yeah, just you and your hidden adoration for the Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation franchise,” Anne teases, watching his face flush red.

“Well,” he sputters, “You’d like it too if you watched! Marce has great recommendations!”

“It’s on my watchlist,” Anne grins. “And they really do.”

“Aw, you guys,” Marcy swoons, placing a hand over their heart. “You’re too sweet to me! If you’re all free next week, what would you say to having a little watch party after our finals?”

“We’d love that,” Anne nods vehemently, and Sasha joins her in agreement.

“Marcy, you got me hooked on this franchise, I’m serious,” he says. “Literally what did they put in these characters? The soundtrack? The plot? The love story between the main leads? Oh my frog.”  

“Right?! I could write essays on— Hey, you guys are distracting me!” Marcy whines. “We’ve got a room tour on the agenda today, remember? You’re the ones who wanted to see it!”

Sasha sits up on his bed, placing his phone on his pillow and clapping his hands in enthusiasm. “Ooh, yeah! Show us, Mar-Mar! Please tell me you kept the duckling plush me and Anne got you for your 10th birthday, Mr. Quack is a childhood cornerstone.”

“He really put a dent in our shared allowances,” Anne snorts. “Totally worth it, though.”

“Who do you guys think I am?” Marcy says, swiveling the camera around so they can see the other side now. Smack in the middle of their green and ivory sheets and assortment of other stuffed animals sits Mr. Quack, far less fluffy than he used to be, but well-loved all the same. “Sometimes I think he takes up more space on this bed than I do.”

“And so the king reigns!” Sasha crows, setting the three of them off into another bout of laughter. “Long live Mr. Quack and his legacy!”

Marcy gasps, then: “Oh my frog, speaking of legacies—”

They turn the camera quickly to the other corner of their room, showing off the somehow perfectly organized mess on their desk, with multicoloured pens and open sketchbooks, as well as a drawing tablet hooked up to their computer. Tucked safely in the corner is a little model of Newtopia, with two statues propped outside.

“No way,” Anne gapes, squinting at the screen to get a better look. “You made mini models of Lady Olivia and General Yunan? They’re so tiny! How?!”

“Mars has the talent for it,” Sasha chimes in, also awestruck by the attention to detail. Everything is carved neatly into the clay, and both statuettes are adorned with matching necklaces, which Marcy had explained to them previously were their version of human wedding rings.

“Yeah,” Marcy smiles shyly, blushing. “I just wanted to honour them, y’know? They were so kind to me in Amphibia, and I didn’t really get to spend as much time with them as I wanted to, so I thought why not dedicate something to them here?”

“They’d love it,” Anne says. “They loved you, Marbles.”

“And so do we,” Sasha adds warmly. Suddenly, his eyes go wide, noticing something else in their room, and Anne shifts her attention to look too. “Hold up, is that your redecorated fandom merchandise shelf?”

Marcy grins, bouncing on their heels in excitement. “Oh, you two have a big storm coming.”

[not-wholly-unheroic]

Favorite Images of Hook (Part One - Disney’s Peter Pan, 1953)

1. Hook’s Intro Scene - Hook’s opening scene is one of the best Disney villain intros. Before he even says a word, we can start to get a good impression of who he is. His fine clothes, authoritative stance, and double cigar-holder immediately set him apart from the rest of the crew as an intelligent, intimidating leader. His expression is one of irritation and intense focus as he ponders over the map of the island. You can tell he’s tired of it all but determined not to give up.

2. Settling Down for a Shave - While both the scene with the crocodile and the shaving scene are intended to be rather comedic for the audience, there’s actually a lot going on here. As Smee covers the captain in a sheet to prepare him for the shave, Hook visibly relaxes. He stops shaking, takes a deep breath, and seems almost at ease. Hook is meant to be rather childlike in some ways, and this scene is almost reminiscent of a mother or father tucking their child into bed after a bad dream. It says a lot about how much he trusts Mr. Smee...not to mention the fact that--with his face covered in a towel--he is fully prepared to allow Smee to put a shaving razor to his neck. Any other crewman would have likely slit his throat, considering that they don’t appear to be the most loyal bunch. But Smee is different. 

3.  Capturing Tiger Lily - I love Hook’s “Washington Crossing the Delaware” pose here as well as the colors in the background. The minute Hook comes on-screen, we lose the blues and greens of the lagoon and get the reddish/purplish color of a cloudy sunset to match his own color scheme. It’s such an iconic scene that there is even a non-so-subtle reference to it in Spielberg's 1991 film Hook.

4. Striking a Pose at Skull Rock - This is probably one of the more frequently used images of Hook in Disney merch, and there’s good reason for that. He looks so elegant and confident. Ironically, his pose here isn’t all that different from Peter’s own defiant “hands on hips” stance he frequently takes when taunting the captain.

5. Hook’s Shadow - Okay, technically this isn’t an image of Hook, but the shadow imagery in this film (as a nod to Peter’s losing his shadow, which started this entire thing) is pretty amazing. There are a ton of great shadow images if you look closely scattered throughout the film. This one just happens to be my favorite because it’s Hook’s shadow. And what an excellent use of it! We as the audience get a glimpse of what Hook is up to before Peter does without even actually seeing Hook himself. It’s incredibly ominous and foreboding.  

6. Hook Has a Cold - Not gonna lie, this is the scene that first won me over to Hook as a child. It’s incredibly rare to see a classic Disney villain in a truly vulnerable state, and I have always had a tendency to root for the underdog and try to find redeemable characteristics in the bad guys. This was the moment that I first saw the broken humanity of Hook and realized that he had the potential to be more than just a villain. 

7. Playing Piano for Tink - I love Hook’s expression here. Yes, I’m fully aware that he’s manipulating Tink...but he also seems to be genuinely just enjoying himself and his music. It’s so rare we actually see Hook look content, so this shot is really special to me.

8. Listening to Wendy Sing - This is another shot where I just love how relaxed and at ease he Hook looks. I like seeing these softer moments where Hook is just appreciating good music and for a few split seconds, he lets his guard down.

9. The Gentleman’s Bow - Hook wouldn’t be Hook if he wasn’t a gentleman at heart. The way he bows to Wendy even as he is in the midst of (supposed) victory against Pan is so indicative of that balance he strikes between villainy and good form. 

10. Climbing the Rigging - This is such a powerful shot. The angle of the camera with us looking down at Hook and the water below as the captain climbs up gives us a view from Peter’s perspective. At this point, you can tell Hook is losing his cool. His hair is a bit mussed and he has an almost crazed look in his eyes. He is DONE. The gentleman is gone, and the pirate is ready for a fight.