#double troubles

Julia Burnsides vs Canon Lore

Prologue Memory: Steven Waxmen: “I want you to know that no matter what you decide, whether you're ready to do this or not, I'm always going to be here waiting for you.”

Chapter 1: Yeemick: “We got attacked by these four idiots who came to take back our captive. We managed to chase them off, but they said something about wanting to kill you, sir.”

Klaarg: “Oh, that's so weird because four of the loveliest people I have ever met came here, also looking for Barry Bluejeans, and they told me that you sent them to kill me!”

(I know I know, but I had to add Klaarg’s line too because that exchange is really funny slkghsdlgkh)

Chapter 2: Julia: “One, what is electronic dance music? And two, Kenny Chesney isn't that bad. My dad used to be a big fan too, but as far as I know, he wasn't a big enough fan to actually get him tattooed on his ass!”

Taking the Gauntlet and Going to the Moon: Taako: “I did a traveling cooking show called Sizzle it Up with Taako,” Taako says proudly. “And a TV, Julia, is...” His gaze gets a little unfocused as he scrunches his face up in confusion. “It's like... um... I remember there's moving pictures. It lets people see what people are doing from far away I think. That's why I say I'm from TV.”

Killian: “Are you talking about a telescope?”

Julia: “It kind of sounds like those video james Magnus talks about sometimes from his dreams. Doesn't it, babe?”

Meeting the Director: (this isn’t really dialogue, but it is a thought Julia has, so I’m counting it lol) Julia: Oh to be able to be slightly irritated at his ego again instead of full on wanting to murder him, it truly is a blessing.

Lunch Conversation with the Director: Julia: “It's a long time ago now. I just...” She sighs. “I just wish I knew sooner, you know? I understand why everything had to be erased, but it makes it harder knowing in retrospect. Now I'm mourning them again, but it hits a little harder this time around.”

Briefing Before Rockport: Julia: “If she thinks I'm gettin' dress for this, she's sorely mistaken.”

Petals to the Metal Elevator Incident: Julia: “Don't worry, it is plenty impressive for me, babe.” She smirks at the way Magnus' face goes even redder and ignores the other boys cackling behind her. “Should we go up to the vault now?”

Julia’s First Conversation with Leon: Leon: “I don't think it's supposed to make sense to people like us. If it did, we probably wouldn't be here trying to do our part to save the world.”

Lucretia Confronts Them about RR Crystal Kingdom: Julia: “We have the Stones, Merle. And Director, I– I'm sorry, but even if we did try to run away, there weren't many options of places for us to go. He stopped time, or at least, he stopped Lucas and Killian and Carey and Noelle from moving and perceiving time while he was there, so there wasn't anyone we could turn to for help, and our other option was to run out of the room to a crystallized central hallway with almost all of the airlocks shut down. We couldn't go anywhere, and even if we did have a place to hide, it would have been a waste of time to wait for him to leave, and we might not have been able to stop the crystal from spreading.”

Julia Catches Taako Crying After Refuge: Taako: “When I was with the Chalice, some parts of the memories of my childhood looked like static, and I can't help but wonder if the dreams really aren't just another aspect of myself that I've projected as being another person and they actually are something or someone missing. So I started writing a letter to them. Or me. Or whoever or whatever this dream person is.”

Magnus and Julia Talk to Fisher: Julia: “We're going to find out what happened to it. I promise.”

Julia Talks to the Red Robe: Barry: “There's a thing coming. The thing I've been warning you guys about. The hunger of all living things. It'll be here soon, and our only hope of stopping it lies with, well...” The Red Robe looks uncomfortable for a moment. “You were never supposed to get caught up in the equation, Julia, and I am truly sorry for that. None of this was even supposed to happen. But we're here now, and this is happening, so I guess we have to make do with the cards we're dealt with.”

Julia Talks to Magnus About [redacted]: Merle: “You just admitted that you put ketchup on spaghetti when you don't have immediate access to any form of tomato sauce or don't feel like making it.”

Magnus: “I've seen you eat dirt, Merle, so you're one to talk!”

Wonderland Catwalk Scene: Julia: “Leave Taako alone,” Julia says with a shake of her head. She glares at the stupid mannequins and the stupid catwalk with its stupid spotlight shining down on it. “I'll get up there and strut.”

