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the--descension · 3 years

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i would die for a "how to use html and css to format ao3" lesson from you 👀 no pressure but i'm genuinely in awe :)

Hello! So sorry it’s taken me ages to get to this.

It's no pressure at all! I have tried to cover the basics of HTML/CSS on AO3 here, and instead of writing very extensively about the syntax which is very Google-able, I have tried to include little tips and tricks that have come in handy for me.

This, by no means, is a complete guide but I hope it can get you started with HTML and CSS on AO3!

It got pretty long, so the answer’s below the cut.

Okay, so let’s start at the very beginning, shall we?

What is HTML and CSS?

Well, HTML is Hyper Text Markup Language and CSS is Cascading Style Sheets.

But that is something that probably doesn’t help a lot, so to put it very simply, HTML provides the structure of a webpage while CSS does the styling, that is, fixing how and where the elements should exist, how to shape them, how to space them, all so that the webpage looks great.

Something to keep in mind is that all web pages can run only on HTML but the end result is not going to be something that’s nice to look at. In fact, without CSS, the page might not even make a lot of sense. Here, take a look at Tumblr itself with all CSS disabled (there’s a very useful extension called Web Developer that allows you to do this):

Not very nice to look at, but all the elements of the page are here only with the help of HTML.

And look, this is what the above section looks like with CSS enabled:

This was just a brief visual walkthrough to show what HTML and CSS really do, but let’s move on to HTML and CSS in the world of AO3.

Where does the HTML and CSS go on AO3?

The HTML part of the code is put into the text box when you post a new story/new chapter. You must have noticed the two options — Rich Text and HTML — and it’s important to have HTML selected for AO3 to identify the HTML tags that you’ll be using.

All your content goes into this textbox. Whatever text you may be writing, whatever images you may be hosting, whatever links you might want to add— everything goes here.

Now, for styling all the content that you’ve put into the textbox, you need CSS, and that happens through work skins. It’s super simple, and all you have to do is go to Skins on your AO3 panel and then to My Work Skins, and then create a new work skin where you can dump all of your CSS code.

Okay, so onward we go.

How to HTML and CSS?

I’m no expert in web design and my knowledge mostly comes from Coursera, one summer internship, one class in college, and extensive online searching. And, I’ll tell you this, the most I have learnt is from extensive online searching.

Because at the very heart of it, web design is not so much about understanding and applying concepts (as with other coding languages) but more about visualizing elements and testing them out. I must add that this is completely my opinion as a person who rather enjoys data structures and algorithms as compared to web dev, and I’m certain that seasoned web developers will disagree with my views here.

Right, so the online searching. The best in the business when it comes to explaining HTML/CSS is www.w3schools.com. They have sample code, short and sweet explanations, and an online IDE to test your code. Really, it’s a win-win situation.

Alrighty, so now you know where to look for your HTML tags and CSS properties but how do you figure out which ones to use?

HTML Tags

I’ll talk about the HTML that’s required for coding on AO3 exclusively.

But before that— every HTML document has two main parts: the <head> and the <body>. But here on AO3, we only code the <body> which, as its name suggests, holds the content that’s going to appear on the browser. The <head> part is not required for AO3 work skins at all.

Okay, so how to code HTML on AO3? Well, your best friends are going to be the container tags such as <div> and <span>, and the paragraph tag <p>. What these tags do is they create areas on your browser — you can imagine them as small rectangles and squares — where you can put in your content via HTML, and then later style using CSS.

See this? The entire shaded area belongs to a <div> which is styled by a CSS class called “tumblr” (to keep things simple, we’ll only focus on CSS classes, and not id’s. It won’t really hamper developing a workskin in any way.)

This above belongs to a <p> that is styled by a CSS class “tumblrbody”. And, this <p> exists within the <div> mentioned above.

Here’s a <span> styled using the CSS class “tumblrtags”, which comes within the <div> and <p> we just discussed.

Basically, the idea is that the entire page will have to be divided into all these subsections, nested within each other if required, so that they can then be styled using CSS.

Other HTML tags that come in handy are the <a> and <img> tags.

The <a> or anchor tag is used to embed links. Want your reader to be led to a separate page while they’re reading your story? This is it. (This one’s quite common, and authors use them quite frequently in their notes to link to their Twitter/Tumblr etc.)

The <img> tag is used to embed images as the name suggests.

See how the picture is within an <img> tag styled by a CSS class “tumblrimg”?

Again, I’m not talking about the syntax of these tags or how they have to be written because that’s something which can very easily be found on w3schools or any other web dev tutorial website.

So, that’s pretty much about HTML. Now, CSS.

CSS Properties

So, when I talk about how most of my web dev happens through thorough internet searching, I’m mostly talking about CSS. Because HTML tags aren’t difficult to remember, they stay in memory when you keep designing web pages, but CSS properties... ugh.

But before we begin, a short note on CSS classes. To simplify matters you can look at them as labels given to your HTML container tags (<div> for example). Once you assign the label to your HTML element, you can then style that label in your CSS, and introduce properties to it which you want to see in your HTML. It basically forms the link between your HTML and CSS.

Say, I have a <div> that I want to style, then I’ll give it a label like this: <div class=”mongoosesurprise”>Your code</div>. The class name is mongoosesurprise, and when I have to style that particular <div>, I’ll have CSS code that looks like this:

Now, about CSS properties.

You see all the words in white followed by a colon? max-width? border? background-image? That’s it— CSS properties. I can never remember if it is maxwidth or max-width, whether it’s margin-right or right-margin, whether it’s padding-right or right-padding, and that’s where the Googling comes in.

Again, like with HTML, I’ll only talk about CSS on AO3. Unlike regular CSS, CSS here always has to start with #workskin. And then, #workskin can be followed by our class name. (The class name must be preceded by a fullstop though, like in the picture above.)

My CSS design procedure is all over the place. I entirely work on the basis of trial and error. I keep adjusting properties like max-width and padding and margin to see how the elements fit best. (It doesn’t take me as long as it did four-five years ago to estimate these values and I’d attribute that to practice and inspecting a lot of web pages. On a related note, it’s great to learn web design by inspecting other pages.)

I realize this isn’t great advice but like I said, it’s always been about trial and error when it comes to CSS. What I can say conclusively is that with properties width, height, display, position, padding, and margin most of your HTML tags will be placed properly. But when it comes to styling, the list is really quite endless. From a number of font-related properties to border, there’s a lot— and, thus, Google.

And, finally, what you must know for HTML/CSS on AO3 is how to host images.

Hosting Images

If you want your work to contain images, it’s best to host them somewhere online. Imgur is a great option; it’s free and really simple to use. Once the image is uploaded, you can get the share links and put it in your HTML <img> tag (under the src attribute— again, very syntactical so I’m not getting into that), or if you want you can put it in your CSS as an attribute for the property “background-image” (like in the code above).

You’ll have to make minor changes to the share link though, that is, add the image extension (.png or .jpg) to the end of the link. Also, sometimes the image doesn’t render if there’s no ‘i’ preceding ‘imgur.com’. Here’s a sample link that works perfectly: http://i.imgur.com/aSMSztl.png.

And, I think that’s pretty much it.

This covers the absolute basics of how to code HTML/CSS on AO3. But I’d like to repeat that by no means is this everything. If there’s a particular area you’d want me to explain, please feel to drop in an ask!

Happy coding!

#antarcticasx #html/css #ao3 #workskins #i'll tag this as #zutara #in case anyone else reading 'it would have been you' wants to know

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sumrallmind · 2 years

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So. I ended up making a lot of notes when reading Act 1. Let’s not beat around the bush, a lot of my thoughts are not focused on Act 1. This kinda ballooned to HS in general. Reading through it kept reminding me of other things, things that would appear later, things that would be dropped. Influences from other works, the foreshadowing, the retcons, the Retcon Powers retcons, things I somewhat knew that were planned then changes and I just. Kept going on and on in my notes and had to get myself to just write one line comments to expand on. And this is only Act 1. 250ish pages. And look, even me talking about my note taking is going on and on.

Okay, obviously I’m going to add a cut. If anyone remembers my Jem Reviews from a few years ago (or my LiS essays) you know I’m a bit of a windbag and will go on forever about a thing. But, one last comment before the cut.

I decided to use the Unofficial Homestuck Collection’s Replay Reading mode instead of Archival reading mode. Archival Mode would be like how you’d read it on Viz’s site, whereas Replay mode replicates what it would have been like to read it live. For me, that’s important. The comic has a different feel reading it live. I suppose in retrospect it's minor, I’m not limiting myself to a schedule based on upload time so I will miss out on waiting for an upload and being surprised about the number of pages like back in the day. Plus the pauses. Huss had said the comic was always meant for archival reading but seeing how things in past pages get changed because of future actions not yet decided at the time of their instead of seeing them just laying around is. I dunno. More appealing to me? No being spoiled about password pages or random arms or oil. It changes the experience, it changes the comic.

Also expect more long meandering sentences that have trouble getting to the point below the cut. Spoilers for most of Homestuck. Also i didnt really review this or edit this after the fact. Double also i cant guarantee the accuracy of my memory of some things.

I struggled a bit trying to decide how I wanted to organize the reread posts. Make sections? Highlight specific things? General impressions?

**I decided to go through my notes chronologically and expand on things that need it. For the most part, these are my notes as I read the pages. Maybe I’ll move stuff around to logical places i dunno

As I started the comic I remembered that Huss once said they pretty much have the entire comic in their head at all times. That's a lot. I guess that's what helped them with the callbacks and references to things. I wonder how much was influenced by the forum. My influence was small, being mostly in the Vriska Quarantine threads, with a little activity in general chat and IDE (which was never an acronym. It was a misspelling.). But it does make me wonder how Huss was able to tie so much together. Did a HS bible eventually get made? Was it given to the people making the post canon content? WAs Huss lying about not having extensive notes or their own notebook about the comic? Does it matter in the grand scheme of things?

I miss the forums. I want an annotated homestuck pointing at things that were influenced by it. Heck maybe it is in this archive and i just haven't gotten to it yet. That would be cool.

So we begin the comic on April 13th. A completely arbitrary date with no meaning. It just happens to be the date Huss started the comic after the Beta proved untenable. Could have been May. Could have been April 11. It's just a number.

More importantly, we start the comic off with naming our hero with a reference to TSO, Zoosmells. Because it is early in the comic, we are still having commands come from the readers. Based on just the newsposts up until the end of Act 1, user commands are still broadly accepted and implemented. So with user commands we get Zoosmell, we get John Egbert, we get memeic things like retrieve arms, and we also move a cake for John? Did that ever get addressed? I’m pretty sure we, the MSPA readers, are shown and referenced multiple times, but was it outright stated we were the floating cursor hand?

This is also where we get our first introduction page and the first hint about the amount of text that will be in this work. Homestuck can switch between wordy, verbose captions that evoke different emotions and thoughts and can all be a simple acknowledgement that John wants to shit on a desk.

But more than just showing us a lot of words, it gives us a quick rundown of our character. We get a vague enough sense of them to know how they'd initially react to things and their initial interests. For a comic you expect to be not as long, you want to get all the info out there as soon as possible. As a game parody, you want the player to know enough to get into the role. I think it’s also a self assessment of sorts? By the character? But yeah, quick way to know the character, well down and all we need at the moment.

After this bit and some memeic commands we get introduced to the other major player in Act 1, the SYLLADEX er, Sylladex. All Caps was a thing in early gaming. The sylladex and CAPTCHALOGUEing and Fetch Modus stuff is a shotgun blast of reference to how all these different games have all these different ways to grab/use items and somewhat on how commands are inputted. The fact that it's complicated is the point. The abstraction of picking up items, especially items much too heavy to carry, is played with a lot here. John is told to use or put down an item and is confused. It is fun and silly. Plus, it shows how big of a nerd (affectionate) huss is about programming and programming languages.

Hey why do john use nails for poster?

So in John’s room we get some things that, at the time, are not important. They are cute little things that don’t mean anything right now. They are not planned to mean anything. They are not given any importance outside of HaHa. The comic has a lot of these and Hussie’s writing style, keeping everything in their head all at once, and wooden square hole into steel triskaidecagon peg attitude makes them the most important things in the comics.

For real, several times I wrote in my notes ““This is a throwaway line. It isn’t important. It comes back later and affects the plot in a major way. It’s impact minimal and probably didn’t have to come back

Nothing is more important than this throwaway line”.

It keeps hapenin bro.

When the comic was updating and I was reading it live, I came up with a term I used to describe these things. Chekov’s Macguffin. Now wait, I hear you mutter, that doesn't make sense. It doesn’t. Anyways Checkov’s Macguffin. You have these retconned foreshadows that in retrospect are important but don’t add or remove anything to the comic by their inclusion or removal. Huss had said they had a few things in mind when starting the comic but like, so much is added on a whim or due to fandom influence. Things that in the moment you go “oooooh, he killed everyone because Huss was poking fun at people wanting to see hero mode” but reading archivaly you go “wait odd i guess I see where this comes from?” and then even later you go “oh here is the reasoning explained.” I’m rambling here because it's hard to describe. As far as i know, not much of this comic was plotted out beforehand. Everything was shoved into place in ways that make sense sorta but eh? I dunno? Chekov’s Macguffin. It makes no sense. It makes all the sense. Every unimportant thing is critical and the most important thing.

So here is a quick shot of things in Act 1 I remember coming back.

Little Monsters poster: Foreshadows Trolls look. At this point the trolls aren’t literal trolls so this is more about John being a huge dork. Also maybe secret dream world. Oh and apple juice.

CON-AIR: Man i dunno how to even start with this. Bunny in this Act for sure. Deep Impact - forshadowing or just a dumb refference that got exanded into stardom? (hint i think huss later says its planned foreshadowing) Failure to Launch poster: Pokes fun at the beta being cannned for the comic as we know it. Also about a dude Stuck at Home (sorta.) (oh and i guess all the shipping shit that came later i dunno) Face-Off: referencing having two selves / someone with your face who isn’t you (maybe the guardian swap? I think huss said that was planned from the start too) throwable bit - apple juice: it’s here because of the little monster. Also, need for some Dave stuff. throwaway line - book that could kill a cat if you dropped it: It does. voice controlling you line: a fun game mechanic point fun at and also a future plot point. Betty Crocker: Mentioned only because of maker of cake mix. Graduates into high importance.

Sacred Urn: probably meant as a cheeky PS callback that could be used later by the players? Peanut Allergy: i'm like 97% sure this was only ever a cheeky joke but Pesterchum handles: They are DNA code thing except John. I don’t remember if this was intentional or just happened. I wanna lean on No. In-universe mspa midnight crew: a Shout Out to the donations. I don’t remember when but a MSPA Forum Adventure had the Midnight Crew and got a shout out in the intermission (i think thats when it was). It was removed later, I think when it hit the books or the Viz site? I hope the Unofficial Archive has all that info there are no throwaway bits. everything is important. everything can be thrown away. nothing has permanence or importance.

Another side of this would be foreshadowing meant more as rugpull. Like the TYPHEUS browser being mentioned specifically, priming the user to look for Rose’s browser without having to be told. We put importance on this because the comic does, I believe moreso in Act 2. But, it ultimately isn’t. In what would be considered a normal game Sburb yeah, this would be something neat to indicate what the heroes would deal with. While there is something to it, it won't be the way we think.

Hey you know what also fits this theme? Cosmic Number. The comic started on 4:13. John logs on at 4:13. The countdown starts at 4:13. The open wifi is 413. It keeps hapening bro. While there was the 413 references before the countdown, for me the timer is where it became a Cosmic Number within the comic. After this we are meant to look for more of the reference and think about what it could mean. We would also get 612, 1025, and 11 11 11. There are many times when events coincidentally correspond with those numbers. The length of an act, the length of a pause, 4 kids age 13, 12 trolls age 6, a event happening on a day and Huss saying “didnt plan it, still cool tho”. It keeps happening, bro.

