#Though not much in this snippet

[ciderjacks]

thinking again about how much trust he had to have in Laios to recommend his own daughter in case he dies

[amanitacurses]

Names

1 2 3

[little-mouse-adventures]

Currently thinking about Artemis's will in the code at the bottom of TLG and how it really kinda shows how strained his relationship with his dad still is. Everyone else gets something they're interested in or that Arty thinks they'd like (sound system for Juliet, frozen chicken for Mulch, ethical investments for his mother, etc) and yet for his father he leaves only bearer bonds, despite Artemis I trying to move away from a money-focused enterprise and lifestyle as of TEC. Not to mention it's Butler who would know how to disengage all the booby traps protecting said bearer bonds, further highlighting the difference in trust & familiarity Artemis has with everyone but his father.

[formalmess]

i rly want halloween to come sooner so ive been thinking abt spooky stuff these last few days and i thought: i might as well post my vampire and vampire hunter au... lord luigi (turned by antasma) and vampire “hunter” peasley

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

Outdrawn

f/f contemporary romance

two cartoonist who’ve been rivals since uni, and now have competing webcomics online, have to work together on the relaunch of a cult classic at the comic press they both work at

they both struggle with art-related physical and mental health issues, and complicated families

[apassingbird]

i've been tagged in various wip things by @neverevan @glorious-spoon @madneywedding and @smallandalmosthonest but i haven't really had anything to post until now so here we are! a teeny tiny snippet of that one buddie fic i started weeks ago and didn't touch again until last night:

Buck's presence is evident not only when he's physically here, but also on the few days he's not; it's in the way a pile of his newly washed clothes lies folded in a neat pile in one of the drawers in the dresser in Eddie's bedroom or the way his toothbrush keeps Eddie's company in a glass on the bathroom sink or how his collection of weird smoothies suddenly take up space in the fridge.

Then there's the touching.

The fleeting brushes of Buck's fingers against Eddie's waist when he walks past; Buck's knee knocking gently against Eddie's when they're in the fire engine, once, twice, before staying there, tethering Eddie to the ground; the way they have started to gravitate towards the center of the couch, shoulders to hips to thighs pressed together, whenever they watch a movie. Each night, they both linger for a few seconds, but Eddie still sleeps alone his bed, and Buck still sleeps on the couch. They never talk about it. What it means that Buck's all but moved in, or that Eddie, for once, doesn't feel anxious about sharing his space like that or that it's going to fast. With his exes, it always felt so rushed, like he just wanted to get it over with. Not that Buck is his- he's Buck, is all, and it's always been different with Buck.

i'm pressurlessly tagging the same people that tagged me plus: @bewilderedbuck @mandycantdecide @wllbyers and whoever wants to post a snippet of their own writing! <3

[flickering-nightfall]

just asking, what if an iterator possibly gets too hot or cold? What happens if they can’t get to safer temps with out outside forces? What if they can’t get to safer temps at all?

Do you mean superstructures or puppet-bound iterators? I'm sure superstructures have a lot of failsafes to deal with temperature fluctuations, mostly via processing water intake. They're living saunas! They probably have an incredible resistance to both hot and cold, as evidence shows.

I'll talk about puppets here, but if you meant superstructures, well... a lot of what I'll say here could apply to superstructures too.

(For puppet-bound iterators, I am referring to my AU CDSS)

For heat: Puppet-bound iterators, like their former superstructure bodies, run hot and need to stay hydrated. They rely on liquid coolant that runs throughout their bodies. Ruptures in the coolant system are one of their many common problems, but with medical aid, they're not too serious. Many cases are self-healing, or the rupture will seal itself off and reroute around the blockage - like with collateral circulation. Leaks into essential systems are more of a concern than the actual loss of coolant. As long as they stay cool and drink water while waiting to get fixed, they tend to be fine.

If they are stuck in a hot region and can't escape, they'll suffer from dehydration, heat stroke, fried components, damage to organic tissue, seizures... pretty much what you'd expect. As a superstructure, Moon probably suffered from all this leading up to her collapse.

For cold: They're fairly resistant for a few reasons. One is the antifreeze in coolant. Another is the heat that they naturally produce. I'm thinking they have silicone-based skin, which is very cold resistant. They have hemocyanin, which tends to function better in extreme cold than hemoglobin. (Hemocyanin can also work at hotter temperatures. I have like a whole essay about this that I still intend to post lol.) However, the puppets have been modified to have more flexible and sensitive skin - dexterity in exchange for some durability. They're more susceptible to the perception of cold than they would be if they were a still a superstructure. Many of them also dislike snowscapes on principle, because they've been freezing their decaying metal butts off for centuries by the time CDSS happens.

