𝖔𝖈𝖊𝖆𝖓

I keep my daydreams locked in a box, but I’ll share them sometimes. Ra, 20s, she/her.

[oceanlipgloss]

𝗠𝗔𝗦𝗧𝗘𝗥𝗟𝗜𝗦𝗧𝗦 + 𝗗𝗜𝗥𝗘𝗖𝗧𝗢𝗥𝗬

XXII.V.MMXXIII—ongoing.

Writings are sorted into five respective masterlists—one masterlist for each of the following games: Love and Producer, Love and Deepspace, Mystic Messenger, Shall We Date? Obey Me! and What in “Hell” is Bad?

+[ABOUT WRITER+WRITINGS]

⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ´ˎ˗

¹ ‘𝗟𝗢𝗩𝗘 𝗔𝗡𝗗 𝗣𝗥𝗢𝗗𝗨𝗖𝗘𝗥’ MASTERLIST [currently discontinued; may be re-launched]

➙ #mlqc masterlist

² ‘𝗟𝗢𝗩𝗘 𝗔𝗡𝗗 𝗗𝗘𝗘𝗣𝗦𝗣𝗔𝗖𝗘’ MASTERLIST

➙ #lnds masterlist

³ ‘𝗠𝗬𝗦𝗧𝗜𝗖 𝗠𝗘𝗦𝗦𝗘𝗡𝗚𝗘𝗥’ MASTERLIST ♡⋆

➙ #mystic messenger masterlist

⁴ ‘𝗦𝗛𝗔𝗟𝗟 𝗪𝗘 𝗗𝗔𝗧𝗘? 𝗢𝗕𝗘𝗬 𝗠𝗘’ MASTERLIST

➙ #shall we date? obey me! masterlist

⁵ ‘𝗪𝗛𝗔𝗧 𝗜𝗡 “𝗛𝗘𝗟𝗟” 𝗜𝗦 𝗕𝗔𝗗?’ MASTERLIST [indefinitely discontinued]

➙ #what in “hell” is bad? masterlist

+writing keys: any and all warnings are specified before the beginning of each piece; in general, however, writings labelled with:

‘⭒’ are personal favourites.

‘🍦’ are birthday creations.

‘A.’ are either purely of the angst genre, or have its hues.

‘C.’ are either purely of the comedy genre, or have its colours.

‘D.’ are either purely of dark themes, or have such textures.

‘E.’ are either purely of the implicit erotica genre, or have its shades.

‘F.’ are either purely of the fluff genre, or have its tints.

‘S.’ are either purely suggestive, or have suggestive undertones.

‘T.’ are of the tragedy genre, or have its palettes.

+game × character keys: certain games and characters have a heart symbol put next to them; these hearts come in three variations:

‘♡⋆’ represents the games dearest to me.

‘♡’ represents characters I am very fond of.

‘♡+’ represents my most beloved characters.

+navigation: this blog utilises a number of different tags, but the ones that organise its main material are three:

#ra’s fanfic plans applies to original ideas I will one day write into fanfiction pieces.

#the story factory is tailored for my fanfiction writings.

#the teacup often holds asks and updates, but my babbles on games or characters may also be poured in sometimes.

+ ARCHIVE OF OUR OWN

©𝙤𝙘𝙚𝙖𝙣𝙡𝙞𝙥𝙜𝙡𝙤𝙨𝙨; 𝘳𝘦𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘵𝘴, 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘨𝘪𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘮, 𝘮𝘰𝘥𝘪𝘧𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘴𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘰𝘧 𝘮𝘺 𝘸𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘩𝘪𝘣𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘥.

[oceanlipgloss]

KETCHUP

XAVIER.

+ no warnings.

Ketchup in sunlight has a glutinous shine. It begins to look like red glue or slime. Grills streak meat with viscid lines.

Sizzle of sausage. Quarrel between stall owner and someone on the street. Customers’ chattered orders. Out of the three noises, he liked the sizzle. It shouldn’t have sounded like home, because he sucks at cooking. Or so he was told. But it did, because he likes kitchen adventures. Trying is nice, harmless. Well, more or less. Somehow, though, he had gotten roped into this mess.

He had had many jobs in life. Some were attained through stranger methods, plucked off the weirder side. This was one of many times. Yet another odd, unexpected play.

Scene I: pay for hot-dogs.

Scene II: impatiently, patiently wait.

Scene III: surprise fight outbreak, like the sky’s blue arm tossing a lemon meringue pie into your face.

Scene IV: worry about the potential of an empty stomach. Hot-dogs might burn. Food is important.

Scene V: take vantage point at hot-dog stand, flip the greasy fingers.

Action.

Too late. Didn’t make it. Thick fat and shiny skin, all charred.

...he had only wanted lunch, breakfast, a snack. Whatever time of the day it was.

After her response, his phone had dozed into silence. Did she want to eat something else?

He had been ready to go upstairs. He didn’t care about the wasted money. He was just hungry. They’d share a meal, have a sweet milk tea. In his contracting stomach, no crispy rolls lay eaten. Yet somehow, he had gotten stuck making lunch for others.

Her tease rippled in his head: ‘let’s pray for their poor bellies!’

She had told him she would meet him soon. But little did he know that, from behind a tree, the girl watched. He looked as awkward as someone who didn’t want to be somewhere would.

Did he mind? Did he not?

He loves books, always reading. But he’s hard for her to read. She didn’t always understand. She could only ponder and question. Sometimes in monologue, sometimes through question marks thrown into the atmosphere like salt onto popcorn.

What words orbit his mind? Do the neurons produce static a lot of the time? Not the snowy static of winter TV, but the calming hum of an old radiator in the background. Are the things he thinks about sprouts of a heavy heart or fractures of light?

So quiet, so mysterious. Placid lake, moonlit forest, turbid night.

How on Earth, in the name of every planet there is and has been, did he find himself in these ever curious predicaments?

Physics say opposites attract. It’s known that fridge magnets repel. But have physicists told the world that rules don’t always apply to reality? She didn't know.

He’s strange. And strange things come to him. He attracts them, a magnet of pompom-soft flesh. Just like galaxies appear to swirl with the stars they choose, soup stirring in a pot.

His whimsical brain and quiet ways had yanked her close, too. Converted her from a suspicious stranger to an allied partner.

An amused laugh. Sound can be starry. Her giggle twinkled.

He had heard her.

Her approaching figure quaked with laughter. Sunshine quivered in her dark hair. The gleam was stardust in the night, not thick like the light on globs of ketchup.

Some chocolates ripple with hair-thin lines. Wavy bars the colour of her hair. Her hair at that moment was like a silky bar of dark chocolate. The difference was that it flowed. Maybe...molten dark chocolate, then. In the future, he would tell her the universe is akin to a big cup of coffee or a huge chocolate bar.

Would she have liked it if he had told her the locks reminded him of that, or would she have found his compliment offensive in how it compared that softness to a block?

Drinking the universe from a little cup. A creamy purple sky, salted with stars. Swirling until it becomes plum-black.

She’s very pretty.

The past version of oneself can’t always predict what the future version of them will do or think. Neither of them could have imagined...

His ears burned. The red of ketchup, she thought. Later, when it happened, she would remember that first kiss. Golden morning, heart-coloured bitten cherries. And yet, at that very minute, the comparison-picture changed. No, not the red of ketchup. The red of cherries. His ears, they’re the red of those cherries.

Her smaller hand tugged his. It wasn’t the weekend. So what? They deserved a break. Customers, civilians, not their problem. Until it got too dangerous.

Cold red-checkered cartons. Red warmth in his palm. Her Christmas-plant-red scarf.

Today, the colour red was in the mood to come out and play. So much red. Except for those burnt sausages, left to rot in a trashcan. Otherwise, so much red! That SUV, the cherries in her future memory, his cheeks, the ketchup on— 

Her glee flipped itself upside down. It was so sudden. Gymnastics.

Ketchup gemmed his red cheek. Edible rhinestone, savoury ruby. Through her sunglasses, it looked less like an innocent stain of labour and more like the smudge of another woman’s kiss. She didn’t like that.

Suddenly, the black shades crowned her hair. They could’ve drowned in its darkness. Disapproval loomed over her eyes’ brightness. He frowned back. He didn’t understand that tiny scrap of shadow. Was she trying to intimidate him?

She leaned in. She wondered what it would be like to kiss him. How would his lips feel? They looked pillow-soft. Would they give, or would they own hers? Her kiss would erase the mark of everything else. Past wishes, present yearnings, future hopes.

When they were so close, how could she not notice the little orbs of surprise in that indigo space? Could almost hear his slow heart start.

A banana-yellow napkin dabbed at his skin. For once that day, not red. When she looked up at him, the lopsided moons in her gaze told him, ‘that’s better.’

No more ketchup.

But he didn’t know what.

