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therealbeachfox · 3 months

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Myths of Gotham: Batman & The Two Cities

Ever wondered what the DCU looks like for all those people who aren't privy to the what's and why's of the multiverse shattering events they live through? I sure do. That's melded with my "The Completely Normal Adventures of a Crime Alley Kid" series into this: An exploration of the stories the kids of Gotham would create to explain the world around them. Featuring a foul-mouthed homeless Crime Alley kid vending an education to the younger set, and one Bernard Dowd adding his historical and cultural commentary on the side.

Also available on Ao3, but I'm posting it here because I think it works just fine as a standalone without the 160k+ words of Henchman-In-Denial shenanigans on the side.

Or ignore that link and read it below the cut!

Myths of Gotham

Supplemental Document 3

Harris (Age-12, Male, Irish/African) [[1]]. “The Origin of Batman and the Robins” Interview by Bernard Dowd. 14th August 202X. BDOH #009, Myths of Gotham Project, https://BerDProductions.net/MythsofGothamProject/bdoh-009.html. Accessed 21st November 202(X+2)

[[1. No further information given, even after being told it’d be for proper attribution. "Harris" is also most likely to be pseudonym. Sorry, researchers of the future.]]

Transcript has been mildly edited for clarity and to remove vocal disfluencies. It is otherwise presented in its entirety without any attempts to correct grammar and other verbal slips. Additional notes by the transcriber may be found in the footnotes.

========

Alright, everybody needs to settle their shit down, it’s education time. If you don’t wanna sit here and listen to me explain shit, this place has got like twenty other rooms you can go hang out in, k? This aint school, no one’s keeping you here. ‘Xcept you, Carlos. Yeah, well you tried to go chasing after one of the Exquisite Birds the other day, so you obviously need to learn why you shouldn’t be doing that shit.

Okay, so. We’ll be talking about the Bat Man, but there’s a lotta other stuff we gotta talk about too, first. He didn’t just show up outta fucking nowhere, you know. Now settle down, thank our slumming Posh Boy over there for tonight’s food, and watch what your tongues wag cuz he’s recording all this shit.

Alright. The Bat Man. Where the fuck did he come from? Why the hell is he here? Why do other cities get flying muscle-men in bright colors and we got a living shadow that breaks bones? Why the hell is our shithole of a city like this? Well sit back and listen a learning, cuz unfortunately it all ties together.

Alright, so. The first thing we gotta make clear is that we don’t live in the first Gotham. We’re the second Gotham, the johnny-come-lately Gotham, the weird mirror shadow of the first Gotham. Not saying the other Gotham’s the “real” one and we’re some sort of fake, just that there are two Gotham’s and the one we live in aint the original.

And an important side-note cuz I can see some of you squirming to ask and someone always asks here, I’m not talking about the False Gothams you sometimes see from between buildings or in the reflections of broken windows or stuff. [[2]] Those things aren’t real; they’re just illusions and traps, spun up by something that wants to lure you in with the promise of there being a version of the world where everything didn’t go to shit. It’s all lies. Most kids who go hunting after False Gothams never come back, but there’ve been a few who have, and they’ve got wild as shit stories to tell. But we’re not getting into all that tonight. Basic point is, you don’t get to The Other Gotham by going down weird alleyways. Nah, you just gotta go down.

[[2. Harris appears to be referring to Gotham’s ‘Mirage City’ phenomenon where heated air trapped in narrow gaps between skyscrapers can sometimes warp the light enough to appear to show an altered city skyline between them. The implications of the fact that this phenomenon is most often reported near sites of Justice League confirmed inter-dimensional fracture points is beyond the scope of this project and will just be noted as a point of further study for the reader.]]

So the way it was told to me by the kids who knew shit back when I was among you all listening was like this: Gotham, that is to say, our Gotham, is The Black City, The Gotham Above. The Other Gotham, the original Gotham, is The White City, the Gotham Below, and it was here first. [[3]] The way it’s told, it’s not just the first Gotham, it’s the first city ever, built (or carved) out of the rock way back before people had figured out things like writing shit down instead of remembering it all, math, or how to build something more than two stories high.

[[3. There have been urban legends of an underground city that exists as a mirror of Gotham since the late 1600s, barely a decade or two after the city’s founding. The two main versions either say that it was some ancient city that sank beneath the swamp and bogs before the arrival of the Europeans, or that it’s an inverse mirror of Gotham that’s formed from all our wickedness and corruption. No evidence of either version of such a city has ever been officially recorded. It’s usually assumed that people who wrote of such things, especially in the earlier centuries, had stumbled upon some of the vast cave networks that extend beneath the breadth of greater Gotham and their stories of giant chambers with rock formations that rivaled the tallest buildings in size were misinterpreted.]]

So you know those whacked out monsters and aliens and weird-dicked demon things you have the Justice League out there beating the ass of every other week? They had all that shit way back in pre-history times too, but they didn’t have any cavemen in capes and spandex to punch them in the face. And they were everywhere. Big creepy monsters, fucked up demons that crawled out of the earth or shadows or fires and might not actually be from Hell, but acted like such murderous shits you could see how humanity got the idea of Hell in the first place. You had twisting shadows that would infect people’s own shadows and turn them into evil twisted things like them. You had monsters that only existed as silent whispers that’d get in a guy’s brain and tell them all sorts of shit till they honestly believed that wearing other people’s skin and dancing under the moon was a totally normal and not at all fucked up thing to do. You look back at the earliest stories humans ever wrote down and you can see they were remembering all sorts of fucked up shit we don’t got around anymore. Or at least, didn’t have around anymore until recently. [[4]] And it’s because of The Other Gotham.

[[4. Like with many aspects of Gotham’s unhoused youth culture’s mythic cycle, the timeline of this all doesn’t line up with actual history except in the vaguest of sense. It is interesting to note however that Princess Diana of Themyscira’s speech about ‘The Return of the Mythic’ (end note (i)) has somehow gotten incorporated here, and in a way that almost perfectly aligns with with current historical consensus.]]

So, the way we figure it must’ve happened was like this: Just because they didn’t have superheroes back then, it doesn’t mean they didn’t have magic. Like, we don’t got a lot of it now, but you can’t argue it doesn’t exist, and pretty much everyone agrees that there used to be a lot more of it way back when, whenever that when was. And that when was here. This is the Way Back When. So a bunch of the smartest most powerful magicals [[sic]] got together to try and figure out a way to get humanity on more of an even standing against all these fucking monsters and evil spirit shits everywhere, and what they came up with was the idea for a great big fuck-off prison for the lot of them.

So they went and found the one place on the planet that had the most Fucked Up energy possible - guess where - and set to work carving it out deep underground. At the bottom of the biggest cavern there was under the three islands and surrounding swamps, they dug out a pit. Not a giant wide pit, but a long deep one. As deep down as they could dig with whatever magic and tools they had back then. And down there at the bottom, they carved out a great chamber in the rock and covered it with all the runes and magic writing and iron and silver and whatever the fuck else you need to keep giant millipedes that eat souls in check. Then, somehow - and if anyone knows how, it sure as shit aint gonna be us - they managed to lure or suck in or capture just about every evil nasty messed up thing on the planet and locked them down in it.

You can tell when this happened if you know enough history cuz it would’ve taken place right before humanity got its collective shit together and started doing things like building cities and writing stuff down and everything else that they count as ‘civilization’ these days. [[5]] But like I said, none of the cities everyone topside were building was the first. The first city was built right here, under our feet. They started out by carving out the insides of the biggest stalag-whatevers hanging down from the cavern roofs to live in while they did the original work. Then, once they figured out how that sort of thing worked, they started building their own towers, hanging down from above where they could keep an eye on their monster prison. All spires and guardian statues and skyways and at the center of it all, a giant hole drilled straight to the middle of the whole fucking planet.

[[5. ‘The Great Binding’ and it’s coinciding with the beginnings of known civilization (end note (ii)) is one of the newest theories out of the field of metahistory. Notably, UC Berkley’s article on the subject referenced in the end notes came out seven weeks after this interview took place. And as a side note to the footnote, even proponents of The Great Binding have no concrete theory on where such a prison might’ve been placed. A giant pit right on the Eastern Seaboard seems incredibly unlikely, however.]]

So yeah, the Gotham Below. Sure, it wasn’t being called Gotham way back then. Not sure they even would’ve given the place a name to begin with. If you’ve never had a city before, would you even think it was something that needed a name? Anyways, Gotham Below. And they didn’t have shit to burn down there, but they did have magic. So, as the story goes, they kept the place lit with magic instead of fire. And all that rock remained as white and untouched by soot and ash as they day it’d gotten carved out. So Gotham Below, the White City. And even with all their magic, those people still eventually got old and died, so it was their kids left watching over the great pit prison. Then they grew old and died, and it was their grandkids left watching. And so it went for centuries and centuries and centuries, for however long it took for humanity to start building cities, then for Europeans to develop to the point where the felt like being assholes, and then for them to decide to go fuck up the rest of the world, and then landing on these same islands and decide that this abandoned remote hellhole was the perfect place to build a brand new city cuz there weren’t enough of those yet or whatever.

Now, this should be obvious, but you can’t keep a thousand million monsters and demons and evil alien ghosts all trapped in one spot and not have shit kinda bleed out over time. When those pilgrims showed up to start building shit here, shit got weird. Now, I haven’t read any of this myself, but the kid who told me all this did, and according to him, if you go back and read through the journals and writings of those guys responsible for building up Gotham originally, you can see that they were fucked in the head. They kept writing about dreams they’d be having, silent streets of gleaming white they’d walk through while they slept and how the visions of great towering spires and skyways and a billion fucking gargoyles filled their pages whenever they tried to draw up designs. [[6]] So that’s what they all wound up making, one bridge and building and road at a time. A perfect mirror of the City Below, but reaching up in the sky instead of down into the earth. Each stalagamitite tower hanging down in one had a tower reaching up in the other. And smack in the middle of original Old Gotham stood the tallest building of all, right over where the pit was drilled far far below. [[7]] The Clocktower aint the tallest building in Gotham anymore, but it used to be. And while the Gotham Below remained pure and gleaming white, up here they hadn’t even finished putting up the first medieval porta-potties before shit was stained with soot and ash and coal smoke and whale oil residue.

[[6. Harris overstates things, but the base assertion is correct here. The writings of Cyrus Pinkney are infamous for their frequent reference to ‘dark and shadowy dreams’ (end note (iii)) and his open acknowledgment of how much those dreams influenced his designs. Not to the extent described here, though.]]

[[7. The Great Gotham Tower. Known better these days as The Gotham Clocktower or just The Clocktower. It was placed at the center of Gotham as it existed in it’s original state, with the rest of Old Gotham laid out around it in expanding circles connected by thoroughfares at each of the eight cardinal directions.]]

And that’s how we got to where we are: With the White City, Gotham Below, and the Black City, Gotham Above.

Now, you can’t go building an entire fucking city without the downstairs neighbors hearing the noise and poking their heads out to see what it’s all about. This is another case where you can find references across all that early writing stuff they keep in the libraries. People started seeing ghosts. I mean, they were calling them ghosts, but they really obvious weren’t. People up high, watching people below. They’d wear big white robes that looked like wings when they moved. They wore strange masks with big smoke-glass eyes. They moved through shadows like they were part of them, they could climb a building as easy as walking, and anyone who tried to climb up to one would either find them gone, or would next be seen falling off the tallest building in the neighborhood.

As the history goes, the masks they wore looked vaguely birdlike. A specific type of bird. But it quickly became obvious that whoever these people were, they really didn’t like it when people called them… that specific bird species. So we don’t. Adults still do sometimes, but that’s because they’re fucking idiots. [[8]] If you need to talk about them, call them the White Birds. Or, even better- They’re vain, these White Birds. If you flatter them, they’re less likely to decide to kill you for talking about them at all. The term that tends to get used a lot these days is Exquisite. [[9]] Not sure who came up with it, but we’ve barely had any kids go missing since we started. Still, it’s best to wait until the middle of the day, and talk about them someplace out in the open where you can be sure no one’s lurking in any shadows.

[[8. Beware the eyes of owls

Who watch us all the time

From lofty perches up on high

To the deepest pits of grime.

They watch us as we work and play

They watch us in our bed

Speak not a whispered word of them

Least talons strike you dead.]]

[[9. “Exquisite” is recorded as being Gotham street-kid slang for ‘untrustworthy john/rich person/official’ in the early 1980s (end note (iv)). An article in The Gotham Gazette from 1954 quotes a homeless kid as saying “We all always knew you couldn’t trust him. He was a full Exquisite Bird type through’n’through. None of us is surprised they found all those bodies up’n’in his place.” (end note (v)), and a stylized EXQU was used as hobo code for a place that seemed nice but must be avoided at all costs along the mid-Atlantic coast during the 1930s. (end note (vi)).]]

So throughout all of Gotham’s history, they’re just… there. Watching from up high in the shadows, the Exquisite Birds. If you see one, no you didn’t. If someone asks you about them, you don’t know what they’re talking about. They don’t like it when people admit they see them, and they’re as quick to slice open witnesses as any other two-bit gang.

So that’s where shit stood for a few centuries. Then something happened. We really don’t know what, and no one who would is the sort who’d tell us, either. We just know what resulted. Grownups call it the Cataclysm, or the Big One. [[10]] One day, the earth just turned over in a giant earthquake, split open, and half of Gotham fell down. Then, suddenly, there were monsters. Monsters everywhere. Gotham had always been shit, but now you had people dressing up like insects and murdering people with giant roach traps, or gangsters turning from murdering assholes to mass-murdering assholes who’d torture you for five hours then pull out your eyeballs for their collection, or giant piles of toxic mud coming to life and eating people.

