#origfic picks in all sorts of things

[shadowsong26fic]

Coming Attractions!

Yes, I'm aware it's Tuesday not Monday but shhhhh XD

Just a quick one this month. Not even going to split it up by fandom as I usually do, just kinda blitz through.

So I ended up...essentially taking January off from writing, apart from a scattered few sentences here and there. Which on the one hand was probably good for me but on the other hand I'm behind on projects lol. Ah well.

Priorities for this month: 1. SWBB I'm picking up the project I had to step away from last year. Anakin was not found at age nine and never became a Jedi; we're handwaving that TPM ended roughly the same way anyway because Padme and Obi-Wan are very good at what they do and one of the other pilots got lucky on the droid control ship. Fast-forward to like a year and a half/two years into the Clone Wars, Ahsoka ends up briefly stranded on a planet that's neutral mostly because it's a black market hub. They click pretty quickly, hang out for a while, stumble into a Separatist plot to test a chemical weapon and blame a limnic eruption for the deaths, and Deal With It. Hondo and Bo-Katan are briefly involved because I said so XD 2. P&J We're getting to the part where Ari actually finds stuff out, lol. Getting to Europe and talking with other researchers, etc. There's some interesting stuff in Marseille, and Calais is important. And Ari and Phil continue to be cute in the background. 3. The Other Battlestar Baltar ends up on Pegasus; there's a bunch of stuff built up around the two OCs who fill the plotholes he left behind...I need to get more text down in general, lol. And also figure out how I want to structure it? Like...I do need to establish the new people (including a few on Pegasus, like the senior medical officer, a marine officer, there will also be a Four who gets pulled from the civilian fleet...) and also clarify why Baltar ends up in a different position (and why Helo doesn't because he and Athena still need to meet). And it would probably make the most sense to just go linearly and handle all the miniseries exposition in order. But then again would that actually be Interesting; or would it be better to pick up later and jump back and forth in time...yeah, you see my problem lol. 4. Acheron Javert Groundhog Day fic; looping the last 36ish hours of his life. (from right before he heads to the barricade to his death). 5. Maybe get back into Precipice or write some origfic if I have time/brain.

Longer-range projects: 1. Percussive Maintenance is still hanging out in my head, so I'm tentatively planning on that for GBB (aka the one where the at least two concussions Sam gets during Downloaded unlock Enough of his memories) 2. Or maybe I'll jump back to The Blood of Angry Men, we'll see. (aka a Zarek character study; looking back on his life (and the allies/friends/tools that he's led to their deaths) from the night before his execution) 3. What I'm definitely not doing is any of the crossovers floating around in my head; either the Star Wars ones or the WoT ones. (the one I talked about the other night; and a fusion is actually sort of building in my head because of course it is. Mostly because of the Kara-as-Mat thing I pinged onto the other night; but also Baltar would be an interesting Logain; possibly Zarek as Taim? I think I'd leave Rand as Rand and just fill in the roles around him. Lee also lines up really well with Perrin...and since this would derail pretty early on I feel a little more Flexible about love interests/etc. lol. For reasons of Tuon, Moiraine, and Lan, mostly. Also Faile. Also I'd still want Caprica as a sul'dam, I think, but Logain doesn't have a canon love interest IIRC sooooo that's easier to sort out XD ...although now that I think about it, Athena as Nynaeve and Helo as Lan could work...) 4. Incinctus/other Castlevania things. 5. I'm doing pod_together again once signups open. I need to refine my fandoms list, haha. Not that I haven't had interesting times the last couple years, but it'd be nice to get matched based on something that Isn't a very secondary/tertiary fandom for me again. 6. AtLA may come floating back into my head enough to pick up some of the projects I wandered away from there, we'll see.

Not writing, strictly speaking, but there's some admin/modding stuff for this year's GBB that I should get a move on, especially since the event is moving to May-October, plus helping out with SWBB the way I do every year.

...yeah, that's pretty much where things stand. Hopefully I'll hit a nice groove this month!

What about you guys, what are you working on?

[thisbluespirit]

Writerly ephemera meme

I was tagged by @captain-aralias for this one:

Find five bits of yourself that you gave to your fiction (memories and places and phrases and things into our stories), post and tag five or more writers to share as well. 

This is a tough one - odd bits do get in, even into the fanfic, although being fanfic for fantastical and historical canons limits it - but finding it?  um.  Here goes.

1. I did once make a kind of self-insert character up on purpose because I needed a character to kill in a DW fanfic, but I don’t think I ever cross-posted that one to AO3 from Teaspoon.

2. I think there’s a lot of stuff about the effects of my ME/CFS that goes in, one way and another, and also shapes what I’m capable of writing, but it’s bad enough that I see that.  I don’t want other people to, so I’ll just say that someone commented on The Poison Tree that “ this fic’s depiction of mental fatigue and unrest...*chef’s kiss*” and I was just: 0_o  well, there might be a reason for that...  :/  (I always knew that one was a lot me, though.  Metaphorically.  I’ve never met a vampire.)

I could point out other examples - it’s in almost everything - but they would make things sound worse than it is, because that’s the point of putting it in fic - you can push it to the most extreme there in safety. 

3. Also, not on AO3, I wrote a big series on Teaspoon called 1980s UNIT and there is a lot of various members of my family in Tilly and Nat, even though none of them is a Victorian housemaid stranded in the 1980s, or a scientific adviser to UNIT.

(This is difficult, because the kinds of things that get in aren’t things like, “a funny thing that happened to me in Smiths one time” and more “I see I was working out my issues here again” and “this OC is a bit of a mix of [insert family member here]” - things either I really don’t want the reader to know, or the reader would generally prefer not to know, none of which seems ideal for a passing tumblr meme.) 

4. I thought of a good one!  I do put librarian in-jokes in things because of having been a children’s librarian, most especially in By the Book, which was an origfic written for hetswap one time for the excellent prompt “a librarian accidentally summons a demon”, and while I am not Miss Cecil (fun fact: she is secretly based on & named after the librarian character Miss Cecily Brown from Enemy at the Door) and I have never accidentally summoned a demon, let alone a dazzlingly handsome one with a crocodile, but pretty much all the library stuff is real, including an exchange with one of my former colleagues re. the self service machine the week I was typing it up.

“Mr. Carter’s browsing history” is in honour of a colleague of mine who, um, had a famous (in our authority) encounter with someone masturbating at the public computer.  (She asked if he needed a hand.  Same colleague one time on getting the “I pay your wages” rant from a customer, responded with, very politely, “Well, I’m afraid you don’t pay me enough.”  The hand bit was accidental, though.  She claims.)

Miss Cecil also mentions a Pauline and a Carol working in the library.  We had 3 Paulines and 5 Carols.  And, basically, there are a LOT of pregnant princesses and policewomen in Mills & Boon books and I’ve never understood what that was about.  And, as anyone who’s ever read a picture book knows, so many things are Not Mine.

The ending is pure wish-fulfilment fantasy.  Alas.  And I did malign the Friends of the Library meetings.  It was other public meetings that were the terrible, eternal ones.  But I mean, this whole story is nothing but librarian in-jokes & [bitter] experience, really!  (Well, except for Saleos, but he came from Wikipedia.)

 3. Find a better Book of Advice, perhaps by haunting the returns trolley, for, lo, there are all the very best books.

 Pros – it may contain the secret wisdom of the age and provide a path ahead.

 Cons – if there is such a book, it is no doubt on loan to a human who has absconded with it and will not return to pay their dues, the villain.

5. I do often use settings I know, like the West Country, or Wales, or the North East, or the parts of London I’ve been to.  (I’ve lived in all of the above except London, but my sister lives there, and I used to visit a lot as I wound up being involved with the national Youth Libraries Group, which meant work sent me down to London for free sometimes, so I’d take holiday and stay an extra day or two with A, and also visit archives for family history.)  The most recent one was Night’s Last Word, which takes place in Wales, if a bit too vaguely to count. It’s helpful for DW earth-set stories, and for writing Spooks.

This is an odd but interesting meme, so no worries if people don’t want to do it, but tagging @pers-books @bunn1cula @allegoriesinmediasres @jurijurijurious & @foreignobjecticus  Or indeed, anyone else who writes and thinks it would be a cool meme!

[thinkatoryprocess]

So last month I figured, it's Pride Month, if I'm gonna try to crowdfund my name change, now is the time. I went to Twitter and Facebook, and between both of them I have all of the money at least to cover the two initial expenses. It's a lot more expensive than you think - to file for the change alone I have to pay over $150 and then I have to publish my name change in the local newspaper three times, which is apparently roughly $100. (Because I'm not changing a gender marker, I don't have to tender proof of gender confirmation surgery. Maybe someday, who knows.)

I make OK money, but things are goddamn expensive right now even where I live, so it's been hard to scrape together the money and I sort of gave up in despair a while ago. Then I had a medical situation come up and had to give my (legal) deadname over and over again for about two weeks straight, and I realized I could not handle it anymore.

Anyway, picking the middle name took me a hot minute, I definitely don't want the one I grew up with, so it's only now I'm settled on what I want to do. Next week I'm actually going to the courthouse to file. It's very exciting, even though the court date and the actual name change are just step one in a process that includes replacing everything that has my legal name on it.

What a pain in the ass. It'll be worth never having to say any of those names in reference to myself ever again, or see them in print and have to pretend that's me, but damn.

I'm also changing my origfic penname because I'm not doing femme shit anymore. Not even in some petty attempt to get romance novel readers. Nope. I'll save the femme names for my transfemme comrades. It's gender-neutral all the way down for me, baby.

[kaesaaurelia]

have you tried holding your breath?

For @whumptober2021 day 2: Talking Is Overrated (specifically "choking")

In space, no one can hear you swear at the automated system that's denying you entrance to a whole ship full of oxygen.

(Technically this is an AU of some GO fan characters, but it's sufficiently removed from the context that I'm gonna call it origfic. No angels, no demons, and also, alas, no oxygen.)

