#that may end up getting split into multiple chapters and by may i mean it will

[fairytales-and-folklore]

The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter

The Owl House » Huntlow

Title: The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter

Author: fairytalesandfolklore

Fandom: The Owl House (Masterlist)

Relationship: Hunter | The Golden Guard x Willow Park

AO3 Rating: Teen & Up (a complete collection of author's notes, inspiration credits, content warnings and tags can be found on AO3)

Summary: Hunter discovers that one of Willow's favorite books is a series of fantasy novels revolving around a forbidden romance between a witch and a grimwalker. Obviously, he has to read it.

"You had a crush," Hunter says slowly, like he's afraid confirming it will jinx it. "…on the grimwalker character?" "Oh yeah, big time," Willow says, lips curving upward in a cheeky grin. "So, the fact that he was a grimwalker didn't put you off?" he asks softly. "No," Willow replies, just as resolutely as the main character had done. "Why would it?" Hunter stares at her for a moment, utterly spellbound, a dozen different doors he'd thought were locked suddenly bursting wide open. "I know I said no spoilers, but I've got to know…does she say yes?" he asks, and Willow could swear there's a double meaning in his hopeful gaze. "Do they end up together? Happily ever after?" Willow smiles at him. "I guess you'll have to read to find out."

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• • •

Part One: Grimwalker Twilight

• • •

It's a work in progress, but in the months that follow the revival of wild magic on the Boiling Isles, it's become a lot easier for him to accept what he is, especially now that all the most important people in his life know his biggest, deepest, darkest secret. That being said, Hunter still knows next to nothing about grimwalkers, and he'd be lying if he said he wasn't curious to learn more about these urban legends-turned-personal history. 

Before he can even finish vocalizing the thought, Willow is on her feet pacing and making plans, offering to help him on his fact-finding mission. So, the following weekend, Willow cancels their usual flyer derby practice, and the two of them head to the Bonesborough library. A quick crystal ball search gives them multiple results in different sections, so they agree to split up, Hunter heading toward ancient history, while Willow peruses fiction and folklore.

As she runs her fingers across the spiderwebbed spines of well-loved paperbacks and hardcovers, she comes across a title she hasn't read in years and completely forgot existed — Galdorstone Heart, a series of fantasy novels revolving around a forbidden romance between a witch and a grimwalker. She wondered why the word grimwalker sounded so familiar.

Curious to reignite an old spark, Willow snatches the first book in the series off the shelf, finds a secluded little reading nook with a big bay window overlooking the city, and settles into a worn leather armchair. The moment she begins re-reading the first chapter, it all comes flooding back to her — the pretentious prose, the melodramatically saccharine yet charmingly compelling storyline, the massive crush she used to have on the main character's love interest, Artemis Chase (hitting even harder now that she can't seem to stop imagining herself as the main character and Hunter as Artemis.)

The first book in the series is told from the perspective of Ivy Winter, a young witch whose life gets turned upside down when bad but sad boy Artemis Chase transfers to her high school and decides to join her staff racing team. The two end up spending nearly all of their time together, up late talking on crow calls until the early hours of the morning, passing notes back and forth in between classes, sunny afternoons spent flying through the surrounding forests of the Titan's ribcage as they train for upcoming races.

It's a slow burn romance, chronicling Ivy's descent from oh no he's hot to oh no, I've fallen head over heels in love with him, enamored by his cheeky wit, his prince charming smile, his piercing wine red eyes, and his devil-may-care windswept hair, dark as the depths of the Boiling Sea. But there's something different about Artemis that sets him apart from all the other witches their age, and Ivy is determined to find out his secret.

They're walking through the forest late one afternoon, magic staffs slung over their shoulders after a rousing race through the treetops, when out of nowhere, a boiling rainstorm hits, the first few droplets sending steam spiraling into the air like dragon's breath as they crash against the dew-kissed earth.

Acting on instinct, Artemis dashes forward, scooping Ivy up into his arms and carrying her to safety, using his body as a shield to protect her from the scorching heat. They find a nearby cave to wait out the storm, and when Ivy turns to thank him for rescuing her and offer to heal his injuries, she finds there's nothing to be done — though his shirt has been stripped away to cinders, revealing a plane of lean, hard-earned muscle in its wake, his skin remains perfectly unscathed.

Without thinking, Ivy moves forward to press the palm of her hand against Artemis's bare chest, needing to confirm it for herself (and perhaps fueled by other desires she's been desperately trying to keep hidden for months.) Artemis gazes down at her, his normally cocky, confident demeanor taking on an edge of trepidation.

"But I don't understand," Ivy whispers, blinking in surprise. "How did you survive the heat without so much as a protection spell?"

"Perhaps I simply got lucky," Artemis replies, but Ivy can tell that he's hiding something.

"No one is that lucky," she says, shaking her head. "In fact, there's no one quite like you. You're impossibly fast, and strong. Your skin doesn't burn in a boiling rainstorm. You don't have a bile sac like the other witches, yet you're at the top of our class…because you've found other ways to channel magic, haven't you?"

Artemis looks away, a pained expression in his eyes.

"I've known there was something different about you for a while now, and I think I've finally figured it out," she tells him, fingers curling over a chest where beneath it beats no regular pulse, but a gentle, rhythmic humming instead. "I know what you are."

"Say it, then," he sighs, resigned to his fate. "Out loud."

Ivy takes a deep breath, gaze steady as she stares into the wine red eyes of a fairy tale made flesh.

"Grimwalker."

Artemis sucks in a sharp breath, staring down at her with a fearful expression in his eyes, like he expects her to run from him at any moment, repulsed by his very existence.

"Does it scare you?" he asks softly.

"No," she answers resolutely, gazing up at him with a look of fiery determination in her bright green eyes. "But do you know what does scare me? The thought of never getting to tell you how I feel. Artemis, I—"

Artemis reaches forward to tuck a lock of light blonde hair that's come loose from one of Ivy's braids back behind her ear, fingertips lingering on the soft curve of her cheek, just beneath her gold-framed glasses. Ivy's eyes flutter closed, instinctively leaning in as Artemis sweeps forward and presses his lips against hers.

It's a soft, chaste kiss, and when Artemis pulls back, Ivy finds herself mourning the loss, parted from him far too soon. He gazes down at her, merlot eyes burning with unbridled passion.

"My palistrom skin was made to withstand the deepest depths of the Boiling Sea, and yet the love I feel for you burns within me like a forest fire, threatening to consume me whole," he confesses, and for a moment, Ivy wonders whether she's back out in the middle of that boiling rainstorm, heat like nothing she's ever felt before searing his words into her skin.

"My heart may be made from stone," he says, reaching up to wrap his hand around the back of hers, keeping her palm steady in the center of his chest, right over his galdorstone heart. "But it beats just the same as yours, each pulse calling out your name like a siren song."

Ivy gasps, emerald green eyes sparkling with shimmer tears as she pulls him in for another kiss, neither of them resurfacing until well after the storm has passed.

Willow sighs, a giddy giggle bubbling up inside her chest as she re-reads one of her absolute favorite scenes in the whole series, pausing to let out a satisfied sigh as she presses the open book to her chest. 

If only Hunter's grimwalker reveal had been like that, instead of the near-death nightmare that it was. Maybe, with a little more time, he'd have worked up the nerve to tell her on his own terms — some quiet little stolen moment, just the two of them. And maybe he would've still been just as nervous, and she'd have gently taken his shaking hands in her own, and gazed up into those bright red eyes of his, and told him that no matter what he is or where he comes from, he's still the same Hunter she knows and loves.

And maybe there would have been a moment where the whole world fell silent, the only sound the distant symphony of crickets and tree frogs lit up by the golden glow of fireflies dancing through the surrounding forests of Luz's backyard, followed by a soft gasp as she realized what she'd just confessed aloud, and Hunter's eyes would have filled with hope, lips curving into that charming smile of his that never fails to make her heart skip a beat. And maybe, if she was very lucky, he'd have leaned forward, scarred hands cupping the soft curve of her cheek as he pressed his lips against—

Oh.

Wow.

Books.

Okay. Okay, okay, okay.

Enough daydreaming and reading silly fantasy novels. She promised Hunter she'd help him research, so that's exactly what she's going to do. Any minute now, she's going to get up, put the book back on the shelf, and go peruse a different section.

Well, maybe just one more chapter.

Willow's heart is in her throat as she re-reads the dramatic proposal scene, closing her eyes to picture every romantic detail as Artemis gets down on one knee in a field of fragrant wildflowers and offers Ivy an engagement ring fashioned from a piece of his own galdorstone heart, face heating up a storm when she gets to the wedding night scene, heart threatening to beat right out of her chest as Artemis bridal-carries Ivy across the threshold of a cozy little cottage he built for the two of them with his bare hands, lays her down on a bed of silk sheets covered in rose petals, and worships her with kisses, starting from her lips and working his way down to her hips, pausing at the apex of her thighs just before he—

"Willow?" Hunter's voice calls out from right behind her, and Willow jumps about a foot into the air, turning around to face him with a look of mortified horror in her bright green eyes.

"Hey! I was wondering where you'd gone," he says, gazing down at her with a sunny smile, blissfully ignorant to the chaotic firestorm raging inside her head right now. "I scoured the whole history section for what feels like hours, but I still couldn't find anything."

"Oh, but it looks like you did!" he says, glancing down at the book propped open in her hands.

"What've you got there?" he asks with cheerful curiosity, and Willow's face goes up in flames as Hunter leans over her shoulder to read the infamous spicy scene. She can tell the exact moment he reads that line, because his breath comes out in a rush and then stops altogether.

"Oh," he whispers, and Willow swears she can feel the heat of his blush radiating off of him, no doubt a perfect match for her own. "Um…Willow? What is this?"

"It's nothing!" she exclaims, slamming the book shut and laughing a little maniacally. "Just some silly book series I used to read when I was younger."

Hunter plucks the book from her slackened hands and scans the front cover.

"Galdorstone Heart," he reads the title aloud, glimmering in embossed gold lettering across the front of the forest green hardcover. He flips it open and skims the first couple of pages, pausing to read a few choice lines from the very first chapter aloud, while Willow buries her face in her hands and prays for the couch cushions to swallow her whole.

"About three things I was absolutely positive: First, Artemis was a grimwalker. Second, there was a part of him — and I didn't know how potent that part might be — that thirsted for my magic. And third, I was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with him."

"Is this…did someone write a romance novel about grimwalkers?" he asks, turning to see Willow peeking at him through the gap between her fingers, face flushed an adorable shade of pink. 

"And you used to read it?" he asks, lips pulling up into a smug little smile.

"It was a really long time ago!" Willow blurts out, rushing to defend herself. "Way before I ever met you, back when everyone still thought that grimwalkers were just the stuff of fairy tales and folklore. Obviously it's completely inaccurate — I mean, grimwalkers don't feed off of witches' magic like basilisks or vampires, and they certainly couldn't craft an engagement ring out of a piece of their own—"

"Ah, bup-bup-bup! No spoilers!" Hunter exclaims, covering his ears and shaking his head.

Willow pauses mid-ramble, eyebrows arched in surprise.

"So, this book," Hunter ventures, gaze flitting between Willow and the bright blue glowing galdorstone illustrated on the front cover of the novel held in his scarred hands. "You said it's a series? As in, there's more?" he asks, sounding genuinely curious, and not at all put off like she thought he'd be.

"Well, yeah," Willow offers, still a little hesitant, but more confused than embarrassed now. "Technically there's three more. And then I guess there's also an unreleased version of the first book told entirely from Artemis's perspective, detailing the backstory of how he escaped from his evil creator and came to the Isles to start a new life, but—"

"Do you still have your old copies?" Hunter asks eagerly, a small smile forming on his lips as he looks at her. "Can I borrow them?"

"Can you—" Willow repeats, caught off guard by the question. "Um. Yeah, sure. Or, I mean, you could if I had my own copies. But I'm pretty sure this is the same one I read back when I was a kid." She glances down at the dark green cover, recognizes the faded doodle of a flower she'd graffitied in the right-hand corner the last time she'd checked it out, surrounded by the initials W.P. + A.C.

"Why, though?" she asks, glancing back up at him. "Like I said, it's completely inaccurate. You won't find any useful info on grimwalkers in there."

"That's fine," he says, ears turning pink. "I don't want them for research purposes."

"Then why would you—" Willow starts, and then a curious smile curls across her face. "Wait…did you actually like it?"

"Maybe," Hunter admits with a sheepish grin. "I like the sound of the main characters. There's something very familiar about the two of them, don't you think?" he asks, arching his eyebrows and giving her a meaningful look.

