#teddywrites

[encrucijada]

not actually nanowrimo but since it's november, might as well be!

title: the forest with its teeth

genre: found footage horror (but written down)

wordcount goal: 5k because university is trying to kill me. the main goal is actually to do some writing to start figuring out the sequence of events and the characters

cw: cannibalism, depictions of violence and torture, body horror, harm to animals, unreality, feeding into fear and paranoia, probably fire

summary: multimedia project about a group of 5 friends who become stranded within a forest with some unsettling folklore tied to it, as the cliché goes. the horror is slowly revealed to them and it seems to go beyond just the eerie feeling of being watched or the figure they can sometimes see ambling between the trees.

core theme: love as horror and the horror is making it your problem

characters: that's a secret 🤫 a lot of the story relies on the characters being a bit of a mystery

inspiration: over the garden wall, the magnus archives, mabel podcast, the blair witch project (that i have not watched), marble hornets (that i also haven't watched), whatever @teddywriting tells me is good horror

[teddyylou]

Monday: Klance Drabble - teddyylou

Keith woke to gentle kisses being pressed to the shell of his ear. Wrapped up under the warm covers of his bed, he pulled the strong arm that was hugged around his middle even tighter, pressing his boyfriend’s hand, which had crept up under his shirt as they slept, to his chest, kissing his knuckles. 

“Hmm, morning, baby,” Lance hummed, burying his nose snuggly into Keith’s mess of black hair. Keith felt him breathe out happily, the way their feet brushed together at the foot of the bed adding to the serene feeling that was swiftly taking over all of his senses. Every place on him that Lance touched tingled with a warmth that sent goosebumps all over his body, and every breath they took in unison as they snoozed well past Keith’s alarm made his heart swell and his smile grow exponentially. 

“Morning, Lance. Mmh, it’s so sunny and nice you could almost forget that it’s Monday,” he mumbled, rolling over so that he could face his boyfriend. “And your sleepy voice is just so sexy,” he giggled, pressing their foreheads together. 

Lance scrunched up his face, still yet to open his eyes, simply holding Keith closer to him to stop him from wriggling around so much. “Yeah, you can even hear the birds chirping,” he replied with a content sigh, purposefully skipping over Keith’s crass sentiment. 

“Aw, you also say really sappy, cliche things when you’re half asleep. Did you know that?” Keith’s aimed a toothy grin at Lance as he opened his eyes to lour, who merely pulled the pillow out from under Keith’s head and gently smack it back down over his face which a ‘whump’.

Keith tossed it aside, rolling over to share Lance’s pillow so that he could press a kiss to his lips. ‘The first one of the day’ he thought to himself, closed mouth to avoid Lance’s nasty morning breath.

“Hey Lance, you know you have terrible morn-”

Knock, knock.

“Keith, are you up? I heard your alarm go off. Breakfast will be on the table in five; don’t make me come and get you.” Keith and Lance froze as Keith’s mother spoke gently through the door from the hallway. Keith even heard Lance hold his breath.

“Yeah, uh, coming mum,” he called back. They waited for her footsteps to disappear down the hall before Keith could even tear his eyes away from the door, relaxing against his bed as Lance let out his breath with a disappointed sigh. He knew what was coming.

“Okay, Romeo, out you go.” Keith patted Lance’s thigh as he pulled back the covers. Lance, left only in his sweatpants, laid firmly on the mattress shaking his head.

“Nooo, I don’t want to go. Let me stay,” he whined, attempting to pull Keith back against his chest before he could reach for the hoodie he’d stolen from him about a week prior. 

“Mum would kill me if she knew you’d been sneaking in at night, you have to,” Keith pleaded, eyes wide as he tried to force Lance out of his bed. 

“Keith, I’ve been staying here about three nights a week for the last two months! You don’t think she knows?” He asked, leaning over the bed to put his socks back on, tying his converse with a huff. 

“Nope,” Keith said frankly, shaking his arms until his hands poked out of the ends of Lance’s hoodie. He climbed out of bed, catching one of Lance’s arms as he grabbed his shirt, pulling him to his feet. “And she isn’t going to find out. Now, window. Out.” Keith gave Lance a gentle push towards the second-storey window, an easily slidable roof just underneath it that would drop Lance in the front yard of Keith’s house. Lance held his hand up to his heart, scorned. 

“Nine whole months I’ve loved you and here you are, forcing your dear, sweet boyfriend out of a window to ride his bike the whole way home. How you wound me,” he feigned. Keith raised an unsympathetic brow, arms crossed over his chest.

“Forsooth,” he mused, causing Lance’s facade to crack with the upturn of the corner of his lip.

“Ah, so you finally did your English homework,” Lance said, one foot already standing on top of the garage. He straddled the window sill as he slid on his shirt.

“I may has't,” Keith smiled before dawdling over to Lance, handing him his phone. “See you at school.”

“Don’t be late,” Lance said, standing fully on the roof so that he could lean back in, hands supporting him on the sill. “I love you.”

Lance kissed Keith sweetly, clearly not caring as much about morning breath as Keith did. 

