#rubywrites!

[sseungcheols]

drunk cheol <3

warnings: fluff!!! FLUFF!! cheol thinks y/n is mad at him (he's just drunk)

an: sorry this is short i was running out of ideas... i hope u like :) pleaseeee interact with this, it would mean a lot <33

taglist!!!!!! :3

@kwomikailea @iblwmeryuu @cheers2hani @mingyuuulover @catiekayy @markkiatocafe @aaronwarners69thwife @jihooniesss

if you're interested in joining my taglist, click here!

wanna read my other works? click here!

thank you for reading :)

[rubylovessharks]

When you are sick

Zhongli x reader, reader is GN, reader is sick. this is just fluff bc i was sick not long ago and was thinking about Zhongli so I kinda wrote this of off myself it's a small fic i know (i dont think you can even call it a fic)

You were laying in bed as your beloved handed you some hot tea that he brewed a few minutes ago. "Careful. It's still hot." He tells you as you take the cup in your hands. He sits down on your shared bed and takes one of your hands and intertwines it with his before speaking yet again. "Love I told you not to wear so little or you'll catch a cold.. You went out just when it was going to rain." As you blew on your tea you reassure him that you are fine. "It's just a little cold" you tell him, yet he looks at you with concerned eyes. "You may be correct but as we both know humans are a lot weaker then none, so I still do not know how much you can handle." Sometimes your boyfriend doesn't get that humans aren't THAT weak to the cold, or perhaps he cares for you deeply that he overreacts to such minor things. "Don't worry, I'll be fine. Especially since I have you." You give him a smile and he gives you one in return as you both sit there in your shared bedroom in peaceful silence.

[red-handed-tamarin]

Could you please write some hurt/comfort wincest with Sam witnessing dean get a head injury and then helping and taking care of dean?

I'm taking requests!

[morganmaietto]

Major Update (Just Life Things)

Hello hello!

First I just wanted to come on here and tell you guys that my house was struck by lightning caught on fire and is unsafe to live in. No injuries and all pets are safe, my family and I are staying at a hotel for an indefinite period of time until their insurance can get a rental.

And lastly, I’m working on chapter 16 of The Mirror Effect and I’m planning on finishing it hopefully before leaving the hotel.

[look4rubyred]

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

Of course, reading The Wizard of Oz as a child provided a completely different experience to the one I had reading it now as an adult, but not in the ways I thought. I was expecting to be bored by the simplistic language and unimpressed by the one-dimensional characters; instead, I found myself just as charmed by the whimsical world of Oz as I did 10 years ago. What changed was my ability to research the deeper themes in the novel about the frontier and American colonialism; specifically, the allegory of the bimetallic standard - that the Yellow Brick Road would be the archaic gold and Dorothy, who brings great change and "improvement" to the lands she visits, represents the silver standard with her prized silver shoes. Even Oz can literally be taken as "ounce," as in measured ounces of gold or silver. The Emerald City is a sham because it represents greenback paper money issued during the Civil War that was fiat - that is, not backed by a precious metal. People in Oz think the Yellow Brick Road (gold) leads to the answer to all of Dorothy's problems - in other words, the gold standard is the way forward for America. Yet in the end, Dorothy's silver slippers are the savior that take her back to Kansas, and since Dorothy is likely to represent the average American layperson, her slippers indicate how silver could be the rescue or "way back" to the financial boom before gold became the standard. 

A fun fact I learned while researching the allegories in the book:

When Dorothy is taken to see the Wizard of Oz, Baum specifies that she is led though 7 passages and up 3 flights of stairs in the Emerald Palace, which could allude to the Coinage Act of 1873. This Act ended bimetallism by limiting the rights of holders of silver bullion to have it made into silver dollars. Among many reasons, this Act was passed after major silver motherlodes like the Comstock Lode in Nevada were found, and economists feared that Americans would convert large amounts of silver into coins, drive down their value, and inflate the economy. To salvage the economy, they banned silver coins and only gold holders were allowed to coin their bullion. The law was kept very quiet from the American public and received very little publicity.