Let's go back to pretending I’m covering things chronologically and not as things happen to come to mind, ya?

John’s computer shows us their ghost obsession with the homemade slimer background, and we also realize John has a fake slimer ghost shirt. We also see hints about some programming languages the kids use. ^cake ( carrot cake) and ~ath (til death). ~ath will come back but I don’t think ^cake would. Most importantly, the ChatPesterLogs.

The bulk of the writing for the majority of the comic is done through these logs. Direct person to person communication is not done through abstract like in the previous adventures, it is text. Instant Messaging txt. Throughout the Pesterlogs we learn about our other players and their preferred typing colors. You get a decent feel for each of them, except maybe Jade. Dave will go off and start rambling about a subject, trying to be cool and funny and likes things only ironically. Rose is kinda spooky and proper and also kinda rambles about things, but uses more and longer words than Dave. The other things we learn in the Pesterlogs in Act 1 is a little bit of family stuff, where Rose seems to have a little resentment about Dad and John not seeming to appearacite genuine family love, whereas John seems to feel a bit smothered. Bro we don’t know as much about.

Oh yeah, I know, I remember that some people talked about how they or friends only read the captions and never opened the logs or watched the flashs. That must be so confusing, but they said it's still readable. I dunno about all that tho.

Sometimes the colors can clash and make it hard to read. I remember peeps talking about that as well.

Speaking of the other kids, let's take a moment to talk about the Bunny. How do I live without you, I want to know. This one of the things Huss did have an idea in mind before starting, it was intentional that the bunny would travel between all of the kids and make its way back to John. This tells us that at the very left least, Weird Time Shit had been a consideration from the very start. Was the non-standard game always a thing? I suppose so, since Guardian Swap was always planned as well. It’s hard to say with Huss.

After the rest of the home shenanigans, prankster strifes, and data managements, we finally get Sburb Client and Server installed. Suburban Jungle plays as a lot of things get loaded in by the game. Most importantly, we have a new controller and new cursor. This also marks the change from mostly Adventure Game parody to add Building Sim to the mix. We get some fun stuff with Rose expanding the house, playing with the toilet, and the great moment of “tell me you can see me. Tell me what is wrong with this picture”. Along with that we get a bunch of highly specific items that’ll be used later for fun stuff. I enjoy the jokes and gags Huss puts in here. I know Act 1 drags for some people but much like JJBA, I think it’s worth going through all the parts.

Let’s finish this off by saying I genuinely enjoy Huss’s writing and Huss’s turn of phrase. There is something delightful in how they arrange phrases. It creates a lot of evocative imagery and makes things feel bigger than they are. It’s pleasant.

I think future retrospect posts may be more summary and recap than this one. I had a lot more HS thoughts in my head than I thought I would. I can’t say this won’t end up being a lie but I feel like that until maybe act 4, things will be more about the contents of the act than jumping off points for rambles.

#Roxy reads mspa #homestuck #well this ballooned out of control

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lakesandquarries · 3 years

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Tangled Up - Chapter One

for I am a tardigrade, and I'll stay at home

Benrey's spent 26 years living in a tower - 27, tomorrow. When a thief breaks into his tower, he finds his chance to escape and takes it.

Alternatively: Tangled, but the AI is self aware.

(featuring art by @kenas-artstuff )

Notes: check ao3 for warnings and tags! “kane radio” is just gordon using a fake name. fic title from “tangled up” by caro emerald, chapter title from “tardigrade song” by cosmo sheldrake.

Happy valentines day!!! hope you enjoy <3

AO3 Link

This is not the first time Kane’s come to tied up. It’s not even the first time this week. However, it is the first time he’s come to tied up with ropes made of human hair, and the first time he’s come to with a fucking raccoon shoving its nose in his ear.

So maybe he screams a little. Anyone would! It’s a reasonable reaction.

The hair around his wrists is a shiny blue-black, tough when he pulls at it. Is all hair like that? Is it one of those things that’s fragile individually but super tough all together? Seems like it, because it’s not even budging.

He’s so caught up that he doesn’t notice the person in the shadows until they’re holding out a crowbar, tilting up his chin.

“Yo,” they say, quiet and monotone. “You’re not supposed to be here.”

Kane screams again.

They’re weird looking. Pale, really pale, to the point that Kane wonders if something is wrong with them, and with a dark shadow around their eyes like a bruise that makes him sure. They’ve got on a long dress, all dark blues and lace and fancy embroidery, the kind of thing you’d either have to be rich to buy or have a lot of spare time to make. Their eyes are a bright, bright yellow, almost glowing, sclera a pale blue, and their hair is the same blue-black as the hair around Kane’s wrists - oh, it’s the same hair, isn’t it? Fuck, it’s long.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” the guy says again. “You got, uh. ID? Passport?”

“Passport?” This is - this is insane. This cannot be happening. “What the fuck,” he mumbles, repeating it to himself a few times, “what the fuck, who - who are you?”

The man tilts his head up with his crowbar. "No, no. I asked you first. You're in my house, I ask the questions." His eyes narrow, almost translucent in the light. "What're you doing here? How'd you find me? You gonna steal shit?" His hand goes to his hair, tugging on the blue-black strands. "Gonna steal my hair?"

"Steal your - why would I steal your hair?" The crowbar is cold against his throat, pressing harder every time he speaks. "And aside from that, I'm not here to steal anything. I thought this place was empty so I could use it for - as a shelter! Happy now?" His tone stays steady, confident even, but his hands clutch at the armrests desperately.

“You - huh?” The crowbar pulls back, just enough that Kane’s head can drop, and he sucks in a deep breath while he still can. The crowbar moves away entirely for a moment, as the stranger steps aside to have a whispered conversation with his pet raccoon.

Yeah, this day is weird enough for that to seem normal. Between stealing the prince’s royal helmet, ditching his partner, getting chased by a guard dog, and now this - it’s certainly been a day.

While the guy’s busy, Kane glances around, taking in the sights of the tower. It’s small. Homey. There’s a bed, a kitchen, a couch, bookshelves full of video games and a handful of books. The walls are covered, floor to ceiling, in paintings. When he looks up he realizes it’s not just the walls, the ceiling is painted too. Even the furniture has tiny doodles and carvings in it.

The crowbar slides against his throat again, cutting off his train of thought. "Is it just you?” the stranger asks. “No, uh. Backup? Not gonna...." he trails off, looking at his raccoon again, then back to Kane. "Who are you?"

He gives the man the best smile he can manage, under the circumstances, and says, “I’m Kane. Kane Radio.”

“Kane,” the man repeats. There’s a long pause where the two of them just stare at each other, before he finally adds, “Benrey.” Suddenly he tugs on his hair, pulling Kane closer to him and pushing the crowbar aside. “I wanna make a deal with you.”

“Uhh, yeah, could you get me out of your...hair, first? If that is your hair.” He doesn’t have time to make deals, and he doesn’t like the way Benrey repeated his name. Could he….? No, there’s no way. Kane’s been careful to erase any trace of Gordon Freeman. Of all people to blow his secret it’s not gonna be some random hermit living in a tower. He swallows, appreciating the lack of metal at his throat. “To be honest, I’d rather -”

Aaaand there goes the crowbar again. Shouldn’t have gotten confident. "You're lucky I'm gonna let you leave," Benrey says, voice low. Suddenly he doesn't seem like just a weird guy in a tower. Suddenly he seems like a threat. A choked yelp claws out of Kane’s throat as Benrey tugs on his hair again, pulling Kane close enough that he can see his unnaturally sharp teeth. "Wanna try that again?"

He barely processes the words, focused on the man - man?? - in front of him, the sharp teeth and glowing eyes and the crowbar pressing his throat shut, or maybe that’s just anxiety. It occurs to him that maybe this guy isn’t human.

His smile is nowhere near its usual confidence, but he tries to grin anyway. “S-so, uh, what...what was that deal? Benrey?”

Benrey’s face splits into a grin, and suddenly he’s just...a guy again. A weird guy! A weird, unsettling guy, with eyes that are too bright and teeth that are too sharp and hair that is way too long, but a guy. The crowbar is lowered and Benrey steps back, clambering up his fireplace and pulling back a red curtain. Behind it is...a painting? Still semi-fresh, from the looks of it, in the same style that all the other paintings are. This one depicts the floating lanterns they do for the prince's birthday. There’s all sorts of colors, blue and silver and pink and green, and below the sky is a hill with a small figure on it with long black hair.

"You know what these are?" he asks, pointing a finger at a pink light.

Kane exhales slowly. Benrey’s gonna push that crowbar against him again any second now, so he might as well enjoy breathing while he can. Fuck, he’d almost rather go back outside and deal with the guard dog that chased him here. “Yeah,” he says, voice shaking, and he clears his throat before he continues. “The lanterns for the lost prince.” Is Benrey fucking with him? Everyone knows the lanterns. Kane’s never even been to a lantern ceremony himself but he still knows what they are. He’d need a serious head injury to forget that, and while his head hurts a bit it’s certainly not that bad.

Benrey does not seem to be fucking with him, because he does a little cheer and fist pump. “I knew they weren’t stars,” he mumbles to himself, before turning back to Kane. Louder, he says, "I want you to take me there. To see 'em." He pulls the curtain back over and jumps down from the mantle, landing on the floor with a heavy thud. "Think you can manage that? Just there and back and I don't, uh. Y'know." He glances at the window. Kane follows his gaze, picturing Benrey launching his body out of it, and shudders. "Pretty good deal, I think."

Kane’s breath comes out in a panicked hiss.”W-well, that's not really a good idea right now, since I shouldn’t show my face in the kingdom right now considering I -" oh shit. "Oh shit. My satchel! Where is my satchel?!"

Benrey raises an eyebrow, smirking at him. “Oh, the bag thingy? I hid it. Mine now.” His smug face is the most infuriating thing Kane has ever seen, and he’d be throwing a punch if he wasn’t fucking tied to a chair. Benrey continues, "If you want it, you gotta earn it. You take me to the lanterns, I give you your satchel. Deal?"

Hid it. He said he hid it, so it’s….somewhere in here, probably, and once Kane realizes that it’s easy to figure out. He nods his head at a flowerpot. “It’s in there, huh?”

Benrey raises the crowbar again.

Oh, shit. “W-wait, no no no, no need to hit me!” He shuts his eyes, wishing he could move his arms to protect himself. He does not need any more head trauma, thank you very much.

This guy really won’t hesitate to kill him, huh? This stupid deal is his only real option. Kane sighs, keeping his eyes shut. "L-look, I'll keep my eyes shut like this? And you can hide my satchel somewhere else. No peeking. I'll agree to the deal. Just - my head already feels like splitting."

A pause. Kane almost considers opening his eyes but keeps them shut. Finally he hears Benrey’s voice again. “No peeking,” he repeats. There’s a series of shuffling noises, bare feet and raccoon claws against the floor, and then a moment later: “Okay. You can open your eyes.”

The satchel is nowhere to be seen, without even a hint to where it might be hiding. He sighs, head dropping forward before he looks up at Benrey again. "If I'm gonna agree to this, let me ask at least one question. Why do you wanna see them so badly, and why would you need an escort for that?"

Benrey’s face goes blank. “Uhhhh,” is all he says, followed by a long pause, leaving Kane worried he broke him somehow, but finally Benrey continues. "That's, uh. None of your business. 's just - it's, uh, dangerous. Out there. For me. Need a....need a guide."

Huh. Sheltered, maybe? Benrey seems...well, a little off, to be blunt. He can’t be much younger than Kane is, but he doesn’t even know about the lanterns. Overprotective parent seems a likely answer, but whatever the reason, now’s not the time to pry. “Alright, yeah, none of my business. Okay. We go see the lanterns, come back, you give me the satchel, yeah? Deal?”

“Deal,” Benrey agrees.

“Okay. Does that mean you can untie me now?”

-----

The thing about spending 27 years in a tower, knowing that this is where you’re going to spend your entire life, is that when you get the option to leave it’s kind of the scariest thing imaginable.

Kane’s already climbed down, leaning against a tree while Benrey stands on the ledge. Physically, he’s ready. He’s got his hair wrapped around the lever, ready to swing down, ready to go, to get out of the stupid fucking tower and out into the real world, except -

Except -

“You are never leaving this tower.” Zeki’s hands are on his shoulder, nails digging in. “Do you understand?”

Benrey reaches back, trying to grab at the closet. “But -”

“The outside world isn’t safe for you. You aren’t safe for it. If you went outside, you know what would happen?”

“Huh?”

“Look at you.” She grabs his hand roughly, pulling him over to the mirror. “They’ll take one look at you, and they’ll know, and then what? You’ll fight back. You’ll hurt people. You’re dangerous.”

It’s nothing new, but. He thinks about the man he has stuffed into his closet. He didn’t hurt him. He’ll be fine! “But -”

“This isn’t up for discussion. You. Are not. Leaving. Ever. Do you understand me or not?”

He stares at the mirror, looking between himself and Zeki. She’s looked the same as long as he can remember, brown hair always pulled into a bun and dark green eyes, pale skin but not in the same way Benrey is pale. She’s human. He’s not. And she’s right, that anyone who looks at him is gonna know. That’s why he’s up here, where it’s safe. Where no one can hurt him. And, more importantly, where he can’t hurt anyone else.

“I understand,” Benrey mumbles.

“Good.”

“I, uh. I thought of - I came up with something better. For a, uh. Birthday thingy.”

Zeki turns away from the mirror, towards Benrey. “Oh?”

“You got me that - the paint. Last year. The white one?”

“That’s a long trip,” she says, pursing her lips.

“I won’t ask about the. The stars. Or going outside. Or anything of that. I’ll, uh -” He glances at the dresser, the one where she keeps her lab coat. “I’ll make up for it.”

There’s a glint in her eyes, sharp like her favourite knife. “Fine. I’ll get you the paint.” Her face softens as she places a hand on Benrey’s head. “I’m only doing this to protect you.”

“I know,” he mumbles, as she steps away to gather her things. “I know.”

“Benrey?” Kane yells. “Are you gonna move or what?”

He jumps.

The fall is intense. Wind in his hair, sun on his face, watching the ground get closer - oh that’s close. Oh that’s very close. He stops just a few inches off the ground, hesitating once again. There’s no going back from this. The grass is so much greener than he expected, bright and shiny in the sun, drops of dew still lingering, and before he can spiral further he puts his foot down. When nothing happens - no monster appears, no pit opens up and swallows him - he puts both feet on the ground, the blades of grass tickling him.

A quick tug, and he pulls his hair down from the lever, watching it fall to the ground, and then joins it. The grass is still damp underneath him, but the sun above is warm. He’s getting covered in dew and dirt and bits of grass and he can’t find it in him to care, busy savoring the feeling he’s dreamed of for so long.

It’s not until he stands up that he realizes the bulk on his hair landed directly on Kane. He starts shoving hair aside, Jefferem lending a set of tiny hands as extra help. “You good?” Benrey asks, as Kane’s head becomes visible.

Kane huffs, struggling to stand. “Apart from being attacked by your mane, yeah, I'm fine. Can you help me out?”

Benrey holds out an arm. Pulling Kane up proves easier than he thought, and he pulls a little too hard, almost slamming Kane into him, the two of them pressed together for a moment before Kane coughs and steps back. Benrey takes a moment to half-heartedly brush some dirt and grass out of his hair and off his clothes, looking at Kane. “Guide time?”

Kane blinks at him, not bothering to clean off his clothing. “Uh - yeah. Guide time. Let’s go!” His steps are loud as he walks away.

Benrey’s footsteps are almost inaudible as he follows, crowbar gripped tight in his hands. The initial adrenaline is starting to fade, doubt settling in. Maybe this was a bad idea. It’s not too late to turn around and go back.