“I love you too,” Keith said before leaning in again, even if he knew that Lance did it on purpose, because Keith really just wanted to kiss his boyfriend. “Bye.”

“Bye,” they muttered to each other between short pecks before Lance pushed himself up, slid down the roof, and landed skilfully on the lawn. Keith watched him as he ran down to the street, pulling his bike out of the bush he had stowed it in, and rode off towards his own house. Keith watched until he’d disappeared over the crest of the hill that led to his street, actually enjoying the warm sun and the singing birds because Mondays were always good when he started them next to Lance. 

“Whatcha lookin’ at?” Keith was startled back to reality by his mother’s voice. He’d not even noticed she’d come back up to find him.

“Oh just… some birds,” Keith lied. Krolia stared at her son for a second. 

“Okay,” she replied. “Come get breakfast, we have to leave soon.”

“Cool, be down in a sec.”

***

Keith woke up tangled in sheets and all of the extra blankets he and Lance had thrown over themselves as they went to sleep the night before. His entire body was engulfed in the warmth of the strong arms holding him close, heat radiating off Lance’s chest that was pressed tight to Keith’s back. 

Lance groaned as they both stirred, instantly pulling Keith even closer as the raven wiggled around to face his boyfriend. Keith felt a sleepy kiss against his forehead as he tucked his face into Lance’s neck. It was warm there. No need or desire lingered to go anywhere else. 

Lance adjusted his feet to intertwine them with Keith’s. He, however, managed to pull the blankets with him as he did and for a brief moment, a gust of piercing cold air let itself into their safe cocoon. In unison, they gasped an indigent “Ah!” and huddled in together, giggling as they found themselves safe from the dreary Monday morning weather.

They laid in silence, sharing soft, lazy kisses as the rain poured on outside. The windows were fogged and if they tried just the slightest it was as if nothing else in the world existed outside Keith’s bedroom. 

Until they heard shuffling around in the kitchen below.

Keith let out a deep sigh, placing a few more kisses to Lance’s defined collar bone before patting his side solemnly. 

“Hhh, you should probably go now,” he weighed the unfortunate words on his tongue as he spoke. Lance merely groaned in response, snuggling deeper under the mountain of soft blankets where the sting of the outside couldn’t get him. 

“Keith, baby. You can’t possibly make me go out there. You wouldn’t make me ride home in the rain,” Lance begged, holding him and rocking him, like a half-hearted shakedown. Keith huffed, considering his options for a second. 

He peeked his head out of the covers, hair still a mess over his face. It looked so cold out there that his skin prickled just at the thought of it. But then he thought of his mother downstairs, catching them. Each rattle of a closing kitchen draw made his heart pound. It was a tough choice.

“Oh my god, you’re gonna make me ride home. I can’t believe my small, loving, sweet boyfriend is going to send me out like this. I could catch a cold Keith. Do you wanna be the one looking after this snotty-nosed bastard?” Lance persisted almost too loudly and pointed to himself. 

Keith snorted and placed his hand over Lance’s mouth to hush him. He thought about it for a second longer, eyes narrowed to a squint, shifting from the bedroom door to the window. Lance’s eyes remained wide as he awaited Keith’s verdict. 

“Fine,” Keith said after a second. Lance whispered an elated cheer before pulling the both of them back under the blanket pile to cuddle.

Keith didn’t know what his next move was, but while he was laying so comfortably and soundly in Lance’s arms he was sure of one thing. That move was not going to be for many, many minutes. He opened his eyes so that he was just staring blankly at Lance’s chest as the brunet carded a hand through Keith’s knotty hair​​—the pair simply pretending that it wasn’t as such due to Keith sleeping like the dead, and Lance’s fingers totally weren’t getting stuck and tugging on a knot every few strokes. 

Keith was almost completely lulled back to sleep when he heard a knock. 

“Keith, I called you already what are you up to?” His mother’s voice became increasingly clearer as the door opened ajar and without a second to lose he threw the blankets over Lance’s head, holding them tightly up to his chin. He hoped it looked like he was just really cold, and that their entangled bodies just looked like Keith under a mass of about four quilts. 

If Krolia knew anything, she wasn’t letting on; Keith thought he was safe.

“Oh, yeah, sorry. Bit hard to get out of bed today. I have to plan my course wisely to get from here to the warm shower with as little time in the antarctic hallway as possible,” Keith explained, trying to appear nonchalant as Lance feathered kisses to anywhere he could reach on Keith’s chest without moving. Krolia nodded inconspicuously. 

“Okay, well, breakfast is on the table, get it while it’s hot,” she told him taking a step back out of the room. She stopped, however, just as she was about to close the door. “Oh, and there is a place set for Lance too,” she eyed Keith smugly, a faint smirk on her lips as she closed the door. 

Keith heard a quiet ‘oh fuck’ from under the covers and, well, yeah. That. 

[awriterbythesea]

Writing Requests Open

I am doing writing requests! 

Don’t worry! I’m not asking for payment! The only thing I am asking for is experience! 

Please don’t be afraid of asking for any short stories!

I’m in a lot of fandoms, so it’s most likely that I’ll know it!

I only have 15 writing slots open!