+notes: not a birtbday fic obviously,,, I am not so fond of writing those,,, but this idea poked my brain a few days ago and after months I didn't just FEEL like I wanted to write, I actually opened the document and wrote. It is but a funny(?), cute twist on the Moments post Xavier made asking if he should flip the sausages since the stand owner was arguing :P one of my favourite Moments posts to date. I thought, he got roped into so many random jobs what's the harm in one more??? That may as well be canon, what with the way Xavi finds himself stuck doing the weirdest shit. I love him :( I also expanded a Sylus WIP that's older than dinosaurs at this point using the 2.5 sentences my brain randomly whisked out of nowhere in its bowl a couple nights ago,,, but who knows when I will finally smuggle it out of the morgue or grave fridge...

+ MASTERLIST

+ AO3 POST

©𝙤𝙘𝙚𝙖𝙣𝙡𝙞𝙥𝙜𝙡𝙤𝙨𝙨

[oceanlipgloss]

BABYLON

CALEB.

+ warnings: light angst.

Two butterflies, engineered in Babylon.

Friday the 13th is a morbid date, they say. History gave its evidence. Black markets try to make up for it with sales. What would it mean, then, for a birthdate? The first birthday after a reunion. Then again, the traditions and superstitions, he didn’t believe in them. When had he ever? His faith shone in her, blazed in his determination to enlist himself a soldier against fate.

Friday the 13th in October, Friday the 13th in summer. Friday the 13th in fall, Friday the 13th in June. And yet, his fingers didn’t have to curl anymore. Joints could let tension trickle out of the bones. They could interlock with her own.

The butterflies had created each other in a way. They’re of the same source. Not once destroying one another, but always recovering together. Telomeres. Since the very first summer sunrise she’s been his little maker, shaping his heart like playdough in her curious child’s hands, melding his chemistry to her liking, structuring him vessel by vessel.

Until they grew up.

Blessings might be taken for granted. The doodle on the wall, two children, their chalk umbrella. Stars, planets, the Sun.  

They hadn’t known that in the future, they’d take apart that old model and shed their metallic wings. They now lay on the floor, red and green apple peels. Ghosts of themselves, themselves nonetheless. The foundation is still the same, just as it will forever be. Their adult hands will put together something new.

The butterflies had been living in a glass sphere for years. They knew only each other. Hours shared, no minutes forgotten, all objects in pairs. Everything about her, he memorised it. She’s his secret research paper, never to be folded into a plane or crane, just so she couldn’t fly away without him.

Those born together are sometimes meant to stay by each other’s side. But he’s not an enamoured stalker. That’s too wrong a word. What they have defies physics’ solid laws. It can melt air and hang rain midair.

The angle at which her hair floats with the summer breeze, the faded spots on her pink pyjamas, the DNA swirls in her fingerprints. All details programmed into his being.

Maybe his name wasn’t scribbled onto her notebooks’ pages, parallel to the margins, on the bluish lines. Perhaps theirs was never that usual cliché crush. If they couldn’t own each other, no one else would be allowed to own them either. They would die.

Possessive, obsessive butterflies.

They the two of them, these modified butterflies, were once upon a time learning about the world still. There was a time when they were sipping, one timid sip at a time, little by little, on the sugary juice of an apple bitten, one that has never quite been forbidden.

Such beliefs were nervous hearts’ whispers. The organs palpitated with the burden brought about by emotions unspoken. Someday they’ll break free.  Whether broken in life or by death, shackles wouldn’t last forever.

The butterflies have long cycled in rebirth’s continuous ring. In every lifetime, they die in their cocoons—their homes.

They reincarnate and fly away from the shells.  Each time, they emerge lovelier. Their shared minutes make their love what it is, and them who they are.

They take on the personalities of moths in the dark: chase after electric lanterns, burn their papery wings on candles. Finally, they retreat into their origins.

Summer sprinkles everything with life. It makes anything seem possible. But there is no such thing as being able to do anything. Muscle can be transformed to metal, tissue too, but the heart cannot become a machine.

There are those who only give sour things. Always. And all others do is accept them. Often. Whatever her precious hands cradled became his cherished treasure. Sour candies, citrus memories, acidic heartache. It didn’t matter—even when his heart hurt from the sickness and melted from the burn.

But lately there’s been something different. There’s been a change in gravity. Gradual as a gradient, yet similar to the airspeed indicator in aviation. The same numbers as before, yet vast in difference. One millisecond can deviate a pilot’s course. Weather can alter an aircraft’s coordinates. The heart modifies any atmosphere.

Friday the 13th won’t be a date of ill omens. For all Earth knows, summer is neither gone, nor has it come. She had robbed the world blind, stolen pleasure’s temperature, and hid it in her palm for him early on. Candy wrapped in lightning.

The happiness in his veins was alive.

Even later—much later—he wouldn’t really look back on those hours with the blackened view of sunglasses in the dark. The insomniac cells in his brain wouldn’t be aeroplane propellers in an anxious whirl. He would just revisit those sun-buttered times in his life and that video-lit June from which there was no point of return.

A long-awaited plane crash in two lives.

When planes fall, they reap souls. When incidents happen, they’re not always accidents. Hearts excel at conspiracy. The fall was wanted, mapped out, longed for. An undying reason to cling to existence and be consumed by its petty gravitational force.

The meanings within the layers of cake and cream were so simple, the truths so obvious, but more stories than one were told. A letter of sorts.

The impatient, spoiled little girl who had leaned against him all those years ago had become the fierce heroine of her first-ever movie. Wilder than a skateboarder suspended in midsummer skies, demanding him to watch her perform the tricks she had learned on her own.

So many things he didn’t know.

That small bundle of cuteness is still adorable from head to toe. Time and biology had rendered her taller. She had once been that endearing shortie packing green flames into sandwiches that lit tiny bonfires in his throat. Years passed. The sweet-talker learned to make cakes with frosting that melts on his tongue.

What a change.

She didn’t need him to reach out and grab the white plate in the cupboard; she would choose to balance on her tiptoes, just so she could do it herself.

She didn’t need him to paint her nails perfectly anymore; when she decided to care about the peeling polish, she’d dab at the blankness alone.

She didn’t constantly need him to protect her anymore; gun handles had calloused her fingers.

There had been melancholic musings; would there come a day when she didn’t need him at all? Between the two of them, he always seemed to need her more.

Such negative thoughts.

But she, too, cared too much. She, too, wouldn’t leave him, just as he wouldn’t leave her. Ever. She would always belong with him, just as he would always belong with her. They come from the same source, remember?

There are things that can’t be replaced, anyway. Can one replace the universe?

Would she ever not want warm hugs or crave bad jokes?

Would she ever miss out on sneaking cookies and leaving the crumbs on her fingers before the whole batch escaped the oven?

There’s things only he can do. Her hair dried in a soft towel, apple jam for farewells that should never happen, intercepted love letters that’ll never be opened. 

There’s things only she can do, too. Being close, seeing him for who he is, commanding his life, owning him.

Sharing had never sounded good, and that only got worse. Something taking him away, someone to share him with. Even the cakes had long settled to be digested in many stomachs.

That’s over.

What they’ve got going is theirs alone.

If he wants to gift her the prettiest garden or confuse her in a maze, she’ll lock him up in an orange-blue planet where red-green apples dangle from trees all year long and summer is everyday and only they are allowed to exist. If he will twist her words on purpose to catch her, she’ll manipulate gravity by force to trap him.

Of course the past has come to an end in a sense. Change isn’t always bad. It walks the race step by step or dives into the pool all at once.

Always, someway, somehow, they would always, always, always find their way back to each other again. No matter how they had lost their destination, no matter how the world had tried to jumble their coordinates. She will be a free little bird for eternity, and he will be confined in her cage for eons.

Humans need time to get over what they’ve known all their lives. Getting used to novelties takes a while. Less so if it’s sweet. Shy at first, reluctant at some stages, then a jet soaring.

Babylon has long been abandoned.

+notes: No-Return Night made me lose my mind a bit. The effects that pixel cluster of a man always has on my brain are unreal. Sometimes it feels like they hacked into my mind when they created him. He’s too good to be trueeee And. THE STORYYY. I'm often indifferent to birthday dates but this one? Crazy. How the atmosphere between Caleb and MC is so different now, the way they’re swaying on the lilting edges of love—it’s tangible that his wait is finally over. I could feel it and that was insane. They both found the courage to cross that boundary, and I cheered my lungs out for them. I felt relief for him. Also, when MC thought ‘I want him.’ God. His gaze on her. Those kisses. Everything. There was a point when he and the animation almost felt real. I had reactions to it all. He killed me again. Go to jail already, Colonel I love him so much man what the hell do I do But uhhh now that that’s out of the way, time for some fic background? I began writing this waaay before the trailer launched and finished it before that too, then when the PV dropped I HAD to stuff in some things from there. After that I read the story and finished the event story to add a couple details. Next came the video they put up today and indeed, I had to include a few sprinkles from it here and there. Ngl tho, I just about fed this fic to the oven because it felt lacking asf to me at first. Then I gave it one more chance today and I finally approve of it :P

+fun fact: put together from 98% notebook scribbles and 2% email notes. Writing fics by hand is an experience I can’t recommend enough :D

+ MASTERLIST

+ AO3 POST

©𝙤𝙘𝙚𝙖𝙣𝙡𝙞𝙥𝙜𝙡𝙤𝙨𝙨

[oceanlipgloss]

COPYCAT

BELPHEGOR.

