#writting dynamics

[glitchedcosmos]

Fuck kissing , I need to see two bitches HUG. I need to see them EMBRACE. I want them to hug so tightly and so sweetly , because they never want to separate again, they both fear that when the hug is over, they will never be able to embrace each other again. I want them to throw every emotion they’ve ever felt for each other into that soul cradling hug. I NEED to see them tho blue from the grip, and never, ever let go.

[quillver]

I love when a character doesn’t know they’re in their final chapter.

[caledine]

Leader’s birthday

( Prompt: Forgotten birthday)

It started with bubbling glee. Leader blinked his eyes open and stared up at the ceiling. His birthday— in fact his first one with the team since he was on mission during his last one. Today however was different. The team was all home and Leader had been bouncing with excitement for days to spend it love-dazed on their day off.

He tried not to smile, still wrapped in his duvet and sat up. Childish delight overflowed him at the seams drowning his usual calm demeanor. He sat up glancing at the clock. 8:00 am? God he’d slept in and no one had woken him. Must be his birthday treat! He stood up and started getting dressed in his favourite blue sweater as he watched raindrops shiver down the window.

He stared at himself in the mirror a moment trying to look his best and sighed at the dark eye bags that stared back. Today would be a well deserved day off.

He left his room and skipped steps down the stairs. He entered the kitchen where the team usually hovered for breakfast. Empty. He opened a cabinet or two which followed suit. Empty. He swore he’d bought a new packet of his cereal yesterday— no biggie, he shook his head, he wouldn’t let this ruin his big day. He glanced at the calendar where his squiggly handwriting announced his birthday with little doodled balloons.

He poked his head in the living room where a couple members of the team sat watching a nature documentary in their pyjamas and finishing paperwork. A grin immediately plastered his face and he marched in trying not to bounce on the spot. “ Leader, you're blocking the tv. You were out of bed late— best not slack off on the armory reports now.” Second scoffed, tugging him down onto the floor and pushing a stack of papers into his hands. His eyes didn’t move from the TV paying no attention to Leader's confused state. He instinctively gripped the papers but his eyebrows furrowed. He bit his lip, wide eyed at the rest of the team who seemed absorbed in themselves.

Does he dare mention it? No— no that would make him seem self centric and that he expected them to dote over him…Is that what he wanted? No, not really, maybe an acknowledgment. The excitement that buzzed inside of him earlier that morning evaporated (he thinks his breath joined it). He blinked around again and sucked in a shallow breath. Not an ounce of attention was sent his way and he wasn’t usually an attention seeker but maybe he really wanted a little today. He always seemed to blend into the background and just be ‘the admin guy’ or the one who organised everything. His grip tightened on the papers. Maybe it was a surprise party waiting to happen? A little hope resurfaced and he turned to Medic who was sitting on the couch.

He looked up at her gently with his fluffed hair and favourite sweater, she was normally the nice one and maybe she’d say he looked nice today. He just wanted a little bit of care; he swore he wouldn’t be selfish. Just a little and he’d convince himself he was allowed because everyone else got celebrated on their birthdays and had cake and cards and parties and… He blinked at her, full of diminishing hope. Her eyes flitted to him and his heart sparked under her gaze. “ Leader, stop staring at me and finish your work. Jesus christ you’ve done nothing since you arrived.” Her eyes narrowed and she placed a heavy hand pushing his head back down towards the papers. He gasped quietly. They forgot? or maybe they didn’t care. Well he couldn’t make them care. He hesitated picking up his pen and flipped open the first form.

Maybe today wasn’t his big day. He wasn’t to have presents or cake. He wasn’t meant to deserve a card or even a wish. He hadn’t been good enough this year— but next year he swore he’d do more and work harder and earn his celebration just like everyone’s earned their own.

He sighed, blowing imaginary candles and made his little wish. Next year he’d make it their worthwhile.

Part 2

[kaiasky]

i find it very dispiriting to talk to MLs who have actually thought about communism and political philosophy deeply. bc theyll always start talking about like. the threat of the growth of institutional bureaucracy into an oppressive class all its own & the various ways to forestall that. the necessity of the workers having the right to immediately recall any representative, workplace democracy instead of naive centralization etc etc.

& its like buddy!! the fantasy of communism is that instead of putting some idiot asshole named "Mark Ets" in charge of the big excel spreadsheet called 'All_Production_For_2025.xlsx' they could put some reasonable commonsense-but-still-kinda-nerdy guy named Me. buddy! u are really harshing my vibe here! here i was imagining simply Fixing The Shit. and now ur saying i have to do democracy with my *coworkers??* fucking have u SEEN coworkers? they are probably top 3 groups i dont wanna do democracy with, second to "family members" and "fellow countrymen".