"I suppose they're a little familiar," Willow says slyly, meeting his smiling gaze with one of her own. "You'll probably tease me for this, but when I was younger, I had the biggest crush on Artemis."

Hunter pauses, blinking at her in astonishment.

"You had a crush," he says slowly, like he's afraid confirming it will jinx it. "…on the grimwalker character?"

"Oh yeah, big time," Willow says, lips curving upward in a cheeky grin.

"So, the fact that he was a grimwalker didn't put you off?" he asks softly.

"No," Willow replies, just as resolutely as Ivy had done. "Why would it?"

Hunter stares at her for a moment, utterly spellbound, a dozen different doors he'd thought were locked suddenly bursting wide open.

"I know I said no spoilers, but I've got to know…does she say yes?" he asks, and Willow could swear there's a double meaning in his hopeful gaze. "Do they end up together? Happily ever after?"

Willow smiles at him.

"I guess you'll have to read to find out," she says, slipping the rest of the series off the shelf and stacking them in his hands as the two of them make their way toward the checkout lane. "And when you're all caught up…maybe we could watch the movies together?"

Hunter turns toward her, arms wrapped carefully around his new little collection of borrowed books, smiling so wide his bright red eyes are practically half-moons.

"It's a date."

• • •

Part Two: The Sequel

• • •

At 2AM the following Saturday, less than a week after their little trip to the library, Willow's scroll lights up in the darkness of her bedroom, vibrating from where it sits underneath her pillow, startling her awake with a very ungraceful snort.

rulerzreachf4n: CAPTAIN rulerzreachf4n: I FINISHED THE SERIES rulerzreachf4n: ARE YOU AWAKE rulerzreachf4n: I HAVE THOUGHTS

He's been messaging her every single day since he started reading Galdorstone Heart, feverishly tearing his way through the series in a matter of days, and has made something of a habit of live-texting her his reactions to every major plot twist and subtextual detail. She can tell he's been reading them before he goes to sleep every night, staying up later and later as he undoubtedly tells himself the same lie we all do whenever we get invested in a multi-chapter series right before bedtime: just one more chapter and then I swear I'll go to bed.

If it were anyone else, Willow would have glared daggers at her scroll as she put her notifications on mute — but Hunter, it would seem, is the exception to every rule. So even though he's been keeping her up all week long, so exhausted she keeps nearly nodding off in all her morning classes, startled awake every night at 2AM like clockwork, grumbling as she shoves her hand under her pillow and pulls out her scroll, blinking blearily down at the too-bright screen, Willow can't help the giddy smile that curls across her face every time she sees his username, accompanied by an utterly ridiculous number of unread messages.

The first time, she wakes up to no less than 57 new text messages from rulerzreachf4n (though, most of them are Hunter apologizing for texting too much, followed almost immediately by one more thing and I'll stop talking I swear.) Willow reads them all with a huge smile on her face as she gets ready for school that morning.

His grammar has been improving, and he types a whole lot faster now. Although, everything he writes is in all caps — partially because he's excited to share his thoughts about the series, but mostly because his capslock key got stuck a little while back and he can't seem to figure out how to undo it.

SUNDAY 11:00PM

rulerzreachf4n: OKAY SO IT DEFINITELY CONFUSED GRIMWALKERS WITH BASILISKS WHEN IT COMES TO THE WHOLE ABSORBING WITCHES MAGIC THING rulerzreachf4n: BUT IT DID GET ONE THING RIGHT rulerzreachf4n: I ACTUALLY CAN WITHSTAND LOTS OF HEAT rulerzreachf4n: BACK WHEN I WAS THE GOLDEN GUARD BELOS USED TO SEND ME ON MISSIONS TO THE BOTTOM OF THE BOILING SEA AND I NEVER NEEDED ANY KIND OF PROTECTION SPELLS OR ANYTHING rulerzreachf4n: SO IF WE EVER GOT CAUGHT IN A BOILING RAINSTORM I COULD PROTECT YOU CAPTAIN

MONDAY 12:00AM

rulerzreachf4n: OKAY SO I JUST GOT TO THE PART WHERE IVY TELLS ARTEMIS THAT IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT HE IS OR WHERE HE CAME FROM BECAUSE SHE LOVES HIM FOR WHO HE IS AND THAT'S JUST REALLY rulerzreachf4n: IT'S JUST REALLY NICE THAT THIS BOOK EXISTS rulerzreachf4n: AND THAT THERE ARE PEOPLE OUT THERE WHO DON'T THINK THAT GRIMWALKERS ARE BAD rulerzreachf4n: AND I JUST rulerzreachf4n: THANK YOU FOR INTRODUCING ME TO THIS SERIES rulerzreachf4n: I KNOW IT'S SILLY BUT rulerzreachf4n: YEAH rulerzreachf4n: IT'S JUST  rulerzreachf4n: REALLY NICE

MONDAY 1:00AM

rulerzreachf4n: I JUST GOT TO THE PART WHERE ARTEMIS SEES WILLOW IN HER WEDDING DRESS FOR THE FIRST TIME AND THE WAY HE JUST GETS THIS BIG SMILE ON HIS FACE AND STARTS CRYING BECAUSE SHE'S JUST SO BEAUTIFUL WITH ALL THOSE FLOWERS IN HER HAIR rulerzreachf4n: HE LOVES HER SO MUCH rulerzreachf4n: OH FUCK SORRY I MEANT IVY rulerzreachf4n: I DIDN'T MEAN TO TYPE YOUR NAME I SWEAR HAHAHAHA

MONDAY 2:00AM

rulerzreachf4n: OH HEY I THINK I JUST GOT TO THE PART I WAS READING OVER YOUR SHOULDER AT THE LIBRARY WHEN I rulerzreachf4n: SORRY I DIDN'T MEAN TO SEND YOU MY FACE rulerzreachf4n: I'M GONNA GO TO BED NOW rulerzreachf4n: NOT UM rulerzreachf4n: NOT THAT I'M THINKING ABOUT THAT SCENE WHILE I'M IN BED OR ANYTHING rulerzreachf4n: I'M JUST ANNOUNCING THAT I'M GOING TO BED rulerzreachf4n: FOR SLEEP REASONS rulerzreachf4n: OH TITAN PLEASE IGNORE EVERYTHING I'VE JUST SAID rulerzreachf4n: HOW TO UNSEND EMBARRASSING MESSAGES rulerzreachf4n: SORRY THAT WAS MEANT FOR CTHUUGLE rulerzreachf4n: GOODNIGHT CAPTAIN rulerzreachf4n: SORRY

Willow presses a hand over her mouth to stifle a bout of giggles, immediately saving the impromptu snapshot (a close-up of Hunter's face, bright red and wide-eyed, mouth hanging open in a comically shocked O) to her camera roll, imagining him re-reading the infamous spicy wedding night scene and getting so flustered his hands slipped, accidentally snapping a photo of himself and sending it to their chat.

That's okay, I like your face :) she writes back, and Hunter smashes face-first into his locker when he sees her at school later that morning. He apologizes about a dozen more times for texting too much during lunch later that afternoon, but Willow just keeps reassuring him that she doesn't mind one bit, that he's free to text her whenever he wants, as often as he wants, that she likes listening to him talk, and Hunter gets so flustered he accidentally sticks his elbow in Gus's spaghetti.

Later that night, Willow wakes to a flurry of new messages, Hunter eager to share his theories and reactions as he makes his way through the second book in the series.

rulerzreachf4n: I THINK I KNOW WHO ARTEMIS'S EVIL CREATOR IS rulerzreachf4n: IT'S SORCERER BELLOWS ISN'T IT hello_willow is typing… rulerzreachf4n: WAIT NO DON'T TELL ME I WANT TO FIND OUT ON MY OWN

And again the following night.

rulerzreachf4n: AUGUST, LUNA, AND AMELIE ARE REALLY COOL rulerzreachf4n: I'M GLAD ARTEMIS AND IVY HAVE SUCH GOOD FRIENDS rulerzreachf4n: KINDA GETTING SOME FLIRTY VIBES FROM LUNA AND AMELIE THOUGH rulerzreachf4n: DO THEY END UP TOGETHER? hello_willow is typing… rulerzreachf4n: WAIT DON'T TELL ME I WANNA SEE IT PLAY OUT

And then again on Wednesday.

rulerzreachf4n: IVY SAID SHE STARTED FEELING SICK IN THE MORNINGS rulerzreachf4n: ARE THEY GONNA HAVE A BABY? hello_willow is typing… rulerzreachf4n: WAIT NEVERMIND NO SPOILERS

And again on Thursday.

rulerzreachf4n: OH TITAN THEY'RE ABOUT TO GO TO WAR WITH SORCERER BELLOWS AND THE TRICKSTER GOD rulerzreachf4n: PLZ TELL ME NONE OF MY FAVES DIE hello_willow is typing… rulerzreachf4n: NO DON'T TELL ME I WANT TO BE SURPRISED rulerzreachf4n: OKAY MAYBE JUST ONE rulerzreachf4n: I JUST NEED TO KNOW THAT ARTEMIS AND IVY ARE GONNA BE OKAY hello_willow is typing… rulerzreachf4n: NO I CHANGED MY MIND I'M ALMOST AT THE END I'LL FIND OUT SOON ENOUGH

Which brings us back to Friday night (or rather, Saturday morning) signaling the end of their middle-of-the-night chats, because less than a week after checking all the books out of the library, Hunter has finally reached the end of Galdorstone Heart. Hmm. Willow wonders what other book series she can get him into.

SATURDAY 2:00AM

hello_willow: hey hunter :) rulerzreachf4n: OH CAPTAIN HI rulerzreachf4n: I DIDN'T WAKE YOU DID I??? rulerzreachf4n: I'M SORRY I KEEP TEXTING YOU SO MUCH rulerzreachf4n: PLZ LET ME KNOW IF I'M ANNOYING YOU AND I'LL STOP hello_willow: all good  hello_willow: you could never annoy me rulerzreachf4n: PROMISE? hello_willow: promise :)  hello_willow: so, what did you think of the ending? rulerzreachf4n: OKAY rulerzreachf4n: SO rulerzreachf4n is typing…

SATURDAY 3:00AM

rulerzreachf4n: SO WHAT WAS IT EXACTLY THAT YOU LIKED ABOUT ARTEMIS rulerzreachf4n: YOU SAID YOU HAD A CRUSH hello_willow: hmm hello_willow: well hello_willow: he's got a good heart hello_willow: he always tries to do the right thing, even if it goes against everything he was taught to believe hello_willow: he's clever, and witty, and incredibly book smart rulerzreachf4n: I LIKE BOOKS hello_willow: I know :) hello_willow: you actually remind me of him a lot rulerzreachf4n: I DO? hello_willow: you do :) rulerzreachf4n: YOU REMIND ME A LOT OF IVY hello_willow: yeah? :) rulerzreachf4n: YEAH rulerzreachf4n: SHE'S THE PERFECT BALANCE OF SWEET AND SMART AND STRONG rulerzreachf4n: LIKE SHE HAS NO PROBLEM KICKING THE BAD GUY'S ASS rulerzreachf4n: BUT SHE'LL APOLOGIZE IF SHE STEPS ON A FLOWER rulerzreachf4n: AND SHE ALWAYS KNOWS WHAT TO SAY WHENEVER HER FRIENDS ARE FEELING SAD rulerzreachf4n: NOT ONLY IS SHE INCREDIBLY BOOK SMART, SHE'S ALSO VERY EMOTIONALLY INTELLIGENT rulerzreachf4n: JUST LIKE YOU 

Willow buries her face in her pillow and makes a noise that's half-giggle, half-scream, kicking her feet in a little flail before typing back, thank you Hunter :) that's very sweet of you to say.

rulerzreachf4n: OF COURSE CAPTAIN :) rulerzreachf4n: IT'S JUST THE TRUTH rulerzreachf4n: THANK YOU FOR BEING YOU

Willow's hand might slip and send him a couple little pink and red hearts in response. She's not exactly proving his point of incredibly book smart and emotionally intelligent at the moment, but sometimes he just says things and her whole brain turns to mush. She glances up in time to see every single brightly colored heart in the emoji bank plastered across the screen under his username, and giggles so loudly she worries she'll wake her dads.

rulerzreachf4n: SO rulerzreachf4n: WHAT OTHER THINGS DO YOU LOOK FOR IN A rulerzreachf4n: WHAT ELSE DO YOU LIKE ABOUT ARTEMIS

Willow smiles to herself, wondering whether this is his idea of flirting and fishing for hints.

hello_willow: I love how much he loves his friends and family hello_willow: he's fiercely protective and would do anything to keep them safe hello_willow: the way he's always looking out for August like a big brother hello_willow: the way he fought side by side with Luna and Amelie in the final battle against his evil creator and that celestial trickster god hello_willow: how sweet and loving he is with Ivy and their daughter rulerzreachf4n: YEAH THAT TIME SKIP WHERE THE TWO OF THEM WERE HAPPILY MARRIED AND NEW PARENTS WAS REALLY SATISFYING hello_willow: it was! hello_willow: I'm really glad they got a happy ending hello_willow: after everything they went through, they deserve it rulerzreachf4n: YEAH THEY REALLY DO

Willow holds her breath as she types out the one question she's been waiting to ask him all week, the giddy anticipation of getting to spend another whole Saturday with him threatening to set all her nerve endings on fire.

hello_willow: so  hello_willow: now that you're all caught up…  hello_willow: want to come over later today and watch the movies with me?