The goddamn escape pod had gone spinning off in the wrong direction from the force of the explosion, flinging her against the wall before she had secured herself. She didn't know how long she'd been out but it had been long enough that she was well out of reach of anything that looked like a friendly ship, but there was something big the sensors were picking up, the only thing made of metal that she'd be able to get to before she ran out of oxygen, and so, with one hand, she told the pod to beeline towards whatever that was, and with her other hand she felt around the back of her head for any bleeding. Her head didn't hurt, but that was probably due to the nanites, which were still in combat mode and suppressing pain so that she could act.

Her hand came away wet and red, so after double-checking the arrival time estimate and the oxygen content of the escape pod -- really very alarmingly similar numbers -- she felt around for the first aid kit and bandaged herself up.

She had to switch out of combat mode to preserve oxygen, unfortunately, which meant she had to try really, really hard to breathe slowly, because her whole body hurt like hell now, in ways she hadn't been used to since basic training. But she used some of the old-fashioned ingestible painkillers in the first aid kit, and then figured, what the hell, and took a dose of sleep medicine too. If she ran into any unexpected debris, or hostiles, it would eat up valuable breathing time, and she figured she might as well die in her sleep rather than totally panicked and trying to think her way out of the third indisputably fatal situation she'd been in today.

Her last thought, before falling asleep, was that she wondered if the general had known what she was sending her people into. This was not the time she'd been in one of these fucking escape pods, and she was beginning to wonder if her higher-ups considered her disposable.

She awoke to unpleasant sounds and even unpleasanter sensations: the lightheadedness of low oxygen and the forced shuddering wakefulness that the nanites imposed upon her when they perceived her life to be at risk. She rubbed her eyes and squinted out the window and saw the ship that would be her salvation, hopefully.

If she could get into it.

Fuck. How was she going to get into it? It wasn't a ship of any design she recognized -- maybe a good sign, since it meant she hadn't been up against anything like it in combat recently -- but also, how was she going to get in? The hull was pockmarked with the evidence of small impacts, suggesting its shields weren't functioning at all, and the way it was drifting did not seem to be due to any kind of propulsion. Four "wings" of light-collecting panels were folded up, though, which meant probably whoever had brought it out here had done that on purpose to preserve the solar panels from impacts, and there were a few little pink and yellow lights blinking on and off. Warnings? Invitations? "Remember where we parked" signals? It was anyone's guess.

The air was getting really fucking low, and the lights swam before her eyes.

She sent an experimental signal towards it, just to see if it was awake. It took a few seconds, but she got a ping back, and a few more lights stuttered on. So she sent it a request for shelter, and hoped whoever owned this ship was nice, or at the very least wasn't going to take her apart to see how she worked. She'd been there before.

She got a garbled response in characters that didn't resemble any language she knew, but she blinked, and when she opened her eyes again they had resolved into Latin characters. STATE NAME, ALLEGIANCE, REASON FOR REQUEST.

Aw, fuck. This wasn't gonna go well. She briefly considered lying, but it was hard to imagine what they wanted to hear when she didn't know anything about them and also her poor nanites were doing their damnedest to wring every bit of oxygen out of the air and failing.

She had to try. CAPTAIN VICTORIA HEWELL, SOL ALLIANCE, LOW ON OXYGEN, she responded.

The response came back immediately. REQUEST REJECTED.

Shit. Shit shit shit. She typed WHAT THE FUCK, WHY? and then deleted that and instead sent back a more professional query: REASON FOR REJECTION?

NON-RECOGNIZED: INNER SOL ALLIANCE.

It was some fucking automated system, she realized. It had instructions not to let the wrong people in while whoever was in charge was away, and whatever person was supposed to be reviewing the requests was dead or using the bathroom or had fucked off long ago, and she was extremely fucked. I NEED OXYGEN OR I WILL DIE, she explained. Some of these systems were smarter than others.

She waited for a long time -- well, three breaths, but that was a long time these days, given how little those breaths were sustaining her. HAVE YOU TRIED HOLDING YOUR BREATH? the automated system suggested helpfully.

A flash of rage seized her, and in a fit of gleeful hypoxic insanity she sent back GO FUCK YOURSELF YOU STUPID ROBOT I HOPE YOU CHOKE ON A MAGNET. She had just enough time to kind of regret sending that -- the automated system would undoubtedly fail to appreciate either her fury or the end of her life, and it probably wasn't even vulnerable to magnets, and if it was advanced enough to understand her it would probably be offended at being called a robot -- before she passed out again, the dwindling oxygen levels in her blood beyond the capabilities of her nanites' forced wakefulness to help with.

When she came to, gasping, she found herself in a dimly-lit hangar, her escape pod open to let indescribably sweet, fresh-smelling oxygen in. The message flashing on the escape pod screen said WELCOME ABOARD. PLEASE KEEP YOUR MAGNETS TO YOURSELF, ASSHOLE. Then there was a sort of jagged-edged character that looked like... a W, only moreso, maybe? Was it a glitch? A signature? Fuck if she knew. She undid her safety belt and floated free. She was going to have to be more diplomatic than she was good at if she wanted to get back to her life, but at least somebody onboard had a sense of humor.

[angorwhosebabyisthis]

Multiples of 6 for the OC asks!

AYYYYYYYYYY THANK YOU

i think for this one i’ll answer each question with three ocs for comparison >:V

(under the cut because, predictably, It Got Long)

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6. Do they smoke or do they hate smoking. 

(origfic, unnamed superhero verse)

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Neil: won’t touch cigarettes, but has been known to smoke a bowl every now and then when his anxiety gets the best of him. he doesn’t like doing it--he’s internalized some pretty negative shit about how it means he’s a trashy, weak-willed loser who can’t handle reality--but since meeting nads and then beth, he’s eased up a lot on the guilt and is able to relax more.

Nads: smokes cigarettes, but only if they’re stolen. she’s got an active lifestyle to say the least and she doesn’t want to risk fucking up her lungs, so that’s her compromise. my god does she love her weed though

Beth: smokes cigarettes to take the edge off her anxiety when she has to go outside during the day. she knows they’re worse for her than weed, but she’s wary enough of her liminal space powers without imagining what they might do if she got stoned.

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12. What’s an outfit they’d despise wearing Vs one they’d love wearing? Draw it! 

(Tales of Arcadia; i’m godawful at drawing clothes so i’ll just describe them as best i can ashdflkshdfkl)

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Liyen: loves comfortable, understated, professional-looking masc clothes, usually in muted shades of gray, blue, or black. give them a fuzzy turtleneck sweater and black pants and they’re happy. meanwhile they’d be SUPER uncomfortable in loud, clashing colors or anything too femme. 

Schommag: Does Not Like Clothes That Will Get in Her Way, also not a big fan of dressing femme with very few exceptions (the right Little Black Dress, for example). give her what she needs to get around the woods and stay out of her way. that said she does love showing off her muscles, so she wears a lot of tank tops and sports bras (and sometimes no top at all, if she can get away with it). 

Oryalv: VERY femme, particularly business casual. this man loves his pantsuits. meanwhile his nightmare is middle-aged high school coach aesthetic. put him in a t-shirt and khakis and he’ll start pouring smoke like a teakettle

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18. Have they ever committed a crime? How? Why? If not, then what’s their opinion on crime?

(origfic, unnamed VALENTINE DON’T DO THAT verse)

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Valentine: has been made complicit in a lot of their family’s cutthroat-noble shadiness growing up, is otherwise a law-abiding sort up until they jump off the slippery slope and get the war crime ball rolling in earnest. Whoops

Edmund: has gotten into plenty of cutthroat-noble shadiness of his own volition, thank you very much. unlike valentine he’s a whole lot more inclined to go UHHH and pull up when it comes to war crimes

Marcel: LOVES war crimes. LOVES them. would marry them if he could. lucky for him he’s captain of the guard and has plenty of opportunities. will otherwise use the law as a bludgeon but i don’t think he’s too bothered about it for its own sake

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24. Mcdonalds, subway, or KFC?

(Final Fantasy Tactics A2)

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Nebilim: subway, grease is sensory hell and makes him sick and it’s the easiest place to avoid it. the number of variables per sandwich make him anxious, but if he has to pick one then fuck it, it’s worth not putting grease in his body.  

Moovry: loves grease with all his somehow-still-functioning heart, would bring his own beer keg to KFC and refuse to leave til he’s finished his fourth bucket of chicken

York: MCDONALDS! MCDONALDS! MCDONALDS. gets the happy meal and then uses the toy to test their black magic minispells. we hardly knew ye, beyblade 

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30. Have they ever dreamed about another oc?

(Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, taxidermy/doll horror cw)

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Faerna: has dreams about missing his mother sometimes. he hasn’t seen her in a long time, and for all he knows she thinks he’s dead, but he can’t bring himself to go back and look for her when he doesn’t know if she’ll approve of the life he’s chosen for himself. for all he talks himself up, not everyone’s happy to have a thief and a conman for a son.

SkekNev: has recurring dreams about the victims of their taxidermy coming back to life. less of a HOLY SHIT THE DOLLS ARE ALIVE nightmare for them, more of an anger/anxiety nightmare because stop that, stop having autonomy, i made you like this for a reason.

Aivne: dreams a lot about her little siblings. outright nightmares, semi-lucid rehearsals of danger scenarios, memories from before they lost their parents.

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36. If they’re nonhuman, what’s their opinion on humans?

(origfic, faeverse)

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Aislinng: vampire/incubus, more specifically A Dracula Lookin Motherfucker. depending on how much of a bastard he is in a given au, humans are usually somewhere between ‘fun to dazzle with my Supernatural Charms’ and ‘boring. where are the interesting people to torment’

Meadowsweet: rabbit faun. depending on which of the two wildly different versions of him we’re talking about, he either treats humans with the same goodwill as anyone else who might need his healing, or looks down on them and considers them fair game for whatever evil bastard he’s pining after this week.

Agaric: aislinng’s son with a forest spirit, so fuck if i know what to call him at this point. humans tend to find his brand of quiet, aloof awkwardness either offputting or endearing; either one is mortifying, and he’d mostly rather just keep to himself. 

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42. What’s their standpoint when it comes to washing hands?

(origfic, bumfuck nowhere cult)

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Cristina: obsessed with cleanliness, washes her hands constantly, crissy please you live in the desert

Skinner: if my hands are clean i can’t wipe them on cristina’s robes now can i

Rosemary: who needs to wash hands when you’ve got tentacles ;)

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48. If they were defeated fairly in battle, would they accept and move on or throw a fit?