[[10. It goes without saying, but at this point, Harris’ version of events deviates radically from the known timeline. The first recorded footage of Batman was taken eight years before the Great Gotham Quake, with the first rumors of his existence being almost twelve years earlier. This condensing down of timelines and assuming all events from more than five years ago took place at around the same time is a known phenomenon with children-created mythic cycles. (end note (vii))]]

It was chaos. Everything broke down, no one knew what was going on. The rest of the country looked at what was happening in Gotham and flipped out and shut it all down. They blew up the bridges, put mines in the rivers and blockaded the entire city to try and contain whatever the hell this all was. [[11]]

[[11. No Man’s Land did take place, but if it was because elements of the US government were concerned about an outbreak of mythical monsters in the city, that fact remains undocumented.]]

Now, like I said, we don’t know how everything kicked off, but we know how it ended. Somehow, whether on accident or on purpose, someone broke open the prison buried deep under out feet. Not all the way; none of the truly giant world-ending shit has gotten out. But all those twisted shadows and invisible whispers and nasty spirt ghost fuckers? They slid out just fine. We don’t know if the earthquake cracked it, or if the cracking of it caused the earthquake. We don’t know if the Exquisite Birds did it on purpose, or why if they did. We don’t know if they didn’t stop it because they didn’t care, or they just couldn’t.

End result, though? Chaos in Gotham and monsters killing and corrupting and twisting everyone they could get their semi-visible claws into. And the Exquisite Birds just sitting there up high, watching and doing jack shit about it.

These days, we know what to do when shit like that goes down. We know how to feed wishes to the gargoyles and how to call out for the Bats and the Robins, but people back then, they didn’t know any of that. Hell, there wasn’t anything to pray to or to collect those wishes yet. So you had a whole city of people hoping and praying for something to come save them, and nothing for all that power and energy to ground itself in. And there was a whole lotta power in the air. That ancient magic prison had just busted open after all, so along with all the evil smoke demons and monsters and shit, you also had all that raw protective magic leaking out at the same time. And it got mixed up with all those unanswered wishes and pleads as it coiled up through the spires of a city that was the mirror of its own. And there, at the top of everything, it all found it’s lightning rod and grounded itself and WHAM! Just like that, everything changed.

Now, I’ve seen the old photographs, from back when you got pictures of city skylines from giant blimps and stuff. And the resolution on them is never great, but you can see it all the same. Back when The Clocktower was the tallest building in the city, it had a big fuck-off gargoyle on top of it. Big swept back wings and these curved back horns, and hunched all over looking out towards the ocean for anything that might be sailing in to do harm.

It’s not there anymore. Supposedly, it fell off during the Cataclysm, but I’ve never heard of no reports of it getting dug outta the rubble. [[12]] We know what really happened to it, though. All those wards on the monster prison had failed, all the watching guardians of Gotham Below had failed, and Gotham Above was filled with unanswered prayers. It all came together at the highest point of Old Gotham, and the Bat Man statue sitting there was imbued with both the power and the motive to protect us. All of us. Bam! Batman!

[[12. The Sentinel of Gotham was an actual statue that stood on top of Gotham Tower for over 150 years. It was an angel-winged figure standing ten feet tall with a sword at its side and a shield held facing out to the bay. It fell off the top of the Clocktower in 1967 along with a significant portion of the north-western corner. The damage would remain until the revitalization of Gotham at the end of No Man’s Land. What happened to the statue is unknown. It was recovered for restoration and assumed display in one of Gotham’s museums, but I can find no further word about it after 1968.]]

I mean, we all know about the next parts, yeah? Lots of punching, lots of asskicking. Big giant monster with glowing eyes descending from above to kick the teeth in of anyone who’d given in to the whispering shadows, to the monsters wearing human skin, to the demons and their shadows and all the rest. And it was awesome.

But the kids at the time, the kids like us, they had it rougher. I mean, the way it’s like today isn’t like it was back then. Batman’s been alive for a lot longer now; he’s had time to learn how to be a person and not just some sort of monster-fighting gargoyle. But you can still see it. He talks like most of his throat’s still rock, and he moves like it too. He’s got a punch that sends people through walls, and bullets only make him bleed when he remembers they should and they never keep him down for long. And he still doesn’t really get what it means to be a person, or how to deal with humans. Like, you can tell he tries, but he’s an ancient protective guardian powered by even more ancient vengeance magic and there’s only so much that can do. To the kids of those early days, he was even worse. He didn’t understand that they’d be hungry or lost or alone. He didn’t understand why something like him would be terrifying, and he didn’t get why sometimes you had to steal to eat and survive.

So some of the smart kids of back then got together and worked out a plan. There was still a lot of that protection magic in the air from the prison getting busted wide open and they got the idea to try and channel it all, but on purpose this time.

((The wishes!!))

Right, the wishes. This is when that started. They spread the word. When you needed something, when you’d lost something, when you needed someone to help, you would write down your wish and what and who you needed to fix it, and you’d feed it to a gargoyle. Wish by wish, paper scrap by paper scrap, we taught the gargoyles what sort of protector the city’s children needed. There were attempts to get kids to feed them all to one specific gargoyle or another, but it didn’t really work out, everyone just wound up stuffing them into whatever gargoyle they liked best, or was easiest to reach, or was safe to get to. Turns out, you don’t need to feed the wishes to any specific gargoyle, they all talk to each other. What you wish to one gets picked up by all the others. [[13]]

[[13. This tradition appears to have started a year or two after Robin first premiered. It’s unclear exactly how it originated, but it’s now city-wide knowledge, especially among the kids, that you can feed wishes to gargoyles if you want them to come true. Previous writers have compared this to wishing on a star and have suggested that it’s how Gotham’s youth have adjusted for the fact you can rarely see any stars to wish upon in the city. (end note (viii, ix)). ‘Wishes for Gargoyles’/’Wishing on a Gargoyle/Gargoyle Wishes’ is often used by older Gothamites – particularly parents, teachers, and other caregivers – to refer to young foolish wishes, but with a positive connotation (similar to the phrase ‘puppy love’ meaning young foolish love, but with a positive connotation). (end note (x)). And despite what some city officials have worried, there’s never been a need to invest in going around and clearing years of paper pulp out of gargoyles across the city. What exactly is happening to the wishes instead is unknown.]]

And it worked, is the thing! It barely took a year before there was a second shape following behind the Bat at night. And it wasn’t like the Bat at all. It wasn’t a soot and ash-stained version of the Exquisite Birds, carved out of stone and one with the shadows. It was small, and bright, with the colors of Christmas, Halloween, and the circus all in one. He laughed and told jokes and understood the difference between kids who were crying because they were scared, or tired, or lost, or had just too much happen to them too soon. He knew how to talk to kids and how to help us. He stood between kids who just needed money to eat and the Bat Man’s strict ethics. We’d done it, we’d made a protector of our own. Warmer, more real, more human.

Kind a little too human, it turns out. Robins aren’t eternal like the Bat is. Robins grow up and grow old. Robins can die. Turns out, Robins aren’t made by a gargoyle coming to life like the Bat Man did. It’s more like, the gargoyles sort of push out the essence of all those stored wishes into a form that’s shaped after themselves, but made of our wishes and hopes and needs instead of just stone and rock. We don’t even know exactly which statues most of them came from.

We know the Second Robin’s gargoyle. But we’re Crime Alley kids, so of course we know. He went back to it whenever he needed to rest and heal. There are kids who still climb up there to tend to it and feed it offerings. We’re never gonna get Our Robin back, but it doesn’t feel right to let his gargoyle sit abandoned. And there are some kids who think, or hope, that if we can feed it enough wishes and offerings and positive vibes, maybe someday Crime Alley’s Robin will be able to reform to protect us again.

Until that happens, though, we keep feeding wishes to all the others. The first Robin evolved into Nightwing and became the protector guardian of Bludhaven. Kids who were smarter than me figure it’s because that protective magic is still leaking out of the broken prison and spreading out like a fog. It’s spread far enough out that it can feed them the next city over. Which means they also have those invisible whispers and corruptive shadows and all the rest, which, if you’ve ever talked to a kid from there, you know they absolutely do.

The Uptown Robin dyed himself Red and moved in closer to us here in the Alley. Personally, I figure it’s because he’s been getting all those wishes and offerings we’ve been giving to Second Robin’s gargoyle. It’s sort of merging the two of them a little. Hell, if it wasn’t for that Red Hood guy showing up, he probably would’ve become the Crime Alley guardian fully by now. I always kinda wondered if the Uptown kids have a gargoyle they keep up like we do ours, they just don’t tell anyone about it. I mean, we scarcely do. We sure as hell don’t tell anyone who doesn’t need to know where it is, that’s for damn sure. [[14]]

[[14. I only asked after the second Robin’s gargoyle’s location once. When I told that information wasn’t shared, I didn’t peruse it any further. All the extra glaring here was just really unnecessary.]]

Oh shit, good question, yeah, no, the Bat Girls totally come from the same place. Why some go by one and others go by the other is beyond me. There’ve been girl Robins, and it wouldn’t surprise me if there’ve been guy Batgirls. I think it’s because Gotham’s kids feed so many wishes into the system? There’s a lot of need out here, and so Gotham keeps birthing out new protectors for us. For awhile, I thought it was just a case of there were usually two ‘new’ ones at any given time, so one would get called Robin and the other would get called Bat Girl, but then we had two Bat Girls for awhile, and then Red Robin went back to being Robin while the other Robin was also Robin, but then they kept changing names, and…

Look, I’m sure there are kids out there who have a better grasp on this stuff than I do. I just know where they come from, not what sort of weird rooftop pack/hive dynamics they got going on these days, you know?

So, couple of other points before we close this all up. First, on the nature of wishes. I know it’s real cathar- ceth-. Fuck. Real good feeling to wish death by a thousand cuts on those fuckers who beat you up and stole all your food, or wish that the dad who beat you has his arms chopped off and whatever, but we’re all, all of us kids, city-wide, we’re really pushing that everyone cut down on the violence level of the wishes. The latest Robin we got came out with a sword. He’s straight up merc’ed a few guys too, and it didn’t work out as well as it feels like it should. We don’t want the next one to be even worse. Robin is supposed to be our protector, not our vengeance.

If you want someone to wind up stabbed, you learn how to use a knife and take care of that shit yourself.

We’re pretty sure the one extra invisible Bat Girl was formed out of the Bat’s shadow. She doesn’t talk much because they have to share the same voice, and she’s usually happy to let him use it, but this way the Bat’s able to properly Bat at two different places in the city at once. So she’s like the born wish of a born wish. It’s no wonder she’s so slippery and invisible half the time. Unless she’s actively punching something, she barely physically exists at all.

And no, no one’s exactly sure what’s up with Signal. I mean, yeah, obviously he was formed out of the Bat Signal. Skin’s the same color as the metal, outfit’s the same color as the light, and he actually shines and glows and all the rest. And he says he’s The Signal. This is like obvious base level shit.

We just don’t know who’s wishes he was born from. I mean, it’s possible that somehow the Bat Signal’s gotten tied into the gargoyle network, but that seems kinda implausible to me. Some have said maybe he was born out of the wishes of the police for Batman to show up and help out during the day for fucking once, but he’s way less violent and murdery than you’d expect from something born out of cop wishes.

Buddy of mine who’s pretty damn smart and is usually better at these things than me thinks Signal might’ve been born from the police commissioner’s wishes specifically. Which kinda makes sense. He’s like the one cop who actually gets upset when someone gets shot twenty times in the back for no reason, and he’s always the one turning on the Bat-Signal and talking to the Bat under it for years and years and years.

Kid I knew a year back actually managed to ask Signal who’s wishes he was born out of, but Signal just laughed and said something along the lines of “Doesn’t really matter who wished for me. What matters is they wished for everyone to be safe, so that’s what we’re here to do.” Then he blasted apart these giant shadow-bat things with bat-light beams and it was awesome.

So yeah. That’s where Batman and the Robins and the Bat Girls and all the rest came from, and why they do what they do. Give thanks to Poshkid for the food, remember to put out your fires before you sleep, and if anyone wants to talk about the EBs, track me down tomorrow and we’ll go hang out in Leeds’ Park around noon so we can be sure nothing’s listening in.

#DCU #Gotham #Batman #The Myths Children Tell Each Other #Civilian's view of the DCU #Fiction #Writing #The Crime Alley Kid

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ice-cap-k · 1 year

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Glassy Eyes

This is where I start getting carried away.

Fanfic of a fanfic. Based on Sixteenthdays' "From the Archives" series. Supposedly takes place after their story Immersive Story Telling.

Their tumblr

Seriously, their stuff is good. It puts this story to shame. I highly recommend you go check them out.

Cross-posted on AO3 here: Glassy Eyes

____________________________________

[Click]

[GRIAN]

Huh. Would you look at that? Did someone drop off another statement last night? Scar? Scar!

[Sound of door opening.]

[Scar]

What’s happening?

[Grian]

Did you leave this on my desk?

[Crinkling of paper.]

[Scar]

Hm? Oh, that wasn’t me. That was Impulse. He said Ren came in yesterday and dropped it off in a box at the front desk

[Grian]

(Indignantly) I was here yesterday too. Why didn’t he just come on in for an in-person statement like last time? It’s so much more satisfying when it’s in person.

[Scar]

He showed up after you left. And even then, it sounded like he was in a rush. Impulse seemed worried about him. It was like he just dropped off the box and ran out the door.