Julia Hears the Story and Song: Julia: “You literally know way more than I do, Merle. You know who the lich that came out of Taako's umbrella is who is apparently his sister I'm assuming?” Magnus nods, so she continues. “I'm assuming you know what's in the sky and currently destroying the world–”

Magnus: “Yup, it's called the Hunger.”

Julia: “According to the Director, you... you're... all of you are from a different reality?” Julia exclaims, and Magnus hums in agreement. “And, what is hap–”

Julia Talks With Leon After S&S: Leon: “You know, your husband is like a roach, you know that right?”

Julia’s Conversation with Taako After S&S: Taako: “I grew up with Lup. Yes. But where the fuck was she for the past twelve years, Julia? Because it certainly wasn't with me!” Taako tries to stand angrily, but as he puts weight on his legs, he curses before sitting back down. “And everyone else! Where were they? Spread all across Faerûn because someone couldn't fucking handle being wrong! Because that person couldn't fucking handle holding a conversation!”

Double Troubles

Chapter 1: Taako: "Fine, if you don't want them, then Merle and I will eat them, and you can just have the stale ass bread."

Chapter 2: Meadow: "Um, yeah actually. I uh– I got back into contact with some old friends in the past couple of days, and just yesterday, I actually got back into contact with a friend I have been trying to reach for a really long time.”

Chapter 3: Merle: “Gundren could be dead by the time we get there, but that's just my opinion.”

Chalice Scene: June/Chalice: “This lead to your fateful argument where you failed to convince her to take off the Amulet, and she used it against you to completely take over your will.”

Tagging

@institute-of-planar-shitposts @holdmecloser-gandydancer @barry-j-blupjeans @noodyl-blasstal  @yaboyspodcastpalace @lexarga @phantasmagoric-acquaintance @taakosleftshoe @idkanameatall and anyone else who wants to do it!! :D

Meadow grabs Magnus' hand, and he helps him out of the well and onto solid ground. He looks around, still trembling, and...

It's just gone.

Everything is... it's just gone.

The only things left where Phandalin once stood are the charred remains of buildings standing at the very edge of a perfect circle of black glass and, in the epicenter of the circle, a burned out dwarven figure standing with his right arm raised in the air and on the end of it is the silvery gauntlet.

This has got to be enough evidence to know that he's cursed, right? Would this still have happened if he hadn't been anywhere near this?

“Meadow, I– I know, but I need help getting the others out,” Magnus says, disrupting his thoughts and delaying the inevitable doom spiral that he surely will go down later.

“Right. Yes, of course.” Meadow mumbles, and he grabs the part of the rope Magnus offers him before Magnus gets behind him with the end of it to act as an anchor.

Together they manage to help the other boys out of the well, and then all four of them work together to pull Killian out too. After they drag her a few feet away from it, they all stop and look at each other in silence.

“So what now?” Taako asks, and Meadow laughs a little hysterically.

“I have no fucking idea.”

“Well, we can't leave the gauntlet here,” Merle says as he looks over at it with his hands on his hips.

At this rate, Meadow's going to become a Pokémon master of super powerful, indestructible artifacts because he has a funny feeling that the gauntlet is going to be just as resistant to everything as the amulet is.

“Killian was looking for it and knew what it was, so she must have some sort of way to contain it,” Magnus says.

“I don't trust her to take it no matter if she has something to contain it or not,” Meadow says immediately.

The others look at him questioningly. “Why not?” Merle asks. “She definitely knows more about it than we do and wanted to avoid this happening.”

Fuck!

“Uh... Because I–” Meadow sighs. “I've seen something like this before.”

“Wait, you have?” Magnus asks incredulously.

“Well, why didn't you tell us what was going to happen then?!” Merle asks angrily.

“Yeah, any information could've helped, Dow!” Taako agrees, and Meadow winces.

“I– I didn't know this was going to happen!” he says defensively. “I didn't even know it was like the– the other artifact I saw once a few years ago until it was too late!”

Taako and Merle scoff, but Magnus' face relaxes slightly. “Do you know anything about it that could help us now?”

Meadow licks his lips nervously and nods slightly. “Yeah, uh... the other artifact like it... It takes over the will of whoever is using it like the gauntlet did with Gundren. And it's really powerful and really hard to beat the temptation to put it on and use it; I... I'm the only person I know of who's been able to handle something like that without using it.”