He shakes his head. Lost in his own thoughts, he’s fallen behind, and he has to sprint to catch up. Hoping not to zone out again, he starts talking, letting the first thing he can think of fall out of his mouth. “The lights - the lanterns. You said they were for a...prince?”

They enter a small stone tunnel as Kane answers. His voice is soft. “Every year, on the prince’s birthday, the kings - and the whole kingdom - release a swarm of lanterns,” he explains, voice echoing. It turns theatrical as he continues. “See, their little boy was snatched away as a baby, by an evil wizard! Or...something like that, at least. They’re hoping the lanterns will bring him back.”

“On his birthday?” Benrey echoes. Weird coincidence. A moment passes while Benrey busies himself with touching the walls of the tunnel. “And they still haven’t found him? Why’re they still doing the lanterns if it doesn’t work?”

Kane’s voice is softer, more subdued when he responds. "The kings still have hope that their baby boy will return someday. It's a very human thing in my opinion."

Ah. Human thing. That explains why Benrey doesn’t understand.

Kane pokes his head through the ivy, waiting a moment before ducking back and lifting it to let Benrey through. “We’re clear.”

Raising an eyebrow, Benrey repeats, “Clear?” Is something following them, or is Kane just paranoid? Or maybe Benrey is reading too much into things. Maybe it’s normal to check for stuff like that. Not like he would know.

"Ah - well, I told you earlier, didn't I? The kingdom and I aren't... quite buddy buddy at the moment." As they walk, he keeps looking around, eyes darting back and forth. "But don't worry, it shouldn't be a big problem for our objective."

Oh. Maybe he should’ve paid more attention to what Kane was saying earlier. Too late for that now, though. “So I was right? You a little - thief boy, huh? Stealing shit?” It’s mostly a guess, but he can’t picture this guy doing any real crime. His satchel probably had some stolen shit in it and that’s why he wants it back so bad. Well, better to team up with a criminal than a guard or something, considering all the rules Benrey’s breaking.

“Why do you keep insisting I steal shit?” Kane asks, looking away from Benrey. He doesn’t even give him time to answer, immediately following it with, “Hey, you hungry?”

Immediately changing the subject, huh? Now that’s suspicious. Admittedly he is a little hungry, and curious about where they’d be getting food out here. “Only if you’re not gonna steal it.”

Kane’s mouth screws up, eyes narrowing with a scoff. “I know a good place to get food. On our way, too. My friend works there.”

Oh shit, other people. He hesitates a moment before nodding. “Sure. Sure, yeah.”

Kane squints at him again. “You're not really an outside person huh? Have you...Have you ever been outside before?”

Damn, okay, just gonna straight up ask. Benrey opens his mouth to answer and then stops. “You answer my question first.” He’s not looking at Kane as he talks, eyes on the road ahead.

A groan in response, and then, “Fine, neither of us get an answer, then.” Kane picks up his pace, quickly getting ahead of Benrey.

“Someone’s grumpy,” Benrey mutters, rushing to catch up again. Kane’s anger surprises him. “I don’t care if you are. I’m breaking like....every rule possible just being here.” He pauses, scuffing at the dirt. “‘s all cool. Y’know. Be gay, do crime.”

Kane bursts into laughter, stopping in the road for a second. “Real rebel, huh?” he asks, shooting Benrey a grin that he returns nervously. “Fitting, then, for you to break out with a thief.”

Benrey’s grin widens, delighted. “Hah! I was right.”

“Yeah, yeah, congratulations, Blueberry.” The smile twists at the corners, as Kane leans closer to Benrey. “But that means we’re in my business now. So what about yours? You said you're breaking every rule right now. So... you weren't allowed outside that tower for some reason?”

That same empty expression makes a return as Benrey freezes. Twirling a strand of hair around his fingers, he clears his throat, forcing himself to start moving again. Walked right into that one, huh? And he’s not a coward, he’s not gonna refuse to answer after he finally got Kane to admit something. “Yeah,” he mumbles. “I, uh. Yeah. Not allowed. Very not allowed.”

If Zeki knew what he was doing right now - she’d kill him. Worse than kill him. Beside him, Kane’s gaze is soft, head tilted and eyebrows furrowed.

“Well…” he starts, “sometimes, you just gotta do what feels right, even if it hurts or makes someone mad. Trust me on that, I know from experience.” To punctuate his last words, he nudges against Benrey’s arm, almost affectionate. Benrey jumps for a second, hand darting to touch the spot Kane had brushed against, almost expecting it to feel different somehow. But no, it’s just his arm.

“Experience,” he repeats quietly. “Uh, yeah. I mean - I’m here.”

“That you are, Mr. Independent.”

#hlvrai #half life vr but the ai is self aware #benrey #gordon feetman #frenrey #benrey hlvrai #cora writes #tangled au #tangled up #adventures of cora

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hellishhin · 3 years

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[Image ID: The words Sagas of Stawold written in a stylized font, yellow on a background of deep green scale texture. Beneath the text, bright orange flames arise and reach up toward the text. End ID]

Title: Sagas of Stawold

Status: On Hiatus

Genre: High fantasy, D&D-based

POV: Third (whatever specific type I feel like at the time lol)

Setting: Stawold; germanic-esque town on the border between the civilized Hinterlands and the untamed Wilderlands. Part of the Kingdom of Jurmundy which is a part of the much larger Prendacian Empire. Despite the Emperor being the official ruler, the Imperial Church holds the real power.

Themes: magic, adventure, enemies-to-lovers, found family, dragons, deities, fantasy races, extra-planar travel, religious skepticism, mortality/immortality, extremely grey morality

Synopsis, characters, and post links below the cut

Synopsis: Sadie, K'lai'a'la, and Kireen form a fast bond on a quest to retrieve Ser Taerand Calentavar's stolen emerald from the swampy Wraefen. The adventure goes as wrong as you could imagine but once the emerald is retrieved, the story is only just beginning. Through a political coup, orc siege, and church prosecutions, the story climbs to apocalyptic crescendos and continues until Sadie faces the gods themselves. This story unfolds as played out over 3 years of tabletop game and continues until the current day as a messenger RP. My character, Sadie, has grown from an orphan of Stawold to the matriarch of a rebellion and she won't stop until she rises past the bounds of mortality.

Main characters: Since this is based off a D&D campaign, I keep as true to the story as possible. This means that over the years, players or their characters have come and gone. The cast rotates a bit but Sadie and a few non-player characters will stick around consistently. I’ll list current characters here and give them just a few sentences each. I think I’ll make a character post later.

Sadie: She is my beloved character. Halfling bard of lore.

Kireen: Red dragonborn bright-lord (a less religious paladin basically)

K’lai’a’la: Wood-elf ranger

Brimir: Human fighter

Taerand: High-elf quest-giver, member of the Stawold elite

Find links to all posts below, linked in order and grouped by Chapter (chapter titles were created by the DM and given to us before we started that chapter. Each chapter was 5 sessions long)

Writing on the Wall [chapter summary]

[Post 1] [Post 2] [Post 3] [Post 4] [Post 5] [Post 6] [Post 7] [Post 8] [Post 9] [Post 10] [Post 11] [Post 12] [Post 13] [Post 14] [Post 15] [Post 16] [Post 17] [Post 18] [Post 19] [Post 20] [Post 21] [Post 22] [Post 23] [Post 24] [Post 25] [Post 26] [Post 27] [Post 28] [Post 29]

To Kill a Manticore

[Post 30] [Post 31] [Post 32] [Post 33] [Post 34]

Taglist: (adds/removes always open!) @betwixtofficial @taerandcalentavar @talesfromaurea @faelanvance @definitelyquestionit @drippingmoon @dontcrywrite @a-wild-bloog

#my wip #high fantasy #writeblr #sadiestuff #sagas of stawold #wip introduction

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alias-levi · 3 years

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flash fic friday #5

@liz-pooh this is for you, hun 💙💙

gooood evening people (or whatever time it is when you are reading this)! after hardcore plotting one of my wips for two weeks then procrastinating doing the next step of drafting my best friend came in with a request for me to write. the final result actually happens to be a bit too long for a flash fic but i’m just going to pretend that i don’t know that. here are some basic infos:

fandom: twilight word count: abt. 1.8 k pairing: Felix/fem!oc warnings: swearing, alcohol consumption, verbal fighting

summary: For weeks Volterra’s streets have been reeking of mutt. The smell seemingly following Liza whenever she leaves the castle’s property. While doing some shopping, she catches a reflection that be able to explain why.

[ID: imagine, Paul imprintes on Felix’ mate]

source: unfortunately we lost the post where this matter was discussed so if anyone know is/has it/finds it, please feel free to share it with me via private messages so i can give proper credit!

thank you and the text is below the cut :) enjoy!

It’s a dark day, the sky heavily clouded. There is a thunderstorm to come, that is for sure. Liza in the meanwhile uses the time wisely, strolling through the narrow streets, doing some shopping. Girly stuff.

For umphteenth time Liza wrinkles her nose. The almost unbearably gross, musty smell of wet dogs wavers around her. Bypassing a shapeshifter occasionally is nothing too far off the possibility scale but this right here is borderline suspicious. For a few weeks now this smell has seemed to show up every time she had left the properties of the castle.

With a sigh, and a suppressed gag, Liza takes off the sunglasses she had just tried. Turning back to the nice old man owning the small shop, Liza smiles. “Thank you very much but I don’t think these are my style.”

The man eagerly nods and tries to convince her of another pair, but Liza stops him and kindly bids her goodbyes. Just as she takes her first step to walk away, her eyes catch something in the mirror. A reflection. Someone who seemingly fits the natives yet her brain screams at her that something is off. And then the person is gone. Liza frowns. Then her eyes widen.

A few well-measured, yet fast steps later, Liza disappears into the same small backstreet the man in the reflection had stood in.

“I know you are here. I have been smelling you for weeks wondering why Volterra has turned into a hotspot for mutts.” She spits the last word out with as much disgust as she can manage. The smell has gotten worse and Liza wonders if she would throw up.

The man doesn’t hesitate now. Stepping out of the shadows and into her way he looks down on Liza, swallows hard then takes a step back. “Listen I wish I could have saved us both this situation but I have to talk to you.”

Liza snorts then spits on the floor right in front of his feet. “I’m flattered you came all this way just to get your ass kicked, Paul.” An oh-so-sweet and innocent smile plays around the vampires lips and her violet eyes sparkle with excitement. Watching the werewolf almost shrink under her gaze, breaks Liza’s smile into a grin, revealing her fangs.

“Liza, no. Please, it is important that you listen to me.”

“Then you better spill the tea, mutt,” she puts her weight on one leg, tilting her hip and cocks an eyebrow at him, “I don’t have all day.”

“I will try to make it as quick as poss-”

“For fuck’s sake, Paul, get to the fucking point!”

“Yeah, yeah! I got it, I got it, okay?” Paul raises his hands in surrender. “Listen, remember a few weeks back when Felix and you were-”

“-in Forks and kicked y’alls asses? Yes I do remember, why do you ask?”

Entirely unphased by this snappy interruption Paul continues, “Remember that moment in the woods where I suddenly turned back? You just made a comment and then ran off.”

Rolling her eyes Liza says, “course I do. What was up with you anyways? Fell in love with the most badass vampire chick you’ve ever seen?”

“I imprinted.”

She snorts, “on what, mutt? The trees? The dirt under your nails?”

“On you.”

The sincerity in his voice makes Liza’s next comment get stuck in her throat. He wouldn’t travel all this way around the world to find her and tell her this if he was joking. Only slowly the full extent, the full meaning behind his words, seeps into her brain. Oh fuck.

“Oh fuck.”

“Yes, indeed. Listen I will try my best not to-”

“How the fuck am I even expected to react in a situation like this?”

“This is unprecedented. There is no knowledge of something like this having happened ever before. Believe me if I knew how to deal with this, how to make this work for the both of us- I would! But for now I just had to let you know. You are in this-”

Liza can see the muscles under his skin straining. He is fighting the urge to run, yet his brain tells him to stay with his imprint. This is fucking ridiculous.

“No, stop talking, Paul.” Closing her eyes for a second Liza sighs. She then fishes out her cell phone out of her coat’s pocket. “Give me your number I’ll call you in a couple of days. I- I need time to think.”

Paul is surprised. In all the time he had known Liza, nothing could ever knock the smartass out of her. But he obeys and states his number. He knows that he has no say in who he imprints on even though this is by far the worst scenario he could have imagined.

“Uhm, I’m sorry, you know,” Paul watches Liza scoff and nod slowly. He looks defeated, tired and worn out.

“Yeah, whatever.”

A shy smile tilts the corners of his mouth upwards upon hearing her sass returning.

---

The conversation with Paul gave Liza much to think about. So much, that her initial confusion has now turned into full blown anger. Paul imprinting on her is an unforeseen and definitely not welcomed inconvenience. No matter how exciting being the first of anything might be- This is not it. Liza doesn’t want it. Nursing a glass of rum and coke, Liza stares out of the window. Volterra lies quiet and peacefully beneath the castle, a stark contrast to her seething mind. The door behind her opens and Felix enters their chamber. Immediately he gags. “You smell even worse than the past days. I swear I will find and kill every single one-”

“Leave it, Felix.”

Liza doesn’t bother turning around. Neither does she bother saying anything else for the next two hours. She just stays right there, at the edge of her seat, straight back, the glass in her hand close to bursting in her hard grip. Keeping her eyes trained on the streets, Liza almost feels Paul’s eyes on her.

“Okay,” Felix sits up on the bed and puts the book he was reading into his lap. “Okay, would you please finally tell me what the fuck is going on with you?”

Felix is sick and tired of having Liza filling the room with the most annoyed energy, making the air almost thick enough to cut. Her occasional, totally unnecessary overly dramatic, huffs don't exactly make it better. Apart from breathing, Liza has not moved an inch and Felix thinks that if she sits there just a little bit longer, her drink will simply evaporate.

Another very patient fifteen minutes later, Felix realizes that Liza’s hands have started to fidget and her knee has started to bounce up and down rapidly. From staring out of the window, her eyes glazed over and she also stopped pretending to blink.

“Liza,” his voice is quiet but nonetheless demanding, “What. The hell. Is. Going. On?”

She takes her time and Felix hates her for it. But if he had known what she was about to tell him, hell, he would have relished every single second of not knowing.

“Paul imprinted on me.”

The words are so quick to leave her mouth, and oh-so-quiet, that Felix almost misses them. But he doesn’t. His brain makes sure to let him know, with the burning sensation of jealousy pumping through- no, simply filling his body. His fingertips are burning and aching to scratch that boy’s eyes out. Through gritted teeth he finally manages to press out, “He did what?”

Felix’ voice is dangerously quiet.

Eventually Liza turns to face him. “I met him today. He asked me to talk and then told me that. Explains why the streets have been reeking.”

“Yeah, no, but- Why on you?!”

Liza smiles upon the barely contained anger in Felix’ voice now, the fire, the jealousy burning in his eyes.

“Well he doesn’t exactly have the power to control it!” Her voice is sharp and louder than intended.

“I know that, Liza, I ain’t exactly fucking new in this business.” After a pause of just staring at each other Felix adds, “When did that even happen, huh?”

“Remember when we were in Forks a few weeks ago? Found the pack at the beach and had some fun with them?”

Felix nods along and Liza smiles sourly at the absurdity of this situation. The exact same conversation had happened just hours before, yet, she had been the one listening and Paul the one talking. Providing delicate information.

“You yelled at me to not go too far but I followed them into the woods anyways. Well,” Liza sighs and Felix rolls his eyes at that, “one after the other veered but one of them didn’t. He was so eager, so... hell-bent on outrunning me. It was so much fun when I finally had him, pinned on the ground he looked me in the eyes and went still. At first I thought I had been too harsh, hurt him, or broke something. Then he turned back into his human form. Looking at me like he had seen a ghost.”

