#but i need to find the time to create a draft build

[eddsworld-the-masquerade]

Spent last few days working on the script for Chapter 6 (which I'm now editing so, highlights coming soon). In the meantime, here's a sort of masterpost of things concerning possible game mechanics for future VN builds

First things first, the visual novel will be kinetic. Meaning, no choices or story branches. Linear story telling. Perhaps a bit unusual when VN killer feature is the ability to choose your own path...but, I recognize writing multiple stories within one would be too taxing for me and I probably won't be good at it. Plus, some of the classics when it comes to VNs are kinetic, and people love them for their stories and characters.

However, it won't be just a book with pictures and music either. Some of the mechanics I'd like to try and implement to richen the gaming experience are:

Turn based, RPG-style battles.

I'm taking most inspiration from the first Darkest Dungeon game (and bits of Star Rail here and there), so the concept I imagined so far is rather similar.

You'll be able to play a party ranging from one to four characters (the main ones), each with their unique role and skillset: Tord, a tank/damage dealer hybrid; Edd, a buffer (but like, the OP one); Tom, a debuffer, multiple target specializing on DOTs (damage over time); Matt, sustain/damage dealer hybrid.

Each will have: a basic attack, and around 2 skills that require spending blood (action points). They will also have something similar to DD's sanity meter, that could build over time spent in unnecessary/avoidable battles, or by specific enemy attacks. If it goes up high enough, the character ends up "malfunctioning" in ways specific to them and their playstyle.

There will be ways to lower this "sanity meter" down to normal. As well as ways to acquire passive buffs, by finding items at specific locations. Probably no leveling system, but I'll try to research the possibility of it in renpy along with other things.

I'd like to have these battles happen in one chapter. So like, you go one chapter with some number of battles, then next one is "resting time" (no battles), then next chapter has battles again. And it will have at least two boss fights. Could make it three, if I'll find who could fit that additional boss role XP

Some other game mechanics for when there are no battles:

Random events. Bits of character interaction that aren't essential to main story but could give additional depth to them and the world around. Kind of my way of giving additional replayable content without the need to write branching story arcs XD

Mini games. Little puzzles to better relate to the character experience. Sort of, experience what they are experiencing in the moment. Chapter 3 already has one in the script, I'll search for other opportunities to insert them.

Unlockable character stories. A suggestion from Nina, to have the backstories I write for the antagonists as unlockable content after beating the game. Kind of like a Gallery, except instead of images you get additional game content XD Perhaps some could get unlocked by completing some sort of in-game challenge, like acquiring a certain number of buff items.

[occamstfs]

Should've Worn Green

Happy St. Patrick's Day! Figured I couldn't miss the best Irish Tf day of the year eh? Best! -Occam

Charles didn’t account for the drunks storming the streets today when he was getting ready this morning. Why should he have to step out of his way to avoid getting beer spilled on him. Nevertheless perhaps the accountant should have checked the calendar before wandering into the streets without wearing a hint of green.

Such a blunder would not long go unpunished however. Compact as he is, he nimbly ducks out of the way of glasses clinking in brutish hands raised high. He scoffs at their total disregard for sanitation as they spill beer all over each other in the cheers. Barely avoiding getting drenched himself Charles bumps into a figure who drunkenly laughs before reaching out towards him.

“Aye! Shoulda worn green lad! ‘S St. Paddys!” He shouts as he pinches the already frustrated clerk who yelps and slaps at the hand. Not even pausing to dignify the man with a verbal response, he pushes forward to not be late for work.

He stumbles onward, reaching the edge of the crowd and finally takes a break. In the scarcely fresher air, his stomach lurches and he leans onto a building to avoid falling over. His shoulder itches as he almost feels what can only be described as vertigo? He looks over the crowd angrily, sure that they are to blame for whatever this episode is, contemplating going back toward whoever assaulted him but every face in the crowd is impossibly similar. Jesus, he’s never seen so many redheads in one place?

Wondering if he’s somehow woken up in Ireland proper he feels a breeze on his midriff. Not only has his shirt been untucked but the skin exposed suggests it never could have been tucked in the first place. It’s as if he’s grown half a foot. Charles starts hyperventilating, trying to convince himself his shirt must have shrunk in the wash, though surely he would have seen his exposed belly button when he put it on no? 

He again looks towards the crowd seeking anything to blame for his state. This makes it evident that he has grown indeed, now  able to directly make eye contact with men in the crowd. There is a draft on his ankles as his increasing height only becomes more difficult to deny. Charles clenches his jaw as his eyes find the man who simply must be the culprit.

In the middle of the mass of Paddy’s day parishioners, he sees a man staring directly at him, a smirk edging out from under his thick beard. He raises a large glass of Guinness in cheers and Charles can’t help but stare at the man in turn, his anger quickly being replaced by confusion. He winks, the glass still raised, as Charles stumbles backwards trying to avert his eyes. They forcibly return to this man each time taking in a new facet of his impossibly masculine body. The jungle of hair in his pits draws him in as if there’s a fire in his still-raised arm. His powerful chest is covered in a similar forest of beyond dense red hair.

Charles, unbeknownst to himself, continues to hungrily stare at the statuesque man as the pitch-black coif on his own head begins to bleach as a red tint starts to force its way up from his roots. He scratches at his face wondering how he forgot to shave before work. Oh, work? He needs to get to work right? His eyes retreat from the specimen to check his watch. He raises his arm to check his watch creating a tear in his suit as his bicep involuntarily flexes. His face reddens just as his hair continues to do, his anger towards the crowd returns as they have clearly forced him to not only be late to work, but to arrive wearing less than his prestigious work demands of him.

Before enacting whatever meager retribution his increasingly muddy mind decides he looks up to see the mysterious man approaching him through the crowd. His body involuntary clenches in fear, each instinctual flex creating new tears in his workday attire. His chest bursts into existence shooting his shirt’s buttons far into the dancing crowd. Tears appear down the length of his dress pants revealing tight briefs barely hanging together underneath. He rips off the rest of his suit jacket lest it impede him as he prepares to bolt from the rapidly approaching giant, though with each surge of growth coursing through Charles the man seems less menacing and massive, and more familiar.

He again scratches at his shoulder as he begins to notice that someone in the crowd desperately needs a shower. At least he thinks it's the crowd, he looks towards his own pits questioning his cleanliness and sees pits with thin dark hairs. But that can’t be right? Surely they should be red like all his other hair. He flexes his pecs and watches the ginger hair on his torso dance in the morning sun. Laughing before he returns his attention to his pits that are rapidly agreeing with his assessment and growing thick and red, they also make it clear that the sudden stink in the air could be no one but him.

It’s chill though Charles thinks, he’s been partying all morning with the guys, he’s sure they’ll get it. Smirking to himself not even noticing how swiftly he has assimilated to being one of the parishioners that have taken over the block. As he stands there, his red pubes increasingly showing above his crotch as his briefs are weighed down with each growing pulse in his crotch. 

Finally the smirking Irishman who started it all makes his way over shouting,  “Ay Charlie! Yer gunna have to cover up ya! Shame we’re not Scots or I’d toss ye a kilt, Ha! And ‘Ere lad don’t be standing around without a drink in hand.” He tosses a large cup at Charlie who catches it, though losing the head as it splashes all over him, matting his ginger curls to his chest and revealing the most intricate details of his still-growing bulge.

Charlie cheers at the man who must be a friend, or at least a countryman, before quickly starting to down the tankard. As he swallows the swill he swiftly loses whatever smidge of himself that remained in this northern paragon of a body. His chest fills out with a bit of weight as beer trickles down the beard expanding further down his face. As he swallows his voice develops into an impossible to mistake accent. It’s just, didn’t he have something to do today? His brown eyes sparkle as they brighten to a green bright enough to be in the tricolor as he laughs. What could he have to do today more important than celebrating his home country! America is fine and all that but fwoh, could certainly stand to be more like his homeland. Charlie, tired of thinking so much on a day like this, gives into a primal urge of celebration and joins the bacchanal. Charles Morris would not arrive to push whatever buttons and keys he was supposed to at work that day. But Charlie Mulligan was having the greatest time of his life, as he would continue to do evermore.

[thatsdemko]

without you there’s nothing to live for - l.norris

masterlist

pairings: lando norris x fem!reader

warnings: jealousy + insecurities + fluff + build up(kinda long I’m sorry about that) + some errors here or there

a/n: while I had bits and pieces of this work in millions of other lando drafts I think I have to give credit where it’s due to @userlando and her anons ☺️🫶 I’m in such a shit mood so i figured posting this might make me feel better. enjoy xx

Lando Norris was annoying. a childhood friend of yours that somehow stuck throughout the years and never seemed to vanish. he was like a a piece of gum stuck to your shoe, he just never left.

and while you’re thankful he’s the longest lasting friendship you have; did you fail to mention he could be annoying?

his hands drum against the kitchen island, a distraction worthy of you flicking your pencil in his direction, but he’s too quick the pencil would just end up behind him, so you result in throwing him a very pointed look that shuts him up.

“is that pencil up your ass too today?”

you give him another look before staring down at the empty grocery list you failed to create, because lando has claimed your flat as his flat. the lavish lifestyle penthouse was abandoned at the instant call of your arrival to Monaco, and now all of his expensive taste clutters your space.

“did you put eggs on the list? I need eggs. it’s good protein—“ he shuts up to the sound of you breaking the pencil in half, another annoyed look tossed his way.

lando could be a lot. but there was no one who could keep up with you. there was no one like him in your corner, and while he pushed your buttons you were eternally grateful for his loyalty despite your rather jaded friendship.

“let’s just go to the store? I’ll drive.” he says like there’s another alternative to the store. ever since he got his license and moved in, you’ve never even put your foot on the accelerator. you’ve almost forgot the thrilling feeling of driving.

“eggs have been added to the list.” you finally say, typing up your notes of a grocery list once you were finally able to think straight without lando tapping away or chatting your ear off.

god was he annoying, but you loved him for him.

—

his wallet funds are bigger than what you have. you feel guilty every time he buys, but it’s not like you have the funds to do so. he knows that guilty look across your face when he ends up paying for 10% groceries and 90% female hygiene products. he doesn’t mind, just shoves his card in the machine and says a thank you for the person who bags your things.

“you have to let me pay you back—“

“no, nonsense.” he cuts you off, the conversation goes like it always does. you beg, and beg, to try and wiggle in a payback, but he refuses. all those years of your parents giving him shelter, taking him to races, or letting him play in your backyard it’s the least he could do.

“but the price adds up, and you’re paying for most of the rent—“

“I won’t have this conversation with you. just get in the car.” he says it without letting you have another word in. it’s his turn to shoot you down with pointed looks every time you try to mention money.

“y/n?! is that you?”

lando’s heart nearly drops to his stomach at the sound of that voice—that voice, being your ex boyfriend. he came out of nowhere, like the stalker he is, and finds himself walking around lando’s spiffy mclaren with wide eyes and confusion at your presence with the formula one driver. he must’ve forgotten lando was your best friend.

“you going to introduce me to your new boyfriend?”

before you can protest lando shakes his hand. you can tell by the grip lando has on him it’s a firm hard handshake. one to prove a point about the 2 a.m calls of you crying to your best friend from across the world. he was a shitty man, and maybe showing lando off like that would put him in his place.

“this is lando, you guys met awhile back.” you say.

you watch the two of their eyes glimmer in the sunlight with hatred for one another. lando was the guy you told him not to worry about— and he still was— and he was the guy lando was desperately wanting to kick ass.

“don’t remember that.”

“I actually remember, didn’t you spend half the night snogging another girl?” lando’s gentle reminder makes your ex’s face flush pale. you watch a little smile lift to lando’s lips before you both excuse yourselves to head home.

“my new boyfriend is so cool.” you say in a sarcastic tone once it’s just the two of you in his car.

lando let’s out laugh, and just puts the car in reverse. the simple act makes your head spin. his hand reaching behind the head of your seat, the way his eyes quickly glance on you before he looks back to ensure no one is coming. these thoughts were never present until this run in. would lando be a good boyfriend?

you can’t help but explore those thoughts in the twenty minute car ride home in pure silence.

your mind wanders to the idea of waking up to him in your bed. his legs tangled with yours, lazy soft kisses pressed your cheeks. you could melt at just the thought of it.

or maybe he’d make you eggs. you’d wake to the smell of bacon grease and him shirtless—like he always is in the kitchen— creating a masterpiece meal that you devour in minutes.

what switch has suddenly changed in you? because now when you look at lando, your heart does things it never did before. your head spins of ideas of him as your boyfriend and it’s so sickening you could throw up.

“I’m going to unload the groceries, you’re more than welcome to sit and stare into space for as much as you need.” his words spook you. a little yelp escaped your lips that he’d caught you. your eyes bug wide—like they always are when you get into your daydreams— and mind so full you lose track of time and often forget your surroundings. you had no clue you’d been sitting in the driveway this whole time.

“where do you want the tampons again? I seem to forget.”

“under the bathroom sink please.”

you wonder if you can shove your thoughts under there too. a nap is needed to clear your mind of whatever seems to be boggling it all about lando.

—

a nap certainly did help, however, waking up to lando shirtless in your bed also napping? yeah, all that hard work of suppressed thoughts came right back.

you think about taking your finger and running it all over the divots, curves, and muscles of his body. you think about how much stronger he’s been looking lately and how the little hair on his chin is growing onto you. what is going on with you?

it was common for lando to come in your room and sleep with you. nightmares were rare for you, but they happened more often than you expected and lando always wanted to be there for it. but this was just a nap? why did he have to come in and sleep with you? he could’ve just slept in his own bed, that certainly would’ve helped your heart if he did.

you roll out of bed and tip toe around your bed, until your heart makes you stop. you stare at his peaceful state. the way his curls fall over his forehead, the thick long lashes you desperately want, the soft smile on his lips— his eyes are opening, shit, you think to yourself.

you quickly book it out of the room to save yourself from the embarrassment of him catching you watching him sleep. what a creep you were becoming in the matter of hours. this is why you shouldn’t like your best friend. hell, this is why you shouldn’t let your man best friend live with you. it was destined for one of you to fall in love.

but it was also destined for you to most likely get your heart broken.

lando doesn’t date women like you. you’ve seen his roster of women rotating in and out of your place, none of them looked like you: an average woman with average looks. who’d want that?

a little part of hope lingers in your chest when you see him enter the kitchen. his lips press against your temple as he mumbles a good morning.

“how was your nap?”

“not long enough.” you admit watching him type away on his phone. his elbows are pressed against the granite counter tops, his fingers work vigorously against the screen. a little smile appears on his lips that make you nauseous. it could just be max, but it could be another girl.

almost two hours ago this wouldn’t of mattered to you. you wouldn’t of cared if lando invited a girl over and you stayed locked up in your room, but now all of a sudden it’s bothersome.

“what’s got you all smiley?” you ask, partially out of curiosity but partially to just kill your heart with his response. he sets his phone face down on the counter resting his chin in the palm of his hand, “max is coming over, and so is pietra.”

“exciting.” you grin, though the words disagree with your expression making his face drop with worry.

“are you worried max is going to take your best friend spot? he could never, y/n.”

best friend. yeah, that’s all you’ll ever be when girls like ria and pietra exist. deadly beauty that could put a man in his place. when was yours ever going to show up?

—

you’re tipsy off the expensive bottle of wine max brought. your body is pressed against lando’s for support as you all laugh about something max said. you can’t help but wrap your arms around his strong bicep, resting your head against his shoulder listening to pietra expose Max’s recent mess up.

lando doesn’t take notice in the way you’re seated. he knows you’re beside him based off the heat that radiates off your body. you always got overly warm when drunk, and sometimes a bit too affectionate, but he didn’t mind. he actually loved it when you wanted to be beside him.

“so when did this happen?” pietra points her finger between you two, a bright smile pressed against her lips as she cozies herself up to her own boyfriend.

lando clears his throat. he practically yanks his arm out of your grip leaving you to fall back against the cushions beside him. you hide your face into his back out of embarrassment suddenly becoming aware of how you two look. “oh umm—“

“oh gosh! I’m so sorry. I think it’s the wine talking in me.” she quickly apologizes, a blush filters her face similar to yours.

“it’s not the first time today that’s happened.”

“do tell,” max sits on the edge of his seat listening to lando explain the run in, your face is still pressed into his back. you’re hoping that maybe if you just stay there you would disappear into thin air or end up in your bedroom sound asleep away from all of this.