His response is immediate.

rulerzreachf4n: YES rulerzreachf4n: DEFINITELY rulerzreachf4n: ABSOLUTELY hello_willow: okay then hello_willow: it's a date :)

Willow giggles, burying her face in her pillow and kicking her feet.

On the other end of the line, Hunter does the very same.

• • •

The following afternoon, Hunter shows up to her house sporting that same nervous-excited jaw-clenching grin memorialized in most of the photos Willow took of him back in the human realm (now plastered all over the wall above her bed) with a bevy of all her favorite snacks tucked under his arms.

"Hey!" she says brightly, smoothing out nonexistent wrinkles in the pretty floral sundress she absolutely did not pick out special just for the occasion, smiling when she notices him doing the exact same thing with his hair.

"Captain!" he greets her, lifting his arm in a little wave and sending half a dozen boxes of candy tumbling to the floor.

The two of them immediately swoop down to pick them up, freezing the moment their hands meet over the same box of blood orange chocolates, only to glance up and realize just how close their faces are to one another's. Willow blinks up at him, watching with a kind of giddy fascination as he stares down at her with an awestruck look on his face, wordlessly offering her his hand to help her to her feet.

"You look—" he falters, Adam's apple straining against his throat as he takes in the sight of her, all dolled up in a cheerful yellow sundress. "Wow."

"So do you," Willow giggles, eyes roving appreciatively over the freshly-pressed button-down shirt rolled up to his elbows that she knows for a fact he only breaks out for special occasions.

He's still holding her hand. Without thinking, she takes a step closer. He mirrors her. She gazes up at him. He gazes back. She lifts up onto her toes. He inclines his head. Her eyes flutter closed. He leans in, and then—

"Hunter!" one of her dads calls out from the doorframe leading from the living room into the kitchen. Oh. Right. Her parents are in the next room. Spell broken, the two of them jump about a mile back from one another, Willow's facing burning as she stares a hard line into the floorboards, one of Hunter's hands coming up to nervously smooth back his hair again, path intercepted as Gilbert steps forward into the foyer and shakes it in a hearty greeting.

"Good to see you, son!" he says with a cheerful smile (almost a little too cheerful, like he knows exactly what he just interrupted and finds the whole thing terribly amusing.) "I hear the two of you have a movie marathon planned for today?"

"Yes sir," Hunter manages, nodding toward the mountain of snacks clutched in both his and Willow's arms.

"Well I won't keep you, then. Have fun, you two!" he says, striding back into the living room with his hands stuffed into the pockets of his Kiss The Chef apron, whistling a jaunty tune.

"Remember to keep the door open!" Harvey's disembodied voice calls from the living room couch, where he's all settled in by the fireplace doing his usual weekend crosswords.

"Harvey, don't embarrass them!" Gilbert hisses, swiping his husband's newspaper and playfully swatting him across the shoulder with it.

"What? You remember how we were at their age," Harvey defends, and Willow could almost swear she hears her father giggle.

"Oh my Titan," she groans under her breath, grabbing Hunter by the hand and marching him up the stairs before her parents can embarrass her any further. "Okay, love you both! We're gonna go watch the movie now! Byeeeeeee!"

Hunter can't help but snort with laughter, knowing full well where she picked up that little habit from, all too happy to be tugged along behind her if it means he gets to hold her hand for just a little bit longer.

"How come he always says that when it's just the two of us hanging out?" Hunter asks once they're safely ensconced behind her closed bedroom door. "He never says that when it's you, me, and Gus."

Willow's shoulders stiffen, hand still curled around the doorknob. 

"Oh, well…you know," she says, turning to face him with one of those smiles that tells him she's nervous about something and trying to play it off. "He just…he just gets a little extra protective whenever there's boys involved."

She lets her shoulders fall back against the doorframe, huffing out a laugh that sends a lock of hair that's come loose from one of her braids gently floating into the air, before landing with an adorable little curl on the curve of her cheekbone.

"Gus is a boy," Hunter points out, eyebrows arched in amusement.

"Yeah, but Gus is like my little brother," she says, wrinkling her nose.

"I see," Hunter replies, trying to school his features into a casual smile. "So, what am I?"

"You're—" Willow falters, breath catching in her throat as she realizes just how close he's standing, caught between him and the doorframe. Sometimes she forgets just how tall he is. "You're my friend. You're my— Hunter."

"I'm your Hunter," he repeats in a low voice that really should be illegal, smoother than the rich dark chocolates still clutched in one of her hands.

Hunter's fingertips twitch at his sides, eager to reach forward and brush back that loose lock of hair so perfectly framed around a small dusting of sun-kissed freckles scattered across her cheekbones from all those afternoons spent working in her garden.

"Yes," she says, still a little breathless, heart racing like the wings of her palisman. The box of chocolates slips from her hand, rattling like gunfire in the soft silence of her bedroom. The two of them glance down to glare at the offending thing.

"So, um…movie?" she asks, voice coming out an octave higher than its usual register.

"Oh," Hunter says, shaking his head like he forgot why he was there, absentmindedly taking a few steps back. "Yeah, let's, um…do that."

With a nervous chuckle, Willow brushes past him and climbs onto her bed, lace edges of her pretty floral sundress draped across her knees as she crosses her legs and leans back against the wall. 

She conjures her scroll from thin air, tongue stuck between her teeth in concentration as she searches up the movie on one those streaming sites Belos used to ban, pausing to look up at him expectantly, patting the space beside her. 

Hunter doesn't need telling twice, tripping over his feet as he scrambles in next to her, emptying out his pockets into a small mountain of snacks between them.

"Thanks for the chocolates, by the way," she says, opening the little box of blood orange truffles and popping one into her mouth. "They're my favorite."

"I know," he says, smiling back at her as he takes the one offered in her hand. "That's why I got them."

Willow beams at him, reaching out to press play on the little screen floating between them in the semi-darkness. They end up having to scoot in fairly close so they can both watch the movie on her tiny little scroll, and Willow spends most of the first film hyper aware of the fact that their shoulders and thighs are pressed right up against one another's, stealing glances at him out of the corner of her eye to see whether Hunter is enjoying himself, only to catch him doing the very same thing, the both of them quickly looking away, hoping the darkness of the room will hide their blushing faces.

Once the second movie starts rolling, however, Hunter is enthralled, and Willow has to bite her lip to hold back laughter as he repeatedly points out all the inconsistencies between the books and the movies, absentmindedly shoving handfuls of Hex Mix into his mouth as he scoffs at the screen and throws his hands into the air, vexed by the fact that the iconic boiling rainstorm confession scene was so rushed and out of character, and how the writers drew out the characters' courtship and eventual wedding until the very last film, making it this big dramatic will-they, won't-they, and adding in a stupid love triangle just to stir up trouble. Willow can't help but find it all utterly endearing, remembering how she reacted the very same way back when she and Amity first watched the series together.

The two of them watch with baited breath as Artemis and Ivy's on-screen counterparts share a fairy tale kiss at the altar, screen fading to black as he carries her across the threshold of their cozy little woodland cottage, and Hunter lets out a long, slow breath as some sappy lyrical rendition of the main theme plays over the end credits.

"Huh," he says, sounding equal parts disappointed and relieved.

"What's up?" Willow prompts, turning to look at him as she pauses the screen.

"Hmm?" Hunter asks, snapping out of his little reverie to look at her, unaware that he'd said anything out loud. "Oh, nothing. It's just…the movies are a lot…uh, tamer…than the books," he says, the tips of his ears burning a brilliant shade of red. "Some of the scenes in the book are quite…um…detailed."

"Oh," Willow huffs out a laugh, heat creeping up the back of her neck. "Yeah, they kinda had to tone it down to keep the rating PG-13."

"Which reminds me…weren't you reading this back when you were in middle school?" Hunter asks, quirking an amused eyebrow.

"Yeah, but don't tell my dads because I definitely wasn't supposed to. Me and Amity used to sneak into the older teen section all the time and dare each other to find the spiciest scenes," Willow giggles, thinking back to all the times the two of them used to tease each other for their crushes on Artemis and Malingale the Mysterious Soothsayer.

Willow glances up at Hunter, and can't help but think how much he reminds her of Artemis. Fitting, she supposes, that her very first real life crush would be such a close match to her first fictional crush. She has a type, and it's bad but sad boys.

Just then, Willow's scroll buzzes, glowing bright white in the hazy twilit blue of her bedroom, a vivid purple banner notification dropping down across the top of her screen.

illusion_master: soooooo how's your big date going? :P

Willow scrambles to dismiss the message before Hunter can see it, but judging by the perplexed look on his face, she's too late.

"Is that Gus? What did he mean by big date? Do you…do you have plans with someone else later tonight?" he asks, looking for a moment like someone punched him in the gut.

"Oh! No, he means us," Willow is quick to reassure him, heart skyrocketing into her throat as Hunter's eyebrows jump to meet his hairline. "But he's just joking. He thinks he's being funny, teasing me all because I told him you said 'it's a date' when I asked if you wanted to watch the movies together sometime."

Willow huffs out a little laugh that's just on the side of hysterical, a delicate blush tinging her cheeks pink as she glances up at him with hopeful eyes, almost like she's daring him to confirm it.

"Oh," he says softly. "Well, good. Because this isn't a date."

Willow's heart sinks into the pit of her stomach.

"Oh," she whispers, trying desperately to keep the subtle quaver out of her voice as she casually brushes off the rejection, tears stinging the corners of her eyes. "Yeah, no. Of course. After all, we're just fr—"

"You deserve something way more, you know, big romantic grand gesture for a first date," he says, and Willow's breath catches in her throat. "Like a home-cooked candlelit dinner, or an airship ride over the Isles at sunset, or a trip to the botanical gardens in the forests of the Titan's ribcage."

"I've…been working up the nerve to ask you out for a while now, I just…don't know how to cook without setting Eda's kitchen on fire, and I can't exactly ask Darius to borrow his airship after we crashed the last one, and I'm not even sure the gardens are open this time of year. Hell, I'd make you a ring out of my own heart if I could, like when Artemis proposed to Ivy, but I'm pretty sure I'd die," he says around a small, nervous chuckle, reaching up to attack a phantom itch on the back of his neck.

Willow stares at him, brain going haywire as it tries to decide which part of his statement to process first. He's been wanting to ask her out? For a while now? He wants to cook for her, fly her out over the city on a romantic airship ride, take her out to one of her all-time favorite places on the Isles? Willow only mentioned the botanical gardens once in passing, but he'd clearly been listening and taking note. He wants to give her a…wait, like when Artemis proposed to Ivy???

"You…want to get me an engagement ring?" she blurts out, short-circuited brain zeroing in on that very last detail.

"I—" Hunter falters, a blush redder than all the tomatoes in her garden spreading across his face. "Well, not right now. I can't ask you to marry me before I've even asked you out on a first date."

Willow blinks at him in surprise. They haven't even gone out on one date and he's already decided he wants to marry her?

Oh. Oh wow.

Weren't her dads just telling her a similar story about the first time Gilbert asked out Harvey? And didn't they also meet on a flyer derby field?

Funny how history repeats itself.

"So ask me, then," she says, at a loss to explain where the sudden rush of confidence came from, given how badly her hands are shaking.

Hunter lets out a startled euphoric laugh.

"Okay," he breathes. "Um. Willow Park? Do you want to go out with me?"

Willow's eyes sparkle with mischief, lips curling into a radiant smirk. In lieu of an answer, she tugs him toward her by the collar of his button-down shirt and kisses him, soft and slow. When she pulls back, Hunter is looking at her like she hung all the stars in the night sky, big dopey grin spreading across his tomato red face.

"So, is that a yes, or—" Hunter chuckles, the rest of his words snuffed out as Willow draws him back in for another kiss.

"Yes," she says, punctuating each affirmation with a kiss. First, on the tip of his nose.

"Definitely."

Then, on the soft curve of his cheek.