“He imprinted on you,” Felix deadpans. “That motherfucker really fucking imprinted on you!”

Fury seeps into his voice as his body goes entirely still. Liza knows this look, his reaction, the unmoving body. Felix is like an animal, waiting, preparing for that one leap that will get them their prey. With slow movements she puts her glass down onto the floor. She might be naive. Trying to hold back who is said to be the strongest vampire to ever exist, is not in her power. After almost half a century together, Liza knows that she will not be able to stop Felix if he doesn’t let her. His abilities simply exceed her power.

So, Liza does the only slightly realistic thing that comes to her mind. Keeping up her slow movements she stands up, walking over to the bed ever so quietly. Neither of them is breathing. With a gentle smile on her lips, Liza cautiously cups Felix’ cheek, feeling him release a breath he has never held onto her palm. Their eyes stay locked this whole time.

Bringing their faces close together, she stops only an inch before him. “Let’s not deal with this today, okay? I don’t want to think about it anymore for now.” Her voice is gentle, calm and barely more than a whisper.

Felix surprises her in leaning up, closing the small gap between them and pressing a chaste kiss onto her lips. “You reek of mutt, querida.”

Liza bursts out a short dry laugh. The atmosphere is clearly more relaxed now. “Right,” she stands up again, “I’ll take another shower then... Care to join?” With a wink she leaves Felix on the bed and walks towards the bathroom.

#twilight #imagine #twilight imagine #felix x oc #paul lahote #imprinting #request #prompt #oc: liza #ps i love you #Flash Fic Friday

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hypnoticwinter · 4 years

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Down the Rabbit Hole part 4

"You kids really ought to feel ashamed of yourselves," Peter says to them, and one of them, at least, the youngest, probably, judging by his looks, by the baby fat still on his cheeks, has the decency to feel embarrassed, to cast his glance downwards and away, to let his cheeks color with the shame of it. The other two, older, lankier, cooler, probably, just stare at him, hands folded in their laps. One of them, the girl, snaps her gum loudly.

There in the break room of Ranger Station 34c, the one with the old beige-painted walls that they never got around to redoing when they renovated the rest of the old Anodyne-era ranger stations, and the big poster from the 80s about the Roadless Rally, it's easy to forget that just fifteen feet below them is a pool of gastric acid powerful enough to strip flesh from bone within about five minutes flat, assuming total submersion.

"It was just a joke," the older boy says, and Peter rolls his eyes.

"Do you feel like it was a joke?" he asks, turning his gaze to the younger one. He must be around thirteen or fourteen. His hair is short but messy, like the barber wasn't paying attention when he'd cut it.

"No," the boy says, quietly, not willing to look Peter or the other two in the eyes. The girl snaps her gum again and Peter points at her.

"Spit that gum out," he tells her, nudging the wastepaper bin forward with his foot. Inside it he can see a printout of the memo that they'd emailed around earlier about the park staying open later for the firework show. Peter had groaned initially when he'd gotten it but then the promise of time and a half was transmitted in a reply and he'd felt better about it. The girl stares at him defiantly.

"You can't make me," she says. "You're not a cop."

"In here I am. Didn't you know that? Down here Rangers have almost the same authority as police do," he says, conscious, suddenly, of how he's resting his forearm almost lazily on the butt of his pistol. "I can make arrests, write tickets. Anything you can think of."

"Can you hold us here without charging us?" the older boy asks suddenly. He looks up at Peter with defiant eyes. "I want to –"

"How old are you?" Peter asks, not letting him finish. The boy shrugs.

"Nineteen."

"Really? Let me see your ID."

"Don't have it."

"Not in your wallet?" Peter asks, looking over at the table to his left, where he'd put the three kids' things. He walks over to it, pushes the girl's sweatshirt aside, picks up the small leather wallet with the embroidered fisherman on it. "This one yours?"

The kid won't answer him so he looks at the girl. "Is it yours?" he asks, waggling the wallet at her. She shakes her head after a moment.

"It's not mine," the youngest one volunteers.

"Well, look at that," Peter says. "Process of elimination. It's either yours or mine," he says to the oldest boy, making a show of patting his pockets. "Hmm, now where'd I leave my...oh, there it is," he says, pulling his own wallet out briefly, showing it to them. "Looks like this one's yours. You going to have to tell me how old you really are or do I have to look in here?"

"I said I'm nineteen," the boy repeats. Peter flips open the wallet, sorts through an insurance card and a Subway giftcard before finding the kid's ID. He pulls it out and studies it.

"Nineteen, huh?"

"Yeah."

"Bad at math, huh? When's your birthday?"

"June third."

"The year, smartass."

"Uh –"

"Too bad. You wouldn't have to think that long about it. You're seventeen," he says, fingering the ID. "Happy birthday..." he stops, looks down at the ID and back up at the older boy, enjoying the way his face tightens. "...Fitzroy. Hell of a name."

"Alright," Makado says, bursting through the door, a little out of breath. She glares at Peter. "I'm here. What the hell was so important?"

Peter nods to the eldest boy and the girl. "Why don't you tell her?"

"It was a joke," the girl says.

"Just a prank," Fitzroy agrees.

Peter shakes his head, looks at Makado. "These two," he says, pointing to the girl and the boy, "pushed this kid off of a walkway and were taunting him while he was slipping down into the pool below this ranger station." He gets a perverse sort of satisfaction watching Makado's cinnamon complexion pale slightly.

"Jesus," she breathes. "Thank you for not putting that on the radio."

"I'm not a total idiot."

"Look, what's the big deal?" the girl says. "It's not like we were going to let him drown, we would have jumped in after him."

The youngest boy shudders. Peter watches Makado's eyes narrow. "Did you see any signs down here?" she asks, her tone very cold. After a moment the girl shakes her head. "You," she says, turning her attention to Fitzroy. "People are only allowed down here as part of a ranger-lead tour, how did you get down here?"

He mumbles something.

"What was that?" Makado asks, cocking her head. He explains that they waited until a ranger slid his card to unlock the fence and then distracted him once he'd gone through by pretending to be lost and had asked questions for long enough that he'd forgotten to lock the gate after him. Makado rolls her eyes on hearing this, looks at Peter. "It must have been DeAngelis," she says. "He's the only one dumb enough to fall for that."

"Not everybody's as paranoid as you are," Peter reminds her, and she laughs.

"And yet I'm a head ranger and everybody else isn't. Wonder why that is?"

"Can we go now?" the Fitzroy asks, and Makado glares daggers at him.

"Absolutely not," she says. "You two," she says, pointing at him and the girl, "are going to the police station topside, and you're going to be booked for attempted murder."

"What?" the girl shrieks. The boy looks scared for a moment but regains his cool and laughs.

"You're just trying to scare us," he says, but Makado shakes her head, looking grimly satisfied.

"First," she says, counting on her fingers, "you're trespassing. On federal property, I should add, which is a fairly serious crime. Up to six months in prison, and a $500 fine."

"But we were –"

"Shut up," Peter tells them.

"Second, you aren't being incredibly cooperative right now, which is really only going to make things worse for you in the long run."

The girl looks like she wants to say something but thinks better of it.

"Third, the pool beneath this structure is the largest digestive bulb in the upper Pit area," she says significantly, glancing between the three of them. The younger one frowns, then pales. "You have any idea what that means?" she asks the girl, who shakes her head.

"The pool isn't water, or whatever you thought it was. It's acid."

"Bull," the older boy says.

"You think we'd be going to all this trouble if we weren't serious?" Peter asks. Neither of them have an answer. He looks over at Makado, jerks his head towards the table behind them. "Check out what's in the wallet over there."

She looks at him, then turns around, flips open the wallet. Peter can hear her rustling through it but he's watching Fitzroy, watching the way he squirms, watching the way he can't quite seem to meet Peter's eyes.

Makado makes a very small noise that Peter swears must have been her chuckling, but when she turns back around, perhaps a half a second later than he might have expected her to, her face is deadly serious. "Looks like we're adding drug possession to the list of charges," she says. Fitzroy makes a strangled noise somewhere in his throat and the girl groans.

"Come on!" she says. Her tone is pleading. "It's only a dub!"

"I'm going to pretend I know what that means," Makado tells her. She turns to Peter, leans in to whisper in his ear. "I'll call someone. Take them up to the surface and kick them out."

"No charges?" he murmurs.

"Of course not. They're kids. I'll keep the weed, though, that should teach them a lesson. Probably about twenty dollars' worth in this bag."

Peter nods and Makado pulls her radio out of its holster, clicks it over to the general channel. "Makado here, unattached rangers in Lower Gastro Zone B, respond please."

She takes her finger off the button and waits. Quiet static rumbles to itself on the channel, then the radio squawks.

"Makado, it's Maria. I just clocked out and I was heading back to the LVC, do you need me to clock back in?"

"Stand by, Maria," she says. She glances at Peter. "I forgot," she growls. "There's that stupid fireworks display tonight."

"Yeah, we're staying open until..."

"I forget. Midnight? Something like that."

"Hey, you're a Head Ranger, I figured you would know."

"Wait a minute," Makado frowns, clicking the radio on again. "Maria," she asks, "isn't everybody working late tonight? Why are you clocking out already?"

"I got permission from Carl," Maria says. "Cause my mom is in bed with that fever, you know, and I have to pick up my kid, and I don't have anybody else who can –"

"Okay, Maria," Makado says, "that's okay. You go on and go home."

"Are you sure? I've got about half an hour before –"

"Don't worry about it, Maria. Makado out."

"Roger."

Peter looks at Makado and Makado looks at Peter. "Whatever," she says. "We can take them up."

"You don't have more important things to do?"

"Probably," she admits. "But maybe I need a break."

"Alright kids," Peter says, turning to the three of them. Fitzroy and the girl have been whispering back and forth to each other the whole time, their faces drawn and serious, the gravity of the situation finally breaking over them. The youngest one is trying not to look smug but that disappears when Peter glares at him, lumping him in with the three of them. "All of you are in big trouble. Even you," he says, pointing to the youngest. "What's your name?"

"Tyler," he says in a small voice.

"Tyler, you were still trespassing. Don't think you're getting out of this scot-free."

"Are we doing good-cop bad-cop?" Makado murmurs in his ear. He can feel her breath on his earlobe and it sends a row of goosebumps cascading up his spine. "I thought I was usually the bad cop."

"You can be the bad cop later," he mutters back, keeping his eyes fixed on the kids. He feels more than hears her lips part in a smile.

"Let's go," she says.

They do. Peter happens to look at his watch before they all file out of the break room, him in the rear, watching the kids; the time is 9:30 at night on July 4th, 2007.

* * *

While they're marching down the long fenced-in corridor out of Lower Gastro Zone B back to the utility lift that will take them back to the Lower Visitor Center and, from there, ultimately to the surface, Peter considers the pink, fleshy walls pressed against the fence. This particular corridor suffered a contraction about a week ago when a stent failed and the Pit's muscles naturally filled in the resulting extra space. There was a tour group in the corridor when it happened and according to a friend of his, who was leading the tour group at the time, four people of the twelve fainted.

For the moment it's safe, though, since the temporary extra stents installed by Engineering are holding back the passage from complete collapse, but a more permanent solution will have to be sought soon. From what he understands they'll have to either go back in and tease the flesh back from the fence and insert additional permanent stents, as well as repair parts of the path that had buckled under the sudden change in pressure, or give up on this corridor altogether and widen out a new one, link it up to the vast network of passageways making up the lit, reinforced networks of the Pit.

He doesn't reflect on it often, but when things like this happen, when stents fail, when things go wrong (which is thankfully fairly rare, at least in his experience), Peter can't help but think of what it must be like, to be trapped in a corridor like this if it were to totally collapse in on itself, if, by some unlucky and unlikely coincidence, every stent were to fail simultaneously. As far as he knows nothing like that has ever happened in the history of the park, but it's a possibility, if a vague one. If you were in a proper suit you'd probably survive, the suits are armored and rated against a certain level of crushing pressure, but the kind he's wearing now, the lighter, 'interior-work' suit, wouldn't be able to stand up to that kind of abuse. It's only the heavy, reinforced engineer suits that would let you survive, and even then if you didn't have a supply of personal stents and probably a laser cutter you'd be trapped there, alive but unable to move, surrounded by throbbing, crushing flesh, unable to do anything but call for help on your helmet radio and watch the air in your canister tick down until you ran out and asphyxiated.

Peter's not bothered by tight spaces – when you get hired at the Mystery Flesh Pit you have to pass a claustrophobia test, even if you're working at the Burger King in the LVC – but even without any phobia of it the thought isn't pleasant.

He finds his eyes wandering down Makado's figure, lithe and supple even in the bulk of her ranger suit, at the way her sides taper inwards and then frill outwards pleasantly at her hips. He watches her hips sway as she walks. He knows he shouldn't look but he does anyway.

Ahead of him he sees Makado incline her head downwards and tap her earpiece, listening intently. He flips through the channels on his radio briefly but hears nothing out of the ordinary – whatever she's hearing must be on the command channel he doesn't have access to. Still walking forwards, she turns briefly and looks back at him; their eyes meet for a moment, then she turns back around. If the look was supposed to carry any significance or meaning, he misses it.

She says something into the radio then slows to a stop, turns around. "Alright kids, hold up for a second," she says. Peter slips past the three of them, sidles up to Makado. "Got a call from Control," she mutters. "There's a flooding issue in the Sand Gullet."

Peter's eyebrows raise. "How bad?"

"Don't know. Engineering is on the way right now, we'll know more in a couple minutes."

"What happened?"

"Pump failure."

"I mean, that's not so unusual. It's been raining cats and dogs today and they really ought to have replaced those pumps in waves instead of waiting to do all of them at once."

"Sorry," Makado says. Something in her tone cuts a quiet sliver of dread across Peter's belly. "I misspoke," she tells him. "The emergency pump failed."

It takes a moment for him to process that but when he does his eyes widen. "Oh fuck," he says.

"Oh fuck," she agrees. "Listen to me. You're down here more often than I am. Closest constriction-rated shelter from here?"

"Safest is the ranger station we came from. Closest is the elevator housing ahead. Your call, you know the Sand Gullet better, if it's full enough that the e-pump would have kicked in..."

Makado shakes her head briefly. "We can make it back to the ranger station. Hunker down, ride it out. Safest place in a constriction, those gastric pools don't have many muscles surrounding them."

"It'll take ten minutes to get back there."

"Five if we stop talking and run for it. Let's go."

The kids almost panic when Makado tells them that the area is becoming unsafe and they will need to run as fast as they can back to the ranger station they came from, but Peter grabs Fitzroy and Tyler and Makado grabs the girl whose name he still does not know, and as they run Peter puffs out what reassuring nothings he can in between breaths, trying to make it seem like this is less of a big deal than it is. Than it might be.

They keep as quick of a pace as they can. Makado's lean physique could easily outstrip all of them but she stays at the girl's pace, helping her up when she trips and stumbles, letting Peter and the boys get ahead. They cover the long hallway in a few minutes while Peter focuses on his breathing, in through his nose and out through his mouth. Tyler is flagging a little but keeping up, and all of Fitzroy's cockiness seems to have departed him at this point. His eyes are wide and frightened.

The path diverges into a fork. They came from the left, Peter remembers. He puts his hand out, catches himself on the fence, pushes off and keeps running. He glances behind as he does and sees Makado, face drawn, eyes grim, nodding at him, just behind. He can smell the gastric bulb ahead.

The lights snap off with an audible click and a hum of powering-down electrical lines. "Fuck!" Peter yells, skidding to a stop, drawing the two boys closer in so they don't fall. Makado plows into his back and Peter stumbles but keeps his balance.

"Why the hell are the lights off?" she asks. "Did we lose power?"

"We must have," Peter says, snapping the flashlight from his belt and clicking it on. He angles it upwards towards one of the heavy-duty fluorescent fixtures but can't see any obvious signs of damage. "We must have," he repeats.