[buubonita]

Ppl who makes Cream toxic when i get you...whne i get my little hands in you...

[delusionalbitchinthehouse]

In case nobody knows, I'm a whore for Pebbla x Alpha angst, them trying to manoeuvre their relationship, and metaphors. So you'll have all of those in this, inspired by the lyrics :

"Let the impulse to love/ and the instinct to kill/ entangle to one"

from Say That You Will by Sleep Token. (Which I am also a whore for btw)

Tw : a lot of said metaphors are about biting, eating, teeth, blood and gory-ish stuff, so if that makes you squimish proceed with caution.

Pebble nearly startles when a warm hand splays between his shoulderblades. It's not the suddenness of the touch that has him tensing up, but its gentleness. He wants to sink into it, he really does, but his body doesn't seem to get the memo. Because Alpha is not gentle, not like this, not with Pebble. That's just not what they are, what their relationship is. They're mad dogs snarling with all they have, taking chunks of eachother whenever they orbit close enough, holding the torn out pieces between bloodied teeth like trophies to be cherished.

Except Alpha's hand doesn't push, doesn't scratch, doesn't dig or split skin to get to the soft, vulnerable parts Pebble keeps burried, the ones the fire ghoul is usually so keen on exposing to the garish light of day, clawing them out of their hidding places and running away with them crushed between his jaws.

No, Alpha only presses warmth in Pebble's aching back, in the quiet of the deserted greenhouse. The sun is kissing the horizon, bathing everything in gold, bouncing against glass pannels in a breathtaking ballet of light Pebble was too busy to notice. Slowly, he exhales, manually forcing his body to relax, and Alpha seems to notice, wrapping his other arm around Pebble's waist to drag him closer, until the earth ghoul's back is pressed against Alpha's front.

Even as he melts into the embrace, there's a part of Pebble that wants to bare sharp teeth, to take advantage of Alpha's unusual softness to sink them in this quiet moment, tear it to shreds until the fire ghoul bleeds out his unexpected warmth with eyes growing cold again.

Instead, Pebble traces the landscape of scars and ink on Alpha's forearm with dirt stained fingers. The fire ghoul's hand finds its way to the back of Pebble's neck, and for a moment, it twitches there. Like maybe, probably, he's battling with the same contradictory feelings, maybe he's this close to bite through muscles and sinew, chew bones until he can get to the marrow and all the secret sweetness it hides. In the end, though, the hand only caresses, and the lips that land on the notches of Pebble's spine are gentle, brushing sweat damp skin like it can quench the thirst Pebble knows rendeers Alpha's throat dry as sand, for the earth ghoul shares the same predicament.

There is no blood in this interaction, and though Pebble's parched tongue begs for a few crimson drops, he is seized by the sudden impulse to gorge himself full of the sweet honey that oozes from this moment. The sugary taste will only make the thirst worse, but for once, he'd like to crave it instead of the metallic tang of harsh words and clashing teeth.

Alpha keeps kissing up Pebble's neck, rocking them both back and forth. They sway like they never needed muzzles to be let around each other, like there is no effort behind the tendernes of the action. Pebble tilts his head back so he can rest it on Alpha's shoulder, eyes closed so he doesn't have to look at his face, incapable of predicting whether he'd be able to reign in the instinct to snarl if he let himself take in the fire ghoul's features.

Alpha's mouth is at the earth ghoul's jaw now, delicately scratching against stubble. A more insistant press almost has teeth digging in, until Alpha catches himself and let up with a shaky sigh. It's this unsteady breath, so out of character for the ever-confident fire ghoul, that has Pebble reaching out, tangling a hand in silky hair, twisting in Alpha's arm until he faces him, eyes still resolutely closed, even as Pebble gently tugs him down, even as he cautiously slots their mouths together.

Despite the hunger trapped behind his mollars, Pebble doesn't let himself sink the points of sharpened fangs in Alpha's bottom lip, instead licks the saccharine taste of tentative affection straight from his mouth. The fire ghoul follows his lead, not a flash of pain coming to turn the kiss around into something more familiar, something quick and rough that comes so naturally to them. For once, it's all hushed noise and light touches, a fragile moment in time carved in glass, so prone to be shattered by the slightest misstep.

They pull away, foreheads brushing, breaths mingling. Pebble finally opens his eyes. Only to be met by the embers of a four letter word that they never quite managed to fit between their bloodstained teeth, flickering in Alpha's mellowed down gaze. It feels like getting ripped open, still beating heart weakly pulsing under scrunity.

