10. Cltr+f "blinks" on your WIP & copy paste the first sentence/paragraph that comes up
hi link <3 ooh this is a fun one, let's see!
to start us off, here's hmtb (it's forever a wip isn't it?) - the very first blinks in the story overall is in chapter 1:
“You didn’t come back.”
“Oh.” Scar blinks and reboots to quickly compose himself into a smile. “I was just about to.”
bUT, let's also take a look at the current wip part of hmtb instead of the fic as a whole, which is the chapter i'm working on rn (50-something-ish). here's that fun blink :3
Mumbo blinks, sheepishness returning to his expression. He pulls slightly away as it all falls apart around him: this is more than just a breadcrumb to follow. This is Grian trying to vanish from his reach, and once again, Mumbo feels like all he does is misstep.
(dw as per usual everything's perfectly fine with those guys)
but because i love games like these, i'm going to dig into other unfinished fics. so! here's Elegy! the very first blinks overall is, once again, in the first chapter:
He blinks, makes another furtive attempt at breathing, turns back to Pearl. “So, whatchu got?”
and, funnily enough, if we take just the wip chapter (chapter 4/4), we're... again with mumbo? huh.
Mumbo blinks, trying to refocus on what Scar is saying, hoping it will be something that could twist this nightmare into something less horrifying.
and i'll self indulgently add two other projects.
here's an unfinished pirate thingie.
Grian blinks. The waves crash into the hull and even if the sounds around him are muffled and askew, it sounds like that’s far deeper below him. Not up here. Not—
The liquid that pools around his fingers is warm, sticky.
and one from the silly vampire scar au.
Grian blinks, his throat dry with the abruptness of his panic reaction. With the preposterousness of this situation.
---
>> question from this ask game
3 notes
·
View notes
oooo it's been a while since the last snippet :]c it's another fantasy au one where I'm! Putting! Barnaby! Through It!
a minor warnings: implied/referenced major character death <3
No one eats dinner, and Frank won’t stop tapping his spoon against his bowl. Tok tok tok it goes, over and over again.
Poppy made a simple stew from their provisions, but only Eddie and Sally make an attempt at tasting it. Their halfhearted ‘it’s good’s don’t pierce the pressure weighing down on them all. Barnaby swears he can taste it, thick and cloying.
Already he keeps catching himself looking for Wally. Where is- he starts to think, and then he remembers the moment Wally fell with a spear piercing his chest, and the grief rises so fast it nearly drowns him in a heartbeat. Barnaby can’t bring himself to try and hide it behind anything but a stony mask. In any other situation he might try to put some levity into the group. Cheer up the sad and empty faces staring into their meals.
He wouldn’t be able to think of a single lighthearted thing even if he wanted to. He doesn’t.
Tok tok tok-
Shuffling from Howdy’s tent has everyone glancing over at it, and Frank’s spoon stills. Howdy briefly woke up while Poppy was cooking. All he did was sit up, look at everyone, then pitch to the side and vomit. They got him into a tent before he passed out again, mumbling something about puppets. Frank made a comment about how Howdy was supposed to be a bit out of it, not at fae-drunk levels of hazy. Eddie had muttered back a dejected apology, and after that the camp was silent until Poppy’s announcement that dinner was ready. The spoon continues tapping when the shuffling stills.
Tok tok tok-
Since Eddie and Sally saying that dinner is good, there hasn’t been a noise beyond the occasional sniffle. It’s a good thing Julie isn’t trying her stew - it must be disgustingly salty from all the tears dripping into it.
Tok tok tok-
Barnaby sighs through his nose and puts his bowl down, sick of looking at everyone’s misery. He would say that he’s going to go sleep, but he has a feeling that none of them are getting a wink tonight.
Tok tok-
Before he can stand, Frank blurts, “We shouldn’t have attacked it. It was a mistake.”
“Please don’t,” Julie begs.
“There’s no need to rub salt in the wound,” Sally says firmly, her stew starting to sizzle from the rising heat in her hands.