"Makado to Control, over," Makado intones, pressing her earpiece deeper into her ear. She repeats herself twice before shaking her head and pulling out her radio and flicking through the channels. "This is Makado," she says on the general line. "We've got a power loss in LGZ Bravo, can anybody confirm if this is localized?"

Nothing but static, stronger than before. She looks at Peter significantly. "It must be the whole park," she says after a moment. "The repeaters are down."

She looks at the kids. "We need to move. Now."

"Wait, Makado –"

"No time," she says, hustling them along towards the ranger station. The constriction hits before she's taken ten steps, and it's so strong that Peter drops his flashlight, sending it skidding crazily ahead of them and then off of the walkway through the fence, casting shadows that flex and writhe and skitter. The girl is screaming and Makado is huddling over her, keeping her still; one of the boys, Tyler, he thinks, cries out, and he can hear Fitzroy breathing heavily at his side, and Peter realizes that without even thinking about it he has grabbed them both and taken them down to the floor of the walkway with him. He wants to squeeze his eyes shut and wait for it to be over but he forces himself not to. Outside the fence the fleshy walls of the conduit they're in are writhing and convulsing. He can hear the faint, distant rumble of a carnal moan, coming from somewhere deep in the Pit's gullet, but the actual noise is really fairly soft; just a wet, squishing sound, the slapping of muscle twitching and clenching in on itself, and then a sound that strikes dread into his very core – the snapping pop of a hydraulic stent failing.

The lights flicker back online, which surprises Peter, and as they all blink in the sudden brightness he and Makado lock eyes; he sees from her expression that she also heard the stent fail, and they scramble to their feet, hauling the kids upwards with them. The girl is clutching her wrist; she looks almost mad with fear, staring around at the fleshy walls of the corridor, several feet closer to the fence than they were before the lights went out and still shuddering and convulsing against the retaining plate in the ceiling. He hears the stent nearest them let out a dangerous hiss. Makado shakes her head.

"Double-time it," she commands, starting back down the corridor.

"Makado, wait," he repeats, looking back down towards the elevator, a long way off and out of sight.

"No time," she says, pushing the girl ahead of her. Halfway down, where the stent failed, the fence has been bent inwards and the flesh is puckered into a wrinkled, ugly cone, leaving enough room to crawl through. It would be tight, though, and likely the fence would catch on some of their gear. Makado touches her earpiece and swears, pulls it out, then takes out her radio and examines it. Even from ten feet away Peter can see that it's busted; she must have fallen on it when the convulsion knocked her off her feet. "We need to get to that ranger station," she tells Peter, and he shakes his head.

"Makado, we can't."

"What?"

"Think about it. The power was still out when that convulsion hit," he explains, pulling his own radio out and handing it to her. As she takes it and plugs her earpiece into it, he continues. "If the power was out, then the hydraulics would have been out too. And if –"

"Shit, you're right," she says, reaching out to steady herself as another tremble runs through the corridor. Almost a full second after, they feel the walkway shudder as the Pit convulses again, someplace deeper in its anatomy. Tyler stumbles and Peter reaches out and catches him. For the first time since he's known her, Makado looks unsure. Past her shoulder, Peter sees the crumpled cone of flesh ahead of them crunch inwards another inch or so. He can see blood dripping down from the chain links where they've dug into it. He shakes his head.

"If we go down that way," he says, pointing at it, "we'll get trapped down there. And if the ranger station slipped or got dislodged and it's sinking into the bulbule right now..."

Another convulsion rocks through the corridor. Makado falls to her knees, then pitches sideways – the cone has finally crushed the fence entirely and canted that section of walkway at a crazy angle. Past it they hear a muffled thump as another stent fails. The Pit shudders.

Peter holds out his hand and Makado takes it. She nods at him.

"Alright," she says. "Let's go."

"Are we going to –" Tyler starts, but Peter shakes his head.

"No talking," he says, grabbing ahold of Tyler and Fitzroy's hands. "We need to go."

Two more stents collapse as they make their way down the corridor, jogging now, not willing to risk a full sprint in case of another rolling wave of convulsions pitching the walkway beneath them and throwing them off. Luckily, the stents ahead seem to be holding. The second stent that collapsed did so barely twenty seconds after they passed under it, and the noise was so loud that even Makado yelped in surprise and the five of them huddled closer together for a moment, watching the muscles of the Pit crush the reinforced steel into an irregular ovoid pellet. After that they hurried even quicker. The utility lift they're heading to is contained within a reinforced access shaft, one that Peter reasons will likely have been able to withstand the convulsions of the Pit, even if they've gotten bad. He wonders briefly, stumbling a little amid flickering lights as the corridor tilts again, what things are like in the Visitor Center; if the power went out and there was a choke response simultaneously, there could have conceivably been some serious damage.

"Hey, Mak," he calls ahead, and Makado turns, breathing heavily, looks at him. She's told him not to call her that, not at work at least, but he figures that right now it's the least of their concerns. Plus it's easier to say, fewer syllables; less of a strain on his tiring lungs. Tyler is practically done for already and Fitzroy isn't doing much better. It's a long distance to the elevator and every branch they pass, Peter's seen something worrying. Corridor to Rest Stop 23? Collapsed inwards when a stent failed close to their end of the corridor. Lots of blood. The Pit's or some poor ranger or visitor trapped in exactly the wrong place? There's nothing so dramatic as an arm or a hand or a leg sticking out of the scrunched, wrinkled orifice. Corridor to the Lower Interpit Campground? There's a lesser copepod lurking on the rounded, livid ceiling, roughly the size of a deer, antennae prickling with anticipation as he and Makado stopped to consider it. Further down the lights were flickering, and even further down the lights were out entirely. They looked at each other and Makado shook her head.

"Mak," he says again. "Have you gotten anything on the radio?"

"Thought I told you not to call me that," she mutters, fiddling with the radio. She unplugs her earpiece, turns the volume up. They all listen; even Fitzroy and the girl cock their heads intently. Where before there was static and the tantalizing hint of communication, just too fuzzy for them to be able to make out, there is just a worrying soft noise. "The repeater must be completely fucked," she says. She switches to the general channel. "This is Makado, can anybody hear this? Respond, over."

The seconds tick by. Somewhere close by but obscured by pounds and yards of flesh, a stent collapses. Peter jumps when it does, the thumping noise like the beating of a heart, praying that it wasn't any place they needed to go.

The convulsions have slowed now, still passing in rolling waves of panic, but with longer and longer intervals between them. Even the girl, whose name he still does not know, doesn't shriek when the walls writhe, but merely looks at them with a horrible emptiness in her eyes, as though she's simply waiting for it to be over. She hasn't spoken a word in about ten minutes now, and Makado has to coax her into jogging with them when they do move forward.

Makado shakes her head, holds the button down again. "This is Makado," she repeats. "Can anybody –"

The radio squawks and they all jump. Makado nearly drops it. "-akado, it's – trapped in the –" a voice says, tinny with static. Peter can barely make it out, let alone determine who it is. Once the noise stops Makado taps the button twice. "Makado here, I don't know who said that but we can barely hear you, please repeat? Over."

"Makado," comes the reply, a little better. "It's Carl. Can you hear – now? Respond please."

"Carl, we hear you," she says urgently. "Are you alright?"

"No," he says. He sounds frightened. "I'm in access tunnel 32, a stent... -apsed and I'm trapped, I can get into - ...Campground, but –"

From there, the broadcast devolves into indistinguishable noise. Makado frowns at Peter. "Access tunnel 32, that's on the other side of the Campground, right?"

"Yeah," Peter nods. "32, 41, and 17 feed into it."

"Carl, we heard most of that," she broadcasts. "Get to the campground and sit tight, Peter and I will rendezvous there in ten minutes, how copy?"

Nothing. Nothing at all. Peter blows his breath out. "The campground is probably a mess right now."

"Yes," Makado agrees, "but it won't have constricted enough to have blocked off passage, it's too big of a bulb. We can get through and then meet up with Carl, and then we can all get to the elevator and take off together. If he's alone in there –"

"Do you want to split up?" Peter asks, looking significantly at the teenagers. They've been watching Peter and Makado's conversation with terrified faces. They seem to have accepted for the moment that they're safe, but whatever claustrophobia they might have had before they entered the Pit is coming back in spades. Tyler keeps looking up at the ceiling as though it might collapse inwards on them at any moment, although, realistically speaking, a collapse like that would be all sides and all angles at once, realistically speaking, and if it were bad, they'd be pinned between the fence and the walkway and get the breath crushed out of them that way.

"No, absolutely not," Makado says. "We've all got to stick together."

"But the kids –"

"I am not letting them go off alone and get picked off by a shamble or something, and I am not letting you or myself go and try to meet up with Carl alone and have the same damn thing happen. Did you see the size of that copepod back there?" she asks, jerking her thumb over her shoulder. "We'll have to go that way, you know."

"I know, I know, it's just –"

She reaches out, puts her hand on his shoulder, pulls him inwards. For one insane moment Peter thinks she is about to kiss him, but then her chin lands on his shoulder and she whispers into his ear, "Pete, I'm scared too. I don't want to die down here. But we have got to get these kids out, and we have to get Carl. If he's hurt, if he's in trouble, we're going to help him. You and me can make it happen."

Peter nods after a moment and then Makado squeezes his shoulder and is gone, hunkering down and gathering the three teenagers close to her. "Listen to me, guys," she says, "I need you two," she says, looking at Tyler and Fitzroy, to take care of...honey, what's your name?"

Peter sees the girl's lips move but she doesn't actually say anything. "Her name is Eileen," Fitzroy says.

"Eileen," Makado says, "you're doing great."

"I'm scared," Eileen murmurs.

"I know, honey, but you're doing great. We're going to be down here for just a little longer and then we'll be going outside, okay?"

"We have to go get your friend, don't we?" Tyler asks, and Makado nods. Peter turns around so that the three teenagers won't be able to see and takes out his service pistol, checks that it's loaded. He knows it is but something about doing this makes him feel a little better.

When he turns back around the kids look a little better. Tyler looks determined, at least, and Fitzroy doesn't look quite as panicked as before. He doesn't know what Makado told them; probably some kind of empty promise about them being back on the surface quickly. No, stop that, he thinks. We will be back on the surface quickly. This is just a choke response. They probably already have pumps working in the sand gullet. Everything will be fine.

They make the trip down to the campground cautiously. The copepod lurking on the ceiling has disappeared since they moved past and Peter isn't sure whether or not that's a good sign. When they get to the darkened section of the hallway Peter draws his pistol. Makado looks at him, as do the kids. He gives them a smile and shrugs. "Just in case," he explains.

But they are lucky and don't run into anything, other than another lesser copepod, a smaller one than the one before, that takes one look at them and scurries off like an overgrown cockroach.

The campground is situated in a large gastric bulb that, a very long time ago, had been drained of its contents and various campsites marked out, which provided for slightly more comfortable camping quarters than just setting up a tent in a bronchial canal or other tubule. It was roomy, with fairly spectacular calcium deposits for an area as high up in the Pit as it was. There were even a few electrical outlets, as well as a restroom. The convulsions have put all that to hell, though; the restroom and camping platforms have cracked and tilted, and while the retaining shunts and plates seem to be alright, there's a small rupture in the ceiling where it looks like a bone might have torn through the thin, vulnerable flesh, and a steady stream of what proves to be gastric juices is pouring in from the tear, mixing noxiously with the Pit's blood and falling in thick, sticky rivulets to the floor, where it's already collected in a depression. A small pack of macrobacteria, about ten or so, are rolling about the pool; they must have came in from the entrance to the lower organ trails, over there on the left, a dark, gaping chasm in the floor. The stairs leading down to it still seem intact, so perhaps everything's alright down there – but, Peter reflects, if macrobacteria have gotten in, that means that something nastier might have as well.

"Do you see Carl?" he asks Makado, sweeping the beam of her flashlight across the vast bulb. The campground looks deserted, as it should have – there wasn't anybody in here all day, as far as he knows. There weren't any permits issued for this area, at any rate, so nobody, no guests at least, should have been in here.

"I don't –" Makado starts, then trails off. He glances back at her and then follows the beam of her flashlight, and sees a body laid out on the floor, almost in the corner of the bulb, with a round macrobacterium squatting evilly on its upper chest. He can see the ranger suit and knows it must be Carl, it simply must be.

"Shit," Peter says, taking a step forwards.

"Peter," Makado hisses, desperate. "Peter, don't."

"I have to see," he growls. "He might be okay."

"He's gone, Peter."

"Goddam it!" he says, as loud as he dares. One of the macrococci tumbling about the gastric stream pauses for a moment and they watch with bated breath, but it resumes its gamboling just as quickly. Peter creeps closer to Carl's supine form, the sucking noises the bacterium is making nearly turning his stomach. When he gets to within about ten feet of it he looks back at Makado. She shakes her head slowly but Peter can't stop, he has to know, he'd want Carl to be this tenacious for him, he'd want every effort to be made. He looks at the macrococcus; it's big and spiky, the size of a beach ball, its oral groove turned to Carl's face. He'll be okay, Peter tells himself, he's just passed out because of lack of oxygen, he's suffocating. If I get it off of him he'll be fine.

The bacterium's flagellae waggle with slow, lazy motions that Peter can't help but interpret as satisfaction. "Fuck it," he mutters, then takes a few running steps and swings his leg out like he were kicking a football and punts the bacterium away from Carl. It's a magnificent kick, really; it sails off in an arc and splatters against a calcium deposit fully thirty or forty feet away, a thick yellow mucus bursting out of it like a water balloon, the thing's deflated skin sliding weakly and wetly to the ground. Peter sees none of this; he can feel his gorge rising. Behind him, Makado groans and covers Eileen's eyes; Tyler looks away, but Fitzroy cannot stop looking, for there, limp on the ground, is the maculated, jawless corpse of Carl, his eyes popped and sucked out of their sockets, his tongue abraded to a stump, all of the flesh from his cheekbones to his collarbone devoured by the macrobacterium.

Peter doesn't recognize Makado when she grabs his arm and drags him away, cursing at him, begging him to work with her here, dammit, doesn't notice when Tyler and Fitzroy both take ahold of him and help pull him back the way they came. He regains control of his legs somewhere along the access pathway. They make it to the elevator and Peter collapses against the thick reinforced wall, eyes shut, still feeling queasy. He can't get the image of Carl's half-eaten face out of his mind. Makado pushes the button and then goes, sits next to him, rests her head on his shoulder. The kids huddle in their own corner, equally drained and exhausted. Eileen threw up on the way there and she still looks green.

"I'm sorry," Makado says.

"I should have listened to you," Peter tells her. "I should have just..."

"Don't."

"I should have –"

"Peter, don't."

He realizes that he's crying, then a moment later realizes that Makado is as well.

The elevator is on its way down, the readout proclaims, and Fitzroy lets out a ragged whoop. Makado lets out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding and wipes her eyes. "Alright," she says, looking at the teenagers. "We're halfway there. It'll take a little bit for the elevator to get here, but we're halfway there. You guys are doing great."

Mumbles and nods. Peter gets up and stretches. He feels a little better. Eileen even manages a little smile, after some coaxing from Makado.

It's quiet for a moment or two, and then there is a crackle from the PA speaker on the wall. Everyone looks up at it; Makado frowns, glances at Peter. "Anybody who can hear this," the voice states, "brace for choke response RIGHT NOW!"

Peter has only a split second to see the flash of panic flutter across the broad, fine lines of Makado's face before the floor bucks beneath them and hurls him into the wall head-first, and darkness takes him.