“Well that's convenient,” Taako says sarcastically.

“I mean, it's true!” Meadow says desperately. “I'll even say it under a Zone of Truth spell if I need to! Look–”

He takes a deep breath, his heart hammering wildly as he reaches into his pocket and pulls out the amulet. It's a deep green emerald shaped into a teardrop with silver trim, and it's set on a thin golden chain. He holds it up by the chain to let the boys look at it, and it starts whispering again.

“What the hell?” Merle asks quietly. He reaches out to grab it, but Meadow yanks it away.

“No! You can see it with your eyes, but don't– don't touch it.” he says in a panic.

“What did that do that was just as bad as the gauntlet?” Magnus asks, tearing his eyes away from the necklace to look at him.

He fights the urge to look away from him, mostly because he needs to keep an eye on all of them to make sure they don't lunge for it. “I... I don't want to talk about it,” he says quietly. “Please just... just know that... it was bad, okay? I've been trying to find a way to destroy it for years now, and nothing's worked, so I have to keep it on me. And I guess– I guess also that gauntlet.”

Meadow stuffs the amulet back into his pocket, and Taako eyes him warily.

“Don't you have a spell that identifies what magic objects are?” he asks. “You were buzzing to cast it on the umbrella and the gauntlet before Gundren took it. Do you think you'd be able to figure out anything else about the glove?”

“I can give it the old college try,” Meadow says with relief. “To be honest, I don't know if I'll get any more useful information from it though if it's made by the same person who made the amulet because I tried casting it on that too, but all I got from it was a really intense headache.”

Taako frowns. “Weird. You sure you were casting it correctly?”

Meadow rolls his eyes. “Yes, Taako, I was casting it correctly. It's not like that was my first time casting the damn spell.”

“Well, while you go do that, we'll tie up Killian, so that when we wake her up, we can get more information from her about what she was doing here in the first place,” Magnus says.

“Yeah, good idea!” Merle says. “I can heal her after you do that.”

“Is it alright if I come with you to the gauntlet?” Taako asks, and Meadow's shoulders tense up again before he quickly adds, “I'll give you space, but I figure just because you were able to pick up the necklace without putting it on, that doesn't mean the glove wouldn't be different.”

Meadow relaxes again as much as they can in this situation and nods. “Yeah, if I start to put it on...” they swallow hard. “If I start to put it on, don't hesitate to kill me, okay?”

“Are you sure?” Taako asks slowly, and they immediately nod.

“Positive. I'd rather die than be allowed to use that thing.” Even if it means they'd die in the Plane of Logic too. They still don't know how that works.

The two of them walk toward the gauntlet, and as they do, Meadow looks around the area more carefully. They were convinced while being awake in the other plane that Barry would be okay and able to talk to them after he died, but he's obviously not here anymore. They have no idea what they meant by that or what they should even be looking for, but if Barry was a ghost or something, he should still be here, right?

Taako peels off to the side as Meadow gets within five feet of the glove. They stop walking and look around the empty field of glass one last time.

Just more proof that they don't know what their talking about up in that other plane.

Meadow sighs and focuses back on the gauntlet. They take a few tentative steps forward when it starts speaking in their mind.

“Heeeyyy, buddy! Hey, buddy, put me on! Haven't you ever wanted to control fire? To know how it feels to hold that kind of power? I can help you defeat your enemies and protect the people you love!”

Meadow snorts with scorn. “I don't have anyone left on this plane that I love, not anymore, and I don't have any enemies either,” they say quietly, so that Taako doesn't hear. “You can fuck right off.”

They feel a wave of desire and enchantment magic wash over them, but they resist it with relative ease. After the wave passes, the gauntlet becomes quieter, and they feel more confident walking up and grabbing it.

They look over at Taako who looks tense with his wand out, and they give him a thumbs up. “It's all good!” they call out. “I'm gonna cast the spell now, but it's gonna be about ten minutes.”

Taako looks both a little relieved and a little annoyed. “You're casting it as a ritual? Just use a spell slot on it, we don't have all night!”

“I don't have any spell slots left,” Meadow says helplessly. “I only get mine back after sleeping and resting for about eight hours.”

