Kudos To Writers With Dialogue-heavy Works, I Got Mad Respect For Y'all. Love Using Dialogue As A Tool,

Hello! Would you be willing to write about someone who finds out that their roommate and childhood best friend is actually some kind of supernatural creature? Preferably m/m but its okay if you’d like to change the genders.

Have a nice day!!!

"You're...uh...wow."

Maybe Holden should be horrified, but all he could really do was stare, dumbly entranced. The staring wasn't that different to normal, if he was going to be really horribly honest with himself.

But Atlas also wasn't normally crouched near stark-bollocks naked in the middle of their dorm room. He didn’t normally have dark, gorgeous wings unfurling from his back. He didn’t normally stare at Holden with eyes that had gone from blue to literally black too. Hungry. Heated.

Holden hastily shut the door behind him before someone else on the floor saw.

"Are you, uh, okay, man?"

His best friend was, very clearly, not okay. His gaze tracked every small movement that Holden made.

"You," Atlas growled through his teeth. "Are not supposed to be here."

"Right. Yeah. Uh. My class was—" Holden lost his trail of thought as he continued to stare. "God,” he said, a little dizzy, “you look incredible."

Five-year old Atlas had been funny and brave. Nineteen-year old Atlas also had the absolute gall to be stunning on top of that. It was, frankly, terrible on a night out. On his own, Holden did okay. When he was standing next to Atlas though, more and more as the years passed by, he may as well have been a potato. He couldn't even hold it against anyone. He did enough trying not to stare himself.

But...he definitely hadn't noticed the wings before. He would have noticed wings, right? Even with that smile and those cheekbones to distract.

He realised, dazedly, that he'd drifted closer. One step, two step, three, until he was standing right over Atlas. Close enough to touch.

"Get out." Atlas sounded strained. "Now." His fingers – his claws – dug into the threadbare carpet.

Holden wanted to run his fingers through Atlas's blond hair. He wanted to kiss his parted lips, the line of his jaw, the beautiful curve of his throat. He wanted to touch every inch of Atlas that he could. He wanted Atlas's hands on him, sure and just as smitten as Holden had been for years, and he'd do anything, offer anything if—

"Holden."

The sharp snap of his name cleared Holden's mind a little. He shook his head and backed up. "Sorry. I—"

What the hell was he doing? Heat rose to his cheeks, mortified.

There were a lot of reactions one could have to seeing their best friend suddenly sprout wings, but Holden was pretty sure he wasn't supposed to just drool over his roommate like some kind of neanderthal. He'd done such a good job of not letting his stupid feelings impact their stupid friendship until stupid now too.

It wasn't like he'd never caught a glimpse of Atlas without his clothes before. It had never made him like – he would never have – but would it be so bad if he just—?

No. Something was definitely wrong.

Holden whirled around, heading back for the door. He'd opened it only a crack when Atlas's hand slammed down on it, shutting it again. The lock clicked as Atlas bracketed him with an arm on either side. They weren’t quite touching, but they were close enough that he could feel the heat of Atlas against his back.

He hadn't even heard Atlas move. His breath hitched.

Atlas groaned. He let his head thunk against the door, above Holden's left shoulder, as he drew in ragged gasps.

Holden heard him swearing and muttering under his breaths. He caught a few words that’s sounded suspiciously like ‘bloody scheming bastard vampires’ and a much more familiar ‘shitshitshit’.

Up close, Atlas’s new cologne was…was it cologne? Holden’s head felt cloudy again. He dug his nails into his palms, desperately shoving down the truly ridiculous urge to turn around and kiss Atlas immediately.

“What the hell is happening?” He squeezed his eyes shut. “You have wings. You have – I feel –”

“You’re supposed to be in class for the next three hours!”

“My class was cancelled,” Holden said. “Some last minute—”

Atlas caught hold of his hips, spinning him as if it was absolutely nothing, pressing him back against the door.

The bit of Holden’s brain that wasn’t too busy with oh, yes please reminded him that Atlas was not that bloody strong. He should not be able to do that. He always skipped the gym when Holden went, despite looking like that.

“What are you?” The obvious question finally penetrated the fog.

Atlas’s attention lingered on his lips, seeming…distracted.

“Incubus,” he murmured. He’d always had a nice voice, but in that moment, that word, it was like caramel. Sweet on Holden’s senses. “God, you’re pretty. Sharing a room was a terrible idea.”

It took a second for the actual response to register, let alone the rest.

Incubus.

“What?” Holden yelped.

It was all some elaborate joke.

(Atlas didn’t do pranks.)

It was impossible.

(Those wings looked very real, no matter how impossible they were.)

How had it taken 14 years for him to notice his best friend was an incubus?

(Did that mean he didn’t really have a crush on his best friend? It was just – what he was?)

Atlas’s fingers grazed just slightly beneath Holden’s jumper, blazing hot against the skin above his hips.

Holden asked no coherent questions whatsoever. He didn’t even manage an incoherent word. Every reasonable thing he should have been considering vanished in a haze.

His best friend was an incubus? Sure! Whatever. Nothing mattered except the fact that there was really far too much distance between them. Atlas’s mouth was right there and – Holden couldn’t have said which of them initiated the kiss, but it was ravenous and he was putty against the door. Head empty. All need and greed and wanting. He finally got to tangle his fingers into Atlas’s always annoyingly perfect hair and –

The lock clicked.

Faster than Holden could fully comprehend, the door was open and Atlas had bodily shoved him into the corridor. He landed sprawling and ungraceful on his butt.

He had a second to peer up, bewildered, at the look of absolute raw desire on Atlas’s face before the door slammed shut. The lock clicked again.

The texts pinged on his phone a moment later.

Don’t come back until I say so.

Will explain later.

Sorry.