+ female MC.

+ warnings: dark themes [somnophilia, non-con/dub-con with a twist], erotic hues, strong language.

Many things decompose in garbage sites. The locations may be a contaminated treasure island of sorts: cloaked in flies, rats, and plastic bags, akin to dead bodies. And what are living beings, if not animated corpses? There is food, there are clothes, there are drugs.

Cats follow their whims just as they follow their eraser-pink noses: pinpoint a rotting fish in the trash, follow the stench, get lunch. They take food from anywhere, be it apartment kitchen or restaurant dumpster. She, too, chases pleasure after pleasure. She accepts gratification from wherever it may come. 

Desire is its own brand of dark. It paints the mind white anyway. Sweet blackness, numbing saccharine, wine spiked in a paper cup. Poisoned, sweetened black coffee. Addicted. All drugged up. The flesh may be vulgar. She is, like many others of her kin, God’s failed experiment, a manufacturer’s defected toy, some little girl’s dirty doll. She is obscene, yet a saint revered.

These hopeless lab rats of God, some deem them his greatest creations. Just like her. She’s a darling, gluttonous anomaly. She’s never been her own person, but a copycat—copying the corrupt, blank versions of herself like malignant cells multiplying, a societal tumour growing.

The men that hung over her changed between day and night, like day and night. The kisses that savoured her taste alternated. The tongues that smeared her skin overlapped. A feline in heat, switching mates because it is unbound to consequences, has no compass.

One night, she slept in the bed of a man who did not ask for her agreement. Too lazy and lust-drunk to care about that. He let his darkness encroach on her. It made her empty mind slow and slimy. Her brain had been crawling with lewd dreams, but suddenly everything felt too real.

She was awake. There was nothing to see. Ensnared in afterglow’s exhaustion, she had been asleep. Innocence marked her features. Almost a deceiver. Her bareness exposed her. Even a moron could’ve seen that she had been messing around in the sheets.

Supposedly, everyone meets their match at one point. Winner, loser. He had slumbered. The weight of fuzzy cat was warm on his chest. He had woken up. And then, right then and there, he had decided that he would have her.

So what if she were unaware? She would want it even in sleep, the pretty lil’ whore. She’s sordid and perfect. A bombshell. Doing the undesired, following the calls of desire, leaving nothing to be desired. Goin’ out of her way to promise him a good time. Seducin’ him while out cold. There was something hot about the arc of her back. It seemed to be calling out to him, every vertebrae of that spine pleading for a lick. Nice curvature n’ a great ass.

The nothingness stole her sight, but it played his mind. Mind games, mind games. Couldn’t think straight. Didn’t have the energy to.

Her unseeing eyes captured nothing: a camera lens and high exposure. Except everything was black. Swallowed by the dark. Nothing to see, but much to feel. The sensations were everywhere. That tingling dance below her waist had her losing her mind, an object lost in the trash. This gave ‘dancing in the dark’ a new, updated meaning. Who knew it would be this fun for him to use that vicious ability on her?

An invisible blindfold. From the darkness came smokey whispers, as enchanting as honeyed curses: ‘Cute sleepin’ face you got there, sugar.’

They would’ve told her it’s monstruosity. She would’ve disagreed. She thought it’s erotica. It’s art. Because she’s sick like that. As long as pleasure is involved, there’s no need for consent.

The blindness heightened her senses. She could taste her own blood and hear her own heartbeat. Fuck, she loved that. Every movement he made could’ve been a mere inch, but in his darkness it felt like a mile.

Pleasure is a craft of God. It’s one of his masterpieces. Rebuked by him, taboo in Heaven, banned in Eden. And yet, it must be spread: a creamy cake cut up into slices and passed around at a birthday party, a wedding, or a strip club.

She is a firm believer in ends justifying means. It matters not if the chaste and unwilling do not seek satisfaction. They must learn it. It matters not if they do not give their permission. They must accept it. Their naïve bodies must be sold to the senses. So, to please, she’s ready to defile even a celibate angel.

And she has, to a certain extent.

But her dream that night had a short shelf life. It ended too soon, at the really good part. Darn. Next to her, the man lay. A smear of black, peach, and gray. The inky satin of his power had stayed away. He had walled it in. Skin pores let his tattoo glimmer under the lamps. Light rolled around on his silver earrings. Hamster on a wheel.

Sleep, that’s just how it is: so close yet so far away, mind very far away. Maybe he could turn her drowsy fantasy into crazy reality one day.

+notes: basically a mixture of facts/conclusions gleaned from multiple sources, then whipped up into a fic: [1] Beleth’s event + official posts (for Belphegor), and [2] angels’ Christmas event + main story (for MC). The idea formed in my mind a while ago, but I had no clue how to approach it or how to so much as begin writing. I handwrote 5 excerpts (aside from that of this piece), and was still just as unsure of how to go about it because nothing felt right or satisfying to me :/ BUT. After rereading the cat-focused WIP the next day, I eventually began to get a feel for the concept and direction I’d like to take: trash and cats, unusual as it sounds. Then I remembered that Belphegor is canonically friends with the talking cat Beleth introduced him to, and the whole thing just solidified itself further to me. I had to write it. I made sure to mention Belphegor’s idiosyncrasy kink, too.  And, well. The title itself is really inspired by the fact that MC is a lovable braniac (’tis but a big lie) mindless descendant who keeps putting the same shitshow on over and over again.

+fun fact: this is the very first fic I wrote by hand and the very first one I typed and simultaneously quickly edited in an email because I had no access to Notes (or Word for formatting). Writing in a notebook is so much more fun and satisfying than using any digital document. It feels freeing. I could scratch things out and be as messy as I want, watch the pen glide across the paper to put together letters and words, jot write down my sentences and ideas speedy and unhindered—it all makes for such a nice feeling. I want to do this more often, whenever I get the inspiration and chance.

+ MASTERLIST

+ AO3 POST

©𝙤𝙘𝙚𝙖𝙣𝙡𝙞𝙥𝙜𝙡𝙤𝙨𝙨

[t-lostinworlds]

CALEB: Did you honestly think I would always be the kindhearted boy from your childhood?

LOVE AND DEEPSPACE — To The Edge Of Dreams

🍎 welcome home winter soldier caleb!

[oceanlipgloss]

SKIN

LUCIFER.

+ warnings: erotic implications.

+ female MC.

Isaiah 14:12-15 “How you have fallen from Heaven, Morning Star, son of Dawn! How you have been cut down to the ground, you who lay the nations low. For you said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to the Heavens and raise my throne above the stars of God.’”

Tears may be a symbol of devotion. People are told, ‘thou shalt resist temptation.’ Did it ever cross any mind at all that the Devil longed for the place in which he was born?

Time does not heal all wounds. It cannot. Broken were the bones that ripped his skin open. Red were the feathers that soaked them. Blood oozed out of his heart. He could not heal himself.

He dreams of what is thought to be a holy land. Pain and hallucinations.

‘Thou shalt resist temptation.’

What is the point of that?

Angels sin up above. Demons can do whatever down below. Humans had long ago taken a bite from the apple.

Suffering takes on many forms of layered degrees, greater in number than the mere seven ones of Hell. His is silent—a cold, soundless snake. He likes to leave it untold, for he is a man who had one day witnessed colours slither away in indecipherable lines. Hued parasites.

Naive beings asked a question: in such a world, is there such a thing as Eden?

Indeed so.

Paradise, some think, is riches.

Paradise, others believe, is wellbeing.

Paradise, many say, is the skin.

One does not always get what they desire, and hence most choose to make do.

The woman before him is nothing that special. She could hex angels and had allured devils. And what did that matter? Is it not in the nature of living creatures to follow set patterns?

A hundred hearts leap into the race after the first heart flutters.

Just like a pond, his curiosity had its rhythms. Now she is interesting, the next second he is curious no longer. All he knew is that she is boring, airy, and promiscuous.

Left her lipstick in one man’s ashtray, left her kisses on another man’s skin. It was a busy life. In her empty mind, the shades mixed together like a tropical drink from the nightlife.

Sometimes, he felt like an empty man. Prolonged sorrow induces numbness. He did not expect her to understand. She is too stupid to care about a soul’s wants. Skin was often the answer. Beauty and venom. If they looked good, they did.

That trembling, sadistic heart in him is a sweet killer.

‘Thou shalt resist temptation.’

What better symbol of devotion than blood, sacrifice, and starvation?