Taako shakes his head and sits down on the ground. “Well, I can't leave you here by yourself, so start casting I guess.”

Meadow sits down too and holds the gauntlet in one hand as they go for their bag before they stop themself and put their other hand back down on their knee.

They can't play their clarinet one handed, so it looks like they're going to have to sing.

They mentally shuffle the songs that they know that are somewhere close to the forefront of their mind, and they settle on a song they first heard a half-elf bard sing in a tavern close to the Fountain Pens and Silver Ink guild hall. Makes sense that would be the one to come up considering the situation, and gods do they need the pick me up.

“I don't wanna live as an untold story,” they begin singing quietly. “Rather go out in a blaze of glory. I can't hear you, I don't fear you–”

“Are you going to start casting yet?” Taako calls out to them, and they stop singing and sigh in frustration.

“I mean, I already was until you interrupted me!” Meadow calls back, and as they do, the faint glow of golden light that was starting to surround the glove fades away again.

“I thought you cast spells with your clarinet or whatever,” Taako says.

“Yeah, usually! But I can't exactly play it one handed, so I'm singing!”

Taako frowns. “You are? You're not that far away, and I couldn't hear you.”

“I don't like singing in front of people; I told you that already. And I don't need to sing loud for it to work.” Meadow says irritatedly.

“You were singing Bohemian Rhapsody just fine with us in the cave!”

“Because everyone who knows that song sings it at the top of their lungs whether they sound good or not. It's literally impossible to not sing that one quietly!” they say as they roll their eyes.

“You didn't even know everyone knew it until Magnus told you that and Killian recognized it!” Taako says exasperatedly.

Meadow's face heats up in anger and embarrassment. “Do you want me to fucking cast this spell or not?”

“Yeah, fine, do your thing.” Taako waves them off, and they roll their eyes again.

“I don't wanna live as an untold story. Rather go out in a blaze of glory. I can't hear you, I don't fear you! I'll live now 'cause the bad die last. Dodging bullets with your broken past. I can't hear you, I don't fear you now!”

Meadow continues singing as the gauntlet begins to glow gold again, and as they sing, the light gets brighter and brighter until it steadies out at about the brightness of a halogen light bulb. They loop the song a couple of times until the spell is complete, trying to take to heart the fact that they can't hear the gauntlet nor fear it and ignore the fact that they are very much wrapped up in regret, and all at once, they're bombarded with what could only be described as static.

Their vision goes gray, and not in the way where everything turns gray-scale. Literally all they see is the color gray with different shades of it moving around like the static on a TV when they switch to the wrong channel. They can also hear that TV static noise loud in their ears, and they yelp in panic as they drop the glove and cover their ears instinctively. Their brain feels like fuzz, and they get slammed with a massive headache.

They squeeze their eyes shut tight and rock back and forth, still covering their ears and trying not to cry at how overwhelmingly loud, overstimulating, and painful it all is.

After about a minute, everything slowly starts to fade again, and it leaves their ears ringing more than usual and their heart still thumping wildly with anxiety.

“Meadow? Can you hear me?”

They feel someone put a gentle hand on their arm, and they jump in the air so bad as they recoil that they tip over and fall on their side.

Their eyes snap open as they see Taako standing over them looking worried.

“Sorry, it's just, you screamed a little and started... doing that–” He gestures at them helplessly. “–and then you didn't respond.”

“Oh, yeah, um... sorry about that,” they mumble, face heating up a lot as they push themself back up into a sitting position.

“Are– are you okay?” Taako asks. “Did the gauntlet do something to you?”

Meadow shakes their head. “No– I mean, yes, I'm okay, but no, the gauntlet didn't do anything to me exactly. I just... I didn't get anything from the spell except static. A lot of it. And it was painful.”

Taako frowns. “Like how we can't hear Killian static?”

