#the great draft purge

[hierarchyproblem]

Cosgrad Torrinde is the funniest character. He's a bodybuilder. He's a eugenicist. He's comic relief. He has every disease. He invented evolution. He’s the lesser of two fascists. His cock is comically enormous. I hate him. Most importantly of all, he licked a frog.

[bottomvalerius]

hmm small mannerisms I need to incorporate with the blorbos more:

Sam grasping at his neck to self soothe, which is a habit he developed when he was collared 24/7

Donna & floor time, particularly bathroom floor time, to stop an impending panic attack (huh?? Me self projecting??? No way)

Donna’s stutter in general (another self projection lol); particularly shows up when they’re anxious and worsened after dying and being resurrected

Been toying with the idea of Damien using some sort of illusion magic at all times to make himself look more put together (basically like a tik tok filter on at all times LOL), which drops when he’s agitated, anxious, or is otherwise has his concentration severely thrown off (since he no longer has magic mood ring hair, I want him to have some sort of magic tell lol)

He and Valerius tugging and pulling their hair (Damien would probably go so far as to actually pull his hair out) & in general skin picking

I like haven’t written Sam having a full on violent meltdown yet but like he has 110% destroyed entire rooms under distress LMAO

[ambermaitrejean]

It's the Great January Tumblr Attic (Drafts File) Purge!

January is a great time to start fresh, so it's time to go into the attic (tumblr attic) and drag down all the boxes of stashed pics, gifs, and poems that I've squirreled away over the years.

Seems my drafts file has turned into a monster of sorts: the over-stuffed glove box that won't close, the junk drawer that you dig and dig through and never find what you're looking for, the closet with clothes dating all the way back to high school, or in this case, pics in France.

So, I'm gonna dust 'em off, toss 'em in the queue and publish 5 posts per day over the next ?? days, (weeks?) until the attic is cleaned out. I'm not really sure why I never posted them...maybe I judged them too harshly (or not), or lost interest, whatever the reason, my tumblr attic is bursting at the seams, and January is the perfect time to sort it all out. I'll begin with the most recent drafts and make my way back in time.

Speaking of time- time to stop wafflin' and get crackin'! *rolls up sleeves*

[krytus]

a week ago i was ready to give up on kings blood and today i just finished outlining each new chapter of the restructuring/rewrite im doing 😌.....

[bbq-potato-chip]

it’s just me and this one song on loop against the world

[hoidn]

gotta be very quiet so we don’t wake up the part of my brain that stops me from doing this but it looks like i can queue some drafts all of a sudden so here we go back to november last year.

[blushouyo]

it's embarrassing but i literally can't stop thinking about the cursed heart lately....... kierannnnnnmmmnmnnn

[auto-correct]

characters that are capable of both incredible violence and yet also incredible gentleness. is this anything

[strywoven]

hey , hi , hello — how are we ? great.

so here’s the skinny , the break has been good ( & necessary ) . i don’t think you need the details as to what all has been happening behind the screen , but just know i am slowly pulling my mental health back into something more manageable. you might be asking : what’s going on with the blog ? a few things are going to happen …

the blog will go through an overhaul ; new graphics , new theme , new carrd AND a new url ( “ilbound” ) . i am NOT deleting and starting over because , frankly , i don’t care to do that , so the next best thing is hard-resetting the entire blog.

i will be removing EVERYONE from my following because the number is high as it is and i feel like starting from square-one , ensuring that i keep a smaller circle of people , will help tremendously with how out of touch and disconnected i have been feeling regarding the RPC on the whole. this does not mean i don’t want to interact in the future if we organically find each other at another point , this is just for the sake of my own stability at present. you DO NOT have to like this post for me to follow you back whenever i restart the blog ( but it will help me to remember people’s urls ) . if this is where we part , i thank you for being part of my dash regardless ! know that even if we did not interact , i greedily consumed the content you all produced.

i mentioned in the post prior to this that drafts will be dropped. as of writing this , only 2 of you reached out to claim drafts so i’ll take it as a sign to employ my own discretion as to what i want to keep or toss. unprompted asks and starters i’ve yet to reply to are exempt from this ; i intend to keep those.

i intend to ( try to ) launch some new characters , too !

annnnd that should be it ! i don’t know when everything will be set up / finished , but the purge ( tm ) will be done around the 22nd. i’m shooting for the new year for everything to be settled but we shall see. i know this might not be ideal for people , but i’m not doing this to be bothersome ; it simply felt as if something had to be done to re-establish my space and make it feel “good” again. none of my negativity was due to anyone personally , it was a collection of things offline and the feeling of the RPC in general. as always , thank you for understanding and i shall see you when i see you ( likely on better terms ) .

[gravitywonagain]

Inquiring Minds

holy shit, i finished a thing. well, a draft of a thing, but still counts!

based on this post about wwx being just dead enough be susceptible to the compulsion of inquiry

--

It was, in retrospect, the stupidest possible way to be found out. Wei Wuxian will readily admit that. Unfortunately, the level of stupidity was not a determining factor for the level of reality — as was the case for so much of Wei Wuxian’s life.

It all happened because one of the two dozen Jin disciples who bothered to show up to the war got a little drunk and a lot prideful and ended up starting a fight he couldn’t finish. Or, that was the going theory, anyway. The Jin leadership — such as it was — wanted an investigation done. As if they had nothing better to do. As if there weren’t reasons to be conserving spiritual power and not wasting it playing Inquiry for a guy who had decided to pick a fight — hopefully, hopefully it was a fight — with a Nie disciple who, granted, did not have the startling musculature of some of her shixiongs, but was still a fucking Nie disciple! 

This guy was not worth their time. This guy was not worth Lan Zhan’s time. Or his attention, or his spiritual power, or the stress it would put on his guqin strings— okay, maybe Wei Wuxian should have taken a moment to purge some of his resentment before walking into the tent. 

But he didn’t. This is important. 

Because then Lan Zhan began to play. 

And there was this strange… tugging sensation in the pit of Wei Wuxian’s gut, right where his golden core was supposed to be, pulling him toward Lan Zhan, or toward the empty space in front of Lan Zhan. 

Wei Wuxian shouldn’t have ignored it. He gets that now. He does. But he always wanted to be near Lan Zhan, and his body had been doing all kinds of weird shit since he’d had his core cut out, and who was to say this wasn’t just another weird side effect. 

Well. It was. A weird side effect. After a fashion. 

But that’s not the point! 

He should have noticed then. He should have left then. But he didn’t. 

The melody changed and the tugging sensation stopped. Which was great! 

Until something else started. It felt like a kind of drunkenness, light and hazy in his head, loose around his tongue. Three or four bowls in. 

He shook himself to dislodge it, but the motion only drew a sharp glare from Jiang Cheng. 

The tent was full of spectators. At least two representatives from each major clan were present, plus several “close friends” of the victim -- like four of the fifteen total Jin disciples -- who probably just wanted something else to do outside of eat, sleep, and fight. Wei Wuxian couldn’t blame them, exactly, war was remarkably boring most of the time, but it was getting awfully stuffy in there. 

Lan Zhan changed the melody again, something almost lexical about it. Wei Wuxian could almost hear the question being asked, even before Zewu Jun’s voice chimed in, translating for anyone who didn’t know the qin language — which was pretty much everyone else in the tent besides the Twin Jades — “What is your name?” 

Wei Wuxian caught his own response between his lips, pressing them together tightly, as the guqin sounded three distinct notes which Zewu Jun reported as Jin Zixin. 

So, good. It was the right guy. That was great. Nothing weird at all. 

He should have left then. He didn’t. 

Lan Zhan played again, and again Wei Wuxian thought he understood the phrase, the question, even before Zewu Jun said for the tent, “How did you die?”

Wei Wuxian felt the answer fly to the tip of his tongue and bit his teeth around it, through it. His cheek bled with the force of keeping quiet. 

It was weird. So weird. But maybe, Wei Wuxian justified to himself, maybe it was just an effect of holding a secret inside for so long and having someone actually ask the question out loud. Maybe, it was just the same automatic reaction of answering with your name when someone asked for it. Maybe he was just too fucking tired, and the resentment under his skin just wanted something to laugh at, something to entertain itself with. Like the five of ten Jins standing in the back of the tent. War was boring, okay?