[Grian]

(Scoffs) Fine. Fine. I’ll have to talk to him about it later. Thank you for telling me.

[Scar]

Any time!

[Door squeaks closed]

[Grian]

I suppose a new statement is still better than a stale one. Statement of Ren D. Dog regarding an escape room experience. Original statement recorded yesterday, apparently, October 5, 2023. Statement begins.

[GRIAN (STATEMENT)]

Before I get to the important bits, I just want to apologize at the beginning for the handwriting ‘cause I’m going to write this in a rush. I probably shouldn’t be taking the time to write this at all, but you people listened and believed me when I told you about my escapades in the sewer and you’re the only ones I can think of who might know something about what I saw or have some sort of connection. I really hope so. I could really use some direction here.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. You’re going to want to know everything, so I’m going to start with the group chat. Er, ok not exactly the chat, but there’s a group I’m in where a bunch of friends plan out fun little outings. I’ve known most of them for years. Good people. We’ve had lots of fun times together. Sometimes we make a day of fun little games. Simple stuff like tag with Nerf guns and extra steps. Other times it’s a huge event that takes a lot of planning, organizing, and a venue.

Two days ago was our last meet-up. It was one of the bigger events we had planned for the year. Some of the fellas in our group had never been to an escape room before, so I figured we had to do something about that. I’ve been to a handful myself. Escape rooms are just good fun, honestly, and are great for big parties. The best places know how to break up big groups of people into littler groups and space them out so they can work through each room without catching up to the people who went first.

I took it upon myself to take charge of the planning. Nobody seemed to have any issue with me handling it this time around so as far as I was concerned it was up to me to throw the grooviest get-together of the year.

I found the place immediately. There was an ad that popped up in my “recommended” section on the forum I use to do research for my podcast. It was for a brand new escape room about to open up on the edge of town. There wasn’t much information available, but that made sense. It was a brand new business. There wouldn’t be any history on the company that a quick Google search would be able to provide. But there was a phone number on the ad, so I made a few calls. Talked to the owners about renting the place out for the day. It sounded like a good one. Cool concept. They were more than happy to set it up and stagger us out in groups as we went through the challenges. They sounded so excited to have so much interest this early into their launch. We got everything all squared away, and I let the fellas in the chat know the date and the time.

Everyone else seemed really into it, too. They pitched in their share of money to cover the costs. It didn’t come out to be that much per person since there were a lot of us and the company only charged a single lump sum for renting the place out for a day.

But the day before we were supposed to go, one of my friends had to back out of the arrangement. Poor thing fell sick and didn’t want to expose us to something nasty. I felt bad for the dude. The least I could do was offer them their money back. I could have covered their share on my own but they didn’t want it back. They just told me, “go ahead and take someone else in my place. I don’t mind.” At that point, everyone in our group chat who wanted to go was already going. Then someone suggested that, since I planned this one out, I should ask a friend of mine who wasn’t already part of the group to join in on the fun. Everyone was cool with it. Excited at the idea of a possible new addition to the group, even.

So I called up my good friend BigB. We used to hang out a lot back in university, but I hadn’t seen him in a while. This felt like a good opportunity to catch up. BigB said, “sure thing, man,” and we were set for fun times ahead.

So the big day rolls around and we get to this place and meet up with the others. Greetings and introductions go around, and we get ready to rumble. The host comes out to meet us. She explained the game and what we could expect. Our whole party would be divided up into groups of two. There would be timers running for pairs to try to solve all the puzzles in a room. Either they passed in the time limit, or the time limit would run out and they would be ushered to the next room. Either way, it would free the place up for the next pair to come in and try their hand at the reset puzzles. Then they walked us through the safety measures. Each room had a buzzer by the door that could be hit to let the workers know that you needed to get out. It would unlock the door and deactivate any machinery or whatever fancy doohickies they had in the place. Sometimes people get claustrophobic or anxious in a confined place. Especially when put under pressure.

It was all super chill and fun at first. A bunch of us hung out in the lobby while we waited for the first few pairs to go. When it was me and BigB’s turn, the host waved us over and we went in the door together.

BigB might not have been to an escape room before, but the man was absolutely brilliant. We made it through the first two rooms at lightning speed. The challenges weren’t too difficult, in retrospect, but they weren’t super easy either. It seemed like every time I got stuck in a rut, too caught up on a detail to figure things out, B would pat me on the shoulder and point out something I missed. We never went past the time limit. He was always a pretty observant guy when we hung out at the theater, but I never really stopped to appreciate it until now.

I kept marveling at how different it was compared to other places you see nowadays. It was honestly pretty clever. They modeled the inside like some big dollhouse. Fancy decorations and plastic furniture and all. There were mannequins set up to look like a setting with people. A few of the figures that were supposed to be little kids even had dolls of their own in their plastic arms.

It was in one of these rooms that B first pulled me aside. I had been trying to puzzle over a lock on the fake kitchen’s fridge. I’d assumed it would be like before, and that he’d blow my mind with some silly detail I had missed, but instead, he told me that the doll was looking at us. He pointed to this little glass doll in the lap of a mannequin kid. Its head was sort of tilted towards us. The glassy eyes glittered.

That creeped me right out. Sent a shiver right up my spine. But I also figured it was just a prop. Maybe even part of the puzzle. So I took what he said pretty seriously. I think that might have surprised him that I believed him so easily.

I tried waving my hand in front of the doll, moving around the room, I even picked the thing up. It didn’t seem to follow me as I moved, and there was nothing I could find that was off about the doll, so I shrugged it off and said maybe it was just a red herring. He didn’t look too convinced, but he didn’t argue. We ended up finding the key in a cake and moved on to the next room.

It was a bathroom. It was kind of small for the two of us, but we searched the place for the next set of clues. At some point, I opened a cupboard under the sink and nearly jumped out of my skin. There was another doll, sitting pretty on the shelf facing outwards to smile at some unsuspecting fool like me who opened the door. It spooked me so bad, that I bumped into the full-body mirror hanging against the wall and it came crashing down.

Broken glass got everywhere. I was ok. No cuts or anything. BigB was spooked something fierce. He looked me over to make sure I was ok. I mostly just felt bad about damaging the place's property. I was already rehearsing an apology and coming up with a payment plan to present the owners with when BigB got distracted. I asked him what was up, and he turned me around.

Behind where the mirror was hanging was a small door. Only a few feet wide. Maybe two feet tall. It reminded me of the house I grew up in, where my bedroom closet had a little door for easy access to the plumbing in the bathroom on the other side of the wall. It looked like those tiny maintenance doors. You couldn’t walk through it, but it was big enough for someone around our size to crawl through. There were no cobwebs like the one back in my old closet. This one looked nice and clean. Almost like it was well-used.

BigB thought we should hit the button near the last door. We could contact the hosts, let them know we broke the mirror. Our round would be forfeited, though. I wasn’t ready for that. We were only halfway through, and up until then, our rounds had been fantastic. The stuff of legends.

If I’m going to be honest, the little door also got me curious. We were in an escape room. How was I supposed to know it wasn’t part of the game? For all we knew, we had accidentally skipped a bunch of steps that would have eventually told us to move the mirror. I said as much to BigB. He seemed hesitant, but then I said that if the door ended up leading to nothing more than a bunch of pipes, we’d move on. I was at least hoping we could finish up with this room or go until our timer ran out before we contacted the hosts. Just to make things go a little bit longer. Beat one more riddle for the sake of my own satisfaction.

He actually agreed. So I kneeled down, brushed some of the broken glass bits out of the way, and he opened the door.

There was a whole tiny corridor on the other side! Like a mini hallway. BigB saw that and elbowed me in the side. “Looks like you were right. We just skipped an entire room.” He crawled in first, and I followed.

The hallway ceiling sloped upward almost immediately so we could stand back up and start walking again. This part of the building was noticeably different from the rest. Up until then, the rooms had been homely and tacky. Plastic and overstuffed. Full of dolls and cheap props. The walls and floor of this hall were grey concrete and hard edges.

The dolls were still around, though. Mostly the smaller ones. None of the mannequins. A mix of plastic and porcelain faces stared blankly out at the wall from lines of shelves.

The further we went, the less put-together the dolls seemed to be. There would be a cracked cheek here and a few missing strands of hair there, but before long entire swathes of shelves were full of doll bits. Not even entire dolls. Just their arms and legs and heads all lined up.

I had also noticed that the hallway seemed less well kept than the rest of the building. The door had seemed clean, and I suppose the hard floor did too, but clear strands of what looked like spider silk were hanging from the ceiling. Memories of what I saw with Doc were still pretty fresh in my mind, so when I started noticing doll parts tangled and left hanging in thicker knots of strands, I could feel myself losing my nerve.

I tried suggesting to BigB that we turn back. I’m pretty sure I made some excuse about how we must have accidentally found the storage rooms. We hadn’t seen anything that looked like a clue or puzzle since we came through the door. But by now BigB seemed hooked. He begged me to go just a little further with him. He just wanted to check the place out. If it was just storage, then as long as we didn’t mess with anything there was no harm in being there. We could always go back once we got to the end.

I couldn’t say no to him. I just couldn’t. His reasoning was sound, sure, but there was a spark in his eye that I just didn’t have it in me to douse. He was really curious about this place for some reason I could no longer fathom. But I was the one who suggested going through the door in the first place. I could ride this thing out a little longer.

I tried. I really did try.

We didn’t go very far when BigB took the lead. He mumbled something I didn’t hear. When I asked him to repeat, he called back a little louder, “The dolls are watching us again.”

Every hair on my body stood on end. I looked at the dolls hanging from the ceiling and at the ones lined up against the wall, and rows upon rows of eyes stared down at us. The plastic faces remained unchanged, but this time I could visibly see the painted marbles in the eye sockets moving to keep pace with us. Disembodied doll heads turned in place to continue staring.

But BigB kept going. Even as I tugged on his arm. I asked, no, demanded to know how he wasn’t freaked out, but he just shook me off. “We’re almost to the end of the hall,” he said. And he took my hand. “There’s something there. I can see it. Can’t you? Don’t you want to know what it is?”

I don’t know what came over me, but it was almost like the moment his hand touched mine his excitement sort of rubbed off on me. I don’t know how to fully explain it. It was like I was feeling what he was feeling. My fear was still there, but now there was also a burning curiosity. I couldn’t see what was at the end of the hall like he could. I didn’t see the end at all, but I didn’t run away. I let him drag me forward until we passed the threshold of another doorway. This one was normal-sized. There was no door, just the opening. I couldn’t see anything past the doorframe, but I trusted BigB. He seemed to be able to see ahead of us. So it came as a complete shock when I took a step forward and the ground was just gone!

The place had no floor. Both me and B dropped screaming into the black. I don’t know how deep it was or how far we fell, but if there wasn’t a bottom, there at least had to be a ceiling because a lot of those cobwebby strands hung down deep in clumps. They caught at us like vines, dragging at our limbs. My arms are still littered with tiny little crisscrossed cuts from falling through them and having them break across my skin, but they did manage to slow our fall. The two of us hit a point where there were so many little strings that they wrapped around us like a net and kept us from going any further.

I just hung there for a moment, catching my breath, trying to figure out what the hell had happened. BigB was hanging next to me, struggling for a handhold on the strings holding him up. And I think it was right then that I realized that this stuff wasn’t spider silk at all. It was too thick. Not stretchy enough. I think it might have been fishing line. It felt like that. Like thick, clear, plastic lines. They felt about as comfortable as you’d expect a fishing net to be.

We couldn’t see the bottom from where we hung. Couldn’t see the top where we came from either. I could see other things hanging above us and below us. Caught in suspension by the hanging strands. There were a few more dolls. And some rocks, curiously enough. Big rocks, little rocks, literal statues. I didn’t try to make sense of it. What was happening didn’t make sense. I also didn’t spot the human skeleton until BigB gasped and pointed it out.

It was hanging in front of him, maybe two yards away from him and even further from me. It had to have been there for years. The flesh had long rotten off its bones, making it impossible to tell if it was once a man or a woman. Only a few scraps of cloth hung from their arms and legs. It hung splayed out, supported by the plastic wires looped around its wrists and ankles. Another loop wrapped under its chin and around its neck like a noose. It kept the skull upright. Almost like it would be looking directly at BigB if it could, but there were no eyes in those sockets.

As silly as it sounds, the skeleton almost looked laughable hanging there. Sure, it probably spelled doom and gloom for the two of us if we stopped to think about how long they had been down here without anyone noticing. But the way it hung there suspended by its arms and legs, it was like a kid’s puppet. Tossed aside, limp and small and waiting.

“This is it. We’re going to die down here,” B wailed.

I tried to calm him down. Talk it out and come up with some sort of plan for both our sakes. I needed to believe it as much as he did. I started struggling. Some of the strings shifted as I pulled on them, which wasn’t very comforting. Still, the lines were sturdy enough to hold us. Maybe we could climb them? We could go back up and out the way we came. Or if we couldn’t get up, we could work our way down. There had to be a bottom. Once we got down there we could figure something else out.

BigB didn’t really like that second idea. “Don’t go down,” he begged. “Down is so much worse.” Frankly, I was inclined to believe him.