2. Anything that you'd like to write but feel like you're unable to? 

Yeah, right now this god damn Julia AU lshglskdhgllsaks I’m about to rewrite chapter 1 for like, the eleventh time, because it keeps turning out really dry :( But I will write it! And I will publish it so help me god! lol

Also like, I feel like I can’t write horror. Not that I don’t think I could if I worked at it more, but like, I’m not big in the genre to begin with and only have mild interest in it from time to time. Mostly because I get scared way too easily slgkhslkgad Doing the minimal amount of research on what the catherine wheel is for The Academic Illusionist gave me nightmares, and I didn’t even get too deep into what it was and didn’t describe it being used in the story very much lol :/

4. Do you have any OCs? Do you have a story for them?

I do, in fact, actually have an OC that I’m writing about currently! lol Meadow Cottonwood is the OC main character of the eighth bird AU I’m calling Double Troubles. They’re a half-elf and a self-insert OC, and I originally wasn’t going to flesh out their story and write this AU at all, but the idea I had for them was really good, and Sunny enabled me to actually fully flesh it out alskdghsldakg <3

So the backstory is this: Meadow was born in the two-sunned world, obviously, but they have two bodies connected to one soul: one of them was born in the Material Plane, and the other was born in the Plane of Logic. And how that works is that when Meadow is awake in the Material Plane, they’re asleep in the Plane of Logic, and when they fall asleep in the Material Plane, they wake up in the Plane of Logic.

This phenomenon is not well known, and while Meadow was in that reality, he never met anyone else like him, and no one believed him when he was little that this was happening. His parents in both planes did know that he had weird sleeping habits between sleeping for a longer periods of time than most people and falling asleep suddenly while he was in the middle of doing something (which happens when someone or something wakes up the other body that was originally sleeping without them having gone to bed in the body previously awake). His parents on both sides did take him to get checked out by a doctor, and because no one believed him about living in two worlds, the doctors couldn’t find what was causing it, so they just said he had a general sleeping disorder

Both sets of parents also weren’t exactly the greatest, see abusive, and they especially hated whenever Meadow brought up their double, so they eventually learned to keep quiet about it and told anyone who asked about their sleeping habits that it was the disorder.

When they were about 14, they basically had had it with their parents, and they ran away and lived on the streets for a while, and they met a couple of people during that time whom they traveled with, and they tried to explain to them that they have this sleeping disorder and it’s really important that no one wakes them up, even if they suddenly fall asleep standing up or something, because it would hurt them. The real reason, of course, being that if they were suddenly woken up by something in the other plane, it was potentially life threatening or at least a serious problem was happening, and it would be important for them to deal with that and get somewhere safe before they could fall asleep again. Most people they met weren’t very receptive to that, and they had to leave people more often than not who would refuse to respect their boundaries like that.

Eventually, Meadow was able to find an opportunity in the Material Plane to go to school to become a scientist and joined the IPRE. By the time they went on the mission, they were 22 years old, so I figured to make the timeline make sense on why they would be sent on this mission as another scientist when they couldn’t have been in school for all that long, I would make it so that there was a spot open on the team for an Institute student to go as part of a study program, and Meadow was approved to fill that role.

In the Plane of Logic, however, he never got a chance to find an opportunity to do something other than live off the streets. By the time the Hunger rolled around, he was caught (thankfully) sleeping inside a locked library, so that’s why he didn’t immediately die.

Then during the Stolen Century, Meadow lives out a lot of the century going between the worlds the Starblaster touches down on and literally inside the Hunger, fighting to not let it take him over. It gets really hard though at the end of the cycle when the Hunger gets there because the attack sucks them into being awake in that body as the Hunger kind of successfully takes them over temporarily, and he gets dropped down into the Material Plane to wreak havoc and destroy and kill everything. He tries his best to remain aware enough and fight that impulse though, so he doesn’t do a ton of damage himself.

Of course, after spending more than a few years together with all of this going on, the rest of the crew eventually catches on that something is up with him, so he confesses the whole double situation, and they believe him and try to help him deal with that the best that he can.

One cycle, when the Hunger comes, Magnus is fighting his way back to the ship, and Logic Meadow finds him, and they fight really hard not to kill him which Magnus notices and realizes it’s them. So he restrains them and takes them on board the ship, and when they leave that reality, their body is still there. Merle has to work on getting the corruption out of that body, and Meadow wakes up in the Material body and is like, what the fuck, but from that point on, both bodies are on the ship and relatively safe.