[teddies-and-kitties]

Midnight Thoughts

heres a thing i wrote under the cut  idk im only posting this to boost my confidence

like nd reblog (or dont) but pls dont steal thanks

the whir, the zephyr around me. midnight tranquillity, my only buddy.

yet this mind of mine, a delightful contrast. a mess of thoughts amassed, a jumbled chaos.

i seek refuge in this inner turmoil. a bizarre sense of calmness overwhelms my distorted mind.

swimming through vast vocabularies and voices of different tongues, i search for order and constructs. only to come up short.

exhausted and now defeated, i gave in to distractions. the appeal of later being the only viable option, for now.

tbc

[encrucijada]

been meaning to send u this ask for a while but if you want to could you please ramble about zaccai and ismene from your #guard dog relationship tag 🎤 👀 you posted a snippet of writing of them and i’ve had worms in my brain ever since i don’t even know what specifically i want to hear about but i just need to Know About Them (<- girl who is being normal about it)

*pulls up my powerpoint* i'm glad you asked

zaccai and ismene aka guard dog are the god/worshipper dynamic @teddywriting and i decided to create one day because i pointed out we didn't have any, quote, "guard dog dynamics". you know those posts where it's like the dynamic between the guard dog character and the object of their affection who is often incapable from stopping said guard dog from killing whatever they deem dangerous to the object of their affection. yeah those.

their story has been baptised as let sleepers lie. it's high fantasy. it's post-apocalyptic. it's the result of shadow of the colossus being my favourite game and also tears of the kingdom coming out, teddy and i just kinda went insane over botw/totk zelink. here's the summary i wrote for it!

Sword of the Gods, Zaccai, has only one purpose instilled in him: give his life for that of the godling the Old Ones left behind after ending the world. In the wake of a land trying to learn how to live again is Ismene, all that remains of divine blood, and what she is meant to do for the people is unclear. They are alone with all the gods left for them being a temple, a ruined land, and each other.

now what does that even mean.

in this world there used to be gigantic gods people call the "old ones" now, as their language has been lost and no one remembers what they were called. they are what happens if you put the nature gods from princess mononoke (like the wolf chief moro), the colossi of sotc, won shi tong from atla, heavenly warriors from nausicaä of the valley of the wind, and dormin again from sotc in a blender. the main feature of gods in this world is their golden coloured blood, their "old blood", which is burning to the touch—basically what if fire was a liquid. these old ones had their temples built around them and once built the temples were just big enough for them, meaning they could move about inside but could never leave. why exactly they ended the world is inconclusive, but ismene suspects it's because they’d gotten fed up of the situation they were in. godhood is just a gilded cage etc etc.

ground zero of the cataclysm is virtually a wasteland, covered in silver flora. this plant life includes the silver grass and silver trees, which existed before the end of the world and were kind of like a gift the gods gave to the humans as every single part of the flora could be utilised or eaten (ismene and zaccai subsist on the silver trees, basically). they live in the temple from the summary, which was built for ismene but has the dimensions of an old temple... meaning it's way too big for just two (2) people. the cataclysm basically rotted the land and so only the silver flora can grow without being affected. think... nausicaä of the valley of the wind's toxic jungle.

ismene was born from a human woman. what are the details of her conception? no idea. maybe it's a virgen maría situation. she's called "the godling", the olympian to the old one's titans. she looks like a human person, except for the fact she's got golden eyelashes, golden freckles, her eyes shine at certain angles, oh and her blood is also golden... and she's burning to the touch. touching ismene's bare skin is like sticking your hand in an open flame. her tears are also golden! but they're more sparkly. she's has severe agoraphobia and social anxiety from being raised in the temple. the feelings of the old ones sorta translated into her and they were used to being trapped, so she was basically born as a caged animal. she's also very good at sitting still for hours and is bad at human physiological tells, like hunger.

zaccai was originally a troublemaker boy named aleister living in a town like a week's travel away from where the temple is now. he lived with his aunt maeve who runs the inn at the town. he offered himself as a volunteer to be the sword of the gods and they proceeded to basically... make him anew. don't you love it when characters are weapons. all that's required of him is to be good with the sword and to love ismene so much he would die for her, just an average healthy relationship. he likes plants, he doesn't remember aleister's past concretely but he has positive associations to plants so he latched onto them... so he's a gardener. he does most of the things around the temple as ismene is basically a living statue, she's an object of worship and that's it. he cooks, when they travel he manages the camping site, etc.

they're autism4autism 🫶

tidbits about the made-up religion

ismene wears a veil. think a wedding veil but richly laced, ismene makes them herself as it is something for her to do with her long hours of free time. regular people aren't supposed to see her, this simulates how old ones were generally hard to look at as they were... uncanny. but also because members of the highest hierarchy in the old religion wore veils. generally only takes it off around zaccai. she likes wearing it around strangers because it gives her the illusion of privacy

springs and pools! prayer and other rituals are done in the water. there's a pool room in the temple ismene sits in for hours at a time praying. only high priestesses and prophets are allowed into the water without permission, and also zaccai. they can be manmade or natural, natural are preferred.