[buggy1999]

Uh, so I wrote some more!! Someone suggested that I do something between Benvolio and Mercutio so erm (this is starting to be like really fun so let me know if you wanna see more)

…

★★

Last night was like a dream.

Romeo could only remember a few things every time they met. The feeling of her skin, her delicate fangs in his neck, the feeling of his warm blood dribbling down to his collarbone, and her scent. She smelled of roses. His eyes opened to this smell; Romeo slowly sat up, feeling pain in his neck , his fingers delicately brushing along the two puncture wounds made by her fangs, his heart racing at the sensation. But as much as he wanted to indulge in this moment, the rising sun wouldn’t allow it. Romeo reluctantly picked himself from his bed, changing into his usual attire of a collared shirt and black pants, occasionally glancing at the tie and coat that were hanging off his chair. He dreaded wearing those two. Romeo looked at himself in the mirror while he did his tie, the tie held a stranglehold over his neck making it hard to breathe, and with each button he did on his coat, his body felt heavier and heavier.

As His boots made loud, exhaustive, familiar steps down the stairs, The scent of roses faded away as if the petals themselves slipped past his fingers and replacing the was the smell of garlic and the sound of a sizzling pan. He could hear banter slowly fill his ears as he made his way through the darkened hallway.

(“I think putting the birdfeeder was a good idea.”

“I did not.”

“You did, don’t lie! It’s in your room.”

“It’s hanging over my window.”

“So you admit it?”)

warm sunlight emitted from the kitchen as his eyes were greeted with the familiar sight of Mercutio and Benvolio. The two were already in uniform, with Benvolio working over the stove, his face turned away from the other two. Mercutio looked gorgeous even early in the morning, his long eyelashes fluttering as his gaze met Romeo’s. “Oh” Mercutio smiled, “good morning, Montague.” Benvolio didn’t say anything as Romeo shyly pulled up a chair to sit; his head hanging low in exhaustion.

“Where were we again?” Mercutio turned to Benvolio, “we were talking about birds” Benvolio replied.

“The bird feeder I think” Mercutio said, suddenly his gaze turned to the window, the sight of a dove flying sparking both Romeo and Mercutio’s interest. “Birds are strange…” Mercutio turned to Romeo, Romeo lifted his head, “why do you say that?”

“Take the Kiwi Bird for instance” Mercutio answered, pressing a finger to his lips. The two paused as quiet tapping overtook the room, their gazes landing on Benvolio who was making eggs. After a moment of awkward silence, Mercutio continued, “they’re so fragile, and yet it’s like their bodies are built to betray them, they’re forced to carry eggs twice their size”

Tap.

“And once that finishes, they’re left vulnerable and alone with immense responsibilities, like their family had only birthed them just so they can fill a purpose, a role.”

Tap.

“It’s tragic. The eggshell is often too tough for a chick to break, so they often die in the egg surrounded by painful comfort-“

Crack.

The two paused, glancing back at Benvolio who looked back at them, a broken eggshell in his hand. After a few minutes, Benvolio walked over to the table, placing a plate of eggs and garlic rice near Romeo and handing Mercutio a cup of coffee before pulling up a chair. The air was calm but tense, quiet but not peaceful. Steady, like the soft rumblings of the earth before an earthquake. This was a well lived experience for all three, who had gotten used to this feeling by now.

Benvolio broke the silence, his voice almost a husky whisper. “A vampire was found floating in the city’s river bank, clinging to a floating corpse. The city’s requested us to exterminate it.”

“A beautiful river tainted by blood…” Mercutio replied, “poetic isn’t it?”

Benvolio nodded silently. “Say,” Mercutio’s eyes suddenly lit up, “let’s have a day off soon, it’s getting too hot for us to be wearing these things.” He said, tugging at his Trenchcoat. “I can't,” Benvolio checked his wrist watch, “The morgue is liking with bodies”

“Benvolio Montague, always surrounded by death” Mercutio teased, his fingers making his way to Benvolio's face, flicking a part of hair that was always threatening to cover his eyes, “If you keep surrounding yourself with such misery, you’ll turn into a statue~” — Benvolio brushed mercutio’s hand away from his face, his mouth forming into a rare smirk. “We also have night duty again.” He said. “Mercutio leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms in annoyance as he let out a sigh, “for the summer season you’d think we’d have more time on our hands. I hope you know that once we’re done with this task, me and Romeo are heading out.”