“Not right now, Frank,” Eddie mutters.
Frank visibly bristles, and he launches to his feet. “I refuse to pretend not to have seen what I did! The truth is a terrible thing, but someone needs to say it. Wally lied to us.”
“Frank…” Barnaby warns.
“We shouldn’t have attacked the demon,” Frank barrels on, ignoring him, “because there was no need to. It didn’t eat Wally until the end because the demon is his patron. Wally was never a wizard at all, he was a warlock-”
Barnaby lunges with a deep bark that echoes against the trees. The crickets symphony falls silent. Frank trips backwards over his seat, staring up with wide eyes as Barnaby stalks around the fire, growling. Eddie and Sally slowly stand, inching between him and Frank.
Barnaby stops, snout bunched and canines bared. He jabs a claw at Frank. “Don’t you ever say that again. Ever.”
Frank’s mouth flaps uselessly for a moment. When he speaks, it comes out as a whisper, “I’m-”
“If you end that with right instead of sorry, I’ll make damn sure that you are.”
Frank wisely keeps his mouth shut. The crickets continue chirping.
Barnaby glares at him until Frank looks away. Barnaby straightens his vest with a sharp tug and strides away from the fire, towards his and- his tent. Just his, now. Murmuring breaks out at his back. He yanks the flap open, grabs his pipe and herb pouch, and heads towards the forest. He pauses only to listen by Howdy’s tent, waiting to hear proof of life before continuing on.
Once he can’t see the firelight anymore, Barnaby chooses a random tree and sits heavily in front of it. Rough bark digs into his back through his vest. A night bird hoots overhead. Crickets continue to make their music, but Barnaby wishes they would shut up for good.
Light from the full moon pours through the branches to provide just enough light to see by. Barnaby holds up his pipe and quickly puts it to the side to take off a grimy glove. The heart-pad and blue fur underneath contrasts vibrantly with the dust-grayed rest of him. After a moment he removes the other glove, wincing as the leather drags over his injured knuckles. He turns his paw over and scowls at the dirty black edges of the red-raw scrapes. He should have punched harder. He hopes it scars, even though he knows it won’t.
The gloves themselves are scuffed up, but not beyond use. Barnaby folds them into his pocket and gets to work lighting his pipe. He packs it and instinctively opens his mouth to ask Wally to light it for him. The words die on his tongue as he turns only to see dark forest. Empty woods save for the tiny blue lights of night wisps floating on the breeze.
Barnaby stares into the darkness with yawning dread. He keeps looking. How long will it take him to stop? How long until Wally’s face starts to smudge in his memories, until his voice is gone and Barnaby doesn’t even remember what his smile looked like? How long until Barnaby only thinks of him in passing?
He doesn’t want to reach that point. He desperately does.
Will it hurt more or less? Does it matter? He wants it to ache until he dies.
Barnaby frantically fishes his sparkrune out of the herb pouch - only there for emergencies, when Wally or Sally isn’t there to light it for him. It will wear down to a nub within the month. He strikes his thumb claw against it, and sparks fly expertly into the bowl of his pipe. It takes a moment to catch. Barnaby lifts the bit to his lips and takes a drag before enough smoke forms for a lungful.
Maybe he should have grabbed the stronger stuff. If he breathes enough of it, maybe he’d be able to see Wally.
But Barnaby doesn’t get up in the end. He sits against the base of a tree and hugs himself, the pipe’s intermittent glow betraying the shine in his eyes.
45 notes
·
View notes
Well now I just wanna know even more about your ocs and their story! xD Even before all the spooky stuff, Raven being placed in the middle of someone else's life and there's pressure to remember people and things he doesn't... And the watch, is that significant, what happens if Raven makes it to new years (hopefully with his sanity intact)? And what is up with this universe's Raven that just 'ah the amnesia hit him again' ?
And what did Rei do to get people that pissed at him? And but is he still trying to look out for Raven even if he acts like he's not?