When Lucretia erases everything, she takes Logic Meadow back to the Plane of Logic in the Faerun reality because there would be no reason for both of his bodies to be in the Material Plane that wouldn’t immediately raise suspicions that at least someone figured out about his situation and somehow kidnapped his Logic body and dumped him in the Material Plane. What she didn’t know and didn’t account for, however, was that because Meadow’s Logic body was from the Plane of Logic and was placed in the Plane of Logic, whenever he’s in that body, he remembers everything. So in a very Barry-esque trying to convince himself to do shit to figure out what is going on and find a way to stop Lucretia and find her, Barry, and Lup, Logic Meadow tries to leave instructions for himself when he wakes up as Material Meadow to do all that stuff. But of course, he can only do that convincing by using his own thoughts and trying to think specific things that won’t get censored because it’s not like he can physically write reminders and send it to the Material Plane while he’s trapped in the Plane of Logic. Also, he’s a very stubborn and anxious person, so trying to get himself to do anything is like pulling teeth aslghsdlkhgslg

Anyway, that was a lot, but I really hope you find it an interesting concept? Because I’ve written a few thousand words for it, and it’s been very fun :D

17. Past or present tense? Why? 

I used to write in past tense because I thought that was the only tense anyone ever wrote in when it comes to writing books and stories and stuff, but when I got back into writing more recently, between reading some fics from a couple of different people who wrote in present tense and playing dnd and listening to dnd podcasts where everyone talks in the present tense, I find it easier to write in present tense now lol I did try to write in past tense, but it felt very weird and wrong, and it kind of felt weird at first switching to present tense, but it seems to have worked out better lol I do write in past tense though when I’m writing dreams or flashbacks

19. Share a snippet from a wip without giving any context for it.

This is going to be from Double Troubles because I feel like it’s the funniest thing, out of context, that I’ve written in a while (I mean, I guess now there is some context after the info dump on Meadow that I did salkghsdlgh)

There is no way in hell Meadow is going to kill Barry J. Bluejeans.

Screw the list they made and fuck the idea that Barry would be able to tell them anything after he's dead. Deceased. Lost his consciousness and soul. And why in the world would he be okay with dying after he's dead? That's like saying the poor old woman up the street would be okay with someone stealing from her after they've already stolen things from her. Except worse because he's dead.

And if Barry knows of some way to get rid of the amulet, he would be better suited to tell them now while he's alive, but no one could pay them any amount of money to convince them to even tell him about the mere existence of the amulet, let alone show it to him or ask him for advice.

Meadow scrubs his face vigorously with his hands as he swings his legs out of bed. He knows he was just complaining yesterday that he doesn't trust himself anymore, but honestly, how can he trust himself if he has so obviously lost his gods damn mind? Murder Barry Bluejeans, mira...

20. Do you work on a single project or many at the same time? How does that work for you? 

:’)

There was a time, back when I first started writing for the taz fandom, a very short and treasured time where I restrained myself to one project at a time. A project, that was just a single ficlet that could be written within a few days max.

Then Julia Burnsides vs Canon Lore came into my life, and I needed a break from that to write other one shots. And thus two projects at the same time came into my life which I thought I could handle.

And recently, Sierra? It has gotten so out of control

I now have two multichapter fics, two long fics, and like, 8 more ideas I haven’t touched on yet that I said I was going to eventually, and in that time I have written 5 unrelated fics, 4 of them which got published and 1 I just remembered I said I would clean up and then never did, and I! Am! Going! To! Scream!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH

Anyway, it’s fine, I’m fine, thank you for asking lol :)

23. Dialogue or description? Why is the other one so hard? 

I think it depends on the fic. Dialogue gets hard when I’m trying to figure out how to navigate a social situation that I have absolutely zero idea how I would navigate it in real life and/or I don’t know how to get from point a to point b. And description is generally easy for me, but I did recently notice that I’ve been forgetting to add it in in some places where I should, and I also cannot write facial expressions for the life of me. I have zero ideas on what people do with their faces to communicate any sort of emotion, and I have even less of an idea of what neutral faces are acceptable in what situations because I have no idea about that in real life either so everyone smiles 24/7 because that’s what I do and it’s exhausting to do and even more annoying to write about when every other damn dialogue prompt has some sort of description about the person smiling >:(