Shortly after President Ulysses S. Grant signed the bill into law in 1873, silver's market price dropped as economists predicted, and silver producers brought their bullion to the Mint only to realize the Mint was no longer in the practice of coining it and their silver was functionally worthless. This is equivalent to Dorothy setting her hopes of getting home on the Wizard only to find he has no real power or ability to do so. The Coinage Act caused massive political upheaval and class conflict, as silver with its fluctuations in value was preferred to be held by the poor working class, and now their silver could not circulate at all, something they didn't realize until it was too late. Meanwhile, the elite class mainly kept gold and remained impervious to this measure.

The tornado that takes Dorothy to Oz could represent this upheaval, the Scarecrow could be satire for the foolish farmers that got duped by the Act, the Cowardly Lion could be the politicians who were in the pocket of rich bankers and industrialists and failed to stand up for the working man, and the Tin Man could represent factory workers who were once thriving families but under the new standard were forced to become soulless robots slaving away at work due to serious debts under the deflationary impact of the gold standard.

Just a thought.

[deliciousangelfestival]

My Soulmate Died

This drabble is based on the Every Time You Lie series.

A/N: I suddenly came up with the scenario of why Ransom never meets the reader again.

Ransom, who became a high-profile businessman and art collector in Europe, was interviewed about why he is still single.

Interviewer: "Mr.Drysdale, any thoughts on why you haven't settled down yet?"

Ransom (looking at the camera): "Well, probably my soulmate died, or she married a loser. I'm just waiting for her to be single."

Meanwhile, Lloyd somehow came across the interview and promptly blocked everything, ensuring his wife would never see it.

What do you guys think? 😆😆😆

@rubywrites-4,

@marigarcia07,

@chemtrails-club,

@barnescamboy,

@esotericgalaxy,

@inlovewiththefictionalcharacters,

@buckysteveloki-me,

@xcaptain-winterx,

@magnificentsaladllama,

@bagoffeelings,

@darkofimagination,

@cherrybubblebullet,

@starsofcloud ,

@thatzolagirl,

@notathingjustthere,

@realm-of-azrael,

@roxyfan14-blog,

@ladyvenera

@pattiemac1

[axl-ul]

Ulfrika: Slowly Consumed by Fear

While Ulfrika has shown interest in swimming since early age, and even proved to be a skilled swimmer as well as a diver, the Embalmer keeps a secret which may seem laughable at first.

Lakes and pools, no matter how deep, don't seem to trouble her. Yet when catching a simple glimpse of the sea makes her skin crawl.

In Ulfrika's eyes, such a great and most easpecially vast mass of water is not only a mirror to the sky. Both are alike and since the water surface reflects the above, it creates the illusion of an endless plain of a single colour that shall soon fade away from the consciousness as the brain starts ignoring it and eventually forgets the colour. The only perception that won't cease to be is that of the space, limitless and empty. What hides in this plain sight is Ulfrika's true fear and it can be described in two words.

Eternity from which stagnation sprouts.

Ulfrika is an immortal being. What is immortal is eternal, thus hardly able to change. She's been to Blackworld, a void filled with caricatures of life like herself, which is the same - a plain with no start nor end. Thus, the cycle of unchange constantly works there. It draws the madness, it paints the fear and terror of solitude and abandonment. This is what gets under her skin as she realises her whole existence is such a sea - endless yet devoid of a purpose just like the colour of that sea and sky. She lingers in the existence, the unchild that wasn't born thus cannot die and can't alter either herself or her fate, whether it exists or not. And the ocean's surface is the bitter reminder of it.

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

Taglist (let me know if you'd like to be added): @vanessaroades-author @rubywrite @aohendo @rbbess110 @jgmartin @outpost51 @athenswrites @kainablue

[toribookworm22]

One Big:

Whatcha Been Writing

In the spirit of actually cleaning up my hoarded tags, I am combining not 1 but 52 Last Lines, Heads Up Seven Ups, and other miscellaneous related tags into a mega-share.