imagery of the gods is allowed, the springs usually have statues rising from the water to mark them as sacred. the temple has stained glass windows but those are of the "eyes of the old ones". these are inspired by the talismans from the last guardian. they're basically like what crosses are for christians or the triforce are for hylians, they're the Religion Symbol. faithful will have them in their homes, etc. not two are the same.

others besides ismene wear veils too like i said, high priestesses and prophets. though their veils are less... busy?? you can better see the person's face.

the old ones are genderless! but they can be worshiped in male and female capacities for specific means. they are also amoral! they don't work by our code of ethics, they have no code of eithics. they're gods.

after making ismene the old ones went to sleep. where? unclear. underneath the earth is how i've been thinking it, but they could have also jumped into the stars like the giants from hilda or retreated into the ocean. the point is they're asleep, kind of like lovecraft gods, and that's why the book is called let sleepers lie.

the proper way to address ismene is "your grace", zaccai uses "my grace". you call old ones "your majesty". it's fine to also call ismene "godling" or "the godling", older characters have also used "little goddess".

teddy and i had done a few rp threads but we've kinda rebooted and started from scratch, using the previous threads as a loose outline. here's what's happened so far:

ismene and zaccai have been living together for at least two years. ismene thought zaccai was a god like her, the minor god to her primary god. except oops, when they had sex he bled and his blood... was red. not a god. this is know as the Red Blood Incident.

this created a bit of a rift between them they are trying so, so hard to mend. they are all each other has. but they weren’t socialised enough as puppies.

they leave the temple for the first time in those 2(ish) years. they make it to the mountains where they find a commune of faithful who say they live with and worship an old one. among these faithful is a girl around ismene's age named amaryllis (she's important).

ismene and zaccai are brought to the old one... who happens to just be a regular woman. turns out that when you destroy the world and leave it to its own devices so you can raise your new god creates some religious anarchy and people are opportunistic.

ismene is horrified at the sight of this false goddess who has been lying to these people, taking their goods and love and time. ismene orders zaccai to cut off her tongue. so he does! the girl amaryllis helps him hold the false goddess down.

it starts to rain and so our duo is invited to stay at the commune. they find out telling people everything they believed in was a lie, thus shaking their way of life, makes things complicated. zaccai and ismene hang out with the faithful. meeting caspian, who'd been promised by the fraud he could one day have his dead children back. amaryllis tells them the fraud had promised her she'd be reunited with her lost sisters (and also that she'd be a prophet). they meet naida, who had found purpose with the fraud and is pissed now. silas, a painter who came here after his mother died. vesta, the cook who teaches zaccai food just doesn't have to be silver tree byproducts.

silas asks if he can paint ismene so they can have a reference to make a statue out of her. silas doesn't see a goddess. silas sees a hot girl he thinks he can charm but she's too autistic and demisexual to know what flirting is. (he tries to lift her veil to look at her face and zaccai almost kills him lol).

they visit the fraud who is being cared for by a man named rupert, who happens to be a doctor. ismene learns her name is rosa and she did this because, why not, if she could make a place for herself at the top of the food chain why not take it. she gave people purpse. zaccai meanwhile is getting his arm treated by rupert because ismene burned him to prove she was the real deal, rupert implies he knows zaccai. they don't discuss further.

they go back to the temple after telling the faithful they will be accepting pilgrims to come pray now. the least they could do after flipping their way of life on its head.

zaccai and ismene are planning to travel to another town as i write this

caspian and amaryllis visit the temple. ismene's social battery is running on fumes and she despairs upon realising... she cannot hear their prayers. when people pray she feels a burning on her ears and fingers, but other than mumbling she hears nothing. she really wanted to send them back with some miracles but it did not turn out that way and now she feels terrible. what do you do when you can't fulfil your one purpose

smaller details

"knowledge or faith" is the philosphy of the task ismene (and zaccai by proxy) have set upon themselves. they need to find the knowledge of the old religion the old ones did not explain. they need faith for the new goddess

"do you wish my skin was like hers?" not being able to touch is Killing them. ismene and zaccai share a bed because it's safest (and also because they were literally made and built codependent). meeting amaryllis did no good to ismene's self-esteem. that's a girl who can touch the man you love without hurting him

ismene just burned zaccai on his shoulder blade for stepping into the pool without her say-so. act of incredible viplence carried with the intimacy with a lover or whatever

"maybe i am not a god you pray to."

totally unrelated: the amount of times teddy and i have said "weird possessive sex would fix them" is unreal

THERE IS WAY MORE BUT I AM GONNA LEAVE IT THERE AHHHH THANK YOU CRÉME ILY 💖

[encrucijada]

PÍA RAMBLES #8

you might have seen this post or this wip intro. i'm here to talk about this book because i think it's really cool @teddywriting and i wrote almost 40k words by simply playing dolls with our ocs.

