A Bubble of Bulshittery

Hiya, I'm Kai! (he/him) I am 20+ (but I don't act it), I have a passion for photography, and I love to write. Always up for ask/tag games!

[eccaiia]

A Silken Malice: Intro

Plot:

Henry Wolfe's father was, to put it nicely, a bastard. Wolfe has long since traded the luxury of his genteel upbringing for the freedom of sailing Europe aboard a merchant ship; and when word reaches him of his father's death, alone in his extravagant country manor, it is cause for celebration throughout his ship and crew. But when Wolfe returns to collect his inheritance, he finds that an inexplicable disturbance has settled over the family home, turning it cold and hostile. His friends and crew fall sick under his roof. He should have known something was amiss: his father's gifts always come with strings. Jack has been following a dead man for three days. His mentor has gone missing, last seen in the company of Walter Wolfe—a handler notorious for charming people, pushing their minds into doing exactly as he pleases. Walter Wolfe is dead, with no family left to inherit—but there's no sign of Jack's mentor, and someone is living in the Wolfe family home. Someone by the name of Wolfe.

TL;DR: The story in which everyone gets brainwashed, Jack has a crisis, Henry has no idea what's happening but he's angry about it, and Mack watches from the sidelines with a resigned expression on his face

Read it on my AO3 here! You will need an account to read it, but I also have it ready to go in EPUB format—by all means DM me and I'll send it to you!

Setting: Earth, in late 1920s England. With creative license thrown in for good measure.

Cast and TWs:

Henry Wolfe

A grouchy bisexual sailor, and the son of a gentleman, expected to be polite and charming and considerate. His peers are in for a shock.

Jack Sutton

A street magician and handler (magic-user) in search of someone he cares about. Even after two months of searching, he refuses to give up hope.

Mack Farrow

A brash ex-street thug with some serious trust issues, and Wolfe's closest confidant. Fights first, asks questions later.

Lindsey Parker

An ambitious handler with the heart to help the man who ruined her career. Jack's mentor. Missing.

TWs: Suicide, physical and emotional abuse, implied rape, blood and death, alcohol.

If you're interested, everything I've shared for this WIP is on this blog, tagged "A Silken Malice" and linked here.

[eccaiia]

Specified Lines Tag

Thanks for tagging me @oh-no-another-idea!

I'll leave it open tag!

New lines are: A line about an animal A line of worldbuilding A soft line A shouted line

A line about the sun:

The lake shone in the early afternoon sunlight. The day had turned sweltering while Edwin was busy with Jonathan and Xavier, and already he felt his shirt sticking tight to his back. He'd been so focused on finding Finlay that he'd entirely forgotten to change into his riding clothes, and though his mechanist jacket was light, designed for work around blazing furnaces, still he felt its weight trapping the heat against his back.

A line with the colour purple:

The chamber doors swung open, and the table fell silent. The Mechmaster swept into the room, her dark grey suit adorned with sparkling amethyst detailing. The gleaming brass cogs atop her shoulders, all interlocked and turning steadily, marked her an advanced mechanist: the swan-shaped medallion around her neck proved her claim to the Mechmaster’s seat. Her eyes swept over the room, one a natural blue, the other replaced by a green mechanist eye that whirred gently.

A line where someone is writing:

'And then there's the wings,' Edwin continued. He turned sharply and dove for a sheet of paper and a pen, leaning a hand on the desk as he scribbled furiously. 'They must have them for a reason—they must do. They must be able to fly in some capacity—or perhaps glide…'

A line about an ache:

The Mechmaster gave a frustrated sigh and rubbed at her forehead as though pained by an ache. 'Bloody warmongering dictator,' she muttered. 'How he ever came to power is beyond me.'

A line about regret:

'The Irish feel insignificant,' Monroe said regretfully. 'London is one of the greatest powers in the world, and Dublin lives in its shadow.'

Steampunk dragons taglist (let me know if you want to be added or removed!): @sarandipitywrites, @space-writes, @melpomene-grey, @finickyfelix, @bi-focal12, @leahpardo-pa-potato

[eccaiia]

Character Voice Tag

Thanks for tagging me @oh-no-another-idea!

My line is: "Alright, I've had enough of this crap."

There's no one for this line but the ASM crew.

Jack: This is ridiculous. Mack: Fuck this. (Leaves) Henry: To hell with this bullshit.

I'll leave it open tag! New line is: "I don't care."

[eccaiia]

Proud Of Tag

Thanks for tagging me @oh-no-another-idea!

Edwin felt faintly sick. He couldn't allow Finlay to subject himself to sleeping on the ground—if it only rained, he might catch his death. A tent, Jonathan said—a tent! A tent could never compare to the comforts of Lakeview—the comforts Finlay truly deserved after all he had put up with.

I'll tag @talesofsorrowandofruin, @owlsandwich, @melpomene-grey, and open tag as always!