"Absolutely."

And finally, his lips, marveling at the way they taste like her favorite candy that he brought over just for her.

Elements of this story were inspired by art by raystel

[peonyb]

hi.

so i just finished the game and i really like it. especially the world and story. my favourite RO is Triv.

anyways, i have a few questions:

1.) when you reach the capital and train with your affinity teacher, you have 2 choices: "risk hurting yourself" OR "stop the spell". the first one reduces your affinity aptitude, while the second one increases it. will there be more choices like these, where the wrong choice reduces your stats?

2.) where should i report bugs/grammatical errors? just send them as asks/comments on itch?

3.) ive noticed that there is a pious-stat, which i had 0% in it at the end of the demo. my question is: what does it represent? does 0% mean, the MC is an atheist? or is everyone considered religious and the pious-stat simply represent the intensity of MC´s believe? (meaning 0% = average believer; the higher the stat, the higher the believe?)

4.) this is a more spoilery question, so i understand if you dont answer this one: in which direction will the game roughly go? what i mean is e.g. will the game always lead to the same ending, which slight variations depending on your choices OR will there be multiple paths like loyalist VS rebel?

5.) for me triv was a difficult character to encounter since her interactions were hidden behind venalis. [btw. thank you again for helping me with this back on itch] my question is: for future chapters, do i have to continue to "guess" which character is accompanied by triv OR will future choices have clear indications which character is involved (e.g. instead of "you head to... welling/\venali/\anle" it would be "you head to... welling & em/\venali&triv/\anle")

thank you for your answers

Hello again ♡ I love that Triv is becoming a favorite for some! Questions:

(1) So, this a unique choice as it is all about risk. If you stop as your trainer says, you automatically save yourself from potential injury and get a +5. If you decide to push, the outcome is randomized. Either you end up harming yourself needlessly (-5) or you pull through and succeed (+10). There’s no right or wrong choice.

(2) Asks here or comments on itch.io. I don’t mind either one!

(3) The pious stat is more about Brakkus. It is difficult to deny that he exists, but it is possible to lack faith in the extent of which people say he impacted the development of Navaaria. If it is high enough, there will be instances where the MC may get a feeling or a nudge in direction. Nothing major as true precog is reserved for light affinities.

(4) Interestingly enough, there is already a major split in direction happening from the start. But I’m not sure if many have taken notice.

(5) This is only in the prologue. The initial introductions are that way because not everyone is available right off the bat to ask for help or invite to festivals as you’re all newly acquainted. Sometimes you end up meeting people through mutuals (Triv) or even by accident (Venali and Em). Sometimes people approach you themselves (Welling). The main story (the Golden Academy) will be different. Circumstances will have you frequently interacting with all the ROs and so you’ll have the freedom to just be like: “hey, you!” lol.

[vitalicion]

tekl me more of robloxia: throne of Pixels :p

OH THAT name brings back memories/silly

So basically, It is a Roblox game I have been working on (not really currently because I have been busy)…. I will copy and paste the main plot here.

For the past couple decades, Robloxia has been a striving archipelago, and it has developed much over the years. Robloxia is the main island, split into 4 regions— the North, the East, the South and the West. Everything was peaceful in 2009, until war broke out due to complications with property, and proceeded until the year 2012. The North ended up taking 20% of the Eastern’s land, and the West took 30% of the Southern’s land. After the war (officially named “War of Robloxia”), the kings of Robloxia in 2012 discovered there was a traitor— someone, most likely a higher ranking figure— was processing information to an enemy group who inhabited the Bloxxivelan Islands, southeast to the main island of Robloxia. Since then, for the past 2 years, Robloxia has been trying to track down this traitor… or even worse, traitors (multiple). These complications have led to distrust between the Northern King and Western King, and ever since the war, the North allied with the East, and even worse: some citizens don’t even trust their own regional governments, to a point where they consider moving to different regions just to convince themselves that they are safe.

It’s now the year 2014, and the investigation has been currently put on hold as major developments arise in governments and towns, turning into cities and villages. The island Bloxxivelan is still under much suspicion, and travel is forbidden to citizens. From what the kings of Robloxia know, the Bloxxivelan inhabitants mean trouble, and may be more advanced in their technology compared to Robloxia. Last month, the South sent a military force, and they haven’t been heard from since, and all their devices are now untraceable and possibly destroyed. The Bloxxivelan’s seem dangerous, and could possibly be a huge threat if they traveled to Robloxia, not that any ships or aircrafts have been tracked in the past few years… how could they possibly get a traitor to Robloxia?

The gameplay plays like Blocktales (I like to think it’s more like Pokémon, lol), you just explore and it is more like a… Uh, Choose Your Own Adventure book;; Those things…;

Last time I worked on it was a month ago or so… I’m Ashamed…

But, you play as Jame Studrial (main character) and your friend Josh is an absolute nerd for politics and whatnot. So he goes like, “Oh James we should join the investigation team to find the traitor!” And James is like “Sure I have nothing to do”… since Jame’s father is a high-ranking in the government, and Josh’s brother (Montgomery) is on the investigation team they somehow manage to join…

The Investigation Team is composed of James, James’s Father (Mr. Studrial), Josh and his brother Montgomery, Builderman, “Telamon” (who is really just Shedletsky but no one aside from Builderman knows), and all current three kings and the one queen. Civilians also put in some efforts (though not directly to and with the team) to find the traitor among themselves.

I’m still writing all of it before I script it, so stay tuned! I’m planning at least 3 Chapters, and I had been planning the ending(s) ever since I started it…

[callmesuggarcane]

Gojo's death wasn't the problem

random ramblings on a Tuesday

Now that jjk is coming to an end id like to add that I don’t believe there’s anything that could be changed within the plot line of the story that would help to enhance the overall impact. Instead I would blame the timeline of each occurrence, that led to me feeling as though a few points were rushed through and major moments were anticlimactic—This includes Gojo’s death.

Although, given the chance to bring gojo back I would do it, simply because I enjoy him as a character, I wouldnt go as far as to say his death was menaingless simply because I appreciate the symbolism behind  it whether that was gege’s intention or not.

First of all I want to bring chainsaw man into the equation to capture the feeling of major characters dying but ultimately feeling like a relevant means to an end, because the chapter treated each occurrence with the necessary emotions that such an action evokes no matter how fast it may seem, chainsaw man has been criticised for being slow, but im of the latter opinion as I appreciate the opportunity to dive deep into the psyche of each character, especially when its relevant to the story the author would like to convey, plus I gain unncessary attachments to series I love, which has made me re-read multiple mangas over and over again just because im obsessed with understanding the characters on a fundamental level. So future manga artists, feel free to expand (moving on).

Therefore it was anti-climactic for someone like Gojo that has made an impact in every sorcerers life to be tossed aside in a spontaneous opening—featuring him split in half. Especially considering the fact that within the fight Gege introduced concepts that weren’t previously established to demonstrate how ingenious and powerful gojo was, rivalling the strength of sukuna as he used his reverse curse energy to replace the cursed energy he used up. These principles were something that would’ve done better if we were given a chance to see each concept introduced in tandem. 

The thing with Jujustu Kaisen is, the story that was being weaved had too many points that needed more depth, for something like demon slayer ( another death heavy story that made sense, although sad) the plot was much more simple and handled in a way that befitted the story, I can’t imagine any other way the story could’ve been stretched on, expect the other characters but that isn’t relevant to the plot which was saving nezuko, Nezuko was the goal and focus. The plot for Justusu was finding the fingers and containing sukuna in order to keep yuuji alive longer, so long as sukuna is conatined and yuuji remains alive, the job is getting done  and I believe that had many opportunities for development of the world that was weaved, every character adds dimension to the story, as the depth of the sorcerer world led to many questions that would’ve served better with expansion. Another direct reference is Harry Potter although not a perfect example of a developed plot, imagine if harry found Voldemort  two books in, and we didn’t have the plot lines before that.  A true testament to the world gege was building was how, jujutsu took the world by storm, outside of gege’s beauty of course, it led to questions of how the world functioned. Were there sorcerers outside Japan, what are the family’s like, what kind of curses exist, is there a curse that could rival sukuna, and so on.

gojo was used even in death, and his only solace was his death.

Gojo has always been used, he’s always had a pedestal but he’s always had a target on his back, he had no choice but to be the best from birth, simply because he was born as gojo satoru and he had to become the gojo satoru we know now— the untouchable being— that came from his mortality, that came from the fact the untouchable being wasn’t truly untouchable. Not only was he a jujutsu sorcerer, that had a lower chance of living a full life, but he was the strongest sorcerer. it made sense that everyone would leave the hardest tasks to him, obviously the strongest can handle it, and he would come out unscathed. Unlike me, with my simple cursed technique. Irregardless of Gojo’s strength there was a disregard towards his life from the get go, was anyone truly worried about him, has anyone ever prayed for Gojo to come back safely. Who knows.

Not to mention how he found a comrade in Geto, whom he believed understood him on level no one could, but after his ascension that came from his first death, Gojo was finally alone…. from that point I believe his first death was his final death, Gojo became the perfect machine to the system.

Anyways, that’s why I believe gojo’s death wasn’t the problem in jujutsu rather it was a brilliant point that served to be expanded upon further and externalised in a poignant manner befitting of his tragic story.

 In fact, Itadori, would’ve had the opportunity to go through a proper development arc that would’ve made use of the potential the characters kept insisting on, and the Shibuya arc would’ve happened much later in the series, it wouldve given us attachment, proper backstories, opportunities for development etc. Megumi is within the same predicament, and Nobara.

[age-of-moonknight]

Helloo

If im not bothering you too much, may I ask what you know about the cia?

I know it may not be a question related to moon knight, or maybe it could be, but im kinda interested to know the basics at least and you seem to know a lot about it

Btw, i absolutely adore your blog

Hello!!! :D I'm so glad that you enjoy this blog and thanks for stopping by! Although, well,,,,hm,,,maybe it's just my rabid paranoia sinking its claws even deeper into me, but this is one of the more interesting asks I've gotten for this blog, that's for sure. 😅 For perhaps some context, I think anon might be referencing this post I made, gosh, close to two years ago now, where I got....maybe a little too excited talking about the history of the CIA and what Marc's time with The Company could mean for his character hahaha Accordingly, a full rundown on the agency's history, not to mention its many, many facets, is probably a bit outside the purview of this blog, but this is then a good time to state that if anyone ever wants to talk about anything and everything besides Moon Knight, my dms are always open and I'm happy to chat! However,,,I also have an affliction where I am an incorrigible pedant who jumps at the chance to write essays on things that interest me (and intelligence interests me very, very much, unfortunately). As such, while all my instincts are telling me this is absolutely glowing bait on a hook, if anyone wants to read a rambling wall of text about that agency Marc spent some time with, that will be waiting for you under the cut. Again, disclaimer, I'm just some person on the internet and thus can't really be considered a credible source on much of anything (except maybe how many times Moon Knight has teamed up with the Punisher hahaha). All the following info could easily be gathered from OSINT sources (and we're talking, like, Wikipedia, although this gave me the chance to pull out one of my favorite textbooks, Intelligence: From Secrets to Policy by Mark Lowenthal (vol. 7). If you're the textbook reading-type and interested in the topic, I'd suggest giving it a shot, particularly chapters 2 and 3 for the CIA and the U.S.' broader intelligence community). I tried to keep this incredibly surface level, as these are all topics that you could write monographs on, so if you want more sources/context, just hit me up! This also got,,,,unreasonably long (I didn't even know tumblr HAD a point where it would stop autosaving, but apparently trying to list all of the CIA's crimes against humanity will get you there), so I ended up having to split this across multiple posts.

Conception I discussed it in my previous post, but I'll give a brief rundown on how the Central Intelligence Agency came to be. So, the United States had intelligence organs pre-World War II, but they would typically only be spun up for however long a conflict lasted and then all of their assets would be reintegrated back into the military, da? But then with the end of WWII ushering in the atomic age and nuclear deterrence pushing out conventional conflict in favor of an espionage-fueled Cold War, the U.S. government deemed it prudent to have a permanent intelligence gathering service. There was just one hiccup, the question of what to do with the U.S.' WWII-era intelligence service, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). Under the leadership of the very descriptively nicknamed Brigadier/Major General William "Wild Bill" Donovan, OSS officers had been running around conducting sabotage and espionage operations throughout Europe and Asia, doing wild things like working with an underground intelligence network of European Catholic priests and coordinating with the 20 July plot/Operation Valkyrie assassination attempt on Hitler. They were the very definition of irregular, British officials accused them of "playing cowboys," and the U.S.' massive post-war military organization was loathe to have to find some way to force OSS officers into the military's necessary uniformity, so in 1947, after a couple years of bureaucratic shuffling, the OSS apparatus got pasted onto this new intelligence agency that was so far,,,rather bookish and the CIA as we know it was born. This divide, between the incredibly Ivy League analysts and the more martial remnants of the OSS that got folded in was a contributor to the two major branches of the CIA (and their infamous intra-agency rivalry), so this perhaps a good segue into the CIA's different internal departments, its "directorates."

