#will stick this under my worldbuilding tag.. later

[activatingaggro]

once upon a time (not long ago) there was a jadeblood who saw a light only she could see. she followed it down past her cloister, down past her caverns, down past the furthest depths anyone had ever seen, and what she found there was the first sun, long dead and yet still, somehow - "i do not live, but i will not die, for my fuel is your blood," it told her. she could not understand what she saw: a thousand eyes, a hundred mouths, features carved into stone that wept light like foul water. "bring me tinder to keep my flame alive, and this light will be yours, for as long as i shine."

once upon a time (not long ago) there were bluebloods who lived trapped between the sea and the sands, caught in an endless battle against those below and those above. when they died, they burned their bodies and cast them to the sky - but one sweep, the battles would not end. a body was left unconsecrated, its po still bound, and when the sun rose, the body rose with it. the body did not realise it was dead. and so it came to each door in the village, pounding on the doors. but it did not realise it was dead, and yet it had forgotten what it was to be alive - so it called out for names of those long dead. it spoke of the journeys of those not yet hatched. and when the sun sank below the horizon, the body collapsed with it, and all within the town hurried to consecrate it before the sun rose again.

Liyiji and Marduk's outfits, with some lore! They agreed to match outfits prior to the ball on a rainbowdrinker theme, but neither quite thought to actually clarify what kind of rainbowdrinker they meant.

Marduk's representing the more traditional rainbowdrinker, with a horrorterror / Ipomoean bent. Liyiji's a mixture of a jiangshi and vetala - with the latter being a corpse possessed by a demon in Hindu mythology, who possess full knowledge of the past, present, future, and everything in between.

I enjoyed the details in doing these! Little horrorterror faces, and writing on Liyiji's prayer slip and robes - two different scripts to represent the incompleted formal/religious slip on his horn, and the more casual, scrawled, common dialect that's been scrawled across the robes to try and consecrate the body after it collapses once more. Would that actually work? Unclear, but Liyiji has probably mentally prepared a passionate five page fucking essay prepared to argue one perspective or another in case anyone at the ball asks.

[haunting-hufflepuffs-basement]

Welcome to the Basement:

I am both tired and a coward and have made a separate account to interact with the Marauders/Harry Potter fandom without having to deal with the TERFs every time I open tumblr. I must make it clear that I DO NOT support JKR in any way. I WILL NOT tolerate bigotry and WILL block you and tell others to block you too if I see any.

You can call me Spectr. My pronouns are she/her, and I'm aroace. I'm older than 18, but I'm sex repulsed so I basically won't ever reblog smut or NSFW. Minors are welcome, but I swear a lot, so maybe don't stick around if that makes you uncomfy.

This blog is for all my Harry Potter and Marauders headcanons, hot takes (and ice cold takes), art, fanfic if I ever get around to it, and general discussion. And yes, I consider the Harry Potter fandom and the Marauders fandom to be two wildly different beasts.

LINK TO MY MARAUDERS ERA SHIPNAME SPREADSHEET

More about me under the cut:

I'm a LOUD AND PROUD HUFFLEPUFF! BADGERS UNITE! Seriously, literally every test I have ever taken, Pottermore or otherwise, good and bad, has put me in Hufflepuff. I am so agressively Puff it's not even funny. My secondary house is Ravenclaw, and my Ilvermorny house is (probably) Pukwudgie.

I put waaaaayyyyy too much in my tags, seriously (siriusly. Heh). Check the tags of any post I put tags on, and you will find at least half of them are disorganized rambling.

I currently cannot pick a favorite marauder. I love them all too much. My favorite HP character is probably Ginny Weasley.

I am very much a book fan, not a movie fan. I've read all the books at least 5 times, but have read the Sorceror's Stone and The Prisoner of Azkaban more times than I can count. I have watched the first 3 movies all the way through once and have only seen the later movies in bits and pieces. I don't hate them, but they're not my favorites.

In case you didn't catch it in that last paragraph, I'm American, and nothing I write will be Britpicked. Sorry.

I love Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, but I don't watch them on official platforms because JKR sucks. I don't have a favorite character; Newt, Tina, Queenie, and Jacob are all favorites.

While I loved Harry Potter as a kid and have a deep emotional attachment to it, it is a children's book with a LOT of worldbuilding and story issues. I like to use the world and magic as a sandbox to play in, less as a strict rule.

I don't really care too hard on ships. My aroace ass honestly says "the less you focus on it the better," but if you write it well, any dynamic can be good. That said, my usual likes are as follows:

Marauders: wolfstar (I'm basic trash), jily (again, basic trash), peter thinks everyone is hot but never gets to seriously date anyone r.i.p., marlene mckinnon/mary macdonald (although marlene has a fat crush on Dorcas Meadowes that never really goes away), Dorcas Meadowes/Pandora Lovegood, and optional Rosekiller but I get sad if we spend too much time with the Slytherins.

HP: Ron/Hermoine, Ginny/Harry if you like or Ginny/Luna if you don't, Perciver, dislike Tonks/Lupin but I don't care that much, and I really really don't give a shit about anyone else.

I hate muggle AUs with a burning passion (no shame if you like them, just not my cup of tea), but I do like it when we get to let the wizards use muggle tech and in general be more integrated into the muggle world.

Peter Pettigrew is a marauder and I will DIE on this hill. I will defend this slimy turncoat disaster rat man to the end of my life. Please fight me, I'm excited.

[moonclansbalance]

"No matter how powerful, how divine, MoonClan will never have complete control. Violence will manifest in a perfect world, and hope will spark in a hopeless world. Stories can be found everywhere, but good stories begin with that compromise."

Years have passed since the first RainClan-LucentClan war, but the bad blood between the two continued to boil below the surface. As tensions begin to arise once more, a young warrior must choose between the beliefs and choices of his family and his own morals. 

================

Hi everyone, you can call me Rosepool :) Welcome to my Warriors webcomic, MoonClan's Choice! A long-term project spanning multiple arcs, with each arc focusing on a different cast, a different story — all of the clans under MoonClan's rule!

This will not be styled like a conventional webcomic. It will have more writing than most — think an illustrated script/novel, rather than a full-on comic. I also plan to incorporate other media elements, such as animatics and perhaps even interactive elements.

In addition, this is a pretty dialogue/plot-heavy webcomic with lots of buildup. It's also very character-oriented and will spend a lot of time developing said characters. Admittedly most of the action won't start until later in the story - if you're looking for something action heavy, this might not be for you!

However I hope you will give this story a shot :) I will do my best to make this as fun for you all as possible. For those who choose to stick around, I hope you will come to love this story as much as I do!

Foxskip's Choice will be updated 1-2 times a week (on Sundays and/or Thursdays) with a new page.

================

Tags/Navigation

#newsfeed: all updates, announcements, and posts not including chapters

#page: all the completed pages

#chapter: all the completed chapters

#ask the clans: asks

#refs: reference sheets of the characters

#lore: lore/worldbuilding of the comic

#art: art of the comic created by me

#foxskip's choice: all content specifically for arc one: foxskip's choice

#fc: pages: all pages specifically for arc one: foxskip's choice

#fc: chapters: all chapters specifically for arc one: foxskip's choice (compiled after chapter is completed)

Allegiances

Playlists

Map:

*map is a commission drawn by my sister

*format is inspired off @/barrenclan

Pages/chapters under keep reading:

ARC ONE - Foxskip's Choice

Prologue

Chapter One — "Begin": Cover 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

[lixenn]

Overview

Since I’ve come out of my introverted gremlin cave and started to actually work regularly on my writing as well as posting my stuff on here, I’ve decided to structure my blog a bit. Mostly to prevent people from getting absolutely lost in this chaotic mess.  

I will try to keep this as updated as possible but there might be a bit of a delay between me posting new content and updating this, so please keep that in mind.

General info

My Ao3 account

My Kofi

My Carrd

Art commissions are open! More information here.

Tags

#lixy reports Lix' daily life in a nutshell #art nook art tag #crochet corner crochet tag #ask answered ask tag

Ask box

If you have questions about any of my projects or just want to randomly scream at me about any topic that comes to mind, my inbox is open. Bother me anytime!

Katekyo Hitman Reborn

The KHR discord server is now online! It's a general server for the fandom. If you want to join just drop me a DM and I'll send you the invite link.

KHR writing prompts

Prompts are open, just drop them in my inbox and I'll see what the nonsense generator can fabricate!

Prompt rules/intro

Dan and Celeste

Dan and Vlasta

The Housekeeping AU

#the housekeeping AU #khr daniele costa #khr dave #khr valerie rebner #khr vlasta gast #khr marina costa #khr cilmi #khr yves #khr sam #khr blaze

This is me playing around in the Varia sandbox, come and join me in my weird delusions!

Witness how the Head of Varia Housekeeping (my OC) is slowly but surely driven insane by crazy Assassin bullshit, meddling assistants (aka Dave), mountains of paperwork and Mafia politics.

(Btw the concept of my Varia Housekeeping was inspired by Umei_no_Mai whose worldbuilding is absolutely Godtier. I kneel before their greatness.)

Character profiles

Chief aka Daniele

Dave

Ottavio under edit

Valerie Rebner

Yves

The Varia Housekeeping survival guide (WIP currently updating on Ao3)

When you are the overworked and underappreciated head of Varia Housekeeping who is sick and tired of cleaning up your employees’ corpses and decide to write up an instruction manual for dealing with Varia's insanity.

The Concept of Causality (WIP currently updating on Ao3)

Causality is an influence by which a cause contributes to the production of an effect, where the cause is at least partly responsible for the effect, and the effect is at least partly dependent on the cause. Even the most patient man has his limits and Dan has reached his years ago. Nobody could blame him for snapping. Really, they should thank him, he was just cleaning up their mess like usual. Now if he could just go back to his usual routine without being dragged into Mafia politics, strange mysteries or heavens forbid romance, that'd be grand thanks.

Housekeeping Snippets (WIP currently updating on Ao3)

Snippets of my Housekeeping AU starring my various OCs which I posted on tumblr. These are in non-chronological order and mostly focus on character interactions and shenanigans.

Detective Dave is on the case (complete on Ao3 but might add something later on)

Dave has never been able to resist a good mystery, so when one of his informants was suddenly murdered under suspicious circumstances, what else is he supposed to do other than immediately stick his nose into other people's business? ("Can you for once in your life not poke the sleeping dragon with a stick?" "But Chief! A murder mystery! Delivered right to my front door!" "..." "Hey, we are you going? Chief? Chief! I still need you to sign these forms! Come back!" )

This is my crossover with Myell's Killer Whale AU, so if you aren't familiar with her 'verse this story might be a bit confusing, I recommend checking her stuff out first a then coming back to this one. (Shamelessly advertising my Buddy's story again hehehehe)

Fanfic recs

I've decided to indulge myself and finally make a list some of my favourite KHR fanfics, feel free to check it out!

Fic recs

Naruto

How Uzushio was saved by drunken seal shenanigans (WIP kinda on hold)

The story of how Uzumaki Ren – explosion specialist, seal master and everyone’s favourite mad scientist – saves his village from destruction, revolutionizes the medical field, adopts a puppy, and gives his Kage an aneurism. Not necessarily in that order.

Note: I still have stuff for this story prewritten (but nothing post-worthy just yet), but since KHR has overtaken all my brain space, I’ll probably won’t work on this for a while. I’m still super attached to my mad scientist baby Ren, so there will be more content! … Just in the very far future 😅

[thecurioustale]

Hello! I’m interested in checking out your work, but all I can find is the prelude to After the Hero. Is anything else publicly available?

I don't have much published fiction, sadly! I'm a slow-cooker kind of artist. Besides the Prelude to After The Hero, I have two other published fictional works at present, both of which are under the umbrella of my fantasy series The Curious Tale:

The Great Galavar is, like the Prelude, one of the "Interludes" or satellite-works to the main After The Hero story. This work tells the story of Galavar, one of the main characters in After The Hero. It is presently unfinished and on hiatus. I was publishing it as a weekly serial back in the mid-2010s and I stopped due to life hardships, and haven't yet gotten back to it in favor of working on the main novel instead. (I do, however, plan to finish it in the future.)

The other fictional work is Empire on Ice, which is a sketch comedy series that uses the same cast as After The Hero but in an alternate reality where After The Hero is a movie that they are all making together. It was published in the form of written screenplays. Empire on Ice was another weekly feature back in the mid-2010s that got put on hiatus when life went haywire for me. Since it isn't an overarching story, it wouldn't make sense to call it "finished" or "unfinished," but I will say that I do not consider the project "concluded," i.e., it would be nice to get back to it at some point if I can.

(Note: My website is pretty outdated and doesn't have one of those security certificates that are standard on the web these days, i.e. is http rather than https, so your browser might give you a security warning if you click on any of these links, but, for whatever the word of a Tumblr stranger is worth to you, my site is totally harmless—except of course for my world-bending ideas and philosophy, lol.)

So, that's the bad news: There's not much fiction to read so far. Though, if you like worldbuilding commentary, I also had a weekly series called Curious Tale Saturdays where I talked about the fictional world of Relance in great detail. This series also went on hiatus when disaster struck for me back in the 2010s, though it lives on in a reduced form over at my Patreon, where I sometimes write worldbuilding essays—most of which become free for anyone to read after a 3-day exclusive period for patrons. And I also write worldbuilding essays here on Tumblr sometimes. You can follow the tags on this post to see more.

