#idk. its nice to have things to fall back on that are low stakes and fun

[t6fs]

The last several months have been a vortex and i'm really struggling to keep up but at least there's the consequences to @zeebreezin 's actions on discord.

[whimsy-of-the-stars]

whimsy-of-the-stars: a writeblr re-re-intro!

hey guys, it’s been a minute! I’m whimsy-of-the-stars, and since my main projects have kinda shifted around, I thought it would be a good time to update my intro! ngl it’s a pretty inopportune time to do a re-intro, since I’m close to the end of one draft and planning two more… it’s just overdue!

some info about me:

I’m gonna start college in the fall majoring in English with a concentration in Creative Writing! :D

learning languages is a passion of mine! I’m focusing on Spanish right now but I’ve dabbled in both Esperanto and Toki Pona (yeah I’m a nerd!)

I’m a video essay enjoyer and possibly maker, eventually

fiction podcasts and actual plays slap???

I have “I want to do too many things” disease and want to try making stories in many different mediums!

ttrpgs are really cool but I have yet to play them with other people! does that stop me from trying to make games… no

elements I like to write: Found family! Chosen ones (+ the subversion of)! Big Emotion™️! Organized crime (idk why it doesn’t leave me alone)! Gay people, of course!

genres I like to write (YA and middle grade): high fantasy, low fantasy, different -punk stuff, sci fi maybe, superheroes, fairy-tale esque, romance, coming of age

I also write poetry! You can find it in this tag: whimsy of the poetry

ALSO, I did DraftDash in January 2024, which was fun but I did end up petering out halfway thru. Follow my journey in the tag draftdash!

ok, now onto wips!

I am in a weird stage with a lot of my wips, but a re-intro was overdue so I decided to do it anyway!

wips I am currently writing:

apocalypse story!

status: first draft, 24k (almost done with part 1)

the basics: mg/ya apocalyptic + queer ?coming of age? story and its sequel, except they’re both short so they’re melded into one two-part book! it’s told thru diary entries with lots of extra ephemera glued in! part 1 of 2 is ALMOST done but I’m not inspired to finish it rn! ! I’m not gonna continue with part 2 right after, though, since I still need to plan it!

summary: stressed-out eighth/grader Allison goes to her old hideout in the forest to decompress, but one thing leads to another and she can’t find her way back home. the forest is seemingly ever-expanding, ever-changing, and even when she finds her friends who’ve come to rescue her, they still have to face the actual, real life botanical apocalypse that’s becoming more and more of an issue for the outside world. can they find their way home alive and well? and if they do get home, what will their home city even look like?

extras: fun fact I started this in April 2023 for camp nano and it has taken me this long to write the next 10k words! Also the main character is a bit of a self-insert, but of the person I was in lockdown in 2020!

um. That’s it for wips I’m currently writing rn lol

wips I am “revitalizing”:

(aka taking old drafts/concepts and turning them nice and new!)

Both of these have existed in different-ish iterations for years, however I am currently in the weird process of developing both of these into all-new things from an existing groundwork! Neither of them currently have “statuses” because it’s hard to explain where exactly I am right now!

heist story!

the basics: ya fantasy heist novel (maybe eventually a trilogy?) set in a faerie world that rapidly advanced not too long ago into a dieselpunk/decopunk society rife with corruption and crime!

summary: Logical and inquisitive teen Calliope is relatively normal. Her offbeat parents, however, have raised her in a house full of strange curios and old tomes of faery stories. But only when she starts to exhibit unwieldy shadow magic, and her parents invite a prim woman she’s never met before into their home do things really start to get strange. The woman whisks Calliope away through one of the aforementioned curios to a noir hubworld where ancient faerie bloodlines and newfangled magitech collide. Why? To take part in a high-stakes heist with a surprising trio of other teens who want nothing more than to take down the crime boss who runs their town.

extras: this one’s a weird one imo. it’s one of the oldest wips that I am still working on, tho this one had a break of about 3 years!!! also I originally wrote it in hot pink comic sans XD

new superhero story!

(I am also revitalizing this one, but it’s in a way less put-together state! not much to say yet lol!) (also it’s not very new I just call it that)

it’s a ya superhero thing that features teenage (often queer) antiheroes trying to balance their heroic + civilian identities!

featuring: the shittiest entertainment/hero management company you’ve ever seen, shared trauma, gray morality, two different rock bands, and heroes that are at once government agents, influencers, and corporate concoctions!

considering making a “help me name my characters” post because i desperately have to name/rename like 3/4 of all of these characters!!!

more ideas I have bouncing around:

(lightning round!)

old ya romance wip i need to revitalize about two teens enter a competition to make a demo album and end up falling in love in the process (also they’re lesbians XD)

offbeat, ya supernatural + historical fantasy about a girl university student who is buried alive, and upon getting rescued, starts to transform into a strange underworld creature. also features a cute gravedigger :D

a musical about standardized testing (yeah lol) that’s goofy and queer and explores how seniors + juniors are so freaking stressed out all the time lol

that’s all folks! :D

[mcl-mia]

//so... i have (finally) began trudging my way through the routes of wh again (done every route prior to rembrant's, sans klaus 2 because i am petty and still think it shouldn't have existed), and i've finally gotten to nox's route. just finished rembrandt's. and like... man do i have Thoughts. so i'm going to compile them and scream into the void. many of them will probably be on rembrandt's route, but that's because.... you know. the one i just finished.

first of all. narrative wise, i ADORE the continuation. i love how they are all in one connected timeline, it really brings such a finality to season 2 and it does, despite having its own issues, fixes what one of my biggest problems with the s1 routes (i.e. self contained story lines that don't connect anywhere). they introduce like, 80% of the cast that you're going to be interacting with and dating for the forseeable future and it makes it feel like a proper overarching storyline actually EXISTS!!! AND THERE IS ONE!!! AND IT WILL SOMETIMES REFERENCE S1 STUFF!!! IT'S SO GOOD. SO GOOD.