There are the two ogs, the Directorate of Operations and the Directorate of Analysis, and then the newer Directorates of Digital Innovation, Support, plus Science & Technology. (Note: this is as the agency stands now; there have been some fluctuations in structure and naming conventions over the years).

The Directorate of Operations (DO) needs little introduction, as it's the legacy of the OSS and what most people think of when they hear the word "espionage," the kind of work one individual once described to me as "fast cars, nice suits, and unlimited spending" (hope he's still out there and doing well). They're your politically deniable boots on the ground collecting HUMINT (human intelligence such as handling contacts and the like) and executing covert actions. It contains the ultimate sharp point of the spear, the Special Activity Center (SAC) with its Political Action Group (PAG), which spreads black propaganda, influences elections, and conducts other psychological operations, and the Covert Action Group (CAG), which draws operators from the military's special forces programs to form their own direct action, counter-intel/counter-terror, unconventional warfare, paramilitary group (they have a very diverse set of martial skills). Naturally, most recipients of the U.S. intelligence community's highest honors, the Intelligence Star and Distinguished Intelligence Cross are from the SAC. Most of the stars on the CIA HQ's Wall of Honor, which memorializes officers who died in service of the CIA, represent SAC officers too, however.

The Directorate of Analysis (DA), in contrast, doesn't get enough love, despite making up nearly half of the CIA for decades. Whereas the DO mainly collects the intelligence through various means, the DA has the people who take the raw intel and try to turn it into something digestible for policy makers (whether that means just translating the intel into basic English or proposing whole, wide-sweeping policy strategies has varied across the agency's history depending on its professionalism and the degree of government oversight at the time). They get so overshadowed despite being a key part of the intelligence cycle, it's almost not funny hahaha (I kid you not, the official CIA website not only has a "kids" section with an online coloring book that depicts the various directorates as heroes, but it even went so far as to depict the DO with a rather dashing hat and cape,,,,while they gave the representation of the DA glasses and a briefcase, I weep hahaha). However, if you've ever heard a stereotype of the CIA actually being made up of a bunch of incredibly Ivy League, smart but cliquey, uncomfortably cold (both in manner and strategy) eggheads, that would be because of the DA. That's a very disparaging stereotype,,,,but it got its start from somewhere. It's still the CIA after all, and there have been times in the institution's history where the only thing to distract the DA from its intra-agency pissing contest with the more domineering DO was to shield the CIA from any sort of external government or other agency encroachment on the CIA's "purview."

Probably the next most established division would be the Directorate of Science & Technology (DST). Whereas the DO is predominantly HUMINT and the DA works closest with policy makers, the DST is the one expanding the CIA's technological capacity to deal with CBRN threats (chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear), and collect SIGINT (signals intelligence over radio waves and the like), IMINT (image intelligence as from satellites), and GEOINT (geological intelligence monitoring seismographs to, for example, detect if a nation is doing underground nuclear tests). Intel collection is only as good as the tools used and naturally intelligence agencies all around the world are constantly trying to leapfrog each other in capabilities, circumvention, and denial (preventing adversarial interest's collection efforts, that is).

Similarly, the most recent division is the Directorate of Digital Innovation (DDI), which is similar to the DST, but the DDI is focused almost entirely on cyberwarfare/espionage. They also seem to be doing a lot with OSINT ("open-source" intelligence, AKA any information you can access without a security clearance). OSINT used to be a bit of a joke in the intelligence community ("so, it's just what you read in the paper this morning??? That puts it one step above LAVINT: intelligence collected by overhearing conversations in the lavatory"), but with the explosion of information made available by the modern internet landscape and social media, you can go far with OSINT. (If you too salivate over the potential OSINT, maybe checkout Bellingcat if you haven't already)

Lastly but not least, there's the Directorate of Support, who are all the people who keep The Company running smoothly, managing logistics, comms, security at CIA sites, and overseeing officer training.

So yeah, I've alluded to the DA's and DO's rivalry, so maybe I should talk about inter- and intra-agency competition and the hot water those things have got the CIA in over the years. Maintaining an effective intelligence community is a tricky thing, particularly in a nation trying its best to be democratic and at least nominally respect human rights. You want officers to be able to collect intelligence, but you can't let them have so much free rein they rough up the nation's own citizens with impunity (as that's a bad look and can lead to civilian push back that could not only hurt the regime but handicap intelligence gathering in the future) and you definitely don't want an intelligence agency getting so much power it feels like it can start dictating a nation's policy instead of just advising on it. (Plus, the absolute nightmare scenario of an agency that's gone completely off the rails and no longer bothers much with consulting on politics at all, but just operates completely independently). Thus, to prevent the intelligence community from getting too big for its own good, a little competition, a little checks-and-balances from within the intelligence community can be beneficial. The drive by one intel group to outperform another (and consequently get more recognition/funding/etc.) can lead to a mutual improvement of the products that end up on a policy maker's desk. Having said that, I hope I explained it in such a way where you might see the issue with the CIA being the U.S.' singular, domineering force in the federal intelligence community for decades. The DA and DO had their marked cultural divide, but the CIA had very little competition from other agencies and, for example, had their ultimate weapon: the President's Daily (intel) Brief. The CIA, due to its vast capabilities, for years had the privilege of providing the president with (what the CIA deemed to be) the most important intel topics of the day. Accordingly, particularly during the Cold War before government oversight of the CIA really kicked up, this allowed the CIA to sway the government towards some at best politically questionable and more critically ethically deplorable policy choices.

Yeah, having gotten this far, I don't think I've made it clear that, for as much as I am fascinated by and spent,,,,a lot of resources studying subjects such as intelligence and terrorism, I am fully cognizant and never quite cease to be outraged by the injustice that permeates those fields. The CIA for sure, with its vast resources and the outsized role the United States played in meddling in international affairs during the Cold War and on, is a chief and, now, well-documented offender. I'm sure CIA intelligence collection and guidance has prevented many attacks we'll never know about, but you can't talk about the CIA without discussing the actions that directly resulted in thousands dead. Let's go over some of their greatest hits, shall we? (And that takes me so long I have to put it in a whole other post).

[sylusheart]

hi there <3 welcome to my blog! :3 i write for shits and giggles and i post all of my works on ao3, you can find the link to my acc here.

but i also post some of my one-shots here on tumblr too (i only post the ones that are 'one part' long directly on tumblr - sometimes i tend to write one-shots that end up getting split into two/three parts because it becomes too long or i just do it for easier access to specific bits of the story) ♡

in my masterlist below you can find the direct links to my fics; if the fic is uploaded on tumblr (meaning if it's a one-shot) the link will take you to the tumblr post for it first but the ao3 link will still be accessible and shown on that page if you'd like to read it on there instead!┊ ˚➶ ｡˚ ☁️

this is my one and only blog because i'm not too used to the idea of having multiple blogs idk that sorta overwhelms me atm lmao (i'm not so familliar with tumblr but hopefully overtime i'll get more comfier on here and how things work...) but usually all my posts are just devil may cry :D though i tend to write/shitpost abt other stuff too such as call of duty, final fantasy vii/xv, resident evil, k-pop, love and deepspace + more! but yeah that's basically me summed up :p

here's a masterlist of my current works and wips for ao3! i've included a key at the bottom of this section with a detailed explanation on the labels i attach to my titles :3

-------˖⁺. ༶ ❤︎ ⋆˙⊹ 𐦍 ˖⁺. ༶ ❤︎ ⋆˙⊹-------

devil may cry

╰┈➤ ❝ serenity (on-going) vergil x fem!reader ❞

╰┈➤ ❝ cowboy like me (2 part one-shot) dante x fem!reader ❞ WIP

╰┈➤ ❝ made for me (one-shot) nico x fem!reader ❞ WIP

╰┈➤ ❝ heavy chain (one-shot) vergil x fem!reader ❞ WIP

╰┈➤ ❝ awakened (on-going) vergil x fem!reader ❞ WIP

love and deepspace

╰┈➤ ❝ candles for caleb (one-shot) caleb x fem!reader ❞ WIP

╰┈➤ ❝ mile high club (one-shot) xavier x fem!reader ❞ WIP

call of duty

╰┈➤ ❝ king of it all (one-shot) könig x fem!reader ❞

╰┈➤ ❝ barracks bunny (2 part one-shot) ghost x fem!reader ❞ WIP

k-pop

╰┈➤ ❝ a little jealousy (one-shot) shownu x fem!reader ❞

╰┈➤ ❝ heartstopper (one-shot) nayeon x fem!reader ❞ WIP

resident evil

╰┈➤ ❝ revival (one-shot) wesker x fem!reader ❞ WIP

╰┈➤ ❝ cabin fever (one-shot) leon kennedy x ashley graham ❞ WIP

vicious/villains duology

╰┈➤ ❝ elevating desires (one-shot) victor vale x eli ever ❞

star wars

╰┈➤ ❝ restless nights (discontinued) anakin x fem!reader ❞

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ key:

(on-going): this means it’s a fic that has depth to it, in other words: a long fic! it's something i'm continously writing and it has a thick enough plot to divide into multiple chapters. i try to update as regularly as i can. you can subscribe to the fic on ao3 so you'll get email updates whenever i post!

(discontinued): this means it's a long fic that i've abandonned and won't ever be going back to. this can be due to multiple reasons but i don't tend to drop my fics if i have a good story lying underneath them, so if you do see a discontinued fic on my page it probably wasn't something i was willing to remaster/extend on in the first place.

(completed): this means it's a long fic that has multiple chapters and has been edited a couple of times but probabably not edited to perfection. you won't have to wait for me to update as the entire story is available.

(one-shot): a quick fic that is only one chapter long, these are usually unedited and raw - they're just undeveloped quick bursts of ideas i try to write down asap, but i don't usually stretch them out into full-blown fics.

(2/3 part one-shot): i aim to make my one-shot fics just one chapter long but sometimes they get a little lengthy; it just feels wiser to just seperate the whole thing into a few parts. i never go over 3 parts, because if i do i would classify that as one of my 'long fics'.

(editing): if one of my fics has 'editing' beside the title that probably means i'm primarily focusing on updating that particular fic and i won't be working on other fics for the time being until i have completed editing, i usually go into an editing phase after every 10 chapters i upload on that specific fic, meaning i don't re-edit my one-shots no matter how many parts they are - my one-shots are always going to be raw first drafts and will most likely have mistakes.

i'm open for requests, if you'd like me to drop some headcannons or if you want to ask me if i could write up any possible fic ideas i will be more than happy to consider your suggestions! just drop me a dm or ask me anonymously <3

anyway thanks for reading this far, i'm super excited to make more works and share them with everyone :3 kudos and comments are so very appreciated (they motivate me fr) and in general i just love interacting with others so please don't hesitate to!

[linkspooky]

Your Choujin X writeups are great, it's a shame the fandom is so small that they get relatively few notes. I'm glad you appear to have a more sympathetic view of Azuma than most CX readers I've seen. I think I remember you predicting before the time skip that Azuma would be the one to leave Yamato Mori, but recent chapters look more like Tokio will diverge from them - any predictions for the how our main trio may be split up?

This is a great question anon, and my answer is... I dunno. By which I mean to me it could go either way at this point. Me and my friend have actually debated on this, which one is more likely to side Sora and which one is going to stay with Yamato Mori. I'm still leaning towards Azuma leaving Yamato Mori, but there's evidence for both sides of either Azuma or Tokio leaving. Predictions about the Azuma and Tokio breakup underneath the cut.

Evidence of Azuma Leaving

The first piece of evidence is that Azuma is pretty clearly headed for a negative character arc, to parallel with Tokio's growth. While Tokio grows more self-confident and independent, Azuma in turn starts to feel inferior and resentful. Azuma states it pretty clearly at the end of their first fight, he's no longer Tokio's hero, the relationship they had in the past where he was the one who Tokio looked up to is gone now. Azuma can't really handle the shifting power dynamic because he was as dependent on Tokio as Tokio was on him.

Instead of bridging the gap in their relationship, Tokio leaving has made Azuma even more distant from him. Azuma isn't even on speaking terms with Tokio right now. When he's introduced to Tokio, the first thing he learns is that Tokio freed an entire province from a dictator while Azuma just a few days ago failed to stop a plane crash resulting in the deaths of so many people.