(yes i will be using screencaps of before sunrise, 1995 for any and all subsequent updates regarding this project thank you very much)

what's weird about this book in particular is that, despite maripaz and theo taking up way too much space in my brain, it's also incredibly hard to talk about them?? i know every single detail about them down to what they might order to eat at a mcdonald's, and yet i feel no one outside from teddy and i really knows these characters. their lore is weird and a bit convoluted and explaining it feels like i'm trying to explain the plot of a television show with like 18 seasons of character development you just had to be there to witness to understand even a fraction of it.

but first some basics about the actual book

title: babylon boy (book 1 of the home habitat duology)

genre: literary fiction

category: i say adult because there will be no censoring of topics but in this first installment our protagonists are around eighteen years old. you might consider that ya but i wouldn't

a small summary: having independently run away from home for their own reasons, theo and maripaz meet while homeless on the streets and form an alliance of convenience to survive. while theo vehemently denies the drug addiction he’s nursing, maripaz tries to deal with the way both want and revulsion seem to exist in her at the same time. falling in love is probably the easiest thing they do.

teddy and i are co-authoring, as in we both write the words. they will be primarily working on theo's chapters and i will be primarily working on maripaz's chapters but we'll both be involved in fully crafting this story.

talking about your book is hard when all that happens in it is character work so even whether someone gets sick at one point feels like a spoiler you want people to be surprised by.

we created mari and theo in 2020 on a whim. i can't even remember what prompted it exactly. we wanted a new pair of characters to play with and we decided to make two assholes to bicker and be mean to each other. this iteration saw three reincarnations before we put the characters on the shelf and almost resigned ourselves to them being a miss... if not for one important detail... i really, really believed they should have kissed. this first version of them would eventually be known as the homeless au.

looking back it's Wild thinking about how different mari and theo used to be. we moved onto new aus to play around with, landing on a superhero-type beat that became their new canon for a while. we had fantasy and sci-fi and musicians and hadestown and the raven cycle (that last one did so much for us it's insane). every new thing we tried shaped them more and more until they were unrecognisable from their original versions. one day i really want to go through their threads from start to finish and look at that change in real time.

there was a new thesis to their characters and it was no longer "what if two awful guys with issues were forced together and tried to bite each other's heads off". instead we were looking at two characters that through every new incarnation became more sincere and gentle. they had meta-narrative character development.

(every new au also gave us more characters to populate the world including but not limited to theo's twin sister, maripaz's seven siblings, alex, philip, a whole lot of parental figures, a quirky cast of friends... but i'll talk about them some other time)

then i did it again. in the 2.0 version of the homeless au there was one scene i loved beyond words where an argument between our two protagonists resulted in maripaz punching theo right on the mouth. when she tried to swing a second time he stopped her hand and warned her that if she wanted to hit him he would hit back. they fought and the scene ended. i said to teddy: they should have kissed. we laughed and imagined how homeless au would go now that their characters had changed so much. we started thinking about it more and more until we were moving the pieces of their cinematic universe around to fit this new idea... and suddenly we had plot for a book that would revamp that original homeless au... and a sequel too! (but more on that second one another time)

teddy started a rp thread of what came right after the opening scene of babylon boy, where theo and maripaz would shoplift and he would steal the angel necklace she wore (<- this is important)... and we just kept going... and going. we'd already had a few keys scenes to work towards, one those being that punching scene that started it all, as well as the ending. teddy added two new scenes we began calling the halo scene and the church scene, and we moved something we called the pool scene into this book from another au. we just had to fill in the blanks... fill in the blanks we did.

these right here are the names i gave each individual thread of the roleplay-ification of babylon boy. their purpose is not so much to be chapter titles but to make specific scenes easy to find for future reference. though obviously i had to be a bit artistic about it.

i don't know if babylon boy will have chapter titles, and if they will have some sort of theme going on (usually i like just putting two words together to create some imagery). "angel face" is probably what i would title chapter 1, but i also hesitate on that decision because i think i would like to save angel for later.

these threads are less of a draft and more the skeleton of a draft, that's why i called it a draft 0. its purpose is to give teddy and i direction and reading through them i already know how i want to shift the timeline and how i'd rewrite some of the scenes to make them a lot better, but it did give us a great cause and effect look of things. the way teddy and i approach our roleplay threads is more loose than what i do with @on-the-river-lethe (with whom i'm currently roleplaying draft 1 of our book lupine trail and also a giant hunger games au). fluffy and i write responses between 1k-4k words, they are basically chapters. teddy and i instead do a quick call and response, mostly focused on dialogue, we build on top of each other and neither of us really knows where a thread will go when we start.

there are no actual non-roleplay words written for babylon boy thus far. teddy is in charge of chapter 1 as we open with theo's pov but we are both busy or focused on other things. right now we're enjoying the playing around stage of the process (which i don't see going away even once we start seriously writing, i know for a fact we'll probably do various roleplay-type passes to babylon boy).

you've probably noticed the christian imagery is rampant here. it happened kind of by accident and the already mentioned halo scene is entirely to blame for it. like i said, teddy and i have this very "yes, and," approach to storytelling together where we kinda build on top of what the other puts down. teddy gave me the description of one (1) scene where theo sees a halo of light around maripaz's head and i decided "well, this is now i thing that is here to stay". church scene really brought it all together and there is a scene in book 2 adeptly nicknamed the angel scene that is kind of the culmination of this.