-🎀
ribbon anon, you have no idea how happy these questions make me.
there's not a lot of pressure on raven to remember things he doesn't, because everyone around knows he gets these amnesia spells. it's still tough on him because he has to navigate this world anyway, and it lets people be dismissive of him. because—there's no reason to make friends with someone who's bound to forget you in a couple of weeks or months anyway, right? (it also gives a green card to be a shit. he won't remember!) (fun morality dilemmas right there.)
he's entirely lost, made to "play family" with people he doesn't know, live in an appartment that's wholly unfamiliar to him yet he's meant to call it his home, and whenever he steps outside, he has to deal with all these strangers looking at him knowingly while they don't know anything about him, actually. and on top of that there's the voices and shadows and mirror reflections...
add in him being worried about evia as she gets close to rei, because he isn't yet sure what kind of person rei is. and then later on kye telling him he needs to stay away from rei. (that they both do; him and evia. especially evia.) that raven should help them bring rei down—
except. kye's words come at a time when raven's already experienced the cracks in rei's masks. they come at a time when raven's beginning to be acutely aware that rei cares and he's hurting.
and now raven has to decide who to trust and side with, caught in the middle of it all.
... so let's talk about rei.
rei is meant to be a troublemaker, this uncaring character who only cares only about himself... and yet this caregiver role is thrust upon him, where he has to also (begrudgingly) make sure raven's okay whenever he forgets things, right? he's tired of this cycle. tired of doing the same things over and over pointlessly.
i had lots of notes on their childhood and young rei leading to how rei got to be like this, and why. but if you want to know about The Incident that so fiercely set nick against rei... well.
rei used to have a girlfriend. and they were young and stupid, and it was a little bit toxic.
ok, very toxic.
see, rei often felt like he's not paid a lot of attention, and he isn't as loved as raven is. that he has to actively take, whereas it always felt to him like raven is just given things. like he always had something to compete and fight for.
and so when he got into this relationship, he really just dug his nails into the idea that he's now wanted and needed. that this was his.
it was possessive, and controlling, and bad.
it ended on a cliffside in a tragic accident.
rei was trying to prove something. like an idiot that he was. she was trying to leave, and he was trying to insist she needed him, cornering her near the edge as they fought.
he tried to grab her, but she fell anyway.
kye and nick were witnesses, and from far away, it looked like rei pushed her.
from kye's recounting of events, it isn't clear if she survived or not. what is searing, though, is the idea that rei never got any kind of backlash from it. he never got punished. he never stopped treating people like shit, making him a ticking time bomb until it happens again. because he hasn't learned his lesson.
nick wants to teach him that lesson, by any means necessary. even if those means are equally as bad as what he thinks rei did. (to be fair, nick is also a little psycho who enjoys people's suffering and power, soo—) (it's kye who's going into this thinking they can do it right.) (it's kye who's begging raven to help them. to go against rei. to let rei feel some consequences; to teach him that people aren't toys or possessions.)
(rei knows these things.)
here's a fun little note i have on rei:
Rei’s choice to be a troublemaker (to fight, physically, with the world around him) was his way of dealing with the things inside of him. But he never wanted that little sphere of destruction to reach anyone else. He never imagined it would ever affect anyone but himself.
3 notes
·
View notes
search for those things you ache to coat your hands in. bring the supple patchouli black pepper tobacco smoke to your face and breathe in a scent you never knew would bring you home.
that lime green bottle atrocity to nature scent that feels like walking through the front door for the first time. apples and spice and cinnamon plugged into the wall so pungent your temples throb.
that three ounce jar of sugar scrub gone bad in the basket on the lowest shelf of your dresser that aches of tile pressed beneath your shoulder blades and hair dye burning it's way through your scalp.
that blue-capped deodorant designed for men, hidden in your locker, it tastes of fresh cut grass and hard won muscles and finding your name on the lips of a friend you will lose and gain and lose again.
that slice of sickly-sweet cherry coke zinging like putting your head down and sweating on your laptop while a man reads to you about bashing in people's heads with a tube light bulb, to applause.
that crush of frosted animal crackers like a circle of close friends painting polish on borrowed horns. the stench of teenage body odor like an embrace. the bog of oily food like the best nights of your life.
search for those things in which you ache to coat your hands. let them soak.