-100 points for having the rest of the s1 cast being almost fucking absent though. i understand that like. narratively they wouldn't always need to be there. however. i miss my boys. also -10000000 points for practically no amelia. where's my fucking wingman.

i 👏 love 👏 the 👏 night 👏 class 👏 boys. 👏👏👏 they feel like an actual friend group and shit like this makes me soooooo fucking emotional:

literally this makes me so feral. like, these people are liz's best fucking friends and it SHOOOWWWWSSS. the unconditional love here makes my heart want to burst.

i am eating so much good food lore wise. geography from bith hisoka and rembrandt's routes have me eating so good.

i like the time travel aspect well enough, though i do wish they did a smidge more with it? i'm not done with the rest of the routes yet obv but i'm curious to see if liz gets to keep her time powers. the end of rembrandt's route seems to imply that she lost them because the goddess crystal shattered, though?? status is currently unclear.

this line from mischa destroyed me:

like seriously. what the fuck. this is such a good line. and it reminds me that hugo, vain, and mischa have seen so many possible timelines that exist, and yet there IS one where hugo decides to take his shot. i know they basically have everybody be in love with liz but i think it's especially cute but very cruel for hugo, who almost certainly falls in love with her every time he meets her in a different timeline. just something to think about.

speaking of mischa. i think it's fucking adorable how chica and mischa are pen pals. besties. refined ladies. we love them. idk why tumblr doesn't want me to upload the screenshot but it's really cute.

so. routes. hugo's and hisoka's felt like..... nothing? like sure, they had some Big Picture Plot relevance, hugo's moreso for obvious reasons, but hisoka's felt like a beach episode. really weird.

hisoka's especially felt like nothing. like, cool that they introduce beastmen and , subsequently,the not so cool furry racism (wow i love fe9/fe10). but like. what else did it do besides have rembrandt take his watch back. and some geography. it was a nice change of pace, but the stakes felt so incredibly low compared to the two other routes its sandwiched between. don't get me wrong, i love the ending that came out from it. i LOVE the market idea and i love how it was walter fucking goldstein that sponsors hisoka. i just wish that, like..... there was bigger things going on in it. cute route overall, but just felt a little out of place. also hachi is a 10/10 familiar. would give so many pets.

ok. so rembrandt. i love, like, a LOT of how this route is written, to an extent. it is SO full of lore and dragonkin biology. i also like the overt head-smashing symbolism of rembrandt's magic being called "twilight" - not quite day, not quite night. if i were any dumber i'd call it clever.

so. to go back to the bad. because i think, very ironically, rembrandt is the worst part of his own fucking route. it's not that i don't find rembrandt exceedingly pretty, because he is, and his characterization is kinda... good? but he's just not the rest of the cast. literally the rest of the s2 squad consistently make me smile and giggle like a child, while i'm giving the "romance" a 1000 yard stare.

like, seriously. this small convo with lucious is just fucking great and better than any dialogue liz and rembrandt have ever had:

lucious calling his friends virgins is so funny. you go you funky little dude. never change, baby boy. but this is just soooo GOOD.

there's a lot of instances where they make it a point to show that the s2 cast really cares for liz, and that they are so comfortable around her. there's SO much good interaction and it's so cute... and then rembrandt is just. there. in the corner. losing his religion.

ok but seriously. let's talk about rembrandt himself for a sec. because like, rembrandt is fine. i appreciate that they don't beat around the bush that he is literally going to outlive liz. i also appreciate that everybody else is like, "do not fucking trust him, he is literally the enemy". unfortunate that due to the nature of the route liz is like "nuh uh" which makes everyone else be like "fym nuh uh". overall though i feel like he's just. too bland. which is WILD considering that he was a prison of war for like 1000 years. i know it's moreso that in his route he has (because of liz) finally started to trust humans again, but i wanted hesitation, i wanted DRAMA, a more romeo and juliet type beat!!! that came kinda close to it, but rembrandt being there and basically turning himself in is.... lame. very lame. sigh.

and then we have the incorporation of rembrandt into the main group. like, i love the night class boys SO much. and like, it bothered me a lot when liz would be like "oh don't worry rembrandt, we're your friends and you're part of the group now!" when rembrandt would do basically nothing but exist there. like, he barely interacted with them??? he felt very out of place, especially when the rest of the boys were still unsure about rembrandt. at least make fun of zeus like the rest of us, old man.

also. the plot point where rembrandt met liz when she was a kid, and she changed his whole outlook on humans..... uuuugggghhhhh. felt very unnecessary imo. it's like they just wanted to slap in another romance trope to make up for the fact that there wasn't a lot of romance to begin with. uuuuugggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

this was funny:

thank you for your services caesar o7

oh! and nox's outfit as nightmare is dumb. i know wh probably wasn't getting the greatest budget in the world but like... could have made it, like, so much better. i'll do a separate post for that in a min.

uhhhhhh i think that's all i got for now. i have . more but y'know. more to come.