Continue with Part 5

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#writing #mystery flesh pit

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keplercryptids · 4 years

Text

how I organize my DM notes using OneNote

a few people said they were interested in seeing how i organize my notes for the games that i run, and let’s be honest, that’s all i need to make a huge informative post. (to my players, you can look! i’ve crossed out info you shouldn’t have lol)

i use OneNote, which i *think* you can use for free online even if you don’t have microsoft. could be wrong on that though. anyway, details and screenshots are under the cut!

here are the sections i split everything into:

[ID: a menu bar showing different tabs that say Players, NPCs, World, Calendar, Sessions.]

“Players” is the least completed session for my online game because my players have uploaded their character sheets to Roll20 so I got lazy about copying that info over. but normally, this section is split into different pages for each of my players, and will have the player’s contact info, as well as their character sheet, etc. but really, the only important part of the character sheet, for my purposes, is their backstory and passive perception and insight modifiers. I will also note their relationships with NPCs here (as you’ll see in the NPC section), and keep track of their renown with various factions (i do a homebrew renown-tracking thingy to keep track of friends and enemies of the party).

next is NPCs!

[ID: a screenshot of a particular NPC’s page, Z’ress Matyl. A lot of it has been blacked out lol.]

I used to keep track of EVERY SINGLE NPC this way but it got overwhelming fast, so I only put notable NPCs here (either famous ones, ones that i expect will be around a bit, or ones my PCs will fight/fight with). i use this section to quickly remind myself who the NPC is, their class/race/alignment, what they look like, their personality and a short backstory if applicable. you can also see the little table where i keep track of relationships, and that’s how I track PC relationships too. if relevant, i keep the NPC’s statblock here as well. once i’ve created more NPCs for this campaign, i’ll organize the pages into subpages by family/faction, but i’m not quite there yet with this one!

now onto World!

[ID: a screenshot of the World tab, which includes sections titled: Sirona history, Pantheon, Dal Z’har, Iesma Empire, and World notes along with a lot of town names for each of the areas. The main text on the screen is about a small town called Sweetvale.]

as the name suggests, i keep most worldbuilding info here, including detailed info about the towns and cities the PCs visit or have been to. some towns (like Sweetvale!) have more detail than others. i also keep larger world info in this section: world history/conflicts, the pantheon and origin stories of the gods (i have a homebrewed pantheon so that’s why it’s necessary), and overarching themes and shit that are relevant to the campaign. this is also a place where i’d keep maps for my own reference if i were more organized. “World Notes” is where i furiously type ideas as they pop into my head, to later develop. i wish i could show you that section, it’s buckwild and has a lot of exclamation points, but it’s very spoilery.

onto the calendar!

[ID: the calendar tab, showing pages for the months Gelus, Tabeo, Imber, Flos, Lux, Sol, Ardor, Messis, Folium, Stella, Nox and Hiberius, all in 52 AC. The main text on the screen shows the days of the month in a table with notes of what happened on each day. The days of the week are Moonday, Treeday, Waterday, Thunderday, Fireday, Starday and Sunday.]

as you can see, i use a homebrewed calendar because of course i do. full disclosure: i stole most of those week day names from another DM because i love them. but basically the calendar for this world is a 12-month year, 28 day-month, 7 day-week, so it’s kept similar to our IRL calendar. this is where i keep my primary notes of what happens in each session. they’re brief, because 1) i have a pretty good memory for the hijinks the party gets up to, and 2) i put a lot of detail into the plans for each session so i feel like i can go more minimalist here. the most important things i note for each session are: where the party went, if they met any NPCs, the fights they had and if they obtained any special or magical items. i also use the calendar to keep track of full moons, world events and holidays in the world.

next up is Sessions!

[ID: The Sessions tab, showing a page titled “Adventures” with links to three adventures listed. On the side panel, there are sections called Adventures, Current Adventure, Campaign Notes, session ideas and Tech shit.]

“Adventures” is where I keep all the notes for past adventures (See below). I link to each paragraph (a feature of OneNote) so i can easily click and get to what i need to see. the “Current Adventure” page is where i keep notes for, you guessed it, the current session, just to minimize how much i need to scroll, and at the end of the session i cut/paste everything that we got to into the Adventures section. Campaign notes and session ideas are, again, where i furiously type notes that make no sense and need to be edited and expanded upon, haha. And Tech shit is where I put the order of stuff i need to plug in for my online sessions. i’m kind of a dummy.

below is an example of my session prep notes:

[ID: a screenshot of text showing detailed notes of Adventure 1.]

this is just to give you an idea of how detailed my notes are. they are typically this detailed, if not more so. but i know lots of DMs will basically type out a hook and a resolution and leave the middle blank for notes. it’s really up to you and how you best prep and run sessions. i err on the side of over-preparing because it’s who i am, and when i try to go into a session with less preparation, i feel overwhelmed lol. i occasionally add a few notes here and there as we play in this section, but as i said, keep most of my notes to the Calendar section.

you can also see above how i list NPCs that i expect my players to only briefly interact with. Name, age, appearance, a few notes about personality/motivation, and that’s it. OneNote is cool because you can search for specific words and phrases and it’ll search the whole notebook, so i can easily find these NPCs again if i need to. (note: normally my notes wouldn’t be this....structured? as in, they’ll be less linear than this typically, but this was for the first session where i knew which PCs i’d be introducing first, etc. don’t want you to think i’m a big old wet blanket DM.)

and that’s it! hopefully this is useful for some of you, or at least gives you ideas for how you might organize your game moving forward. IMO the most useful sections are the World, Calendar and Session sections: they’re what i reference and add to the most. let me know if you have any questions!

#dm tips #dm advice #Dungeons and Dragons #dnd #campaign notes #dm stuff #jd&d

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brasskier · 3 years

Text

First chapter of my six-part fluffy geraskefer modern AU holiday series spanning five years of holiday celebrations is up!

Christmas 2016, or The One Where Flights are Cancelled. After a string of delayed flights and closed rail lines, Geralt, his new music teacher friend Jaskier, and his on-again/off-again girlfriend Yennefer find themselves trapped on Christmas Eve. Thank god for duty-free stores.

Read it below the cut or on my ao3

When Geralt first met Jaskier, checking an ID he was almost certain had to be fake (it wasn't; Jaskier was twenty-four), he slid off his coat to reveal an incredibly garish reindeer-emblazoned tie. At Geralt's judgemental stare, he shrugged and said, "work party."

"Pre-gaming or post-gaming?" Geralt gave him a sympathetic smile.

"Post." He settled onto the barstool, called for a Blue Moon - "and don't forget the orange slice!" - and let out an exhausted sigh before returning his gaze to Geralt. "It's just - it's my first year teaching, and I'm not really used to the political fraternizing, which is hard enough. But they nearly cut the music program before they ended up hiring me, so not everyone's exactly happy to see me there." He scrubbed a hand against his face, noting silently that he needed to shave. "Sorry, didn't mean to chew your ear off." Geralt shrugged again from the doorway. It was a slow, dull night, the usually thriving college-town bar nearly dead over winter break.

"Not like I don't get paid for it." This elicited a chuckle out of Jaskier, who seemed to relax some. "You teach music?"

"Yeah." He smiled fondly. "High school. Had every intention of making it big and touring the world, or maybe becoming principal trombone at the Phil. Just wasn't in the cards."

"I'm not exactly familiar with classroom politics, but I know someone who might have some pointers." He was referring to, as he'd later reveal to Jaskier, his on-again/off-again, city councilwoman girlfriend.

"I do like Christmas, you know," Jaskier's voice came again from the bar, between sips at his beer. "Just not the parties."

"Humbug." Jaskier giggled again, swiping the foam mustache off his lip with the back of his hand. "Geralt, by the way."

"Jaskier." He sat in contemplative silence for a moment. "What time do you get off?" Geralt's brow furrowed, startled by the question. "It's just - I just - sorry if that was a little forward." He heaved a sigh. "My apartment's decorated. Thought you might like to see it."

"Hmm." He glanced down at his watch, then up at the bar, empty save for Jaskier and a handful of other patrons. "Ten." Jaskier's face lit up.

Decorated, as it turns out, was an understatement, and Geralt couldn't help but gawk as Jaskier led him through the threshold of his tiny apartment. A beautiful, grand tree stood in the corner of the living room and stretched so tall it nearly scraped the ceiling. Tinsel and garlands adorned the doorways and the arch leading to the kitchen, a buffalo plaid throw was carefully folded on the back of the couch, and a single stocking hung just below the television. Lights snaked around the perimeter of the room, warm white and snowflake-shaped.

"Do you like it?" Jaskier asked pleadingly, shattering the protracted silence.

"It's cozy," Geralt remarked. It really was. He flopped unceremoniously onto the couch while Jaskier disappeared into his kitchen.

"Jack or moscato?" He called from the archway, holding up a bottle of whiskey in one hand and white wine in the other. "Sorry, I don't have much right now."

"Jack is fine." He gazed around the room absentmindedly. "On the rocks." Jaskier returned before long, pressing a glass of whiskey into his hand before sipping at his own glass of wine.

"Wanna watch something? I have Netflix." Geralt, against his better judgement, shrugged and agreed.

Jaskier was back at the bar not even a week later, excitement flashing across his face when he laid eyes on Geralt. To his credit, Geralt was keenly aware that the man had never visited the bar in his life prior to last week, let alone frequented the establishment. He just decided some things were best left unsaid.

Speaking of unsaid, Jaskier was in love - it was obvious from the way he’d follow Geralt around like a lost puppy. Started lingering around the bar every evening, choosing the seat nearest the door every time, inviting Geralt back to his apartment just as frequently. And Geralt would usually accept, watch stupid movies through all hours of the night until his new music teacher friend inevitably passed out, and then silently creep out of the apartment.

It was three days before Christmas, and the chatter of choice for the evening was holiday plans. Jaskier, as it turned out, had a flight to catch back to Jersey.

"The worst part's taking NJ Transit down to Lettenhove," he groaned, nursing a bay breeze complete with the little paper umbrella. "It's always delayed coming out of Newark." Geralt himself had plans back in the mountains of Vermont, mainly dinner and then watching his younger brothers play football with nothing but shorts on in the freezing cold over a few cigars with his old man.

"I have a layover in Newark," he remarked idly. Yennefer - who had hit it off interestingly with Jaskier, to say the least - was heading to New York, and he'd arranged his first flight so they'd be on it together. Which meant it was way earlier than he liked.

"What time? Maybe we'll run into each other." Jaskier looked way too excited by that possibility, leaning back on the bar with all the composure of a middle-schooler. Geralt, despite his best efforts, couldn't help but find it endearing.

"8:15," he grumbled, exasperated just thinking about having to be at the airport at 6am. Jaskier's head perked up.

"Delta?" He asked, grin growing impossibly bigger by the minute. Geralt nodded, and Jaskier was already tearing through his phone to pull up the app. "What gate?"

"Hold on." He fished his own phone from his pocket with a quick glance over his shoulder to make sure his boss wasn't nearby, and pulled up the screenshot of the boarding pass Yen had sent him. "B4?" Jaskier nearly fell off the barstool.

"Geralt," he squeaked, struggling to right himself. "We're on the same flight." Just as soon as he'd regained his composure he lost it again, doubling over with laughter.

"So's Yennefer," he added, and Jaskier shrugged.

"Well, then I'll be sure to pack my trombone." Geralt couldn't stop the snicker that escaped him at the sight of Jaskier's shit-eating grin.

For as much as he might wax poetic about the prospect, Jaskier absolutely despised a white Christmas. Which, just as well, is exactly what they got. He was shivering in just the time it took to flee his Uber and shuffle into the waiting warmth of the airport. Security went blessedly quickly, as it tended to at six in the morning - precisely why he settled on such an early flight. (Nevermind the fact his parents practically demanded it of him.)

He was nursing a venti peppermint mocha latte - light and sweet, with an extra shot of espresso - when Geralt appeared at the edge of the terminal, and he patted his instrument fondly when Yennefer waltzed up behind him.

"Geralt!" He exclaimed, rising from his seat and wrapping his free arm around him. "Yennefer!" She held a hand up as he moved towards her.

"Not so fast. I'm not sure if I like you yet." His face fell briefly, but he laughed anyway.

"Can take the girl out of New York but not the New York–" he began to joke, but Yennefer cut him off with a roll of her eyes.

"Save it. I'm from Connecticut." That finally, properly, seemed to shut him up, and he nestled back into his seat with his coffee. She softened a little. "Where are you going?"

"Me? Just south Jersey," he perked up. Geralt looked like he had something to add, but before he could the gate attendant started boarding calls.

The flight was thankfully brief, if a little turbulent. Geralt spent the journey playing peacekeeper in the middle seat, while Yennefer idly read some news articles she'd saved on her phone, and Jaskier slept soundly against the window, curled around his trombone.

It was midday when they arrived in Newark. Yennefer was teasing Jaskier for managing to pass out despite the massive cup of caffeine and sugar he'd consumed, Jaskier was trying his best to put together a groggy retort, and Geralt decidedly just wanted them to shut up. At least they were all about to part ways, and he could enjoy his next flight in – shit.

"Flights to Vermont are cancelled," Jaskier's words, urgent and harried, snapped him out of his thoughts.

"Fuck," he growled under his breath, eyeing the departure board. Sure enough, in bright red letters, his flight was delayed until further notice, with a little asterisk telling him to download the app to keep up-to-date with any developments.

"I'd offer to let you join me," Yennefer began with a deep sigh. "But you know how my parents feel about you." Geralt ran a hand down his face. Just his luck, wasn't it. So much for cigars with his old man.

"You can come with me." Jaskier's voice was so uncertain, so small, he almost didn't hear it. "My parents haven't had a chance to hate you yet." Geralt groaned.

"Sure. Why not?" He forced a smile across his gruff features, and Jaskier met him with a toothy grin in return.

"Beats this shithole." He glanced around, trying to find his bearings in the busy airport. "Let's grab some lunch before we head out, yeah?" Geralt nodded before turning to Yennefer.

"Joining us?" She shrugged.

"As a wise man once said, 'sure. Why not?'" The wait at McDonald's wasn't terrible, so they shifted eagerly into line, and all but devoured their food the moment it was in their hands.

"Right, so," Jaskier began between mouthfuls of Big Mac. "Northeastern Corridor down to Trenton, and my parents will pick us up there." He peered over his burger at Yennefer.

"Northeastern Corridor to NY Penn," she replied flatly, the straw of her drink stained with deep burgundy lipstick. They tossed their trash and headed off towards the train terminal, and, at the very least, Geralt would only now have to deal with one of them at a time. Except god, it seemed, was laughing at him that Christmas Eve.

"Are you kidding me!" He'd never seen Jaskier so worked up - though, granted, he'd only known him for a month. "NJ Transit's down!?" He flung his arms about dramatically before squatting right in the middle of the station, head in his hands. Yennefer quirked an eyebrow at him.

"Is he… Okay?" Geralt shrugged, fitted a palm on Jaskier's shoulder. He gazed up at him, wide-eyed and pink-cheeked.

"Fine, fine." He pressed his hands against his knees and shifted to his feet. "Now what?"

"We're stuck here," Geralt groaned and heaved a breathy chuckle. "Merry Christmas, huh?"

"Wait…" Yennefer held a finger up, face drawn in thought. "Won't they put you up in a hotel?" Geralt hummed, and ran a finger along the massive, glowing map kiosk, searching for the nearest Delta help center.

They did, in fact, put him up in a hotel, and he did, in fact, agree to let Yennefer and Jaskier tag along. Not before stopping at one of the duty-free shops and snagging as much overpriced liquor as his wallet would allow, of course. Jaskier cast an appraising eye at his haul, shook his head, and wordlessly extracted his trombone from its case. Thank god for all those solos he'd memorized in college.

"What the hell are you–" Yennefer began, but cut herself off when the first dollar bills landed at his feet. "Oh." A few more followed, and then some more, and within a few minutes a crowd had gathered, phones out and pointed at him. He ate up the attention, playing to the crowd for another twenty or so minutes before excusing himself and collecting the cash that had collected at his feet. He bought yet more alcohol, and they departed for the hotel.