Thanks @thepedanticbohemian @writeintrees ×2 @saltysupercomputer ×2 @winterandwords ×3 @oh-no-another-idea ×3 @writernopal @pluttskutt @late-to-the-fandom @akiwitch ×3 @ashen-crest @sunset-a-story @ashwithapen @briannaswords @flock-from-the-void @bubbles-the-banshee ×2 @kaiusvnoir @scifimagpie @chainsaw-raven @axl-ul @primroseprime2019 ×3 @acertainmoshke @magic-is-something-we-create @rubywrite @reading-by-the-pale-moonlight @sam-glade @galactic-mystics-writes ×2 @authoralexharvey @frankensteinshimbo @sergeantnarwhalwrites @surroundedbypearls @frostedlemonwriter ×2 @theunboundwriter @sparrow-orion-writes @forthesanityofstorytellers @buffythevampirelover @digital-chance ×2 @cljordan-imperium @olivescales3 for all your tags!

I am just leaving one giant OPEN TAG!! ♥️

And for my share, have an excerpt from Chapter 10 of the second book of my Secondary Series. 🙃

The guards stationed at the entrance barely have time to see us before J has a knife in each of their throats. She retrieves them before they’re even dead as Vieve forces the doors open.

I want to be angry. Or shocked.

But all I can see is Edward frantically trying to save me while I died on some expensive rug. He’s the only person who’s actively and always chosen me.

Who has ever chosen him?

The wind is even fiercer than before. But before I can even dread the trek back to our safe house, there’s a vehicle pulling up and a voice calling out, “Get in!”

“Courtney?” I dare to ask.

Her bright head of hair appears from the driver’s side as the back is opened up. “Hey, there. Let’s catch up on the road, barkeep.”

We all collapse against the thin walls of the transport, a woman in white reattaching the flap before calling out to Courtney, “All clear, let’s go.” The engine revs, and we start an angry path forward. 

The sudden movement rolls my stomach and I fall onto my hands, spitting up more bile and poison. After a couple of heaves, I feel a hand softly press into my spine. It almost makes me feel safe. A gentle hand when I’m hurting, a soft towel wiping at my mouth, two voices I never get to hear again. Then I throw up again.

“Hey. You’re alright.” I glance up at Edward, his legs thrown out beside me. His face is already scarred from where the gag dug in. I want to say something, but I can’t figure out what. I’m just seeing him fall into the grass and seeing his sister get up and never come back and taking one last look at his sleeping form in his bed. “We made it out.”

The woman in white kneels in front of me with a scrap of something and starts cleaning up my mess. I stop her with a quivering hand. “I got it,” I say.

She smiles at me, even if her bright star-shaped eyes are almost empty. “I don’t do anything I don’t want to do anymore. Courtney helped me. Let me help you.”

The fabric rustles and shifts, revealing the front of the vehicle and Courtney’s back. “Seriously. What were you guys doing there? I didn’t think you were going to make it out. Especially after Ani went down.”

“Supply run,” Casa tells her.

“You went to Alswik for supplies?” Courtney asks, incredulous. “Don’t you still have a contact at the base?”

Edward’s hand falls from me. “Don’t work with them anymore. And you’d be smart to do the same before it gets you killed.” He watches Ani kick the vomit-stained fabric into the corner of the vehicle. “You and the people you love.”

Without slowing down, Courtney takes a long look back at us. “Thanks for the concern.” She looks back at the road. Ani walks carefully to the front to sit as close to her as possible. “Now where am I dropping you off?”

…

I offer to help Ani hide the vehicle under a cover of leaves and brush as best as possible while the others plan routes to the safe house and the ship. It’s not safe to travel in a big pack when Alswik could possibly have people after us. Or Insignia could have people on their way. While we work, I hear Edward pull Courtney aside, his voice low but insistent. “Listen. You are more than welcome to stay the night on my ship before you keep moving. But you breathe a word of this to Kat and I’ll have you boxed up and sent to Adenrore.”

“I just came to get Ani, Rescue. I’m not here on her orders. Or anyone’s.”

“I can’t risk you traveling with us.” He glances at the woods we’ve stopped in, halting on me for a moment. I snap my gaze back to the brush I’m pulling over the wheels. “And you shouldn’t risk it either.”

J and Vieve take the woods, Edward and Casa following the stream nearby. I offer to travel with Courtney and Ani through the overpass.

