daughterofawolf

Alphinaud is gone when she wakes.

At first, Alisaie mistakes it for him having gone out early, leaving her alone in their small apartment. It's quick work to discover the truth.

She's furious.

She's furious with this absurd, backward city. She's furious with the Exarch, for putting them both in a position where this could be possible. She's furious with her brother. Irrational, she'll admit later, but for now it feels good to direct it somewhere.

Her twin, older by minutes and proud of that as much as he's proud of anything, is gone out of the city that they'd both been dragged to against their wills and, for better or worse, has made their home for the better part of two years.

And that makes her all the more furious.

She needs to do something with that fury, she knows, before her aether shifts aspects. She isn't sure that could happen in a few hours, but she's not of a mind to wait and see, so she goes to an out-of-doors training ground — a firing range, it's called, but there are simple standees with paper taped to their fronts shaped like hyur silhouettes.

Crude, but it will do the job.

Alisaie draws her sword and crystal and begins to cast like her life depends on it. She throws herself forward, slashes at the target with violent zwerchau before launching backward and starts it over again.

Her fringe is in lank silver clumps against her forehead when she stops for a breath, but her arms are exhausted and the fury has dulled to a bitter ache.

“Damn this city,” she murmurs. “Twelve damn this city straight to the Seven Hells.”

[ Blue Alisaie is gone and she's BIG MAD about it. Find her at an outdoor firing range, on her way there, shortly after she left the apartment they shared; anywhere that works best for you! Despite her anger, it isn't a bad time to meet her and she could use some friends! ]

runtowardsomething posting in

thecityneversleeps

The house is empty when Beverly wakes up.

It's an eerie feeling, that stillness, like the air itself has gone out of the space. She's been home alone here plenty of times, everyone's schedules not always aligned, but it's different like this in ways she wouldn't know how to describe. There's no aroma of coffee wafting up from the kitchen, no sound but her own breathing, and then what she realizes is El's cat scratching at her door, meowing a demand to be fed. Maybe it's because she's been here so long and seen this before, or maybe it's something she dreamed, although she doesn't remember doing so. Either way, as she leaves her room and pads through the house as if on autopilot or watching someone else do these things, she thinks she already knows they're gone.

Soon enough, she confirms it. She calls Hop and El — her father and her sister — and both phone lines have been disconnected. She calls the station, and Hopper hasn't shown up for work or let anyone know he'd be absent. She texts some mutual friends, too, just to see if anyone else has run into either of them, hoping for some other explanation, and yet with each passing moment, that certainty grows. They've both disappeared. At least, she thinks, that means they were able to go together — but, fuck, that still leaves her here, in an empty house, without her family.

For a while, she continues going through the motions, still with that detached sense of observing someone else rather than actually doing things herself. She feeds the cat and makes coffee for herself. She lets Bill know that she won't be working today and why.

Everything is still so quiet and so still, which is maybe why she reaches a breaking point, unable to take any more. Standing by the kitchen sink and staring vacantly out the window, she nearly slams her coffee mug on the counter, desperate and angry and so fucking sad. She at least manages not to break the cup, but it's still not enough, and before she even has a chance to think it through, she's grabbing a nearby pair of scissors with one hand and gathering her hair into her fist with the other, cutting just above the line of her hand. It's a better cut job than the last time she'd done this, thirteen and terrified in her apartment back in Derry (and how the fuck had she forgotten about that before now?), but it still falls jaggedly just above her shoulders, the hacked-off strands left in the sink alongside dishes for one, because she's the only one here now.

Some time later, by afternoon, Beverly goes outside to sit on the steps leading up to the townhouse. Her townhouse now, she supposes, which is all sorts of fucking weird that she isn't prepared to deal with yet. For now, the most she can manage is to light a cigarette from the pack she's brought out with her — Hopper's, not hers, taken from his empty room. The first thing she said to him, the first day they met, was asking if she could bum a smoke. Somehow this feels right, except that nothing feels right. Her eyes unfocused and bloodshot, she stubs out the cigarette butt on the step beside her when she's smoked it all the way through, then with trembling hands, lights another one.

[ Timed to Wednesday afternoon-ish. Bev is... extremely going through it. If you know her (or Hopper or El), feel free to say that she called or texted with the news of their disappearances, or if you'd rather, it's reasonable enough that she might not have gotten to everyone! If you don't know her, anyone is still welcome to notice and come say hi to a chainsmoking mess of a 21-year-old. ST/LT welcome forever. ♥ ]

citycouncil posting in

thecityneversleeps

Held at the Darrow Convention Center and presented by The Writer's Guild of Darrow, the 2025 Darrow Literary Honors might not have been the most glamorous occasion of the year, or the most heavily attended, but it was among the top accolades afforded to any of the arts in Darrow. Consisting of a weekend of panels and an awards banquet for honorees and guests, the event was boasted to be the highlight of the year for many within the industry.