I’m getting worked up, sorry :(

28. Any writing advice that works for you and you feel like sharing? 

When you find yourself staring at your computer dreading to open up a particular project even though you desperately want to finish it, it most likely means you’re having a hard time figuring out what to write next to actually finish it and need to take a break or you just need a break from it in general. It sucks sometimes when you’re really excited about it, but it’s better to put your energy elsewhere for now whether that means writing a different section of the same project that you have inspiration for or working on a different project altogether. I honestly was really excited about the John fic when I was first writing it, but then I got really stuck and I had put it down for so long I legitimately thought I was never going to finish it. Then while I was trying to figure out something else only tangentially related yesterday to use in Double Troubles, the mental block to finish the John fic lifted, and now I still need to finish it because I had to do other stuff today and ran out of steam last night, but I’m hopeful that it’s going to get done within the next couple of days

40. Write a 9-word fic. 

5. What are their regrets?

There's a lot of things Meadow regrets on a daily basis lol But there are quite a few long lasting big ones. Like the obvious enacting the Relic plan, not listening to Lucretia, and not being able to save Phandalin. Then there's two things he regrets from childhood: not running away from home sooner and simultaneously leaving his then six year old cousin whom he was pretty close to. He also regrets spending so much time fighting with himself during the decade post voidfishing and the fact that he was only able to get very little done and caused himself a lot more stress and heartache than was strictly necessary. And the fact that he can't just turn off his brain and go to sleep to escape his thoughts like other people can unless one of his bodies dies. And there's two things that happen during the fic that he comes to regret doing and/or not doing, but those are spoilers >:)

And then the two really big ones is the defining backstory moment of coming across the Word Weaver's Amulet (the Grand Relic they made) and giving it to Astra, their then best friend who I still haven't decided if they're just best friends or if there were romantic feelings involved. Every time I think I've decided on one, I end up changing my mind again, but regardless, they were really close. And Astra said she thought it was beautiful and really wanted it, and when they both came across it, they had been going on a walk to try and cheer Astra up and get her to clear her head because she was having a really bad day, so Meadow, famously unable to say no to anything even though they had the gut feeling that something bad was going to happen, gave it to her. The fallout of how she used the Relic and what exactly transpired is a spoiler, but she definitely dies which is how Meadow ended up with it again, and they've regretted everything ever since.

The second big one is, because during the Stolen Century, they were able to save Meadow's body from the Plane of Logic from the Hunger, and both of his bodies were on the ship for the rest of the century and until Lucretia dropped his Logic Body off in the Faerun's reality's Plane of Logic, Meadow was always up in one body or the other, by nature of that's just how he works, so he was awake when Lup was about to leave the Starblaster for the final time before she disappeared. He saw her before she left, and they had a short conversation where Meadow knew something was wrong, and he thought he helped her to feel better, which in all fairness, he did a little, but Lup still wanted to have some alone time and clear her head down on the planet and then everything that happened afterward happened. So Meadow regrets not stopping her from leaving or at least not going down to the surface with her.

And tbh, because of Meadow being awake 24/7, they had taken it upon themself/was designated to be the person on watch at night throughout the century after both of their bodies were on the ship because all of the others needed sleep and didn't have a fancy shmancy second body to be awake in after going to bed. So because they were up and because they had talked to Lup before she left, Taako mostly, but Barry too to an extent, kind of blamed them for her disappearance. Barry would never say it out loud, but I feel like Taako might have snapped at them once about it, but like, Meadow knew. At that point, they had known them for long enough that they could tell for sure it wasn't just their brain being mean and jumping to conclusions, they were acting a little hostile toward them toward the end there.

6. What are their biggest fears?

Everything lol They're a big ball of anxiety and stress-

No. Well, they are a big ball of anxiety and stress and are a very fearful person, but they aren't afraid of everything.

They are, ironically, very afraid of heights lol The only reason they agreed to go on the Starblaster mission was because they couldn't pass up the opportunity to go to space and explore the space between the planes and do all of that cool stuff. As soon as the opportunity came up, that was basically all they wanted to do and the thing they wanted to get most out of life because they love the stars and space and exploring and everything about it! And how they figured they could get around the height issue was that they could just stay away from the railing and stay toward the center of the ship, and maybe if there wasn't a ground or a metric in which to gauge how high up he'd be, he would be fine.

I think during the century he learned how to push past it mostly out of necessity, but by the time they made it to Faerun, and Material Meadow lost his memories, his issue with heights hit him full force again tenfold, and he has to fight to remain calm while traveling in the cannonball spheres and looking down from the moon base and all that lol

Then, of course, he has a normally paralyzing fear of failure that he has to push through to get literally anything done in the story and honestly, during the century.