There’s still something in my system, even as the daylight fades away. I’ll probably be throwing up through the night, too. But at least the last thing I saw wasn’t the terror in Edward’s eyes. Seeing him worried like that is a fate worse than death. But it’s all I can think about as we walk over dirt and grass and rocks. All I can think about is how Imre made sure Edward was always front and center in front of him, how desperate he seemed to ignore everyone else. How badly I failed at keeping him safe.

“He’s going to get you killed,” Courtney says.

The sun has just begun to set and I can see the cabin Edward calls their safehouse emerging from the thick of the trees below us. I think of all the times Edward has been the one at my side, wrong or right or everything in between. “I’d follow him anywhere,” I whisper into the wind.

Courtney just sighs. Like that’s the response she expected. Dreaded. Something else. I don’t know what kind of history they have, I don’t know who Kat is or why neither of them seem to be working for her anymore. But I do know Edward. “And that’s why.”

[winterandwords]

Last line tag

I was tagged by @tabswrites, @rubywrite, @wmlittlemore-is-writing, @indecentpause, @kaiusvnoir, @forthesanityofstorytellers and @sarandipitywrites to share my last line. Thank you!

This is from Project Aria...

So casually and with nothing more than a stretch and a crack of my knuckles, I ask for two sugars in my coffee and resolve to destroy my family.

Tagging @ahordeofwasps, @alinacapellabooks, @ashfordlabs and @authortango if you'd like to share your last line, with an open tag for anyone else who wants to join in 💜

[junypr-camus]

Badly Summarized WIPs Poll Tag!

Thanks for the tag, @mysticstarlightduck (poll here!)

Rules: Pick a bunch of your WIPs and summarize them as badly as possible

tagging (no pressure): @simonnebethel, @rubywrite, @lookingforlifeoutthere

[sseungcheols]

sick comfort w/ dr. choi

warnings: fluff!!! suggestive if you squint, y/n stresses cheol out

an: haven’t written ANYTHING in years but here goes nothing… inspired by my current sick state, i need a dr choi in my life :( i genuinely hope you like this… 

[thesorcerersapprentice]

Thank you to the fabulous @that-cyber-writer for tagging me in this Writing Questions Tag Game! D.M. Foyle, as @that-cyber-writer is also known, is working on a nail-biting crime thriller entitled Tangled Wires starring Raz, a brilliant hacker on the run from the Russian mob. Interested? Go check out Tangled Wires and all of Foyle's projects here! I'm tagging (no pressure!): @inkovert @outpost51 @aquadestinyswriting @merlina87 @sarah-sandwich @lucianinsanity @winterandwords @threeking @avrablake @the-finch-address @thawinoakenshield @the-down-upside-finch @lunarmoment @sodaliteskull @kingkendrick7 @harps-for-days @cee-grice @tate-lin @rubywrite @poppy-in-the-woods @hippiewrites @the-down-upside-finch @lexiklecksi @linaket and anyone else who'd like to participate!

✦ What is your absolute all-time favourite idea you’ve ever had?

The one that inspired the novel I'm writing right now, The Sorcerer's Apprentice! Initially, I just wanted to explore the relationship between two individuals at completely polar opposite moments in life: one, an elderly character, preparing to die and looking back; and the other, a youthful character, just beginning to come into their own, in early adulthood, still figuring out who they are and what they believe in, facing forward. It would be a lie to say that the novel isn't still very much built around this dynamic, between the elderly sorcerer Valeriano and his young apprentice, Altaluna. But it's grown from the original idea to incorporate issues and topics I hadn't expected; climate change, environmental disaster, colonialism and neocolonialism, the body as a machine, contemporary theories of perception, abusive family dynamics, and more. These topics and their associated plot/world ideas are likewise what makes The Sorcerer's Apprentice my favourite written piece to date. It's like the more I dig, the more I enjoy what I'm doing. If the first idea was compelling but lukewarm, the accumulation of ideas that has ensued as I attempt to do the initial idea justice has taken it to the next level.

✦ Is there a question you’ve been asked that really stands out to you and that you still think about sometimes?

