lonely
[ID: A limited palette of green and pink, Vashwood comic. The first page serves as a prologue. The first panel shows Vash speaking to someone off screen while Wolfwood is lingering behind him. A black arrow is drawn pointing at him. In the second panel, Vash is buying donuts in the distance while Wolfwood is once again in view, lingering. and the black arrow is drawn pointing at him. In the third panel, Vash is leaving a cubicle and turning towards his right with a slightly peeved expression. He sees Wolfwood, leaning against the cubicle, waiting for him, and with the black arrow drawn, pointing at him, implicating the consistent hovering of Wolfwood’s presence during Vash’s everyday. At the bottom of the page, they’re drawn out of panel with Vash turning to Wolfwood and saying with an irritated expression, “You’re really following me everywhere, huh?” Wolfwood responds, “What, you got a problem?” Vash responds without hesitation, “Yeah, kinda...”
The second page starts with a new day. In the first panel, Vash is seen alone, weighing apples in his hands at a mart, with crowds passing behind him. In the second panel, he turns to his right and starts to say, “Hey, Wolfwood...” In the third panel, he’s startled from seeing a stranger, whom he’d accidentally called out to when he was expecting to see Wolfwood. He says, “Oh, you’re not him. Sorry!” In the fourth panel, the stranger walks off and Vash muses, “Right, he said he had something to do today...”
The third page begins with a close up of Vash's miffed expression, the continuation of Vash's thoughts, "Now that he's not here, this is just like how I used to be, but... It feels lonely somehow. Oh well, I'll see him again tonight, like always." In the second panel, it shows Vash walking through the marketplace crowd, alone. In the third panel, the door panel is a close up of the door opening with a peek of Vash's head. He says, "Wolfwood!" In the fourth panel, Vash is holding a bag of food with a bright smile and says, "Are you hungry? I got you something to eat today!"
The fourth page begins with a shot of the room, two beds being highlighted, one of them being made properly with the blanket draped over the bed and the other with the blanket folded and pillow sitting on top of it. There's no sign of Wolfwood. The second panel shows Vash with a disappointed look as he thinks, "He's still not here?" The third panel shows Vash putting the bag of food on the table. Stapled to the paper bag is the receipt with a written note "For Wolfwood." Vash's thoughts continue "He does like to stay out so, I guess there's no reason to worry..." The fourth panel shows Vash sitting his bed somberly with his thoughts continued, "It's not any of my business anyway..."
The fifth page starts with a close up his blank expression as he looks downwards, thinking, "Even if he left completely... That'd be understandable and better for him. I'll just travel alone again... like before... Huh?" The next panel shows Vash's composure break, tears welling up in his eyes suddenly, as he didn't expect to cry. He starts to sob, putting his hands to his face to quiet himself and wipe at his tears, as he says, "Ugh... Dammit... I miss h..." The last panel shows Vash leaning over into his hands, still crying, and in the back, the door swings wide open with a bam as Wolfwood walks through with the punisher swung behind him. He shouts, "SPIKEY! You in here?!"
The sixth page starts with Wolfwood confused, looking at Vash and Vash looks back, just as confused, with tears in his eyes and snot out of his nose. Wolfwood starts saying, "Ah? You..." No longer in panels, at the bottom of the page, Wolfwood takes the Punisher off of himself and starts to walk towards Vash, continuing with slight concern, "What's wrong with you? Did something happen?" Vash, hurriedly begins to wipe at his tears, denying immediately, "No! No, I'm fine! Nothing happened!"
The seventh page, Vash points towards the table, with a hand still wiping at his tears and he smiles as he says, "I uh got you food. On the table." Wolfwood looks towards to the table and responds, "Oh. I was getting hungry, thanks." He turns his head back to Vash immediately after with an uncertain expression, knowing the other wasn't responding to his concern, and says, "But, I know you're an idiot with this stuff, so I'm reminding you again. Don't brush it off if it's an issue, alright?"