The good news, meanwhile, is that I have not one but two novels officially in the works: Chapter 1 of After The Hero: A Curious Tale, and the first novel in a science fiction series called Galaxy Federal. I don't have ETAs on either of these books yet, except that they won't be done in the short-term future.

I also have other projects I am working on.

If you stick around, I hope to be able to make some relevant announcements later this year. (In fact there will be a non-fiction announcement in the next week or two!)

[swansong-if]

i am taking a page from my pal portmuralis's book so here are some rules. please read carefully before interacting with this blog.

╭───── g e n e r a l

be respectful. be mindful that there’s a person on the other side of the screen. tone and intent are often hard to read through text, and i don’t know you, so please try to be decent (this goes for asks as well as comments/tags)

occasionally checking on the story’s progress is okay, but please don’t obsessively ask me about it; it can get demotivating. if you start being rude and demanding updates, i will give you my ko-fi info & demand payment ♡

i am not comfortable with minors under the age of 16 interacting with this blog; obviously i can’t always check but reminder that respecting other people’s boundaries is important.

if you want to chat about personal/unrelated topics, i would prefer if you did that either via direct messages or on my personal blog rather than here (since i’m trying to keep this strictly for if development)!

if you’re sending asks about potentially sensitive/triggering topics, i would appreciate if you asked beforehand to check if i’m comfortable with that particular content. and it goes both ways- i try to tag all cw, but let me know if i missed something.

╭───── R O / s t o r y  a s k s

asks about the characters/lore/worldbuilding are always appreciated & encouraged. unless stated otherwise in my bio, my inbox is always open.

if i don’t answer your ask the possible reasons are, 1) i haven’t had the time and will get to it later; 2) i haven’t received it; 3) i'm not comfortable replying for any reason; 4) the answer would be spoilers. if you think the ask was simply eaten you can resend it!

please do not gender the ROs or the MC in asks. mistakes can happen, just don’t let it become a habit because it makes other players feel excluded, so please stick to neutral terms whenever you can. [obviously this isn’t the case if you’re telling me about your playthrough experience/your own mc!]

generally speaking, i won’t be answering asks with overly specific scenarios (as in, requesting ‘personalized’ reactions catered to one’s mc)- i appreciate the enthusiasm and commitment to the story, but if it’s a custom fic for your mc you want, you can commission me!

topics i might avoid (you can send asks about them but know that there’s a chance i won’t reply): jealousy/possessiveness; cheating; pregnancy; [tbd].

╭───── n s f w / s p i c y

spicy asks are accepted. i will answer under the cut and tag as #ss: nsfk

again, use gender neutral terms whenever possible.

not a ‘rule’ but, while i’m very hardly bothered by nsfw content that’s not the same for everyone, so if you’re sending a very explicit ask try to word it as tastefully as you can!

keep nsfw asks about the characters. do not send me self-insert asks, for the love of god. we are strangers, and this is a deeply weird thing to do in any case- i don’t need nor want to hear about your s*xual preferences.

*sigh* let’s get this out of the way: i won’t answer spicy asks about the MC in swan form. sorry @ birdf*ck*rs out there. if you send them i will simply have a good laugh.

if by chance i catch a minor interacting with 18+ posts/stories, they will be blocked.

╭───── d o  N O T

first of all, do not come here to tell me you don’t like my story or me. mostly because i don’t care, but also, life is too short to waste time reading stuff you don’t like! just move on and find something better ♡

lots of people on this site seem to think they’re anton ego or something and go around offering useless & unprompted ‘advice’. i am ALWAYS here to listen and learn if someone tells me “this particular thing you wrote is harmful” or “would you consider changing this thing to make your story more accessible?” but outside of that, unless i’m asking for opinions about something don’t come here saying “i don’t like how you did this” “i prefer when authors do this” “you should change x thing about this character because i don’t like it” etc... as i am not here to please a rude stranger on the internet. shoo, go write your own story!

if you bring any kind of bigotry here, i’m blocking you and you now owe me money.

if you send me negativity about other devs, you now owe me and them money. ♡

under no circumstances send me asks about: noncon/dubcon scenarios; inc*st; predatory relationships involving minors.

[luasworkshop]

Writer Tag Game

(tagged by: @the-iron-orchid, tagging: Err... I'm not sure who's on AO3 - I've not been on very long! Consider yourself tagged if you are! @bottomvalerius for sure, and @foxfirefallout if you're on there.)

How many works do you have on AO3?

26 but only 5 of those are written fics, the rest are all spicy artwork I wanted to put somewhere with an age click-through (though I do try to give them fun little descriptions... does it count as a micro-fiction if it's under 100 words?)

What’s your total AO3 word count?

18,477 DEFINITELY only a tiny fraction of what I've actually written! I have multiple 50K plus novels on my hard drive.

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Muriel Wanting (Art)

Early Morning Ride (Writing)

Breakfast (Writing)

At the End of the Day (Writing)

Gentle Hands (Art)

Muriel fans represent!

Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

Generally! I love attention! I respond if there's something to respond to, but I do love general compliments very much.

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

Everything I've posted on AO3 is very light and gentle, and anything that doesn't have at least a SATISFYING ending (this does not preclude major character death, moral ambiguity, and bittersweetness) in my own work isn't finished yet.

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

Everybody gets a 'happy ending'...

Do you write crossovers? If so, What is the craziest one you’ve ever written?

Generally... no, I think if I did it would probably be crack-fic. I'm not particularly fond of crossovers, though I love a good AU.

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Oh I'm sure I will eventually. Meanest comment I've ever gotten online was someone who was VERY upset about a ceramic bust of Riff-Raff (from RHPS) I made when I was 16 that they felt didn't "capture Richard's true beauty." In retrospect this is very funny (this was back on Elfwood's Fan Quarter, back in the day.)

Do you write smut? If so what kind?

Pff, pretty much all I post is smut. Spicy and sweet is where I am (but also definitely very explicit so, yanno, bear that in mind).

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of, and quite frankly, given the internet, I'd rather not know because it's very difficult to deal with that sort of thing.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope, but that'd be pretty cool I think.

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

My husband and I are working on a long piece of original fiction together (novel-length, presently over 100K words) but it's not ready for the world yet (we both have day-jobs, it's hard getting stuff done...)

What’s your all-time favourite ship?

Uuuuuuuhhhhh... anyone/healthy coping mechanisms and oc/anyone I suppose. I'm down for whatever if it's well-written, consensual, and not gross.

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

At this rate Lua/Aleis' re-write is uh... well I'll get to it EVENTUALLY I'm sure.

What are your writing strengths?

Dialogue, humor, knowing how the human body works, large vocabulary, worldbuilding, cranking stuff out when I put my mind to it...

What are your writing weaknesses?

Run-ons, fragments, archaic & obtuse grammar and word-usage, finding that exposition sweet spot (not too much not too little), having no patience whatsoever for editing...

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

Depends on context? Not something I've really much run into. I can't imagine it's much necessary unless you're trying to convey a lack of communication between characters, or if you're just throwing in a word or phrase for characterization.

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

VERY technically - Xena: Warrior Princess, but you won't find it online, I was quite young and very much just writing for myself (sticking in a OC who got to go have adventures with the ladies and developed her whole spin-off). The Arcana is the first fandom I've shard fic of online (though most of my writing and art is original fiction.)

What’s your favourite fic you’ve written?

Uhhhh... hard to pick! Of what's posted I think I like Early Morning Ride and it's followup Breakfast quite well! They're a little rough around the edges, but it's fun bouncing Julian and Muriel off of each other (I'll probably continue this series later as well.)

[emmys-grimoire]

Blog Overview

About

Like it says in the blog desc, this is my theorycrafting blog. I make posts of varying lengths analyzing the storyline of Obey Me! as it unfolds. I enjoy trying to predict its trajectory and, with some luck, my followers enjoy my insights.

I reblog fanart I happen to like and other blogs that also dabble in OM! analysis, but I try to keep this blog primarily about my own writing. 

It is important to remember that I am opinionated and I have no interest in hiding my biases and I will acknowledge that I have them. I will be rough on the characters, writing, and devs if I feel it’s deserved. If you’re averse to hearing criticism towards the things you like, I suggest politely moving on, because everyone and everything winds up in my crosshairs eventually. 

This is a spoiler heavy blog. I always tag my posts when they have them and leave them under a cut, but wade through here prepared to see them. There’s still spoiler free content, but the bulk of what I write will include them.

The Run-down

For easier consumption, I try to categorize my writings in a coherent manner.

Analysis includes writing that isn’t as comprehensive or put-together as theories, usually focused on one particular aspect of a whole. It usually involves studying the nature of something in the story or determining something’s essential features and the relationships involved. I usually write post-lesson analysis + predictions that assess what happens in that particular lesson, how certain aspects of that lesson may be connected to prior lessons, and how those aspects may determine what happens in the later lessons. It’s me trying to connect dots, essentially.

Commentary used to be daily play-by-play summary + critique + opinions of each lesson as they’re released. Now it’s mostly commentary specific scenes because tumblr no longer lets you put 10+ images in text posts. Sad.

Lore is something I do occasionally. These are compilations of in-game worldbuilding lore that can still be analytic, speculative, or interpretative but are generally aimed at “refreshing” the memory of the readers of events they may have muddied recollections of, or informing them of details they may simply have never learned (turns out there’s important content locked behind Devilgrams and hard mode lessons). Some, if not most, lore posts are ongoing or works-in-progress.

Reviews are what it is written on the tin. These are mostly reserved for seasons when they complete, and occasionally events and Devilgrams. I don’t do reviews for individual lessons because a lot of what I would say usually just ends up in the commentary and analysis posts; it’d be redundant.

Theories are proposed explanations for events or phenomena that unfold in the story. While I try to stick with established facts and canon, they're still conjectural and subject to my interpretation. Even if I think one theory is more likely than the others, I still offer alternative explanations that may make sense. They vary in size but I usually use screen caps to back up my evidence.

Clicking on the corresponding links in the sidebar will make it easier to find a specific type of post.

Notable Writings

These are a few popular examples:

Lesson 54 Analysis + 55 Predictions

Past And Future Sorcerer’s Society Shenanigans

Luke’s Prejudices and the Potential Path Forward

Angelic Demons

Michael Analysis

If you have any questions about the Obey Me storyline (it can get confusing), my theories, or simply want my input on something, feel free to drop an ask. I enjoy them!

We have a discord where we chill and discuss the story, but it is VERY SPOILER HEAVY. Everyone’s welcome, but you’ve been warned.

[battlestar-royco]

Considering my place in the anti community

So, I know that might be an alarming title, but rest assured I don’t see myself deactivating or ceasing discussion of SJ/M’s books any time soon. But a lot of things have led me to the decision to explicitly veer my blog in another direction. I’ve said more than once before that I made this blog around May of 2018 as a joke between me, myself, and I, as a way to vent my disappointments with the T0G and AC0TAR series into this dumb blue void. I kid you not, I literally did not expect anyone to interact with me at all, and aside from mutuals on my main, I’d never been sent an ask in all the (then) six years I had a Tumblr. I didn’t expect to meet and befriend such a passionate, salty, visionary, thoughtful community. A little over a year later, I’m interacting with too many people to keep up with, I find myself being tagged and reblogged by reputable bloggers with way bigger followings from all over Tumblr’s diversity-forward fandom communities, and I even have run-ins with anon hate and stan ridiculousness every so often. The anti community as I know it has been a welcoming home that has taught me so much. That being said, there are a few reasons I want to slightly switch gears. So here goes. This is a long one, so thanks for sticking it out, if you make it to the end.

What will remain and what will change?

More will stay the same than will change. I will still absolutely be answering asks about YA books and SJ/M, and I will be posting about the issues within them and how I think they could have gone better. I will also still be tagging such things as anti. I really enjoy discussing the nitty gritty of characters, worldbuilding, and how all that coincides with the handling of diversity and feminism in the books. This type of discussion is, I think, how I gained most of my following, so I don’t want to turn my back on you. Also, in the near future, I mainly just want my blog to be a place where diverse representation across all identity vectors and forms of media, especially fantasy books, is a focus. I want people to feel they can talk earnestly about their issues with xyz representation and/or discuss diversity struggles they come across with their own writing.

I feel like the anti community stagnates periodically and we devolve into cold wars with stans, picking apart miniscule details of the books, scouring SJ/M’s social media, repeating ourselves, or other similar activities. Going forward I want to reduce the conversations that are founded in pettiness or insulting other Tumblr users or SJ/M for things that honestly have nothing to do with the books, the YA/publishing community, or problematic behavior. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of things worth discussing re: problematic author/stan behavior, but it’s easy to lose sight of the reason for antis to exist in the first place. On to reasoning:

1. The connotation.

This is something many of you know about me as well, but it bears repeating: I never hated SJ/M’s books. My blog is a result of my passion and enjoyment of the earlier books twisted into disappointment. I wouldn’t have bothered making a blog about these books if I hated them from start to finish. I wouldn’t have made an “anti” account if I’d felt that my opinions would be accepted among stans. I felt there was a lack in both the anti and stan community for my experience, so I’m here to give voice to that. Although I started out talking about the negatives, I don’t think my blog has ever fit most people’s idea of “anti” on this site. There are a lot of truly toxic anti communities all over Tumblr who exist just to shit on creators and fans or to be negative out of spite, and I really have never identified with that desire, nor have I tried to exhibit that behavior. But thanks to worst of the worst on this site, anyone who calls themselves anti is automatically associated with that. I also think as a whole, every SJ/M anti is doing completely different stuff with their own blogs. We’ve got book cover criticism, opinions and advice about publishing, T0G rewrite projects, shitposts, etc. I myself started expanding months ago into providing writing advice on diversity and generally writing meta. It’s not a group of angry people yelling slurs at each other like I’ve seen other anti communities do, so I don’t think it’s the right label for me.