Not that I can think of off the top of my head! Sorry :S I wish I did.

✦ What is your favourite part of being a writer? What parts could you take or leave?

The trouble is, you can't have any of it without all of it, so this is a bit of a trick question, to which I don't really have a clear answer. I love it all. I hate it all. I struggle every step of the way. And I have the time of my life, always.

✦ What is your greatest motivation to write/create?

It's changed over the years! As a child, I just liked exercising my imagination. In my teens and early twenties, I wrote to escape or to envision the life I wanted, the person I wanted to be, and how I wanted to be perceived by others. Now, my greatest motivation is rage. I am one very pissed-off adult lol I suppose the difference is also that now I actually have something to say, something I feel is worth saying. And I feel that very strongly, which helps me get over the bad days at the desk where no words are coming or where I doubt my capacity to write at all. Because it doesn't matter. This -the message of my novel- has value to me. It's more important than my small personal feelings of insecurity or ups and downs. So I'll find a way. That's my motivation. It's not really that I want to write, it's that I have to. It's that I can't live in a world where this isn't said ~ and where it isn't said the way I'd like to say it.

✦ What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever read or been given as a writer?

The best advice I ever received was from a world-renowned author in his 90s who told me that it (writing) never gets any easier, so basically, your choices are either quit or keep going with the knowledge that it's never going to magically turn into a picnic, no matter how much experience/talent you have. I also got some lovely advice a couple years ago from (I think?) Anne Lamott in her writer's memoir Bird By Bird. In one of the chapters, she mentions that if you lack inspiration, you can always write to get your own back, aka. you can always write as a way to avenge yourself. And that just flipped a switch in my brain. I don't think I'd be writing The Sorcerer's Apprentice without that little seed she planted.

✦ What do you wish you knew when you were first starting out writing?

Nobody knows what they're doing. You'll never be more prepared than you are right this minute. But also, you have to live a little before you can know what you want to say ~ the same way you have to live a little to figure out who you are. Writing is organic. It grows with you. You have to let yourself grow, so the writing can follow.

✦ What is your favourite story you’ve written to completion? Link it if you’d like and can!

I don't have a favourite completed story to share, so I'm sharing a link to my current WIP, The Sorcerer's Apprentice, a fantasy novel exploring the interplay between colonialism, capitalism, and environmental catastrophe through the fraught relationship between a mysterious sorcerer and his protogé.

✦ Which of your characters would you say has the most controversial mindset? Why do you say so, and how do you personally feel about their ideals?

Valeriano, the antagonist of The Sorcerer's Apprentice, is the only character I've ever written whose views are absolutely despicable in almost every way. I'd be very concerned if my readers don't find his mindset controversial. The man is sexist, racist, and classist; he discriminates against any LGBTQ+ classification that isn't his own (biphobia, anti-lesbian, etc.), he's morally perverse, and he bristles with a sense of in-born superiority. In short, he represents the polar opposite of my own personal views and ideals.

✦ If you, when you first started writing, met you now, what would younger you think?

A younger me would definitely not recognise me, let alone understand why I'm writing what I'm writing. And that's how it should be! I'm glad little me enjoyed a time when all that mattered were unicorns and fairies, and the world was bright, open, and good. I wouldn't take that away from little me for all the world, not for anything. Plus, I have the lingering feeling that little me would be proud of me anyway. Even if she doesn't quite get it. She'd trust me and my choices. We'd be different, but we'd be cool, you know?

© 2024 The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. All rights reserved.

[red-handed-tamarin]

Once upon a time, a sea prince and a sea witch ventured to the surface together. But when the sea prince gave his heart away, the sea witch saw the pain it would cause and swore to remain resolutely alone, never to know love's softening touch upon her fierce and predatory heart…

[morganmaietto]

It’s been awhile… A Few Announcements

Wow, it’s been a while since I’ve posted on here sorry about that. Classes were a lot this year along with a few health issues, but I’m okay now.

Getting to the announcements:

I changed my name on here, I don’t mind if people still call me Ruby though! I decided I wanted to rebrand myself and use this name as my official author pen name.