Iterators in both forms are very moist, so if it's cold past their limits, their mechanical components will freeze. And like with hypothermia in fully organic beings, prolonged time in extreme cold will lead to tissue death and organ failure. Superstructures with fractured exteriors (direct exposure of internal parts to the cold air) are especially susceptible to this.

Misc theory about superstructures: Moon's superstructure was able to stay intact into Saint's era because she collapsed straight down into the water, preserving most of her shape. The canyon water could have provided the pressure and circulation she needed in the absence of gravity cores, as well as protection against land pests and insulation against the cold. Remnant slag could have her generate excess heat as well, which would keep the water surrounding her unfrozen. In a way, dying like that could have helped her live longer?!

Thanks for the question anon, this was very fun :P

[lilacthebooklover]

part of the reason why i find nightmare time episodes so interesting is because in half of them, i'm not even sure who the writers want me to root for.

take honey queen, for example. linda's the focus of it and we see her emotions, motivations & family, so it's expected that she would be the "hero" of the episode. but she isn't. the episode consists of her doing horrible things to zoey, zoey doing horrible things to her, and it gradually escalating to the point of kidnapping and murder. it's due to linda that zoey dies. and she gets what she wants, what the whole episode has been about her vying to achieve, but we as viewers don't feel satisfied, because how can all that's happened possibly be worth such a tiny, temporary, meaningless title? linda's father seems to be proud of her, which is what she's been hoping to gain and added an extra element of sympathy for her character. but in the end, he sacrifices her to an eldritch being because she "the hungriest". honey queen is tragic and comedic and messed up and chaotic and there are The Horrors and nobody is distinctly good.

and that stays the same in every nightmare time episode. so many of these characters wouldn't care a bit if they killed someone, as long as they were able to survive. but that's just hatchetfield. a strange community of selfish people with no clear morals, because that's all they know and that's all they can be if they want to survive. they have a magic child fighting ring, they have evil weed birds, they have clones in the technical department, they have an asexual axe murderer in the woods, they have a wealthy doting mother who's been alive for centuries, they have a 1986 foxbody mustang possessed by a dead psychiatrist, so on and so forth.

the whole hatchetfield universe is so surreal: this is a place where people go missing every day, where gruesome murders are dismissed unless it threatens their football team losing to the clivesdale chemists, where a character can do the most horrendous things or seem absolutely irredeemable, only for the narrative to put them through so much that the audience ends up loving them.

each character is so complex and unique (i could write an essay about literally any of them if i tried to- and yet that includes peanuts the hatchetfield pocket squirrel). none of them are meant to be all good, and none of them are meant to be all bad. they're realistic to their environment and screwed over by their universe and they all have their own lives to focus on.

the vast majority of the antagonistic characters are very beloved in this fandom, because this is hatchetfield, where the most horrifying things are normalised in-universe, so they begin to be for us, too. we don't think it's as awful when we see zoey's body hanging from the rafters, or watch boy jeri be killed by his own son, or see eldritch beings hunt people down, since that's all seen as far more normal in this world. besides that, people like to have flawed characters, it's good to have little fictional freaks committing atrocities since it means the episodes are completely unpredictable.

every volume of nightmare time is a rollercoaster or a fever dream, because they'll take the most unexpected characters and the most random concepts ever and throw them into a completely absurd plot. so many modern pieces of media follow a specific genre or structure, but the hatchetfield universe does whatever the hell it wants, and it's so investing to see. there aren't any limits here, and each episode is a separate timeline, so the creators can go wild and do literally anything with this town. it's like a treasured collection of cracky aus that have been written and performed astonishingly beautifully.

anyway, this is your sign to go check out nightmare time and @blinkysrewatchparty! it will be entirely worth it, i promise <3

[corviiids]

For the director's cut fanfic thing: ⭐⭐⭐ (these are THREE stars valid for whatever. I'm giving you blank checks)

thank you again <3

blank check 2/3 goes back to as you like it again! but this time i want to talk about my shadow designs for the akechi bossfights we've encountered in the preceding chapters >:3 there are five - the Puppet, the Singer, the Bard, the Dancer, and the Magician.

but this got really ABSURDLY long this time so ill stick to mostly the Puppet, and just do a brief ("brief") overview of the others for now.......