2. Stans.

This goes a bit with the connotation point. I feel like, especially because of how I’ve branded myself and because of antis who preceded the current batch, stans really have no idea what I’m about. I have always been clear that I do not wish to attack them or their enjoyment of/engagement with the books. And yet I’m constantly being vagued about, having my words twisted, or having my arguments and blogging style very purposely, transparently ignored/misinterpreted/ridiculed in said vague-blog posts. All this despite stans’ frequent claim that they ~never~ go into anti tags or check out our blogs, and despite their other frequent claim they don’t believe in the anti/stan divide and that we’re more alike than not. I agree that this divide is dumb, but it’s kind of hard to distance myself from it while constantly being thrown under the bus by SJ/M BNFs. I don’t mind anyone viewing or interacting with my posts, because transparency and all, but it’s tiresome to constantly defend myself because I’m being misrepresented by accounts that are 4, 5, 6 times bigger than mine who either don’t know how I run my blog or purposely mischaracterize me. I can’t control other people’s behavior and I don’t want to, but this is a change I’m making for my own mental health and to promote better behavior among both communities, and I hope others follow suit.

3. Things I’ve handled poorly and how I want to do better.

Anyone with an ask blog for a minute inevitably acquires their share of public fuck-ups. I can think of a few instances in which I would have handled a situation differently. For example, a few months ago the community as a whole was asked to expand our conversation to more than just presenting SJ/M and Bardugo as foils, and I wish I’d been less defensive there. That day made me think a lot about the way I carry myself on this blog and how limited the conversation can sometimes be. I really do appreciate any and all criticism for the community, and looking back, I feel like my reaction to that didn’t go along with the way I usually try to handle criticism. I think it would be good to try and, like OP said, infuse more book promotion into my blog in general, to try to support and read more books by marginalized authors in the future so we can discuss them more thoroughly here.

In closing/TL;DR:

This isn’t inspired by any particular event or person, but rather a lot of things that have happened in the past several months on Tumblr, in the world and the media, and in my personal life. It’s not a change that was inspired out of negativity, but more out of trying to generate a more positive framework for my Tumblr activity and seeing how I can effect change through this blog. I’m still here for rants, masterposts calling out problematic books and characters, pretty much all the book talk I was doing before. This is just a really long-winded announcement that I want to expand my blog to a general spot for discussing diversity in media. Thank you so much for sticking it out if you made it all the way down here. Here’s to improving ourselves.

[clansayeed]

Bound by Circumstance ― Chapter 23: Happily Ever After

PAIRING: Nik Ryder x trans*M!MC (Taylor Hunter) RATING: Mature

⥼ MASTERLIST ⥽

⥼ Bound by Circumstance ⥽

Taylor Hunter (MC) has made it good for himself in New Orleans; turns out moving to a new city fresh out of college to reinvent yourself isn’t as hard as people make it out to be. Things only start to get confusing when he finds himself the target of a malevolent wraith. Good thing someone’s looking out for him though — because without Nighthunter Nik Ryder as his bodyguard he definitely won’t survive long in the twisting darkness of the supernatural underworld he’s tripped into.

Bound by Circumstance and the rest of the Oblivion Bound series is an ongoing dramatic retelling project of the book Nightbound and the rest of the Bloodbound series. Find out more [HERE].

Note: Circumstance only loosely follows the events and plotline of Nightbound, and features a separate antagonist, different character motivations, and further worldbuilding.

*Let me know if you would like to be added to the Circumstance/series tag list!

⥼ Chapter Summary ⥽

For now.

[READ IT ON AO3]

They make sure the first thing Kristin sees when she opens her eyes is the pair of them on either side of her hospital bed. Both of her hands in theirs and they’re so close to being able to hold back the tears in their eyes.

But when she licks her dry lips and looks them both over with groggy delirium, only to say “I think I’m over Mardi Gras, guys,” they’re her first words in a week that’s felt like an entire year and how could they do anything but ugly cry as loud and messy and utterly ridiculous as they possibly can.

“Now don’t go marryin’ that idea, Cookie,” Vera blubbers; wipes her thumbs carefully to preserve her wing-tip, “‘specially when you see the place our friend’s got hooked up with.”

“Nope, I’m sticking to water.”

Taylor snorts with a fond roll of his eyes. “Yeah, I’ll believe it when I see it.”

And even though they know for a fact she’ll make a full recovery she was found in a cemetery—at night—and her coma lasted several days; so Taylor and Vera don’t make much of a fuss when the doctor kicks them out. She makes them promise to come back as soon as they can, which of course they do.

They’re waiting to the elevator when a melodic humming catches Taylor’s ears; he knows that voice.

Sure enough Tilly strolls around the corner, pushing a cart with a squeaking back wheel in front of her without so much as a touch. Her hands have better things to do — like spoon a healthy heap of strawberry jello into her mouth.

The cart doesn’t even slow when their paths cross but the elf doesn’t let that stop her from grabbing two jiggling cups and plop-plopping them into Vera’s hands. A wink and twitch of her nose and she’s off around another corner as though she was never there.

Vera stares down at the jello in wordless confusion. Before she can say anything the lift arrives and doors slide open.

“I’ll explain on the way,” Taylor promises, plucks his gifted jello cup and presses the button for the ground floor.

They leave the hospital full of jello and laughter. Which was probably the elf’s intention.

Two blocks away from the Graveyard Shift Taylor stops them; puts a gentle hand on Vera’s upper arm and moving them out of the way of tourists still loitering around the Quarter in waves.

Judging by the fall of her face Vera’s been expecting this — and it’s not a conversation he’s excited about either but ignoring unseemly topics is something that hits a little too close to home these days.

“Have you decided what you’re gonna do?”

“Been a little busy, Tay.” Easygoing tone now clipped; curt. Almost cold but he knows it’s not her. “We shouldn’t keep everyone waitin’.”

“I think they’ll understand.”

“Okay — I tried t’be nice but I guess I just gotta be blunt. I don’t want to talk about it.”

His silence is long enough to wedge a bolt in her defense — has Vera peering up through her curls where he waits patiently. Which only frustrates her further. “You’re annoying sometimes, you know that Taylor Hunter?”

He shrugs — she’s not wrong. “Nik makes sure I don’t forget.”

Silence, and more silence, and a few attempts to weasel around him and continue down the sidewalk that end in a childish bout of fake-out standoffs; then she finally accepts defeat.

“I wanna stay, really I do. But I moved away to distance myself from this—this life. And if I stay then what have the past couple’a years of my life been for then, you know?”

He knows, and nods; she continues, “My biggest thing is… I don’t know who my momma is without the Touch; without bein’ Lady Smoke. Hell I’m not even sure she knows. You should see how she’s been actin’ Taylor; three whole days later and she’s back in her office actin’ like nothing has changed.

“But it has. And sooner or later word’ll get out what happened to her an’ that she doesn’t have the same leverage as she used to.” She worries her bottom lip between her teeth; she’s been doing that a lot recently. “It’d be nice to think about her givin’ it all up but I know she won’t. What if she turns to somethin’ equally terrible or worse to keep people fearin’ her?”

There’s a light to her eyes that wasn’t there before; maybe even Vera didn’t know how much Vera needed to vent the things weighing her down. And Taylor? Well he empathizes; literally. Her worries are his worries. Her concern is his concern.

And because she knows in her heart of hearts that Tonya Reimonenq is not only capable but likely to try and regain any echo of the power the bloodwraith took from her — by any means necessary — he knows it too.

Taylor wishes he had certainties for her. That he can give her the definitive this is what will happen and this is how we’ll deal with it of the matter. But he can’t.

“No matter what she does, the New Accords will keep her in line.”

The look she gives him; will they though? isn't by any fault of hers. In fact it’s Vera’s healthy caution that’s helped them all this way so far so he trusts it as much as anything else.

“Don’t stay because you want to keep an eye on Tonya. You’ve got Nik and me for that.” He links their arms, doesn’t miss her little breath of relief when they continue walking.

“Stay because you want to. I’d sure love it if you did.”

“I’ll give it a real thought, okay?”

“I could ask for nothing more.”

They enter the Shift together and everything is the same — everyone is exactly as the pair left them. That isn’t a good thing.

“Raise your voice at me again, go on.”

“Kathy will you stop goadin’ the werewolf?”

“You’ve got one last chance Jensen.”

“Guys, please slow down. ‘Taking minutes’ was made for typing and I don’t have another pen.”

“Oh hon’, you don’t need to get the arguments in the minutes.”

Krom flashes a sheepish smile through his tusks at Garrus from across the booth. The bartender is content to keep his distance from the arguing going down in his establishment but he stays because that’s what he agreed to.

Though judging by the bottle of teal-tinted absinthe he’s nearly polished off that might be something of a regret on his part.

Cal leans back in the booth with both hands over his face — probably with the same frustration Nik doesn’t even try to cover up beside him.

“This is useless…”

Across from him Kristof smacks his lips, beer in hand, and nods to his nephew. “First thing we’ve agreed on all day, pup.” And when he makes like he’s about to pull himself away from the uncomfortable situation Katherine snatches at his wrist. Her grip looks practically dainty against the muscle of him but every single soul in the bar knows it to be anything but.

“Sit the fuck back down, Jensen.”

“Nah, I’m done with this shit fer th’day.”

Pull your weight and help me, says the look Katherine snaps at Ryder.

Who leans forward on his elbows with fingers steepled and a hard glare given to the Alpha at the other end of the table.

“If you leave now we just have to start from scratch tomorrow. Do you really want to drag this out?”

Cal groans and continues his useless attempt to become one with his leather seat. He’s just as frustrated as his fellow wolf but Krom’s got him walled in; no chance of escape.

But the thought of having to repeat the ordeal is, luckily(?), terrible enough that the wood of the seat creaks to accommodate the Alpha as he settles back in.

“Fine. But come sunset I’m outta here; I got shit t’do.”

Katherine agrees with a nod. “It won’t take that long.”

“The Lamrians didn’t take this long,” mutters Nik under his breath; and its only then that he looks up enough to see Taylor and Vera’s combined amusement where they’ve been watching everything unfold like a governmental pantomime.

“Gettin’ your kicks over there?”

“Absolutely.”

Vera gives a silent touch to his arm — had mentioned before they left that she’d need to make a few work calls at some point today for the sake of both her job and Kristin’s. While she heads up to the Shift’s apartments Taylor drags a stool over to join the fray of frustration.

Does Kristof still make the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end? Yes. Does he look over at that bearded frown and think of the large jaw of canine teeth that could very easily tear him to shreds? Yes.

Does the way he has his arms crossed over his chest, red faced and muttering something under his breath, make him look like a kid angry at not getting his way?

Yes.

In fact the wolf actually seems to lean away from him when Taylor makes himself comfortable; beady eyes trained wary on his hands.

“Something to say?” Katherine only asks because she isn’t wholly unconvinced his attitude isn’t just another tactic for distraction.

“Just keep them flashy fae fingers to yer’self an’ we’re peachy.”

Can anyone blame him when he wiggles his perfectly normal (thank you very much) fingers in Kristof’s direction, then? No, no they cannot.

Krom offers up the long scroll of parchment for him to take — already half-full with the agreed-upon duties, limitations, and expectations of the Quarter’s new Council members.

Being the largest population in city limits by a wide margin, the Mayor’s neatly scrawled signature is the only one beside rules not of his own design. Sure it had been for the best that they not involve anyone who didn’t need to be (and in the Lady de la Rosa’s well-put words, it was smart “not to demand action over one with such influence over the innocent and ignorant”), but that didn’t mean they were met with open arms at City Hall.

In fact, Taylor ended up having to get Elric to come down and ‘lay down the law’ with the man. Perks of having an immortal father who had been to every Mayoral inauguration since the city’s founding.

Seeing as the Mayor (and the humans by default) had literally the least amount of things to worry about, too? He was kind of a dick about it.

Below that were the duties of the faire folk of Lamrian and their Lord Elric and Lady Thalissa.

Lady Thalissa who had not been happy to see Taylor again — but who had also been under the assumption that he had been the one to involve Elric in the events of Mardi Gras. Once they cleared that up (read: once Elric had confessed to leaving Lamrian of his own free will and sort of… falling into everything after) she was rather warm and friendly; even offered to help her (step?) son learn how to better control the magic within.

And of course there was a separate clause specifically for Garrus underneath; who was far too pleased to be considered his own separate sub-category.

