i’m cheating because i drew this last week but just so happened to fit with the prompt for day 1 - letters ♥ time zones may be working against me so i’ll leave this here and goodnight!
ANNOUNCING THE FIRST ANNUAL EGG WEEK: A BECAUSE YOU’LL NEVER MEET ME FAN CELEBRATION!
Wait, what does that mean?
It means we’re going to have a fandom week for Because You’ll Never Meet Me! (and Nowhere Near You, naturally)
When is it?
November 22nd-29th. Officially at least, late and early postings are still cool cause sometimes life happens and we get that (most of us are in the US and Thanksgiving is that week so, we get it).
So what will this fandom week entail?
Art! Fic! Meta! Screaming! Probably tears. Basically whatever you want! Egg Week is the fandom going “we like talking about BYNMM so much lets have a whole week dedicated to it”.
It’s also a great excuse to finish any fan projects you already had in the works, but we’re also going to have various themes, challenges, and meta questions throughout the week to help guide and inspire. Themes and questions will be announced next week and challenges will be posted the day of throughout the week
Sounds neat! How do I participate?
Post your BYNMM/NNY related stuff and enjoy! Tag it with #eggweek2017 so that others can find it, and that we can reblog it here.
Should we submit our stuff to you?
I mean...you could? But don’t you want those sweet, sweet notes yourself? If you want to make sure the tag doesn’t eat your post and we see it you can also tag it Blunderkinder.de and/or Blundereier (we track those too). Or mention us in the post! (especially for the challenges ;D)
But wait, I’m a random passerby who has no idea what this “BYNMM” or Egg Week thing is?
You can read about BYNMM and the origins of Egg Week here at our FAQ. Or better yet, just get the book here and then join us! (plz)
Eggs?
Long story. Inside joke. read about it here.
Any other questions? You can direct them here and we’ll be happy to answer them.
For Egg Week, started by @blunderkinder!! This smol letter from Ollie to Moritz was so much fun to write.
What’s happening, Morizzle Farbizzle? I know that you’re super busy and everything on your American tour, looking for your mom and all, but I demand attention from you. DEMAND, I SAY! I COMMAND YOU TO RESPOND TO EVERY LETTER I SEND YOU! HENCEFORTH! ERGO!
I’d better just get to the point. I know that I should probably keep these letters short, but this is my third time trying to write this in the most concise way possible without wasting any of your time with Ollie silliness. You and Fieke are in America! Don’t waste all of your time listening to my dumb ramblings when you could be face-to-face with the world’s largest ball of twine. I’d love to know how you would see it— you’d probably have more appreciation for it than anyone else in the whole world. You could see all of the detail put into it, the individual strings, all of the dust collected on it, showing the wear and the age of the thing…
Anyway, I’m getting off topic. I’m writing this because of something that I just realized happened when we met, Moritz. Something that doesn’t make me feel so lonely while you’re hanging out with eight million feet of twine and Fieke Abend.
Isn’t it funny how we can see each other’s heartbeats? I mean, I kind of can see yours; the pulsating silver near the center of your chest that beat steadily and oh-so-calmly. I definitely can’t see it the way that you see mine, though— I don’t hear the blood coursing through your veins, traveling from the very bottom of your tiniest phalange’s distal phalanx to the very top of your parietal bone. But that didn’t make it any less impressive— that steady silver beating created the most beautiful rhythm in my head, a rhythm that I tap on my fingers even when you’re thousands of miles away from me.
I guess that’s all I wanted to say. I miss you, Moritz. I want to hear about everything that you’re doing as soon as you do it, but I think that me being unable to use a cell phone kind of messes that up.
Instead, the rhythm of your heartbeat is keeping me connected to you while we’re so far away from each other. All electricity is alive to me, Moritz, but seeing that pacemaker keeping you going was the most fascinating thing I’ve ever seen. That tiny little silver light inside of your chest is better than the whole skyline of Chicago. Even better than standing next to the Bean in the center of the city, which was pretty amazing. You’re better than the Bean, Moritz.