It's not like Azuma wasn't training while Tokio was gone, and yet from Azuma's perspective it seems like Tokio is still leaps and bounds ahead of him. Which could push him to conclude that Yamato Mori is not enough, either out of a desire to be stronger, or personal resentment for Tokio.

Evidence number two, Tokio and Azuma are a clear parallel to Sandek and Batista. The two of them trained alongside each other to be heroes, probably all their lives, only for one of them to betray the other. Batista is the one who either left Yamori, or fled after his brother attempted to kill him. Azuma is the Batista in that parallel, he has the ability that's less powerful than Tokio's, and Batista has multiple times took a vested interest in him even asking Zora if she could hand off Azuma to him.

Azuma also made Tokio promise to kill him if he ever went rogue, which is another parallel to Sendak being commanded by their profit to kill Batista.

Why go so far to make this continued parallel throughout the story, unless Batista was planning on inviting Azuma to their side?

The third is more recent and may just be me going out on a limb here, but Azuma met this clearly supsicious girl searching for corpses on the beach, and didn't really investigate into her any further. Noh Mask met with her shortly after this scene and dragged her into a bigger conspiracy with The Tower / Zora's followers, so she's going to be plot relevant and the fact she ran into Azuma isn't a coincidence. After all, every single detail that happens in a story is purposefully put there by the author to mean something. IE, if they ran into each other once it's likely they'll run into each other again.

One more important detail is, Azuma's not dumb. He found her right next to a washed up corpse, and even the girl thought she was done before at that point. Only for Azuma to quickly change his tune and act totally oblivious. This is the face he makes, before he smiles and offers her crabs instead. It's likely he actually knew what she was doing there, but for some reason decided to let her go, maybe to investigate her further instead of blowing his cover right there.

While Tokio is the one who is more curious right now about hearing what Zora has to say, he's also steadily growing and gaining influence in Yamato Mori.

It's Tokio of all people who spoke up against the Opium mission, and Tokio who convinced the higher ups to listen to his plan instead. He's once again the one gaining more strength and confidence, while Azuma's position in Yamato is stagnating. Sato even makes a comment along the lines of Yamato's soldiers not being what they once were.

If Azuma isn't making progress with the Yamato Mori, if he's stagnating and not getting any better that's even more reason for him to want to leave.

Evidence of Tokio Leaving

The first and most obvious is that Zora is pretty desperate to choose Tokio as her successor. Tokio is also the one who seemed to have inherited the most power from Zora, as she comments that being an iron choujin makes Azuma unworthy of the mark. In the parallel between the big three Choujin X of the past, Tokio is clearly the parallel to Zora, he uses the same wings and scythe swords she did. Azuma is the parallel to Queem because they both use recurring tank and gun imagery in association with their characters, and Azuma's choujin power seems to have come about because of his obsession with war, weapons, the military, etc...

Tokio is also the only one who's spoken in favor of listening to Zora about her prophecy. Azuma's been keeping his head down the entire time just listening to orders in Yamato Mori, Ely even points out that Azuma didn't speak up when he disagreed with Tokio. It's Tokio who's questioning authority and speaking up directly in front of them.

Tokio is also the first person who sympathizes with Zora, when the whole of Yamato Mori who are the ones who cast her out seem only intent on hunting her down. He's expressed a clear interest in talking to her.

Tokio also has been diagnosed with a clear case of Kaneki Ken SyndromeTM! By which I mean Ishida Sui reuses ideas from previous works all the time, and in Tokyo Ghoul his last manga he had the hero defect from Anteiku when he became too afraid that he lacked the strength to protect his friends. Tokio seems to suffer from a similiar fear of losing people. He even resolves to strike Zora down if the danger becomes too much and just ignore her prophecy.

Tokio has also already left once, leaving both Ely and Azuma without a word because he feels he'd become too dependent on them if he stayed. His growth was also jumpstarted when after the island arc he wasn't able to contribute a single thing in the battle because he wasn't strong enough. He could leave for a similiar reason, if Yamato Mori isn't enough to protect his friends he could try to go off on his own and work from the outside instead.

The last piece of evidence is that we still have Tokio's prophetic dream to worry about. Considering Tokio shares so many of Zora's powers, he might have even inherited some of her future seeing.

Tokio hasa dream of a ruined Yamato, and an Azuma who turns around to face him and declares that the disaster is all his fault. Tokio defecting / siding with Zora could start the chain of events which leads to this. In a version where Tokio defects, we could see an arc of Tokio joining with Zora, only for Azuma to hunt him down while working with Yamato Mori.

It still fits the general pattern I outlined before of their positive and negative charater arcs, if Azuma stayed with Yamato Mori he might become more like a blind servant to justice, hunting down Tokio no matter what the cost without listening to his friend. Especially if Tokio really is the cause of a disaster.

To mention Ishida's previous work again, Tokio shares a lot of parallels to Arima Kishou, to the point of even wearing glasses like him and having worsening eyesight. The fact that Arima for most of his life was a blind follower of the CCG is not a good thing and led to his tragic ending as a character. So Azuma's character could follow the same general pattern if he chooses to stay with Yamato Mori and hunt down Tokio after he defects.

There's plenty of evidence for either side of the argument, so we may just have to wait and see how it plays out. Considering it's Ishida though, it'll probably be painful when the boys finally do break up.

[tmwcs]

Yes I can see that Heethan is popular here on your blog, i mean we can’t blame them can we I suppose? Lol, the way you write and portray him have people hooked even managing to look past the blaring red flags haha. And yes if I have any more questions I will be sure to ask! I have an interest in psychology so I like that bit of extra information to satisfy that curious itch; why is Heeseung is the way he is? What happened, Was he always like this or did something trigger the split? Did he have an iffy upbringing or was there always a darkness in him? But I suppose we will find out in future chapters so I’m happy to wait for the explanation I know the rest of the series will be great as always!!

And ooh seeing that you mentioned it, I briefly read through the first chap of se7en after reading the synopsis and man!! Is that right up my alley! The characters seem very interesting (all one of the seven sins I love that) and I see there’s multiple chapters for all the boys (although I do already know she’s Heeseung’s from the get go haha). I will definitely be indulging in that series too.

Seeing as MT is reaching its peak i will be reading that first so I’m all caught up before it finishes♥️

Its funny you mentioned your interest in psychology because i took quite a bit of classes in my college program, and that somewhat helped me draft up heethan's character. depending on what arc you're in, with MGR being the first arc, MRE the second, and HHP the third and ongoing, if you haven't reached HHP yet, you'll find alot of the questions you have will be answered in that arc 😉 heethan is just a very interesting character, he's actually my favorite to write about because i always find the alter ego aspect so intriguing, the whole Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde effect, where he can switch from gentle to rough in a split second at will. its' very interesting and there's never a boring moment. I think the red flags is what also makes him addicting, because yes, he is sooooooo toxic, obssessive, possessive, and just downright insane, but its all stemming from his insatiable love for his y/n. I didn't have a full understanding of the 'yandere' term when i started the series, but i knew that's where i wanted his character to lead to, so i started him off as a nice guy, then after seeing y/n he became a soft yandere, then it just grew from there and onto the hard yandere he is right now. it's very fitting since he's a dominant and intimidating type. so all of that combined just really makes him a fascinating person. i just love how, despite his flaws....which are very heavy, he loves his y/n to the ends of the earth. its twisted and romantic lol. which i love.

MT and SE7EN are both great series. if you like heethan, you'll love heelel. ofc we love heedam and since MT is at a very good spot right now, i think you all will swoon for heedam lol. but def let me know your thoughts when you finish the SE7EN series bc i love talking about it and the MGR series. Once MT and DT is finished, i know everyone is going to be buzzing about heedam and heebros. omg DT is reaching a climactic spot that may shock alot of the readers. 😉

[darkx-the-dragon-kn1ght]

Chapter 1- Part 1

By the way- since Tumblr has a limit on how many images someone can put on a single post, I’ll need to be splitting these updates into multiple parts. No worries, though- I’ll make sure to keep all posts corresponding to specific chapters linked up with each other.

So now, let’s boot up the game! If you wanna download it yourself and give it a try, you can find the download on the official website.

I gotta say, just looking at this title screen with my own eyes is getting me excited already. Starting a new game always does that for me- a fresh new experience, new adventure!

Also can I just say this title screen music goes so hecking hard, like this is a jam, holy crud- 

Okay enough waiting around, let’s actually get this started...

And by that I mean mess around with the control scheme for a moment-

Would it have been easier to just leave the controls at their default? Maybe, but I just prefer using WASD to move around, yell at me in the notes for my setup if it satisfies you.

Ah, and here we are at our character selection! I like the ticket styling here, and from the first look the sprites look good. Though- is that the Gen 3 style of spritework? All tiny like that? I probably shoulda expected that when they said it was “Emerald-styled”, actually-

It also doesn’t look like any of them have a set gender at default, I think? It seems like it’s just split between “black hair, blondie, or white anime hair (affectionate)”- either way, everyone here looks GNC has heck and I love that for all of them. 

Still, none of these really match what I really look like, so…I’ll go with the white-haired one at the end, just to see what happens when I pick them-

Ah, you can pick your gender regardless of which avatar you choose! Neat! I’m gonna look edgy and no one can stop me-

Also, as you can see, my character’s name for this playthrough will be “X”- that’s the name I typically choose for myself when naming characters in games like this, and Reborn will be no different.

Also, you guys can’t hear this because it’s just images, but like- I think this ticketmaster is doing all of this on a typewriter?? Because when all that other stuff (ARR, Seat Number, etc.) was being inputted, the audio was typewriter sounds?? I thought the ticket UI was just for the aesthetic, but- is this station actually that old???

Hello??? Sir??? We have technology, you know that, right????

The old fence post that is your workspace apparently-

You know, I’m a little curious about that myself- why are we going to Reborn City? Is the player character gonna have a backstory of some sort? The regular Pokémon protagonists have backstories, even if it’s usually as simple as “you’ve lived in this town your whole life, you turn a certain age, now take this starter and go forth and fight Trainers to become the very best”, but it’s there still. 

What’s this character’s motivation? Is that something I’ll have to come up with for myself? Audience surrogate taken to the max? Because I can do that, I can work with that-

Ambition- is that our true motivation? Or is that merely the perception of the ancient ticketmaster? Questions to be answered later, I'm sure.

AW YEAH, TRAIN SOUNDS (and the background is doing a moving effect too, but again you can’t see it through the screenshot, alas)

Oh honey we viewed them quite closely not too long ago, I think we’re good-

Nice animation with the train we got going here, interesting to see that multi-colored emblem from the title screen on it…again, implications to be answered later.

Oh? Those are the other avatar characters we could have picked. Are they going to be NPCs or something? You know, like in Gen III with Brendan/May or Gen IV with Lucas/Dawn or Legends Arceus with Rei/Akari?

Also, this BGM for being on the train here slaps, the music is pretty good so far.

Man, lots of white-haired folk around here, who’s this now?

Ah, a recruiter- so the others are more Trainers, like us. Again- are they going to be NPCs since they aren’t the player character? They must have canon names or something, but there’s definitely a lot of them- eh, we’ll just have to see.

Next

[consumerofsoup]

Hi. Me again. So I don't know how long your fic is going to be but there have been a few ideas bumping around in my head since I sent that last ask I'd like to share

Not sure how much you're going to lean into the horror aspect of Daryl's POV, but while it may sound contradictory, humor is a big part of making effective horror! If the audience is tense all the time, eventually they become numb to it and the media isn't as scary. But having lighter moments - places where the audience feels safe, times where the characters/audience feel powerful (ie finding a weapon to turn monsters into paste), and/or humor - lessens that tension so that fear remains throughout the entirety of the game/book/movie's runtime. It may even lull them into a false sense of security so the return of the horror has a bigger impact.