The Jensen Pack is up next on the ‘Get Everyone to Agree’ List and following itinerary that had been drawn up by the weary survivors of the Beau-Keyes Garden. But getting Jensen himself and his nephew—who as it turns out is some kind of were-royalty on his mother’s side and if Cal thinks they aren’t going to be talking about that at the first opportunity he’s sorely mistaken—to agree on anything is about as difficult as… well anything else they’ve done so far.

So he has a little hope at least.

“So what’s the biggest argument so far?” He asks finally; gives the parchment back to Krom to roll up for safe-keeping. He’s fallen in love with his new unofficial title as Council Scribe. They’re gonna need to buy ballpoint pens in bulk though.

Nik’s smile drips saccharine and laden with spite. “Dividin’ of authority.”

“It just ain’t natural!” Kristof resumes like someone pressed ‘play,’ “The Alpha doesn’ answer to nobody, that’s jus’ how it is. Here or in any pack you’re gonna run foul of.”

To everyone’s surprise Cal actually agrees; “It’s more of a biological thing than a code or rule. You get more than one Alpha in a room and someone’s gonna come out on top; that’s just the animal kingdom.” Then, with an obvious reluctance; “And I’m no Alpha. It’s a born thing. That’s why Kristof took over pack duties in the first place.”

Taylor looks between them. “What about Octavia?”

“Beta’s beneath my authority, but if there’s any hint’a disagreement it can get ugly.”

“Well that sounds like bull. I’ve seen her disagree with you… pretty much every time you’ve been in the same room.”

The were scratches his chin; averts his eyes with a huff. “That ain’t a pack thing. That’s a… us thing.”

Subtlety wasn’t even an attempt on Nik’s part — his hand coming up in a suggestive and hard-to-misinterpret squeezing motion. Thankfully Kristof only growls, but Taylor sees the mischief in the hunter’s eyes and knows it could have been way worse. It could have been dog-related.

“Okay; well right there you have something that goes against the norm’, right? Why can’t other things? Start off small… build up to an equal foothold in the pack.”

“I’m not returnin’ to the pack, Taylor.”

Their reactions are telling; that Kristof is the only one unsurprised by Cal’s insistence means he knew (and yet he’s still being an ass?) about his nephew’s choice to stay a lone wolf.

Not that it does anything for privacy but Taylor can’t help lowering his voice when he asks; “Are you… are you sure?”

“Sure as salt.”

“But what about Donny?”

“Donny’ll be fine. We already talked it out —”

“‘We’ who, who is ‘we?’” And the simmering pot of Katherine starts to boil. “Not you two ‘we,’ because that — that would be crazy. That would mean you two came to an agreement on something.”

But Cal just shrugs and nods — doesn’t see the danger quite yet.

“Yeah, ‘us two,’ we. Kristof’s an asshole but he’s a brother, too. Always will be.” Which is a statement that goes undisputed; the opposite actually — judging by the noise of agreement. “I get t’see him whenever, an’ even talked him into letting me back home for important stuff; holidays, y’know?”

“And what do you get out of this?” Katherine can’t help but ask. Kristof shrugs it off.

“I can’t go ‘round backin’ up on my word — ‘specially not punishments an’ the like. Opens the pack up to weakness and loners who ain’t so kind comin’ ‘round sniffin’ fer trouble. Ain’t that right pup?”

“Exactly. So we both like the idea of me pullin’ a neutral-party sorta deal. Keepin’ an eye on the city and territory and, on the off-chance, helpin’ out any stray weres. If any packs come down this way they’ll be Kristof’s problem. It’s a good arrangement… I’ll be the Garrus of the wolves.”

Heads turn as there’s an odd noise from the direction of the bar — pink tickling at Garrus’ cheeks as he looks Cal over with amusement.

“You wish you could be me, little wolf. No one’s me but me, myself, and I.”

“I jus’ mean —”

“Relax, darling. I know exactly what you meant, I just had to say it.”

From her point on the U-bend of the booth Katherine gives a shaky exhale. Pinches the bridge of her nose and mouths her way up to seventeen in silence before she can breathe without yelling at someone.

“So what you’re telling me is that you can compromise and agree on things… you’re just actively choosing to argue about the official Council bullshit.”

“Yeah, sounds ‘bout right.”

“Can’t agree with th’pup too much — he’ll get an ego.”

A long silence. Then…

“I hate both of you.”

When Octavia comes around at sunset she isn’t alone. Donny runs into his brother’s arms, because by now everyone in town knows at least some version of the truth of what went down at the Beau-Keyes House that night, and he’s that distinct mixture of angry-happy that only comes with being family.

And being family to someone so chaotically dumb that it sometimes all works out in the end, at that.

Speaking of — Taylor needs to call his mom soon. He should write that down or something.

Cal’s so excited to see his little brother again that he forgets to say goodbye. Not that they’ll hold it against him. Who wouldn’t need a drink and greasy bar food to unwind after spending all day yelling and being yelled at?

Katherine tugs on her leather jacket; takes the poster tube acting as safehouse for the new Council Accords and slings the strap across her chest.

“You’re not staying?” asks Taylor in surprise; she’s just been so around the last couple of days that it’s weird to see her heading out.

“No rest for the wicked,” though he doesn’t miss the little quirk of her smile as she says it, “but really — sun’s down so the vamps are out, and we still need de la Rosa’s terms and agreements.”

“Will Cade be there?” Though he feels stupid for asking and already knows the answer.

She humors him though. “Yeah. From the looks of it we’ll need to work in the same exception clauses for him that we have for Cal and Garrus, if not something like it.”

“Seems like we’re making a lot of those.”

“Seems like maybe we need them.”

Katherine throws an expectant look over his shoulder; Taylor turns to see Krom holding up an apologetic stone in the midst of being dragged to the back by a very eager Garrus. “You’ve got ten minutes!” She calls, and means it.

With Nik upstairs and the curtain closing behind the eager new couple that leaves Taylor and her alone for what might very well be the first time.

He’s not talked to Katherine much — not one-on-one. Makes an awkwardness hang weird between them, tilted too far to one side and sending the whole room just slightly off.

But he’d be lying if he said he hadn’t hoped for at least a small opportunity to talk to her without nosy interruption.

“Hey, if you have a sec —”

“Have you seen them since?” Apparently he wasn’t the only one eager to take advantage of their free moment.

Maybe it’s a trick of the dim bar lighting but Katherine almost looks disappointed when he shakes his head. “The last time was on Mardi Gras. They were watching the whole time, though.”

“The Fate is always watching. They’re bound to witness.”

Yeah, I remember. “You never explained… how you knew. Back at the Coven house.”

Which was on purpose if the look she gives is anything to go by. Has her ruffling her fingers through long plum waves — working out little knots like a nervous habit.

“You’re right.”

“You don’t have to — I mean yeah I’ve been dying to ask but you don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to, Kathy.”

The nickname draws her attention, makes her look him in the eye with a weight of importance. “It’s just complicated, that’s all.”

And he wants to push the issue, literally feels it crawling up his throat itchy and large enough to choke on. But he also understands how hard it is to talk about something before you’re ready. Like, more than most.

How many minutes has it been now? A question she’s gotta be wondering too; she keeps looking behind him hoping for a large stone interruption.

“You know Ryder’s from around here?”

Taylor blinks. “I mean, I figured… he sounds pretty local.”

“And I don’t.”

“No.”

“Because I’m not,” a beat, “but this isn’t my first time in town. No that… that was a couple of years back. I came here for one reason—one person.”

Ah, got it. “The Fate.”

“Usually they don’t get themselves tangled up in stuff like this, you know? They just watch. So when you need to get in touch with them, there are certain rites and rituals to follow.” Katherine’s eyes grow wistful, she snorts; “Be glad we didn’t have to get involved in that nasty business. I’m in no rush to jump those hoops again.”

Again? “So… what did they say?” What he really wants to ask is what did you see them for but he doesn’t, they don’t know one another well enough for that. Maybe some day.

“We never spoke. I backed out right at the edge. I mean I don’t regret it; that night I ended up finding this place, getting in on the hunter crowd, meeting Ryder — actually maybe I regret that bit.”

She doesn’t, not at all. He can tell. “That night, too, was the card game I won Cadence’s job in.”

“Which worked out for you.”

“Ha, depends on who you ask.” She hikes the strap higher on her shoulder, continues tugging at her hair. “That’s not — there’s a point to this I promise. Because The Fate doesn’t exist in this world. They can’t, physically; they’re beyond us. So in order to get to them you have to…”

“You have to leave this world.”

It dawns on him then, what she’s getting at. And she knows he knows because there’s the barest hint of pity behind her guarded gaze. Knows it’s not a vulnerability she allows herself often.

Maybe this whole time he knew. Somewhere deep down, anyway. In the same place where The Fate had hidden the attack at the theatre.

Let me do you this kindness.

“I… I died that night, then.”

“I think so, yes.”

The surprising part is how not painfully difficult that is to process as a fact; a statement instead of a question instead of an ultimatum of martyrdom. He’s finding it more difficult to imagine what to say to Nik because no doubt the hunter would find a way to try and blame himself about it.

Then again… Nik very well could have died in the Garden that night. But surely even the fae couldn’t bring people back from the dead. Surely only someone with power like The Fate had that capability.

Surely.

Taylor doesn’t quite know where he went but when he comes back the look Katherine gives him isn’t reassuring in the slightest. Like she’s ready for him to collapse, shaking, the existential crisis delayed up until right at this very moment with only a half-stranger to comfort him.

“Are you going to be okay?”

Which isn’t a hard question to answer in the least. “Yeah. I mean if something was gonna happen it probably would have by now, right?”

“Jeez, way to jinx yourself.”

“Hey I never said I was the brightest bulb in the pack.”

“Ain’t that right.”

Whatever time they had been allotted by the universe to bring those revelations to light is up. Ryder rounds the staircase down, heavy boots with heavier steps on the creaking metal. And he’s one foot on the floor when the back curtain draws back to reveal Garrus buttoning his waistcoat back up whole Krom hastily tugs on his tee.

Tactless Ryder whistles at the pair; makes Kathy roll her eyes and mutter an insult under her breath, along with; “Pretty sure that’s a couple dozen health code violations, Gar.’”

“I have my own health code.”

“Pretty sure something was violated back there.”

Which is such a terrible innuendo and so terribly typical of Nik that when he goes to pull Taylor into his space by the hip he makes a show of active resistance — a protest statement that says that kind of terrible pun-making is simply not allowed.

Though it’s not as bad as the one that comes to mind at Krom’s stony expression.

The troll looks like he wants to crawl under a rock.

Taylor surrenders eventually. Allows himself to be pulled in close where he can rest his chin on the man’s duster.

“You two crazy kids sticking around?”

Back behind the bar Garrus is already back at work with bottles in hand. Easily recognizable now as the ingredients for Ivy’s favorite bubbly brew; and she should be back soon, shouldn’t she? How long can an exorcism take, even on a house as large as 937 Prytania Street?

Taylor shrugs. “I guess. Midsummer is canceled while the theatre is being fixed back up so I’m…” Gonna be broke soon, is what he is. Something to worry about at a later date.

But the look Nik gives him — there’s something else on the Nighthunter’s mind.

“Up for a little adventure?” Which is a proposition that Taylor should very much turn down were he any kind of sane person, especially given everything they’ve been through this week.

But… What the hell, sanity’s overrated.

The cemetery was supposed to be roped off or something. Reasonably it should have been. But god forbid the city take down one of their biggest tourist attractions; all the dead bodies.

“You know, I thought you meant—like—apps and sodas at a bar or something.”

Because sure, there are people who might find walking hand-in-hand in a supposedly haunted cemetery in the last waning streaks of the sherbet evening to be romantic.

Taylor just isn’t one of them.

There’s that familiar tick in the man’s scarred brow looking down at him. Not that it makes everything better… but it definitely doesn’t hurt.

“All the weird shit we’ve done by now and you thought ‘adventure’ was code for— what, a vanilla dinner date?”

“Oh, so this is a date huh?”

“I would’a thought that was obvious.”

“Nik Ryder — nothing about you is obvious.”

And that fact isn’t contested — isn’t worth being contested because they both know better. But for some reason Taylor’s chest feels a little bit lighter when he breathes again. Purely metaphorically, though, as he has to borrow his hand back for a second to adjust where his binder rides up uncomfortably in the humidity.

It’s kind of weirdly beautiful the way Nik’s hand is still held out a little from his side — waiting to be taken back up. He doesn’t let it wait long.

Okay, maybe he’s a little wrong. Maybe there’s one thing about the Nighthunter that’s obvious; but he has a sneaking suspicion it’s only that way because Nik lets it be.

Obviously this thing, them — without words or long discussion over candles and spaghetti or passionate clinging kisses in the rain or anything else years of rom-com consumption have said define a relationship — isn’t going away.

It’s like everything else they do; an impulse, a behavior felt in the gut. No filter, no holding back.

They walk the paths and rows of Lafayette and talk. A comment or question here and there; half the time they’re so focused on trying not to interrupt one another they end up walking around and around in silence. Normally for him silence is an awkward thing; silence has almost always meant something that has been said or needs to be said hangs a heavy burden. Not this time. And, if he dares to believe it, maybe not for a long time coming.

On their fifth (or is it sixth?) go-around they come to a natural stop. Nik’s head tilted up to watch the night clear over their heads — and Taylor just watches him with awe; with joy.