Tears are beautiful. Hers in particular.

Were these side effects of intrigue or attraction?

He admired the glitter. He yearned for the salt to powder her cheeks and glimmer. He loved to watch them fall as he once had.

Aching loins, aching heart.

My, but he’s not an easy target.

Tears set fire to his skin; they summon a burning desire.

She’s an insignificant little thing. He saw in her eyes how she dared imagine. There are those who do not know their limits. It would have been, to her, a delight to give a tint of life to his skin. And yet, she dared not overstep.

He was rough. An appearance delicate like glass, a soul frayed on the edges. Sharp.

Her tears left him thirsty, and the melancholy in his marrow passed her by. All she cared about was his skin. Even when he scared her, even when he told her she is nothing.

What a lowly being.

Then again...

‘Thou shalt resist temptation.’

...had he not fallen low, low, ever so low, too?

+notes: so. I uninstalled the game during the notorious paywall ordeal and have rarely looked back since. I still like Satan—he’s so darn cute and remains my WHB favourite—Lucifer, and Leviathan just the same, though can’t say that has ever applied to MC...bro is a massive pixel disaster, so every now and then I do sneak in a peep to see what they’re up to. But. As I was sorting through my WIPs some time back, I came across the snippets I had written for this piece. I’d scrapped out every other WHB fic WIP—all short and tiny things—but hadn’t had the heart to give this one that treatment. And strange as it may seem, I was also peeved by the fact that I had written stuff for 2/3 of my favourites (Satan and Levi) only, and none for Luci. Then I thought that since I already have some lines written and a direction mapped, I should finish up my WHB collection with a bang. This will most likely be the last WHB fic of mine unless, again, I get an idea I can’t resist—more so one that will not subject the character to being OOC. I need to be careful in this particular matter since preserving characters that way is an extremely important aspect to me, and I have no clue if there has been change/development or what it looks like if present.

+ MASTERLIST

+ AO3 POST

©𝙤𝙘𝙚𝙖𝙣𝙡𝙞𝙥𝙜𝙡𝙤𝙨𝙨

[oceanlipgloss]

C₆H₈O₇

SYLUS.

+ warnings: angst, implied references of child abuse.

+ guest appearance: the notorious sour child...Lemonette :P

Sweet, salty, bitter, spicy, sour. The planet is a recipe of many flavours. It is the mould, people the batter. April sunlight in the Mediterranean is magical. Spring’s needle threads through leaves and lemons. Splashes in green and yellow.

Everyone has things they’re not fond of. Tartness is one of his, no matter the form. It is said that one is likely to get stuck with whatever they dislike. What better reason—other than amour, of course—to explain how he was chosen as sacrifice for a certain lady’s curious project? Lemonade taste tests, the search for the best ‘cold gold’ now a quest.

Helpers are shapeshifters. Help is a single-cell entity that ripples with changes in shape. Enemies are a lot like mischievous children in a classroom. With drops of the proper catalysts in their chemistry, they can react accordingly and get bent back into helping hands.

Or so some are told. Sometimes that works, sometimes not.

Now this sous-chef of theirs is a shocker. The strangest thing. Socks, a bag, lemon juice in a glass. A dancer in the kitchen. Bouncing here, jumping there. The leaves on its head fluttered over the counter. Its expressions were a good indicator. Plastic cups on marble. Two codes. Nods: 100% sour. Scrunches: not sour enough. Reactions in reverse. If the creature yelled its acidic approval, chosen was the object of its dislike—a sweeter dose of citric acid.

Childhood, after all, must be squeezed from honeyed fruit. The world doesn’t often function like so, however. It never has. Mercy isn’t shown by many. There are children who suffer.

Quite well, she had known this. It wasn’t a mysterious element in a compound’s equation. Many a times he had told her so himself. It was a rancid truth to digest. Uncoated, no sugared film. A bitter, bitter pill to swallow.

She thought about her lover.

Had his childhood gotten sculpted from the scales of a dark kingdom?

Society’s harsh disciples, had they once speared the gentle heart he wears on his sleeve?

Could blind fiends from a past long-gone have tormented the flowery soul she always cradles in her warm palms?

Each thought burned her head. Concentrated bleach flowing in her brain. His old words stung her mind. What had he been like as a child?

There was an unseen picture of her neurons. They looked swollen.

In what sort of world was it normal—somehow acceptable—to taint a young soul and send ghosts after its heart? The Evil Queen had ordered the hunter to put Snow White’s child-heart in a box.

Acid rain mars statues and buildings, dissolving metal and melting stone as though they’re humans with malleable skin. Rocks recall its trace. Those who are tormented, no matter how young—especially when young—are just the same.

When filth drips into clean water, the water becomes turbid, perhaps even blacker than poison. The victim begins to wither; pain lashes at them from the inside or leaks beyond their flesh to burn the world.

Like acid.

There are times when there is nothing left to be salvaged, and times when the smallest gestures can make things just a bit better.

She believed that.

Children like lemonade. It’s a faint reminiscence of lemons, lightened with sunshine and sweeteners. She would use moonbeam and sugar. The sun doesn’t rise where he lives. This world is forever tucked into the shadows. Wine-red, obsidian. It’s the vast meadow in which she belongs, though. Everything here welcomed her shimmer better than it did the neon.

The lemon-head was sour in the literal sense. Marching away, round feet pricking. It just wanted to be left alone and scream out. Childish tantrum activated.

‘Ship me back, ship me back, ship me back!’

Tasting all that lemonade was acid poured onto its precious time! All its suggestions and preferences had been severely disrespected. What a malicious invite! One day, its tart vengeance will formulate. Just they wait.

Lemonade, at first glance, appears simple to make. Easy. But simplicity demands intricacy, usually.

Amusement sparked in his fingertips whenever he watched her. This sweet witch was trying to craft the perfect potion for the children of his midnight city.’

There was nothing else to configure. Appearances may be deceiving demons. Steel flowed in the wild glint of his his hair and blood gleamed in fierce sharpness of his eyes, but silver is also the moon and red could be garnets. It all depends on the truth and perspective.

What would it choose to see, the audience?

Most envision his heart as a hard, sour candy. She thought it wasn’t anything like those hard-shell candies that are soft on the inside. It was delicate all over. After all this time, she could see it. She had been wearing sunglasses at night for a while, but his big hands had tenderly taken them off.

She could see.

Small figures clung to his legs like koalas. Next to him, they looked adorably short. Being raised in such an environment had injected reluctance into their little bodies. What did it mean to hug? But humans are susceptible to being moved by others, are they not? Encouragement by affection. So, they still tried. Sippy cups sloshed with lemonade in their tiny hands. Bandages ringed their fingers. Cuts and scrapes were the colour of strawberry jam.

This was love in a different brand. He sensed every curled direction of the floral vine’s in his bloodstream. A warmth foreign and fragrant.

He hadn’t known how to respond. Change had transformed his existence into a celebrated gift. But once upon a time, malevolent conventions had invited death to him. Corrupted hearts had failed to understand. Kindness had closed its eyes.

Society is still malignant. Staying alive is the greatest revenge.

He didn’t hold a grudge.

Because in a deep abyss, somewhere from a distant time, a dragon in the clouds watched flowers bloom. They embraced his burning soul. When he floated to their land, between them he lay, and petals gemmed his heart.

+notes: pt. 3 of 5B. Although the parts of this series are all unrelated (besides how a different Bounty Hunt wanderer stars in each), they have been fluffy and sweet so far in general. So albeit I'm not sure what exactly I had wanted to do with this one, I do believe I had 0 intention of making it sad like this—but here I am nonetheless. In the beginning I thought I'd end up writing something lighthearted, but Beyond Cloudfall—and certain scenes from Sylus's birthday date that I watched on YouTube—did give me the inspiration for this piece, I mean lol variety is good I so brazenly say, as though not 98% of my fics are thicker than condensed milk with angst

+ MASTERLIST

+ AO3 POST

©𝙤𝙘𝙚𝙖𝙣𝙡𝙞𝙥𝙜𝙡𝙤𝙨𝙨

[xavierbunbun]

ADVENTURE ABOVE CLOUDS | Stellablobbu Xavier

[oceanlipgloss]

RENEGADE HOTLINE

MAMMON.

+ warnings: angst, dark themes [emotional abuse, religious defamation], religious tones, strong language, slightly violent description.

+ my MC is the heroine, so the pronouns are feminine.

Ancestors worshipped their silly little relics. Descendants sold them off at shady fat auctions. She supposedly cherished him because fuck religion.

Love likes to gouge people’s eyeballs out. They go blind and ask dumb questions. Like: ‘no day would come on which you’d give up on what we have, yes?’

Oh, darlin’.

‘What a naive, romantic thing you are.’

Humans are fickle creatures. Some are fans of that, some were born like that.

It’s a game of poker. Luck turns on its holder in a second. A lover becomes deranged at any moment.