the imagery is almost exclusive to theo's pov as mari is more the subject of the imagery than the one pushing it forward. teddy and i will be doing our most to fill this book with visuals: characters lined with stained glass windows, lights shaped like hearts, signs and graffiti that say meaningful stuff.

babylon boy, as the title suggests, is more theo's book. both he and maripaz have meaningful arcs but theo's is really at the core of it, mari takes centre stage in book 2 (titled gossamer girl). i think i talked about this somewhere before but the titles just kind of... happened. gossamer was relevant for that superhero au and it's just a word i really adore so i wanted to use it on the title. you can't go wrong with alliteration so gossamer girl it is. and because i love when books in a series match i had to do something with boy. like gossamer i adore babylon for some reason, and so we got babylon boy. i wasn't sure about that one because while gossamer girl made sense with the theme, what did "babylon boy" even mean, exactly? teddy came in clutch and analysed the title for me. they connected it to theo's drug addiction and now i can't think of any two titles that are more perfect for this series.

like i said, there are no actual words written for this book so sadly i cannot share any excerpts. but i will share

Festival was very much the result of teddy and i having just watched before sunrise, 1995

we watched before sunrise, 1995 because the mannerisms of the two leads reek of maripaz and theo

"until a miracle happens" became a recurring thing said in the draft and it wrecked me

Our Fears is probably my favourite thread both thematically and visually. followed closely by Church Angels, though that one is mostly visually

The Pool is the longest thread with about 90 responses and all of it is beautiful. i would probably consider it the companion to Our Fears

"mutual pining they're both just idiots"

the closing image is probably my favourite one of the book

the core themes are very much trust, love, and communal help. we've got such an array of npcs who simply... help. i love the human race.

i'll probably do another update before we start properly writing talking about maripaz and theo as characters specifically. a bit of a crash course on who they are, really.

anyway. i'm giving you a golden star if you read all of that ⭐ do ask me or teddy about this story!! we'd be happy to talk about it. or even just about the characters.

cheers, pía

[encrucijada]

BABYLON BOY & GOSSAMER GIRL by pía & teddy

♡ genre & categroy: literary fiction, adult

♡ pov: dual 3rd person

♡ teddy and i revisited the beginnings of mari & theo and came out of it with a rewrite of their first story that reclaimed its place as their real canon??, duology + all the novellas we want, alliteration galore, sometimes all you need is a personal project with your qpp

♡ a reminder that teddy is @teddywriting

♡ cw: drug addiction, child neglect, homelessness, imperfect recovery, unmedicated mental illness

♡ themes: second opportunities, self-love, family both chosen and born, gentleness, what if choosing to live your life was an option

a b o u t :

babylon boy - circa late 00s. theo and maripaz find each other while searching for meaning, but they're not quite the answer they were looking for. having independently run away from home they are focused on survival. maripaz left behind a family with more kids her parents knew what to do with and a boyfriend she never really liked. theo cut his family's losses and he hopes eventually they will stop missing him, his problems are his own. survival leads to companionship leads to friendship leads to i would be really bummed if you ever parted from me. there is no future as they hop from place to place, shoplift, and try to have a night of rest, there is only today and maybe tomorrow. gossamer girl - circa early 10s. the most earth shattering things still happen walking down the street or in the store.

in other words: a story told in two parts (plus a few others) about maripaz and theo—who ran away from home to spare their families the trouble. maripaz was only taking up space in her house and theo definitely does not have a drug addiction problem. they meet when theo helps maripaz shoplift from a grocery store and he steals one of the two necklaces she brought with her, this one with an angel charm (this is important). teddy is writing the theo pov and i am writing the mari pov and they go back and forth throughout.

c h a r a c t e r s :

maría paz "maripaz" vega. would rather die than ever express a want or need. should be dancing to abba at a discotheque. loves valentine's day themed stuff unironically. sixth daughter of eight kids. audhd. constantly interrupting her narration with snippets of the past. wants love to fix her so so bad. i think that i'm not who you think i am / but i like to be seen and i like to be wanted [better than this - lizzy mcalpine].

theodore "theo" rayes. hasn't had a problem ever his brain is so normal promise. should be doing silly tricks at the skate park. smartest stupidest pretty boy you'll ever meet. twin brother (older). autistic. constantly interrupting his narration with daydreams of the future. has these drugs under control (trust me). medicate, meditate, save your soul for jesus / throw a punch, fall in love, give yourself a reason [call your mum - noah kahan].

the actual plot is less important than these two's emotional journeys. the conflict comes from... why isn't how much i love you enough to make everything right? what if you wanted someone to choose you and mean it. what if you wanted to be someone people can rely on. what if we were what the other person is looking for but where we're at right now is making it so hard but here we are, we are staying.

aesthetic: the changing lights of a carnival ferris wheel, tongues coloured from candy, heart-shaped sunglasses, intertwined fingers, the murmur of the ocean tide, fine white sand, pink and orange sunsets, hands sticky from melting ice cream, light refracted on a suncatcher, cramped secondhand bookstores, the buzz of fluorescent lights in a hospital waiting room, freckle-covered cheeks, the heads of strawberries, nightlife lights refracted on wet pavement, a necklace you never take off, rhinestone decorated flip phones, a steady heartbeat, graffities that scream for something more, homemade plastic jewellery, the light behind your head looks like a halo, tangled bedsheets, soft music at the grocery store, the cold of the frozen aisle, photographs from disposable cameras, porcelain angels

snippet for you:

Watermelon in triangles.