I’ve been thinking about the best way to describe what silver looks like to you. It’s the sound that you hear when your fork and knife hit up against each other and the entire room is silent so everyone stares at you. It’s the sound that you hear when bells jingle and when someone plays the triangle, or exactly what you’d imagine Tinker Bell to sound like. Maybe you could even hear silver in water that’s leaking from the sink when you thought you shut it off completely.
I don’t want to write too much and waste all of your time. I hope that you’ll get back to me soon, but don’t worry about it if you’re too busy. I miss you.
For egg week 2017 I decided to rewrite Nowhere Near You from Owen’s perspective. He’s a great character and I just want him to be loved tbh. So, please enjoy~
Fandom: Because You’ll Never Meet Me- Leah Thomas
Word count: 1,702
Read on Ao3 here
“Ich bin hier.”
It’s what I’ve been signing to Fieke for as long as I can remember. Sometimes angrily, sometimes in self-pity, sometimes as if to remind myself.
“Ich bin hier!” I am here.
See me.
Talk to me; let me respond with shaking hands, with pen, with music notes spilling from a stage. Allow me to tell you my secrets.
Using anything but this void- this voiceless mouth.
I hand him a book, tapping the spine so he can see it. “Orchid”, I mouth. We’re volunteering in the school’s library, arranging the children’s books in rainbow order.
“How is orchid a color? It is already a plant. Is that not enough of a thing to be?”
I try to hold back a smile, and he elbows me. Leaning into him, I keep tapping the spines, pretending I can hear notes coming together.
He doesn’t meet my eyes. He can see me without doing so. The dull purple reflects in the black of his goggles.
Him, lacking eyes; me, lacking a tongue. Sometimes I wonder if we make up for each other’s emptiness, or if this just makes the both of us worse. Creating black holes in the inches between us.
He sees using sound- some kind of echolocation. So I’m always tapping, trying to illuminate the world. Or maybe just myself.
Ich bin hier.
“If you can’t handle work this simple,” the librarian, Frau Pruwitt, says, “how do you expect to get along in a respectable school?”
She’s not talking to me.
I hear his breath catch, sense his anxiety. I start tapping. My nervous energy rushes the beat.
Flowing water escapes my reach.
“Tomorrow,” I trace carefully on his arm, “come over.”
I laugh at his questioning reply.
“It’s a surprise!”
And it takes him a minute to meet my eyes. But when he does, he’s smiling.
My phone chimes.
Gutschein? (“Rain check?”)
I can’t help but worry.
Ist alles ok? (“Is everything ok?”)
I imagine text-to-speech reading my message to him, explaining the words trapped inside a flat surface. Impossible for him to see.
Ich habe erkrankt. Es tut mir so leid. (“I’ve fallen ill. So sorry.”)
It could easily be a lie, but I want to believe in him more than that. Still, it’s difficult. I feel like I'm making a song with all the wrong notes.
Even a change of key can’t fix it.
He’s not home. I leave his gift- an orchid- with his father.
Surprise.
Get well soon.
I pull out my phone once I’m back home. Of course, Fieke is furious at him. She’s my sister- the only family I have left. Of course she’s protective. I just want to know the truth.
Hey, Moritz. Looks like you decided to surprise me today instead. Frau Pruwitt said you left angry. But we could have talked about it. You didn’t have to lie. You never asked me what I thought about you switching schools. You clam up! But I know that if I had a chance to leave Bernholdt-Regen, you would send me on my way. I’ll miss your frown. But Kreiszig isn’t that big.
It doesn’t take long for him to respond.
Some of the schools aren’t in Kreiszig.
Owen?
I pause.
Yes?
I’m apologizing. Profusely.
Another pause. A breath of hesitation. I hope it doesn’t knock down this house of cards I’ve built.
Apologize in person.
In person?
You said “rain check”. That part better not have been a lie!
It wasn’t a lie.
“Owen,” he whispers. “I haven’t apologized.”
“Owen. The orchid smelled like cinnamon.”
I am here. For the first time, it’s for someone else.
“If you think this is going to get you closer to him somehow- wake up. He’ll think you’re an idiot or he’ll think you’re being cute. He doesn’t take you seriously.” Fieke rants. We’re sitting in the pub, as usual.