Romeo lifted his head in surprise, his voice quietly forming into a soft, “huh?”

“You can join us too if you want.” Mercutio smiled, you could see a spark in his eyes at the idea. Benvolio’s face was stone cold however, unwavering. Romeo’s stomach growled but he didn’t take the food. His eyes were weary and exhausted but he didn’t want to sleep. Wherever he wanted to be it wasn’t here. Or maybe it was? The cold but comforting feeling of disconnection, from being with your loved ones but none having the urge to speak. Maybe Romeo loved the coldness deep down. Coldness… the more he thought about it, the more he began to shy away from this coldness. And the more he thought, the more his dreary mind wandered, to her hands… to her eyes… and the rose scent paired with her cold delicate fingers….

“Montague, are you alright?” Mercutio suddenly asked. Romeo shot up, his face burning from the mix of emotions that just came over him. He tugged at his collar nervously, “yes of course” he answered swiftly, his words coming out in tired mumbles. “You look feverish.” Benvolio said. Mercutio reached his hand out towards him, wanting to feel his temperature, but a sense of unease crept along Romeo’s back at the thought of Mercutio getting anywhere near his neck. “I’m fine” Romeo swatted Mercutio’s hand away, both Mercutio and Benvolio tensed up. “I promise I’m fine.” Romeo repeated, his voice cold and limp like the very bodies their family dealt with. Suddenly the ticking of the clock became more apparent to the three of them, and Benvolio looked at his watch.

With ice in his voice, he simply said, “it’s time. Let’s go.”

[scituss]

/ New meme unlocked, feel free to tell me one (1) muse you'd be interested in interacting with and I'll come up with ways to cook something with said muse and yours !

Current active muses : 𝐂𝐀𝐄𝐋𝐔𝐒 ; 𝐆𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐀𝐆𝐇𝐄𝐑 ; 𝐃𝐀𝐍 𝐇𝐄𝐍𝐆 ; 𝐌𝐎𝐙𝐄 ; 𝐀𝐍𝐀𝐗𝐀𝐆𝐎𝐑𝐀𝐒 ; 𝐏𝐇𝐀𝐈𝐍𝐎𝐍 ; 𝐉𝐈𝐀𝐎𝐐𝐈𝐔 ; 𝐌𝐑. 𝐑𝐄𝐂𝐀 ; 𝐒𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐎

[an0nymousme5senger]

characters who hate each other so much they take “no body is allowed to kill you, except me” to the furthest extreme possible in their universe.

they resort to necromancy and revenge quests if magic is available.

they talk the other off a ledge with genuine(or “genuine”) advice and reassurance, even putting themself at risk just to pull the other back to stable land, because that’s what needs to be done to keep them alive or even out right mocking and goading them because they know it will activate the “I can’t die yet, I need to beat the shit out of that fucker who destroyed my pencil case in 2nd grade!”

who become completely, utterly, irrationally FERAL over the idea of someone else hurting the other person.

Characters who hate each other so much they’d save the world just to make sure That AssholeTM lives so they can keep fighting

[inusmasha]

InuKag's contrasting backgrounds and the challenges they face in their respective worlds create a fascinating duality.

Kagome is a teenager who's juggling 2 equally important forces; Her life in the modern era and her life in the feudal era.

It's like she's in a constant transitioning state. She has to stay adapting and recontextualizing her sense of identity bc it's different day to day. She's the master archer with sacred arrows that need to shoot the bad guys... But she's also that constantly absent student taking the make up test in the back, don't bother her right now. In the past she's often mistaken for "Kikyo" if it serves the plot. What's a Kagome anyway? Tiktok audio She's just a girl in the world.

In contrast, Inuyasha grapples with his half-demon, half-human heritage, representing a different form of duality, albeit in a more physical sense.

This is why I adore the opening of the series! There's nothing quite like witnessing the initial setup. You're paired with someone, and you have to rely on each other in order to navigate this unfamiliar terrain (and like..not die lol). Each brings unique skills and perspectives to the table, necessitating observation and learning. In the process, they grow and evolve together.

Inuyasha observes Kagome as she forges connections wherever she goes, allowing them to form a powerful team capable of confronting their adversaries and establishing a new home. Simultaneously, Inuyasha offers protection and combat prowess honed during his solitary childhood survival. It's the perfect partnership between the most unlikely pair.

I just love a mirror.