The notes from Lan Zhan’s guqin hung in the air, resonant and waiting. The moment seemed to stretch out too long. It dragged and Wei Wuxian gradually felt the words stop fighting him to escape. 

But the Jin ghost didn’t answer either. 

When Lan Zhan played the same phrase over — “How did you die?” echoed on Zewu Jun’s tongue — the compulsion was much stronger. This time it was like Wei Wuxian could feel Lan Zhan’s spiritual power pouring through him; the strongest of wines, several jars of it. 

He couldn’t fight it. 

His mouth opened. 

I fell. I fell. I fell. 

“I fell.”

All eyes in the tent turned to him. 

Jiang Cheng’s elbow caught him in the ribs. He didn’t even bother to glare. He said, “Not you, Idiot.” 

The qin sounded and everybody looked back to Lan Zhan and Zewu Jun, waiting to hear the Jin disciple’s answer. 

Zewu Jun hesitated for the barest of moments, stuttering into the start of his translation before finding the confidence of his voice once more, recounting whatever it was that the ghost had strummed out. 

Wei Wuxian didn’t hear a word he said. He was, instead, pierced on two sides. 

On one: Jiang Cheng muttered to himself, “Wait,” and then his eyes went wide as he looked back at Wei Wuxian. 

On the other: Lan Zhan’s fingers froze above the strings of his guqin and he turned to stare over his shoulder at Wei Wuxian with something like horrified understanding dawning within his gaze. 

Wei Wuxian finally realized he should fucking leave. Immediately. 

He wanted to run. He knew better. Knew what that would look like. 

Instead, he was going to simply walk out of this tent as he had walked out of so many already during this campaign. Gravel crunched under his heel as he turned. 

But his brother knew him too well. Jiang Cheng’s hand clamped tight around Wei Wuxian’s bicep, his grip unyielding. With his golden core, Wei Wuxian might have been able to break it. But the real bitch of it was that it was his golden core that was holding him in place. 

Jiang Cheng tensed as if readying for a fight, but Wei Wuxian already knew how that fight would end. So he let himself be restrained. 

He turned back to face the Inquiry. 

Lan Zhan was still staring at him when Zewu Jun finished speaking. He was still so stuck in place that his brother had to prompt him into finishing the ritual. Which he did, with all the grace and skill expected of him. He really was just so beautiful to watch. 

All the while, Wei Wuxian listened to the music and bit through his tongue to keep it silent. The questions continued to drag at him -- “Do you know who killed you?” Wen Chao. “Do you have any last requests?” To leave this fucking tent. -- though the pressure to answer eased significantly as the Jin ghost became less stubborn about it. Wei Wuxian settled for reciting the answers to them in his head until they no longer felt pressed against the thin seam of his mouth. 

It took approximately sixteen-hundred years. 

All seven Jin disciples supporting the war effort left the tent after the ghost had recounted his final moments. The attempted sexual assault was not unexpected, judging by their faces, but still disappointing to hear about. Clearly not the entertainment they were hoping for. Luckily for Wei Wuxian, they were apparently too wrapped up in their Jin nonsense to realize new entertainment was fidgeting in the corner and trying not to sever the tip of his tongue completely. 

The Nie, represented by Nie Mingjue and Nie Huaisang, left shortly after the ritual concluded. If Nie Mingjue had to tug his brother away, Wei Wuxian was too busy keeping his mouth shut to comment on it. 

And then there were just the four of them. Plus the corpse. But they were like six months into a war, so the corpse didn’t actually seem to bother any of them. It hadn’t even started to smell yet. It was still pretty intact, too, and now that it was verifiably a criminal, Wei Wuxian wondered idly if the Jin would let him use it in their next battle. Probably not. 

His idle wondering ceased abruptly as his brother’s fingers bit deeper into the meat of his arm. 

“Wei Wuxian,” he said, all of his surely filial worry for his gege boiling over into a spitting, incandescent fury. He never had to say he loved his brother, Wei Wuxian could always tell. It was the teeth gnashing that gave him away. “What the fuck do you mean you fell?” 

Right. 

Wei Wuxian played it as cool as he could with a definitely-not-bleeding tongue. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Jiang Cheng.” He shrugged, but his arm didn’t move very far. 

“You answered Inquiry,” said Lan Zhan. Succinct as ever. 

“No!” Wei Wuxian said, maybe a little too loud, but not at all childishly. 

Zewu Jun narrowed his eyes and pulled out his xiao. Wei Wuxian tried not to flinch about it, he did. But Zewu Jun only played a short, non-Inquiry melody, and a shimmering, blue barrier manifested around the interior of the tent. 

“No,” Wei Wuxian said again, this time at a totally normal volume. “I was just… messing around. You know how I do that, Lan Zhan. Always a rule breaker.” He grinned, desperately trying to play it all off. Realizing faster and faster how very badly this was going for him. 

Lan Zhan surprised him, then, saying, “Not when it matters.” 

“What?”

“Wei Ying doesn’t break rules when they matter.” 

Wei Wuxian didn’t know where the fuck that was coming from. But he couldn’t say he hated it. 

Except that he did, because it was going to be a problem for this whole I’m just a silly rascal defense he was setting up. 

Jiang Cheng still hadn’t let go of his arm. His fingernails were starting to split the fabric of his sleeve. And worse, his eyebrows were scrunched together in the way they do when he’s thinking through all the angles of a problem. 

Zewu Jun still had his xiao in hand, and he was looking at Wei Wuxian like he was deciding whether to perform an exorcism or an execution. 

But Lan Zhan… Lan Zhan hadn’t moved from his seat on the mat. He had turned his body so that he was facing Wei Wuxian, giving him his full attention, and was looking up at him with… pain in his eyes. Shining, wet pain. 

“You died?” he asked. “Are you dead?”

“I don’t…” Wei Wuxian trailed off. He couldn’t find the words. 

He didn’t know. Which was, possibly, not the best sign. 

“I can’t be dead,” he said, looking over at Zewu Jun, Jiang Cheng, then back to Lan Zhan. “Can I?”

Zewu Jun, still wary, said, “You responded to the compulsion in Inquiry. Inquiry is a song that speaks to and compels answers from the dead. It does not generally work on the living.” 

“Well--” Wei Wuxian started, defensive and scared. But again, he didn’t really know where to go with that. 

“Where were you, Wei Wuxian?” Jiang Cheng asked him. “Why didn’t you meet me at the bottom of the hill?” 

Lan Zhan and Zewu Jun shared a look. They didn’t seem to know what Jiang Cheng was talking about. But Wei Wuxian really, really, didn’t want to get into that whole mess. If anyone was going to see right through him and his flimsy tale about suddenly remembering the location of Baoshan Sanren’s mountain, it would be Lan Zhan. Actually, Zewu Jun would probably figure it out, too. And then maybe even Jiang Cheng. Now that he wasn’t all broken and desperate and gullible. 

Fuck. With the way Jiang Cheng was looking at Wei Wuxian, the way his hand released some of the pressure around his arm, he might already have. 

Wei Wuxian laughed, hoping it came off more smoothly than it felt in his chest. “Ah, Jiang Cheng.” He brought his own hand up to lay over his brother’s. “What if I told you--”

“No,” Jiang Cheng cut him off. “No more bullshit. Where were you?”

The mirth, false as it was, drained out of Wei Wuxian as he saw the pain building behind his brother’s eyes. 

There was movement in his periphery and then Lan Zhan was standing on his other side. His fingers wrapped around Wei Wuxian’s other arm with a much gentler grip than Jiang Cheng’s. Something imploring about the touch. Like he was seeking confirmation to a theory, or maybe proving to himself that Wei Wuxian was actually there. 

“I…” Wei Wuxian trailed off. 

Zewu Jun’s gaze was hard as steel, but aimed, it seemed, at Lan Zhan’s hand, rather than at Wei Wuxian in general. 

“There was a rumor,” he said in slow, even words, “that Wen Chao had thrown you into the Burial Mounds.” He waited a moment after he finished speaking, as if trying to reconcile the words himself, before he looked up to meet Wei Wuxian’s eyes. 

