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strangerays · 1 year

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novel introduction: Nothing in Particular and Everything

[image ID: A girl in a yellow rain jacket stands over a cliff face with her arms outstretched. Blue waves twist below. Greenery hangs over the cliffs.]

[text ID under the cut!]

started: February 2021

stage: 3rd draft

pov: first person, past tense

tags: #nip: inspo, #nothing in particular and everything

Ask to be +/- from the tag list if that is something you would like!

@words-after-midnight @thesorcerersapprentice

[text ID: There is a cliff at the edge of Point Blink where kids twist into the air and throw dust to the vortexing waves; they shoot past eroded caves filled with old bird nests that fly up like slots in a mausoleum. A lighthouse with a jammed bell leers over the expanse of heat lightning reflections. Metal gargles against stone in storm weather, warning us all of childish dares. I was a lighthouse: lived in by sailors, travelers, and strangers; pale stone tall and strong against a maelstrom of salt and rock. Moon shells speckled my base, crushed or buried. Clouds passed over the moon, and I opened my eye to cast sickly yellow light over the waves as they smoothed the footprints of my friends, and of Dad, and of me. Point Blink has stood for decades, but I will stand alone for many more, flickering against all the stars, waiting for those I love to return to harbor.]

Synopsis -

Ever since her best friend left Point Blink, Ray hasn’t felt the same. Now that Lonan is away at college, her friend group feels more distant than ever. Ray struggles to hold them together.

Photography is Ray’s passion. Memories with her friends have helped her create cover her bedroom walls. It’s her senior year, as well as the last school photography club trip she’ll ever be a part of. When Ray is paired with new girl Jude - who is determined to find her own way in Point Blink - they stumble on an abandoned fire tower in the forest. As the girls explore its mysterious contents, an act of arson threatens their lives.

Over the course of the winter, the girls spend afternoons in a dark room and build a profile for the arsonist – as well as a strong friendship. But as they delve deeper into Point Blink’s history, secrets surface within Ray too. Her mental health starts to decline, as well as her obsession with resolving her friendships. If she is ever to resolve the world she loves, she must care for herself.

Excerpts -

[text ID: I was a firm believer that the best art is created when the artist is lonely, angry, or depressed. The summer my best friend caught his train out of Point Blink, I was surprised to find that I became none of these things. We buried a time capsule beneath Sugarfell’s soaring pines and painted his bedroom walls a calm cerulean. We snuck out of house at nighttime to swim and went on a road trip to see our favorite band in concert. All my most colorful memories in Point Blink were unplanned in the beginning.]

[text ID: As it is, Lonan has always been a year older and a grade ahead of me. As I entered my senior year of high school, he entered his freshman year of college. It felt like we were miles apart. It felt like he was going to disappear. Together, we stared across the pink beach. A piper toothed the drowned shore for beetles. Primordial fire reeds combed rays of golden sun to fine sparkles. Lonan never left the shore, just blinked slowly while pockets of young horseshoe crabs chased each other into a swirl of murky blue. I could never resist the water. Often I spread my arms wide, walked barefoot along the rock wall trailing away from the beach into the water. Lonan only watched me from the sand – smaller and smaller and smaller. Now I tried to focus on the melodic thrill of the waves, but a cold headache was starting in my forehead. Sometimes I think that if I didn’t put so much effort into my friendships, I might not be so angry all the time.]

[text ID: I knew Lonan would never give up, because he was a rebel and I was quiet. He was my focal point. Point Blink a gauge built on magenta sea glass – and I had a third eye, primal in the growing.]

[text ID: The truth was this: time was fiction to me. When I lifted my camera up, saw the world as more beautiful than it was, made it mine for just a moment in time – the trees richer, the waves more childlike in their frothing – none of it stayed the same. When birds called my name over the burst of a wave onto the cliffs. When storms send shadows to dance across the bluff faces. My most purple imagination couldn’t convince me everything was going to be okay – my best friend was gone. All of these falling pieces of my world were stark reminders that Lonan Herrings was gone for what seemed like an indefinite time. Because once people find what they want, they never stop chasing it.I tried to hold a moment forever, but time isn’t fiction – it’s an hourglass. Lately, my life had felt more like a rusted compass with a broken face.]