[glitchedcosmos]

Absolutely in love with the idea of movie shadow , and movie sonic mirroring each other in almost every way, instead of contrasting the other. Shadow being the most extreme version of Sonic, someone who once had the same dreams and beliefs, but lost everything, and lost the ability to keep his hopes and dreams alive. Sonic being the most light version of shadow, someone who kept his dreams and hopes alive , despite the loses, he still has everything. I hope in Sonic 3, Sonic and shadow have to fight the crushing weight knowing the they could’ve been each other.

[maxdibert]

I started reading your fanfic, and to be honest… I usually don’t read het. It just doesn’t interest me most of the time because it almost always turns into some heteronormative bullshit where strong female characters end up bending over backward to worship some alpha male. It’s an awful trend in modern stories.

And in fanfiction, self-insert ships like character/reader are even more off-putting. They just scream low-effort writing or feel like those cringy TikTok plots where the main character is a total Mary Sue.

BUT!

Your work caught my interest because I’ve been following your blog for a while now, and I absolutely love your posts—your character analysis, everything. There was no way I could skip this one. And holy shit, I’m so glad I started reading!!

First of all, this is the most book-accurate Severus I have ever seen in fanfiction. And since I pretty much only read fanfics for Snape, I can already give this a 20/10. I’m losing my mind over how natural and canon-compliant he feels. It’s just perfect.

I also wasn’t expecting much from the main character, but she’s absolutely delightful. I love how alive your characters feel—it’s not something you see often, but you nailed it 100%. I’ve only just started, haven’t even read half of it yet, but I’m already obsessed. I’m even forcing myself to read slower just to suffer a little less while waiting for new chapters. :3

And another thing—I never realized how interesting a wizard/Muggle dynamic could be. I’ve come across similar stories before, but they always focused entirely on the magic. But here (and I REALLY hope this happens!!!), the main character might actually get to introduce Severus to the Muggle world!

I’m only on chapter 6, and that alone was enough to leave me seriously impressed—especially considering I already had high expectations, and you completely lived up to them! There’s still so much ahead, and I really hope it stays just as amazing. 🤌

It's funny because there are literally people who stopped reading the story precisely because the FL had "too much depth" and "didn't feel like a reader insert anymore," so they just went, well, goodbye. I totally respect that, but it made me laugh because, honestly, I can't conceive of a longfic where both characters don't have some level of depth? But in the end, it's all a matter of taste.

Anyways, I read this comment yesterday, but I didn’t have time to properly respond and tell you how much your words moved me. Because honestly, I don’t usually read much het anymore either, precisely for the same reason—or I just don’t read romance at all because the dynamics often feel problematic to me. So, I completely understand the caution when approaching something outside of what you usually read, and the fact that you stayed and kept reading seriously flatters me so much.

Also, girllll, keeping him in character is so hard. Seriously, if I take a while to update, it’s not out of laziness—it’s because I really need to have my mind in the right place to make the character feel realistic and respectful of canon. It’s something I struggle with a lot, and being told that he truly feels canon-compliant is literally the best compliment I could receive because I put so much effort into it. I honestly reread my chapters, delete things, rewrite them, and then delete them again because I feel like they’re coming off too OoC. I know I can’t make it 100% in character, but I try to stay as faithful as possible, and having that effort recognized and appreciated genuinely makes me so happy—I won’t even try to deny it.

As for the FL, I didn’t want her to fall into the typical trope of taking over the story because I really intended this to be more of a character analysis of Severus. But at the same time, I didn’t want her to feel artificial either. And while, as I mentioned, some people don’t like that, I need to give the characters I write a personality—otherwise, I get bored. I’m really glad she doesn’t feel overwhelming to you—that’s important too, though she is meant to be a bit insufferable at times, lol.

And yes, I’ve also read wizard/muggle stories, and the problem is always how the muggle suddenly gets thrown into the magical world and all its lore, which is something that’s already been explored extensively—not just in fanfiction but in the original series itself. When I planned the story, I told myself that the muggle world, and especially the dynamic between wizards and muggles (which is so underexplored in the series), would be one of the main themes. One of the things that becomes clearer as the story progresses is not just the cultural but also the moral and ethical differences between the two worlds, and how wizards tend to be much more rigid and conservative in that regard. It’s something I really wanted to write about and explore because I find it fascinating, and it’s a shame there’s so little information about it—Rowling never really took the time to explain how these things played out in those contexts.

Severus, besides being a half-blood, actually grew up in a muggle environment, even if he later rejected it, denied it, and, in a way, hated it because it was a part of his father, whom he despised. So, I also saw it as a great opportunity to explore that returning to one's roots trope—to some extent, coming to terms with them, because at the end of the day, in order to start healing, we have to reconnect with our childhood selves.