Of course, Wei Wuxian didn’t want to meet Zewu Jun’s eyes. He didn’t want to meet any of their eyes. He wanted very much to be out of this tent and away from knowing gazes altogether. 

Unfortunately, he hadn’t quite figured out how to teleport using resentful energy yet. So in the tent he remained. 

He looked down at his feet. His boots were crusted with dirt and blood and other bodily fluids. War really was super gross, in addition to being largely boring. 

“That’s ridiculous,” he said, still looking down. “Everyone knows that nothing leaves the Burial Mounds.” 

Lan Zhan’s hand tightened around Wei Wuxian’s arm. Jiang Cheng’s loosened, but didn’t let go. 

“Yeah,” said Jiang Cheng, like an accusation, “it would be impossible.” 

Wei Wuxian still didn’t look up from his feet which meant that he missed whatever silent conversation happened between Jiang Cheng and Lan Zhan that had both of them tightening their grips on his arms just before fingers were pressed to the pulse points of his wrists. He struggled, flailing as much as he could, but against Lan Zhan’s golden core and his own, he stood no chance. He could barely budge them. 

He screamed but the sound only reverberated inside the tent. 

The only thing he could think to do was to call up the dead. The dead man still lying in front of them. The Jin. Rapist. Criminal. He could use that wicked corpse to fight off the people holding him down, taking his secrets. Smoke curled out of his sleeves and he--

He stopped himself. 

It was over anyway. 

Even if they couldn’t read his spiritual energy, or lack thereof, his fighting them was confirmation enough. 

He went limp in their grasp. His knees buckled. 

It really was the stupidest possible way to be found out. 

“Where is it?” asked Jiang Cheng. But it was clear from his voice that he already knew the answer. 

Lan Zhan was silent. 

Zewu Jun looked to his brother for an answer, not understanding what they had just discovered. 

“His golden core,” said Lan Zhan. “It’s gone.” 

“Wen Zhuliu?” Zewu Jun asked. 

But Jiang Cheng made a sound that was somehow both a laugh and a sob. 

Wei Wuxian regained control of his arms. He sprawled himself out on the tent floor, exhausted from his struggle. He laughed, too. “After a fashion.” 

Jiang Cheng fell to the ground next to him, hands cradling the place where Wei Wuxian’s core now spun. “What the fuck?” he said, quietly, to no one in particular. Then, loudly, to Wei Wuxian in particular, “What the fuck!” 

His cheeks were wet. Jiang Cheng’s, his own. He looked over to confirm, and yeah, Lan Zhan’s too. Zewu Jun had nothing to cry over, except maybe confusion, but he was too cool for that, so he just stood in the middle of the tent, shocked, presumably, as his brother, another sect leader, and a demonic cultivator broke down around him. 

Wei Wuxian stared up at the tented canvas ceiling and cursed himself for not leaving the tent when he first noticed something wrong. 

“Jiang Cheng,” he started, but Jiang Cheng cut him off with a wet yell. 

“Why would you do that, you fucking idiot?! What the fuck were you even thinking?! How did you-- How--” 

He seemed to lose steam trying to figure out what happened on “Baoshen Sanren’s mountain” and potentially also why Baoshen Sanren’s voice sounded so familiar. 

Zewu Jun’s voice was remarkably calm for a man witnessing-- whatever he made of what he was currently witnessing. He said, “Wei Wuxian, I believe your Sect Leader would like to know how you lost your golden core.” 

Wei Wuxian laughed at that. Because yes and no. 

“No, Zewu Jun,” he said, still laughing. He tried to stop, but it was just too funny. “No,” he said again, slightly more sober, “he wants to know why and how he now has my golden core.” 

He didn’t really mean to say it. He felt drunk again, like he did when Lan Zhan was playing Inquiry. Ready to spill all his secrets at only the slightest provocation. Zewu Jun could probably ask him just about anything right now -- Lan Zhan and Jiang Cheng too, for that matter -- and he would answer it. It wasn’t exactly a safe mindset to be in. But he couldn’t really do anything about that now. 

At least there was some kind of privacy barrier over the tent. 

Zewu Jun stood. Speechless. 

Lan Zhan’s tears fell silently. 

Jiang Cheng glared, hands clutched tight against his lower dantian -- whether to hold something inside or to tear it out, Wei Wuxian wasn’t sure. 

Wei Wuxian felt light as a feather. Drunk and dizzy with it. A weight had been lifted, he supposed, but one he was never supposed to let go. His laughter died down to the occasional press of his lungs. Tears collected in his eyelashes until everything was blurry. 

Emptiness yawned inside him, but it was gentler somehow. As if the secret itself had been clawing away at his slowly healing wounds. 

“Fuck,” he said with a hiccup of a laugh. And again, quieter, “Fuck.”

He really should have left the fucking tent. 

Also, wait. Was he dead?! 

--

(7/18/24: now on ao3)

[hierarchyproblem]

I remember when The Last of Us Part II came out, Neil Druckmann made some slightly odd comments about Palestine that shocked a lot of games industry pundits. The gist of it was "When I was an angry young kid I hated people for nationalist reasons, and I was embarrassed about it later, but that kind of irrational hatred is one of the themes this story is exploring." I can see why a PR manager might've warned him to just say anything else, but I felt like it was a pretty clear statement and that I understood what he was getting at.

Unfortunately it turns out he very much is still a Israeli nationalist, so. That sucks.

[soscarlett1twas]

one single thread of gold (tied me to you)

↳ The invisible strings laced into the Sakuverse. ↳ 7.2k words / also available on ao3!

Matias stared at the screen, unable to formulate his thoughts. His fingers hesitated above the keyboard, and for each word he punched out, he purged the sentence before it was even finished.

He had suffered this problem before. It was always the first words, then the rest would flow – but with a mind full of ideas and hands eager to type, it was hard to push himself when all he got was a blank screen staring back at him. 

Tension grew in his jaw as his teeth ground together. He pulled his hands back and strategically cracked each knuckle, first the distal joints, then the center, until he was left with were slightly looser hands and a still-blank screen. Each crack drifted up into the atrium's echo. 

He refocused on the document, but all he perceived was the cursor, blinking in a staccato rhythm. Matias groaned.

His hand found a pen and clicked it a few times, scanning the open pages of his notebook as a refresher. Outlined on them was a short story about a nightmare he had wanted — not so much tried — to write for ages. He had written and rewritten the “stage directions", so-to-speak, of the story many times, finally settling on this version he was quite happy about. And the imagery he painted in his own head, of the scenes of the man's nightmare, how he could link it to the broader narrative of the man's life, how it would predict his future, it made him excited. 

So he sat down to write, hands hovering over the keyboard of a school-issued laptop to start crafting what would surely be something great. 

And yet. Yet. 

A bar (the only black on his empty page) faded and reappeared again and again as Matias tried to conjure the right vocab, the right atmosphere, the right... something.

His hand moved to cover his face, fingertips pressing down his clenched eyebrows and curving down his face, until his palms holstered his jowls and his sides were warmed from the laptop-heat of his hands. His words were nothing to his imagination. 

His hands moved once again to cover his face completely.

He was nothing to his imagination. 

And he had tried, for so long, to believe that was okay. What were these stories for if not practice? Surely, once he was older, they would flow naturally. His prose would be enchanting, but not purple; his plots would be grand, but not confusing. He would look back on these old words as the small stepping stones to the majesty he would write eventually. 

But why must it be eventually? Why couldn’t it be now?

Matias, who had subconsciously slumped down so far in the chair that his back connected more with the seat than his legs, exhaled and pulled himself back up. With one more look at white screen, he opened a new tab. 

Pressing the My Drive bookmark at the top of his screen, he navigated through a swamp of miscellaneous documents, scattered thoughts spread across countless files. But what he was looking for would not be recently opened. He typed in its title in the search bar, bringing up a document untouched for months.

As with all his finished stories, this one was formatted all nicely, unlike the standard Arial he drafted in. He scrolled through it with mild attention and read a couple lines from assorted paragraphs. 