(origfic, slasher movie slaughterhouse dimension)

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Maggie: will stay down and let you think she’s beaten, until you take your eyes off her for a second too long. then she’ll go for your hamstring

Dee: will accept it and move on, but will also try to make you feel like winning wasn’t really important anyway. maggie loves her dearly but she is kind of infuriating to everyone else

Esau: is delighted when somebody beats him, because if they’ve gotten that far they’ve committed at least one horrific atrocity and will have to live with that forever (if not embrace it). the real treasure was the corruption and PTSD we found along the way. no wonder maggie kind of hate-connects with him, he reminds her of dee lmao

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54. Have they ever lost anyone?

(misc origfic)

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Gray: lost the person who summoned them, gave them form, and taught them how to speak. once she died, all they knew was that she’d stopped coming, and that their only friend--their only contact with the world outside the cave--was gone. they’re there alone for a long time before a hitchhiker stumbles across them, and now they’re clingy as fuck and terrified of being abandoned again.

Ashdown: lost her wife the spring before her story begins, which left her so depressed she didn’t bother flying south for the winter with everyone else. she does eventually find love again, after coming to terms with the fact that what she’s lost isn’t the only thing she can ever have.

Jake: lost his older brother as a kid, which might or might not be why some fuck haunting their own fursuit recruits him to help with their unfinished business.

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[DYING WHEEZE]

thank you again for the questions!!! i have. so many ocs. SO many ocs, and it’s always fun to get a chance to trot a bunch of them out, especially with a good range of questions like these :D

[marypsue]

an author meme because @viletorpedo tagged me and I think we may have descended into a vicious author meme tagging cycle

Author Name: MaryPSue. My ffn is different, but also now defunct, so I don't see much purpose in putting that username here. This was a username I chose when I first signed up for tumblr back in 2011, based on a whim and the main character of a parody webcomic I was considering making. (It never came to fruition.) 

Fun fact: the 'P' doesn't stand for anything and is really just there for aesthetic purposes, though it has variously been used as an initial for Perfect, Pitch, and Perdita depending on context and circumstance.

Fandoms You Write For: Anything moderately popular which has either a dead kid as the main character, a fraught central sibling relationship, a female character Cursed With Awesome, or all of the above. Probably best known for stuff for Gravity Falls (and Gravity Falls Transcendence AU) and Rise of the Guardians/Guardians of Childhood fandoms, though I'm currently exercising my right to be the most basic of fandom bitches by primarily pouring my energy into canons where Tom Hiddleston portrays a dark-haired woobie who thinks of nothing but murder all day. (I know there's got to still be at least a ghost of a Crimson Peak fandom out there somewhere, dammit.)

Where You Post: Here, and AO3. Most things end up in both places, though I don't know what tumblr's policies re: links and the main search are anymore so often there isn't an AO3 link included on my tumblr fic posts.

Most Popular One-shot: By kudos, that'd have to be...A Semi-Normal Life (Gravity Falls, Transcendence AU)! I didn’t expect this one. 

Most Popular Multi-chapter Story: Again going by kudos, Raising Stakes (Gravity Falls). 

Favourite Story You Wrote: Picking just one is very hard, but I'm going to put in a good word, at this close date to Halloween, for Samhain (Rise of the Guardians, Guardians of Childhood). You don't need any familiarity with the source material to read this one; it's a ghost story and a romance and a tragedy with what is arguably a happy ending. Well, a happy ending for a ghost story.

Story You Were Nervous To Post: Definitely all of them, though I'll admit to a particular anxiety about posting others (MCU, Thor). Partly because the last thing I'd posted had not been working out on the writing end and I had to take it down because I was so unhappy with it (something I'd only done once before in my entire fic career) and I was completely unable to tell whether this was any better; partly because of the subject matter; partly simply because I have avoided a good 90% of all the MCU movies, especially the crossover-y Avengers ones, and so did not have the level of knowledge of canon that I like to have before posting things so I can be sure I haven't got simple details wrong. (Changing things deliberately from canon is one thing. Not knowing a thing which might turn out to have bearing on a fic is quite another.)

How Do You Choose Your Titles: Sometimes they're a bad pun that's relevant to the plot, premise, or themes of the story; sometimes they're stolen song lyrics or snippets of poetry; and recently I've caved and just started giving my silly working titles to oneshots, or titling them like episodes of Friends. (The SPN/MCU Thor crossover that I ended up taking down got the positively insipid and overused, if extremely relevant, Lana Del Rey lyric title 'gods & monsters' when I posted it, but the working title and probably the title I should have actually given it was 'oh whats THIS hot topic clearance bin nonsense now'.)

Do You Outline: Sort of.

Complete: 118 works and counting!

In Progress: Something Borrowed, Something Blues (Gravity Falls, Transcendence AU) and Imbalance (The Adventure Zone: Balance).

Coming Soon/Not Yet Started: I'm sitting on a Crimson Peak/Haunting of Hill House (the novel, not any of the adaptations) crossover for Halloween that I'm really excited to share. I'm really thrilled with how it's turned out! It's a little experimental, a little romantic, a little queer, and hopefully a lot creepy.

Other than that, I've got a couple of continuations of things sitting in Drafts Limbo (there is some kind of ending in the works for The Family Business, though I have no idea how long it'll take to get there, and I have a host of ideas but no solid plot for what happens next in Girls In White Dresses), and some things I haven't shared because I'm not sure they're finished or that there's an audience for them or that they wouldn't be better off with the serial numbers filed off (a series of casefics where Dean Winchester gets cursed into a female body and is Not Particularly Happy About It At All, a definitely very hilarious probably non-canon-compliant oneshot where Darcy Lewis starts to suspect her new roommate is the supervillain of the week in disguise), but mostly my ideas lately have tended towards origfic. (Please. I have so many ideas and so many OCs for origfic. Help me.)

Do You Accept Prompts: Only if I announce I'm taking prompts on this blog. It does happen, though not as often as it used to.

Upcoming Story You Are Most Excited To Write: Hm. Well, right now I'm juggling ideas for two or three silly romance novels: one that's a thinly-veiled Mystery Trio AU featuring incubi; one where a burnt-out author of paranormal romances goes on vacation and ends up having to solve a murder that looks like it was committed by a werewolf to clear her name; and one that's a Hallmark seasonal romance movie for Halloween, where a high-powered marketing director comes home and ends up getting involved in the effort to save an old inn, which turns out to be haunted by an amorous ghost.

I've also got a couple of Stephen King-esque horror stories set in small rural towns that prominently feature flashbacks, and one mystery/thriller in the vein of definitely not bfu rpf where I've deliberately badly filed the serial numbers off the MCU's stable of actors to look at what happens when a megacorporation decides that its contracts should give it absolute control, not only of its actors' bodies, but also their minds. (That sounds...so serious and meaningful when I put it like that. Don't be fooled, it's 100% an excuse to reimagine the Avengers as a bunch of competent women who are actually friends, and also do that 'what if actors started becoming their characters' thing that's always fascinated me, with a side of social commentary blatantly tacked on.)

But...no real plans to write anything that's going to get posted anytime soon, sorry. Unless y'all are particularly interested in my original fiction.

Tagging: @gretchensinister, @pingnova, @seiya234, and anyone else who I didn't tag the first time I think this came around and who wants to do it.

[sideblog-of-stories]

A Sudden Introduction

An gift origfic I wrote for a very special girl ♡ of our RP characters Characters: Amelia, a banker’s wife trapped in a loveless marriage and Mister Darrington, a lowbrow dock worker, her secret lover and cruel Master Warnings: NON-CON -- gang rape, breathplay / severe choking, violence (slapping), anal. This one is fairly rough.

Summary: Amelia is trapped at another one of her husband’s fancy, boring parties, and decides to take a walk with her best frenemy, Clarissa; she ignores the girl’s worries about wandering too far from the mansion, and both find more than they bargained for in the dark woods.

“The night air is lovely, is it not, Amelia?"

”…hm?“ Amelia turned to the other woman in the garden, distracted and obviously not listening to a word she said. Clarissa huffed and pushed her thick curly blonde hair over her shoulder. "Where is your mind lately? You have acted as if your head is in a fog all evening long."

Amelia only shrugged, fiddling with her long unbound brain, twining it around her hand, tightly every so often. She dared not confess the thoughts that distracted her so and turned her face a crimson shade. Luckily it was dark this far into the garden.

"Do not shrug Amelia, ‘tis unladylike,” Clarissa hummed and fanned herself. “Shall we return to the party? Your husband will look for you."

"Hardly, he has the attention of bankers tonight. It will be cards and drinks and cigars until the dawn, and he will only 'look’ for me afterwards, stumbling drunkenly onto the bed and rutting his hips into whatever softness lies there, whether it be me or the pillows, then promptly releasing his seed upon my leg and passing out.”

“Amelia!” Clarissa gasped, covering her mouth with her fan prettily. “What has prompted you to be so filthy and vulgar tonight?”

I want to be filthy and vulgar, she wanted to say, but instead just apologized. “I am sorry…I must have had too much sherry earlier.” She ignored her friend’s tut-tuts and wandered further back into the gardens. Clarissa followed, until they were far enough the lights and din of the party were dimmed. It was dark, and footing was growing treacherous.

“Amelia…” Clarissa whispered, her voice trembling. “Let us return, please – we are wandering too far from the estate. It may be dangerous, there are vagabonds about…”

Amelia just ignored her and wandered further, past the gardens of the estate and into the woods. The lights of the manse twinkled behind them, and music filtered through faintly, giving up soon to the sounds of frogs and crickets. “Amelia!” Clarissa hissed, as the other wandered further, leaving her alone in darkness. She whimpered and hurried forward, nearly running into the other woman and grabbed her arm. “It is too dangerous–!"

"Yehr rih’ about tha’, missus,” a sudden leering voice sounded from the darkness, a hand shooting from behind a bush to grab Clarissa’s arm. The woman jerked and sucked in a breath to shriek, but another hand clapped quickly over her mouth, belonging to a different person. “No,” a dark, familiar voice murmured, muffling Clarissa’s scream, that changed into a shocked whimper when her captor’s other hand slid into her bodice and squeezed her breast. “None of that, lovely miss."

