[Maringue]

I wasn't planning on doing any rams during my guest trial, but rng said otherwise

To win this boy tell me what he's sad about - 500-word limit

Ends in one week! (6/28) at 11:59 PST

[C] Expression




Code: Select all

[b]Username:[/b]
[b]Name:[/b]
[b]Gender:[/b] dmab
[b]Nightcap Design:[/b]
[b]Prompt:[/b]

Owned by ♔Voltaire♔

[BlueEyedKite]

I am withdrawing as I like some of the entries I have read and am rooting for them ^^

[honeybunchesofoats]

Username: honeybunchesofoats
Name: Cash
Gender: dmab
Nightcap Design: pink for the main cap white math symbols for the design(like divide, plus, minus, square root)
Prompt: (254)

Cash was frustrated to the point of angry tears, he didn't understand why all of this had to be so hard. He was slumped over his laptop screen, his muffled groans echoing throughout his tiny apartment. A mess of paperwork, bills, and receipts were taking over the space, spilling onto the floor. His phone screen blinked at him, temporarily pulling him from his misery.

"Mom-?" he cleared his throat as he answered the phone call, willing himself to sound ok, but knowing his mother she saw right through it.
"Yes I'm fine I'm fine....but", the lump in his throat returned and the tears prickling the edges of his eyes spilled over until louder, heaving breaths wracked his body.
"I honestly thought I could do this without you but I just feel so stupid..." he trailed off, only the sounds of his sniffling were heard for a few moments before the sound of his mother's voice rang in his ears.

Thirty minutes later a soft knock at his door interrupted his spiraling thoughts. He let his mom into his apartment and sank into her warm embrace.

"I'm sorr-"
He was shushed and they stood like that in his front hallway for what could have been years before they sat at his kitchen island and went through the papers.

"It's just taxes why is is so difficult? I'm not really cut out to be an adult huh? ", he huffed a pained laugh but his mother only shook her head.

"We were all young once weren't we?"

[Chaotic Queen]

Username: Albino_
Name: wip
Gender: dmab
Nightcap Design: surprise me!
Prompt:

Wip!

[hunny.milk.tea]

user: hunny.milk.tea
☆
name: clyde
☆
gender: dmab
☆
nightcap design: would love a little swirly pastel cap the colors of his crystals with the charm being crystal shaped (3
☆
prompt:

unrequited love.

it was supposed to be tragic, enduring and bittersweet. it was a feeling every poet dreamed of, this sense of poetic justice being done to the author to give them a muse. something they pine after, that they let harbor heavy in their mind. however clyde hadn't expected it to hit so... deep. as a poet he prided himself on being one the best authors, that he experienced emotions so deeply that only pen and paper could bear witness to them. and yet he stared down at the empty piece of paper with his nose crinkled at his own blankness.

it wasn't like he was expecting anything in return for how quickly his heart had fallen into his latest endeavors of romance. however, he hadn't prepared himself for being stopped dead in his tracks by a flat out rejection. he wasn't just talking about emotions either, ever since he had been shot down clyde was unable to bring himself to write even a single sentence. he had some sort of poetry block, his one outlet for the exhausting weight of his emotions now seems to have gone into hiding. snatched away, exactly how his mind had been by every passing thought of his fruitless attempts to rekindle something.

now, clyde had been properly warned about love before, how it was one of the most complex feelings one could undergo. he had his fair share of crushes and flirtatious adventures that fizzled out with time, yet this one... had been different. clyde had truly felt vulnerable and yet at the same time understood by this other individual. they shared a similar love for poetry and shared many of their personal sonnets highlighted by the glow of the moon. and now as clyde stared down at the paper it was as if his words to express his sentiments had been stolen. there was no place for them to run, no place for them to be confined and sorted out on a blank sheet of paper. instead they swirled around in his head, causing him to actually sit with them.

clyde's eyes began to water as he tried to blink away the inevitable sting that would wash over him. but maybe this was what was needed, this storm that crashed inside of him would give way to the most beautiful sea of words to ever grace poetry. though the initial ache that opened up into a yawning crater sunk deep into his chest. he closed his eyes and took in a lengthy inhale, a tremble fluttered across his entirety. he tried to picture this pang of heartbreak taking up residency on the page, how he would word this feeling that struck him so fully. and still there was nothing. clyde exhaled sharply, his brow creasing in confused frustration as that weighty ache meshed with a fiery heat that stung his eyes. that is when the tears flooded onto the page.

and it was the most beautiful poem he had ever written.