There were more panels for fans and prospective writers alike, with guests across all genres and niche publication types. Songwriters and and screenwriters even had their time on stage, though there was a rather heated debate among some longtime attendees on whether they truly belonged. Some focused on obscure genres, others on LGBTQ issues, others on BIPOC writers, and still more on getting started as a self-published author. There were panels on erotica, on manga, on crime fiction, and even contemporary westerns, which were apparently having something of a resurgence.

At the awards banquet held on Friday evening, the food was surprisingly delicious and the drinks flowed heavily. In the major categories, nominated writers filled entire tables with their guests, while others sat in the nosebleed seats in the back of the ballroom. Honorees had their moment in the spotlight, and as with any awards ceremony, speeches ranging from short and endearingly awkward, to painfully long and pretentious.

Overall, the event was a rousing success, with only one major fight between passionate Romantasy writers requiring security intervention, and one man who snuck onto the Sci-Fi in the Modern Age panel and answered at least half a dozen audience questions before anyone realized that he was not one of the scheduled guests. People would say that it was the best Darrow Literary Honors Weekend ever!

Strange, how no one could remember specifics of any of the years before.

[[Tag in, whether at one of the more casual panel events, or at the awards banquet for writers and their guests (though, party crashers are always fun). Open for as long as it needs to be!]]

gallowseyes posting in

thecityneversleeps

18th December, 2024:

The touch is familiar, as are the sharp edges of Lee's teeth. Since that first time, they've spent enough time in each other's beds that he feels like he knows it by heart.

George and Lee spend some time together.

[ here | ONGOING | ADULT ]

loficharm posting in

thecityneversleeps

23 July, 2022:

Martin and John struggle to save each other (and themselves) from the powerful, malicious will of a terrible artifact from home.

[ HERE | ongoing | loss of self-control and other horror elements ]

16 April, 2025:

John gets kidnapped by some East Hallow holdovers and Martin takes a bit of an extreme measure to save him.

[ HERE | ongoing | kidnapping/threat of death, depersonalization and dissociation, possibly nsfw later ]

afeastofthirst posting in

thecityneversleeps

Shion has been in Darrow for ten months, and these days, that doesn't seem all that bad.

Everything is different now, the world fresher and brighter because Sophie is in it, alive and well, poised to thrive, because it all seems newer to him since it's new for her. He's behaving himself, taking care of her ahead of anything else. His trips to the other Darrow have stopped, his search for a way home on hold. He doesn't know what happens if they leave this place, if it's safe to take her out of here. There's research to be done before he can make any other moves. It would be a lot easier if Jakah were here, since he's more of a researcher than Shion is; Shion's skills lend themselves more to barging into places and telling people to give him the information he needs, which doesn't actually work all that well here. It's not like the people at City Hall know any more than he does about these things (he's tried, they know absolutely nothing). And until he's sure, he's not taking chances.

He doesn't go out on the town at night, unwilling to leave her home alone. He watches the phases of the moon as intently now as he'd started to do at home in those last weeks before he came here. Solon never opened up to him about the changes or what he was — for almost two centuries, he kept that to himself, and Shion has wondered and worried ever since he discovered the truth, though he'd never admit it, about what that entails. What he needs to do to make it easier. Why he was never trusted enough to be let in, to be allowed to help. If Solon just thought he was too brash or clumsy or loud to be worth telling, if he'd do more harm than good.

He won't. For Sophie, he'll be the best at everything. When her time comes, they can stay at the mansion and he can keep an eye on her when she hunts. She's better at it than he is. She has more of an instinct when it comes to animals. It would be a wonder to watch if he weren't also terrified that she won't change back.

As happy as he is, though, and as content as he is to lead this new life, he's also restless. It's not normal for Shion to go so long living peacefully, quietly. It's how the others wanted things, Heli ready to retreat to the woods, Jakah annoyed to be stuck among humans. Shion has always liked a quiet life in theory, has always yearned for normal — to stay put, to make friends, to be allowed to be something like a real person. It's hard when he can never live in one place for more than a decade before people start whispering questions to each other, if he even gets that long. Normal, though, has never really meant he wanted boring. He needs to work out his energy one way or another. Even Sophie can't keep him from going stir crazy.

Thank god for Drembleydrop.