I managed to convince him to try climbing up. I was starting to make some progress myself. The strands weren’t the most sturdy things. I could feel some of them snap or give way above me as I dragged myself up a few inches, but there were tons of them. Even with a few breakages, I was still able to hold myself relatively steady. I think seeing that helped him calm down. He started pulling himself up after me. As he moved, the strings swung a little. He found himself shifting back and forth, swinging closer and closer to the skeleton. He didn’t seem too enthused about it. I tried suggesting he shift his weight a little to the other side. He did, but by then he already had momentum. He swung really close to the skeleton. Within a foot or two, and my stomach dropped as the strings holding its right hand began to quiver.

I thought maybe BigB had shifted something loose above us, and it was hitting the strings holding the skeleton, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. To my horror, the thing moved forward. It hung limp, but its limbs moved independently like a marionette under the skillful hand of a puppeteer. One dead hand lurched forward, wrapping around a clump of the strings holding BigB in a way that would have been downright painful if the thing had had any muscle or nerves left. And then the strings holding the skeleton’s other arm aloft twitched and swung forward to wrap around BigB’s shoulders. The head leaned in, the jaw opened, and somewhere above us a voice said, “What good timing. I’m always looking for good replacement parts.”

BigB screamed. I’m pretty sure I screamed too. Bones rattled as B tried to throw the skeleton away from him, but I could only watch in horror as the puppet strings controlling its arms twisted around B and wrapped him tight. He thrashed. I screamed at him to hang on. I wasn’t sure what I would do, just that I had to do something. The only thing I could think of was getting to BigB, so I climbed. I grabbed at strings and clumps and whatever else I could to drag myself over to him.

In my desperate desire to help, I stopped paying attention to how sturdy the strings were. They were giving out like crazy in my hands. Things above me shifted. I remember reaching out to BigB, but then B shoved the skeleton back and screamed at me to look out. I looked up and saw one of the sharp rocks that had been hanging above us start to fall. I watched as it came down at me. I felt it slam into my skull, and that was the last thing I remembered. It all went black after that.

When I opened my eyes, I was back in the fake little bathroom. I was lying on the tiled floor next to the broken bits of mirror with some dudes’ faces blocking out the light. My head hurt something crazy.

My friends and the hosts had come to get me and BigB when we didn’t respond to the buzzer signaling time had run out. They saw me on the ground next to some broken glass and a gash on my head and panicked. I felt bad. I must have been a sorry sight. They picked me up and started patching me up. And I was grateful for the help. But then one of them asked where BigB went.

I freaked out. I started to point at the wall, shouting that he was still behind the little door, but everyone just looked at me like they were confused. I tried explaining what had happened, how we went through the little door behind the mirror in the storage room, but as I started describing the hall, the owners of the establishment cut me off and told me there was no door there.

The really freaky thing was that there wasn’t. I went back to that bathroom and the space on the wall was empty. I even ran my hand along it, but there were no seams or edges that I could feel. The one owner was even nice enough to peel back the wall paper after we searched for BigB for an hour with no luck. There was nothing there. It was like the door had never been there. Maybe I had just hit my head when I broke the mirror and dreamed it all. But dream or not, we never did find BigB.

Everyone, me, my friends, even the owners, we all practically tore that place apart looking for him. And when we ran out of places to look inside the building, we started combing the area outside for him. We weren’t able to find anything. When it started to get dark, someone called the police. A few officers came out to check the place out. They asked us a few questions and took our numbers, but it’s not like they came up with anything we hadn’t already found. It was like B vanished without a trace.

I’ve been at my wit's end trying to track him down since then. I don’t think I’ve gotten any sleep these past two days. I’ve even started putting up posters asking if anyone’s seen him. Everyone else is pitching in, but I can’t help but feel responsible. I’m the one who asked him to come along on this trip, and I lost him when we were partnered up. If there’s a chance that my dream wasn’t actually a dream, then I even convinced him to go down that creepy hall with me. If anyone should have gotten got, it should have been me.

I know what you’re probably thinking. Doc already left because of something freaky we saw. And now BigB’s gone too. This is different from when Doc left. Doc can handle himself. He’s crazy strong and smart. Doc avoided me, but he didn’t completely vanish. People still saw him.

This isn’t Doc we’re talking about here. It’s BigB. BigB wouldn’t hurt a fly. BigB can stick to himself sometimes, but he doesn’t get lost in projects and vanish like Doc can. He’s just gone.

Well, most of him is. While we waited for the police to arrive, I stuck my hand in my pocket and found something that hadn’t been there before.

I didn’t know what to do with it or how they got there. It makes no sense. The police didn’t bother with them, so I’m leaving them with you on the off chance they might be some sort of clue.

I think they’re BigB’s eyes.

[Grian]

Statement ends.

[Increasingly panicked breathing.]

[Grian]

I… I can’t. I just- I have to go call-

[Click]

[Grian]

I tried calling BigB. I tried a lot. He’s not picking up. Despite Ren’s questionable honesty about his own name, he’s proven to provide accurate statements. At least as far as we have been able to tell. And as much as I wish it wasn’t true, much of what appears in this statement has been backed up with follow-up research.

An inquiry to the police station confirmed that Ren and a handful of others had reported BigB missing two days ago, and considering BigB is a fully grown adult with the right to come and go as he pleases without telling anyone, I wouldn’t be surprised if they continue to drag their feet on an investigation.

As for the escape room establishment, Ren had left an address and printout of the ad he had found online in the box he left at the front desk. I asked Scar to look into it and he managed to contact the owners. They claimed they have no clue how Ren and BigB managed to find the room with the dolls. The walls have been inspected, but no traces of a “small door” are to be found. The wall is solid. There’s no possible way they could have gone through, or that BigB might have ended up in the walls, though they have since reviewed the blueprints they received upon purchasing the building. Upon further inspection, they found that on the opposite side of the same wall where Ren described the door is an empty space. No room is indicated. Or anything, really. Just empty space. They’re currently looking into having a contractor take a look for signs of a boarded-up room. The sooner, the better.

They also provided a little information on the building’s history as it was told to them upon purchase of the premises. This information we later confirmed after searching through public records. Apparently, the building used to house the production of doll parts, which would explain a lot. It wasn’t a full production plant. Too small for that. Rather, it was a hub for touch up work and assembling the doll pieces before they could be sold to local toy shops. The new owners took it upon themselves to use some of the leftover products they found lying around as props in their escape rooms.

Pearl dug through a few newspaper articles in the archives and found that the previous owner had died in a very peculiar accident. I’ll, uh, spare you the details, but it appears they were caught in the wires used for assembling puppets. The place had been left to rot for almost twenty years before the current owners bought the property.

Oh yeah! As for the other gift Ren left for us in the box…

[Dull rattling]

He wasn’t lying. There were a pair of eyes in there.

They’re not really BigB’s eyes. They can’t be. They’re made of glass. They’re those freaky kinds of weighted marbles they use in porcelain dolls. The ones that are made to blink at you when you tilt the things back and forth. I can see why he said they were BigB’s eyes, though. They’re the same shade of brown as his. And have that same gradient effect at the edges where it gets a little darker all the way around his irises. The resemblance is kind of uncanny.

They were definitely made to look just like BigB’s.

I can’t find it in me to have Impulse take them to storage. I don’t like them looking at me, but it feels wrong, somehow, to have them locked away in a dark room. I’ll probably just keep them in one of my desk drawers until we find him.

[Sighs]

I’ll call Ren later if he can stop his search long enough to let me help.

Heh. We should keep a nickel jar for whenever one of us goes missing. Between me and my friends, we’d make a fortune.

[Click]

#whumptober 2023 #prompt no. 6 #recording #“It should have been me”#minecraft: hermitcraft #the magnus archives #creative writing #creepy dolls #missing persons #renthedog #bigbst4tz2 #grian #goodtimeswithscar #horror #the hermit archives #from the archives #escape room gone wrong #Human remains

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bugwolfsstuff · 7 months

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Wine Child chapter 1

Finnally finished chapter 1 and two of this fic. But i will only be posting those chapters here. the rest will be going on Ao3:

Summary: Mr D pisses off Hebe, gets dumped at camp as an 8 year old.

Chiron: Just a quiet day in Camp Half-Blood....I wish.

It was quiet at Camp Half-Blood.

That alone should have been my first hint that something was about to go very wrong.

It was the afternoon, Apollo was midway through his daily drive in his sun chariot. Campers were peacefully going about their scheduled activities, and Mr. D hadn't turned anyone into a dolphin.

I was at the archery range instructing the Hephaestus cabin: Issac had actually hit the target and not my back, Shane hadn't gotten into an argument with Kayla Knowles from the Apollo Cabin, and Harley had refrained from shooting his siblings (A very big achievement for him. He will be getting extra dessert at dinner.) Everything was going smoothly.

Of course, in Camp Half-Blood, even the smallest moments of peace never last long.

I was speaking to the head counsellors, Jake and Nyssa, at that moment about adding proper safety measures to their workshop in cabin nine (despite what some believe, we do have some safety standards at camp, just not very high ones) when suddenly the chatter around us got very quiet.

The unusual hush that fell over the children made me pause mid-sentence. Hephaestus's children were usually quiet like their father, yes, but not to this degree, especially not when they're talking about machinery.

I turned to see what silenced them and internally sighed.

"Good evening, Lady Hebe," I said calmly.

"Hello, Chiron," She replied.

As the goddess of youth, Hebe preferred to take the form of a young woman. Today, however, she looked like a little girl with blonde pigtails, and if I didn't know better, I would say she was around seven or eight.

She was holding a gym bag almost as big as she was...that was also moving...I don't think gym equipment does that.

She was also smiling.

Which didn't bring me any peace of mind.

"Me and Dio got into a little argument." She said, looking up at me.

Of course he did. Why does that not surprise me in the slightest? I thought. I, of course, did not verbalize my thoughts. That'd be blasphemy....However true it is.

Instead, I smiled and said, "Ah, sorry to hear that. What kind of argument did you have? If you don't mind me asking."

The fact that she was telling me this scares me. Gods can be dangerous when angered, especially when another god is the one to anger them. If Hebe was angry at Dionysus, then she might take it out on someone he cares about.

Someone like Pollux.

"Well, it's a funny story, really." Hebe's 'innocent' smile persisted as she started swinging the gym bag gently back and forth by the straps. Whatever was inside the bag did not appreciate this movement and started to move even more fiercely, like it was trying to escape.

"Dio had said some extremely offensive words to me about youth, and I simply couldn't let that slide. So, I decided to teach him a lesson about the value of youth."

Campers had started to gather around us. Percy Jackson and Annabeth Chase pushed to the front of the crowd to see what was going on.

My eyes flickered toward the gym bag, and a sinking feeling settled in my stomach. Whatever was inside, it seemed alive and determined to escape.

Hebe's eyes swivelled around to look at the other campers, her grin widening. She twirled the bag straps in her hand, pulling the bag upwards before tipping it upside down.

"What I didn't account for was how whiney he was. So then I thought, hmm, where was the best place where he could learn to appreciate youth? Nowhere else but summer camp!"

The pit in my stomach settled as my eyes focused on the bag, muffled sounds of protest emanating from it as it struggled. I think I just figured out what was in the bag, and gods did I hope I was wrong.

"Welp, I must love you and leave you, demigods!" She unzipped the bag, dumping its contents on the grass, and my worst fear was confirmed.

Purple eyes looked up at me with pure fear.

"No more monsters!"

-----

Chapter 2 on tumblr here

#pjo #percy jackson #Wolffox's writing #My writing #dionysus pjo #Mr D pjo #pjo chiron #Pjo Hebe #I hated writing this chapter tbh its bad

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highlordofkrypton · 29 days

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Surprise self-rec time! Pick 3 of your favorite things you’ve written and share them here, then put this in the inbox (anonymously or not) of your fellow writers to spread the positivity and help celebrate already written fics

(Added side quest from me, tell me what inspired your fics, why you love them so much etc etc, tell me EVERYTHING)

First, I also wanna shoutout to the anon who also shared this ask in my inbox! I appreciate you both so much!

Of my written works, here are my top 3 recommendations:

Wildflowers, a Tamlin x Rhysand ACOTAR Prequel, 50/50 chapters, 104k words

My inspiration: I have to be absolutely honest here, I wrote Wildflowers out of spite.

I was midway through ACOWAR and I was just hating the quality of the writing, the lack of worldbuilding, the character assassination and just how lauded these works are despite doing pretty much everything half-heartedly. I was really struggling with it, and I felt that if I was going to hate on something, I should stand on business.

Instead, it turned into a labour of love. I ended up loving the characters, and by joining the fandom, I realized I wasn't alone in wanting to either fix or build onto what was already set down by SJM.

Aside from that, I would say my biggest inspiration for baby Tamlin specifically is my writing partner. Neither of us have kids, but the way she writes the youth of her characters is wow... if you ever see me writing about gumming on knuckles, it's 100% her. The rest is pretty much... #yolo. The story wrote itself.

Why I love Wildflowers: I love Wildflowers, and most of my long fiction, because to be able to create a story and characters that will keep you engaged for so long, I needed to infuse a part of me. A couple of comments I got were how tragic Tamlin's story ways and how I handled trauma and grief. Those comments really touched me because while I did not live through the same events, Tamlin is the character I saw a lot of myself in and to know that a story that feels deeply tragic can still be beautiful.

My readers who enjoyed it, and told me as much, healed parts of me. All they needed to do was read, and kudos. So, whenever people recommend it, and I say that I don't have the words, I really mean that I don't. I've said it one before on someone else's post: writing may be a vulnerable exercise, but whenever someone loves that story, they are loving little bits and pieces of you and that's wonderful.