“Hey, Taylor?”

His name, so it must be important. “Yeah Nik?”

“Thanks for savin’ my life.”

“Any time.”

Two words that make the man stop; turn to look at him fully. Something swimming in his eyes all weird and misty but still, somehow, kinda beautiful.

“You mean that, don’t you.” The way Nik says it — it definitely isn’t a question more than it is a fact he’s always known but never been able to put into words. Like knowing the sky is blue, or that there’s more to the world around them than anyone could possibly imagine.

Taylor nods. “Of course.” Obviously, how could you ever think I’d do anything less? That I wouldn’t do more?

Then clammy hands are on his cheeks and Taylor lets himself be pulled into the kiss. Lets it come to them both as naturally as breathing and just as necessary.

Just like the last time — though under vastly different circumstances — he’s shaking tip to toe when they break. Surely there’s gotta be some supernatural way to make it so they need to kiss more than they need air. He should get on that.

He’d been asked on ‘a little adventure’ but it makes sense now that in true Ryder-fashion he had been vague on purpose. One of those ‘the adventure was inside us all along’ sorta deals. Which would have been preferable to nearly dying numerous times, apparently actually dying once, dealing with shady goblins and supernatural mobsters and finding out he wasn’t entirely human at all… right? Right. Totally right. Even if he ended up finding the father he never knew and piecing together a ragtag ‘found family’ trope and—if he was reading all of the signs correctly—getting a smokin’ hot boyfriend out of it all.

At some point probably they’ll be pulled apart. A patrol officer could catch them, here out in the open as they are, and threaten to remove them from cemetery grounds. A ghoul could arise from the ground between them intent on wreaking havoc in their now peaceful (however temporary) city. Or maybe some long-slumbering kraken will awake from the depths of the Mississippi and start eating hungover tourists.

Yeah, at some point they’ll probably be pulled apart.

But that’s okay.

They’ve faced worse.

[livvywrites]

11/11/11

Tagged by the lovely @witchywrite~

(and if you want to do my questions as well, feel free. but you don’t have to!) 

1. What is your favorite wip that you have worked/are working on?

THE MARTYR QUEEN. Hands down. It’s my baby. I do have a soft spot for SAPPHIRE DREAMING as well as an old wip of mine, but... I just. I’m in love with the story I’m trying to tell in TMQ, and its series. 

2. Do you have any routines/rituals you do before writing? 

Not as such, no. Mainly what I do is make sure I have something to drink (usually some flavored water, but sometimes a hot beverage or soda) and maybe something to snack on. Sometimes I’ll put on some rain noises, but for the most part, I just kind of pick a place and go. 

3. How long do you generally write for?

That’s a good question. I think I write from anywhere between 15 minutes and an hour usually, but I can (and have) gone longer. 

4. When did you realize you wanted to be a writer? How old were you when you started on your first story?

Oh, jeez. Sometimes it feels like I’ve wanted to be a writer forever. However, I think... that I’d have to say about 3rd grade or so? I forget what age that would be, but under 10. 

At about 11, I started my first real “novel” though I wouldn’t say that was my first story. I still have the composition notebook I started it in, though I later moved it to my first computer, which crashed. 

Um, as for stories in general... I wrote and illustrated my own picture book, about a superhero dog. I also turned an old calendar to a book. I don’t have the calendar, but the superhero dog might be at the house somewhere. 

5. What do you like to do when you aren’t writing?

I read. A lot. Mostly fanfiction these days, but I’ve been making it a point to read more original novels. I read Pratchett’s Tiffany Aching books. They’re so good. Currently I’m reading the Riddle Master of Hed, by Patricia McKilip. I like her writing style a lot, though I’m only two chapters in to the story thus far. (I read another one of her books, though. I adore it.) 

6. How many wips do you have?

Original novels? Just the two, through concentrated effort not to go starting more.

Original short stories/oneshots? Hahaha. Um. I don’t actually know. It’s a lot, though. More than 5.

Fanfiction, long fic? Just one that I have posted. Couple more in development. (Some of those are rewrites of old fics.) 

Fanfiction, oneshots? A lot. I like my short fic, okay? :P 

7. When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?

I went through a few things. Settled on writer in 3rd grade and... never stopped? I’ve cycled through a few backup careers since the, too. 

8. Give your main cast a God/Goddess they would work with if they were Pagan/a witch.

Oooh, this is interesting :o I don’t know a lot about most of the pantheons. I mainly studied/read about Greek mythology growing up, so that’s my forte. But recently I’ve been reading a lot of Nordic stuff, so that might make it in here too. (I’ll be branching out more eventually :D) 

Alinora: It feels like cheating, but I would give her Hades. Or some other death god. Given that Death is her patron in the story, though, it feels kind of like cheating.

Elaena: Death’s daughter in the novel, but... I don’t actually think any of the death gods really suit her personality? I’d give her... Artemis, I think.

Ava: Easy one. Demeter or Persephone.

Lyr: Hm... this one is a little harder, but I think I would go with Athena for him!

Talitha: Loki. I could see her working with Hephaestus or Athena. I could also see her being drawn to Aphrodite. But in the end, I really do think that Loki is the one who suits her best. 

Aishlynn: Um. I think Aishlynn would also be drawn to Artemis. 

Amara: Ahhh.... I want to say Apollo for her, for some reason? But maybe Aphrodite could work for her, or Ares. 

8. Speaking of that, which of your characters would be a witch?

Excellent question! I feel like Ava and Talitha would definitely be drawn to Paganism/witches. 

10. Give your characters an element, (fire, water, earth, air, or spirit)

I like this question! Mainly because I pretty much always associate my characters with the five elements :D

This is mainly going off the way I’ve adapted the elements in TMQ, though.

Alinora: Fire

Elaena: Air

Ava: Earth

Lyr: Water

Talitha: Spirit

Aishlynn: Spirit

11. What would your Main Character’s Altar look like if they were a witch?

Hmmm...

I admit outright that I have only the barest understandings of witchcraft, though it is something that interests me. I’m mainly going to pick things that I associate with Alinora, more than for their spiritual meanings. I hope that’s alright~ 

Alinora would have several candles. Probably black or purple, to suit her patron, but also red, for her element. The Death card from a tarot deck. Cinnamon, maybe ground in jar or a couple of sticks. Sunflowers, whether a picture of them or a vase of them. Roses, as well.

I think that’s everything she would have ^^ I probably should do some more in depth research so I could think of a proper altar, but... maybe later. *adds to list*

Thank you so much for these questions~ They were super fun!  <3

Questions and tags below the cut~ 

My Questions: 

1. 3 songs that remind you of your main character? (Or favorite character.)

2. Have you ever had to cut any characters? If so, what character do you miss/regret cutting the most?

3. Your favorite beverage, hot or otherwise, to have while you write?

4. Ideal writing time?

5. Do you keep notes of scenes/characters/worldbuilding, or do you keep it all in your head? 

6. How do you feel about your writing voice? Do you feel like you’ve developed your own, or like you’re still finding it?

7. What’s one of your favorite lines you’ve written? Preferably within the last chapter/10 pages, but any line is good!

8. How do you stay motivated when it comes to writing?

9. What’s the longest time you’ve ever dealt with writer’s block, and how did you overcome it?

10. 3 songs that make you think of your novel? (Bonus points if you say why!) 

11. 5 reasons you love your WIP?

Tagging: @quartzses; @writings-of-a-narwhal; @abalonetea; @apvtelesma; @serperina; @emmathenovelist (if i’ve tagged you before, feel free to choose which set of questions you do! also, gimme a shout if you want to be tagged, or not, in the future!) 

[rainy-rose]

11/11/11

I was tagged by the lovely @elizabethsyson thankies!

1. What’s the first book you remember reading?

Err back to back? *trying to remember the summer between the 5th and 6th grade* Legendele Olimpului (=Legends of Olympus) by Alexandru Mitru. I had to do reading notes for them and that is how I actually got interested in Greek mythology. Thank you, secondary school teacher!

2. Have you ever invented a language for a piece of writing?

No. But I might have to invent one for Raflec’s story because I feel like the kilveh should have a language of their own.

3. Describe your approach to worldbuilding.

What approach? :)) Ideas pop in my head, then I write them down. If I can figure out how to delve into them establish details the I will. If not, I’ll come back to it another time. 

4. Do you write in multiple genres? Which?

For the moment I am sticking to fantasy, but I dabble a bit in mystery.

5. What type of villain do you most hate?

The bully I think... I generally like villains so I am not sure if I actually hate one. It depends on how they were written. However! If the villain is cruel to animals just cause he can ( or if he is generally cruel to animals, the reason doesn’t matter to me actually) I will instantly hate them! 

6. Do you prefer to type or write longhand or something else?

I am writing longhand for the moment to get the story out. As soon as I am done with that I will start typing everything.

7. How do you motivate yourself?

I think of random scenes between my characters, either plot related, or background scenes and behind the scenes stuff.

8. Opinion on nanowrimo?

I get why other writers participate in it, but it is not my thing :)). I have my own rhythm and deadlines are not my friends.

9. Top 3 songs on your writing playlist?

I don’t have a writing playlist, but I have two songs that have a similar vibe to my wips/characters although the lyrics don’t really match

Blackbriar - Cry of a Banshee - For Silver Serpent, there will be some Banshees later on and I imagine Elise singing this at some point, despite her voice not really matching with it :)) since it is rougher and waaaayy lower. 

Akiko Shikata - Katayoku no Tori - For Raflec’s story. The lyrics might match the story a bit here and I’m constantly imagining Rena ( Raflec’s older half sister) and Suna ( the wolf he travels with and who kind of raised him ] singing it whenever I’m listening to it.

10. How do you come up with your characters’ appearances?

They come while I figure out their personalities. Eventually I get a pretty clear image and the I start looking for faceclaims and I don’t stop until I have one. Other times I just find a random faceclaim and eventually I’ll find where to use it. 

11. Do you write your scenes chronologically?

Yes, sort of. Sometimes the chapters are not in chronological order, but the scenes in them sort of are.  

My questions: 

1.  Do you prefer to write short stories, one-shots, or entire novels?

2.  What tropes do you love writing? Which ones are your guilty pleasure?

3.  Are you planning on publishing? If so, how?

4. What genre did you like as a child? Do you still have the same preference?

5. Which of your characters would you like to meet irl and why?

6. How well do you function under pressure?

7. Best compliment someone has given you about your writing.

8.  Do you know how your story ends before you start writing?

9. What are your OCs worst fears?

10. Do you have an auto-buy author? If so, who?

11. Describe your MC in 3 words.

Tagging: @gottaenjoythelittlethingzz @inexorableblob @quartzess

[dillydedalus]

what i read in march

several antigones & some other stuff

call me zebra, azareen van der vliet oloomi

oh boy. i really wanted to like this one, but uh. nah. so this book is about zebra, a young iranian-american from a lineage of ‘autodidacts, anarchists and atheists’, still traumatised by her childhood experience as a refugee (incl. her mother’s death on route). when her father dies years later, zebra decides to retrace the route of her exile thru barcelona, turkey, and back to iran. this sounds great! the beginning is good! but zebra is a quixotic figure (don quixote is unsubtly flagged as THE intertext several times), delusional about her own importance, obsessed with some kind of great literary mission and obnoxious & condescending & egotistic as all fuck (she looks down on students but treats her realisation that like, intertextuality is a thing, as this grand revelation when like..... we been knew since Lit. Theory 101) - and this is intentional & part of the quixotic thing & in general i approve of abrasive & bristly & difficult female characters BUT i expected there to be a gradual process of realisation where she sees that a) maybe her entirely male lineage of geniuses ain’t all that, c) her mission is uh.... incomprehensible. instead, once she reaches spain, she gets bogged down in endless pretentious bullshit and a #toxic relationship that takes up way too much space. knowing that all of that is likely intentional doesn’t.... make it good. also the writing is pretty overwrought for the most part & not even your narrator’s voice being Like That excuses plain bad writing, like the  absurd overuse of ‘intone’ and ‘pose’ as dialogue tags. i see the potential and i see the point & i liked some of it but uh. not good. 2/5, regretfully, generously

in the distance, hernan diaz

i don’t really go for westerns or man vs wilderness stories but damn i’m impressed. despite the violence & deprivation and sheer amount of gross shit, this story of a swedish immigrant getting lost in the american west for decades remains at its core so human, so tender, so sad (honestly this book is SO SAD, yet sometimes oddly hopeful), so evocative of isolation, loneliness, and the desire for human connection. 4/5

notes on a thesis, tiphaine rivière (tr. from french)

god, if i ever considered doing a phd i sure don’t anymore. this is a short graphic novel about a young woman’s descent into academic hell while writing her dissertation about labyrinths in kafka. it’s funny, the art is expressive and fanciful, and it is incredibly relateable if you’ve ever tried to actually write your brilliant, glorious, intricately constructed argument down, battled uni administration or had a panic attack over how to phrase a harmless email to a prof. Academia: Not Even Once. 3.5/5