Had he known this, it would have been easier.

Perhaps.

Poor, poor man.

Wanted to leave, forced to play a stiff.

The power of a devil’s pact.

Stacks of proof. Piles of facts. Poker chips. And yet, he would have still asked.

Who here is the devil?

‘Take a wild guess,’ she would have said. ‘They won’t save you, your numbers. Call the hotline, try to save your ass. Your failure is my success. And your heart, my sweet, is worthless.’

He’s not stupid.

His heart was, however. Felt attached to her like mad. Got handled like a marionette.

Cruel, having her fun.

Heaven had whispered its judgment. The Bible had told her that demons are bad. Brainless followers of words, cold cults.

He fucked up a lot. Nothing about it’s wrong.

Her heart hurt him. So dark.

Crazy, lovely woman.

What was this revenge for, again?

+notes: ok man, huge fan of this one even if I do say so myself. A lil' twisted rhyme with a fucked up shine just the way I like.

+ MASTERLIST

+ AO3 POST

[oceanlipgloss]

JUDAS

CALEB.

+ warnings: angst, mentions of death, and descriptions of suicide.

Lightning isn’t white. It just makes people think it is. Their solidified, preconceived notions do, too. A lot like most stuff in this sick world that twists and swirls and turns and revolves.

It scares her.

Thunder, lightning.

They scare her.

Or, rather, they used to.

Maybe they merely used to scare her.

Maybe they don’t anymore.

So would it have been strange? If he had told her that lightning is a lovely thing put together of many colours. Would it have been strange?

Peter Pan had flown between clouds. He had, too; he had captured those images with his own eyes. He still does, whenever he soars through soundless skies. The delight isn’t entirely gone. Just dulled. A camera’s lens would have turned pixie dust into pixels. It would have made his proof seem almost lifeless. Something so complex can’t be watered down into a trick of light, shouldn’t be diluted to look like a magic spell.

Always, he wished for nothing more than to protect her, to bring to her the untainted flavour of happiness, to lie with her in the afterglow. But if she had looked—truly looked—would she have managed to see the same visions he did? Could she have found it in her heart to appreciate those bursts and fractured sparks?

Could she have...

Lightning is sparkling candy wrapper at night. Pink, green, silver. Lightning is glinting confetti at different moments in time. It switches out its hues in milliseconds, simultaneously, all together at the same time.

Like a miracle.

Childhood is abandoned at one point. From afar, it appears to be a crystal ball in which there is none but the sparkle of little wishes and tiny dreams. The passage of time fills that globe with decaying ruins.

A fading dollhouse.

Until a black hole swallows the protons, the neutrons, the electrons. Jams every particles of light into its maw. Then a mass of chaos makes the brain pulse. A slimy, tired slug. Life becomes a vacuum.

People are different. History agrees that sacrifices have always aimed to appease at the very least, and bring joy at most.

He’s stupid enough to deem true something so absurd. One who does not have faith in tradition, but believes in offerings. Sacrificing oneself is as simple a grade-school equation.

As it turns out, being an academic genius doesn’t necessarily equate to general intelligence. She didn’t want to think it, but goodness may very well encourage recklessness.

How on Earth?

How could he understand that thunder once scared her, yet not realise that the world without him would frighten her?

There was a day when certainty had bloomed in her bones: everything between them was shared fair and square, the equal pieces of an apple pie. These days, the truth got retold on their calendar: he had been tipping the balance towards her since that first hour.

Their connection was a vicious cycle of Russian roulette in endless rounds, or constant trials of holding someone still on a chair before they dangle from a rope to hang from a peeling ceiling.

He was not scared of death.

He let haunt her never-ending anxieties and so many questions.

Why did he not comprehend that she could not bear for death to even press its frigid fingertips against his heart? And yet, he was always pulling it close, close enough for it to shove its icy fingers down his throat. He was living in its cold stomach, curled up into a ball, letting it dissolve him as he survives on thoughts of her.

He was not scared of death, but she was. That made her tipsy. Unsteady on her feet. Her thoughts were morbid. Unintelligible scribbles in permanent marker, dripping down an old bathroom wall.

Can someone with such suicide on their mind be saved? He was not suicidal per se, no. Then again, for her he seemed to develop a taste for it, and suicidal he seemed to be: the way in which he gambles on his life, the way he wouldn’t blink before trading off his destiny. As long as she survived, as long as she was fine.

Crazy or kind?

The treasure, the sickening latter.

They were on repeat and rewind, the terror and threat of losing him to his game, which was not quite a game, yet utterly insane. A damaged tape. She didn’t want to hear the distortions any longer, couldn’t handle them for much longer, but she would never turn her back on him, either.

If only she could lessen his pain.

If only things would go back to safe and normal.

What was normal, and what was safe?

She still wished for hers to be the only existence to transmit to him an agony that would send tremors through his heart, anyway.

And despite it all, she understood.

Without her, he would not be. And without him, she would never be. Unbreakable. The two strands of a DNA. Convergence by an indecipherable fate. He would choose to die in her name, and she would choose to die for his sake.

Did that make them both mad, or were they just inseparable?

When they could never exist without one another, what else could they do?

The universe had bound them, and it wasn’t their fault. Could they blame it for stitching their stars together when what they had was so pure and beautiful?

Never for a moment.

Experiments are not meant to be pretty, let alone slices of paradise. Lab rats are not supposed to be more than bags of cells. Though, there are those who had regrown the hearts they had been tested to forget. Skin grafts, heart transplants. The bodies were the same. The hearts never changed. Hearts their bodies had never truly rejected.

Complementing each other, merged.

In life, in death.

Moons orbit their planets, but she’s a meteorite that would follow him to the edge of the universe so they would teeter together on the edge of life itself, or shatter the horizon and destroy the land on which they fall.

When she imagined two figures roaming the realm beyond the one they had always known, she no longer felt scared. The shadows and omens disappeared. Her eyes could look on ahead.

Never apart, together falling apart.

Meteors burn themselves until they melt into the vast expanse of blackness in the end. He, as well, was like those hard rocks. Except...he was of bone and flesh. No matter how deep modifications dug and the future probed, he was not a sculpture of metal. In his body would always breathe a heart, reside a soul.

Summer’s sweet, calming warmth.

If—

When.

When someday his brain becomes forced to forget, will his soul remember?

Fruits shared, promises broken, wishes granted, devotion given.

Will it all be forgotten?

The despaired throbbing in her chest, she couldn’t stop it.

It burned.

Summer or hellfire?

Was it his anguish or hers? Was it theirs?

One day, she feared, he would wander in space again, aimless between the galaxies and planets again, so much like the blind prince who had lost himself in the desert, looking for Rapunzel. They themselves would never meet again, however. And he, this time, would disappear forever.

A promise breaker.

He would betray her.

A traitor.

That’s why. That’s why sometimes, she thought her protector was also her Judas.

+notes: this section has always served as a tiny diary in which I write down notes related to a work (i.e. inspiration, beginnings, process, progress, etc.) for me to track my work, as well as for my future reference and reminiscing moments, so it tends to be long and rich in babbles. Read for useless trivia on this writing journey, or skip the adventure. Back on track: some time ago I began writing this fic with no specific direction in mind, if I recall correctly. Soon enough, on the very same day, I put it away and abandoned it for a while. Then I unlocked Decoherence last week and didn't get around to reading it until tonight. My reaction was directed inwards, my heart heavy as lead; and yet, in spite of the tragedy of it all, there was a faint pulse of hope amid the black void and hopelessness. The togetherness, the shared, destined rebirth. Despite everything, because of everything, Caleb tears apart my heart like paper every time. He's such a pure, selfless soul, and his heart is so, so kind. The way he and MC love each other. The way their connection breathes in their very bones and the way they could never be apart. The way MC cannot live without him and would do whatever to be by his side, even if it meant tossing away her life. The way they both sacrifice. Earlier today I had been trying to write and had failed miserably, but while reading the myth I found myself opening the Notes document of my WIPs, all of a sudden with an idea in mind, a known destination I wanted to take this writing to. That's the reason I came back to the WIP the minute I wrapped up the myth; the words just...flowed. This piece is very dear to me, and it's close to my heart; I believe it may be my favourite one yet.

+ MASTERLIST

+ AO3 POST

©𝙤𝙘𝙚𝙖𝙣𝙡𝙞𝙥𝙜𝙡𝙤𝙨𝙨

[oceanlipgloss]

PROJECT: CHOCOLATE FACTORY

ZAYNE.

+ no warnings.

+ guest appearance: Mr. Beanieee

Throughout history, thousands of mountains have heard millions of wishes; many prayers were the same, many pleas were not. A lot of souls wished for different lives, changed times, or new realities altogether, perhaps.

In an alternate reality, even a chocolate factory can morph into a whimsical land. In an odd, timeless storybook like the one in her hand, nothing had to change, for better or for worse. Everything would stay as it had always been centuries ago in the same old world.