Well, crap.

Holden pressed a hand to his mouth, catching his breath and his sanity with Atlas out of view. Then he went to the uni library to research everything he could about incubi.

By the time Atlas texted him that evening, he was ready.

Goretober [5/15]: BEATEN UP

The Memory Circuit BOK JOYEUX!!!!

I've been neglecting the actual story but I'll cry about it. Anyway, here's some art instead.

I finally made art for my own story!

This piece is from The Memory Circuit and is a glimpse into Bok's past, where the adrenaline of a mission hasn’t fully worn off just yet. It’s not his blood! He’s catching his breath before he disappears again *cackles in conspiring author*. In all seriousness though, it’s my first time illustrating a scene from The Memory Circuit, and I'm literally so proud I could holler—Bok means so much to me and I’m just GAHHHH about seeing him like this. I hope you all enjoy it!!!

⎉: @chaotic-orphan @morning-star-whump Let me know if you'd like to be added or removed from the taglist!

Masterlist | The Memory Circuit

do you have any icks in whump?

I haven't really thought about this before now, so bear with me!

I would say I'm not really squeamish about anything specific, but I did have an experience like. Mid-last-year??? That would suggest otherwise HAHAHAHA

TW: mentions of child abuse.

Whether you've ever heard of Ancient Chinese foot-binding or not, I would suggest proceeding with *extreme* caution if you feel so inclined to research. It was done to young girls, and gosh did I think I could handle one x-ray imaging of this poor victim.

dear nonny, nuh-uh. Not the case at all. While I was staring at this very real x-ray with a sort of horrific fascination, or enthrallment, or whatever you want to call it---it was a mix between the two---anyways; I saw a sort of black fuzziness start to crowd my screen, like crawling, miniscule ants, and I frowned because what the helly man 😔

And I kind of tried to shake my screen, flip my laptop lid back and shut, and I blearily realised it was my very OWN vision infected with this onslaught of static. And I felt so very very tired and sick and nauseous and

Cut.

I'm on my back now. I'm blinking up through a haze, and I vaguely feel my hair scratching my neck and back, and I see the faint, dark outline of something looming above me, and I think, huh. That looks like the desk in my house! :D:D

But my vision sharpens rapidly, and oh, it is my desk

But what's it doing so high up above me-? And I realise my chair is right there, and my arse isn't on it anymore :D, and I'm lying flat on my back and I push myself up with clammy hands and sweaty hair and the room is spinning and dipping, and my stomach does a twisted sort of turn

And I push myself up further onto shaky legs, gripping onto my table with a white-knuckled grip, and I force myself to the kitchen, and pick a mug, any mug [from later investigations I belatedly realised it was the one I usually reserved for rice, no wonder the water tasted like fucking flowers] and I chugged a full shot.

The nausea is still there but it's lessened severely in the bare minutes I stumbled to and from the kitchen, and I walk to my bedroom and stare in the mirror, and Jesus Fuck have I never seen my face so drained before.

I didn't do much afterwards except lay my head on my knees and try to get the beating of my *loser ass* dysfunctional heart back under control. That was my first and only experience of fainting. No I did not enjoy it. But did it serve to enhance the accuracy of its depictions in my writing? Hell YEAH

Anyway, moral of the story is. Please be cautious when consuming media. Do NOT overestimate yourself for your own sake please I beg of you. I could've suffered a concussion if there was anything to hit my empty head on, passing out is not fun!!!!

But it's all the more reason to whump your blorbos with it amirite 😈

Sorry for derailing so disastrously. I can say with full confidence, my whump-related ick? Child abuse, child whump. Not to say I wouldn't interact---I WILL read, and have written such works on the regular. Frequent compulsory breaks tend to help me a lot! But it's not something I tend to react positively to.

The fact I was viewing imagery of something that happened to real children in real life was just... more upsetting than usual?

The origin of "chef" as an English word to mean "one who cooks" comes from the French term chef de cuisine, a title still used in restaurants to this day to denote a cook in a managerial role. What makes this an interesting bit of etymology is that while in English, "chef" is only ever used in the context of cooking and restaurants, in French chef just means "chief", "head" or "leader" and there are many common titles in French that include this word. A Head of State is the Chef d'Etat, a musical conductor is the chef d'orchestre, a business owner is the chef d'entreprise, and so on and so forth. So with this in mind, one could make the argument that as a gender neutral term denoting authority, "chef" could potentially have utility in BDSM as a

honestly shout out to the dead dove: do not eat creators, the darkfic authors, the people who can unflinchingly stare into their darkest desires and curiosities and give them life enough to share with other people. It's absolutely so much harder than it looks to pull off

The Memory Circuit MASTERLIST

⎉: @chaotic-orphan @morning-star-whump Let me know if you'd like to be added or subtracted from the taglist!

The Memory Circuit [I] TW:

The Customer Is Always Wrong [II] TW: sex work, intoxication, dissociation, emotional numbness, implied exploitation.

Get In Line, Mister! [III] TW: physical assault, attempted sexual assault, substance use, internalised trauma, psychological breakdown, imprisonment, coercion, manipulation, surveillance, systemic abuse.

Good Morning, Sunshine [IV] TW: police brutality, physical assault, vomiting, surveillance, systemic abuse.

Bite Down [V] TW: graphic depictions of physical and psychological torture, child abuse, grooming, sexual violence involving minors, institutional exploitation, non-consensual medical/technological procedures, trauma flashbacks, violence, captivity, dissociation, systemic abuse.

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ART!!!!

Home is where the hurt is - Cover announcement

Here we go! We're in the final stages, the manuscript is finished, the cover is done and I can finally share it with you all.

I will have a paperback and ebook version of the book available this summer! It will be sold through Amazon all over the world.

Release date to come soon!