(for context: this is my palace au and akechi's keywords are akechi goro, the world, theatre.)

the Puppet (photos of giant puppets below if that freaks you out!)

the first Wing the thieves encounter is the puppet show, and the boss shadow is a giant marionette:

For one thing, it’s huge—maybe three or four times the size of a human being. It’s also gleaming, carefully polished and buffed, reflecting light more viciously in the areas where it seems the wood might be chipped or worn. The polish throws the lines of joints and pieces into sharp relief, giving the puppet the general impression of something whole that had been cut up and pieced slowly together with hinges and nails. Behind it, mostly concealed by its limp bulk, is a door. As they might have gleaned from the chatter of the audience, the show does not yet seem to have begun. As such, the puppet on stage is limp on its strings. Most disturbingly, it’s draped backward, not forward, snapped unnaturally at the spine and giving it the extremely uncanny look of a corpse on uneven ceiling hooks. They can just make out the side of the thing’s eyes from where they’re standing. Gravity has not been kind to them: the puppet’s eyelids are dropped open, bulging eyes left wide and staring up as far back as the build will let them. They haven’t rolled all the way into the wooden skull, presumably because they can’t. Instead, the unseeing yellow eyes remain fixed on the back corner of the stage. The puppet is entirely still. “I think I’m going to be sick,” Makoto says faintly.

i think the Puppet is my favourite of the five because he's so disturbing. i imagine he looks a bit like the giant marionettes by the french street theatre show royal de luxe:

but i really love these guys, so i think it's uncharitable to say akechi's shadow looks exactly like them. i know giant puppets are always a little freaky but i genuinely love the royal de luxe puppets and i think the workmanship on these does genuinely do a ton of work to dispel that uncanny vibe.

puppet akechi on the other hand is absolutely drenched in uncanny valley, so i guess imagine these puppets but much scarier. the main thing is those places where different pieces of wood are joined, in the joints / on the limbs / etc, because that's very key to puppet akechi's look in my mind, hence "something whole that had been cut up and pieced slowly together with hinges and nails". the Puppet is a marionette, but the way he's been constructed and set up on stage almost calls to mind the imagery of a corpse that's been reconstructed to perform. the way he moves is really unnatural:

Ren is beginning to think they might be able to get past and slip through that door without a fight when the whole creature rears up, back strings going taut, and lashes wildly out at him with a horrible clack of its arms—he leaps back and crashes directly into Haru, who catches and dips him like a princess before twirling him frantically into Ryuji and the puppet gouges a deep gash in the stage floor.    As they watch it screeches, howls an unnatural shriek, eyes suddenly wide and bulging larger. They ‘blink’ a few times, eyelids flipping, then the puppet Akechi goes limp on its strings again, though decidedly more upright than before, like whoever’s pulling the strings is now on guard. Its eyes stay open this time, bright gold and piercing.

very much not like something exercising its own agency, but like a body on strings being operated by someone who did not care to practice in the artistry of operating a puppet to make it look like a live thing - the puppet is literally just a tool to be flailed about.

this also shows in the way the puppet sits when it's at rest. guys do you know how god damn hard it is to find normal pictures of puppets? when you google marionette it just comes up with a bunch of fnaf shit. anyway check this guy out

at rest, they usually just kind of dangle innocently, or might slouch forward if given too much slack, right? it was important to me that puppet akechi look very wrong at rest, as if he's not "at rest" so much as he's just been left to hang. hence: "it’s draped backward, not forward, snapped unnaturally at the spine and giving it the extremely uncanny look of a corpse on uneven ceiling hooks." i'm basically imagining meat hooks, like, in a slaughterhouse or something you know? like he's just dangling from those.

that imagery was inspired by persona 5 dancing, actually - akechi's finishing pose in his dance is this:

this is just such an unnatural pose. when i saw it for the first time, i just couldn't get the image out of my head of a string puppet who'd been hung up and left to dangle without any regard for how it might look or feel (lol). not to mention that blank look in his eyes. i think a lot of the Puppet was born from this dance because the dance itself is so dynamic and silly but then the lead-up to the end suddenly gets very jerky and puppet-like. i really like his dance!

the Puppet's battle mechanic is that the applause will continue as long as the Puppet is either acting or getting hurt (kind of like the mettaton fight in undertale actually?). if the applause stops, then the Puppet will be inflicted with Despair - in p5 the Despair effect means you lose SP for each turn and then instantly die on the third turn. makoto ends up healing the Puppet and yusuke mercy-kills it before it can commit suicide:

Fox silently raises his gun. The Thieves collectively flinch as the Puppet dissipates. The applause starts back up. “If we’d left things silent,” Yusuke says, “it would have only happened again.”

because this is the first shadow bossfight the thieves encounter in the Theatre, i needed it to have some broader implications (vs some of the later shadows who have more specific interactions). so obviously the analogue for akechi is that the performance needs to continue and he needs to continue receiving acknowledgement from the public / from shido / etc because if he's not useful and entertaining and noticeable and such, then he's nothing - his life doesn't mean anything. obviously, if he doesnt perform for shido (perform in the sense of working, but also in the sense of showmanship) he'll probably be killed. but also, akechi really externalises his sense of self to an insane degree. the conceit of the palace is essentially that his entire internal world is the show, it's just this shallow performance, the backstage is empty. if he stops existing in the cognition of the masses, he essentially "stops existing".

i think a lot about third semester akechi in royal and how completely he's faded from public awareness. he doesn't care because he's a dead man walking and has locked into nihilism at that point. but if you look at what akechi says in the engine room:

his voice when he says this says a lot to me. akechi's envisioning the world as it will look when he has to return and face the consequences of the world discovering what's behind the curtain and realising his credibility was all a show. to be honest, i think this also plays a role in his decision to sacrifice himself in this scene. i don't think he wanted to die, but i think he did realise that the post-thieves, post-truth world wasn't a place that held anything for him anymore, and his desire to return to that reality was dramatically weakened, so it was an easier decision for him to choose to make that sacrifice than it otherwise might have been.

um, i had a point. okay, so, i was saying that once the applause stops, the Puppet begins to despair. the Puppet also is the most direct representation of akechi as someone who is being used. all the shadow bosses correlate to some aspect of akechi's need to perform and to the varying reasons why they all have that sense of desperation:

“Kinda feels like they’re just defendin’ themselves, you know,” [Ryuji] says. “Or somethin’. Look too much like him. It’s weird they can’t talk, cos it’s like fighting a dumb animal. Don’t they all seem real scared to you?” None of Akechi’s Shadows have delivered grand speeches about conquering the world. Even Futaba’s Shadow had given them a fairly strong indication of what was going on with her, that overwhelming guilt which had given birth to a resolve to lock herself up in her mind and die. Akechi’s Shadows have lashed out, tried to destroy them, sure. But it feels different in a way that’s growing more and more impossible to ignore. Desperate to fend them off, more than anything, like each one is the final bastion standing for a world that could crumble at any moment.

that's why once you figure out how to stop each shadow's "show" from going on, they instantly die:

ripping the Singer's mask off causes him to cease to exist (see below)

silencing the Bard, who relies on the power of his words to manipulate others, removes his power and reveals that he's pretty easy to take down

the Dancer's feet are always bleeding because he can't stop moving. he's hard to catch, but the moment he stops dancing, he's revealed to have extremely low defence and can be taken out very easily

but the Puppet is literally being manipulated by a puppetmaster. because he no longer has any use when the applause stops, he no longer has a reason to exist. i also just thought this would be a fun effect to start on because it's so drastic as an introduction to akc's psyche and really gives the thieves a sense of what they're working with by throwing them directly into the deep end.

ok let's leave the puppet behind for now. im gonna be more brief with the others i promise (maybe)

the Singer

LET'S TALK about. beneath the mask. a song about ren. but it's also a song about goro.

I'm a shape-shifter at Poe's masquerade Hiding both face and mind All free for you to draw

the fic goes over some of my meta about this:

[Yusuke] I have done some research. [Makoto] Oh? [Yusuke] I believe when the Opera Shadow sang of “Poe’s Masquerade”, he was referring to a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, entitled “The Masque of the Red Death”.

eternally grateful for the scene during the pyramid arc where yusuke loredumps about egyptian mythology so i have precedent to do this

yusuke summarises the story in this chapter (chapter 4), but basically: the story is about rich people abandoning the common folk to a plague, until a personification of the plague wearing a red mask enters the castle. when his mask is removed, it's revealed there is nothing underneath. everyone in the castle then succumbs to the plague.

the superficial connections to akechi are pretty obvious - red mask, plague doctor. etc. but this song is really, really telling for both ren and goro. i briefly went over this in my last dvd commentary post about the palace fic, but this relates to my meta around both of them as mask wearers. the line "all free for you to draw" is a big one - ren is "all free for you," the player, "to draw" - he becomes who you need him to be, and because you need to max out your confidants, he becomes (via you) who his friends need him to be.