“I still want to kick that guys ass—“

“wait,” pietra cuts off max, her voice demands all the attention in the room. you pry your head from out of lando and peer behind him at her, “you didn’t even tell him you are just friends? you let him assume that you’re dating?”

lando’s mouth opens and closes. nothing seems to come out making max throw his head back in a laughing fit, “oh god! I owe ria money for this, you like y/n!”

Lando’s face is flushed red, a similar color to the glass of wine in his hands. there was nothing he could say. he couldn’t even protest it when it was true. he hadn’t even realized he never corrected your ex boyfriend, because truth be told, he wanted to be shown off as your boyfriend.

“come on pietra, let’s leave these two alone.”

they leave as quick as they came, leaving only the half full bottle of wine for yourselves. you both sit in silence, no one musters up the courage to speak.

you both get ready for bed like nothing happened. the awkward silence eats you up. you want to speak up and tell him you feel the same, you want things to go back to normal. you just want annoying lando back.

when you finally finish your nighttime regiment, you’re ready for bed. you turn the corner into your bedroom and see the silhouette of lando reflecting against the wall. your night light was on, and he was laying in your bed, cozied up under the covers.

“sleeping in here tonight?” you ask slipping under the covers beside him, he moves himself closer to you occupying the middle of the bed.

“you don’t mind, do you?”

you shake your head curling your body against his, “I like it when you sleep with me.” you say making a sense of pride soar through his chest. he likes the way your body molds against his.

“your new boyfriend will protect you.” he smiles down at you, carefully place a kiss to your forehead before reaching over and turning off your lamp.

“thank goodness he’s here, I can’t sleep without him.”

“you know I’m talking about myself right?” he lifts his neck up, face looking down at you, your eyes closed practically half asleep already.

“goodnight, boyfriend.”

“goodnight, girlfriend.”

tags: @oconso @xcicix @imsorare @weasleyswizardwheezes-blog @monzabee @lpab @frreyaa @motorsp0rt @lovelytsunoda @smoothopz

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[perpetual-stories]

Eight Strategies for Improving Dialogue in Your Writing

Well, hi! Oh my… wow! It’s been a long time since I’ve posted! I’ve been very busy and I am genuinely sorry to all my followers, but that doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten about this account, but here is one final post for the year!

Hopefully next year I become consistent with it again!

Let’s begin!

One of the best ways to help a reader connect with your writing is by crafting excellent dialogue. Use these tips to learn how to write dialogue that showcases character development, defines your characters’ voices, and hooks readers.

Why Use Dialogue?

Good dialogue performs all sorts of functions in fiction writing. It defines your characters’ voices, establishes their speech patterns, exposes the inner emotions, and showcases their character development. Beyond mere characterization, effective dialogue can also establish the setting and time period of your story and reveal information in a way that doesn’t feel overly expository.

Authors use lines of dialogue to reveal a character’s personality and express their point of view. For instance, an archetypal football coach might speak in short, terse sentences peppered with exclamation points and quotations from famous war generals. By contrast, a nebbish lover with a broken heart might drone on endlessly to his therapist or best friend, speaking in run-on sentences that circle around his true motivations. When an author can reveal character traits through dialogue, it cuts down on exposition and makes a story flow briskly.

Eight Writing Tips for Improving Dialogue

The first time you write dialogue, you may find it quite difficult to replicate the patterns of normal speech. This can be compounded by the concurrent challenges of finding your own voice and telling a great story overall. Even bestselling authors can get stuck on how a particular character says a particular line of dialogue. With practice and hard work, however, lackluster dialogue can be elevated to great dialogue.

Here are some strategies for improving the dialogue in your own work:

Mimic the voices of people in your own life. Perhaps you’ve created a physician character with the same vocal inflections as your mother. Perhaps your hero soldier talks just like your old volleyball coach. If you want to ensure that your dialogue sounds the way real people speak, there’s no better resource than the real life people in your everyday world.

Mix dialogue with narration. Long runs of dialogue can dislodge a reader from the action of a scene. As your characters talk, interpolate some descriptions of their physical postures or other activity taking place in the room. This mimics the real-world experience of listening to someone speaking while simultaneously taking in visual and olfactory stimuli.

Give your main character a secret. Sometimes a line of dialogue is most notable for what it withholds. Even if your audience doesn’t realize it, you can build dynamic three-dimensionality by having your character withhold a key bit of information from their speech. For instance, you may draft a scene in which a museum curator speaks to an artist about how she wants her work displayed—but what the curator isn’t saying out loud is that she’s in love with the artist. You can use that secret to embed layers of tension into the character’s spoken phrases.

Use a layperson character to clarify technical language. When you need dialogue to convey technical information in approachable terms, split the conversation between two people. Have one character be an expert and one character be uninformed. The expert character can speak at a technical level, and the uninformed one can stop them, asking questions for clarification. Your readers will appreciate it.

Use authentic shorthand. Does your character call a gun a “piece” or a “Glock”? Whatever it is, be authentic and consistent in how your characters speak. If they all sound the same, your dialogue needs another pass.

Look to great examples of dialogue for inspiration. If you're looking for a dialogue example in the realm of novels or short stories, consider reading the great books written by Mark Twain, Judy Blume, or Toni Morrison. Within the world of screenwriting, Aaron Sorkin is renowned for his use of dialogue.

Ensure that you’re punctuating your dialogue properly. Remember that question marks and exclamation points go inside quotation marks. Enclose dialogue in double quotation marks and use single quotation marks when a character quotes another character within their dialogue. Knowing how to punctuate dialogue properly can ensure that your reader stays immersed in the story.

Use dialogue tags that are evocative. Repeating the word “said” over and over can make for dull writing and miss out on opportunities for added expressiveness. Consider replacing the word “said” with a more descriptive verb.

[dedalvs]

When will humankind learn the lesson of its hubris and begin to heal itself? Also can you recommend any undergraduate or graduate level resources (textbooks etc.) for learning about fiction? I already read Writing Fiction by Burroway. Thanks in advance

January 14, 3182. Make a note of the date and return to this post when it comes.

To your second question, I've never read anything on writing fiction, only writing in general. I've found something valuable in every book on writing, even if there were things in the book I found less valuable. For example, I read Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within by Natalie Goldberg, and while there was much of it I didn't care for, there are some passags that have stuck with me 22 years later. When it comes to writing guides, I think the best thing to do is read what interests you while understand that what you are really doing is building your own writing guide inside you. You're absorbing what you find personally meaningful and using it to create your own personal styleguide that, like it or not, you'll be following for the rest of your life. Rather than rejecting that, and trying to decide which text will be the text that tells you how to write, embrace it, realize that you are going to do what you're going to do, and then try to work within that framework. That is, if that's what's happening, how will you approach a styleguide? What will it mean to you to read a very didactic text (i.e. "All serious writers must do x; no serious writer every does y") vs. a loosey-goosey one (e.g. "Dance naked in the garden of your creativity and allow your flowers to bloom!")? What are you looking for in these texts and what will you do with information or strategies that you find valuable?

Returning to Writing Down the Bones, I have to say I found the book to be mostly woo. It was more a kind of self-help/empowerment book than a book on writing, in my opinion. But there is something in there that I'm sure I'd heard before but which finally resonated with me. Specifically, it was the way she articulated that it really, truly doesn't matter what you put on the page when you're drafting. Drafting is not the time to reject. Even some idea comes to you that you find absurd, illogical, thematically inappropriate—whatever. It's not the time to push it away. Indeed, it's wasted effort. Editing and revising is the time to question. If you're writing, you shouldn't let anything stop you—even your own brain.

Why it took till then for this idea to take root, I don't know. It could be how she worded it. It could be that it came at the right time. Perhaps I was more open to new ideas when I was reading this book. It may also have something to do with a transition that had taken place for me in writing. After all, when I started high school, I was not regularly using a computer (we'd only just gotten a computer that stayed at home). When I started writing, I wrote by hand—on paper. It's a much, much different thing to edit and revise when you're writing on paper than it is on when you're working on a computer! I mean, digital real estate is cheap. When you're writing by hand, it can literally hurt to write seven or eight pages—and then to discard them in editing! Right now I'm working on a novel draft where I've decided an entire section needs to come out. If I'd written that by hand?! I can't even imagine.

I guess the tl;dr of it is I don't have a specific text to recommend. Rather, I encourage you to look around and grab anything that interests you. In doing so, though, I encourage you to approach it differently, focusing on what in it you find valuable, without either wholly rejecting it or feeling you have to follow it to the letter like an Ikea manual. I even found something valuable in C. S. Lewis's The Abolition of Man, which I honestly can't believe I read.

If you'd like some fiction advice that may be generally useful no matter what you're writing, this is what I can offer:

A valuable skill to hone is being able to read your work as if you have no other knowledge of it. In other words, you need to be able to read your work like a reader. One of the most difficult things to do with fiction is to cut. You usually have a lot more characterization, a lot more plot points, a lot more detail, etc. than end up on the page. The important question is if you cut something, will the reader notice? Will it actually feel like something's miss it, or will a reader never notice? Mind, I'm not saying that as a writer you can't tell if something is superfluous, or that anything you cut will be superfluous. I'm saying sometimes even if you cut something important a reader will still get the impression that what they are reading is whole and unedited. That isn't a good thing or a bad thing: it's a neutral thing. The question you'll have to answer is what is this whole that the reader is getting, and is that whole something you're satisfied with?

Get multiple rounds of feedback from many different readers. I say this not because it's vital, because beta readers are important, because you have to have multiple perspectives on your work, etc. None of that. Getting feedback from many different readers is a form of self-care on the part of the writer. I was deathly afraid of feedback as a young writer. I welcomed praise, sure, but anything else felt too painful to bear. This changed when I took a short fiction class at Berkeley. Suddenly a short story of mine wasn't getting one round of feedback: it was getting fourteen. And not just from the professor, but from fellow students. This was a minor revolution for me in terms of accepting feedback. If I were to take, say, one round of feedback, certainly there would be some praise, but there would also be notes like "awkward phrasing", "why did x character do y?", "this is unclear", "too much description", etc. These things would burn me. I would seethe reading them, and it would hurt so deeply. But! Imagine that one of them circles a paragraph and writes "too much description" and then the other thirteen readers say absolutely nothing at all about that paragraph—maybe one even puts a smiley face next to it. THAT puts the criticism in its proper context. Maybe your writing isn't too bad! Maybe there isn't too much description. Maybe that particular reader just wasn't vibing with it, and maybe that's okay. And then let's look at it from the other perspective. Say thirteen out of fourteen papers have a sentence marked and all of them say things like "huh?", "what's this mean?", "confusing", etc. Guess what? The sentence is probably confusing. And for some reason if everyone's saying the same thing it hurts a lot less. It means, yeah, you probably made a little mistake, and that's okay. It's not one person singling you out, and it's not the case that they don't know what they're talking about. I can't emphasize enough how freeing it is to look at reviews of your work if you have a handful or more to draw from rather than just a single good friend.

It's okay to write the fun part first. You may have a plot device you're really excited about, but to get there, you have to introduce your characters, have them get together, have them go to a place, meet someone else, etc. And it may take time and energy to write all that. You may feel pressured to get through that before you get to the part you really want to write. You certainly can, but you do not have to. I don't know if younger writers can appreciate exactly what it means to have a computer. You can write a little bit now and literally copy and paste it into some other document later. Try doing that with a typewriter! You can write something like "Insert paragraphs later of characters traveling to x location". You can even drop a variable in there so it's easy to find with the search function later (e.g. "ZZZZZ insert scene description here"—now you just need to search for "ZZZZZ"). You can put it in a different color on the screen so it's easy to find when scrolling. You can paste a freaking photo into your document! It's extraordinary what you can do with a computer that you couldn't do in years past. You've got a ton of options. But most importanly, when your work is done, no one will know what order you wrote it in.

In fiction, nothing has to happen. Villains don't have to be punished; heroes don't have to win; characters don't have to have a specific arc that comes to some conclusion. Honestly, one of the tropes (if you can even call it a trope) that I find most frustrating in sequels for movie franchises is after the characters are introduced, they take a few character and assign to them the major story conflict, and then for the rest, they give them a mini arc. It's like, "Mondo 2: Exploding the Mondoverse sees our hero Larjo Biggins take on new villain the Krunge as the very core of the Mondoverse is threatened with destruction! Also, Siddles Nuli learns its okay to be left out sometimes and she shouldn't get her feelings hurt, and Old Mucko learns that even though technology is advancing, sometimes good old fashioned common sense is just what the doctor ordered!" If you get to the end of your story, and you feel it's done, you don't have to panic if you suddenly realize we don't know whether Hupsi ever made it to Bumbus 7. It's okay if Story A is resolved but Story B is not.

I don't care if you used Trope A in your new story even though you used Trope A in your past seven stories and neither should you. Seriously, you think anyone was complaining when Agatha Christie put out another mystery novel? "Oh. Mystery again, huh? Gee, we were all hoping you'd write a book about the struggles traditional fishing villages are facing in the wake of industrial modernization." No we fucking weren't!

I hope you find some of this useful. Whether you did or not, though, be sure you enjoy what you're doing. If you are, you're doing the right thing.

[dduane]

Is there an alphabet or lexicon of the human version of The Speech? And if so, where can I find it?

No, there's not.

(And as I've been asked about this before, I'm just going to paste the answer in here—since though the original post is buried in the depths of Tumblr somewhere, I do have my saved draft.)

Per these, which came in very close to each other:

@melbetweenstars

This is something I’ve always wondered but never realized I could actually ask about until I read through that long meta response. (go me.) How much of the Speech do you have fleshed out? Do you create it as you go on more of a need-to-know basis, or do you have vocabulary and grammar structures ready to go? Basically I’d be really interested to hear any Speech-related meta if you have the chance because fictional languages are hella cool!

and:

@sansa–clegane

I just read your post on dark wizards and field terminologies, and am totally loving the Speech translations you provided! Now I’m wondering, though, how much of the language you actually have mapped out or established? I’m very curious as to what, for example, the standard “I - you - he/she/it/etc. - we - you plural - they” conjugation endings would be– or if there even are any in a language as complex as the Speech. I’M JUST REALLY INTERESTED IN FANTASY LINGUISTICS AAAHH

Linguistics is a big deal for me too, as people who read my stuff will have guessed. And needless to say, the Speech is on my mind a lot (along with other “magical languages” and their history/histories).

So let’s take a moment to first to make it clear what the Speech is not. It’s not what’s sometimes referred to as an Adamic language  (whether you take the meaning that God used it to talk to Adam, or that Adam invented it to name things.) It’s also nothing whatsoever to do with Enochian. It’s not an occultic language, or anything invented by human beings.

The basic concept is that the Speech is the language, or the very large body of descriptors, used to create the universe (and very likely others, but let’s leave that to one side for the moment). Such words are also assumed, having been used in the building of the universe, to be able to control the bits they’ve built. Every word, therefore, when used ought ideally to sound as if it contains some tremendous power. 

Writing something like that every time the Speech is used, even for a much better writer than I am, would be very, very hard.

(We need a cut here. Under the cut: Ursula Le Guin, C. S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, J. K. Rowling, and others. ...Also a fair number of beetles. And a bear.)

It’s worth mentioning as a matter of information that I met the concept of secret / divine magical languages in Le Guin’s Earthsea long before I ran into it in C. S. Lewis. (I came pretty late to Lewis’s non-Narnian work.) Yet here Lewis, as more than occasionally before, is my master, having been over this ground right back in the mid-1940s.

There’s a point in the final novel of the so-called “Planetary Trilogy”, that big fat (now endlessly problematic but still fun-in-the-right-moods) book That Hideous Strength, where Elwin Ransom—philologist, unwilling visitor to Mars and Venus, unnerved conscript into the wars in Heaven, and Lewis’s take on both the Pendragon and the wounded Fisher King—is instructing his friend and co-linguistics scholar Dimble on how to behave in a meeting with the newly awakened, and potentially quite dangerous, Merlin Ambrosius. (The POV in this passage is that of a lady named Jane who's just recently fallen into company with the group supporting Ransom.)