It was small and held only the bare essentials - queen bed, TV, bathroom, and the world's smallest fridge. He popped open a bottle of whiskey before he even bothered to kick his shoes off, tilting his head back and taking a deep swig before grabbing the bottle of wine still in the bag and holding it at arm's length for whoever wanted it next.

"Thank god," Yennefer sighed, yanking it from his hand. It was a deep red that matched her lips. Jaskier dumped his bags in the corner and fished out one of his bottles of vodka.

"Cheers," he called, raising the bottle to the air, and Geralt and Yennefer held theirs up as well, clinking the three together. "To Christmas!" They dissolved into laughter, shoes discarded randomly across the floor, limbs splayed across the bed, and alcohol sploshing precariously.

When Geralt cracked his eyes open the next morning, early light was slipping through the blinds, a series of texts from Delta informed him his new flight was set to leave in four hours, and, well. Yennefer was naked in his arms, which he supposed wasn't entirely surprising. He shifted up against the headboard, rubbing sleep from his eyes and gently extricating himself from her unconscious grasp, jarred by the rattling of liquor bottles. His feet were about to finally hit the floor when his heart nearly stopped, and he paused urgently. Yennefer wasn't the only one he'd shared the room with…

"G'morning?" Came a breathy yawn, and soft brown hair poked up from the blankets. Fuck. He planted his feet firmly below him and scanned the room for his scattered clothing. "G'ralt?" Brown hair was followed by scrunched eyes, a half-ajar mouth, and a splotch of pink on his cheek where his hand has been pressed against it in his sleep. Geralt cursed under his breath and plucked up his underwear.

"Did we…?" He half-asked, not daring to finish the question. Jaskier - naked, for the love of god, stalked around the bed to Geralt's side and pressed a kiss on his cheek.

"Yes," he said warmly.

"All of us?" Jaskier nodded and hummed, following suit in tracking the remains of the previous day's outfit. "And… did we… did we like it?" Jaskier laughed, soft and breathy.

"We had a great time, Geralt. Relax." He slid his sweater over his head.

"Right." Finally he spotted his pants, and stepped into them unsteadily. "Suppose we should wake her?" Jaskier shrugged.

"Probably." They roused Yennefer, who also seemed to have a better recollection of the night before than Geralt, and was none too surprised. Breakfast was a brief affair in the hotel lobby, all of them downing cup after cup of shitty black coffee and basking in afterglow. Finally, at long last, they bid their goodbyes and parted ways. Geralt could finally get some peace, quiet, and alone time. On the flight to Vermont, he found himself missing the two anyway.

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syncogon · 4 years

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[QZGS TL] Butterfly Blue 2019 Ye Xiu Birthday Interview

For Ye Xiu’s birthday on 05/29/2019, Butterfly Blue did an interview with thepaper.cn (澎湃新闻). You can read the Chinese here: https://card.weibo.com/article/m/show/id/2309351002454377326526805418?_wb_client_=1

I’ve translated most of it below. I omitted some questions that I felt weren’t super relevant, such as the progress of the live action (since it’s already out now), and some of his other works.

As always, let me know of any major errors! Past translations that I’ve done of BB’s words may be found /tagged/bb-interview.

***

Q: Ye Xiu’s birthday is coming up, is there anything you’d like to say to him?

A: Happy birthday, you not-old youth.

Q: Asking on behalf of many fans, why don’t you establish a pairing for Ye Xiu?

A: Glory is his official pairing.

Q: Where did the inspiration for Ye Xiu’s character come from?

A: Michael Jordan was an inspiration, the idea of “even after retiring I can still do this.” I’ve actually always been following basketball and soccer, first through newspaper, and then through blogs and media. I’ve accumulated a lot, and when I was writing The King’s Avatar I used all of it. Many people have asked me if I know a lot about esports, but in reality I know less about esports. More inspiration came from sports that were more developed. I drew on real sports and esports, and at the time I even watched many Chinese Go competitions.

Q: Ye Xiu has many female fans, because his personality is quite different from many classic male webnovel protagonists.

A: It’s because his character setup is different, he’s not some lowly noob. Even though he’s 25 at the start of the novel, which sounds young, in reality his mental age is much higher than his actual age when it comes to his professional resume. He’s calm and stable, because he knows that he’s already at the top of this profession. It’s like if you took a professional soccer or basketball player and put them into a high school league, they’d feel no pressure at all. In general, that’s what being in-game is like to him. Later on when he’s playing matches, he still has that confidence, because he has strength, and he has already proven this strength.

Q: Why didn’t you add a romantic storyline to The King’s Avatar?

A: It might have to do with personal views. In particular, female writers when writing esports might include a romantic storyline, romance above all else, anything can change for the sake of love, etc., but I don’t really agree with those kinds of views. When I write love, even though it’s important, it’s not the most important, and many things can surpass it. So when the career storyline becomes the main storyline, it doesn’t really matter whether love is present or not. It can be a helping thing, but it won’t be the main focus when I’m writing. I hope to write a relatively pure story. You can fall in love, but it can’t interfere with your profession.

Q: I’m actually somewhat curious, have you watched Love O2O?

A: I have. When I first wrote about gaming, there were three main types. One type was where it became more romance-focused as it developed, and the focus was not on gaming but on falling in love. Another type was alternate world [i.e. isekai], the type where you enter the world of the game. Then, the third type was esports. My earlier books were only focused on playing games, and it was very cut off from reality. Whatever results you had in-game, they couldn’t really help you in real life. Gaming was just a pastime. But esports is different, esports is a profession. The King’s Avatar is like this.

Q: How do you feel now that The King’s Avatar has gotten so popular?

A: It’s nice not having to work. Actually, we writers all were writing right as this profession was developing. The webnovel profession was developing really quickly, and we reaped the rewards of being a part of this emerging industry just as it was experiencing explosive growth. Because this was the early days of this new industry, many people had tremendous gains. We joined at just the right time - this is luck. You have to enter this industry, and then if you persist, you will most likely profit.

Q: In The King’s Avatar, are there any shadows of your real self in there?

A: Not really, to be honest. I play games myself, the first time I really got into them was in college. But at that time, I wasn’t in so deep that I’d be helping guilds or anything, I wasn’t that sociable. The game I played was called Westward Journey (大话西游), and I was basically still in the stage of treating it as a chat room. Very different from mobile games now, where you have to join a WeChat group or QQ group as soon as you enter, otherwise you’ll get wiped out.

Q: What are you aiming for now?

A: Accuracy, the accuracy of my words and sentences is what I’m aiming for. When there’s something I want to express, I want to be able to find an idiom, a phrase, to accurately express it. Funny or not funny, I’ll let it come naturally, I don’t need to purposely try to build a moment to make people laugh, I don’t need to purposely edit in an online segment just for that purpose anymore. In the past I might have done this, but this is the difference between my past and current self. It’s not that my style has changed, it’s that I realized that that’s useless work, it’s putting the cart before the horse.

Q: Now that you already have God Ye Xiu as such an iconic character, how will you surpass that?

A: Ye Xiu will always be 25-26 years old, and now it’s really been a while since I’ve written him, so I’m a little distant. Now, I’m already 35-36. I feel that I’ve already written enough about Ye Xiu. If I were to write more, there’s really nothing more I could write. For pro esports players, continuously playing matches is enough, but for me there isn’t much meaning anymore. It’s all repetitive, and there isn’t going to be any big turning points. I still want to find some new material.

Q: How do you feel about your position right now? If you could use a few keywords to describe your current life, which words would you choose?

A: Stable, everything’s revolving around stability.

Q: Do you think it’s more important for life to be interesting or for life to have meaning?

A: What meaning. I’m one of those people who, since I was young, was very worried about dying. I actually discussed this with Mao Ni [t/n: another webnovel author], and we talked about ghosts in hotels and whatnot. I actually really want to meet a ghost, I think that if I met a ghost I would be very at ease, because if I knew that we become another kind of existence after dying, then there’d be no need to be so afraid.

Q: Many people online say that, looking at Bug Dad’s words you can tell he’s quite a good person. Is there anything you’d like to say to that?

A: They have sharp eyes, it’s irrefutable.

Q: It seems like there’s some story about you circulating online, that you always like to pay the bill.

A: No, that’s just politeness, we’re adults, we have to refuse each other, you know? But in the end none of them took out their wallets.

Q: Is Bug Dad normally a cold and distant person?

A: I’m alright, but it’s true I don’t speak much.

Q: Why do you have the nickname of “goddess”?

A: Because of my pen name, people think that I’m a female author, and people admire me!

Q: If you write too much and become bald, then what?

A: I’m already balding. [t/n: BB commented in his Weibo retweet of this interview that the picture of him that they used is old; he has much less hair now]

Q: If your daughter wanted to play esports in the future, would you support her?

A: Yes.

Q: Why did you choose to grow your hair long? Is it because you don’t have time to have it cut?

A: Because there’s no need, after all there’s not many strands left.

Q: Is there anything you want to say to the fans?

A: Whether or not you’re a female or male reader, I am incredibly grateful for everyone who likes my works.

#quan zhi gao shou #qzgs #the king's avatar #tka #全职高手 #mine #translation #bb interview

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moonchildstyles · 4 years

Text

moonchildstyles patreon launch!!!

hi guys!!! This is something I’ve been thinking about doing for a couple of months now and I think I’ve found the right time and right pieces to share!! Details about the launch will be put under the cut including pricing, whats included, and what the first piece to start off is!!

So I’ve decided to keep my patreon really simple, with only one tier priced at $5! I might expand in the future but as for right now, I’m keeping things simple for everyone including myself owkkssk

My patreon is going to include first access to new pieces including my new series, blurbs for existing pieces, and extended sneak peeks of pieces in progress. Those pieces will later be posted to tumblr, either a couple weeks to a month after being posted to patreon depending on the piece. There will also be exclusive blurbs that can be requested by patrons that will not be posted to tumblr.

As we all have noticed, I take a good bit of time in between pieces to outline them and write out everything, so there will be months that are paused and no new content will be posted, but no one will be charged for those months.

This is not at all obligatory as I know not everyone can afford to pay for fic owmskskd and I don’t want people who aren’t able to afford it to feel left out so unless it’s a patreon exclusive, all pieces posted to the patreon will be posted to tumblr following a stretch of a couple of weeks to a month.

My official start date will be March 1st, so everyone only gets charged once to start off. The first piece posted will actually be part one to my new series, which I want to keep as a surprise for everyone!! The new series will later be posted to tumblr a few weeks after patreon. once the patreon is up on march 1st, i will make another post with the link to the page!

Below I’ll leave a sneak peek to the piece to see if you guys like it!!

—————

(Y/N)'s broke. Like, really fucking broke.

Rationally, she knew that life as a fresh college graduate wasn't going to immediately fall into place, but she thought—maybe—the new credentials might actually help. But she's three months out, and no one has bothered to even give her a call back about any applications she's sent out and she's so broke. Just to add to the stress, her roommate—Charlotte—had broke the news to her the other day that she was planning on moving in with her boyfriend. (Y/N) could barely afford the apartment with the double income, but she knew she definitely couldn't afford it now. She does admit it was kind of dumb to have prematurely quit her job the weekend after graduation, but she was so excited to start her life, really start it. Now, with less than a hundred dollars in her bank account, a flat she was fully responsible for, and no job offers, she's panicking. She spent all her time on indeed and other sites trying to find any kind of listing she qualified for and applying to anything she might even have the slightest shot at.

It wasn't until her fifth day in a row looking nonstop, during the late night hours (early morning at this point) did she find a listing that she actually got excited for. It definitely wasn't her field, but the benefits were everything she was looking for. The listing called for a "Housekeeper/Sitter For Sprawling Manor". It seemed easy enough, with pretty good pay for the work, and it was a live-in position so she wouldn't have to worry about rent. The owner of the manor was rarely ever home, as the listing quoted, so it would be like being paid to live alone. It also helped that whoever wrote the listing seemed to have high energy, an affinity towards exclamation points, and pointed out more than once that no experience was needed just "enthusiasm and the willingness to learn!!"

Googling the manor—Styles Manor—brought up artistic shots of a truly sprawling mansion. The building separated into two wings, converging in the center with a rounded bulb making the roof. It was beautiful, and definitely not the kind of Gothic, decrepit castle she was expecting when reading through of the owner's "eccentric taste" in decor. With no hesitation, she filled out the automated application and attached her resume before pressing submit. She sent out all the good vibes and prayers and anything that could possibly manifest for her to get this job. Then, she proceeded to fall asleep in the blink of an eye.

She didn't even realize how long her "nap" was until she woke up at 3:30 in the afternoon from the buzzing of her phone. She didn't bother to look at the caller ID, tapping the green button and rolling over before pressing the phone to her ear.

"Hello?" she said groggily into the receiver. She fought to keep her eyes open as they kept sliding shut from exhaustion.

"Hi! Is this (Y/N)?" an excited Irish accent sounded through the phone, "My name is Niall from Styles Manor."

Shit.

She bolted upright, now fully awake. "Oh, hi! Yes it is! Uh—Thank you so much for getting back to me so soon!"

"Of course." She could hear his smile through the speaker, infecting her as giddy nerves passed through her body. "I saw your application this morning, and I was wondering if you could come in for an interview tomorrow?"

"Yes! I mean of course, what time were you thinking?" She basically bounced off the bed, pacing her room to let out the energy in her body.

They ironed out the rest of the details, (Y/N) agreeing to any of his suggestions. Once bidding their goodbyes, (Y/N) can't help but prance around her apartment. Finally—finally—someone got back to her, and it wasn't an degrading, minimum wage, retail job! Niall sounded so nice, she couldn't imagine any problems she could have working for him. She sent out the same good vibes and prayers as she had before (they seemed quite effective at this point), then proceeded to stress about what to wear tomorrow.

Not only did she need this job, she actually wanted it. She had a really good feeling about this one.

—————

if u have any questions u can send them here!!

#mine #other #harry styles imagine #harry imagine #harry styles one shot #harry one shot #patreon #also if this doesn't go anywhere u all have to promise to pretend u never saw this #and ill delete all evidence

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thedistantdusk · 4 years

Note

Heyyyy so sorry if you’re not the best person to ask, but you seem to be the person I know who self-publishes the most lol. I’m just getting started myself and wondered if you had any tips, especially for new writers who might fall into traps or scams. I know that happens a lot in art online so I was just curious thanks

Hi there!

Allll righty. Well, for starters, please know that I’m the further thing from an expert in this. All of this information is based on what I’ve personally experienced/what I’ve found online. My biggest resume “credit” here is that I’ve been self-publishing for a decent amount of time, so I do have a bit of personal experience with the ins and outs of self-publishing, especially on Amazon. I don’t know as much about other platforms (Smashwords, Kobo, etc), but if you shoot me a PM I’ll do my best to put you in contact with the people who do!

So! To start, the biggest rule of thumb for self-publishing is that you should focus on the world self. If a company or person approaches you with vague promises of fame/fortune, please exercise a lot of caution. I know that the notion of self-publishing sounds scary and intimidating, but if I can figure out how to do this, you can definitely do it too! It’s remarkably easy, and I 100% promise that if you are capable of navigating this Tumblr post, you are capable of figuring it out.

That being said, please please please do not give your hard work over to someone to “publish” for you without doing your due diligence! In that vein, if you don’t have an explicit contract, do not give anything to anyone. For now, I will use the example of anthology scams, simply because I’ve been approached a couple of times over the years by folks looking to turn a profit that way. In anthology scams, newer/inexperienced authors submit content to an unspecified organization (or person), and are so honored to be included that they forget to ask important questions.

Below, I’ve listed just a few questions you need definitive answers to before agreeing to publish anywhere.

Financial: Who is getting paid for this? How is the money being sent? How much is my cut? How much is everyone else’s cut? Who is being taxed? How?