[text ID: Where the familiar world of oaks met the dusty clearing, a graffitied entrance sign barely hid a girl. Had it not been for the bright blue hat she wore with the number twelve stitched on front, I might have missed her altogether. She closed her eyes and tilted her face up to the sun. Her lips curved to a satisfied grin as the sun highlighted her round cheeks a smooth sienna. She seemed truly content and stayed that way – forgot about the rest of us, even me.]

[text ID: I suppose – in many ways – I didn’t talk to anyone about Lonan. Not about school, either. About my friends, about the headaches I kept getting every night, about how I’d lost my appetite completely last week.

“My best friend and I used to come down here a lot.”

Jude’s smile was small. “When was the last time.”

“He’s away for college right now.”

Her smile fell. “Oh. That’s why you didn’t want me to tag along with you.”

I swallowed.

“That’s why you wanted to come down here on your own, isn’t it?”

Her arm brushed mine and it was so warm. It reminded me of the safe feeling I got whenever Florian hugged me.

A breeze trickled through the trees we’d come from and cascaded faint sparkles across the water, feathered the waves away from the shore. Briefly, the gray clouds pulled apart the fog, and pale sunlight touched Jude’s cheeks, drawing a smile from her lips. It seemed that, even in the darkest moments, she managed to find something to love. It made me jealous.

Her eyes were closed. “At least you can still watch the sun rise.”]

[text ID: Point Blink was like a sponge – it inhaled and exhaled water. Soaked up all rain and laughter, cursing and screaming. Rotting at the core. Sometimes I imagined Sugarfell might drink up all of that water, fold over itself like a map, and all those memories would surface from the ground with new bodies. Hands, the sort that I dreamed of appearing from underneath my bed. The hands of something that is supposed to be forgotten. Point Blink rarely exhaled. It just held its breath. Jude wasn’t afraid of Point Blink. She wasn’t afraid to live in a place where the people slogged from shore to shore, sunburned and bored. She wasn’t afraid to be alone in a place where the other kids grew up without her. She wasn’t afraid to sing as she walked up the beach and into the trees.

[text ID: “Are you crying?” he asked.

I hugged myself tight. “No.”

Lonan wasn’t totally convinced, because he tilted his head and stared at me with his green-blue eyes for a long time. “You were about to.”

Lonan leaned into my shoulder. For a moment, I thought he might have been crying since he was the sort of person who cried whenever other people cried. Sometimes I think he is the rarest type of person in the world. I wished I could feel everything the way he did.

But he wasn’t crying – he was just resting against me. He was never going to be taller than me, so his head fit onto my shoulder perfectly. He could stay there for all of eternity if he wanted to.

And suddenly, all that darkness and thick air didn’t hang so heavy over me.]

[text ID: Lonan came to me all at once: we were dissolved into black. I tried running to the opposite side of the fire tower, but then there was no ground beneath me. We must not have been that far up, because it didn’t take long for the rest of the tower to collapse beneath us. There was something soft underneath me – my bag or Jude’s arm. I could not see the sky – then light exploded from the veil we were trapped in. Jude’s hand found mine. She was shouting. I couldn’t tell what she was saying. I dragged myself through the grass, now pasty with smoke, infiltrating my throat, my eyes, my head – everything. It softened the world, made it easier to forget, but no easier to breathe. Jude screamed – a sound I never should have heard – and it brought hot tears to my eyes. Distantly, someone else screamed. It might have been me, but I wasn’t sure. Sirens wailed somewhere. We never heard many of them in Point Blink. I smelled of salt and smoke. What a fool I’d been to believe it possible I could carry on without my best friends, and what a fool Jude had been to think she could replace them.]