Honestly, he's really considering starting classes at Barton in the fall just to join the school's team. For now, though, pickup games in Petros Park are enough of a rush to keep him happy.

There are no rules! There are so many rules! The rules are the rules are only rules sometimes! Everyone's rushing around and shouting and things change from one minute to the next, and he feels insufferably clever when he can stay on top of all the sudden shifts and score again and again. Plus all the padding means he doesn't have to worry too much about using more of his strength than normal, because he's less likely to seriously hurt someone. In a lot of ways, it reminds him of Nightball. Those days at Decelis were some of his happiest. It is, he thinks, kinda hilarious that, at 200-plus years old, he finally peaked in high school.

At some points, the ball goes flying off the court, and sometimes that takes them down a point and sometimes it doesn't, but Shion retrieves it readily and dives back in. With a final slam of his racket, Shion knocks the scoring ball into a basket, and his ragtag team cheers for their victory. He really might have to sign up at Barton; people in the park are definitely going to stop letting him play soon. Happily tired, he trots off the side of the court and sits on a bench, leaning back against the picnic table, mindless of who else is there. "What a game."

[ Catch a game of Drembleydrop! Join in the athletic endeavor, have Shion crash your pup's picnic by accident, spot him playing with Sophie after, nearly get hit by a ball — endless possibilities. Open to friends old and unmet. Open to tags until this says otherwise. ]

Current Music: "tamed-dashed," enhypen

lost_inthedarkness posting in

thecityneversleeps

"LEV!"

Abby came awake with a jolt. Her throat was sore, and she realized that she'd probably been screaming in her sleep just as she'd been in her dream. Panting for breath, she rubbed mindlessly at her temple, expecting blood and finding none.

This is Abby, from Santa Barbara. We're looking for Fireflies...

It had been over a year. Nearly two. She couldn't say why she was dreaming about it now. She missed Lev like a fucking limb, every fucking day, but she hadn't had one of these nightmares in a while. And how fucked up was that? She was moving on, while Lev was... she didn't know where Lev was. Safe? Alone? Dead?

Was she alive and with him, or had Ellie done what she'd come all that way to do? The not knowing was driving her insane, she thought. Slowly, irrevocably fucking insane, if she hadn't been already.

"Snap out of it, Abs," she muttered to herself, climbing out of bed and trudging her way to the bathroom. Shower. Get dressed. Go to the fucking shelter. You can do all those things, Abby. Get it together.

After months of volunteer work, she'd gotten hired on as an attendant. Mostly, that meant mucking out the pins, feeding the animals, wrangling them when needed. But she was good at it, good with the troubled dogs especially, and the people who ran the shelter had noticed. Not that they planned to pay her any more than peanuts for her skills, but she didn't really care. It was good work. It calmed the mess in her head, and that was really all she wanted.

The day was hard. Everyone seemed on edge, including the dogs. Maybe it was her. She was harshing the vibe. The woman at the front desk, Denise, seemed relieved when it was time for Abby to go home. Fine, Abby thought. She didn't need friends, anyway.

God, she really was screwing things up.

It was getting dark when Abby found herself on the boardwalk, both calmed and frustrated by the sound of the waves. Santa Barbara had been beautiful, and she'd been filled with so much fucking hope when they'd docked the boat...

The boat.

"Fuck," Abby breathed, jogging down the steps leading towards the water, her eyes on a sailboat beached in the low tide. Heart lodged in her throat, she found herself running, hauling herself up onto the deck and yanking open the cabin doors.

"Lev?" She called, the name tumbling out of her before she had time to remind herself how stupid it was.

The cabin was empty. It was their boat, but it was empty.

Owen's boat.

Her breath catching on a sob, Abby flung herself back up onto the deck, jumping over the rail and landing on her knees in the sand.

"Goddammit," she seethed, hands curled into fists. Shoulders trembling, willing herself not to scream or sob like a child.

What the fuck was she supposed to do now?

[[The boat is currently beached somewhere on the southern coast. This is a complicated find for her, and she's probably not going to be super friendly to strangers... or friends for that matter, but don't let that stop you! Timed to the evening, but I'm willing to fudge the timing if needed. GIMME.

Oh, and just a clarification: Yes, I am starting to phase Kaitlyn Dever into her icons, but she is still big, built-like-an-ox Abby. She might not be keeping herself quite as swol as she was throughout most of the game, but she's still not slight like Kaitlyn– I just like her face.]]

like the forms of the shadows which traverse dreams

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'cause blood is thick but water is forever

2025 Darrow Literary Honors

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so keep it going, keep it going on right now

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