red mars, kim stanley robinson

this is a very long hard sci-fi novel about mars colonisation & terraforming, discussing the ethics of terraforming, the potentials of a truly ‘martian’ culture, and how capitalism will inevitably fuck everything up, including outer space. all of this is up my alley and i did really like the first half (early colonisation efforts), but the 2nd half (beginning of terraforming, lots of politicking) was a slog - i liked reading about how terraforming was going, but the rest was just bloated, scattered and confusing. also there’s a tedious love triangle the whole time. 2/5

dragon keeper (rain wild chronicles #1), robin hobb

i love robin hobb she really can write a whole 500+ page book of set-up, characterisation and politicking and make it WORK. anyway, this has disabled dragons, a quest for mystical city, lots of rain wilds weirdness, a dragon scholar in an unhappy marriage, liveships, a sweet dummy romance, and uh... a lil penpalship between two messenger bird keepers? not much happens but it’s so NICE & so much is going to happen. also althea & brashen & malta turned up & i screamed. 3.5/5

season of migration to the north, tayeb salih (tr. from arabic)

this is a seminal work of post-colonial arabic literature, a haunting tale of the impact of colonialisation, especially of cultural hegemony in the education system, the disturbing dynamics of orientalism and sex, and village life in a modernising post-colonial sudan. it’s important, it’s well-written, it’ll make you think, but fair warning, there is a lot of violence against women - it has a point but still uh... wow. 3.5/5

dune, frank herbert

SOMETIMES.... BOOKS THAT ARE CONSIDERED MASTERWORKS OF THEIR GENRE.... ARE WORSE. so much worse. the writing in this is atrocious (”his voice was charged with unspeakable adjectives”), herbert somehow manages to make court intrigue and plotting UNBELIEVABLY DULL and sure, it was the 60s, but i’m p sure people knew imperialism was bad in the 60s! the main character, the eugenically-engineered chosen one or whatever, literally spends years among the oppressed & resisting natives of a planet ruled by a space!empire and at the end he’s like ‘i own this planet bc imperialism is Good Actually’. emotionally neglecting/abusing your wife, who you (!!!) decided (!!!) to marry for political reasons bc you’d rather marry your gf is also Good Actually (cosigned by the protag’s mother....) the worldbuilding is influential for the genre, sure w/e, but mainly notable for there just.... being a lot of it, the whole mythology-science makes No Goddamn Sense, all around this is just Bad. Bad. 0.5/5 i hope the Really Big Worms eat everyone 

dragon haven (rain wild chronicles #2), robin hobb

this healed my soul after toxic exposure to dune. anyway w/o spoilers: everyone is very much In Their Feelings (including me) and there’s a lot of Romance and Internal Conflict and Feelings Drama and Complicated Relationships and Group Dynamics and also dragons, which are really like very big, very haughty cats who can speak, and a flood and a living river barge with a mind of his own (love u tarman!). it’s still slow and languid but so so good. also: several people in this have to be told that People Are Gay, Steven, including Sedric, who is himself Gay People. 4/5

an unkindness of ghosts, solomon rivers

super interesting scifi story set on a generation ship with a radically stratified society in which the predominantly black lowerdeckers are oppressed and exploited by the predominantly white upperdeckers, mixed in with a lot of Gender Stuff (the lowerdeckers seem to have a much less stable and binary gender system than the upperdeckers) and neuroatypicality. it’s conceptually rich and full of potential, but just doesn’t quite stick the landing when it comes to the plot. 3/5

sanatorium under the sign of the hourglass, bruno schulz (tr. from polish)

more dreamy surreal short stories (ish?). i didn’t like this collection quite as much as the amazing street of crocodiles, but they are still really good, even tho you never quite know what is going on. featuring flights of birds, people turning into insects, thoughts about seasons and time, fireman pupae stuck in the chimney, and the continuing weird fixation on adela the maid. 3.5/5

angela merkel ist hitlers tocher, christian alt & christian schiffer

a fun & accessible guide to conspiracy theories, focusing on the current situation in germany and the current boom in conspiracy theories, but also including some historical notes. i wish it had been a bit less fun & flippant and more in-depth and detailed bc it really is quite shallow at points, but oh well. also yes the title does indeed translate to ‘angela merkel is hitler’s daughter’ so. yes. 2.5/5

the midwich cuckoos, john wyndham

fun lil scifi story in which almost all women in sleepy village midwich are suddenly pregnant, all at the same time. the resulting children, predictably, are strange, creepy, and possibly a threat to humanity. i get that it was written in the 50s but it is strange to read a book where almost all women, and only women, are affected by A Thing, but all the main characters are men & no one tells the women ‘hey we think it’s xenogenesis’ -  like realistically 80% of women affected went to the Neighbourhood Lady Who Takes Care of These Things like ‘hello, one (1) abortion please’ and the plot just ended there. i still liked it tho! 3/5

antigone project

antigone, the original bitch, by sophocles (tr. by fagles)

god antigone really is That Bitch. that’s all i have to say. 4.5/5

antigone, That Bitch but in french, jean anouilh

the Nazi-occupied france antigone. loved the meta commentary on what tragedy is and how antigone has to step into the Role of Antigone, which will kill her “but there’s nothing she can do. her name is antigone and she will have to play her part through to the end”. i didn’t really like (esp. given the ~historical context) the choice to make creon much more sympathetic, trying to save antigone’s life from the beginning. hmm. 3.5/5

antigonick, anne carson

look, antigone really is That Bitch and you know what? so is anne carson. best thing i’ve read so far this year, don’t ask me about it or i’ll yell the task of the translator of antigone at you. 5/5

home fire, kamila shamsie

honestly i really wanted to like this bc politically it’s on point and an anti-islamophobia antigone sounds amazing, but it just doesn’t succeed as a book/adaption. it spends way too much time in build-up/backstory (the play’s plot only starts in the second half of the book!), waaayyy to much time on the weirdly fetishistic antigone/haimon romance, and even the most interesting characters (ismene & creon) don’t fully work out. sad. 2/5

currently reading: the magic mountain by thomas mann, but i should be done in a week or so! also: the paper menagerie by ken liu, a collection of sff short stories

[abalonetea]

*power slides into your Ask box.* So. A Life Out of Order, huh? How much am I allowed to know about this? Are we talkin contemporary, flashback to the 80s, what? I notice you mostly do more...what's the word? Genre fiction? Is this as straightforward as it seems or are we gonna get some weird worldbuilding with it? Also, this band. If nothing else, what's their style, the aesthetic, the sound like? What're the influences? Can you tell this is relevant to my interests, lol?

djgvbsfvbs this series is so relevant to every interest i’ve had, let me tell you. and it goes back! it goes back for several years, as one of my most indepth, revamped, revamped again, and brought back into the light of day wip’s. it’s not a secret project or anything like that, so you’re free to ask any questions about it you want! so, yeah, if there’s something specific you want to know, just hit me up!

the main idea is that the title is literal. A Life Out Of Order. the story is told in a non-linear fashion, though each chapter does stick to a main theme. the chapter’s are made up out of snippets of Skittles life, each vaguely connected by a theme or a trailing train of thought. 

(the non-linear fashion might change because that, too, has been an on again/off again process)

i do mostly do genre fiction, but this one’s? it’s always been up in the air. originally, i had plans for it to just be a straight forward slice of life modern day setting. it’s technically a very long winded prequel to a story, and i have been toying with the idea of having some Big Weird Worldbuilding take place for that? ah, i’ll come back to that thought though!

first, the band! the name might give away their inspiration, honestly. it’s called Vipers ‘N’ Honey and it’s a hair metal/glam rock band! the inspiration behind it is Guns ‘N’ Roses and Skittles is actually very heavily inspired by Axel Rose!

the very basic idea for the band is this - Skittles is from a town (unnamed) in North Jersey. he’s got a twin (asher) and they have a super strange and somewhat rocky relationship. Skittles couch surfs for a while after being kicked out of his house. somewhere along the way, he gets down to Pensacola, Florida, where he takes up housing with Asher’s friend, Eric, and falls in with the band.

(putting this under a cut because it’s getting wordy, i’m so sorry; i actually wrote up this message twice because i felt like the first one was too all over the place)

a big part of the story stems from my fascination with the rise and fall of young singers, how prevalent of a culture drugs and addiction was during the eighties, and what it might have been like to be a young singer during that time frame.basically, the culture and the music and the aesthetic are awesome, so i wrote some stuff.

   The concert is in full swing and Skittlesgrips the microphone like it’s a life line. In a way, it is. This band wassupposed to be his way out of Nowhere, New Jersey - it was supposed to be hisway out of a dead end town and away from dead beat parents - was going to turnhim into something more than trash. Instead it turned into family andSkittles should have known, right there at the start, that meant it would allcrash down around him.

that’s an excerpt from the starting chapter! the basic idea behind the story is that skittles gets kicked out of home when he’s young, couch surfs a lot, and eventually falls in with the guys from Vipers ‘N’ Honey. skittles looks older than he is, acts older than he is, and absolutely pretends to be older than he is to book a place in the band.

originally, they only bring skittles in because they need a front piece for magazines and the like. skittles has the sort of wild red hair and look that catches the eye, yeah? but then they realize that he’s actually great at singing and pretty damn good at playing the guitar, too.

and then the entire plot, especially at the start, is kind of the rise and the fall of Vipers ‘N’ Honey. the band is good. really good. and to skittles, they’re his first family. from a bad relationship to health problems, it’s the band that helps build skittles back up. for the first time in his life, he feels like he’s going somewhere, going to be someone - and then. 

and then, because there’s always an and then.

and then the fame goes to their heads. not skittles, who so clearly remembers couch surfing, and being hungry, and counting out change made from playing guitar on the street corner for a dollar burger at quarter past midnight. but the other’s. as is so common for that industry and that age, drugs and alcohol start wearing at them. everything comes to head partway through the band’s first tour, and it’s the sort of trial that could push skittles back down to the bottom and keep him there.

(also you’ve made me want to write about them and talk about them more, so please ready yourself to get tagged in some character intro’s and the like over the next day or so!)

okay, and then you asked about weird worldbuilding! 

so, the first “book” covers the rise and fall of Vipers ‘N’ Honey! then there’s a grace period where Skittles sort of just. wonders. the bus thing i wrote takes place in that period, actually! 

and my vague idea is that, later in life, skittles ends up in another band! i originally had vague thoughts of it coming about because skittles (in an effort to get his life back on track) starts taking some community college classes and meets a few guys? two of whom he already knows (william and marcello) and the other two being strangers. skittles takes up drums at this point, because he Never wants to be in a band like VNH again.

now, like i said, i originally thought that it should just be a slice of life sort of thing? but now i’m thinking, uh, what if their was some sort of magic involved? like, with their music and stuff. hinted at during VNH and then more heavily focused on during the sequel story? but that idea is really, really new and really, really up in the air, haha.

thank you so much for letting me ramble at you about this! can you tell no one’s ever asked me much about it before, and that i dearly love the characters? <3

[siarven]

Have a lot of summaries!

AKA all my current WIPs and projects. Why so many???

I didn’t really get tagged by @theprissythumbelina but… I’m bad at summaries so I’m gonna do it anyways. Probably good exercise. So, here you go, have lots of synopses, or whatever :D Anyways. Here we go! (Maybe these can get somewhat short so I have better summaries for NaNo as well, haha)

Dreams and Shadows.

My current project, which I’m actively working on (off and on) since 2014.

This takes places in another world, some 500 years after an apocalypse. Almost all knowledge from before has been lost and the world uses a mix of steam-powered technology and magic.

The lives of two siblings, Ava and Ben, are thoroughly disrupted when Ben has a life-threatening freak “accident” that leaves him in a weird coma-like state, and nobody knows exactly what happened. Ava’s whole life up until that point has been revolving around Ben so this comes as quite a shock, especially since their parents aren’t exactly healthy or well-functioning either, and nobody knows how to cope with this possible loss since Ben was always the one holding the family together. Ben, meanwhile, “wakes up” days later in a sort of In-Between-World and remembers nothing at all. Now he has to find a way to return before the living give up on him, and Ava has to help her parents reconnect and learn that pushing everyone away when they only want to help is probably not the best plan. And maybe there’s a way for her to help Ben, even if she isn’t quite sure if he’s still there. It’s a good thing, then, that the family cat is a lot more than she seems!

Also includes a bunch of tiny dragons, some ancient entities, a former pirate queen, a few monsters, a whole bunch of pigeons, and a demon who may have something to do with the accident.

Status: 1st draft done, but it was probably more like draft 0, haha. So much has changed since that thing x’D As in, all the worldbuilding, magic systems, characters and plot twists. The basic plot and some of the character names are the same but everything else has changed. Proper draft 1 at not quite 50% done, maybe 45%? But I’ve been sort of editing that already so I’m happy with the way it is right now!

Monster.

A sort of active project which will one day become a graphic novel. I hope.

Sierra is nine years old and has befriended the monster under her bed. She was kind of afraid of it at first but then she realized that the monster probably felt the same way, so now they’re friends. Mostly. Except when it wakes her up during the night because it can’t sleep. Or when it wakes her up because it wants cookies. Or when it wakes her up because it wants to play. Or when it wakes her up when—

Suffice to say Sierra is not amused.

They do kind of love each other, though, the way siblings do. And if anyone ever hurt Sierra, the monster would be very angry indeed.