If you’re all the way down here, thanks for reading! I sometimes post snippets from the book as I write under the tag #nothing in particular and everything

#i have so much love left for this story but not the time to write it #updates probably won't happen too often #but i want to start posting more smaller snippets from time to time!#i love these characters a lot and i want to finish this third draft #it's just such a comfort #<3 #ray and lonan's friendship is so SOFT #agh #maybe ill post some more excerpts from their chapters next!!#my writing #nothing in particular and everything #creative writing #original story #writing #author

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stuckinapril · 8 months

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I could get over anything as long as I have something new to be obsessed with

#without a silly book or show or comfort movie idk where I would be genuinely #like I’d rather just be entirely consumed rather than self aware today thanks

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inkskinned · 10 months

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because sometimes there are invisible tests and invisible rules and you're just supposed to ... know the rule. someone you thought of as a friend asks you for book recommendations, so you give her a list of like 30 books, each with a brief blurb and why you like it. later, you find out she screenshotted the list and send it out to a group chat with the note: what an absolute freak can you believe this. you saw the responses: emojis where people are rolling over laughing. too much and obsessive and actually kind of creepy in the comments. you thought you'd been doing the right thing. she'd asked, right? an invisible rule: this is what happens when you get too excited.

you aren't supposed to laugh at your own jokes, so you don't, but then you're too serious. you're not supposed to be too loud, but then people say you're too quiet. you aren't supposed to get passionate about things, but then you're shy, boring. you aren't supposed to talk too much, but then people are mad when you're not good at replying.

you fold yourself into a prettier paper crane. since you never know what is "selfish" and what is "charity," you give yourself over, fully. you'd rather be empty and over-generous - you'd rather eat your own boundaries than have even one person believe that you're mean. since you don't know what the thing is that will make them hate you, you simply scrub yourself clean of any form of roughness. if you are perfect and smiling and funny, they can love you. if you are always there for them and never admit what's happening and never mention your past and never make them uncomfortable - you can make up for it. you can earn it.

don't fuck up. they're all testing you, always. they're tolerating you. whatever secret club happened, over a summer somewhere - during some activity you didn't get to attend - everyone else just... figured it out. like they got some kind of award or examination that allowed them to know how-to-be-normal. how to fit. and for the rest of your life, you've been playing catch-up. you've been trying to prove that - haha! you get it! that the joke they're telling, the people they are, the manual they got- yeah, you've totally read it.

if you can just divide yourself in two - the lovable one, and the one that is you - you can do this. you can walk the line. they can laugh and accept you. if you are always-balanced, never burdensome, a delight to have in class, champagne and glittering and never gawky or florescent or god-forbid cringe: you can get away with it.

you stare at your therapist, whom you can make jokes with, and who laughs at your jokes, because you are so fucking good at people-pleasing. you smile at her, and she asks you how you're doing, and you automatically say i'm good, thanks, how are you? while the answer swims somewhere in your little lizard brain:

how long have you been doing this now? mastering the art of your body and mind like you're piloting a puppet. has it worked? what do you mean that all you feel is... just exhausted. pick yourself up, the tightrope has no net. after all, you're cheating, somehow, but nobody seems to know you actually flunked the test. it's working!

aren't you happy yet?

#almost wrote the champagne line as ''effervescent'' but legit could not write it without saying ''effervescent like a snail''#ah tumblr...#writeblr #warm up #idk . having trouble writing rn #ps i don't like to talk about it . it is my medical information. but before you ask. yes this is about being on the spectrum #i really don't like when ppl make my writing about how im [whatever ID]. i want it to ring true for the people who it rings true for #i don't want it to be like ''awwwww look at this person!!! she's the EXCEPTION!!! :)" .....#no.... not really.....#idk something gross happens whenever i admit to certain conditions and i turn into like inspiration p*rnography #like yes they actually let us use keyboards these days #furthermore i just... dont feel comfortable talking about this part of me. i had too bad of a childhood. adhd is one thing...#this one im like. still coming to terms with. which is like. my own journey.#idk. just please be kind. some things are more private than others. this one feels private to me.#i do not know how to help others w/this . and i do not know how to help myself. i will talk about it if im ever ready. idk if that will #actually ever happen #ty in advance i love u im kissing you we are kissing somewhere on the spectrum

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rexalogy · 2 months

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Every Taylor Swift song

#I truly truly cannot empathize with anyone in limerence with her in fact it feels betraying.#all of the interesting beautiful art in the world and the only thing you can blow up is another implicitly conservative value white woman?#having to write narratives about her hypothetical dykeishness to feel comfortable with that dissonance? as if that would even absolve her #it’s not that I hate Taylor I just hate this unwillingness to engage with where her worldview has serious limitations and it seeps #throughout her discography. I think loving art comes with being able to recognize where it fails #what politics are present in it. it’s not deep it’s not subtext it’s all just right there