[notjusthespongenextdoor]

dawntrail discussion (lvl 100 MSQ, and overall)

idk ive generally been in a bad mood recently so im worried its coloring my perceptions too severely but my overall reaction to dawntrail is just kind of like. huh. yeah, okay.

like...it was fine. lots of fun stuff in it. but i didn't really get In to the story that much, and that makes me sad

i don't know where all the decisions got made considering this game is made by like two million people so ill try to avoid placing blame on anyone in particular but i really felt like the story was weird and disjointed. i went into it genuinely excited and openminded, trying to let myself take in whatever dawntrail had to give me without carrying expectations around because like. yeah, shadowbringers and endwalker were absolutely incredible. i doubt anything will measure up to them again, but that's okay, you know? it doesn't need to to be fun.

i really like wuk lamat and erenville, and came around to liking Bakool Ja Ja and Koana. I don't really mind that Wuk Lamat was around so much, because it quickly became clear to me that she is the "main character" of this expansion, and i'm okay with that

but i really feel like.....this should have been two expansions. the rite was nice at first but progressed way too quickly IMO and sort of "told" a lot of Wuk Lamat's development instead of "showing" it. Like we give her one pep talk and she's like cool i'm fixed now!!! her character just changed so quickly and while she's not that different of a person at the end, i'm not sure i really feel like her development was like. Earned, by the story. it just sort of happened.

i went into this with the expectation of it being, as was said, 'the best summer vacation ever,' so i really thought that the rite was going to be the whole thing, and like. i wanted it to. i wanted it to be relatively low-stakes and for all of us to just hang around and not have to save the world. i wanted to get competitive with thancred and urianger. i wanted them to drastically lower the stakes for this one so we could slowly build them back up again and not fall into the pit of always having to come up with massive world-threatening disasters to handle.

but no, of course we had to...deal with a threat to All The Shards And Everyone On Them....and again like, I liked a lot of the characters that were introduced in the second half but i didn't feel like we got enough development with them, ESPECIALLY with the whole concept of soul cells and the endless and all of that. it's like i could just Feel the weight of Shadowbringers and Endwalker on the shoulders of the writers and the themes coming back of like, oh we can't live forever the cycle of life and death is necessary and experiencing loss brings us together etc etc which is just like

no man we got it already skdjhfgsjkdfg like Endwalker expressed that concept in SUCH a powerful way there is simply nothing left to say on the matter. this was their chance to completely change directions and they. kind of decided to keep handling the same themes. except. worse, because just by definition everything is going to be worse than Endwalker.

like i really really did not feel like the Endless were explored to the extent they should have been and going around erasing them really left me with this feeling of like. uhhhhh. i know they're not like "living beings" or whatever but this doesn't feel right??? i feel like im killing a shitload of people without their consent????? like just because we had a single spokesperson in each section being like "it's okay i'm ready to go :)" didn't make me feel like it was okay to destroy everyone else??? like oh it's fine cause they don't have souls?? THE LOPORRITS DON'T HAVE SOULS CAN I JUST WIPE ALL OF THEM OUT? IS THAT OKAY S JDHFG

which like im not saying it was WRONG, obviously it was something that was inevitable as set up by the story but i don't feel like the inevitability of it and necessity of it was sufficiently like. emotionally integrated. like at the end the reasoning just seemed to be like 'well everything has to die and this is unnatural so pull the trigger piglet' like what. hello. could we explore the whole 'stealing energy' thing more and like, the strain it puts on the current living society to keep this thing going. like of course we're told how bad it is but...did we??? see it ??? like i guess we did but killing people in Tural felt to me like harvesting souls for soul cells not like....taking their life energy to sustain the endless....

aughghghghhhhhhhh screaming and yelling and crying. i was SO worried that the same thing was going to happen here that i felt happened in pandaemonium, where they set up some really interesting mysteries (the golden city, then the gate to the city, then the soul cells, and then the endless...) and just sort of. didn't follow through with the mysteriousness of it. i didn't feel a sense of surprise at any of them... sighs.

at least we got some cool characters out of it. and the dungeon and trial mechanics have been really fun for me. so i guess ill just enjoy the gameplay for now and hope for a more cohesive story in the future....

[tiliqi]

OH WOW thank you for answering so fast!! I wanted to ask because in my opinion, Shadow is written kind of... poorly.. at the metal virus arc :c and I love how you characterize Shadow!! I was wondering, if you could, how would you have written him in it?

okay so this got. RAELLY long. it’s under the read more.. hhaaa... get ready for rambles.

before i start on what i would love to see different, here’s a few things that i really liked about his characterization in idw:

shadow being persistent about what he thinks is right, being very straightforward and strict in wanting to execute his ideal

the way he stepped down and let sonic try his way instead of being stubborn because sonic made a very good point. Shadow wants to be fair, and if he of all people deserves a chance, then so should eggman. kind of ties back to maria also, which is a nice nod to have considering it seems like modern writers for sonic usually treat the ending of shth as “ok she never existed to him anyways”

i like that he uses his GUN affiliation to his advantage to do good and help people (even if by rouges account he does it because he doesnt want to deal with zombots)

he has great devotion to make sure the truck is safe and peole get a chance to get out, giving (according to the comics anyways) more than 100% of his power dealing with hundreds if not thousands of zombots alone

I like that there’s a nod to shadow being insecure about his status as ultimate life form, and he is tempted to get infected just to prove to himself he really CANT get sick and he really IS a perfect being. He struggled a lot with the high expectations that were laid upon him, the expectations he’s laying upon himself.