All I can do is sign furiously in response, filled with the urge to scream.
Back off.
I know.
I just want a chance.
Of course, he appears. I pick up my phone, tap away at my latest project. Fail to block out their conversation.Their voices raise, and when I look up, the air has changed to ice and fire.
“We...”
“Us...”
“Our...”
I gaze at the two in disbelief. When did I become an accessory? When did I lose what little voice I had left?
Fieke slams her fist on the table.
I stand. I walk to the empty microphone in the front of the bar. Clutching it in my hands, I make eye contact with them. I stand on the tiny stage, mouthing the same words I always have. Yet, I’m silent.
“Ich bin hier.”
“Ich bin hier.”
“Ich bin hier!”
I am here.
See me.
It’s 4 am.
I want to listen. If you want to speak.
I’m angry. But I still respond.
If you’re doing this out of pity, forget it!
You shouldn’t believe everything your sister says.
Leave her out of it. And you’re still talking down to me.
I’m sorry. It isn’t intentional.
It never is. People think that being silent is the same as having nothing to say. It’s not.
I don’t think you have nothing to say. Your actions speak volumes. Tomes of chronicles of volumes.
You can never say things simply.
Things: simply.
And you have a terrible sense of humor!
God. I can never stay mad.
You mean a great deal to me, Owen.
I need to hear that more.
Love you.
He doesn’t respond. I knew he wouldn’t.
I walk into the pub nearly an hour late. I’m still surprised he got there first.Tapping on my phone, I slide into the chair across from him. Only when I’m finally done do I pull out a pen and start writing on a napkin.
Why did you want to see me Moritz.
“Why wouldn’t I?”
Our conversation is long and fruitless. Frankly, it just leaves me exhausted. He’s constantly busy; am I not allowed to be?
Eventually, I fill up the last space on the napkin.
Have to go, DJing downtown.
He offers to come. And though he’s abysmal at reading sign language, I refuse to pull out another napkin; it’ll just invite more conversation.
I have to repeat myself, but he gets the message.
“I don’t want you to.”
I manage to leave without revealing my feelings once.
He shows up at my apartment a few days later. Fieke leaves immediately.
We exchange small smiles as the atmosphere slowly shifts from fear to comfort and back again.
“What are you up to?” He sits next to me and gingerly places his head on my shoulder.
I turn my computer screen away, before belatedly realizing the movement was pointless. He can’t see screens.
I type into my computer, the electronic voice reading my answer. “I set up a text-based role-playing forum. Weeks ago.”
His expression turns surprised, then vaguely interested. When he questions me further, I explain the premise to him. “This is an MORPG about the lives of superhuman kids created in a secret laboratory on the edge of Germany’s Tharandt Forest. Set a decade ago.”
He sits up, borderline panicked. “Beg pardon?”
It’s where he lost his eyes- as a child stuck in a laboratory that his mother ran. They were trying to fix his heart, he told me. They altered his genetic code when he was only a fetus. Obviously, it failed. He not only lost his eyes, but his heart doesn’t work properly either. He still uses a pacemaker.
The scientists experimented on other kids too. Dozens, now scattered across the world- each with a different mutation.
I’m not one of them.
I explain further, “I’m trying to connect with the kids you knew…”
“How could you do this?”
I half close my laptop. This isn’t what I wanted.
“I did this for you. I thought you’d want to meet the others.”
“No. I only wish to meet one of them.”
As he slowly inches away, I understand.
Of course.
A boy he’s been writing to for nearly two years. Who he’s known for longer than he’s known me. A boy who lives over 8,000 km away, in the middle of America. A boy who I wrote to recently.
The boy who helped me create this forum.
I wonder if he knows.
I can’t bring myself to ask.
Our argument is long and by the end I thought I’d run out of both patience and misery. But when I kick him out and slam the door, I sob.
The next time I see him, I’m with a boy who introduced himself as Max. We’re standing outside his university. It’s the same one Moritz goes to.
When Moritz comes near us, I can tell that something’s off. He reacts far too slowly, walks unsteadily. Max doesn’t see a problem. He walks forward, claps Moritz on the back.