goro is similar on a different scale because he moulds his personality to what the public expects him to be. he takes it one step further, because it's less utility for him and more foundational - as i said, to an extent the performance is the substance of his personality, which is the core of the distortion. so both ren and goro are wearing the mask, malleable in character, their actual personality being somewhat questionable, but that emptiness is only true for goro. ren's definitely got something underneath it, but goro feels like he doesn't.

brief cw for suicidal ideation, but i also generally take it as a given that goro doesn't really expect to live past 18 after defeating shido. not that he's actively suicidal, but i think literally or figuratively he knows after shido's downfall, his own life will pretty much be over, and that's part of what drives the emptiness. the show really only needs to go on until that point, and after that there's no need to build a real thing underneath to return to. he's very much living for that goal.

anyway: so the Singer starts out singing the Phantom of the Opera - the Shadow is very much modelled after the phantom - but swaps to beneath the mask and begins to connect with ren. the Singer wears a red mask. i really like this mask! i envision it as looking like someone pouring blood over his face and then the blood freezing in place, so it just looks very molten and liquid but fixed over half his face.

ren defeats the Singer by ripping his mask off:

[Ren] Please don’t take off my mask, revealing dark [Ann] OMG!! [Ann] THAT’S WHAT HAPPENED WHEN WE TOOK OFF HIS MASK!! [Ann] HE REVEALED DARK!!!! [Ann] HE DISAPPEARED!!!!!!!!!!

(i love the thieves because i dont have to be subtle about my symbolism i can just make them say it)

anyway, just like the figure in the Masque of the Red Death, ripping off the Singer's mask reveals "dark" underneath - he ceases to exist.

Just a cage of bones There's nothing inside

the Bard and the Dancer

when i was first plotting this fic, i was actually designing the palace not as a written environment but as though it would be a playable place. so a lot of it is informed by me picturing what this palace would be like to play through and explore, building it out as a video game environment in my mind's eye and then trying to describe it from that point. i took the same approach to the bossfights, so they're all designed around central gameplay mechanics which are largely based on status effects and how the player would strategise around them. (to that end, a lot of the design stuff in my doc never made it into the fic...)

the conceit of the bard was a shadow who can manifest abstract concepts into being by manipulating reality with his words. so the status effects he uses are brainwash and sleep, mostly. his monologues are modified versions of shakespeare's works.

part of the reason why i started writing this fic was specifically to challenge myself in aras of writing im not very confident in: so longform planning, progression of plot, environment description, and action scenes being major ones. writing all the boss fights was and continues to be a real challenge. the chapter that the bard shows up in (chapter 5) ended up taking ages and ages in part because i kept putting off writing this fight. now that it's done, though, the bard fight is actually maybe my favourite fight scene i've written lol. it always turns out that way!!! the reason i like it is because i realised the physical action wasn't the fun part of writing a fight like this. since it was focused on status effects, it meant i got to crawl into ren's headspace when he got brainwashed, which i really really enjoyed doing because i got to drag out some trauma that joker has lovingly repressed.

   to set my fellows, phantoms in the wings    in deadly hate the one against the other…    This isn’t the Casino. This is somewhere else entirely. The Casino, and everything that came with it, that was months ago. How did he forget? The cottonwool that had crept so slowly into his blood dissipates in a mad rush that leaves him dizzy with disbelief. His hands, now that he can feel them again, are trembling. The knife between his fingers, trembling. The cool floor beneath him, the air in his lungs. How close had he come to never feeling that again?    Had he really just been feeling safe about that plan? Had he really felt everything was going to be okay? If anything had gone wrong—anything at all—he’d have been gone. He’d have been dead. How had they made it so he felt okay with that?    A trick? A ruse?    How blasé they’d all been, when it was his life they were gambling with like a worthless set of poker chips! And they’re here—all around him. Safe? He’s never been in more danger.    “Joker!”    Surrounded. He’s surrounded by the ones who left him for dead.

the Dancer doesn't get as much attention in text because i didn't want to slow down the pacing of the story every few minutes to do another huge scene tgat doesn't really serve a purpose, just like the exploration of the Globe Wing didn't. all that mattered was that he was shown to be adaptable, agile, and resilient - the Dancer needs to be in top condition at all times and ready to dodge any threat. the imagery that came through to me the strongest was the idea that his feet are always bleeding, so he leaves bloodstains all over the floor.