Status: I made Sierra and her monster for a 3D short film for university and now they’re kind of sticking around because there are still so many stories to tell! The short film isn’t all that good but I still love the idea and general design and since I had no idea what I was doing I think the end result is pretty good.

Icicle Soul.

Four different people from different worlds and times have to face the Lord of Winter to make sure that Spring will return to the worlds, and realize that time is sometimes not as linear as it might seem.

Starring:

Bran, a young boy from a world very similar to ours, who leaves his world behind to go on an epic adventure on the back of the bear he made of snow the previous day;

Eoin and Asare, two young people who get lost in a blizzard during a guided exploration of the Ankalanara Ice Desert, and, stranded there alone, lost and out of food, have to decide what to do next;

And Willow, a young girl whose life seems quite normal until the house she and her grandfather live in gets snowed in during winter. Listening to her grandfather’s stories she realizes that there’s so much more to her ancestors and her own life, and that the strange dreams she’s been having somehow tie her into this mess as well.

Status: I have it plotted out and developed the characters and written part of it 3 years ago or so. I’ll rewrite it from scratch when I finally get back to it. It’s probably my favourite wip because I love basically everything about it. I just hope that I’ll one day do it justice.

Morning Star.

A veritable monster of a story. Sigh. Takes place in another world that’s been dominated by a not-so-nice Empire. The boiling point is getting closer and closer, though, as the various rebellions manage to finally coordinate themselves and form into one. And as it is on Earth, so it must be in Heaven… or something. Anyways, the opposing forces of Icari and Oresh are assembling as well, to throw the whole world into one of the worst and bloodiest conflicts of all time.

At the same time, in a small village in the mountains (fascinatingly at the centre of the growing revolution) a young girl has been born, which is nothing special, usually. Only problem being: Skye is actually Lucifer reborn*, even though she doesn’t know it, given another chance at life. Within her are two parts at war, the one that just wants to live its life in peace, and the one that was once Lucifer, that is completely insane and murderous and really would like to continue spreading chaos and pain. And if that wasn’t enough as it is, Skye grows up as daughter of two religious leaders whose religion preaches first and foremost against Lucifer. Also, all the old enemies that Lucifer amassed know pretty well that she’s back, and also where they might find her.

So when Skye runs away in a fit of teenage aggression in order to get away from her parents, it doesn’t take long for her and her childhood friend Echo to run into some other people, and to find themselves entangled in a quest to find the body of God, to awaken Her from Her eternal sleep. And as chance has it, only the most timid and afraid of them all, Okazaki, knows the truth about Skye, and also that awakening God would kill her once and for all.

There are 12 POV characters all in all most of whom are not straight, and I love all my children and hate how I hurt them. I’m so sorry!

*Since it doesn’t take place on Earth anymore it doesn’t really make much sense to call her Lucifer so I’ll probably change the name, even if the meaning will stay the same.

Status: I have written some parts. I have a very long plot with lots of twists. And characters. And magic systems, and world building. Now I just need to write it. Sigh.

Burning Skies.

A kind of origin story, if you want? Love the characters and story. As usual, haha.

I did write a kind of okay synopsis about that once so I’ll be lazy and take that.

It’s been three hundred years since The Fall. Society has slowly started to revive, pick itself up again, rebuild what was destroyed and retrieve what was lost. Only, the questions remain: What was The Fall, why did it happen, how can we make sure that it doesn’t happen again? Everyone who knew the answers to those questions died back then. A lot of knowledge has been lost during those last days of chaos – including the knowledge of magic. Something of legends, people say, stories told children at night, to try and keep them from acting stupidly. The only problem is — magic has never been lost, just pushed away. Now the power thickens and it’s returning, fast, and the costs are very high. Too bad that the world is trying to force every single mention of it away, and too bad that it’s becoming more and more important in the grand scale of things…

Rin has been abandoned by everyone she’s ever loved, left behind and betrayed. And she knows that she will one day destroy the world. At least that’s what everyone who’s trying to kill her tells her (and she’s dealt with a lot of those people). They have never told her how she will do that but apparently many of them think that she will, somehow – and why shouldn’t she believe them, after all of their attempts? If they think so, so be it — and if the world doesn’t care about you, why should you care about the world?

Cass, on the other hand, has had a similar life in the one sense that she’s completely, utterly alone and lost. Working as a slave for a man who owns a dozen children like her isn’t easy, especially if he choses to train each of them according to their newly-given talents. When the chance finally arrives, the chance to escape and achieve freedom once and for all, Cass doesn’t know what to do. Run and hide or stay and plot revenge?

Status: Wrote some parts of it during NaNoWriMo 2015, and I uploaded them, too. They’re not particularly good though so I’ll rewrite everything, I guess. Just have to get writing. Ugh. Also this one has one of my meanest plot twists yet :D

Firewings (=Feuervogel)

My very first proper project! It’s also at least 600K long by now even though most of that are re-writes, and most of those are in german. And bad. Still love the idea and characters though. Same as usual, I guess.

One of the protas of this story is the reason why my side blog is called Lirhin :D

Also, not in the mood to change anything about the synopsis, so here you go.

Several different plotlines follow a series of characters: Ilien has lived alone for a very long time solely for the purpose of revenge, hunting down demons in his spare time, until one night he saves a litte girl from being kidnapped. Her parents were murdered during the kidnapping, so he sort of adopts her, calling her Lirhin since she’s stopped talking. Now the kidnappers want her back. Jeanna is still a child when her mother and older sister are killed (among others) in a demon raid because there was a flaw in the rune system of the whole village. While Jeanna is determined to learn how to protect herself the whole village starts to collaborate to survive the night. Everything changes when she discovers something unbelievable about herself and her older brother. Razouk is brought up knowing that he is not good enough, that he will always be second choice after his sister. He decides that he must prove himself, which is quite difficult when you don’t even know the real identity of the man you want to prove your worth to. Then there are also Meena and Arrick, crown prince and princess, watch as their kingdom falls apart since their father is not capable of ruling anymore and their mother is the only person holding everything together. They must find a way to survive and do the best they can for their people. Finally, Rheon is fed up with the way the kingdom is ruled, being the ruler of a major city himself and fearing for his people who are starving to death. He decides that he must do something about that and that the best way is to start a rebellion.

Status: wrote far too many words for this one, nothing is finished, and it’ll probably end up as a trilogy. Why does everything I do end up longer than I meant for it to be???

Sky Citadel.

Least priority, I think. But I still love it and sometimes think about it :D

Camp NaNo synopsis from when I wrote it: What was once forgotten must be relearned. What was once lost must be reforged. How can we stand against an enemy when we cannot stop fighting ourselves, each other, our only allies? When we have forgotten the truth about them and about ourselves, when we don’t remember the threats of the Deep? How can we survive if our worst enemy is rising again and we don’t remember how to fight?

The People of the Spired Sea have forgotten the past, have forgotten about their guardians, the Faye, and how they were saved. Now the old inhabitants of this world are returning but humanity’s struggles are directed at each other, inside the community, and at the Marked who have started to rise again to protect humanity against the once-known threat. Jaivyn has lost everything he ever had, and yet gained so much. Ivy had everything and lost it all. And they are only two of the Marked, mankind’s “Saviours”, broken and conflicted, who are supposed to fight the Ancients and ensure that the Spired Sea has a future. How can anyone do something like that when they cannot even save themselves?

Haha, I think that synopsis is actually kind of nice for once. I’ll rewrite and write again and blablabla when there’s time. Good night.

Sooo... tagging? Tagging! @merigreenleaf @prismalicht @yoojas3d, @romenna and if anyone else wants to, please tag me! I’d love to read about your projects :D

[roseymoseyberry]

Samsara (2/?)

ahhh, i’m so excited that so many folks are interested in this fic! I was going to hold back on this chapter a little longer but, eh. Consider it a friday the 13th surprise.

This fic can also be found on AO3 now, though I probably won’t post this chapter there for a little bit longer. Eventually both blog and ao3 will be updated at the same time though.

I hope you enjoy~

(also, a car is mentioned in here, and I imagine it’s something like this guy)

Title: Samsara

Series: RID15 and TFP (and some tidbits grabbed from Aligned wiki pages)

Ship(s): Wildbreak/Knockout, Breakdown/Knockout

Tags/warnings: Reincarnation AU, hurt/comfort, verbal/physical abuse (though the worst of the physical abuse is barely described or off screen), past character death, age difference (but still consenting adult alien robots), a lot of filling in worldbuilding gaps and making shit up, and a lot of Wildbreak being a sweet boy who just needs some love and affection.

Fic Summary:

From the day he was forged, Wildbreak had felt like there was something missing; some motivation or drive or desire that had been left behind in the Allspark.

Something he should know but didn’t.

|Chapter 1|Chapter 2|

Knockout didn’t make it easy. Wildbreak had thought him fast before, but now Knockout was a demon on the road, drifting around corners while his engine roared.

But if there was one thing Wildbreak was proud of, it was his own prowess on the road. The Stunticons didn’t demand rule over roads without reason.

It was neck to neck, with Wildbreak slipping past Knockout a few times with an eager rev, and he would swear he heard the other car laugh before gunning his engines and fighting his way back to the front. Knockout even began to play dirty, bumping into Wildbreak occasionally, but Wildbreak knew every dirty trick there was in a race. He might have been young, but driving with his team was never polite or by the rules.

Knockout wouldn’t shake Wildbreak. Not when his spark pulsed wildly like it was.

And by some stroke of luck, after the sun had set and the stars were out, Knockout transformed, vents wide open as heat billowed out, and said, “Alright, alright. I guess you deserve something for that performance.”

The first time that they talked, Knockout had insisted that Wildbreak tell him all about his life. When Wildbreak had tried to say that it wasn’t very interesting, that Knockout wouldn’t want to hear about all that, Knockout had laughed and said, “It won’t be that long a story anyway, so relax and fess up.”

So Wildbreak had told him about Dragstrip, and about the Stunticons, and the various jobs they had taken over the span of Wildbreak’s life that had led them to Earth. It had been awkward at first, because Knockout was an Autobot, so surely he was judging Wildbreak for the symbol on his chest and all the illegal things he had done.

But Knockout never looked especially shocked. He just nodded and urged Wildbreak on.

It wasn’t until the very end that Knockout asked, “So what’s the end plan for you? If this whole Stunticon business doesn’t pan out?”

Wildbreak blinked at him, confused, because he had never considered what he would do without the Stunticons. But Knockout insisted he needed to come up with a backup plan.

“Loyalty just ends with a knife in your back.”

Wildbreak’s spark had twisted unpleasantly at that, aching like an old wound he didn't remember receiving.

Wildbreak promised that he’d think about it but only, he shyly added, if Knockout promised they could meet again.

It was probably one of the bravest moves Wildbreak had ever made.

And Knockout had laughed and said he’d stick around the area for a while. He wouldn’t give an exact timeline, but that was enough for Wildbreak.

��What’re you looking so happy about?”

Wildbreak’s expression turned sheepish in the face of Dragstrip’s scrutiny.

“Just a good drive, I guess.” When Dragstrip didn’t appear satisfied with that answer, Wildbreak continued, “Got to race a guy.”

Dragstrip made a face. “Why would you race with a squishy?”

Wildbreak shrugged as he settled on the slab he usually recharged on.

“Gave me a run for my money,” Wildbreak said, aware that while it wasn’t a lie, it wasn’t the full truth either since he wasn’t correcting Dragstrip’s assumption. “So I dunno, it was fun.”

Dragstrip didn’t look convinced, but luckily it looked like he just couldn’t believe it would be fun to race with a squishy, not that he doubted the story.

“Whatever. And uh, did that help with your whole business?” Dragstrip asked, gesturing vaguely at Wildbreak, and it was clear he meant his spark.

Truthfully, Wildbreak’s spark felt more turbulent than it ever had before. But it was nice. It felt like victory.

“A little bit,” he admitted. “I think if I just keep driving sometimes it’ll straighten itself out, you know?”

“It better.”

The second time that they talked, it was a couple days later when finally Wildbreak could get away again. He made it to the same spot as before an hour before sunset and waited, anxious and worried that maybe Knockout wouldn’t show, that they would miss each other or that Knockout had simply decided he wasn’t actually interested.

But as the sun disappeared over the hill in the distance, Knockout’s engine gave away his arrival, and Wildbreak’s spark soared.

“Knockout! You showed up!”

With a transformation and a smirk, Knockout remarked, “I never miss an opportunity to be adored.”

Wildbreak’s optics went wide and heat spread up his neck and across his face, embarrassed and flustered. Knockout laughed, not cruelly but just amused, but it faltered a bit as his optics lingered on Wildbreak’s expression. And that look from before – almost like recognition and tainted by sorrow – took over, lingering this time as he ended his now forced chuckle with a cough. Knockout glanced away as he moved to flop down on the grass beside Wildbreak.

It was the first time Wildbreak had seen Knockout without total confidence and it nearly felt as if it had set his spark aflame with affection.

A wide grin split Wildbreak’s face despite his embarrassment, and he scratched at the back of his neck as he said, “Whatever brings you back works for me.”

Knockout snorted, teased him about being desperate.

But he didn’t seem to really mind.

And when Wildbreak asked him to talk about himself this time – “I don’t got much else to tell you about me anymore” – Knockout agreed.