So this is why I propose: the B plots! Again, not sure how long you're planning this fic to be but these are some ideas I came up with that I couldn't help but share. You mentioned that Daryl isn't the only one there, so I'm putting Sol/Frederick, Jack-O'/Aria, Dizzy, and Zappa on the human side, and Asuka + his goop troop on the mer side for some flavor (with Slayer and Sharon in the background watching all this unfold laughing themselves silly). Everyone is in a different genre. Dizzy is in a slice of life scifi showing off all her discoveries to her family. Jack-O' and I-No are in an enemies to lovers slow burn. Zappa is in a detective novel trying to figure out why tech outside the base keeps malfunctioning and his snacks are being stolen (Asuka is curious about humans and also a good wingman). Sol and Raven are locked in an increasingly petty prank war (gone wrong)(gone sexual)

By some miracle none of these plots ever intersect, narrowly missing each other until close to the end. Daryl is losing his mind thinking something is trying to kill them while Chaos is eating poetic about this cute human he found to anyone within earshot. It's a glorious mess. I just woke up so I hope this makes sense haha

oh don't fret this makes so so much sense!!! when I first read this I decided to skip sleep so I could spend all night plotting not evil schemes, but mermay and decided to wait for Dual Rulers, but this still made 100% sense despite me being very sleep deprived!!!

in my half-baked-slash-almost-fully-baked plot, I kind of have Chaos as the sole mercreaturething for plot reasons, he gets to be the one (1) anomoly in the area. which partially sad because I can't have a whole mercreature gang, but also a major relief because holy shit was making up a design for Chaos (and having to put it into words BLERGH) was so very time consuming, I can't imagine having to do that for multiple characteras sobgsn

the short version of who I think I'm gonna send to the bottom of the ocean to study fish and coral reefs without my very complex reasoning is Ky and Leo (obviously), Asuka, Zappa, Testament, and Faust. also I'm thinking Johnny arrives claiming he's here to be the new captain (lies) and resident gambler (not lies). but they are all humans because again, I could not think up designs I think would be worthy of Asuka and his goop troop

WHICH ALSO MEANS if you end up fleshing these ideas into a fic, I AM SO READY. because holy shit your B-plots sound fantastic. Sol and Raven in a petty prank war that's perfect. Jack-O' and I-No enemies to lovers slow burn oh my god this is perfect. AND NONE OF THEM EVER INTERSECT. beautiful. amazing. stunning

also I just have to give a bit more about my almost ready to write fic (god I need to finish my other fics): I have the exposition stuff, first inital bad vibes, a second bad vibes time while out and about, and then a third and maybe a fourth too??? still figuring that stuff out, BUT I plan on doing either one or two chapters

the first one is pretty much split in two parts; first half is the horror, and the second part **spoiler alert except it's not really a spoiler because ofc it's gonna happen and I think I already said it in my inital mermay post** is Chaos breaking into the base and Daryl finding him so interesting that his curiosity wins over the idea that he might be prey, and the horror kind of ends in an anticlimactic finish because in reality, Chaos is just a critter, he's just a fella, he's just a curious guy. he's got no malicious intent, he's just interested in Daryl

((basically all I'm saying life is that if you want to throw a living garden gnome my way, I will treat it tenderly even if it wants to steal my soul))

and knowing me the second chapter will be very fluff. very explain. very Chaos learning human stuff scarily fast. and also deep sea caves. psa: never go cave diving you will die

(((ALSO SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG TO REPLY TO; I HAD A LONG WEEK AND EVEN TYPED UP A REPLY BUT THEN JUST KINDA FORGOT. I VERY MUCH APPRECIATE THE ASK, IT INSPIRED SOME IDEAS FOR MY FIC!! THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!!)))

[aparticularbandit]

you know what.

no.

i have an extra three weeks in may.

that means:

i can split next week's chapter into two chapters because it really does feel like a chapter break but i didn't want to be one week into the new month and make that change AND NOW I CAN.

i do not want to try and get that much of oalh and the dr haruhi crossover fic done in a month. i don't want to only have two months for trying to finish the rough of oalh. i want to wait until july to start posting it so i have a better idea of all the things.

the dr haruhi crossover fic that i want between oafc and oalh is already in its fifth chapter, and that's not going to be the final chapter of that fic. i don't want to be posting multiple chapters a week of the dr haruhi crossover again like last time. i may end up there anyway, but having more space for that would be nice. and if i try to shove it in those three weeks of may, then it would be at least two chapters a week. and i don't want to do that.

so.

uh.

splitting one of these oafc chapters into two means that the last chapter date is tentatively may 12, and then i will take the next month and a half off before the first chapter of oalh goes up on july 7.

there's a possibility i may also add in a short kyoko pov chapter (the one that i thought was in here but is missing), but i want to look over the beginning of oalh and see if i cover that there.

also if i add a kyoko chapter, then that messes with some of the twists, and like. i think right now i would rather not.

....

also if i added one, next monday would be the place to put it, and i don't know that i want to try and add a full chapter there.

to be fair, today would have been the place to put it, maybe. and i just.

mmmmm.

don't think i'm gonna do that.

so. looks like may 12 as the final oafc chapter date and july 7 as the first oalh chapter date.

and i feel better about that.

[lyresandlapins]

Of Lyres and Lapins - Chapter 3 (“Springtime at Cindersap Village”)

So.. I got sidetracked. A lot. I didn’t mean to, but hoo did life get busy for a moment or two. Sorry about that.

But, hopefully, I’ll be back on track until the end of the month. I’ve got a lot of catching up to do, so expect a chapter a day from here on out. Let’s hope this story is worth the wait!

–

Translator’s Notes: I have been advised by my proofreader to stop titling the chapters by when the scene and/or event took place. To give some credit to aforementioned proofreader, the events from here on out range from multiple places to the same place over a couple of days. I will try to do better, but do not be surprised if old habits refuse to die at times.

The following events (though split into two “chapters” due to time constraints on my part) is a combination of various records— Though most of this relies on the account of one Old Dale and the journal entries of someone who clearly learned about the travelling bard’s story months after the fact. I would have used the bard’s account, but it appears that she didn’t record this part of her travel anywhere. I would accuse her of arrogance unbefitting of her trade, but that would be ridiculous for reasons you will soon see.

—

The Springtime sun vanished behind the hills of Cindersap. All was quiet, save for the stragglers leaving the Cedarsap Inn. They chattered amongst themselves— Talking about seeing each other at sunrise or complimenting the bard who had just finished playing. “Not bad for someone who calls herself an amateur,” one of the patrons said to his friend. “If she keeps on playing that fiddle, then she’ll be able to entertain th’ Guards of the Iron Kingdom!”

“As if!” called out another as he swung open the door. “Her fiddle may have been tuned just fine, but her songs made me sick! It’s a wonder I can stand, let alone talk.”

“That’s because your body’s been the type to stomach only the sunnier keys,” retorted the first, rolling his eyes. “Anything more moody or ‘strange’, and you’ll be hurling into the nearest trough in the stable— A shame that you’d be fully responsible, since Ol’ Dale outright said tonight was a more ‘minor keys’ sort of affair.”

The second patron just shook his head, then hobbled past the pair. He muttered something in the key of F Major, his notes straining as he battled to not hurl. “Poor ol’ Haystack,” the first man half-smiled. “Let’s hope he can cheer up before work tomorrow.”

As these gentlemen went their own ways, the bard herself exited through a side door. She held out her hand as Ol’ Dale gave her several coins. “Careful making your way back to the cabin, now,” Dale said with some uneasiness. “I hear that some bards are being struck by some Winter’s Wiles in their sleep. Must be something in the air ‘round that cabin, I reckon.”

The bard stashed her pay in her cloth belt. “Winter’s Wiles, huh?” she asked thoughtfully, looking intently at him. “Are you sure it’s not something else that just feels like it?”

“No, ma’am,” Dale replied, shaking his head. “They got the bluish whites in the eyes and everything. Some of ‘em were rambling about a lady called The Songbird Queen, if you can believe it.”

The bard fooled with a strand of her rosy pink hair. Her eyes lazily drifted from left to right, then refocused. “I’ll let you know if I see her, then,” she concluded casually, adjusting her carrying case as she turned to leave. “With my playing skills, I bet she’ll ignore me and go for somebody else.” She gave a toothy smile as she looked back, but Dale remained unconvinced. Nevertheless, she bid him a ‘Til the next sun rises!’ and strolled down the main street.

Dusk settled into night as the bard travelled a solitary road. She whistled a simple tune, letting her eyes wander as she went. The forest glowed with a mixture of wild bright-berries and darting fireflies. Any glimpse of the pinkish Blossom Moon was covered by an abundance of dark purple clouds. The typical springtime breeze was likewise absent, which made the bard finally pay attention. She stopped whistling. Her brisk walk slowed to a crawl. All of what we would call “superstitions”— both from her childhood and from her travels— crossed her mind.

Bright-berries and fireflies together meant safe travels in Spring.. Yet the Blossom Moon was covered. Which, if she recalled correctly, mean change was on the horizon— And not the change guaranteed by an uncovered Blossom Moon.

Her dread only grew as she checked the wind with her ever-upswept hair. There was still nothing. Not even a gentle breeze. Which meant, as far as she knew, scary times were ahead— With or without this dream-haunting Songbird Queen.

She quickly fled down the path. Her eyes fixed on the road before her. “Hurry, Sabine, hurry,” she said to herself with gnashed teeth. “Some ‘wolf’s going to get you if you stay here for too long. Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up!”

In a matter of minutes, distant candlelight seemed to ascend from the stars above. Sabine’s fearful grimace turned into a smile. Her lanky body scrambled up the hillside, fumbled across the garden, then rammed into the front door. With a quick turn of the handle, she swung open the door and barged inside. Everything in her trembled as she regained her composure. “Sorry…” she said hoarsely before gesturing to the outside world. “I.. thought there was a Sharpen-Wolf out there. That is what you call it here, right?”

But there was no answer. Not even the clicking of a marble-powered clock.

Sabine opened her eyes. Before her was a decently furnished, but solitary room. A wood-frame bed stood on her left. A table and its chairs beckoned her to sit down on her right. In the center was a woollike rug, tattered and worn by the people who had come before. With these options, Sabine decided to leave her fiddle on the bed until she had enough of reclining in one of the chairs.

She leaned back and breathed deeply. All of her fears melted away as she looked out the window. The clouds had parted just enough for the Blossom Moon to be visible. Its rosy rays gave the side garden an even warmer feel than before. Even the one rabbit that hopped around couldn’t help but stare at the majestic beauty of this rare event.

Then the rabbit raised its ears. It slowly turned itself towards Sabine, but only so that one red eye would be visible. Even then, something about it made Sabine’s eyes water and twitch. Was it the red eye itself? Was it the uncanniness of its movements? Or was it something she just couldn’t see, but could definitely sense?

Sabine lowered the plank-like blinds. She rubbed her eyes with a frown. “It’s just a rabbit,” she told herself quietly. “This whole ‘no spring breeze’ thing’s gotten to your head again.” With a tired sigh, she unbuttoned her vest and placed it on the table. “It’ll probably be gone in the morning anyway,” she thought as she carefully removed the fiddle from her bed. “Better get some rest before sunrise. You can’t travel to the next town without that..”

After undoing her cloth belt and taking off her shoes, she finally crawled under the covers. Her mind soon plunged into the waters of sleep itself. All throughout the night, she travelled through many dreamscapes… Yet not one contained the Songbird Queen so many dreaded.

[itwassophiehanseniswear]

HAHAHA I FIGURED THE DEFENSE DELEIMA OUT. I DUNNO HOW TO SPELL DELEMIA. Okay. okay. so. we STILL PLAY AS WRIGHT. I WANT TO REITTERATE THIS. He's not the main man, but we still play as him. I've got multiple reasons for this, but it's mostly that with the people involved, and the situation, and their internal thoughts revealing spoilers, wright is the most in the dark about the situation, and while still weirdgirling we can see his view on the situation.

instead of wright taking apollos case, (this is case 5-4) Athena does, and we still do play as wright but Athena is taking the lead. basically everything is the same with the investigation. the psyche-lock scene with starbuck in the detention center gets Athena a bit upset because 'hey cmon, Boss! you said i'm in charge of this one'! ofc wright is apologetic.after every chapter (that's every bit that goes 'to be continued' at the end. I didn't know that so I'm just saying), there's a chapter of its own with Apollo investigating. He learns only about Athena there during clay's murder. also dodging peoples questions on "hey dude er-how are you your best friend was just brutally murdered, and you think that your new sister figure may be related to it in some way or another" and he also visits trucy in the waa a couple of times and we get some cute gramarye siblings moments, which leads into 'apollo breaks away'. anyway, the trial goes the same, Athena's fingerprints ect ect. We're lead into 3-5.

Wright and Trucy go to gyaxa to invesitigate and defend AthenaWe still get to play as Apollo after each chapter. This time, he has an inkling about the idea that he should be looking into athena's past, and he starts to focus on that, on UR-1, on how the past connects to the present case. He makes his point to Aura very clear. She thinks that she and Apollo are in a similar situation. Apollo makes it very abundantly clear that they are not. Aura is willing to go to extremes, and Apollo only wants to help everyone, even if it means his own sacrifice. Although he doesn't say this what he means is he is willing to push everyone away and suffer alone for his friends/family to be happy. Anyway. the chapter 'more questions for cosmos' is split into two, between after wright and trucy question Yuri cosmos and go to the hat-1 exibit, (and then it's most apollo's conversation with aura in his chapter) and then apollos chapter ends with a person bursting in on them, and wrights chapter starts up again. After the blockade begins, Apollos chapters are resigned to questioning people in the detention center, and he takes off his eyepatch to question Athena about her past only. He comes to the same conclusion that Wright does later, with his psyche-locks, that she's sub-conciously hiding a memory. He questions Blackquill, who is suprised about his integrity and intensity, and he questions Starbuck.