Regrets, a Clark Kent (Superman) x Bruce Wayne (Batman) smutty oneshot, 1 chapter, 4k words

My inspiration: This one is easy. This fic was written directly as a gift, homage, serenade to one of my favourite artists Umikochan. She released a Superbats mini-comic and I just had to finish it. The artist never looked at it and I'm a bit embarassed about it because maybe I overstepped, but I love it too much.

Why I love Regrets: WELL IT'S SUPERBATS! And my first proper Superbats work. I also think that this piece hits all the notes of what I want to display in my writing in a succinct way. One chapter of Mathi. It's bittersweet, it's tender, it's kinky and most importantly, it's funny. I also think it's really intimidating to write for your favourite ship of all time, so the fact that people like this... wow. I'm unbelievably flattered. It's also the fic I have the most kudos in (it's a bigger fandom), so just... it hits all the right notes for me!

Cosmogeny, Nyx x Tamlin cosmic horror romance, 3/? chapters, 3k words

My inspiration: This is a mix of a lot of things. I really wanted to continue writing my OC Johan who is a proper morally gray character, and embodies the tall dark and handsome vibes. I wanted to put him up against Rhysand, but there was no plot. So many people on here enjoyed my snippet of him, and at the same time, I was being ENCOURAGED to check out the fantastic phenomenon that was Nyxlin. Admittedly, I was a hater, but my friends have opened my mind (YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE, I DON'T WANNA TAG YOU ON THIS MONSTER OF AN ASK). So, basically, I shoved both ideas together.

As for the actual writing inspiration, I've always been a horror girlie and I love the visceral imagery of beauty in death, in the sheer mortality of existence and what love is. I love villains. I love romance painted in blood and gore, so... yup.

Why I love Cosmogeny: Because this one is for me! It's that self-indulgent nonsense fic and I do not want to be held to any standard except my own chaos. I wasn't planning to promote this either because what is more freeing than writing without being percieved? I do hope people who read it enjoy it anyway.

#WHEW THAT WAS A LOT #I will hop into ask boxes later today i need to get things done its already past 1 #my fics #AMAZING MUTUALS #my asks

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redthesizeshifter · 1 month

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The Contract - Chapter 1

So here is my first ever completed Size Story! I posted this one on reddit before but I think its better if I concentrate my stories somewhere that I know will be a good archive for them. This story contains a lot of teasing, flirting, emotional interactions, and slightly drama. Still not fully delving into the size aspect of things but will be getting there in Chapter 2.

Without further audeu, lets begin out story! Enjoy!

Eliot stared into the woman´s eyes. Both of them are in a sort of stalemate. He tried to intimidate her into telling her the truth, but it didn’t work. She had tried to make sense of why this person in front of her was not the one she met last night and tried to find out with no success. Now both of them were waiting for the other´s move. Two minds playing figurative chess as they planned their next move. Eliot then opened his mouth to speak again.

“What. `Thing? ´ And what happened last night?”

…

Eliot had gotten to the spot early; he looked around and saw that there was already a group of people gathered outside the restaurant that was hosting the event. The cold air of the night made him shiver slightly as he looked at his wristwatch.

8:49 pm.

He sighed. He´ll have to wait 11 minutes for the event, he shifted a bit uncomfortably in his spot, looking at the people that were gathered in front of the place with a paradoxical mix of anxiety and longing for a conversation. He took his phone out and scrolled through his social media. This was a blind date event, gathering frequent clients from the restaurant and putting them up with each other. He would be paired up with different people and talk to them about their interests, life, and dislikes, and see if he had chemistry with someone. The people who came out as couples would have a dinner paid for them with unlimited drinks. He had seen the group chat invite on his social media as a small ad. His best friend made him get in the group chat (threatening him with a couple of whacks of his folders) and came along to see if he could find someone.

“How do you expect to get with someone if you’re just working and mopping all day? Come on, it’s a great opportunity for you to get back in the reigns. Maybe open up to someone again”

Ever since he broke up with his ex, he had been incredibly lonely. His OCD got worse, way worse. Everything in his apartment was carefully ordered and cataloged down to the underwear he would wear each day. Order gave him comfort, it’s what he knew and loved. Order, control, and keeping things simple. Thinking about her ex only brought disorder and chaos to his life, and strong feelings too. He needed to keep them in check. Or he might risk something he hasn’t done in a while and promise himself never to do it again.

The people outside the restaurant suddenly began to slowly walk inside the place and the talking in the street started to dwindle to a murmur. He took a deep breath and started to walk inside with his suitcase in his right hand. He closed his eyes for a moment trying to envision his core rules for tonight.

Rule #1: Don’t get your feelings attached.

Rule #2: Invite her to your apartment or go to hers.

Rule #3: Take what you need to survive the night.

Rule #4 (Most important): Keep your size in check.

Size shifters like him couldn’t afford to be seen changing size given that if they were, they could be captured, experimented on, burnt at the stake, used, etc. He wanted to have a casual affair but without the other person seeing him shift. Which shouldn’t be a problem for him. Just a couple weeks ago he had brought a girl over for the night to his apartment and they had some fun together. He didn’t feel himself shrinking or even being close to shifting. It satisfied his and her needs and that was it, they both went their separate ways, period.

Suddenly he felt a sharp pain on his forehead as he collided with the back of someone else´s. They both yelped out in pain and rubbed the affected area.

“Ow! Hey, am sorry about that, I got distracted… Are you okay?” Eliot had said as he rubbed the front of his head, his hand covering his eyes for a second before he pulled it away to see the person in front of him.

“Ah… N-No worries, it happens to all of us” A velvety but delicate voice replied.

The air around him started to have a soft hint of fresh perfume, his nose immediately taking note of the pleasant scent, citrus. As he looked at her, he saw in front of him a tall woman with short brown hair and beautiful big light brown eyes. She had a small nose, full lips, and noticeable freckles that stood out from the cold. Tomboy-ish in nature, the woman looked at him and offered a small apologetic smile. Eliot couldn’t help but blush slightly at her beauty, something fluttered inside his chest. A familiar yet distant feeling that he couldn’t pinpoint. He then took notice of the thick winter coat she had and the even thicker scarf she had around her neck, two big furry gloves covering her hands. Eliot couldn’t help but chuckle slightly at her warm appearance. She furrowed her brow and pouted slightly.

“What? It’s really cold, okay? I hate the cold…”

Eliot found her pouting extremely cute and couldn’t help but chuckle a bit loud unintentionally.

“Ah, I hate the cold too. My ears and nose get so red my friend calls me Rudolph every time we get some ramen” Eliot had passingly, remembering what his best friend told him every time they went out.

The woman blinked for a second at him and then snorted loudly as she chuckled while shaking her head.

“That’s so dumb, but I can see it”

Eliot covered his nose instinctively out of embarrassment as he heard the woman laugh loudly as she winked at him.

“Got you, see you inside Rudolph” she teased as she walked away down the street

Eliot stood there dumbfounded for a second as he processed what had just happened.

“Am not… Rudolph” he huffed as he headed inside still looking at her as she walked.

…

The event organizers began sitting them all down in two rows, along with a glass of wine in each spot, ‘to ease the nerves’ they had said. When they were all seated the event began shortly after with a sweet little tune on the speaker of the restaurant. The first person that Eliot met shifted a bit in their seat uncomfortably. At first, Eliot didn’t mind it but after a bit of silence, he decided to speak up.

“Hello, do you like sports?” He inquired to break the tension a little bit.

There was a small hint of deodorant in the air, cheap hairspray and cat. Eliot heard the rustle of a jacket in front of him as the silhouette repositioned herself in the seat after the question. Woman, probably in her 30s or close to it, owns a cat and is usually pretty messy, which explains the hairspray which either she bought in a hurry or can’t get a better one. Eliot was a person who analyzed people. He always saw the details and micro expressions in people. He needed to be as sharp as ever to detect whether a client was lying or there was an irregularity in someone according to how they dressed or looked. For example, if a client says that they had gone to Mexico to enjoy the outdoors and the beach, but the client can't tell you what foods they tried, doesn´t look tan, and doesn’t have a bit of a distracted mind then either they stayed at their hotel all the time or didn’t go in the first place. There are a lot of factors to take into consideration but usually, he goes with his gut with this kind of thing.

“I-I don’t know much about sports, so no… Sorry.” a shy voice replied.

“Oh, that’s alright, do you have any other interests?”

“Uhm. I do like to read.”

“Oh really? What books catch your attention?” he inquired towards the silhouette

At that point Eliot had suddenly lost interest in this person, when people on the stand got nervous around him, he would love to dig into them and piece away their arguments. There were no arguments to dissect here, he was just asking questions to ask them. No interest in them.

“I do like reading coming books a lot! My favorite one is Watchmen! I think it’s such a great view of superheroes in current society and-”

Eliot was out… again. His mind began to wander around the place and to try and discern the different shapes of people around him as his vision adjusted to the darkness. The organizers would come and go through a curtain at the end of a hall so the light would pour inside the room occasionally, making it hard for the eyes to adapt in the darkness so Eliot couldn’t make out the people around him.

He turned back to the woman in front of him and nodded in agreement to something she said, he didn't know what. It was going to be a long night.

…

“Hey there!”, “I just came here 'cause am bored”, and “I saw that one of the organizers was making out with their partner in the darkest corner over there”, were all conversation starters that he heard so far. All of these people bored him, he didn’t feel any chemistry or any attraction to their personality. He distracted himself with other thoughts and did the same thing to every person that he got bored of, asked them about something they were passionate about and just let them talk until the timer ran out. He didn’t mind them talking about what they liked, and they got their fill of someone “listening” to them. It was a win-win in his book.

Suddenly the sweet tone sounded off through the speaker and the row of people in front of Eliot shifted to the seat to their right. Eliot said goodbye to the person who was in front of him and greeted the next.

Suddenly, a familiar odor crept onto his nose. Citrus. Flashes of a hurting forehead and a bit of excitement sparked through his mind. Where had he smelt this before? A velvety familiar voice came from the silhouette in front of him. Woman, 30s, tall. His heart fluttered slightly. He stood a tad bit straighter as he recognized the woman who was now sitting in front of him.

“Heya! I saw this place had a blind date thingy so I decided to come in and see what’s up”

“Really? Welcome in”

“Wait… Rudolph?” the voice inquired with an excited tone

“A-Am not Rudolph!” Eliot stuttered in his words as she chuckled once again, a blush started to form on his nose again as if his body knew how to mock him.

Eliot heard a light chuckle from the other side of the table, and he couldn’t help but smile a bit. He finally had something to look forward to.

Here went nothing.

“So, tell me about yourself. What do you like, what is it that you’re passionate about?”

“Hey, not to be rude, but I heard you ask that question over and over to the people before me, so I want to ask that question to you. What do YOU like? Any special interests?”

Eliot froze. She was asking him? Why? Was he interesting enough for her to ask her that? His heart skipped a beat as he felt his chest swell. Wait, no. It couldn’t be. He isn’t that interesting. Probably she was just asking to be polite.

“Hey! I'm supposed to be the one asking that. But if you insist. I am going to sound nerdy here but… I love the Lord of the Rings books and the movies too. I love the writing and development that went into creating such an expansive world”

“And? What about the expansive world?”

“Wait, you don’t want to tell me about you?” Eliot asked, a bit confused as he wondered why she didn’t start talking about her likes.

“Well, it seemed like you had more to say but stopped yourself, so I want you to keep talking about it. I also want to test how much you really know, for all I know you could be a poser” She teased as he felt her crossing his legs under the table in amusement.

There was a bit of silence on Eliot´s part as he stared in disbelief at her comment. “Excuse me? You think you know more than I do with Lord of the Rings lore?”

That had hit a nerve for him. He had time and time again proven to his friends and family that he was the superior loremaster of Lord of the Rings content and this mere peasant wanted to fight. Oh, she was going to get it. There was a hearty laugh on the other side that seemed like her accepting the challenge. Her velvety voice went slightly deeper, teasing him with a low but soft bet.

“I bet 20 bucks I know more than you about LOTR”

He couldn’t refuse the challenge, he estimated around 7 more minutes on the clock, and they had time.

“Bet. Questions made by one must be answered by the other, the first to not know the correct answer once, loses.”

A slight shift in the chair under the woman could be heard, Eliot assumed from the movement of the chair and the slight bump on the table that she had leaned forward. Game on.

“You´re on, aut” She temped him, calling him fool in elvish.

Eliot´s blood boiled slightly but chuckled, this was… new. An unusual turn of events that he was more than willing to play out. Up until now, this person has been challenging him every step of the way, keeping it interesting, digging into him without any fear of him getting angry or annoyed. It was a kind of sweet banter.

“Fine, I´ll go first. We´ll start easy, who created the first ever dragon?”

“PFFT! Easy, Morgoth. My turn, where does pipeweed originate from?”

“Common misconception is that it originated from the Shire since the hobbits smoked it a lot BUT its origins come from the island of Númenor”

He heard a small huff come from the other side of the table as if she was appreciating the fully correct answer.

“Very good, I usually catch fakes when I ask that question. Alright, ask me…”

…

They went back and forth, adding more information to their answers and justifying them with their information. Eliot found this incredibly refreshing and to be completely honest, a tad bit hot, in a nerdy way. How many women around the world knew this much about the franchise that he adores and even shares the same passion for, whilst bantering back and forth with him? Not a lot. He felt a sense of belonging while talking with her, something he had longed for a while now. He knew their time was running short and after a couple of swings from the wine they both settled on one last question for the other. Eliot pondered for a few seconds and got his question ready for her.

“Alright, for all the marbles, what color of wings were Glaurung, The First Drake´s?” he said, his words slurring slightly on the name of the great drake.