The eight page, Vash's tears have dried and he looks to Wolfwood with a soft smile and responds, "Yeah. It's okay though..." A panel at the center shows a side view of Vash approaching Wolfwood. At the bottom of the page, with no panel, is a close up shot of Vash's hand, holding onto the edge of Wolfwood's jacket sleeve, as he says, "Because you're here now. Wolfwood."
The final page is a back shot of both of them standing next to each other, Wolfwood's head tilted slightly to the left, not fully believing Vash as he says, "That doesn't answer anything, Spikey." Vash responds, "There's no need to talk about it! You should enjoy your food. Let's have a drink too?" Wolfwood responds, "Tsk, tsk. Fine, yeah. I could use one." END ID]
3K notes
·
View notes
I haven't said much about the QSMP Admin situation on Royal Archivist because I don't think every issue needs commentary from the peanut gallery, especially since most comments rarely contribute anything meaningful to the wider conversation.
However—
It's very sad seeing how hostile people are being towards each other right now. I know there are a lot of strong emotions and opinions about this issue (understandably– I've been in this situation many times as a freelancer, I Get It) but that does not excuse the behavior I've seen, nor does it excuse the hate, racism, harassment, and xenophobia.
Regardless of your opinion on how well things are being handled right now, and regardless of whether or not you want to step away from the series or continue engaging with it while trusting things will be resolved — harassing fellow fans, ex-admins or current admins, CCs, the French union, etc. doesn't help anyone.
There is NO excuse for spreading hate on behalf of anyone or anything, be it the server, Quackity, the admins, the other workers, or anyone else. This isn't the Crusades; you aren't fighting a holy war in the name of God, you're on social media fighting about a Minecraft series. Put the pitchforks down and take a break.
I'm not gonna get into my opinion on the matter (on here) further than this because like I said, peanut gallery talk and all that, but I've seen how amazing the QSMP community is, and how amazing we can be, I want our community to improve just like I want the server to improve.
Be kinder to each other, and take a break if you need to! It's important for us to be kind to ourselves too. If things are making you extremely distressed, it's better to take a step away from things.
In the wise words of FitMC: when in doubt, log the fuck out!
339 notes
·
View notes
hey it's nanowrimo. i have tips bc i've done it about 34 times.
Don't edit. Ever. Stop it. If you just decide to start a new project half thru this one with all new characters, no problem. pick up and keep writing as if you'd already written the first half of that.
"but i spelled it wrong" whatever. "but the grammar" whatever. make it exist first. no time for sense. think like you're working on a typewriter. no backspace. only forward go.
Don't re-read further than a paragraph or two backwards. "did i mention the gun before?" listen - it doesn't matter. if you need there to be a gun there, the gun is there. put it back in once you finish the book.
"i forgot the specifics of X thing i already wrote" whatever. change it, make a note/comment to figure it out later, and just write what makes sense for the moment. "no raquel it's legit the characters name and origin" idc that character is now reborn as Claudius from Elsewhere. it's fine.
only you see your mistakes. nobody else knows. one of the ways writing and dance overlap - only you know the choreography. nobody else will know if you miss a step, so just keep dancing and pretend you meant to do it like that.
it's an illusion that you need to write linearly - from point A to point B to point C. Nah; that's just timeline propaganda. I've written a LOT of books out of order and just reordered them once i've finished. if you have a scene you'd LOVE to write but can't get there yet because of plot, just fuckin write the scene. I've always found its easier to establish "point F" "point J" and "Point A" and then wiggle my way between those scenes.
write what you WANT to write. 230 pages of smut? of well-researched discussion on bread? whatever. the point is to strengthen muscles however you can.
if you miss a day, a week, whatever. not the end of the world. we all have dry days. also time is a myth so u can do this challenge whenever u want.
as soon as you try to write for a specific audience, you kill your voice. you are writing for yourself. stop thinking about how people will take ur book. it don't matter. what matter is u, enjoying writing. i luv u.