While I may not be actively posting on here, I have gotten back into writing The Mirror Effect and I’ll be finishing the first draft this year! I’ll occasionally post some short stories on here, I’m planning on finishing Otherworldly as well.

I’m probably not going to be able to do tag games, but feel free to keep tagging me! I love reading your posts! I’m also still keeping my ask box closed also for a bit longer.

Honestly I think that’s it for now, I’ll post another update on my progress soon, I hope everyone has a great day/night!

[look4rubyred]

Nelly in Wuthering Heights

The Gothic nature of Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte necessitates darker, perhaps even morally ambiguous figures. While Nelly, the Earnshaw servant, supposedly has their best interests at heart out of both her sense of duty and human empathy, she makes many morally suspicious decisions throughout the story. Through Nelly, Bronte employs characterization and point of view techniques to reveal Nelly as an ambiguous character in the field of vices and morals, ultimately hinting at how bystanders to major events can have an inflated sense of self-importance.

Nelly first appears to be the paradigm of a nurturing and caring housekeeper, with both the Earnshaw's and Linton's best interests at heart. As a servant in both households, Nelly was responsible for raising both Cathy and Hareton when their respective mothers died. Despite her lowly societal status, Nelly raised both as a mother ought to, describing Hareton as a lovely boy and Cathy as an angel. Thanks to Nelly's kindness, neither grew up without female love in their lives. In fact, Nelly even said that to see their union in marriage would be the "crown of all her wishes." Nelly's willingness to raise someone who is of no relation to her and for whom there is no guarantee she will receive anything in return speaks to her generous nature; she cannot possibly be a wholly corrupt person.

When it comes to the execution of such intentions, however, Nelly often finds herself making decisions that reflect her clouded judgment and difficulty to distinguish right from wrong. At Thrushcross Grange, for example, Nelly sees Catherine fall ill over the course of a week but opts not to alert her husband Edgar to her failing condition. This action stems not from ineptitude as a caretaker for the Lintons, but a grandiose sense of self-worth, for Nelly had decided for herself that Catherine was faking her consumption. Aside from her incessant need to insert her opinion where it isn't required as a servant, Nelly's failure to report on a wife's illness to her husband when it has reached life-threatening status strays beyond the ill-advised ignorance of a moral obligation into the definitive moral crimes of purposeful negligence and apathy to one's suffering. This negligence leads to Catherine's early death as she is not able to receive medical assistance and Edgar's sorrow at not being able to spend sufficient time with her before the bereavement. More ammunition with which to question Nelly's character comes in the nature of her reaction to her mistake: callous, with no shown remorse for her deeds. In fact, Nelly goes so far as to justify her actions and claim that Catherine's passing was imminent and her actions would have made no difference, when in fact there is ample evidence that her condition could have improved if Nelly had not dismissed her symptoms outright. Her point of view on the matter despite the objective facts pointing to her lapse in judgment also generates suspicion in Lockwood and the reader's mind about the reliability of her moral compass and thus in this instance she is invalidated as a truthful narrator.

By playing Nelly's positive characterization against her seemingly morally faulty opinions and point of view at certain points in the novel, Bronte explores the complexity of the bias that can be generated out of a false sense of one's relevance in a situation. Thus, Nelly can be seen as both a meddler who caused Catherine's death and the warm matron who mothered her daughter expecting nothing in return, and is conclusively ambiguous.

[csdarkfantasy]

Heads Up Seven Up

Thanks for tagging me @alinacapellabooks! 🖤

Here are the last 7 lines (so far) from my WIP, Book 2 of the Bane of Blood anthology.

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She picked the largest and richest red rose from the courtyard garden and fashioned it into a corsage.

“Mamá is more partial to roses than orchids, anyway,” she said, as she pinned the corsage to his lapel. 

The old man grinned. “Is she now?”

Rebeca only smiled. Red roses were her mother’s favorite flower. But if her father hadn’t troubled to remember this by now, she supposed he never would.

⋆｡˚☽˚｡⋆｡˚☽˚｡⋆｡˚☽˚｡⋆

Tagging @excessive-vampires, @rubywrite, @sevenscreaminglizards, @elaraslove and whoever else would like to share lines from their WIP! 🖤