Amelia, moments from flight, stopped suddenly, her entire body trembling from a sudden rush of warmth through her limbs and nethers at the voice. Her mouth went dry and she only stood and stared, afraid to speak lest a word send him running like a bird in flight.

More dark figures slunk from the trees surrounding them, gathering around herself and Clarissa. All male, all stinking of liquor and sweat and the male musk of arousal. Their faces were covered by masquerade masks, some hiding the whole face, some only hiding the eyes. Such as the one on the male who’d spoken, the only one that had, though others were chuckling and leering. 

All in all, a half dozen men clustered around the two women. Clarissa was whimpering and struggling against the arms that held her, but Amelia just stood there in shock, staring at the man with dark scarred skin and an elegant black mask over his eyes. He looked up at her, and her heart skipped a beat, face flushing as a rush of warmth wet her bloomers. Her mouth worked soundlessly. …Mr. Darrington…

His lips slowly curled into a devilish smile and she felt faint. "You won’t run, will you?” he said, directly to her this time, in that low, husky, but commanding voice and she shook her head immediately. The muffled sobs and beseeching looks of her friend were utterly ignored, her eyes only on her Mr. Darrington. 

“Good girl,” he breathed, just loud enough for her to hear, sending another rush of warmth to her cunt. She was soaking wet, fingers shaking in her need to touch herself, to be touched. She watched his hand squeeze and molest her friend’s breast enviously, hungry for that touch, for the hand over her moaning mouth too. It took every bit of willpower not to beg him to touch her instead, but he hadn’t given her permission to beg yet.

“Tend to Miss Amelia, would you?” Mr. Darrington nodded to one of the other males and he came over to her, her brain filled with ideas of what was to occur, and took a slight step back, suddenly frightened. The man saw, and looked back at her lover, who gave a sigh and nodded. 

The man turned back and without warning, slapped her hard across the face, sending her reeling into the hard, scratchy ground. She cried out, face turning red and lay there trembling only a moment before she was cruelly jerked upright by her braid, dragged over to a tree and pinned to it. She dared not speak the words in front of Clarissa, but she looked at Mr. Darrington pleadingly, mouthing “I’m sorry” and “I’ll be good”. She’d be good, she would show him.

“Our dear Miss Amelia won’t want to miss a second of this,” he said with a chuckle, still holding Clarissa, while the others fondled her breasts, and ripped her skirt up to her waist, pushing greedy hands between her legs; one after the other, pushing each other aside in their eagerness to molest the blonde woman as she squirmed and half-sobbed, half-moaned. Amelia watched hungrily while the other man bound her arms to the tree behind her, then proceeded to take a knife to her clothes, ripping through the expensive material and tugging it from her body.

He took liberties with her body, squeezing and molding her breasts when exposing them, sliding two fingers between her legs and teasing her clit. She shook, quivered and held back her moans, which just made the other men laugh as they watched. Clarissa sobbed harder; Amelia could only whimper and bite her lip to hide the cries of pleasure that threatened, though a few did slip out when two men gathered on either side of her and licked and suckled her nipples. 

“Her pussy’s wet as a cat in a tin bath,” one man joked and she flushed darkly, ignoring Clarissa’s gaze. Her Mr. Darrington laughed, that throaty chuckle that melted her insides.

“Finish your job, don’t get distracted,” he said, holding Clarissa by her hair and forcing her to her knees, her mouth bound by one of her own stockings. The guy nodded and Amelia raised her eyebrows, wondering if she was to be sheath for his cock now…if Mr. Darrington wanted it, she would take all these men gladly, one after the other…but no, he only pulled a small wooden object from his pocket. Her eyes widened, recognizing it as one of her Master’s favorite playthings, and her cunt quivered. The man teased her clit with it momentarily, causing her to writhe, then slid it inside her.

“Yehr t'keep this in yeh, Mr. Darrington says,” he growled and she nodded, immediately clamping her knees and thighs together to keep the dildo from sliding out. It pushed further inside her as her muscles flexed and she moaned, sagging a little against the tree.

“Eyes over here, slut,” her Master commanded and she snapped her head up immediately, locking eyes on the scene in front of her. Clarissa was on her knees, gripping his thighs to keep from falling over, though she was helped by his hand gripping tightly to her hair. She was staring behind her in fear as one of the men took out his cock and dropped to his knees behind her, rubbing the huge, red, thick-veined thing against her ass, over her skirt.

“Miss Clarissa here’s quite famous among the boys down in the shipyard, you know,” he smiled at her. “She likes to have one of her men come down and pick the best of the lot and bring them back to her bed, to fuck her senseless. Heard she likes quite a few -vulgar- things of her own–” A few of the men chuckled. 

“But sometimes she gets lax about remembering when her husband comes home and they’re caught. She, the jewel, gets a scolding and the poor fool that fucked her gets his skin flayed from his back. But who would say no to the shipyard master’s wife?” Clarissa’s sobs suddenly choked and her face reddened, the fear there replaced by a different sort.

“Who can be angry though?” Mr. Darrington chuckled, as the man behind Clarissa started ripping her skirt up the back, slowly. “She’s a filthy whore…but she only lacks the discipline of a proper woman. Don’t you agree?” he looked up at Amelia, who flushed heatedly under his gaze and writhed, moving the dildo inside herself. He grinned, lip curling at the corner and she nearly sobbed for wanting his rough hands on her, hurting her so -good-…

“But Miss Amelia knows how to behave…now it’s your turn to learn,” he rubbed his thumb over the blonde woman’s cheek. She whimpered, then made a strangled noise when her bloomers were lowered to her knees and cold slick oil was spread between her ass cheeks. 

Mr. Darrington cupped her face firmly and talked to her in a low voice. Amelia couldn’t hear what he said, but she could guess; she knew well the painful promises coming from his lips if she disobeyed. She saw Clarissa flush at whatever he whispered in her ear and tremble a little in his arms, clutching them and moaning behind her gag as two fingers were pushed up her ass. A hot surge of jealousy ran through her and she writhed against her bonds, whimpering softly.

Within moments that thick oil-slicked cock was plowing Clarissa’s ass, her strangled cries muffled behind her gag. She didn’t struggle; only when the man behind her slammed himself -hard- against her jiggling ass did she jerk and try to push away from him. But quick as lightening large, rough hands were clamped around her throat and her eyes bulged, tears streaming from her eyes.

Amelia’s wrists began to hurt from tugging them subconsciously, having to clamp her thighs together tight to keep the cock from slipping out of her soaked cunt, the juices dripping and sliding down the backs of her thighs. Mr. Darrington looked up at her and she moaned for him, teary eyes pleading. He only smiled at her, and leaned down to murmur something in Clarissa’s ear. Her lips mouthed something wordlessly and he let go, the blonde collapsing onto her palms and coughing, attempting to inhale shaking breaths between hoarse moans. She pushed herself back up to cling to Mr. Darrington’s thighs again and this time, with shaking arms, she pushed back against the cock in her ass, pumping herself on it. Mr. Darrington smiled and complimented her, and she flushed. Amelia writhed and sobbed, jealous rage making her want to scream.

Clarissa began to obey whatever the dominating man whispered to her, spreading her legs wider or arching her back more. Her sobs and whimpers turned to moans, her face flushed and saliva dripping from the soaked cloth in her mouth. One of the men jerked her head back by her hair, hard, and her eyes rolled back in her head, her arms clutching to him as he bit her neck hard enough to bruise. Her nipples were nearly purple from being roughly pinched and she had bite marks and bruises all over her soft pale skin. 

Her eyes were locked on Mr. Darrington no matter who was fucking her, silently begging for his approval, and flushing whenever he praised her. When they flipped her over, she sat on another man’s cock below her and leaned back on her palms, spreading her legs wide and whimpering until someone knelt between her legs and also speared her cunt with their meat, moaning loudly when they did.

Mr. Darrington slid the gag from her lips and told her to lean her head back and open her mouth. Amelia actually made a noise, a soft upset cry and flushed when Mr. Darrington looked right at her while he pulled his hard, dripping cock out and shoved it into Clarissa’s waiting mouth. The blonde gagged, choked, and spit up bubbling saliva around his shaft, but he didn’t stop. He just jerked his hips, fucking her mouth without a care. Spittle dripped down her face, into her hair, and he still fucked her, ignoring Amelia, who was grinding herself against the tree, attempting to fuck herself on the dildo inside her. 

Silent tears rolled down the poor forgotten woman’s cheeks and she bit her bottom lip til it bled. “M...Mr. Darrington…p…please…” she whispered, and suddenly he stopped and looked at her. Goosebumps sprang up on his arms and she was both excited and terrified. He pulled back, cock sliding wetly from Clarissa’s mouth, who gave a cry.

“No! P-please, more, fuck my mouth more, I want your cock in my throat,” she whimpered, licking the sticky saliva from her lips. 

“I’m done with you, slut,” he growled, shoving her head to the side. “They can have you.” Clarissa protested, sobbing while he walked away, her words soon gagged by another man’s cock in her mouth. Mr. Darrington left the others to fuck Clarissa’s every hole raw and walked slowly over to Amelia, who squirmed under his heated gaze.

“My pretty whore’s getting anxious, isn’t she?” he murmured huskily, leaning an elbow on the tree, pushed flush against her. She felt his still-hard cock rubbing against her body, leaving sticky trails of Clarissa’s saliva on her skin, and sucked in a sharp breath. 

“I-I’m sor–” she started, but a finger on her lips shushed her.

“Mm no, sweet girl,” he whispered, sending those chills down her spine again. “You know what is expected of you…you know how to behave.” He began to wind her long braid in his fist, around and around, and she trembled and kept silent. Clarissa’s cries and moans faded into the background, there was only him, his scent and voice and warmth and touch.

“You -know- that you are not allowed to beg, until I give you permission to beg. Isn’t that right?” He shifted and wound the rest of her braid around her slender neck and she gasped, and whimpered. 

“Yes, s-sir,” she panted. “But–but my darling you–y-you were being so mean…”

He chuckled, gathering the ends of the braid in his fist and tightening it around her neck, slowly. “But you love it when I’m mean,” he murmured against her lips and she nearly parted them instinctively.