play to your strengths. i have characters talk so much because i don't know how to write a plot if it kills me but i'm really good at dialogue so.
i love a flight of fancy. write a poem in there. shift tactics and write in code. keep it fun for yourself.
see what happens if you shift something major about ur main characters - gender, wealth, superpowers. or if you change point-of-view. or if you kill everyone in a big explosion. do NOT edit anything before this or after it. often these little weird one-off exercises teach me what interests me about what i'm working on. it is never what i thought. plus it is a fun way to add like 1k words.
stretch.
it's for fun and for practice. stop doing that project if it's giving you anxiety. once my nano was literally 50k words of half-started stories. just things i tried and tried and tried and wasn't able to flesh out. oops. but i am now 50k words of a better writer.
add dragons?
read books/listen to books on tape/etc. people often make the mistake of "buckling down" to just write. you need inspiration. you need to like. fill up on words. you need to remember how it feels to lose yourself in a story.
i don't have the time or space to really talk about this in this post but a lot of creative people turn to drugs/alcohol because it can help you be more creative. this is harmful, and walking a blade that only cuts deep. if you notice you and your loved ones are turning more to substances, please know i love you and i hope you are able to get help soon. i feel like this almost never gets mentioned because it's kind of a hazy underbelly to art. you are always more important than the work.
on that note. drink your fukin. water.
don't talk about a story until you've finished it. once you tell the story, it exists already, and isn't about discovery. i usually have a very canned "haha we'll see" response.
grapes :) tasty snack.
i love you be free.
2K notes
·
View notes
Ok Wild Angsters, you wanted a continuation, so here you go :)
Four already knew what he would be walking into. His phone had been blowing up for hours. He’d come in to work early. Whether he was assigned to take care of Wild or not was another matter - Vaati loved to try and take all the admissions, convinced he was the best nurse on the unit. If Four could just keep Vaati out of Wild’s room, he’d consider it a success.
When the charge nurse told him he would be admitting the trauma alert, he knew who he was getting.
Pre-admission jitters always made Four anxious, but this was an entirely other level of fear. He almost wanted to request a different assignment, but it was too late now. What if he couldn’t take caer of him because he was his friend? What if that impair his decision making? What if he just wasn’t skilled enough to handle it? He knew Ezlo wouldn’t give him an assignment he couldn’t handle, wouldn’t be there to support him, but still…
Four went over the supplies in his room once more. Safety checks were fine—they had suction, they had a bag valve mask, the code card was nearby—and he had all the supplies he needed. It was just a waiting game.
Four paced the unit at least three times before he looked at the OR status board again. Wild was still in surgery. He poked in his chart, glancing at injuries, looking at vital signs and anesthesia notes. The last update he saw was that Wild had gotten another unit of blood. Estimated blood loss so far was around 2200mL.
2200mL. That… wasn’t too terrible, Four supposed. He’d… seen worse.
Please don’t get worse.
Four knew for certain that Wild had been mass transfused in the ED. Warriors, his primary nurse when he was there, had told him as much. Between that and the multiple blood products he’d gotten in surgery, as well all the crystalloids he was likely getting as well…
Four took a breath. Then another. He grabbed his phone, texting Warriors. You doing ok?
Wars didn’t reply.
Four wasn’t entirely sure where everyone was at this point. Hyrule had stayed at the hospital, lingering in the emergency department and then the operating room waiting area, but Four hadn’t seen him since he’d clocked in. Warriors and Legend should be getting off shift now, but whether they were going to stay up was another matter. Time was obviously in the OR (Wild’s wreck had been around 10pm, he’d arrived in the ED around 10:45, and he’d been stabilized for surgery and gone to the OR by around midnight - it was 7am now… he wasn’t sure how long this was going to take, but it couldn’t be much longer). Malon should be getting on shift now as well - she had come in last night when everything had gone down, alongside Twilight. Wind had been cautiously left out of the loop until Wild had gone to surgery, simply because nobody had really had much information at the time, so no one wanted to worry the kid until they could figure things out. Everyone had their hands full as it was. But by now, Four knew Wind was either in the OR waiting room, harassing every respiratory therapist he knew, or in the hospital library pacing anxiously. As for Sky, the last Four heard he was bouncing between different people, checking in on everyone.