500 words

[Cactologist]

User: Cactologist | Name: Auro | Gender: Ram | Nightcap: Soft, using the crystal colors | Prompt: [367]
┌────────────── ☁ ─────────────────────────────────────────────┐

The world is broken, and so, too, is Auro’s heart. Blessed with a heart larger than his spirit
can bear, his tears spill endlessly from an overflowing well of empathy, harboring an eternal
and infinite heartbreak more agonizing than any physical affliction.
As a lamb, he cried for the bee that stung him, for it had no way of knowing that leaving
its stinger out of fearful self-defense would be its doom.
When he was taunted and pushed around for being a crybaby, he cried not for his own sake,
but for the brokenness he saw in the eyes of his bullies.
When lightning landed a tree through his roof, he cried not for his own effort of its removal
and repairs, but for the tree's own life cut short so suddenly.
His heart has grown with him, and with it, the chasm that splits it.
He looks into the world and sees pain on innocent faces, regret in helpless souls, and fear
in tear-filled eyes.
Heinous horrors are overlooked, calamity and catastrophe are sensationalized, and society
turns a blind eye, desensitized.
Every second means death and destruction, society sliding down the slippery slope of civility.
He does what he can, putting his all into every sweet dream, and every spare penny and
second into philanthropy, but the deeper he goes, the more darkness he sees.
So, when Auro can’t solve every problem, he cries.
He cries for every child going to sleep to nightmares of hunger, neglect, and endangerment.
He cries for every parent waking up to long days of uncertainty and regret.
He cries for everyone without a home, without a family, without security, without hope.
He cries for every insecure conscious, every hurtful intent, every blow, every recoil.
He cries for the destruction of nature, for the hate that lingers around every corner, for
every haunting secret buried in shame.
He cries for the sin that taints the beauty he knows still lingers in an uninhibited smile,
every new burst of life, every sunbeam. Hoping, praying, that someday, if enough tears have
been shed, perhaps they can wash away the corrosion.
Perhaps, if there is any hope in empathy, it can begin with him.

└───────────────────────────────────────────── ☂ ──────────────┘

[♔Voltaire♔]

Username: ♔Voltaire♔
Name: Liriel
Gender: dmab
Nightcap Design: this vibe
Prompt:

(TW for loss and grieving).

Growing up, I was always told I should let things go rather than hang onto them and let them hurt me even more than they already were. I will acknowledge that it's difficult for me to let go, even to this day, especially when it comes to those I care for most. I cannot help but hang on for as long as I can and try to help those who desperately need it, even if that means wasting my energy reserves on what many would see as the despondent.

I remember it clearly, how the sun poked through the deciduous canopy above me, how it warmed me to my core and lit a fire in his eyes that screamed out for the unknown, for adventure, and for risk. "He" was my best friend, a year older than I was, but still full of vigor and energy and I fed off of it like it was my last meal, following him wherever he went. We explored every last bit of our village, learning the ins and outs, where the snake holes were, and where the dogs couldn't reach us. We were inseparable, joined at the hip, never to be parted. We thought we'd grow up together, however, life is a cruel mistress, snuffing out candles before they have time to truly glow.

I remember my mother trying her hardest to explain he was getting ill, and that no medicine could fix it. She told me we had little time left to spend together, that he had too little energy to even get up on his feet. Walking into his room, I couldn't even recognize him, so frail and fallible that he couldn't even muster a smile or raise his head. How cruel nature is, breaking a healthy individual down so far that he cannot even think of finding out how to stand again. His breaths were shaky, his smile more so, but I laid beside him anyway, not moving a single muscle that entire night.