This was a tale about two people who, throughout the work, became tentative friends. They did not like each other at first, but came around through their joint love of the stars, though very different in how they viewed them – one for science, one for mythology. 

It was not fun to write. It is never fun to write, at least, in the moment. But Matias always found himself looking back on the process with more fondness than the finished product. And this was a work he was particularly fond of. (For as fond as one can be about their own work – that is to say, anything net neutral is ‘positive’, and anything less than is negative.) 

The descriptions of the sky did it for him and he yearned to be able to write it again. He wanted to describe the world and its beauty, not a man's nightmare. He wanted back that process where, even if it was difficult at the moment, he was writing. Not stuck in his mind with the imaginary dreamscape of a nightmare, his own self an unfit conduit for the ideas he wanted to share. At least with skies and stars, they were pretty just to read. They created a fantasy that, even if the reader was not imagining what Matias wrote, they were substituting it for their own memories of nightfall. 

When he exited the tab, the laptop lid closed with it. He needed to do something other than look at the screen.

Matias stood and stretched, rolling his neck and pushing in the chair to the desk. Just waiting for the right words wouldn’t work and he needed to stretch his legs a bit. Before walking away, he took one last look at his notebook, and closed it softly. Anywhere else, he would’ve had some more precaution, but it was doubtful anyone would steal his things at the library. 

So he walked away, leaving any thoughts of the story behind him. 

He had set up shop at the back of the building, so he flitted between rows and rows of bookshelves. He wove between CD’s on language learning to the record books, to the young adult and fantasy sections. Assorted mangas greeted him in the aisle he walked into. 

He scanned a couple of titles with no intentions to take them out, but he liked to window shop. He’d even pull a couple out and read their back, or, if he was feeling particularly dangerous, flip to a random page and read a couple sentences. Then he’d slip them back in and walk away. 

He threaded like this between three bookcases, reading spines which fled his mind the second he glanced away. He made one last turn, and, thoroughly unimpressed by his own attempt at clearing his thoughts, turned back the way he came. 

On the way back to his desolate writing, he walked up to a World Atlas. It was large, pages spread across its entire podium and then some, open to a random page on Denmark. Matias had little interest in the country, but he liked maps, and this one was so detailed. He approached the atlas and began to leaf through it. 

From French topography to the Indian Ocean to the specifics of Somalia’s economics, Matias skimmed through each section, finding himself smiling at it. It was dumb, he knew – but the world was so very big and so very complex, and that was where he found beauty. What a wonder to be able to see it one day. What he would give to make something like this. 

He skimmed his fingers along the thick stack of right-aligned pages, opening up to a random one. It was about Iceland. 

A map of the country was offset to the left hand corner, most of the spread being taken up by photos about the northern lights. He had heard of them of course, but he found himself in awe of the colors. Even in a stagnant image he could see them pulsing with different hues, the greens fading to blues to purples. 

Oh, the sky. What a beautiful thing it is. 

His finger traced the harsher lines of the aurora, where the lights hardened to a sheet of color. The flimsy paper beneath his fingertips folded as he shifted them upwards, but Matias quickly fixed it and kept going: Over and over, wondering it how could exist in this world. And how unfair it was that it is out of his reach. 

It would be incredible to see the aurora. It was inspiring even in photo form, and what could it be in person? What basin of inspiration could this be for him? His fingers, just tracing the photo, felt as if they had dipped into a pool of magic, drenching themself in the motivation he needed to write. 

And the nightmare came back to him, fully written around his inked skeleton, ready to be shaped.

Still staring at the basin, he –

– pulled his fingers away from the aurora clipping and flipped it, as carefully as he could, and lifted his glue stick. Purple glue coated the underside and he pressed it into the paper of his notebook, besides the Icelandic mountains and waterfalls he had cut out earlier. Once satisfied it was secure, he began to reach out for the magazine he left sprawled open, silhouettes now chopped from its pages. 

Beside it, scattered atop of the carpeted floor, were many other magazines. Some were still safe, though many more were torn through and falling apart, their confetti guts sticking to the carpet fuzz. Their own images had been sniped and pasted into the notebook, from stills of people to landscapes. 

Really, the subject didn’t matter. If Alex liked the composition, or the filter, or the lightning… well, into his notebook it went. 

He hummed as he flipped through the magazine, eyes skimming over landscapes far and wide. Nothing quite did it for him, though he did wonder if he should cut out a particularly pretty iceberg… until the church. 

Formed like a sharp bell curve, the structure rose into the clear blue sky, its golden lights projected onto the front, bleeding into each crevice of the jagged building. Three windows glowed at the top, small from the perspective, contrasting the dark, tinted part of the building. A singular rainbow window sat above the entrance door, its hood molding casting a deep purple shadow upwards. 

Alex turned to grab his scissors when he spied the building's name, unpronounceable on his English tongue: Hallgrímskirkja. He still tried and snorted when it was butchered.

He began the incision at the base, silently wondering if he should only cut out the church or keep the sky (no, he decided, he needed the sky – it established the blues to contrast the rising yellow light), and began to snip away. 

He worked cautiously, creating an arch that reached above the church and back down. Once done, he smiled and placed the scissors on the floor, pulling the clipping free from the page. He moved the magazine away and placed the photo down beside him, flipping to a new two-page spread in it. The church was too big to be added to the current page he was on. Besides, something like this deserved its own spread. 

Again, methodically, he lifted his gluestick and spread it in curved motions behind the image, and stamped it into his book, careful to center it correctly. Just to be sure, he closed the book and pressed his palms onto its cover, forcing his body weight down to really stick it in there. 

Satisfied, he opened the notebook back to Hallgrímskirkja, eyes scoring the photo and smiled.

He turned back the pages to old spreads. He just liked looking at them, to glimpse at his handiwork of images not his own. But they could be. 

Alex was giddy at the thought, to do this for a living one day. Taking photos of the world's beauty, where it was its people or landscapes, or even gold-encrusted perfume bottles. He wanted it all. 

He was about to turn back to the magazine when a knock echoed through his door. Before he could answer, his parents walked in. 

“Alex?” His father walked into the bedroom, eyes catching on the photo clippings before landing on his son. 

“Hey,” he responded, sitting up from his floor. 

His mother took a couple steps forward. “What are you doing, Alex?” 

Smiling at the chance to talk about photography, he immediately opened back up the Hallgrímskirkja page, eager to show them. He stood and held it out to her, his father coming around his mother’s shoulder to see. 

He explained he was looking through photos for inspiration, that one day, he was going to take these photos for magazines. Maybe they could take a trip to Iceland as a family! He was about to offer up the idea when his father said:

“So… you want to be a photographer?”

He nodded. 

He missed the glances his parents exchanged as he flipped to the back of the notebook, again holding the spread open for them to see. 

Plastered across these pages were Polaroids he had taken with the disposable camera they bought him for a school day-trip. They were nothing much – just some landscapes, a couple candids of his friends, but they were his photos, and he displayed them with the same honor as his inspirations. 

But this time, he did not miss the waver in his mothers eyes nor his father’s throat bobbing. 

“Oh, these are so pretty hunny… why didn’t you show us these before?”

He didn’t quite have an answer to that. He just… didn’t. Alex’s arms loosened, bringing the open book down from their sights and against his chest, where he folded it, subconsciously hugging it. 

“Photography is a great hobby, but a career?” His mother sat on his bed. 

Still, he had nothing to say, throat dry. He shrugged. How could she go from praising his work to this in the same breath?

The room fell to awkward silence as Alex refused to meet their sights, still clinging to his notebook, and his parents didn’t speak. 

“I came to ask,” his father finally began, “if you wanted to come and play with the neighbor kids. They set up a volleyball net – you like volleyball, right?”

“Yeah.” He first tried it on a beach vacation. It was a lot of fun playing with kids his age, and he liked the neighbors plenty, but he was busy. Before he could say so, though, his father clapped his back.

“Great! I’ll tell them you’ll be there soon,” and walked out of his bedroom, his mother kissed his cheek before leaving as well. 

Left alone, he let out a little sigh, and flipped the book in his hands. He looked at its cover, plain compared to its pages, made of woven cloth. He bought it ages ago with his allowance. The same allowance he had shoved in a jar, on top of his nightstand, containing a total on its top. His savings for a camera, because they refused to buy him even a disposable one unless it was on a school to-have list for field trips. 