And then they never had a good working memory before the voidfishing, so they already hated the idea of losing any more memories. The voidfishing exasperated that into a full blown near phobia of losing memories, especially really important ones.

And then there's the fear of losing everyone and everything permanently and the fear that everyone is going to leave him, especially for reasons they refuse to tell him, so he wouldn't understand why they decided to leave him in the first place.

And then there's the double related fears: Falling asleep while they're in danger because someone decided to wake them up on the other side, especially if they refuse to let them go back to sleep, and someone finding out about them having a double and attacking him or leaving him or ostracizing him because they either don't believe him, refuse to take it seriously, or outright hate him for it

7. How do they cope with stress?

LOL

List making! Mental breakdowns! But mostly they write. Poetry for the most part is their form of journaling, but sometimes they just write out their thoughts too. If they have an idea for a short story, they'll work on that too as usually a more maintenance kind of thing and not something they'd do in the moment of feeling very overwhelmed, and they never really have the time to try and write a whole novel or something. At least, for the most part they didn't. There was that short period of time during the decade where they were at the writing guild Lucretia sent them to in the Material Plane, the Ink Spill Guild, where they had the time to work on a novel because they were ignoring the instructions they were leaving for themself that they made when they actually remembered everything. And they might have been working on a novel, idk. Sounds fun and very much something I would do lol But after that, Meadow spent most of their time adventuring, and then when they got up to the moon base, trying to figure out where the second voidfish was and what the plan was going to be then now that they found Lucretia.

As for when they're in the Plane of Logic though, they didn't give themself as much time to write because they were struggling so hard to get their spaceship built and off the ground, both in the physical aspect of actually researching it and doing it and also fighting the paralysis they usually get when they get super stressed and scared/anxious about something. And the whole possibly being the only one of their family who remembers anything besides Lucretia, but only when they're on a plane where they can't really do much about it, and that means they might be the only person with a chance of stopping Lucretia from destroying the Material Plane and putting their family back together thing is kind of really stressful lol

To compensate for that, Meadow throws himself full force into building the spaceship when he's particularly stressed because it's something to do with his hands and is something that is supposed to get him closer to reaching his goal. Sometimes if they're stuck on how to do something to actually continue building onto the ship but can't focus on reading and researching or even thinking really hard, they take apart and put back together some other component that doesn't really need fixing.

He also sometimes lets Sparrow and their friends forcibly drag him away to hang out with them, and that makes him feel better and less alone. Also eventually talking to Barry helps even if when he does it, he doesn't remember their shared history, and Barry can't tell him anything about it yet, and also hanging out with Merle, Magnus, and Taako.

Back on the Starblaster, Taako and Lup also brought them into learning how to bake :>

And then when things are really shitty, sometimes they dissociate and just check out completely. On top of that, sometimes it'll happen as they are in an immediate stressful situation, especially if they're trying to talk to someone, much to their extreme annoyance because it's really hard to fight it off and come back to reality. They very rarely ever succeed at it.

10. Who is someone they miss?

Astra and Lup definitely, and Lucretia and Davenport and all of them. Even when he joins the Bureau and sees most of them again, he misses how their relationships with each other used to be and the fact that none of them, including him while he's actually physically there with them remember except for Barry and Lucretia. It's this weird feeling of simultaneously being super happy to see them while also still feeling very far away and disconnected when he's awake in the Plane of Logic because he's no longer there and he remembers Davenport being able to talk and Lucretia not holding them all at arm's length and lying to them all the time and being able to hug Barry and Lup being there and the other boys sharing almost everything and all of them being a family. He's able to enjoy being in their presence more, for the most part, while he's there and with them because he doesn't remember the history, but that just makes him miss them more when he wakes up and does remember.

They also really miss Fisher, and while they hang out with it and Johann sometimes, it's still not the same. Both because of the memory thing and also because, while it's Lucretia's fault for erasing everyone's memories, Fisher still had the power to do that, and it didn't broadcast it out after realizing no one could remember and that everyone was gone. So there's also a certain level of wariness and fear I think

And then they do miss their parents to an extent. I mean, they're their parents. And there were good times with them while they were growing up. And they also really miss their cousin that they were close to.