the Magician

this was another scene i adored writing. i think environment-wise, the House of Cards is my favourite Wing in the palace because it's the most unique structure. it's not a styled theatre like the others, it's more on-theme to the Magician, like he's set up his own performance environment. so it's just a huge house of cards made of crumbling playing cards which is really difficult to navigate and which joker kind of blends into.

the premise for the Magician was someone who needs to perform miracles and present impossible illusions as reality with a flair for drama. the Magician fools the Thieves over and over and over again, because they are good-hearted people who want to save him.

did you ever see that unused mementos request in royal where akechi tells the thieves about a target to save someone, and doesn't tell them that the someone in question is dodgy themself, and watches to see how quickly the Thieves immediately trust them?

i don't think i based this fight off this request because im pretty sure i had it planned out before i ever saw this, but i was really pleased to see it because it's very much the same idea. even in the engine room, akechi calls the thieves idiots for inviting him back into the team. of course, this isn't a good or healthy worldview lol and it's something he has to unlearn because he literally trusts no one and that's not an extreme anyone should be endorsing, but he also has a point in that the thieves are willing to throw their faith into things way too easily and don't look critically at people or situations. so the magician fools them, victimises them, tricks them into considering him a victim, fools them again, traumatises them, but they all continue to feel empathy for him and try to save him when he's in trouble. akc's cynicism vs the thieves' faith is a big theme of this one i think and the question is like, when to doubt vs when to trust even when you have evidence to the opposition. i think the right position is somewhere between thesis and antithesis (which iirc is not actually the wording hegel used when describing dialectics? lol... i might be wrong. i never studied hegel so my knowledge is pretty superficial. but i think this was a translation thing anyway because allegedly goro doesnt refer directly to hegel in jp? someone can confirm or deny idk)

anyway those are the bossfights we've had so far!!! just the VIP Box to go now......................... :3

[thirteenemeraldcats]

Roses for use whenever!

*kicks WIP pile under the bed* DON'T LOOK AT ME.

I haven't had access to any of my WIPs for over a week, so, what's a dumb-dumb to do? Start more!

Jamie whimpers again, the sound muffled from where his face is pressed tight against Roy’s abdomen, as the bus rocks slightly beneath them. Kenneth has been careful since Jamie first went down, cautiously easing the coach to a gentle brake rather than the somewhat haphazard way he usually approaches deceleration, but Kenneth's efforts and his Coaches’ careful hands still aren’t enough to protect Jamie right now. His player’s obvious distress raises a frantic sense of helplessness in Roy, and he has to tear his eyes away from the walnut-mist head he’s cradling in his lap. Instead he stares straight ahead, studying the uncharacteristically subdued Greyhounds scattered in front of him. Between their unfamiliar silence and the eerie glow of fluorescent red lights filtering in through the front window, cast from the traffic light that’s ceased their steady progress home, Roy doesn’t find the reassurance he was looking for. As that violent red glow changes to a vivid green and the bus again resumes it’s forward motion, Jamie doesn’t make any more noise. Roy wishes he could delude himself into thinking that means he isn’t in pain but his eyes have caught on the shaking of Jamie’s bloodless fingers where they’re curled into a claw, desperately digging into the meat of his side.  Jamie’s still hurting. Jamie’s trying to be quiet.

[omar-rudeberg]

14 and 19 for the writing asks :]

14. Write and share the first sentence of a new fic. Just that.

this is !!!!!!!!!! hard !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ok here we go:

The first time Wilhelm wandered to the store for fresh milk and eggs and didn't notice a single burning stare pinned to his back as he did so, he returned to their apartment - heart beating too fast - closed the front door, leant back against it and burst into tears. Finally.

(Simon's head whipped up from the kitchen island, visible from Wilhelm's statued position in the entryway, and he gently placed the cup measure of flour down.

"Oh my- Wille. Oh my god," Simon stuttered out, moving quickly toward Wilhelm's trembling form. "What happened? What- What did they say?"

"They didn't," Wilhelm whispered, tipping his head back against the door and inhaling into his diaphram. He exhaled shakily, passing the canvas bag of groceries toward Simon's outstretched hand. Then accepted it when Simon bypassed the milk and eggs, instead cradling Wilhelm's cheek in one hand to bring their gazes into each other. Wilhelm smiled down at his boyfriend, unable to believe they'd got here, from where they'd started. (Front page news.) "They didn't," he said, still a whisper. "They didn't even see me."