“You understand, Dimble? Your revolver in your hand, a prayer on your lips, your mind fixed on Maleldil [just think “Christ” for the moment: surprise surprise, that’s the parellel Lewis is using here]. Then, if he stands, conjure him.” “What shall I say in the Great Tongue?” “Say that you come in the name of God and all angels and in the power of the planets from one who sits today in the seat of the Pendragon, and command him to come with you. Say it now.” And Dimble, who had been sitting with his face drawn, and rather white, between the white faces of the two women, and his eyes on the table, raised his head, and great syllables of words that sounded like castles came out of his mouth. Jane felt her heart leap and quiver at them. Everything else in the room, seemed to have become intensely quiet: even the bird, and the bear***, and the cat, were still, staring at the speaker. The voice did not sound like Dimble’s own: it was as if the words spoke themselves through him from some strong place at a distance—or as if they were not words at all but present operations of God, the planets, and the Pendragon. For this was the language spoken before the Fall and beyond the Moon, and the meanings were not given to the syllables by chance, or skill, or long tradition, but truly inherent in them as the shape of the great Sun is inherent in the little waterdrop. This was Language herself, as she first sprang at Maleldil’s bidding out of the molten quicksilver of the star called Mercury on Earth, but Viritrilbia in Deep Heaven.

Now if that’s not like being hit over the head with a hammer, I don’t know what is.* That moment has been before the eyes-of-my-mind for a long time as I’ve worked with the Speech.

Note, however, that Lewis does a very wise thing here. He doesn’t actually spell out any of the words out for you. Because in the reader’s mind, there’s always the six-year-old saying, “Go on, say the word: see how it sounds, see what happens…!” And when you recite the magic spell, it doesn’t work. The words come out sounding, well, like any others. And maybe not your interior six-year-old, but your interior twelve- or fifteen-year-old—the ego-state that’s about keeping you from getting hurt or looking stupid in front of other people who aren’t privy to or supportive of your dreams—says, “See, it was just another word, just a bunch of nonsense. You got fooled. Dummy!” No wise writer, I think, willingly sets their readership up for such easy and constant disappointment. It's tough enough to weave, and hold in place, the spell that is prose. Handing the audience a potential spellbreaker, over and over again, is folly. 

And by rights the Speech ought to be like Lewis’s example above. If in reality you were to hear the words used to restructure matter or undo gravity, they ought to shake the air in your chest like a Saturn V launch, they should raise the hair on the back of your neck to hear them used; they should freak you out. But a long string of invented syllables isn’t going to do that. I’m stuck with using English to produce even the echo of such a result.

Which means I have to go Lewis’s route… mostly. Here and there I’ll add in a Speech-sourced word or phrase when it supports the narrative or makes it easier for characters to talk about what’s going on—as, when working with wizardry, you do sometimes have to call in precisionist-level language for words that have no casual English cognates: just as you would if you were working in particle physics or organic chemistry at the molecular level. But that’s all I’m going to do… because if you do too much linguistic work in this regard, you constantly run the risk of your readers being distracted from the real business at hand, which is the interactions between/among the characters.

The tech inherent to a work of fantastic fiction is always an issue in this regard. Ideally L. Sprague de Camp’s very useful definition of science fiction, tweaked here for fantasy, ought to be a guideline: “A fantasy story is a human story with a human problem and a human solution that could never have happened without its fantastic content.” Yet inside the definition, there’s still a lot of ways to go wrong. Too much merely human stuff, and a work of fantasy turns into a soap with some casual magical gimmickry—all too often these days labeled as “magic realism”, when it’s not publisher code for “We’d call this fantasy if we had the nerve and we didn’t think it was going to tag us as ‘genre’ and keep us off the best-seller lists”. Too little human-problem-and-human-solution, and it turns into a modern version of what James Blish (God rest him), when writing as the gently merciless science fiction critic William Atheling Jr., used to call “The 'Greater New York and New Jersey Municipal Zeppelin Gas Works’ school of speculative fiction”, where you tour your readership through the Wonderfulness Of Your Tech (magical or otherwise) until they expire of boredom while waiting for someone to fucking do something.

You have to find a centerline between the extremes—indeed pretty much a tightrope—and walk it with some care. I’d guess that J. K. Rowling ran into the need for this balancing act; while never having read the Potter books, I nonetheless get a sense that you get the occasional Wingardium leviosa without also being burdened with long strings of magical Latin. (Though I confess that the answer to the question “Where does the magic come from? And what’s it for?” as it applies to her universe could be of some interest. I have no idea whether this ever gets explicitly handled.**) 

Anyway, it’d be way too easy for the YW books to become long discourses on the Speech and its use. This aspect of the “tech”, I think, gets more than enough time onstage. Having once established that words are a tool, indeed the tool for a wizard, the ur-Tool, making every spell they build a resonance between what they do and the initial/ongoing work of Creation—my business is to stay focused on the challenge of driving plot forward by interactions between human beings (and all kinds of others) who have conflicting agendas.

…So much for the tl;dr. I do have some very basic grammatical structures tucked away, but they’re not in any fit state for other people to look at. The Speech, I think, is really best treated as an ongoing mystery that unfolds a little at a time, as required, and leaves everybody wanting more.

HTH!

*It also leads into one of numerous affectionate nods in this book toward Tolkien, as philologist, fellow novelist, and Lewis’s good friend. It's no accident that when Ransom meets up with Merlin himself, a little later in the narrative, the question of this language—the proper name of the Great Tongue is “Old Solar"—comes up again. When discussing what language they’ll speak with each other during their upcoming negotiations [they apparently start out in a rather beat-up and denatured medieval Latin], Ransom says to Merlin about the language he’d prefer to be working in, "It has been long since it was heard. Not even in Numinor was it heard in the streets.”

The Stranger gave no start … but he spoke with a new interest. “Your masters let you play with dangerous toys,” he said. “Tell me, slave, what is Numinor?” “The true West,” said Ransom. “Well,” said the other.

Yeah, “well.” Better scholars than I have dealt with the relationship between these two, as scholars and writers and friends, so enough of that for the moment. But it’s very sweet to see Lewis do something in his books that I’ve done with mine.

**It’s always possible, of course, that in the HP universe this issue is a surd: like asking “where physics comes from”. (Well, not a surd precisely, if your spiritual life tends a certain way. Mine tends toward “Whoever or whatever made the universe, that’s who made physics. And they must really like it, because they made a metric shit ton of it!” (This answer also works for beetles, though that's a slightly different issue.) :)

But if there’s a most-fundamental difference between my wizardly universe and Rowling’s, it might be best revealed in the third question that came up for me directly after “What if there was a user’s manual for human beings/the world/the universe?” and “If there was, where would it have come from?”: specifically, “And why?”

***There's a bear in the Pendragon's kitchen. Thoth only knows what initially brought that on for Lewis, but it's a character insertion that pays off later, so (shrug) wtf.

[c0wb0ylikem3]

Our Song

•summary: in which mercedes drivers y/n l/n and lewis hamilton are to compete in another youtube challenge

•authors note: this is an old draft!! Not proofread 😭

•pairings: (y/n x lewis hamilton!platonic)

Compared to other Formula One teams Mercedes were not know for there social media presence, unlike other teams such as Ferrari with their infamous C2 videos and McLaren with there two drivers constantly uploading a new video every week. However when Y/n L/n replaced Valteri Bottas seat in the latest season the fans demanded more content with the girl and her teammate, Lewis Hamilton.

The rain fell as Y/n made her way to the Mercedes media building. She was told to be there fifteen minutes ago however she got caught up by fans who seem to find her anywhere. Entering the building she quickly said hello to the front desk as she dashed to the room she was needed in.

“Glad you could join us L/n” Lewis spoke and she sent a glare towards the seven time world champion. She was drenched, had no time to stop for her daily coffee and now she was supposed to film a video. “It’s not my fault I actually care for my fans”

He gave a look of shock and rolled his eyes at the girls attitude which currently was resembling one of a teenage girl. “Clearly someone didn’t drink there coffee this morning” she sighed taking off her jacket so it could dry off.

“Okay I’m going to explain what we are doing today, as you know during the beginning of the year we asked you two to create a shared playlist for Race Weekends. We are going to be testing you both seeing who put what song in the playlist” The media director explained pointing to the white desk with two buzzers.

Y/n and Lewis took a seat on opposite sides settling in as they set up to record. “Recording in 3…2…1” the director gave a thumbs up signaling Lewis to start the intro.

“Hello and welcome back to another Mercedes showdown off the track” Lewis spoke looking towards you “Currently I’m in the lead because I won the last two challenges while Y/n has only won once” Y/n playfully rolled her eyes “that’s because you cheated at just dance!”

Lewis retaliated “ How does someone cheat in just dance?! We are not getting into this again.” Y/n laughed continuing the bit “So today we are trying to guess who put what song in our 2023 playlist our lovely Mercedes admin will shuffle the playlist and we will have to hit the buzzer and say who put the song in the playlist”

Round 1

The Mercedes admin grabbed her phone and shuffled the playlist the first song began to play, Y/n heard the first few notes the song seemed familiar but she wasn’t sure. Lewis on the other hand knew what song it was “Too Comfortable Future? It has to be one of my songs look her face”

Y/n hung her head low already off to a bad start, although this isn’t a race she can’t help but be competitive towards any competition. “I don’t listen to future like that” Y/n commented before moving onto the next round

Round 2

The next song began to play and she knew it in a heartbeat. Hitting the buzzer Y/n beat Lewis by milliseconds.

“You know a lot of girls be Thinking my songs are about them but, This is not to get confused This one is for you” she sang along to the popular song

Lewis laughed at the girls actions “Best I Ever Had by Drake” Y/n said as she finished her solo “Obviously I love this song but Lewis put this one on the playlist”

The admin double checked before rewarding Y/n the points and she cheered. “Now we are even Hamilton”

He rolled his eyes “For now”

Round 3

Another familiar song began to play, this was definitely one you put in the playlist. Unfortunately Lewis beat you to it like you had in the previous round.

“It’s a Bad Bunny Song i just don’t know what song” he explained covering is face in frustration trying to think of the song’s name “Is it Tití Me Preguntó?”

Luck was now on the girls side as she laughed “Can I answer!” Y/n asked enthusiastically as the Admin nodded ‘yes’

“Me Porto Bonito and it was one of my songs” She smiled victoriously gaining another point.

Lewis sighed shaking his head “That was my other answer I should’ve went with my gut”

Y/n held Lewis’ hand sympathetically “it’s okay not everyone can be good as me” He pushed her hands back returning his attention the admin to begin the next round.

Round 4

The girl was completely lost when she heard the song play . She was not really into EDM music and that was her first thought when she heard this song it had to be Lewis’ song.

Lewis however looked just as lost until it hit him.

Y/n saw his eyes light up as he hit the buzzer “this is one of my songs right? ‘On My Knees’ I forgot who sings it”

“He shouldn’t get the point then!” Y/n exclaimed but she lost the fight nonetheless

Lewis smirked “we are even now!”

Round 5

“YOU BELONG WITH ME” Y/n screamed the song wasn’t even five seconds in as she hit the buzzer causing her teammate to jump in fear at the girls actions

Lewis looked at her in shock and disbelief, he knew she was a fan of the famous singer but not to that extent.

“I think she really likes that song” the admin laughed

Her teammate continued to laugh at the girls actions as she sung along to the song “remind me never to play Taylor Swift around you”

Round 6

“Right now we have the very enthusiastic Y/n in the lead, However this last round is winner takes it all” the admin explained

Both Mercedes drivers had there hands on the buzzer ready to answer

The introduction of the song already gave it away but the two drivers answered at the same time

“DNA Kendrick Lamar” they shouted

Not knowing who should get the chance to answer which driver put the song in the playlist so they could secure ten points the admin told them to play a game of rock, paper , scissors.

“Rock, Paper, Scissors shoot”

Lewis put our Scissors while Y/n put out Paper.

The girl let out a cry as Lewis answered “It was me right?” He smiled ready to win the game

“Unfortunately you’re wrong with means Y/n won the challenge!”

The girl who was once sitting in sadness stood up in cheers “FINALLY!” She cheered as Lewis was left in disbelief

“That was rigged” Lewis said

“Oh now it’s rigged just take the L” Y/n shot back

The drivers had calmed down before filming the outro “If you enjoyed this video leave and like and comment and make sure you follow so you can check out other videos of me destroying Lewis Hamilton” waving goodbye in waves of laughter the so called “short video” took atleast two hours.

Grabbing her phone Y/n looked up at Lewis as he was met with an equally frightened face, “Did you get a call from Toto too” Lewis asked

Y/n nodded “He’s gonna kill us”

[triptuckers]

capture the flag - leo valdez

Request: nope Pairing:  leo valdez x apollo!reader Summary:  during capture the flag, no one gets stuck in leo's traps and he wants to find out why Warnings:  none Word count:  800 A/N: this has been sitting in my drafts for a while and now that I'm back in my pjo era time to finish it! enjoy :)

capture the flag is always fun. it's a nice way for people to train together while it feels like a game. even though sometimes people get too competitive.

it gives leo the chance to litter the forest with traps, and to test new inventions. of course, he could test them in the bunker or on his friends. but this is the real deal. no one knows where the traps are, how many there are. it's the perfect conditions to test them.

he's made a new batch of them but for some reason none of the traps work.

whenever he goes to check on them, they're all disabled. no one's activated them, or he would have found a fellow camper near one.

and leo is absolutely sure he activated them. they didn't blow up so there's nothing wrong with them.

and yet they're disabled.

rather than trying to capture the flag, he decides to hide in the bushes near one of his traps to see what - or who - is disabling them.

he listens to the sounds of the woods around him and pulls stuff out of his tool bel two mindlessly build little machines.

after a while, he spots movement out of the corner of his eye.

whoever it is moves quietly and gracefully. so definitely not an ares kid, leo concludes.

the person slowly walks over to leo's trap, careful where they put their feet down on the forrest floor.

leo watches as they walk around the trap, examining it. he shifts to get a better look at who it is.

he frowns slightly. he would have expected someone from the hermes cabin. maybe piper because he's spent a lot of time trying to explain his machines to her.

but he didn't expect it to be a daughter of apollo.

to be fair, leo thought the apollo cabin didn't know anything about traps or machines in general. their skills were mostly archery, medicine and music. not traps built by a hephaestus kid.

leo's eyes follow your hand movements as you carefully prod around the trap. surely you wouldn't be able to- and you disabled it.

smiling to yourself, you straighten your back and us your foot to slide the now useless trap aside.

when you turn around, you hear leaves rustle behind you.

instinctively, you knock an arrow on your bow and turn on your heel.

you are met by leo, who is frantically waving his hands in front of his face.

'don't shoot, don't shoot! I come in peace!' he yells.

you lower your bow. 'leo! gods, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you!'

'that's alright.' says leo, lowering his hands. 'I was the one hiding behind you.'

you frown. 'why were you hiding anyway? usually you like to be in the middle of the action.' you say.

'can't help the fact people start fighting over me wherever I go.' says leo, making you chuckle.

'yeah, right, valdez. as if anyone could come near you with the amount of traps you're setting.' you say.

'speaking of which.' says leo, walking over to his trap and picking it up to examine it. 'how did you know where the kill switch was on this?'

you shrug. 'that's a tactical secret I can't reveal.' you say. 'for future capture the flag purposes.'

'or you just got lucky.'

'23 times?'

'yeah, that seems unlikely.'

you smile. 'there's a window in the roof of bunker nine.' you say. 'it's actually a two way mirror. it doesn't let any light through. gives me a perfect view of your workspace, though.'

'so the tactical secret is spying.' says leo.

'can't win if you don't play a little dirty every now and then. plus it's cool to see all the stuff you create.'

you shoulder your bow. 'good luck activating all of the traps again.' you say. 'I need to get back to my cabin.'

you start to walk toward the noise your fellow campers are making, to see if your team is winning and how you can help.

'hey!'

you turn around to see leo is still standing in the clearing with the trap in his hands.

'if you want to, I could show you how to make these? then you will be able to do more than just disable them.' he says.

you smile at him, you've always liked leo.

but you are surprised, you know leo is kind of protective of bunker 9 and usually only Hephaestus kids go inside. it must be a huge deal for someone from another cabin to be invited into the bunker.

and Leo wants you here.

'sure.' you say. 'I'd like that. but first we have to steal your flag.'

'oh no, you won't.' says leo.

with one last smile, you disappear into the woods, leaving leo to reactivate his trap before coming after you.