I like how he had a great sense of shock and defeat when he realized that he DID get infected. It’s very true for him to be thrown off by it, get a little careless due to shock. its natural. it’s good.

his “i told you something like this would happen” towards sonic in the beginning of #19 is justified. He hates that he was right, he always is, and he wishes he wasnt. he could’ve prevented this, but its too late now. then later he risks getting infected with the metal virus, and he DOES get infected. He suddenly wasnt right anymore. This sense of irony... it’s probably one of the reasons he has trouble to concentrate on the fight. it’s a nice parallel. IDK if ian intended it to be this deep, but that’s what i read into it.

(i also want to point out that i like that herms gives everyone slightly diverse “skin”-tones. like diverse undertones. im still peeved they are all pretty pale but its hoenstly a nice little nod)

okay so here’s what i think could’ve gone better:

I feel like shadow being the one to drive the truck into the city is a reference to 06, where he is driving around in various vehicles. That in itself is nice, and i think shadow is a person who prefers to do things himself if there’s a lot at stake (which there was a lot of peoples lives) but i also think that he would think of himself as a powerful shield. He would rather be the one overseeing the battlefield insread of being the designated driver. He knows he was created for the frontlines, and he is someone who knows he can survive the front lines. He is not a sacrefice tobe made, he is the one who will make sure that no one else has to sacrefice themselves. Shadow should’ve been on site from the very beginning. Where is the rest of GUN anyways? Those low level humans should make an effort to protect the life on their planet.

Shadow did absolutely NOT use 100% of his pwoer to protect the truck. He could EASILY have done more. He can lift trucks. He could use chaos blast. He could easily have prevented just faling victim to the zombots so easily.

As mentioned above it kind of DOES make sense for him to go down easily due to being infected, but I think this was the wrong time to let him get infected. I think he wouldn’t let his guard down and carelessly touch a zombot. He would not give in to the temptation to test his limits like this if there was not a greater cause. I think he would easily break if someone he cared about (other than sonic) fell victim to the metal virus. This is something that would get him emotional, to get careless. He knows sonic can outrun the virus, but rouge can’t. Amy, Tails, Knuckles, Vector, all of Sonic’s friends can’t outrun the virus. There’s a big chance that he is immune, there’s a slim chance he is not. But even with that slim chance, he knows he could outrun it, just like sonic. Losing someone he cares about to the virus would remind him of his superiority, of how fragile life is and of his responsibility to protect life itself. Any restrait would be gone. He would be driven by guilt and anger at himself, that he could’ve done better, that he HAS to do better. It’s something that spirals him totally out of control. It’s something that would make him want to prove to himself that he has the ability to fix it all. because it’s all his fault.

this is honestly something that is so important. he feels responsible for this, because he did what was right and gave sonic and eggman a chance. In his mind, sometimes the right hting to do is the wrong thing to do, because sometimes only wrong actions get you to the right goal. he is a gray character like that, and i think it’s not shown enough. his regret and guilt don’t surface enough so that anyone who is not as invested in the character would be able to read it out of #19. there’s a lot of stuff going on inside shadow in this issue and its just. not enough time to unpack it all. this whole deal of him getting infected was too rushed. (as mentioned above i wouldve preferred he get infected a little later or under other circumstances)

I think shadow is aware of his responsibility as living weapon to not fall into the hands of the enemy. he has learned what it means to be manipulated, he learned what it means if he was used as a weapon by an enemy of life on earth. he does NOT want to be used as an object of destruction ever again. He would RUN. even if hesitant, but his emotions would make him excell even in that. he would make sure he’d run faster than sonic. he’s want to make sure that he’d give 110% and cure himself, something sonic couldn’t do.

the way he would go down in my mind is him excerting himself. He would absolutely reject help. he would prefer to not have any contact with anyone at all. For one because he feels guilty and he doesn’t want to deal with that emotionally, also because he doesn’t want anyone to see him in this state of weakness. He absolutely would loathe the idea of anyone being able to see him go down and surrender to the enemy. He would absolutely exhaust his entire energy reservoir building barricades and being the sole and only front line protecting evacuation efforts from a distance, to make sure that they have enough buffer to escape, should he fail.

shadow is someone  who is rash and has a tendency to boast his strength, but he also is someone who tries to consider any and all possibilities, no matter how painful they are to admit to his pride. he will shove them to the back of his mind, but they are still there. and if it COMES to those scenarios, he will have a plan for them. only if unpredictable things happen, or things that shake him emotionally, he would lose grip.

also in all those talks abt things shaking him emotionally, i dont mean that other people who arent his friends are not important to him, its just that friendship has a bigger impact on people. i think that should be pretty obvious, but since people like to misinterpret shadow id like to make sure people understand that i think that shadow values all and every life on the planet. he griefs over random deaths as much as his friends, it’s just that it hits more personal. mostly because he thinks... of himself as someone who always protects, but never has to be protected.