Steampunk dragons taglist (let me know if you want to be added or removed!): @sarandipitywrites, @space-writes, @melpomene-grey, @finickyfelix, @bi-focal12, @leahpardo-pa-potato

[oh-no-another-idea]

Find the word tag

Thank you to the wonderful @willtheweaver for the tag! Just finished a hugely busy weekend, so looking forward to hopping back aboard the writing express later today :)

I'm looking for race, damage, snap, and desire in Necromancer WIP :)

Race:

Before the house has any more time to burn, Nikolaos wheels around and goes back through the kitchen. The fire in the front room hisses in jubilation, tearing the wall hangings and devouring the simple furniture. A wall of flame stands between Nikolaos and freedom. Just get to somewhere Quintus can find you. Nikolaos shifts the two women on his shoulders, and races through the fire. He’s too wide to make it through the doorway safely – he gets stuck, and his second shove through brings the frame down on his head.

Damage:

Quintus puts his forehead on the black horse. Percival’s notice feels oily, a smeared solution that can’t be removed from a linen shirt. What damage will it cause, he wonders, before they can escape?

Snap:

“You are not invulnerable, not matter how much you act like it, no matter how skilled you are,” Quintus snaps, his temper flaring. Good, Nikolaos thinks viciously. “Do you think I have any time to waste, crawling through the mud at the end of the day, looking for your bloated carcass?” “I’m not a child.” “Then stop playing at being one.”

Desire:

Don’t let me be the thing that changes you. Nikolaos could laugh if he had the time. The truth is that it’s much too late. Nikolaos is changed. He is made anew and made again and there is no turning back even if he desired it. And he does not.

I'll tag @reneesbooks @eccaiia @thegreatobsesso @artdecosupernova-writing @charlesjosephwrites @vsnotresponding @kitty-is-writing @winterandwords and anyone else who sees this! Your words are horizon, holy, hour, and hallucinate <3

[groenendaze]

It's been a week with this golden boy. I am SO impressed with this puppy and so excited about our future. Happy first week, Solo

[lypsys]

"Write character relationships that are normal" WRONG ☝ CODEPENDENCY BEAM 💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥

[starpeace]

i am. so sorry if i have ever used the phrase “i have an au where—” and led you to believe that there is an actual fic out there for you to read rather than, at best, a post where i explain the concept, and at worst it is simply something that lives in my brain

[starpeace]

if it helps i also wish there was a fic

[homunculus-argument]

Randomly remembered seeing this random old black and white photo from like the 50s, pretty sure it was from Sweden. A picture from a morgue, of a tall blond man in some kind of an uniform approaching another man standing beside an opened coffin, clutching something to his chest while looking at the approaching man with a look of wary insult on his face. The caption explained that this was an incident of a police officer stopping a man from putting a bottle of beer in his father's coffin (his own father, not the cop's father) because for some reason doing that was against Sweden's burial laws.

I don't remember the details but I recall how the guy had the looks of a rough life written all over him, ragged clothes in contrast to the police officer's pristine uniform - though obscured by motion blur as he was rapidly approaching with hateful intent - and the much finer burial clothes of the deceased. A small, skinny man with black hair, holding onto the bottle that's about to be confiscated like it's something precious to him.

I felt like something wasn't adding up and went to the comments to see if there was additional context that was missing from all this, and there was: The son and the father were Romani, and at least at the time it was still very much a tradition in Swedish Romani culture to bury the dead with little gifts - not necessarily extravagant or expensive, but things that the lost loved one would have liked.

This wasn't about a mourning son being stopped from playfully paying his respects in a way that someone else thought indignified. This was about a man being prohibited from performing his own peoples' funeral rites.

[vvlpecvlae]

Had to go find the photo, it's indeed Swedish. Taken by Åke Borglund and photo of the year 1958, apparently.

Source: https://digitaltmuseum.se/021016531349/arets-bild-1958-tagen-i-stillhetens-kapell-tid-uppstandelsens-kapell-i

[homunculus-argument]

Holy fuck you found it.

I misremembered, it wasn't a morgue, those are empty church pews.

[vvlpecvlae]

After finding and posting the photo above, I did some more research and found out where it was originally published. Long story short, I now own a 1958 issue of Se, which was a Swedish magazine for photojournalism, inspired by Life and other similar publications.

The photo comes from an article on a Swedish Romani funeral in Karlstad (a city 300 km west of Stockholm). The text is pretty exoticising and othering, I won't bother translating the whole thing. But I will relay the most interesting information.

First of all, the deceased man is Josef Dimetri (1903-1958), who was a Romani chief. From what I can tell from the Swedish censuses, he left behind a wife and six children, ages 18-31.

Which means that the photo is a bit deceptive on its own - the chapel is still empty there, but the article states it was taken shortly before the rest of the guests arrived. Because there were plenty of guests - and there are more photos of them!

The article doesn't explain why the police was there, but it says they had to step in and break off some fighting and arguments that broke out between guests, which is more likely what they were there for (rather than just inspecting bottles). They can also be seen talking to spectators in the last photo, so staving off curious or hostile people might also have been a reason.

And most important, perhaps: While the policeman did try to stop him from leaving the bottle, the son shook him off and protested that "he needs it, he needs it", and "the tactful policeman" (as the article calls him) did not insist further. So it seems Josef Dimetri was in fact laid to rest with his bottle of beer.