A/N: If you want to request something, make sure to read my house rulesHere’s the list of characters I write for. Everything that I have written can be found on my masterlist. Please don’t repost my work, as I spend much time and effort on it!! Thank you for reading! Much love, Marit/Max

[doudouma]

“to create a hierarchy like yours..”

muzan with a child who wants to create a kizuki system like his! (reader) _______________________________________________

╔══ஓ๑♡๑ஓ══╗

well well.. my imagination sparks at the drop of a hat！this is dad!muzan, the demon king, with child!reader who just wants to build a kizuki system like him. how cute♡♡〜！

there are no warnings, my dear lotus.

i will keep it gender neutral.❀ 〜

a/n : said child is a teenager/young adult. or whatever age you like, i can’t tell you what to do〜 reader is also his biological child (don’t ask how) and a demon.

my precious flowers, please keep in mind that these will be shorter then what i usually do.. i want to save my thoughts on dad!muzan for if/when i actually do them!

╚══ஓ๑♡๑ஓ══╝

ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻ੈ✩‧₊˚ ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻ੈ✩‧₊˚

ooo!! he’d be so intrigued 〜！

what do you mean you want to build a system like his? what will you name it? how many subordinates will you have? what will missions and meetings look like?〜

so many questions!

you being muzans biological child would also mean that you’re exposed to the demon nature, and you’ve also seen the twelve kizukis, or atleast most of them with or without their knowledge.

if you’re actually serious about doing it, he’d watch from afar to see how you would bring this altogether.

if you want his help, he’d be more than happy to assist, even if he’s very stoic about it〜

he’ll even give you a few tips here and there to help you learn on how to be the boss you are, how to give effective punishments, to disguise yourself if needed, and so on!

such a supportive father〜

besides him wanting greatness for his offspring, he would additionally be supportive because that would basically mean double trouble for the hashiras!

the more the merrier they say♡

muzan would be exceptionally happy if you made the system to help him find the flower. if you didn’t, he’d still be happy because he was your inspiration♡〜

he’d have an idea at the back of his mind where one of your subordinates and one of his would go on a mission together!

but… he most likely wouldn’t bring it up unless you do. he understands the importance of them having separate roles and lords to listen to. although your subordinates will still have to obey muzan, of course〜

although he wouldn’t care too much, he’d take a small interest into why you chose the demons you did. especially since he had reasons as well.

did someone fall ill and want a better life? thought their talent/occupation would make a great bda? fallen swordsmen, perhaps〜?

regardless on whatever reason you made this, why you chose the demons, or even the reason for their missions and so on ..

.. muzan will always be supportive and encourage his child to keep strengthening and stabilizing their system〜

ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻ੈ✩‧₊˚ ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻ੈ✩‧₊˚

well, this was actually sitting in my drafts for a long time with only my intro done, and i decided to finish the actual headcanons! i actually really loved writing this, and i’m looking forward to more creative ideas in the future, my precious flowers❀〜

[pickingupmymercedes]

I'd like to believe - Lewis Hamilton

Alternative sequel to Maybe in another life / When I get to meet you

pairing: Lewis Hamilton x Reader!

warnings: mentions of mourning, angst, will make you emotional

wordcount: +1K

a/n: Alternative-ish ending (this was actually my first draft to continue their story, so the happy-ish one is the alternative, sort of).

As always, I'm open for feedback, come say hi!

MILD TRIGGERING CONTENT UNDER, PROCEED WITH CAUTION.

______________________________________________________________

My dearest little one,

Today marks ten years since you should have been here, celebrating another year of life. Ten times the snow has fallen, making everything quiet outside.

They say time heals all cuts, but some cuts go real deep, leaving scars that never quite go away. And I still find it hard to believe that a whole decade has passed.

You'd be so grown now, so full of life and curiosity, brimming with questions and dreams. I often wonder what you'd be like – would you have my stubbornness and determination, or your mother's grace and patience?

Maybe a beautiful blend of both, creating someone truly unique.

I’m going to visit your stone again later today. Leave this letter like every year. I suspect there’ll be fresh flowers, as always, probably from your mother.

She never forgets.

We never reconnected, not like I'd hoped for. But I think about her often.

I searched everywhere for her. I just really needed someone to share the pain with, someone to hold onto while everything fell apart. We tried talking, spilling out all our feelings, but the words wouldn't come out right. Maybe we were afraid of saying the wrong thing or making things worse.

Maybe we were both thinking the same thing – maybe if we'd done things differently, maybe you'd still be here.

After a while, the space between us just kept getting bigger, too big to cross. You see, your mom, she found a way to move on. She built a life for herself, a life where the pain was still there, but it didn't control her anymore.

I hope she's found peace and happiness, something she deserved more than anyone. She was an incredible woman, and I wish I had been the man she needed me to be.

I hope she reads these letters someday, that she understands how much I loved you both, how much I regret not being there when you needed me most.

Maybe one day, when the weight of these years starts to feel a little lighter, I can finally forgive myself.

Maybe then, I can find the strength to reach out to her, not to get back together, but to find some peace, a simple way to say thank you for the love we shared and sorry for the loss that tore us apart.

You know, life has changed quite a bit since I last wrote to you.

I'm with someone, have been for the past four years. She's patient, kind and knows about you. I don't think we'll ever have children though. She's got her own ghosts.

I retired from racing. Shortly after I won my eighth championship with Ferrari. It was a dream come true, but also bittersweet because I couldn't share it with you. I work as a consultant for the team now, just like Niki was for me at Mercedes. You’d have loved him.

It's a different kind of thrill, guiding the next generation of racers, helping them navigate the same challenges I once faced, but it drives me forward.

I’d like to believe you’d be proud of your old man for that.

I sometime wonder if you would have been drawn to racing too, or maybe you'd have found your passion in something entirely different. Whatever it might have been, I would have supported you every step of the way and with all my heart.

I think about the things you'd enjoy often; you know?! The hobbies and interests you'd develop.

Maybe you'd love music, like your mother. She had an incredible ear for it, always humming a tune or singing softly to herself. It’s what got us close in the first place so many years ago.

Perhaps you'd have a knack for building things, creating something out of nothing with your hands and imagination.

Either way, I hope you'd have found joy in the simple things, just like I try and do now.

There's so much I wish I could’ve shared with you. So many lessons I've learned the hard way and would to show you. Life isn't always easy, my little one. It's filled with ups and downs, triumphs and failures.

One of the most important things I wish I could’ve taught you is the value of love. Real love, the kind that fills your heart and soul, and is worth every bit of pain and sacrifice.

I had that with your mother, even if I didn't realize it at the time. She saw right through me, saw the man behind the driver, and loved me for who I was. I'd hope you'd find someone like that, someone who understands and loves you unconditionally.

It might hurt sometimes, but that's how you know it's real. Love isn't always easy, but it's the most beautiful thing.

I would want you to know that it's okay to make mistakes though. I made plenty, and each one taught me something valuable. The key is to learn from them, to grow and become a better person. But each moment, whether good or bad, shapes who you are.

I wish I could have been there to guide you through it all, to help you navigate the challenges and celebrate the victories. My motto has been “Still I Rise” for the longest time and if you wanted it could’ve been yours as well.

Life isn't about being perfect; it's about being true to yourself and striving to be the best version of you.

In the quieter moments I still dream about you, you know. In my dreams, you're a whirlwind of energy, your laughter filling the air. We go on adventures, explore the world together. I teach you what I know, and you teach me about everything else.

Those dreams are my sanctuary, a place where we can be together, even if just for a moment.

Sometimes, I catch myself talking to you out loud, as if you were right beside me. I tell you about my day, about the races, about the world. It might sound silly, but it brings me comfort. It's my way of keeping you close, of making sure you're never forgotten.

Even though we never got to meet, you are a part of me, and I carry you in my heart every day.

You are my greatest loss, but also my greatest gift. You've taught me more about love than anything else in this world.

Sometimes, under a sky full of stars, I imagine you up there with the constellations, looking down at me with curious eyes. And I need you to know that we love you still, deeply and unconditionally.

Ten years old. A whole person with your own personality, dreams, and wishes.

The world missed out on knowing you, and so did I.

But your memory, my precious child, it lives on. It lives on in the way I cherish every moment, every sunrise, every laugh shared with a friend. It lives on in the way I try to be a better person, kinder, someone who would have been a good dad to you.

This letter is my vow written down. A promise that even though you're not here, you'll never be forgotten.

Happy birthday, my sweet child. I hope, wherever you are, you're smiling, knowing that you are loved and cherished.

You are my light, my angel and a part of me. And though the path I walk may be lonely sometimes, I carry you and your mom with me in my heart, always.

With all the love that would have filled a lifetime.

Dad.

______________________________________________________________

TAGLIST - @saturnssunflower @xoscar03 @chocolatediplomatdreamerzonk @happy-golden-hour @vicurious28

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If you’d like to be added to my taglist you can leave a comment or send me a dm/ask.

[slickchickchocolatier]

WARNINGS: This is written in Heethan’s y/n perspective, mentions of ritualistic killings, alternative universes, religious references (some accurate and some fictional), all heeleads, all y/n’s, references to SE7EN, MERMAIDS TALE, MGR/MRE/HHP, THE OTHERSIDE and DOUBLE TROUBLE (I would high suggest reading all these series before reading this), unprotected smut, angels and demons, angels are bad guys, devils are good guys, kidnapping, time and space travel, alternate characters, some cursing, grotesque language, sexual tension, some fluff, and some intermingling moments, (enough to give you some ideas 😏) images and smaus attached, cliche rescue mission, and I think that’s it.

A/N: this was just an idea that came to mind as I was listening to music. A fun read.

Turmoil stirs the middle of the sky, a collection of debris, dust, and smoke circulate within it. The strong current of gravitational force absorbs bits and pieces of man-made features, further expanding its reign of terror.

It was a force to be reckoned with, a whirlwind of evil spirits, angels, and demons combined, formulating an abomination that was neither Heaven, nor Hell. Two worlds of entities unite, all embracing the common ground that humans were a non-sensible creation by God. In their eyes, humans were nothing but livestock for the immortals.

The senior head of this ritualistic army had an idea—a new image for the aged world, where unearthly entities would herd and breed the human race…In preparation for the grand feast. With this process in place, the world would be controlled by themselves, gaining power to extend their influence through alternate space and time. All the parallel universes that were constantly being created, would become restricted, ceasing the expansion of human life.

“My followers…the time has come where we need to take back what is owed to us. WE have lurked in darkness far too long, feeding on the scraps of these scavengers…these HUMANS!” His head contained three faces, one centered and nestled in between the two disfigured profiles. Their mouths remained wide open, agasp with horror while the center focal features did all the talking, carrying all the range of emotions. “WE have been betrayed by both, God and the Devil…the two fathers who should have been nurturing us, ignored our caution instead. They turned their backs on us; made us starve as we craved for sustenance and glory…but no more! Today, we strike and take the blood of the most beloved, the one who carries the light of God, and the blood of Lucifer! This I pray…my demons of carnage, and angels of darkness…do not stop at just the one…take them all! Search through every vortex of this abysmal continent. Go above the universal horizon, far and wide through space and time, and gather your efforts— leave no part of the cosmic galaxy unturned. Raid the entire universes, all worlds, and bring me her adaptations. Bring forth every variation of her current soul, so that we may tear, grind, and feast on that delicate flesh…let us hit them where it hurts most…let us seek to make God cry, and break the heart of the Devil.”

The spawn of angels and demons scatter in mass multitudes, covering the entire sky while they surpass greater heights, surrounding their numbers across every comet and planet.

Finding you in this world was simple. Entirely too easy…

Like any other given day, you sat in class next to h/n, drafting the primary notes as your professor read the lecture aloud. The yelling of a fellow classmate startled the entire classroom, catching everyone off guard.

“What the fuck is that?!”

Everyone turned to view the scenery outside the window. The light blue sky grows dark, as the horizon blackened with a darkened hue. The foliage draping the tree branches suddenly shriveled and died off. The air around the building turned black; everyone became frantic and ignored the professor's false sense of composure. He tried his best but it was easy to see that he too was frightened and didn’t know how to handle the stirring frenzy that took place inside the room.

“What the Hell is going on?! Why did the sky get so dark all of a sudden?” H/n spoke out with tears glossing over her eyes as the girl sitting next to her called home. She hectically informs her mother of the unknowns that were happening outside the campus, all the while you barely spoke, or reacted as you overheard the girl's decree. The shock of it all stunned you; it wasn’t until your phone began buzzing that you came back to your senses.

The moment his own classmates sporadically spiraled out of control, Heeseung wasted no time in getting out. He had to get to you.

You were the first priority on his list. Ignoring his own safety, he bursts through the door— the only one brave enough to kick it wide open before sprinting towards the parking lot. Everyone whispered and spoke harshly as they watched the young man making his way over to you. God help anyone if something happens to you.

In an instant, everything turned upside down. You’re not sure what or how it happened, but it felt as if a group of hands were pulling you from side to side, pushing and tugging at the same time. Looking around, it seemed as if time was at a standstill. The entire class paused in mid motion, gravity lost its effect as students jumping out the window were stationed in mid air, unmoved. What was going on? Were you the only one that could move? The only one that wasn’t affected by this loss of motion? If so….did that mean that Heeseung…

……..

It occurred in a blink of an eye.

What the hell just happened? For a moment, Heeseung felt as if his heart had stopped beating. It happened during mid drive, when suddenly the roaring engine slurred, and the small bit of ash and debris in the air slowed until they froze in place. It wasn’t long before his own movements came to a pause, and before he knew it, he could no longer breathe. It was odd, despite not being able to take in air, the pressure from his chest was fine, almost as if he was holding his own breath.

It held on for two seconds before the distant sound of the engine grew louder and the tires resumed rotation, causing a sudden screeching noise to puncture his ears. What the fuck…!

The only thing that lingered on his mind was you. Shit…y/n! Hold on baby…

By the time he reached the building, merely two minutes after receiving your last text, you had already been taken.

Everyone stood wondering just the same as to what had occurred. They looked around and noticed nothing out of the ordinary, except when h/n pointed out your sudden absence. “Huh?…Anyone seen where y/n went? She was just right…here….”

Her voice subtly pauses as Heeseung silently walks through the double doors, with you nowhere in sight…his heart dropped to his stomach and a total sense of despair hit him. He wanted to die…he wanted to shake the earth to its core and kill off every bit of life that coated the surface. A state of hopelessness and emptiness fills him.

‘Y/n…’

…….

One by one, the entities visited alternate universes and found four more women, conjoining them as prisoners and leaving you all chained in a row. Brought forth, you all were all scanned with a morbid look of satisfaction as an alienated, metallic figure screeched through hundreds of jagged teeth, directing its elongated fingers to a specific direction. It was communicating with its more fleshy counterparts.

They marched you and the remaining maidens into a large bunker, nearly shoving you all down the uneasy steps. Once inside, a single light source allows you to take in the view of the abrupt companionship you were forced to confront.

‘Is…is this for real?’

The strangest phenomenon you ever witnessed. It was as if you were staring into a mirror, or a twin…several twin versions in fact.

These girls…they were…you. Some of them displayed subtle alterations of your appearance such as hair and eye color, even a small difference in age. But make no mistake, you pinched the skin on your arm as you confirmed that indeed, you were seeing yourself in various substitutions.

“I…don’t believe this…are you all….who are you?” One of the girls reflected aloud. Just as lost as you were, each one took a moment to observe the variations of…you.

A terrifying screech sounds off outside the bunker, similar to that of the metallic humanoid creature from earlier.

“What are those things?” The one who spoke, she looked and sounded exactly like you. It was such a surreal experience to see this happening in real time.

She looked more mature. With her sense of style and elegance, she encompassed the very essence of classy feminine virtue, a version that you always saw in yourself in the near future, when you were married and already graduated from college. Her hair and eye color were lighter than yours, but the structure of her face and body, the finer details of her expression and features were an exact match to your own.

“Does anyone know why we are here? What do those things want from us?” another variation of yourself spoke delicately.

Unlike the latter, who had hair that was fair and eyes that sparkled in chromes of light blue, this one had dark forest green hair, and feline eyes, which were both fierce and strikingly beautiful. She had the appeal of one with great wisdom and maturity, a variation of yourself that you never could imagine would exist. She continued to speak, pondering on the forceful monsters that wreaked havoc above and outside the bunker. “The one we saw earlier, whose body looked like metal, was that a...”

A calm voice speaks gracefully, politely inserting into the conversation. Her voice was slightly deeper, and tranquil, but not as twinkling as the one who carried the forest green locks. With those lips, stained blood red and coated with a subtle shine, she answers…“They’re angels.”