shadows relationship with himself is complicated. he thinks very low of himself. he pretty much hates himself. but that is because he thinks oh so highly of himself. he is perfect, ultimate, unbeatable, unstoppable, immortal, immune.... he expects all this of himself... even though he knows that it’s not true. it’s the one thing that he knows of himself. The one thing he feels that he could maybe achieve if he tried hard enough, and of course he is never trying hard enough; and at the same time he is trying so hard. He gives 300% and yet he still feels like he halfasses everything and he still feels like he could do better. On the outside he presents it with his strict edgy persona, that looks down on everyone. but really he feels so small. most of all towards sonic. sonic is so so tall compared to shadow (pun intended).

he looks up to sonic so much, because he always manages to go out of hisway to do what is right. even if it meant risk, even if it meant weakness. Sonic, the guy that easily could just get killed and hurt and not recover. the funny jokes dude that never thinks more than a single step ahead. This boy is out there risking his life for the life of this planet on the front lines and he shows not a single care about his own safety, always putting everyone else before him. shadow envies him. he really really does. thats why he values his opinoin. thats why he listens to him and even steps back from his OWN ideals, something he would do for only VERY few people, because of course shadow is always right. this is referenced in various sonic games (sa2 most of all,shth,sth) and in sonic x (yea its not canon but like. They Really Got His Character).

ADDING SOME RAMBLING AFTER ISSUE #33 RELEASED

[battlestar-royco]

Hey, did you see Maleficent? If so what did you think about (especially the last part which kinda irked me)

Yes, I did see it a couple weeks ago and I really enjoyed it. I went in with low expectations, and they were exceeded. I loved sooooo much about the dark fey (the way they look, the multiple different kinds, where they live, Maleficent finding and connecting to her people, their stake in the war against humans, what we saw of the new characters), loved Maleficent’s—Imma just call her Mal—wardrobe, loved the mother/daughter relationship between Mal and Aurora, loved that the main politics were between women. Some parts were cheesy and underdeveloped, as is expected of Disney movies, so I wish the story had been like a TV season’s worth of content to flesh out Ulstead and the dark fey politics/culture/characters/magic. I really wasn’t a fan of the Phillip/Aurora relationship, but it could have worked if it hadn’t been so forced or maybe if their alliance wasn’t a marriage (or if it was platonic marriage or something? IDK). As for the ending, I’ll cut for spoilers in case anyone cares.

I think most people know my stance on resurrections, but just in case: I generally don’t like them. Like I guess Tangled and Harry Potter did it okay? But I really dislike most other fictional resurrections because they cheapen the stakes and put all the value of said stakes on whether a character lives or not (as opposed to other equally heartbreaking/high stakes things like for example being betrayed, blackmailed, exiled, involuntarily drafted, separated from family/friends etc). Anyway. I wish Mal hadn’t “died” just to come back 5 minutes later and save the day. It was unnecessary emotional manipulation, it was almost immediately undone by her coming back, and it depreciated the value of that sacrifice along with the other dark fey who died in the battle. Also I found it kind of disturbing that the queen just got turned into a goat and it was treated as a joke???? Like, that’s in character for Mal, but it could legitimately be interpreted as body horror so I just found it bizarre.

I wasn’t feeling the wedding because there was zero chemistry between Aurora and Phillip in both the script and the acting. It’s not that the acting was terrible or inappropriate for the Disney context, but their relationship was just the uninspired and unconvincing “he was a boy she was a girl can I make it any more obvious?” thing. I wanted to know more about how they’d be as rulers and why they even like each other. They are yet another reason why in an ideal world the movie would have been like 6 episodes of a mini series so we could see Phillip and Aurora grow up and develop a vision for their kingdoms, and we could see them becoming friends or falling in love. Other than that I thought the ending was nice. I did indeed cry when Aurora said Mal was her mother. They also got me when Aurora asked Mal if she’d give her away and Mal said “NEVER?!?!” Though the Maleficent franchise definitely has its flaws and cheesiness, I just love what these movies are doing thematically with the character of Mal and how they’re building on the original world of the 1959 Sleeping Beaty (another movie I love) rather than a tired and passionless live action/CGI-that’ll-look-like-shit-in-2-years rehash.

[nasatshirts]

The Good, the Bad, and the Dirty part 1

A/N: So uh. This is my first Wolfstar FanFiction and the first one I post on this account so like…lotsa firsts here. Pls be nice if you comment…I worked really hard. Inspired by The good, the bad, and the dirty by Panic! At the Disco

Summary: Sirius messed up. Only he has no idea how to mak things right.

Warnings: Panic attack, crying, negative thoughts, umm…idk tell me if I need to add anything else

He screwed it up. He always screwed it up. That’s it. It was over. He shouldn’t have even tried to be in a relationship because he knew it would be doomed from the start and—

“Get on with it, Padfoot!” A very annoyed-sounding James said. “Why’d you even do that to him in the first place?”

Sirius felt a stab of annoyance mix in with the guilt already threatening to take over. “Hmm, let me think Prongs. I actually did it to hurt him, I mean, why wouldn’t I? OBVIOUSLY I HADN’T MEANT TO, IDIOT.” Sarcasm dripped from his words like water from a leaky faucet.