Outside, he could just barely make out the sounds of the kids playing, calling for the first – 

– serve spiked down and, after hitting inside the lines, bounced out of bounds. Kayson whooped as his team cheered in his honor, and they all shuffled one spot to the left. 

The other team stood stagnant, as they had for the last three serves, unable to score a point and move. It wasn’t traditional volleyball: the game the class was playing was altered to give everyone a chance at each position. When your team scored a point, everyone shifted a position to the left. Kayson bounded from the server to the middle of the back row. 

And up to serve was a girl who spent the entire class glancing at the clock, anxious to get out of here. He couldn’t blame her. The teams had been randomly chosen, and she had fallen into a group of tryhards who were thriving on the competition – which is to say, Kayson got real lucky. 

She squirmed in the position, smiling only when she caught the glimpse of her friends on the other side of the net, as if to mock herself and say “We know this won’t end well, but how funny will it be when I fail?” 

The ball got tossed over the net, ending up closer to Kayson than her. He caught it and walked over, handing it over in a quick toss. 

“Alright, Mia.” Kayson crouched his knees and balled his fist, swinging it with clear direction to the hypothetical ball in his other. “Just like we talked about. Get some leverage and,” he thrust his fist up and through the ghostly volleyball, “swing up. Make sure to keep your hand balled!” He tread back to his spot, walking backwards to nod as she mirrored his actions. 

She curled her lip slightly, knees bending as her arm straightened. Kayson watched, still nodding his head as Mia took a couple practice swings. 

They barely knew each other. The only class they shared was this one, and Kayson would be hesitant to call them acquaintances, much less friends. But when Mia had messed up her first serve at the beginning of the unit, laughing at herself before anyone else got the chance to, he had called out some advice at the reserve. And that time, it made it over the net. 

He hoped his aid held true again. 

She took one last swing and thrust her arm back with more certainty, pushing it forward at just the right angle. He watched as it nearly hit the ceiling before arching back down, landing in the center of the back row. 

“Oh! Oh!” Mia’s voice grew in excitement as she realized that not only was it a decent serve, it was a good one – and Kayson shouted back a “Let’s go!” in the rising choir of middle schoolers getting into a good game. 

The two teams went back for approximately two passes before the bell rang. 

Kayson went to grab his backpack, not missing the small wave from Mia when he turned around. He returned the gesture and smiled. 

His friends caught up to him, laughing and jostling each other around as they walked out of the gym. Kayson pushed the one away, claiming his was too sweaty, and the boy retorted that Kayson was worse. Which, he was.

“Alright, I’ve got to go…” Kayson said, trailing away from his friends. His next class was halfway across the school and didn’t want to be late. They said their goodbyes and split directions.

The hallways were packed as they were every passing period. Kayson maneuvered between people, often bumping shoulders, his smile fading to neutrality. Everyone around him looked the same, minds somewhere beyond the cramped halls.

With gym – his favorite class today – done with, Kayson adapted to the melancholy which awaited him at his next classes, feeling any leftover adrenaline bleeding out of him. The rest of the day had little interest to him.

Kayson left the main, packed hallway for the smaller math hall. People loitered outside doors, not wanting to go to their classes yet, or walked beside their friends in twos or threes. He could spy a small crowd inside the bathroom as he passed. Turning the corner, the open door of his Algebra class beckoned. 

Cool air hit his sweaty skin when Kayson walked in. His desk was close to the back of the room, a choice he made at the start of the year. His bag slinked to the floor as he dropped it and sat on the even colder chair. His legs stuck to the plastic. 

While his table was still empty, others had a filled somewhat. The teacher walked up to one and handed her a paper. She flipped it over and flashed it to her friend, with a big A written in red up top. 

And Kayson remembered the test from last class. 

The little spark still in him died at the realization, being replaced by the pooling dread of known failure. He had studied, and he had felt good while taking it, but he also knew to be realistic. And realistically, he did not know math. 

The teacher finished handing off papers to the rest of the table before making her way over to Kayson, smiling softly. 

“Good morning, Kayson.” She rifled through her papers. 

“Morning,” he muttered. 

She pulled a sheet from the middle of the stack and gave it to him, already moving to another table. He barely looked at it. All he needed was the D before flipping it back over, the pen used to mark his paper bleeding through the back. 

He groaned as he lowered his head. He was fine with his B average. Hell, he’d even scored a couple A’s in classes this year, but with the way his math grade was going… 

When the C came in last quarter on his report card, he hated showing it to his mom, hated the class, hated himself for it. He promised her with one more bad grade, he’d go to tutoring. And here was his ticket to ride. 

He rose and walked over to the teacher, skin like suction ripping from the chair. “Can I go to the bathroom?” He muttered as she turned to him. At her nod, he left, passing the TA’s desk who’d surely be his new tormentor after school.

There was still a line, made up of kids who had yet to leave for class. But when the bell rang they began to trickle out, leaving Kayson to tap his foot on the dirty floor, waiting for a stall, also not quite here to actually use the facilities. 

He took a deep breath when he finally got to sit on a non-plastic chair, in that suffocatingly cold classroom, instead relatively alone in the middle stall. He took a deep breath as he shut the door, clicking the – 

– lock into place, Luca sat, scratching at his eyes. 

His breath was already wavering, but with the final swallow of air came his break, and he folded over on the porcelain, knees pressed to soaking lashes. 

He had tried. God, Luca had tried so hard. There hadn’t even been a triggering event. But a building wave must eventually fall. 

And out it came, pouring from his eyes with the crash of croaking breaths. 

Luca’s hands clawed from cupping his mouth to running along his waterline, wiping tears before they even traced his face. Yet still more came, and for all the grief which choked him, for all the loneliness which sparked the display, his only thought was how to make it stop. 

Which made it all the worse when he couldn’t. The resounding loneliness just echoed back to him as one breath became too loud, as even in his misery Luca was still consciously fearful of others, and even more aware that there was simply no one around. 

His parents were worried, of course. When he brought home the permission slip, excitedly bobbing at the chance to go to New York City with his class, his parents sat him down to talk through it. What to expect, how to stay safe, whether or not he should go… the last point got brought up a lot. 

He insisted he’d be fine. After all, his bullies weren’t in classes who’d go on the trip. His parents asked if he’d have any friends with him instead. 

Despite him drawing a blank at the question, his parents still let him go. Oh, how he wished they didn’t anymore.

Luca pressed his palms to his eyes. 

It hadn’t even been a bully – if it were, at least somebody was thinking about him, talking to him – instead it was complete isolation. Not a single conversation with another kid for the two days they’d spent in the city. When he tried, he was met with some form of swift rejection. 

He convinced himself it was fine. He was fine, until he wasn’t, and at dinner it was all too much. He sat with the teachers, glanced over at the table he should be at, and excused himself politely. 

Only to end up in the bathroom, the only place he could let the feeling engulf him, ironically praying he was left alone in his sadness as if that wasn’t the cause of it. 

No, he didn’t want to be alone. He wanted his mom. He wanted his dad. He wanted the people who loved him. But they were unreachable. 

At the thought, another wave of sadness crested over him. 

This time he let himself cry.

He did not know how much time had passed, only that he was spent when tears turned to a thin plaster on his skin. He had barely moved from his hunched position and an ache grew in the small of his back.

Luca swallowed the rising weight in his throat and sat up. His eyelashes brushed his face as he shut his eyes tightly, feeling the cool tears on both. His mind started to work again, no longer suffocated with his misery, instead slowly turning with coherent thoughts. 

But remain did the feeling of hollowness in his chest, perhaps sculpted out from his sobs – Luca felt it as he breathed, tasting iron on the lip he was biting, eyebrows furrowed. If anyone could see him, the uncharacteristic look of anger would shock them. Or would it? To recognize it’s unrecognizably would be to know him, to know he was not angry, to know he was simply clenching trying not to cry again. But nobody did.

Or perhaps they would be affronted by it not because he was him, but because of what he seemed to be. He was small, frail in stature and always looking if trying to hide away. He was meant to be unseen, not to be unseemly.