“That one’s mine.” Carla had grabbed one of the soup bowls, then the watermelon Maripaz had picked, and another one. Juan Pa had left then unattended after calling up the stairs if anyone wanted any.

“Girls,” Mum called from the living room, her telenovela was so loud Maripaz had been able to hear it from the second floor. Bringing herself to do homework before dark was hard enough. “No fighting, please. I don’t want to deal with this.”

Carla had watermelon juice, a single drop of it, rolling down her chin. “Don’t make a scene. It’s just fucking watermelon, just grab another one.”

Maripaz made a scene.

The soup bowl broke into six separate pieces when it crashed on the floor. Carla screamed, not from pain, but indignation and anger. She shoved Maripaz so hard she knocked over one of the kitchen table chairs.

“Girls! Por el amor de Dios, not one second of peace in this house.”

the universe as a whole has been baptised as HOME HABITAT. but you will see this tagged as #bb&gg, as well as any variation of #maripaz&theo. teddy and i have at least 2 novellas planned to bridge the gap between babylon boy and gossamer girl, and one prequel about maripaz's oldest sister. but more on that some other time!

[encrucijada]

heads up, seven up.

thank you @chauceryfairytales for being lovely as always and tagging me!

i... actually can't remember what i worked on last. so i am going to go with this. @teddywriting and i have been brainstorming a duology for our ocs maripaz & theo and i am So excited for it. book 2: gossamer girl because linear writing is a stranger to me

Theo hummed softly when she grabbed a fistful of his shirt and pressed against his back. They’d tossed around in their sleep, both of them, and the bed sheets were tangled now. Maripaz tried to deal with this by tugging as hard as her tired muscles could, but they stayed twisted around. She remembered Theo coming back, dawn early, the dip of the mattress that woke her up, his breath on the back of her neck apologising for startling her, he’d pulled the quilt properly over them both.

and i'm tagging @saltwaterbells @coffeeandcalligraphy @dallonwrites @moonssugar and if you see this and wanna have a go, have at it!

[encrucijada]

oc questions tag.

tagged by @coffeeandcalligraphy ! thank you, rachel <3 i decided to do this one about piedad narváez from keeps staring and i'll never fall asleep.

5 words to physically describe your oc (do you have a drawing? even better!)

freckles, scars, fair, sharp, light-eyed (we're counting it as one)

i don't have drawings of piedad (unless you count this one my sister did). but i do have a fc for them! lydia graham. and here are some other photos that have their vibe

who inspired your oc?

piedad started as a percy jackson oc so first step was picking a godly parent for her. from the start i wanted it to be a muse because i knew i could give her some orpheus-like powers. i ended up going with urania because ✨stars✨. then because of the nature of my rps with @lethed-of-all i had to find a fc and just... randomly decided it would be lydia graham? then i gave her a violin because as a child of a muse she would need an instrument and i was listening to lindsey stirling at the time so naturally ballet summed to her aesthetic. things slowly developed naturally from there. i did more research on urania for piedad's powers and found out premonition was plausible. and long story short now she's the physical manifestation of fate in i'll never fall asleep <3 i'm not sure where the knives came from, though. i think it might have just been a vibe check that went well with her slowly establishing aesthetic. probably a result of me deciding the bow of her violin could turn into a stiletto knife.

give me a song to define your oc

oh man i can give you a couple of songs. recently i realised most of piedad-core songs are some form of "will someone please make me feel something" while adam songs are more "will someone please pay attention to me". so do with that what you will

shatter me by lindsey stirling (started it all. somebody make me feel alive then shatter me)

gasoline by halsey (quintessential in i'll never fall asleep. and all the people say: you can't wake up, this is not a dream. you're part of a machine, you are not a human being)

kairos by eden (the things only i know... i just keep waiting for kairos. fun fact! kairos is a greek word that means something approximately to "perfect time to do something")

love is a... by pvris (just put your hands around my throat, ain't been to heaven but i'm close)

circles by eden (this is my life i will not run in circles, ending where i start. so hold onto to me we'll burn down slowly)

if i met your oc on the street how would they greet me?

with strangers, piedad keeps her distance. would not initiate the interaction but would give a polite smile and greeting. with people she knows it's a bit of a range but usually she goes for a hug with her friends.

can your oc be your best friend? why?

i don't know lmao. i don't think so. no reason other than vibes i don't think we would connect enough to become best friends. maybe something like... coworkers or classmates that get along.

1 adjective and 1 noun to describe your oc

starry & blue. i dunno, piedad is just very silver and blue in my mind. with some green from her eyes.

and i'm tagging @onomatopiya @saltwaterbells @teddywriting @cannivalisms @moonssugar @cream-and-tea and anyone else who might want to do this!