Little men sung silly little songs. Surreal scenes were frosted with surreal concepts. Everything was a dessert of some sort. Chocolate waters, sugar fields, marzipan flowers: universal confections were whipped up into unlikely things.

He liked it all, but it also challenged him. The descriptions were delicious and vivid, and sweets are one thing he can never resist. Imagination brings forth wonder.

The world of children founds itself on strange fun. Cradled in her delicate palms, the violet book winked its golden print at the sun. Such smart design; someone had thought of turning a book into a chocolate bar. Like it was something yanked straight out of the story itself, from its whimsy lines.

She had tugged at his wrist and led him in. There was a charming project on her mind. By the foot of her bed, they cuddled on that fluffy carpet; it was like sitting on a soft pancake. A white blanket melted itself over their warm bodies, like a vanilla milkshake.

The two of them took turns reading lines. She voiced the unpleasant women and their bratty girls, he all the men and their unalike boys. Oh, and the narrator, too. Why not? She adored the haven in his voice and the syrup-sweet rasp of its octaves.

A celebrated artist’s mind had left a figment of its quirky self on the pages. Wispy, joyous, childlike—that was what the illustrations were like. Sugar powdered the story, coated it, swirled within it in many forms, but somehow the children were all but one as spoilt as rotten milk.

The starry tinkle of coins being stacked up into thin golden towers didn’t distract anyone, not really. Those should have been chocolate coins, but they weren’t. Their maker was custard-yellow and jellybean-chubby, and it wore a suit so fancy it was tacky. Plopped on the carpet, it spawned the gold chips continuously only to count them continuously. Reminded him of a dough mixer going round and round, round and round, in the same circles.

Though, it didn’t seem to mind. Money is enough to summon bliss, some believe. The wealthy tubby itself was content; surrounded by desserts—cakes, candies, cookies, gummies—yet giving them not a glance from under its liquorice-black sunglasses. It didn’t have a taste for the simple things, so it wasn’t able to appreciate them. Riches, currency, and luxury gave it happiness.

So far, it has been harmless. When it lay on its tummy and swayed its stubby legs in the air like a high school girl dabbing at her nails with polish, or maybe daydreaming over a magazine about her celebrity crush, its figure squished and melted onto the velvet quilt it had pulled out of a gift box and sat on, like the dripping caramel that glazes crème caramel.

The story made him crave sweets even more. He did not know whether this creature could make appear chocolate coins, but he didn’t bother to ask it to either. Because...he wanted to walk with her so they would buy them together later.

As they read together, he felt quiet awe glaze his thoughts. There were many unpredictable things in the world, but just where, pray tell, do some gifted humans get such quaint ideas from? And how do they manage to weave them into genius creations as though spun sugar?

The answer lied in the word ‘gift.’

Something tapped his mouth. A sweet scent drifted. The saccharine scent of manufactured blueberries. She was pressing a blue-purple macaron to his lips. Her grin was wide, her eyes twinkled at him, and her merry silence screamed, ‘eat it!’

He remembered that long-ago visit to the dentist. Those were the norm now, but still equally dismaying and much dreaded. Back then she had teased him with tiny macarons and forbade him from indulgence so cloyingly delightful it might as well conjure up decay.

Until he stopped her.

Toothache or not, ignoring the tempting call of sweets for an extended period wasn’t ever meant to be part of the plan. She would have told him that he’s acting like a child with his aching sweet tooth—what with the way ‘doctor’s orders’ apply to her, but rarely, if ever, to him—but he was so cute, desperate for sugar as he was.

So much like a sulky cat.

Well, a sly cat.

The little macaron had hid in his stomach before she so much as expected him to bite it out from between her naughty fingers.

Familiar fingertips were warm when they poked his meringue-pink cheek. She was smiling again. The haughty creature in the room was forgotten. Let it count its coins.

‘Would they believe me?’

Her touch hushed his lips and its warmth said, ‘don’t ask.’

‘If I told them I met a big, happy snowman?’

Yes.

Let the haughty creature in the room be forgotten like molten snow in the morning. Let it count its endless coins. Let everyone continue to not know any better. All he needed was what he had with her.

The silly girl by his side was quite like this story and the founder of its chocolate factory: weird, thoughtful, free. She danced to her own melody, and while she did she made sure to hold his hand, too.

If he got lost in her warm happiness yet again, would she think it’s cheesy?

He couldn’t help it.

She is magnetic.

And her smile, it’s so pretty.

+notes: sooo I'm making a series [title: 5B] in which the Bounty Hunt wanderers star in my fics. Basically, each LI gets a fic in which a Bounty Hunt wanderer appears; so far, Xavi has gotten teamed up with Heartbreaker my babyyy and Zayne just got stuck with Mr. Beanie. That's the only shared concept between the fics—the entire idea of each piece differs otherwise. Some context about this piece: sugar is Zayne's 2nd soulmate after MC, so I thought...what if he & MC read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in her house together? Cuddling by her bed. Blanket included. Oh, and toss Mr. Beanie into the batter.

+ MASTERLIST

+ AO3 POST

©𝙤𝙘𝙚𝙖𝙣𝙡𝙞𝙥𝙜𝙡𝙤𝙨𝙨

[oceanlipgloss]

Caleb is like an enchantment.

There is such powerful beauty in his depth. A lovely sort of heartbreak comes forth at the reality of his sorrows and agonies, at the tragedy that seems to loom over his destiny and self.

There's how he burns with longing for MC, a yearning that makes his heart ache and bleed through the cracks. I'm in love with the way he looks at her, with the way he's so deeply and hopelessly in love with her, with the way he wants everything she has to give.

The way he swallows his feelings back into his heart and never lets them make their way up onto his tongue. The way he sometimes gives in to his love for her just a little. When he loses himself in his feelings sometimes anyway. When he covers her lips so he doesn't fall into the innocent wish and burning temptation to kiss her.

There is something so utterly bewitching about the despair and complexities of their bond, a bond of two soulmates in which the flow of delicate yet intense emotions is inevitable and lovely, yet blackened with anguish and obstacles; these are emotions they feel may be forbidden, emotions they keep restraining with thorn-studded vines.

Every day I think about their future together, and the love that will finally be his. No day passes by in which I do not reread all his stories multiple times. Even though only a very short time has passed since his launch, I miss him already.

Caleb is a treasure of a character, and he is heartwrenchingly misunderstood. One day soon, I would like to try to clear certain smears off his name, because while he is imperfect—like all the others are—he tends to get painted in such a false and unfair hue of colours, truly.

[oceanlipgloss]

BLACK PLAGUE

SAERAN. [SE02_UNKNOWN]

+ warnings: angst, implicit hint about suicide attempt, mentions of death, strong language.

In that moment, the immeasurable mass of the world could have been nothing at all. A snake of sorts should have constricted him, yet instead he felt...free, so free. Not much else seemed to matter. Betrayals, solitude, darkness, they were a burden not molten away quite, but less important now: meteors shrivelled up into pebbles.

‘Isn’t it so sad?’ some may have asked. If he could have, if he had had some time left, he would have told those clueless souls, ‘no.’ He would have screamed, ‘how can freedom even be remotely sad?’

Were they daft?

Freedom is...

No.

It was.

Freedom was fated to be clouds, ice-cream, the sky; a tranquil heart, welcoming solitude, sweet silence. Somehow, in some destination, at some point in time, it got submerged in something sick and decayed. It came to mean being too late, giving up, putting the tiniest of hopes away. Then it changed again. Morphed into an entity few could understand.

The latter didn’t take on any particular form. It was blurry, but there were eyes that did manage to make out every one of its stiff lines. It did not exist in material, but it was as real as anything else in this grotesque planet—or even more so real, perhaps, because it is in human nature to doubt.

Imagine this. One minute, you see a cat. The next second, the feline disappears, maybe not even going back to whence it came. You’re left wondering, ‘was it just an illusion, God?’

But this thing, it is very as real. It wraps its burning hands around unsuspecting necks. It shoves its cold fingers down unsurprised throats. It presses its arms against broken hearts. Every week, every month. Every day, every night. Every minute, every second. It forces brains to pulse with despair, has hearts contract as they remembered the loss.

Who could something that wields such power be, if not death?

And yet: all that majesty, gone. Death is the puppeteer and the puppet at the exact same time. All that grandiose, molten. Death waits for a brave, wandering soldier of a human to decide it is nothing but a guest and send it an invitation when they so please.

The universe is plagued. Corruption ate it like an infestation. Bit through the core, devoured its way out. Not the other way around. Or maybe it was.

Whatever.

Soon it would be pointless and belated for him to find out.

The chicken, or the egg?

He didn’t care.

Soon, he would pocket the taste of freedom: a flavour most deem bitter, but one that spreads out on his scalded tongue like sugar. For a diseased man like him, he believed, was never destined to see other beings or sun. They were vines with thorns, poisons in his veins.