For what he hoped to be the final time, Luca rolled toilet paper and dabbed it to his eyes, then promptly threw it into the bowl. He watched it flush.

The door opened with a shove. Luca appreciated it’s coverage, working almost as an entrance to another room inside of a bathroom stall. Perks of crying in a nice restaurant.

He walked over to the sinks and motioned underneath the faucets with his fingertips. He just sat there, letting himself feel the water.

He dabbed it on his eyebags. Like a coal, he could feel himself cooling under the water. Luca massaged it into his skin and dipped his fingers back under for more. This was a familiar ritual to him.

He barely noticed the door opening, though the familiar voice of a teacher brought him to.

“Luca?” He startled.

Mr. Polis, a Biology teacher, stood at the door. Luca never had his class, a fact he was often grateful for – many said he was tough and an even harsher grader. Even as he looked at him, there was a certain edge to his gaze. It was laced with worry.

He made an obnoxious sniff to recall mucus and winced at how it echoed. “Hi, Mr. Polis…” Luca turned his head and walked to dry his hands, suddenly even embarrassed of his ablution.

He stayed turned to the towels as another faucet began. In the mirrors he could see the teacher washing his hands. Curiosity spiked, but he wasn’t going to ask.

“One of your classmates decided to spill their drink on me,” he said, as if reading Luca’s mind. He sighed and waved his hand under another dispenser. When it didn’t work, his exasperation grew to an annoyed hum as he began to walk towards Luca. “Excuse me.”

Luca stepped aside, away from the mirrors as the teacher got his towel. He stared at the crumpled brown paper in his hand. Luca tried to fold it another way so he could blow his nose again, but already so small, it was useless. He’d get another when Mr. Polis left.

Luca still tried to avoid his sights as he walked over to the trash, rubbing his eyes to hide better.

“Have you been enjoying the city so far?”

Luca still didn’t turn to him. “Yeah… it’s been fun.” His voice was rough.

“Good, good.”

The man came beside him and threw his own towel away.

“Would you like a hug?”

It was an awkward question, but it startled Luca enough to make him look at the man. His expression was creased in worry, but a comforting smile played on his lips as his hands opened slightly.

And just like that, he threatened to burst into tears again.

The teacher wrapped his arms around Luca, reminiscent of his father’s comfort, and held him for a short moment. This mean, harsh teacher was the only one who offered him any comfort, a member of the small few who noticed, and then cared, about his emotions.

Luca was inevitably the first to pull away, arms loosing around him at the force. He didn’t want to tear-stain the man’s shirt. It already took a blow this evening.

“Do you want to talk about it?” He asked.

Luca shook his head, another obnoxious snort echoing in the room.

“That’s alright, just… don’t hide away. The teachers are here if you need us.” The man nodded his head with a thin-lipped expression. “When you’re feeling better, feel free to join us back at the table. I know we said no dessert but… you’re sitting with us. I’ll get you a hot chocolate or something.”

Mr. Polis walked out of the bathroom, leaving Luca alone with his thoughts once more. He swallowed the rising lump in his throat and went back to the sink, dampening another paper to cleanse his eyes.

A teacher. A teacher cared for him, a boy he didn’t even teach.

Something indescribable washed over him, and Luca pulled the towel away. He folded it over, the paper rough under his touch as he pressed it, once more, to his face. He wadded it up. As he walked away, he lightly threw it into the –

– trash can. He winced as the paper slit his fingertip.

He turned his finger to see the damage, but the cut was so thin it wasn’t even visible. With his thumb, he pulled the skin taut, feeling the burn of a paper cut but still, nothing.

Andrew groaned and grabbed his pen, going back to scribbling down notes as the video he neglected to pause shifted focus to the importance of Chilean copper mines in the 1970’s and how they partly incited the American-sponsored coup d'état.

Riveting.

The video was meant to help him study. It had good coverage of American-sponsored insurrections in the Cold War era, the current topic in his history class and the basis for a presentation he was set to give Monday. But even for a man who enjoyed these things, Andrew’s mind couldn’t help but loll. Every sentence sounded muffled. Even his eyes weren’t focused on the graphics. They watched the time instead, on the far right corner of his laptop.

The numbers lay stagnant, Andrew’s mind beginning to wander back to class. Back to the boy.

He rewound the video with a tense hand.

Again he heard the explanations of Chile’s nationalization of the copper mines and jotted down a couple points he thought were important. But when he rested his hand on the notebook page, he moved his finger slightly, and with it came a burgundy smear.

Andrew recoiled, briefly forgetting the paper cut. But the thin line had started to bubble with blood, painting more than the paper red. There was a spot on his pen as well.

He groaned, slamming the space bar to pause the video before getting off his bed. Though, he was also grateful to be without reminder of class for a moment. They had band aids somewhere in the house, he knew, but specifically where was a mystery.

His feet pattered on the upstairs carpet, turning to a hollower sound as the stairwell became wood. Descending into the small foyer he opened the cabinets directly to his right. He was cautious to keep his bloody finger off the furniture. After a few moments of looking, he found no band aids.

He blinked tiredly at the spot where he thought they’d be, throwing his head back in mild exhaust, catching the gaze of the crucifix above the drawers.

Andrew stared at it for a few moments, then hurriedly left the room to continue his search.

He found more miscellaneous cabinets, but as he looked through them, he couldn’t help but feel the divine gaze on him. Somebody – God – was watching him.

He turned around, scanning the empty room as if to find a ghost with him. Nothing was there. He turned back to his search, pulling open another drawer and scanning with new vigor. Andrew wanted to be back up in his room quick.

The feeling had, admittedly, been the thing to distract him earlier. It had been following him all week, though never as strong as it was in this moment. The cross and its waxen martyr could hear the sin in his mind, he was sure of it, as it was filled with… disquieting thoughts.

Andrew tried to shake it from him – the thoughts of class, watching the teacher, eyes drifting down to the boy beside him – but it was no use. He could lie and say he didn’t purposefully look in his direction, but what use would it be when he couldn’t even convince himself?

Everything began to remind him of his failure. Even the damn copper mines.

Andrew let out a huff of bitter laughter. How...

...romantic, he finished, quieter than the minds echo, a thought inside a thought. Something welled inside him. It wasn’t romantic. Nothing about this was ‘romantic’. Romance wasn’t… it wasn’t made up of… how would a relationship like that even work?

Andrew’s mind slowly turned to more intimate ideas. He made a face as he sharply pushed them out. Though the idea that he had thought them (and did so willingly, though he wouldn’t admit it) shocked him. Scared him.

Suddenly jolted from his mind palace of worry, Andrew looked directly at a box of band aids that had been in front of him for God-knows how long.

He blinked once at it. Twice. Then he delicately pulled back the loose flap on top and got a small bandage.

He stared at it, cut long dry and crusted over with blood. It shook. The band aid was shaking.

No, he was shaking, but he wasn’t going to look at himself and admit that.

Andrew placed it back in the box and slowly shut the cabinet. He stared at the dark wood, trying to reground himself in reality.

He turned back to the stairwell. Jesus watched him climb the stairs. His gaze followed him into his room.

He wasn’t. He could be. He could even think of the word. Not because he could remember it, but to let it ring in his head, in his voice?

Andrew swallowed rising bile as he convinced himself to think it, at least. Because was it better to refuse it, or to proudly state it negatively? Was he weaker for letting the guilt (no, not guilt, because he was guilty of naught) consume him, or for thinking of these things to begin with?

He was not ‘into’ men.

He was not gay.

He was not –

– queer name, Dedalus, and I have a queer name too, Athy. My name is the name of a town. Your name is like Latin.

Isaac skimmed over the passage. This section was a nice break from the confusing nature of Joyce’s earlier prose. He could appreciate the dedication to writing as if through a toddler’s perspective, but enjoyment was a different metric. At least these lines were brief and conversational.

Well, Isaac mused, nothing could be as dense as Ulysses, even if by the same author. And even if Isaac had never read that labyrinth of a book, he knew how torturous it was.

So he continued reading about children and their discussion of riddles, even if the one was quite poor at them.

—Can you answer me this one? Why is the county of Kildare like the leg of a fellow’s breeches?