He clicked through more anesthesia notes, looked at flow sheets for blood products. There wasn’t much to go on, as charting was sparse. What Four did know was that Wild had been obtunded, got mass transfused, had gotten a chest tube, had been intubated, blood was evident in his abdomen, and he had an open femur fracture. He’s been taken to Time’s OR for a ex-lap. Head CT had shown a bleed, and they were monitoring it. That was all the information Legend had told the group when he’d had a moment to spare.
Four’s vocera activated, telling him he had a call from the charge nurse. When he answered, he was told Malon had called and said they’d be finishing up in about thirty minutes and were likely to come up open.
Why was he coming up with his abdomen open? When had they gone from exploratory laparotomy to a full on open abdomen?
Ten minutes later, Malon called back to give report. When Four answered, the first thing he asked was, “How’s he doing? Is he okay? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Malon said, even though she sounded exhausted. “And he’s… hanging in there. I’ve seen worse, I’ll say that. I’ll give you the full rundown, okay?”
Four listened as Malon gave report, feeling his heart settled into his stomach, which was tying itself in knots. Multiple spots of bleeding, possible compartment syndrome in his abdomen, a likely kidney injury due to compression from the bleeding on some major vessels, a small hematoma in his brain… they’d had to call neurosurgery to do an emergency craniotomy out of overt concern of swelling, given that Wild had apparently had previous head trauma, based on what they saw in the OR.
Open abdomen, craniotomy, ICP monitoring, bleeding, one chest tube… this was a disaster. Four swallowed as he wrote, feeling his hand shake a little as his heart raced. He was not qualified enough to be admitting this. He was not.
But the turnaround on his unit was pretty insane, and he was the most experienced nurse on the unit today. At least Ezlo was charge; he knew he’d be well supported.
This was a nightmare. But Four had dealt with nightmares, and he would deal with this. He wasn’t going to screw up taking care of any patient, but especially his friend.
Sighing, he hung up the phone after thanking Malon, pushing worries for her and Time aside, trying to focus on what he would need, who he should grab to help him, and how he should prep his room.
It was time to get to work.
When everyone arrived from the OR, Four made brief eye contact with Time. He couldn’t read much from the man, who was stone faced, aside from the exhaustion evident in the dark circles under his eyes. Four got to work quickly, assessing Wild from head to toe as he looked to see what IV medications he was on. A coworker wrote the note while Ezlo helped detangle his lines (the OR always brought up a mess, after all). Time gave an overview of the surgery, and Four listened along as he checked pupils, as he zeroed the arterial line and the ICP monitor, as he listened to lung and heart sounds, as he checked the chest tube and stripped it with his fingers to ensure patency, as he checked peripheral pulses, as he looked at the abdominal dressing to get a baseline in case there was swelling from bleeding later. One of the techs connected the chest tube to wall suction, and Four looked over his drips. Only having levophed at 2 wasn’t terrible, and he was getting a unit of red blood cells, which was in a transfusion set that was y’d to some lactated ringers fluid. He was on propofol for sedation. Another nurse grabbed a blood gas from his arterial line and sent off labs. His foley he had was temp sensing, and Four quickly ascertained that Wild was cold, so he set up the blanket warmer and covered his friend up.
His friend. His friend.
Four shook his head. He had to focus.
As Time left the room, he put a hand on Four’s shoulder, making him freeze. The surgeon didn’t speak, just locking eyes with him. Four wasn’t entirely sure if it was for his own benefit or not. But he had no more time to let his emotions make any decisions for him. He nodded to the doctor, who nodded in return, and then the two went their separate ways.
This was going to be a long day.
91 notes
·
View notes