Wright and Pearls' investigation goes roughly the same, and the hostage situation is basically the same, but when Edgeworth comes Wright sort of breaks down. He gets so worried about Trucy, Apollo, and Athena and he exlaims that he's felt so wrong, these past 8 years he's felt so out of place and getting his badge back hasn't helped as much as he thought, and blah blah blah. 'Who am I if I cannot protect the people closest to me? It's all I've ever done... You, Maya, Trucy... And If I can't do that with the two newest people in my life, I'm.. a failure as a mentor. I've put Apollo through so much, and I just want what's best for him and Athena and now Trucy is being held hostage and, and, and' something along those lines idrk. And Edgeworth tries to comfort him, and is like you can do it you're the best attorney I've ever known, and pearly jumps in too, and they try to cheer him up but he's like guys really, I'm not fit for this, look at me, i'm basically a rookie again and on top of that I am too emotionally attached to this case. Being emotionally attached has not gone well for me in the past. and the two of them say okay if that's how you feel then sure. Edgeworth is like 'i know a guy...' and wright jokes if its you again, then let me tell you I don't think you're much better'and he goes no, wright. I'm the chief prosecutor I have connections, and besides, my father was a defense attorney. He goes off to call this mysterious defense attorney he trusts so much. But before he goes, he tells wright that he has an 'ace up his sleeve' for the trial tomorrow, someone special who will be leading the prosecution and wright goes oh. HIM! cool. and yeah, blah blah blah more Apollo investigating. At the detention center, wright and Pearls run into one Eddie Fender of one Edgeworth Law Offices. who offers to be the co-council on the case. they talk to Athena, and then Wright gets the news from Aura that it'll be Athena that he'll be defending not Simon, and right gets all up in own head again and Fender offers to lead the defense and let wright co-council. There's a cutscene between the investigation ending and the trial starting where Apollo gets a voicemail from Wright, explaining the situation. Apollo goes 'Athena...' and the cutscene ends.

The trial starts of similarly. Fender and wright start the trial, but Edgeworth goes I am not the lead prosecutor on this case. BAM cutscene similar to Simon's when he's introduced but it's... drumroll please... Eustace Winner! 'My protege, a very very capable prosecutor, maybe even the best I know. You're in good hands, Miss Blackquill.' we get Eustace talking to himself, hyping himself up, and then calmly walking into the courtroom. The rest of the trial is. ngl the same. Apollo interrupts, and all that jazz. Second intermission, Apollo takes over the case from Fender and we get to play as him yet again. He has no co-council, but Eustace and Blackquill get to co-council on the prosecution's side. Athena becomes the co during the mood matrix sequence and remains there. Apollo is stuck on the moon rock thing, and it's ATHENA that mentions her earring. We don't get a 'your own true self' pointing sequence with the three lawyers, which is sad because honestly its one of my fave moments in the series, but it's okay. We get I guess the same one but with Apollo and Athena, and with Simon and Eustace jumping in too. Everything from there is somewhat the same, but we get an extra cutscene of Apollo hanging up Clay's jacket. or something along those lines, I really hated how he just threw it on the ground in one of the cutscenes. yeahhhhhh. the end ^^

i really wanted fender to meet the waa and Eustace to get his chance in the spotlight. anyway. #subscribe for more ramblings. slash silly. idk.

Concept. Dual destinies last case (5-4 I think) but wright is just weirdgirling it out… he threatens to genuinely murder aura if he isn’t made aware of his daughters safety and security as much as possible. Idk who should be the one to defend Athena, actually. listen I think that we alternate play between Apollo, gathering clues about athena and such, and wright with pearly gathering clues.

Additionally, since aura wants the best prosecutor on the case, she phones to the top of the pile, the chief prosecutor, and demands he prosecute. He races to the crime scene, but what he doesn’t tell aura is that it’s not him prosecution, oh no, it’s his protégé. You picking up what I’m putting down? I made a joke. Yk, the best prosecutor…. Anyway In court, a now grown up Eustace Winner is the one to prosecute. Wright is… skeptical of the kids abilities, he’s seen him an action and has met him many times before, but he trusts edgeworth and thinks therefore he should trust Eustace too.

Back to the defense attorney conundrum. Some options: Athena defends herself. A toughness due to her massive trauma she’s currently facing and also that she can’t psyche lock herself. (Or at all). Apollo defends. He comes back from leave to do so, but doesn’t express his concerns towards her in the case to wright, and is cold and distant throughout the trial. Wright has to take over some times, and Apollo still objects to the verdict. Or swap that and Apollo is weirdgirling for wright, and he’s weird cold and distant still, and objects to the verdict STILL and after his doubts are cleared he’s the main defense. I really want his leave of absence storyline to go somewhere, to mean something, ykwim? alternatively we bring in an entirely different attorney, non waa affiliated, like idk fender, somehow. Hrm mm

[photoniccyclone]

SFR Update - Making progress

Hey ho! In my last update, I told you I had been outlining a big scene that would be the last one big one in the chapter. While I have yet to finish that scene, I made A LOT of progress on it. If this scene were normal-sized, it would've been done already; the issue is it's REALLY CHONKY. It's probably the longest scene this fic has had by far, so it's taking a lot to get done.

Also, thanks to the scene being so long, the chapter has passed the 16k word limit, so I'll have to see what to do about that. I will probably cut some stuff out or split it into two shorter chapters, as it likely won't be long enough to split into two full-sized chapters. But I know of some... "fluff" that I may be able to cut out to shorten the length, so I'll probably try that first. In the situation where that doesn't end up working, y'all might end up with two 11k word chapters or something because the current word count of the whole chapter is around 18k. And to that we can expect maybe 1k, 2k, or more words to be added to finish the current scene, and then perhaps about 1k or 2k words to hopefully cover the following two scenes combined.

But yeah, hopefully, the scene will be done sometime in the next week or two, and then I can speedrun the last two scenes and get this thing ready for editing, which will require some more time but hopefully as not as long as the rough draft (as always).

Also, I will have to change some things from previous chapters that I want you all to be aware of when the chapter gets uploaded. I'll mention it in the author's notes when it comes out, too, and I'll say exactly what's been changed, so you don't need to go back and read.

Here are the things that will be changing (if you haven't caught up on SFR yet, which, at the time of posting, means read chapters 1-6; don't read through these yet as they may contain some spoilers. Again, I'll put something similar explaining what's been changed in the author's notes of chapter 7, so don't worry).

For cannon compliance, Sol Regem no longer burned down Elarion. Instead, he tried to, but Ziard successfully stopped him, as in the show. This was initially in there because I thought that after Ziard blinded Sol Regem, he flew back to Elarion and burned it down. This belief held by many, including me at the time, seems to have stemmed from the Midnight Star poem. This, however, at least as far as we know right now, is false. Sol Regem did not manage to burn down Elarion, and the more likely explanation is that all of its citizens were kicked out in the judgment of the half-moon. I debated for a while on whether or not to change this in the fic because it is an au, so technically, I can keep it in there and just claim it's one of the things that have been changed, but a future scene is going to need the canon version of events anyway so this is going to have to be changed. It shouldn't be too hard to do. It's only been brought up in the fic twice so far, and one of them is just a change from "burned down Elarion" to "tried burning down Elarion," pretty much. The other occurs earlier in the fic in chapter 1 and may be harder to change because it's one of the things that Zym roasts Sol Regem on in a way that's not so easily changed. So I'm either going to have to come up with something else for Zym to roast Sol Regem on as a replacement or try to still work with the original one and just change it so it talks about him for attempting to burn it down rather than burning it down. I don't know how easy or hard that will be; that's also in the future when this chapter is pretty much done. I just wanted to let you know this will be changing.

2. In chapter 4, during Team Rayla's battle at the Earthblood settlement. Multiple injuries reference arrows "lodged" into limbs. The problem is, I recently did some research and figured out that if an arrow gets "lodged" into a limb, that limb is going to be out of commission for quite some time; it will likely not just be an "ouchie" that will cause you some pain for a while as it's kinda been shown in the fic. I never wanted the injuries sustained during that fight to be too debilitating as it would make some future scenes not work. I planned to make the injuries bad enough to lower morale, but not enough to put limbs completely out of commission. So, this is gonna have to be changed. I plan on changing places where an arrow gets "Lodged" into a limb to places where an arrow "grazes" the limb. So, it grazes the limb instead of implanting itself into it, decreasing the severity. Hopefully, this will make what they experience after the fight more believable, and it shouldn't be too hard to change.

That's all for now; hopefully, I'll see you all in the not-too-distant future!

[cuz-reasons]

So as you may have heard, I got my computer back. While it was in the shop I was writing fic on my phone notes app cuz I had to put my ideas somewhere

What was supposed to be a fun little self indulging submas wing au did in fact end up having a word count of around 12k when I got it on a word doc

And it's not finished yet so uhhhh

Yea

[sibillascribbles08]

Okay ramble that will probably not get anywhere but I will put it here anyway because I saw yet another post about people struggling to get any writing done. And someone in the comments made a good point. You write/draw so much more as a kid because you're less practiced and ergo less worried about the imperfections that may arise from just gunning it.

And this is true! And this is why I want to tell you if you are struggling to write much, learn to write like a kid again.

You know how with a lot of art you see processes and it always starts with really shitty thumbnails that have silly faces or just blobs of color? Then you have an actual sketch (during which the artist likely moves a lot of shit around on a digital canvas) and then possibly the inking phase or just painting which is more blobs that slowly get sharper and sharper the more the images is rendered.

Yeah uh, do that with writing. Going under the cut because long

Writing as a process is something that is unique to an individual, just like there's 800 ways to slap paint on a canvas. If you look at guide books for writing and none of it is sticking it's not cause you're a failure that technique is just not gelling for you.

And as such I can only speak from MY experience with it but like, here's how I generally stay on top of projects

A) Sketch phase! It's outline time baby! "Ughh but outlines suck" listen I know school made the outline phase of an essay the worst fucking thing ever but hear me out on this. Sure some people CAN write by the seat of their pants but in terms of long projects this does not work out for me. I'm inevitably gonna hit a point where idk where to go from there and it's so hard to map all that out in long form

Listen, outlines are not there to be formal. They're not even there to be fancy. This is time to get down the bare bones and if you have to make it only a paragraph long and then extend that paragraph into multiple then DO it.

Like hell, NONE of my outlines are formatted the same! Some are a paragraph per chapter. Others are just endless bullet points that I split up later. I'm sure in one book due to all the plotlines I'm just going to have a storyline for each character laid out in columns so I can draw lines between them. Whatever works.

And again, do not have to be formal, like here is a legit line in one of my outlines

As for the ruined building… Hypno will cover the damages……….. Right? : )

Go crazy.

B) Now that you have your baselines start working on the actual story. Do you like writing shit out of order? Do it, because with an outline you still have your baselines to reference for any important details you don't wanna forget "Remember [character] is supposed to get a scar in chapter five!" Or write shit in order, and every time you hit a lull consult those baselines to say "oh yeah that's where this chapter was going"

And hey, keep writing it like a kid if that's what it takes to get this crap down. Hit a fight scene you don't wanna write? Slap down some brackets. [Insert a fight scene here where [character] gets his head smashed in so he ends up with this concussion later like a dumbass]. Boom, done, worry about it later.

Worried the dialogue isn't flowing well? Slap open another document or grab some paper and write it out in a play format to keep it moving. Add in all the beats, expressions, and details after.

Not sure if this detail you're putting in is historically accurate? Leave an easy to search symbol in the doc so you can go back to it to research later.

Write the sappy shit. Write with poor grammar (but still like, comprehensible you know what I mean). Slip in adverbs to swap out with strong verbs later. Use a run on sentence.

"But it's gonna sound bad" Who cares who tf cares that's what editing is for ! You go back and refine that shit and clean up sentences and add in all the extra research and pull out the repetitive words.

You gotta quit treating writing like you're supposed to just swing your brush on the canvas and suddenly you have some beautiful scenery. There's layers. There's blobs that turn into refined shapes. There's blending and shading. There's fine lines and thick lines. And sometimes there's mistakes that you have to wait until it dries to go back over it again.

It is a process! Let yourself have FUN with the process.

Okay rant over.