Stephen thought what could be the answer and then said:

—I give it up.

“I wouldn’t say it’s early, but I don’t often get a call from you at this hour.”

Isaac froze, eyes looking at the words on the page but not quite reading them. That was the voice of his grandfather.

Isaac’s brow furrowed. He straightened himself and kept on reading.

—Because there is a thigh in it, he said. Do you see the joke? Athy is the town in the county Kildare and a thigh is the other thigh. “What could be so important, Asriel?”

Isaac didn’t get the joke, yet he kept reading. The book trickled back into dense prose and it failed to capture his attention. Instead, the words of his grandfather seemed to get louder as Isaac unintentionally focused on them.

“The Skoligs? I thought only the Vex had connections to your circle.”

Isaac stared at the paper.

His father… must be a magistrate too… He thought of his own father… while his mother played… when he asked for sixpence…

He read and reread the paragraph, never quite catching what it was saying. It began to frustrate him, the lengths to which is own mind refused to ignore the man in the other room.

“Checks and balances, I understand.” His grandfather’s voice got louder as he turned into the hallway and noticed Isaac in the drawing room. Isaac’s periphery betrayed the old man’s lingering gaze before he kept walking and entered the kitchen, which was still close enough for him to hear. “You’re saying Stockton is a playground for higher forces. What stake do you have in this?”

Silence, again.

He thought of his own father, of how he sang songs while his mother played and of how he always gave him a shilling when he asked for sixpence and he felt sorry for him that he was not a magistrate like the other boys’ fathers.

There. Isaac read the sentence and understood it. Finally. His took a moment to clear his head once more, unwittingly glancing over towards the direction of the voice.

“I didn’t take you to be the sentimental type.”

Isaac waited as the other line was deaf to him, before his sight refocused on the page. No. He didn’t care. His grandfather’s work was nothing to him.

Isaac began to read again, his mind wading through the twisted writing and trying to make sense of it. But the buzz of his grandfather’s gruff voice never failed to waft back to him.

He focused even harder on reading.

Isaac made it halfway down the page before: “Don’t make this my families business. Again.”

Isaac’s sight stopped dead.

Who did he say he was on call with? Asriel? The question betrayed his apathy. A vitriolic expression bled onto his face. Who was he to blame that on someone else? He made it his families business, whatever it was – his work was their downfall. He was their downfall. Who but he could have made it his parent’s problem? Who was Asriel?

The silence was deafening as he waited for any answer, wiggling his ears childishly as if it would help him hear a response.

“Anything involving that woman was my families business,” his grandfather barked. Even Isaac was slightly taken aback. His eyes were glued to the wall, as if to bare through them and face his grandfather entirely.

That woman… Isaac raked his brain for whoever that could be. He came up blank. There was no woman significant enough to his family, that he knew of, to solicit that reaction from his grandfather.

His grandfather rounded the corner and Isaac threw himself back in the direction of the book. He did not try to read the words, but met the paragraph he had long bore at and the shape of two words in particular. Father and mother sat inked before him. Silence enveloped a long moment.

When his grandfather began to speak, Isaac could no longer handle being even near the man.

As he stood, the book folded back together harshly, closing him away from the specters of a family. Isaac began to walk in the opposite direction of his grandfather, towards his room. As he turned into the hallway, the words “wraith” and “leader” hit him.

Isaac quickened his pace, one final name gracing his ear; “Terra,–“

– Warden’s voice ricocheted outside the car, his large figure shoving on a coat as he emerged out of the house. He waited for a second, listening to an inaudible response, before climbing into the drivers seat.

Elias scooted even farther down into his seat, knees propped up higher than his head as his spine curled to an uncomfortable degree. But he was too engrossed in his 3DS to notice – Elias had a Riolu to catch and a gym badge to obtain, he had no time for the meager discomfort in his neck.

Warden turned the car on and, as the engine whirred to life, glanced back at Elias and chuckled. “Enjoying the game?”

Elias barely heard him, staring daggers at the Poké Ball which shook once. Twice. Then a shadowy sprite of Riolu emerged from its wake. Elias groaned and managed to slink even farther down.

“Don’t ignore your dad, Elias.”

He looked up to see his mother’s hair swishing as she put on her seat belt, then turned to face him with furrowed eyebrows and a teasing smile at her lips.

“And sit up,” her voice gaining a sudden starkness as she took in his form.

Elias scrambled to do just that, the commanding tone of his mother’s voice, full of love yet still slightly terrifying imploring him to have perfect posture and a clicked in seat belt within moments. She nodded and turned back around.

When his dad repeated the question, Elias shifted the 3DS back into his lap. “Yeah, I am.”

“Good,” was all his father responded with. As he looked over his seat to pull out of the driveway, he smiled at Elias.

The boy waited for a bit before returning to the game. He didn’t want to risk not hearing someone again and them actually getting annoyed. But as their conversation lulled into something work related, Elias eagerly snatched the system back up and honed his attention to the screen.

And when he finally managed to catch the Pokemon, his grin stretched ear-to-ear.

He navigated to the menu, pressing save and shutting the console with a snapping sound. He often got a headache from playing video games in the car. One already was teasing at the front of his head.

Thankfully, the window glass was cold where he placed his cheek. Roaming Stockton streets passed by in a blur, concrete on concrete on concrete. Elias played a game with the metal fences: He’d find their endpoint, wait for them to pass him, then ‘jump’ to the next with his sight. It kept him entertained in the monochrome, if slightly dizzying.

There was a small park, however, on a street they passed. When his mom told stories of her youth, which was rare, the park had come up – one of her friends began a garden within it to help the community.

He glanced at her. Her eyes were closed, though mouth still moving as she explained something to his dad.

Unintentionally, Elias mimicked her movement. He reclined in the seat and rested his head somewhat lopsidedly, twiddling the game console in his hands, watching as the outside greenery quickly bled back into gray. His friends own came to mind.

Elias closed his eyes to the thought of him showing off his catch. Oh, it was going to be awesome. He couldn’t wait.

[verus-veritas]

New Year Update

Happy New Year everyone! Hope you've all had some happy holidays together with your family and loved ones!

As some of you might have noticed, my blogs have gradually become more and more inactive recently. Both with my own stories as well as reblogs. I've been trying to post as much as I am capable of, but unfortunately, I don't feel that it is enough. Which is why I've decided to give you all an explanation on why, as well as what the future holds.

It's quite simple actually; my deteriorating health. Since the beginning of the last year (2022) I've been riddled with health issues and injuries. Whether it is a supposed incurable autoimmune disease or a shoulder injury from work, there's been so many problems concerning my own body this year. Headaches that last for weeks, swollen lymph nodes, blurred vision, aching muscles, numbness in my arms. You guessed it I've probably got it.

Even if I've been feeling better at times, I'm always left feeling drained and frustrated at the end of the day. I suppose that is what constant pain does to a person... As a result, I've never really had the motivation or energy to put into writing. At most, I've managed to write 3-4 shorter stories at times when I felt moderately okay.

As such, I've decided to take it easy this coming year. I won't be gone completely, but more just taking a step back. Perhaps I'll be lurking around, chatting with some of you, and even reblogging some of my favourite stories. Maybe I'll post some leftover stories from time to time...

I really do enjoy writing, as it is both an outlet for my "horniness", but also because I genuinely enjoy seeing and hearing about how much it inspires others to start their own blogs as well. After all, that was the reason why I started writing back then after the "Great Porn Purge", when the TF community felt dead and abandoned. Bringing the old classics and interactives back to life, I hoped it would inspire more to come forward and write their own takes on it.

Although I don't believe I'm the reason for it, I'm so happy to see all the wonderful writers that have popped up in our small community nowadays. Even those that only stayed for a brief period of time.

So I encourage you all to pick up your pen (not literally of course haha) and write your crazy and freaky ideas down! Who knows, maybe you'll come to love it...

Who knows if I'll ever come back to writing stories? Maybe once my treatments are done, which could last for a year or two, if not for the rest of my life... If I ever do though, I hope to be able to come back even stronger than ever. Lots of captions, spicy interactives, and tons of crazy ideas! (I have around 500 unfinished drafts haha).