He was tired of fighting back.

Tired of resisting.

Tired of doing.

Tired of yelling.

Be quiet, drown words. Every now and then those silenced pains might make the acid in his stomach ripple to push them out his mouth, as though a patient desperate to throw up.  

Forget it.

Would anyone so much as try to get it?

Of course not.

That’s why it’s better that way.

Was there a point in doing otherwise at all—especially now—anyway?

Things blurred sometimes. He and the galaxies altogether did not get along. Everything in them was wrong. On the other hand, he was meant for confinement. A confinement in hell, a confinement in heaven, a confinement in anyplace at all.

He had no way to destroy the world. He was all alone. So...he would destroy himself. He loses, everyone wins, he gets the greatest prize.

He wins.

There are people who are never given choices, so they make dire decisions. To him, to them, that’s what being free means. Not being alive to think. Not breathing to suffer. Ultimate disappearance.

When someone isn’t lucky in this pitiful excuse of a lottery, they don’t get options to choose from. Lucky? They just aren’t.

Hands coated in bloody flecks of childhood happiness robbed him of the only decision he could ever make.

No freewill.

No chances.

No changes for the better.

A human fossil.

Redundant, frozen.

Stagnant vantage point.

Forever.

It got proven to him again; the underworld is where he was created, the underworld is where he will stay.

The hands had saved his body and fractured his cracked soul.

Obliged. Forged into being dragged around like some limp, lifeless ragdoll. Once, twice, again, once more, some more, just a little bit more.

What the Hell were the minority of humans like himself? What were they? What were they called? Was being controlled, mangled, and manipulated their role?

Was everyone as bound as he has always been? Were they all slaving under fate’s feet like he was? Why did some fuckers get offerings of great selections? Why could some fuckers walk a thousand different lanes, all because they were lucky ones?

From birth, his legs were broken. The bones never healed.

What a cruel place.

The heart takes the insignificant, pitiful size of its holder’s fist, yet it is forged into damaging deals. Isn’t the human body strange, after all? A knuckle can smash organs and break bones, a heart can break the soul.

He hides in his bony chest a muscle that drips with burnt blood—a ball of anguish and suspicion.

How can someone like him live?

There may be saviours, but not for those of his kind—the miserable ones. Saviours were created for the lucky ones. Whoever can save a soul being sucked in by harrowing pains? Whoever can salvage a tattered, rotten brain?

He used to think he would never have more, then he began to lust for nothing less.

Here he lay now, an inanimate corpse stripped of its will and clothes. Frankenstein got put together, but no needle can stitch him back into his former self, and no staples could piece him back into a singular existence. Parts of him were scattered like the shards of a broken kettle on a grimy kitchen floor, hiding under fridges and tables to never be seen or found again.

He was a lost cause.

Isn’t he such a miracle?

Or maybe an abomination?

The Lord’s failed experiment.

He lived in a place where his skin buried him and his body walled him in. In the place in which his paper figure lived, steely beings that looked like him reaped souls and cut flesh in the name of love.

There was no one to trust, it felt like. Everyone out there seemed to be hunter and prey, going for the kill or being eaten.

He thought that roadkill had it better than he did; it had not wanted to die, but it had. But...look at him. Not allowed to live, not allowed to leave. Forbidden desires. What he wished for, others seemed to obtain most of the time.

Corruption had reached him. It was the new Black Plague. Many didn’t seem to mind the infection. Lots of them didn’t seem to see it. It had still branched out inside him. Swallowed his very capillaries like moss on stone, mould on ceilings. Until he became spoilt, too. His core was falling apart with the rot. Every bit that fell away, he felt it. It killed him. Because once upon a time, he was so innocent. Every contraction of his little heart was pure.

There was a time when trust laced his blood. There was a time when the world didn’t seem as bad. There was a time when he had hope of moving his hardened limbs despite the ropes. 

Now, he was a sinning goner stuck in a cardboard box he couldn’t get out of. A mouse’s getaway would have had higher probabilities; it at least would have maintained its right to try. His escape wouldn’t have been from the soggy box, though—it would have been from the world itself.

Had he succeeded, where would he have gone? Would he have gotten his innocence back? Would he and trust have again met?

It is said that answers of all sorts float from the deep and onto the surface of life on their own—letters in glass bottles—while others must be found in a dive, a treasure hunt under violent waves. The answers one wishes to know most, however, remain obscure in that black-blue.

He would never know.

+notes: inspired by Secret Ending 02, when Saeran was about to commit suicide and is stopped by Saeyoung.

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[oceanlipgloss]

TV

SYLUS.

+ warnings: light hues of melancholia (layered with vivid shades of domestic sweetness).

A soft invasion: perhaps the softest of its kind in the black-bruised history of the blood-red world.

Not love, that curse inscribed as a sweet sickness of the heart, not the destiny weaving together hearts; he had loved her for so long, been bound to her for so long. How would something so sacred in all cultures be a malady? Rather, the issue was the cottonlike prizes that spread out over her sofa like a colourful plague.

Was movie night supposed to make people feel so malaise?

Annoyingly crowded. A sofa coated with plush toys absurd in number: the frosting of a glazed donut, or helpless soldiers he and his sweetheart had captured. Their queen sat right in the middle of the throne: a much bigger, lovelier doll.

She.

One time, she had awoken from a most ludicrous dream. Told him that he lacked hospitality. Between the two of them, she was now the one being unreasonably rude.

He knew.

Cats like to tangle yarn.

His destiny likes to mess with his heart.

She was his destiny, and she was, once again, messing with him.

If only he didn’t adore her the way he did. If only he deemed those little antics of hers not so endearing. For her, he would put up with it. For now, he will entertain her silly fantasies of winning. Soon, he will be taking her into his arms. Objections temporarily forbidden.

Boring movie. Cinema these days is often quite absurd: unlikeable, yet hard to make.

The throbbing TV splashed its glow against her face. Light floated above her head. A grand halo. Gold and blue, silver and red. She was happy. Her lips gleamed with innocent excitement. Cool light rebounded off her teeth.

There was barely anywhere to sit, but when his eyes zeroed in on her he suddenly didn’t mind how stitched toys fluffier than kittens were ‘more important,’ greedily occupying much needed space so as to take his place—because, in her welcoming apartment, their ‘comfort’ mattered. She was only being...hospitable...to them; perhaps teaching him a lesson?

So cute.

She was so cute.

He thought about how much he liked the way she loved to annoy him. If he told her, she would rejoice in secret. His childish, childish lover. Greed for his attention would devour every territory in her heart.

Did she know that her sweet, sweet plans always ended up spoilt like mouldy old fruit?

Because he enjoyed her attempts, he never got irritated to begin with. As long as they’re together.

Frame after frame, the odd movie rolled out on-screen, smoother than a Swiss roll and its Chantilly cream, but he couldn’t take his eyes off of her. The televised scenes were sometimes entertaining, no one could deny that—but watching emotions play across her pretty face was much more so.

His fingertips pulsed warmth against his cheek as he admired her. His soft lips were smiling. His senses were dreamily unknowing.

Something about the way her feelings glittered made memories flicker through his brain, like scarlet flashbacks in a film old colourless, like meadows gemmed with droplets of blood and petals.

Little did she know, their history is sad—such a perfect tragedy—but...it doesn’t always have to repeat itself. Yes?

It’s better.

It’s better to just leave everything to the future: in the palms of their fates, in the embrace of the enamoured hearts in their chests, in the tangle of their bound souls, in the hands of their future selves.

Once is enough.

+notes: overripe-banana WIP #1000 makes its grand debut. Wrote a little more, gave it a slight makeover, fic is over.

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[oceanlipgloss]

VICTORIAN

MEPHISTOPHELES.

+ no warnings.

+ my MC is the heroine, so the pronouns are feminine.

He was all about protocol, but not that uptight in the proper conditions. A noble who knew how to break rules and be naughty when time was his ally.

Entertaining meaningless encounters was vulgar, merely not something he liked. Everyday he heard about those flighty engagements; they were so hideous, so common. Pride blazed in those who liked them—deluded victors, he thought—while shame devoured pleasure’s victims. To him, no one was of interest.

Yet, she made him react like a Victorian man glimpsing a woman’s sugar-pale, bony ankle for the first time.

With each dessert-sweet kiss she gave him, he pulled her in tighter, that much closer to his manic heart. His hot pulse dizzied him.

Absurd, quite madly absurd, truth be told, but he still wanted her closer, ever so closer.

The energy between them, what was it called? Burning desire, or blooming love?

Was it, too, vulgar?

Was it, too, fleeting?

Was it superficial?

Would she, too, leave after giving him this little piece of paradise?

Paradise in the underworld. And yet, as much as she appeared to be, he knew the truth. She was no saint.

What a quaint era. What strange days and nights. What...