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oars · 8 months

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#i feel like tge fact im apprehensive about posting this is kinda proving my point #the way everyone talks about both weight gain and weight loss is just horrendous #like idek if i could fit all i wanna say in here especially while im at work but #i so badly wish people could be normal about weight gain and talking about it #its like if youre not in some constant state of wanting to lose weight people want to kill you #god forbid you want to put on weight to feel more comfortable in your body outside of muscles and a butt #fatphobia is a given thats a whole other few paragraphs #im grateful i have mutuals and friends who are normal but ill have or hear these convos and go #ok i feel sick. why do i feel this way why do you feel that way.#anyways i think fatphobia is one of the worst things to ever happen

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daigah · 6 months

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We lose everytime a girl in fiction who is on the masc side and happy with it becomes very feminine as a supposed sign of maturity

#Also applys to alt girls #Tropes #to everyone in my notes saying cassie sandsmark this was cassie vagueposting #IM NOT !!! REFERRING TO THOSE INTERNALISED MISOGYNY WHO DRESS MORE MASC CUZ OF THAT AND START TO EMBRACE FEMINITY JUST FINE #IN A POSITIVE WAY #this is more like. girls who were explicitly shown to dress gnc/masc leaning because thats simply their personality and what they like #and are comfortable with but still need to be “corrected” to dress feminine #especially if its for male/social validation

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pariahsden · 4 months

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"This is Rosie, the most darling, delightful, and dangerous Overlord this side of the Pentagram."

"Oh, always such a charmer."

#bestiessss #they gossip and munch on fingers together #just galpal things <3 #i love how comfortable he is with her waaaaa #lets her touch him and pull him around!!#love that. love that for them.#hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel spoilers #hazbin hotel alastor #hazbin alastor #alastor #hazbin hotel rosie #hazbin rosie #rosie #pariahgif #radiorose

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kyri45 · 1 month

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#i just think they're neat #finding completed fics is already hard #but when you find one that is part of a SERIES #you know that's a keeper #ao3 #ao3 fanfic #fanfiction #ao3 memes #fanfiction memes #enemies to lovers #hurt/comfort #archive of our own

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notbrucewayne48 · 6 months

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"aphobia doesn't exist"

bitch literally not that long ago an aroace youtuber animator was insulted by almost half of its community for being it

#i did some research about it and found out that the problem was principally that she had previous experience in the romantic area #so people just didn't take her seriously and said she was lying #even though she stated multiple times that she wasn't comfortable in those situations #now things are more calmed but damn #mind your own bussiness #i believe she knows more about herself than you #sorry if i offended you with this comment but i hate how aro/ace/aroace people are always left behind #insulted and rejected because they “dont know what they are talking about”#or because they “just have to wait for the right person”#or because they are “psychopaths and they are missing something”#i love that animator and she helped me realise a lot about myself #and now that i know the context i think i will start making a list and killing aphobes one by one #aromantic #arospec #asexual #aroace #acespec

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atissi · 1 month

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kras mazov lookin ass

#unironically started understanding disco elysium when i started reading more leftist literature. would recommend #i still think the gameplay is kind of a hard sell for most people but ykw. joyce messier as a concept has been immeasurably valuable to me #everytime i talk to my boss and im confused by her politics i think wow....its just like joyce messier #i don't know how you can claim to have all these socialist values and still uphold the capitalist system for your own comfort...WAIT.....#it's just like joyce messier.........#disco elysium #my art

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starry-bi-sky · 18 days

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I am loudly pushing the batdad agenda i am loudly pushing the— DPxDC Prompt

“Woah. You look like shit."

Granted, that’s probably not the first thing Danny should be saying to the guy that just bit the curb, but in his defense; he’s not running on 100% right now either.

The man -- tall, towering, and broader than Danny is tall -- whips around on his heel, black frayed cape flaring out impressively. Danny would've whistled in appreciation, but he takes the time instead to wipe the back of his hand across his mouth, smearing the blood running from his nose across his cheek.