“But that was cruel,” she pouted, unable to keep the hurt from her voice. Mr. Darrington only grinned and shoved his knee between her legs roughly, pushing it nearly up inside her and forcing the dildo deeper. She arched and gave a cry, which turned to a choked sputter as he abruptly tightened her braid in his fist and cut off her air. She gasped and unconsciously tried to scrabble at the braid but her hands were bound and could only twist her bleeding wrists in her bonds. “Gghkk–!” Her feet scraped on the ground, losing purchase and she sagged on his grinding knee. Her face flushed, red, then redder, as he tightened her braid and both choked her and pulled painfully on her scalp.

“Does the brood mare own the rider, now?” he hissed in her ear, and bit it sharply. Her eyes rolled back in her head. “I am no courtier of yours, whore, kept cockbound to you. I may fuck who I please, when I please, where I please, in front of who I please.” He grinned and looped her braid on a hidden hook above her and gripped her thighs, lifting her and spreading her legs painfully wide simultaneously. His cock teased her clit and then he pushed two fingers into her, holding the dildo still while he roughly forced his manhood into her alongside it.

She gasped and tried to scream, but she had no air. He held her just enough that she was not fully hanging from her braid, but she still could not breathe well. She wrapped her legs around his waist, whimpering from want of holding him. “You are -mine-, cum-sucking slut,” he growled against her lips. “-Not- the other way around.” And then he let her weight hang and with a sharp jerk of his hips began pounding her mercilessly.

She jerked, legs kicking uselessly and looked at him pleadingly as her face slowly turned purple, drooling from her parted lips, pleasure red-hot through her veins. He held her against the tree with his body, fucking her hard, cunt stuffed so full it was near-painful, juices running down her legs and dripping to the forest floor.

Finally, only when white sparks flashed in the corner of her vision, did he loosen her braid. Amelia sucked in a gasp of air so hard it hurt her burning lungs. her Master kissed her then, almost gently, tongue pushing into her mouth, claiming it. She could only flicker her tongue against his weakly, wheezing for air. He grinned and squeezed her ass hard, nails digging into leave red half-moons on her plump flesh. 

“Perhaps I was too cruel,” he murmured, still pumping into her, her back scraped painfully by the bark of the tree. “Perhaps I just enjoy teasing you. But no matter what cunt I stick, in the end, I will always come back to yours, sweet Amelia. Is that not love?” He laughed, but his words warmed her and she moaned, squeezing his waist with her legs.

He leaned in and whispered then, in her ear. “And your womb is the only one I fill.” He pounded harder, reaching down to loosen the bonds of her wrists and she gasped and wrapped her arms around him immediately, the waves of pleasure starting in her groin and radiating out. He tightened her braid, just enough. “As am I the only one that fills it – is that not right?” His searing gaze hit her and she nodded, lips parting, face flushed darkly. 

“Only you,” she groaned, voice hoarse. “Fill my womb with seed and my belly with child again my darling, please, -please-…o-only yours…”

He grinned then, that dark, promising smile she loved so much. “My sweet brood mare,” he murmured against her lips and bit them so hard blood pooled in her mouth as he jerked his hips, pounding so fast and fiercely she thought he might tear her in two. Suddenly with that guttural grunt she loved, he pushed -all- the way inside her and groaned deeply, cock twitching inside her as he came, hard. She could -feel- it, almost as if her cervix expanded from the force of his climax, filling her to bursting.

It was all she needed; when he slammed into her, she gave a sudden jerk and screamed, her orgasm hitting hard, inner walls clenching around him again and again. She shrieked aloud, not caring who heard, his companions, Clarissa, her husband, God himself. Her eyes rolled back in her head, her body sagged, and blackness crept at the corner of her vision as she nearly fainted from sheer pleasure.

Still trembling from aftershocks, she only vaguely felt herself being lowered the the ground, and dressed carefully in her torn clothes. A rough, masculine hand caressed her cheek, brushed fingers over her lips, slid a thick thumb into her mouth. She moaned weakly and suckled it best she could, before the hand was pulled away. She heard clothes rustling further away, and the soft whimpering moans of Clarissa, before there was only the sound of footsteps rustling the grass, growing fainter and fainter.  

She smiled softly and touched a finger between her sodden thighs, hoping for the seed inside her to quicken and take root once more. She glanced over at Clarissa, lying there with her clothes also hastily reassembled, though they did not hide the cum drenching her face, hair and breasts, or the copious amounts leaking from between her legs and ass cheeks. She was trembling and gasping, a pleasured flush on her cheeks. Their eyes met and Clarissa looked away shyly, hesitating a moment before she spoke.

“…Will… Will he come to me…again…you think…?”

Amelia only smiled. --fin--

[shadowsong26fic]

Coming Attractions (of sorts)

I know I basically haven't been keeping up with these this year--it's been kind of a slow writing year in general for me, which is part of it.

And normally at this time of year, I'm setting a number and picking a set of projects to work on for a fake/cheat NaNo but given the whole...AI-nonsense implosion that went on there...

Yeah, not happening.

But I do want to get back into more writing, because I miss it, even if it's been hard this year. So behind the cut is a bit of rambling about the following long-range projects I'm hoping to get more into as time goes on:

The Other Battlestar (BSG)

Papa and J----, August '34 (Les Mis)

Precipice

A handful of other miscellaneous AUs (mostly BSG)

My three main origfic projects (The Farglass Cycle/Feredar; Lux; Untitled Intrigues Story)

And also, as long as we're here, let's go ahead and do an Open Question Night! My askbox is always open, but I'll be keeping a semi-active eye on it and responding tonight. Anything I've written/posted about here or on AO3 is fair game. I do take prompts, but no promises on when I'll fill them, haha.

The Other Battlestar

So this is an AU that I technically started building the first time I was in the fandom, so like...twelveish years ago now? Haha.

The premise, essentially, is Baltar ends up on Pegasus instead of Galactica. Which means a lot of gaps to fill in, both in terms of getting the fleet into roughly the same position when everyone reconnects, and also, even with Razor filling in some gaps, there's a fair bit of 'how do I fill those six months' on the Pegasus side of things.

There are a few OCs involved in filling in those gaps--splitting Baltar's canon shenanigans across two people, one to do the Politics and one to do the Science. Politics is Vance Kimball; movie star/philanthropist, went to university with...I'm blanking on his name; Roslin's original VP pick; anyway the two of them were at an alumni event and got off Caprica together along with the Science person, who is admittedly the most self-indulgent part of this fic but I've decided to stop feeling guilty about my pleasures and honestly what is fandom for if not self-indulgence lol.

Also adding a few people on the Pegasus side of things--there's a Marine officer who grew up with Baltar on Aerilon; Daphne Reed who is the senior medical officer (Cottle's counterpart); and a Four with the civilian fleet who gets drafted to work under Reed.

I did also figure out how to keep Helo on Caprica so he can meet Athena, because they are important to me and see above about self-indulgence, and Fleet!Cavil and Vera (Tough!Six/Hooker!Six/Punk-rock!Six/whatever the cool kids are calling her these days) are probably going to show up once or twice.

So, yeah, the holdup here is...figuring out the best way to balance all the different threads, how much I actively need to rewrite vs. how much I can handwave, and so on. Even if I stop at the end of the Pegasus arc (which is my current plan; I have some vague ideas for where the second half of S2 and beginning of S3 might go but no Active plans at this point), I'm guessing this will end up being like. 150k? It will not be short, anyway. But it's been in my head for a long time and I'm very fond of it.

2. Papa and J----, August '34

So this (and its companion piece, Provenance) is something I was having a lot of fun with and just. Need to get back to, haha. It's outsider POV, an art history grad student named Ari doing some Research into a previously-undiscovered painting by Cosette (who is a moderately well-known painter). Obviously this is a post-canon AU where both Valjean and Javert survived the summer of 1832. I left off with Ari about to go to Europe to continue working there, going into museum collections and archives to try and a) identify J; and b) put a name to 'Papa,' now that we have his face. Anyway, I do plan to get back to this, just...again, slow year, haha.

3. Precipice

I will not quit this fic until/unless I entirely quit the Star Wars fandom which doesn't seem to be happening anytime soon (even if it's back-burnered a bit). So, yeah, even if it's been...::checks notes:: three years since I updated, I haven't forgotten this, it's too big a part of my SW fandom life for me to do that.

(For those who don't know, it's a 'the Republic falls but Anakin doesn't' AU, we've just reached about the timeframe of ANH where I left off)

4. Other Miscellaneous AUs

Just kind of rapid-firing--

The Selkie AU and Backup Plans AU I started with the Year of the OTP project back in 2023. They could go interesting places, and I want to explore them some more.

Acheron is another Les Mis fic, Groundhog Day loop for Javert, fun times.

Percussive Maintenance is the one where D'Anna accidentally unlocks Sam's memories what with all the concussing when they're trapped in the parking garage during Downloaded. It involves a lot of Sam talking to Philosopher!Cavil; I still need to decide whether or not I want to involve/reference the girls from Caprica-the-TV-series. I had a general outline going from Sam regaining his memories up through when they get back to the Fleet that I was hoping to do for GBB this year, but I didn't get enough into it to make it happen. Maybe I will moving forward.

Someday I'd like to get back to Serenissima (which was a Baroque/Renaissance Venice BSG AU)

I have some BSG crossovers floating around that I'd like to actively work on At Some Point (mostly Star Wars, though some of the self-indulgent Stargate crossover stuff I've done in RPs with a friend of mine is always percolating in the back of my head, lol; also the Wheel of Time stuff I started noodling with back when I watched S2 of that series is still interesting--maybe when S3 comes out or when I start my reread of that series)

Someday I'd like to get back to the Avatar Zuko fic or a couple other AtLA AUs I started working back when the fandom renaissance really picked up.

5. Original Works

The Farglass Cycle/Feredar is a fairly typical swords-and-sorcery type fantasy world; it's one of my oldest/longest-running projects and just sort of always a constant in the background of my writing universe.

Lux is the Apocalypse in SPACE. I think a lot of what I've written lately has focused more on the Horsemen than the original two main characters, lol (which would be Lux (Lucifer) and her human love interest Mariko). I still need to get around to fully explaining who Trixie Milton is, among other things.