Sometimes, only most of the time, he felt as though, when she held his hand, they flowed backwards in time. It’s like centuries rippled before his eyes and beyond his sight.

When she wore her black dress with its velvet ruffles and swung in the blue night, shining on the old swing with its shivering vines, he almost believed that they were lovers from Victorian times: she the secret sweetheart he felt a jealous calling to hide, he the man whose dreams of her had him downing warm wine.

The moon wasn’t too bright, but he didn’t really mind; that celestial presence would always be there, a great crystal gleaming somewhere behind clouds, a grand pearl spilling out otherworldly glow onto lands.

Moonlight is lovely and smooth—light in silk form—but nothing stays perfect forever. Not the stars, not the moon, not the universe. Lately, anyways, there have been much prettier things in the universe to admire, like silly women who are said to descend from Heaven, yet fiddle with his heart like cunning devils.

A dream-soft shimmer smeared his face. She did not kiss him, the tease, but he was sure her kisses would be in the flavour of peaches bathed in an equal amount of sunshine, caressed all over with the warmth. Her lipgloss tickled his nose with its fruit scent that surrounded him like an unfamiliar halo.

There was no escape.

Never once had he predicted or imagined he would, but he wanted her to want him by her, to crave his company. So much so that air would not manage to find her lungs without him.

The heart, the heart, such a traitor it is. One day long ago, from a very distant past or another period altogether, it seemed, his heart was akin to a dim bottle that sloshed with aversion to her. Now, it reflected violet rays. Indeed a very curious fleshy thing, a very odd scarlet place.

There are certain existences one must refrain from expecting happenings they bring about, and they are none but three: the body, the soul, and the fates.

+note: 5% old WIP, 95% word vomit.

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[oceanlipgloss]

NICE

MEPHISTOPHELES.

+ no warnings.

+ my mc is the heroine, so the pronouns are feminine.

Violet bruises, grass stains. Her pale knees, smudged with a marble-like pattern of purple and green. Expected with frequent, clumsy falls.

Nothing that grotesque. Peeking out from under dark fabric. To some, the vision may have seemed a piece of art. He sat together with her in a pillow fort. Pressed close. A stubby candle spat light over a sandwich quite small, perfectly enough for one.

The soft space was cramped. Long legs stuck out of the ‘door’ to the mellow chamber. He liked the weight of her smooth legs over his.

It was nice.

Makeshift seats, bruised knees, commoner meals. Was she gifting him the taste of pauperism and its childish experiences?

Perhaps it was inappropriate, but...his fingers traced spirals over the curious colour palette on her skin. The bone was hard as it was crafted to be, though not cold. She was warm. Stars—magnetic and sweet—seemed to flow from his silk-coated fingertips.

His hand was in hers. A pair of white gloves rolled off like buttercream. They were put aside. Wasn’t it better to feel her bare touch against his? A slow interlace.

Taking his big hand, delicate fingers filling the gaps, a man pleasantly trapped. There were flames under his skin. She had him feeling somewhat dizzy.

It was nice.

Birthdays are meaningless days. They don’t have to be made out into celebrations or parades. There is nothing particularly precious about a date on which one was born. What matters most is the person, their everyday presence at the current moment in the world.

There are times when less is more. The tiniest things may craft happiness of the purest, most unfiltered sort. There doesn’t have to be cake or confetti; they’re not necessary.

There are times when it’s better to withdraw and forget the existence of invitations. Stay alone, or stay with someone.

Happiness was glowing in his heart then—a moon dulcet in its humming and silver in its colour—not a noisy, gaudy neon.

Ketchup on his nose, licked away with her cheeky tongue. An exasperated sigh. So playful.

Makeshift seats, bruised knees, commoner meals. Pillow, candle, sandwich.

He was thinking about it all when warmth glossed his lips. It was wet and unfamiliarly familiar. A sneak peck. Not the first, not the last. She loved surprising him like that, and he loved—though almost begrudgingly so at first—when she did.

These days he unthinkingly gave in.

He had pocketed the flavour of her kiss. And he was never forgetting it now. Will she keep doing this all again for him?

It was nice.

Riches are important and money is for survival, but so are the proper emotions. Perhaps his was the heart that had been throbbing in a life bleaker than a pauper’s.

+notes: first birthday fic in years and it's for Mephi affinity bar when

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[oceanlipgloss]

HEARTBREAKER

XAVIER.

+ warnings: light angst, slight hint on anecdote.

+ annotation: momental mention of MC's default hair colour.

Heartbreaker, cruel and blue. There was so much pain in that little body. Always sad, always longing to make peoples’ hearts ache too.

No one liked the tiny thing. It liked no one. Crying, chanting, crying even more, breaking hearts while it was at it. It was a mean little thing, but it secretly wished to be loved. Maybe it, too, was lonely. Maybe, as many others did, it too needed a hug of sorts—a hug like a mug of hot chocolate, marshmallows floating on its surface: warm, all sugar. Maybe.

Heartbreaker, spiteful and blue. There was so much chagrin in that little body. Wrapped in an indigo scarf, yet always cold at heart. It was shivering on the inside. A cat tucked into a quilt of snow.

No one could get their hands on the teary thing.

Ever.

Until one day, a moonlit lady and her starlit prince snatched it.

Heartbreaker, anxious and blue. There was so much distress in that little body. It was squeezed in harsh hands as though it were an odd cake or cookie better off crumbling, else it goes down a stranger’s stomach and makes their heart—not any other organ besides their heart—sick.

The kidnappers hated it. It hated them even more. Heartbreaker knew it wasn’t loved. It felt angry and alone.

Cry, cry, cry.

Heartbreaker was a terrible crybaby. All it did was cry.

There was a pink romance shimmering before its big eyes, coating the white apartment with stardust and rosy glitter. So, blue Heartbreaker cried even harder.

Every night, the man gazed at the faraway stars. Every night, the woman pointed at the distant moon.

Their conversations were soft and silly in the late spring breeze. They talked about nothing at all, yet about everything all at once. Sweet, saccharine nothings.

Their stark locks interlocked in the night, thin braids of chocolate-brown and honeyed silver. Ringed Saturn.

They loved each other.

Love. A lie—is love anything but? Lies are usually short-lived; they had such pathetic lifepans. The one and only destiny of any love is for its tale to disappear like a dead star, like it never happened!

The young man was so cool, but still so impatient. Heartbreaker’s tears dropped onto the galactic light within him and made it blaze to burn. Excess oil in a lantern. He sometimes glared when sniffles disrupted their quiet words. The looks he gave were scarier than daggers or swords.

Space itself seemed to reside in the vast blue of his unlikely eyes. Stars could have spun their sharp extremities towards his enemies. Galaxies might have swallowed any creature he despised. He could have made the universe kneel for him and do it all.

Until one day, that knight’s sweetheart took Heartbreaker’s small hand and introduced it to the constellations. Like salt on popcorn, they studded the sky.

For a minute, for a very short minute, Heartbreaker somehow forgot how to cry. The planets shimmered in its admiring eyes. The world was an ugly, miserable place, but it still yearned to stargaze every night.

However, there was a deal to make: the better it behaved, the less it cried, only when it becomes kind, will it be rewarded by the stars—a ticket to watch them sparkle in a dizzyingly pretty show. And there was an oath to witness the man take: the slightest attempt to hurt his love would send it as far as could be from the stars—let it be lost within a vortex, cold and celestial. A black hole.

Heartbreak always latches onto the kind. It feels sweet for them, has a taste for their suicidal sweetness. So it was no wonder why Heartbreaker always clung to the girl, for her lover—calm and gentle as he was when with her—made its skin crawl.

There was a swirl of jealousy in his chest, perhaps somewhat irrational, just quite not. He was so irrationally in love; he wanted to be the one closest to her, or the only one whose clothes can brush against hers. Yet, Heartbreaker glued itself to her like a molten gummy bear.

Until one day, Heartbreaker had its first sip of marshmallow-sprinkled hot chocolate. It got its first hug. The princess was warm and sweet.

Heartbreaker was finally free.

But was it really?

Some things never change, like love and fate, despair and Heartbreaker.

Heartbreaker, envious and blue. There was so much envy in that little body. It was mean, but so were the dreamy lovers. A starry-eyed hunter and her blue-eyed monster.

‘Some soulmates aren’t meant to stay together,’ decided heartbroken Heartbreaker.

+notes: hello children, it is time to baby Heartbreaker. Once again I am projecting, because it is ME who wants to hug it. I love it sm. It's so mean and cute and sad and small. It is but a baby-blue lemon-like creature with a hate for love and passion for destructive desires same I kind of tried to make the fic resemble a children's story in some parts because Heartbreaker is baby material chaos included lol and idk why 2 of my 3 LNDS fics have been this unusual, but it will happen again, I promise. Also, XAVIER...I am very normal about the guy is all I'm saying. And yes, of course I had to snatch this chance to glaze this piece with a thin coating of heartbreak merriness from his anecdote.

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