“Nice to see you. This is… well, he’s very quiet. I didn’t get his name.”
“His name’s Owen,” he responds.
I don’t bother signing.
The last time I see Moritz is at the airport- overall, a fitting spot for a goodbye. Fieke is leaving with him. Somehow, they ended up working everything out. I know now that we weren’t meant to.
Others from the forum came to meet him; he ended up using it after all. They’re the ones who helped him locate his mother. He’s leaving for America to meet her. Maybe he’ll see the boy too.
He turns to me last. I can tell he wants to speak, so I hold up a finger. Scrawling in a notebook, I hold it out to him.
Moderator. Username bachandbeyond
Like the others, I introduced myself using my titles from the forum.
“Owen.”
I can feel his regret.
“All you’ve done. The board. This flight. I could thank you a thousand times, and you’d deserve more.”
I’m trying to pinpoint my feelings. I’m not vexed, or even sad anymore. It’s bittersweet. There’s nothing left of us, is there?
Here’s the official Theme and Prompt list for Egg Week! Other questions and daily challenges will be posted day of throughout the week.
Day 1 (22nd) - Heartbeat
Letter: n. 1. a written or printed communication addressed to a person or organization and usually transmitted by mail. 2. a symbol or character that is conventionally used in writing and printing to represent a speech sound and that is part of an alphabet. 3. often, letters. a formal document granting a right or privilege.
Day 2 (23rd) - Family
Superhero: n. a hero, especially in children's comic books and television cartoons, possessing extraordinary, often magical powers.
Day 3 (24th) - Theatrics
Haircut: n. 1. an act or instance of cutting the hair. 2. the style in which the hair is cut and worn.
Day 4 (25th) - Egg
Egg?: The contents of an egg or eggs amount.
Day 5 (26th) - Travel
Humidifier: n. a device for increasing the amount of water vapor in the air of a room or building, consisting of a container for water and a vaporizer.
Day 6 (27th) - Last
Goggles: n. 1. large spectacles equipped with special lenses, protective rims, etc., to prevent injury to the eyes from strong wind, flying objects, blinding light, etc. 2. a bulging or wide-open look of the eyes; stare.
Day 7 (28th) - School
Click: n. a slight, sharp sound. v. to emit or make a slight, sharp sound, or series of such sounds. (informal) to succeed. to fit together. to become intelligible.
Day 8 (29th) - Celebration
Spark: n. 1. an ignited or fiery particle such as is thrown off by burning wood or produced by one hard body striking against another. 2. the light produced by a sudden discontinuous discharge of electricity through air or another dielectric; the discharge itself. 3. anything that activates or stimulates; inspiration or catalyst.
Ollie didn’t care much about hair for a while. He didn’t care that his mother was terrible at keeping his blonde fluff even, and he didn’t care much when Auburn-Stache would nick his ears as he shaved around them with his razor to give him enough space to look into his ears without catching his entire head on fire. He didn’t care if he looked like an idiot or had bald spots as long as Liz gave him those same endearing eyerolls, and he didn’t care when she cut her hair short or let it grow far past her chin as long as she could still make him laugh the way she did. It was only when his mother had no hair and when Moritz had too much that made Ollie began caring about it.
Meredith Paulot looked beautiful any way to Ollie. She could’ve tripped over Dorian Gray and faceplanted in the mud and still deserve to be Miss America. She could be drooling on a pillow with her clothes all wrinkled and she would still look incredible. He was very convinced that she could do nothing to herself to make her appear to be anything but gorgeous, even lose all of her hair. It was simply that Ollie never anticipated it to come, and he didn’t expect it to arrive with the shock that it came with.
And when Auburn-Stache made him just as bald as she had been, he was surprised by how much he truly looked like her. Even when they lost their gold locks, they maintained their golden eyes and golden smiles, and when he scrunched up his button nose to inspect his naked head, he swore that he could see her ghost in the mirror for just a moment.