Wilhelm's breath caught on a hiccough, high in his throat, and Simon rescued the groceries, gently lowering them to the floor, before gathering Wilhelm close as he falls apart. Finally.)

SORRY I CANT FOLLOW INSTRUCTIONS I CANT EVEN READ

19. Share a snippet from a wip without giving any context for it.

the last excerpt was too nice so here this one's filthy so sorry maybe or maybe you're welcome? under the cut for obvious reasons

He pulls Wilhelm's hair tighter on his next thrust, getting so fucking rough with him now. But seeing how much Wilhelm needs this, isn't sorry in the slightest.

"Hands up baby," Simon grunts, "hold on to the headboard for me so I can use you good, my darling."

Wilhelm complies, instantly, and Simon immediately misses the broad hands on him that were roaming his back, pulling his hair, and cradling him close. Wilhelm's eyes flutter closed, though, as he grips the headboard, surrendering himself fully, holy, and Simon doesn't regret a thing.

curious?

[egginfroggin]

hi! i’d be interested in hearing more about the dying of the light AU if you don’t mind sharing any thoughts or details!

Hi! I don't mind, just lemme scrape my brain real quick (so many thoughts).

Honestly, the Dying of the Light AU has been giving me some issues as far as the ending goes, but other than that, I have a few ideas.

This got. so long. so, again, there's a break put in place further down.

We're dragging Kyurem into this, first of all

after Emmet "snaps," you could call it, and completely loses control of his powers, Reshiram amplifies it to the point of halting the ongoing autumn, replacing it with summer-like heat and causing a massive drought that starts to spread out from its epicenter around Nimbasa/Route 4

Once Reshiram's involvement is confirmed, it's decided that the other dragons will be brought into this

Ingo, chosen by Ideals, will pursue Zekrom, and hopefully that will help tip the scales in his favor, helping him root out the deceit Reshiram speaks of and reinstating Truth without Unova crumbling

Iris and Drayden both go after Kyurem, and do eventually find it; however, Kyurem will only help them if they give it something in return

They both wind up being roped into a bond with it, agreeing to give it their time and attention, which it seeks after a long time hidden away from people and its own siblings

The intent is to essentially use Kyurem's ice and cold to combat Reshiram's heat -- winter is summoned against summer, and the result is a sort of flaky half-season, somewhat like spring and autumn at the same time, though the cold is more extreme around Kyurem's location and the heat is more extreme around Reshiram's location

Content warnings for burns, claustrophobia, and possession under the cut! And thank you very much again for the ask, Anon! I hope you have a very good day! ^^

Reshiram is definitely doing some possessing by the way

In Reshiram's defense, Emmet can't be trusted to not run off and mess up its plans, so. yeah

Also, speaking with mortals is far easier when one has the approximate appearance of a mortal so there's that too

Zekrom doesn't so much as possess Ingo as it does reside within him/follow him around. It will speak through him at times, and certainly bolster him, but it rarely if ever just up and snatches his body to go do something

Kyurem does not care about possessing people it just wants a friend and thinks its siblings are being overly dramatic

I somewhat implied it in And Learn, too Late, but the twins actually have a few dislikes/phobias related to their respective Dragons! Ingo dislikes having his Ideals and intentions restricted, and has a mild case of claustrophobia; this is mean to reflect Zekrom's weakness to ground, as being enclosed makes Ingo feel restricted and like he's being put under pressure (i.e., a coffin or being entombed) Emmet's aversions are more prominent due to the strength of Reshiram's gift/influence on him; detecting deceit and lies makes him feel physically ill, and he has a severe aversion to deep water and pouring rain

Drayden and Iris don't really have any issues after they connect with Kyurem, as their dynamic with the Dragon differs from the twins' and their respective Dragons; it's more of a mutual agreement that they're bound to, rather than a direct piece of power being imbued as a gift and a connection

Going off of this logic and that of the above point, I suppose that that would mean that after Ingo finds Zekrom and his own gift is strengthened, he would have worse claustrophobia

Similar to the accident that happened in Iced Tracks, Emmet accidentally hurt Ingo when they were little; only, in this case, it involved fire, and Ingo's clothes caught, leading to pretty severe burns on his arm, side, and part of his jaw; they healed well, but the trauma of the situation combined with him passing out made him forget :< Emmet had no such "luck," he just dead-up remembers ("Dragons, Truth irrefutable, Truth before him, he knew how skin melted," from The Sun in Flight)

Emmet is not immune to his own powers, though the worst damage is done when it manifests physically, such as when he forms flames or embers