"Sorry." He blinks widely, not even flinching as the man with the horns zeroes in on him. "That was rude of me. I have a really bad brain-to-mouth filter; Sam says its what always gets me into trouble."

And she's not wrong either, per say. His smart mouth is what landed him in this situation -- with blood blossom extract running through his veins and cannibalizing the ectoplasm in his bloodstream. Thanks Vlad.

The man grunts at him; a short, curt "hm" that shouldn't make Danny smile, but he does because he's somewhat delirious and probably concussed. The man keeps some kind of distance, sinking towards the shadows of Gotham's alleyway like he dares to melt right into it.

If it's supposed to scare Danny, it doesn't work. Danny's never been afraid of the dark; he's always been able to hide himself in it. He blinks slowly at the mass of shadows.

"You look hurt." The shadows says, blurring together around the edges. Danny squints, and licks his lips to get the blood dripping down his chin off. Ugh, he hates the taste of blood.

"I am." He says, "My godfather poisoned me. M'dying." The agony of the blood blossom eating him from the inside out looped back around to numbing a while ago, so all he feels is half-awake and dazed.

"Hey," Danny stumbles forward towards the man, a bloodied hand reaching out to him. "You-- you're a hero, right? You're not attacking me; which is more than I can say for most costumed people I've met." Maybe it's a poor bar to judge someone at, but he's already established that Danny's not in his right mind.

The man makes no change in expression, but Danny realizes blearily that it's hard to tell with the shadows on his face. He stays still long enough for Danny to latch onto the cape -- stretchy, but almost soft under his fingers.

He looks up blearily into the whites of the man's eyes. "Can you help me? I don't-- I don't wanna die." Again. He doesn't wanna die again. He blinks slow and lizard-like. "I mean- I'll probably get to see mom and dad again, but I told them I'd at least try and make it to adulthood."

There's a clatter down the street, and Danny's ghost sense chills up his spine and leaves a bitter, ashy taste in his mouth. He immediately knows who it belongs to even before the deceptively gentle; "Daniel?" echoes down the way.

"Daniel? Quit your games, badger, Gotham is dangerous for children."

Danny's mouth pulls back, and blood spills against his tongue. "Please." He rasps, and grabs onto the shadow's cape with both hands. "Please. He's going to kill me. Please--"

"Daniel? Is that you?"

His lips part, dragging in air to plead with the darkness again. He doesn't need to, the whites of his eyes narrow, and the cape whirls around him before Danny can blink. Soon swaddled in shadows, the Night lifts him up, and steals him away.

#I AM LOUDLY PUSHING THE BATDAD AGENDA #anyways— add ons are encouraged i wanna talk more dpxdc with folks i just cant find any aus i really like enough to engage with #which is nobody's fault and its why im making my own content in order to reach more people #danny fenton is not the ghost king #dpxdc #dp x dc #dpxdc crossover #dp x dc crossover #dpdc #dc x dp #dpxdc prompts #i took a ‘which batfam member are you (except its personal)’ quiz a few days ago #and got bruce wayne. and then was promptly read to filth why im most like him and it rudely but accurately explained why im the most like #him. it also consequently explained to me why i like him so much. whenever i see him in his kindest form i see a mirror looking back #anyways lots of ‘danny rejecting bruce as a parent’ aus. may i present: bruce and danny finding family in each other aus. batdad aus pls.#dpxdc prompt #dcxdp #this prompt can take place at any point of Batkid accumulation but personally i was imagining this as before Bruce has any of his kids yet #eldest brother danny supremacy and also just that one on one bonding #danny being someone who was never afraid of the dark as a kid and even less so as he got older. taking solace in it as a ghost because you #cant hide in the dark when you glow. his enemies can't jump out at him. but he can jump out at them. how can he be afraid of the dark when #the dark is where the stars like to live? there's a comfort in the shadows. there might be something hiding in it. but he's hiding in it to #blood blossoms eat ghosts headcanon #wasn't sure where i was gonna go with this at the beginning and then i caught steam.#batman casually kidnaps an orphan upon kid's request. also the kid was Actively Dying Of Poison. What was he gonna do?? NOT help him?#mister 'keeps candy in his utility belt specifically for scared children'??? no way.

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