Everyone else turned to face in her direction. You all stared and admired the royal grace she portrays in her stance, it gave off an aura that reflected her higher age. It didn’t appear in her face, but it was through her persona and posture. Just like the one with the emerald strands, she displayed elegance in all aspects; her features, tone, and strut. Of all the variations that stood before you, she was the one you became most curious about.

“Angels? As in…from heaven?” Another variation, except this one seemed much more calm—perhaps too much.

Her lids were heavy and she spoke with a monotone voice. Her hair was stained a deep and vibrant color. It looked somewhat fresh, and contained a specific shade of purple, but not just any code of the color. It was not lavender, violet, or even muave, but more like a royal purple…it was as if the color was mixed specifically to match a certain shade. Maybe a particular flower? Perhaps it was made to match a blouse, or a type of fabric, like silk.

Noticing her demeanor, you couldn’t help but feel sorry as you took pity on this image of yourself; one that carried a dark sadness around, yet somehow flared a sense of contentment. It was contradicting, yet there eas something else that you couldn’t pin down about her. Almost as if she was carrying a nightmarish secret, but did it out of protection. Only question was, who is she protecting? Was it herself? Or could it be…?

You catch yourself drifting in thought when one of the girls asks your age. She inquired by stating that you looked the youngest, which was confirmed correct after you answered. Between you and your alternate state of beings, your ages ranged from eighteen to twenty eight, the latter title of the eldest belonging to the one with the dark burgundy lips.

She gazes up to the cathedral ceiling and crosses her arms, speaking out each word so confidently. Her hair was dark, nearly black with a deep, red hue…like red wine, and nails to match. She radiated a contrasting theme of goth and sensual femininity, like light and darkness combined. Everyone thought the same as they pondered on the mysteriously alluring sense of their alternate identity.

“Angels? How do you know? Have you seen them before?” The eldest one nods in response. Her eyes were heavy, as if she experienced a loss in energy recently. Still, she remained ever so composed and fashionable in Vogue like nature. You couldn’t help but think it, as somewhat narcissistic the thought may have seemed, but you found yourself idolizing what very much was the future outlook of yourself.

“This is so strange…it’s so weird to see…you…or me…I mean….what are we, exactly?” You sputtered as you make eye contact with the seldom one with the royal purple thatch of hair. She smiled softly and was the first one to respond.

“I am almost sure what our names will be, but I’ll be the first to say it…my name is y/n…”

Everyone snapped their heads up and chuckled in delight. Finally, a sense of relaxed humor amongst this terrifying ordeal. “We all have the same name?” The fairer version of you spoke, admitting for all of you to find comfort within each other.

The former y/n continued. “I guess we do.” You smile sweetly as you inquire about her background, to which she gently responds. “I worked as a consultant after graduating college and… “ she pauses, catching her breath. It was evident that the girl had been through a traumatizing experience, or maybe was still going through it all. Yet she displayed some fortitude as she completed her sentence. “I live with my husband…somehow I was brought here and I don’t have any memory of it. It happened so fast.”

“Me too….” The fairer one spoke. Her shiny hair gracefully rested beneath her collarbones as she spoke through her matte rosy stained lips. A beautiful combination. You couldn’t get over this experience, It was miraculous to see yourself with those featured traits. You wondered if variations of those closest to you exist, like Heeseung, Jake, and H/n. The thought of the three suppressed your slight bit of happiness as you wondered if you’d be able to escape with the others.

“I live with my husband too…well…husbands, if we’re being completely open.”

You all perked a brow upon her words. Did those rosy lips just tell you correctly…“Husbands?”

She nods seldomly while interlocking her fingers above the waist, avoiding eye contact and instead, focusing on a spot on the floorboards. “Yes….my husbands are brothers…and through them I have two boys of my own.” She pauses as her eyes welt up. “I…was putting my boys to sleep when something pulled me away from them…it was strange…it almost seemed like time was standing still.”

“Me too!” You spoke out. “I saw the same thing when I was pulled away.”

The fairer one smiled at you. “You are still so young…a younger version of myself.” Her change of topic was so sudden but she could see it in your face, hear it in your voice, and see it in your movements; seeing you in fluid motion made her visit down memory lane. “Yes.” You answered as you returned the smile. “I'm almost finished with my first year at college…I live with my fiance in his dorm.”

You all chuckled.

“His dorm?” The fairer one teases. “Yes well…believe it or not I don’t really have a choice.” You jest, yet the statement held more truth than anything you ever admitted.

It didn’t take time to consider their reaction. Upon hinting at Heeseung’s dark and toxic nature, it soon became evident you weren’t the only one. Unknowingly, you would open up another path that you all shared in common.

“He keeps you there?” You nod as the one with the dark forest green hair spoke. “Ah…” she sighs. “Just like mine…at least he used to. Now…well, I gave up. There wasn’t any point in fighting it.”

She chuckles once more as she rubs her temples, finding the entire scenario ironic. “I too live with my husband…it started just as forcefully as your situation but it’s been over two years now…” she pauses. The rest of the girl’s all related, all but you.

“Well…it is forceful but…he has good intentions, doesn’t he?” You inquired as the one with the dark green hair looks back up. A faint smile dons her lips as her delicate nails caressed her chin. With beauty and truth to her tone, she responded, almost in caution of warning. “Just like your fiance, he has the best…and the worst intentions.”

“What about you? Are you also married to a psycho? Or two?” The one married to dual husbands jokes, stabbing at her own life as she includes the last variant into the conversation. The eldest; she was the most elusive one out of all of you.

Turning her face over, she delivers a soft gaze and looks at each one of you with such nurture in her expression. Through those dark burgundy lips, she spoke gently. “I do.” She lightly chuckles. “I live with my husband, and much like all of you…I didn’t really have a choice.”

Closing her eyes, she reopens with a fresh countenance. Licking her loose she chuckles and tilts her head, taking small steps over to you. She cups your face and displays a saddened look, yet it was paired with a sweet smile. Her gaze hinted that she knew something…or maybe she could see something within your future that made her pity you.

With her intuitional sense, and foresighting ability, she reveals your deepest secret.

“You have another side of you…one that is equal to his darker half.”

Was she referring to Eden and Ethan? But…how does she know?

You slightly gasp as you remained stunned by her words. She looks over to the one with the dark green hair. “You and your husband carry the blood of the ancient gods within you.”

In response, the sea maiden looked somewhat confused. “How could you possibly know that?”

The former admits partial truth to her own secret. “I know all…I can see all….I can see your most inner kept secrets just by looking into your eyes. It was a gift from my husband after we were…” she pauses after catching herself diving down to details to at may be too indiscreet. The image of Heeseung’s devilish form atop of her, probing and thrusting away was not something she wanted the girls to visualize…she rather not think about it herself, despite the progression of her relationship to the aforementioned male. “Married.”

She turns to the fairer one, and continues to prove her capabilities. “Your husbands sired their own twin sons within you, and through those babies, you found true love.” The latter looks down, almost shamefully. Yet the eldest tilts her chin up and whispers, “nothing wrong with that.” She winks and smiles, and watched as those rosy colored lips smirked delightfully. This was, after all, a safe space for sisters who share more than just identical traits. You were all connected, through fate and soul.

She looked to the one with the royal purple hair. “Your husband's deeds have haunted you. With nowhere to turn, you chose to return his love but you are ridden with sadness knowing that you are his cure.”

The purple haired y/n didn’t say a word, she only nodded in admittance while drifting her sight off to the wall.

“As for me…” she pauses as she faces the ceiling once more. “I made a deal with the Devil many years ago. Through it, I lost my mortality, and gained immortality…I am known as the mortal daughter of God, but rebirthed as the bride of Helel...my husband, and father to my son.”

“Helel?” Through her purple strands, the girl spoke out of confusion. Never has she heard such a distinctive name in her life.

Just as the conversation reached pause, the door to the bunker opens. A combination of the hostile angels and demons standby. A disfigured tone emits from their tongue as they point and begin separating you away from one another.

You felt scared upon seeing the fleshy demon grip your wrist, pulling you away as the others were being dragged into sporadic direction. The girls all tried their best to fight off the large swarm, and recollect. Through a shared sense, there was a need to get back to you, the younger version of themselves. The need to protect each other and stay together remained strong, however, the monsters proved too strong as their numbers increased. They found it easier to carry you away into singular, isolated chambers. The echoes of their screams, sounding so much like your own voice, become distant and unheard.

You backed yourself against the cold stone wall and slid down until the tile flooring meets your rear. All seemed hopeless at this point. The terrifying sounds of demonic growls and piercing angelic screeches merge from outside the door, all frenzying as they carry out their next deed, whatever that could be. It was too frightening to think about. What is going to happen? How is Heeseung going to save you this time? Your Heeseung…the one who is always there to bring you back home…how is he going to possibly find you? You don’t even know where you are.

‘Heeseung…I’m scared.’

You wonder if the others felt just as scared and hopeless.

The fear of being lonesome started to eat you alive, it was far worse than when Heeseung carried out one of his punishments, and locked you away for breaking his rules. You hated it more than ever, being secured away in darkness and suffering from desolation. Looking back at it, his method seemed tamed compared to how you were currently being treated.

You also knew, despite succumbing to the harsh effects of being tied to a bed frame, or locked inside a closet, at least the comfort of knowing he was going to be around…that he was always going to come back to get you, whether it was hours or a day later, was something you had lost appreciation for in the past, but yearned for it more than ever. He was always there to make sure you were safe, despite carrying out an act that clearly violated your human rights…it was his way of loving you…his manner of understanding it.

‘I wouldn’t have to do this shit if you’d listen and just do what I tell you. It’s all for a good reason…”

His words from past recollections continue to play in your head.

‘To keep you safe…and to keep you as MINE. Get it through that dumb, pretty little head of yours already. No matter how many times you fight me on this, you’re going to lose.’

You used to scoff at his justification, growing irritated at his own resolve. You always figured he was overreacting.

All those times when you were caught speaking to someone from class outside at the parking lot, didn’t matter if they were boy or girl, he’d always became so possessively evil, and jealous. His handsome smirk goes from dashing to sinister as he lets out the wolf from its cage: Ethan.

But no matter how emotionally tormenting…or mentally abusive he could be…one thing would always remain true, and that was his unyielding love for you…just you.

The door knob twists violently as the door panel rambles, snapping you out of mid thought. You stood up and cornered yourself, completely frightened by what was on the other side. Finally breaking open, it swings wide inward. You swore your eyes were going to fall through the sockets. It couldn’t be… “H-Heeseung?”

Tears balled up and your heart pauses in mid-pulse. He steps closer in towards the light and there you saw, it was Heeseung…but he seemed different. His attire was similar, but his hair…it carried a particularly familiar shade of purple, just like—

“Hmph…” he smirks, daring a bold look as he scans you up and down. “So this is what you looked like when you were eighteen.”

The way his words growled upon stating your tender age sent a shiver up your spine, a familiar sense that you were accustomed to. “Damn, so this is what you were like at eighteen… you were just born perfect, weren’t you?” A snarling wink flashes you.

He reaches and grabs your wrist. “Gotta hurry princess.”

Leading the way and keeping you close behind, he rubs his fingers and gently massages your skin in his hold. His cologne was so different from the Heeseung you knew. It was a musky scent of blue agave and sandalwood.

Luring you around every corner, running past a hall filled with portraits, you finally configured where the entities had been keeping you, it was an old church.

“W-what about the others…the other—“

He calmly interjects as you stuttered, trying to find a way to describe the collection of your alternate self, including the one who you suspected belonged to him.

“We should be seeing them soon.” He spoke as he remained attentive to the surroundings. You were so taken aback by his resemblance that you were ignorant of the weapon he held…a machete?

“H-how did you find us?” You questioned. He tightens his grasp as he leads you down a spiraling staircase, completely made of stone. “Met the others—something about getting all of the you’s and I’s out, and back to our respective universes. There was also something about a demon who wanted to piss off God, and the Devil, blah, blah, blah.”

He spoke carelessly and left out all of the vague details as he remained focused in getting you to safety. Just as you both reached the main cathedral, you witness from across the wide room, all the other variants of yourself were being guided by Heeseung, a few of them. The one right across had ash-blonde hair and….a dark haired one trailing behind…

The y/n with the dark forest green hair stood out as they centered her, providing three-sixty coverage of security. Once they saw you and the Purpled haired Heeseung leading you, they led the other you to rejoin and come to center, surrounding you both in a combative formation.

Also rejoining the group was the one who had the dark purple locks that matched the Heeseung who rescued you; behind her was the alternate version of yourself that carried the red-wine lips. The girls were guided by a version of Heeseung, whose eyes glowed blue and his hair was dark as the ocean.

In the opposite direction, from the corner of your eye you catch on to the fair alternate you, and in front, was him…there he was…Heeseung…your Heeseung, and Ethan.

You could see both entities behind those dangerous eyes. Seeing you safe, along with all the other girls restored life to his gaze as he smiled and felt the weight lifted off his shoulders. ‘There you are…there’s my pretty baby.’

Without stopping, they continued to urge you all to run as they herd each of you to stay centered in their squad position, forming an arrow shape around you and the girls.

Aside from the machete, the other Heeseung’s all bore their own weapons, and from the looks of it, they were most likely found on display in the upper dungeons, which you concluded is where you and the others were being kept prior to being saved.

Your Heeseung gripped on two long swords, while the twins had an ax and a long, steel club, similar to a bat. The other Heeseung with the azure hair skillfully handled a rifle, and had a pistol holstered to his thigh.

The moment of uniting didn’t last pleasantly as the stone tile beneath your feet shook, and the light fixtures rattled above. Something was coming, and it carried enough anger to swell up his size.

Each booming placement of its foot stomping the ground quaked the earth. Just seconds after stabilizing your ground, the grand entrance starts to crack. The arch lining and pillars split apart as an overly muscular frame, with humanoid expressions, enters. He ducked his head in by tucking the chin while the ceiling began to crumble above. When he revealed himself fully, you and the other girls gasped at the horrid sight of the monster before you.

His face was split into three, with six pairs of horns that adorned each head, eluding terrible and frightening expressions. His body was similar to that of a man, with exaggerated muscles that looked to produce enough strength that of an entire army. A long offensive tongue spills out of his evil grin as jagged and serrated teeth flash from the joker wide grin. His eyes resembled that of a goat or sheep, but larger. With both hands containing claws that reached measurement by the foot, you winced at the thought of being grabbed by them. The palms contained numerous spurred teeth that formed hooks, similar to the mouth of a parasite, such as a leech. In fact, his entire body was covered with them, slowly fading as they reached the three facial expressions. There were lacerations that appeared on his chest, opening and closing sporadically. They blinked repeatedly with horrendous teeth and eyes peeking out from beneath the tissue and skin. What on earth was this creature?

Standing in his full glory, he speaks with a diabolical tone. “Leave the women behind, and I shall spare your lives, and bless you with power and immortality. You will become the generals of my league.”

The boys all stood in line, keeping you and the others behind, guarding with their own lives at stake, willing and ready to take on anything. Rather than seeing any bit of you harmed, they all remained solid as they would rather die or be tortured than to see a single scratch on anyone of your bodies. The creature takes their gesture with jests, chuckling before he adds on to his demand.

“You are not the one that I care to gut and split open, yet if you insist, it will be my utmost pleasure to rip all of you apart in front of your precious darlings, and then feast on your corpse afterwards.”

You held on to the girl with the purple locks. Her matured instincts kick in, knocking away the original demeanor she carried before. The troubled and quiet woman feels the need to cradle you, a younger version of herself, and presses you against her chest while she covers your eyes. Peeking out from the corner of her embrace, you saw the purple haired Heeseung peer a faint side eye, noting the comfort she was providing, and the fear that stayed by it. His eyes met with hers, eluding a look of reassurance, as if he were telling her that he wasn’t going to let anything happen. Not him, or his alternate figures.

Heethan also takes in the image of your sheltering. His stern and yet relieved facial expression showed the two sides of his being, Heeseung, and Ethan. He emits a quick nod the moment you make eye contact. ‘Not today…not ever. Nothing is touching a single inch of you, pretty baby.’

The remaining alternate versions of yourself come and join in, grouping you in the center as you all remain behind the boys. The eldest stood right in between, establishing an embrace to shield you and the others as her back was facing the row of Heeseung’s. All five of them stood, readily armed as the creature's patience ran thin. Taking a step forward, the ground cracks, stones protrude inward and wouldn’t hold much longer, nearly collapsing.