He was my first loss. Waking up that morning proved to be the last morning together, and they had to strip me from beside him. I didn't eat for days, and never moved from my room unless my mother was forcing me to. Time comes for us all, I knew that-however, it didn't make the concept any easier to grapple with. It was a truly traumatic experience, one I still wrestle with constantly even though I am older. How I long to speak with him once more, to go exploring with him once more like when we were young.

I have a grueling time letting things go. I allow demons to haunt me for as long as they wish, allow them to fester and wound until they fade away of their own accord. How I long to learn how to let things be as they are, but for now I will continue to hold regrets, to drown demons that should have been exorcised years before.
-

[Knickknacks]

username: knickknacks
name: argus - of greek origin; meaning "shining; watchful guardian"
gender: dmab
nightcap design: a slightly darker than the blue used on his body;
prompt: [465/500 words]

Every night, the dreamscape stretches before him, vast and glittering. He knows where to go- the route is familiar to him as it always is, vaporous trails springing up after his steps as he makes his rounds.

However many dreamers he visits, he finds himself circling back to this one, time after time.

He does not know who they are- does not know what form they take in the waking world, does not know if they even see him or are aware of his presence. But their dreams are near-always troubled, and that, he finds, is what draws him. For is he not supposed to be a guardian of peaceful sleep, warding off nightmares and preserving the rest of those whose minds he travels through while they rest?

That is just the trouble- if this dreamer had nightmares, he would do all in his power to dispel them. But their dreams are not nightmares- there is no external darkness plaguing their slumbering musings. The only thing he finds in their mind is mundanity, events of their day playing on rewind and repeat- anxious dreams turning over the things they are embarrassed about, building a catastrophe out of their interactions with others, imprisoning them not in a dreamscape of horrific nightmares, but in this odd middle ground of anxiety dreams- warped and twisted versions of the things they worry about. And these worries and anxieties, he finds are not so easy to dispel.

He wishes he could help them- wishes he could gather up this dreamer's nightmares and bundle them away, out of their dreamscape for good. But this anxiety is a tricky thing, evading his grasp- slipping away and reforming, one overthought scenario into another, something he is never able to pin down and put a stop to.

In part, he wonders if it is his fault. If he were a better dream guardian, a stronger one, perhaps he would be able to dispel it. Maybe he is simply not good enough to give this dreamer the help they need- or maybe he cannot aid them in their anxiety, he wonders, because he is still lost in his own, these doubts about being good enough, the worries plaguing him sharpened by the pain of knowing that he is unable to save this dreamer from their restless nights.

There are tears on his face, whenever he wakes from a trek through the dreamscape. Whether they is due to his own worries, or the ones he witnessed in the mind of another, helplessly standing by while their unconscious anxieties multiplied, he is not sure.

He grieves that he is unable to help more- and because this, in turn, makes him fall easy prey to anxieties of his own.

Some dream guardian he has turned out to be.

[Friendlyseal]

Username: Oomp
Name: Jasper
Gender: dmab
Nightcap Design: Pastel rainbow to match the gems
Prompt: Inspired by my own struggles with insomnia, maybe others can relate. Wrote this at 4:30am.

The Crystalline Sheep's sorrow:

Once upon a moonlit night, in a peaceful meadow, there lived a sleep sheep named Jasper. Jasper had a peculiar problem, one very rare among others of his kind – he simply couldn't sleep. As the other sleep sheep peacefully dozed off, Jasper lay awake, pondering life’s mysteries and counting stars.

Night after night Jasper sat in solitude, eyes wide open, gazing at the moon as it cast its gentle glowing embrace over the meadow. The soft rustling of grass and the distant hoot of an owl kept him company for the evening, but his mind remained restless.

On this particular night, a sense of loneliness enveloped Jasper, draping his heart in a somber shroud. As he glanced at the other sheep, blissfully lost in slumber, jealousy washed over him and he began to cry. Oh, how he yearned for the effortless solace of sleep like his friends.

Jasper closed his tearful eyes once more and listened intently, hoping to catch the wind's gentle lullaby. Try as he might, the whispers remained elusive.

[vanilla bean.]

Username: vanilla bean.
Name:
Gender: dmab
Nightcap Design:
Prompt:

hes so soft i love him.. marky mark