Untitled Intrigues Story is technically a fantasy because it takes place on a made-up map. The pope/High Priest has sent his two sons as envoys to two rival kingdoms to try and prevent them from going to war, each of them ends up tangled up in the internal politics in different ways, and it's mostly about that. There's also some Politicking going on within the higher ranks of the church (this world is kind of modeled after late-Renaissance Europe soooo), which I find a lot of fun when it's. y'know. fictional.

...yeah, I think that about sums things up, haha. I'm not making any promises for when any of this is coming out, just...these are the sort of uppermost things in my mind for what I want to get more into working on in the next few weeks/months/through the end of the year and beyond.

[thisbluespirit]

Fic writer interview

tagged by: @allegoriesinmediasres (thanks! <3)

name: @thisbluespirit

fandoms: Doctor Who, Sapphire & Steel, Blake’s 7, Once Upon a Time, Shadow of the Tower, Press Gang, Spooks | MI5, Star Wars, Dracula, Adam Adamant Lives! and a whole lot of other fandoms I rotate around, including a scary amount of obscure Brit TV from previous decades, and random things written for Yuletide.

two-shot: The only one I can find on AO3 is The Rime on the Spray, an old fic that’s a mini-adventure with One, Ben & Polly, because I couldn’t find any fic for them as a team at the time.

most popular multi-chapter fic: My multi-chapter works are not my most popular, let me tell you.  I sorted by kudos and, eventually, pages down, found (somewhat worryingly, given its current lack of comments), Austerity Gamble an origfic M/F 1940s set piece.  For an actual fandom the most popular is Assigned, but that is a collection of one-shots for a set of Sapphire & Steel prompts I made.  So the actual most popular fannish multi-chapter work is Murder at Mill Cottage, which, er, was a sort of meta Doctor Who/Miss Marple crossover, set in This Time Round, which I’m not even going to try and explain here.  Harry Sullivan attempts to solve a mystery, anyway.

actual worst part of writing: Getting the words down in the first place instead of leaving them running round your head.

how you choose your titles: Either the title comes with the fic and everything is great, or I snaffle from a song I listen to while writing it, or I wind up googling the fic’s theme desperately for appropriate quotes.  If it’s a meme ficlet, I just go, dammit, it’s a meme ficlet and give it an appropriate one word title.  And then can’t remember which ficlet has been kudosed every time I get an email.  The funny thing is, I have a bunch of things written for the AU Meme I’ve done a few times that are all titled “AU Meme: Character/Pairing X” and they get read as much as or more than plenty of other things I write, so we could probably all just call everything Untitled #1, Untitled #2 and it’d all be okay anyway. XD

do you outline: It depends.  For a ficlet, not usually.  For a longer piece, I’ll certainly write some notes and plot points down.  I tend to write longhand first, on paper, which means I have a pretty full(ish) draft by the time I’m typing up, and I’ve had a rough draft to try things out in already.

ideas you probably won’t get around to, but wouldn’t it be nice: Oh, I don’t know.  I do mean to finish typing up that Bail/Breha thing that was originally supposed to be for an exchange & the draft in my notebook is complete, so that can’t count. 

I’m still kind of amused by the whole Elizabeth of York Vampire Slayer random bit of WIP I have lying around somewhere, and I do not think I’ll ever make that an actual thing now.  (I have a small bit typed up, but what’s left in my notebook isn’t much more and also includes notes about breeding giant frogs in France and I have no idea what I was on at the time.  I was very ill, in my defence.  Probably.)

callouts @ me: Umm?  How many James Maxwells have I written this year?  Actually, probably way less this year.  But, ooh, pick any year from about 2013-2019, lol... (Sometimes he’s in disguise.)  

best writing traits: Characterisation and dialogue?  I’m actually not too bad with plot when I am well enough, but I rarely am that well, so does that count?  Sometimes I can do humour!  People laugh, so it must be ok.

spicy tangential opinion: Probably me still genuinely liking canons, especially modern ones, that everyone else gave up on.  Shocking.  In fandom because I like it?  ;-p  Thinking Sapphire & Steel are better with the addition of Silver to make a shiny OTP seems aptly spicy.  I feel Silver would be fine with that.

tagging: @bunn1cula @pers-books @scarletmanuka @foreignobjecticus @captain-aralias @jurijurijurious & any other fic-writers who are automatically tagged if they want to be!

[shadowsong26fic]

Coming Attractions!

First Monday of the month, which means Coming Attractions Post!

(Especially since I skipped last month, whoops…)

Before we get into it, as I always do in these things, plug for my Discord server--it’s pretty quiet, but basically a slightly more interactive version of this tumblr. Sometimes I talk a little more about origfic or other stuff than I do here, too.

Also, this is not my only hobby! As some of you may know, one of my others is lacework, and I now have a sideblog for that. I have pictures of my completed projects up there, and will probably have more stuff as I start…well…making more stuff.

Anyway. On to the actual writing stuff aka why most of you are here (also a few requests for feedback/Opinions behind the cut).

So, I didn’t get much done over the month until, like…the last few days. In part because work got super bonkers for reasons I’m still Cranky at but that is a vent for my personal blog, lol.

Precipice:

I have threeish scenes left, which I’m probably going to do as one more chapter (unless they end up Super Long, then I might split it into two). That’ll close out Arc Seven, and the first big chunk of this fic. As I’ve said before, I’ll split off into a sequel fic (working title Protectors) at that point, along with doing a sort of…interquel, working title Preludes, that mostly deals with integrating Rebels content. Also probably Maul.

Right now, I’m tentatively planning six installments to Preludes? Mostly because six feels like a nice number to work with, lol. These will be one-shots that aren’t super interconnected, all taking place during the six-year timeskip. These are the ones I’m thinking about doing as of right now (subject to change, and I welcome suggestions!):

one involving Kallus on Coruscant, shortly before he gets reassigned to Lothal;

one involving Hera and whoever her contact is in this AU (since Ahsoka’s doing something different from the Fulcrum stuff);

one where Kanan and Ezra connect with Obi-Wan et al. (probably through Hondo);

one with Luke, probably similar to that one episode where Leia turns up in Rebels canon;

I really do need to figure out what the heck is going on with Maul, don’t I.

…something else????

The only ones I’m 100% sure about including are the one with Kallus and the one where the various Jedi link up because those are necessary and/or plot-relevant, though I’m still working out specifics (especially on the Jedi one). I may also include something with Thrawn, since I’m doing something different with him than canon did. Like I said, I welcome thoughts/suggestions/etc.

Protectors will then pick up six years after the end of Arc Seven, with Arc Eight. And, as a treat, the working titles for Arcs Eight and Nine are Escalation and Watershed. In theory, I’m planning to post Preludes alongside arcs eight and nine, but we’ll see.

…anyway, uh, what I forgot to mention earlier is that my plan is to wrap up arc seven/the first fic in this series this month. Hopefully I will actually pull that off XD. And then we move on to the other stuff.

Other SW Fic Projects:

Big Bang is coming up again! I think signups will be next month? I’m considering three different plotlines as of right now, though that’s assuming I don’t come up with something new and exciting and/or another ObiAniDala plotline, which is what I seem to do every year…which one I end up doing probably depends at least partly on how S2 of the Mandalorian goes, since two of the three ideas heavily feature Bo-Katan. Of course, one of those lacks a plot and the other is pretty episodic/involves a lot of blank space I still need to fill in…

Anyway, we’ll see how that goes after the show airs and I get more event information, especially since it’s going to be structured differently/teaming up writers and betas much earlier in the process, which will be nice and possibly help chronically-undecided me actually pick something so I’m not scrambling to finish at the last minute but given that it’s me I probably will be anyway XD

As for other SW projects…I still owe a few meme fills from, like, April…but otherwise, extant projects are mostly back-burnered for now.

AtLA Projects:

Aka, the reason why SW projects other than Precipice and SWBB (and any one-shots/prompt fills that occur to me) are back-burnered, lol.

I am working on an AU outline, set to come out this month. There’s a couple of fulltext fics I’m playing with. I haven’t gotten any actual text written down yet, but I know where I’m going with them, at least to start.

The AU outline will be a canon-divergent thing set during the Ba Sing Se arc, and will be hopefully out Soon.

Fulltext fic #1 is…basically, the premise is, Lu Ten had a lover during the Siege, the soundtrack to this fic involves a lot of West Side Story, he left her with someone to remember him by, and then there’s some mindbending and complicated politics after his death. I think I talked a little more about this in a previous post? Anyway, one of the things I’m considering is whether to just tell this story linearly, or to start several years later, and go into the whole star-crossed lovers backstory as she regains her memories of what actually happened. The advantage to the first option is that it’s easier to work with shifting POV, which I prefer; and also involves more canon characters more quickly. The advantage to the second is that I think it would work really well for this particular storyline? Assuming I could get people invested in her and/or Ba Sing Se Politics/Worldbuilding that fast …y’know, when I think about it like that, maybe linear is the best option, lol…

Fulltext fic #2 is an Avatar Zuko AU, where he figures it out at age thirteen, and at that point decides he has roughly three and a half years until the comet, aka three and a half years to figure out how to make all this work (not to mention at least starting to learn air, water, and earth), and hopefully by then he’ll know what he should be doing with it? Whether it’s to resurface and Prove His Worth by defending the Fire Nation during the leadup to the comet, or something else (though Something Else doesn’t quite occur to him until he starts doing the other stuff). This will heavily feature at least one of my old OCs, and probably a few others (and likely one or two new ones), especially during the first two years. I’ve got things more or less worked out up until Aang resurfaces and Zuko’s plans have to shift/he has to cut his earthbending year short (much to Toph’s annoyance). Because once Aang is awake, everyone thinks he’s the Avatar (he’s not; there’s another explanation for how he iceberg’d for a century), and that fact just escalates All Of The Things.

((I’ve mentioned before that I am Pathologically Incapable of not creating a bunch of OCs and AtLA is a particularly strong example of that, so...yeah, that’ll be a Thing in pretty much anything I write in this fandom))

…anyway, this should be fun, once I actually get actual text down XD

Original Fic:

I did write one thing last month! Which was nice. Hopefully, I’ll get a bit done this month, too. For those of you who don’t know, most of my original stuff is posted on rainbowfic, which is a great community and if you guys do original stuff you post online, you should come join.