42 notes
·
View notes
a small post (read: long) of me rambling about the meta implications (kind of???) of Henry + THAT ret-con/reveal in NMH3 in episode: Flesh and Blood. (NMH3 spoilers!!! read at your own risk!!)
okay one thing about Henry that genuinely give me emotional pain is that fact that as a child (like. VERY YOUNG) he tried to save his siblings (Jeane and Travis) from their father who was a serial killer and decided to go on the run. It's not clear if their father was a serial killer in the literal sense, or that he was also an assassin too (it's not really made clear or elaborated on).
The worst part is that they got caught, and Henry, being the older brother who tried to protect his siblings took the fall for them. He had his memory completely wiped, and was taken in by the Cooldown family in Ireland and was basically raised as their own son. sure that sounds nice, until you realise that there's a high possibility that his serial killer father paid off the Cooldown family to raise Henry as their own and to keep his real heritage a secret. I'm not sure how Henry went down the path of becoming an assassin, but I have a funny feeling the entire Cooldown family are reputable assassins themselves (and have been for generations). Which if that's the case, has a lot of meta implications, that absolutely need to be addressed.
This also goes along with some previous posts I've made about NMH1. That some of the enemy characters have the same purple beam katanas and/or have the same ability as Henry (which is to create spheres of energy and use them to attack your opponent). This could be the result of people modelling their attack/style after Henry who has made a name for himself in the world of assassins OR, that Henry is being put into a position where he has to train other assassins, and thus have used Henry's training as a spring board for them to become legitimate assassins. Whether Henry is doing this willingly or unwillingly, is unknown, although I place my money on the 'Henry is being told to train a league of assassins with (several) guns pointed at his head'
Honestly, knowing that Henry tried to save Jeane and Travis makes the fight with him in NMH3 more heartbreaking, because Travis at this point has Killed Jeane (their sister) - because she was the No. 1 assassin in NMH1. Now, Travis is forced to kill the person that has saved his life before and was punished for trying to protect his siblings. Do you know how deeply fucked up that is??? completely forget Henry's incoherent ramblings, and focus on the fact that the narrative of No More Heroes is about how the cycle of violence, revenge destroys people - and in most cases that cycle is perpetuated not just by the system but also is unfortunately re-enforced by family history and inter-generational trauma.
I'm not saying I want another story of NMH, but I do want a version of NMH where Travis has an epiphany and realises that his entire family is stuck in a cycle of violence and destruction. And decides to tear down the system and end it - He even says in NMH2 that he wants to tear down the United Association of Assassins, tear down the SYSTEM that makes up the organisation that's in the pocket of Jasper Batt Jr.
And as clumsy as NMH2 is with it's ludo-narrative dissonance - that line has stuck with me, especially with the fight with Alice Twilight and Holly Summers in mind (which have HEAVILY impacted Travis as a person). I want a story of Travis Touchdown, that looks back on his fight with his sister Jeane, and laments that he could have spared her (doing so is against UAA rules) - but realises that he can rectify that mistake by saving Henry from a system that is an ouroboros.
Travis made the decision to become an assassin - and he just so happened to become THE crownless king in the process. But Henry did not have that luxury, let alone a choice (assuming the Cooldown family is made of assassin), and so maybe perhaps Travis can repay the favor of saving his only other blood relative from a system that destructive and throws out tools that they think aren't of use anymore.
TL;DR: the Touchdown-Cooldown Siblings deserved better and definitely need LOTS of therapy to heal from the inter-generational trauma they have.
13 notes
·
View notes