Anyway, thank you so much for this wonderful review, seriously. Messages like this give me so much motivation to keep writing, especially because, as I always say, I’m not a professional, nor is English my first language. So, in a way, it’s a challenge, but it’s also a form of entertainment that’s meant to be enjoyed. So, really, thank you, and sending you a huge hug! <3

[grapecaseschoices]

Lloyd Duarte: Musical instruments (playing guitar), singing, songwriting, cooking. Reading.

I am iffy about that last one. I kind of like it because I have an idea of Lloyd growing into being a caretaker [he has first aid skills and I feel this will grow bc of danger and having a human s/o], but cooking feels a bit much for some reason. Maybe it is a skill but not a hobby?

Fun Fact: He used to play the piano, that was his parents preference. But he always wanted to be a rock star. I'm not sure where he was with that by the start of the story, I guess I shall see.

The only thing he will love more than music is Emery, so they should feel lucky. Not even LOVEJOY is so high, lol.

Katharine Cinder: Yoga.

I haven't decided on anything else yet.

Fun Fact: She used to do ballet. Not as a hobby. That was her professional goal. Then Life. I need to decide how she feels about it now. I think she still dances though. She can't not.

Freyr Erlingsson: Exercises [mainly boxing], tea making, quiltmaking, crotchet [or knitting. I haven't decided. Maybe all]. Reading.

I like Freyr with dexterous hobbies because his bit has always been The Protector.

I am racking my brain trying to figure out how he gets good herbs and yarn in the Shadow Circuit. But I imagine people trade. I also feel he's gotten jobs as a body guard. He's good at it.

Aleena Odeh: Eating. Tech repair. Maybe fashion design?

In another world, she would be doing mukbang videos.

I remember The Dead Drop tended to be more tech focused and I know she doesn't HAVE to be good at it. But I want her to be, to contribute something to the trio. I think she would want to as well .... but she's liek a herbo ... except isn't nice or buff [well she used to be nice]. However, I've just decided she's just ... gets it. LOL. I can do that. Hand-wave. She just intuitively gets tech. Maybe she has some netwitch in her bg? Can that be a thing? I have to remember to ask.

I don't think fashion design is a passion, but she is good at it. And she definitely saw it as her ticket out. She is a fairly good drawer [I wanted another good at their hands] and she likes fashion. So.

Maybe she will make the crew uniforms. LMAO. I feel Ram and Aura would do that for her. It would make her so happy.

Farryn Leshy: Murder. Haha. Just kidding. Except ... though I feel that would be more under skill than hobby. Photography. Reading.

Ey and Kathy need one more hobby.

[dustedstarsfall]

Fragments: Bones of the City

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10

The footage shouldn’t have stood out. Just another overlooked transit hub buried in the lower Burrows of Acravis — a place where the walls sweated with recycled air and every corridor hummed like a hive on the edge of collapse. The timestamp marked it over three year backs. Typical.

What wasn’t typical was the scale. Acravis wasn’t just dense — it was endless. A planet devoured by its own city, layered in towers like sediment, choked in scaffolding, ducts, forgotten lines of power and population. A maze that built itself over itself until maps became suggestions and sky was a rumor.

Dallum had known it would be bad. He had attempted to procrastinate on the lead but it was the best he had to find out who Nova really was. Real records. Identity. Home. He hadn’t known it would be this.

The archive was a catastrophe: untagged logs, redundant timestamps, entire months catalogued under the wrong century. Half the footage corrupted, the other half mislabeled by ghosted operators or defunct AI. No one reviewed these feeds unless someone died screaming or a reactor blew.

Dallum had spent nearly two weeks in the mess — twelve-hour stretches hunched over blinking feeds, dragging corrupted data through dead indexes. He was used to the EIC’s systems: clean, sharp, responsive. This wasn’t work. This was excavation. Digging through time with bare hands, praying the fossils still whispered.

Something tugged at him. A small fraction of a frame.He didn’t know why. his hand was already moving. Rewind. Pause. Watch again. A flash of bright purple. Rewind.

There. Right side of the screen. A lean figure with a half-limping gait and a stitched coat hem trailing just above the grating. The hair was shorter, freshly cut — almost military. The eyepatch was clean, the cybernetic arm stiff, like it hadn’t settled into his frame yet. He looked fresher. Not cleaner, not healthier — just newer. Like a machine reassembled Almost right. But not quite comfortable in its skin.

He'd flinched at kindness. Hesitated in sterile corridors. But here, in the rust and wires, he moved like a man who’d come home from war to find the ruins still waiting. There was something else, too. A weight in his posture. Not slouched, not beaten — just… wethered. Like he was carrying something he hadn’t decided whether to set down or sharpen. 