For the first time in his memory, his hair was entirely even, as there was no hair to be out of place. The wind felt strange on it, but not as strange as his hands felt on it. When he and Auburn-Stache walked away from the pile of golden fluff, he couldn’t help but feel a bit sad. It made him better to know that it would make very good substance for a bird’s nest that her babies would adore. After all, his mother adored stroking her hands through it as if he was a sun-colored cat, and he certainly felt like one when he would doze off as they snuggled together…
Ollie saw the power of hair once more when he met Moritz Farber. He had been warned that it was long in the front, but Ollie didn’t think he could have prepared himself to see Moritz, possibly the best person he’d ever known, hiding behind the dark black fringe that hung over his forehead and touched his equally black goggles. It was obvious that he was self-conscious of it all-- the goggles, the eyebrow-less-ness, and the emptiness of the lenses that could make anyone understandably uneasy.
But that was no excuse. Moritz Farber had been told countless times that he was far better than most people. Ollie constantly told Moritz that he was capable of anything, and from the way it sounded, Moritz never heard the end of it from Frau Pruwitt, Fieke, Owen, and his other school friends and professors. Surely, Moritz had walked into several rooms in his life and instantly evaluated that he was the smartest in the room.
It pained Ollie to see Moritz hiding behind his own hair, hair that he had grown out to keep his true self inside like a prisoner behind bars. Why did he have to wear his hair like that when Ollie knew that Moritz was possibly the most beautiful person he had ever known? And like his mother, that would never change; Moritz couldn’t do anything to himself to look anything less than stunning, for Ollie had seen his heart before his face, which always left the sharpest impression.
So why did he do that to himself?
Moritz may have been uncomfortable when Ollie pushed his bangs back and saw him fully, but Ollie didn’t regret it. Moritz may have seen himself as a dark storm cloud or something equally depressing, but Ollie saw Moritz was as being as radiant as the sun, even if he didn’t think so.
And now Ollie’s hair was growing back, entirely uniform for a change. That was last week, though, before Auburn-Stache insisted that it was time for him to check Ollie’s ears, because apparently, even orphans still needed check-ups.
“I was thinking that I look more dashing with a full head of hair, ‘Stache,” he said, sitting on a stool out on their porch as the doctor prepared shaving cream in his hand. “Maybe we could try that for a change?”
“If you want to keep any hair on your head, kiddo, you’ll let me shave around your ears.” Auburn-Stache didn’t seem to be amused, as he began slathering some foam around Ollie’s ears.
“Well, while that sounds nice, I was thinking that I could maybe keep all of my hair for just a little while longer.” Resistance was becoming harder now that Auburn-Stache’s warm hands were rubbing his ears thoroughly. “Is that too much to ask?”
“You’ve gone far too long without me checking your ears, Oliver.” Auburn-Stache frowned. “Just the length of your tresses indicates exactly how long it’s been. That should be worrying you more than anything.”
“Well, it’s not. Sorry that I want to look dashing, Auburn-Stache.”
“You never used to care about the haircut, Oliver. You’ve let me do whatever I want for it as long as my memory takes me back. Remember when you had the mullet?”
“Yes.” Ollie snorted. “That was pretty bad.”
“This is nothing compared to being bald.”
“So sue me, ‘Stache.” Ollie didn’t flinch as he felt the cool razor hit right above his ear. “I’d like to make an executive decision about my own hair for once.”
“You have. You don’t want it to catch on fire, so it’s going.” Auburn-Stache moved the razor gently in an arc above Ollie’s ear in a way that was comforting due to its familiarity. “You’re such a drama queen, Ollie.”
Ollie didn’t think that he was being very much of a drama queen. Hair had simply been redefined for him just a little bit, at least. It could hide Moritz’s insecurities, and not having any hair just seemed to give his mother more insecurities. Ollie didn’t think that having the sides of his head shaved made him feel more insecure than usual, but it gave him a perspective he never had before.
Hair was powerful, apparently. Hair wasn’t invincible like Ollie once may have considered it. Just like a lot of things in his life, it seemed to gain vulnerability when everything took a turn for the worse.
Hair was something that crossed his mind frequently now, when he couldn’t have cared less about it in the innocence of his youth.
But that was a long time ago when he was innocent.