The boys step back, urging all of you to back away with caution. You all suddenly halt your movements to safety at the sight of numerous demons and angels suddenly entering from all directions in the cathedral, trapping the entire group to the center beneath the large chandelier.

“It’s useless.” The creature spoke out as his tongue splits into two. “God asked for this…the Devil wanted this.”

The eldest produces a harsh side eye at the creature's mentioning of the latter. Her dark red-wined lips quiver open faintly as she hisses toward the mentioning of his name. The audacity of this creature.

“If only they had heeded our words, and met our demands. We would not be as blood starved. You mortals…you children of the Earth, deserve torture that exceeds the worst kind of death in existence. I should have been granted eternal life in his holy kingdom. It is I, who should have been throned as one of the seven Princes of Hell. Yet both God and Lucifer denied me of what is owed to me. They should have recognized me! The demon Molech! Now…God shall bear witness to the human existence coming to its end, beginning with his only daughter, and the sisters that share her form and soul. Let the heart of the Devil fall into despair upon realizing that his only love would be violated with her innards split, and torn from bone.”

Molech crouches into position, nearly ready to pounce through the boys, and straight to you and the girls. You all could see it in his eyes, the glaring reflection of you and the girls as his primary target. “May all of you scream as I devour you alive, and shit out your guts onto the stones of this very church. I will splatter your organs for all to witness what is coming.”

He lunges forward. It was the last known image that replayed in your head spontaneously as you cringed onto the girls.

The movement happened so fast, and the entire group of you screamed as the boys grit their teeth, yet silence…fills the air. Not a single sound of bone cracking skin tearing, and blood curdling screams sounded off after Molech made his offensive move.

You’re not sure what happened. You were bracing for impact and for the unthinkable to occur, yet moments passed and you realized that everyone stood, remaining whole and without injury. Still warmed by the embrace of the girls, you slowly open your eyes.

From what you could deduce, the figure had pummeled down from above, piercing through the ceiling of the church strategically so as to not fully crumble its structure. With a hand buried deep into Molech’s back, it pierces through the monstrous flesh as the thousands of small teeth that covered his hideous body attempts to cut through the sleeve of his black coat. You admired his beautiful form as large black-feathered wings extend magnificently from his back. He resembled paintings that depicted Heaven’s arch-angels.

Appearing as a Victorian prince, he slowly rises from his crouching stance. Dressed in dark, vintage-goth attire, he stands gloriously, releasing his stabbing hold of the demon beneath the soles of his boots. The thatch of black hair matched that of his feathers, so dark that it contained a blood red hue under the dim glare. As his face comes to light, your breath escapes so suddenly—you swore your heart skipped a beat…it was Heeseung. Another alternate variation of your beloved.

“Helel…” the elder y/n breathes out through her dark stained lips while gazing at her husband. A look of relief accompanies her whispering softness as he shifts a quick look over, feeling much relieved himself after seeing her unharmed.

With a wild smirk, he speaks. His voice was deep and dark, yet soft as he adoringly addressed her. “My queen.”

His eyes matches his tone as they soften; the murderous glare hushes down to a look of tranquility. “Love of my eternal life…I’ve come to bring you back home with me…where you belong.”

The beauty of love and passion between the two is cut short as Molech suddenly strikes, yet misses as Heeseung, or Helel, springs off to the side, levitating from a distance. He was so fast. His speed was inhuman as you and the others watched the demon making many failed attempts to catch him. “You WILL take her back, as you will join her at death by my hand! YOU—are nothing but a failed angel, and a false prince!”

Mech spoke out his poisonous words, yet seeing the calmed expression on the Prince's face irked him as Helel remained unbothered, so long as his darling was safe.

The very last bit of his words barely spit out as Helel dives in, like a flash of light. With his much smaller frame, he is enumerated strength that surpasses Molechs as he grips the demon by another piercing hold, this time, it was through the center of his chest. The creature’s internal organs flare up, lighting as if they were being filled with lava. His skin became transparent as you all viewed the spewing of fluids secreting from the burns. He screams in pain as the sores on his body leak liquified tissue, melting the outer layer of skin. “I think your visit here is over-welcomed, Molech.”

Helel’s voice turns dark, with a clenched jaw, he continues to burn the demon from the inside out. “Don’t worry, I’ll be seeing you very shortly, and I’ll deal with you then. Be ready…” he narrows his eyes and brings the center face of the demon closer, his lips nearly touching the demon's chin. Smirking, Helel slides the tip of his nose upwards, forcing the demon to look him directly in the eye, all the while he whispers…

“I am going to split you open with my claws—piss on your organs, feed you to those miserable shits at the River Styx, watch as they shit you out, and scatter your remains across the depths of MY Hell. You’ll be nothing but fertilizer for my wife’s pretty little poppy garden, and she will smile every waking moment upon watching them grow from your own demise.”

With the last of Molech’s breath, he extends his middle claw, flicking off his own former master as he shamelessly words out “fuck you.”

Helel only grins in amusement, further aggravating the demon. Whispering, Heeeseung—or Helel, responds back one final time before finishing off the demon. “Nah…nobody fucks with the Devil—except her.” He glances over to his one and only, his own y/n. “She fucks me all the time, sometimes with tears staining her face and her bottom lip clenched between her teeth. She loves fucking with the Devil…” shifting another look over, he directs his tone in bold, over to his wife. “Ain’t that right baby?”

His wife settles a submissive display of affection and obedience as she quietly nods. “Yeah…you fucking love me. And I fucking love the Hell outta you.” His eyes widen entirely too ecstatically as his pupils shrink. Of all the moments you witnessed Heeseung’s most terrifying expressions, nothing surpassed the one his devilish alternate. It was the most terrifying thing you’ve seen, even more so than the dying demon at his hand.

He releases an antagonizing chuckle as you felt a slight shake within your chest, all due to the way he spoke of his love. He was so twisted, possessive, and dementing, but the love and admiration he showered her was above all sorts of love. It was unreal.

“And you know what else Molech? She will be the one to rule over the demons that will fuck your soul for all eternity. THAT…is what it means to obey your fucking queen.” At that, you all bear witness as Helel finishes Molech off.

But things were far from over, the remaining demons and angels who retaliated against their respective masters remained loyal to their desires, despite Molech being gone, and said former master currently present. Despite witnessing Helel kill off their only leadership, they were stubborn enough to follow through, until death stopped them.

“What’s next?” One of the Heeseung twins spoke, gripping his weapon.

“Take the girls and run. Keep going until you reach the end of the bridge.” Helel calmly instructs, eyeballing the swarm that was closing in. “And you?” One of the other Heeseung’s spoke, inquiring Helel’s role during the escape.

“Heh.” With a smirk and the narrowing of his dark eyes, he extends his wings out as he flares off a hand, claws extending and growing in an offensive length before your very own eyes. “It’s time for me to tuck the kids in, and say goodnight.” Leaving no room for response, his super speed causes a mirage of his movements as he levitates up, and like a sparrow, dives down as he takes out numerous demons and angels at once. In doing so, he creates an open path for everyone to escape.

“Let’s go!” Your Heeseung yells out as he grabs on to the dark forest haired y/n, and quickly leads the way. With all the other Heeseung’s following suit, they latch on to each and every single one of you. The purple haired y/n holds onto your hand as she is being led by the blue haired Heeseung.

“Watch out!” The fair one screams, watching as a group of demons head directly towards your direction.

In an instant, they abruptly pause as they reach within one arm's distance. A soothing tune echoes in the air; a semi high pitch voice that reminded you of bells, it sings and creates a euphoric atmosphere. The demons struggle as they try to resist, staggering a myriad of movements before succumbing to the soft sound of mystical and angelic voice.

“Wha-what is that?” The fairer y/n speaks out, when suddenly the blue haired Heeseung tells the boys, “cover your ears and eyes, now!”

You watched as the males covered followed his instruction, patiently waiting for the signal to free their hearing and sight. The one that gave warning stood and provided cover. He didn’t seem so concerned with himself, or so it would appear as he placed no effort in obstructing his vision or hearing. The demons couldn’t resist the soft tone of the woman’s voice, and started to conduct the demands as she spelled out their death sentence.

“Look into my eyes…and hear my voice. Tell me that you love me…” the demons roar in agony as the look of pained lust takes over. “Take out your heart. Rip it from your chests, and present it as a token of your love for me…do it…for meeee.”

Her voice drifts. It was so alluring and other-worldly.

You turned around and bore witness as to who was responsible for the spell-binding act. It was the variant of yourself, the one with the forest green hair. You gasped in magnificence as you saw the transformation of her features darken, becoming seductively bold and eye-catching. Her eyes grew dark, yet glowed. The winged tip lining of her beautiful peepers became more fierce, and her lips grew darker in shade, resembling the color of a Plum. The changed produced a smoldering expression that reeked of every man’s lust and desire. She spoke out terrible things, and yet, each demon did as she bids, meeting a demise by their own hand.

Her counterpart smirks, gazing over to his darling as her expression slowly goes back to its original state. “Siren.” He winked over as he breathed out the name of her lineage.

With a faint smile of her own, she returns the look by flaring a cool attitude out of jest. “Adam.”

Everyone continues on the path as you all make way onto the high bridge, beginning the cross. Up ahead, a swarm of angels swing down, resting near the end of the bridge and form a metallic barricade. They mutate their limbs into active mechanical saws with rotating blades, and unbeknownst to the lot of you, this was a familiar sight for one particular y/n.

“Get behind me.” She tells everyone, and you watch as the Devil’s wife shows you her immortality, and extends her own beautiful wings. “Y-y/n! You have wings!” You and the girls exclaimed, pleasantly surprised by the remarkable sight of the pearlescent white feathers, a stark contrast from her husbands. Barely hidden in the undercarriage of one wing, a small spot resting closest to her body, were black feathers. A part of him.

Extending her angelic feathers, she takes flight just like her husband, and gains unbelievable height before swooping down, taking out the entire offensive line of the angels. Split cleanly in half, they lay restlessly as their limbs twitch and mouths screeched out their dying pains.

The group continues to run, with every alternate variation of you and Heeseung joining hands and intermingling.

A sudden jolt yanks you back, causing you to yelp out in pain. It pulls you back, tearing you from the others.

“Shit!” Heethan breathes out in ultimate fear as a lonesome demon begins to crawl over you. Its tongue glides over your skin, preparing to digest your face when in a blink of an eye, the demon is suspended in the air, and thrown off the bridge. Helel swoops to your side, extending a hand; you take it, joining palms. Feeling your grip, he lifts away and carries you off in flight to rejoin the others.

“Let’s go.” The eldest y/n urges once they witness you safe, much to Heeseung's delight. He swore he felt his heart explode for a second, but redemption came at its finest upon seeing you safe, once again. Guess he has the Devil to thank for that.

Your body reaches unbelievable height as Helel holds you by the waist, and your arms wrapped around his neck. You made the mistake of looking down and felt the hopeless sensation of dangling high above, seeing the group as microscopic figures as they make their way to the end of the bridge. Your grip tightens and by doing so, you pull yourself closer to the former archangel.

“Hmph…” he smirks against your cheek, inhaling your sweet scent as you slowly turn to face him. Staring at him with a wide and an innocent gaze, he reaches up and moves a piece of hair, tucking it behind your ear. “Pretty little thing, you have nothing to fear…”

He leans in closer, his hands gripping your waist tightly as he pulls you even closer. His nose meets with yours, and his lips brush against your skin. He looks so much like Heeseung—your Heeseung. Like him, there was a mixture of kindness and malice, producing love and contentment. Whispering against your lips he finishes…

“Whether it be you, or the others like her, I’ll never let any part of my y/n to fall.”

His wings cave in, cradling you to his chest. He places a soft and gentle kiss on your lips, progressing into one that reaches certain depths from inside your mouth. His tongue feeds through and unlike his cold skin, it was warm. You openly invited him to explore further as you couldn’t resist this version of your beloved. He was so powerful, and out of this world, you just had to gain a taste, and prayed that your own Heeseung would never find out what was happening in the sky above.

His hand reaches the back of your neck, pulling you in as he deepens the kiss. He pulls slightly back, much to your dismay, and takes in the sight of your expression. It was full of lust and desire; you stared back with heavy lids and a soft pant escaping. He smirks before licking your bottom lip, and places a smaller peck on your nose. “Good girl.” He whispers, before tightening his embrace, and taking flight— merging you with the others.

Reaching ground, he gently places you down and watches as you run over to your fiance, who embraced you with every ounce of his own life. “Fuck, I was scared I lost you for a second. Are you okay baby?” His voice was hoarse as he ran out of breath from merely speaking. The choke of his emotions got the better of him as he sensationally savored the feeling of your bodies uniting.

He looks at you with relieved eyes. You tearfully nod and embraced him. The others did the same as they rejoined with their respective partners.

Slowly walking over to Helel, the eldest y/n comes within reach. She raises a hand and delicately moves pieces of his hair away from brow and eye. He smirks down at her, and takes her long strands in palm, rubbing them between his claws. Taking in every bit of her presence, he nearly loses himself at the face that took his breath away. Fuck, she was so breathtaking to him.

“Thank you…for saving me and the others.” She whispers out, widening her stare as she rests her hands on his chest. He wraps his arms around her waist.

“I don’t know what I would ever do if I didn’t have you.” He admits, and for the first time ever, she witnesses a side of the devil she never thought she’d see. His look was that of slight guilt, relief, and sadness. He looked down at the ground for a moment, realizing that had he been late, he would have lost the only thing that mattered to him. Meeting her gaze, he leans in with a calmed look in his eye.

In this very moment, y/n felt herself falling for her husband like never before. After bearing Helan, living in Hell, and sustaining his harsh treatments, she finally understood him as a man and husband. Oh, how the tables have turned in his favor.

“My son needs his mother…and I need my queen.” He whispers, before granting a small and tender kiss. Taking her hand, he raises it to chin level, tilting his face as his eyes remain glued to her face. Lavishing her hand, he rolls tongue and cheek across the smoothness of her skin, delicately placing a trail of kisses down to her wrist. Tears begin to form in her eyes. It’s true what they say in Heaven and Hell, the Devil truly loved his wife. His y/n.

A rumbling sound emerges from afar and you all witness as many more demons and angels emerge from inside the cathedral. They run over, crossing the bridge as they head in the groups direction. With the exception of Helel and his y/n, who had the gift of flight, everyone was at a disadvantage of being forced to run on foot, but with speed that was nothing compared to the inhuman entities making their way over.

“We gotta hide or something. They’ll catch us.” The purple haired y/n exclaims while her own Heeseung holds onto her, cooing her as he kisses her forehead.

“No need.” Helel calmly projects. Everyone looked in his direction with a relieved sigh, does he have a plan? “What will you do?” His own bride inquires flirtatiously as she gets a sense of a trick up her husband's sleeve. He smirks as he tells her. “What we do best.” He snaps his finger and instantly, six other figures appear from the sky, shattering the atmosphere as their sudden appearance creates a series of Sonic Booms. One right after another, they dive bombed the bridge, wiping out the army of demons and angels in seconds. With dark feathered wings, and inhuman strength, their lack in numbers could not fool anyone. The angels were no match even when conducting aerial movements. Each dark prince maneuvered the sky and shattered any who tried to escape. It was as if you were watching jets chasing after one another.

They swoon closer, joining the group at the end of the bridge. “The kids are misbehaving I see.” One of them spoke, a young man who had dark hair with wispy silver highlights. His foot reaches the ground as he collapses his wings, leaving them to remain perched in an arch at rest. He was adorned with gold and jewels that had to be worth more than what the world could offer. Joining him was one of the others, who had blonde hair slicked back, and bright blue eyes. A lip ring decorated his bottom lip, and he shared the same aura as the other.

“These little brats…what’s their problem this time? Are they pissed off at us or what?” Seemingly fed up with the offensive entities, he sighs out as the one adorned with jewels responds.

“Eh…Same shit, different day. Don’t know about the angels, but our guys are in need of a spanking…probably need to be grounded.”

The blonde haired angel-figure shoots a glance over to the forest haired y/n. “Huh…first time I’ve ever seen a Siren.”

The Heeseung who held on to her waist tucks her into his chest; he glares over to the blonde male. “Fuck off.” Was all he calmly stated before widening his eyes psychotically.

The blonde male smirks, appearing to do no harm. “Relax. I’m not going to take away your little mermaid.” He switched his gaze back to her. “You and I come from the same waters, Daughter of the Seven Seas. It would appear that your generation is much more tamed than that of your early mothers.” He smirks as he looks back at the one holding her. “An Adam…great distant son of an ancient God. Despite the identical face you display to that of my elder brother, you and I are more alike than anything else.”