Knockout told him that he had been a Decepticon up until the very last second when the chance presented itself and he jumped from the metaphorically sinking ship. He talked about how he had made his bed based on who the winning team would be, and maybe he had guessed that wrong, but the Autobots were a much more forgiving lot than Decepticons. The Autobots were usually open to picking up defectors—

“Yeah, yeah, I get it,” Wildbreak grumbled. “Backup plans and all that.”

“Just making sure to pass on my knowledge to the youth of today,” Knockout insisted with a sly look.

“It’s not like I was just forged yesterday.”

“Please. You’re so young that you’ve only ever known the Decepticons as synonymous with common criminals.”

“You’re not gonna start in on a ‘in my day’ lecture, are you?”

That brought Knockout up short, his frame going stock still before he sneered.

“I’m not old.”

Wildbreak couldn’t help giggling as he teased, “Aw gee, course you’re not. You only got what, a couple hundred years on me? Couple thousand?”

Knockout shoved him, but it was softer than what Wildbreak was used to, didn’t hurt in the least.

“Who told you you could talk back?” Knockout complained, and that did hurt. Wildbreak stiffened and looked down at his servos, twisting them together.

“Oh, uh, sorry.”

It was quiet for a moment before Knockout said, “What? Why are you apologizing?”

“For talking back?”

Wildbreak flinched when digits tucked under his chin, but Knockout was gentle as he turned Wildbreak’s helm back towards him.

Knockout stared at him sternly.

“You’re always allowed to talk back.”

Wildbreak’s optics grew wide as his processor reeled.

“B-but you said--”

“I was joking,” Knockout said, bending down when Wildbreak tried to look down, refusing to let him look away. “But obviously it was a joke in poor taste. You don’t normally get to talk back, do you?”

Concerned crimson optics seemed to take up all of Wildbreak’s attention as his tanks felt as if they were being crushed. His vocalizer failed him, so Wildbreak just shook his helm.

Knockout frowned.

“Not too late to jump ship.”

“They’re not that bad, though. I mean, they’re my team—”

“—And if Cons are anything like what they used to be, they’ll cut down a sweet thing like you without a second thought if it benefits them.”

Wildbreak felt sick because he wanted to defend the team, or at least Dragstrip, but he couldn’t. Not when he knew deep down it was possible. Not when he could still remember how it felt to be crushed by the gravity weapon that Dragstrip had demonstrated on him without any guilt. And not when his spark ached with phantom pain that Wildbreak couldn’t actually remember ever receiving.

And not when Knockout looked at him with old pain etched into the lines of his face.

“I’ll already told you I’d think about it,” Wildbreak finally managed, “and I am. Really.”

Knockout was quiet a moment longer before, with a sigh, he removed his servo and leaned back. “Fine. But this time you’re leaving with my comm link too in case you need it.”

Wildbreak nodded and, after a moment, flopped onto his back. The stars twinkled and Wildbreak wondered if Cybertron was out in that direction. A home that had never felt much like home, never felt welcoming, never felt quite right. It had been easy to just join a group that he thought wanted him and hope it would be better than the loneliness.

Oddly, Earth had felt familiar in ways that Cybertron didn’t.

And now, even with his tanks roiling, being here next to Knockout felt like home .

“So, uh. You think I’m sweet?”

Knockout’s ventilation came out choked before a soft smile curled his lips.

“I suppose I do,” Knockout admitted, leaning back on his palms and giving Wildbreak a sideways look. “Who knew I’d find pleasant company on this dirt ball?”

Wildbreak couldn’t help grinning at that. “What about your Autobot friends?”

“Oh, don’t get me wrong, Bumblebee can be fine company. But he has some of the most obnoxious brats racing around and I think they’re rubbing off on him in the worst way. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, he lives in some human’s scrap yard!” Knockout sighed dramatically as he clucked his glossa disapprovingly. “I barely lasted a few hours there before I had to leave and immediately wash off.”

“Then why’re you here?” Wildbreak asked curiously.

Knockout hummed contemplatively as he tilted his helm back, gazing up at the stars, the moonlight reflecting off his perfect finish and highlighting the angles of his handsome face. It was easy to get lost in staring at Knockout. “Visiting an old friend,” Knockout said softly, the casualness of his tone belying the sad curl to his lips.

But it was there and gone as he turned his helm back to Wildbreak, adding, “And besides, while I can’t say I care for their company, humans are masters of crafting a gorgeous automobile. I mean look at me! You just can’t find alt-modes like this on Cybertron.”

Wildbreak sat up, grinning as he said, “Right? They look so pretty! I’ve thought about scanning something, but I don’t know what would look good on me, and nobody else on the team wanted a new scan, so it felt weird to ask, you know?”

Knockout’s optics flashed bright as a wide smirk split his face.

“Do you want to find one tonight?”

Wildbreak’s spark thundered eagerly in his chest.

“Uh, I mean, if you don’t mind.”

“Oh Wildbreak, darling,” Knockout purred as he swiftly and gracefully got to his pedes, “I can’t even begin to tell you how much I don’t mind at all. Now come on, up you get. We’ve got ourselves a trip into the city to make.”

Wildbreak stumbled a bit as he stood up, wide-opticked as he replied, “The city?”

“Of course. Ferrari is having a show there this week, so what better chance to slip in and find something that suits you,” Knockout insisted as he started walking towards the road.

“But how would we get in?”

“Come now. Don’t tell me you haven’t done a little breaking and entering before?” Knockout teased. That only had Wildbreak slack-jawed as he jogged to catch up.

“B-but you’re an Autobot! Aren’t you supposed to follow the rules?”

Knockout laughed as he finally hit asphalt and shifted into his alt-mode.

“Who said I was good at being an Autobot? Now hurry it up, we don’t have all night!”

Stunned, Wildbreak just nodded and transformed to follow Knockout. But after a few minutes of processing it all, Wildbreak felt excitement bubble up in his chassis. The sound clip of Knockout calling him darling played on repeat in the back of his processor.

“Hey, who’s Ferrari anyway?”

“I have so much to teach you, Wildbreak.”

Wildbreak couldn’t remember the last time he had had so much fun.

Breaking in had been shockingly easy, so much so that Wildbreak suspected it hadn’t been the first time that Knockout had trespassed into this particular building to check out cars. And they were in luck that the building had to have passageways large enough for cars to drive onto the main floor, so it wasn’t hard for them to get into the large room with ceilings high enough for them to stand.

And Knockout had been right. The cars were gorgeous.

They admired and discussed the cars, and now and again Knockout would pause, considering the car and then Wildbreak, before telling him to try scanning it. Some of them translated well to Wildbreak’s root mode, and some of them just left Knockout bent over snickering.

“Oh no, no no, absolutely not. Drop that scan immediately.”

Which meant that Wildbreak would pose and strut in the worst of the choices, enjoying the way that Knockout was torn between laughing and hissing over how awful they were.

Finally though, Knockout clapped his servos together and insisted, “There it is. I think we’ve found it. Go on, try it on!”

It was, in many ways, similar to Wildbreak’s cybertronian alt-mode. But it was sleeker, beautiful lines instead of aggressive angles. The little mirrors had to go, but otherwise it was gorgeous, and transforming into his root form showed that it translated well. Similar to what he had but nicer looking, both aesthetically and emotionally. It felt like a better fit.

“Almost,” Knockout said contemplatively as he circled him. Wildbreak squirmed a bit under the scrutiny. “Is the blue your natural paintjob?”

“Yeah, it is.”

“Then switch to that.”

With a flicker, Wildbreak’s plating dropped the white and red from the disguise to reveal his forged coloring with its dark blue and orange and grey.

Knockout grinned.

“Oh yes, that’s it.”

“You sure? I mean, it’s kinda dark, and the color combination is kinda weird--”

“I would never lie when it comes to looks,” Knockout interrupted as he stepped closer. Wildbreak nearly startled when Knockout’s servo grasped him by the wrist, optics trailing along the expanse of his arm. With unexpected fondness, Knockout said, “I always did love the contrast of blue and orange.”

Wildbreak’s face heated and his spark went wild.

And even Knockout seemed to react to his own admission, stiffening and dropping Wildbreak’s wrist as he stepped back.

“Well, anyway. Do you like it?”

Wildbreak looked down at his own frame again, twisting it this way and that to see as much as he could, before shrugging. “It looks good from what I can see. And if you think it looks good, I believe it.”

“You’re awfully trusting,” Knockout commented.

“I guess,” Wildbreak admitted, “but I mean, you’re easy to trust.”

Knockout blinked at him before throwing his helm back and laughing, managing between wheezes to ask if that was a joke because no one would ever say that about him.

But Wildbreak meant it.

From the very bottom of his spark, he meant it.

But Knockout still snickered as he ushered Wildbreak out of the building, insisting that they get a move on before anyone showed up.

The ride back was full of Knockout’s stories, since the moment he said that he had been Megatron’s medic at the end of the war – that he had been part of the team that battled Team Prime – Wildbreak was out of his processor with excitement.

Better yet, Knockout did impressions of the upper ranks.

They were hilarious when they were just spoken, but once the two of them had reached the fork in the road where Wildbreak was supposed to turn to go back to his team, Knockout was able to contort his face and frame too. Wildbreak was non-stop giggles when Knockout stomped around as Megatron, servos behind his back and constant sneer on his face as he waxed poetic about every little thing before howling in faux rage. And while every Decepticon from the war that Wildbreak had met had a Starscream impression, nothing could touch Knockout’s. He pranced and he preened as he waved his servos around, wiggling the tires on his back as if they were wings, and Wildbreak could feel optic cleanser welling up from how hard he laughed.

It nearly hid the fact that while there was no way that Wildbreak would have ever heard these stories before, most of them sounded oddly familiar.

“—So needless to say, my assistant and I didn’t pay Starscream a lick of attention and still went to the race--”

Other than the vehicons, Knockout’s assistant was the only figure in the stories who wasn’t named. Knockout didn’t do any impressions of him. Wildbreak would almost think Knockout thought as little about the mech as he did of the vehicons were it not for the fact that the assistant featured in nearly all his stories. A constant companion.

Wildbreak’s spark pulsed hard with every mention of him.

“Is he your friend you’re visiting?”

Knockout stopped suddenly, mouth still open as if he was ready for the next part of the story, but it didn’t come out.

Instead he asked, “What?”

“The assistant,” Wildbreak said, shifting his weight on his pedes. “Cause, I mean, it doesn’t sound like you were really friends with the rest of ‘em. But you mention him a lot.”

Knockout’s mouth closed and his expression softened from the amusement of before. Wildbreak already regretted the question, verbally stumbling over himself as he said, “I mean, you don’t gotta tell me, just forget I even asked.”

“No, it’s fine,” Knockout finally managed. His servos drifted down to his sides, lightly propped on his hips. The huff that was nearly a laugh was humorless. “I just thought I was more subtle than that. Guess not.” Another ventilation cycled through Knockout before he said, “You got it in one.”

Wildbreak’s spark raced.

“What’s his name?”

“Breakdown,” Knockout said as his lips curled into a soft, sad smile.

Wildbreak’s spark thundered.

Wildbreak swallowed as he fought to keep the pain from showing on his face. He had learned to be good at that over the years and hoped it would fool Knockout.

“Huh. Weird.”

“What’s weird about that?” Knockout asked, optics finding focus again on Wildbreak’s face.

“Nothin’,” Wildbreak replied, shifting his weight again. “Just got déjà vu or something. Maybe I met him before?”

Knockout’s smirk was joyless.

“Only place the two of you could have crossed paths was in the Allspark.”

Wildbreak’s spark thrashed.

“Oh. Well uh, then I guess it’s just ‘cause I have ‘break’ in my name then, or something,” Wildbreak reasoned, his optics now glued to the ground. “Sorry about your friend. Sounds like he was a great guy.”

“He was.”

REACH OUT. TOUCH HIM.

“You miss him?”

“I’m here, aren’t I?”

HOLD HIM. MISS HIM.

“He probably misses you too.”

The ground crunched under Knockout’s pede, one step towards Wildbreak before stopping. Wildbreak didn’t dare look up at Knockout, afraid he’d see right through him, would see the confusing turmoil between his spark’s demands and his processor’s bewilderment.

“A-anyway, I should probably get going before anyone notices I’m gone,” Wildbreak stammered as he took a step back. “But I really wanna see you again. I promise I won’t make it awkward again or anything.”

After a moment of silence, a genuinely amused ex-vent escaped Knockout and a short-wave message hit Wildbreak’s comm. It was a commlink.

“It takes more than a little bit of awkwardness to scare me off.”

When Wildbreak got to the old buildings his team called their base, he shifted back to his cybertronian form, already missing Knockout’s gift but knowing he couldn’t let the others see it. He’d have to save his earth form for the few occasions he was alone or with Knockout.

Then, as quietly as he could, Wildbreak snuck towards his usual slab and curled up with his back against the wall.

Recharge was slow to take him though because there was nothing that could quiet his processor or his spark.

Breakdown.

The name kept popping up in his processor again and again, sometimes an inquiry, sometimes a statement, but never anything that Wildbreak understood.

Wildbreak couldn’t figure out if Knockout was helping with the hole in his spark or making it that much worse.

But either way, Wildbreak knew he would see him again.

Wildbreak had to see Knockout again.