I’ve also started poking at a couple of new concepts, because that is how my brain do. Including one Arthuriana story despite the fact that I’m not super into Arthuriana but then my brain was like “what if Mordred was a girl?” and welp. Here I am.

NaNo:

I’m proooooooobably going to do a similar setup to what I had the past couple years--set myself a wordcount goal, but not bind myself to any single project. Depending on how things go this month, either with Precipice!verse or SWBB or my AtLA stuff, or if that Mordred thing catches on, I might try to prioritize one or more things (like, have my goal be 20k on X project, and 30k on other stuff), but I’ll decide that closer to the date.

…I think that’s everything! What are you guys up to lately? Does anyone have NaNo plans? Any thoughts on stuff I mentioned on my docket, so to speak? What’s on your mind?

[thisbluespirit]

Writing Tag Game

AO3 name: thisbluespirit

Fandoms: my main fandom has always been Doctor Who but I feel v weird about it right now, so: Blake’s 7, Sapphire & Steel, Star Wars Prequels, Spooks (MI5), Once Upon a Time, and a whole load of random other things.

Tropes: honestly, if it seems like a good idea at the time, but accidental marriage, hurt/comfort, time travel, crack-played-straight, crossovers, canon divergence, and no doubt other things I’m forgetting right now.

Number of fics: 576 on AO3 (although there are a couple of vids and 1 podfic in there, plus a handful of fannish origfics, but OTOH there are things on Teaspoon I’ve never brought over and meme ficlets from LJ and Dreamwidth I’ve never posted elsewhere.  It’s such a ridiculous no. of works, even though there are quite a few drabbles and ficlets, that I wind up not posting the other drabbles/ficlets out of embarrassment.  Like, who has time to read 576 works, think of my Remix authors!)

Fic I spent the most time on: Ha, well, I took 9 years to finish one called Strangers at Fairhurst, but that wasn’t time spent writing it.  Probably gift fic for exchanges (and longfic generally for obvious reasons) - many of those took a lot of extra time and research and betaing and things, because, well, it’s a gift.  You want it to be special.

Fic I spent the least time on: Probably some of those meme ficlets, because a lot of them were flash fic so speedy writing was part of the point.

I wrote So We Meet at Last for fan_flashworks in about 30 minutes - and then at some point it got recced somewhere and it was my most popular fic for ages, so the moral of the story is don’t angst over stuff, just write Miss Marple dusting Dracula and the world will love you.

Longest Fic: On AO3, it’s The Poison Tree (Dracula 1968, written for calliopes_pen in Yuletide 2016), which makes it look as if I’ve never got to 30k, but ha ahahaha.  I’ve been ill since 2011.  Before that, I wrote an epic 1980s UNIT series, the final installment of which was 80K +

Shortest Fic: My shortest fic is a drabble, of which I have around 45 on AO3 and while the word count varies on AO3, they were all 100 words exactly in Word, so take your pick.

Most hits/kudos/comment threads/bookmarks: These tend to be exchange fic - by and large that’s the only way anyone knows I exist.  (I really miss LJ/DW comms, because a fic announcement on a relevant comm was a really good way to do that and modern fandom has no equivalent and then everyone gets tunnelled into ship tags, all alike.)

hits - Not bad For a First Attempt  (actually this might have taken the least time - it was a Heyer double drabble I wrote for, er, wrangling reasons.  I’m not sure whether this is true or the hit count has been skewed, but the kudos count is also high, so it might be. Desperate Heyer fans are desperate?)

kudos, comments, & bookmarks - are all The Spirit of St Mary Mead, a Yuletide fic where Miss Marple is a genius loci, which has now overtaken the one where she dusts Dracula.  (The universe only loves me when I write Miss Marple!!)

Total word count: 1,371,543 (which does also include c. 300,000 words of origfic for Runaway Tales, although it doesn’t inc. the c.200,000 words of epic 1980s UNIT adventures, so I suppose it’s only c.100,000 out.)

Favourite fic I wrote: argh, idk, I do like quite a few of them still, but it’s all so dependent on mood and how recent it was and if people commented or not (because if they didn’t, I was obv. wrong about the quality). 

I usually answer this with Salt of the Earth, and I suppose it’s as reasonable as anything else and very me.  It’s about Mrs Tyler from Doctor Who’s “Image of the Fendahl” and how her life went, living by a time rift, fighting evil with folk remedies and rock salt and being 100% better than Torchwood while making a lot less fuss about everything.  So I think it’s still one of the ones I like.

Fic you want to rewrite/expand on: I don’t want to rewrite anything!  I have moved on.  I’ve written a lot of canon divergence AUs since somehow falling into SW Prequels this year and I think there are a couple of those where I thought a lot about where else they might end up, although the moment may have passed, certainly while I’m exhausting myself on exchanges!

Share a bit of a WIP or a story idea you’re planning on: Oh, my main WIPs at the moment are for hurtcomfortex so I can’t.  But, other things:

I do have a work that I need to check over a bit but which is otherwise a complete draft, which is something I originally wrote for (I think) NYR 2017 but either I was too tired to run with it or I wasn’t sure the original recip would like it, but ANYWAY, it’s Department S and sort of Annabelle/Stewart/Jason but also not:

“Yes, well,” said Annabelle, putting the book down away from her work, “perhaps I would have done if I’d been home any time in the last forty-eight hours, but you asked me to feed Auntie half the London Phone Book to analyse.  I’ve been up all night dealing with the ensuing attack of indigestion.”

Stewart perched on the edge of the desk and leant over to kiss her cheek.  “Sorry for the inconvenience.  Any results?”

“Smith is still the most common surname by a significant margin,” said Annabelle and then put her hand to her head and slumped back in the chair.  “The rest is just gibberish, I’m afraid.”  She reached out for the Mark Caine novel.  “As is this, I imagine.”

Otherwise, I am hoping to be done with hurtcomfortex soon, write my AU meme ficlet prompts from my Dreamwidth flist, and then maybe do intobar because that’s always one of the most fun ficathons. 

And somewhere in my notebook I have a crossover drafted out for genprompt_bingo where Barry Allen meets Henry Mills, because I thought that’d be a thing that should happen once (probably pre-canon for OUaT).

But, you know, I need to finish typing up this stupid exchange fic that has gone LONG again and I don’t even know if the recip will even want it...  (I love exchanges, honest, but... :lol:)

tags: @pers-books @allegoriesinmediasres and um I think @captain-aralias did most of the other people I know.  @luthienebonyx maybe?

[shadowsong26fic]

Coming Attractions

It has. It has been a while since I actually did one of these, hasn’t it…

(As a note, I try not to discuss too much…everything IRL right now here (or on my personal blog, though to a lesser extent), mostly because I want this tumblr to be a relatively happy place? …or, at least, the unhappy stuff should be Purely Fictional. So that’s…pretty much the extent of what I’ll say about Stuff here.)

But…yeah, real life has definitely been an Everything Is Happening So Much sort of deal for the past couple months, but stuff has actually been Happening, writing-wise, and a Coming Attractions post seemed in order! As usual, behind the cut is stuff I’ve been working on recently and/or plan to work on over the next month.

Also, I have set up a Discord server (https://discord.gg/puYnXDE) for my writing--basically intended to be an extension/more interactive version of this blog. Feel free to stop by and say hi!

Precipice:

I’m waaaaaaay behind where I want to be, lol. Uh, but I’m hoping to get the last couple chapters of Arc 7 out this month? And then we’ll see what I want to do about Arc 7.5 and Arc 8. Basically, 7.5 is going to be more episodic/self-contained, with a chapter or two for certain Relevant Events that take place between Arc 7 and Arc 8. Mostly to do with Rebels characters (the one I have mostly planned out, if not quite Written yet, involves Kallus and Lavinia meeting just before he’s assigned to Lothal; but then I need to figure out some stuff for Kanan and Ezra, and how to make sure Zeb’s still in position to give Alex the wakeup call he needs…) plus there’s a Sith Apprentice whose entire tenure is covered by this timeskip, lol…

Anyway, I’m still going back and forth on whether to post Arc 7.5 stuff first or post it alongside Arc 8 and/or 9, but we’ll see what gets written.

Other SW Stuff:

I posted a handful of oneshots over the last couple weeks! Written in connection with a prompt game on the SWBB Discord server. The prompts were “Character A kills Character B”, for which I wrote Hera and Thrawn and Zeb and Kallus; and “Character A saves Character B”, for which I wrote Boba Fett and Luke, Han and Hera, and Rex and Ventress. There will probably be more of these in the future, tagged with #discord prompt ficlets. This week’s prompt is poetry, and it has been a million years since I’ve written any so Who Knows if I’ll actually do it, but hey, it’s possible!

Also, my SWBB project for this year, for we are a woven thread; find the strand is up on AO3. ObiAniDala, AU from ROTS; the three of them are separated in the aftermath of Order 66; Obi-Wan runs into Ahsoka, Padme has Sabe and the twins, Anakin meets Caleb Dume; angst with a happy ending.

In other news, I have some work I need/want to get done on our faces like a mirror, and I’m doing a Summer Fic Exchange that I need to actually…figure out what I’m doing and write XD Plus, I’m considering participating in VarykiNovember/Anidala big bang, but haven’t fully committed to signing up yet. In part because time commitments/other stuff I want to work on, in part because I don’t generally do a lot of pairing-focused stuff? My SWBB project mentioned above aside, lol. But even that’s at least as much about the three focal platonic relationships as it is about the OT3? Anyway. Uh, also half the plots I’m coming up with I either don’t think I could finish, don’t think could make for a long enough fic, or would turn into Obianidala instead which is Not The Point, lol. Anyway, we’ll see.

(some Discussions in the past couple days on the SWBB server have made me start wondering if I should maybe start poking at/figuring out what I’ll do for next year now, lol…even though I think I picked the plot for this year’s project later than either of the other two and yet it ended up being the longest by like 20k???? who knows who knows…I might use OFLAM for this?? But I’m not sure.)

Other Stuff:

I did write one original fiction thing this past month! And am hoping/planning to write At Least one more in June!