Heedam softens his gaze to that of an annoyed glare. “I don’t really care, blondie.”

Jake smirks out a small laugh. “No, I guess you don’t. But it’s all good…” flickering his snake like tongue, he gently coos. “Just tell your sisters, should you ever see them, to be wary of the snake. I tend to look for them from time to time.”

The dark green haired y/n projects a perturbed brow. “You mean…the other sirens? What would you do if you ever found them?”

He winks. “I’d eat them—metaphorically speaking, of course.” He gives off a last smirk before turning his back to the couple. “Snakes need to eat too, you know?”

The two males take flight to rejoin their brothers in air, while Helel remains with you all. After some moments went by, you and the girls inquired on how the boys managed to find you.

“This guy.” One of the twins smirked as he thumb pointed over to Helel. “Got us together after he found out what was happening, and helped us get here before taking off to get his brothers.”

“How did you find out?” The eldest raised a brow as she peeked up to view her husband's face. He smirks as his chin touches her nose. “After the raid and your kidnapping, that little fuck-Molech left no leads. So I had to reach out to an old friend…”

“Who?” One of the y/n’s spoke curiously. The eldest y/n already knew…

“Him?” She spoke in a whisper. He slightly nods in return. You all pieced together whom they were referring to as the subtle hint gave off the showering expression of respect and peace on the Devil’s face.

God.

Not much was divided afterwards. In fact, after Helel explained how he forcefully opened the space and time continuums in each galactic dimension to retrieve the alternate versions of his own soul, and unite them with the plan to bring you all back, things went silent right after.

Reopening those entrances once more, Helel guided each pairing back to their own worlds, and everything was back to normal, other than the major publicity that stirred from the event. Mentions of angels and demons raising the sky, and an apocalyptic end, was all the media could speak of.

………

A few weeks have passed. Schools were shut down for a while due to the incident, and everyone was left to continue their education via online, which Heeseung absolutely loved. Having you in his dorm twenty-four-seven was something that he could get used to…maybe already has.

You lay in bed partially dressed. It was nice to not have to worry about figuring what to wear. Since assignments were assigned and completed on your own schedule, you opted to be lazy as Heeseung went down the store to grab your favorite snacks. All for being such a good girl, and staying by his side.

With only a crop top and a pair of panties on, you embraced the warmth of summer air hitting your skin. Besides, your man loved seeing you nearly nude more than anything else.

The door opens, and you see him walk in. In his traditional and fashionable manner, his hat covers his eyes and the upper bridge of his nose, which complimented the street style he wore. A long shirt with the sleeves partially rolled and straight jeans. So casual yet so appealing, or perhaps it was just him and how he could pull it off so well.

“That was quick.” You quirked as you sit up over the edge of the bedding and sipped on your water bottle.

“I don’t like being away from you for too long.” He spoke out with a deep tone. His bedroom voice.

He didn’t waste any time. He held onto your waist and pulls you up. Catching you by surprise, he dipped down to loop his hands around your thighs, before fully extending you up in the air. Your thighs straddle him as you stabilize yourself, he was so strong. Lifting you like a feather, he buries his face into your neck as your head rests on top of his hat. “Heeseung…”

“Mmhmm…” he mumbles with his mouth filled with your tender skin. He didn’t say much more after, instead, he hooks your panties and pushes them to the side. Up and over your derrière, his forearm rested against the surface of your rear cheeks while he lined himself to your center. It’s to be expected, you both didn’t have sex this morning due to the zoom conference for one of your classes. So of course, now that all of that was done, he could finally have his moment with you.

He slides right in, and it was a familiar feeling that seemed all too new. He stuffs you. Fills you. Pumps into you. It was an incredible feeling that reminded you just how much you loved to get fucked by this man.

His lips remained latched on to your neck. “Fuck.” He whispers. “Mmmph! Heeseung!” You gasped as he picks up the pace and bounces you atop his throbbing cock, holding your under-thighs as leverage whenever he lifted and stabilized your momentum.

He kept going on and on. Your mind was blown away as always; you didn’t even feel present in his room. Everything just took you away as you felt your gut being filled by that hard muscle. Separating your walls and pushing in, he thrusts in a motion that was passionately rough and sensually brutal. It was almost like dancing—it had rhythm and harmony as you both shared juices of love and lust.

You screamed out as you come undone. Splattering your fluids everywhere, he keeps his thrusts going as he goes in harder, faster, and deeper. Right as you reach your second orgasm, he joins in and you both cum in unison.

He gently places you back down on the bed, lovingly. Kissing your entire body, he coolly shushes you after noting your gasping pants for air, and the beads of sweat that coated your skin. “Shhh-sh-sh-sh. Breathe baby, that’s it…thaaaaaats it.”

Once you finally got your breathing stabilized, he kisses your forehead and whispers “good girl.”

Something smacks your senses as you immediately took note of the off-putting manner in the way he whispered his tone. Of course he’s said it many times before but this…this was all too familiar in an unfamiliar way. It was…it was…

He stands upright, you hear the unfolding flaps of the black feathered wings extending past the street attire he donned.

“Oh my God…”

He smirks. “Close…but not quite sweetheart.” With a devilish grin, he leans down and places a sudden peck on your lips, causing you to enhance your already shocked expression. “The Devil is here.”

He kisses you once more before turning away. A slit in the gravitational force of the air appears, and walking in was Heeseung dressed in formal black, Victorian wear. The one who donned his wings, Helel, spoke first.

“Had fun?”

Heeseung—your Heeseung, spoke back in jest. A certain level of verbal jousting that took place between the two as they remained swapped in their attire. “Hope you enjoy my work.” Your Heeseung spoke, flashing his Ethan persona as he smirks towards his devil counterpart.

“I’ll leave you my review. If I’m not satisfied, I will be returning.” He dashed a wink over to you, as your Heeseung responds back. “No returns.”

Helel crosses his arms, and grins. “I won’t be asking for a return, more like a freebie.”

Heeseung smirks back as he too, crosses his arms. Both men square off, chest to chest at a one arms distance. “Against my policy. It’s buy one, and get one free. And gimme back my hat.” He snags the cap off from Helel’s head, the latter merely remained undeterred and blinked as he leans his head slightly back, watching as his own counterpart places the hat on his own head.

“Hmph…what atrocity.” Noting his Victorian cloth tainted by the modern piece that your Heeseung displayed, Helel lightly snarled in disgust. “If anyone is going to square off with the Devil…I guess it would be my own damn self, even if you are worlds apart. Too bad I always win.”

He remarks amusingly before exiting, but not without waving back to you as he peeked over the edge of his wing. “See you later, y/n. Try not to spill.” He denotes as he points at the seeping fluid spilling out in between your legs. Heeseung’s brow irked at the symbolic jab.

“Helel…” he calls out right as the devil began to step into the opening.

Raising a brow, Helel looks over to his alternate face. “Say hi to the wife and kids for me.”

Helel’s eyes widen just slightly, expressing a hint of confusion. “Kids?”

Heeseung smirks. “Yeah…kids. A lot of them. Figured your boy could use some siblings.”

Both men stand wide-eyed, smiling sinisterly. They looked as if they were going to kill each other. “Huh…it would be you to show up the devil. I’ll be sure to return the favor.” He steps forward, and with that, the devil takes his leave.

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@enheene , aiden2001 , @heeseung-min , @lathan1510 , @rayofsunshineeee @hoyeonheeseung , @rayofsunshineeee , @yohanabanana , @sunoosrightbuttcheek , @jaeneohee , @icydawon , @silcry , @iamliacamila , @nikstrange , @enheene ; @nuriicata , @en-happiness @diorsyun @lisaaannna

[nanowrimo]

5 Tips for Building a Sustainable Writing Practice

Every year, we’re lucky to have great sponsors for our nonprofit events. First Draft Pro, a 2023 Camp NaNoWriMo sponsor, is a great writing app—whether you’re writing solo or with a co-author. Here are a few tips for building a sustainable writing practice, brought to you by author Ariana Brown and First Draft Pro.

We’ve all heard the advice to “write every day,” as if it were that easy! Translation: suck it up, no one cares if you’re tired. But what if there was another way to get writing done, without being unkind to yourself? 

Hi, I’m Ariana Brown, and I teach writers how to create a writing practice that is sustainable, flexible, and fulfilling. Most of my students are chronically ill, disabled, neurodivergent, or simply exhausted from the daily stresses of life. I know writing isn’t your only responsibility—capitalism makes sure of that! But I strongly believe that writing should be an enjoyable activity you look forward to.

Below I’ve compiled my top tips for exhausted writers who want to be kinder to themselves—and still get the work done.

1. Add pleasure to your writing routine.

Sensory pleasures are neither frivolous nor are they only for children. They’re a crucial part of being alive! They give us something to look forward to when times are tough and we need motivation. Candles, soft blankets, cold beverages, mood lighting, dance breaks, yummy treats—whatever you choose, make sure it’s something you love. Paint your nails a fun color so you have something beautiful to look at while you’re typing away. Make a playlist of your favorite songs and after you finish a chapter, blast one song so loudly you have to get up and dance. Then, get back to writing. Remember, even for the most focused among us, pleasure is a better motivator than shame.

2. Be clear about your intentions.

What brought you to writing in the first place? For some, it was the ability to escape into our imaginations. For others, it was the chance to finally express what we’d been holding inside. Identify your reason for writing, then ask yourself: Am I still enjoying this? Do I still feel connected to my reason for writing? If not, explore how you can strengthen your connection to your inner child’s reason for writing. 

3. Work with your brain, not against it.

If we know that everyone’s brain works differently, why do we force strict discipline and linear processes on ourselves? My advice: find or create a writing process that works for you. Maybe you love outlines; maybe you prefer to see where the words take you. Either way, make space for wandering, play, and discovery as you write. Take brain breaks. Doodle, map, dance, and draw when you get distracted. Body double with other writers, try new exercises and prompts to make the writing sing, and take plenty of breaks to stretch your body and talk to friends. We come to writing with our whole selves. Listen to your body, don’t shut it off.

4. Find a writing community.

You don’t have to wait for a community to come to you! I offer co-writing sessions on Zoom four times a month for my Patreon supporters, but do what works for you. Attend local open mics as an audience member and cheer on your peers. Invite your best friends to your living room once a month for a two hour writing/crafting session. Or check your local library and bookstores for free workshops and author events. You don’t have to do this work alone.

5. Develop a gratitude practice.

Finishing your draft is a huge accomplishment, but it’s not the only milestone to be celebrated. Consider creating opportunities to thank yourself throughout your writing practice. You’re doing an amazing and difficult thing. The fact that you keep showing up is worthy of celebration. Whether you decide to journal, rest, pray, meditate, or reward yourself, a little gratitude goes a long way.

Ariana Brown is a queer writer from San Antonio, TX, based in Houston. She is the author of We Are Owed (Grieveland, 2021) and Sana Sana (Game Over Books, 2020), and a national collegiate poetry slam champion. Ariana holds an MFA in Poetry, MS in Library and Information Science, and a BA in African Diaspora Studies and Mexican American Studies. She has been writing, teaching, and performing for over a decade. Follow her online @ArianaThePoet and www.arianabrown.com. 

[numinously-yours]

Free Tarot Reading: Why did X happen?

Today's free reading is going to look deeper at why something in your life happened. I am answering the following questions:

What is X?

Why did X happen?

How can/did you grow from X?

Choose an X above and find your group below the cut:

What is X? Knight of Swords

You may have started a project and, in the middle of it, it abruptly ended. You thought you had all of the resources you needed – money, people to back the project, a solid plan – so when it ended it was really disappointing. You’re not quite sure what went wrong or why the project couldn’t get off the ground. The main point of concern keeps coming back to the people. Why did people decide to stop investing?

Why did X happen? Seven of Cups rev.

At some point during this project, there were too many cooks in the kitchen. Since it was your idea originally, you took the reigns back and decided to make executive decisions. While this isn’t always a bad thing, it feels like people may have stepped back from working with the project because they didn’t feel their voices being heard. Additionally, there were a lot of short term goals as the project was getting starting rather than looking at the bigger picture, so the small things didn’t necessarily add up to reaching the ultimate goal.

How did/can you grown from X? Ace of Swords rev.

This situation is helpful for you as you move forward with other big ideas (or even if you try this one again!). You are excited about ideas so you want to get them off the ground, but this can be a reminder that taking time to plan is just as important as the execution of the plan. Create SMART goals (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound), allow others to provide feedback, and find a balance between leading and collaborating. Something else that you may have/can learn from this is to wait on announcing ideas until you have a rough draft. It may have been too early in the planning stages of the original project and that made it asier for a lot of opinions to be thrown around. Come in with an outline/structure which allows for some movement, ideas, and opinions, but isn’t a complete blank slate.

What is X? Six of Swords & Page of Cups rev.

There is/was someone in your life who was holding you back. You are inspired, full of ideas and plans for the future, and have always been someone who’s been able to move forward. Someone came into your life and once they did, you felt dragged down. This person has an immature nature about them. They are a bit narcissistic and childish, but think they are mature and know what they are talking about. It has become incredibly frustrating for you. You feel like you have to put your needs on the back burner in order to avoid chaos. For some of you, you may have distanced yourself from this person for a while, but now they are coming back into your life and you don’t know what you are doing to do. You’ve finally gotten back into your groove – will they mess it up again?

Why did X happen? Knight of Wands rev.

Although frustrating, this person came into your life because the delays in your progress were necessary. Whatever you were trying to achieve at the time where they swooped in and paused your work was not going to be successful if you were to have finished it then and there. I feel like my mom when I say that this also happened to “build character”. In a less annoying sense (for me lol), this person was there to teach you patience – not necessarily patience in people, but in not achieving your goals as quickly as you want. Without this person, there would have been risk of impulsiveness and built up energy.

How can/have you grown from X? Three of Pentacles

On a personal level, having this person in your life will ultimately help you appreciate other people who come into your life. Knowing that the person came into your life to help delay progress may help you see people on another level. “There is a reason this person came into my life. Let’s find out why.” It doesn’t mean you have to enjoy spending time with them, lol, but it will help it be less frustrating when the people around you are frustrating.

Regarding the goal(s), it has been aided in growth by the delay. Now that more time as passed, you will be more objective, have a more solid plan, and know where you can get resources to help it flourish.

What is X? Two of Cups

This has “the one who got away” energy for me. Whether it was a romantic partner or a platonic friendship, someone who you loved and had a great partnership with isn’t in your life anymore. You’re wondering what the point was for this person to bring beauty to your life just for it to be ripped away.

Why did X happen? The Lovers & Nine of Swords

They came into your life because you deserved to know that this type of love exists. You deserve to know that, even in your darkest moments, you are loveable and worth the effort. This person was likely the first person in a long time that you were able to be vulnerable with. You learned how to trust again. You learned how to communicate. In terms of why they had to leave, I think it’s as simple as they weren’t meant to be. It’s not an easy answer to accept and it still probably doesn’t make sense. But the time that you had together really shaped you to be successful in new relationship(s) to come.

How can/have you grown from X? Eight of Wands rev. & Ace of Wands

This relationship is bringing you back to the root of YOU. It has probably started already. There are days you doubt your worth because the person did leave, but each day it gets easier to remind yourself that you are worthy. This person has lit a fire under you to live your life for yourself because you finally know that you deserve good things. They showed you the potential that relationships can have and that you have within them. You can move forward from this relationship with optimism for the future.  

What is X? The Tower & King of Wands

Your X was a huge tower moment for you. There was sudden change followed by chaos. Everything that you knew was turned upside down. You had a plan for your future. You could visualize opportunities ahead and see the steps to get there. It feels like you’re expected to build the tower back up but there aren’t any directions to tell you how.

Why did X happen? Justice

I’m not being told exactly what happened that caused the tower moment, but it seems like the actions that were being taken were not in your highest good or the highest good of others involved. Unfortunately, the collapse of the tower was the consequences to those actions. Someone did not stand by decisions that they made and left everyone to their own devices. There was a missing level of ethicality and fairness.  