And he hadn’t meant to hurt Remus. All Sirius had waned to do was sell a couple items to some of the other Gryffindors, hopefully obtaining some extra money to buy Remus something for his birthday! But everything started to go wrong when Sirius sold something that couldn’t ever be replaced.

*^/^*

~The day before~

Sirius walked into the dormitory to nothing short of chaos. Clothes were strewn all about, somehow ending up on the ceiling way above their heads. A chair was on its side, halfway across the room from its original location. One of the curtains that hung from the beds was ripped and flung onto the floor in a sad heap, along with a trunk completely open and empty with its contents dumped on the floor. Random objects floated in the air, even snapped quills and smashed vials of ink haphazardly hanging completely still in the tense atmosphere.

Sirius let out a low whistle. James, who had been a few steps behind him on the stairs, suddenly entered and stopped dead in the doorway.

“Sirius,” he said slowly. “What. In. Godric’s. Long. Furry. Beard. Happened. In. This. Dorm.” Sirius opened his mouth to retort before the answer made itself known in the form of Remus skidding out of the bathroom and sliding into the floor, having slipped on a shirt that had been torn in half.

James took a deep breath. “Remus. I’m going to ask you a simple question, and I want a simple answer.” Another deep breath. “What the hell?”

Remus, however, wasn’t exactly paying his utmost attention. His eyes were wide and were everywhere at once, glancing at multiple points around the room in a matter of seconds. He was hugging himself tightly, scratching at his arms every few seconds.

The other two, becoming alarmed, approached him slowly. “M-moony? You okay?” Sirius asked softly. James could only gape, eyes nearly bulging out of his skull.

Remus didn’t seem to be paying them any attention, only shaking his head, muttering insanely to himself. He scratched harder at his arms, worrying Sirius further.

Moving slowly and keeping his hands in Remus’s eyesight, Sirius gently took his hands in his own, stopping him from clawing at his skin.

Though Remus, thankfully, was not scratching at his arms anymore, he still was muttering crazily to himself, glancing at everything so quickly, it made Sirius dizzy. His breathing was coming in short gasps, nearly at the point of hyperventilation.

“James?” Sirius asked. “D’you mind stepping back a bit? He’s having a panic attack, this isn’t good.”

James swallowed and nodded, going back a few paces.

“Moony.” Sirius said, directing his attention to Remus once more. He didn’t look at him. “Moony.” He tried again, firmer. “Hey. Look at me.” Sirius took Remus’ face in his hands, benignly directing his gaze onto his own face.

Remus’s panicked expression met his own concerned one. “P-Padfoo-oot?”

He was stammering horribly and his voice cracked in the middle, but that single word brought relief like nothing else could ever provide.

“Yeah, Moony, it’s me. I’m here. What’s wrong?” He added.

Remus was clutching at Sirius’s arms like Sirius was his savior from all the evil in the world. He whispered something. Too low for him to catch it.

“What’d you say, baby?” He was caught off guard when Remus started sobbing, almost hyperventilating again.

“I lost it I lost it I lost it. Sirius. I lost it,” he whimpered.

“Lost what, Moony? Tell me.”

“The locket. I lost the locket, Padfoot, I l-lost it. Tha-at was the th-thing that helped me, P-Padfoot. Before you gu-uys started coming w-with me ok those nights.” Another wave of tears was shed, and Sirius felt his blood run cold. It couldn’t be the same locket, could it?

“Remus, what did the locket look like? Was it silver, Moony? With a large red gem in the middle?”

But Remus didn’t answer. His jaw got tight, and a look of betrayal slid its way into his face. Shaking his head, eyes narrowed, he shoved Sirius away and sprinted out of the room and down the stairs.

It could have been a figment of his imagination, but Sirius could have sworn that he heard something; a very small, very hoarse voice whispering “How could you?”

*^/^*

“Well? What are you going to do about it, Padfoot?” James’s voice cut through the silence that had occupied the flashback.

He jumped, having forgotten the present world momentarily. He could still feel the guilt piercing through him like a stake through a vampire’s heart.

“I…I don’t know.” He stared determinedly at the floor, purposefully avoiding the exasperated gaze that he just KNEW was studying him as if he were a particularly fast snitch he had to figure out how to catch.

“You don’t know. You must have some idea of how to fix this! I’m sorry, Sirius, but you can’t keep hiding here forever, praying to Godric that Remus just magically forgives you.” James loved all his friends—with his whole heart—but he was getting tired of having this same conversation a million times over.

He knew that all Sirius needed was a little nudge in the right direction. Or perhaps just flinging him in the right direction instead would be more effective since otherwise Sirius would take two steps back for every one step he managed to go. If only he had a good metaphorical catapult (in the real-life form of words) to aid him.

“Don’t you understand,” Sirius started, and his voice contained millions of unshed tears, “that I have been racking my damn brain for the right way to fix this?” He took a step towards “I have spent literal hours thinking of what to do. And I have nothing.”

James’s eyes widened behind his glasses as he realized the implications of what he had just said.

“I’m falling apart, James.” James’s heart broke a bit.

They stood in silence for a while, each too caught up in their brainstorming to speak.

Then it hit him. And, though he would deny it until the day he died, his voice cracked with desperation as he yelled out a single idea that he remembered his own father had done for his mother when they were young.

“A LIST.” Sirius blinked, and then looked at him through narrowed eyelids.

“A what.”