Silence.

“Hm? No answer?” He teased from the other side of the table bumping his knee against hers teasingly, a low chuckle seeping from his mouth, trying to taste his victory. Suddenly, after that, she snapped her fingers.

“AHA! NICE TRY! GLAURUNG HAD NO WINGS BECAUSE HE WASN’T A WINGED CREATURE! EVEN IF HE WAS THE FATHER OF ALL DRAGONS!” She blurted out victoriously as Eliot held his head in defeat and fell back on his chair. Now it was her turn. To be honest, he got a bit worried. Her questions were pretty good digging at what he lacked knowledge of, which unfortunately was the surface knowledge of the mythos.

She pondered for a bit before chuckling in a deeper tone, herself mimicking what he had done to her.

“Okay, here I go. Can Eru Iluvatar erase Morgoth from existence if they would desire it?”

The question was a bit tricky, Eru Iluvitar was this world´s version of God but in the LOTR universe, so technically he could do it, but there had to be something else, she wouldn’t ask a question as easy as that for nothing. Or was she playing mind games with him? The answer has to be-

He suddenly felt a soft touch on his ankle from under the table, he jumped slightly at the touch, he tried to figure out what it was until the thing touching him slowly began to ascend his leg, then slowly nearing his knee. Oh. His skin shivered slightly at the realization of what that was. It was the woman´s foot slowly going up his leg, teasing him, distracting him from answering before the time ran out.

“What´s wrong, dear? Getting nervous? You know if you don’t answer my question before time runs out you lose, right?” The voice of the woman ribbed him with her signature low and slightly seductive tone. Eliot shivered again, feeling a small familiar warmth coming from his abdomen.

His heart beat faster every second that passed, his mind rushed and tried to entertain his thoughts somewhere else. Feet had been a big thing he was into, being under one, inside a shoe with the naked foot there, he was a slave to the idea of being played with by a gigantic foot. His mind wandered a bit and he felt himself shrink a couple of inches, giving into the feeling for a bit, before gathering himself again, a phrase repeating in his head, a simple yet effective mantra for himself.

“Don’t shrink. Don’t shrink. Don’t shrink!”

The foot had made it to his thigh and was rubbing the inside of it with slow and methodical strokes, a low chuckle from her reached his ears entertained by the fact that he was practically trembling to her touch, but not exactly for the reason she thought. Well no, that wasn’t entirely right. It was exactly for the reason she thought but added a slight panic of being seen shrinking.

Focus, Lord of the Rings lore! Morgoth is a material being, below Aru Iluvitar. So, he could be erased from existence… But there is a trick. What was it?!

“15 seconds, Rudolph~”

A few tense seconds passed as the woman savored her soon-to-be victory.

“No” He finally answered. Gathering all his strength to not succumb to her tactics. The foot abruptly stopped in its tracks.

“But why?” She asked to see if she could bait out a wrong reason.

“Morgoth is part of Eru Iluvitar ´s grand plan so to delete Morgoth from existence would mean that he would no longer be part of the plan, which is not in the plan, therefore he cannot be erased. PLUS! Morgoth put a curse on existence that binds him to the fabric of reality which means you cannot truly get rid of him if you don’t want to untangle reality as we know it”

The foot receded to where it came from as she let out a frustrated sigh.

“Dammit.”

“Hey, that was cheating, you sore loser,” He said with a small hint of smugness in his voice as her strategy had failed her. His voice wavered ever so slightly but he tried to keep his cool.

The timer rang and everyone around them started finishing up their conversations. This was the last round of the night.

What the hell was that? Why did she suddenly want to tease him like that? Was it just a playful thing to do with someone you like? Did she like him? No. That couldn’t be it, maybe she just wanted him to waver and get 20 dollars from him.

“Well, I guess no one gets the 20 bucks then,” she said with a hint of defeat in her voice as she remained sat in front of him.

What did the foot thing mean? This question kept poking at him, provoking him to dig deeper, like finding a file of a murder so gruesome to imagine but too interesting to put down. He wanted to know. No, he NEEDED to know. Did she like him, and why?

“Not necessarily. Do you have any plans for later tonight?” Eliot asked as he looked at the figure in front of him.

A somber silence could be heard as Eliot´s heart began to drop. Stupid question, he shouldn’t have asked in the first place.

“Am free. Thinking of telling the frontman we became a couple?” She said teasingly as she began standing up, gathering her things, Eliot could see the faintest glow of light reflecting off her teeth and lips as they smiled at him.

His chest felt like it burst with a cloud of butterflies coming out of it. The feeling he had when she was teasing him, the feeling of seeing her for the first time at the main entrance, the feeling of her foot climbing up his leg, the feeling of her answering all his questions correctly about the franchise that he was passionate about, all were melded together in one ecstatic punch to the chest with just a couple of words.

“E-Exactly what I was going to suggest…”

“Alright! I want some free drinks! But…” She looked at him as they both walked towards the exit, night lights outside making it easier for them to see each other and their features.

“I liked talking to you about Lord of the Rings, you seemed so happy and enthusiastic that I thought I was talking to a little kid speaking of their favorite TV series. We MUST continue our questions to see who the bigger nerd is”.

“Yeah! Sounds like fun! I loved talking to you… uhm I never got your name”

The mystery woman hopped outside for a bit. Eliot finally could look at the person who was torturing him mentally and physically for the past 15 minutes. She hopped around happily putting her arms out, a bright smile on her freckled face illuminated the night like a lighthouse. Her short brunette hair flowed with the cold air as she walked around, her eyes closed. She was radiant, beautiful, graceful, there were no words in the English dictionary to describe how his heart felt seeing such a jolly creature hop around enjoying the night. There went an inch of his size, but not because he felt flustered, embarrassed, or… aroused… there was a word he had used before but now couldn’t find it again. Before he could finish the thought his mystery date giggled and walked up to him and whispered in his ear.

“The name is Eva. Pleased to meet you, Rudolph”

#g/t #sizetumblr #gt fluff #giant #flirting #date night

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moltenwrites · 1 month

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OC INTERVIEW TAG

Thanks @the-golden-comet and @thatuselesshuman for the tags. I just wanna say, I loved both of your posts, they were super interesting.

This game is simple, have your characters answer the questions presented! I have 9 to go through here, with Astera ( Paintings ) and Nelios ( How Our World Ended ) answering!

1. What never fails to make you laugh?

Astera - Honestly, I always get a kick out of comedy movies. They can be cheesy, but I love that about them!

Nelios - Raven. He doesn’t try to be funny most of the time, but he’s a riot sometimes

2. How can you tell if you’ll get along with someone?

Astera - I tend to get along with people who are a bit softer. Asim- well he’s just so- kind. He speaks so formally, but it’s cute, and I could tell we would get along

Nelios - Depends. If dad’s around, then it’s if they agree with him. If it’s me, then I like when people are open to humor. Raven, Thoko, they both can get along with my humor y’know?

3. Do you prefer sweet, savory, salty, or sour snacks?

Astera - I’ve always had a bit of a sweet tooth!

Nelios - Salty snacks tend to hit the spot.

4. What is your favorite season?

Astera - Fall! It’s not too hot, and the leaves are so pretty

Nelios - The spring here is decent. Everything here is better than Ryback though.

5. Where would you like to visit?

Astera - Japan seems so pretty, if it wasn’t so expensive I’d love to go!

Nelios - This whole province sucks. I live here, one visits to ryback was enough, Murna is a shitshow, so I guess Arscaes would be the pick.

6. When do you usually go to sleep?

Astera - Around 9:30 PM, though I sometimes stay up a little later

Nelios - I wish I could sleep right after my shift ends, but responsibilities usually last untill 11:00 PM.

7. If you had to pick just one enemy, who would it be?

Astera - I, uh, don’t like conflict that much. I hope I’m not anyone’s enemy, because they certainly aren’t mine!

Nelios - The mercenary.

8. When did you feel safest, and why?

Astera - There was a time I was just sitting with my whole family when I was a kid. I think we were watching a movie? But I’m not sure. I do remember the feeling though, how it felt like everything was okay.

Nelios - When mom was around. She kept Dad in check. This- this isint going to him right?

9. If you could save only one person, who would it be?

Astera - Mariana. I feel bad for my sister, I wish I could help her:

Nelios - This isint going to Dad right? Okay. Then Thoko, if something happened to her id be broken.

Annnd that’s all; if you wanna do this you can pick the three questions you like the most out of these. Or if you wanna do em all, go for it! Thanks for reading, here’s the tag list! Let me know if you wanna be added or removed

@thatuselesshuman @ddgraywrites @juliana-jones @revenantlore @aintgonnatakethis @yourpenpaldee @illarian-rambling @autism-purgatory @gioiaalbanoart @the-letterbox-archives @theverumproject @noxxytocin @joseph-hooser @mk-writes-stuff @yrndrgn

+ Open, as always

#writers on tumblr #writing #writing on tumblr #writeblr #writing community #writerscommunity #souls collide #howourworldended #fantasy #howe #Nelios #asters #paintings story #tag game #open tag

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the-fiction-witch · 1 year

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I feel like I'm about to cry

Hi everyone, sorry kinda in panic mode right now

Wattpad have without warning decided to remove my book with all the kinktober fics inside.

Luckily! I had already scheduled them on Tumblr for the days they will be posted so I have them backed up but it's still not cool deleting my work with no warning and refusing to allow me to at least archive it.

I was dropped a message and told as of immediately my book would be deleted.

I know I have it backed up but it's still heartbreaking and I'm not paranoid in case I didn't back something up so I have to go through all my planning, and I am now panicking about backing up everything in case they decide to remove any other books (I've had this before they never stop at one) or remove my account again.

I am getting so fed up with this, my books are constantly being reported, having chapters removed, having stories removed, I am trying my best and adhering to all rules and terms as listed on the sight and yet it still continues to happen.

I think what makes me the most upset is firstly the lack of warning, you know this is my work I have put so much blood sweat and tears into these and to just be told yeah they're gone and you can never get them back it's so heartbreaking, Secondly that I don't get to know why.

The kinktober book wasn't even posted yet, it has one chapter that just read coming soon and everything else was scheduled. I don't get to know if the titles were an issue, if the cover was an issue, if the fics themselves were an issue if someone reported the book. I have no idea and I'm not allowed to be told why meaning 100% this will happen again because I don't know what I did wrong.

And I feel like Wattpad is purposely misleading in that case, they don't tell you on purpose so they can remove what they want and not give you a valid reason for removing it.

as it said the loss of work breaks my heart and the fear now in me that any of my work could be removed or even my whole account has filled me with so much anxiety.

I don't like to talk about this because I feel kind of big-headed but I have 1.6K followers on wattpad, over 99 works, and books that have reached over 500k reads and likes.

I know that doesn't make me special, but I still feel like writers of any size deserve an explanation as to why their work is deleted without the possibility of recovery without warning.

I won't pretend to know how Wattpad as a company works that's not my business, but I know my books have brought a lot of people to the platform that may not have come other wise, I know I'm by no means a big person on the platform but I still feel like every writer and every fic should be appreciated for the hard work that goes into them.

All I know is my work is being deleted without warning, without explanation, and I am unable to appeal, complain or even get my work back. All with the risk the last five years of work could all be deleted in two minutes. I understand I do not pay for premium so I suppose that makes me not a priority to them as I am not paying for use of the app and site however I know wattpad and sites like it make money from ads, and I have received so many ads on my own books sometimes they are impossible to read and I have never seen a penny of it so I imagine my nearly 100 books and countless fics have made them some good money.

If you all need me I will be backing up my work and potentially looking for a new home for my work.

#writing #creative writing #wattpad #fiction #author #crying #upset #thomasbrodiesangster

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camaro-and-smokes · 1 year

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Nightmares

Chapter 1: Billy

Rating: Explicit Archive Warning: Major Character Death Categories: Multi Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington, Billy Hargrove/Eddie Munson, Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson, Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson Additional Tags: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Everyone Is Alive, Post-Battle of Starcourt, Post-Season 04, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Nightmares, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Gay Billy Hargrove, Gay Eddie Munson, Bisexual Steve Harrington, Disabled Billy Hargrove, Disabled Steve Harrington, Disabled Eddie Munson, Harringroveson, Metalsandwich, Harringrove, Mungrove, Steddie, Everyone is grown up, Established Relationship, Additional Tags to Be Added

Moodboard by the wonderful @a-redharlequin

HEADS-UP: If you're triggered easily, as a general head's up: there's graphical descriptions of injuries and how they happen, though everything is pretty much canon, and also there's canonical character deaths mentioned and described but all characters end up living.As a personal note: as someone who had to come to terms in living with the cards I've been dealt with, I've wondered how these three would come to terms with a new set of really shitty cards. And because there's hardly any angst for them as a trio, here's some. Enjoy 💜

Also on AO3 >>

Chapter: [CH 1: Billy] [CH 2: Eddie] [CH 3: Steve] [CH 4: Eddie] / ?

Summary: It was just another night at the Harrington-Hargrove-Munson residence. They were adults, all of them in their thirties. Yet the past tugged their insides from time to time and reminded them about the horrors they’d experienced as teens. All of it felt like a twisted, fucked up dream to them. But their bodies reminded every single day that those things really happened.

:::::::::

He’s falling. He feels light as a feather as he floats in the air, out of time and place, between this second and the next one. He wants to remain here where there are no burdens, no hurt, just peace. Here he’s free. But then he feels his stomach drop as the gravity snags him and starts to pull him towards the floor. The scream that just left his mouth hollow is still ringing in his ears. It’s one of the last things that’s still lingering, apart from his life.