How can/did you grown from X? Knight of Pentacles

This knight is the hardest working knight in the deck. They are methodical and driven. They may not be the most creative, but they get the job done. You are being called to be this knight as you rebuild that tower. You don’t have to be the most creative person in the room. You don’t have to be the most inspiring person and come into a planning session with a full list of new ideas. If you focus on getting the job done effectively and consistently, you will be successful. Sit down and write goals. Just like group 1 (which you may have been interested in checking out), create goals that are tangible and attainable. You can also grow by accepting responsibility for anything that might go wrong. The original tower moment may or may not have been consequences of your own actions, but moving forward you need to be aware of your actions so another tower doesn’t fall. Stick to what you know, stick to a routine, and soon you’ll see the tower is standing higher than ever.

[inks-books]

Writing Advice to Keep the Ideas Coming

How to Steal Like An Artist by Austin Kleon is a great resource to start with. It teaches you how to take information around you and put it into your own style and words so that you can create something fun and original.

Understand that writing is a skill you build not a talent you're born with. It's a muscle you gotta build up. The first things you write are going to be bad. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. It just means you are clearing the mud out of the pipes for clear water to come through. Gotta get rid of the crap so the good stuff can come through. 

When I was starting out writing, I would watch a movie and try to describe in my own words what was going on, the setting, and the dialogue happening onto a page. I would then go back in a second draft and add what I call fluff. You can't have a story without fluff. That would just make it bare bones. Give it meat. That's what 2nd and 3rd drafts are for: Adding meat to the bones and fluffing it up to a well rounded, well fed story.

Follow your muse when you get it and help yourself associate writing with something good and fun at first. Like writing a few hundred words (like a paragraph's worth) and giving yourself a little treat as a reward. It can be whatever you want. A bite of a snack, a piece of candy, a sip of your favorite drink. This will Pavlov you into associating following the muse with good things and serotonin. It will also cause it to chase ideas down in a back alley and rifle through their pockets for inspiration to keep the serotonin coming. 

When you write, make sure you do so consistently. This looks different for everyone. It can be for several hours during the day everyday. Or it could be every other day at lunch when you get a moment, or even once a week on a random Saturday for 15-45 minutes. As long as you have a set writing time that you keep for yourself you're going to be good. This is especially good for the days you don't have a muse but still need to write something to get it out of your system or get you past the dreaded writer's block.

Remember to write for yourself and the readers will follow. Don't worry about your audience or revisions until after you've told yourself the story first. This is the first draft. That makes it so that you can have a full draft to edit later and make sense out of it, find inconsistencies, and make it legible. 

Also remember to look at the books and stories you love and dissect what it is that you like about them so you can apply it to your own style in your own words. This could mean plot, characters, setting, grammar style, or dialogue and more. Just find what makes that happy button tick and apply it to your own style, changing to to match your own stuff without plagiarizing.

And lastly, I'm going to leave you with my favorite ira glass quote that really kept me going:

[nvuy]

How do you write so well? I'm trying to get into writing because I YEARN to create, but it is very difficult. Do you have any tips? I try and create, but it feels like there is a brick wall in my brain 😫 I also struggle to come up with ideas 😭😭

oh worm thank you so much im so honoured… i don’t want to just say ‘practise,’ even though that is half of quite literally improving in anything.

i am going to long post now. you’re welcome. this is my little guide to writing. in no way am i saying my writing is perfect and world class five stars, but this is just some things i learned along the way that helped me get better!!!

now this is all assuming considering you read my works that you also want to write reader inserts, but even if that’s not the case, i think all this stuff applies to normal writing as well.

what i do like to think is that ‘good writing’ is very very subjective. for example, i prefer much more philosophical pieces, ambiguous endings, extensive world building, and things like that, and i like to put it in my writing.

however, what you may like about my writing could be what someone else absolutely hates. not everyone can be bothered to read 4 pages on a heavy description of a quiet deserted street in the rain, or a dusty old library , or the bustling atmosphere of a cafe. some writers like to do scenarios without fully developed plots. some do.

WRITING IN A NUT SHELL

what really helps is to find where you lie on this spectrum. do you prefer overtly poetic descriptive writing, or straight to the point, no beating around the bush? or does it depend?

i know it’s sounds taxing to write heavy descriptions and worldbuilding and this and that, but if you like to read it, chances are you may also like to write it yourself.

this is a tip i lowkey thought was common sense, but i’ve spoken to moots on discord and other platforms about it, and a lot of writers just… don’t know about it?

basically it’s that A First Draft is a First Draft. this has been said time and time again. j.r. tolkein didn’t write LOTR in a day, rowling did not write the entire harry potter series in one shot. nobody did that.

as well as this, my first drafts never start out as fully fledged stories. most of them look like this:

notice the obnoxiously large gap in between? yep! two entirely different scenes, but under the same concept. you don’t need cohesion in your drafts. that comes with time. get all your ideas down first.

my first drafts are awful. they’re absolute dogshit. most of the time, i abandon a lot of my works altogether. but i never delete anything, because sometimes i may come back and suddenly get inspiration again.

most of my first drafts look like this:

notice how it lacks with everything. there’s no flavour here. it’s incredibly dialogue heavy, and it’s clearly supposed to have some sort of surreal feeling to it.

come back to it later only when i feel like it and rewrite it only when you feel like it:

same concept, same exact scene, but now it has more emotion. because i’ve written it a second time, or maybe even a third, or fourth (anymore than that, and im sorry, but drop it. it’s doing you more harm than good). so many people hit this writers block because they want their first draft to be perfect and it won’t ever be.

don’t focus on the itty bitty details. get the idea down first. you can always come back later. it really really helps to get out of ruts and stuff.

another thing: You Don’t Need To Start With Writing Fanfics Right Away. and i wouldn’t recommend it. not doubting you, or any other young bright-eyed writers, but fanfics are gruelling work that require lots and lots of planning.

i would honestly recommend getting started and finding comfort with one shots and/or headcanons, or drabbles, or whatever else short fics are called, because they require a lot less dedication, and it’s a lot more fun, because you can spring from one idea to another. majority of my works are short fics for a reason. it’s a lot easier to write, and i personally find it more enjoyable :) try it out!

IDEAS: WORLDBUILDING

(this next segment is assuming your fic wants to take place in a different area than canon) (otherwise, check out descriptions/images/videos of the place your world is supposed to be set in!! same idea!!)

if you’re unsure about worldbuilding and what exactly this place you’re creating is supposed to look like or how it might function, browse pinterest! there’s so many real and/or fake & rendered places on that site. is your area really cold and constantly snowing? search up some art with those key words. it could help you gain a clearer image!

let’s use an example: say the world im building my fic is based in a very cold, always snowing, always icy town. we go on pinterest, have a bit of a look around, and then we go Ooh this looks interesting!!

this is a painting by alexander andriyanov.

who are these people? where are they? what’re they doing? is horseback and carriage their primary mode of transport? do these people have access to vehicles like cars? do cars exist in my world at all? what are the surrounding buildings? etc etc.

TLDR: what im trying to say is if it helps you, look at something, listen to music, watch a movie, and then ask the question How Do I Make This About Me?

this speedpaint by darek zabrocki helped me get an idea of what snezhnaya in my multi chapter fic on ao3 was supposed to look like. obviously snezhnaya isn’t released in genshin just yet, so it allows me a lot of creative freedom in that regard.

you can always always use other people’s works as inspiration. why do you think so many songs these days use samples from older tracks? it’s basically the same thing. obviously, don’t downright copy, that’s plagiarism, but seriously. if you’re struggling to create this world in your head, pinterest is your best friend.

IDEAS: PLOTS & THE CENTRAL CONFLICT

in terms of coming up with actually plot ideas, i said it before and i’ll say it again. movies, shows, games, other people’s stories, other fanfics/books, paintings and other forms of artwork, history, etc.

if you’re writing a fanfic, most writers like to take the canon route, and you’re welcome to do that.

if you’re worried about your own ideas being lacklustre or you can’t think of anything, but the canon storyline is good for your fic, canon divergence is always fun!

for example! i haven’t posted it here, but i always did have this idea of a neuvillette centric fic based on the love letter he received in one of the world quests. so you take something that happened in the game, and then you ask AGAIN: How Do I Make This About Me?

in terms of thinking up an entirely different idea or concept or prompt or whatever you want to call it, there’s honestly no right or wrong way of doing it. it’s really, really difficult though. i have so many ideas that are more suitable for one shots that fully fledged fanfictions.

again, read books you like. read other people’s works. read lore of the fandom you’re writing about, or better yet, sometimes i go off of a fleeting thought that a random NPC said at some point in the storyline that had little to no effect on the story.

what constitutes as a good plot and a bad plot is a matter of opinion. as long as there’s evident improvement (or the opposite, if that’s your fancy) of your characters in your story, whether that be their personality, relationship with others, or whatever, then you’ve successfully written a cohesive narrative.

how most of my works start is actually because i randomly come up with one scene in my head that haunts me. i call them Brain Rots™.

for example, in my scaramouche fic on ao3, the scene that started the entire thing was of some sort of solider that presented a ring to the doctor in a very cold and barren wasteland.

and then i asked, what is the significance of this ring? is the solider injured? should the doctor care? why are they there in the first place? where is this place? where do they go after this?

hopefully you get the picture.

TLDR: figure out what makes your Brain Rot™ about the particular scene that’s playing on repeat in your head, find your inspiration through any sort of media you enjoy consuming that you find directly links to your ideas (because most likely if you enjoy something, you’ll be inspired by it more than you would with something you actively don’t like) (and this ‘media’ ranges from pictures, real life anecdotes/stories, video games, other fics, music, art, etc.), ask questions (How Do I Make This About Me), and then answer them yourself!!!!

and also just practise and practise and practise!!! you will subconsciously develop new skills by consuming media and reading other people’s works that you really like. it all comes with time :) !!!!!

[elderwisp]

The Creative Process ‧₊˚✩彡 

Because I love to be distracted

Hi! Ok, I wanted to share wif everyone my process in which I create a story post from conception to the final post. I would say I'm a very structured person when it comes to projects like these however, I've learned a lot and maybe someone could find something useful! We'll be referencing this scene. Oke, let's start!

✩ Rough Drafts

So, of course everything starts off with a vision. While I always say, write what feels authentic to you, I also know it makes things much more difficult if you don't have a solid ground to build from. I think I've scrapped this particular story about twice already and even reshot the first chunk of Tessellate so there was a better foundation. I like to start off with understanding a character before moving onto creating a plot, otherwise people start bleed into another. Greta Gerwig makes a really awesome statement about how characters come first to her before plot. OKE with that in mind, this particular scene, I wrote it well over a year ago, however there wasn't much flow in the initial draft. In fact, the two look nothing alike. This conversation was supposed to occur during France's concert, but I moved it to to this particular scene and I'm so glad. I felt like their current relationship was strong enough to have this conversation but also it allowed me to really focus in on the two. I am a huge advocate for jotting down dialogue even if things change because you can always expand on an idea. And if things don't work, scrapping is okay, but at least you gave it a shot! After that change, I didn't revisit that scene up until about a month and a half ago. I like to let things sit for a good while. In the initial draft, Taryn was reserved throughout a majority of the conversation. There was limitations in which how I wanted her to express things but things change in a year. When I looked at her as a character and how she's progressed throughout the story, the draft no longer aligned with her lack of response. And then that created the question of what the heck does one say? Because people aren't typically very graceful or eloquent when it comes to confrontation but also we're telling a story so how do I balance the two out? Since, I've followed these little blorbos for a while, knowing their characters and motives allowed me to flesh everything out. Atlas is much more cunning than he lets on and is excellent at painting a pretty picture for those around him if it means getting what he wants. Taryn on the other hand is perceptive and unwavering so being around someone like him, someone that she finds herself slowly falling for, is a complete, well, mind fuck. We can also see from this interaction that there's a hint of feeling inadequate and the lack of confidence to know that maybe he does like her. We also see that Atlas maybe isn't the most mature when it comes to developing something real so the two have plenty to work on just from this scene alone. Like Greta Gerwig says, writing is listening.

I also wanted to mention LocalScriptMan and this video all the time because it just about changed how I viewed dialogue in general. I think it's such a great tool! I've probably shared it a billion times.

✩ Blender & Posemaking

So I would like to preface this by saying, you do not need to use blender to achieve a vision. There are still scenes that I still use poses/animations from other creators! I wanted to list a few references! Rebouks, Rascgal and Simmireen have an amazing variety of poses to use! I literally use Becca's bumper packs RELIGOUSLY! However, if you need any suggestions, SurelySim's has an excellent breakdown on getting started with posemaking from tiny details, to SimRipper and using accessories! She also talks about Vyxated's Pose Helper which is a god send! For this scene I wanted to fully pose it. In my script, I italicize anything I want to pose, I'm such a sucker for the mannerisms that people have. When words fail, body language speaks. Are they fidget-y, or do I imagine them to be more composed? Taryn's stance is grounded, she doesn't move at all in the scene except for when she leaves and I think it's a great representation of her stubbornness. Whereas Atlas is watching every single move, up until he makes his incredibly bold (ridiculous!) statement. As for emotion when he made that statement, I wanted to go with shame but then I felt like his expression radiated ruthlessness. I personally enjoyed that 10x more because it represented two things for me, his character and that he felt comfortable enough to show that part of himself. When posing a scene from start to finish, it takes me about 1-3 days depending on how complex it is. I'm a huge advocate for using references! I love referencing hands, posture, how to grab a book ANYTHING! Because this was a conversation and not much action happened, it took me about a day.

✩ Taking Screenshots and Composition

I began taking photos for this scene on March 6th. I use to use this reshade preset by growfruit however, after tinkering with some settings I use like a mish-mash blorbo of a preset. Amobae and Sforz have some cool LUT's for download (I think of it like a filter? That's probably not what it is but MEH) and I love the qUINT's lightroom shader as well. Huge advocate of relight, I was today years old when I learn that you should load it at the top of your shaders order so you don't get like a weird whitecast. These spotlights though are super fun too if you don't use reshade! There are some photographers on instagram that even go over how to use lightroom and it can translate to game as well! For the most part, I try to keep screenshots pretty simple, editing-wise but there are moments when I doodle in little hairs, add in some texture and include shadows for, uh, DRAMAAA. Lately, I've been incorporating intricate fonts because idk sometimes my brain enjoys a little graphic design moment. Sometimes shooting conversation heavy scenes can get so repetitive so I like to look at film stills on pinterest or pay close attention to a film and how they present the camera work in a conversation. Rule of thirds is a great reference tool to use, I believe GShade has a shader for that. However it's okay to experiment, it's not an end all be all. I love looking at animators and how each frame is incredibly intentional, whether it's a shot from above or a really close frame. The beginning of this scene, I honestly didn't have a clue as to how I wanted to open it up since they were walking down a hall. Then I noticed the detail in the fencing and how the tiles were opposite. Using the TOOL mod, I was able to get them both in the center and it created a strong opening shot of how different these two are.

✩ Editing

My god, I love editing but also this is usually the moment where I get so freaking distracted. This process takes me a day if I am focused.... But realistically it takes three days.... That's why I try to keep things to a minimum. I do use Photoshop. I like to use this sharpening action (the other actions are awesome too!) for story posts, I crop each photo (I use a 9:5 ratio and a 16:6 ratio if I need to focus on something specific idk why i picked those numbers yo), and add in text. Dafont has a lot of different free fonts. I like to use these little guidelines if sentences needs to be centered.

For adding umph to text, I like to use two things: The warped text option when using the type tool or just going to the distort panel and using the wave option!

Also bottom right of your layers channel is an fx layer. I like to use stroke and drop shadow on all text so it doesn't get lost within a photo!

✩ Finalization and My Schedule

That story post was uploaded on March 29th. As of right now, I like to stay three weeks ahead so I have three weeks worth of story posts marinating in my queue LMAO. I always reread things like a bajillion times, sometimes I'll go back and tweak conversations if they feel a bit stiff. Having that three week buffer also gives me time to really dedicate myself to details and focus on being present with a future scene. Another perk is, it allows me to work on cleaning up the script, plotting for future arcs, and having fun with edits. When I used to upload story videos on youtube, I didn't really plan ahead and it was so chaotic for me. Sometimes I didn't have enough time to actually create a solid episode so things felt rushed because on top of that I had a schedule I committed to. This isn't necessary but structure and patterns is something my little brain needs.

I hope this maybe provided some tips for people wanting to start out or it was just a fun little thing to read! One final OP tip is to write about something that you enjoy, something that matters to you. I'm one mf that loves a fleshed out character arc, that doesn't like linear plots and for fucks sake I love a good slow burn and I think all of that reflects a lot which helps me be engaged.