Credentials: How will I be credited for this? (If we’re assuming the example above of vanity scam anthologies, I’d mention that on Amazon right now, only one person can receive credit as the “editor” for multi-author anthologies. Contributing authors are not mentioned on the title/book cover and must independently add the work later using an AuthorCentral profile. Are you really interested in being a maybe-contributing author while someone else’s SSN/tax ID collects the money?

Involvement: As I’ve mentioned before, self-publishing is extremely easy. Do you really need someone else to do this for you? There are multiple subreddits dedicated to helping folks get off the ground by themselves. On Amazon, you could literally publish a “book” of ~5k words and have an independent credit to your name by next week. I promise that you don’t need someone else to do that for you! :D

Legality: If you don’t sign a contract, you have no control over who owns your work. That means that the person who promised to self-publish for you is the assumed owner of your content. This also means that if you decide to publish something yourself down the line, you legally can’t; this “editor” owns your content, as well.

I know this is a lot to throw at you, but I hope this conveys that honestly, you can do this yourself! I promise!

Does that answer your questions? As always, I’m happy to answer PMs with more specific questions.

Please believe in yourself -- I promise you can do it! :D

#self publishing #amazon #anonymous #anonymous ask

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paulieshore · 4 years

Text

Obey Me / SCM Au Series

Warnings: Beginning minor Gore, Conflict of Interest, Triggers, Cursing

Words: 2797

I do not own the rights to these characters, characters belong to:

· Obey Me! Shall we date

· Star Crossed Myth - Voltage

Chapter 7: Assholes

**Note: The ending of chapter 6 happens shortly after the beginning here in Devildom:

Devildom

“Report?”

“Yes, your highness. It seems victims all across the kingdom have similarities in their cases.”

“Being?” Diavolo crosses his arms waiting for Barbatos answer.

“All females, who are attending RAD, all found the same. Found in pools of their own blood, no life left in them. Souls ripped from their very being.” Barbatos frowns placing the reports down on the table. “My lord, they’re looking for her...”

Diavolo sighs, “Call Lucifer and the others. Get a message sent to the Celestial Realm, inform King Kivy immediately. I will go speak to ‘our’ King.” Diavolo stands up and marches out.

…

The king of hell had long since left his duties of ruling to his son, however as Diavolo still had not been given his coronation, he was obliged to still follow under his father’s rule. He marched on towards the depths of the demon lords castle where is father slumbered.

…

“My Liege, pardon my intrusion.” He bows deeply to the sleeping beast.

An eye of crimson flames open.

“Who dares disturbs me “

The ground below Diavolo’s feet shakes. He takes into his demon form and bows even deeper; his wings stretch upwards.

“It is I, Diavolo. Prince of the Underworld, I seek guidance of the Crimson King.”

A rumbling noise was made from the awaken king’s chest, like that of a dragon.

“Diabolusss”

“Yes, it is I, father.”

The House of Gods

Your first few encounters with Scorpio were not good, so you didn’t expect this to be any different. Once Zyglavis left, Scorpio had you follow him around, ordering you to be quiet. So, you did; keeping your mouth shut and head down. He had you follow him to his room, telling you not to move no more than two feet from his door.

You nodded silently and stood there, he made remarks about not wanting you to contaminate his living courters with your filth, staring at you in utter disgust. You kept your feet glued to the spot and head down, trying not to further piss this one off.

“Well at least you know your place” He snaps one last time as he flits about his room.

You peaked up; Scorpio was busy with the tubes of liquid among his desk. You decided to look around the room, ONLY with your eyes.

His room was different from Zyg’s, he had some colour, red. For some reason Scorpio didn’t strike you as a red kind of guy. The walls were of cobble stone, on one side an empty fireplace. The wall nearest his bed, massive windows that shone light in, reflecting the silvers and reds around the room. The other side of the room was where his desk was, oak; which matched the two arm chairs on each sides of his bed. However, contrary to the rooms being different they were all cleaned and polished the same.

Hard to believe anyone actually lived in them.

Scorpio turned around to check on the thing in his room, seeing she was ‘scoping his room out’.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

You immediately shut your eyes and turned your head back down. Scorpio smiled evilly at your obedience, he returned to his project picking the vile up and drinking it.

Moments later there was a thud, you opened your eyes and seen Scorpio on the ground. When he didn’t get back up immediately, you cautiously called to him, “S-sir?”

“…”

Sheer panic, you ran up to him without thinking and started shaking him.

“Hey, hey, get up man!!”

You noticed how pale he was becoming, you ran to the door, opened it and shouted for help.

Huedaut was before you instantly, a look of concern plastered on her face. “What’s wrong? Are you alright?”

You nodded your head and pointed; he followed the area you were pointing towards. Seeing Scorpio, he rushed to him.

“He’s okay? Right? I mean he’s a god he’ll be alright, of course” You were rambling as you watched Hue examine Scorpio.

He picked up the vile in Scorpio’s hand and sniffed it, “Uh yes that makes sense, mhm. Right” He picked Scorpio up and placed him on the bed.

You followed closely behind Hue, “Tell me what to do, I’ll do it!”

Hue chuckles under his breath, “It is alright, he’ll come around soon.” Turning to you and smiling “No need to worry yourself.” He watched as you sadly looked at Scorpio and remembered something, “Oh yes, after, I need to speak to you.” Then left without any explanation.

You stood there spacing out.

‘After what? This? Am I now watching Scorpio? Isn’t he supposed to be watching me? And what was with that smile, mister sad god actually smiled about his friend falling sick? These people are so strange!‘ You thought.

A little boy appeared while you were staring off, “Lord Scorpio, I have a message from Orion. *!!!!* LORD SCORPIO!?” he rushed to his side.

You observed how worried the little boy was, “It’s alright, Huedaut says he’ll be fine in a minute...”

He whips around and straightens up “apologies malady, I am Altair, messenger of punishments.”

You bow to the little boy formally, “Uh, I am Y/N …… Just Y/N”

His face goes scarlet red when you bow to him. You both stood in silence for a moment.

“Is there anything Lord Huedaut said that we can do for Lord Scorpio?” He looked to you with pleading eyes.

Telling this boy ‘no’ would break his blessed heart you thought…

“Well, no…”

And it did, pain flashed through his face

“BUT!! I know something we can try that might help??” You cringe, oh dear Scorpio is going to kill me for certain.

Devildom

The brothers were making their way to Diavolo’s castle for a meeting which was called. They were chatting amongst themselves walking through town.

*Crash*

A young female demon goes running through the brothers, pushing them aside.

“Hey you, watch yourself!” Satan scowls at her.

She doesn’t stop or apologise, keeping her pace, sprinting and panting.

The brothers leave it be and continue on, when their confronted by an individual hooded and cloaked. Blocking their path.

“Yo, move man, we have places to be!” Mammon shouts.

A creepy laugh is heard from the hooded fiend, “I don’t believe it, if it isn’t the saintly seven... Oh sorry six, I see your sister isn’t here.” Hissing.

Everyone stiffened and was offended by this not so familiar individual.

“I am Lucifer, Avatar of Pride. You dare offend me?!” Lucifer steps forward in front of his siblings.

The cloaked one pulls his hood down. Revealing long two-toned hair of dark red and black, and a black marking on his cheek. His eyes swirling with discord, an even more haunting smile appearing on his cracked lips.

“My, my, indeed, how the mighty have fallen!” He cackles and his body swirls into black mist. Disappearing quicker then he appeared.

…

“Who the hell was that?” They all seemed to be asking the same question.

They hurry along the way to speak to Diavolo, and inform him of this incident.

The Heavens: Arch Angels Department

Michael was giving a run down to the other angels,

“By order of the king, you are to monitor the activities between the human realm and hell. We are to assist in aid and guarding the witches and wizards that reside in the human realm. They will be the first points of contact. Is that understood?”

After dismissing, two angels stayed behind.

“Simeon, Luke? Is there anything I can help you with?

Simeon nods at his superior, “Yes, actually id like to be assigned personally, watching over Solomon, sir.”

Luke stands quietly, nodding his head.

“I see, that is the wizard who studied alongside you, was it not?” Michael squints sceptically at Simeon.

Simeon grins, “Indeed, and it is for that reason I wish to be assigned him personally. I’ve gotten to know him a bit, should things escalate… I believe he may be a next target.”

“Very well, I will include this conversation in my report and send it off to Chief Leon as well as Chief Zyglavis, you both may leave now.”

“Furthermore sir,”

“More?”

“Yes, Luke will assist me, sir.”

Michael looks down to Luke, before nodding and signalling them to go.

Once Simeon and Luke leave, Partheno slips out from nowhere.

“Michael, I’m glad I caught you in time. Do you have those reports for Zyg?”

“Uh, Partheno sir. I do indeed, I have another to add, if you can wait one moment. I only require a moment sir.” Bowing to Partheno.

“Of course, take your time.” Waving his hands nonchalantly.

What Michael doesn’t see is the ugly look on Partheno’s face as he turns around and starts the report.

The House of Gods

Altair helped you gather supplies in aiding Scorpio back to health. Altair dabbed a cloth to Scorpio’s forehead and you were cutting apples, into rabbit shapes.

“Wow, you’re really good at that?” Altair watches your quick but precise slices.

“When I was younger it was the only way I would eat the apples, I don’t like biting straight into them.”

“Why?”

“Well, I once bit into a worm. I was more mortified by the fact I killed the worm, then it being in the apple or my mouth.”

“Ewwww” Altair sticks his tongue out.

Just then Scorpio starts coming too, breaking your moment of peace. Both you and Altair jumped to attention, trying to aid him. Scorpio snapped at Altair for trying to help, and snapped at you for ‘dare dirtying him’.

Altair left quite upset, tears forming in his big doe eyes.

You don’t know what came over you, but had finally had enough with this one.

Snapping back at Scorpio. “YOU ARE SUCH AN ASSHOLE! He was absolutely worried sick about you and that’s how you treat him? Fine, if you don’t like me, but he’s just a boy!” You were still holding the plate with cut up apples on, shaking.

Scorpio weakly raised from the bed and approached you.

“I don’t even know why I bothered!” You continued. “How can anyone put up with an asshat like you!”

He approached you close enough, slapping the plate from your hands. Following by, grabbing you by the scruff of your collar and slamming you into the wall.

You were terrified, you had gone too far, you knew it. He scared you far more then Leon or Lucifer ever did, and pissed you off just the same.

Scorpio gave you another evil smile, “Scared huh? You should be!”

Quickly thinking, since Scorpio was still only coming too, you shoved him backwards. He lost his balance and was flat on his ass.

You seized the opportunity and bolted straight out his room.

You decided enough was enough, you remembered the path you ran the last time. You’d been here long enough, keeping in mind where the exit was.

Wagering that dying here wouldn’t be any better then dying out there.

Bolting for the front door, you opened it and turned to see if anyone was following. With no sign of anyone, you were gone. Running down the path, away from the mansion, away from those assholes!

…

Finally getting to the outskirts of a town, refusing to stop, even though your lungs and legs burned. You pulled the phone from your pocket and searched your contacts...

Solomon, giving his number a ring.

Thank the stars, he answered.

“Y/N, what’s up?”

“Solomon, listen I need your help!”

…

Back at the mansion

Scorpio picked himself off the floor, “Wow that weak woman actually had the guts to push me” He was slightly impressed, considering how afraid she just was of him.

Ichthys and Dui entered, “Hey Scorpy…. Where’s Goldie?” Both looking around.

“How would I know; damn brat, she threw me to the floor and took off running.”

Their faces shocked, “Wow, she’s gotten even cooler!” Ichthys laughs

“Do you value your life?!”

“Ekk!” Ichthys hides behind Dui.

Dui shook his head, “Scorpio you probably did something to frighten the poor thing, didn’t you? We saw Altair, he was practically in tears when he told us.”

Scorpio says nothing, and looks to the scattered mess.

“Awe, she even cut your apples into little cute shapes! I want special treatment from Goldie too!” Ichthys picked up the pieces and marvelled at them.

You gave Solomon the best description of where you were, he came and picked you up.

“Y/N what’s wrong?” Glancing at you while he was driving, noticing how you were constantly looking over your shoulder.

You told him the truth about everything.

…

“Ah, so you have been staying at the house of gods. How interesting...”

“Please Solomon, I don’t want to go back!”

He gave you a sympathetic look, “I knew a girl who claimed she was fooling around with one of them. She was invited back for some ‘fun’ one night, by a blonde-haired prince charming. Then after, when I had seen her again and asked how her night went, she had no memory of what I was talking about. They erased her memory I figured.”

“Yea, I could see that, he does seem to like the ladies…” agreeing “However, they’re assholes, rude and arrogant… well, not all of them…“ you quietly argued with yourself.

“Its okay, you’ve been through a lot lately. I’ll see what I can do to help.” He looks over and smiles.

Both of you arrived at Solomon’s, he had suggested casting a spell of concealment. Covering your where abouts to anyone trying to find you, safe from all searching parties. You agreed, you just wanted to be left alone for some time to process everything yourself.

“You know Y/N, Asmodeus came to me the other day about you...” Solomon says as he places a tea before you.

You blinked your eyes numerously at what he said, “Really?!”

He nodded.

“I miss them… They came but… There was…. I couldn’t….” trailing off.

He places a hand on your lap, “It’s okay, he kinda explained that too. Let’s see how tonight goes, remember Y/N you have seven pacts with them.” Patting your lap.

You had completely forgotten about your pacts!!

You smiled brightly as you wrapped your arms around Solomon’s neck, “Thank you!”

“Settle down” He gently unwraps your arms from him “I am still a man you know… Your staying with me tonight, don’t give me the wrong idea.”

Devildom

The meeting was held, Lucifer and the others explain their ‘run in’. Diavolo frowned deeply and looked to Barbatos, nodding and telling them. The one they had just met was in fact ‘Crow’ one of the dark disciples, who was believed to have died in the war.

…

A phone pings mid-meeting, everyone turns their attention to Asmo whose pulling his phone out.

“I thought I told you turn your phone off Asmo!” Lucifer looks shamefully at his younger sibling.

“Oopsies, my mistake!” Waving his phone, he goes to turn it off when he sees Solomon’s name on screen. Under a preview message with your name.

He stands up abruptly, everyone staring at him even more.

“Y/N’s with Solomon!!” He shouts

Lucifer angrily stands and takes Asmo’s phone, meaning to turning it off.

It took him a second to register what Asmo said, he was then scanning the contents of the message.

“What did those bastards do to her!?” Lucifer had an aura start illuminating. Diavolo standing up and placing a hand on his shoulder.

“Relax, don’t get worked up, we need to conserve our chaos.”

“Can we go to her?” Levi is quick to ask, Mammon nodding his head.

“Gentleman, we need to get back to our discussion. She is safe with Solomon for the time being, but the Gods will go to her. As of right now the disciples believe she is still here…. Let’s try to keep it that way.” Diavolo looks around to everyone present.

“What do you mean?”

Barbatos answers Satan’s question, “The dark disciples are back, your run in further confirms that. They are the ones behind these attacks here. They’re looking for Y/N, going to her now would only give her away.”

Lucifer turns and faces Diavolo, “She isn’t safe there, she isn’t safe here, where is she safe then!?”

Diavolo’s looks at Lucifer with a look of disappointment, “She’s safest with them, whether you like it or not. I’m sorry Lucifer…”

He gives Diavolo a look before slamming himself back down into his seat “Let’s hurry and get this over with already...”

Everyone studies Lucifer, the one who is usually calm and collective, slowly coming undone.

To Be Continued.

Stay tuned for ch8 : Find Her!

I hope youve enjoyed reading this as much as i am having fun writing it!

Much love for all the support <3 ^-^ you guys/ladies are gems

You can find all chapters now on Ao3 - or you can follow me here for future updates

Mwah xxx

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