Much of the damage that he's unintentionally inflicted on himself comes from accidentally setting his cuffs on fire, burning his wrists and arms, or from conducted heat searing his palms when he's holding something

He doesn't wear gloves anymore

He doesn't leave fingerprints anymore, either

(He's not made to contain so much power, he's kindling for a pyre he has no choice but to light, and only the power of Reshiram itself can keep him safe from its own curse of a gift)

On a lighter note, someone asked in a comment on The Sun in Flight if Emmet wore gloves or not, and if his powers affected his clothes since he can burn things so easily

For the sake of his decency -- and my sanity -- I'm basically handwaving the matter of his powers not just burning off all his clothes as magical interference; if his cuffs caught, maybe it could spread if he let it, but that would also hurt, so he doesn't

This being said, though, Reshiram basically fireproofs his body when its possessing him

And with that being said, I couldn't resist this entirely silly mental image: Reshiram: ugh, mortal's clothes are so restricting, why do you even bother with such a nuisance -- Emmet: IF YOU BURN MY CLOTHES OFF AND MAKE ME RUN AROUND UNOVA NAKED I WILL PERSONALLY STRANGLE YOU YOU STUPID BALL OF FEATHERS

So Emmet gets to keep his clothes (thank goodness)

Thank you, Anon! ^^

[ittybittystarryshow]

currently thinking about the fact i made a pjsekai shuffle unit au at one point and one of the units was literally just The agere unit but i didn't ever say that it was The agere unit because this was a point in time i wasn't open to ANYONE about it. it didn't mean it was plainly the most obvious thing ever (this is word-by-word how i described the unit btw):

unit 4 (sekai name wip but idea will stay) Happiness-Reconnect!! Tsukasa Tenma • Airi Momoi • Ena Shinonome • Mizuki Akiyama Miku • Kagamine len Playhouse Sekai "A place alongside a child's dream" - "H-R!: four loners due to simmilar circumstances and rejection have been living their lives as shut-ins when tenma tsukasa decides to make a small community online, creating music that "expresses inner childhood". The remaining then realize that they are looking for the same thing and decide to create an online group"

[invinciblerodent]

I know I don't really post my little fics, but I wanted to share this nevertheless, because I'm quite proud of myself- today I finished filling my third little writing notebook! ❤️

I was curious, so I did a very quick and dirty word count (just... pages times lines times words in an average line), and with all three of them together, I'm up approximately to 130k words of fic handwritten over the past year (or, well, 10 months or so)!!!

((not ONE word of it is published, yaaaaay))

[eggyolkguzzler]

alex, man, listen.

i gotta know. this has been burning in my brain for a few days now.

what got you into sports in the first place? it all seems so… intimidating, to me. you’re not a normal “sports guy”. you’re so… nice. all the time. and i’m finding it hard to put the jigsaw puzzles together in my brain.

— Kenny ( @kennyarchersdv )

It is intimidating. It's terrifying as hell, actually. You know how many people leave the field with brain damage? Jeez, man, I lost an entire finger on the field.

But... As painful as it is, It's proof that I've done something with my life... I guess.

I didn't want to go my whole life without being something. I didn't want somebody to ask me "what are you?" and not have an answer.

My answer is; I'm an athlete.

I play sports. I exercise. I eat right, and I eat a lot. People come to me for workout advice because they can tell -- usually just by looking at me -- that it's the only thing I'm good at.

I'm just... an athlete. The sporty guy. That's something, and it's better than nothing.

[vellichorsdesire]

wanted to take the time to recommend @sincerely-your-fo ‘s f/o letter writing commissions— i was able to commission xem quite recently, and having never commissioned someone a written work before (admittedly one of my small anxieties was my f/o being mischaracterized or for any of my writing of them to be misunderstood…) they wrote the f/o letter absolutely BEAUTIFULLY and so so very in character too i haven’t stopped reading it since i received it earlier today…

throughout the entire process from start to finish xe was super kind and the questions xe had ready forr xem to be able to write my f/o so accurately definitely helped me in describing them more + made the letter so much more heartfelt!!! not a lot of my f/o’s info is out there which i worried about too, but the letter turned out so lovely still and was so so very worth it 💗💗 xe has both digital and physical mailed letter commissions open (i commissioned the digital but recommend the physical if you can with how beautiful the wax seal options are!!) and you can see the info in their pinned here! if you see this, thank you again and i’d love to commission you again in the future (and hopefully tip even more) 🥹🫶/pos