I also want to finish All Outstanding Prompts from a couple memes I did--one on tumblr like…in January…and one on Dreamwidth back in April. I have…one prompt from the tumblr one, and seven from DW, so We’ll See.

I also really should get back on track with updating my origfic archives, shouldn’t I…

…I think that about sums it up right now? I mean, there’s some noodly bits in my brain because the ATLA fandom has risen from the ashes thanks to Netflix, plus BSG is waking up a little bit so possibly something more will come in one of those universes? But nothing concrete planned as of right now.

What about you guys, what are you working on?

[shadowsong26fic]

Coming Attractions!

First Monday of the month, so here goes!

(And, as is often the case with these, I'll be keeping an eye on my askbox for an Open Question Night. Anything I've posted about here or on AO3 is fair game; I do take prompts but am not necessarily very fast at filling them)

Year of the OTP

I'm still behind on all of these, haha...I still have to do the three origfic ones for June (but...honestly, I didn't...really like most of the June prompts, ah well) and all five for July, plus get caught up on August. Goal is to get all of that done by the end of the month, but we'll see how it goes (especially since this month involves the Actual Moving sooooooo yeah)

Other SW Fic

Mostly putting this here to say that Precipice is not dead because I refuse to let it die; granted I haven't been actively working on it as much as I should lately, but I will update Someday, I promise. Unless I end up falling out of the fandom entirely, that fic continue.

BSG Fic

Once again plugging the Big Bang/Mini Bang event! There's still time to sign up! We are particularly low on betas, and could also use a few more artists. So given the numbers I'm not going to participate as an author myself (though I'll beta and probably jump in to podfic). Also the idea I had I'm not sure how to structure it (Zarek character study; the general idea was him looking back on his first arrest as he waits for his execution; drawing some on that great quote of his from Kobol "It's a lot easier to get blood off your hands than on it" or something like that; sort of approaching the questions of how much of his rhetoric does he (still) actually believe; some things about charisma and leading other people to their deaths; I was going to title it 'The Blood of Angry Men'...)

Other projects--aside from the OTP stuff, I am still slowly putting The Other Battlestar together. No real ETA on that, but it is coming. And it is going to be. Extremely Long, lol. Even if I do end it after Pegasus, which is my current plan (because while I have Some thoughts, figuring out how drastically things would shift after that is. A Pain. I can more or less do In Spite Of A Nail between Atia and Kimble to get the fleet in Close Enough to that same position by the time that encounter happens but. After. Man.) But yeah, very long, because...I don't need to cover/rewrite everything, but there's a Good Chunk that does need to be reworked, plus covering those six months from the Pegasus side...It's probably going to be Precipice-length (200-250k) by the time I'm done, lol.

There are always other things noodling around in my head, but that's pretty much all that's sort of Actively In The Works.

(But sign up for the event! Join us!!!!)

Les Mis Fic

Yeah so this is the current primary brainrot, lol. Papa and J... is picking up again; Ari will start learning some things in the next chapter! And will find it way easier to identify J than initially expected, lol.

For the stuff Ari won't be able to learn (due to letters/records being lost, either deliberately or because...just...::gestures at the 19th-century French governments:: ), I'm going to post a companion piece after P&J finishes, working title Provenance.

The other project which I'm hoping to start posting soon is a Groundhog Day AU, working title Acheron. I'm excited for that one but. uh. Definitely heed the warnings when it comes out because. Yeah.

Other Stuff

I'm doing the occasional origfic snippet that's not connected to the OTP fills; plus bouncing back to some of the AtLA projects I started on at the beginning of that fandom renaissance, but nothing super concrete coming up.

But also pod_together! Writing is done, recording is mostly done (I think?), I'm really excited for how this one's turned out. Leverage in the style of Shakespeare, it's a delight. (Three scenes; one with Eliot and Parker set fairly early; one with the whole crew in the Exposition scene; and a soliloquy from Sterling which was actually the first thing I wrote XD)

I also haven't forgotten about Incinctus, especially since Nocturne finally has an actual Trailer. But I think I'm going to need to rewatch the show and get in the right headspace in order to actually update it (which I do want to do! I just. Got stuck on the next chapter that needs to come out, haha...)

fun fact: watching castlevania was actually how i ended up getting actively back into bsg fandom XD

...I think that pretty much covers it! Like I said at the top, Open Question Night, and I'd love to hear about what you guys are working on, too!

also this is a reminder to me to finish putting together the Story Details form/do a reminder post about the first GBB checkin coming soon...

[shadowsong26fic]

Coming Attractions!

First Monday of the month! So, if that’s my new date, I’m actually on time for once hurray!

Fanfic:

Precipice:

::singsong:: This is the arc that will not end… (j/k, I’m having fun. It is taking longer to get through everything than I thought it would, though.)

We are in good shape, ish. I did miss one week this month, and I was late a couple times due to IRL stuff [a thrilling saga involving two car insurance companies, the registrar’s office of the university where I got my BA four years ago, HR and IT at my current job…]

Anyway. I’ve got about 2-3 more chapters to go, I think? Need to check in w/Coruscant again of course, and Obi-Wan and Ahsoka are definitely gonna yell at Anakin after the Poor Life Choice he made in last week’s update. We’ll also hear from Leia and Beru, so that should be fun.

Then we’ll finally start Arc Five,is tentatively titled Lessons and will probably focus mostly on the kids—the twins, of course; Lavinia; probably Winter; possibly Biggs and Leia’s other friends… It’ll be a quieter arc, probably; more along the lines of Homecoming, where we’re getting people situated/positioned for future plotty shenanigans. Although we will most likely spend some time with Darth Infernalis, too.

Also, the next chapter will probably put me over 100k (omg). I feel like I should do Something Special/a bonus to mark the milestone. Any suggestions/requests?

Distaff:

The next chapter is coming, no really. Like I mentioned earlier, this month was A Mess, IRL-wise, so, in dealing with all that, I didn’t get as much writing done as I wanted to on anything, including/especially Distaff. This coming month, though, I swear.

Auxiliaries:

I got the entry bit up this month! Or, well, the first of three parts of it, anyway. Part 2 of said opening might take a while, because it involves people shooting at the boys and I need to iron out who is shooting and why. I actually have most of Part 3 written, but Part 2 obviously needs to go up first.

So I might do that Part 2 later this month, if I get it finished, or I might post Ahsoka’s entrance, since I have that mostly finished and I’m very fond of it. We shall see!

AU Outline:

This month was Ventress accidentally adopting tiny time-travelling Luke Skywalker! She was so annoyed, I love it. As always, all five of these can be found in the #au outlines for the win tag.

Next month will probably be the Mask of Zorro/California Gold Rush AU Fusion No One Asked For, but that I may change my mind.

Masks:

…sigh. See aforementioned “RL was a disaster” comments. I’m almost tempted to just finish this one out as an outline and jump to Machinations at this point, but IDK.

For those of you who don’t know (because I’m not sure I’ve summarized it properly on this blog yet), Masks is the first installment of Masks!verse (ha, I’m creative), which is basically what I call an In Spite of a Nail AU, where Lavinia from Precipice exists in a canon-adjacent timeline. I say ‘canon-adjacent’ because it’s sort of a…weird hybrid of Official Disney Canon and Old EU/Legends Canon? It picks up in the immediate aftermath of Yavin and is a true In Spite of a Nail AU for the OT timeframe (i.e., the story focuses on locations/people that the movies don’t, and, while she does some specific things that change some details, no major plot points during these four years are changed). However, I tend to stick closer to Legends for post-Endor developments (for several reasons, mostly relating to I like the way things played out with the remnants of the Empire and the New Republic in Legends, politically/government-building wise; better than the parts I’ve read in the tie-in canon novels on the same subjects. Which is probably a large part of why I haven’t read all that much of the new tie-in novels; also Mara Jade, also Pellaeon, neither of whom has been recanonized yet sooooo yeah).

Anyway, some of the content from post-ROTJ novels is therefore excluded (as is Rebels, still, for unrelated reasons). But Masks!verse does eventually link up w/TFA (the third part, Martyrs, picks up shortly after the end of said movie). Canon may be locked at that point; it all depends on how much TLJ throws what I have planned already, and how much I decide to care.

Original:

As with everything, did not get as much done as I would’ve liked this month. Did not work on The Caladrius or any other crossover piece, but I got a few short bits out, for all three worlds I post to RF. Sadly did not work on anything potentially publishable/unrelated this month.

Other:

So, I’ve been thinking about doing an open question night once a month. I mean, I’ll of course answer asks/whatever that come to me outside of an event like that, but I’d be online/available for active interaction if I did this, if that makes sense? Considering holding these on the fifteenth if I do this. Or maybe the third Monday of the month, to alternate with the Coming Attractions posts? Something to think about.

I’ll also take prompts (for short/under-5k stories), which I’ll plan to fill by the next Open Question Night, barring RL shenanigans or something.

Thoughts?

ETA: On a semi-related note, I do have a meme open; feel free to send me one of the things!

Monthly Goals:

July Recap:

1. Keep up with Precipice updates.--well, like I mentioned above, I missed one, so...not really.

2. Get the friggin Opera House done and posted already.--...oops.

3. Debut Auxliiaries.--Yay! An accomplishment!

4. At least write some Masks. In order. Bits from Machinations or the timeskip between them don’t count. Even if it’s not a full postable chapter.--Yeah, not so much.

5. Do another crack outline :D--I did it!

6. At least 1k on Phoenix!verse.--Again, not so much.

7. Work on another origfic crossover.--Nope.

9. Seriously, Shadowsong. The archives.--Nope.

10. At least 10k on any/all projects.--uh....::quick tally:: Looks like I did actually make it! Huh, I didn’t think I had... But this was also a long month, so to speak, and a couple of my Precipice chapters were on the long end, so.

August Goals:

1. Keep up with Precipice updates.

2. Opera House.

3. Another Auxiliaries snippet

4. Work on Masks.

5. Another crack outline

6. At least 1k on Phoenix!verse

7. Work on another origfic crossover

8. The archives are sad and lonely and three years out of date. I should fix that.

9. At least 5k on projects that are not Precipice.

10. At least 15k total on any/all projects. [considering that even this month I met my goal, I figured I should up it and see what happens.]