James saw a gleam of hope in his eyes that sent a wave of excitement through him. “A list, Padfoot, keep up! You know, with the words after the numbers and they look organized if ya do it right and—“

“I know what a list is, Prongs.”

“Shut up for a second, Padfoot, that’s not my point.”

“Then get on with it, you moldy onion.”

“I will if you shut up, Sir Rotten Grape.”

Sirius rolled his eyes, giggling slightly. This might be his only chance to make things up with Remus and he felt giddy with relief.

“Now. As I was saying, a long time ago, you can make him a list of, I don’t know, all your favorite things about him or some cheesy crap like that. Maybe list how many ways you’re sorry or the different sized animals that are smaller than your love for him—just. Be creative. And make. Sure. He. Knows. How. Hecking. Sorry. You. Are.”

James, expecting Sirius to laugh at his idea, looked up to find him nodding thoughtfully.

“Yeah. That—that sounds great. Thank you so much, Prongs, I’ve gotta go,” He hugged James quickly, much to the other’s surprise, slinging an arm around his neck abruptly before dashing out as fast as he could.

“You’re welcome, I guess.” James said to the empty room, scratching the back of his neck.

Next part

[garden-ghoul]

appendix blog, part 3

“working out... is.... good?”

Hey so I’m skipping Eorl, I already blogged him, or at least I read him. I don’t conceptually separate those processes any more, thanks fiends. I, uh, I meant to type friends there but let’s call it a Freudian typo.

Ah fuck yes after the list of Rohirrim kings it’s time for DURIN’S FOLK

So “Durin is the name that the Dwarves used for the eldest of the Seven Fathers of their race.” Are we ever going to hear about the other six fathers, or is it one of those things where dwarves are extremely close-mouthed about it and only Durin, who they cannot ever shut up about, is ever mentioned near other races?

Durin “slept alone” until the awakening of his people. Did all dwarves sleep alone? Is this a gem kindergarten situation? Please say yes. Please say there is a Durin-shaped hole somewhere that is only known to dwarves and they like, sometimes try to fit themselves into it. The one who is the same size and shape as the original Durin becomes Durin the N+1th. “This hole was made for me,” he declares, and fits himself into it. Everyone cheers, and then they fish him out with a hook before he can slide too far into the mountain. Anyway during the time of Durin VI the dwarves, who are in an absolutely defensible position but are too bored to stop mining, wake up a balrog and have to flee. Durin VI’s son Nain goes to Erebor and finds a very nice rock; most of the Khazad-dum dwarves go to the Grey Mountains in the north, because exploring is fun and profitable! Unfortunately north of the mountain everything is full of dragons. “At last Dáin I, together with Frór his second son, was slain at the door of his hall by a great cold-drake.” I really like the implication I just made up, that the north is full of dragons because they migrated from Angband.

BTW Dain’s other sons are Thror and Gror. Apparently there���s something absolutely essential about the fabric of Ea that makes all peoples independently name their kids dumb themed names. Someone during the Song of Songs or w/e they’re calling it these days accidentally kept repeating one of their trills and it became a line of code essential to the nature of life. Fuck this.

Thror goes to Erebor again, and he makes lots of friendly alliances with other dwarf clans and the humans who live near Erebor (’northmen’). UNFORTUNATELY you cannot have a great and extremely wealthy time around here without a dragon hearing about it, so Smaug the Golden comes to say hi. Thrain II and his dad Thror (original flavor) flee in secret, and then Thror goes into Khazad-dum (possibly it was a suggestion of his Ring). Thror’s bff creeps over to the doors of Khazad-dum and a bunch of orcs are hiding behind the doorframe with Thror’s corpse, presumably working his jaw like a puppet, and laughing their asses off. Written on Thror’s face is the word AZOG. He is king of Khazad-dum now. Thror’s bff tries to take his body for burial, but the orcs throw a sack of small change at his head. It sounds pretty funny to me, but for Nar it’s probably a horrifying parody of a weregild, and an insult. When he looks back, the orcs are hacking up Thror’s body to feed to the local crows. Omg I hope orcs and crows are friends.

Thrain and Nar muster a ton of dwarves to fight, because this will not be borne. They cut through most of the orc strongholds like butter BUT Azog has been saving his strength in Khazad-dum. “So began the Battle of Azanulbizar, at the memory of which the Orcs still shudder and the Dwarves weep.” I LOVE. The fact that absolutely everyone who was involved with this battle in any way has inherited trauma about it. War is no good for anyone at all! Azog has a jolly old time doing murders, until he realizes that HIS guys are actually getting more murdered! He kills Nain and laughs at him, but Nain’s son Dain unexpectedly kills him. It’s accounted extremely heroic, because Dain is like, 16 in dwarf years. It says that “long life and many battles lay before him, until old but unbowed he fell at last in the War of the Ring.” Wait um. Do you mean... the one that takes place in Lord of the Rings? Were dwarves fighting in that?? This is taking place WAY after the Last Alliance isn’t it?? No okay I looked at the end and found the answer, which is that the War of the Ring actually was like 100 years long but relatively low-intensity for most of it.

Anyway,

When at last the battle was won the Dwarves that were left gathered in Azanulbizar. They took the head of Azog and thrust into its mouth the purse of small money, and then they set it on a stake. But no feast nor song was there that night; for their dead were beyond the count of grief. Barely half of their number, it is said, could still stand or had hope of healing.  