[oh-no-another-idea]

Last line tag

Thanks for this one @finickyfelix! Here's the last line from a writing session I had recently...

He does need her help, for there’s no way he’s limping through town with Lisbet and the case and another bag of purchases, and he wants so very much to just finally be alone, but he can see the fastest path to what he wants, and it’s accepting her offer and shutting up about it, so he thanks her once, and awkwardly half-falls from the wagon on to the street.

No pressure tags for anyone and everyone and also @reneesbooks @eccaiia @talesofsorrowandofruin @magic-is-something-we-create @writingamongther0ses and @pertinax--loculos <3

[enchanted-lightning-aes]

Last Line Tag

thanks to @/cherrybombfangirlwrites (x) for the tag.^^ once again, i'm writing Lines of a Script to Ignore after femslash feb, and picked up where i left it off. feels good to write about tegan and hwan again. :>

regardless, hwan has a milestone... her very first paycheck post-graduate. and she's buying a gift. :3 🎉🎉🎉

At that, Hwan nods and the shop associate darts off to the direction of some storage entrance. Does a difference in size have a different price tag? She hasn't bought any clothing other than those in her own. If she had to buy something fashion as a present, accessories are her to-go to. The sales associate comes back with a package with the boots covered in wrapping. Hwan checks them and gives a thumbs-up.

Tagging, no pressure: @lesbianwords, @shrinkthisviolet, @eccaiia, @magnus-sm-writes, and open tag.^^

also you can interact with this post (x), if you’d like to be a part of my tag game list.^^

[gr8writingtips]

me: i am going to get so much writing done today. the most writing anyone has ever done

also me: (purchases paralives)

[cultivating-wildflowers]

It is ridiculous to take on a man's job just in order to be able to say that "a woman has done it -- yah!" The only decent reason for tackling any job is that it is your job, and you want to do it.

Dorothy L. Sayers, Are Women Human?

[cultivating-wildflowers]

"I'm always so glad when a woman accomplishes something." "Why?" demanded Sarah ferociously. [...] "It's so nice that women are able to do things." "I don't agree," said Sarah. "It's nice when any human being is able to accomplish something worthwhile. Doesn't matter a bit whether it's a man or a woman. Why should it? [...] I'm sorry, but I do hate this differentiation between the sexes. 'The modern girl has a thoroughly businesslike attitude to life.' That sort of thing. It's not a bit true! Some girls are businesslike and some aren't. Some men are sentimental and muddle-headed, others are clear-headed and logical. There are just different types of brains.”

Agatha Christie, Appointment with Death

[eccaiia]

WIP Acrostic Tag

Thanks for tagging me @oh-no-another-idea!

I'll leave it open tag! New word is: STORM

Q:

Quickly recovering himself, Edwin straightened his jacket, gazing in wonder at the wings. 'They are bigger than I'd thought,' he said. 'Perhaps it really does have the power to carry a passenger, if it can use wings of that size.'

U:

'Unlike some of us, I have responsibilities to attend to.'

E:

Edwin woke to strange surroundings. The room was brightly coloured and chaotically decorated, as if the owner hoped to lull its occupants to sleep by dizzying them.

A:

'Ah, good morning, old chap!' Jonathan said warmly. They were already seated at the table, dressed in a clean cream dress dotted with small red poppies.

S:

Something was wrong with Edwin.

Y:

'Yes, sir,' he said, politely and without a trace of insubordination.

Steampunk dragons taglist (let me know if you want to be added or removed!): @sarandipitywrites, @space-writes, @melpomene-grey, @finickyfelix, @bi-focal12, @leahpardo-pa-potato

[margueritestjusts]

canon

[oh-no-another-idea]

WIP Acrostic tag

Thank you to @artdecosupernova-writing for the tag! My word today is SMASH :)

S. Sometimes, at night, Michael would catch a glimpse of Nick out of the corner of his eye – a muscled shoulder, a flash of a dark hand, his deep large eyes – and forget the time and place. He was a toddler, running after Nick and his dad. He was six, watching Nick cook dinner from behind his mother’s skirt.

M. “My mom owns a bar, so I think the skills are in my DNA,” Sutton assured him.

A. “A dog is permanent,” Michael said to Melon. “A dog means something. If this dog stays…”

S. She was wearing a thick t-shirt and sporty shorts today, a jarring difference from her usual sundresses or flower patterns or denim, and Michael was losing his mind, he had memorized the fashion palette of a fifteen-year-old.

H. His conversation with Jacob stayed with him, made him zoom out on his map of the world that hung on his bedroom wall. Why stay stateside? Sure, it’d be more of a change, more of a shock, but the sort of shock that one got from jumping into a cool mountain stream – startling, refreshing, and cleansing down to the very soul.

I'll tag @avrablake @writingrosesonneptune @zmwrites @eccaiia @space-writes @revenantlore and anyone else who sees this! Your word is PERCH <3

[ambrosial-sunshine]

Jonathan Harker is really the character ever. Goes from “The Devil Surely Walks on this Earth” to “The Count is up to his Lizard shit again 🙄” in one day.