[encrucijada]

final wordcount of babylon boy draft 0! this drafting shit's easy when drafting is actually just playing dolls in roleplay threads with @teddywriting

[encrucijada]

favourite line tag.

tagged by @oh-no-another-idea ! thank you <3

i wrote the start of chap2: she's lazarus from haze dogs months ago. i don't know if the chapter will still open this way once i naturally get there when i finish chap1... but for now

You walked home crying, covered in afterparty remnants. Glitter in your hair and a ripped dress, gashes on your stockings, with no shoes on, and blood splattered on your neck.

tagging: @dallonwrites @coffeeandcalligraphy @onomatopiya @teddywriting @annlillyjose and anyone else who might like to do this!

[encrucijada]

meet the writer tag!

tagged by the lovely @filmografo !

rules: use this picrew to make yourself and answer the questions!

three fun facts about me:

until the age of like 7 i used to memorise my dreams (i still remember some of them)

i love weird and vague media that needs 3 hours long videos to have their lore explained (favourite games are shadow of the colossus and hollow knight)

i have hit 0 relationship milestones (never been kissed, etc.) and i am actually so proud of that #aroace

favourite season: seasons are a myth where i live unless you count "oh god it's so hot out" or "oh god it won't stop raining". november-december weather is my favourite <3

continent where i live: america (central)

how i spend my time: mostly reading and writing. i mess around on canva a lot. and i rotate the same funny gaming videos on youtube. i go on theoi.com for fun

are you published? i am!! i published a poem in the first issue of the central american magazine zanatillo and i'm getting a short story published in Another central american magazine named las coyotas :3 anglo-speaking magazines have been a much bigger pain to get published in (my short story wolf mother is in "in-progress" purgatory rn)

introvert or extrovert: introvert! but love language is quality time so i love spending time with my friends

favourite meal: buffalo chicken wings. or potatoes in general

tagging @onomatopiya @cream-and-tea @teddywriting @chauceryfairytales and anyone else who might want to do this!

[encrucijada]

Hi seabird

For blorbsday, do you have any character is just a little guy but the weight of the world is on their shoulders and they kinda carry it willingly because they feel they have to, it's just who they are? And if so please tell me about them.

@teddywriting they're asking about your boy

(theo rayes is not mine but he's my step-blorbo. as in he's my blorbo now too since teddy and i are married)

[encrucijada]

first line tag.

tagged by @memento-morri-writes !

opening line of evergreen lung: a buzzard tried to pick at my skin, thought i was dead.

opening line of haze dogs: connor hidalgo mejía, that was your name. you were going to die tomorrow.

last line tag.

tagged by @subtlefires !

what i last wrote for evergreen lung: they had taken my paintings too, i had seen the sparrows eating fruit guache study mounted in the living room.

what i last wrote for haze dogs: you were dislikeable without shame, with abandon, raw like red meat and just as an acquired taste.

these are two different tag games so you are free to do one or the other or both! @saltwaterbells @onomatopiya @phantomnations @macywrites @moonssugar @coffeeandcalligraphy @teddywriting and anyone else who'd like to do this, i'm blanking on usernames rn

[encrucijada]

heads up, seven up!

tagged by the lovely @cream-and-tea !

have some three girls who cried wolf! i have shared everything i have of haze dogs rn and this is the only other writing i've done semi-recently lmao. iris pov as usual because my process for this book is going to be write all of iris' pov and then use that as reference for maree and winnie as far as timeline, etc.

From Lupa’s first litter we had seen all four. An accident and a particularly brutal winter claimed the lives of two of them, Gold and Bass was what remained. They were both offshoots of their mother, not a single clue to their father’s genes on the shape of their snouts or the colour of their fur. Bass looked the most like Lupa, a gradient of browns, particularly collaring his neck ruff. Gold’s name was self-explanatory, her fur had a yellower hint to it, more like dust than mud as Bass was, in the sunlight she almost shined. (Basses were green but his name made sense to us at the time, when we were fourteen).

tagging: @rownanisntwriting @moonssugar @annlillyjose @saltwaterbells @teddywriting @chauceryfairytales and anyone else who might want to do this!

[encrucijada]

good lines tag.

tagged by @sleepyowlwrites ! share one snippet of lines i'm proud of and one snippet that's ridiculous out of context.

haze dogs church scene ily <3

lines i'm proud of

ángel pressed his smile to your cheek, compelled you to smile in kind. you felt the edges of his teeth like he intended to bite your cheekbone off. “you’re going to hell for blasphemy.”

“we’re all going to hell for it, my sin was being named an idol against my will.”

“and desecrating the house of god.”

“this hasn’t been god’s house for a decade, i had nothing to do with it. the place was empty,” you said, “ripe for the taking. so, i did.”

out of context

“you’re not the one cleaning his messes.”

“what are you doing, vacuuming the grass? when was the last time you washed him?”

you grabbed ángel by the jaw, your crimson fingers and palms printing his freckled cheeks. “the way you wash me so i can enter your house?”

“you walk into my house dirty from head to toe,” he said, smile pushing under your hands, “so no.”

tagging! @coffeeandcalligraphy @onomatopiya @macywrites @teddywriting @moonssugar @saltwaterbells @phantomnations @helioscenic and anyone else who might wanna do this