Dallum watched the footage again, searching for threat, pattern, clues.

The timestamp put it barely a month before the Syla incident. A real first sighting. Been buried in these jumbled Acravin systems this whole time. 

“He didn’t hide this time,” Dallum muttered, voice thin over the hum of his console. “He strolled. Like the world owed him space.”

He put in a formal trace for all vendor interactions logged in that sector over a 6-hour window. Most turned up nothing useful — food carts, currency exchanges, the usual flux of travel. But one thread caught.

Vendor #90478-J — specialty salvage tech.

The camera caught Nova pausing, speaking briefly with an older man behind the stall, then collecting a small bundle of parts. Nothing illegal. But not ordinary either. Filament wiring. Old servos. A casing adapter for a series of mechanical limbs phased out before the last war.

Obsolete, but not junk.

Dallum leaned in. Nova handled the parts carefully. He didn’t scan them or test for compatibility. He already knew.

And yet — he moved like someone not entirely at ease with his own body. The left arm especially. Like it had been replaced… and he hadn’t quite forgiven it yet.

Dallum submitted a background query. The vendor was listed as Joren Vent, citizen of the lower burrows, former maintenance lead for Acravis’ defunct terraforming tunnels.

He requested a call.

When Joren answered, his voice crackled like someone who hadn’t updated their comm filters in a decade. But he was friendly. Curious. Not afraid.

“Yeah,” Joren said after Dallum described the man. “I remember him. Bought some odd things. Quiet fellow. Polite. Looked tired. Real tired. Like he hadn’t been welcomed anywhere in a long time.”

“Did he seem local?” Dallum asked.

Joren chuckled. “Not by the coat, maybe. But he spoke Acravin better than most kids I see down here. Not the surface patter either — real Burrower-speak. Back-of-throat dialect. Things only people from the deep shafts know.”

Dallum felt the gears click into motion.

“What did he want the parts for?”

“Didn’t say. But he asked about old maps. Ductwork layouts. The ones we used before the new recycling systems. Said he wanted to know where the airflow used to run — not where it does now.”

Joren scratched his chin. “That’s what got me. He was clearly Acravin — no doubt in my mind. The way he spoke, the questions he asked, the way his hands moved when he pointed at the diagrams. But he was too young to remember those maps firsthand, probably filled with stories his parents used to tell him before he left for other worlds. Silly really. Those ducts haven’t carried air in decades. Most were sealed off after the gas ruptures in Cycle 72 or just collapsed from corrosion. We don’t even log them anymore. They're dead zones.”

He looked off-screen, thinking. “But he spoke about them like old friends. Knew the bends, the vent pitch, even the panel seams. Like he wasn’t just retracing something — like he was going home. I wonder if he had older relatives down there. Maybe he sought their ghosts.”

Joren added one more thing, almost as an afterthought.

“His arm wasn’t right. You get a feel for that sort of thing. He moved like it wasn’t built for him. Or maybe he hadn’t finished learning it yet.”

He tapped the side of his head, then added, “But the rest of him? That was Acravin work. None of that techy mambo jumbo with codes and screens. The real work. Engine. Wires. The kind of guy who could fix coolant leaks with scrap and prayer. He knew the weight of metal. That’s why the arm threw me — a man like that should’ve built his own.”

This was the first time Nova’s engineering skill had shown itself so plainly. Reflecting on Syla’s story, there had been glimmers — subtle cues that he could rig or recalibrate when pressed — but Rael said he didn’t understand tech, and Kie claimed he handled systems like they were traps wired to explode.

Now? Now he was buying with intent. Asking about routes no civilian should remember. And the parts? He hadn’t smuggled them offworld. Whatever Nova made… it stayed on Acravis.

Somewhere in the ducts. Hidden in the bones of a city too old to notice. Buried, maybe. Waiting.

The next witness was harder to track — a street tech named Kreff, pulled from a minor background citation buried in an old report. He’d been fined for illegal conduit rerouting, flagged for probationary engineering. But his name was logged as adjacent during the same marketplace window.

When Dallum called, Kreff answered fast — too fast. He clearly knew the call was coming and clearly hoped it might help his probation case.

“You’re calling about the guy in the old coat, right?”

Dallum didn’t bother playing coy.

“He was… strange,” Kreff said. “Like half the time he was remembering how to be human and the other half he was choosing not to.”

Dallum asked what he was doing.

“Adjusting his arm. Wiring tweaks. Didn’t look like he made the machine — more like he’d inherited it and didn’t trust it yet.”