For the shortest of moments, he thinks how nice it is that there are fireworks. It’s the fourth of July after all. The thought of going to the quarry and see the fireworks over the city sky from up there passes his mind. Maybe he’d finally make the move he’d thought about for a while now and kiss Steve. He wants so much to know how Steve’s lips feel like against his own, if they're soft or chapped. To know how Steve tastes like and if he really is as good a kisser as the girls at school say he is.

But he’s falling. He feels his life pouring out of him, leaving him and vanishing into that ethereal peace that was in between time. It's twirling from this plane of existence into another one like water into a drain.

He always thought dying would hurt. That he would feel pain when he was dying. But now as he’s here, actively dying, even as the mind flayer has ripped his chest apart, there’s none of that. There’s only remorse.

Remorse over things he never said. ‘Max, you’re not so bad.’ ‘Fuck you, Dad.’ ‘Mom, why the fuck did you leave me?’ Or over things he never did. Not kissing Steve on top of it all. Remorse that his life was already ending before it had even started.

The fall ends as he meets the floor. His whole body bounces at the impact when the hard concrete tiles greet his wrecked body. The hit is hard enough to spurt the blood that was clogging his lungs out of his mouth.

He hears someone calling his name, but the sound is muffled, like it’s coming from underground. Suddenly, he’s so, so tired. All he wants to do is sleep. To vanish into that place between time.

But the voice is persistently calling him.

He feels someone touching him. Warm hand stroking his chest and shoulder, a colder hand gently caressing his cheek.

“Billy...” the voice calls. “Billy, you need to wake up.” “Wake up, Billy...” another voice says. “You’re having a nightmare, baby.”

----------

Billy snapped awake. He could still hear his own scream in his ears, and it gave him a strange déjà vu as he saw the shadows dancing in the ceiling, around the dome light. He’d been here before. In this room, screaming just like this. And that’s how he returned to the now. He was home.

He was breathing heavily, like he’d just run a marathon or something. But he was alive. More than he’d ever been.

“I’ll go get some water,” the other voice said, and someone got up from the bed, making the springs of the mattress creak. And then Steve was looking at him, smiling affectionately. “Hey, baby,” he said and laid next to BIlly, placing his arm over his chest. “You came back.”

Billy turned one his side to face Steve and broke into heavy, heaving sobs. He was so happy that he was here, alive, and in Steve’s embrace. Steve pulled BIlly tightly against him, wrapping him in a warm embrace. “You’re okay, Billy,” he murmured, and pressed a kiss on Billy’s temple. “You’re alive, you’re at home. You’re safe, baby.”

“How’s he?” Eddie asked when he came back into the room with the glass of water and set it on the nightstand. “I think he saw the one where he died again,” Steve replied. Eddie grimaced. “Ouch.” He laid himself against Billy, wrapping himself around him, and searched for Billy’s fingers that he found tightly clenched into fists against Steve’s chest. He kissed Billy’s neck softly as he rubbed the fists gently to help the tension in them to ease. “Babe, you’re safe. Nothing can hurt you.”

It was just another night at the Harrington-Hargrove-Munson residence. They were adults, all of them in their thirties. Yet the past tugged their insides from time to time and reminded them about the horrors they’d experienced as teens. All of it felt like a twisted, fucked up dream to them. But their bodies reminded every single day that those things really happened.

Compared to Billy, even Eddie’s experience of how the end might come wasn’t as bad. And according to Steve, his issues where nowhere near neither of them. Both Billy and Eddie rolled their eyes whenever Steve said that dying was the only serious injury on his scale, so his problems were minor.

It wasn't a pissing match between them but Billy had drawn the shortest straw. Steve and Dustin had done their best in giving him CPR the whole 14 minutes it took the paramedics to arrive at the mall. They had done a miracle and first gotten his pulse back and then kept him alive long enough, though just barely. The surgeons had been operating on him at the hospital for twenty-one hours, all of which Steve had spent in the waiting room, refusing to be taken to the ER and rest.

Everyone had said that Billy would never wake up. That his body had suffered so badly that it would’ve needed a miracle to bring him back in any form.

Billy’s father had already decided to pull the plug on Billy when Steve'd started to talk to Billy. He had talked about everything that had happened, and then slowly, he had started to tell Billy how he felt. How he’d had a crush on him for a while and that he was sorry that he’d done nothing about it. After he’d confessed his feelings, a few hours later, Billy’s brain had showed signs of activity.

Steve had literally brought Billy back.

He was kept in a coma for one more month more before the doctors finally had woke him up.

----------

”Hey,” Steve said when Billy slowly opened his eyes. Billy heard Steve swallow hard and let out a soft, uneven breath. He squinted at the brightness that assaulted his eyes and he grimaced, closing his eyes again swiftly. Something clicked, and the light turned off. ”It’s dark now. You can look,” Steve said. Billy opened his eyes again, his eyelids heavy. He looked up blinking slowly, but couldn't really see anything else but shadows. Shutting and opening his eyelids was hard, as if his eyes had been closed for ages. “You came back,” Steve whispered. Billy tried to talk, but his vocal chords didn’t catch the command from his brain and all that came out was a raspy breath. ”Oh, yeah, water,” Steve said and soon pressed the straw on Billy’s lips. Billy took a sip and almost immediately had a coughing fit as the water fell into his windpipe. ”Okay, take your time. You haven’t used your mouth and all that stuff for a very long time. And you had a tube in your throat for a while too to help you breathe.” ”Where am I?” Billy asked when he could breathe steadily again. His voice sounded all wrong to his own ears, like a crow’s caw, and speaking hurt. ”You’re in a hospital,” Steve said and placed his hand on Billy’s. The touch felt familiar to Billy. As if it was so natural that his body had gotten used to it. He tried to move his hand, but it barely twitched. Steve picked up the hint and wrapped his fingers around it, squeezing lightly. ”You’ve been here for a while.” Steve paused. He swallowed hard several times.

Billy something wet falling on his hand. Tears. Steve was crying.

”The doctors thought you’d never wake up,” Steve continued with a wobbling voice. ”Fuck them,” Billy croaked. Steve let out a relieved laugh. ”I can't tell you how happy I am you woke up.” Billy was too tired to speak more, but he turned his lips into a tiny smile. Steve squeezed Billy's hand a bit tighter. ”You need to sleep. I’ll stay for a while longer.” Steve swallowed again loudly. ”I’m glad I was here when you woke up for the first time. I’ll bring Max to see you tomorrow after I pick her up from school.”

Even after being awake barely for ten minutes, Billy already had so many questions he needed answers. Foremost about how he was alive.

Because he remembered dying. Being swooped into darkness and simply not existing anymore. Being snuffed out like a candle. No film of the events of his life running in front of his eyes, no bright light poetically inviting him into it, no deceased relatives waiting for him at the gates. Just...nothing.

But his eyelids were heavy, and they forced themselves closed.

----------

“I died,” Billy whispered when his sobs eased. “Yeah. You did,” Steve said, stroking Billy’s side. “But now you’re alive and kicking,” Eddie said, and snuggled tighter into Billy’s neck. “Do you want some water?” “I want a shower,” Billy said as he became aware of the dampness on his back, his forehead, and the sheets under him. “Do you need help?” Steve asked quietly as he stood up and helped Billy up. “’m fine. You just go back to sleep.”

When Billy left the room, Steve and Eddie looked at each other. ‘As if’ was silently hanging in the air between them. There was no sleeping after Billy screamed his lungs out in a cold sweat, startling them awake and switching their lizard brains instantly into panic mode.

“I’ll go make some coffee,” Eddie said and got up. Steve sighed. “I’ll change the sheets.” Eddie was almost out of the room when Steve continued. “I’m so tired,” he sniffled. “I’m just so fucking tired.” Eddie turned back into the room and rushed to Steve. “Hey! No need for that, babe,” he said and wrapped his arms around his shaking lover. Steve hugged him back and buried his face into Eddie’s hair. “I know,” Eddie continued and gently swayed them from side to side, calming Steve’s sniffles. “You gotta sleep in the other room for a while again.” “But it feels so wrong,” Steve whispered. “Babe,” Eddie said and pulled back to look at Steve. He placed his hands on Steve’s cheeks. “Do we really have to have this same discussion each time the anniversary gets closer?” Steve looked past Eddie’s gaze, biting his lip and looking miserable. “You know Billy understands and I understand. It’s not for forever.” “I know,” Steve whispered. “You need sleep. Please, Steve.” “I hate you need to take care of me like this,” Steve said quietly. “Of course I’ll take care of you. Because you're a fucking caretaker, you put everyone else first and won't leave anything for yourself. And then you break into hives without warning and can't stand straight for days and at that point you're no good to anyone. Who else is there to take care of you but me or Billy, hmm? I love you." “I love you too," Steve whispered. “I’ll go make some coffee. You change the sheets. But you should go back to bed then, honestly. Just sleep in the guest room. I put the sheets there the other day, ready for Max and Lucas when they come for the fourth. I’ll stay awake with Billy.” "I don't think I can sleep anymore, I have to leave in an hour or so anyway. But I'll sleep there tonight. Should we call Max and cancel?” “No fucking way! We’re not letting this shit stop ourselves from living this time either.” “I guess you’re right.” “You know I am. Now, c’mon, let’s go.”

Billy let the hot water run on his back. His scars tightened and ached whenever he had nightmares about the past events and hot water eased both symptoms. He was re-living the horrors of his past with his whole body, and especially when the nightmares were of his death.

The dream was still haunting him, even though he reminded himself that he was awake and that it was just a dream. He could still feel the mind flayer’s tentacle pulling his insides, and he rubbed the massive scar it had left behind, trying to rub the memory away.

The nightmares always became more frequent with the anniversary of the events getting closer and as the fourth of July was just around the corner, he'd been waking up screaming and covered in cold sweat three-four nights a week for the past few weeks.

Which meant that none of them really got to sleep properly, but he felt especiqlly shitty to have awaken Steve, again. He could see just by looking at Steve’s face that he wasn’t getting enough sleep.

He had told Steve that he should sleep in the guest room with earplugs and not to stress over him. That it was more important for Steve to be able to work over these few weeks than to stick literally by his side. Steve couldn't handle any stress anymore, and waking up several nights a week to his boyfriend screaming wasn't exactly good for him. But the idiot wouldn't listen 'because it feels wrong to leave you guys alone'. He loved Steve more than life but by god could that man sometimes be stubborn in all the wrong ways.

And besides, Eddie was always there when Billy couldn't sleep because he didn’t have to be awake at dawn like Steve did. Obviously it made it difficult for Steve to get to work when Eddie had to stay awake with him—because Eddie was their designated driver. Steve would have to take the taxi—again.

He could always drive Steve to work too, of course, as it was one of the few things he could actually do, but Steve didn’t trust him to drive after he’d had nightmares. The horrors might still jump in on him in the next junction if something unexpected happened and he’d lose sense of where he was. Steve was right, of course. Like he always was.

Which felt like shit, too. That he still wasn’t able to handle a thing like that, staying in the present after some dream and more than a decade later. His shrink always said that he’d gone through ‘an unfathomably stressful event'. He’d probably suffer from the aftereffects for the rest of his life. And that he 'should just try to adjust to that thought'.

He turned the water off and stepped out of the shower. He dried himself and put on a robe and opened the medicine cabinet, taking two pills from the Ativan bottle with his name on it. He stared at the tiny white tablets for a while before swallowing them dry. He hated it that he had to take fucking pills so that he could live a somewhat normal life. Not that it ever had been that, not really, but especially not anymore. He grimaced.

Just like about the shock of dying, the shrink always reminded him it was okay to take care of his family the way his body allowed him to. His nerves had been fried in several parts of his body and in general his body just didn't work like it should've. Could probably be expected after what he'd gone through.

The worst were his legs. There were good days when he could walk around almost like he used to and then there were days he couldn't even get up from bed without his cane. At least he could still drive, but not with a normal car. Though, he'd pretty much gotten over the humiliation of having to control the car just by hands when Steve had bought him a new Camaro with adjusted controls.

He did what he could and he consciously knew that he pulled his weight. But for some reason, even after all this time, taking care of their home, cars, and cooking—and being hell of a cook—didn't feel like enough. He wasn’t bringing any money to the table. He was just a parasite...

Eddie halted Billy’s thoughts by drumming his fingers on the bathroom door. “Hey, sweet cheeks, stop spiraling into hopelessness.” Billy tsked, “Don’t fucking call me that,” he groaned. “Gets your attention every single time, though.” Billy snorted. “And you have sweet cheeks, peaches.” “Fuck off, Munson.” Eddie laughed. “Come on, there’s coffee.” Billy unlocked the door and opened it ajar, knowing Eddie was right behind it. A hand with a mug of steaming coffee extended from behind the door. “Your coffee, milord,” Eddie said dramatically. Billy took the mug, and Eddie grabbed the door handle from his side, fully opening the door and bowing as deep as he could, stretching his arm out. “Welcome to the land of the living.” Billy wanted to call Eddie an asshole for calling him sweet cheeks yet again. Eddie knew he absolutely loathed that nickname. But the bowing gesture made him feel warm and fuzzy, and he couldn’t help but to smile a little.

They went into the kitchen, where Steve was making breakfast for himself. Billy set his mug onto the kitchen counter and wrapped his arms around Steve’s waist, pressing his face into the nape of Steve’s neck. “You should be back in bed.” Steve leaned his head on Billy’s. “It’s okay.” Billy placed his jaw on Steve’s shoulder, and Steve turned his head to give a peck on his lips. “I’m sorry I woke you up again,” Billy whispered and stroke Steve's chest with his hands. “Don’t be, baby,” Steve whispered back. “I should’ve gotten up soon, anyway. Might as well go to work a bit early. I’ll pick up something to eat on the way home so you can rest.”