For now, I want to thank you all for your continued support and I wish you all a happy and healthy (and horny!) 2023 together. I can't wait to see what amazing things will come for our beloved community!

With Love, Verus ❤️

[hoidn]

we have now reached the exit,  (pursued by a bear).

[magicalmischel]

WIP TAG GAME 🌿

rules: make a new post with the names of all the files in your wip folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them, and then post a little snippet or tell them something about it! and then tag as many people as you have wips

thanks for tagging me @regulusrules ! 💖

I have a lot of wips too 😂 most of these are for BBC Merlin, a few are for classic who. I hope I don't forget anything, I keep a list but I haven't updated it in like a year 😂

BBC MERLIN WIPS

The Crystal Hunters; 45k

a canon era time travel fic with merthur and morgwen, set during the Great Purge. There's lots of plot, magic, crystals, old castles and running.

Layers of Dusk; 17k

a darker fic where Arthur dies and so Merlin tries his hand at necromancy

Give Me Your Hand, I'll Give You Mine; 1300 words

canon era, merthur, magical injuries caused by the great purge and a magic reveal.

"the medieval roommates valentine fic" (untitled); 2500 words

merlin is forced to stay in arthur's chambers 24/7 bc of plot. Not sure if I'll ever finish this one tbh

Rhythm of Love; ??k

glastonbury festival fic where arthur returns + musician!merlin. I have no idea how many years ago I started this, definitely pre-2018 though. Idek if I still have the draft somewhere ;-;

Suddenly Flames Everywhere; 77k

;-; i think abt this fic every day and try to work on it at least once a week ;-; i wanted to post it for acbb 2023 but i ran out of time, and then once the deadline was gone, so was most of my motivation 😂 it's a merthur enemies to lovers dragon!merlin soulmate canon au that I care about very very much. pls ask me abt it if you want maybe it'll kick me into working on it more 😂

The Light of Knowledge; ?????k

oof this is an old one. started it way back in 2014 and I'm honestly not sure if I still have the draft saved somewhere. All I remember is a big maze, lots of bad poems that I wrote in like the 9th grade and merthur 😂

Falling into Empty Space (??); 400 words lmao

basically a s1!merlin vs s5!merlin epic fight with time travel to 1x08 bc obviously killing kid!mordred is wrong, right? Right??

"ghost!merlin canon au fic" (untitled); 9k

exactly what it says in the title. damn i need to return to this ;-;

"cat!merlin fic" (untitled), 1000 words

canon era, merthur, magic reveal. Merlin transforms himself into a cat bc of course that is the absolute best way to get arthur to accept magic. it only makes sense in his head lmao

Burn Us Away (But Keep Me in Your Heart); 11.8k

canon soulmate au with a LOT of angst and a magic reveal

"the bird!merlin fic"; 1000 words

first written for merlin bingo 2021 but I never finished it ;-;

No Doubt in My Mind Where You Belong; 12k

a canon era trans!merlin fic with established relationship merthur

"cuddle fic" (untitled); 1300 words

written for fluffalooza 2023 but never finished ;-;

"one bed fic" (untitled); 1900 words

also written for fluffalooza but never finished bc it felt too ridiculous/cracky/ooc, but it might be worth reworking

"the weird tarot crack fic" (untitled); 2.8k

written for tarot fest 2023 but abandoned bc i came up with a better idea for the fest. I remember it was very cracky, I might return to it. Canon era merthur.

i might be forgetting some tbh, I've written a lot of drabbles that I later wanted to expand but never did ;-;

CLASSIC DOCTOR WHO WIPS

"jamie/10 + 11 fic" (untitled); 3.5k

the 10th doctor visits all his companions before regenerating into 11 including jamie <3

"twojamie war games "make it worse" fic" (untitled); 849 words

this is theoretically a fix-it but also i make it much worse first lmao, and i'm not sure yet how it ends either, so is it really a fix-it??

ok and I think that's it!! ;-; i did write a little something for each of the titles but hopefully not too much so if anyone sees this and wants to know more feel free to dm me

i'm not gonna tag 18 people though that's way too many 😂 I'll tag @insane-ohwhyfandoms (good luck) @lair-of-the-dragon @lesbianlefay @invisibility-superiority @queerofthedagger @wolfiery @haventacluewhatimdoing and @twojamie-o-clock <3

absolutely no pressure to do this though of course! 💖

[lightly-toasted-ice]

The Toa Hydrax and Makuta Orduun

In his bid to find Traven, Náströnd realized that his current approach - kidnapping and mutating as many Toa as he could - was inefficient at best, and a hindrance at worst. It was this realization that spurred his decision to create an army with which he could subjugate the Universe.

Artakha saw this transgression unfolding from his fortress and did two things. First, he drafted plans for a massive seal to bar his realm, indeed, an entire arm of the Universe from the rest. Second, he set to work creating a new team of Toa, one more powerful than perhaps any other, for all were infused with Light.

(things get long after the break, go grab a drink and make sure your scrolling finger's doing alright)

First came Nihra, a Toa of Earth and Light to be a steadfast beacon for her future siblings.

Gault was the second, and is the only member of his team to have seen the world beyond the Artakhan Arm.

Seeing a need for a weaponmaster among the Toa Hydrax, Artakha created Seras, who forged the weapons of all her siblings.

Aldous was fourth, and is the most solitary of his siblings, but certainly neither a stranger nor an unwelcome sight to the inhabitants of the Artakhan Arm.

Next was Zevokk, whose bravery is immortalized in the scarred ends of his arms, now covered by adaptive claw cannons perfect for crushing Rahkshi or aiding the Matoran.

Last but not least is Amaria, whose zeal and sheer incorruptibility make her the Toa Hydrax's ace in the hole.

But the Toa Hydrax would be nowhere near as effective as they are without a proper teacher, and who better to instruct Toa in how to defend their home from the armies of a Makuta than another Makuta?

Orduun was among the Makuta that bowed to Teridax's will when he deposed Miserix, but he was never truly loyal to the dark tyrant. He plotted and schemed as many of his siblings did, but not to wrest control of the Brotherhood of Makuta from Teridax; Orduun sought freedom, a life away from the Brotherhood, and was willing to do whatever it took to get out. His salvation came from the most unlikely place, however, as Teridax called for any Makuta willing to seek the lost island of Artakha.

Orduun spoke first and loudest, challenging any who dared to duel him for the honor, but none protested his claim. He was granted leave of his realm, the Iron Islands, that he may search for Artakha, and he set out in the form of a flying Rahi to begin his search.

His search lasted for centuries, from the ruins of Metru Nui to the furthest reaches of the Southern Chains, and everywhere in between. He returned north to search the right arm of the Universe, and witnessed the early stages of the building of Artakha's great seal. He soared high over the construction and laid his eyes on the island of Artakha - the first being in the millennia since the theft of the Avohkii to see it from afar.

He rested on a nearby island, awaiting nightfall so he could seek a clandestine audience with Artakha himself. In the hours that passed, he kept an eye on that mythical island, in awe of its distant beauty. When the sun had fully set, he flew toward the fortress at the center of the island, but a voice entered his mind, a hard, cold spike in the nonmatter in his head. Orduun faltered, landing on a rooftop in the city surrounding Artakha's fortress.

Artakha spoke to him, demanding to know why a Makuta had dared enter his realm. Orduun told him the truth, swearing on his life, which he would pledge to the defense of the builder's realm until his final day. Artakha searched Orduun's mind, finding it wholly open to him, and accepted the Makuta's offer when he saw that he was telling the truth.

Artakha offered to restore Orduun's Light, and help him purge his Shadow, both of which the Makuta eagerly accepted. Months later, when he stood in his true form once more, he raised his hands, shining a beam of multicolored light into the sky, swearing aloud to uphold the ideals he had once and always held so dear. The Great Spirit's will was his to Duty to enact, and he'd be damned if he would fail again.

Artakha commended his zeal, and set forth the Makuta's first task as the new Makuta of Artakha: training the Toa Hydrax to defend the Artakhan Arm against all threats, especially Makuta. Orduun accepted this task readily, and was ushered into Artakha's fortress to meet his new protégés.