Half of everyone is dead or dying, and the dwarf alliance still uses their last bit of energy to be petty. Iconic.

Thrain wants to claim Khazad-dum and live there, but everyone else flat-out refuses. Still a balrog in there, dude! I mean, it didn’t bother the orcs, though. I don’t think balrogs really discriminate between orcs and other sorts of dudes, so maybe they could sneak up and kill it in its sleep! But Dain says that the world must change and some other power come before Durin’s folk will live again in Moria. That was Gandalf, right? He did slay the balrog. I hope the dwarves can come back now in the fourth age!! It’s going to take so much fixing up but like... it still exists, mostly intact. A chance to reclaim their heritage.

Thrain and his son Thorin go into exile with the few people who will still follow him--almost everyone is pissed that he got their entire families killed and they can’t even go get treasure in Khazad-dum. So Thrain and co settle in the east of Ered Luin. There’s a bit here about how the Seven Rings turned out to be totally pointless for Sauron because you simply Cannot enslave dwarves.  “They were made from their beginning of a kind to resist most steadfastly any domination. Though they could be slain or broken, they could not be reduced to shadows enslaved to another will.” I love the implication that because dwarves were sculpted--note that we never hear AFAIK what elves or humans are made of!--they are more substantial and solid. Mmm I think they have a super solid connection to Arda, and just as even Arda Marred is still largely influenced by the Valar dwarves cannot be wholly corrupted. IDK it’s just the,,, shadow vs stone thing. Sauron enslaves people and it destroys their substance. Dwarves are too substantial? Someone help me out here.

Thrain is still influenced by the Ring, though, driven to go in search of Erebor and its treasure again.  

As soon as he was abroad with few companions he was hunted by the emissaries of Sauron. Wolves pursued him, Orcs waylaid him, evil birds shadowed his path, and the more he strove to go north the more misfortunes opposed him. There came a dark night when he and his companions were wandering in the land beyond Anduin, and they were driven by a black rain to take shelter under the eaves of Mirkwood. In the morning he was gone from the camp, and his companions called him in vain...

I love how fairy-tale-ish this passage is. Wolves pursued him! Evil birds shadowed his path! He vanished utterly into air! Sauron was the boojum all along! I’m jazzed about this. Less jazzed about the following explanation: he was kidnapped and tortured in Dol Guldur. Whatever, I guess.

Meanwhile Thorin, who is now king, hammers away on his anvil. It will keep his arm strong. Hella.

Thorin meets Gandalf by accident in an inn in Bree and is like “hey I have been having dreams about you, that’s pretty weird right?” “No no,” says Gandalf, “actually I have been dreaming about you too.” And THAT is how The Hobbit happened.

Wait omg it says here Fili and Kili are Thorin’s “sister-sons.” THIS IMPLIES THE EXISTENCE OF A SECOND DWARF GENDER... WTF... don’t fucking toy with my heart like this Johnald. AH--

Dís was the daughter of Thráin II. She is the only dwarf-woman named in these histories. It was said by Gimli that there are few dwarf-women, probably no more than a third of the whole people. They seldom walk abroad except at great need. They are in voice and appearance, and in garb if they must go on a journey, so like to the dwarf-men that the eyes and ears of other peoples cannot tell them apart. This has given rise to the foolish opinion among Men that there are no dwarf-women, and that the Dwarves 'grow out of stone'. 

 It is because of the fewness of women among them that the kind of the Dwarves increases slowly, and is in peril when they have no secure dwellings. For Dwarves take only one wife or husband each in their lives, and are jealous, as in all matters of their rights. The number of dwarf-men that marry is actually less than one-third. For not all the women take husbands: some desire none; some desire one that they cannot get, and so will have no other.

Why did they even mention Dis? She doesn’t do anything. I’m retconning, this, obviously. Dwarves just have a super low fertility rate, and woman gender is one of those things that like... doesn’t translate well. There’s no woman gender, because dwarves haven’t invented gender. There’s just dwarves who are currently capable of bearing children. I can’t remember if I got this from Pratchett or not, but it’s a good chance. I just really like the idea that dwarves kind of nod and smile uncertainly when asked to understand a culture that has genders. “Humans really do have an exceptionally high fertility rate,” murmurs one to another. “A lot of ‘women.’” “One just can’t keep track of them,” sighs the other. This is kind of incoherent because Tolkien is actively trying to ruin it, but whatever. Moving on.

After the fall of Sauron, Gimli brought south a part of the Dwarf-folk of Erebor, and he became Lord of the Glittering Caves. He and his people did great works in Gondor and Rohan. For Minas Tirith they forged gates of mithril and steel to replace those broken by the Witch-king. Legolas his friend also brought south Elves out of Greenwood, and they dwelt in Ithilien, and it became once again the fairest country in all the westlands.

Nice! Gay! Also holy shit, mithril gates. Where the hell did they get all that. Hey maybe Sauron had a huge stockpile of mithril and some people went to sift thru the wreckage of Mordor and reclaim it. Radical.

We have heard tell that Legolas took Gimli Glóin's son with him because of their great friendship, greater than any that has been between Elf and Dwarf. If this is true, then it is strange indeed: that a Dwarf should be willing to leave Middle-earth for any love, or that the Eldar should receive him, or that the Lords of the West should permit it.

Hey. Hey. That’s gay.