Kreff paused, then added with an awkward laugh, “Truth is, I tried to lift something from him. Thought he was from out of the city, off world. Thought he looked distracted. He caught me cold — but didn’t get mad. Just looked at me funny, like I reminded him of someone. Then he asked what I needed the wires for. Offered to help.”

Kreff’s voice lowered, like he still didn’t believe it. “Said I was chasing the wrong fix, but didn’t explain. Just muttered something about teeth in the wiring and walked off.”

Kreff was still chewing on it. Unsure whether he’d glimpsed genius or wreckage. Maybe both.

Kreff sounded like he was still chewing on the memory, unsure whether he’d seen something incredible or broken.

“I tried to lift something off him, yeah,” Kreff admitted. “But he caught me. Not just once four times. I tailed him a bit, figured maybe he had spares tucked away. He knew every time. Just turned and stared like he’d been waiting. No anger. Just… tired.”

Eventually, Kreff gave up the chase. “I told him what I was trying to fix. Old relay station, mostly fried. Couldn’t get the stabilizer loop to hold.”

To his surprise, Nova didn’t walk off.

“He knelt beside the unit like it mattered. Started tracing wires, pulling filaments. Spoke like he knew what every bend meant. Started dropping technobabble and old Acravin phrases in the same breath — stuff I hadn’t heard since apprenticeship. He said, ‘The short’s not in the wire, it’s in the memory of the wire.’ Like the system could remember its own failures.”

Dallum asked if the advice worked.

“Yeah,” Kreff said. “That’s the part that scares me. It worked.”

There was a pause.

“He kept muttering. Mostly to himself. Tech spill, system notes. But sometimes he’d just drift. Switch to true Acravin, thick like he never left. Talking like the city was listening.”

Dallum asked for specifics.

“One line stuck with me,” Kreff said. “‘The city remembers every breath, every wound.’”

Dallum sat in silence after the call.

Nova hadn’t hidden himself. He hadn’t masked his voice, or blurred the cams, or burned the trail. The footage was clean. The angles deliberate.

He had walked into frame.

It was a homecoming.

But no one had welcomed him back — no family, no old contacts, no gang ties. Just ducts and dust. The old systems. Forgotten airflow routes only someone born in the deep burrows would remember. He hadn’t returned to be seen by people.

He’d returned to speak with the bones.

Joren had seen the dialect in him — not learned, but lived. Kreff had seen the intuition — not taught, but remembered. The kind of engineering that didn’t come from manuals or uplinks, but from years spent crawling through rust and live wire. From fixing things to survive.

Nova hadn’t brought the parts out. Whatever he made, whatever he fixed — it remained on Acravis.

And it wasn’t just a mechanical repair.

“He was building something,” Dallum said aloud, his voice low. “But not just his arm. Not just a machine.”

Nova had gone home, but not to rest.

He had gone to remember something only the city still knew.

Dallum filed a private entry. Short. Tucked into the margins of the case file

He didn’t walk like a ghost.

He walked like someone haunted.

And beneath that, quieter still:

He came looking for something.

 Not to be found —

But to find what never left.

[evita-shelby]

opened the word doc for the Eva turns out to like being hounded by proto-paparazzi for pictures because she knows when exactly to get the best angle one shot and now instead im writing Tommy accusing Eva of driving Lucy to suicide when Tommy refused to sign the divorce papers(super unforgivable) and Eva realizing she was never equal to Lucy in Tommy's heart and thus coming to hate Tommy for not letting her go(very i don't forgive and i don't forget)

inspired by @mischievouslittlecreature chapter in Shadow of the Abbatoir where Tommy accuses Lizzie of setting up Lucy

[twistedlilangel]

𝕭𝖔𝖉𝖞, 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖉 𝖆𝖓𝖉 𝕾𝖔𝖚𝖑 🗡️

Standing completely naked in front of someone, revealing your entire body and all its scars plunges you into an intimidating atmosphere of intimacy and complete exposure.

But have you ever tried to undress your soul, letting someone into the depths of your mind and revealing your true, concealed inner self?

Disclosing your darkest desires, hardest experiences, and all the thoughts swirling in your head?

Letting someone take of your mask and reveal the truth about yourself, not only the beautiful parts but also the repulsive ones?

You feel absolutely vulnerable yet simultaneously liberated.

Because if someone chooses to love you despite seeing this dirty truth, then you truly know that it's all real.

Maybe someday you’ll learn to love all your twisted and broken parts the same way.

Then your souls be entwined for eternity 🖤