Eddie turned on the cooker hood as he sat on a bar stool next to the cooker. He took the ashtray from the kitchen counter. “Was it any different this time?” he asked Billy as he lit a cigarette to go with their coffees. Billy shook his head as he pulled another bar stool by the cooker. He took the smoke from Eddie, taking a drag. “No. Just the same old same old. Being ripped apart, falling, dying. All the good stuff.” “I’ve actually started to die in a new way in my nightmares,” Eddie said as he lit a smoke for himself. Steve joined the discussion. “Oh? That’s new.” Eddie nodded. “It’s not always the bats that kill me anymore. Sometimes it’s my blood. The fucking virus they left behind.” Steve looked at Eddie, concerned. “When did the dreams change?” Eddie smiled at him sadly. “A while back. I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d worry, babe. It doesn’t make any difference, anyway. They’re just bad dreams.” “What did doctor Owens say when you were checked last time?” Steve asked, not convinced. “Babe, I told you. Everything is as good as it can be, considering everything. I go there again next week.” He took a drag from his smoke and tapped the ash from the end of the smoke into the ashtray. “Did I tell about the new shit he wants to try on me?” “That some experimental drug for treating...what was it? Blood cancer?" Billy said. “Yeah, that one. He says that he’s hopeful about it,” Eddie said mockingly. “Eddie, you shouldn’t...” Steve started. “Yeah, I should try to remain positive about it,” Eddie interrupted him. “I know, Steve. You know it always just...isn’t that easy.” Billy stroked Eddie’s cheek with his fingers, then pushed a strand of hair that had gotten loose from Eddie’s bun behind his ear. “You’re alive, baby. That’s all that matters.” Eddie clenched his jaw, and the smoke between his fingers trembled a little. “Oh baby,” Billy said and took Eddie’s free hand in his, squeezing it gently. “You’re important to us, to me and Steve. We love you. Nothing would be the same without you. It’s all worth it.” “He said that I should take a week or two off from work when the treatments start,” Eddie said quietly. “Apparently that shit is potent.” “When will it start?” “Next month, when the first preliminary testing phase for the drug starts.”

#billy hargrove #steve harrington #eddie munson #harringroveson #harringrove #mungrove #steddie #harringrove fic #metalsandwich #angst #emotional hurt/comfort #major character death #suometar writes #nightmares

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unlimitedtrees · 1 year

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so the game i made, 'UNITRES Dreams', is open source on github now

https://github.com/UnlimitedTrees/UNITRES-Dreams

hello. earlier i made my game 'UNITRES Dreams' open source on github. i want to talk about it. click the little 'read more' thingy to read da rest of this post. i had a lot of things i wanted to say about it and why i think open sourcing games is kind of awesome Lol !!!

also , By The Way, play da on newgrounds ehehehehe ~! or u can download it on itch.io too if you want

so. let me start off by saying that, although i was planning on releasing the source code for unitres for a long while, i was Not prepared to release it now. in fact, it kind of happened on accident.

in case you didnt know, earlier on twitter i was talking about how i wished there was a good way to release my archive of old builds for the game. i have a google drive full of old builds but i also i dont like using google drive. i sent a link to the drive in a reply to someones tweet, but there is one big thing i forgot: the game's project file is also in that drive.

anyways, instead of just deleting the reply or removing the file from the drive, i decided to just release the source code on github now, since i might as well. a part of me feels like i shouldnt have released it so suddenly... but also a part of me feels relieved.

you see, the unitres dreams source code is Bad. tons of messy code with almost no comments... a bunch of hackish solutions to tons of problems... everything is just incomprehensible unless youre me. considering ive been the only person working on the game for years, i understand most of the code and never needed to make comments (especially since making comments in construct 2 is Annoying).

my original plan for releasing the source code was to go back and clean everything up; improving tons of messy systems and adding comments explaining how everything worked. i also was planning on adding new content for a new update to the game aswell.. such as an options menu and maybe new levels and characters or something. i have Tried going back a few times to clean some little things up and work on a keybinding system... but i havent had the time to focus on it and do what ive wanted to do with it.

so, yeah. im kind of glad the source code is just Out now. it probably wouldve taken me Years just to do what i planned... and i think its best to just get it out now instead of just waiting years for something that might never happen, even if the source code right now is incredibly insane and unusable.

which leads me to something most people might be wondering: Why even release the source code in the first place? honestly, i doubt a lot of people will get use out of it, especially with the bad code and it being made in an old, dead engine that you cant even Buy anymore. but despite this... i think its good to release the source code for your games for a few reasons...

for one, its good for archival reasons. ive had a huge anxiety over losing all the source code for my games... its happened to me before and it really hurts. not only can you not use it in the future, but you lose a lot of work youve done, and for me ive lost a ton of games which were important to my journey as a game dev. nowadays, i try to hold onto all of my projects and have saved them to multiple computers and hard drives, but releasing them on stuff like github and google drive at least makes me feel a little better.. and hopefully with the unitres source code being public and the google drive for the old builds being out, it means that i wont have to worry about losing either of them.

another big reason is that, even if no one uses the source code for anything like mods or whatever, i think games having their source code out is good for learning game dev and understanding how games are made, even if the code is a big mess. even if i did get to go with my plan of cleaning up the source code... i feel like thatd be kind of dishonest, cus Most games Never have perfect code when theyre made. its good if you use the most messy code in existence just to get the game done... you can't always spend forever perfecting something, and at the end of the day the game eventually has to come out at some point. even big triple A projects will have weird code in some places... thats just a fact of life. i think having the source code out lets people see the kinds of crazy stuff that goes into a game, and maybe seeing my crazy code will influence others to do things a lot better in their own things. that's what i think, anyways.

and hey, even if My game never gets any sort of modding community, that doesnt mean Your game wont. there are a lot of communities out there who make some crazy things with mods.. and things such as open source games or decompilations can lead to some incredible stuff. with decompilations, youve got things such as mario 64 or the retro engine sonic games being ported to pretty much Everything, and then youve got open source games like Doom and friday night funkin which are being pretty much kept alive Because theyre open source and have a huge modding community. even if a game never gets as much interest as those.. it doesnt mean it never will, and having a game be open source can help a community grow so much more.

anyways umm yea. i think making games open source is awesome. there is a little part of me that feels weird about making unitres dreams specifically open source and the possibility that people might make fangames and mods out of it, as its something thats really personal to me (especially since the main character is named after me), but if people do make fangames and stuff with it i dont think ill mind, especially since a lot of my early work was fan games and unitres dreams takes a lot of inspiration from the media i love. all that i ask is that people include the original credits from the game in their thing, especially if you reuse any of the music from the original soundtrack.

i think, at the end of the day, my goal with this is to inspire more people to open source their games. a lot of good things can come out of it. that's all i have to say i think. play unitres dreams on newgrounds dot com ehehehe !!

#UNITRES #UNITRES Dreams #gamedev #game dev #indiedev #indie dev #indie developer #indie game development #game development #indie game dev #TreesThinks

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white-cat-of-doom · 7 months

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You requested hate mail so here is some hate for you:

Your blog is *reads smudged writing on the palm of my hand* bad and uhhhhhh *squints* crimge.

(Just kidding, the archiving work you do for this musical is amazing and I’m so glad you’re part of this fandom 🤍)

I do appreciate the hate mail Anon ;). I always feel honoured to receive a complement, because I never really aimed to be anything more than someone sharing their love for the musical. I used to be in awe of all these important users and their posts, that were pillars of the fandom in my mind, and I guess I might have ended up being like them :).

I thought that there was something missing after I first joined the fandom in that there was not much of recent information for the musical being shown, which is why I started to help document the show with others in the background. Eventually I had the tools to document even more and basically everything that was going on in the current productions, and I think I found my niche! No one else was really keeping track at that point, so I felt I could lead in the regard. I wish I had started sooner to be honest!

I am still trying to work through improving and documenting the past productions, as there is a lot of information in the programmes and brochures from the show that I have not had the chance to go through. I quietly work every so often in clarifying and expanding on information, as well as adding new things, to the wiki. I also wish I had more influence in how the wiki works, but we cannot have everything :).

(If you think the wiki can be improved or have any ideas, let the administrator know, and tell her I sent you!)

Thank you again, Anon! I really appreciate it! 🤍

#A long winded way to say thank you!#I want anyone to able to keep up to date on any fun things happening with the musical and include all the content involved #As only so much can be added to the wiki without it becoming too picture bloated #It is one of my small ways of spreading love and happiness to the fandom #The White Cat Speaks

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girlcalledwhatsername · 2 years

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have you ever like. wondered what ao3 is doing with that money. every few months they ask for donations and get double that and yet the site is still exactly the same as it's been for Years, it's still in beta and like. they're not doing anything to get rid of the racist shit on there.

The OTW has its financial records public and easily accessible you can actually go and see what they are doing with that money. It's not like. Some super well kept secret you actually literally can see where the money is going. Keeping servers up takes money, having legal aid takes money, ao3 is a massive site with more content on it than most educational sites and libraries like jstor and stuff and they have dismal budget compared to those sites. This is all information you can find easily, like. Probably even just on the ao3 tag on this same site. Probably in some slightly older reblog tagged ao3 in my own blog. That money isn't as much as people seem to believe it is, for maintaining a site of that scale.

And ao3 is not going to get rid of things, that's the point of an archive. Ao3 isn't removing racist fic for the same reason that your local library isn't removing racist homophobic misogynistic classics. An archive cannot afford to censor anything because it will always put the power of deciding what gets censored in the hands of a governing body and no individual or state can be given that right. That being said, this is exactly why ao3 is working to provide an option to block users. I don't want to be reading racist ableist misogynistic fic any more than you do m8, but i understand that a volunteer run site where no one gets paid and they scrape by on a small budget to maintain the servers will have limitations to how quickly new stuff can be added to the site. A block function would enable readers to be able to filter out users who write fic objectionable to them and allow writers to block people saying objectionable shit to them directly. Like the op of the post I reblogged earlier today said, it should still not be something that enables writers to block out readers from reading fic completely because the option to warn people in the bookmarks about racist fic needs to be there.

I really think what people cannot understand despite so many discussions on it is that ao3 serves the same purpose as the libraries in your towns, your schools, your universities, and it has social features on top. Ao3 cannot censor stuff for the same reasons that these libraries can't. And as much as I hate some literature considered 'classics' that have violent misogyny and racism in it, i would also stand against libraries banning them or the government insisting that libraries get rid of them. I will always stand against censorship and that's the mission OTW has too. You cannot speak for me and possibly know how much rage some of those books or fics fill me with to the point that they do spoil my entire day and are often horribly triggering because racism/ableism doesn't get tagged when someone is just being a bigot and is probably not expected even of dead dove content oftentimes. I still cannot stand for censorship in any way. No one should have that power. The way ahead is clearly a blocking feature + putting the warning you need/think might help others in your bookmarks. Much like how in literary circles we warn our friends when there's triggering content or bigotry in books that we have to read for our course or that we otherwise decide to engage with and discuss. That's what I do with racist classics instead of hoping they'll get banned.

I love to imagine a world where everything that hurts me simply ceases to exist! I love to imagine never having to see a film playing somewhere with misogynistic shit in it!

But i do not agree with actual censorship of it. As a matter of my political beliefs. This is one of the foundational principles of my leftist thought for me and if it isn't for you then what we have here is not a disagreement about ao3 but one of a political nature. You are entitled to especially curated spaces that do ban certain kinds of content, but an archive is not that, and I don't go to sites that do ban works because I disagree with that on a political level.

Ao3 introducing a block feature will help this along but I refuse to demand any works being taken down. There is always going to be room for improvement, but there are also limitations to volunteer run organizations and I'm too old to be putting the onus of perfection on people working for free. The financial records aren't a boogeyman. This isn't a conspiracy of "oh but did you ever think what actually happens behind the curtains?? I shudder to think the horrors, what must be happening there??" This isn't that because anyone who wants to know can know what OTW does with every penny of that money and you would know it too if you spent more time actually looking for answers to the questions you have instead of fearmongering about hypothetical scams. Volunteers are more overworked than people assume and shit costs more to run than people assume. There's an accountant who did a breakdown of the financial records of OTW as well if you want, idk, search OTW on my oh and scroll down or something. Clearly you are very very worried about these financial records, I'm sure such an effort will be well worth your time for how it will put your mind to rest.

And for fuck's sake do not ever think you can use my identity as a queer disabled poc to somehow push me enough with emotionally charged arguments to ever politically agree with censorship of any kind. When you stand up for everyone to have rights you end up defending the rights of bigots as well and that sucks and i hate it and it sucks enough without fellow "leftists" trying to guilt me into agreeing with ceding ground to right wing rhetorics and practices. Because that's also what the OTW is putting up with. In defending against censorship you end up defending works and authors who are absolutely despicable and that's still better than ceding ground to an ideology where a special select group of people get to decide what stays and what goes.

Good fucking day to you

#asks #otw #ao3 #I'm not linking to sources because guess what? it's exhausting! and i don't owe you my labour at all!#anyone who is feeling kind and patient and wants to put the sources in a reblog feel free to though #^ok to rb otherwise too #but if you're gonna argue about something that I've already stated my position on then you just can't read and I'm blocking #racism #misogyny #ableism

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